“However, as added protection, I have written a codicil to my will which will be delivered to the B. of A. [Bank of America], my trustee in the administration of my will.”
The Mormons remained suspicious. As their bedridden boss declined in the summer of 1975, they pressed him repeatedly to show them the will, to update it, or to write a new one.
“We have a little time,” replied Hughes. He promised to compose an entirely new will. Soon. But he never would. A man who could not part with his fingernails clearly could not part with his fortune. And Hughes also must have realized that signing a will would be like signing his own death warrant. The nonexistent last testament was his last hold on power.
“We have to get down to it,” he nonetheless said, “because I want to fly before I’m seventy.”
Hughes, who had not been out of bed since he broke his hip two years earlier, was determined to fly again by his seventieth birthday. He had brought in a former Lockheed executive, Jack Real, made him a member of his entourage, and now spent hours alone with him talking about airplanes.
The Mormons were not pleased. When Hughes asked to see Jack, they told him Real was away. They withheld his messages. They changed the locks on the doors. And finally, on February 10, 1976, they took Hughes off to Mexico.
They told him that the drug supply was drying up in the Bahamas, that they had to go to Acapulco to assure a steady flow of narcotics. It was a lie. The codeine came from a pharmaceuticals firm in New York. But Hughes did not know that. He only knew that he had to have his daily fix.
Saturday, April 3, 1976. Howard Hughes lay motionless in his latest blacked-out bedroom, a luxurious penthouse suite atop the Acapulco Princess Hotel, delirious, dehydrated, starving.
He reached out one spindly arm to a Kleenex box on his bedside night table, withdrew a hypodermic syringe hidden under the flap, and jabbed the needle into his shrunken right bicep. The effort exhausted him. He could not depress the plunger, could not shoot the codeine into his wasted body.
The syringe dangled from his arm, then fell to the floor. Hughes summoned an aide to complete the injection. The Mormon refused. He called for a doctor, who arrived moments later and gave him his shot.
Hughes had been comatose most of the past week. When awake, he refused to eat. His weight had dropped to ninety-four pounds. His six-foot-four-inch frame had shrunk three inches. His brittle bones showed plainly through his parchmentlike skin. His left shoulder was bruised and swollen. He had a gaping wound on the side of his head where he had sheared off an old tumor a few weeks earlier when he fell out of bed. He had four broken needle points embedded in his right arm, another in his left. And inside, his atrophied kidneys, destroyed by a quarter-century of drug abuse, were killing him.
His speech had become incoherent. That Saturday he mumbled repeatedly about an “insurance policy,” but none of his aides knew what he was talking about. By the next day he could no longer talk at all. He just lay in bed, staring blankly ahead, his face and neck twitching uncontrollably. Sunday afternoon he slipped into a coma. Still, his aides and doctors kept him hidden, afraid to take him to a hospital. Instead, that night one of the Mormons gave his unconscious boss his third haircut in ten years, while another soaked his hands and feet, then clipped his long nails.
Finally, at eleven o’clock on Monday morning, they lifted a still comatose Hughes out of bed, placed him on a stretcher, loaded him into a waiting ambulance, and rushed him to a private jet. As they carried Hughes aboard, his lips moved slightly, but he made no audible sound.
There were no last words, no “Rosebud.” He lay silent on the plane under a bright yellow sheet pulled up to his chin, and at 1:27 P.M. on April 5, 1976, Howard Hughes died three thousand feet in the air, half an hour away from his old hometown, Houston.
His death was front-page news around the world, but he attracted none of the standard public eulogies routinely accorded the famous, the wealthy, and the powerful. Not even his ex-wife, Jean Peters, said much. Just “I’m saddened,” that was all, and there were no other loved ones to mourn him.
He was an American folk hero, a man who had lived first the dream then the nightmare—in that sense, perhaps the single most representative American of the twentieth century. But upon his death he had become so loathsome and scandalous a figure that no national leader noted his passing. None of the politicians he had funded said a word. Not Richard Nixon, not Hubert Humphrey, not Larry O’Brien, not even Paul Laxalt.
Only one powerful man stepped forward to praise him, a man who almost never spoke publicly, a man himself so secretive that his name had never appeared in print until just a year earlier, when he was ousted amid scandal from the lofty position he had held for three decades—chief of counterintelligence at the CIA. James Jesus Angleton.
It was entirely fitting that Angleton, the CIA’s purest product, the spook’s spook, should alone deliver his epitaph:
“Howard Hughes! Where his country’s interests were concerned, no man knew his target better. We were fortunate to have him.
“He was a great patriot.”
*In fact, Cox had no personal involvement with the Hughes-Rebozo probe. He told his staff not to discuss any Hughes matters with him because Cox himself had a Hughes connection—his brother Maxwell was law partner of Chester Davis.
Authenticity Report
As stated in the Author’s Note, this book is based primarily on nearly ten thousand Hughes documents stolen from his Romaine Street headquarters on June 5, 1974.
The authenticity of these documents was conclusively established by proof of their origins—clear evidence that the handwritten and typewritten originals I personally photographed and photocopied were the same documents removed from Hughes’s penthouse in Las Vegas, taken to Romaine, and finally stolen in the break-in.
Their authenticity was further confirmed by seven years of research—extensive cross-checking of the content against information never made public as well as known facts—and finally through a series of handwriting, typewriting, and other tests performed by the nation’s two leading experts, Ordway Hilton, the man who proved Clifford Irving a fraud on behalf of the Hughes organization, and John J. Harris, the man who proved Melvin Dummar’s “Mormon Will” a forgery on behalf of the Hughes estate. Both independently authenticated the Romaine documents.
Provenance: Shortly after Hughes left Las Vegas on Thanksgiving eve 1970, a team of his aides led by Kay Glenn, managing director of Romaine, cleaned out his penthouse suite on the ninth floor of the Desert Inn, taking all the documents from both his bedroom and his aides’ office in the living room.
“I put everything into transfer cases,” Glenn later testified in a sworn deposition. “All of his communications to people, everybody’s communications to him. I removed them to Romaine Street. Everything was taken to Romaine.”
At the time of the June 5, 1974, break-in, the documents were assembled in a second-floor conference room upon the orders of Hughes’s chief counsel, Chester Davis, who according to both FBI and CIA reports said that they were being indexed there for his review in connection with pending litigation. This was confirmed by a secretary in charge of the indexing.
One of the burglars—my source for the documents, the man identified in the Introduction as the Pro—told me in a series of interviews that he removed the documents from the conference room, took them directly to his home, transferred them into steamer trunks, put the trunks into storage for a few months, and then sealed them into a wall for almost two years. No other person saw, touched, or had custody of the documents from the time they were stolen until my source removed them from the wall and showed them to me.
My source had detailed knowledge of the break-in only one of the burglars could have had, information verified in part by confidential police, FBI and CIA records, as well as facts unknown to the authorities confirmed by my own investigation.
Years after I first saw the stolen papers, which had never been made public in any form, x
erox copies of several hundred of the same documents were filed in several court cases by the Hughes organization in connection with estate litigation. Obviously, the Hughes organization could not have had photocopies of any of these documents unless they had once had the originals.
Finally, index slips attached to several of the stolen documents were traced back to an IBM typewriter at Romaine used in the indexing under way at the time of the burglary. Typing on the file slips was compared to a known sample from the same typewriter and found to be identical. The known sample was verified by the Los Angeles Police Department.
Handwriting and Typewriting Tests: The two leading authorities on Hughes’s handwriting—Hilton, past president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and Harris, past president of the Society of Questioned Document Examiners—both examined memos chosen at random from the material in my possession, and found them authentic.
Hilton examined both originals and photographs of the longhand Hughes memos, comparing them to exemplars of Hughes’s handwriting from three sources—a three-page Hughes memo filed in Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, a collection of Hughes memos filed in Federal District Court in San Francisco by the SEC (which Hughes himself identified as his own in a sworn statement), and another group of Hughes memos filed in Federal District Court in Los Angeles by Robert Maheu. All the exemplars were determined to be authentic in judicial proceedings.
“From an examination of each of the documents,” Hilton concluded, “and a comparison of them with the known handwriting of Howard Hughes, I am of the definite opinion that all of the documents in question were written by Hughes.”
Harris also examined both originals and photographs of the memos—more than a hundred pages of Hughes’s handwriting—comparing them to exemplars from two sources: the Maheu lawsuit, and several hundred Hughes memos filed in the “Mormon Will” case in Clark County District Court in Las Vegas. All the exemplars were determined authentic in judicial proceedings.
“I am of the firm opinion that all of the documents I examined were written by Howard Hughes,” declared Harris.
One of the originals examined by both Harris and Hilton was a four-page handwritten memo identical to a photocopy filed in the Maheu case. Both found the xerox to be a copy of the original in my possession.
“I performed a series of tests including a line-by-line comparison of the two documents,” reported Hilton. “I am convinced that the four-page original letter was the source of the photocopy at hand, and not the converse.”
In addition, Hilton examined originals of typewritten documents sent to Hughes—memos dictated by telephone to his Mormons and typed on a machine in his sealed penthouse suite—comparing them to similar memos surrendered under subpoena by the Hughes organization and filed by the SEC in federal court.
Hilton found that both the court exemplars and the documents in my possession were typed on an IBM Selectric, and that identifying characteristics in the typewriting established “a very strong likelihood that each set originated at the same source.” Hilton also found that the manufacture dates of the typing paper—as determined by a code in the watermarks—was in all cases consistent with the dates of the memos.
Finally, Hilton identified the index slips attached to several Hughes memos as coming from a typewriter at Romaine. “A number of these slips were typewritten on the same typewriter as the one used to prepare the known sample,” he concluded in his report, after comparing the originals in my possession to an exemplar verified by the LAPD and filed in court.
In addition, the documents I obtained included verifiable letterhead correspondence, invoices, memos on Summa Corp. stationary, handwritten letters from both insiders and outsiders dealing with Hughes, hotel bills, travel records, and a notarized affidavit from one of Hughes’s personal physicians.
Fact-Checking: Through more than seven years spent writing and researching this book, I checked the information the documents contain by interviewing hundreds of persons with direct knowledge of the events described, reviewing voluminous court files, and obtaining all other available records.
In all instances where corroborating evidence was available, the information in the documents was confirmed by unpublished data as well as known facts. A case in point: dates and places of meetings between Nixon confidant Bebe Rebozo and Hughes representatives chronicled in the memos were corroborated by Senate Watergate Committee records never made public. Other events known only to those present are also accurately described in the memos. For example, a secret meeting between Maheu and Lyndon Johnson recounted in one memo is confirmed in detail by papers on file at the LBJ Library. Those government files also contain a typewritten copy of the letter Hughes sent Johnson, the handwritten original of which is among the documents in my possession. Even Hughes’s accounts of television shows were confirmed by videotapes and/or transcripts I obtained—including the “Dating Game” show that caused him to drop his attempt to buy ABC.
There is one final proof, not scientific, yet entirely persuasive to all who read the Hughes memos—only the mind of Howard Hughes could have created them.
Notes on Illustrations
Some of the Hughes documents reproduced in this book are excerpts from longer memos. Wherever material has been excised, the cuts are indicated by tear lines in the facsimiles, and are also noted here:
The first memo Hughes wrote the night that Robert Kennedy died (following this page) was misdated 6/7/68 by one of his aides. It was actually written 6/6/68, and the date has therefore been deleted to avoid confusion.
All the memos in the Hughes-Maheu exchange (following this page) are excerpts.
The two Hughes memos regarding his relationship with Maheu (following this page) are excerpts from separate messages.
The Hughes memo promising to make Paul Laxalt president (following this page) is a one-page excerpt from a three-page message that also concerns nuclear testing in Nevada.
The Hughes handwritten memo offering Laxalt a top job in his empire, and the three typewritten reports from Maheu (following this page), are all excerpts from separate messages.
The Hughes memo regarding television and politics (following this page) is a one-page excerpt from a two-page message.
The Maheu typewritten memo reporting Laxalt’s help in killing the open-housing bill (following this page) was superimposed on the Hughes handwritten memo as indicated.
The Hughes memo comparing Las Vegas to Hiroshima (following this page) is a three-page excerpt from a four-page message.
The Hughes memo reacting to Lyndon Johnson’s refusal to halt a nuclear test (following this page) is a five-page excerpt from a seven-page message.
The Hughes memo plotting to play off Humphrey against Kennedy (following this page) is a one-page excerpt from a two-page message.
The Hughes memo calling the Kennedy family “a thorn relentlessly shoved into my guts” (following this page) is a five-page excerpt from a six-page message.
The Hughes memo about Teddy Kennedy and the RFK funeral (following this page) is a one-page excerpt from a two-page message.
The Hughes memos seeking to place in the White House “a candidate who knows the facts of political life” and citing Richard Nixon as such a candidate (following this page) are excerpts from two different messages.
The Hughes memo in which he describes himself as “a supposedly successful business man” (following this page) is a one-page excerpt from an eleven-page message.
The Hughes memo threatening to leave the country after Nixon’s bomb blast (following this page) is a three-page excerpt from a four-page message.
In addition, the Hughes memos reproduced on the back cover and the title page are excerpts from memos reproduced more extensively elsewhere in the book. The “bagman at the White House” passage on the cover comes from the LBJ memo following this page, while the two-page extract on the title page was drawn from the Kennedy memo following this page.
All the facsimiles not cited he
re are reproduced in full.
Notes
Since Hughes routinely ranged over a variety of subjects in a single memo, and since he often went on at great length, I have rarely quoted any memo in full. Sometimes sentences or paragraphs have been removed without ellipses, but in no case has anything been quoted out of context. Hughes’s spelling and punctuation have been retained throughout. He never dated his memos, but his aides often did, sometimes in error. In most cases it was possible to determine the correct date by matching his memos with the dated replies Hughes received.
While this book concentrates on the secret records stolen from Romaine, I have also examined the public record: documents, depositions, and testimony filed in courts throughout the country. Much of that material was never entered into evidence and is also presented here for the first time.
Most of the other information in this book was also obtained from primary sources, identified in these notes.
Introduction The Great Hughes Heist
I spent more than six months investigating the Romaine break-in, interviewing at least one hundred persons, reviewing all available records including confidential police reports and grand jury transcripts, contacting all central figures in the case and questioning many others never contacted by the authorities, checking out all possible suspects, and finally tracking down the man who actually had the stolen Hughes papers. I spent several more months confirming his account of the burglary, checking all details against FBI and CIA reports eventually obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Los Angeles police and district attorney’s office files obtained through a confidential source, and other information from interviews with persons directly involved in the official investigation at both the federal and local levels, as well as sources within the Hughes organization.
Citizen Hughes Page 50