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Reynolds testified that he paid that sum to Baker out of an approximate $10,000 commission he had earned for writing a performance bond on Philadelphia Contractor Matthew McCloskey, successful bidder on the stadium project. McCloskey, who recently resigned as U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, is a longtime Democratic Party moneybags. Reynolds said that Baker arranged for him to meet McCloskey in Baker's Capitol office. Reynolds also testified that he paid $1,500 from the same commission to William N. McLeod Jr., then clerk of the House of Representatives' District of Columbia Committee.
Had Baker received money from meat import-export transactions, and "wasn't this part of a device whereby the Murchison interests could reimburse you for past and future legislative favors granted?"
Thomas Webb, a Washington representative for the Murchison family of Texas, told the committee that in 1961 Baker was responsible for finding a buyer for meat for the Murchison-bankrolled Haitian-American Meat & Provisions Co. (Hampco) of Port-au-Prince. For this, Webb said, Baker earned a ¼¢-a-lb. "finder's fee." Later, when a Chicago firm, Packers Provision Co., bought Hampco's output, Baker began receiving a ⅛-a-lb. commission, though he had no part in getting Packers and Hampco together. Packers President William Kentor has said that Hampco "insisted" Baker be paid. Besides getting a cut from the new importer, Baker also has been guaranteed 2.5% of Hampco's annual net profits, up to a maximum of $30,000 a year. What for? Nobody knows yet.
Had Baker provided entertainment facilities for persons doing business with the Government, "and by entertainment facilities I refer to personnel, including party girls"?
There has been no testimony that Baker himself was involved in supplying party girls, although several of his Washington pals have been described as practitioners of the so-called "get-a-contract-with-a-girl" form of business promotion.
Had Baker been involved in deportation proceedings against one Ellen Rometsch?
Ellen Rometsch, a party girl of peculiar tastes, was sent back home to West Germany last summer after the FBI began investigating her sex habits. "Elly" is remembered as a sometime hostess at the Quorum Club, a Washington watering spot for lobbyists and Congressmen that Baker helped organize. Though Baker, as well as other men about Washington, probably breathed a sigh of relief when Elly left, he apparently had no part in getting her deported. She was subsequently divorced by her West German army sergeant husband on grounds of "conduct contrary to matrimonial rules."
Did Baker "recall or wish to state how many people you have referred to a Puerto Rican doctor for the performance of abortions"?
Witness Reynolds told the committee that he once called Baker on behalf of a client who, in turn, had a friend interested in an abortion. Reynolds said that Baker supplied a Capitol telephone number, which Reynolds passed along. He did not know whether an abortion was performed.
"Was it true that you forced a Senate page named Boyd Richie to deduct $50 per month from his salary and kick it back to you in order that you could help Walter J. Stewart along?"