The Secret of Box G-302

It took twelve days of tangled, often tedious testimony to sift through the evidence. Then at week's end the jury of six men and six women filed out of the District of Columbia U.S. Courthouse's overheated Courtroom 21 to begin their deliberations on Bobby Baker's fate. Baker firmly denied the accusations embodied in his nine-count federal indictment for larceny, tax evasion and fraud. He did, however, admit to one piece of chicanery. Returning to the witness stand before the defense rested its case, the former Senate Democratic secretary once again invoked Old Friend Lyndon Johnson, related that the then majority leader had scolded him in 1960 for his extracurricular activities. L.B.J., Baker testified, "did not think that I should practice law, since in his judgment I had a full-time job. I was, in essence, moonlighting."

Start of the Affair. Because of Johnson's admonition, together with the fact that he was not licensed to practice law in Washington, Baker said, he arranged to have over $30,000 in fees from his clients made out in checks payable to a Washington lawyer friend instead of to himself. Thus Bobby denied the Government's contention that the setup was meant to evade taxes on influence-peddling deals.

Baker also elaborated on his early friendship with the late Democratic Senator Robert S. Kerr, to whom he previously claimed to have turned over $99,600 in campaign contributions from California savings-and-loan executives (TIME, Jan. 27)--money that the Government charged he largely diverted to his own use. Under cross-examination by Justice Department Attorney William Bittman, Baker told of buying stock some 15 years ago in the Oklahoma millionaire's Kerr-McGee Corp. He testified: "That would be the first start of any relationship that I had with the Senator, because he said, 'If you can't borrow it yourself, I will secure the funds for you.' "

A Matter of $50,000. Baker was one of nine defense witnesses. Glen S. Troop, an S & L industry lobbyist and former Baker crony, related, at Bittman's prodding, that the idea to raise the disputed campaign contributions had been Baker's--not, as Bobby had testified previously, a West Coast S & L executive's. More helpful was T. Edward Morris Jr., an official of Washington's National Savings & Trust Co., who said that Kerr had made visits to his safe-deposit box, number G-302, on Oct. 22 and Nov. 5, 1962--dates on which Baker, according to his earlier testimony, had turned money over to Kerr.

The final defense witness was Fred Black Jr., a partner in Baker's ill-starred vending-machine venture and himself under indictment for income tax evasion. Black told of sitting in a car with Kerr in Poteau, Okla., in late 1962: "Senator Kerr was concerned because he said he had advanced Mr. Baker $50,000 out of what he called 'cam- paign contributions,' and he would have to replenish it out of his own pocket if he couldn't pay." Baker had testified earlier that Kerr canceled the debt just before he died on Jan. 1, 1963.

Only $500? By way of rebuttal, Prosecutor Bittman summoned to the stand Kerr-McGee Administrative Assistant S. B. Robinson, who brought with him Kerr's meticulous financial records--so detailed that they even included the Senator's entry of an $18 loan to one of his sons. The ledgers, however, contained no reference to the $50,000 that Baker claimed to have received from the Senator. Similarly, Lawyer Robert S. Kerr Jr., 40, testified that he had no knowledge of his father's giving any money to Baker aside from a $500 loan back in 1951. In his closing summation, Defense Attorney Edward Bennett Williams ridiculed the notion that Baker could have deceived "the squinty-eyed marble-hearted bankers of the savings-and-loan industry" by pocketing their campaign contributions. For his part, Prosecutor Bittman deplored as a "real tragedy" Baker's implication that Kerr had received the $99,600 as "a bribe to fix" pending legislation affecting the S & L industry. Baker's story that he had turned the money over to Kerr, said Bittman, was a "fabrication."

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