Citizen Hughes

by Michael Drosnin

  “It is too bad that, after taking all of these pains, I should write you a message which does not contain any slightest suggestion of criticism, yet apparently I have somehow offended you.

  “Anyway, to return to the Golf Tournament, you will see that I did not even remotely suggest I have anybody more qualified to handle it. I certainly have learned by now not to say anything as dangerous as that to you.

  “I just feel there are about 500 other matters requiring your skillful handling, and I also feel, in spite of the denials that I know you will make, that you and I are separated by a wider chasm today than at any time recently.

  “And if the word I used before, the word ‘bitterness’ does not describe your feelings, it sure as hell describes mine.

  “Incidently, what right have you to say I am sitting here comfortably watching TV while you suffer at some dancing function in La Costa?

  “In other words, how—just how do you know I am comfortable? Maybe I am sitting here wracked with pain, how the hell do you know any different?

  “I am sure that most unbiased people would certainly prefer to be dancing at La Costa, at the presentation ceremonies of the golf tournament, rather than confined to a bed watching TV—and most particularly, if the subject on TV is a critical unpleasant one.”

  It just killed Hughes to see Maheu traipsing about, whether to La Costa or to Cape Canaveral.

  If with the golf tournament Hughes took something trivial and made it seem momentous, with the Apollo space shots—the quest to land a man on the moon—Hughes took something truly momentous and made it seem trivial. Merely an excuse for another fight with Maheu. Once again, it was triggered by what Hughes saw as Maheu’s maddening wanderlust.

  “I am not eager for you to attend the event at Canaveral,” wrote the billionaire, stifling his man’s dangerous urge to roam.

  “I view this purely and simply as a situation where you have asked to do something which you personally want to do. And which will take you away from my orbit for a certain period of time, and then return you later with all of the attendant risks of illness, accident, airplane highjacking, airplane accident in the over crowded skies, etc., etc., ad infinitum.

  “One thing is not a matter of risk or uncertainty, one thing is sure, it will sap a certain measure of your strength right at a time when you are the key man and the very fulcrum upon which my entire world depends.

  “Bob, you are always asking me what happens to you if I die. Have you ever thought of what would be the outcome to me if something should happen to you?

  “Bob, you are handling absolutely everything that is most important to me, and many of these matters, such as the $137,000,000 TWA judgement, are being handled by persons completely unknown to me and according to a strategy totally unknown to me.

  “This is unavoidable, and I am not asking that it be any different. I only want you to know that, if anything should happen to you, I would not even know where to begin trying [to] pick up the pieces.

  “So, please just bear that in mind when the time comes for you to leave for Florida.”

  The space shots should have been moments of triumph and celebration. Hughes had played a key role in the historic quest. His empire had built the first spacecraft that landed on the moon, and the Hughes Surveyor sent back to earth the first close-ups of the moon’s surface via the Hughes Early Bird communications satellite, which would also broadcast the astronauts’ moon walks to the world. But it all brought no joy to the penthouse. Once more, as with the golf tournament, Hughes could not bear being confined to his bed, relegated to watching the big event on television, while Maheu was down at the launch, hobnobbing with the astronauts. After all, Hughes had once himself been hero of the skies. So space shots were always touchy.

  Even on the day men walked on the moon. Especially then. Maheu did not try to escape Hughes’s orbit for the big one. Instead, he spent weeks personally producing a TV show celebrating Hughes as a space pioneer and planned to run it on the Las Vegas station Hughes owned right before the moon walk. But on the eve of the landing came word from Mission Control—abort! Suddenly, at the last possible moment, without explanation, Hughes canceled the show.

  “You are the captain of the ship and I will follow your advice,” wrote the grounded Maheu, “but I cannot help but tell you that you are making the mistake of your life, which otherwise would have been the greatest thing that has happened since your arrival here. Cancelling the program at this late date will result in repercussions from which you will never recover.

  “I might also add, Howard, that it is evident to me that I should be prepared to become just another zombie in your stable, and not have another original thought.”

  Captain Hughes refused to be intimidated. “Bob, my reason for withdrawing from this is purely one of timing,” he explained. “I believe, with good cause, that I will be accused of attempting to cash in on somebody else’s bravery.

  “Bob, lets put the shoe on the other foot—If I am to be the so-called Captain, what good is it if you ignore my deep conviction and raise so much hell that I have to do it your way or face the consequences of bad feeling from you and threatened reprisals or horrible ‘repercussions’ tomorrow?”

  Maheu did not understand. He seemed to have the strange idea that Hughes had canceled the TV show for the pure pleasure of shooting him down. Just to provoke another fight. They argued bitterly all night and into the morning of the moon landing, and they were still at it when Neil Armstrong took “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

  “Howard, please give this little boy from Maine an opportunity to prove to you whether he is right or wrong,” pleaded Maheu, still trying to save his show while the rest of the world watched the space spectacular.

  “If you are the gambling man that I think you may be, I am prepared to make a little wager with you. If I fall on my face on this caper, I will continue working for you for the rest of my life at no cost to you, and if you are wrong you will double my salary as long as I work for you.”

  Hughes had no interest in the wager.

  “Your proposed bet is just absurd,” he wrote. “You would not be able to get along with me working for free.

  “We can’t even get along when you get paid.”

  It was true. By now their marriage had turned into a nonstop brawl, with both partners weary of the battle but continuing to slug it out, as if by habit. It didn’t take anything as sensitive as space shots or golf tournaments to get them going. Even routine business could become the flash point.

  Maheu started the fireworks one Fourth of July with a simple request for decisions on several pending projects. There was nothing provocative about his memo, and he even apologized for intruding on the holiday weekend.

  “If you feel that the above items should not have been mentioned on the 4th of July,” he wrote, “you might attribute it to the fact that I am under sedation as a result of a stupid accident I had yesterday. My leg is in a complete cast.”

  Hughes was not sympathetic. He saw Maheu’s routine request as a vicious attack and responded with a blast at his crippled lieutenant.

  “I work around the clock,” he began defensively. “There are only so many hours and the day is gone.

  “Regarding your apology for disturbing me on the 4th of July weekend, this was not necessary. As you are aware, holidays mean very little to me, since I work just about all the time.

  “There is only one thing that occurs to me, Bob. Whenever you call something like this to my attention, I get the impression that, instead of merely calling my attention to something you fear I may have forgotten, you are seeking to place me in a posture of guilt.

  “It is almost as if we were playing some kind of game.

  “I have no desire to pick a quarrel with you. I did get your message last nite. It did raise hell with my evening. I had not forgotten any of the items mentioned. I did not resent being reminded of them. I think it was just the ominous, warning tone of your rem
inder that disturbed me. The snide, sarcastic language.

  “Bob, I dont think I merit this kind of insulting language from you, and, since you are always talking about maintaining the respect of your associates, how do you think this sounds to my staff?

  “Someday, when you have time, just come out with it and tell me exactly and fully how stupid you really think your associate is.

  “Anyway, I am sick of fighting with you when you are supposed to be on my side.”

  The sedated, injured Maheu was stunned.

  “I have cast my entire business life in your hands which, of course, also means the future of my family,” he replied. “How in the world can you deduce from perhaps a poorly worded message that I think you are stupid? Honest, Howard, if I didn’t have respect for you as a human being and for your intelligence, I can assure you that I would not be here thoroughly dependent on one man.

  “Please knock this off because I become very emotionally disturbed when I feel that I am the cause of upsetting you.”

  Hughes was not really all that upset. In fact, never in the entire tormented history of their stormy relationship was he happier than when Maheu injured himself. Finally, they were both bed-ridden. Now he had Maheu all to himself. And he was making the most of it.

  “I am sorry about your knee, and I have no desire to add to your problems,” he wrote solicitously. “On the other hand, I have urgent problems which simply cannot be put aside.”

  The list of problems was truly staggering.

  “Please give me some word on Parvin, Franklin’s statement, Laxalt, Cannon, and Bible’s efforts on behalf of Lake Mead water, my request not to permit a high-rise on the Bonanza site, the threatened hotel on the Zoong property, the threatened hotel on Convention Center Drive, the three parcels of real estate, your efforts via the Justice Dept. to acquire Stardust, my communication via Rebozo to Pres. Nixon, my request to you for some revision of the allocation of Army helicopter business to Bell, that should not wait another five minutes, possible acquisition of the Riviera.

  “Bob, the above list includes eleven items, which, relying solely upon my memory, eleven items that I have entrusted to your sole and exclusive handling, are overdue for a report.

  “P.S.—I have not included the TWA judgement, which brings the list to twelve, for your easy remembrance.”

  Each day began with a similar get-well message.

  “How is your knee this morning?” Hughes would inquire, and then launch into another diatribe.

  “Bob, please do not take offense at this, but I would appreciate it very much if you would review a list of the projects in work and dictate a brief status report on each.

  “You tell me nothing about anything. Nothing about any progress in the TWA affair for a year, nothing about the water system, nothing about the future plans of the AEC, and half a dozen other projects I have asked you to take over.

  “Bob, I must be the least informed executive in the whole damned country concerning his own business. I have to learn more from the news media than anyone I know in a comparable position. This must end or I will, in my own defense, be forced to set up an investigative organization to inform me of what is happening in my own organization. This surely would be an all time high in embarrassment and I ask you not to make it necessary.

  “I am sorry to complain this way, Bob, but honestly, I sometimes think you are so busy with your very full and complex life, that you perhaps forget I am living in a virtual vacuum.

  “Perhaps, while you are staying off your knee, Bob, and unable to keep some of your appointments for meetings, etc., it may give you an opportunity to work on some of the projects and problems I have mentioned, many of which can be advanced by your efforts via the phone.

  “I hope you are feeling better.”

  “I thank you, Howard, for inquring about my knee,” replied Maheu from his bed. “It continues to be very painful, particularly at night when I make abrupt turns while sleeping which causes me to awaken repeatedly.

  “Howard, I truly have been trying to keep you informed. If you feel that these matters give you a reason to control me via some investigative organization within your complex, please be my guest. It might do you some good to find out about some of my accomplishments from another source.”

  “Are you and I going to embark on another voyage of hostility?” Hughes shot back.

  “I have no desire to quote control you, but Bob, I do not intend to learn about my business affairs from the news media any longer. If I desired to spy on you, I would ask someone to do it, and I certainly would not tell you about it beforehand.

  “How is your knee, Bob? Please be careful about getting up. Knowing your restless nature, I have been worrying very, very much about the liklihood of your injuring your knee permanently.”

  It went on like that for a month, until Hughes learned that, unfortunately, Maheu had recovered, and quickly moved to keep him from returning to his full and complex life.

  “Bob, are you well enough—I mean your knee—to go to a meeting?” he asked innocently. “I assumed you might be well enough because somebody told me you were up the other night.”

  They were no longer joined as shut-ins, but they were still joined in unholy matrimony.

  SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE: Act III

  “Now, Howard, I am getting pretty damned disturbed about what seems to be developing into a compulsive need to give Bob hell. We never talk about the small miracles we pull.

  “I am really trying to do a job for you in innumerable areas, but I have to get the feeling when I hit the sack tonight that I do not have your backing and that perhaps I should indulge in the sure-fire way of gaining your complete confidence—DO NOTHING OR SCREW UP THE DETAIL.

  “Howard, I really feel very badly about having to speak so frankly, but as they say that’s how the cookie crumbles, and they happen to be your cookies, so you can crumble them any way you choose.”

  “I dont desire this unhappiness on your part. I am the one who suffers the most from it.

  “It does not make me feel happy, and it certainly does not benefit my health to quarrel with you.

  “I do not claim it is a one way street by any means. I will try to improve.”

  “Howard, until now, and I repeat now, I have been genuinely interested in protecting our flanks wherever they may be. I have been concerned about a 12:01 AM closing on the Slipper, protecting your image in Ecuador, choosing a Presidential candidate, making sure that all of your investments to date in Las Vegas run profitably, keeping a door open in the Bahamas, stopping the Boulder City Council from passing a resolution condemning our position on nuclear tests,’ preventing the White House from revealing the contents of your letter to the President—the contents of which to date I know nothing—but which they claim could prove embarrassing.

  “If all of these things are unimportant then perhaps you should tell me precisely what you expect me to do, because I’ve just about lost my courage in trying to exercise my own judgement. Honest to Christ, Howard, you make it impossible for me to know what you want, how you want it, where you want it, and when you want it.”

  “Do I detect in your last message a slight hint of your uncertainty with respect to the future and what it may hold for the two of us?

  “If so, I think it is about time you lay it all on the line with no reservations.

  “I think our relationship needs re-examination and re-clarification, either as worthless or as deserving of your loyalty and allegiance.”

  “Howard, you certainly have my loyalty, devotion, and friendship. It is inconceivable that anything could ever happen which could cause this to change.

  “I am referring to many years of continued, consistent dedication and loyalty which I defy you to find in any other human being. If all of this has been in vain, then I feel sorry indeed—not for myself but for you. I say I feel sorry for you because if you, in fact, don’t recognize it when you really have it, then you must be a terribly unhappy person.”<
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  “I must say I am astounded. A month or two ago I asked you if there was not something under the surface that I was unaware of. I said you seemed preoccupied and I feared an explosion one of these nights that would wreck our relationship. You told me I was imagining things.

  “I want earnestly, Bob, to achieve immediately a better relationship with you. I know we have been over all of this ground before, and I know that getting you to admit that there could be any improvement is next to impossible.

  “But I want to try anyway.”

  “Howard, you keep referring to a better relationship. I have no problem in this area, but by indirection you keep sending little messages which indicate that you have certain apprehensions about establishing such a relationship.

  “Every time I make a suggestion to help you accomplish what I genuinely believe is your sincere desire, I get dropped on my head.

  “I constantly beg for guidance. It just happens that I get none, but do receive an over-abundance of criticism. My oujai board is beginning to runneth over, because I am beginning to realize that when I dip my cup into the liquid fuel I am drinking from a seive I end up having nothing to taste.”

  Maheu was losing his grip. Within a year, the erstwhile CIA tough guy had been driven to drink and was crying for mercy, his Machiavellian schemes seemingly forgotten as he was drawn further and further into an overwhelmingly intimate and terribly troubled relationship with Hughes.

  Despite all the strains and bickering, they were still together, about to embark on a series of missions that would shake the country. But as they set off to buy America, both had to wonder—could this marriage be saved?

  *Maheu’s claim of a central role in D-Day is at least an exaggeration. While he did do counterintelligence work for the FBI during World War II, and he was handling a Vichy double-agent, there is no available evidence to support his boast of diverting the Nazis from Normandy.

  *Ella Rice, who Hughes married in 1925, and divorced in 1929.