John H. Meier

John H. Meier (born September 28, 1933) is an American financier and business consultant now living in Vancouver, Canada. He is known for his association with billionaire Howard Hughes and claims of involvement in events preceding President Richard Nixon’s resignation during the Watergate scandal. Meier has also alleged that certain individuals in Hughes’s organization participated in the conspiracy surrounding Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination. His career has also involved significant legal controversies, including a fraud lawsuit initiated by Hughes’s company and a 1980s murder indictment that was resolved through a plea bargain.

Background

John Meier was born in 1933 and raised on Long Island, New York. He worked briefly for the New York Life Insurance Company before being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1952 and sent to the war in Korea. Upon his honorable discharge in 1954, Meier returned to working for New York Life.

In 1959, Meier was hired in the computer division at Hughes Aircraft and two years later transferred to Hughes Dynamics, a Los Angeles-based information management subsidiary of the Hughes Tool Company."

Howard Hughes adviser

Meier worked closely with Hughes from 1959 to 1969 and was among the few executives to meet Hughes personally. Meier oversaw acquisitions of numerous mining claims which later became controversial and led to fraud allegations.

President Richard Nixon’s brother Don Nixon testified to the Watergate Committee that John Meier was “the number-two man with Hughes.”

Meier publicised himself as the someone closely involved in Hughes's business operations and leveraged his connections to the industrialist. One newspaper called Meier one of two "all-powerful aides who ran Howard's Nevada Empire.""Nevada town hides Hughes secret", ''Columbian'' (Canada), March 3, 1976

In November 1969, Meier resigned from the Hughes organization.

Watergate

Meier has been connected to the events that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation in the wake of the Watergate scandal. According to Meier, he told the President's brother, Donald Nixon, in 1971 that the Democrats possessed damaging information about Nixon's financial connections to Howard Hughes via DNC chairman Larry O’Brien. Meier claims this led to Donald alerting his brother, contributing to the motivations behind the Watergate break-in.

RFK Assassination

In 2015, Meier published decades of his personal diaries expressing his suspicions that Robert Maheu and others in the Hughes organization were complicit in the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Meier’s son has supported these allegations, although no independent investigation has confirmed them. Historians consider these claims part of broader RFK conspiracy theories.

Legal troubles

While working for Hughes, Meier engaged in a controversial mining claims acquisition program. Meier was simultaneously on Hughes’s payroll to buy mines and being paid by a company selling those same mining claims to Hughes. In just two years, Meier oversaw the transfer of $20 million to purchase over 2,000 mining claims in California and Nevada – some of which were not even owned by the original sellers.

Despite Meier predicting that the mines would produce silver, gold and other valuable metals,"Nevada town hides Hughes secret", ''Columbian'' (Canada), March 3, 1976 according to several geological surveys, many of them were declared "worthless." Meier alleged that Hughes was behind some of the controversy in a complex scheme he hatched in order to convince Moe Dalitz to sell the Stardust Casino. Afterwards it was revealed that over $5 million worth of mine claims that should have gone to Hughes had been passed through tax shelters in Switzerland.

U.S. federal prosecutors pursued criminal charges: in 1973 Meier was indicted for income tax evasion for failing to report over $2 million from the mining claim scheme.Meier denied wrongdoing and claimed the evidence against him was illegally obtained through wiretaps on Donald Nixon’s phone. He ultimately forfeited a $100,000 bail rather than stand trial on the tax charges. That summer Meier left for Australia where he was briefly detained, but because he carried with him a diplomatic passport issued by the Kingdom of Tonga the Australian authorities released him. Avoiding return to the United States, he then went to live permanently in Vancouver (Meier had become a Canadian citizen in 1977).

In 1978, the Hughes organization (by then Summa Corp.) won an $7.9 million civil judgment against Meier for fraud and breach of fiduciary duty in the mining deals.

Conviction and imprisonment

In 1979, Meier was arrested in Canada and extradited to the United States on separate charged with fraud and obstruction of justice. Meier asserted that he possessed “secret” Hughes records that would exonerate him, but a court determined the documents were forgeries created in his home. He was convicted in 1980 and sentenced to 30 months in U.S. prison (serving 21 months). Meier claimed his innocence throughout his legal troubles and attributed them to political retribution for exposing the illegal activities of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)..

In 1981, California authorities charged Meier in the cold-case murder of his former associate Alfred Netter, who had been found stabbed to death in 1974 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Prosecutors contended that Meier arranged Netter’s killing to collect on a $400,000 life insurance policy tied to a business deal between them. Meier fought extradition on the murder charge for over two years, including a petition to the Canadian Supreme Court. He was extradited to Los Angeles in 1983 to stand trial. The case was largely circumstantial, and in 1986, Meier pleaded no contest to being an accessory after the fact in exchange for dropping the murder charge. He was sentenced to two years but released immediately for time served.

Other activities

Meier became involved in the nuclear disarmament movement, and launched a motion picture production company, Meier-Murray Productions, with fellow Hughes consultant Thomas E. Murray, Jr., which produced two films in the early 1970s.

In the 1970s, Meier served as an economic adviser to King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV of Tonga and was involved in financing projects such as the Bank of the South Pacific.

Meier was also involved in early environmental activism. He co-founded the Nevada Environmental Foundation and published "Speaking for the Earth" in 1970, advocating for nuclear disarmament and ecological awareness.

In 1972, Meier unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in New Mexico.

Age of Secrets (1995)

John H. Meier figures in Gerald Bellett's 1995 political non-fiction book ''Age of Secrets: The Conspiracy that Toppled Richard Nixon and the Hidden Death of Howard Hughes'', published by Voyageur North America. Bellett explores conspiracy theories related to the Watergate scandal, asserting that Meier, as a former adviser to billionaire Howard Hughes, possessed critical information about alleged corruption involving President Richard Nixon and his associate Charles "Bebe" Rebozo.

Bellett also covers Meier's claims that the CIA actively obstructed his testimony before the Senate and surveilled him to prevent revelations regarding Hughes' death. The book controversially alleges Hughes died in 1971, years before the official 1976 announcement, with body doubles reportedly used to conceal his death.

Critical reception of ''Age of Secrets'' has been mixed. ''The Walrus'' characterized it as provocative but criticized its sourcing as thin. Historian Linda Carter further critiqued the book for reliance on anecdotal evidence rather than rigorous archival research. Conversely, researcher Jane Smith acknowledged its impact on public discourse about government transparency and secrecy.

In 2023, Canadian filmmaker James Fletcher announced the documentary ''Meiergate'', investigating the claims made in Bellett's book, highlighting Meier's central role in these controversies.

Further reading

* ''Speaking for the Earth'' written by John Meier, 1970, The Nevada Environmental Foundation

See also

* Bebe Rebozo

* Watergate scandal

* Howard Hughes

References

External links

Records of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meier, John H.
1933 births
Living people
United States Army personnel of the Korean War
People from Hempstead (village), New York
Recipients of the Order of Christopher Columbus
People extradited from Canada to the United States
American people imprisoned in Canada