Bobby's Busyness

The Senate committee investigation of the affairs of former Senate Majority Secretary Bobby Gene Baker has hardly set a scorching pace. But last week the committee did release closed-door testimony taken earlier this month from Don B. Reynolds, a Maryland insurance man and longtime Baker business associate. It made Bobby out to be a busy, busy boy--from dabbling in abortion to procuring gifts for Lyndon Baines Johnson.

"If Anyone Should Know . . ." Reynolds testified that he had made Bobby a nominal officer of his insurance brokerage, over ten years had paid Baker some $15,000 for putting him in touch with the right people. When other, non-insurable problems came up, Baker was still a good man to know. Once, said Reynolds, a client called him for help in getting an abortion for a friend. Reynolds got in touch with Bobby, who gave him a Capitol number for his concerned client to call. Whether the abortion was actually performed, Reynolds did not know. But, he said, "Some time later, 'Mrs. X' [the client] called and thanked me." Why, asked Committee Counsel Lennox McLendon, had Reynolds turned to Baker for advice about an abortion? Replied Reynolds: "I felt if anyone should know, he should, sir."

Baker also steered Reynolds to Lyndon Johnson. That was in 1957, only two years after Senate Majority Leader Johnson had suffered a heart attack. The Senator was having trouble finding an insurance company that would give him life insurance. Reynolds went looking on Johnson's behalf, talked to three companies, and finally found that the Manhattan Life Insurance Co. would write the policy. Manhattan issued a first policy of $50,000, and shortly afterward, when it had covered part of its risk through a reinsurance company, issued another policy of $50,000 for Johnson.

Out of Gratitude. In the course of those negotiations, Reynolds said, it was suggested to him by Walter Jenkins, then and now a top Johnson aide, that he buy advertising time on Lady Bird Johnson's radio-TV station in Austin. Reynolds said he bought $1,208 worth of advertising on the station.

"Did you buy this advertising time to advertise your insurance business?" asked Nebraska's Republican Senator Carl T. Curtis.

Reynolds: No, sir.

Curtis: Why did you buy it?

Reynolds: Because it was expected of me, sir.

Curtis: Who conveyed that thought to you?

Reynolds: Mr. Walter Jenkins.

Reynolds testified that in 1959 Bobby Baker suggested that Reynolds might further show his gratitude by giving a stereo phonograph to the Johnson family. Again Reynolds went along. "I supplied Bobby with a catalogue," said Reynolds, "and he said he had taken it out for Mrs. Johnson to make a selection." Reynolds told the committee that he purchased a set and had it installed in Johnson's home at a cost of $588. Did Johnson know, asked West Virginia's Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, that the stereo was a gift from Reynolds? Replied Reynolds: "The invoice delivered to Johnson's home showed that the charges were to be sent to Don Reynolds." It was two years later, said Reynolds, that Johnson purchased another $100,000 in life insurance through him (for a total of $200,000).

In answer to all this, White House Aide Jenkins swore in an affidavit that he had no knowledge "of any arrangement by which Reynolds purchased time on the TV station." Press Secretary Pierre Salinger said that the President had assumed the stereo to be a gift from "a longtime employee," not Reynolds. And President Johnson, in the course of an impromptu press conference, brought up the matter himself. Said he: "The Baker family gave us a stereo set. We used it for a period, and we had exchanged gifts before. He was an employee of the public and had no business pending before me and was asking for nothing, and so far as I know expected nothing in return, any more than I did when I had presented him with gifts." With that, Johnson cut off questions and left the press conference.

A Difference. Republicans, understandably, had a field day with the Reynolds testimony. G.O.P. National Chairman William Miller called the stereo gift "an atrocious thing and a travesty of justice." Said Delaware's Republican Senator John J. Williams: "I see no difference in the acceptance of an expensive stereo and in the acceptance of a mink or vicuna coat, a deep freeze or an Oriental rug."

There was, in fact, a difference. On the basis of the record so far, neither Johnson nor Baker was guilty of using his public office for private gain. In the Reynolds deal, Johnson got what he wanted: some personal life insurance. Reynolds also got what he wanted: his insurance commissions.

Still, the Baker probe was just getting started, and Washington was alive with reports that the names of Bobby Baker and Lyndon Johnson would be even more closely connected.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.