Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [158]
“If, under these circumstances, you think my failure to give you a specific date has placed you in a position of embarrassment under which you dont want to be in Las Vegas, I think maybe the time has come when, for my health’s sake, a somewhat less efficient and less successful man, but one who would not find it so difficult to put up with my, admittedly less-than-perfect operation, should perhaps be the resident managing executive here in Las Vegas.
“Re: the Landmark opening, I have told you repeatedly that I dont want the Landmark to open until after the International.
“Bob, I say this only in the interest of harmony.
“If I were indifferent to your barbs and inferences, it would be no problem,” he concluded, “but I am not indifferent, and some of your implications get under my skin and my blood pressure goes higher than [the] Landmark Tower, which is not good.”
Hughes had called Maheu’s bluff and raised him the limit. Suddenly, it was not merely Maheu’s public image, but his five-hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year job that was at stake. He quickly backed off, left the opening date open, and gently urged his boss toward the next order of business: the guest list.
Planning for the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party now proceeded in its own lunatic fashion. Hughes threw himself into the debate over who would attend with a frenzied delight born of the knowledge that at last he had found a device that could forever delay the opening. Obviously there could be no party if there were no guests.
Maheu tried to impress upon Hughes the urgency of assembling a guest list by raising the specter of Kerkorian.
“I just received an exquisite invitation for the opening of the International,” he wrote. “While we are talking, he is moving. Howard, I really believe that any further delay on the list of potential invitees for the Landmark will place us in an embarassing position.”
It made no impact. Hughes refused even to consider the list Maheu had painstakingly compiled until a week before the still tentative date of the opening, and then rejected the entire list out-of-hand. He presented this rejection as an act of pure reason, suggesting that Maheu simply prepare a new list according to certain scientific specifications.
“I understand your anxiety to get started on the list of invites,” the billionaire wrote Maheu solicitously.
“However, the only lasting damage will come from failure to invite certain important people while inviting others, about whom said important people will no doubt learn.
“Now, Bob, I simply dont have the man-hours, and you dont want to wait for me to go thru this list name by name,” he continued, maintaining his pose of sweet reasonableness and complete cooperation as he cast aside all of Maheu’s invitations.
“You will just have to appoint somebody to make a new list using this concept:
“Categorize the people you want, and where you invite one such person, invite likewise the others in the same category who have equal merit, who are equal friends, etc., unless they have done something to be disqualified, or unless they should be disqualified because of simple lack of stature, or disloyalty, or such-like.
“For example, if you intend to invite actors and actresses, as you evidently do, I think somebody should go thru the Central Casting Directory, or the Academy lists and pick out all the actors or actresses above a certain level of importance, unless they are ruled out for some reason such as I have suggested above.
“I only ask that it be based upon some consistency,” Hughes insisted, as he continued to unfold his mad scheme.
“For example, in view of some of the people included, such as the head of Reynolds Electric, I certainly think you should include all the very top people at Lockheed, and this may make it necessary to include the heads of other aircraft companies, and this immediately brings up the question of the heads of the airlines whom I know well.”
The inclusion of one local businessman suddenly seemed to require invitations to all the executives in