Bernie Houghton

Maurice Bernard Houghton, known as Bernie Houghton, (1920, Texas - 2000) was a US businessman with links to the US intelligence community, including involvement in the CIA-connected Sydney, Australia-based Nugan Hand Bank in the 1970s. He settled in Sydney in 1967, and founded several bars in Kings Cross, New South Wales, becoming a significant enough local figure to have a bust erected in his honour in 2002.

After serving in the US military in World War II, Houghton had various jobs over the next 20 years (Alfred W. McCoy describes him as "knock[ing] about the country for twenty years in various jobs with no particular direction").

From 1964 to 1967 Houghton spent three years in Southeast Asia taking advantage of the business opportunities offered by the Vietnam War. Former US intelligence officers speaking to Jonathan Kwitny said that Houghton traded in many things, including slot machines and opium. Australia’s Joint Task Force looking into the Nugan Hand Bank later reported that Houghton was "part of the intelligence community" at this time.

In 1967 Houghton moved to Australia, founding several bars in Kings Cross, New South Wales to take advantage of the $9m a month trade of US servicemen taking rest and recreation from the Vietnam War; Houghton was said to have "reaped a good chunk" of this trade. His best-known establishment, "the Bourbon and Beefsteak" bar (later "the Bourbon"), survived until 2010. The Bourbon and Beefsteak was founded in October 1967, a month before the first US servicemen arrived, with the support of Australian property magnate Sir Paul Strasser. According to Alfred W. McCoy, Houghton's private guests at the Bourbon included Robert Askin and Abraham Saffron as well as John D. Walker, the CIA's Australian station chief from 1973 to 1975. Houghton's connections to the intelligence community, whilst unclear, were strong enough that when he arrived in Australia in 1972 without a visa, he called the state director of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, who vouched for him to enable entry. He had previously obtained a security clearance from the ASIO in 1969. In 1972 Houghton also met Richard Secord, whom he would occasionally meet socially throughout the 1970s.

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