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Last September Hill filed a $300,000 damage suit against Baker, Ernest C. Tucker, Baker's Washington law office associate, and Fred Black Jr., a Baker buddy who, like Baker, is a big Serv-U stockholder. Hill's suit, with the publicity it generated, was the pin that popped Baker's soaring balloon. In the suit Hill charged that Baker negotiated to get Capitol's machines into Melpar, then demanded a monthly kickback. Hill said he paid Baker $5,600 over 16 months. He also charged that when Baker wanted Hill to sell out to Serv-U and he refused, Baker talked Melpar into dropping its Capitol contract.
Had Baker used his position as majority secretary to get Serv-U into North American Aviation plants?
Hill's suit further contended that Baker told North American Lobbyist Black he could help North American get Government contracts through his Senate post. This, Hill claimed, led Black to assist Serv-U in getting North American's business. North American President John L. Atwood told the committee that Serv-U vending machines did $2,500,000 worth of business annually in North American installations.
Had Baker played any role in trying to set up gambling concessions outside the U.S.?
John B. Gates, board chairman of Pan American World Airways' Intercontinental Hotels Corp., testified that Baker last summer introduced him to one Edward Levinson, a Las Vegas casino operator, Serv-U stockholder and sometime Baker business partner. Levinson wanted "to become associated with the casinos" at two of Intercontinental's Caribbean hotels, Gates said. Levinson withdrew after Gates told him that any deal involving Levinson's brother Louis, a shady character with a police record, would be "unacceptable."
Had Baker given Lyndon Johnson a stereo phonograph?
President Johnson told a January news conference that he had received a $588 stereo as a personal gift from Baker. However, Don Reynolds, owner of a Silver Spring, Md., insurance agency in which Baker occasionally shared the profits, insisted before the committee that he was the donor. Reynolds said that the gift had been suggested by Baker as an appropriate gesture on Reynolds' part for writing a $100,000 policy on Johnson's life.
Had Baker had any part in Reynolds' purchase of $1,200 in advertising time on Lady Bird Johnson's Austin, Texas, TV station?
Reynolds told the committee that during negotiations for Johnson's policy, Johnson Aide Walter Jenkins "suggested" that Reynolds buy the time, and Reynolds did so "because it was expected of me." Jenkins denied the allegation in a sworn affidavit to the committee.
Had Baker received a $4,000 kickback on a commission earned by Reynolds in connection with the building of the District of Columbia stadium?