When he was there again at the reception for the new Venezuelan president, rotundly resplendent in cutaway, the mystery grew. The Washington Post asked in a big headline: Who Was That Bearded Man?
He wasn't Orson Welles, and he wasn't even a friend of Mrs. Nixon, who had never met him before the trip. But the truth about him had its fascination. He is Nicholas H. Morley, 45, a Bulgarian-born real-estate wheeler-dealer in Miami, variously described as "gentle" and "one of the toughest s.o.b.s I've ever laid eyes on."
His family had fled Bulgaria during the Jewish exodus in World War II, stopping briefly in Albania and Italy. He emigrated to Palestine in 1944 and came to the United States in 1956, nearly broke. But he didn't stay that way for long. Morley sold land for a Florida-based development company, which wouldn't be too noteworthy except that he did the selling from offices in South America and Europe. He now owns a complex of businesses with interests in South America and Britain as well as Florida.
The State Department invited him on Mrs. Nixon's trip, he says, because of his Latin American experience and the five or six languages he speaks. But, as it turned out, his duties consisted largely of looking friendly, making jokes and staying out of the way of diplomatic business. He good-naturedly denied he was along either because of Bebe Rebozo's sponsorship or because he had contributed to President Nixon's campaigns (although he has sponsored some advertisements on the President's behalf lately). Mrs. Nixon herself paid little personal attention to Morley, but he didn't seem to mind, describing the trip as "one of the greatest experiences of my life." He did miss out on a big reception in Brazil, though, when he came down with an ear infection. "I was afraid it might affect my balance," he said later. "And at my size, when you fall over it's cataclysmic."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
