Florida White House
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The Florida White House or Winter White House was an informal name for a compound in Key Biscayne, Florida used by President Richard Nixon. Nixon purchased the first of his three waterfront homes, 500 Bay Lane, in 1969 from his former Senate colleague George Smathers and visited at least 50 times while in office from 1969 to 1974.
Nixon's compound placed him close to Bebe Rebozo who resided at 490 Bay Lane and to and industrialist Robert Abplanalp (inventor of the modern aerosol spray can valve). Bebe Rebozo, president/owner of the Key Biscayne Bank, was indicted for 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 rates from Donald Berg, a Mafia-connected 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 Crosby, the chairman of a firm repeatedly linked to top mobsters, and Rebozo's Key Biscayne Bank was a suspected pipeline for Mob money skimmed from Crosby's casino in The Bahamas. By the 1960s, FBI agents keeping track of 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 Election loss by Nixon in an oceanfront villa at the old Key Biscayne Hotel. Plans for the Watergate break-in at Democratic headquarters were discussed at the Key Biscayne Nixon compound and, as the Watergate scandal unfolded, Nixon spent more time in seclusion there. Nixon visited Key Biscayne more than 50 times between 1969 and 1973.
The U.S. Department of Defense spent $400,000 constructing a helicopter landing pad in Biscayne Bay adjacent to the Nixon compound and when Nixon sold his property, including the helicopter pad, there were public accusations that he enriched himself at taxpayer expense.
The original building was razed in July 2004 by owner Edgardo Defortuna, president of Fortune International Realty.
[edit] External links
- President Richard Nixon's Helipad at the Winter Whitehouse on Key Biscayne
- Fulsom, Don (February 5, 2006). The Mob's President: Richard Nixon's Secret Ties to the Mafia. Crime Magazine.
- Associated Press (July 23, 2004). Nixon's Winter White House Razed.
