Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [127]
All Howard Hughes held against the Kennedys was the simple fact that they too had money and power. That was the thorn shoved into his guts. Relentlessly.
In the beginning, they had more money. Now that he had far more money,* they had more power. They always seemed to have what Hughes wanted. Back in Hollywood, it was RKO. Later, it was the White House. Old Joe had not only bought it for his son Jack, he had stolen it from Hughes. The billionaire had not forgotten or forgiven that either.
“You can see how cruel it was, after my all-out support of Nixon, to have Jack Kennedy achieve that very, very marginal so-called victory over my man,” wrote Hughes, bitterly recalling the Kennedy gang’s “theft” of the White House in 1960.
Both he and Joe had set out to buy America. Kennedy had succeeded. But it was more than that. Over the years there had been a strange reversal of roles. In their Hollywood days, Hughes had been the newsreel hero, Joe the cynical operator. Now the Kennedys had escaped the curse of their father to become royalty, while Hughes had taken his place as the troll under the bridge.
And now, in 1968, just as Hughes finally seemed to have it all in the bag, his drive to buy the government of the United States all but guaranteed, certain of victory, having bought both Humphrey and Nixon, old Joe was about to snatch it away again. With Bobby.
On Saturday, March 16, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy suddenly entered the race, announcing his bid to reclaim the throne from the same Senate room his brother had used to launch his campaign eight years earlier.
“I do not run for the presidency merely to oppose any man, but to propose new policies,” he declared, looking very young and very vulnerable, his long hair falling across his forehead, his famous Kennedy voice halting and uncertain, yet striking fear into older, more powerful men. “I cannot stand aside from the contest that will decide our nation’s future, and our children’s future.”
Neither could Hughes. Alone in his penthouse, with a fortune far greater than old Joe’s but without an heir, the billionaire watched Bobby’s televised speech, saw Joe about to put another son in the White House, and grabbed for his yellow legal pad.
“Re: Kennedy, I want him for President like I want the mumps,” he wrote. “I can think of nothing worse than 8 years under his exalted leadership. God help us!
“However, lets face it. It could happen, so lets cover our bets both ways.”
Hughes was not about to be denied the Oval Office. Not this time. He would own the next president even if he had to buy every candidate in the race, even if that meant backing Bobby. But how could he buy a Kennedy?
The question took on new urgency just one month later when the Atomic Energy Commission declared war. Facing the big blast, unable to move Lyndon Johnson, doubtful that Humphrey could block it, Hughes reviewed his strategy.
“I am afraid there are only two people strong enough to stand up to the AEC,” he wrote. “They are Kennedy or Johnson.
“I can see no way to motivate Kennedy except by a truely meaningful gesture of assistance.”
Reluctant to join forces with Kennedy and far from certain that Bobby could be bought, Hughes still saw a way he could use the Kennedy threat to end the nuclear threat. It was at this time that he sent word to Johnson that he would back Humphrey “to any extent necessary to match the funds expended by Kennedy.” At the same time he ordered Maheu to throw a real scare into the needy vice-president: “sit down with Humphries and tell him I have been propositioned by Kennedy in the most all-out way.”
It was a bare-faced lie. But less than two weeks later it came true.
Before Hughes could move to cover his bets, before Bobby had won his first primary, Kennedy sent an emissary to Hughes. Even Kennedy.
Maheu reported the contact: “Pierre Salinger called me asking if he could have a conference in Las Vegas immediately