Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [226]
All the facsimiles not cited here 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.
My description of 7000 Romaine is based on personal observation, and my later description of its interior on accounts from several Hughes employees, one of the burglars, and police reports.
Its mythic security system was described in a typical account by Albert Gerber in Bashful Billionaire (Lyle Stuart, 1967, p. 319): “The Romaine Street headquarters is a treasure house of the finest and most sophisticated forms of electronic gadgetry in the counterespionage field. Various warning devices can be triggered by almost anything trespassing in the area. There is a device which will sound an alarm if anyone tried to get information about documents inside the headquarters by use of x-ray outside the headquarters! There are lead-lined safes and burglar-proof vaults. There is electronic equipment to repel radio waves and to neutralize snooping devices.” The myth was so powerful that even Hughes’s right-hand man Robert Maheu accepted it. “I always heard it was the most impregnable thing,” he said in an interview. “It would have been easier to break into J. Edgar’s office, that’s the way it was described to me.”
Mike Davis’s account of the break-in is quoted from LAPD reports, grand jury transcripts, and two interviews. Harry Watson’s account is from grand jury testimony and an interview.
All descriptions of the police investigation are based on official reports of the LAPD, on interviews with detectives involved in the case, and on information from other law enforcement authorities.
The SEC’s Air West probe was detailed by William Turner, a former SEC official who initiated the case and later pursued the criminal prosecution as an assistant U.S. Attorney in Nevada. Turner also made available the quoted SEC report.
The account of the Maheu case was drawn from court records. Summa’s claims of a Maheu-Mob link to the burglary are noted in police, FBI, and CIA reports. The quoted FBI report on a possible organized crime connection was dated August 26, 1974.
The Senate Watergate Committee and Special Prosecutor probes of the Hughes-Nixon