Place in History

The Billie Sol Estes scandal just kept growing and growing--and every time an answer turned up, so did a few more questions. Last week the New York Herald Tribune (see THE PRESS) got its eager hands on a copy of the Agriculture Department's secret report on Billie Sol's cotton manipulations. Dated Oct. 27, 1961, the 140-page document clearly warned that Estes was a sleight-of-hand wheeler-dealer. Yet, three weeks after the report was submitted, Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman confirmed Estes' appointment to the National Cotton Advisory Committee, and the Pecos Ponzi was not arrested until last March. Items in the report:

>In explicit detail, investigators described how Estes illegally bought up cotton acreage allotments for his own use. Farmer Travis Hunt declared that he had written a letter to Freeman about the scheme--but had received no reply.

>J. Taylor Allen, former Southwest area director for the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, said that Henry Marshall, chief of production adjustment in Texas, had been planning to torpedo Estes' cotton scheme, when he was found dead with five bullet holes from a bolt-action rifle. Originally ruled a suicide by local authorities, the case is now being investigated by a grand jury.

>Billie Sol bluntly warned Agriculture investigators that if the department tried to change "in the middle of the game" the regulations under which he had built up his cotton holdings, he would "take the matter to the Secretary and the President if necessary."

Meanwhile, appearing before a House subcommittee investigating the Estes case, Roland Ballou, an Agriculture Department official, was asked if he had ever met Estes. His answer: "I have not. Thank the Lord." Ballou's fervent reply was understandable, as the hearings turned up more strange twists in the serpentine scandal. Items:

>C. Hilary Moseley, head of the Agriculture Department's Dallas commodity office, sent a memo to Washington in 1960 warning that Estes' complex operations involved heavy indebtedness. Moseley suggested that Estes' grain-storage bond should be higher than $200,000. After Moseley's memo, the bond eventually was raised to $700,000--still a ridiculously low figure for an operation of such size.

>Billie Sol's low bond was based in part on a financial statement listing his net worth at $13.7 million that was submitted in February 1961 by Winn P. Jackson, a Lubbock, Texas, certified public accountant. But Jackson testified that the statement actually had been drawn up by Billie Sol himself. Jackson said that when he told Estes he would have to check into the facts before he could approve the statement, Billie Sol replied: "Why? There's nothing wrong with it. The only place it's going is somewhere up in the Agriculture Department." Said Jackson: "Everybody thought he was such a Christian gentleman, and with his wide reputation, I made the mistake of believing him." After adding a mild warning that he had not made a complete audit of Estes' holdings, Jackson obediently put the statement on his stationery, sent it back to Estes--and a week later got a check for $6,000. After Estes was arrested, Jackson destroyed his copies of the balance sheet at the request of one of Billie Sol's men. Said Jackson of the whole affair: "Evidently I was taken in by a man that was a little smarter than I was."

The congressional hearings were hardly under way before Republican subcommittee members began clamoring for more exciting witnesses, including Billie Sol himself. Chairman L. H. Fountain, figuring that Estes would only take the Fifth Amendment, had no immediate plans for calling Billie Sol. Still, with Senator John McClellan preparing to hold hearings, two grand juries at work in Texas, and 76 FBI agents on the prowl, there seemed every reason to agree with Fountain's forecast: "I think Mr. Estes is likely to find a place in history as one of the most, if not the most, thoroughly investigated individuals of all time."

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