Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [73]
The real issue, however, was neither onion slicers nor Adjusta-Bed adjustments, but control. KLAS air time was his time, and Hughes’s greatest wrath was reserved for the hapless station manager’s onetime daring fling with charity.
It started innocently enough. A series of public-service spots promoting the sale of American flags, with the proceeds going to aid needy children. But the unapproved thirty-second ads drove Hughes into a blind fury:
“Please get me at once the real true explanation of what caused the manager of KLAS to give gratis the spot announcements on a broadcast station he does not own.
“I want to know by just what in the hell kind of a right does an employe involve a TV station in a charitable operation of this kind, which may, or may not be on the level.
“About half these charitable gimmicks turn out to be fraudulent or politically inspired, or motivated by some forces which are not disclosed.
“Also about half of them turn out to involve people who are left wingers or at least people with whom I dont want my name associated.
“I dont like this, and I want to know what induced the station manager to do this thing, and, if he wont give you a satisfactory answer, I want to have somebody investigate his activities and background.”
Told that the suspicious charity was organized by the juvenile judge of the district court and staffed by a who’s who of worthy local ladies, Hughes reluctantly allowed a sharply diminished number of flag ads to run for a short time. But when the commercials continued beyond the cutoff date, Hughes’s anger exploded.
“TV time is no different from money,” he fumed. “The principle business of the station consists of exchanging time for money.
“As I view it, the unauthorized giving of TV time (whether to a charitable entity or otherwise) is absolutely the same as reaching in the cash register and taking out a sum of money.
“Theft is theft—no matter what you do with the money after you steal it.”
Various aides tried to calm him, to no avail.
“I do not believe that the station manager intentionally stole any money from you,” wrote Maheu. “He is fully aware of the FCC regulations which provide specifically that certain announcements must be made gratis to support charitable projects.”
Maheu’s cavalier dismissal of the flag-ad theft was the last straw. Responding with Queeg-like zeal, Hughes ordered a sweeping investigation to find the missing strawberries:
“I believe he did it because he was pressured by somebody to do it. I am sure he knew he was sticking his neck out a mile, and he surely must have had a much stronger motive, to take a risk like this, than any of the casual, unimportant excuses which have been advanced.…
“I have been intending to ask you to make one of your usual thorough investigations of this matter before it is put aside.
“I personally dont think, when you dig into this thing, that you will find this contribution was made for the benefit of the FCC one damn bit.
“Bob, there are at least one hundred, by actual count, charitable funds, causes, drives, donations, etc., which rank equally high in point of importance, worthiness, validity, etc. So, why does the station manager select this one single entity out of all the others, and place the station in the posture of supporting this one cause so abundantly while neglecting all the other various causes, hospitals, Vietnam War Orphans, etc., etc.
“Only a careful investigation will disclose all the facts. Will you assume this task?”
Maheu apparently let the matter drop, and Hughes, forgetting about the flag-ad theft, once more became absorbed in his beloved “Swinging Shift.”
Yet even into this special enclave of off-hour reverie came disconcerting problems. It was the cruelest of blows. These were Hughes’s prime viewing hours—11:30 P.M. to six A.M.—when he could commune comfortably with his set, secure in the knowledge that he and he alone controlled television.
While nine floors below, beyond the blacked-out windows of his penthouse retreat, Las Vegas was alive with neon and nonstop action,