The Billionaire Who Wasn't by Conor O'Clery Page B

enough—Feeney was thirty-three, Pilaro twenty-nine—to believe they could take on Washington and win by force of argument. Said Pilaro, “We just had balls.” They set up camp in the Hilton Hotel and hired a well-connected law firm in the U.S. capital, Arnold, Fortas & Porter, to lobby for
them. Abe Fortas was a friend and confidant of the president, and Paul Porter was one of the most influential lawyers in town. Porter told them, “If you can show me an argument that does not embarrass the president, we will take this on.”
    Knowing that a firm with registered headquarters in Vaduz, Lichtenstein, would evoke little sympathy with members of Congress, Feeney and Pilaro presented themselves as president and secretary of the “American Tourist and Trade Association,” a body they simply created for the occasion with the motto “Tourism in Trade.” They got several competitors in the five-bottle business in the United States to sign up. It was now an all-American effort.
    Paul Porter arranged a ten-minute audience for Feeney with Republican senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the strongly anti-Communist Senate minority leader, most often remembered for the quip: “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon, you’re talking about real money.” The gruff senator with thick white hair and heavy jowls was initially skeptical. “He sat Chuck and me down and served us brandy from grapes in Indiana, so we sort of got the hint that he didn’t give a damn about all this French brandy acquired abroad,” recalled Pilaro. Feeney talked as fast as he could, pleading that “this bill would be a terrible injustice, and would take away the booze from all these military guys who were sticking their ass out for everybody.” Dirksen didn’t take a note and didn’t ask any questions, recalled Feeney, “but he was interested in fairness to the military guys and walked out on the floor and made the most impassioned speech you can imagine.”
    Feeney placed his hopes on testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee as president of the American Tourist and Trade Association and as director of Tourists International, Inc. He spent several days in the Hilton drafting his statement against the passing of the legislation, listed as House Bill HR 7368.
    When he arrived on Capitol Hill for the hearings, held on May 3 and 4, 1965, he found himself up against the big guns of the administration. Treasury Secretary Henry Fowler appeared first to tell the committee that with a national budget deficit of $3.1 billion, “this is no time to encourage foreign travel.” The bill would have a beneficial effect on the balance of payments position and on Customs administration, declared Fowler. It was necessary to eliminate the “articles to follow” privilege that had deeply troubled a number of states that had lost state liquor taxes, and which he claimed was widely abused.

    Porter countered on behalf of the American Tourist and Trade Association that the booze brought in as “articles to follow” accounted for only 450,000 gallons out of a total U.S. consumption of 275 million gallons of liquor. He added to laughter—he was known as a tippler—“I don’t know whether I’ve been getting my share or not.”
    Feeney was called on the second day by the presiding chairman, Democrat John E. Watts of Kentucky, home of the American bourbon industry. He acknowledged in sworn testimony that the idea of a home-delivery service had been his but was now used by about fifteen companies. Its elimination “will brutally terminate an entire industry,” Feeney pleaded. Moreover, the bill would not achieve its objectives. It would have a negligible impact on the outflow of dollars, and it would throw out of work hundreds of people in the United States.
    Feeney plaintively described the extra hardship the measure would impose on