Investigations: Bobby's Long Green Carpet

To hear a Senate Rules Committee investigator tell it last week, whenever Bobby Baker showed up, bankers rolled out a long green carpet. Accountant Lorrin Drennan Jr. told the committee, which has been exploring the moonlighting manipulations of the former secretary to Senate Democrats, that between January 1959 and last November, Baker and his associates had borrowed some $2,784,338 from 22 outfits —including the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The breakdown on Bobby's loans: Beckley National Bank, Beckley, W. Va., $10,000; Suburban Trust Co., Hyattsville, Md., $10,100; First National Bank of South Carolina, Denmark, S.C., $13,238; McLachlen Banking Corp., Washington, $16,000; State Bank & Trust Co., Columbia, S.C., $25,000; National Bank of Washington, $28,000; Fidelity Investment Co., Washington, $40,600; the Small Business Administration, $54,400; District of Columbia National Bank, Washington, $135,000; American Security & Trust Co., Washington, $223,000; American National Bank, Silver Spring, Md., $262,000; First National Bank in Dallas, $471,000; Fidelity National Bank & Trust Co., Oklahoma City, $475,000; Fraternity Federal Savings & Loan Association, Baltimore, $746,000. In addition, Baker got loans totaling $275,000 from eight other institutions. Of the total, Drennan said, Baker's personal share came to $1,703,538. Many of Baker's notes had either been paid off or substantially reduced, but as of last Nov. 1, he said, Baker owed $683,334, and was responsible as a cosigner for another $1,000,000 in outstanding loans —on a salary of $19,612 a year.

Among the week's other witnesses was Edward Levinson, a Las Vegas casino operator and Baker pal, who refused to answer some 60 questions. While waiting to testify, Levinson was handed a subpoena ordering him to produce his financial records in Las Vegas next week in a tax case involving Baker. Thus, even as the Rules Committee's low-octane investigation seemed about to run out of gas, Bobby's troubles were beginning to heat up.

But that apparently did not bother Bobby, who was already considering yet another career. There was a "distinct possibility" he might some day run for office, he said. If he did, he certainly could count on home-town support. Last week Baker was named a Pickens County delegate to the South Carolina Democratic Convention later this month. Said Baker: "People that know you and respect you and like you, even if you had done something wrong, will still be for you. They know me in Pickens."