Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [246]
And his fight with Maheu over the opening was so intense that years later Maheu’s wife would recall that brawl above all others, remembering the shouted phone conversations she heard through many nights (Ron Laytner, Up Against Howard Hughes: The Maheu Story, Manor Books, 1972, pp. 34–35).
12 Nixon: The Betrayal
Several Nixon aides recalled the president’s intense involvement in planning the moon-walk dinner. “This was not only the big state dinner of his administration, the highpoint of his first year in office, but also was on his home territory, California,” said Ehrlichman. “He was certainly involved in preparing the guest list. I know that Haldeman went over the draft guest lists with Nixon in great detail several times.” Haldeman himself claimed not to recall the party preparations, but one of his aides said Nixon personally reviewed all 1,440 invitations and also made a list of “enemies” he did not want invited, including one of his wife’s best friends.
Several top White House aides noted Nixon’s sensitivity toward Hughes. “He was feared in the Nixon White House, where some believed that the ‘Hughes loan’ scandal had cost Nixon the 1960 election to Kennedy.” wrote John Dean in Blind Ambition (Simon & Schuster, 1976, p. 67). “On matters pertaining to Hughes, Nixon sometimes seemed to lose touch with reality,” wrote Haldeman in The Ends of Power (Times Books, 1978, pp. 19–20). “His indirect association with this mystery man may have caused him, in his view, to lose two elections.”
Nixon first tried to get the CIA to put a “full cover” on Donald and when the CIA refused turned instead to the Secret Service, according to the final report of the House Impeachment Committee. Ehrlichman confirmed in an interview that the president had him arrange the Secret Service surveillance in May 1969, and that Nixon also ordered Donald’s home and office telephones tapped, primarily to keep track of his brother’s dealings with Meier. “Don’s involvement with Hughes had already caused so much pain in the past, and Nixon was not anxious for another Hughes connection to emerge,” said Ehrlichman. “The president was very upset that his ‘stupid brother’ was involved again in this kind of thing, he was angry.”
When Donald was caught at the airport meeting with Meier and Hatsis in July 1969, Ehrlichman immediately called Rebozo, who immediately called Danner. “Do you know where John Meier is?” demanded an angry Rebozo. “I think you’ll find that he is at the Orange County airport with Don Nixon.” Ehrlichman pulled Hatsis’s FBI file, which he said in an interview showed Hatsis to be an “ ‘unsavory character’ with organized-crime connections.”
Kreigsman’s inquiry about Hughes to the AEC is confirmed by AEC documents dated July 25 and August 2, 1969, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The AEC’s report on Hughes to the White House is dated August 18, 1969, and was personally reviewed by Chairman Seaborg. Seaborg recalled in an interview that top White House aides contacted him on several occasions to say that Hughes had expressed concern about the bomb tests.
Hoover’s report on Hughes was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Its description of Hughes was based on a January 7, 1952, report to the FBI by a disgruntled Hughes executive who had also accused the billionaire of income-tax evasion. Hoover had been keeping tabs on Hughes since the 1947 “Spruce Goose” Senate hearings, receiving regular reports from his agents that focused primarily on Hughes’s escapades with various starlets. FBI files also reveal that Hughes contacted Hoover directly through his chief Mormon, Bill Gay, on August 20, 1955, to discuss “a very delicate matter,” and according to FBI sources shortly thereafter Hughes tried to hire Hoover as his Washington lobbyist. Dean Elson, FBI bureau chief in Las Vegas who later went to work for Hughes,