Wife Says Cuba Is Releasing Donald Nixon

The wife of Donald Nixon Jr. said Saturday that she was “thrilled” at news that her husband will be returning to the United States today from Cuba, where he was held under house arrest for a month and questioned about his ties to fugitive financier Robert L. Vesco.

Helene Nixon said she had not heard directly from her husband but had received a message on Saturday to call the State Department.

According to an interview with Nixon by the Associated Press, Cuba has given the late President’s nephew his passport back and is allowing him to leave. He planned to fly to Miami today.

“We are very very happy to hear that,” Helene Nixon said. “We are very grateful, very happy, and looking forward to seeing him.”

Helene and Donald Nixon live in Tustin with their two sons, ages 13 and 18. Nixon had “tried so hard” to make it back by Saturday for his younger son’s bar mitzvah but was unable to do so, said his wife.

The businessman and former aide to Vesco has said he went to Cuba four months ago seeking Vesco’s help to manufacture an anti-AIDS drug that has not been approved in the United States. He and Vesco started a venture known as the Tx project with partners in Colombia, Mexico, Switzerland and Italy.

Nixon was at Vesco’s home when the fugitive financier was arrested May 31 by Cuban officials on suspicion of being a foreign agent. Cuban officials have since questioned Nixon, telling him they suspected him of money laundering, involvement in the international drug trade and being a member of the CIA.

Nixon told the Associated Press that Cuban officials told him they had no charges against him and no reason to detain him further.

He said he wants to return to Cuba to finish the medical project.

Nixon also told the AP that U.S. officials have told him he is wanted for questioning by the FBI.

Vesco fled the United States in the early 1970s after the Securities and Exchange Commission charged that he diverted more than $220 million from four mutual funds. He also is under indictment for an illegal $200,000 contribution to President Nixon’s reelection campaign, and he faces drug conspiracy charges from a 1989 indictment.