of Internal Revenue, who does not practice personally before the
Treasury yet, because the law requires ex-employes to wait two years
before they may represent clients in bureaus to which they were
attached. But his associates are not so hobbled.
Former Senator Burton K. Wheeler is the man to see if you have any
trouble with the Interstate Commerce Commission. Wheeler can have
anything he wants in Washington. President Truman passed the word
along. It was Wheeler who advised Truman not to resign from the Senate
at the time of the Pendergast scandal. Harry has been eternally
grateful ever since.
The law firm of Thurman Arnold, Abe Fortas and Paul A. Porter has
practically everything for its field. All three are prominent
ex-New Dealers. Porter’s contact is with the Federal Communications
Commission. Arnold, once a trust-buster, now defends trusts. Fortas,
onetime stooge of Harold Ickes, is the boy to see for anything in the
Department of the Interior. Among the clients of this firm is the
Western Union Telegraph Company, for which they are the registered
lobbyists. During their plugging for the telegraph monopoly it was
brought out under oath that at least one block of 17 percent of its
stock was owned by underworld figures. Since then, Western Union was
indicted twice in New Jersey for engaging illegally in transmission of
racing information, which the Grand Jury investigation indicated was
the company’s main source of profit.
The Arnold firm secured $200,000,000 for the Puerto Rican government.
It also defended Owen Lattimore against Senator McCarthy’s charges. The
boys netted $600,000 last year. Drew Pearson’s daughter is married to
Arnold’s son.
Arnold is the playboy of the firm, congenial and convivial.
When Dean Acheson’s law firm swung the $90,000,000 Polish loan, its
fee from behind the Iron Curtain was $1,000,000, plus an equal sum for
expenses.
Leon Henderson, the social planner who admits he won World War II
single-handed, deserves an important place in this chapter. As one of
the brain-trust of the “progressive” Americans for Democratic Action,
brother Henderson throws the weight of that organization’s supposed
voting strength around Washington for the benefit of his private
clients. That is, when he is not too busy making a fool of himself with
some young blonde on a New York dance floor.
The A.D.A. pipeline into the White House is David Garrison Lloyd,
assistant general counsel to the President.
Robert Nathan, the CIO economist, who comes up with fantastic
suggestions such as that the cost of labor has nothing to do with the
final price of the commodity, helps support himself by “economizing”
for capitalistic clients trying to borrow dough from the RFC. If they
hire him, they usually get it.
Those who shed tears for Louis D. Johnson when he was fired as
Secretary of Defense need have no worries about how Louis is going to
make a living in the future. He is a partner in the firm of Stepto and
Johnson, and he has high connections.
Louis, who put the stigma on five-percenters, is one of the biggest
operators on government contracts in town. Incidentally, there’s
nothing illegal about five-percenting and the fee is now seven and a
half percent--Truman inflation.
Though out of the administration, Johnson is so potent and powerful
that failure to retain him is a death warrant on some deals. He
specializes in alien property work.
Once again, as during World War II, the lobbyists and five-percenters’
password is “Are You Protected?”
That goes for a lot of things. It means are you protected against the
law, against competition? But, mainly, are you protected from your
clients?
Too many fixers found themselves double-crossed. After they had
delivered, they couldn’t collect.
Now the smart ones won’t unbutton a button until the cash is put up
in escrow. Fancy deals are worked out on paper to cover up the shady
nature of the real transaction.
One contact man whom it was a pleasure to have lobby you was Howard
Hughes’ fat errand boy, Johnny Meyer. Johnny is a prodigal entertainer
and check-picker-upper. During the Senatorial investigation into how
come Hughes got some government contracts, it was testified that Johnny
supplied gifts and gals lavishly. He introduced Brigadier General
Elliott Roosevelt to his former wife, Faye Emerson, and picked up the
tab for the wedding expenses.
Elliott screamed at the hearing, “You are persecuting me because
my name happens to be Roosevelt.” The Republicans who conducted it
immediately got cold feet.
Their temerity in hounding Elliott and Johnny was not forgotten. Three
years later, the radical lame duck Senator, Claude Pepper, conducted an
investigation to try to prove that former committee chairman Brewster
had tapped Johnny Meyer’s wires.
If he did, he must have had a good time. We know. We were with
Johnny in his Statler suite, and he was with us in ours. His “in” is
former Washington Governor Mon Wallgren, who is an old drinking and
poker-playing crony of the President. Wallgren has entree at all times
to the White House and now holds a Government hand-out job so he can
keep his lines and connections in order.
While on the subject of lame ducks, we mustn’t forget Scott Lucas,
former Senate Majority leader. He is now ready, willing and able to
handle such Washington legal and contact matters as may be brought to
the attention of himself and partner, Charles A. Thomas.
Many of the lawyers, lobbyists, fixers, five-percenters, etc., with
wires into high places, do not actually practice in Washington,
preferring to do their work through correspondents or connections.
One of these is Jake Arvey, the Illinois Democratic boss and associate
of Mafia hoodlums, who operates through the Washington office of Louis
Johnson. Arvey is the kingpin of the wire-pullers.
Often the extent of a fixer’s ability is overrated. An intermediary
needs only to be seen with a big politician to have the word get out
that he’s “in.” Then, after spending thousands, a client sometimes
gets the idea he’s got to hire another lawyer to do the actual work.
Sometimes the fixers themselves turn the actual leg work over to
capable attorneys, sit back, and take the credit.
There are many of these bread-and-butter lawyers who accomplish
what all the politicians and five-percenters can’t, because they
really know the law. For instance, one prominent politico told us
that while few tax cases are “fixed” at the Washington level, many a
fearful and repentant chiseler has been fleeced by smart operators
who told him they were wonder-workers. For results, he recommended
two relatively unknown but very successful practitioners, Bert B.
Rand, Washington-wise attorney, and Nathan Wechsler, hard-hitting,
astute C.P.A., because they had the staff and experience to meet the
government on an equal basis.
Similarly, in the field of constitutional law and the intricacies of
corporation procedure, and claim work, they look up Loring Black, a
former Congressman from Brooklyn, who retired from the House in 1934.
One young fellow who can do more for you in Washington with less
fanfare doesn’t make it his business. He is Hal Korda, onetime
newspaperman, who has many powerful friends on both sides. When the
Dems found out he knew Republicans, and vice versa, they began to
use him as a channel to square things they didn’t want to talk about
directly to each other, and he secured campaign contributions for both.
Many members of Congress lobby, legitimately, for their own
communities, or the industries thereof, or for public organizations in
which they have a deep interest.
For instance, Joseph Rider Farrington, the delegate from the Territory
of Hawaii, who holds a seat in the House but no vote there, has been
foremost in the fight to secure statehood for the Islands. Farrington
has labored mightily in that cause, and could show the professionals a
thing or two. If Hawaii ever achieves statehood, Farrington can take
the bow.
Incidental to that great libertarian campaign, Farrington also plugs
the produce and products of the Territory and is its chief booster for
tourism. His office in the Old House Building resembles a cross between
a steamship agency and a Chamber of Commerce.
On the other hand, Henry Latham, one of the three Republicans in the
House from the City of New York--if you count Javits a Republican--is
a strong and sincere booster for the Navy. Were it not for his
“lobbying” in committee, we would have no Marine Corps today.
Latham, a Navy officer in World War II, did not know he had been run
for Congress or elected until his ship went into a South Pacific
coaling station two months after the 1944 elections. He has been
reelected ever since.
He spotted the joker which would have wiped out the Marine Corps in
the administration Defense reorganization measure and tied the bill up
until the Devil Dogs were assured of being more than a mere “police
force.”
Acey Caraway, finance director of the Democratic National Committee and
longtime pillar of that body, is opening an office for “consultation”
in the LaSalle Building. Acey, often referred to as the “junior Jim
Farley,” probably knows more Democratic rank-and-filers than anyone
else in the party.
Among the law firms which have had the most success in lucrative
immigration matters is the New York one in which Rep. Franklin D.
Roosevelt, Jr., is a partner.
Thomas Shoemaker, a former Commissioner of Immigration, also shows
remarkable results in such cases.
New York’s left-wing New Deal Republican Congressman Jacob K. Javits
is a partner in Javits and Javits, 1025 Connecticut Avenue. Several
immigration matters have been settled successfully by them.
Wholly apart from such legal practices, the current price for
bringing in a rich refugee who can’t make the quota or other entry
requirements is $75,000. This is split between three Senators and/or
Representatives, to sponsor so-called “private” bills.
These bills are always passed, because the three interested members
buttonhole other Congressmen, who themselves need support to pass their
own private bills. That is called “Congressional courtesy.”
An embarrassing incident happened recently when President Truman vetoed
one such bill, after the 75 Gs had been passed and spent.
The Vice President’s son-in-law, Max Truitt, lobbies for American
flag steamship lines, and has had conspicuous success in obtaining
government handouts. He is effective also for the Kansas City wheat
pit, a favorite whipping boy of the administration he’s married into.
Lobbying before the Maritime Administration is dream business. It had
17 billion dollars’ worth of ships to sell after the war.
Much of this government property found its way into the hands of the
right people, who floated their purchases, if not their ships, by
borrowing from the government, then immediately reselling at double or
triple to corporations they organized.
In addition, these purchasers charged off hundreds of thousands against
their income taxes for expenses, on transactions which they frequently
went into with no more than a few thousand dollars to start with.
Truitt is the most active in the ship field and is registered as a ship
lobbyist with Congress.
The firm of the late Secretary of State Stettinius also dabbled in
Maritime Administration work. His associate was handsome ex-Congressman
Joe Casey, of Massachusetts.
One of the most up-and-coming of the lawyers with “inside” connections
is Margaret Truman’s “date,” Marvin Braverman. It is doubtful whether
he has much influence, but people are beginning to credit him with it,
and he is no chump. He is taking advantage of the publicity.
Braverman is related to Harry Hershfield, the radio wit and cartoonist.
And if his small talk is anything like Harry’s, we don’t blame Margaret
for liking him. Because Harry is the funniest man alive.
Former Housing Administrator Wilson Wyatt, a roaring Fair Dealer, is
lobbying for big interests to repeal war-time taxes as well as for the
Dominican Republic dictatorship.
Clark Clifford, the President’s former legal adviser and ghost-writer,
is not starving in private practice, either.
Clifford says he “doesn’t need law books.” He uses the Mayflower Hotel
menu instead.
Another law firm with great influence is Fulton, Walter and Halley,
with offices over the Occidental Restaurant. Hugh Fulton was chief
counsel for the Truman Committee. Rudolph Halley was on the staff. The
firm has done handily representing Howard Hughes, owner of TWA. As
special counsel for the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad, between New York
City and suburban New Jersey, they secured a 50-percent fare increase
from the ICC. In our book _Chicago Confidential_, we said that the
underworld had large blocks of stock in the Hudson and Manhattan. Since
then Halley, who was the counsel of the road, confirmed our statement,
reluctantly, and we have affidavits to prove it.
A law degree is not always necessary to a successful contact man.
Some of the most prosperous in Washington bill themselves as press
agents. There is, for instance, a little man from Missouri, Victor
Messall, who dresses like a race-track follower and has his walls
plastered with pictures of the President. Messall was a beaver on the
President’s Senatorial campaigns. Later he was on his secretarial staff
in the Senate. He has testified under oath that he has so many clients
he can’t remember them all. A witness charged before the Kefauver
Committee he had given Messall $1500 to help him to get sugar-points
illegally from the OPA during the war. The chairman of the committee
was a Democrat. The counsel was the aforementioned lawyer for the
Truman committee, Rudolph Halley. The subject was suddenly dropped.
Another who bills himself as a press agent and is blossoming into a
power which some call sinister because of his connections, is a former
newspaperman, Dave Charnay, who runs a publicity firm in New York and
Washington, Allied Syndicate. Charnay is a long-time friend of Frank
Costello, reputed king of the underworld, and has done public relations
for Rep. F. D. Roosevelt, Jr., and Manhattan Borough President Robert
F. Wagner, Jr., son of the author of the Labor Act.
During the administration of Mayor LaGuardia, when gangsters were
ordered out of New York night clubs, Charnay, then still employed as a
reporter for the New York _News_, was made “president” of the famous
Copacabana at a salary of $500 a week. Charnay was known as Costello’s
press agent.
Among other clients, his publicity firm represents John L. Lewis’
United Mine Workers, at a reputed annual fee of $175,000. Those who
may seem mystified at his range of clients, may be surprised to learn
that Lewis, though he doesn’t know it, is a prisoner of the Mafia. It
started many years ago, when the United Mine Workers imported Sicilian
sluggers from the big cities. With this “in,” the mob bosses began to
cast greedy eyes on the colossal fortune owned by the mine union. The
Mafia’s policy is never to replace present management if it can take
over a flourishing concern. The infiltration went on under Lewis’ nose,
yet the beetle-browed egomaniac does not know he no longer is the boss
of the United Mine Workers. The boys let him think he is. Last year,
the Mine Workers tried to take over New York’s taxi industry, with an
abortive strike in which Mafia associates took a part. Charnay’s firm
handled the strikers’ publicity.
Charnay now has a pipeline directly to the White House, through the
close personal friendship between John L. Lewis and Dr. John Steelman,
assistant to the President. Some months ago, on his retirement as
Secretary of the Navy, John L. Sullivan joined Charnay’s firm as
chairman of the board, but he resigned to practice law. Paul H.
Griffith, assistant Secretary of Defense until he was replaced by Anna
Rosenberg a few months ago, is now a vice-president of the company.
Charnay had a pleasant luncheon tête-à-tête with Kefauver counsel
Halley, before the crime committee began its hearings, and offered to
work for it without pay.
Another interesting lobbyist is Samuel Haines, whose contract with the
hotel and cafe industry to try to get a reduction in the 20 percent
amusement-tax was on a sliding scale, his fee to be determined by
the degree of eventual tax reduction. The tax wasn’t cut, but he got
$46,000. Haines entertained Senators and Representatives in a playroom
at his home, where he had slot-machines, reverse-rigged so the players
always won.
A mysterious man about town is Dave Gordon, always seen with beautiful
dames. Gordon is a close friend of Nate Lichtauer. Lichtauer is a
shadowy enigma. Little is known about him. But this is to tell you
he engineers the juiciest deals. (“Juice” is the capital slang for
political pull.) Lichtauer is a collector for the Democratic National
Committee. He makes the arrangements. When the contributions come
through, he passes the word to Dave Niles, in the White House, who
pulls the proper strings.
One of Lichtauer’s closest associates is Milton Kronheim, another
mystery man. He used to be in the bail-bond business in Washington and
went surety for gamblers. He is now the city’s biggest and richest
wholesale liquor dealer. He is in on everything. He once peeled off 250
bills--$1,000 bills--to pay an OPA assessment, then put the balance of
the still impressive roll back in his pocket.
He is close to General Vaughan and John Maragon, and thick with
Jake Arvey, Chicago Democratic boss, friend and apologist for Al
Capone’s cousin, Charlie Fischetti, king of the Chicago underworld.
Kronheim’s son was recently made a Municipal Court judge in Washington.
Truman nominated Kronheim’s lawyer, “Jiggs” Donahue to be District
Commissioner. And Kronheim supplies the White House liquor.
One to watch as a power is a Boston lawyer, Paul T. Smith. He got
that way because he and Dave Niles ran a forum in Boston called
Ford’s Lyceum, a sort of left-wing Chatauqua in which Frankfurter had
a powerful say. When Police Chief Barrett was under Congressional
pressure, Niles and Smith interceded.
It was through the connections he made with dreamers and schemers like
Harry Hopkins, who used to lecture for him, that Niles moved himself
into the White House under Roosevelt and has remained under Truman,
the only man Harry dared not fire. Niles, whose hand turns up in
everything, may be the real ruler of the country.
Anyway, when attorney Smith gets a case with a Washington angle, he
phones the White House. He usually gets what he wants.
Niles still operates Ford’s, spends every weekend, from Thursday to
Monday, in Boston. Niles’ hatchet man is Donald Dawson, of Missouri,
formerly with the RFC, now White House Liaison Officer in charge
of personnel. He is the last word on all federal nominations and
appointments, but his word is Niles’.
A couple of weeks before this went to press we saw Dawson lunching at
the Statler with General Vaughan and Johnny Maragon.
If the impression was conveyed that after Maragon’s conviction and
denial on appeal that the pet five-percenter was out of action, you
were so wrong. Up to this writing, Maragon has never served a day
in jail, and he probably never will. News about Maragon is a scarce
commodity in Washington, and bum steers are handed newspapermen. It was
publicly reported that Maragon was ill and in the hospital of a Federal
prison. The White House intimate had not spent one minute in jail.
Maragon, the crooked fixer, is still in business and still has entree
to the White House. The wise guys know that if he is ever punished, it
will be perfunctory, because Maragon took the rap for a lot of way-ups
and what he could tell would rock America. He is still being taken care
of so he will never need to shine shoes again. If he isn’t pardoned by
the time this comes out, it’s in the works.
From time to time, socialites and even foreign noblemen who need the
jack lobby for it. A successful contact man is Baron Constantine von
Stackelburg, once with the World Bank. He and his beautiful wife host
lavish at-homes for the benefit of such interests as the Florida citrus
fruit industry.
Clients of lobbyists are divided into four groups. You may disregard
the inspired baloney that they all represent the capitalists. Only a
small fraction do.
The others who employ lobbyists are (1) Labor unions, farm federations
and left-wing pressure groups; (2) nonprofit and nonpolitical
organizations such as the Red Cross, American Legion, Elks, Knights of
Columbus, etc., and (3) government bureaus.
The most powerful lobby in history was for the Anti-Saloon League.
By far the mightiest since then, at least until Senator Taft’s
overwhelming victory, were lobbies of the labor unions. By tradition
and shaded reporting the representatives of the money barons are
villains; but the labor boys are more vicious and intolerable. And they
don’t spend or entertain, which is even more heinous. The money charged
against the unions for legislative purposes goes mostly to supply dames
and hootch for visiting union chiefs.
The American Federation of Labor crowd hangs out at the Hamilton Hotel,
where all the choice ringside tables in the supper club are reserved
nightly for them. A stable of fillies is available to send up to the
rooms of the dignitaries who dilute their champagne with the tears they
spill for the sans-culottes.
The United Mine Workers frequent the Carlton.
The CIO also played at the Carlton until a Negro delegate was barred.
Most of the boys quit in a huff, and moved across 16th St. to the
equally tony Hay-Adams, where Negroes are also barred.
Many labor unions are represented by female lobbyists, and some of
these will turn a trick in the hay if that helps the sacred cause. The
labor broads still don’t run as homely as some of the Congressmen’s
wives. For unions and other such pressure cookers do not usually offer
money, call-girls or liquor. They threaten to withhold votes back at
home.
As soon as a freshman Congressman checks in, the union harpies make
a grab for him. One whom we know, a Republican elected to fill an
unexpired seat in a Democratic district, received a visit from a
couple of union goons the first day he moved into his office. They gave
him orders how to vote on a pending measure. Congressman John Saylor,
who is six feet four, grabbed them by the necks and walked them to the
wall, where he showed them his certificate of election.
“I thought I read my name here, not yours,” he said. Then he threw them
out.
One of the most indefatigable female lobbyists is the daughter of
former Senator Burt Wheeler. Though her father cleans up representing
robber barons, her client is the left-wing United Electrical Workers
Union. Congressmen report she’s a pest who coaxes with a smile, and if
that doesn’t work, she threatens.
Old-timers in Congress will tell you about the dame lobbyist who
represented some milk producers. She was a handsome woman, so
voluptuously built that they referred to her as “Elsie the Cow.” Her
lobbying career ended in 1937, when she was caught in a hotel room with
a Congressman.
For all practical purposes, lobbyists representing unions and minority
groups do not often buttonhole Congressmen directly. Dave Niles handles
all labor and left-wing angles, and arranges for the votes and rewards
or punishments.
Anna Rosenberg, friend of Niles, former New Dealer, practiced
industrial relations successfully until her appointment as Assistant
Secretary of Defense.
Lobbyists for government bureaus often double as unpaid fixers for
pressure groups, using government funds. Entertainments of Congressmen
by State Department officials at cocktail parties are referred to as
“smokers.”
Sometimes pressure group lobbyists receive government favors and
privileges denied the less favored. An intensive lobby was conducted
against the Mundt-Ferguson anti-Communist bill by a former senatorial
employe who was not registered as a lobbyist.