Bobby Baker Options

[John Simkin]

I thought it might be a good idea to discuss the role Bobby Baker might had had in the events surrounding the assassination of JFK. After all, he is still alive and is still available for interview.

Robert (Bobby) Baker was born in Pickens, South Carolina in 1929. At the age of 14 Baker became a page at the Senate. He was befriended by Lyndon B. Johnson and eventually became secretary to the Senate Majority Leader. At this time he obtained the nickname Little Lyndon. Harry McPherson, another Johnson aide, described Baker as: "He was very smart, very quick, and indefatigable. Just worked all the time. He was always running someplace to make some kind of a deal."

In the early 1950s Baker had also been involved in helping that Intercontinental Hotels Corporation establishing casinos in the Dominican Republic. Baker arranged for Ed Levison, an associate of Meyer Lansky and Sam Giancana, to become involved in this deal. When the first of these casinos were opened in 1955, Baker and Lyndon B. Johnson were invited as official guests.

In 1960 Johnson's was elected as vice president. Baker remained as Johnson's secretary and political adviser. He continued to do business with Levison, Giancana and Ben Siegelbaum (an associate of Jimmy Hoffa) in the Dominican Republic. Baker argued that Dominican Republic could be a Mafia replacement for Cuba. However, these plans came to an end when the military dictator, Rafael Trujillo, was murdered on the orders of the CIA.

Baker had already arranged another source of income. In 1962 he had had established the Serve-U-Corporation with his friend, Fred Black, and mobsters Ed Levenson and Benny Sigelbaum. The company was to provide vending machines for companies working on federally granted programs. The machines were manufactured by a company secretly owned by Sam Giancana and other mobsters based in Chicago.

Rumours began circulating that Baker was involved in corrupt activities. Although officially his only income was that of Johnson's aide, he was clearly a very rich man. Baker was investigated by Robert Kennedy. He discovered Baker had links to Clint Murchison and several Mafia bosses. Evidence also emerged that LBJ was also involved in political corruption. This included the award of a $7 billion contract for a fighter plane, the TFX, to General Dynamics, a company based in Texas. On 7th October, 1963, Baker was forced to leave his job. Soon afterwards, Fred Korth, the Navy Secretary, was also forced to resign because of the TFX contract. (Korth had only got the job in the first place because of LBJ).

According to Anthony Summers (Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover) Bill Thompson asked Baker if he would arrange a meeting between Ellen Rometsch and John F. Kennedy. Baker later said that: "He (Kennedy) sent back word it was the best time he ever had in his life. That was not the only time. She saw him on other occasions. It went on for a while."

J. Edgar Hoover discovered that Kennedy was having a relationship with Romesch. In July 1963 Federal Bureau of Investigation agents questioned Romesch about her past. They came to the conclusion that she was probably a Soviet spy. Hoover actually leaked information to the journalist, Courtney Evans, that Romesch worked for Walter Ulbricht, the communist leader of East Germany. When Robert Kennedy was told about this information, he ordered her to be deported.

The FBI had discovered that there were several women at the Quorum Club, run by Baker, who had been involved in relationships with leading politicians. This included both John and Robert Kennedy. It was particularly worrying that this included Maria Novotny and Suzy Chang. This was a problem because they had both initially came from communist countries and had been named as part of the spy ring that had trapped John Profumo, the British war minister, a few months earlier. JFK told J. Edgar Hoover that he "personally interested in having this story killed".

Hoover refused and leaked the information to Clark Mollenhoff. On 26th October he wrote an article in The Des Moines Register claiming that the FBI had "established that the beautiful brunette had been attending parties with congressional leaders and some prominent New Frontiersmen from the executive branch of Government... The possibility that her activity might be connected with espionage was of some concern, because of the high rank of her male companions". Mollenhoff claimed that John Williams "had obtained an account" of Rometsch's activity and planned to pass this information to the Senate Rules Committee, the body investigating Baker.

The following day Robert Kennedy sent La Verne Duffy to West Germany to meet Romesch. In exchange for a great deal of money she agreed to sign a statement formally "denying intimacies with important people." Kennedy now contacted Hoover and asked him to persuade the Senate leadership that the Senate Rules Committee investigation of this story was "contrary to the national interest". He also warned on 28th October that other leading members of Congress would be drawn into this scandal and so was "contrary to the interests of Congress, too".

Hoover had a meeting with Mike Mansfield, the Democratic leader of the Senate and Everett Dirksen, the Republican counterpart. What was said at this meeting has never been released. However, as a result of the meeting that took place in Mansfield's home the Senate Rules Committee decided not to look into the Rometsch scandal.

According to the president's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, JFK had decided that because of this emerging scandal he was going to drop LBJ as his running mate in the 1964 election. He told Lincoln that he was going to replace Johnson with Terry Sanford. Carl Curtis, a member of the Senate Rules Committee, claimed that RFK was leaking information to John Williams about the corrupt activities of LBJ and Bobby Baker.

On 22nd November, 1963, a friend of Baker's, Don B. Reynolds told B. Everett Jordan and his Senate Rules Committee that Johnson had demanded that he provided kickbacks in return for this business. This included a $585 Magnavox stereo. Reynolds also had to pay for $1,200 worth of advertising on KTBC, Johnson's television station in Austin. Reynolds had paperwork for this transaction including a delivery note that indicated the stereo had been sent to the home of Johnson.

Reynolds also told of seeing a suitcase full of money which Baker described as a "$100,000 payoff to Johnson for his role in securing the Fort Worth TFX contract". His testimony came to an end when news arrived that JFK had been assassinated.

As soon as LBJ became president he contacted B. Everett Jordan to see if there was any chance of stopping this information being published. Jordan replied that he would do what he could but warned Johnson that some members of the committee wanted Reynold's testimony to be released to the public. On 6th December, 1963, Jordan spoke to Johnson on the telephone and said he was doing what he could to suppress the story because " it might spread (to) a place where we don't want it spread."

Abe Fortas, a lawyer who represented both LBJ and Bobby Baker, worked behind the scenes in an effort to keep this information from the public. Johnson also arranged for a smear campaign to be organized against Reynolds. To help him do this Hoover passed to LBJ the FBI file on Reynolds.

On 17th January, 1964, the Senate Rules Committee voted to release to the public Reynold's secret testimony. LBJ responded by leaking information from Reynolds' FBI file to Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson. On 5th February, 1964, the Washington Post reported that Reynolds had lied about his academic success at West Point. The article also claimed that Reynolds had been a supporter of Joseph McCarthy and had accused business rivals of being secret members of the American Communist Party. It was also revealed that Reynolds had made anti-Semitic remarks while in Berlin in 1953.

A few weeks later the New York Times reported that LBJ had used information from secret government documents to smear Don B. Reynolds. It also reported that Johnson's officials had been applying pressure on the editors of newspapers not to print information that had been disclosed by Reynolds in front of the Senate Rules Committee.

Nancy Carole Tyler was Bobby Baker's secretary. She lived with Mary Jo Kopechne, who worked for George Smathers. It was later discovered that the home was owned by Baker who used it to hold sex parties for his political and business associates.

In 1964 Tyler was called before the Senate Rules Committee. She took the fifth amendment and refused to provide any information that would implicate Bobby Baker in any corrupt activities.

She moved back to Tennessee but returned in 1965 to work with Baker as his bookkeeper at the Carousel Motel. Tyler believed that Baker would leave his wife. When he refused, she became very angry and according to Baker, made scenes. This included threats to commit suicide. Nancy Carole Tyler died in a plane crash outside the Carousel Motel at Ocean City on 10th May, 1965.

Her roommate, Mary Jo Kopechne, died in road accident when a passenger of a car driven by Edward Kennedy.

Despite the efforts of his lawyer, Edward Bennett Williams, in 1967 Baker was found guilty of seven counts of theft, fraud and income tax evasions. This included accepting large sums in "campaign donations" intended to buy influence with various senators, but had kept the money for himself. He was sentenced to three years in federal prison but served only sixteen months.

Joachim Joesten, an investigative journalist, wrote in his book, The Dark Side of Lyndon Baines Johnson (1968): "The Baker scandal then is truly the hidden key to the assassination, or more exact, the timing of the Baker affair crystallized the more or less vague plans to eliminate Kennedy which had already been in existence the threat of complete exposure which faced Johnson in the Baker scandal provided that final impulse he was forced to give the go-ahead signal to the plotters who had long been waiting for the right opportunity."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbakerB.htm

[John Simkin]

Has anyone read the book “Hustlers and Heroes”? It was published in 1971. The book’s author is Milton Viorst, a journalist who worked for Esquire Magazine. It is a collection of articles about political figures he knew. The article that interested me was on Bobby Baker.

I have been interested in Bobby Baker ever since I read this passage from Joachim Joesten in 1964 (Oswald, Assassin or Fall Guy?): "The Baker scandal then is truly the hidden key to the assassination, or more exact, the timing of the Baker affair crystallized the more or less vague plans to eliminate Kennedy which had already been in existence the threat of complete exposure which faced Johnson in the Baker scandal provided that final impulse he was forced to give the go-ahead signal to the plotters who had long been waiting for the right opportunity."

Viorst admits he was a close friend of Baker and refuses to believe he was a rogue. He describes him as “a small-town kid who got caught up with a fast crowd”. However, the article includes some interesting information. This includes the following passage:

“Bobby Baker, like many other Senate Democrats, did everything he could to get the nomination in 1960 for Lyndon Johnson, the Majority Leader. But his influence lay in a body which - to Johnson's particular dismay - had very little to do with picking the Presidential nominee. What distinguished Baker from the rest of Lyndon's entourage, however, was that he, almost alone, argued that Johnson, failing to get the top spot, should agree to run with Kennedy as the Vice-Presidential nominee. Johnson's other friends, aware of the power of which the Majority Leader disposed, felt this was nonsense. Why Bobby persisted in this argument is by no means clear. After all, his whole orientation was toward the Senate. He knew the Vice-Presidency was an impotent office. He had no great fondness for Jack Kennedy. Yet perhaps he understood better than Lyndon that, from the parochial power base of Texas, the prospects of his becoming President were remote. Baker regarded a Kennedy-Johnson ticket as unbeatable and he thought, perhaps, that only through the Vice-Presidency did Johnson have a hope of getting to the White House. But whatever the reasons, Bobby Baker, exercising his powers of persuasion long before anyone else in the entourage, was undoubtedly an important influence in Johnson's ultimate acceptance of second place on the Kennedy ticket.”

This supports something that Edward Jay Epstein wrote in December, 1966 (Esquire Magazine). According to Epstein, Don Reynolds, a business associate of Baker, gave information to the Warren Commission on the death of John F. Kennedy. Reynolds said that Bobby Baker had told him that Kennedy "would never live out his term and that he would die a violent death." Baker had also told him that "the FBI knew that Johnson was behind the assassination".

Milton Viorst also provides information on Bobby Baker’s secretary Nancy Carole Tyler. I argued on another thread that Tyler might have been murdered on 10th May, 1965 (she died as a result of a two-seater plane crash) because of what she knew about the assassination.

Viorst points out that Tyler was more than a secretary. In fact, they would go everywhere together (Baker’s wife was the mother of five children and was rarely seen in public with him). Viorst writes:

“After a hard day at the Senate, when anyone else would be glad to get home to bed, Bobby Baker would be starting the evening's fun with the Mexican hat dance. The frolic might go on till dawn. Bobby's secretary was Carole Tyler, a Tennessee beauty with whom he was often seen in public. Carole's place in Southwest Washington, an upper-middle-class redevelopment area of closely packed high-rises and town houses, became the center where Bobby's friends, male and female, often met. How Bobby spent his off-duty hours was more or less common knowledge on the Hill, but those were the days when Bobby was on top, when there seemed nothing unusual about his diversions and when no one thought that, as Senate practices go, there was anything there to get excited about... “

He also reveals that Baker was the owner of the house that Tyler lived in with her girlfriend. Viorst appears to be unaware that the girlfriend was Mary Jo Kopechne, George Smathers’ secretary. Smathers was another of Bobby Baker’s business partners. Mary Jo Kopechne was later to become Robert Kennedy’s secretary and was to die in Edward Kennedy’s car on 17th July, 1969.

Viorst reveals that Baker was with Tyler when she decided to take a ride in a Waco biplane in front of his Carousel Motel. The plane malfunctioned and crashed into the Atlantic directly in front of the motel.

[John Simkin]

Robert Kennedy's His Own Words, includes details of several interviews he gave on Bobby Baker. Kennedy told Anthony Lewis about how LBJ responded to the Bobby Baker corruption scandal. He was confident of keeping Republicans quiet about the case. Apparently he had files on all the Republican politicians who wanted to make use of the story. Robert Kennedy rejected the idea and insisted Baker had to be investigated. LBJ wanted to use the same tactic when another of his advisers, Walter Jenkins, was arrested on a morals charge in October, 1964. It seems that LBJ had access to Hoover’s secret files.

Robert Kennedy also tells an interesting story about why his brother offered LBJ the opportunity to become vice president. None of them wanted him in the post. However, they had heard on the grapevine that LBJ would turn the job down as he knew he would have much more power as Democrat leader in the Senate. JFK was shattered when LBJ accepted the job. It then turns out that Bobby Baker got LBJ to change his mind by telling him he was certain that JFK would not see out his term in office.

[John Simkin]

Did you know that Karyn Kupcinet was in the same class at school as Mary Jo Kopechne. Kupcinet, a Hollywood actress, was murdered on 28th November, 1963. Kupcinet’s father, Irv Kupcinet, was a journalist who was a close friend of Jack Ruby. Rumours circulated that his daughter was murdered in an attempt to keep him quiet (and others) about what he knew about the assassination. Maybe there was another reason for her death.

Baker seems to have used Nancy Carole Tyler to supply women for the parties he held for his businesses associates. Mary Jo, as she lived in the house, obviously attended these parties. Maybe Mary Jo invited Karyn Kupcinet along to these gatherings. (Howard Hughes used to hold similar parties where he invited actresses). It was probably at these parties that Tyler, Kopechne and Kupcinet leant too much for their own good.

I believe that Baker’s parties were also used to obtain information about politicians in order to blackmail them into silence.

I wonder if it is possible to trace any other young women who attended Bobby Baker’s parties?

[John Simkin]

Namebase entry for Bobby Baker:

http://www.namebase.org/main1/Bobby-_28rob...e_29-Baker.html

Anderson,J. Peace, War, and Politics. 1999 (406-7)
Birnbaum,J. The Lobbyists. 1992 (15-6)
Bradlee,B. A Good Life. 1995 (256)
Colby,G. Dennett,C. Thy Will Be Done. 1995 (579)
Davis,J. Mafia Kingfish. 1989 (300-1)
Denton,S. Morris,R. The Money and the Power. 2001 (132, 180, 248, 261-2, 309)
Furgurson,E. Hard Right: The Rise of Jesse Helms. 1986 (90)
Goulden,J. The Superlawyers. 1972 (103, 282)
Groden,R. Livingstone,H. High Treason. 1990 (282, 321)
Hepburn,J. Farewell America. 1968 (115-6)
Hersh,S. The Dark Side of Camelot. 1997 (27, 115-6, 122, 302-3, 388-90, 400-1, 406-7, 446)
Hershman,D.J. Power Beyond Reason. 2002 (12, 80-1, 85-6, 103, 114, 137-8, 171, 246)
Kessler,R. Inside Congress. 1998 (98)
Lasky,V. It Didn't Start With Watergate. 1978 (22-3, 138, 141-55)
Lewis,C. The Buying of the Congress. 1998 (24-5)
Lundberg,F. The Rich and the Super-Rich. 1969 (624-5, 627, 633-4, 898)
Marrs,J. Crossfire. 1990 (293-4)
Messick,H. Lansky. 1973 (192, 244)
Mintz,M. Cohen,J. America, Inc. 1971 (164)
Moldea,D. Interference. 1989 (173-4)
Morrow,R. First Hand Knowledge. 1992 (199-200)
Piper,M.C. Final Judgment. 1993 (58-9, 86, 253-4)
Pizzo,S. Fricker,M. Muolo,P. Inside Job. 1989 (333)
Reid,E. Demaris,O. The Green Felt Jungle. 1964 (217-9)
Russell,D. The Man Who Knew Too Much. 1992 (522-3, 603)
Sale,K. Power Shift. 1976 (73-4, 128, 130, 134, 196, 223)
Scheim,D. Contract on America. 1988 (219, 223-5)
Scott,P.D. Crime and Coverup. 1977 (11, 25-6, 34-5)
Scott,P.D. Deep Politics. 1993 (218-21, 231, 234-5, 286)
Summers,A. Official and Confidential. 1993 (233-4, 267, 271, 293-4, 310-1, 318)
Summers,A. The Arrogance of Power. 2000 (82, 104)
Thomas,E. The Man to See. 1991 (182-4, 214-24)
Turner,W. Hoover's FBI. 1993 (75, 92)
Turner,W. Rearview Mirror. 2001 (48)
Vankin,J. Whalen,J. The 60 Greatest Conspiracies. 1998 (162-4)
Winter-Berger,R. The Washington Pay-Off. 1972 (53-70, 215, 220)

[James Richards]

I wonder if it is possible to trace any other young women who attended Bobby Baker’s parties? (John Simkin)

John,

Years ago, I spoke briefly with a woman who claimed to have attended a couple of these parties. She had a tell all manuscript and was trying to get it published. There was virtually no interest and she finally gave up.

She was guarded in offering details, not wanting to give anything away. Anyway, after the disappointment of failure, she drifted back into suburban life and I lost contact with her.

One thing she did say is that several of the girls were movie star look-a-likes. Now, given the circles that Baker moved in, could the Fred Black/John Roselli connection have been employed to secure specialties like this? Let's face it, Roselli would have access to desperate starlets and all variety of actress wannabe who would do anything to secure a break in the business.

It's food for thought and would certainly narrow the field somewhat.

First attachment is Carole Tyler. The second is Baker with LBJ.

FWIW.

James

This post has been edited by James Richards: Aug 8 2005, 11:48 PM

[John Simkin]

Years ago, I spoke briefly with a woman who claimed to have attended a couple of these parties. She had a tell all manuscript and was trying to get it published. There was virtually no interest and she finally gave up.

If anyone of these women who attended these parties are reading this, please join the forum and tell us your story.

[Tim Gratz]

Interesting information.

James' thoughts about Rosselli may be speculative but they make sense.

I think Rosselli helped "plant" Campbell on JFK through his buddy Rosselli.

I assume all are aware of how Rosselli helped Sinatra win his Oscar when Sinatra's fortunes were otherwise low.

[Christopher T. G...]

Interesting information.

James' thoughts about Rosselli may be speculative but they make sense.

I think Rosselli helped "plant" Campbell on JFK through his buddy Rosselli.

I assume all are aware of how Rosselli helped Sinatra win his Oscar when Sinatra's fortunes were otherwise low.

That's great, Tim, so it was really Rosselli wearing the Sinatra suit all the time?

Chris

[Paul Fecteau]

Did you know that Karyn Kupcinet was in the same class at school as Mary Jo Kopechne.

John,

Can you share any more details about the Kupcinet - Kopechne connection? Karyn Kupcient never actually attended Wellesely College but Pine Manor Junior College which used to be in Wellesely, Massachussetts.

[John Gillespie]

Did you know that Karyn Kupcinet was in the same class at school as Mary Jo Kopechne.

John,

Can you share any more details about the Kupcinet - Kopechne connection? Karyn Kupcient never actually attended Wellesely College but Pine Manor Junior College which used to be in Wellesely, Massachussetts.

Nice work. May seem like a small detail, but Pine Manor, now in Chestnut Hill (on the Brookline/Newton line) was a more prestigious school in those days and the Wellesley site lent itself to that.

[Paul Fecteau]

Nice work. May seem like a small detail, but Pine Manor, now in Chestnut Hill (on the Brookline/Newton line) was a more prestigious school in those days and the Wellesley site lent itself to that.

Thank you for the positive comment. It doesn't seem like Pine Manor was quite as prestigious as Karyn Kupcinet would have liked. According to Carol Felsenthal's article "The Lost World of Kup" (Chicago Magazine, June 2004), the young actress claimed on at least one occasion that she actually attended Wellesley.

[J. Raymond Carro...]

According to Anthony Summers (Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover) Bill Thompson asked Baker if he would arrange a meeting between Ellen Rometsch and John F. Kennedy. Baker later said that: "He (Kennedy) sent back word it was the best time he ever had in his life. That was not the only time. She saw him on other occasions. It went on for a while."

J. Edgar Hoover discovered that Kennedy was having a relationship with Romesch. In July 1963 Federal Bureau of Investigation agents questioned Romesch about her past. They came to the conclusion that she was probably a Soviet spy. Hoover actually leaked information to the journalist, Courtney Evans, that Romesch worked for Walter Ulbricht, the communist leader of East Germany. When Robert Kennedy was told about this information, he ordered her to be deported. ....

Hoover refused and leaked the information to Clark Mollenhoff. On 26th October he wrote an article in The Des Moines Register claiming that the FBI had "established that the beautiful brunette had been attending parties with congressional leaders and some prominent New Frontiersmen from the executive branch of Government... The possibility that her activity might be connected with espionage was of some concern, because of the high rank of her male companions". Mollenhoff claimed that John Williams "had obtained an account" of Rometsch's activity and planned to pass this information to the Senate Rules Committee, the body investigating Baker.

The following day Robert Kennedy sent La Verne Duffy to West Germany to meet Romesch. In exchange for a great deal of money she agreed to sign a statement formally "denying intimacies with important people." Kennedy now contacted Hoover and asked him to persuade the Senate leadership that the Senate Rules Committee investigation of this story was "contrary to the national interest". He also warned on 28th October that other leading members of Congress would be drawn into this scandal and so was "contrary to the interests of Congress, too".

Hoover had a meeting with Mike Mansfield, the Democratic leader of the Senate and Everett Dirksen, the Republican counterpart. What was said at this meeting has never been released. However, as a result of the meeting that took place in Mansfield's home the Senate Rules Committee decided not to look into the Rometsch scandal.

According to the president's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, JFK had decided that because of this emerging scandal he was going to drop LBJ as his running mate in the 1964 election. He told Lincoln that he was going to replace Johnson with Terry Sanford. Carl Curtis, a member of the Senate Rules Committee, claimed that RFK was leaking information to John Williams about the corrupt activities of LBJ and Bobby Baker.

On 22nd November, 1963, a friend of Baker's, Don B.http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbakerB.htm

I have only now discovered this intesting thread. There seems to be something about the narrative that does not quite add up, and I would appreciate John's comments: If LBJ and Bobby Baker really had compromising sexual material on JFK & RFK, surely both LBJ and Baker would be untouchable, and RFK could not dare to leak compromising information about Baker etc.

[Tim Gratz]

A most interesting question, Raymond.

It appears clear that Hoover had such material yet acted to protect JFK from a congressional investigation. Clearly his motive was job security. It is also possible that he used his information to persuade RFK to approve of the wiretaps on Martin Luther King, Jr.

This post has been edited by Tim Gratz: Jan 7 2006, 05:38 AM

[Mark Stapleton]

According to Anthony Summers (Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover) Bill Thompson asked Baker if he would arrange a meeting between Ellen Rometsch and John F. Kennedy. Baker later said that: "He (Kennedy) sent back word it was the best time he ever had in his life. That was not the only time. She saw him on other occasions. It went on for a while."

J. Edgar Hoover discovered that Kennedy was having a relationship with Romesch. In July 1963 Federal Bureau of Investigation agents questioned Romesch about her past. They came to the conclusion that she was probably a Soviet spy. Hoover actually leaked information to the journalist, Courtney Evans, that Romesch worked for Walter Ulbricht, the communist leader of East Germany. When Robert Kennedy was told about this information, he ordered her to be deported. ....

Hoover refused and leaked the information to Clark Mollenhoff. On 26th October he wrote an article in The Des Moines Register claiming that the FBI had "established that the beautiful brunette had been attending parties with congressional leaders and some prominent New Frontiersmen from the executive branch of Government... The possibility that her activity might be connected with espionage was of some concern, because of the high rank of her male companions". Mollenhoff claimed that John Williams "had obtained an account" of Rometsch's activity and planned to pass this information to the Senate Rules Committee, the body investigating Baker.

The following day Robert Kennedy sent La Verne Duffy to West Germany to meet Romesch. In exchange for a great deal of money she agreed to sign a statement formally "denying intimacies with important people." Kennedy now contacted Hoover and asked him to persuade the Senate leadership that the Senate Rules Committee investigation of this story was "contrary to the national interest". He also warned on 28th October that other leading members of Congress would be drawn into this scandal and so was "contrary to the interests of Congress, too".

Hoover had a meeting with Mike Mansfield, the Democratic leader of the Senate and Everett Dirksen, the Republican counterpart. What was said at this meeting has never been released. However, as a result of the meeting that took place in Mansfield's home the Senate Rules Committee decided not to look into the Rometsch scandal.

According to the president's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, JFK had decided that because of this emerging scandal he was going to drop LBJ as his running mate in the 1964 election. He told Lincoln that he was going to replace Johnson with Terry Sanford. Carl Curtis, a member of the Senate Rules Committee, claimed that RFK was leaking information to John Williams about the corrupt activities of LBJ and Bobby Baker.

On 22nd November, 1963, a friend of Baker's, Don B.http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbakerB.htm

I have only now discovered this intesting thread. There seems to be something about the narrative that does not quite add up, and I would appreciate John's comments: If LBJ and Bobby Baker really had compromising sexual material on JFK & RFK, surely both LBJ and Baker would be untouchable, and RFK could not dare to leak compromising information about Baker etc.

Raymond,

It seems like everyone had something on everyone else with all the sleazy parties going on in DC at the time. To me, it looks like Baker and LBJ might have set up JFK for future blackmail as Baker apparently arranged for JFK to meet Romesch. If Summers' account is accurate, then the question in my mind is--why did Bill Thompson ask Baker to arrange the meeting?

Would love to read Joestin's book.