BLACK PRESIDENT, Chapter 33 (part 1 0f 2). More about how eccentic Howard Hughes became.

Howard Hughes used his enormous bankroll to buy up people who could help him control the world. https://www.history.com/news/7-things-you-may-not-know-about-howard-hughes

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

July 4, 1968

Larry O’Brien checked into the Desert Inn as instructed and followed the bellmen up to the penthouse suite. Left alone in the sumptuous rooms, O’Brien walked over to the glass wall and peered out onto the surrounding city and the desert beyond. Every few minutes a red or blue burst of fireworks could be seen exploding up in the distance, mostly small pyrotechnics, but occasionally a big one was launched. He had heard a crackle of gun shots as the limo drove him to the hotel and it had spooked him. Those same sounds, loud pops, had snuffed out the life of Bobby Kennedy. O’Brien had seen the blood and watched his friend moving in slow motion on the cement floor. That man had had hopes and powerful dreams one second, and the next, all was gone. Dead. Both Kennedys dead. And anyone as close to the Kennedys as he’d been, could put some of the puzzle pieces together. Kennedy didn’t want the Vietnam War to move forward. As soon as he was dead and buried, with Lyndon Johnson in power, it started up more intensely than anyone could have imagined. And who gained? The arms manufacturers, the clothing manufacturers, the food processors, oil companies, practically anyone who had something to sell. Big bucks. Just the fuel for transport was huge business.

O’Brien turned from the windows and scanned the suite. On the table next to the mirror was a bowl of fruit, a bottle of Irish whiskey and three stacks of twenty-five dollar chips, nine hundred dollars in total. The note below them read, Happy Fourth! Thanks for coming. See you tomorrow – R. Maheu and Howard Hughes.

At exactly 9:00AM the next morning, with the streets quiet, most people still sleeping in after the holiday parties, O’Brien skipped the short cab ride and instead walked the couple of blocks to Maheu’s house (located less than a football field away from the hotel) and pressed the bell. Maheu answered, then led him to a full breakfast spread; coffee, orange juice, scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, croissants and coffee cakes, the works. After that, the men got down to business. Before the conversation moved very far along, O’Brien asked when he would be meeting with Hughes.

“I know this sounds strange, but I’ve never actually seen him myself,” said Maheu, trying not to look too embarrassed by the bizarre fact. How many people worked for a man for over ten years who they’d never met?

“I get these memos...,” Maheu explained, reaching behind him to grab something and coming back with a heavily scrawled yellow legal paper.

“Here...This is how I get my orders. I’m expected to reciprocate with detailed answers, either in writing or on the phone. I find the monthly checks and bonuses make up nicely for the lack of convention. And we do get things done around here.”

O’Brien glanced at the yellow paper, trying not to focus on it too much. Still, he caught some words...“Kennedy’s family and their sorrows...” and turned his eyes away. He didn’t want to appear too nosey. He nodded at Maheu, then said, “Well, that’s OK, as long as we get some steady leadership.”

“Exactly,” said Maheu. “Howard is one of the most aware bosses I’ve ever worked for...and possibly the shrewdest as well. And he has a great eye for talent...which brings us together today.”

Within two days, O’Brien was convinced that he could work for Hughes, assist him in his legal battle for TWA, help him acquire Air West and be frontman for his proposed takeover of the ABC network. Through a flurry of memos, Hughes instructed Maheu to tell O’Brien to use President Lyndon Johnson, his old buddy, to facilitate the billionaire’s takeover of ABC.

Hubert Humphrey had moved to hire O’Brien exclusively for his run in November, but had been just a few days too late. That opened the door for Maheu to work the entire political landscape. Humphrey received his $50,000 payoff from Howard Hughes two days before July became August. On that same weekend, Maheu handed over $25,000 to O’Brien, to be delivered to Kennedy’s brother-in-law, Steven Smith, over brunch in the Washington Ambassador Hotel. It was the same $25,000 campaign contribution that Hughes had earlier promised to Bobby Kennedy.

When Pierre Salinger had met Maheu in Las Vegas two months earlier, regarding the “Bobby Kennedy contribution,” it had been a friendly visit, with Salinger re-affirming Bobby Kennedy’s plans to delay the Atomic Energy Commission tests in Nevada. Few would have imagined a Kennedy needing financial favors, but there it was. Kennedy’s funds were rapidly dwindling, with a forecast that he’d hit the financial wall long before the November election date swung around. But to deal with Howard Hughes, and his too-generous cash contributions, had been an unnerving commitment for J.F.K’s younger brother. He simply had too much history with Maheu.

Bobby Kennedy had met Maheu long before, had had dealings with him as Attorney General. When the Justice department moved forward to prosecute Maheu for the illegal wiretapping of Laugh-In comedian Dan Rowan’s phone, the CIA jumped in and blocked the indictment, citing reasons of “National Security.” It was then that Bobby had learned about the CIA-Mafia-Maheu connections regarding the assassination attempts on Castro.

Comedian Rowan had been wiretapped as a CIA favor to Sam Giancana, their help-mate with the Castro hit, so that the crime boss could find out if one of his girlfriends, singer Phyllis McGuire, was having an affair. Bobby had found himself caught in the wringer when he had to explain to J. Edgar Hoover about the tap, while, at the same time, harbouring the knowledge that his Presidental brother had just broken off an extra-marital affair with Giancana’s mistress, Judith Campbell. The knowledge of that tangled web, of mafia working hand-in-hand with CIA, had later caused Bobby great consternation, because somewhere along one of its many off-shoot connections, he suspected, lay the answer to the identity of his brother’s killers.

So it had been an ironic and disturbing shock to find his life intertwined with Maheu’s again. But there he was, standing in line (with Salinger), hands out, trying to get a campaign donation from the same Howard Hughes who had “loaned” Nixon money in 1960. And Kennedy, himself, had fanned the flames of that scandal.

Later on that July day, O’Brien received his first check from Howard Hughes, for $15,000, during dinner with Maheu at the Sprago restaurant in Georgetown. He would receive $15,000 a month for two years – one-and-a-half times the yearly pay of the President of the United States – with the possibility of an extension if both parties agreed. And with his new position as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), for the election of Hubert Humphrey, performing as an “unpaid contributor,” he would have his fingers in both pies simultaneously.

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