Nixon: Past & President

[Octafish]

15. Hughes to Bush to Cohn to Nixon to Lansky to Switzerland...

HUGHES, NIXON AND THE CIA: THE WATERGATE CONSPIRACY WOODWARD AND BERNSTEIN MISSED

an investigative report
By Larry DuBois and Laurence Gonzales

THE PUPPET AND THE PUPPETMASTERS
UNCOVERING THE SECRET WORLD OF NIXON, HUGHES AND THE CIA

including

The Buying of the President
The World's Biggest Intelligence Front
The War Within the Hughes Empire
The Untold Story Behind Watergate

EXCERPT...

THE PURCHASE OF NIXON

I can make or break anybody.
-HOWARD HUGHES

The relationship between (Howard) Hughes and (Richard) Nixon goes back at least to 1956. That year, Hughes lent Donald Nixon $205,000 to save a failing restaurant business. For Hughes, giving money in exchange for potential political favors was not unusual. Right after that loan—in a coincidence that investigators have been suspicious of for years—while Nixon was Vice-President, the Hughes Medical Institute was suddenly granted a tax-exempt status after prior refusals by the IRS. The loan to Donald was kept secret for obvious reasons. But four years later, one week before the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon election, columnist Drew Pearson got the story and printed it. The press flashed it across the country and to this day, Nixon and his friends believe it was the news of that loan that was partly responsible for his defeat by Kennedy.

In 1962, Nixon was running for governor of California. The loan again became a campaign issue and Nixon was called on to explain it publicly. Again he lost the race. Later, Rebozo's attorney, William Frates, was to say that Rebozo felt the story "had materially affected the outcome of the 1960 Presidential election and the 1962 governor's race in California." So not once but twice Nixon's relationship with Hughes was connected, at least in his mind and the minds of his friends, with agonizing political setbacks.

In 1968, Nixon was again running for President. Hughes had moved into his penthouse suite at Las Vegas' Desert Inn (known locally as the D.I.). Meier's files are jammed with photocopies of memos from that period, all of which had been handwritten with a ballpoint pen on lined yellow legal pads. Hughes didn't mince words when directing his executives to achieve his goals for him. In reference to political contributions that year, for example, he wrote to Robert Maheu, manager of the Hughes-Nevada Operations: "I want you to go see Nixon as my special confidential emissary. I feel there is a really valid possibility of a Republican victory this year. If that could be realized under our sponsorship and supervision every inch of the way, then we would be ready to follow with Laxalt (Nevada's governor at the time) as our next candidate."

Frank statements like that, as well as court documents from lawsuits against Hughes, show that he desperately wanted four things at that time and was prepared to devote enormous resources to getting them.

1. He wanted to select a Presidential candidate of his own and "go all the way" in funding him.

2. He wanted to purchase an airline. He had been forced out of ownership of TWA and aviation had always been his first love. Air West was for sale and he was determined to buy it.

3. He wanted to expand his Las Vegas empire. He had bought five hotel-casinos and the Justice Department had ruled he could make no more purchases without violating its antitrust guidelines. Hughes's attitude was that Justice could go to hell.

4. With a fury that bordered on the pathological (see A Hughes Vignette on page 182), he wanted the Atomic Energy Commission to stop underground nuclear testing, which caused the D.I. to sway back and forth a few inches.

CONTINUED...

http://www.meier.com/johnhmeier/Playboy_Article.html