President Nixon's Inner Circle

 

President Nixon’s Inner Circle
The Florida White House on Key Biscayne Island (Pictured the 500 house)
Coordinates: 25°41′25″N 80°9′54″W / 25.69028°N 80.165°W
Country	United States
State	Florida
County	Miami-Dade
Elevation	3 ft. (1 m)

The friendships among Richard Nixon, Robert Abplanalp, and Bebe Rebozo formed one of the most enduring and influential personal alliances surrounding Nixon throughout his political career and presidency. More than political associates, the three men shared a deeply personal bond rooted in loyalty, privacy, wealth, discretion, and mutual trust — a relationship that endured through political triumph, scandal, resignation, and exile.

                    

                             Robert Abplanalp                                                                       President Nixon with Bebe Rebozo

    Origins of the Friendship  

President Nixon and Bebe Rebozo

President Nixon first met Bebe Rebozo in Florida during the early 1950s. Rebozo, a Cuban American banker from Key Biscayne, quickly became one of Nixon’s closest and most trusted companions. Unlike political advisers or party strategists, Rebozo offered Nixon something rare in public life: friendship without political demands.

Their relationship deepened during Nixon’s years as vice president under Dwight D. Eisenhower and became especially important after Nixon’s crushing political defeats in 1960 and 1962. While many Republicans distanced themselves from Nixon after his loss to John F. Kennedy and his failed California gubernatorial campaign, Rebozo remained steadfastly loyal. During Nixon’s so-called “wilderness years,” Rebozo provided emotional support, companionship, and a refuge away from politics.

 Sunday cruise to the Ocean Reef Club on the Coco Lobo

Rebozo’s waterfront home on Key Biscayne became a retreat where Nixon could relax, escape public pressures, and speak freely among trusted friends. Rebozo also had a getaway residence located at the Ocean Reef Club on Key Largo, where they frequently took boat rides down the Florida coast. 

President Nixon on Rebozo's houseboat 

Enter Robert Abplanalp

Robert Abplanalp entered Nixon’s inner circle during the 1960s. A self-made millionaire and inventor of the modern aerosol spray valve, Abplanalp had transformed Precision Valve Corporation into a global manufacturing empire. Politically conservative and intensely anti-communist, Abplanalp admired Nixon’s toughness, resilience, and worldview.

Like Nixon and Rebozo, Abplanalp distrusted the Eastern establishment and much of the national media. Nixon, in turn, especially valued Abplanalp’s financial support, discretion, and unwavering loyalty during periods when many political allies abandoned him.

By the mid-1960s, Abplanalp and Rebozo had become close friends themselves, helping create a tight-knit Florida-based social circle centered around Nixon.

The site of Walkers Cay Club , Press and WHCA support team stayed here

Among Abplanalp’s assets were two Islands in the Bahamas Walkers Cay and Big Grand Cay where they visited almost every time the President visited Key Biscayne.

The main residence on Big Grand Cay where the Inner Circle stayed

The Florida Inner Circle

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, Key Biscayne had become the center of Nixon’s private world outside Washington. The Nixon-Rebozo-Abplanalp friendship revolved around:

• Many boating excursions, in the Coco Lobo (Rebozo's houseboat) to the Ocean Reef Club on Key Largo where Mr. Rebozo had a home.
• private dinners,
• Golf outings, Inverrary Country Club where Jackie Gleason hosted many celebrities
• Numerous fishing trips, to Robert Abplanalp’s private islands (Walkers Cay and Grand Cay) in the Bahamas  
• and confidential political conversations.

Unlike the formal atmosphere of the White House, Florida provided Nixon with privacy and emotional comfort. He often preferred the company of old friends like Rebozo and Abplanalp to Washington insiders and political operatives.

Rebozo frequently hosted Nixon at his waterfront residence, where the president eventually purchased the 500 and 516 houses which were two adjoining properties where he spent many weekends away from Washington. Abplanalp owned private island properties in the Bahamas that became a weekend gathering place for the inner circle

The Key Biscayne Compound

This informal “Florida court” became, in many ways, an extension of Nixon’s presidency — a private world where trusted friends wielded influence outside formal government channels.

Political and Financial Support

Both Rebozo and Abplanalp played important behind-the-scenes roles in Nixon’s political and personal life.

Bebe Rebozo

Rebozo functioned primarily as Nixon’s confidant and emotional anchor. Nixon trusted him with deeply personal matters and often shared frustrations, anxieties, and political concerns that he revealed to few others. Their friendship was intensely personal rather than ideological.

Robert Abplanalp

Abplanalp played a more direct political and financial role arranging for real estate loans the President used to finance his San Clemente and Key Biscayne residences. As a major Republican donor and fundraiser, he helped Nixon cultivate wealthy business supporters and contributed substantial backing during the 1968 and 1972 campaigns.

Operating largely behind the scenes, Abplanalp belonged to an influential network of businessmen who believed Nixon would restore order and stability during an era marked by social unrest, antiwar demonstrations, and political turmoil. Although never a formal government official, Abplanalp reportedly offered Nixon strategic advice on both business and politics.

During Watergate

The friendships among Nixon, Rebozo, and Abplanalp came under intense public scrutiny during the Watergate scandal.

Investigators and journalists examined Nixon’s financial relationships with wealthy supporters, including Rebozo and Abplanalp, focusing on campaign donations, loans, and financial transactions connected to Nixon’s inner circle. Rebozo became a central figure in Senate investigations involving contributions from billionaire financier Howard Hughes.

Although Abplanalp faced scrutiny as a wealthy Nixon supporter and fundraiser, he was never a central figure in the criminal prosecutions that emerged from Watergate.

Despite the mounting scandal and Nixon’s growing isolation, both Rebozo and Abplanalp remained fiercely loyal even as many political allies abandoned him. Their loyalty mattered enormously to Nixon personally. During the final months of his presidency, Nixon increasingly withdrew from Washington advisers and relied heavily on longtime friends like Rebozo and Abplanalp for emotional support and companionship.

After Nixon’s Resignation

Following Nixon’s resignation in August 1974, both men remained loyal friends. While many former associates distanced themselves from the disgraced president, Rebozo and Abplanalp stayed personally devoted to him throughout his years of political exile and eventual rehabilitation.

Nixon spent considerable time in Florida and California reconnecting with trusted friends after leaving office. 

The three men shared:

• resentment toward Nixon’s political enemies,
• distrust of the media,
• and a strong belief in personal loyalty.

Their friendships endured until Nixon’s death in 1994.

Historical Importance

Historians often describe Nixon, Rebozo, and Abplanalp as part of an unusually private presidential inner circle. Unlike formal Cabinet members or White House aides, these friendships operated outside official government structures.

The trio reflected several key characteristics of Nixon’s personality and presidency:

• reliance on personal loyalty,
• suspicion of outsiders,
• preference for intimate informal relationships,
• and emotional dependence on a small, trusted circle.

Their Florida gatherings became symbolic of Nixon’s retreat from Washington’s political culture into a more private and controlled environment.

Legacy

The Nixon-Rebozo-Abplanalp friendship remains one of the most fascinating personal alliances in modern presidential history. It blended politics, wealth, business influence, emotional loyalty, and secrecy during one of America’s most turbulent political eras.

Although figures such as Henry Kissinger and H. R. Haldeman are more publicly associated with the Nixon presidency, Robert Abplanalp and Bebe Rebozo occupied a uniquely personal place in Nixon’s life.

The President and Henry Kissinger at the Key Biscayne Compound

For Nixon, both Bebe Rebozo and Robert Abplanalp represented something rare in his life: unwavering friendship during both triumph and collapse.