Lyndon
Johnson: Have you heard about this tape recording that's out?
George
Smathers: No.
Lyndon
Johnson: Well, it involves you and John Williams and a number
of other people.
George
Smathers: You mean, some woman?
Lyndon
Johnson: Yep.
George
Smathers: Yeah, I've heard about it. And it involves Hugh Scott.
Lyndon
Johnson: But it's a pure made-up deal, isn't it?
George
Smathers: I don't know what it is. I never heard of the woman
in my life... But she mentions President Kennedy in there.
Lyndon
Johnson: Oh yeah, and the Attorney General (Robert Kennedy) and
me and you and everybody. And I never heard of her.
George
Smathers: Thank God, they've got Hugh Scott in there. He's the
guy that was asking for it. But she's also mentioned him, (laughs)
which is sort of a lifesaver. So I don't think that'll get too
far now. (Everett) Jordan's orders.
Lyndon
Johnson: Can't you talk to him? Why in the living hell does he
let Curtis run him? I thought you were going to talk to Dick Russell
and go talk to Curtis and make Dirksen and them behave.
George
Smathers: Jordan has assured me over and over again.
Lyndon
Johnson: Well, he's not strong enough though, unless someone goes
and tells him now.
George
Smathers: That's right. Now Dick Russell is the man that ought
to do it. And I've asked Dick to do it and Dick has told me that
he would....
Lyndon
Johnson: They had this damned fool insurance man, in and they
had him in a secret session and Bobby (Baker) gave me a record
player and Bobby got the record player from the insurance man
(Don Reynolds). I didn't know a damned thing about it. Never heard
of it till this happened. But I paid $88,000 worth of premiums
and, by God, they could afford to give me a Cadillac if they'd
wanted to and there'd have been not a goddamned thing wrong with
it.... There's nothing wrong with it. There's not a damned thing
wrong. So Walter Jenkins explained it all in his statement. This
son of a bitch Curtis comes along and says, well, he wouldn't
take any statements not sworn to. They had their counsel come
down and Walter Jenkins handled it, told him exactly what was
done.... A fellow said Manhattan is the only company that would
write on a heart attack man.... Bobby said, "Hell now, wait,
let my man handle it and he'll get a commission off of it."
So we said all right... Now he said - Walter - "I'll swear
to it." "No, I want a public hearing so I can put it
on television." Now that oughtn't to be. Now George, I ought
not to have to get into that personally.
George
Smathers: Absolutely not.... And Dick Russell has got to exercise
his influence. He must do this and I think you've got to talk
to him about it and just say you've got to do it. I'll talk to
Jordan. Jordan thinks I'm guilty of something. So he thinks I
may be covering up trying to protect myself. Hubert has been really
good in this and, believe it or not, Joe Clark' has finally gotten
the picture and he's trying to stop it now. But Hugh Scott and
Carl Curtis are going wild, and Jordan doesn't have enough experience
or enough sense to gavel them down and shut them up. But if Dick
will talk to him-really talk to him and say
Lyndon
Johnson: I think he needs to talk to Curtis too. Why don't you
tell Dick to do that?
George
Smathers: I will. I've already talked to him.
Lyndon
Johnson: I hate to call him.... Get Dick to go see Curtis in the
morning and just say, "Now quit being so goddamn rambunctious
about this, Carl."
George
Smathers: Can I tell Dick this is not right and you know about
it? And naturally it makes you apprehensive and you've got all
these damn problems and to have this little nitpicking thing.
It's just not fair.
Lyndon
Johnson: It's not.
George
Smathers: So I'll do it.
Lyndon
Johnson: Tell him he's the only one can do it. And he can do it.
And if he was involved I'd damned sure walk across the country
and do it.
George
Smathers: Exactly. All right, that's a damned good thought and
I'll do it. I've already talked to him about it, but I
Lyndon
Johnson: The FBI has got that record.' Now you know I think you
ought to leak it. I don't know who you can leak it to. But I've
read the goddamn tax report and I've read the FBI report and there
ain't a goddamn thing in it that they can even indict him on.
The only thing that they can do is that he puffed up the financial
statement, which everybody's done. If he pays that off, they couldn't
convict him on that....
George
Smathers: They won't print that 'cause I tried to leak that the
day before yesterday to ... two different sources and it hasn't
been printed. They just want to print this ... ugly stuff....
That Curtis is mean as a snake. (Everett)
Dirksen sat in the room the night of the day after you became
President with me and Humphrey and agreed that this thing ought
to stop and that he would get Curtis to stop it. ... You know,
there's some statement about Dirksen and Kuchel with this German
girl.' So he said, "It is just ridiculous and it ought to
stop.". . . . I think we can handle everybody on our side.
Howard Cannon is the smartest fellow over there, but he's a little
afraid to do anything because he himself figures he was involved
out in Las Vegas. So he's a little afraid to be as brave as he
ought to be. ... I'll tell Dick this. I've already told him once,
but
Lyndon
Johnson: Tell him he ought to talk to Dirksen and Curtis both.
Please do it, and also Jordan. He's just got his work cut out
Monday 'cause they're going to meet Tuesday and they're going
to want a public hearing.' And then that's a television hearing,
and then a television hearing about my buying some insurance.
And what in the goddamn hell is wrong with my buying insurance?
I paid cash for it, wrote them a check for it, made my company
the beneficiary, and they didn't deduct it. No tax deduction.
We'll do it after we pay our taxes. We pay the premium-only reason
being if I died, my wife would have to pay estate tax on me on
account of she'd have to sell her stock and they want the company
to have some money to buy her stock so she doesn't have to lose
control of her company.
(4)
Bobby
Baker,
Wheeling and Dealing: Confessions of a Capitol Hill Operator
(1978)
As an official
in the Reynolds insurance firm, I received a $4,000 loan from
profits the firm made on the D.C. Stadium transaction. This was
not the only business I had brought Don Reynolds. I had placed
with him insurance on myself, the Carousel, the Serv-U Corporation,
and had directed LBJ, Carole Tyler, and Fred Black to him for
insurance coverage.
Not satisfied
with having told the truth with respect to the LBJ insurance policy
and kicking back a stereo set to the Johnsons, and on the DC Stadium
deal, Reynolds now launched wilder and more inventive tales. Among
these was that I'd once flashed a black bag full of cash reportedly
$1,00,000 - and had indicated it was payoff money from General
Dynamics to buy the TFX contract. I never took a dime for myself,
for LBJ, or anyone else in connection with that contract. And,
if I had done so, I certainly would not have gone around flashing
the cash and bragging about it like a schoolboy. The test of credibility
here, I think, is that no one ever saw me exhibit that kind of
conduct before or since. Reynolds also claimed that he'd paid
me $140,000 over the years; this was simply preposterous. For
years, however, IRS agents tried to find these nonexistent funds.
Only within the past few months has the IRS conceded that they
never existed.
As Reynolds
continued to make charges, one of which was that Lyndon Johnson
had misused foreign counterpart funds during his government travels,
it irritated the new president. Johnson then did a dumb thing.
He leaked to his friend columnist Drew Pearson, and to other favored
newsmen, FBI and Pentagon reports which accused Reynolds of having
been forced out of West Point for improper conduct, of having
dealt in the black market while overseas in the army, of having
brought unfounded charges against others in the past, and of a
general instability. This not only was illegal and improper, it
also created sympathy for Reynolds - One Man takes on the Establishment
- and provided fodder to Scott, Williams, Curtis, Karl Mundt,
and other Republican senators eager to prove White House meddling
and a whitewash in the Baker case.
It was
amusing, however, to note that at a given point Senator Hugh Scott
began to soft-pedal criticism of me and to sing hosannas to the
new president: "I have so much desire not to damage the Republic.
I think Lyndon Johnson is a fine, can-do president, a man of action.
I believe he is sincerely advancing a program he believes is in
the best interest of this country." There was good reason
for Senator Scott's conversion, as I learned through the White
House grapevine: LBJ had threatened to close down the Philadelphia
Navy Yard unless Senator Scott closed his critical mouth.
(5)
Seymour
Hersh,
The Dark
Side of Camelot (1997)
In September
newspapers and magazines began unraveling a seamy story of Baker's
financial ties to a fast-growing vending machine company. Baker
and a group of investors, it turned out, had been awarded many
contracts while the new company was still being organized, and
had also received instant credit from a bank controlled by Democratic
senator Robert Kerr, of Oklahoma, and his family. By October
the Baker scandal had turned into a newspaper tempest, and reporters
were beginning to dig up dirt on a number of present and past
senators - including Baker's mentor, Vice President Johnson.
A Maryland insurance broker named Donald Reynolds met privately
with Senator John Williams of Delaware, a Republican, and complained
to him about advertising he had been forced to buy on the vice
president's radio and television stations in Austin, Texas,
as a condition of writing Johnson's life insurance policy. Johnson
also demanded, and got, a television set and a new stereo from
Reynolds as a cost of doing business. John Williams's best friend
in the Senate was Carl Curtis of Nebraska, the senior Republican
on the Rules Committee. As the scandal spread in the newspapers,
alarming other Democrats - including senators who had received
many thousands of dollars in campaign contributions through
Baker - the Rules Committee announced an all-out investigation.
Baker's personal life was soon thrust into the limelight, along
with the mysterious goings-on at the Quorum Club. It took only
days for the Republicans on the committee to find out all they
needed to know about Ellen Rometsch.
