13-00000
was Intertel that ITT hired in 1972 to snoop on col-
umnist Jack Anderson.
The latest and possibly most damaging charge in
the Resorts International battle came in June 1972
in an IRS inspired indictment of Meyer Lansky and
Dino Cellini. The indictment reads in part:
On or about May 17, 1968, unindicted co-conspira-
tor Vincent Teresa met with defendants Meyer Lan-
sky and Dino Cellini in Miami and had a discus-
sion wherein defendants Lansky and Cellini gave
Teresa permission to conduct gambling junkets to
the Paradise Island Casino.
Thus government agents allege that in 1968 Lan-
sky maintained at least some control in running jun-
kets to Resorts International's Paradise Island Cas-
ino. The junket racket is an integral part of the
casino operation, and as recently as 1971 Lansky's
ex-husband Eddie Cellini was reportedly still arranging
junkets for the Paradise Island Casino.
Enter Nixon and Rebozo
It was in 1967 — with Lansky still okaying jun-
kets and Cellini still running the Paradise Island
Casino — that Richard Nixon and Bebe Rebozo became
friends with the head of Resorts International.
It should be no surprise that James Golden, the
recently (1969) hired "deputy director of security"
for Resorts International is a good friend of Nix-
on's. As a Secret Service guard for Nixon when he
was Vice President, Golden made a good enough im-
pression to be appointed staff security chief for
Nixon in 1968. Golden was also security director
of Nixon's convention headquarters in Miami that
year, and was security director for his subsequent
inauguration. Later that year he moved to Resorts
International. Golden is just one of a long string
of interesting Nixon security appointees, among
them Watergate indictees James McCord, Gordon Liddy,
and Howard Hunt.
There are rumors, some of which have been aired
in the press, that Richard Nixon owns stock in Re-
sorts International. Former Republican Presidential
candidate Thomas E. Dewey does own stock in the com-
pany, and, according to organized crime investigator
Hank Messick among others, there are reports of Lan-
sky buying stock as well. Nobody has proved any-
thing one way or another about the stock connec-
tions, but that Nixon is connected to Resorts Inter-
national, at least through Golden, is indisputable.
Perhaps more disquieting than rumors of Nixon
stock ownership in an underworld holding company for
Bahamian casinos are the reports of his meddling in
Bahamian affairs. In 1969 a proposed tax increase
on gambling profits to provide money for Bahamian
schools was slashed in half by the Minister of Fi-
nance. The Minister refused to explain the cut,
and told opposition members to "use your imagina-
tion" for an explanation.
The advice was taken literally by some Bahamian
papers who speculated that pressure came from "out-
side sources connected with casinos". One Bahamian
paper asked openly if "a telephone call from the
White House was not responsible?"
Whereas our investigation into Cuban politics
brought evidence to light possible violations of the
Neutrality Act, we now have the possibility of an
American President who has spent a significant
amount of his vacation time in the Bahamas also med-
dling in the affairs of that country.
Richard Nixon, a man with both visible and invis-
ible links to the underworld and politics of pre-
Castro Cuba, turns up in the Bahamas with very simi-
lar links, bringing some big names along with him.
Enter William Rogers
Two men with histories both in Bahamian politics
and in the finances of organized crime have made
frequent use of the legal services of a firm whose
most prominent partner is Richard Nixon's old friend
William P. Rogers, one-time Secretary of State.
The two men are Mike McLaney, charged by the
Royal Commission in 1967, and a business cohort of
his named William Colusardo. McLaney and Colusardo
were investigated in 1967 by the Securities and Ex-
change Commission in connection with a blueberry
plantation that McLaney sold to a company controlled
by Colusardo. The subsequent corporate jugglings
implicated (among others) newly elected Bahamian
Premier Lyndon Pindling. Among Colusardo's "favors"
for Pindling were the use of his airplane during the
election campaign, and a $127,000 contribution in
the form of an "interest payment". The law firm
that defended McLaney and Colusardo against the SEC
was that of William P. Rogers. Rogers had been a
close friend and political associate of Nixon's for
twenty-five years. He accompanied Nixon on many of
his Bahamian jaunts and also made frequent stops
with him at the Key Biscayne Inn and Villas. In ad-
dition to being an "R & R" sidekick, Rogers was the
man Nixon turned to for counsel amidst his personal
crises in the Checkers affair and Eisenhower's seri-
ous heart attack.
Rogers served the Eisenhower/Nixon team for eight
years in the Department of Justice, first as Deputy
Attorney General, and then, by 1957, as Attorney
General. The Justice Department's record against
organized crime in the years following the Kefauver
Commission was lackluster, to say the least. It was
Rogers who personally rejected the recommendations
of the specially constituted Wessell Committee on
organized crime set up in the wake of the infamous
Appalachian raid in upstate New York that revealed
a Mafia summit conference. The Committee's propos-
als for a concentrated and coordinated war on or-
ganized crime were only implemented some years later
by Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
A footnote in the Justice Department files was a
report by IRS Special Agent Joseph Delfine, dated Oc-
tober 19, 1953. The IRS recommended to the Justice
Department that "criminal proceedings be instituted
against Meyer Lansky in the Southern Judicial Dis-
trict of New York for the willful attempt to defeat
and evade a large portion of his income taxes for
the years 1945 and 1947 under section 145b of the
Internal Revenue Code". The Justice Department —
with William Rogers second in command at the time —
respectfully declined to prosecute.
Lums Hot Dogs
Upon leaving his post as Attorney General in
1960, Rogers became a member of the New York firm of
Royal, Koegel and Wells. In 1969, with its leading
partner about to become Secretary of State, Royal,
etc. moved with its clients wholeheartedly into the
world of gambling casinos and organized crime.
A year later Royal took on the account of the
Miami-based hot dog chain, Lums Inc. What did a hot
dog chain have to offer a prestigious New York law
firm? The answer may lie in where the firm took its
client.