Long Distance

Like Charles Oliphant, General Services Administrator Jess Larson cried out in anguish when his name was mentioned in Lawyer Teitelbaum's story. Larson hurried before the King subcommittee to deny that he was part of any shakedown clique. He used his harshest words on Frank Nathan, Florida influence peddler, identified by Teitelbaum as one of the men who made the shakedown proposition for the Washington "clique."

Larson said he knew that Nathan, at times tried to use the Larson name, and declared he had tried desperately to stop him. He had refused to take telephone calls from Nathan, hadn't taken one, in fact, for five or six months. "With the help of almighty God," cried Larson, "I hope you gentlemen will give us legislation to stop this sort of thing."

-Last week the King subcommittee asked Nathan whether Larson had telephoned him within the past year or so? Nathan couldn't remember any calls. Then Subcommittee Counsel Adrian DeWind introduced some startling evidence: a list of calls from the private telephone in Jess Larson's office, showing that Larson called Nathan nine times last June and July. The calls, ranging up to 20 minutes in lengfti, were made to Miami and to the Waldorf-Astoria in'New York.

"I don't remember them at all ... I'm telling you from my heart," said Nathan. Then he had an idea. Maybe those calls were made by Al Snyder, Larson's chief assistant. He and Snyder were good friends. "I used to go up to the office [Snyder's] quite often. I used to bring up cheese and some ham and some bread, and sit around and have a little lunch there."

Then Larson issued a statement saying he had made the calls, after all. They were about an oil well, he said. "Mr. Nathan was continually bringing people into the transaction . . . Somebody was always calling me and saying they heard I was in a well with Mr. Nathan and they wanted in on it. Also, there was one piece of real estate ne had called the office about and I called him and admonished him he could not be a broker for that real estate. Those were the only calls I recollect, and those were the subjects of the calls."

Why hadn't Larson told the subcommittee about these calls when he testified? "They only asked me about calls from him to me," he said. Then he changed his mind about that explanation, and said the subcommittee may have been discussing all calls, but he couldn't understand why he wasn't asked specifically about calls from him' to Nathan.

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