The Arrogance of Power (92 page)

6.
Truman refused even to enter the Senate while Nixon was present and was still lambasting him in speeches in 1960. Backstage at New York's Shubert Theater, at Christmas 1963, Nixon made his way to Truman and shook his hand. Truman accepted the gesture but said, “The hell with it,” when a photographer asked for a repeat performance. He did allow Nixon to bring him a drink at a Gridiron Dinner in Washington some months later. In 1969, when Truman was eighty-four and Nixon president, Nixon came to the Truman Library in Missouri to present the former president with the piano his predecessor had once used in the White House. He then sat down at the piano to play “The Missouri Waltz,” perhaps unaware that Truman hated the tune. When Nixon finished playing, the old man turned to his wife and in a loud stage whisper asked, “What was that?” (Truman refused to enter Senate: UPI, Oct. 28, 1958; 1960:
Houston Post,
Oct. 11, 1960; handshake:
Newsweek,
Jan. 6, 1964; AP photo, Dec. 1963; drink:
Kansas City Times,
Apr. 28, 1964, Robert Ferrell,
Harry S. Truman,
Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 1994, p. 392; “Waltz”: ibid., and Miller,
Plain Speaking,
op. cit., p. 358.)

7.
The struggle “in the arena” was an image Nixon used in public and in private over a long period: in a late-night dialogue with Len Garment; at a dinner honoring Mamie Eisenhower; in his farewell talk at the White House when he resigned the presidency. He quoted the Theodore Roosevelt reference at length in the frontispiece to his 1990 book, entitled
In the Arena.
(Garment, op. cit., p. 85; Remarks at 75th Birthday Dinner Honoring Mamie Doud Eisenhower, Sept. 27, 1971, cited in
Public Papers of the Presidents, 1971,
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973;
MEM,
pp. 1076, 1089; Nixon,
Arena,
op. cit., and see Safire, op. cit., p. 364.)

8.
The activist Zita Remley had been a perennial anti-Nixon whistle-blower since 1946, when she reportedly learned of an anonymous phone call offensive on Nixon's behalf during the congressional campaign. In 1952 she plied the columnist Drew Pearson with tips, one of them a claim that Nixon had made a false statement in order to obtain a veteran's tax exemption. Pearson published the story, only to issue a retraction when it seemed that another couple called Richard and Pat Nixon had applied for the exemption. Nixon was still angry enough to tell the story in his 1978 memoirs. Remley, for her part, was still telling the story in 1980; she said it had come to her directly in her work as a deputy assessor for Los Angeles County. (Anonymous calls: chapter 5, Note 1, above; tips: Remley to DP, Oct. 7, 1952, Box G 281, DPP; exemption:
MEM,
p. 109;
FB,
p. 236; int. Zita Remley by FB, FBP.)

9.
The outcome of the suit is unknown to the author.

10.
In 1952 Nixon also frequently turned for “counsel and support” to Whittaker Chambers, his star witness in the Hiss case. It was an odd choice considering that Chambers was a notoriously unstable personality. (De Toledano, ed.,
Notes from the Underground,
op. cit., p. 87,
MEM,
p. 102; unstable: see Weinstein,
Perjury,
op. cit., especially re: suicidal tendencies.)

11.
In at least one Nixon biography it has been suggested that Hunt, who served in Mexico City from about 1950 to 1953, gave Nixon his card when he visited Mexico as vice president in late 1952. Copies of the card, bearing the handwritten notation “RN saw in Mexico 1952?,” are in both the Mexico visit and Howard Hunt correspondence files in the vice presidential papers at the National Archives. Hunt, however, said in an interview for this book that he passed the card to Nixon somewhat earlier: at the meeting in Harvey's Restaurant. (Mexico trip and Hunt corr. files, VP, NA; int. Howard Hunt, and Hunt,
Undercover,
op. cit., p. 127, and see
MO,
p. 865.)

1.
Eisenhower's Oval Office recordings, made on Dictabelts, are apparently of poor quality and often incomprehensible. Only one intelligible conversation with Nixon, the one referred to in the text, has been reported. (AP, Oct. 24, 1979;
AMI,
p. 334, fn; and corr. Sandra Feldstein/Dwight Standberg, Archivist, DDEL, Aug. 1999.)

2.
According to Earl Mazo, Eisenhower did occasionally invite Nixon to join him on the course. Another writer who knew Nixon well, Frank Holeman, however, said otherwise. It seems they played together once in a while during Eisenhower's second term. (Mazo: Mazo, op. cit., p. 196; Holeman: Sevareid, ed., op. cit., p. 140, and see
AMI,
p. 428.)

3.
Nixon does refer in his memoirs to visiting the family quarters in early 1956, but this was apparently as part of a group. (
MEM,
p. 168.)

4.
By one account, Eisenhower became aware of Nixon's resentment. On his wife's initiative, the Nixons were then given a perfunctory tour of the Gettysburg house. (Costello, op. cit., p. 230.)

5.
The historian was Herbert Parmet, author of seven political biographies, including
Richard Nixon and His America
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1990), especially p. 402. As in the past, the author is indebted to Professor Parmet for his help.

6.
For a discussion of the loan that argues against the suspicion that it was a quid pro quo for Nixon's intervention on Hughes's behalf, see Stephen Ambrose's biography of Nixon. (
AMI,
p. 597–; and Justice Dept. statement, Oct. 27, 1960, Nixon-Hughes Loan file, Campaign Numerical file 804, Box 92, WSPF, NA.)

1.
The figure rose to about seven hundred during the Eisenhower presidency. (Manchester, op. cit., p. 918, but see Karnow, op. cit., p. 267.)

2.
Eisler and Dennis both appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the two were cited for contempt of Congress, Eisler at Nixon's personal urging. (Caute, op. cit., pp. 90–, 210; re: Eisler: see p. 60
supra.
)

3.
Nixon wrote scornfully in his memoirs of the Venezuelan security effort, crediting the driver of the press truck with effecting the escape from the crowd. His army interpreter, Lieutenant Colonel Walters, said he did not know who moved the roadblock, composed of vehicles parked across the highway, out of the way. Former CIA station chief Jacob Esterline said in 1998 that Venezuelan security chief Jorge Moldonado, acting on his own initiative, organized the extraction. Earl Mazo, who was present, noted that “soldiers” came to the rescue. So did Secret Service agent Dennis McCarthy, citing a colleague who was on the Caracas detail. (Nixon,
Six Crises,
op. cit., p. 219;
MEM,
p. 191; Walters: Walters, op. cit., p. 332; ints. Jacob Esterline; Mazo, op. cit., p. 235; Dennis McCarthy and Philip Smith,
Protecting the President,
New York: Morrow, 1985, p. 46.)

4.
Nixon would later acknowledge having received both early and last-minute warnings but said security decisions were “outside my domain.” It is clear the decision to go to Caracas was entirely his own. (
MEM,
p. 186; Nixon,
Six Crises,
op. cit., pp. 186, 210–; Rufus Youngblood,
20 Years in the Secret Service,
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973, p. 69.)

5.
TWA and its aircraft were plugged five times in one newspaper alone, the
New Orleans Times-Picayune.
(
Times-Picayune,
Aug. 8, 9, 17, 19, 20, 1959.)

6.
Evan Thomas, in his 1995 book on early CIA chiefs, presents both views: that Guatemala's president Jacobo Arbenz considered himself a Communist and harbored Communists and that he was merely a reformer who posed no security risk. Christopher Andrew, in his 1995 book on intelligence, took the latter view. (Thomas, op. cit., pp. 112, 370, n. 7 and n. 8; Andrew, op. cit., p. 206.)

1.
In the memoirs Nixon said Helms “refused to give Ehrlichman the agency's internal reports.” There are four principal postmortem style reports on the efforts to overthrow Castro. CIA Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick's Survey of the Cuban Operation was closely held until its 1998 release following a Freedom of Information suit by the National Security Archive. The 1967 Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro, also from the inspector general's office, was declassified in 1994. A history of the Bay of Pigs, compiled by CIA house historian Jack Pfeiffer in the mid-seventies, is still withheld, although some of Pfeiffer's interviews with CIA personnel are available. CIA Director Helms could have produced the Kirkpatrick report and the Castro assassination study for President Nixon had he chosen to or had Nixon persisted. According to Helms, “Nixon never told me later that he hadn't received what he wanted.” (Reports:
MEM,
p. 515, Kornbluh, op. cit., and Thomas,
The Very Best Men,
op. cit., p. 344–, reference the reports thoroughly; Helms: Powers, op. cit., p. 327, and int. Helms, and Ralph Weber,
Spymasters,
Wilmington, Del.: SR Books, 1999, p. 270.)

2.
The start of the 1971 pressure coincided with a memorandum from Charles Colson to Haldeman. Colson reported that Howard Hunt, who as a CIA agent played a major role in the Bay of Pigs project, had told him that “if the truth were ever known, Kennedy would be destroyed.” A few days later Hunt began working at the White House, with assignments that included digging for dirt on President Kennedy. One of his exploits involved the forgery of cable traffic to suggest the Kennedy administration had been behind the 1963 killing of Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. (“If the truth . . .”: Colson to HRH, July 2, 1971, memo extract released Nov. 1994, NA, E, vol. VII, p. 700; assignments: WHT, Sept. 18, 1971, and Hunt,
Undercover,
op. cit., p. 147; Diem: ibid., p. 179.)

3.
Greek émigré journalist Elias Demetracopoulos, whose January 1961 interview with Admiral Arleigh Burke had upset President Kennedy, told the author of a late-night visit to his apartment by Buzhardt in June 1973. Fearful of bugs, Buzhardt persuaded Demetracopoulos to come out and talk while walking around the block. He wanted Demetracopoulos's file on Burke because Burke had been chief of naval operations at the time of the Bay of Pigs. Demetracopoulos declined to help. (Int. Elias Demetracopoulos.)

4.
Helms has recalled Haldeman's bringing up the Bay of Pigs but has denied shouting. His biographer Thomas Powers thinks he probably did lose patience. He had after all been badgered on the subject over a long period. (Powers, op. cit., p. 476, n. 57.)

5.
Earlier, before seizing power, Castro told
Paris-Match
correspondent Enrique Meneses that he would allow gambling to continue, but only for foreign tourists. In a radio broadcast before the revolution, however, he said he was “disposed” to deport the casino operators or even shoot them. (Meneses, op. cit., p. 58; Lacey, op. cit., p. 252.)

6.
Former CIA agent Ross Crozier, interviewed in 1996, says both Castro and Che Guevara knew he was with the agency. Crozier was told—he thinks reliably—that no less a figure than J. C. King, CIA's Western Hemisphere Division chief, himself flew in to meet and assess Castro. Later, as described in this chapter, King favored Castro's assassination. (Int. Ross Crozier, but see Dorschner and Fabricio, op. cit., p. 94.)

7.
Smathers has said he discussed Castro's assassination with President Kennedy in 1961. Kennedy disapproved of the notion, he told a Senate committee. Smathers told this author in 1994 that Kennedy in fact approved of the idea and that his brother Robert was aware of the later CIA/Mafia plots. (U.S. Senate,
Assassination Plots,
op. cit., p. 123–; Summers,
Not in Your Lifetime,
op. cit., p. 188.)

8.
Pawley claimed he had heard the young Castro talking as though he were a Communist in 1948, in a radio broadcast during the violent uprising in Colombia known as the Bogotazo. An official probe, however, found no Communist involvement in those disturbances. (Broadcast?: Mario Lazo,
American Policy Failure in Cuba,
New York: Twin Circle, 1968, p. 144; untrue?: Geyer, op. cit., p. 94.)

9.
The journalist Andrew St. George, who knew Castro and wrote extensively about Cuba, was present as they left Nixon's office. He too recalled Nixon's saying words to the effect that the United States would be able to work with Castro. (Int. Andrew St. George.)

10.
Those cited indicate Nixon felt sure Castro was a Communist once he had met him. As in his report to Eisenhower, however, he suggested in a private letter to the editor of the
Miami News
that he thought it “possible” Castro might “change his attitude.” (
AMI,
p. 516.)

11.
Howard Hunt claimed in a 1973 book that the CIA did not use the code name Pluto—and surmised that it was perhaps, rather, a name used by the Pentagon. The name Pluto, however, was still being used in the context of CIA usage in 1986—by the author John Prados. (Hunt,
Give Us This Day,
op. cit., p. 214; Prados, op. cit., p. 178–.)

12.
Figueres said this in 1977 in a taped interview with the politics editor of the
New Republic,
Ken Bode. He added that he “came to believe that Eisenhower actually did not know about Nixon ordering preparations. . . .” Obviously the president did know about the plans, at least in a general executive sense. Conversations with Bode lead the author to infer that Figueres meant Eisenhower did not fully understand the hands-on nature of Nixon's involvement. (
New Republic,
Apr. 23, 1977.)