Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [154]
Maheu meanwhile immediately flashed word from Nixon to Rebozo to Danner to the penthouse.
“Howard, we have just been informed that the President will be writing you a letter in the next several days to thank you for your comments on the ABM in your memorandum delivered by Rebozo.
“More importantly, however, is the fact that the President chose to discuss said memo with Dr. Kissinger, his number one technical advisor. Kissinger was very much impressed and admitted that you had covered some concepts which had not come to their attention previously.
“As a result, the President would like to know if he could send Kissinger to Las Vegas to brief you on some new developments and to get the benefit of your thinking.
“As you know, Howard,” added Maheu, dealing delicately with a sensitive point, “because of the direct line from my home to your office (which is 100% secure) such a briefing could take place without the necessity of your having a personal confrontation with Kissinger.”
It was shuttle diplomacy of a new order. Nixon dealing with Hughes as if negotiating nuclear policy with a sovereign power. But the prospect of Kissinger’s visit terrified Hughes. He simply could not deal with an outsider, not even Kissinger, not even by telephone.
“Re the ABM,” he scrawled to Maheu. “I urge you thank the president profusely for his offer to send Kissinger, but tell him I do not consider that this is necessary and I do not think it would advance the situation.
“Bob, to have this man here could only embarass me.
“It would place me in the position of refusing to see an envoy of the president, and, no matter how you try to dress it up, this is the way the president will view it.
“Please, regardless of how you do it, kill off this trip in some way.”
The offer that Nixon must have assumed would so flatter Hughes that it would ensure the payoff—and end his opposition to the ABM as well—instead left the recluse shaken.
As yet unaware of the debacle, but taking no chances on the $100,000, half an hour later the president sent further evidence of his good faith. All through July Nixon and Kissinger had been considering final plans for a series of mammoth nuclear blasts, designed to test the ABM warhead. No official decision had yet been reached. But now, on July 16, the commander in chief sent advance word to his hidden benefactor.
“Howard,” Maheu flashed to Hughes, “we are reliably informed that the AEC has finally given up the battle and will have all tests of a megaton or more held in Alaska. We are also informed that, for security reasons, they cannot, at this time, make any public announcement confirming their capitulation.”
Howard Hughes had won his desperate battle to ban the bomb. Or so it seemed. Richard Nixon, after all, was growing in stature.
It was time to celebrate.
11 Howard Throws a Party
It was to be the greatest party Las Vegas had ever seen, and Las Vegas had seen a lot of great parties. But this party was going to be thrown by Howard Hughes.
All through the spring and summer months of 1969, as Hughes and Nixon moved to close their big deal, the billionaire was planning a party. It was tentatively scheduled for the same Fourth of July weekend that the hundred-thousand-dollar payoff was finally arranged. Indeed, Hughes was far more preoccupied with the big party than with the big payoff.
The occasion was the opening of the Landmark, his latest hotel acquisition, and the first of his purchases to break the antitrust blockade—approved by a suddenly cooperative Justice Department three days before Nixon moved into the White House.
But it was more than that. It was a celebration of the triumph of the Hughes-Maheu partnership. Nothing could stop them now.
And yet that party would open a wound between them that never healed, one that festered for months. There would be other wounds—wounds terminal for Hughes, for Maheu, and for Nixon—but it was the explosion over the Landmark party that marked the beginning of the end.
The Landmark was the ugliest hotel in town, an ungainly bubble-top tower with an interior