Citizen Hughes

by Michael Drosnin

  “I dont suggest a dry run,” added Hughes. “I just urge somebody make careful calculations adding in the necessary correction to compensate for the crowd. I think you might also investigate alternate machinery and alternate power source, in case of a failure of some kind.

  “Boy, oh Boy, would some people laugh if something like that were to happen on the opening night.”

  With the opening only hours away, Maheu had more immediate problems on his mind. It was not that Hughes had authorized only forty-four invitations and seemed unable to find any more equally qualified guests. Maheu had taken care of that. He had secretly invited another 440 people to the party, enough to fill the small Landmark showroom.

  No, Maheu’s big problem was the food. Hughes would not let him order it. Finally, at five P.M., two hours before the big gala, Hughes relented.

  “I will not ask you further to withhold the procurement of food for tonight’s dinner at the Landmark,” he wrote, even now adding a caveat.

  “However, I will be very grateful if you will keep such procurement to the bare minimum, until I am able to discuss with you, in considerable length, some of my views relative to the procurement of food.”

  Shortly before seven P.M., as the first arrivals drifted into the bizarre Landmark lobby for a VIP cocktail reception, one final message arrived from the penthouse.

  Maheu was already at the hotel when Hughes’s memo reached him, greeting guests with his usual aplomb, flashing his big gold cuff links, confidently standing in for his unseen boss. And although something was obviously askew about this grand opening, although there was a bit of a buzz about the last-minute telephoned invitations, none of the guests could have imagined what Maheu had been through, and none would have grasped the unintentional black humor in the two sentences scrawled on the sheet of yellow legal-pad paper that Maheu now removed from its sealed manila envelope.

  “Bob—You and your people have my wishes for good luck tonight, in every way,” Howard Hughes had written from the safety of his seclusion.

  “Is there anything further I can do to be helpful?”

  12 Nixon: The Betrayal

  Three thousand miles from Las Vegas, someone else was planning a party. It was to be the greatest party the world had ever seen. A lavish state dinner in honor of the first men to walk on the moon. The host was Richard Nixon.

  Although he hated playing host, Nixon threw himself into planning this affair, driving everyone crazy, from his top White House staff to his wife to the waiters, getting personally involved in the smallest details, picking the menus, making the seating arrangements, even choosing the party favors. And, of course, approving the guest list.

  There were 1,440 invitations to this August 1969 dinner, the most prestigious state dinner in history, and Nixon went through them several times, name by name, simultaneously compiling a list of the people he didn’t want invited, his first “enemies list.” Nixon was still making final revisions the day before the big party.

  There were governors and senators and Supreme Court justices, Hollywood celebrities, business and religious leaders, fifty astronauts, diplomats from ninety nations, luminaries from every walk of life. But most important were the special honored guests, aviation and space pioneers like Charles Lindbergh and Wernher von Braun—and Howard Hughes.

  Hughes was puzzled by the invitation. “Re the President’s party, what is it you actually need from me?” he asked Maheu, uncertain how to R.S.V.P. “In other words, Bob, I will not be able to attend. But I am sure you already knew this.”

  The invitation also puzzled White House aides. Nixon rarely discussed Hughes with even his closest advisers—and never disclosed his dealings with the billionaire to anyone except Rebozo—but all his top men were aware of the old loan scandal, knew that it still touched a raw nerve. And Hughes was feared in Nixon’s White House, an unspoken yet palpable fear that emanated from the Oval Office.

  Now, with the hundred-thousand-dollar payoff finally arranged and about to be delivered, the president’s submerged fears started to surface. As the secret deal went down in the weeks before the party, Nixon initiated a series of stealthy inquiries about his hidden benefactor, working through the back channels of the federal bureaucracy.

  He had already ordered the Secret Service to bug and tail his brother, worried that Donald’s bumbling deals with John Meier would revive the loan scandal and blow his own bigger dealings with Hughes. Rebozo was constantly on the phone with Danner, demanding that Meier be kept away from Donald. “The President is truly concerned about wheeling and dealing involving these two characters,” Maheu informed the penthouse. “We are reliably informed that they have opened an office in Geneva, are involved in very precarious oil leases in Alaska, and God knows what all else.

  “The President and Rebozo have confided in us that brother Don is, by far, one of the biggest threats to the future of the President’s political career,” Maheu added. “They are fearful in Washington that the combination of Don throwing his brother’s name around, and Meier throwing yours, will eventually cause serious embarrassment to both you and the President.”

  Late in June the Secret Service wiretap had overheard Donald trying to finagle a “finder’s fee” for Hughes’s acquisition of Air West, just as the president was preparing to approve that illegal takeover, and early in July, as Nixon moved to consummate the big payoff, the Donald problem had come to a head.

  On July 8, the president’s brother was caught at a secret airport meeting with Meier and a known organized crime figure, Anthony Hatsis, and the three men were photographed together by Secret Service agents. Donald had always denied his connection with Meier, but now the White House had undeniable proof. Back at the Oval Office, Nixon spent a long time studying the evidence, and it couldn’t have made him comfortable about his own Hughes connection.

  While he continued to keep tabs on his brother, Nixon had tried to improve his intelligence on Hughes, seeking help from the federal agency that seemed to know the most about him, the Atomic Energy Commission.

  Late in July, Will Kreigsman, a White House staffer whom Nixon would later name to the AEC, made an unusual and very confidential inquiry. He wanted all available information on the “Howard Hughes Matter.” An “eyes only” AEC report to the chairman noted, “Higher levels have requested that he be fully informed on this.

  “He requested that we conduct an investigation, in the most discreet manner possible, of the background of Hughes organization staff members, emphasizing the obtaining of information from AEC-Nevada people who are in close contact with the Hughes staff.”

  Nixon was not only trying to figure out why Hughes was so opposed to the nuclear tests—very much a mystery to the president, because he couldn’t see the profit in it—but he was also clearly seeking some solid facts about Hughes himself and the true nature of his shadowy empire.

  What the president got was a detailed eighteen-page report on the billionaire’s ban-the-bomb campaign but little insight into his motivations, which were also very much a mystery to the AEC. One claim in the report would soon boomerang on Nixon, a false assurance that “Hughes will not object to the current test program as long as detonations do not exceed a megaton.” And there was nothing about the phantom himself.

  Nixon was determined to get the inside story on the Vegas recluse.

  So now as he planned his moon-walk dinner, the president plotted a more daring and devious maneuver. He invited Hughes to the party—knowing full well that the billionaire had not appeared in public for more than a decade—and used that invitation as a pretext to run a routine “name check” on his hidden benefactor through the FBI.

  J. Edgar Hoover personally reported back to the president on August 13, the day of the big dinner. His report was truly astounding.

  Howard Hughes, said the FBI director, was “a ruthless, unscrupulous individual who at times acted like a ‘screwball paranoiac’ to the extent that he, Hughes, might be capable of anything, including murder
.”

  Including murder. It was an alarming description of a man with whom the president was about to make a dangerous deal, especially since Nixon had no way of knowing that the incredible characterization was based solely on the claims of a disgruntled Hughes executive who had turned informer almost twenty years earlier. The report had Hoover’s imprimatur, and Nixon was both in fear and awe of the director (“He’s got files on everybody, God damn it!”).

  In any event, the intelligence didn’t stop Nixon. He went right ahead conspiring with Rebozo to collect the promised hundred-thousand-dollar payoff.

  Still, the FBI report had to come as something of a shock to the president. But it was nothing compared to the shock about to hit Howard Hughes.

  On September 10, 1969, Maheu, now in exile for his own unauthorized attendance at the moon dinner, called Hughes from Vancouver with disturbing news—the AEC was about to announce a new Nevada blast, and a big one.

  Maheu tried to put the best face on the first major nuclear test of the Nixon administration. It was less than a megaton, and the really big bombs would be exploded in Alaska, just as the president had promised.

  Hughes was not appeased. “I am very disturbed about the blast you mention,” he wrote, in a memo to be read long-distance to his banished lieutenant. “I have told you many times that there is nothing magic about the megaton measure.

  “I am truly worried about what you tell me today,” he continued, not yet aware of the true magnitude of the impending explosion.

  “I note what you say about the importance of being on the ground, ‘at the scene of activity,’ as you put it,” he told Maheu, who was attempting to use the bomb threat as his ticket back to Las Vegas. “Well, Bob, until we pull out every last stop in trying to block this explosion, I am sure Washington is the scene of activity, and I wish you would depart for there tonite, staging a campaign to marshall every last organization or individual opposed to these explosions, and to bring to bear on the AEC the very strongest, all-out, concerted effort you can possibly organize, in a final fight to the very last ditch.

  “I want you to burn up all of your blue chip stamps, all the favors you have coming, and every last little bit of pressure you can bring together in one intense, extreme, final drive to determine, once and for all, whether I make any further investments in Nevada or not.

  “Bob, I want you to go all the way on this and spare no expense.”

  Maheu was reluctant to go to the brink. Nixon had already granted Hughes a private test-ban treaty, this new blast did not violate its terms, and it seemed futile to press for further concessions in national nuclear policy.

  “Howard, we have made every conceiveable appeal to the Vice-President and to the President,” replied Maheu, urging restraint.

  “One of the reasons that the President was so anxious to establish direct contact between you and Kissinger relative to the ABM was so that the doctor could reveal to you top security information reflecting the necessity of detonating a few more blasts under the megaton range, and also to explain that the megaton plus blasts would not be continued in Nevada as a result of your efforts.

  “We have never lost sight of the ultimate goal of complete stoppage, but in the meantime, Howard, it becomes a pretty difficult task to tell the President of the United States and the Vice-President, that they are lying when they tell us that, although they have honored many of our requests, this specific test is mandatory to the national security of our country.

  “I am afraid that if we push them they might well proceed gung ho, even with megaton plus shots,” warned Maheu. “After all, Howard, I am sure that in the last analysis, they couldn’t care less whether we make one more investment in Nevada or divest ourselves of those already made.”

  Hughes, however, was hardly ready to back down. Eyeball to eyeball with Nixon, he would not blink, although for the moment he seemed more eager to battle his own chief of staff.

  “You have not given me any explanation of the need for this explosion,” Hughes complained. “I know nothing of all the reasons why the test is necessary to the defense of the country. Why haven’t you given me this info which you obviously received thru your White House contacts?

  “Bob,” he continued, his anger mounting, “I am not stupid enough to think Nixon gives a damn about my plans in Nevada, and, if you have any desire to see a better relationship between you and me, I would sincerely appreciate you restraining your periodic impulse to voice some sarcastic, salty comment such as this one.…

  “I dont think you are so far from the mark as to believe seriously that I am dumb enough to think the President would care what I do here, so Bob, I can only assume you have some other purpose in making such an insulting remark.

  “So, it must have been in an effort to irritate me. If that was the purpose, you succeeded.”

  Having vented his spleen, Hughes got back to the bomb, and once more ordered Maheu to Washington.

  “Anyway, Bob, whatever is done, and I have not asked you to tell anybody he was a lyar, whatever is done, I will feel better about it if you do it from Washington,” he insisted. “Please proceed there without delay.”

  Further resistance was futile. Maheu had Danner contact Rebozo, who suggested that they work things out at the ambassadorial level, inviting the Hughes emissaries to the compound he shared with the president in Key Biscayne.

  By the next morning, as Maheu prepared to leave for the Florida White House, Hughes had discovered the full dimensions of his nuclear peril. This was not merely another blast but a full-blown holocaust.

  “Bob,” he wrote in a wildly shaken scrawl, “I have been up all nite and am very anxious to know that you are on the way before I go to sleep.

  “This test is a megaton for all practical purposes,” he continued in words writ large with fear, anger, and exhaustion, “so I cannot see how you can view this test as being other than a complete defeat and a complete waste of all your efforts.

  “The difference between 900,000 and a million is so slight it simply falls under the heading of the degree of pregnancy. I just cannot see any difference.”

  Maheu left Vancouver, stopping in Las Vegas to pick up Danner, and they flew out to Miami together in a private Hughes jet. Danner had with him a zippered case. Inside was a manila envelope, containing $50,000, ten bundles of hundred-dollar bills he had retrieved from the cashier’s cage at the Frontier casino earlier that morning. It was the money Maheu had secured for Nixon back in 1968, now finally to be delivered as the first half of the $100,000 Hughes had promised the president.

  Early on the evening of September 11, the two envoys arrived in Miami. Before driving out to Key Biscayne, Maheu checked in with the penthouse. Hughes was in a frenzy.

  “I am more grateful than I can tell you that you are there,” he wrote in a memo for his Mormons to read to Maheu.

  “Bob, I dont think you have any idea how I feel about this thing,” he continued in a scrawl that made it quite clear.

  “When you first told me about it [the blast], God knows I felt bad enough, but I naturally assumed it was in the so-called ‘Low intermediate yield’ range.

  “I had no faintest idea that this bomb was a huge unit comparable in every way to the first two large explosions we fought so bitterly.

  “I just cannot understand how under the sun the AEC could have imagined that we would be so utterly stupid and naive as to consider this explosion as being within the limits we had requested to be followed, merely because it may technically be under one full megaton.”

  The treaty had been broken. And the president was responsible. Hughes wanted that message delivered in no uncertain terms.

  “I wish you would tell Mr. Nixon thru Mr. Rebozo that this is the most outrageous and shocking breach of faith and attempted deception I ever heard of any highly reputed government like the United States attempting to perpetrate against one of their own citizens,” he wrote, furious now that the full extent of Nixon’s betrayal hit him.


  “If this is the way the U.S. pays off one of its own citizens, who has given a lifetime of service toward the betterment of the defense system, and contributed countless important advances, plus a half billion dollars in taxes, then how can anyone expect foreign governments to believe our promises.

  “I have much more to say,” Hughes concluded, “but will let you get started.”

  Maheu absorbed the diatribe, then went directly with Danner to see Rebozo. The president’s friend gave his two guests a guided tour of his newly remodeled ranch house, especially eager to show off an ice-making machine that spewed cubes from the refrigerator door.

  Danner handed Rebozo the manila envelope, saying, “Here’s the $50,000, first installment.” The Cuban opened the envelope, shook out the bundles of cash, and counted them. He marked “HH” on a corner of the envelope, then took the money into another room. When he returned, the three men went out to dinner.

  Whether Hughes knew that his money had gone to Rebozo, whether he was hoping that it would buy him a nuclear accord with Nixon and approved the delivery despite his anger, is unclear. But he contacted Maheu at the crack of dawn the next day, expecting to get word to the White House.

  “What is the plan today?” he demanded. “I just heard the announcement of the President’s planned defense meeting. When do you expect to endeavor to penetrate thru to him in this matter? I am anxious to know in order that I may have as much time as possible in preparation of my material.”

  While the billionaire plotted the antibomb campaign on his bedside legal pads in Las Vegas, and Rebozo stashed the Hughes money in a safe-deposit box at the bank he owned in Key Biscayne, Richard Nixon convened his top advisers in Washington for a major review of the war in Vietnam.

  The president was frantic, perhaps as frantic as Hughes. He had been elected on a pledge to end the war but had failed to bring peace. Now Nixon huddled with Kissinger secretly plotting a major escalation, a “savage, punishing blow” against North Vietnam, while the same antiwar movement that had toppled Lyndon Johnson threatened to bring Nixon down, massing for a nationwide protest that would culminate with the moratorium march on Washington in October.