“Despite his denial today, his repudiation today, McGraw-Hill has in its possession a tremendous amount of documentation which in our opinion indicates beyond the shadow of a doubt that this is the authentic autobiography and that we have the authorization to publish it. So that with this documentation and the verification that has been given, we can only wonder: under what kind of pressure Mr. Hughes might have been under, if indeed, today, he did repudiate both the document and the author, and say that he’s never known Clifford Irving. We can speculate on that, but we do have documentation and we’ve been in correspondence with Mr. Hughes right up until just a month or so ago.”
Marty had to fly to California with his wife on Monday evening. He handed me the keys to his Park Avenue town house, explained the intricacies of the burglar-alarm system, and said: “Take care of the place for me.”
The house immediately became general headquarters for the battle against Chester Davis. Marty’s large, teak-paneled office was the War Room. “Don’t go over there,” Marty warned me, meaning the McGraw-Hill Building. “The press is waiting to jump on you. Stay inside the house. I’ll be back on Friday morning.” He had already made arrangements with Mike Wallace for me to appear on the “Sixty Minutes” show the following Sunday evening, which meant that the segment had to be taped on Friday. I had argued against making any major public statements, but McGraw-Hill was insistent. “You can’t stay in hiding,” they counseled. “That looks bad. You’ve got to speak out — but be damned careful what you say.”
In the meantime I had got hold of a full transcript of the Hughes telephone conference, most of which had been edited out of the television broadcasts. I read it Tuesday morning at breakfast, and immediately called Donald Wilson of Life. For the first time I had a genuine doubt that it had been Howard Hughes on the telephone.
“Those guys were patsies,” I explained. “They were set-ups. None of them had spoken to Hughes in twenty years. They were briefed for two hours ahead of time by the Byoir Agency. They asked seven identifying questions and Hughes got five of them wrong.” I reeled off the mistakes he had made. “But the biggest goofs came later, Don. He said he knew a man named General Harold George, but that George had never worked for him. But Harold George was the administrative head of Hughes Aircraft for ten years. How the hell do you explain a lapse of memory like that? And then he was talking about his movies. He said he thought they still stood up pretty well, and that one of them had won some kind of award, although he’d never won an Academy Award, he said. Well, he did win an Academy Award. His third film, Two Arabian Knights, won the first Academy Award ever presented, around 1928. Don, you don’t forget something like that. It couldn’t have been Hughes. He couldn’t have spoken for nearly three solid hours without some long breaks to take oxygen. And he said he had no obvious physical deformities. But he’s got a crippled left hand. It wasn’t Hughes.”
Wilson and the people from McGraw-Hill wanted me to make some preliminary statement before the Mike Wallace show, and on Tuesday I met with three reporters — my cousin, Jim Norman, then with the AP; John Goldman; and Doug Robinson of The New York Times. The next morning the headlines shrieked: AUTHOR: VOICE WASN’T HUGHES.
Whether or not the world believed me, I didn’t know. But I realized — and it was a shattering realization — that whatever the case, they were willing to listen to me.
Wilson called that afternoon. “Where’s the original transcript of the tapes, with Hughes’s comments all over it?”
“On Ibiza. I left it with a friend named Gerry Albertini. He’s got the only combination safe on the island.”
“We need it. We want the Osborn brothers to go over it, and we want to brush it for fingerprints. We’re having a hell of a time finding any of Hughes’s fingerprints on any of the letters or contracts. The problem is they’ve been handled by too many people.”
A few hours later, at Ackerman’s, Dick called from Palma. He had been reading The International Herald-Tribune. “You and Hughes have pushed Vietnam off the front page. What’s happening? Are you still alive?”
“Barely,” I croaked. “How would you like to come over here again and hold my hand? And while you’re at it, you can pick up the original transcript from Gerry Albertini, the one with Hughes’s handwritten comments. Bring it along and Life will pay for your trip.”
Dave Maness arrived on Thursday morning to show me the final copy of Life’s three 10,000-word excerpts. Our contract required my approval. Maness seemed semi-hysterical — Life was rushing to meet its printer’s deadline and I was trying to cope with Mike Wallace’s production men and the McGraw-Hill people at the same time. At one point I was in the living room talking to Bill Brown, Wallace’s producer, who wanted to dismantle the glass doors from a bookshelf in Marty Ackerman’s office, where we would be filming.
Maness suddenly threw open the paneled door. His dark eyes popping from behind his glasses, he screamed: “Will you please get away from those goddam TV people and come in here and read?”
That was the atmosphere of the week: a three-ring circus. Robert Stewart had arrived, and after I skimmed through the Life excerpts we had a hasty conference in the hallway. “Robert,” I said, “they’ve done the worst editing job I’ve ever seen. What can we do?” My dismay was genuine; Life’s editors had attempted to squeeze as many incidents as possible of the 230,000-word autobiography into their allotted 30,000 words. It read like a synopsis from a college crib text. “They’ve lost the sound of the man’s voice,” I complained bitterly. “They should have taken six or seven excerpts and reprinted them whole. It’s a hodgepodge. The reader just won’t understand what Hughes is saying.”
Stewart agreed wholeheartedly, and he was equally upset. “They rushed the job,” he said. “It could even hurt sales of the book. But it’s too late. They’ve got their deadline to meet and if you tell Maness it’s a lousy editing he’ll go through the roof.”
That same afternoon the big guns from McGraw-Hill trooped over to Ackerman’s house, with Shelton Fisher and Harold McGraw leading the contingent. Time, Inc. was represented by its president, Jim Shepley, and by Don Wilson and Frank McCulloch. The purpose of the meeting was to brief me on what Mike Wallace might ask me and what I was to reply. What struck me immediately was that they all seemed more nervous than I was, at least on the surface. Inside, I knew, my tremors were equal to anything they could muster, even en bloc.
“Mike Wallace is tough,” Shepley told me. “He’ll be out to get you. He’ll try to cut you up. Why in hell did you pick him to talk to, in front of thirteen million people?”
“Because he’s the toughest there is,” I said, summoning all my bravado. “Did you think I’d talk about Howard Hughes to some comedian like Johnny Carson?”
They fired questions at me for over an hour, with McCulloch leading the attack and simulating a bloodthirsty Mike Wallace. When it was over, Shelton Fisher threw a kindly arm around my shoulder. “Kid, you’re great.”
The week of tumult reached its climax on Friday. The CBS television crew arrived at eight o’clock in the morning and began stringing cables in from their trucks on Park Avenue and generally disassembling Marty Ackerman’s office and living room. The thick blue carpets were covered with rolls of white canvas which in turn were covered with more cables and mechanical gear than were probably necessary for the Battle of Atlanta in Gone With the Wind. Marty arrived in the mid-morning and took charge. At noon, with the Osborn brothers already waiting impatiently in the study, the telephone rang. It was Dick, calling from the airport. “I’m on my way. Gerry came with me — he figured it might be fun. I’ll be there in an hour.”
Ten minutes before we were due to start taping, the Osborn brothers had finished their preliminary inspection of the transcript. Dick stood nearby, observing. By now my faith was so great, despite the haste with which I had annotated those pages in Pompano Beach, that I had not even the most minuscule doubt as to the outcome. They handed the pages back to me with their
blessing. The handwriting was obviously that of Howard Hughes.
Faustin Jehle was watching like a mother hen whose nest of eggs had been invaded by a pair of weasels. He begged the Osborns to treat the pages carefully. “We’ve got to run through for fingerprints,” he explained.
“You haven’t found any yet?” I asked, sounding dismayed.
“Just something that looks like a scar,” one of the Osborns told me. “Looks like the left palm. Does Hughes have a scar on his left hand?”
Before I could reply, Dick said brightly: “I’ve got one.”
I held back a racking cough and the elder Osborn turned to Dick with a look that struck me as more casual. “On my right palm,” Dick said. “I got it playing basketball when I was fifteen.” He extended his hand to Jehle and the Osborns. “See? Does the print look like that?”
“There goes another theory,” I broke in. “Dick’s handled practically all the letters and he brought the transcript over from Ibiza. But Hughes has a crippled left hand,” I went on hurriedly. “He holds it cupped like this …” and I demonstrated. “And I can’t remember ever seeing the palm. He might press down on a piece of paper with his left hand when he writes, and if he’s got a scar there, that’s it.” I grabbed Dick’s arm. “Come on,” I said. “I need your help in the study. They’re taking Marty’s house apart.”
I shoved him ahead of me into the hall bathroom. “What the hell is the matter with you? You had to show them your goddam scar? Are you crazy?”
“Take it easy,” he growled. “You told them yourself — I’ve handled all the letters and I even typed up part of the transcript in Pompano Beach.”
“Sure,” I said, “but they didn’t say they found the palm print on the letters or the transcript or the contracts. What if it was on the envelope of the letter to Harold McGraw?”
“Oh.” Dick nodded slowly. “I forgot about that one.”
He looked suddenly so mournful, and I was so concerned with the ordeal about to begin, that my anger evaporated. “Don’t worry,” I said. “A scar print can’t possibly be identifiable. Go downstairs and get a drink — and wish me luck, because in five minutes they’re going to shove a goddam camera in my face.”
With the floodlights blotting out all hint of an audience and a microphone draped round my chest under my sweater, I sat in the big easy chair in Marty’s study. Mike Wallace leaned forward in the opposite twin chair, smiling at me.
“How do you feel?”
“Fine, Mike.”
“What are those guys in the other room so worried about?” he asked, meaning the publishing contingent.
“They think you’re going to chew me up and spit me out.”
“Jesus Christ.” He shook his head, scowling. “Why should they feel that way?”
“Damned if I know. But go ahead. Fire away.”
The cameras rolled silently and we began to talk about Howard Hughes and our various meetings. I told the tale of Dick and the organic prune. I answered some questions and ducked others. I had plenty of excuses: my obligations to McGraw-Hill, to Life’s exclusivity on the story of our meetings, and to Howard himself, who had enjoined me against giving clues to his true whereabouts. Two hours later I wiped the makeup off my face and found Dick on the stairway leading to the dining room. “How did it go?” he asked.
“I’m programmed,” I said quietly. “Push the button and the bullshit flows. I’ve told those stories and given those answers so many times that I’m beginning to believe they’re true.”
On Sunday afternoon, at Mike Wallace’s invitation, we watched the Super Bowl in a special screening room at CBS-TV. Betting on the Miami Dolphins, I lost $40 to Dick, Gerry Albertini, and Marty. The “Sixty Minutes” show followed the ball game. I stared at myself for fifteen minutes. I had never seen a more nakedly insincere man in my life than the Clifford Irving on the twenty-inch screen. Anyone who knew me, I thought, would see I was lying. There wasn’t a single natural gesture: the smile was forced, the laughter brittle, and my hands waved clumsily to emphasize every important point. I showed all the honesty of Dick Nixon or Lyndon Johnson on the campaign trail.
The next morning the executives at McGraw-Hill and Life telephoned me. “You were great,” they said. “You really carried it off. You were casual and you were straightforward. I think we’re out of trouble.”
Earlier that week Rosemont had gone to court, seeking a temporary injunction against the book, but no one was particularly worried about that, either. There were such things as prior restraint, free speech, and the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. For McGraw-Hill and Time, Inc., everything was all right so far.
For the first time since the hoax had begun, almost exactly a year ago, I felt that events were starting to bypass me. I had become a minor advisor, demoted from commanding general to a lieutenant on the periphery of the battlefield. Two law firms had taken over: White and Case, representing McGraw-Hill, and Cravath, Swaine & Moore, representing Time, Inc., with my own lawyer, Marty Ackerman, standing beside them but cast in the role of junior partner. The change both suited me and worried me. I still had the introduction to finish, and when that was done I intended to head for Ibiza and leave the battle to the legal staffs. But the lawyers’ manipulations puzzled me; I had no knowledge of law and I felt estranged and uneasy. Dick, who was staying at the Biltmore with Gerry Albertini, lay around in his hotel room most of the time reading detective novels. Last week’s pandemonium had geared down to a mild frenzy. Robert Stewart arrived almost daily with galleys that needed editing, and I was still writing the final pages of the introduction. Feeling starved for sleep, I had come home early and left David Walsh in a restaurant with some friends. He was celebrating a promised one-man show at the Greer Gallery, downing alternate shots of Scotch and Eno’s Fruit Salts for his ulcer.
Dick arrived in the morning and a few minutes later Marty cornered us in the hallway. “No more pussyfooting around with this Chester Davis character,” he said. “I want both you guys to write out statements of all you know about the whole business.” He turned to me. “Be specific. Give all the details you can. Break it down into sections — your background and financial position, the payments to Hughes, the checks, and all your meetings with him. Take your travel receipts so you get the dates right.”
“What’s this for?” I asked.
“This fucking Rosemont shit. We’ve got to get it thrown out of court.”
He was my lawyer and he knew best. I was too tired and nervous to argue. That day and the next I hammered out a 22-page statement, as detailed as possible, and I handed it to Marty with a certain pride of authorship. He read it carefully.
“What kind of a plane was it that you flew in with this Mexican from Oaxaca to Juchitán?”
“A Cessna 150,” I remembered the model number from some airplane magazine I had read last summer.
“Didn’t you once tell me it had four seats?”
“Yeah, I think there was a back seat.”
“Then it couldn’t have been a 150.”
“Marty, I think this character Pedro told me it was a 150. But we were speaking Spanish … I might have got it wrong.”
“Didn’t you write down the identification number of the plane? It would have been lettered on the tail assembly.”
“I didn’t look.”
He looked at me curiously. “And what about the license number of Holmes’s car, when he drove you blindfolded to meet Hughes in Florida?”
“That was stupid. I should have written it down.”
He hesitated, then nodded. “I’ll get this typed up and then you can sign it.”
Dick had written a statement about his meeting with Hughes in Palm Springs. Some hours later both documents were typed by Marty’s secretary and presented to us to sign. Marty notarized them. Dick and I plodded upstairs.
“You know,” I said, “those goddam things are affidavits.”
“Which means?”
“I’m not ex
actly sure. But I think they’re sworn statements.”
“I didn’t raise my right hand and swear to anything.”
“Neither did I. But we signed them.”
“I think I’m flying back to Spain,” he said. “Tonight.”
“Me, too. Not tonight, but as soon as I can get the hell out of here.”
Dick had already gone to the airport when I wandered into Marty’s second-floor office on Wednesday evening: He sat behind the big executive desk, nervously chewing the eraser end of a pencil. The desk was strewn with notes and memoranda, the debris of the week’s chaos. “Something peculiar’s going on,” he said. “Shelton Fisher called me. They’ve got some word from Zurich. Apparently …” Marty hesitated, seemed to choose his words with care. “They apparently think that Hughes didn’t open that bank account at the Credit Suisse.”
A cold tingle began in my gut. I forced a smile. “So add one more rumor to the pile.”
“More than a rumor. They seem almost sure. Only they’re being cagey about it — that’s what’s peculiar. They want us over there this afternoon to discuss it.”
At three o’clock we gathered in the executive meeting room on the 32nd floor of the McGraw-Hill Building, the same room, I recalled, where the McGraw-Hill executives had leafed through portions of the transcript three months ago, in September. Gathered with me about the round table were Shelton Fisher, Harold McGraw, Faustin Jehle, Frank McCulloch, Ralph Graves, and Marty Ackerman. An hour ago I handed a final draft of the introduction to Robert Stewart on the 20th floor. I was ready to leave New York.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” Shelton Fisher said to me politely. “We’re right in the middle of this fight with Rosemont and we need you. Can’t you stick around?”
I had walked into the meeting fearing the worst, expecting insinuations, if not accusations. I had already prepared the defense: so what if Hughes hadn’t opened the Zurich account personally? Had anyone really expected him to fly to Switzerland? He obviously had a loyal servant to do the job.
But there had been no attack. Where I had expected unsmiling nervousness, I was greeted with warm handshakes and cordiality. “We’re a team,” their attitude seemed to say. “And we need you,” Harold McGraw echoed aloud.
The Hoax Page 35