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In the financier's second scheme, Vesco II he agreed in mid-1978 to help Libya obtain eight C-130 military transport planes that were bought in 1973 but impounded by the Nixon Administration. Vesco's price: $30 million, which he planned to share with Administration officials who aided him. But Vesco also hoped to strike a bargain: once he ensnared an Administration official with a bribe, he planned to offer his testimony in return for getting the indictments against him dropped.
Vesco first won the help of James C. Day, a former Texas state legislator who claimed that he could gain White House aid in releasing the planes. Another participant in the scheme was James Feeney, a New York financier and convicted swindler. He was found guilty in New York of stock fraud in 1974 and of making a false statement to a bank in 1979 and would soon face charges of fleecing five banks in Denver of $600,000. Feeney signed on with Vesco, but instead of helping him, he went to the U.S. Attorney in New York, told him of Vesco's plan and offered to serve as a Government undercover agent in hopes of winning a light sentence in his 1979 New York conviction. The authorities accepted his offer and outfitted him with a hidden tape recorder.
Throughout the first half of 1979, Vesco, Day and Feeney met several times to plot the Libyan plane deal. According to Day, Democratic Party Chairman John White, a self-described "political acquaintance" of Day's, agreed to accept $1 million for his help; White vehemently denies the charge. On June 20, 1979, White did meet with Day and the Libyan U.N. Ambassador Mansur Rashid Kikhia in a Washington restaurant. The FBI photographed the meeting but did not record the conversation. According to Day, the topic was the Libyan planes; White denies this and claims he met with Kikhia only as a "courtesy" to Day. White testified before a grand jury in New York City in October 1979 and is now being investigated by the Justice Department on possible perjury charges.
Reverberations from Vesco II are still being heard. Senators Dennis DeConcini of Arizona and Orrin Hatch of Utah visited Vesco separately last July and later claimed that the Justice Department was dragging its feet on the case in order to protect high Administration officials Federal Judge Fred Winner, who is hearing Feeney's case in Denver, seems to share that impression. Winner accused the department last month of a "stonewall" for not allowing Feeney to testify about the contents of the 60 hours of secret tapes he made as a Government informant in the Vesco investigation; Feeney claims that he took part in the Denver fraud only to hide his role in the Vesco inquiry. Justice Department officials say this is nonsense and adamantly deny charges of foot dragging.