KB: Yes, Sir.
JEH: Who assaulted Ward Littell?
KB: I’m not sure, Sir.
JEH: Have you spoken to Littell?
KB: Helen Agee called and told me about the beating. I called Ward at the hospital, but he refused to tell me who did It.
JEH: Pete Bondurant comes to mind. He’s involved in your Cuban escapades, isn’t he?
KB: Yes, he is.
JEH: Yes, he is, and?
KB: And we talk as Agency business dictates.
JEH: The Chicago Office was satisfied with Bondurant’s alibi. The alibi-giver was a reputed Heroin trafficker with numerous rape convictions inside Cuba, but as Al Capone once said, an alibi is an alibi.
KB: Yes, Sir. And as you once said, antiCommunism breeds strange bedfellows.
JEH: Goodbye, Kemper. I very much hope that our next communique is at your instigation.
KB: Goodbye, Sir.
47
(Los Angeles, 7/13/60)
The clerk handed him a gold-plated key. “We had a reservations glitch, sir. Your room was inadvertently given away, but we’re going to give you a suite at our regular room rate.”
Check-ins pushed up to the desk. Kemper said, “Thanks. It’s a glitch I can live with.”
The clerk shuffled papers. “May I ask you a question?”
“Let me guess. If my room is being charged to the Kennedy campaign, why am I staying here instead of at the Biltmore with the rest of the staff?”
“Yes, sir. That’s it exactly.”
Kemper winked. “I’m a spy.”
The clerk laughed. Some delegate types waved to get his attention.
Kemper brushed past them and elevatored up to the twelfth floor. His suite: the double-doored, gold-sealed, all-antique Presidential.
He walked through it. He savored the appointments and checked out the north-by-northeast view.
Two bedrooms, three TVs and three phones. Complimentary champagne in a pewter ice bucket marked with the U.S. presidential seal.
He deciphered the “glitch” instantly: J. Edgar Hoover at work.
He wants to scare you. He’s saying, “I own you.” He’s satirizing your Kennedy fervor and love of hotel suites.
He wants potential bug/tap intelligence.
Kemper turned on the living-room TV. Convention commentary hit the screen.
He turned on the other sets–and boosted the volume way up.
He grid-searched the suite. He found condensor mikes inside five table lamps and fake panels behind the bathroom mirrors.
He found two auxiliaries spackled into the living-room wainscoting. Tiny perforations served as sound ducts– nonprofessionals would never spot them. He checked out the telephones. All three were tapped.
Kemper thought it through from Hoover’s perspective.
We discussed standing bugs a few days ago. He knows I don’t want to set Jack up with “Bureau-friendly” women.
He said he thinks Jack is inevitable. He may be dissembling. He may be seeking knowledge of adultery–to aid his good friend Dick Nixon.
He knows you’ll see through the “reservations glitch.” He thinks you’ll make your confidential calls from pay phones. He thinks you’ll curtail your in-suite talk or destroy the bug/taps out of pique.
He knows Littell taught you bug/tap fundamentals. He doesn’t know Littell taught you some fine points.
He knows you’ll uncover the main bugs. He thinks you won’t uncover the backups–the ones he plans to sucker-punch you with.
Kemper turned off the TVs. Kemper faked a vivid temper tantrum–”Hoover, goddamn you!” and worse expletives.
He ripped out the primary bug/taps.
He grid-searched the suite again–even more diligently.
He found secondary phone taps. He spotted microphone perforations on two mattress labels and three chair cushions.
He went down to the lobby and rented room 808 under a pseudonym. He called John Stanton’s service and left his fake name and room number.
Pete was in L.A., meeting with Howard Hughes. He called the watchdog house and left a message with the pool cleaner.
He had free time now. Bobby didn’t need him until 5:00.
He walked to a hardware store. He bought wire cutters, pliers, a Phillips-head screwdriver, three rolls of friction tape and two small magnets. He walked back to the Statler and worked.
He rewired the buzzer housings. He recircuited the feeder wires. He muffled the bells with pillow stuffing. He scraped the rubber off the lead cables-incoming talk would register incoherently on all the backup-tapped phones.
He laid the pieces out for easy reassembly. He called room service for Beefeater’s and smoked salmon.