Bobby Baker
| Bobby Baker | |
|---|---|
| Born |
November 12, 1928 Pickens, South Carolina, U.S. |
Robert Gene "Bobby" Baker (born November 12, 1928) is a former political adviser to Lyndon B. Johnson, and an organizer for the Democratic Party. He became the Senate's Secretary to the Majority Leader. In 1962, he and a friend, Fred Black, established the Serv-U Corporation which was designed to provide vending machines for companies working for programs established under federal grants. During the following year, an investigation was begun by the Democratic-controlled Senate into Baker's business and political activities. The investigation included allegations of bribery and arranging sexual favors in exchange for Congressional votes and government contracts. The Senate investigation looked into the financial activities of Baker and Lyndon Johnson during the 1950s. Baker resigned from his position in October 1963. The investigation of Lyndon Johnson as part of the Baker investigation was later dropped.
Baker was born in Pickens, South Carolina, the son of the town postmaster, and lived in a house on Hampton Avenue. He attended Pickens Elementary and Pickens High School, until he achieved an appointment when he was 14 years old as a U.S. Senate page with the help of Harold E. Holder.
In 1942, Baker became a page for Senator Burnet Maybank, and quickly became friends with several important Democrats. When Lyndon Johnson was elected to the Senate in 1948, he was told that Baker knew "where the bodies are buried," and established a close relationship with him. Baker quickly became Johnson's protégé.
Baker was eventually promoted to the position of the Senate's Secretary to the Majority Leader, who at the time was a Democrat; this was his highest-ranking official position, as well as the position from which he would later resign. Prior to resigning, Baker had been a major power on Capitol Hill. He resigned eventually due to allegations of misconduct and a well-publicized scandal involving government contracts, and served 18 months in prison for tax evasion.
In 1978, he coauthored a memoir entitled Wheeling and Dealing with Larry L. King.
Baker frequently mixed politics with personal business. He was one of the initiators and board-members of the Quorum Club located in the Carroll Arms Hotel adjacent to a Senate office building. The society was alleged to have been a place for lawmakers and other influential men to meet for food, drink, and ladies. Baker and one of his colleagues, lobbyist Bill Thompson, are said to have arranged for Quorum Club hostess Ellen Rometsch to meet John F. Kennedy. Rometsch was of German origin. As a youth, she had been a Communist Party member in East Germany before fleeing with her parents and then coming to the United States.
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