Yeah—conservatives at the time (I was young but “in the game”) were always suspicious of Nixon—we knew about the connection you cited.
He had a lot of the right enemies—but also some very creepy friends. Howard Hughes did bribe him—big bucks—and Nixon did help Hughes big defense contracts over the course of his career. The Democrats accused him of it for years and eventually got hard proof. Others bribed Nixon as well. The CIA probably had blackmail stuff on Nixon but Watergate gave them something they could release without harming national security. Nixon was hardly a man of principle—and he lied—a lot—about almost everything,
Naive me didn’t think he was capable of being in much deeper than that pumpkin patch. Coming across that CFR connection was a Gomer Pyle moment.