John J. Wilson, the attorney who represented H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman before the Senate Watergate committee, is probably best known to the public for his "little Jap" remark about Sen. Inouye. Outside the Watergate hearing rooms, however, Wilson is a behind-the-scenes Washington lawyer and, interestingly, is a director (since 1963) and chairman of the scandal-ridden National Bank of Washington (NBW). On the board with him have sat an interesting array of men, including Teamster president Frank Fitzsimmons; former Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford; ex-Senator George Smathers; former Lyndon Johnson confidant Bobby Baker; and former United Mine Worker chief Tony Boyle. A look at the NBW offers a graphic illustration of how corrupt union leaders work hand-in-glove with the very corpo- rations that the unions were supposedly established to combat. The NBW has been controlled by the United Mine Workers (UMW) since 1952, and has been a vehicle whereby corrupt union officials, led by Tony Boyle, stole millions of dollars from the workers' pension funds. When Boyle was still running the union (before his September 1973 indicement for the 1970 murder of his progressive union rival, Joseph Yablonsky), 4,000 disabled miners and miners' widows initi- ated a suit for mismanagement, manipulation, and outright embezzlement of the miners' pension funds in August, 1969. The defendants were Boyle, four directors of the NBW, the leadership of the UMW, its Welfare & Retirement Fund, the Bituminous Coal Operators Association (an organization of the nation's major coal companies), and the NBW's chairman at the time, Wilmer J. Waller. 1 The main charge in the suit illustrated the scope of the corruption that was built into the daily operations of the bank: that between 1964 and 1969, pension fund officials had deposited from $200-$500 million of the miners' hard-earned dollars into NBW accounts bearing no interest. Essentially, this scheme enriched the bank's already wealthy directors and the' interests they represented at the expense of the miners' families, many of which were fatherless. The United Mine Worker officials also came under attack for their close links to the coal operators. According to Ralph Nader, the NBW made frequent loans to coal mine operators. 2 This affinity between the UMW officials and the coal operators paved the way for the gross neglect of health and safety which led to such disasters as the November 1968 mine explosion near Mannington, West Virginia which killed 78 miners. Wilson Bails Out Boyle When Boyle was finally convicted in 1972 of making illegal political contributions and diverting union funds to unauthor- ized uses, Wilson was there to bail him out, pending an appeal of his sentence. The National Bank of Washington extended him $179,000 in credit without any collateral within minutes after Boyle had been sentenced to prison. Wilson arranged a surety bond through the Maryland Casualty Company, of which he is a director, to keep Boyle out of jail while his sentence was appealed. 3 Besides Wilson and Boyle, the following persons (with the exception of Bobby Baker) are among the current or recent NBW directors. Bobby Baker: an important stockholder in the bank; former Secretary to Senate Democrats when Lyndon Johnson was Senate Majority Leader; his close Syndicate connections and other links to scandal-tainted activities nearly caused John Kennedy to dump Johnson from the vice- presidential spot on the 1960 ticket. Frank Fitzsimmons: president of the largest union in the nation-the Teamsters; a member of the union leadership which has used workers' pension funds for years to aid the National Crime Syndi- cate in making investments in Las Vegas casinos and other ventures; Fitzsimmons played a key role in gathering labor votes for Nixon in 1972 and was a personal guest of the president at San Clemente. George Smathers: former Democratic Senator from Florida; was a best man at John Kennedy's wedding; a close friend and Key Biscayne neighbor of Nixon and Rebozo; his law firm-Smathers and Thompson-represents such multinationals as Pan American Airlines and its subsidiary, Inter- continental Hotels. Clark Clifford: former Secretary of Defense under Johnson; a key Democratic troubleshooter. Over the years Clifford has served a wide array of clients out of his Washington, D.C. law firm including Howard Hughes, Phillips Petroleum, Standard Oil of California, and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Bruce Sundlun: chairman of Executive Jet Aviation, the firm that played a crucial role in the wreck of the Penn Central (see Stans section). Nazis and Goldwater: Wilson's Legal History With over fifty years of legal experience, Wilson has attained a reputation rarely matched in the world of big-time law. Since 1940, Wilson has been a partner of Whitehouse, Hart, Carmody & Wilson whose clients today include Kraftco Foods, Sealtest, Texaco, the NBW, and the American Rifle Association. In 1941, Wilson represented a Swiss holding company called Interhandel in a struggle for control of General Airline & Film Corp. (GAF). The U.S. initiated the action because Interhandel was a front for the Nazi-controlled I. G. Farben Corp. However, after the Second World War, Wilson's client received a favorable settlement as the U.S. government let bygones be bygones and dropped the case. In 1952, Wilson represented the steel industry in its historic confrontation with President Truman. One of Wilson's most29 celebrated cases was his handling of Barry Goldwater's libel suit against Ralph Ginzburg, the publisher of Fact magazine. Fact had run an article questioning the mental stability of the Arizona senator. Wilson won the case for Goldwater. Now 72, Wilson himself gives the best clue to his politics: "I'm a conservative Republican who hasn't approved of any conservative Republican in years because most convervative Republicans aren't conservative enough for me." Footnotes 1. Washington Post, August 5, 1969. See also The Wall Street Journal, December 26, 1969. 2. Washington Post, March 21, 1969. 3. Miami Herald, August 27, 1972. 4. New York Times, February 21, 1964. Two useful sources on Wilson's biography are: "The Little American," Time, August 13, 1973; and "Nixon Aides' Counsel," New York Times, April 30, 1973.
