Don Fulsom - The Mafias President: Nixon and the Mob

THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.

An imprint of St. Martins Press.

THE MAFIAS PRESIDENT . Copyright 2017 by Don Fulsom. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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ISBN 978-1-250-11940-7 (hardcover)

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eISBN 9781250119414

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First Edition: November 2017

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CONTENTS

To my daughter, Beth Willett, and my son-in-law, James Willett

I was a member of the White House Press Corps during the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton administrations, but it was covering the entirety of the Nixon presidency up close that left me with a lifelong determination to uncover all the truths I sensed were hidden.

In Timothy Crouses classic The Boys on the Bus about the reporters who covered President Nixons 1972 re-election race against Senator George McGovernI was praised as one of the few White House reporters who took a highly skeptical view of Nixons Watergate denials and those of his eventually discredited spokesman, Ron Ziegler. I was the first reporter to connect the break-in at the Watergate complex to the Committee to Re-Elect the President.

Until his death in 1994, Richard Nixon fought the release of all White House tapes that had not been put out during the Watergate scandal. But a lawsuit led to a 1996 settlement with the Nixon estate that brought the new tapes to light. I had been avidly following their now-complete releaselistening to history and listening for news.

I have found that the best source for information on Nixon is Nixon himselfthe real Richard Nixon, a chief executive whose haunting tape-recorded schemes and rants still resonate through earphones at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California. There, earlier at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, and now online, I have made several important discoveries, including the placement of a Nixon loyalist in Senator Edward Kennedys Secret Service contingent in order to, in Nixons words, catch him in the sack with one of his babes.

I chronicled many of Nixons capers and criminalities in my 2012 book, Nixons Darkest Secrets: The Inside Story of Americas Most Troubled President . I have written articles about Americas thirty-seventh president based on the newly released tapes for the Washington Post , the Chicago Tribune , Esquire , Los Angeles , Regardies (a former Washington political and business magazine), and Crime Magazine .

The first inklings I had that Richard Nixon was somehow mixed up with the Mafia came during the 50 or so trips I made to cover the candidate, president-elect, and then president at his Key Biscayne, Florida, home. I got to know many of the residents of that lovely little island just south of Miami, and through them I heard rumors about Nixons best friend, Bebe Rebozo, who ran a small bank on Key Biscayne. One story was that the bank was suspected of being used as a laundromat for funny money skimmed from Mafia gambling casinos in the Bahamas, but the bank was never charged with wrongdoing. Another was that Nixon and Rebozo had secret shares in, and split profits from, a Mob-run bridge in the Bahamas that carried tourists to those casinos.

At the time these were just rumors, not evidence that I could actually report on. But they whetted my appetite for more.

For the past eight years, I have taught courses at American University on Watergate and on the John F. Kennedy assassination, and I have done considerable research on Nixons possible ties to both the Mob and the assassination. The result of my research is this book, The Mafias President , a fresh compendium of the secret deals, favors, and payoffs Richard Nixon forged with leading Mafiosi over his long political career, and the role Nixons Mafia and CIA connections might have played in President Kennedys death.

November 1946 : Nixon wins House seat with financial help from Meyer Lansky and other Mob leaders. Nixons campaign manager, Murray Chotiner, has top Mafia figures as legal clients. Author Jim Marrs says Chotiner had connections leading back to reputed New Orleans Mafia chief Carlos Marcello and Teamsters leader James Hoffa.

1947 : Congressman Nixon intervenes to get gangster Jack Ruby excused from testifying before a congressional committee investigating the Mafia, according to an FBI memo discovered in the 1970s. (The FBI claims the memo is fake.) But the fact of a Nixon-Ruby association has now been verified by a devoted Nixon friend, and right-wing political strategist, Roger Stone.

1947 : Nixon strongly backs legislation establishing the Central Intelligence Agency. Around this time, Nixon first meets CIA agent (and Watergate burglar) E. Howard Hunt.

Late 1940s : As a young congressman, with considerable help from the CIA and FBI, Nixon helps expose State Department official Alger Hiss as a likely Soviet spy.

1950 : The Senate Kefauver committee staff learns that Jack Ruby was a Syndicate lieutenant who had been sent to Dallas to serve as a liaison for Chicago mobsters, according to a former staffer.

November 1950 : Nixon is elected to the Senate from California after suggesting his opponent is a Communist sympathizer. Hollywood gangster Mickey Cohen is a generous contributor to Nixons campaign. One of Cohens cohorts in L.A.s crime empire at that time is none other than Jack Ruby.

November 1952 : As Dwight Eisenhowers running mate, Senator Nixon is elected vice president, despite a scandal over a secret slush fund put together by wealthy California backers. Ike also knewbut the public did notthat Nixon had accepted a $100 million bribe from a wealthy Romanian exile, according to CIA evidence revealed many years later.

Early 1956 : Mob- and CIA-connected billionaire Howard Hughes reportedly furnishes Nixon with a secret $100,000 to help the vice president fight a dump-Nixon move by fellow Republican Harold Stassen.

November 1956 : President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon are re-elected.

1958: The Mafia puts a $5 million dollar price on Fidel Castros head because his guerrilla activities are hurting tourism in Cuba. This was revealed in the diaries of newspaper columnist Drew Pearson. Other sources say Meyer Lansky offered $1 million for a hit on Fidel.

1958 : Nixon meets Hunt again in Montevideo, Uruguay, during a vice-presidential goodwill tour of South America. Hunt was the CIAs station chief in Montevideo. The meeting gave the agent an opportunity to tout his leading role in a CIA-aided coup in Guatemala. Hunt later recalled, Shortly after the Nixon tour left, I received a cable from Washington saying the agency needed him for an important new project similar to the Guatemalan operation. Hunt would soon be working for the vice president on a secret Mafia-CIA plan to assassinate Cubas Fidel Castro.

1959 : The FBI recruits Jack Ruby as a PCI, Provisional Criminal Informant.

19591960 : Vice President Nixon and CIA agent Hunt are key figures in secret CIA efforts to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Nixon is the chief motivator behind an associated Mob-CIA plan to murder Castro. Hunt later admitted his role in such plots. Nixons onetime informant Jack Ruby was also active in anti-Castro operations.