J. Edgar Hoover's failings in this regard are legendary. Maintaining his position as Director of the FBI, especially as he was approaching his 70th birthday in 1965 (mandatory retirement age for federal employees), Hoover was convinced (correctly I believe) that John and Robert Kennedy would use that as a reason to ease him out the door.
Back in the 1930's when FBI agent Melvin Purvis was hunting down John Dillinger, Hoover required Purvis to make daily, and sometimes even hourly progress reports. A few months later, when "Creepy" Alvin Karpis of Ma Barker's gang was the new public enemy number one (a title he gained after John Dillinger's extra-judicial execution in Chicago), Hoover held up the capture of Karpis until he could fly to New Orleans, and supervise the arrest himself. When (according to Karpis), a dozen FBI agents had him stopped in his car, surrounded with Thompson sub-machine guns and other weapons, J. Edgar Hoover "bravely" (don't snicker too loudly) stepped out from behind his phalanx of agents to announce to Karpis he was under arrest. Hoover only took that much risk because the newspapers were still lauding Purvis for Dillinger's death, and Hoover did not want to share the spotlight with anybody.
LBJ was without a doubt the premier political deal-maker in the U.S. of the Twentieth Century. When he lost the Democratic Presidential Nomination to JFK in 1960, it was a massive blow to his gigantic ego. Because his family had a tendency to be short-lived, LBJ thought that 1964 would be his last chance for an eight year Presidency, because he would turn 64 in January, 1973, the same age at which his father died. In late 1963, LBJ, who had remained untouched by scandal in spite of his wide-spread influence peddling, was facing the reality that business associate Billy Sol Estes, was about to go down on charges of fraud; and that LBJ's friend and protege, Bobby Baker, was probably not far behind. The only way that he could keep his power--and keep himself out of the prosecutor's sights--was if he remained Vice-President, or better still, became President. LBJ believed it was his destiny to be President of the United States, and he wasn't about to let some Irish-Catholic, silver spoon Boston politician and his little brother stop him. After he dove head first into Vietnam, LBJ micromanaged the conflict, at times giving General Westmoreland and other subordinates orders from 10,000 miles away that had no relationship with what was actually happening in Southeast Asia.
Richard Nixon was Macbeth with five o'clock shadow. In his checkered career, Nixon had ongoing ties with both the Mob and Big Oil going back to perhaps as early as 1942. Nixon was a member of the Office of Price Administration (OPA) before he joined the Navy in 1943, and his desk was (according to Carl Oglesby in The Yankee and Cowboy War , 1976, pp, 35-9) the first one across which a U.S. Customs report on the re-importation by Standard Oil of Kansas (in an attempt to circumvent tire rationing laws) of prewar, American manufactured tires from Cuba (with the help of Bebe Rebozo) would have landed. However, the particulars of that event are lost to history, as virtually all OPA records were destroyed after the War. We do know that Nixon's future friend and fellow U.S. Congressman George Smathers represented Standard Oil of Kansas. We also know that Mr. Smathers had a long term relationship--both personal and professional--with Meyer Lansky, who is usually considered by Mob historians as the brains behind the National Crime syndicate. The final fate of those illegally re-imported tires, as well as the legal penalties assessed on those who broke this law, are lost in the mists of history.
From the very beginning of his political career, Richard Nixon always had a close but secretive association with mobsters. Mobster Mickey Cohen claimed in his memoirs that he provided $5,000 to help Nixon with his election in 1946, and organized a consortium of gamblers to contribute $75,000 to his Senate campaign in 1950 (Jim Marrs, Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy , 1989, pp. 267-74). After Nixon was nominated for Vice President in 1952, he took a vacation in Havana at one of the hotels run by the Mob. His good friend Bebe Rebozo had long-time ties to Organized Crime in both Cuba and South Florida (Oglesby, op cit., 35-9). A request from Congressman Nixon's office to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) to not call Jack Rubinstein (later known, after he moved to Dallas, as Jack Ruby) before that committee because of "information functions performed for the staff of Congressman Richard M. Nixon, Esq., Rep. of California." (See below.) It was President Nixon's micromanagement of the Watergate burglary and cover-up that led to his resignation in August 1974.
In the race for most corrupt President of the Twentieth Century, Nixon wins over Johnson, Harding, Reagan, Clinton, or anyone else whose name you might wish to throw into the contest, because he is the only President in American History to have resigned from office.
So, other than ridding themselves of a man who H.L. Hunt had described as running a "Communist government," what promises might have been made at this party to soothe the fears of this nervous and satisfy the greed of the members of this monstrous conspiracy? I believe that:
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