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.
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