Watergate-were Nixon and Howard Hughes trying to blackmail each other?

[underpants]

Richard Gere was on The Daily Show last night to promote his movie" "The Hoax" and this came up at the end of the interview. From what they were saying it sounded like Nixon did the Watergate break in to find dirt on Howard Hughes -Nixon was going to blackmail Hughes so that Hughes couldn't blackmail Nixon or something like that.

I had never heard this before. Fascinating.

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Did Hughes think he could own a president?

Mahau says yes. "And frankly, the last eight months of my assignment with him was to keep him from getting himself in trouble."

Mahau adds, "I mean, repeatedly, he would say to me, 'Bob, remember that there is no person in the world that I can’t either buy or destroy.'"

And what some Watergate experts now believe is that in trying to buy Nixon, Hughes may have unwittingly planted the seed of the president’s destruction. After Nixon took office, Hughes ordered Maheu to give a sizeable sum of money to the president’s close friend, Bebe Rebozo.

"They had given Bebe Rebozo $100,000 in cash for the president," says Lenzner. "For Nixon personally."

To Maheu, the $100,000 in cash was a political contribution, half of which he handed to Rebozo in person. "We delivered the envelope at his home," says Maheu.

Did he see what Rebozo did with it? "Have no idea. He went in another room," says Maheu. "Came back without, as they say, without the money."

What was illegal or nefarious about Hughes giving Nixon money in a political campaign?

"If it had gone to a legitimate political campaign, it would have been perfectly appropriate and OK," says Lenzner. "This, however, was a bribe, in effect, through Mr. Rebozo to the president."

Congressional investigators believed the cash was given to get Hughes favorable government treatment for his casino and airline businesses.

60 Minutes showed a chart prepared by the Senate investigators. They followed the money through a maze of bank accounts, and concluded that $46,000 of it was spent on Nixon’s Key Biscayne house -- buying, among other things, a putting green and a pool table.

All of this might never have come to light if it were not for Larry O’Brien, the consummate Washington insider, who was picked by Democrats to lead their party in the 1972 campaign. His offices were the target of the Watergate burglars.

"The president was absolutely focused on Larry O’Brien when he became chairman of the Democratic National Committee, because Mr. O’Brien had worked for Mr. Hughes as well," says Lenzner. "And the plot thickens."

During the period that the $100,000 was given to Rebozo, O’Brien had been on the Hughes payroll. He was hired by Maheu.

What was he hired for? What did Howard Hughes want him to do in the organization?

"He wanted better representation in Washington, D.C., as a lobbyist," says Maheu. "And Larry became one of my favorite people in the world."

But O'Brian was not a favorite of Nixon's. As leader of the Democratic party, O'Brien, who once worked in the Kennedy administration, had become a thorn in his side. There's evidence that Nixon was eager to get some dirt on the guy and shut him down. But Lenzner believes the Watergate burglars rifled through O’Brien’s offices for a different reason.

"Do you think that the concern in Nixon’s mind was that Larry O’Brien knew about this cash that went to Bebe Rebozo," asks Stahl.

"Well, Nixon assumed he knew about it," says Lenzner. "So he could be thinking, 'Gosh, I bet, you know, if O’Brien was tied into the Hughes organization, maybe he knows about the things we did for Hughes on the casinos, on the airlines.'”

The record shows that for well over a year before the Watergate break-in, Nixon repeatedly ordered various aides -- John Dean, H.R. Haldeman, Charles Colson -- to check out the link between O’Brien and Hughes.

Dean later wrote: "Hughes was feared in the Nixon White House." And Haldeman wrote: "On matters pertaining to Hughes, Nixon sometimes seemed to lose touch with reality."

"Let’s face it. If I were the recipient of $100,000 in cash, the possibility that that may surface, it would bother me," says Maheu. "I think it would bother any human being."

"So Nixon was just worried sick that this was going to come out," asks Stahl.

"Naturally. Naturally," says Maheu, who thinks this led to Watergate.

On June 17, 1972, five burglars – Frank Sturgis and James McCord among them - were caught in O’Brien’s offices at the Watergate, touching off revelations of other White House crimes.

Were the burglars looking for evidence that O’Brien knew about the $100,000 from Hughes to Nixon? Is Lenzner convinced that Hughes' money was the motive for the break-in?

"I don’t know if it’s a sole motive," says Lenzner. "But I’m absolutely certain it was a significant part of the president’s thinking that this has to be done. This had to be taken care of."

In fact, Lenzner wrote a whole section on Hughes as the likely motive for the Senate investigation’s conclusions. But it was never included in the final report.

Lenzner says, "I don't remember any explanation," as to why his report was not included, and adds that he was upset.

There’s been speculation that one reason was to obscure the fact that Hughes had also given money to other Republicans – and Democrats as well.

Nixon stepped down 26 months after the break-in. Forty other government officials were indicted. Dean, Haldeman, Colson and others went to prison. And according to the theory that 60 Minutes has outlined in this broadcast, it was all largely triggered by Nixon’s fear that O'Brien knew of the money Hughes gave the president.

But did he know? Did Maheu ever tell O'Brien?

"Never, never. I had no reason to tell Larry. Why the hell would I tell Larry about this," says Maheu.

At the heart of all this is the perplexing fact that Nixon, after believing that Hughes' money had cost him the 1960 election, turned around years later and took a barrel of money from the same man.

Why? Both Lenzner and Maheu say the answer is greed.

Hughes died in 1976, never quite understanding, his aides said, what Watergate was all about. Nixon died in 1994, carrying many important details of the scandal to his grave.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/24/60minutes/main676414.shtml

[MADem]

1. It's quite a rich and fascinating tale, isn't it? NT