Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [245]
Danner’s delivery of the Hughes ABM memo to Rebozo on June 26 and Rebozo’s delivery of the memo to Nixon on July 4 are established by Maheu’s reports to Hughes. Danner also testified that he gave the memo to Rebozo, and that Rebozo told him that “the president and Dr. Kissinger both examined it and were very much impressed and felt that they would like to brief him further … Dr. Kissinger would do it.” Rebozo himself confirmed the Kissinger offer in Senate Watergate Committee testimony: “I do know that the offer was made to have Kissinger brief him on it.”
Nixon’s July 16 meeting with Kissinger was established by Maheu’s report to Hughes on the same date and by White House logs obtained from the National Archives, and was confirmed by Alexander Haig in an interview. Haig also recounted Kissinger’s reaction to Nixon’s order that he brief Hughes, and two members of his National Security Council staff independently confirmed Kissinger’s tirade. Kissinger himself refused repeated interview requests.
Larry Lynn, a senior aide who handled the ABM, recalled Haig’s own reaction to Hughes’s memo, and in an interview speculated that the Hughes connection may have led Nixon to propose abandoning the ABM as part of the SALT negotiations a year later: “I have always felt that some of Nixon’s zigs and zags on the ABM issue were unexplainable by anything I knew. He seemed to abandon it too quickly, and for all I know if Howard Hughes was stuffing his pockets full of money, that might have made a difference.”
Nixon’s and Kissinger’s review of plans to test the ABM warhead in July 1969 was confirmed by members of the NSC staff and detailed by AEC and State Department documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. One “Memorandum for the President” from the NSC Undersecretaries Committee noted that moving the nuclear tests to Alaska would cost $200 million and warned that “the Soviets can be expected to be sensitive to our plans to conduct tests of this magnitude in the Aleutians.” Nixon, however, ordered the biggest blasts moved to Alaska, apparently more worried about Hughes.
11 Howard Throws a Party
When Hughes first announced his intention to buy the Landmark late in 1968, the Johnson Justice Department warned Hughes that his acquisition “would violate the Clayton Act” and threatened antitrust action. A month later, on January 17, 1969, three days before Nixon’s inauguration, the department told Hughes that it did not “presently intend to take action with respect to the proposed acquisition.” Maheu received advance word and flashed the good news to the penthouse: “We just received a telephone call from the anti-trust division advising that they had formally approved our purchase of the Landmark.”
The description of the Landmark is based on contemporaneous local press reports and personal observation.
Dean Martin ultimately did perform at the opening, as did Danny Thomas, and even Bob Hope offered to make an appearance, only to drop out at the last minute due to the death of his two brothers. Hughes apparently never forgave Hope. When the comedian called Maheu six months later seeking a donation of $100,000 for the Eisenhower Hospital, Hughes at first refused to give anything and reluctantly agreed to contribute $10,000 only after being told that Nixon had also asked his help.
Martin had points in the Riviera casino, which FBI wiretaps in the early 1960s revealed as being secretly controlled by the Chicago underworld. Mafia informer Jimmy Fratianno also claimed that Sidney Korshak, a reputed organized crime leader, owned “a pretty good piece of the Riviera” (Ovid Demaris, The Last Mafioso: The Treacherous World of Jimmy Fratianno, Times Books, 1981, p. 272).
The depth of Hughes’s angst over the Landmark opening is demonstrated by the fact that in