Cave Vendor

Part of the quick riches amassed by Bobby Baker while he was Lyndon Johnson's hand-picked-- and highly influential--secretary to the Senate's Democratic majority came from a solid-seeming corporate cornerstone. Called the Serv-U Corp., the business has grown with Alger-esque alacrity from an incorporation agreement in 1961 to a multimillion-dollar vending-machine firm retained by several big defense contractors. Last week Serv-U's slots began to turn up full of slugs.

The firm's richest returns for Baker--who is said to own more than 80% of Serv-U--stem from a three-year-old contract, worth some $2,500,000 yearly with North American Aviation Inc., the giant (1964 sales: $2 billion) Southern California aerospace company that has Government contracts for the three-man Apollo space capsule, as well as the XB-70 experimental bomber. Largely on the strength of the North American contract, Baker only a few months ago was dickering to sell Serv-U. But eventually his potential buyers sensed rough air ahead and they balked. And wisely so.

Last week North American notified Baker that it was canceling the Serv-U contract and putting in its own vending machines. For a wheeler-dealer of lesser talents, this might well have proved a fatal blow. Not for Bobby. He is now hard at work trying to persuade North American officials in Los Angeles to buy some 1,000 Serv-U machines in their plants.

Whether Baker's empire--which also includes an Ocean City, Md., motel--was in serious trouble remained to be seen. But Delaware's Republican Senator John Williams, who had twice watched angrily and helplessly as probes into Baker's affairs turned to parodies before the Democrat-packed Senate Rules Committee, was hopeful that Bobby's current financial woes might prove to be the drama's deus ex slot machine, or at least a third act. Said Williams: "We can hope this is an indication that there will be a forthright investigation and prosecution of Baker and his assistants."

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