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But hardly was it gone when another hunk of Estes debris fell on Holleman: evidence that he had accepted a check for $1,000 from Billie Sol. Holleman admitted that he took the money—and his explanation was a telling commentary on life in official Washington. Holleman said that he needed the $1,000 to help meet his "living expenses." His $20,000-a-year salary, he said, was inadequate to meet the social demands that his position placed upon him. Holleman said the $1,000 gift was "personal," and had "no connection with any of Mr. Estes' interests," but he resigned anyway. Said he when he got back to Texas: "The only place you eat free in Washington is at an embassy." On Capitol Hill, one of the men most seriously tarnished by the Estes case is Minnesota's Republican Congressman H.
Carl Andersen. Early this year, William Morris, one of Estes' Neiman-Marcus trio, wrote Estes a letter suggesting that Andersen, a member of the House subcommittee on agricultural appropriations, would be a "good Republican contact" in Congress, and that it might be a "good investment" to help him out of a financial pinch. Shortly afterward, Morris took Andersen down to Pecos to talk to Estes.
Then, and again on another occasion in Washington, Estes gave Andersen money —totaling $4,000 or $5,000 or $5,500 according to various versions—for stock in an Andersen-owned coal mine. After this transaction came to light, Andersen insisted that Estes was only making a business investment in the mine. But that seemed unconvincing, since Estes never even bothered to get any stock certificates from Andersen.
Also spattered by the Estes case was Texas' liberal Democratic Senator Yarborough. He admitted that he had received some $7,500 from Estes as political contributions, including $1,700 to help defray the cost of broadcasts he had made in Texas. These contributions did not seem extraordinary—but what did seem strange was the evidence that Yarborough had used lots of influence to help Estes out of his difficulties with the Agriculture Department.
In Estes' financial records in Pecos, investigators came across ominous-looking entries totaling $235,000 for something listed as "Washington Project." But this proved to be a housing venture in the state of Washington rather than payoffs in the District of Columbia. Still not adequately explained are three checks totaling $145,015.14 that Estes drew on a bank account in Pecos last January and then cashed in Austin just before taking off on a trip to Washington, D.C.
Among the most sinister aspects of the Estes case were the bizarre and mysterious deaths of two Texans. Last summer, when Estes was already in trouble about his cotton allotments, Henry M.
Marshall, the Agriculture Department agent in charge of