Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [254]
Nixon’s March 21, 1973, conversation with Dean is transcribed from a White House tape. His conversations with Haldeman and Ehrlichman about money from Rebozo’s slush fund were revealed in tapes of April 17 and April 25, 1973, meetings obtained by the special prosecutor. Both Haldeman and Ehrlichman reported Nixon’s renewed offers of money at Camp David in their books and in interviews. “In 1976 I asked Nixon where that money would have come from,” Haldeman wrote in The Ends of Power (pp. 20–22). “He said, ‘Bebe had it.’ But I reminded him that Bebe had only $100,000 of the Hughes money. Where would the rest have come from? Nixon told me this interesting news. There was much more money in Bebe’s ‘tin box’ than the Hughes $100,000 … Bebe Rebozo, in effect, maintained a private fund for Nixon to use as he wished.”
Nixon, however, told David Frost in a television interview broadcast May 25, 1977, that the money he offered Haldeman and Ehrlichman was the Hughes $100,000. “Well, as a matter of fact,” said Nixon, “I had in mind the campaign contribution that [Rebozo] received from Hughes.” It should be noted, however, that Nixon actually offered his two top men up to $300,000, and it is also clear that by the time he made the offer at least some of the Hughes money had already been spent.
The Rebozo-Kalmbach meeting of April 30, 1973, was described by Kalmbach in testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee and further detailed by a confidential source with direct knowledge of their conversation. Rebozo’s statement that he had given some of the Hughes money to Nixon’s brothers, Woods, and “others” was quoted by Kalmbach under oath.
Rebozo’s May 10, 1973, statement to the IRS was reported by the Senate Watergate Committee. The IRS’s fears of probing Rebozo were noted by Ehrlichman in an interview. Rebozo’s attempts to return the Hughes money to Danner were described by Danner in Senate Watergate Committee testimony. Danner also gave testimony on his May 20, 1973, meeting with Nixon at Camp David.
Both Haig and Simon confirmed in Senate testimony their conversation about the IRS probe of Rebozo. The FBI chief agent in Miami, Kenneth Whitaker, described Rebozo’s unveiling of the Hughes $100,000—and the discovery of an extra hundred-dollar bill—in testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee. The return of the money to Chester Davis was described by Davis, Rebozo, and their intermediaries in Senate testimony.
The Federal Reserve later reported that thirty-five of the hundred-dollar bills returned by Rebozo were issued by the U.S. Treasury after the last date Danner, Maheu, and Rebozo himself originally testified the money had been delivered. While Rebozo changed his account to cover all the Hughes cash and tried to pressure Danner to do likewise, Danner would never agree to confirm a delivery date that would cover the thirty-five late-issue bills.
Rebozo’s fears about revelation of the Hughes money are quoted from his testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee.
The apparent connection between Cox’s probe of the Hughes-Rebozo affair and the Saturday Night Massacre was detailed by a senior aide in the Nixon White House who agreed to provide information only on a not-for-attribution background basis. His account was confirmed in large part by the public testimony of others directly involved and by available government records.
Rebozo’s discovery of the special prosecutor’s probe on October 18, 1973, was established by the Senate Watergate Committee from the handwritten notes of the IRS agent who tipped him off, and these notes also show that he called Rebozo’s lawyer “about disclosure to Cox” and indicate that he also called White House counsel Fred Buzhardt that same morning to inform him of Cox’s demand for the IRS files on the Hughes $100,000. In any event, Rebozo could not have missed the eight-column banner