Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [248]
Danner’s travel records submitted to the Senate Watergate Committee show that he and Maheu were in Key Biscayne on March 20–22, 1970, and in Senate testimony both Danner and Maheu confirmed meeting with Rebozo on those dates.
13 Exodus
Hughes’s fifteen-month effort to escape Las Vegas was described by several of his aides in depositions, further detailed by two of the aides in interviews, and also established by the memos Hughes sent and received during the period.
“It took about a year and a quarter to get going on our trip to Nassau,” testified one of the Mormons, John Holmes. “There was some business to attend to. We had a big dust storm in Las Vegas, or it was raining cats and dogs in Nassau. One thing led to another. Also, we required twenty-four-hour advance notice, and he didn’t want to commit himself.”
The account of the nerve gas dumping was drawn from press reports, confirmed by Defense Department records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. These records also show that one of the options presented to the president was exploding the gas at the Nevada Test Site.
In addition to contacting Rebozo through Danner, Maheu also attempted to halt the gas through O’Brien’s associate Claude DeSautels. “Maheu called at seven in the morning, which was four or five A.M. in Las Vegas,” recalled DeSautels in an interview. “I said, ‘My God, what are you doing up at this hour?’ and he said, The old man saw the eleven o’clock news last night and saw the trains and told me to stop them.’ And I said, ‘Bob! How can I stop the train?’ I knew the president had approved it, the secretary of defense had ordered it, and the surgeon general had testified that it was safe. And Maheu said, ‘Well, stop it!’ So I called some people at the Pentagon, and I called Maheu back and said, ‘There’s no way to stop those trains, they’re already rolling.’ And Maheu said, ‘I knew you couldn’t stop it, but now at least I have something to tell the old man.’ ”
The account of Danner’s delivery to Rebozo of the second $50,000 from Hughes on July 3, 1970, was based on Danner’s sworn testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee and confirmed by Rebozo’s own Senate testimony. “When I delivered the money to him,” said Danner, “he slid it out of the large manila envelope and counted the bundles, and thanked me. The delivery made at San Clemente was in his room in the presidential compound. He laid the bundles out on the bed and counted them, he put them back in the envelope and put them in his handbag.… He took me into the president’s office and the three of us sat there and chatted for possibly ten or fifteen minutes.”
Rebozo testified that he put the $50,000 in his safe-deposit box along with a letter instructing that it be turned over to the finance chairman of the 1972 campaign, but he also testified that he later destroyed that letter and held on to the money himself until the IRS came after him in 1973.
Danner’s daily diary submitted to the Senate Watergate Committee confirms that he contacted Rebozo through the White House on August 8, 1970, the day after Hughes discovered the nerve gas. “I relayed to him Hughes’s fears that this dumping might lead to catastrophic results,” testified Danner.
Defense Department and AEC records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act confirm that Nixon rejected the option of exploding the nerve gas in Nevada and approved the alternative of dumping it in the Atlantic near the Bahamas.
Bennett recounted Gay’s contacting him and his own contact with Colson in an interview with staff investigators of the Senate Watergate Committee. Davis’s role in the injunction through his legal associate Lea is revealed in memos both Maheu and the Mormons sent Hughes, which also establish his contact with Governor Kirk. The account of court proceedings was drawn from press reports.
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