FOIA on Martin Luther King

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

was Intertel that ITT hired in 1972 to snoop on columnist 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-conspirator Vincent Teresa met with defendants Meyer Lansky and Dino Cellini in Miami and had a discussion wherein defendants Lansky and Cellini gave Teresa permission to conduct gambling junkets to the Paradise Island Casino.

Thus government agents allege that in 1968 Lansky maintained at least some control in running junkets to Resorts International's Paradise Island Casino. The junket racket is an integral part of the casino operation, and as recently as 1971 Lansky's cohort Eddie Cellini was reportedly still arranging junkets for the Paradise Island Casino.

## Enter Nixon and Rebozo

It was in 1967 with Lansky still okaying junkets 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 Nixon's. As a Secret Service guard for Nixon when he was Vice President, Golden made a good enough impression 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 Resorts International. Former Republican Presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey does own stock in the company, and, according to organized crime investigator Hank Messick among others, there are reports of Lansky buying stock as well. Nobody has proved anything one way or another about the stock connections, but that Nixon is connected to Resorts International, 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 Finance. The Minister refused to explain the cut, and told opposition members to "use your imagination" for an explanation.

The advice was taken literally by some Bahamian papers who speculated that pressure came from "outside 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 meddling in the affairs of that country.

Richard Nixon, a man with both visible and invisible links to the underworld and politics of pre-Castro Cuba, turns up in the Bahamas with very similar 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 Exchange 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 addition 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 serious 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 proposals for a concentrated and coordinated war on organized 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 Josph Delfine, dated October 19, 1953. The IRS recommended to the Justice Department that "criminal proceedings be instituted against Meyer Lansky in the Southern Judicial District 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.