Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [43]
It was a conspiracy of the once-betrothed. In Los Angeles, there was Bill Gay, who ran the Romaine Street command center and the Mormon palace guard. In Houston, there was Raymond Holliday, who controlled the purse strings as chief executive of the Hughes Tool Company. In Culver City, there was Pat Hyland, who ran the Hughes Aircraft Company. In New York, there was Chester Davis, who handled the TWA case and had parlayed it into an appointment as general counsel.
Maheu was vigilant in spotting potential threats to his new marriage. Yet for all his experience as a clandestine warrior, he never recognized the true dimensions of the conspiracy. He ignored his obvious rivals and fixated instead on Hughes’s lead attorney in Houston, Raymond Cook, who seemed to be gaining back-channel control over all the key power centers.
“I’ve had a bellyful of Cookie-Boy,” Maheu told Hughes.
“First of all—make no mistake about it—for many years Cook has been attempting to take over your entire empire—even at the exclusion of Howard Hughes.
“I met this ‘bum’ for the first time in 1954. In less than one hour, he was making derogatory statements about you that I could not believe.
“Dietrich can tell you about an approach Cook made in an attempt to put you out of circulation in 1957.
“As time progressed I became more and more aware of the necessity to protect you from these ‘demons.’ By these, I mean Cook and his crowd.
“I think it is only fair for me to remind you that at age 25 I received the highest award our country can give for setting up a counterintelligence system. When I was 27, I was given the prime responsibility for convincing the Germans that the invasion was going to take place in Southern France rather than Normandy.*
“Anyway, Howard—you have quite often told me that I was resented in certain circles of your organization because of my FBI background. The Cook group certainly has justification for resenting me. When I decided that to protect you to the fullest extent, the time had come to ‘penetrate’ the group, it was perhaps the most simple assignment we’ve ever undertaken. They are ‘weak’, they drink too much, and they talk too much. But more important, they are not loyal to you and to each other.
“Anyway, they are now engaged in an all out effort to discredit me and my people in your eyes. They somehow know that you were ill recently, and they are attempting to accomplish their ‘goal‘ before something happens to you.
“In the meantime, they are trying to assure themselves of receiving the first telephone call when this occurs so that Holliday and Cook can fly immediately to Las Vegas—seize all your papers and take over. The reason for moving in so many lawyers from Houston on a permanent basis is to be ready for the big day.
“Howard, I hate to be so brutal and lay it on so coldly but those are the facts.
“There is no doubt that Cook is behind all this and unfortunately Holliday is so weak that he cannot cope with the push from Cook.
“All of these stupid problems could be eradicated instantly by the choice of a strong man as your top guy—whether it be me or someone else.”
What Maheu failed to recognize was that the last thing Hughes wanted was a “strong man” as his “top guy.” Such a man could endanger the billionaire’s own power. In fact, Hughes wanted no one in overall authority, and far from seeking peace and order in his empire, he provoked and encouraged the internal power struggle, playing one top executive against another to keep them all offbalance.
And he feared Maheu most of all, as he confided to his counsel Chester Davis: “Chester, stated simply, with the explosiveness and unpredictability of my relationship with Bob, and with his well known characteristic of ‘given an inch, take a mile,’ I dont want to place him in a position which I may find, in the light of later scrutiny, has penetrated too far. In other words, Chester, I would not ever want to be faced with the problem of cutting Maheu back or reducing his authorities. He is, as you know, a very strong-willed individual.”
But if Hughes