The Arrogance of Power (94 page)

14.
It is not clear to what degree the anti-Onassis operation was driven by the U.S. government, the U.S. oil companies, and by Onassis's business competitor Stavros Niarchos. Maheu's associate Gerrity claimed Nixon “ran the thing, but he was never more than a front for the multinational oil companies. You have to remember, one of his main jobs was to raise campaign contributions for the Republicans.” According to Drew Pearson's sources, Nixon had received massive backing from U.S. oil interests in the 1952 campaign. (Pearson: Abell, ed., op. cit., p. 228–.)

15.
One member of the team was Lou Russell, who had worked with Nixon during the Hiss case and who would one day be linked to the Watergate break-in. Another was Horace Schmahl, the intelligence-linked investigator who reportedly admitted having been involved in setting up Alger Hiss, see p. 73. (Undated Washington field office document, FBI 105-20653, Report of Agents Morgan and Kellogg, Oct. 23, 1958, number censored.)

16.
Ironically, Onassis would in 1970 give a substantial contract to Nixon's brother Donald, then with the Marriott Corporation, for in-flight catering on Olympic Airlines aircraft. That deal was brokered by Nixon's friend Thomas Pappas, who had also arranged for an illegal Greek cash contribution to the Nixon campaign in 1968. Pappas failed, however, to persuade Onassis to contribute to the 1972 campaign. (Donald contract:
NYT,
June 4, 1970,
WP,
Feb. 16, 1972; Pappas, 1968: Kutler,
Wars of Watergate,
op. cit., p. 205–, and ints. Elias Demetracopoulos; Onassis, 1972: Gratsos to Dorsen, Dec. 7, John Doukas to William Mayton, Senate file, Box 11 [Pappas, Onassis], WSPF.)

17.
Sam Giancana was found shot dead in 1975, when he was due to be questioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Santo Trafficante, whom some suspected of ordering his murder, died of natural causes in 1987. When Maheu referred to dismemberment, he was speaking of John Rosselli, whom he had used to bring the CIA, Giancana, and Trafficante together. Rosselli's corpse, its legs sawn off, was found crammed in an oil drum in 1976, soon after he had given testimony to the Intelligence Committee. He had been due to testify again. Rosselli's attorney Leslie Scherr believed that the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, which also questioned his client, suspected the Watergate break-in was sparked by fear that the Democrats had learned of Nixon's involvement in the Castro plots. (Deaths: Summers,
Not in Your Lifetime,
op. cit., p. 365; Scherr: Rappeleye and Becker, op. cit., p. 307.)

18.
As quoted in
Newsweek
(May 19, 1986), Nixon referred to “poison
sticks.
” This makes no sense. The author guesses that he actually used the Yiddish word
shtick,
which has come to mean “stuff” in colloquial American.

19.
Robert Geddes Morton, who headed Pepsi-Cola's bottling operation in Cuba, was reportedly not only a key contact in the CIA's invasion plan but also involved in the Castro plots. Morton, a British subject, was jailed by the Cuban regime but released in 1963 after diplomatic intervention. Since Morton was a Pepsi vice president, Nixon's friend Donald Kendall, head of Pepsi's overseas operations, probably knew something of this. He too may therefore have discussed the plots with Nixon. (Louis and Yazijian, op. cit., p. 171; Martino, op. cit., p. 139, et al.)

20.
Anderson got his information from John Rosselli, the California mobster Maheu had used to contact the Mafia bosses. Under heavy pressure from law enforcement and immigration authorities, Rosselli had decided to get the story of the plots out, with emphasis on his own “patriotic” role, in the hope of forcing the powers that be to remove some of the pressure on him. He met with Anderson on January 11. The CIA did later try to intervene on Rosselli's behalf. The mobster was not deported, as seemed possible, but he did go to prison for nearly three years. The judge reduced the jail term after hearing pleadings about Rosselli's part in the CIA plots. As mentioned in Note 17, above, the mobster was savagely murdered in 1976, after testifying about the plots. (Rappeleye and Becker, op. cit., p. 296–.)

21.
Because of his own compromising relationship with Howard Hughes, Nixon had earlier been concerned that an IRS matter involving Hughes should
not
be pursued. In parallel, however, Nixon had pushed for information on Lawrence O'Brien, the former close aide to John F. Kennedy, whom he regarded as the most effective Democratic political operator. Most recently, on January 14, he had told Haldeman it was time to hold O'Brien “accountable for his retainer with Hughes.” Haldeman reacted by passing on the president's message, virtually word for word, to the White House counsel John Dean. (Summary of RN previous concern: Emery, op. cit., p. 28–; RN, Jan. 14: RN to HRH, Jan. 14, 1971, HRH Box 140, NA.)

22.
As officially reported, Justice Department files on the Castro plots consist of reports arising from a 1960 wiretap episode involving Giancana and Maheu and its sequel, involving CIA objections to prosecutions and a 1962 briefing of Attorney General Robert Kennedy. (U.S. Senate,
Assassination Plots,
op. cit., pp. 77–, 130–.)

23.
Maheu was involved throughout the first phase of the CIA-Mafia plots, which lasted from August 1960 to March 1961. According to the CIA inspector general's report, Maheu “knew nothing” of the second phase of the plotting, which began in April 1962. (U.S. Senate,
Assassination Plots,
op. cit., pp. 74–, 83–; CIA Inspector General,
Plots to Assassinate Castro,
op. cit., p. 120.)

24.
Oliver Stone used Haldeman's notion that “Bay of Pigs” was code for the Kennedy assassination in his 1995 movie
Nixon.
Soon afterward the writer Christopher Matthews reported that Haldeman had disowned the theory. When terminally ill, Matthews said, Haldeman claimed the theory had been not his but that of Joseph DiMona, his collaborator on the book. The disclaimer was repeated by
Newsweek
's Evan Thomas, in a cover story critical of the Stone movie. Haldeman, however, wrote in a special note for the paperback version of his book that he and DiMona “worked on it together from the beginning up through the final version. The writing style is DiMona's. The opinions and conclusions are essentially mine.” DiMona has insisted that Haldeman
was
responsible for the controversial passage. “It is preposterous,” he wrote, “to think that Bob Haldeman, of all people, would allow any writer to ‘invent' information or erroneous theories, to be published in a book under his name . . . the ‘theory' survived no less than five drafts of the most meticulous editing known to man, during which Haldeman made extensive changes of every kind, as well as minutiae. If untrue, why wasn't the theory deleted?” DiMona accounts for the disclaimer by noting that having been highly critical of Nixon in his 1978 memoir, Haldeman spent the rest of his life “disavowing” the negative parts. This author can contribute to the dialogue, having himself spoken with Haldeman in 1989. After a long formal interview focused on my project at the time, a book on J. Edgar Hoover, I raised some points that had long interested me, including the Bay of Pigs interpretation. Then Haldeman did not disown the passage but made it clear that it was merely his speculation and that as for Ehrlichman, Nixon's insistence on obtaining the CIA's Bay of Pigs material remained a puzzle to him. It does seem improbable that Haldeman, ever insistent on detail, would have allowed the insertion of material with which he did not agree. His interest in accuracy was obvious during my exchanges with him. My view that the Haldeman passage amounts merely to informed speculation is bolstered by the analysis of the scholar Paul Hoch, who, like Haldeman, had discussed the issue with former CBS correspondent Daniel Schorr. (Stone: Eric Hamburg, ed.,
Nixon: An Oliver Stone Film,
New York: Hyperion, 1995, p. xv; Mathews:
San Francisco Examiner,
Dec. 6, 21, 1995; Thomas:
Newsweek,
Dec. 11, 1995; paperback: H. R. Haldeman and Joseph DiMona,
The Ends of Power,
New York: Dell, 1978, p. 422; DiMona: int. Joseph DiMona by Julie Ziegler for author, and Dec. 8, 1995, fax shared with author by Dr. Gary Aguilar; see also
WP,
Feb. 15, 1978, citing DiMona years earlier as saying: “you don't write anything
for
Haldeman. He changed my book right down to the end. He rewrote, revised, edited . . .”; Hoch: letters to David Marwell, Assassination Records Review Board, Dec. 6, and to Dr. Aguilar, Dec. 23, 1995, provided to author.

1.
As described elsewhere, Nixon would be supplied with sexually compromising information on Kennedy during the 1960 campaign and reportedly hoped to use it. As president, the White House tapes show, he tried persistently to catch Edward Kennedy with a woman not his wife. “Jack,” he said in old age, of the late president's womanizing, “was the original sexual harasser,” “Kennedy got away with it; I don't think Clinton can. Although he has that same . . .—here a pause and an attempt at a Massachusetts accent—‘viga.' ” (tried persistently: Haldeman and DiMona, op. cit., p. 60; “harasser”: Crowley,
Nixon in Winter,
op. cit., p. 329; ‘viga': Monica Crowley,
Nixon Off The Record,
New York: Random House, 1996, p. 33.)

2.
Kennedy suffered from Addison's disease, a chronic affliction that would likely have proved fatal had it not been brought under control by then-new medication. While long rumored, the fact that Kennedy was an Addison's sufferer was kept from the public until many years after his death in 1963. (Summers,
Not in Your Lifetime,
op. cit., p. 9.)

3.
Edwards added that Nixon sometimes swore “like an army sergeant.” The candidate, whose swearing on the Watergate tapes would one day create a furor, said in the 1960 campaign that presidents should never use “gutter language.” (
Kansas City Times,
Oct. 13, 1960.)

4.
Hughes confirmed in 1996 that this incident happened as described. (Int. General Don Hughes by Gus Russo.)

5.
In
Six Crises
and in his memoirs, Nixon wrote as though he never doubted the need to debate Kennedy and made no reference to the vacillation reported by others involved. His surprise announcement that he would do so may reflect the influence of Arthur Burns, Eisenhower's economic adviser and a Nixon confidant, who suggested he debate Kennedy—but “just once, and thus finish off that nice young man from Harvard. . . .” “I couldn't have given him worse advice,” Burns said in the eighties. Other aides, including Murray Chotiner, counseled Nixon not to take part. (RN wrote: Nixon,
Six Crises,
op. cit., p. 323;
MEM,
p. 216; “just once”: int. Arthur Burns in Miller Center, eds., op. cit., p. 151; Chotiner: Katcher, op. cit., p. 165.)

6.
Asked to comment on the Eisenhower comment during the first debate with Kennedy, Nixon said it was “probably a facetious remark.” The journalist Walter Trohan, however, said Nixon told him privately it was the “unkindest Eisenhower cut” of all. (“facetious”: RN-JFK debate transcript, Sept. 26, 1960, transcript in Senate Committee on Commerce, Final Report,
supra.,
p. 81; “humor”: Robert Finch Oral History, Columbia University, p. 58; “unkindest”: Trohan, op. cit., p. 368–.)

7.
A 1992 study of the health problems of U.S. presidents tended to support Nixon's account in his memoirs that in 1960 he was urged by Eisenhower's personal physician and his wife Mamie to influence the president against campaigning on his behalf. The diary of the physician, Dr. Howard Snyder, shows that Eisenhower was suffering serious heart rhythm and blood pressure problems at the time and that Snyder was concerned about the additional stress of campaigning.

During the 1968 campaign, when Eisenhower was seventy-seven and in ever poorer health, Nixon worried that the former president might die without having endorsed him. He got word through to him, however, and Eisenhower, by then in the hospital, made a generous statement of support before the convention. (Illness 1960:
MEM,
p. 222; Robert Gilbert,
Mortal Presidency,
New York: Basic Books, 1992, p. 115, citing Snyder's medical diary on Eisenhower—but see Satire, op. cit., p. 623; endorsement 1968: Goldwater, op. cit., p. 216; AP, July 18, 1968; endorsement text, JFRP;
PAT,
p. 242.)

8.
Nixon had submitted to being made up as early as 1954, and his office was issuing his makeup type, a blend of shades 22 and 23, to reporters as late as 1957. By the following year, however, when he visited London, he was resisting makeup. He refused the services of BBC makeup staff, saying his military aide would look after it if necessary, until told he might cause a strike by TV technicians. (1954: Bassett unpublished ms.,
supra.,
March 13, 1954; 1958: int. and corr. Leonard Miall.)

9.
Of those polled, 29 percent thought the candidates had come off even, and 5 percent were undecided. (
TW60,
p. 294.)

10.
After the disaster of the first Kennedy debate, Nixon took expert advice on makeup, although he still preferred his Lazy Shave. He even wore makeup to a friend's wedding when he learned it was being televised. Before the 1968 campaign he said he wanted to hire talk show host Johnny Carson's makeup man. As president, according to congressional doorkeeper William (“Fishbait”) Miller, he wore pancake makeup to the Capitol for his State of the Union address. “I would feel sorry for him,” Miller wrote, “because he would be nervous and the sweat would just pour over his top lip . . . he would lick it off rather than use a handkerchief.” To minimize his perspiration, Nixon had the air conditioning turned up to the maximum when he gave televised “fireside” addresses from the White House. “Put him on television, you've got a problem,” said his 1968 TV adviser Roger Ailes. “He's a funny-looking guy. He looks like somebody hung him in a closet overnight.” “If the country wants a new face,” Nixon told Irv Kupcinet in 1968, “I'm dead.” (Took advice: Wise,
Politics of Lying,
op. cit., p. 376; preferred Lazy:
Saturday Evening Post,
Feb. 25, 1967; wedding: int. Norma Mulligan by FB, FBP, re: wedding of William Rogers's son; Carson:
Saturday Review,
Dec. 16, 1967; at Capitol: Miller, op. cit., p. 342; “fireside”: Halberstam,
The Fifties,
op. cit., p. 731; Ailes: Wise,
Politics of Lying,
op. cit., p. 377; RN, Kupcinet:
Look,
March 5, 1968.)