runners in the coastal waters of Florida. Blue Thunder was in boating parlance "wet," a
complete lemon, useful only for photo opportunities and publicity shots.
Documents found by Burdick in the Dade County land records office show that USA
Racing, the company operated by Aronow which built the Blue Thunder catamarans for
the Customs service was not owned by Aronow, but rather by a one Jack J. Kramer in his
capacity of president of Super Chief South Corporation. Jack Kramer had married a niece
of Meyer Lansky. Jack Kramer's son Ben Kramer was thus the great nephew and one of
the putative heirs of the top boss of the US crime syndicate, Meyer Lansky. Ben Kramer
was also a notorious organized crime figure in his own right. On March 28, 1990 Jack
Kramer and Ben Kramer were both found guilty of 23 and 28 counts (respectively) of
federal money laundering charges. In the previous year, Ben Kramer had also been
sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for having imported half a million pounds
of marijuana. Bush had thus given a prime contract in waging the war on drugs to one of
the leading drug-smuggling and money-laundering crime families in the US.
Don Aronow was murdered by Mafia-style professional killers on February 3, 1987.
During the last days of his life, Aronow is reported to have made numerous personal
telephone calls to Bush. Aronow had been aware that his life was in danger, and he had
left a list of instructions to tell his wife what to do if anything should happen to him. The
first point on the list was "#1. CALL GEORGE BUSH." [fn 9] Lillian Aronow did call
Bush, who reportedly responded by placing a personal call to the MetroDade Police
Department homicide division to express his concern and to request an expeditious
handling of the case. Bush did not attend Aronow's funeral, but a month later he sent a
letter to Aronow's son Gavin in which he called the late Don Aronow "a hero."
When Lillian Aronow suspected that her telephone was being tapped, she called Bush,
who urged her to be calm and promised to order an investigation of the matter. Shortly
after that, the suspicious noises in Mrs. Aronow's telephone ceased. When Lilian Aronow
received reports that her husband might have been murdered by rogue CIA operatives or
other wayward federal agents and that she herself and her children were still in danger,
she shared her fears in a telephone call to Bush. Bush reportedly later called Mrs.
Aronow and, as she recalled, "He said to me, 'Lillian, you're fine.' He said that 'ex-CIA
people are really off.' That's the truth." [fn 10] Later, Mrs. Aronow heard that Gen.
Noriega of Panama was interested in buying some of her boats, and she began to prepare
a trip to Panama in the hope of generating some orders. Before her departure, she says
she called Bush who advised her against making the trip because of Noreiga's
involvement in "bad things." Mrs. Aronow cancelled her reservations for Panama City.
But in the summer of 1987, Bush snubbed Mrs. Aronow by pointedly avoiding her at a
Miami dinner party. But during this same period, Bush frequently went fishing with
former Aronow employee Willie Meyers, whom he had mentioned in the letter cited
above. According to Thomas Burdick's sources, Willie Meyers was also a friend of
Secretary of State George Shultz, and often expressed concern about damaging publicity
for Bush and Shultz that might derive from the Aronow case.