Congressman Buchanan, Pennsylvania Democrat, chairman of the committee investigating lobbying, fell for Clark’s charm. He and his wife visited Clark’s play-place.
Clark is hot-tempered. He recently had a fist fight in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel with Charlie Rogers, handsome former counsel of the committee that nailed John Maragon.
Dan Hanlon, a former law-partner of Democratic National Chairman Bill Boyle, has an office at 1727 Massachusetts Ave., where he handles internal revenue cases with much success. Hanlon is from Missouri. But as Boyle seems to be on the way out so is Hanlon.
The business is intensively departmentalized. Different lawyers have ins in different branches of the government. Persuasion on the Department of Justice is handled by Laughlin Currie, a former Truman appointee, through Tommy “The Cork” Corcoran, a Roosevelt favorite.
Treasury Department matters go through Joe Nunan, former Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who does not practice personally before the Treasury yet, because the law requires ex-employes to wait two years before they may represent clients in bureaus to which they were attached. But his associates are not so hobbled.
Former Senator Burton K. Wheeler is the man to see if you have any trouble with the Interstate Commerce Commission. Wheeler can have anything he wants in Washington. President Truman passed the word along. It was Wheeler who advised Truman not to resign from the Senate at the time of the Pendergast scandal. Harry has been eternally grateful ever since.
The law firm of Thurman Arnold, Abe Fortas and Paul A. Porter has practically everything for its field. All three are prominent ex-New Dealers. Porter’s contact is with the Federal Communications Commission. Arnold, once a trust-buster, now defends trusts. Fortas, onetime stooge of Harold Ickes, is the boy to see for anything in the Department of the Interior. Among the clients of this firm is the Western Union Telegraph Company, for which they are the registered lobbyists. During their plugging for the telegraph monopoly it was brought out under oath that at least one block of 17 percent of its stock was owned by underworld figures. Since then, Western Union was indicted twice in New Jersey for engaging illegally in transmission of racing information, which the Grand Jury investigation indicated was the company’s main source of profit.
The Arnold firm secured $200,000,000 for the Puerto Rican government. It also defended Owen Lattimore against Senator McCarthy’s charges. The boys netted $600,000 last year. Drew Pearson’s daughter is married to Arnold’s son.
Arnold is the playboy of the firm, congenial and convivial.