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"Atl the News that Firs" IN THIS SS-UE Strange Bedfellows • by Howard Kohn 40 il HE HUGHES-NIXON-LANSKY CONNECTION: The Secret Alliances of the CIA" is one of the most ambitious and intricate pieces we have ever attempted. Howard Kohn began work on it nearly a year ago, when all he had to look at was the emerging connection between the -based TCuban exiles and the CIA. Early on he discovered new details about the CIA's contracts with the Mafia to assassinate Castro. but the then-exclusive information was revealed a few months later by the Senate select committee headed by . We have put together a narrative of these "strange bedfellows," based entirely on factual information; compelling patterns have emerged which point to a reading of postwar history that foreshadows recent revelations about the "intelligence community." As details about the CIA were released piecemeal during the year— by the Senate committee and various investigative reporters, most notably staff and CBS correspondent Daniel Schorr—so the shape and scope of our story changed almost weekly. Webs of circumstance and coincidence were investigated for con- nective details that have turned up a large and concrete pattern of alliances. These suppressed connections help to account for many of the aberrations that have pockmarked the domestic and international record of the since World War II. At several points in the narrative, it was tempting to include inter- pretations and conclusions. But no matter how inescapable certain theories appeared, we tried to limit the report to the facts. We did assess motives in cases where two or three sources, who would all have reason for different points of view, could at least agree on what were major matters of policy. Where the evidence was too con- flicting and could not be resolved, we left the matter hanging. The trickiest area, of course, is the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers. So far, no. direct participant has been willing or able to talk. But we have filled in the CIA and Syndicate connections that surround this whole area and let the reader evaluate the grim possibilities. So here it is: 30 years of domestic subversion, bribery and murder— .for the first time, the whole poisoned enchilada, the whole ball of wax, the whole Bay of Pigs. J.W . Ror.i.r.va SPA t. WAY Strange Bedfellows THE HUGHES- NIXON- I LANKY CONNECTION: THE SECRET ALLIANCES OF THE CIA FROM WORLD WAR II TO WATERGATE BY HOWARD KOHN Hughes was the billionaire inspects a Cuban sugar plantation in 1955. The vice-president had once recluse who became a CIA • entertained the idea of establishing law or business connections in Havana. and Syndicate front. His largess helped Nison's ascent and descent in American politics.

MEYER LANSKY Lansky built the Melia into it kmding multinational corn porutinn by Immersing it in banking, real estate, rourism and gambling. With rulgen- el* nalista's help. he was able in open push new casinos in .

.77115rs, y 1:0 42 et51.1./NO

fashionedan international wineglass route for the Syndicuie's bocsm• ins narcotics industry. When communist strikers shut down the French port of Marseilles in 1947 and threatened to ruin American shipping, the CIA celled on Luciano. He furnished hitmen while the CIA supplied money and wembas. After several murders the docks reopened for American shippers and for the Syndicate's heroin smugglers. When the Syndicate later added Southeast .Asia's "Golden Tri. angle- to its heroin route, the CIA again was accommodating. To tight communism the agency shipped cash and munitions to Laotian mereenartes, who happened to be opium growers employed in the Syndicate's heroin trade. CIA planes were used to provide safe riusoige fir the first leg of the heroin's long journey to U.S. ghettos. Like the OSS, the CIA did not shrink from making deals with the Syndic te to preserve U.S. interests. Under the CIA's charter, such arrangements were legal. But Thomas Dewey and Allen Dulles real- ized that the CIA needed to safeguard its own political base to avoid potential power struggles in Washington, a practical analysis that ourekly carried the agency into a clandestine role in American HEORGE SMATHERS electoral politics.• Senator and Miami , Dewey himself was the odds-on favorite to become president in Smatliers was an early 1948. To insure his election the CIA funneled more than SI millinn friend of Nixon Because from its secret budget into Dewey's campaign. according to agency he lobbied so aggressively sources. Meyer Lanky likewise supported Dewey, marshaling Syndi- for aid to Batista. he became cate money sad political clout behind the Republican nominee (Ad- known as the "senator dis:nigh some older Mafia horses, still resentful of Dewey's racket- from Cohn." busting spree in the Thirties. retused to contribute), Truman's upset victory interrupted this scheme. But that did not concern the CIA as mash as the ephemeral moods on Capitol Hill. What the CIA wonted from Congress, aside fram its money, was to be left alone. In the opinion isf Dulles and Dewey's secret circle, Con- gress posed the greatest danger to CIA autonomy. As a hedge against any shambles, the secret circle began to buy congressional goodwill for the CIA. Congressional members found t heir reelection problems tessed—contribution, volunteers, endorsements—and their stuffs peopled with bright young assistants introduced by members of the scene circle. Most favors went to young congressional members with a promiscrtg future, politicians who someday might be Capitol Hill leaders and White House aspirants. Richard Nixon. a member of the House of Representatives. was One recipient. Nixon had been elected in 1946. The Orange County Republican party had placed a newspaper ad to solicit a token candl. dare in n rare against the undefeated Democratic incumbent. Nixon, just oat of the Nuys,. applied for the job. His credentials were slim: the FBI had related him, his law clients had found him embalms-- ungly naive and his was record was -mediocre. But Nixon ran with manic zest, slandered his opponent as a communist and returned a winner. In 1947 Dewey had tealuted Nixon's vote to help establish the CIA. Dewey liked Nixon's amoral pragmatism and his tierce anti- communism. So in 1948 Dewey, arranged a special favor for Nixon during the celebrated Alger Hiss case. A magazine editor had claimed. Hiss was a communist. The House Un-Amenean Activities Committee (HUAC) investigated and was MURRAY CHOTINER about to exonerate Hiss when Nixon suddenly asked to take over what seemed a losing case. Nixon's reason for volunteering to brad Nizon's campaign manager the investigation. according to CIA sources, was that he had inside and Brat "dirty tricks" information from Dewey. specialist, Chotiner wrote Dewey had initially also considered Hiss innocent. John Foster smear pamphlets with infix- Dulles, serving as Dewey's chief foreign policy adviser m the 1948 niation provided by the CIA. campaign. had defended Hiss and had recommended him the a job ut the Carnegie Endowment inhere Dulles was board chairman. But then, according to CIA sources, the secret circle's friends in the agency conducted an investigation and informed Dewey and the Dulles brothers that Hiss, while a top State Department official under Truman, had belonged to the Communist party. Dewey sew a chance to embarrass Truman, to bolster the credited ity of HUAC (which Truman warned to abolish] and to boost Nix an's career—without publicly involving himself. In lute July 19e8 Dewey leaked the CIA's findings to Nixon. On August 5th Hiss appeared before HUAC and denied he'd ever met the rnauazine editor who had accused him of comminnum. Nixon stood firm against His while the other HUAC members =mined Hiss's version. But Nixon was un- certain about how to proceed So on August I I th he held a rende, sous with the Dulles brothers at the Roosevelt in New York. According to CIA sources, the brothers gave Nixon their approval for a full-scale attack on Hiss, and Allen Dulles provided some am- munition: confuenation that Hiss had known the magazine editor ten years hefore. Five days later Hiss reappeared before HUAC and, under Nixon's questioning, begun to retreat from his earlier suite-

NIXON, REBOZO AND JAMES CROSBY The presidential hopeful was an honored guest at the 1968 opening Of the Resorts casino on Paradise Island. $rtPhir. ef4 y lam mums,. A- few months litter, according to CIA tourcies, CIA Rata EYER LANSKY FIRST VISITED CUBA IN aim OleAtl avert Meet& gtherreehrtuisi enngeeeemanto theevidetice the fail of 1933 an a search for molasses to use that eventually ecervteled Hiss. in mak= rum. But the island was brimming with Tee -wine:tat erten Nixon a -national teem/store In 1950 Nikon left other uppers unitles.Lansky befriended Fuigencio the House to run far the Senate .aentrist the popular Helen Douglas. Batiste, it chubby exeirmy serpent Who hod test Nem labeled her the "Pink Ude" and his rempnign Jitenatire &- ordained himself dictator. With Batista'e stinc- len hed leer as a fellow trestle, of communists. Murray Chotiner, non, Lansky opened several new casinos, the Nixun's campaign meaner and Ms test "dirty tncks" specialist, genesis of the Melee. international gambling wrote the moor pamphlets. FM I. &cording to CIA sources. Chotiner network. reteived Most of his infrinnution about Douglas from CIA film thou Richurd Nixon's first lemma trip to Cuba came in 1940. Roulette the ratency provided. wheels were spinning 24 hours a day, tourists lammed the country. Nixon won cosily war Douglas and took his seat in the"saute, He was Utin vacation horn his yob as prosecutor in Whittier, Cali- RICHARD DANNER drunks to the assiet from the CIA—nod to =tether from the Syridiente. fornia, According to Earl Maze, Nixon's biographer, the young In keeping with Matte tradition, Leneky invested money el the lawyer eagerly explored Cuba and entertained "the possibilities of Si former F131 agent. Danner campaigns of politicians et ell levels of goveremete. , establishing law mar business connections in Havana." introduced Nixon to Reborn. the. Syndicate's Southern California gambling chief in the Forties. Whatever Nixon had in mind was Interrupted by World Weir II He was known in the For- later admitted to helping firtimice the early steps of Nixon's career. The tourists stopped coming, and Lansky shut down. the Cuban ties as a guide to Lansicy's Accardine to Cohen, the transaction were handled by Chotiner, gambling spas. "Gold Coast," and later who remained a Nixon edema through his later ascent to the presi- With the Cuban economy Batista encountered political worked for Hughes. dency. Columnist Drew Pearson reported that, in exchange for the turmoil. To stay in power he timid to make cuncesseme that extended Syndicate contributions, Chiseller used his influence to keep hook- communist influence. U.S, corporations feared their Callen invest- ninkem out of jail in Los .Angeles. ments ought be natiennlized. So in 1944, Naval Intelligence asked In 1952, after only she years in politics, Richard Nixon beceme Lansky to pressure Hatt-stet into stepping down to keep out the eieue.president. His nomination was shepherded through by Deevey's eonunutusts. butekrocan maneuvering. Neville abandoned his own presidential Lansky, a staunch anticce-ranuntsi, prevailed upon the dictator; embitione Dewey threw hi; support to Dwight Eisenhower. Then. et elections weer held, a pro-American candidate skein. and Batista left Dewee's request, Eisenhower picked Nixon as his running mats. Cube for eight seam of exile in southern . Allen Dulles, who had become CIA deputy director in 1951, or- Southern Florida was Meyer Lanky 's headquarters in the Portion. ranged for CIA backing of uhe Euvelhower-Nixtm Ticket. Politim1 He hnd transferred his Cuban crainu business to hotel suites- and intelligence.--reports of Kaman War mistakes ernberrass* to the restaurant buck rooms along the Miami bleach "Gold Coast," The outgoing Truman adminisitation—wexe leaked to the melte. And 1950 Kefatevcr Senate committee dieeovered shut n major gambling agency male.; was slipped in the campaign Through CIA front groups. center was headquartered at the Watford Hotel. a Miami Beach Immeduttely after the election Dulles wee promoted ro the CIA hotel run by Tatum "Chubby" WelTerd. Dne of Wolfrierle yachting directorship nod his brusher was named secretary of slate. eel-ripen:ems during this Richard Nixon. MICKEY COHEN With Nixon as vice-meettiera and Dallas as CIA deeetur, leutelty When the war began Nixon lied gone to work in Washington Cohen headed the Syndi- ens imm-arie from federal laws. in 195:1 the J wtich Detainment de• nv it government lawyer, Mtn joined the Nave and shipped out 4] cate's Southern California ceded not to prosecute hen seven though Len IRS intelligence division Green Island in this Pacific. where he built a jungle.shieek, stocked it gambling operations in the found he was exuding taxa, and in 1957 the Justice Department with booze and ran poker games for the other sailors. He left the Forties and admitted to Veiled to carry through ell en attempt by immigration authorities to Navy with tt 51h,U01r beneroll to invest in his new political career. helping finance the early deport km- On Capitol. Hill the In:Altman. Nixon was befriended by. fellow stages of Nixon's career. Throughout the Fifties the esteem . of Richard Nixon. Meyer congreesmen George Smathers, a'Minmi playboy -who introduced Lanske and Allen Dudes prospered. Their femme =treed unlimited, tern to Richard Danner, Smuthers's twee campaign rnannger. Dan- But then the affairs of a little island in Me Carebbien changed than nee a former FBI agent, had been fired as Miami's city ninneger in and outlook model malty bOUnd up the collective forturies of the CIA. 1949 after the city eouncil accused him of "playing both eidee against [he Syndicate and the White House, the middle" in 11 gengtand dispute aver control of the city police When Pearson Hsu aired Mesa charges In 1519, Chanters de:herniae, a department. Litter, _Danner went to work for Howard Hughes, rte retracuon. But after Cohen carted to empty dee& Chotiner dropped his Hughes's liaison Io Nixon. and became a pivotal character in Water- demand. Laver Cohen goq. 'a formal suitemoni It it deputy attorney general or gate, but in the late Reties he was best known Lisa guide to Latisky'e California, Cohen acid that Ctottner and Nikon tint approgeted him tor uun. "Gold Coast." reign fun& Ito t4A6, end repeated the Icemen to ash. Ma I Oa or paten. "During that moose I out ruttnirtg ZOSt of the tunneling and bookmaking Nixon begun socializing with southern Florida's fast-buck entre- in Lao .angels County," Conon mid. "I romierved are banquet room in the preneurs. Among them wes Churls "Bete"' Rehozo. Danner said he Hollywood Kruckerhooker Hotel on her Street In Hollywood roe a dinner introduced Nixon to Rehozo m lege, when lite congressman yore- meeting_ to which I invited approximately 110 aereuro who were coining ends weeks tee Sr the Iaanthltng intternot . Haney C7»rtnrr mill Tee 1 thou/A have a quota tioned in Miami an "the verge of it physeed breakdown" after of S2.".000 Cos 1}14 campaign. During the worse of the evening Ithxontpokeibr of tenet= to the Hiss tine. anorogtmntely ten miuuttatChothurr voice about hat; an bays. At this mooing Rehoeu, o CubareAmericen, had attended elementary school with my peep etreeee beesree111010 mut 515.000 but MU did nut meet the quota Smothers and, like Nixon. had made entire big money during World tor by Ninon and Chminet and the group wax Wormed they would base to soy toil the mum sae mt:L" War Rebozo had-ctIrnered the wartime marker for recapped tires aetWLVIS 1444 and 1952, Pennon repartee, Chormor and limo brother, both in southern Florida, then had lent that money to poor families at lawyers, repnalentod. Naha unetorlings in let cane and turzeetied ill keeping high interest ralea. Both RehOZO and Smothers—who became pan- newly nociy client nut of lad. to 195] when Chtuinee ealled befooe the nets in several eaestionable real estate venue-es—shared Nixon's hfcCelleaSenace committee then inVellWilting influence peddling, Nixon inter- earlier fascination with Cuba. vetted with %mann troenb NteCartby to aanyseni the Imre:04.1ml. accenting tu rumen. In Meech 1,952 Belisle returned from exile and resurrected his

BATISTA, Cuban president Castillo and Nixon during RICHARD NIXON AND THOMAS DEWEY in 1953. is Nixon visit no Havana in 1955, The governor was Nixon's first political patron,

"BEBE- REBOZO Nixon's hest friend made his first big money by cornering the wartime mar- ket for recapped tires, then lending the money to poor families at high interest rates.

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threw Jake in jail for 25 days and. by 1960, had deported all Syndicate Cuban contacts to supply the CIA with scouring reports on C115111)*.i members, padlocked the amusement parlors, razed the slope labs— troop and naval Positions.. , a policeman on the Syndi- and cape:mauled all other American business holdings. cate payroll, alto helped recruit Spanish-speaking mercenaries for At CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. rrearrwhile. the agency the CIA army. began lambing a plan to retake Cuba. The Syndicate's primary representative in the Bay of Pigs prepara- Under Allen Duller's leadership, the CIA had become the strategic tions was Santo Trafficante, a Florida businessman who had be- arm of his brother's foreign policy at the State Department—pro- longed to the ruling circle that administered 'tumbling and narcotics moting U.S. investments abroad and stopping the spread of com- in Culia..-Trafficante had risen to that position partially because of munism. In 1954, for example., the CIA helped overthrow a corn. power struggle between Lansky and "Fat Albert" Anestitain, known mumst-lenning Guatemalan government that had expropriated as the Lord High Executioner of Murder Incorporated. Anastasia 225,000 acres from United Frau, a U.S company with tics to the had lased in 1957 to recruit Trafficante into a scheme to undercut Rockefeller fain ily. Lansky's control of the Cuban operations. Instead, according to is E. HOWARD RUNT Castro's lovemment in Cuba piqued the CIA for several reasons. Justice • Department account, Trafficante 'betrayed Fnt Albert to The Bay of Pigs operations The CIA's Soviet counterpart, the KGB, could use Cuba to launch Lansky's hitmen; Anastasia was shot fhe times as Ile at dawn fur officer for the CIA, Hunt revolutions in Central and South America against, U.S. interests a hatreut. reported that Nixon was the there. Dulles Wail Street friends already had suffered huge reverses Trafficanit's contact in the Bay of Pigs operation was Frank invasion's "secret action on Cuba: Castro had confatatted the Freeport Nickel mine, affiliated Sturgis, thgo known as Frank 6-torah. Sturgis was an American officer" in the White House. with the Rockefellers, and a score of lesser industries, soldier offortune who had enlisted with Castro in the Sierra Maestro, There also was the loss of the Syndicate's casinos. The casinos smuggled guns for Castro, paraded with him into Havana and, for had been an open-ended money funnel for both the Syndicate and it short time, served as Castro' a supervisor of gambling. the CIA. Lanky had masterminded a system that allowed the When Castro decided to eliminate the casinos, Sturgis defected Syndicate to skim winnings, evade taxes and launder illicit funds at and claimed he had been working undercover against Castro all the the ennung tables. The CIA. according to agency sources, had been tune... The CIA quickly recruited Sturgis. He led several small pre- using the same system and the same casinos to hide its payments to Invasion raids agent Castro end, according to his own account, the underworld figures it sometimes employed. joined the Operation Forty assassination, squad, a special CIA unit Su the CIA planned to supple Castro with a surpass invasion. set up to assassinate Castro loyalists-in post-invasion Cube. About 1200 Cuban exiles would land at the Bay of Pigs, nail through Richard Whattley, u fellow mercenary hired for the invasion, later the jungle and establish a renegade government, thus providing et recalled that Sturgis had several visits from Trufficanteo "Tralman te ruse for u full U.S. military assault against the Castro regime. The would order .Sturgis to move his men and he'd do it. Our ultimate invasion plan was developed almost entirely behind President Eisen- conclusion was that Trufficante was our backer. He was our money hower's back. according to author Haynes Johnson, who wrote it man." According to sources in Miami, Trailicante also infiltrated definitive inside account of the operation. Colonel L. Fletcher Operation Forty with Syndicate money and henchmen." Prouty, an Air Force liaison to the CIA between 1955 and 1963, As the invasion neared, work began on a plot to denoraitze After it career as a "fix-it" reached the same conclusion. "Eisenhower had never ever contem- Castro's forces by killing their leader. Among those involved in this expert who helped arrange plated on invasion," Prouty said m a recent interview. "We had pretty plot were Trafficante, Sturgis, Hunt and Robert Maheu. a Howard CIA-Syndicate murder plots specific instruction from Eisenhower on the limits of our authority, Hughes operative. and Howard Hughes's What we were allowed to do was land live or six people on it beach The CIA eventually tried several Limes to murder Castro. President takeover in , and have them blow up s sugar refinery, stuff like that." Johnson later discovered that "we're running a damn Murder Incor- Mnheu's tiring led to But four days before the 1960 presidential election, according to porated in the Caribbean." Lansky had been the first to propose the Watergate. Johnson, the CIA circulated a memo saying the invasion was going idea when he placed a $1 million price on Castro's life in 1959. ahead. Two days later, Prouty recalled, "We were told to get 13-26 Sturgis was still Castro's gambling-supervisor when he heard about bombers ready and to get transport aircraft reedy." According to the bounty from Hyman Levine. Lansky's manager at the Cornodoro Prouty, npproval for the moves came from Vice President Nixon. Casino. Sturgis win he missed the word along to his CIA contacts. Nixon was then head of the 54(12 Group, a National Security Hunt, as the Bay of Pigs operations officer, added his personal Council subgroup that supervised covert actlyttio, E, Howard recommendation in n memo-sent to his CIA supervisors in the spring Hunt, the CIA agent who recruited Cuban exiles for the invasion, of 1960. That summer the Castro assassination conspiracy began. later reported that Nixon was the Has of Pigs "secret action officer" in the White House. Allen Dulles and his deputies decided in August 1960 to subcontract the job. They enlisted. help from Robert Mallets. an C%-FBI agent Hunt had been the CIA'scluet political action officer during its who had worked for the CIA under a special retainer since 1954.1' successful coup in Guatemala. At every opportunity he promoted Meheu. an engaging, 5month-talking operator. had qua the FBI in the same tactics for Cuba.' Through the long fall of 1960 Hunt mus- the early Fifties to open a private detective agency in Washington, tered a secret army of exiles. They were run through makeshift boot camps and shaped into a strike force. Secret I rammg sites were set up 1. Hughes's fascination with sApire..-r, dated lock to the Thirties and Fasten, in the Florida Everglades, on the Louisiana della and in the Carib- when ha its a firillyssond tonvamiciliteer 1:1911 he filmed Scorrhie , trcrrnt eased an At Cepone'n exploits Ha mare launched the rimers of George Raft, SANTO TRAFFICANTE bean. The CIA-installed government in Guaterrudis also provided a tater one of lAttiakv'r anittnitour eviler) front men. 'and of .Jann Harlow, whn One of the ruling circle that surreptitious guerrilla base. became the girlfriend the Syndleater, top non an the West (Oast, Congn of administered gambling and Another was on Cm: Sal, a rocky outcropping off Florida owned Linkman, narcotics in Cuba. Traffi- by Howard Hughes. Not only had Hughes given the CIA temporary s. These tear had a vasvilie reason for helping. They had buried 5750,0110 custody of the island, but. according to one former CIA operative, an the Island below being evicted, and the CIA. piondved the), mold recesses the cante was the Syndicate's he'd furnished the guerrillas with an alibi: if discovered. they could cash unhindered afterahe invasion. The intern:alien dies metaled however. primary representative its vas exaggeoded to make Castro appear %teak, amt they dun heenlesay eneour• the flay of Plgs. say they were rehearsing for is Hughes movie Gerry Hemming, a Agee a CIA proetivIry far overconfidence. hulking ex-Marine 'w ho conducted drills at one of the training sites, 9 Atcofding to Alfred .MriCratis InVetilt011011 for Thr rattan of Heroin. later recalled that he helped unload motes lubeled "Tooled" then TreiScamo had detalaSeti some responsibilities 10 Ins ion, Santo Ir. A. Hu the name of Hughee's parent compeny. Inside the crates were camp father's firdneial repreveniative, and ultimata, Meyer Luilaky's, Santo In con• gear and machinery for the invasion. trolled much-te Havana's to-arise Industry," McCoy wrote. -Marcover„ it was re:angrily his rearronsihility in rceuive Milk shipments of heroin from Europa Hughes !Wad purpose for his patriotism. According to a former And forward theta thoingis Florida to Na,, Y Ink," aide. Hughes intended to rush into Cuba once Castro fell and de- HI The passport office had trouble belicsong Sturgis sass double agent and velop a series of resort parks on the beach front, build his ownrumbo stripped him arta, eiricnship, II. leak .porannl intervention from Smashers, airport and buy up a block or two of casinos and set himself up as -the senator from Cabe, 'is memo the deCiodil. a tourism magnate. Because of the manipulative qualities of casino I I. By lair 19fi0 Sturgis hart become a leader in the ineenastoeiti amens.. accounting, the aide said, Hughes hoped to turn the entire venture ammo armed, flags. Accenting is Flare Turner. en Ernahlunnn who also into an enormous tax dodge that would banish tax hills forever served with and-Costro group. the I AR tyas"pronably hithriced br despensessed Hughes apparently expected to reach an necommodation with the hold Lind gambling-thorn Queers Min arargted under Budd." Syndicate. "Hughes had a lia of tweet for the Mob, especially II. One member of Operation Faro.. Pearl Cernx Restoy, ass chaired In 1965 Lansky." the aide recalled.' "My guess is that he hoped to form some v,irh book a ringleader 40 0 narcotieq orieratian dad the dawned wait rcepeosible fee orruggling IS% of all heroin and 15% of all cocaine SIEGEL sort of partnership with Lansky." min de But Pointy Nail totecuteil Wont he enure 10 trial—amid specula- For Lansky and the Syndicate. the Bay of Pigs plan held far tion he intended to Implknic the CIA In the dope opacities. Siegel, junior partner to grenter significance. Four ex-casino horses—Russell %Aline,. James A popular thoary ttl Miami's.Cuban-Amacian community is that Remy Lansky and Luciano, helped Plumeri, George Levine and Selvatore Goulette— used trusted was leithin by u Eglicial CIA unit tat up is assassinate suspected MOM agents build the Las Vegas Strip ar othera around.- In n ravish New YorA rimer Mimic; Howard O. Haut nein a personally attached lb ilia anti-Castro mac. He !Act me dose Hunt conflonod that lie first heard of web xn tnartulnation squad in the mid- and pioneered the concept friends nilanuel Auntie. the CIA.designaied replemneni for Castro, and Fifties. The Senate CIA committee Found some evidence that a CIA operative of the hotel-casinos. Artimu basins gneiparent In one of fient's children. Anima Sao knows Bette in Lain Americo sag kilted his the am, Ina Inc tried to Wickman the agency. Plehoor, Arldrues partner mo. a =RI camping EdgardO Suann, is n business Aecertilma to his sone, icssirrieey. atetwu also hellion the CIA .thn- pertain. of Rollo:de. lege n mid-Fifties shipping drat that would have given the late 1Canm. as 471 ROLLING STONE PAY AI 1570 47

a firm that specialized to solving problems outside the normal chats- the New Frontier by heaping guilt on the CIA." Allen was oda At the CIA he was considered a consummate "fisni" mart. similarly outraged. Tim CIA officinistisked Malice to enlist Syndicate meet for the Kennedy's appraisal was significantly different He saw himself Castro Minder, according to the 1975 Church Serwle committee, victimized by the CIA's reckless underestimation of Cestro's strength. and authorized bon to pay $150,t1W for the hit, Maheu told the He felt the CIA had misled tint and exploited his lack of executive Chown committee helisiewied inJuully because he feared the project experience. JFK. told an aide he wanted to "splinter 1tic CIA into to might interfere with his work. for Howard Regan.. who also had re- thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds." tained Mulfeu'a services. But Mullen said he agreed to the assign- For nearly a decade Allen Dulles had been running the CIA. The ment after inforrrung Hughes of the murder plot—told. according to Bay of Pigs invasion had boar the agency's most umbitioua project one source, gaining the nilhonnire's approval. ever. Dulles himself had aupereised the agency's end-Castre alliance For the prejtet Muheu millet on John Rosen, Sam Giancann and with the Syndicate. Ail memos aboul the Castro asmasinatian plot, Santa 'Truffle:unto. Row:lli and Giuncana, lilts Tratficante, were according to CIA deputy director Richard Bissell, hod gone only to rneenhers of the Syndieate's ruling ellte. RoseIles home territory was Dulles. Thomas Dewey also had taken time out from his Wall Street Rosen', II Syndicate leader, has vegan and Oicoffnrua's was —hut they had helped itdmin- law practice. according to CIA sources, to help set up front group was hired by the CIA to kill istratt the Syndicate's Cohan opendinns, in funnel funds to the CIA army. Cuba wan to have been the CIA's The CIA. wanted Castro'a murderers to be subtle, The CIA's first Castro and Later helped finest hour. Howard Hughes in Vegas. propped Neuman, according to the Church committer. was n box When Kennedy eritichand the CIA for the Bay of Pigs failure, lie of Caatto's nivel ice cigars euntaminated with it botulinern toxin "so was adding insult to humiliation. But his threats to abolish the agency potent Ono a person would die after euttine one in his month.' But were not taken seriously, The CIA was still a !acted institution with after Malice's discussants with the Syndicate leaders, the CIA opted away carefully cultivated friends. Kennedy backed down. The for a plan to spike Castro's food with poison pills that would leave agency stayed. But he did force out Allen Della in the fall of Mil. no trace in an autopsy, Tral licante found a Cuban emigre' who claimed To replace the longtime director. Kennedy appointed in compromise to know a waiter at-a reatnerent where Came frequently dined. In selection, Wall Street lawyer John McCune. Dinkins htm-ever, left early l961, according to Senate testimony, Malley delivered' the behind his master student, , as CIA deputy director poimia pills and. SI 0,00b in CIA money to Syndicate men in a rendez- of plans. Since MeCone WO a newciamer, he allowed Helms to keep vous at Miami's Founuairielaheau lintel," his job, which gave Helms jurisdiction over the CIA's "dirty tricks" When newspaper headlines reported soon afterward dint Castro division end other deep-cover covert activities. Helms immediately was. sick, Mabee. allegedly phoned a Syndicate contact and exulted, resumed the CIA's private war against Castro. "Did you see the paper? Castro's ill. Wow, we got him." Btu Castro's Kennedy, miffed at Castro for the intertuttional embarrassment, illness was not related to the CIA-Syndicate ex...situation attempt; did authorize Some further CIA activities against the Castro govern- the pills apparently never reached his table. The CIA blamed the ■ ment. But he apparently wanted theist limited to the anall-scale JAMES HOFFA failure on a Castro whim to stop eating at thedesignnted restaurant, r tot-and-run raids Eisenhower bud alowed" Undeterred, the ciA The fulled wssusainithon was nut the only setback in the grandiose ignored those limits and returned to its conspiracy to assassinate Despite intervention from plan to retake Cuba. Richard Nixon hod been defeated in the 1960 Castro," CIA officials began discussing plans that called for planting Nixon, Teitinster president presidential race, a turn that seemed to imperil the entire acheme. a bomb-laden seashell cm the ocean floor where Castro liked to go Hoffa was jailed by' Attorney According to Colonel Prouty, the CIA had delayed the Bay of Pigs scuba• diving or giving Castro a diving suit smeared with a deadly General Robert Kennedy, invasion because it expected a Nixon administration to approve any fungicide. The CIA alto reoctivnted plans for hiring Syndicate ante- who discovered Htilfa's ties aid-Castro plan re-gereffiesa of intertnitionel rep-wet:snow. Instead, sins. CIA officials appurently tried to win Kertnedy"s approval but, to the Syndicate. now had to the CIA obtain John Kennedy'ssuppere a..1 rat as the Church committee could determine, the agency's "dirty Kennedy was presented the Bay of Pigs plan us u fait accompli. hicks" division carried out these murder plots without JFK's sane- When Kennedy became president," Prouty explained, "he was mid- nem." daily told the Bay of Pigs was going to involve an invasion. He had The elnirnenns tension between Kennedy and the CIA flared op no choice but to gin along." CIA director Allen Dulles warned the in October 1162 during the Cuban missile crisis. top CIA officials young president that if he tolled off the elan, these would be a -dis- viewed the crisis es a prelude to a second Cuban invasion and alerted posal prnblem" with the CIA's 1200-calk soldiers, "We caret have the surviving Bay of Pigs army to stand ready. But Kennedy's nego- them moldering around the country telling everyone what they've tiations with the Sonnet Union produced an opposite result. The been doing," Dulles told Kennedy. agreed to withdraw its missiles from Cuba, and Ken- On April 17th, 19bl— three months after Kennedy took office-- nedy promised to end the U.S.'s undercover war against Castro. the CIA army stormed the beach at the Bay of Pigs. The American Kennedy promptly ordered theCIA to stop organirang anti-Castro people were led to believe the invasion was a righteous attempt by raids and to observescrupulnusly the new truce. By the fall of 1965 celled Cubans to reclaim their lionseland. Hut, tinder the friendly Kennedy was reaching for it formal detente with communist Cuba. escort of a CIA man, four of Lansky'a casino operators waited in a boat a few yards offshore. And poised in the Bahamas wills enough gold to reopen the Havana tables was a Trafeautte lieutenant. The head of the Chicago HE KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION'S FAILURE Unexpectedly, Castro's patrols spotted the invaders and attacked Syndicate, Giaricana was to restore Cuba's pre-Castro heyday also had in- With devastating firepower. TheCIA army, accustomed only to mock investigated by Robert furiated Richard Nixon, who publicly upbraided the hoot-camp battles, scattered in dismay Into swamp and jungle. CIA Kennedy, who was furious y ping nresiden t for hang soft on Castro. The former vice- officials informed Kennedy that, if the invasion plan was to be sale to learn of the mobster's had hoped to reverse the new Cuban policy by urged. Air Force bombers would have to fly in with air cover for the president than to the CIA. CIA soldiers. But it was is need nal watt unmet. Castro had alerted ousting Kennedy- from the White House in 1964. But Kennedy's SOcffint,I popularity and Nikon's embnottasing the Soviet Union. Under that eirculnylcuien, Kennedy leered that a loss ; n the 1962 California gobermortairaee drove Nixon U.S. air attack on Cuba would be blatant provocation. He refused to send in the planes and the CIA many fled Ingloriously into Castro's into unexpected political seelusion—dashing the hopes of prisoner-of•suer tannia. the CIA, the Syndicate. liovnird Hughes and all others who had Tinvested in him. No event since the communizetion of China in 1949 has had such Nixons demise seemed to assure that JFK would be president a profound effect on the United Stales and its allies as arm defied of the U S.-entitled Cuban invasicrn brigade at the Bayer Pigs," Howard through 1905, After that, Kennedy's younger brother Robert stood Hunt Inter wrote, Hunt blamed Kennedy's "hetrayat" of the CIA. an excellent chance of MI-writing the presidency for eight more years. and felt JFK's.subsequent investigation was intended "to whitewash ity that lime it might heir late to undo till the Kennedy policies. The Syndicate, in particular, wax suffering under the new adotinistra- caw. Pow, Ill atittolle Ohomis u monopoly an oil shipments from Saudi nen. JFK had appointed his brother attorney general. Bobby had Arabia sal:louge included i7uayfhe Chassis's zoom and planting raises/maxi been an investigator and Jack hod been it senator on the McClellan ,,duet him in n CIA-smiled newspaper. In ether ,worn totamony hilehee Lona admin.t to I,irhaR u bbiLaisso tor wt nridt.lutsed Mil "sensitive" CFA assitin- Senate committee what it declared-a war on in the mem_ And itecintilind la the 1976-House CIA Ronan, lee CIA oisad Mnhcu ICI ROBERT F. KENNEDY pratide Jordmi's Kina tizoisom end other rotator 'Cadets with "famie own- 16. Amnia Oman involved in them -minions were Botrnre Baker. Euacilin Kennedy quadrupled the pitmen," Martinez and Frank Sturais—nd at whorri later became Watagae rangier, 14. The assassination planned was eitenarned at one paint when Ginn.na size of the Justice Depart- sulocosal illst his uttillictutPhyiliat McGuire of she 140.3aire Sisters, was having 17.During the early glares. oecordine to tic Owed, committee. the CIA ment's organized crime and miuntanC4 a secret "Execution Action droop" tot up, in the worda vi onc us affair with VP,I,C,S1.11 134n Rut, an. Aceur4ag in she Church atimmitioa, racketeering division and official, to develop "methods for the recitisval of unfriendly leaders," Mclicaelred a nrbew Owenta in hug flaswaris hotel roam-ln Ins Vapor, But compiled a "hit list" of nte private OVA/. caught and the CIA had in ea reek on rho FBI to cover up 18. Et November iatit Kennedy artatided to New Fork Time, moaner fad 43041 Syndicate ridges- theincident. mitt that he cis under pressure Own the illuallannee CalnktIlillty to order II. Frank Siergls Iwo Yoe !Jaw Fork Daffy Now n -,1401Uir different account Caterols assasarrostma. According to svoie, lilt sent he opposed the Idea of Chu inurdet attempt. Snouts said that 11 elloonInte melt, frit whith Castro find mums he fen the should norm ha patty to a pnitti.ti swateinounn Sg...cpr I s miming fondness, was spiked with the poisors Bat when Use waiter delivered Smother. oo fried or Castro, saw he had (told s simile conversation dutios ;ha mutt his bands shout. so herd that Castro Oriaine muspiciow and had the alety 1462 in which Kennedy 'was array antitankcn saainot tatting that Lasowrt drink atietrecn nation) Ilse." k-DIJJAW STONE, MAY 311, 1975 19

lute Fifties. In 1961 the Kennedy adntinistrittion picked up where the been used as it patsy by anti-Castro The motive of this McClellan left afar would, of course, be the expectation that after the president wits Robert Kennedy quadrupled the size of the Justice Department's killed. Oswald would be caught or at least his identity ascertained, orgentzed crime end racketeering division and compiled a "bit list' the law enforcement authorities end the public would Ebel{ Rome the of 43nO Syndicate targets. Near the top of the tiff were Chicago den assessination on the Castro government, end the call for its forceful fainGlarratill. New Grimes drat Chios Marcella and a business overthrow would be inenetiNe," the lawyers wrote in a meinci, "A partner of theirs— Teamster president Jimmy Hat it, RFK had dis- second Bay of Pigs invasion would begin, t his time, hopefully, to covered Hol's brake to the Syndicate while on the McClellan com- end successfully." mittee, and his pursuit 'of lire Teurnster bass lied developed into a Although Oswald was never officially identified as a CIA agent, public vendetta. Haat reuilinted fay cempiagning for Nixon in 1960. his Life Watery showed a remarkable similarity to the behavior of Nixon, in turn. intervened at the Justice Department to hold up low-level intelligence operative, AS a CS. Marine in theiats Fifties Hot% indictment for muse of fLerh. he had bean given a top security clearance to a CIA.kponsored LEE HARVEY OSWALD Bet once RFK ioakatmmand of thelusuce Department, he moved base in. Jamul. Shortly thereafter, Oswald defected to the Sevier quickly ugeinet Haifa, leveling charges of „tiny tampering, kickbacks Union, somehow paying u 51500 travel fire even though his blink Although officially pegged and a 52 million penmen fund swindle, The young attorney general account held only $2113. He churned to he a Marxist and stud he as it self-styled pen-Castro ates mitsatcd deportation procesdinipt against. Carlos Marcella. planned to give military secrets to the Soviets. But the U,S.S.R., zealot, he may have been sit When he began investigating Sam CO-ennuis_ however, he found the according to a former Soviet agent, was convinced that Otevald was unwitting pawn in a con- inotmer involved In a disconcerting Owl with the CIA. a double agent for the CIA. Two years later, in 1%2, he returned to spiracy to frame Castro for The CIA, he learned, was a partner with aincenaM .the Castro the U.S. and, despite his prior admissions of treason, was headed Kennedy's murder. murder plot. RFK was furious, but not shacked. During Ms Mc- back his citizenship papers. Clellee committee renure he had tried unsuccessfully. to subpoena Then, in the summer of 1963, Ouvadd surfaced in New Orleans us Les Vegas mebster on the CIA's protected liet, "You can't touch Site organizer of a pro-Castro group, with himself asks only member, me," the mobster had boasted. "I've got immunity," He spent the summer in tits eye of the local media, as if Ile warded in As attorney general, however, RFK did not evens as intimidated be remembered far Ms prreCeutrn antics. He distributed pro-CaStro by Syndicate 101_lit from the CTA. in the summer of 1963 Janice leaflets and picked lights withanri-Custroites. Oswald's pro-Castro Department invesugetors shadowed Gieneunu at tenaciously that leaflets seemed suspect because they were stamped with the address the-mobster usksel fOrjudicial relief so he could play golf ivitbnui an of a building used by n CIA front group— the end-Cuero Cuban audience; _RFK later had him booked briefly on contempt charges, Revolutionary Council that Howard Hunt had helped set up donne the liesttinit untie 1942 that Giuncatm had seen a prison cell. In the the Buy of Pigs openttion. Piles -of .the same literature were found fella I RFK announced he was taking his hest come lighters to later in the possession of Guy Bannister. a former FBI agent with Las Vegas, the Syndicate's biggest domestic gambling center and the corinewuns to Robert Mantle, New Orleans don Carlos Marcella home turf of 'atm Roselh, unother Of the CIA'a partners in crime. and Hunt.. At the same time John Kennedy begnn enforcing in ban tin and- This circumstantial evidence seemed to support the theory of the Coop activates., a policy that promised to end any chance for a two commission lawyers that Oswald was an unwitting pawn in is Syndicate return to Cubit. In the summer of 1%3 FBI agent; were conspiracy to frame Castro fur Kennedy's murder. But the theory New Orleans don Marcell° sent to the Louisiwaa delta where tthey broke up en anti-Catgut camp still lacked proof. Then New Orleans district attorney Ian Garrison was a prime target of RFK's and seized El terrorist arsenal—dynamite, bomb ...singe striker as- ennotuteed mu 1967 that he tied secured the proof. He named Clay deporention efforts. hiarcello semblies, primer cord and blasting caps. The camp bud huh run by a Shaw, David Verne. and Edgar Eugene Bradley as members of the begged the Syndicate for CIA front group mid had been reined by the brother of in former oanspirucy. Garrison's investigation Was burdened with several un- revenge against the Cuban casino owner. In September the Kennedy government issued reltuble witinies, however, and soon floundered. Shaw was acquitted. Kennedy's. tough-minded warmem to set and-Casten Pertisam; ernang them Fame died arid Bradley was shown to be the victim of a missekeli was Fauns Sturgis, then minting B-52 raids against Castro. identification. But G urn eon's probed hip rod lice some new eni denen. Castro responded with it message, watt through diplemetie chan- Richard Helms, whit had been promoted to the CIA directorship nels, asking Kennedy for a personal audience to discuss improving in 1966, apparently took Garrison sertausly. During Garrison's relations between the two governments_ Kennedy teemed willing. prosecution of Shaw, a New Orleans businessman, Helms besiame He authorized a French journalist In serve us his personal emissary especially anxious, Victor Marchetti, a nutetulter for CIA stoutmeet- in sounding out Castro's ideas, ings at the time, lutes minded that Helms repeatedly risked his depu- Castro feu Kennedy was sincere in this overture, In en interview ties: "Are we giving Shaw all the help we can?" after Kennedy's death, Castro had this rieserstent of the American Garrison claimed he bed lost his case the day David Ferrie died . president: "He took many measure, against us. Eta I speak to you in Garrison had counted on Ririe to I um state's evidence, On February all sincerity end try to Alec you the opinion L have of Kennedy. T say Lgth, 1967, Garrison had revealed lam us a member of the alleged that truly he was one of the few men who had enough courage to assassination plot. Four days later Ferric was found dead of a quesuon it policy and change it." mrieve brain hemorrhage.. But as Kennedy moved closer to a (,1,g.-Cetut rapprochement, be Ferric bed a curious background that included work for both the came further in context with the CIA's unforgiving anti-Castroism. CIA and the Syndicate. The CIA had used him during the Bay of DAVID FERRIE Dulles's protFages remained so unyielding in their resistance to Castro Pigs preparatione to train pilots for the invasion, and he had showed Ferric, a dedicated anti- that Kennedy told friench ire feared the agency had become Ion up again In 1962 at an instructor in an anti-Castro Pump -outside Cass-Emile, worked For the autonomous. He felt that the CIA's "dirty bricks" die:stem partiee- New °deans, At the stone time he was serving as a pilot and legal CIA and the Syndicate in holy was not responding to presidential orders. John McCune, as investigator for Carlos Marcella. a Syndieate:leader with a personal Cults-related fobs. lie once Kennedy's CIA director, seemed unwilling C1T unable to overcame the stake In Cubs. Ott the day Kennedy died, Ferric end Marcella hed said that JFK "ought to be independent nature of the CIA's old-time covert operators, Finally, courtroom been together in a New _Orleans attending Marcellu'. shot" For his flay of Pigs in mid-November 1%3, Kennedy ordered his aides to get ready for trial on charges that grew tee of leFle's attempt to deport the New rule. more thoreugh housteleiming at the agency. Orleans don, Ferric was n dedicated eno-Castroite, At one point he "The CIA will levee to be dealt with," he told aides shortly before groused aloud that Kennedy "ought to be .shot" fat his role in the traveling to Dallas for it November 22nd motorcade. On that same BayOf Pigs. Rut Garrison found several seemingly rredible witnesses day Kennedy's ernmary opened talks with Castro in Havana. And who testified that Feint bad been seen eonferring privately with Lee according to the Church eosin-sitter-, the CIA also chose November Harvey Oswald in late summer 1963, a anie when Oswald was Maud to begin yet mother plot to nesussitune Castro—in continuing making public claims of pre-Cestrnisrn. defiance of Kennedy's new also in lute summer 1963, Verne =lied the Chicago phone number But by the end of the day Kennedy's plans were dead with their pauon in Dallas. rat matien tird_workast odder tianinem when ants woroagents in tilt FBI's Clamgia bureau &Max World- War &mender later 'Smartie a prime unveil- The Warren Commieenn imesugated the Kennedy aseassioution pine and trattli nut hi. steals to Marcella. But flannisier's major ppoecuption end, after len menthe attributed it ea the personal derangement of was minting commit., let the Ali114:01Prialetha LalterC of Lee Hurray Oswald, whom they aeaCribini ItS a pro-Castro zealot. die Caribbean, which took part in urn Guatemalan coup Xe-tat that Haat tiered el-theorem fel till' CIA. The commiedores official report made no mention of a conspiracy 21, the-risen'. micautettion neenenev mistook Bradley for 'Eugene Halt to kill Kennedy, even though two coottragems lawyers raised that Eroding. Arcoedica to Peter Noy., If prize-winning 1-1/5 Angeles newsrnui, pewsibility during the inveittlention. According to a document de- Wading had n haw ariciums oglisc the .7e building and an the wee door classified a decade later, the lawyers were warded that Oswald had as David Ferric. EratliUs and leak Ruby eine ...faired ilia same Dell= office the JIM GARRISON day before tie JFK aeansalnatio', lannedleady after ithe avelainetton, /trailing New Orleans district attor- 1.9. The ponidaat'a inflamed fortune made him inmonimeraMe to d ass ptacd sip we rite Keno bur wair releped when he rote le-Okt Lin WS an oil ay luihe ney Oarrison said he found offer Fran, the Syndicate. Bia in early 1961 Judah Eaner, a torlfrhard or Sam company reprennleillen, gramme. reel :oh, ...Omit m Naya% was farryma Glenda-di and lobo ltutatill, coma bET r ery true Kennedy a preside tmet bed, a illicit money Far the Syndicate, Thu Warren CurroMpiOil. however, Learned none a conspiracy in the Kennedy citcometenee that wad lone gips the Syndicate leverage truer the prom; or We itirorastainn. assassination, but claimed peaietern„ There le no evidence, however, that ILK memmeit to any present. 21 E. del Vane, a good Mood of Ferriel who !sad taken part in anti-Camsn he last his case when Foyle Aecording lu the Senate CIA ripen. Kennedy dropped Einar finm hie schedule rains with him. sou round oho; and Imatcheind to death on theserne day Ferris riled. immediately arler teeming of her ailderwOrld friendship, diet. SO ROLLING, STONE, MAr JO. JOGS

of a young woman who, un the day before Kennedy's death. arrived not volunteer to brief the other corrusinsion members. Nor did he say in Dallas in the company of a man who met twice that night with anything about the agency's various assassination plots—which, Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby. The next night, after OswaW's according to . had been expanded to include targets capture, Ferric took a burned and unexplained IOW-mile car ride within the. U.S. after the Bay of Pigs. (In a 1075 interview. Steeps through a ramsterm to a ice rink, There be monopolized said that in the early Sixties he had been asked by a CIA agent to a pay phone for several urgent calls. Hours later Ruby went to Dallas; take part in an unspecified "domestic" assassination.' police headquarters and gunned down Oswald. FBI agents interviewed Sturgis shortly after the assassinau an rind, Afterward. Ruby allegedly told has psychiatrist that he had been according to Sturgis, told him: "Frank, if there's anyone capable of "part of a plot to kill Kennedy" and also said he had expected the killing the president of the United States, you're one guy that can Kennedy assassination to lead to another Cuban invasion. But the do it." But the FBI's investigation of the murder was no mitre reveal- Warren Commis:dun decided that Ruby had acted alone, out of a ing than the CIA's. FBI director Hoover harbored an abiding resent- ment of the Kennedys. Hoover's oaten:11 posture was that the Syndi. JACK RUBY psychuttc patnotam, and discounted a memo prepared by two com- mission investlguturs that profiled Ruby es a lackey with Syndicate care did not exist as the powerful organization portrayed by the Ken- Ruby, u Dallas nightclub eonnenions. nedys. And he had been embarrassed when Syndicate informant Joe owner with Syndicate ties, At age 15. Ruby was running errands for Frank "The Enforcer" Yalachi testified in 1962 to a litany of Syndicate crimes—bribes, exe- killed Oswald and said he Nitty, heir to Al Capon's °imago gangland empire. He became a cutions. narcotics deals. gambling skims—in nationally televised expected the JFK assassina- small-time hustler, selling "tip sheers" at racetracks and peddling hearings arranged by RFKas Justice Department. tion to lead to another sidewalk watches. In 1937 he obtained a top position m the Serail But, for the Warren Commission Report, it was the CIA and the Cuban invasion. Iron and Junk Handlers Union—which one FBI report described as FBI who were doing the investigating, They were not being investi- -largely a shakedown operation." Two years later the unions founder gated. The Warren Commission was mildly troubled by Dullts's was inurchaed. Ruby was held briefly for questioning but was not admission that the two agencies—in keepmg with their secrecy stand- charged in the case. ards—probably would not tell the truth about any operatives in- Robert Kaamealy later singled out that murder as a crucial step in volved in the assussination. But it suppressed its qualms and did not the Syndicnte's takeover or the Chicago union. Paul Dorfman be- consider seriously the possibility that Syndicate leaders and anti- earne union president and. according to RFK, quickly formed an Castro extremists within the CIA conspired to kill the president, alliance with Jimmy Half& "Paul Dorfman and Jimmy Hotta arc as ant." Kennedy wrote in Tae Enemy N'ithin. "Everywhere Hoffn goes, Dorfman is close by." By 1963 Chicago don Sam Giancana and NCE FREE OF KENNEDY'S RESTRICTIONS Carkn Marcella shared in his friendship.. The 1950 Kefauver com- Me CIA intensified its efforts to overthrow Castro. mittee found Ruby had links to Dave Yaras, a merriber of the same Three months after JFK's death CIA agents were Syndicain circle as .Dorfman and Haifa. already planning a second invasion 01' Cuba. Howard Ruby went to Dallas in 1947 to open a nightclub. In 1956 the FBI Hunt was In charge of the plan, according to investi- received a report "that Ruby is the (Syndicate) payoff man for the gative reporter Tad Saute As a prelude to the inva- SIR STAFFORD SANDS Dallas police detertment." sion. the CIA equipped a human with an automatic 1-he telt-pound Bahamian In August 1959 Ruby visited Cuba at the invitation of Lewis 1. rifle to shoot Castro. But, according to Szulc, the official was so blatant in his McWillic, a farmer World War II black marketeer and manager of CIA became discouraged when the assassin delayed arrangements with the the Trope:tine Casino—a man Ruby said he "idolized."" At the lime the hit and tinally- was caught Ity Castro's men. Syndicate that the locals Literacy still was hoping Castro might keep the casinos open and Most CIA officials began to concede Cuba to communism. were angered and Lansky Ruby apparently was offered a casino job. Ruby stayed for eight days, Castro's instinct for survival was uncanny. And Vietnam 166.5 luring was forced to oust him. then returned the next month fore two-day visit, He did not take a CIA "dirty !netters" to the other tide of the world. Through the mid. Job but lie did contact Robert McKeown, a former gunrunner to Sixties there were more assassination attempts against Castro and Cuba. According to McKeown, Ruby offered 515,B91) for help in more harasament raids to Culla. But by 1965 the CIA had abandoned freeing three men being held in-Cuba. McKeown said Ruby told hum the second invasion plan. someone in Las Vegas was financing the project. But the deal appar- By then the Syndicate also had Trust interest in Cuba Meyer Lansky ently fell through. had found a new home for the Mob's offshore gambling empire in In 1961 McWillie left Cuba for , where he took a Job at the &humus. the Cal-Neva Lodge, a hotel ettilnom which Giancana allegedly held The Bahamas held some of the same attractions as Cabe—an easy an Interest. By then both Ruby and McWillie were outspoken foes plane nap from the mainland, hick-and-seek tax laws, the warm of the new Cuban regime; the Warren Report describes McWillie as a assurance of bemgn weather. There was no Batista. But there was "violent anu-Castroite." According to several witnesses. Ruby went 30(6pound Sir Stafford Sands, the Minister of Finance and Tourism to visit McWillie in Las Vegas in October 1963.. and a politician of porcine build and appetite. Sands was boss ota he That tame month Ruby made several other calls to men with Bay Street Boys, the bloc of colonial merchants and politicians who Syndicate connermana. Culls went to Paul Dorfman. Hotitis trusted ir ran the archipelago of palm trees and white sand. 4 AbilikW confidant; Irwin Weiner, another Hoax adviser with connections to Sir Stafford later testified that Lansky had approached him in G. GORDON LIDDY the Syndicate's Chicago chapter; and Barney Baker, described by 1960 with a bribe el 52 million to he deposited in a Swiss bank ac- Robert Kennedy as Holfa's "ambassador of violence." RFlea count in return for a Certificate of Exemption, it piece of legalese In early 1912 Liddy was Justice Department had put Baker in jail but he was released shortly needed to operate a casino in the Bahamas. Sir Stafford claimed to ordered to break Into before the assessination. have refused the offer. Instead he hired out his legal talents to Syndi- Greenspun's safe after it Ruby did not explain why lie was talking to Hoffn's friends. But a cate front men: for this, Stafford collected 51.8 million in legal fees New York Times' story re- major topic of conversation in the Hotta circle during 1962 and 1963 and Lansky's men got the Certificate of Exemption. The casinos ea led the whereabouts of was the Kennedy administration. According to Edward Grady opened in 1964 to the ettendant buzz of the international jet set. Some damaging Hughes Partin, a Baton Rouge Teamster official, Holla complained that Memos, Bur Sir Stafford's arrangement with the Syndicate became so "something has to be done about that little s. o.b.. Bobby Kennedy" blatant it angered local Bahamians. "The natives were restless," .and suggested blowing up the attorney general in his convertible. crime reporter Hank Messick wrote. "and Cuba had proved the clan- Carats Marcello also had asked for revenge against the Kennedys. ger of betting everything on a man or a political party that 110 longer according to a Marcella associate who talked to a government in- enjoyed popular support. If gambling was to survive in the Bahamas. ',name:aut. Marcelo allegedly made a &email.: plea in n secret Syndi- it was necessary to turn control over to a government that offered cate meeting: "Linuril nu perrerill hi sr:agar i'Take the stone out of stability." my shoe") According to Messick. what followed was the slickest maneuver At terse point the Warren Commission did seem interested in of Lansky's career* he engineered his own revolution against Sir whether Ruby tit into the Syndicate with the Komedys. It asked Stafford by having un aide become a secret informant and leak cer. Richard Helms to investigate ties between Ruby and "the Las Vegas tain information about the Syndicate deal with Sands. According gambling uortuntinity." Eight months later Helms replied 'that tee to Messick, it gave the With Street bursa! a Pulitzer Prize and led to CIA hod found "no information on Ruby or his activities." Sir Stafford's sudden retirement In 1967. Allen Dulles presumably was the only Warren Commission mem- A new government headed by Bahamian-horn Lynden D. Pindling ber who knew of the CIA's alliance with the Syndicate. But he did replaced the Bay Street Boys. Pindlmg looked as shining and clean as the sun in the morning. But Messick discovered that Lansky HANK GREENSPUN In 1967, ActOrttiit9 la UM matitame, Mimed* engineered as effnr; no spring Haifa from tug federal prison cell. Along with other Syndicate chieftains. secretly had shoveled thousands of dollars into the campaign that put '' publisher .ncluillue Santa Trofflainte, Maredio offered a SI minion mix fat the ley Pindling in office. Greensputi gathered a box- onveninuant Amen Iv recent his unttrenny against Holfo. Hut the warm To complete the housecleaning, Lansky's front men also ful of Hughes's private dechtled. were removed. The new power in Bahamian gambling became papers and information 24. le a March ifith. 1964, memo. lee Fin admitted it knew of the Mary Carter Paint Company. On the face of it there seemed no about the S100,000 donation links To the Syndicate, "It would appear McW Illie solidified his Syndicate con- necnons through his insoclation in Havana. Cuba, with Santo Trellicente reason why an obscure paint company should venture into the to Nixon. Inaii‘ Meyer and take Ladaity,- rambling business—or why the Bahamian government [Cant. on 77j ROLLING 57050, MAY so, /1176 •17 but Maloney cajoled and felt The gram and the magazine op the old geezer, and tit last changed hands, and ,Sfaioney, Sam was won over. after a hit of .mall talk, mid A time was fixed for Snn la goodbye. Ormond and Mrs. to rendezvnua at the Dixie and Wasserman made their way to Maloney gist the gram. lie was Sam Goody's. The line only elated: thus first issue of Look 50 minutes Keep music simple. Thumlr would be worth a Two hours later channel boa of mints from the right was CAMing in as if the set had Sometimes under the barrage of audio dealer. Someday. he promised lust been born. Mrs. Wrater, himself, he'd have his own cat- man was SU pleased Mai she specifications and claims you can forger the alog and life would 1w simpler. offered w share her yogurt Meanwhile he was learning the with 11)t-rnonil. He accepted. real function of audio components is to bring trade. No money had changed music into your life. Arriving hark at the oixio handt. and .so no crime had they found Mrs. Winizerrnart been committed. Everything reading the nirra for one of was strictly. hors di, rammer-re, Bang & Olufsen, however, has not forgotten Sialoney's colleagues- Ibis, it and everyone got what he this fact as we believe the Beosystem 3500 aptly turned out. was the lady's pro- wanted. As the President had fession, along with horoscopes put it in sine of his vary earliest. demonstrates. Here is a sophisticated and palmistry, and that ex- poems, "Aren't you glad it's automatic turntable, the Beogram 3000, plained the giant plastic palm legal at last to be alive:— in her living roam. united with a critically acclaimed receiver, the Beomaster 3000-2. When Bang & Olufsen's TIE HUGHES-NIXON- new Phase-Linkr" speakers complete the system, you create a remarkably simple way to bring LANKY CONNECTION: the magic of the original performance into TIE SECRET ALLIANCES your listening room. If you really listen to music, but do not want OF THE CIA FROM WORLD to be an audio engineer, in the process, you WAR II TO WATERGATE are probably ready for Bang & Olufsen. Wont, ,r rem, 501 should lei it. But Lansky skim." Busthen Lansky's A full color catalog of all our products is One of Sir Stafford's final tramp men formally withdrew, leaving available upon request. Simply do so. actions had been to give Mary the field to Resorts. Carter Paint a Certificate or Resorts tned to appear sepa- Exemption in exchange far 1240,- rate and distinct from [-milky, f100 in legal fee. rigorously applauding itself as Mary Carter Paint. according en alternative to Syndicate gam- to CIA sources, was a CIA front bling. But Resorts had not group. It Ind been set up by severed all Syndicate tics. As Thonla5 Dewey and Allen Dilate, casino manager it had hired In 1558 Dewey and some friends brother or a top houghs connolling interest hi the Lonsky lieutenant who, accord- Crosby Xliller Corporation with ins: to a ;.;entitc -investigation. in- 12' million in CIA money from tervened Al Resorts to get job, Dulles, who was still CIA diree, for two friends. And according 'or. A year later the Crosby io swam testInanny from Syndi- Miller Corporation merged with cate informant Vincent Tetaa, the paint company. During the junketeers continued to need Bay of Pigs operation in I 9N$ rind Lansky's parmiSsion lo book Ighl, according to CIA sources, their tows into the Bahamas. A Mary Carter laundered CFA disgruntled. Resorts stockholder, payments to the Cuban exile supermarket heir Huntington army. Hartford, later went to chit In L963 the company became court because he believed the part of a Florida. scandal after it Resorts profit COIL/MRS were he- tanned SITIO,P311 to stock pro. ingluggled, a gold-plated clue to minters with .,hest Syndicate hidden partners. Reporters in, connections. But soon afterward vestigated and concluded that, the company began buying land based on the circumstantial evi- ■ to the Bahamas, said its Mary dence, Li nsky was still a moving .01 " OW, Mji : i:%gri -17.2 Cuter paint divivon and ralbst• farce in Bahamian gambling. quently adopted a more convex- At the same time. Mid miles INM hared Caribbean name: Resorts away in i.,.115 Vegas, the Syndicate International.. was changing the face of its Resorts entered the gambling domestic gambling empire. business in 1%S, according. to In 1945 when Lansky's junior CIA sources. to give the agency partner, Bum Siegel, arrived in a conduit for hiding money it Vega. the town's future seemed Bang&Oluisen sends to counterinsurgency as cheerless as the rattlesnakes groups in Central and South that stood sentry in iss vacant liras & 011iken ai Aiwata. hr Americo. Resorts started as part- lots. Vegas clung tentatively to a 4171. Om, Arrnue ners with two Syndicate from patch of desert, as close to ob- fIb Chrns, VI CiAte. ll1lnai 000117 men, a circumstance that per- livion as the next big duster. Then suaded the Jusuct Department's Siegel brought m 52 million in top organized crime tHildal to Synduatte money and began write a worried menu): "The building the Strip. atmosphere seems ripe for a But Siegel's [Cow. on 78] Ll[y/Surrc TM ROLUNG STONE, Me? 51. leer

[Cont. from 773 arrogant and billionaire could quickly essuare spendthrift nature prevented him control of the town's gambling from seeing the project through. business, Howard Hughes had New from Motorola... After a quarrel with Lansky in given Nevada "the (Avid Ifmar- 1947, Siegel was killed by a hired keepink seal of approval." gun who that him through his crowed Nevada governor Paul livingroomwmdow. New Lansky Laxalt. the hot cassettes associates, headed by John Ro- However, the Syndicate didn't tel/I und , replaced step aside out of kindness. ln- Siegel." By the arid-Sixties, Las steod. according to several with the hot button Vegus was the boomtown of the sources, the Syndicate formed a West, enticing thousands of men partnership of syMbiosis with the with a fondness for neon-lit Hughes organization. The Syn- ladies and a Wonitnee4 for bac- dicate supplied casino expertise: carat and blackiack. But then the Hughes lent the necessary re- Justice Department launched its spectability. long-delayed drive to expose A hint that the Syndicate was Syndicate influence in Vegas," still in business in Las Vegas came There was a kind of unrestrnined when Hughes filed his official ferocity in the investigation. Lan. casino winnings. They were much sky himself was later indicted lower than the volume of playing based on evidence that he'd been warranted. a deficit that indi- skimming Vegas from 1960 cated a big-time rake-ott. The through 1966. (The indictment ;Vail Sheet Jourerat reported that claimed Lansky. hod taken 136 millions were being skimmed. million out of just one casino.) The Syndicate desperately ngtV4Z1 But in 1967. Lensky'a old front needed it front. Moe Dalitz, urtetiCIV' 5rwre:n6V„I men disappeared from Vegas, al:w 1" most Games" ca owner of the . was Just as they did its the Bahamas. under investigation. So were oveelari g The man who bought them out Syndicate men at the Frontier was Howard Hughes. and Sands. Hughes aborted these In 1965 Hughes had ejected to investigations by taking title to Nell his TWA stock rather than the duet imsinos. But he kept POWR•BOOSr appear in civil Churl. He had re- Delitz, among others, around ceived 1546,549,771—the largest for advice. "The many contacts I makes dynamite sound single amount ever paid an indi- made with Mr. Dalitz were Made vidual in the history of American in the specific suggestion of Mr. a blast and a half! finance. Hughes. wherein Mr. Hughes Hughes arrived in Vegas by wanted the benefit of his think- private train an November 27th, ing," H ughes at de Robert ME heu 1966. A truck backed up to a later explained. service elevator at the Desert Maheu. the ex-FBI agent who Inn. Hughes was carried ern u had served as intermediary be- stretcher from the back of the tween the Syndicate and the truck into the elevator and was CIA, handled Hughes's takeover soon barricaded in the ninth- in Las Vegas, Hughes also got fluor penthouse of the hotel. help from John Roselli, who, Within three years Hughes along with an associate. collected was Nevada's biggest employer, 5235,000 in tinder's fees in the with a payroll of 150 million. He sale of the Desert Inn and the owned it TV station. prime real Sunda estate and a string of hotel- But Hughes successfully stone• casinos: the Desert Inn, the walled any suggestion that hewers Sands, the , the Fron- now partners .with Lansky. Like tier, the Landmark and the Silver Resorts in the Bahamas, Reek,. Slipper. State earning officials, blitzed the media with publicly assured that Hughes was replac- that claimed just the opposite. If you want the stereo cassette for your car that has everything. check out one of ing the Syndicate, waived most Newspapers and television rtes these new Motorola& rules—including the submission works, having no chance to qui: of a recent photograph—so the Each is is complete entertainment center with AM/FM Stereo Radio and each Hughes, accepted this line, .n.s diddle has Vegas city fathers and has POWR'BOOST'1'. Hit this hot button and it boosts the sound level and en- 25. Paths had owner: I Havana Nixon's Justice Department. casino and, by his own admission, had hances the highs. Makes dynamite sound a blast and a half! known Lanky for 30 years. In 1973 Dallu land three ,associates) Weil a Robert Kennedy left the And that's Just the beginning. You name it and Motorola's got II ... fast forward tutu minion suit against EenthOlat Tice Department in 1964 to run after the magarene described him us a with mute and cuing . slide bar switching for AM/FM cartridge activated Syndicate member. However, In a 1962 for the Senate. President John- tape/radio switch. Why settle for just a stereo cassette when Motorola gives you conversation wiretapped by the son, preoccupied with Vietnam Della ranked himself with Resent anti happy to be rid of RFK (or one in a complete entertainment center? and Sam•Giancana "1 was seen with political reasons, turned the job them. I don't think that's pee," of Syndicate-hunting heck to J, See and hear the new cassettes at your nearest Motorola dealer. Dante said. referring to a mooting with Roselll and Mumma, ''It tics the Edgar Hoover. The FBI director Unfilled One Year Warranty whole Molt up." Delia la also elrege re deflated the Justice Department's III. In the late sixties he drive against organized :rime Motorola warrants that it will correct product defects during the first year following your became part owner of La Costa and returned to his number one to take your record of purchase and your Motorola car Country Cl.b leer Sun f)atgo, a purchase you merely have plush revers allegedly financed by S57 concern—hounding communists stereo to one of our authorized stations_ malice In Teamster pennant money_ and other radicals. The Syndica te La Costa served as a meerma Place in There are thousands at Motorola authorized warranty stations covering all 5,:.) states began to recover from the Ken- Pn3 tar Nixon's White House aides nedy years. to help keep your Motorola sound on wheels sounding just right. who were mapping eat Watergate strategy. For a while R Fle..'s hid for the Complete warranty details are packed with each unit. Ask your Motorola dealer to 26. The Justice Department's war presidency in 1968 threatened on the Syndicate never regained the show them to you and read them carefully. the Syndicate. But an assassin snow fervor after John Kennedy': ended the Kennedy carnpaism. murder. fly t967 dxi organieed crime rectum woe working half as many days Instead, Richard Nixon was and tiling eta••; fewer court brief ri :ban elected. Disc of Nixon's First MOTOROLA heron the assassination. muses as We-Si- Worm on 80] 8 SOME17-IING ELSE in sound' Oh wheels

BO ROLLING STOWS Mar M. lrat

Warn. from Znclent was to fire The investigators did not peeve until the mortgnige was paid MT Robert Morgenthau from the the bank was laundering money four years later. U.S. attorney's job in New York. for Resorts. But they did learn As president. Nixon perfected Morgenthuu, considered the that Crosby had given SI00.000 quid pro quo. When he took of- toughest prosecutor left in the to Nixon just before the 1968 fice, the major remaining symbol When you join Justice Department, had been in- New Hampshire primary, the of the Kentiedys' Syndicate- vestigating the Syndicate's con- pivotal event in Nixon's come- busting legacy was on imprisoned nections in the Bahamas. back Jimmy Huila. Then in 1971 Nixon had his own Bahamian As it worked out, the 5100,000 Nixon commuted the former Ludwig's connection. He had vacationed Teamster boss's sentence eight from the head of Resorts helped there in 1962. contemplating the put Nixon in the White House. years ahead al schedule. Soon prospects of an unemployed Nit- Then a separate Sl00,000 from after, Nixon begun aCCurnulating Moan, alter turning his back on Howard Hughes, in an unexpect- TOM1Ster donations eventually Spotlight totaling- more than SI million.. the voters and reporters of Cali- ed twist, became crucial to his fornia. He had spent the next eviction, Then in Nixon half-decade playing the role of NOUNS'S eagerness for such secured another early release for Revolution Republican gadfly and repairing boodle was a dominating force real estate developer Calvin Kov- his political career. With same in his career, In 1966 Rebozo's ens, who had been convicted of help from Thomas Dewey, he Cape Florida Development pension-fund fraud along with also became a Wail Street lawyer Company had bought up SI 'na- Hotta. Eight days before the you're in good with new contacts in the corpo- tion in prime waterfront lots on Kovens parole, former senator rate nOahlishment. Key Biscayne. Rebozo had Smothers railed White House In January 1960 Nixon re- trouble selling them until Nixon aide Chuck Colson to urge the company. turned to the Bahamas as a posed for a promotional picture move. "I was talking to Bebe presidential candidate and an with Rebozo's partner, Donald [Rebozo] about it," Smothers honored -guest at the opening of Berg, a man the Secret Service told Colson in a taped conversa- the new Resorts casino. The Re- later found so disreputable that tion, "and said, 'Bebe, it looks sorts yacht was placed at Isis it stopped Nixon from eating at to me that this would be a pretty disposal and he soaked up the Berg's Jamaica Inn Restaurant good thing to dn.*" A few sunshine, in Key Biscayne. IThe reason for months later the Nixon reelec- Nixon had our the Resorts the Secret Service's brushotr was tion campaign received a secret Span!ghat:id: beard chairman. James Crosby. Berg's connection to u Syndicate 5:41,1101.1 in cash from Kovens. Roger Pope with Elton John at a party in late 1967. Crosby's front man—a 1960 Nixon cam- Une month niter Nixon moved father hod been it member of paign contributor—who had into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. the secret circle that lobbied for been tastrumenuil in establishing Bob Haldeman sent a tap-secret establishment of the CIA after Lanky in the Bahamas. memo ro John Ehrlichman: "Re- World War II. Crosby had been Rebind gave Nixon a 33% bozo has been inked by the presi- an executive in a Wall Street discount on two undeveloped dent to contact J. Paul Getty in brokr.rage until 1938 when, ac- Iota. (Mc lot had a mortgage London regarding major eontri- cording to CIA sources, Dewey held by Arthur Dosser, adirector butions. The funds should go to and Dulles placed him at the of the. Miami National Bank. some operating entity other than Cranky Miller Corporation, the which Lansky allegedly used to the National [Republican] Com- CIA front group that became launder money skimmed from mittee so that we can retain full Resorts International. Vegas casinos.. Nixon kept his control of their use." Nixon was introduced to Cros- tie to Baser unadvertised by not White-Mouse memos did not by by Bebe Rebtrzo, the Florida recording the deed to the lot record 'whether Rebozo ever ap- emrepreneur who had become proached ail billionaire Getty. Nixon's best friend. Crosby kept 27, In 1973 a convicted stock awin• But =cording to the Senate an account at Rebozo's Key Bis- liar told a Smote omemureitme that Watergate committee. Rebozo cayne bank, a relationship that he scout Rebom'a bank at 1969 to cash did serve Nixon as a courier and a 3115,000 check, a chock originally Watergate investigators later obtained by telling purloined WW1- launderer of money kept in a stumbled acrceswhen they began lico. The swtndler had this to say about Secret White House cache, shut- looking into an allegation that Reboxia undreamed he'd take a tling these unattached funds Rebozo's bank was being used hot nova if you offered it to him." through disparate bank accounts Today's drummers are as free-spirited and Rehoso was ea:insider.' an expert in to launder Resorts contributions and then shelling them out to Individualistic as today's music. They're extralegal profiteering. Reboot had to Nixon. wrangled live loons nut of Small indulge Nixon.. getting like never before. And Rebozo had opened his bank flusinesa Administration (SBA) during Rebozo tried to hide these they're making some revolutionary changes the Balks. thanks to pact w Senator payments in a tangle of expert in the early Sixties, had hung &netball. who sat nn the Small Busi- [Corn. on 821 in the way people think about drummers. Nixon's picture next to the nag ness Committee and who .1001Z a financial manna- And Ludvieg's got the dorms of change ... and had given Nixon the account lane recommending Sabozo to the labeled number one. The bank SBA. Moamar Investigated and de- N. But Nixon placed conditions on the most sensational selection of colors. Han', parole, which prevented his soon developed a reputation for nounced the SRN "for wheeling and textures. finishes available In Wood, Via- dealing ... art Raburces behalf." The return Sr Teamster politics until 1960, trafficking in stolen securities. bluest loan, which turned a 3200,13e0 in keep Frank Fitemmons happy. Mar and Stainless Steel. In one case Rebozo accepted profit for Reborn, went too construc- Fitzsunmino, Houten menesror as IBM securities, reportedly stolen tion protect handled by Al" Teamstar president, engineered cam• Join the good company of Ludwig. You P061.0, a convicted black marketers paten support for Nixon in 1972, In won't be alone. Send for the revolutionary by a New York Mafia family, and who once smuggled rum from Cuba early 1973, shortly after Nieces re. neW Outfit Catalog and see it all In living sold them for cash even though and also had been named. at Senate denim, Attorney General Richard he suspected they were dubious. tau-loony "as one of the mint in- Menu:Bean canceled FBI waning.' tolori (He called Crosby and Nixtm"s nuendol members of the uederwarid." that, according to the Nov tech Tim., "had begun to strip the coven from a brother, Donald, to check on 26. Lansky's use of the Miami Na- tional Bona surfaced in a 1969 federal Mahe elan Is reap millions of dollars them. is Indictment The same bank had been in payoffs from the wd fare funds of dm But some investigators felt an- controlled erosions!), by the Team- Inurrational Brotherhood a 'Team- other hank function was to abet sters. In the 1956-66 decode of sters." Lou Kosanove, identified by the limos as an "annul for the (likeno a skins from lemons. Franklin Tonniner-Symiama control, the gov- ernment indicted tune top bunk Me- crime syndtcate," roes with Finsitn• Deflocr• a former trust eflicer dals for a variety of offenses, A tenth moos m La Conn Country Club on the at the bunk, mid the Watergate official, the fixrner chief execurive of- morning of February 121h, 1173. A investigators that a Resorts"bag- ficer. left to found the latornetional few hours Max Fitzsimmons new with Nixon from California at Washington man" hod brought money from Bank of Miami, then headed the Flor• Ida citizens cementer. for Nis,. in D.C. aboard the presidential plane. the Bahamas to Rebozo's bank. 1963. On the hoard of directors at the On February 27th. R01-01.10V4 was Another bank Official gave a laturantionel Rank of Miami was overheard boasting of a deal between sworn statement to Florida in- Jana Aogleton, woo. until his testa.- him and Finammions. A weak liter vestigators that the same courier nation during as, 197445 CIA scan- bliaort's attorney general efroGivaly Ludwig Industries dal, was duet et the CIA's cannier. shut down the FBI Invenigadon of had come to the bank after nor- Intelilgence Meow and the alleged Finaimissans. 1728 North Damen Avenue mal business hours and ex- head of the CIA's domestic spy ea• 30. In a March 23m, 1971, con • Chicago. II. 60647 changed 520 bills for ¶11)0 work. venation recorded by KM, 621 was in a position to cut off the Nixon campaign. then had been major market for Hughes's lag- hired by the Hughes organization ging division by ending as a "Nixon liaison." Rebozo the . So Hughes sent broached the subject of money, a memo in early 1969 telling Danner told the Watergate corn Maheu he "should get to our [Cons. from 80] ulations. One mittee, by needling him about [new] friends in Washington to payment was meandered through Hughes's supposed favoritism to- see what could be done about three bank accounts and a cash- ward , grum- keeping the war in Vietnam ier's check, none of them even bling that Hughes had donated going." (By 1974 Hughes was the in his name. He succeeded in more to Humphrey's 1968 cam- country's eighth largest Pentagon confusing the trail enough to paign than to Nixon's. According contractor, with backlog orders conceal most expenditures—and of $825 million, becoming so in burying the identities of the [Cunt. from 801 a White House hug. Nixon discussed a deal with John much a part of the defense estab- slush fund's moneygivers where Connally. "There's a very substantial lishment that Nixon offered to they could not be exhumed. allocation of oil in that will he have Henry Kissinger brier But there was one critical ex- at your discretion," Connally said. Hughes on the antiballistic mis- ception, a $100,000 donation "Fine," Nixon answered. But Con- sile system) from Howard Hughes. nally continued, "Unless you want somebody else to do it. Somebody ..." Hughes's second concern was That somebody apparently was Re- the Atomic Energy Commission's By 1968 Hughes was close to bozo. (AEC) testing under the Nevada becoming the world's richest man desert. He feared the aftereffects and Robert Maheu was en- and he felt the tests were stra- sconced as Hughes's charge, daft tegically worthless—as he ex- sires on a $520,000 annual re- plained in another memo to tainer. In the spring of 1968 Maheu: "Of course, we must be Hughes handed Maheu a top- careful not to place ourselves in priority instruction: "1 want you the position of disclosing mili- to go to see Nixon as my special tary secrets. But I can tell you, confidential emissary. I feel there based upon actual Defense De- is a really valid possibility of a partment technical information, Republican victory this year. If legally in my hands, that this last that could be realized under our AEC statement is pure 99 proof sponsorship and supervision. unadulterated shit." (Confronted every inch of the way, then we with Hughes's antagonism, the would be ready to follow with AEC did move its testing ground Laxalt [the politically unknown from Nevada to Amchitka Island Nevada governor] as our next off Alaska, at a cost to taxpayers candidate." of $100 million.) Hughes must have been Third, Hughes needed ap- cheered when he heard a few proval from the White House be- months later that the man with fore he could take over Air West whom he'd dealt so compatibly airlines. (Hughes received Nix- as vice-president had reached the on's personal go-ahead in 1969, White House. A month after the just about the time the first election Hughes decided to con- $50,000 installment—$100 bills tribute to Nixon's private cache. cinched in bank wrappers and In December 1968. Maheu took stuffed in a manila envelope— $50,000 in $100 hills from the was delivered to Rebozo.) cage at the casino Fourth, Hughes wanted anti- and flew to Palm Springs where trust laws waived so he could Nixon was attending the Re- purchase the Dunes Hotel. publican Governors Association Hughes already had bought up Conference. Maheu told the five big hotel-casinos and, by late Watergate committee that he 1969. was angling for the 1000- drove to the house where Nixon to Senate testimony, Danner room Dunes. But the Justice was staying and waited in the car took this message to Maheu, who Depattment's antitrust division while a consort went inside. agreed to send money to Nixon opposed granting Hughes an Apparently it was Hughes's in- through Rebozo. even bigger monopoly on Vegas. tention that the money be deliv- Hughes had at least four favors So in early 1970 Maheu sent ered to Nixon personally, a high- in mind: Danner to talk with the "boss." handed and risky procedure at Hughes had just lost a major in this case Attorney General which Nixon balked. defense contract because of ad- John Mitchell, who had worked Maheu returned to Vegas with verse publicity that developed with Danner on Nixon's 1968 campaign. Mitchell and Danner the $50,000. Shortly thereafter, when a House subcommittee however, Rebozo sought out round that his money again had closeted together in three secret meetings over a period of seven Richard Danner, the ex-FBI been wining and dining top weeks. Then Mitchell gave the agent who 20 years before had Pentagon generals. Now Nixon green light. Maheu subsequently introduced Nixon to Rebozo. authorized the second . $50,000, Danner had worked on the 1968 explaining to a Hughes lawyer "that certain political obligations R01.

had to be met" because of Dan- merit's first Orgaruzed Crime ner'; meetings with Mitchell. Task Force, a job that got him Danner again carried the money acquainted with Resorts. Pelo- in a manila envelope to Rebozo. ,quirt was the prosecutor who (Mitchell's supposed excuse investigated Resorts and initially for approving the Dunes sale reported that "the atmosphere was that Hughes was fighting the seems ripe for a Lunsky skim." Syndicate in Vegas. But Danner But in 1966 he suddenly retired told the Watergate committee from the Justice Department and that, in actuality, Mitchell felt went to work for the CIA front Hughes had not really affected group Resorts. the Syndicate's standing in the By 1970 Peloquin—with $2 casinos.) million in backing from Resorts Three years later, when Water- —had assembled Intertel, having gate investigators began beating recruited operatives from the in- on the White House door, Re- ner precincts of the CIA, FBI, bozo became alarmed that the IRS, , $100,000 from Hughes would be Department of State, Scotland discovered. At 8 a.m. on April Yard, Interpol, Customs Bureau, 30th,, with Nixon about to an- Royal 'Canadian Mounted Po- nounce the exit of his White lice, Bureau of Narcotics and House front line before network Dangerous Drugs—and J. Ed- TV cameras in the Oval Office, gar Hoover's only nephew. Rebozo hurriedly conferred Installed as an Inter-Lei vice- down the hall in the Fish Room president was James Golden, with Nixon's personal lawyer, known as "Nixon's man" at Herbert Kalmbach. According Resorts. Golden had been a to Kalmbach, Rebozo was wor- Secret Serviceman assigned to ried because part of the $100,000 guard Vice President Nixon in had been spent by Nixon's sec- the Fifties and had returned as retary and his two brothers. security director at the 19613 Howard Hughes's $100,000 Republican Convention. After- payment to Nixon's secret cache ward, At Nixon's request, Re- almost certainly would have sorts had hired Golden as its staved undetected if Hughes had deputy director of 'security. not tired Robert Maheu in No- (From there Golden went to In- vember 1970. tertel. then to a top security job For more than ten years Ma- with Hughes and finally back to heu had handled assignments Washington under Nixon as for the CIA and the Hughes or- chief of the organized crime sec- ganization. In the espionage, tion in the Law Enforcement As- business and criminal nether- sistance Administration.) worlds, his connections were in- In the summer of 1970, Pelo- valuable. With Maheu as his top quin and the Resorts president lieutenant, Hughes had been came to Las Vegas, shared drinks awarded several CIA contracts. and a floor show with Bebe Re- including one to build an intelli- bozo and Richard Danner and gence-gathering satellite. Yet visited with Chester Davis. Ac- Maheu had made some miscalcu- cording to a Hughes insider, lations. The Dunes deal, for in- Peloquin and Davis reached a stance, had fallen through when tentative agreement. Intertel last-minute arithmetic showed would replace Maheu as the fix-it it was a bad risk. Maheu also had expert in the Hughes organiza- fired John Meier, who allegedly tion. And Hughes would replace was defrauding Hughes on min- Resorts in the Bahamas. .ing deals. However, Hughes ap- IBy 1970 Lansky had become parently liked Meier because as reclusive as Hughes, hiding out Meier was a buddy to Donald in Israel, trying to avoid the Nixon, the president's brother. lingering repercussions of Bobby Soon after the Dunes deal Kennedy's Las Vegas investiga- backfired, Chester Davis, a long- tion. The Syndicate did not want time Hughes counsel and a bitter another major investigation in oval of Ma heti, made his move to the Bahamas. But already some oust him. Davis approached In- investigative reporters were try- tertel, a "security" firm with ing to uncover Lansky between better CIA connections than the balance sheets. Hughes could Maheu. provide a much better front; his Intertel was born in the Ba- anti-Syndicate stance in Vegas hamas, the offspring of Resorts' was still uncompromised.) anti-Syndicate posturing, Inter- For Hughes it was a chance to tel was supposed to be a private put the Western Hemisphere's police force to keep two premium gambling centers away from the casinos, What in his name. Hughes already had Intertel became, however, was a contemplated moving to the Ba- private CIA-for-hire that relied hamas. Hughes representatives on computer data, political IOUs had met with [Cunt. on 84] and inside connections." The Intertel president, Robert 31. When Resorts wanted to find Peloquin, began his career as a out what Syndicate informant Vincent Teresa was telling federal officials member of the snoop society, He about Resorts' lies to Lansky, for in- worked for Naval Intelligence, stance, lntertel managed to interrogate the National Security Agency Teresa privately—even though Teresa and the Justice Department's was then a valuable federal informant guarded round the clock by U.S. mar- Security Division. Then he had shals. Teresa's testimony about Re- been chief of the Justice Depart- sorts subsequently came to naught. , 19'76

(Cont. from 83) Resorts executives Hughes to the U.S. But their plan during the previous year to dis- was foiled when Inter-Mrs Gold- cuss the chance of buying up the en, along with a police squad, Bahamian franchise. If he did rounded them up and had them expand to the Caribbean, Hughes deported for "working without a told Maheu In a taped conversa- permit." H ughta then telephoned tion, "1 would expect you really Nevada governor Laxalt to say to wrap that government up that he had not been kidnapped down there to a point where it and that he had fired Maheu. would be—well—a captive en- Maheu's historical significance tity in every way." might have ended there. But Chester Davis's proposed deal Richard Nixon came to view with Intertel offered Hughes that Maheu as a threat because the opportunity only if Maheu was ex-aide's loyalties had been cut eliminated. But, according to adrift and because he knew too CIA sources, the humid scenario much—as one White House held an added incentive irresist- memo put it. "Maheu's tentacles ible to Hughes. According to touch many extremely sensitive the sources, Intertel officials areas of government. each of broached the idea of a mammoth which is fraught with potential CIA contract that would turn for Jack Anderson-type ex- Hughes's parent company into posure." the CIA's most valuable front. The White House Plumbers The CIA would pay Hughes an were not yet operative. So the estimated 5360 million to build IRS was asked to examine the , a super- Maheu's bank account, to search sophisticated rig to work in the for a heavy-handed tool of co- ocean's depths. The CIA said it ercion—an indictment. When wanted the Glomar to retrieve Maheu suddenly found himself military codes and nuclear war- under IRS scrutiny, he decided heads from a Soviet to confide in Hank Greenspan, sunk three miles deep in the the highly independent publisher Pacific." of the Las Vegas San. At midnight on Thanksgiving By 1971 Greenspan had gath- eve 1970, Intertel agents carried ered a boxful of Hughes's private Hughes down a back stairs at the papers and information about Desert Inn and through the only the SI00,000 donation to Nixon. door that wasn't monitored by The material had come through Maheu's closed-circuit TV sys- sources within the Hughes or- tem. A decoy caravan of black ganization, much of it presum- sedans was dispatched to the ably from Maheu. Greenspun civil airport while Intertel ferried revealed this information to Jack Hughes to an Air Force base and Anderson over dinner in Wash- loaded him aboard a Lockheed ington. Greenspan had known JetStar bound for the Bahamas. the columnist since the early According to one account, Fifties when both had brawled Hughes was met there by James editorially against Senator Golden, the Imertel executive Joseph McCarthy. and Nixon friend. On August 6th, 1971, ten Maheu, who usually communi- months before the Watergate ailed with his employer only burglary, Anderson's column through handwritten notes, did described the bare details of the not learn of the mysterious de- 5100,000 transaction. parture until two weeks later. On September 26th, 1971, At first Maheu could not believe Hank Greenspan trekked to he'd been replaced. More likely, Portland, Oregon, where Nixon he thought, Intend had kid- was intervening in it longshore- napped Hughes for some unde- men's strike. Nixon knew G reen- fined purpose of its own. spun as an idealistic newspaper- So Vinheti sent a team of men man, is Hughes eritic and a to the Bahamas. They located Nixon friend for many years, in Hughes's new aerie atop the Bri- approximately that order. The tannia Beach Hotel and camped MO posed for the usual gaggle of a floor below. Then they ob- photographers. Then Greenspun Mined a search warrant to break cornered Nixon confidant Herb into the penthouse; they had a Klein and, according to Green- boat standing by to return spun's notes of the meeting, warned Klein that the SMARM 32. Many CIA experts believe the nizn, potentially could "sink Russian sub story was actually a cover L since the codes were outdated and the About two weeks later. on value of the ether information wits Onc possibility is that the October 12th, Greenspan re- CIA, warned about the growing trend ceived a visit from Herb Kalm- of Third World cartels demanding bach, the Nixon lawyer. Accord- Welter prices fur minerals, awarded ing to Greenspan, Kalmbach Hughes the 5350 million to develop an advanced technology fur under- spent two hours scribbling on water mining—thereby giving Hughes yellow legal pads, taking down a head start toward a bonanza with Greenspun's answers to ques- more potential than oil while helping dons about his knowledge of the protect U.S. hegemony over the world's mineral trade. Another theory 5100,000. is that the CIA, In conjunction with In late December the White the U.S./ Navy, used rho Glomar to House Plumbers unit discussed a sut up undetected missile sites on the plan. which apparently was never ocean floor as a way pi eticating any arena limitation treaty with the Soviet attempted, to assassinate Jack Union. Anderson by coating his car's steermg wheel with a poison that "we have evidence" that money would be absorbed through his had been illicitly funneled skin. According to Anderson, through Rebozo. The White the Plumbers hoped to obtain House earlier had heard rumors the poison from the CIA.. that Maheu had squirreled away Then in early 1972, McGraw- hundreds of Hughes's handwrit- Hill Publishing Company an- ten communications. Were they nounced it was about to release the evidence? If so, where were the inside story of Howard those papers? Hughes's real-life shenanigans. That answer was supplied- a in front-page articles on January week tater, on February 3rd, 16th and January 17th, the New 1972. A Nov York Times head- York Tunes q noted excerpts from line reported that "hundreds of the McGraw-Hill book that copies of Hughes memos are charged Nixon with being a readily available in Las Vegas." political fixer for Hughes. The Times reporter Wallace Turner book, authored by freelancer had discovered their hiding , purported to be place: a boxy Meilink safe stuck based on his interviews with in a corner of Greenspun's office, Hughes. The Hughes organiza- ironically under an autographed tion knew that to be false. But picture of Nixon posing with the book did contatn a disturbing Greenspun in Portland. "Wally plethora of details. According to Turner is an old friend of mine," several sources, both Hughes and Greenspun explained matter-of- the White House feared that factly. "He came to my office looking fora story and I couldn't send him away empty-handed. So I told him about the Hughes papers." Greenspun had not told Turner exactly what the papers said, just that he had them secreted m his sae. The next day there was a secret meeting at the Justice Department offices in Washing- ton. G. Gordon Liddy, an ex- district attorney, had spent the past several weeks trying to sell a political espionage plan to JOHN MITCHELL Mitchell. It had been turned When Mitchell was attorney down as expensive, risky and in- general in 19711. Hughes effective. But on February 41h, wanted antitrust laws 1972, with Turner's story only a waived so he could buy the day old, Liddy was given a go- Dunes Hotel. Mitchell ahead. Campaign director John eventually approved. Mitchell, according to deputy director kb Magruder, ordered Maher was Irving's ghostwriter, Liddy to scout prospects for using the book to tattle on breaking into Greenspun's safe, Hughes and Nixon.' According to an unpublished section of the Watergate com- McGraw-Hill had decided Irv- mittee report, "Mitchell not only ing's book was authentic. Then brought up the Greenspun entry in a theatrical phone call from operation but also urged Liddy his Bahamas penthouse, Hughes to consider it as more pressing stopped McGraw-Hill's presses and important than the other by denouncing both Irving and targets discussed." Mabel' as frauds. But check- 31 mating Irving's book—to which (Mitchell allegedly told Liddy Maheu upparently contributed that Greenspun's safe contained nothing—did not prevent a new documents linking Democratic candidate Edmund Muskie move from Greenspan and An- to derson. the Mafia. But Watergate burglar James McCord assumed this was On January 24th Anderson's a pretext. McCord testified that column again mentioned the he believed Mitchell and Nixon $100,000 and added a proviso: were afraid Greenspun had "ma- terial which would presumably 33. The .1-1.1ndosi Stnuluy Times team incriminate the president and his • that investigated the Irving boss did find a curious piece of evidence sug- friends ." ) gesting the Idea did originate with According to the unpublished Maheu or his allies. In late November Watergate report, Liddy referred 1970, the same time Maheu was fired, the Irving's wife told friends that her hus- Greenspun job to Howard band was contemplating "a proposi- Hunt, the ex-CIA operations of- tion" worth 550%000 from men -who ficer at the Bay of Pigs who would stop at nothing to achieve their recently had taken a new job as own ends--even murder." The Sunday the "dirty tricks" expert for the Times reporters felt that this 'proms. salon" involved the Hughes biog- White House Plumbers. Hunt raphy. (The book also disturbed old met with Ralph Winte, a Hughes ghosts. A New York Timex investiga- security director, (Cont. on 1361 tion, apparently prompted by the book, revealed on January 23rd, 1972, that the Kennedy administration had 34. The Senate committees investi- seriously considered banging influ- gation of the Greenspun burglary was ence-selling charges against Nixon for deleted from the lima report. Rouirrio his role in Hughes's 1956 loan to STONE has obtained a copy of the un- Nixon'( brother.) published section.

1'576

'Cunt. from 85 to discuss the the 1965 stillborn invasion." "commonality of interest" be- James McCord, a CIA security tween the White House and the chief, had played a minor role in Hughes organization. Winte, ac- the Bay of Pigs and then also cording to Hunt, agreed to find a worked on Hunt's second-inva- Hoer diagram of Greenspun's of- sion plan, Eugenio Martinez, flee. Two weeks inter, on Febru- still on a CIA retainer a decade ary 19th, Hunt and Liddy flew after the Bay of Pigs, had be- to Los Angeles and met Winte at longed to the exile army and the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Wine later had participated in an esti- allegedly had prepared the free- mated 300 harassment raids hand floor plan and offered to against Castro. The best-known supply lookouts during the bur- burglar was Frank Sturgis, the glary. Hunt was not satisfied. He self-styled Bay of Pigs double wanted Winte to provide an air- agent. plane for a quick getaway to Cen- Now an were employed in the tral America where the contents White House Plumbers unit and of the safe could be quietly split again their chief was Howard between Hughes and the White Hunt. Except for McCord, the House. fella had been handpicked by Liddy. Hunt and Winte liner Hunt through his lingering con- claimed that preparations broke tarts in Miami's "Little Havana," down at this point and that the Hunt claimed to have retired break-in was aborted. But in a from the CIA in the summer of taped conversation on April 1970 after 25 years as an agent. 14th, 1973, Ehrtichman told Nix- He had spent the first half of on that the Greenspun mission 1971 at the Mullen Agency, a was successful; "They flew out, Washington-based public rela- broke [into] his safe, got some- tions firm purchased in 1970 by thing out."10 Robert Bennett. Chuck Colson, In any Lase, the Plumbers next the White House's resident trou- focused on Democratic pert), bleshooter, had known both chairman Larry O'Brien, an Bennett and Hunt for years. Edward Kennedy confidant and When Colson realized be needed a party loyalist who studiously assistance in plugging up Nixon's avoided controversy and head- leaky affairs, he talked to Bennett lines. O'Brien also had been about borrowing Hunt. Bennett . Hughes's chief Washington rep- concurred and, in July 1971, resentative in 1969 and 1970. He had been hired by his friend, Robert Maheu, and he had worked for Hughes when the 5.100,000 took its discomforting journey. O'Brien had been dis- missed along with Maheu when Hughes left Las Vegas. If Maheu had evidence about the 5100,000, so might O'Brien. And he might only be waiting for an opportune moment to smash it, like an overripe melon. between Nixon's ears in the Forthcaming election. The White House had been ROBERT BENNETT worried about O'Brien for more His Mullen Agency was a than a year. Haldeman, Ehrlich- CIA front. To protect the man, Rebozo and White House CIA during Watergate. special counsel had Bennett approached reporter all searched for political dirt on Bob Woodward with infor- O'Brien. They had come up mation. empty-handed. So, according to Senate testimony, John Mitchell Hum began moonlighting at $100 authorized a second burglary- a day at the White House. 013tieres office at Democratic Public relations man Bennett, national headquarters in the a Mormon and the son of a U.S. Watergate Office Building. senator, hardly seemed a lit con- The Watergate burglars were fidant for Hunt and Colson. Yet all veterans of the Bay of Pigs Bennett cultivated their friend- operation. , a ship, provided surprising assist- former member of Batista's se- ance and took a special interest cret police. had been the invasion in the White House's undercover paymaster and reportedly an activities. Bennett coordinated officer under .Howard Hunt in the hiring of an operative to spy on the Democrats for Nixon and 35. Some confusion about this still furnished him a bed in his own eXi51-9. Greenspan says his algae was house. Bennett arranged an in- burglarized — aluminum sills pried apart. a catch jimmied, wooden shut. terview for Hunt to collect anti- tars Shoved aside and a steel Mute Kennedy material about Chappa- upped off the from of his Mailing safe. quiddick. He helped author a nut he says nothing was stolen. press release that tried to dis- 36, According to Jack Anderson, Darker was also an investor in rcal credit Ja ckAnders on's ITT memo mime dents Involving blobs Reims°. in the Dita Beard case. And he According to CIA :,,ources, Barker set up 150 dummy campaign and Rcbow net during the Ray of committees so Nixon donors Rigs operation when both were fun- neling money to the CIA-Munroe in- could avoid gift taxes. vaders. In addition, it was Bennett ROLLING STONE, MA l' 197s

who allegedly introduced Hunt White House decision making. to the Hughes security director According to CIA sources, in the early stages of the Green- Helms feared that the proposed spun break-in plan. Bennett hap- Huston plan—which would have pened to know the Hughes peo- set up a domestic intelligence ple because he had just been bureau—was Nixon's attempt to hired us their Washington repre- undercut the CIA with his per- Buds sentative, taking the place of sortal spy network. Larry O'Brien. Shortly after the CIA learned To the White House, Bennett's of the Huston Plan in mid-1970, connection to Hughes seemed an Howard Hunt abruptly "retired" added attribute. White House the from the agency and went to memos about Bennett in 1971 work for Robert Bennett's Mul- and 1972 contained a smugness; len Agency. Instead of imple- Colson and other Nixon aides menting the Huston Plan, Nixon congratulated themselves that set up the Plumbers and Hunt h4 they had a new ally in the Hughes ended up recruiting a group of organization. But Nixon's men operatives who owed their alle- Enjoy huge discout apparently did not know about giance .to the CIA. .Hunt's role Our new stereo cat Bennett's other connections. at the White House later became They learned much later that the a matter of controversy. White systems and single pencil-pushing Bennett was a House aide Chuck Colson came The Warehouse Sot CIA man. to view Hunt as a CIA double According to 1974 congres- agent sent by Helms to monitor shamefully low ma sional testimony, Bennett's com- Nixon and compile potential pany had been a CIA front since blackmail material. "The presi- Comes in two plea! its inception in 1959, arranging dent was systematically exclud- low and we'll send cover for CIA agents in Asia and ing the CIA from a lot of his $1 for postage, an( Europe and assisting CIA activi- foreign policy deliberations," ties in this country. During the Colson told a private investigator we'll rush both out Bay of Pigs preparations, it had in May 1974, is few months be- catalog and the helped set up the Cuban Freedom fore Nixon's resignation. "So Committee, it CIA support group they had two choices: one to 1976 Music Ma- that tried to sabotage Castro's infiltrate and spy on him . - or chine Almanac: it' first sugar crop. they could see themselves losing Bennett had placed himself at their team. I'm convinced that a full-color 130-pa the nexus of the Hughes-Nixon- Hunt was the CIA vehicle, Hunt guide to hi-fi CI A imbroglio, a unique position didn't go to work for the Mullen that gave him entree to all three Agency because he happened to equipment com- principals. After Robert Maheu's find a good job there. He was plete with photos tiring, for instance, Bennett per- posted there by Dick Helms. All and specs on 30 formed the following chores: (1) the time that Hunt was on the for the White House, he supplied Mullen payroll lie was reporting different brands. information about Maheu's biweekly to the CIA, Then Hunt friendship with O'Brien; (2) for starts coming over to me, bring- For even faster the CIA, he investigated how ing me cigars and inviting me relief ... get much influence Mnheu held with over to his house. He recruits the Nixon; (3) for the Hughes or- team of Cubans and works him- amazing price quo. ganization, he tried to trace the self into the job at the White the phone! Call 81 extent of Maheu's relationship House," to the CIA. Helms claimed he barely knew or write: P.O. Box After the Watergate burglary, Hunt. But reporter Tad Saute San Luis Obispo, I however, Bennett charted a revealed that Helms and Hunt course that protected the CIA actually were good friends. And and Hughes at the expense of a House committee later did find Nixon. evidence that Helms had per- WAREHI sonally placed Hunt at the Mul- By 1972 the some Richard Nix- len Agency. SOUND on who had worked so closely James McCord. another battle- with the CIA on the Bay of Pigs tested agent, left the CIA at the invasion no longer enjoyed the same time as Hunt and went to agency's unreserved trust. Ac- work for Nixon's campuign com- cording to CIA sources, CIA di- mittee. That seemed suspicious rector Richard Helms had come when McCord later told the Sen- to believe that Nixon aides were ate Watergate committee how steeling agency prerogatives for he felt about the CIA's rivalry a power-hungry White House. with the White House. "It ap- Helms belonged to the old-boy peared to me that the White espionage school that Allen House had for some time been Dulles had headmustered. He EAR-AIC trying to get political control over had served with Dulles in the OSS the CIA assessments and esti- during World War II and had mates in order to make them con- n become the most powerful of I want fast relief, form to 'White House policy,' " so here's my $1 Dulles's proteges at the CIA. McCord said, adding that he felt for both your 96- na Early in his administration, Nixon had prevented the CIA page color catalog according to Watergate investi- from conducting its "business and the Music Ma- gators, Nixon had tried to enlist with complete integrity and hon- chine Almanac VIA ad the CIA as a special arm of the esty in the national interest." FIRST CLASS MAIL White House. Helms balked, But then the arrest of the and Nixon began to resent the Watergate burglars placed the agency's independent nature. At CIA in a devilishly awkward Just send me the the same time. Helms suspected spot. The men behind bars had free catalog alone that the Nixon palace guard, es- demonstrable CIA backgrounds. via third class mail. pecially John Ehrlichman, was Even more embarrassing was cit trying to ease the agency out of the CIA's careless (Cont. on 98] WAREHOUSE SOUND CC MEN g ROLLING STONE, MAY 10, 1976

[Cont. from 87] outfitting of the Reelection of the President). CIA infiltration of the White Plumbers with agency equip- Only two young We shingron House, Bennett was acting on ment: disguises, voice-altering Post reporters, Bob Woodward orders from CIA higher-ups in devices, a Uher Sono tape re- and Carl Bernstein, continued to talking to Woodward. Bennett, corder disguised in a typewriter dog the Watergate story. Their who still enjoyed access to the Cage, LI camera hidden in a to- persistence began to unnerve the White House, passed along bacco pouch, a wig the color or CIA. So Bennett approached everything he learned of the a butcher's apron and all manner Woodward well an offering of White House coverup to Wood- of forged identification. information. As a Colson confi- ward, the ex-CIA operative said. dant, Bennett had been privy to Eventually, according to the Most of the documentation several White House "dirty operative, Bennett assumed the that could have linked the CLA tricks" that were only tangential code name "Deep Throat" and with the Plumbers was destroyed to the Watergate burglary. In became the enduring catalyst for soon after the burglary. Mc- exchange for a promise of ano- the Post's Watergate investiga- Cord's papers were burned in his nymity, Bennett supplied Wood- tion. Chuck Colson, who claimed fireplace. Helms disposed of all ward with a cataloger such White to have seen some CIA tiles on his taped conversations relating House wrongdoing. The Water- Watergate, said he believed that to Watergate. But when prying gate committee's CIA memo, an the CIA "can show how every reporters discovered that Hunt's internal CIA document presum- story that Woodward won the confiscated paraphernalia con- ably intended for Helms, de- Pulitzer Prize for was fed to him tained CIA gadgetry, media sus- scribed Bennett's modus ope- by the CIA." picion about the CIA's role in the Bennett briefly expanded his burglary leaped into headlines. schedule to include other media. Reporters began pestering At one point his tipstering helped Hunt and the other Plumbers convince Newsweek to print is with unsettling questions. The story entitled "Whispers about burglar munaged to maintain a Colson." According to the CIA professional silence. But the re- memo, "Bennett took relish in porters were not satisfied until implicating Colson ... while pro- Robert Bennett began holding tecting the agency at the same audiences with' a few of the me- lime." dia's most influential newsmen. When Colson discovered Ben- According to a CIA memo un- nett's subterfuge, he was in- earthed by the Watergate com- furiated. Along with Senator mittee, Bennett flew from Wash- Howard Baker of the Watergate ington to Los Angeles to spend CHARLES COLSON committee, Colson raised an four hours convincing a News- A Nixon trouble-shooter alarm about CIA manipulation week reporter that. the CIA had who felt the CIA used in the case. In the CBS news- not been involved in the burglary. Howard Hunt to spy on room, a television team put to- Then he persuaded a Time inves- Nixon, Colson said Nixon gether a story listing many of the tigative reporter that the maga- resigned because he was accusations against Bennett. zine "was beating a dead horse" afraid of the CIA and Then it was read to hint over the to pursue a CIA link to Water- Hughes. phone. "It was terrible," Ben- side. nett later testified. "The insinu- The two newsweeklies— which randi this way: "[Bennett] has ations and implications put me had yet to learn of Bennett's ties been feeding stories to Bob smack in the middle of the whole to the CIA—seemed to accept his Woodward with the understand- Watergate conspiracy and the word. They began appraising the ing there would be no attribution hush money and the Hughes burglary as the dementia of anti- to Bennett. Woodward is suitably matter," But, Bennett said, he Castro partisans or, at worst, the grateful for the fine stories and protested and the CBS reporters result of some unspecified polit- bylines he gets and protects toned down the story. ical hijinka. Bennett." ley that time, moreover, other According to the CIA memo Bennett later corroborated this CIA loyalists had joined Bennett obtained by the Watergate com- role when he was forced to testify in destroying Nixon's ill-fated mittee, Bennett also esta Wished a about the memo before a House coverup. The .Vern York Times "back-door entry" to the law, subcommittee. "Bob Woodward had obtained Frank Sturgis's ac- firm representing the Democratic interviewed me on numerous oc- count of White House culpa- party in a civil suit against the casions," Bennett testified. "I bility. Then James McCord an- Plumbers, an opportunity he have told Woodward everything nounced similar revelations pub- used to steer the Democratic in- I know about the Watergate case, licly in John Strica's federal viestigution away from the CIA. except the Mullen company's courtroom. McCord said he had And Bennett asked a mutual tie to the CIA. I never mentioned spoken up because he believed friend to but onholeSenator Sam that to him. It has never appeared the White House was trying to Ervin. chairman of the Watergate in any Washington Post story." use the CIA as a scapegoat. "The committee. The friend, a North Bennett also scrupulously shel- White House is bent on having Carolina lawyer, cornered Ervin tered the Hughes organization the CIA take the blame for during a chartered plane trip, from Post scrutiny. Woodward Watergate," he wrote in a letter astthen reported back to Bennett and Bernstein never learned of to a friend three months prior to eithan he was confident "Ervin ac- the plan to burglarize Green- his court declaration. "The way cepted [my) comments and will spun's safe, nor were they told to head this of is to flood the not attempt to further involve the the circumstances of the 5100,000 newspapers with leaks and anon- [CIA]." transaction from Hughes. Those ymous letters. . . This is of Even Earl Silbert, the Justice two crucial episodes did not be- immediate importance." Department's Watergate prose- come part of their understanding Nixon was besieged. Howard cutor, helped protect the CIA. of Watergate. Woodward de- Hunt was demanding up to SI Bennett told a House committee veloped a "special relationship" million in White House money in 1974 that he didn't have "any with Bennett, according to a for his silence, Alexander Butter- misgivings about sharing with Watergate committee investiga- field, who had once headed a Earl from the beginning the full tor who was also a source for Bay of Pigs rehabilitation pro- details of the CIA situation." Woodward. "A lot of the Post gram reportedly financed by the Silbert later admitted that he stories in the summer and fall of CIA, disclosed to the Watergate changed a critical court docu- 1972 came in part from Ben- committee that Nixon had taped ment in the Watergate case so nett," the investigator said. all his Oval Office conversations that the initials CIA incorrectly According to an ex-CIA oper- —a turning point in the scandal. read CRP (Committee for the ative familiar with Bennett and Public opinion [Corn. on 90] mark Supreme Court decision early Seventies. that delivered the crucial White At the time of his death Hughes ROLLING STONE, MAY 20, 1976 House tape recordings and pro- was earning $1.7 million each duced incontrovertible evidence that Nixon had ordered that 37. One man who played a key role [Coil:. from 88] insisted that coverup. Faced with certain im- in convincing Nixon to resign, ac- Nixon appoint a special prose- peachment, Nixon resigned.37 cording to Woodward and Bernstein cutor to investigate Watergate. in The Final Days, was Alexander A few months later Archibald Haig, who had replaced Bob Halde- EPILOGUE man as Nixon's top White House Cox's office was zeroing in on adviser. Haig also had a CIA connec- Rebozo's handling of the John Foster Dulles died in tion. In the early Sixties he ran a $100,000 from Hughes. Nixon 1959 after six years of directing CIA-financed Bay of Pigs rehabilita- relayed a message to Cox through tion program, preceding Alexander U.S. foreign policy as Dwight Butterfield in the job. According to Attorney General Elliott Rich- Eisenhower's secretary of state. Chuck Colson, it was Haig who con- ardson. In a subsequent Senate Allen Dulles died ten years later, vinced Nixon not to expose the CIA's appearance Richardson testified having spent his last years extoll- role in Watergate. "Al Haig prevailed that Nixon "didn't see what Mr. on Nixon's better instincts," Colson ing the CIA in two books, The Cox's charter had to do with the said in May 1974, "not to take down Craft of Intelligence and The the whole intelligence establishment activities of Mr. Rebozo." When Secret Surrender. Thomas Dewey of the U.S. in order to save himself Cox refused to desist, Nixon from impeachment." elected to fire him in the "Satur- 38. Hughes encountered competi- tion from Robert Vesco, who also day Night Massacre." died in 1971, his age and health wanted to buy Resorts. Vesco was a Nixon already had shunted off having kept him from accepting lavish Nixon contributor, later pro- CIA director Helms as ambassa- the Supreme Court's chief jus- viding part of the money for the dor to Iran and had appointed Plumbers, and he was friendly with ticeship offered by Richard. Nix- the CIA; once when Vesco landed in his own man, James Schlesinger, on in 1969. a Switzerland jail a CIA agent had to head the agency. Schlesinger helped get him out. Vesco outma- tried to purge the CIA old guard, escaped indict- neuvered Hughes by persuading a firing or forcing out nearly ten Bahamian immigration official to de- ment in Watergate despite strong mand Hughes apply for a visa, a percent of the agency's 16,000 circumstantial evidence of tax procedure requiring a recent photo- employees. But "animosity to- evasion and bribe taking. One graph. Affronted, Hughes packed and ward Schlesinger grew so strong reason, according to CIA sourc- flew off to Nicaragua and London that his personal bodyguard was before returning to the Bahamas. By es, is that CIA officials sanctioned then Vesco was out of the picture. increased to prevent violent con- his plea of "national security" having been charged with influence frontations with disgruntled when the special prosecutor's of- peddling for his contributions to agency employees," veteran fice began investigating Rebozo's Nixon. But Hughes apparently did Washington journalist Juan not renew his efforts to purchase links to Resorts. George Smath- Resorts. Cameron reported. Schlesinger ers, retired from the Senate, is doubled his security at home, in- prospering in Florida. Their old stalled a special guardroom out- crony, Richard Danner, still side his office and took along an works for the Hughes organiza- day from U.S. government con- extra bodyguard in addition to tion. tracts. Eighty percent had been his pistol-packing chauffeur. awarded without competitive But after a few months Nixon Howard Hughes died at age bidding. Thirty-two were from had to relieve Schlesinger and 70 on April 5th, 1976, from the CIA, the most held by any promote William Colby, a former chronic kidney disease. Hughes single contractor. chief of the CIA's Phoenix pro- had been living in the penthouse gram responsible for the murder at the Xanadu Princess Hotel in of an estimated 20,000 Viet- Because Robert Bennett's CIA the Bahamas. His negotiations ties were exposed by the Water- namese. to buy up the Bahamian gam- Nixon also encountered esca- gate scandal, he has closed down bling franchise from the CIA the Mullen Agency. He now lating trouble from special prose- front group, Resorts Interna- cutor Leon Jaworski. A decade works for the Hughes organiza- tional, had fallen through.3t But before, Jaworski had been a tion as a vice-president and CIA the Resorts subsidiary, Intend, liaison. special counsel to the Warren continued to administer day-to- Commission and a director of a day security at the Hughes casi- Meyer Lansky today lives un- private foundation that laun- nos in Las Vegas. And Hughes disturbed in Miami Beach. Now dered funds for the CIA. had maintained his close ties to 72, he spends his time walking Under Jaworski's jurisdiction, the CIA. In early 1975, according his dog and visiting with old the special prosecutor's office to the New York Times, the CIA friends. Surrogates handle most found no criminality in the intervened to help squelch a Se- Syndicate affairs. After more $100,000 payment or in the curities and Exchange Commis- than 50 years in the Syndicate, Greenspun plot. Nor did it un- sion investigation of Hughes. A . Lansky has served less than two cover any other illegalities in- 1975 depo sition filed by an al- years in prison. volving the Hughes organization leged CIA agent in a Las Vegas In December 1974 the or the CIA. court case involving an ex- New York Times But Jaworski's Office did indict Hughes aide revealed that the printed a little- ' noticed story about Lansky. It Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitch- CIA supplied agents to monitor said that the federal government, ell and others for their roles in the Hughes's enemies during the White House coverup. And the in effect. has abandoned the special prosecutor won a land- effort begun by the Kennedys to put Lansky behind bars.

After three decades, the CIA's relationship with the Syndicate has not changed. When several Syndicate members went on trial in New York in 1971 for taking union kickbacks, the head of the local CIA bureau turned up in court as a character witness for the gangsters. Deportation pro- ROLLING STONE, MAY 20, 1976 ceedings against John Roselli were dropped in 1969 at the be- hest of the CIA. [Cont. from 90] already known According to federal narcotics to Senate investigators. They did officials, CIA agents have pro- not elaborate on the expanse of vided identification papers and the CIA-Syndicate imbroglio. high-speed boats for a drug Sam Giancana, however, did smuggling ring run out of the not get a chance to talk to the Dominican Republic by several Senate committee. On June 19th, former members of Batista's 1975, shortly before his scheduled secret police. In exchange, the - appearance, an assassin inter- officials say, the narcotics dealers rupted a late-night snack at his have murdered at least five leftist Chicago mansion with seven .22 organizers in the Caribbean. In caliber bullets. A few months March 1975 the New York Times earlier, Richard Cain, the Gian- quoted a former CIA man who cane henchman who helped the said he knows the CIA has re- CIA recruit its Bay of Pigs army, lied on the Syndicate "for ex- had been executed in a Chicago changes of information and also restaurant. to assault targets selected by Another Syndicate figure, the CIA." Jimmy Hoffa, was kidnapped The CIA was embarrassed and presumably killed on July slightly in 1975 when the Senate 30th, 1975, in Detroit. CIA committee discovered the By all accounts, the three were agency's alliance with the Syndi- silenced because someone feared cate in the Castro murder con- they might reveal secrets out of spiracy. The scandal helped force their past. Which someone and out William Colby as CIA di- what secrets remain a mystery. rector. But some Senate investigators had hoped to question Giancana about any knowledge he had of But the CIA as a powerful and John Kennedy's assassination. independent institution has sur- vived. Richard Helms, still U.S. The Senate committee did ap- ambassador to Iran, has not point a subcommittee to pursue been prosecuted for the CIA's new leads about a CIA coverup assassination plots or any other in the Kennedy case. But that deals with the Syndicate. investigation has proved to be neither vigorous nor productive. Roseili and Robert Maheu testified before the Church com- The Watergate investigation mittee about their role in the also has dissipated without full Castro plot. But they only con- and complete disclosure. Richard firmed a scenario [Cont. on 92] Nixon, now exiled 'to San Cle- mente, has never explained why he thought Watergate "would make the CIA look bad (and) blow the whole Bay of Pigs thing." Watergate investigators have not figured out what he meant either. One theory is that Nixon was using the "Bay of Pigs" reference as a code word for the entire Cuba affair, a slice of his- tory that some believe includes a he's trying to create, what a red CIA role in the Kennedy assassi- herring.' Nobody would believe nation. him . . . [But] you know what I The Bay of Pigs and the Ken- think. You know what I really nedy assassination are motifs think—and I'm loyal to this guy, that run through the Watergate he's my friend-1 think that affair. Howard Hunt, the chief [Hughes] paid Bebe that dough Watergate burglar, helped estab- and I think Bebe used that for lish a CIA front group for the himself and for the president . . . Bay of Pigs that had a New Or- and that if Nixon really blows leans address later used by Lee [the whistle on the CIA], Hughes Harvey Oswald. The Mullen can blow the whistle on him . . . Agency also set up front groups The president is scared as hell, for the Bay of Pigs, and Robert especially when he's weak and Bennett, as head of the Mullen under attack. He was out of his Agency, played a key undercover mind over it. role in of Richard "The president and I talked Nixon. about it one Sunday for about an In his recent novel, The Com- hour and a half . I have seen the pany, John Ehrlichman hints that CIA files. I know what's in them. Watergate and the Kennedy as- I can't prove there was a con- sassination were part of a power spiracy but.I would say that was struggle between the CIA and the the practical consequences of Nixon White House. Ehrlich- what they did. man's book describes a Nixon- "The excesses of the Nixon like president who has evidence administration were pretty bad. that the CIA was involved in a But what these guys are doing— controversial assassination. In one doesn't justify the other— the novel a Helms-like CIA di- what these guys are doing is rector compels the president to worse . . . The frightening thing destroy the evidence by threat- is that there is nobody control- ening to expose a Watergate-like ling the CIA. I mean nobody. I'll scandal. tell you one thing that scares me Chuck Colson's 1974 remarks the most. They're all over the to the private investigator also place. Almost everywhere you claim that Nixon was caught up turn, they've got their tentacles." in a power struggle with the CIA. "Nixon's theory is that [CIA Picture Credits agents] were coming in to spy, and they wanted to get enough on All photographs UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL except: NEWS- the White House so they could WEEK/GOTFRYD: p. 86, Robert get what they wanted. Who Bennett; MAGNUM PHOTOS: p. knows what they wanted. They 44, John F. Kennedy, ; never got that far—because the MIAMI HERALD: p. 43. Charles "Bebe" Rebow; TIME LIFE PIC- whole house of cards collapsed TURE AGENCYMELHAM: p. 49, and that was it." David Ferric; WIDE WORLD PHO- Colson gave several reasons TOS: p. 40, Howard Hughes; p. 42, Murray Chotiner; p. 43, Richard why Nixon did not publicly an- Nixon and Thomas Dewey; p. 43, nounce his suspicions. "He's Mickey Cohen; p. 45, Robert Maheu; afraid that if he went public with p. 47, Sam Giancana; p. 50, Sir Staf- it everybody would say, 'Look at ford Sands. Nixon now, see what a diversion