I’ve been thinking long and hard about how to write this blog post and, to be honest, I don’t think this is something that can be told in the usual way, not even through our beloved Q&A format. There are just too many people to introduce, each bogged down with their own backstories, and I don’t think I could do them justice—not without a corkboard and a lot of red string. Also, I don’t want to make this too detailed because, after all, this is a Saturday, and who needs to wade through so many details on a weekend? So here goes: a broad-brush re-telling of how I’ve arrived at my latest theory without inundating you with too many names, facts, and figures. Those can all come later in the book, right? Let’s go!
It all started a week or two ago when I was trying to figure out what Watergate had to do with Hank Greenspun. To me, Greenspun’s office seemed to be a weird little side trip for the Watergate burglars. As most of you know, Hank Greenspun was the outspoken publisher of the Las Vegas Sun and a household name in the City of Lights, Dreams, Opportunities, Second Chances, and, oh yeah, Sin. Something was being stored in Hank’s safe that made the White House Plumbers and the president whom they served very nervous, and I really wanted to find out what that was.
The reason for my obsession is that Hank’s case seems pertinent to Ron Tammen’s case. After all, the acronym “Hac” is written in the top right corner of two of his records, just like Ron’s ten Hacs; an underlined “lf” is scribbled in the right margin of one of his records, just like Ron’s four lf’s; and the words “see index” are written in the left margin of one of Hank’s documents in handwriting that’s similar to the “see index” on page one of Ron’s records. For some reason, Ron Tammen and Hank Greenspun appear to have a connection.
See Ron’s “Hac” in the right corner, to the left of the “all files” note and see his “see index” in the left margin; click on image for a closer view
See Ron’s “Hac” in the right corner; click on image for a closer view
There’d been a few possible reasons mentioned in government records for the 1972 break-in at Greenspun’s office. In his testimony before the Senate Watergate committee, James W. McCord, Jr., said it was to obtain blackmail material that was “racketeer-related” against one of the Democratic candidates and, if he were elected president, “the racketeers or national crime syndicate would have a control or influence over him.” According to an FBI report, another possible reason had to do with records that would make Edmund Muskie, the favored Democratic contender, look bad. Apparently, in the 1960s, Muskie had been on a group hunting trip in Maryland and was cited for scattering corn to attract game birds. Greenspun himself weighed in and, although he acknowledged that he had a document on the Muskie hunting incident on an office table, not in the safe, he waved it off as an unlikely reason for the attempted break-in, which, according to Greenspun, had occurred in August 1972. I will add here that this reason makes no sense if the break-in attempt indeed happened in August 1972, since Muskie had formally withdrawn from the presidential race on April 27, 1972. The most likely reason, Greenspun said, was the sizable stash of memos once owned by Howard Hughes that Greenspun was storing in the safe. In 1970, he’d agreed to store the memos for his friend Robert Maheu, who’d been in charge of Hughes’ Nevada operations until he was fired from that post shortly after Hughes moved from Nevada to the Bahamas in November 1970.
I found my answer in an illuminating article in the December 21, 2015, issue of the Las Vegas Sun, by Megan Messerlyand J.D. Morris. That article led me to a more in-depth 16-page article in the September 1976 issue of Playboy Magazine, titled “The Puppet and The Puppetmasters,” by Larry DuBois and Laurence Gonzales.
Long story short: Hank Greenspun was right. It was the Howard Hughes memos that the Plumbers were after. Apparently, Howard Hughes was a political hot potato when it came to Richard Nixon. You could say that Hughes owned Nixon. Hughes had been paying large sums to Nixon and his brother Donald since 1956, seeking political favors in return. A $205,000 loan to Nixon’s brother in 1956, after being made public by investigative journalist Drew Pearson, likely contributed to Nixon’s election losses for president in 1960 and for governor of California in 1962. In 1969 and 1970, Hughes had donated $100,000 in two $50,000 installments to Nixon’s reelection campaign through Nixon’s longtime friend Bebe Rebozo, money that was also spent illegally. Nixon had been burned twice by Hughes’ loan to his brother and he didn’t want another hefty Hughes donation—a $100,000 bribe—to spoil his chances for reelection.
As for what Hughes wanted in return, one of his top priorities was for the Atomic Energy Commission to stop conducting underground nuclear testing near Las Vegas, since the explosions caused his penthouse at the Desert Inn to sway. He was passionate on this matter, and he would have supported either party to get what he wanted. In 1968, when Lyndon Johnson was still president, a representative of Hughes approached Vice President Humphrey and, according to DuBois and Gonzales, promised that “we will give him full, unlimited support for his campaign to enter the White House if he will just take this one on for us?” Humphrey didn’t bite.
The Hughes memos were a key reason for the June 17, 1972, Watergate break-in as well. A target for that break-in was Larry O’Brien, chair of the Democratic National Committee. Before he was the DNC chair, Larry O’Brien had worked for Howard Hughes as a lobbyist and he knew many of the same people in that tight circle. The Nixon team likely worried about what he knew about the Hughes memos as well.
On February 3, 1972, the memos in Greenspun’s safe were made known to the world by the New York Times. The next day, according to DuBois and Gonzales, “Mitchell met with Liddy and the result was Liddy’s belief that he had the go-ahead for two missions: the burglary of Greenspun’s safe and a mission into O’Brien’s office at the Watergate.”
You could say that, without Hank Greenspun, there would be no Watergate.
But let’s talk about those “Hacs” on Hank’s and Ron’s records. A subsidiary of the Howard Hughes empire was the Hughes Aircraft Company, commonly abbreviated as HAC. DuBois and Gonzales report that HAC was a cover for the CIA, having forged a relationship as early as 1949, two years after the CIA’s original charter. Hughes would give the CIA lots of money and the CIA would award Hughes with lots of lucrative contracts.
Could “Hac” refer to Hughes Aircraft Company? Maybe its presence on a person’s FBI record, rare as it was, meant that they worked undercover there as a CIA operative. Or maybe the FBI used it as shorthand for Hughes himself. Greenspun was a friend of Hughes beginning in 1966, when, upon his invitation, Hughes traveled to Las Vegas and decided to stay there and invest in a number of casinos over those four years.
But here’s the coolest part: do you remember this past summer how I posted about another “Hac” sighting? That notation appeared at the top right of a document for the New England chapter of the Committee for Non-Violent Action (CNVA). At first, I thought the “Hac” notation pertained to a peace activist named Marjorie Swann since that document was in her file, but she’s not mentioned in it. I was having a tough time figuring out what the organization’s link might be to Howard Hughes until I learned something: not only did the CNVA protest against the Vietnam War, according to Wikipedia, they were formed in 1957 to protest against nuclear weapons testing. Their first protest was held in August 1957 at Camp Mercury, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
See “Hac” in the right corner, near the circled sd; click on image for a closer view
This brings us to my new theory: Maybe the FBI used the “Hac” notation to indicate an association with Howard Hughes, whether financial or personal.
As for how Ron Tammen would have come into contact with Howard Hughes, I have some ideas about that too. His name was Robert Maheu, and, in addition to being employed by Howard Hughes, he was a CIA contractor who’d spent a lot of time in Miami as a liaison to the CIA and Mafia in their efforts to assassinate Fidel Castro. Let’s save him for another day.
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