The Florida White House (or Winter White House) was an informal name for a compound in Key Biscayne, Florida, used by U.S. President Richard Nixon.
HistoryEdit
Nixon purchased the first of his three waterfront homes, 500 Bay Lane, during 1969 from his former Senate colleague George Smathers of Florida. Nixon visited it at least 50 times while in office as President from 1969 to 1974.
Nixon's compound was close to the home of Charles "Bebe" Rebozo who resided at 490 Bay Lane and of industrialist Robert Abplanalp (inventor of the modern aerosol spray can valve). Bebe Rebozo, president/owner of the Key Biscayne Bank, was indicted for money-laundering a $100,000 donation from Howard Hughes to the Nixon election campaign.
According to an exposé by Don Fulsom, Nixon and Rebozo got bargain real estate prices from Donald Berg, a Mafia-associated Rebozo business partner. The Secret Service eventually advised Nixon to stop associating with Berg. The lender for one of Nixon's properties was Arthur Desser, who consorted with both Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa and mobster Meyer Lansky. Nixon and Rebozo were friends of James V. Crosby, the chairman of a company repeatedly associated with major mobsters, and Rebozo's Key Biscayne Bank was a suspected pipeline for Mafia money from Crosby's casino in The Bahamas. By the 1960s, FBI agents monitoring the Mafia had identified Rebozo as a "non-member associate of organized crime figures."
President John F. Kennedy and Nixon met for the first time after the 1960 presidential election in an oceanfront villa at the old Key Biscayne Hotel. As the Watergate scandal developed, Nixon spent more time in seclusion there.
William Calhoun Baggs (b. 1923-1969) was an American journalist and editor of The Miami News (1957 to 1969). He was one of a small group of Southern newspaper editors who campaigned for civil rights for African Americans in the 1950s and 1960s.[1] Baggs became an early opponent of the Vietnam War.
Early life and education
CareerEdit
Baggs started work in journalism as a reporter for the Panama Star and Herald. In 1942, he volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Force and served with the 485th Heavy Bomb Group (830th Squadron) of the Fifteenth Air Force in Venosa, Italy. As a bombardier, he earned a Distinguished Flying Cross and a Unit Citation. During a period of rest and reassignment in Miami Beach, Florida, he fell in love with the growing city of Miami as well as a Red Cross Recreational Assistant named Joan Orr, who later would become his wife. He worked briefly as a cub reporter in Greensboro, N.C., before returning to Miami as the aviation reporter for the Miami News. He was named a columnist in December 1949, and distinguished himself for taking progressive stands on civil rights, economic investment in Latin America to combat the rise of communism, and preserving the environment. As a columnist, he traveled extensively in Latin America and Europe and throughout the United States. He built strong friendships with world leaders as well as high-ranking politicians, such as Adlai Stephenson, and brothers John F. and Robert Kennedy.
In July 1957, publisher James M. Cox Jr. named Baggs editor of the Miami News. He held that position until his death at age 45 on January 7, 1969.
Latin AmericaEdit
During his tenure, his newspaper had a front seat to the Cuban Revolution, Bay of Pigs Invasion, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. His friendship with President Kennedy gave him advanced knowledge of the Soviet Union's buildup of missile launch sites on the island. Later, though, when he was asked by a Time magazine reporter how his newspaper scooped both the announcement as well as the turning back of Soviet ships, Baggs answered, "A roseate spoonbill told us."
Bill Baggs better (can't make this shit up)
Oh yeah, fuck you Rothsch.