Family Awaits the Release of Nixon’s Nephew in Cuba

The wife and mother of Donald Nixon Jr., an Orange County businessman and nephew of the late President, said Saturday they are eagerly awaiting his return from Cuba, where he has been held under house arrest for the past three weeks.

“I’m concerned for his return,” said his wife, Helene Nixon, from her Tustin home. “I’m just looking forward to getting him home and hoping that anything that can be done will be done. . . . The proper channel has been gone through.”

The reasons for Nixon’s three-week detention were unclear, but Clinton Administration officials said Nixon was with Robert L. Vesco when the fugitive financier was arrested by Cuban authorities in early June on suspicion of being a foreign agent.

Nixon Jr. was an aide to Vesco in the early 1970s, and lived in Costa Rica during the time when Vesco sought refuge there.

Helene Nixon has told authorities that her husband was in Cuba trying to arrange a pharmaceutical test, according to congressional officials. She declined to comment further Saturday on the details of her husband’s trip.

Helene Nixon has contacted Secretary of State Warren Christopher for help, and the family’s attorney has said that the State Department is “doing everything possible to secure [Nixon’s] release.” Helene Nixon has also written to Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), and Senate Republican leader Bob Dole of Kansas.

Donald Nixon Jr.’s mother, Clara Nixon of Irvine, referred all questions to the family’s lawyer Saturday, but said she is confident the matter will soon be resolved.

“Naturally, I think of him, but no, I’m not worried, not a bit.,” she said.

Vesco, 59, fled to the Bahamas to avoid investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which charged in a 1972 civil suit that he swindled investors in a Swiss-based mutual fund of $224 million.