Parties & Payments

Anyone who has followed the Bob by Baker case even vaguely knows of charges of a political payoff to help finance the 1960 presidential campaign and of reports that Baker used shapely party girls to help smooth the way for his shady deals. Last week the fact that there was indeed a lot of loose change floating around --$35,000, to be exact--was confirmed beyond a doubt, to whatever purpose it may have been used. And the Senate Rules Committee, reopening its hearings into the Baker affair, also began pinning down some of that party-girl talk.

To Stump the Snoopers. Star witness was Insurance Man Don Reynolds, 48, an old business buddy of Baker's. He testified that in 1959 Baker arranged an insurance kickback from Philadephia Contractor Matthew McCloskey, 71, former Democratic National Committee treasurer and Ambassador to Ireland under John F. Kennedy, who was then angling for the contract to build Washington's $20 million municipal stadium. McCloskey, said Reynolds, made the payoff by handing over $35,000 more than he had to on the premium on a performance bond for stadium construction.

"I," said Reynolds, "was the bagman in this thing from beginning to end. The bagman is the man pushed around for having been the medium ... I was low man on the totem pole." Of the $35,000, Reynolds said, he kept $10,000 for himself, and "Bobby told me that $15,000 was to go for the presidential campaign and the other $10,000 was to go for political purposes as he and Mr. McCloskey saw fit--mostly Bobby." Reynolds said that Baker further told him to "stick the money in a bank you don't ordinarily use, so those people snooping around will have a hell of a time locating it."

Despite the fact that Reynolds by his own testimony is a pretty shady character, he produced some impressive documents to support his story: 1) an invoice in the amount of $109,000 sent to McCloskey by Reynolds, 2) a check for $109,000 sent to Reynolds by the McCloskey company, and 3) a bill for only $64,000, the performance-bond premium minus Reynolds' regular $10,000 commission, sent to Reynolds by the insurance company for which he was agent.

Somebody Goofed. McCloskey, who testified later, agreed that the $35,000 had gone somewhere, and that Reynolds had indeed been overpaid. But, he said, it was only because "somebody in our organization goofed." Company officials, he insisted, believed that Reynolds' bill was for both a performance bond and general liability insurance, erroneously sent him a check large enough to cover both. "We make goofs like that every once in a while," he said. As for the $35,000, said McCloskey, "we have plans to recoup it. That's for sure."

That left it all pretty much a case of Reynolds' word against McCloskey's. And as far as Bobby Baker was concerned, that was how it would stay. Appearing under subpoena before the committee last week, Baker invoked not only the Fifth Amendment, but the First, Fourth and Sixth, refusing to answer more than 40 Rules Committee questions.

But Delaware's G.O.P. Senator John Williams, who first blew the whistle on Baker and who was sitting in on the hearings although not a member of the committee, was unwilling to let it go at that. His reluctance set off a shouting match. Williams said he had offered Committee Counsel Lennox McLendon, a back-home crony of Committee Chairman Everett Jordan's, Democrat of North Carolina, a "rather complete file" on various McCloskey contracts. McLendon, he said, had brushed the offer aside, saying he wasn't interested. Roared McLendon: "Senator, you're absolutely and unalterably untrue in your statement . . . You ought to at least tell the truth." Later Williams, still burning, cried to the committee: "I've had my integrity challenged twice this week. No man gets a third chance to call me a liar." With that he stalked from the room. By so doing he missed the spiciest testimony of the week.

Good as His Word. Next day came the bit about the broads. Committee Investigator Samuel Scott told of a rip-roaring time Baker and a Puerto Rican business crony named Paul Aguirre had in New Orleans with a pair of lovelies last year. Baker and Aguirre, said Scott, went to the city to look over a housing development that offered investment possibilities, took with them Baker's secretary, Carole Tyler, and German-born Vamp Ellen Rometsch, who has since been deported. They wound up, said Scott, spending "several days partying."

Scott said that he had talked with Aguirre about the fling. But Aguirre had vowed that if called to testify, "I'll deny it, even if the committee has photographs . . . My wife is expecting a denial and she'll get it. I'll take the First through the 28th.*" Before the committee last week Aguirre was as good as his word, refused to answer 66 questions put to him.

* Aguirre was talking about constitutional amendments, even though there are only 24.

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