Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [96]
“I have just completed an hour’s conference here with the Governor,” the field marshal explained. “He agrees with us 100%—particularly since you have made it clear that all the study and research could still continue in Nevada—with the exception of the blasts per se.”
The peace terms were generous. All that Hughes would have to do was fund an independent team of scientists to determine the safety of the planned test during the cooling-off period.
“Bob, I leave this whole campaign in your hands,” replied Hughes, already looking ahead to total victory. “I am sure you should personally go to the White House after we have obtained the 90-day delay and endeavor to sell the President on a permanent policy.
“I am sure H.H.H.,” he continued, with a chummy reference to the cooperative vice-president, “would be glad to go with you and set up the appointment. You have gotten a lot of publicity as my sole representative in important matters and I definitely feel you would be more willingly accepted at the White House than anyone else I know of.”
Yet even as he plotted an Oval Office parley, Hughes was shaken anew by visions of doom.
“The late TV news was startling,” reported the recluse in a post-midnight memo that roused his would-be White House emissary. “They announced that while prior explosions may have been noticable in the top floors of tall buildings, this explosion will be far more powerful (more powerful in fact than any prior explosion in the United States).
“They went on to say that this explosion will be accompanied by violent and prolonged and heavy longitudinal movement of the ground at the street level, that it may result in earth cracks and particularly in fractures and cracks in the pavement of city streets and highways.
“The news announcer went on to say that there was no doubt whatsoever but that this explosion will far exceed anything ever set off around here.
“Bob, I think this is just disgraceful! Please let me hear from you if you are not too sleepy.”
The awakened Maheu, accustomed to his commander’s night fears and less awed by pronouncements from the video oracle, remained unruffled.
“We are quite confident that we will be successful in obtaining a 90 day delay,” he reassured his boss, pledging eternal vigilance. “This whole situation is so damned important that I beg of you not to hesitate to call upon me further this morning. We can rest at a later date. As a matter of fact, Howard, please, and I sincerely mean it, never consider me as a guy who wants to sack out when there is business to be conducted. Fortunately the good Lord has blessed me with an unusual constitution.”
Ready to stand watch in the night, Maheu was also busy by day, rounding up political allies while he assigned the resourceful John Meier to line up scientific support.
Meier, an inspired con artist who claimed two Ph.D.s but never actually got past high school, proved as adept at recruiting antibomb scientists as he was at swindling Hughes out of millions in bogus mining claims.
Nobel Prize laureate Linus Pauling soon joined the “Boxcar” protest, as did longtime nuclear foe Barry Commoner, whom Meier flew to Las Vegas to man the barricades from the comfort of a complimentary suite at a Hughes-owned hotel.
“We’re making a lot of progress,” Maheu reported to the penthouse. “Today the Vice-President requested data which is already on its way to his office. We have the State of Utah up in arms and their effects will be felt in Washington starting tomorrow. We are beginning to receive the data (wires from scientists) which Governor Laxalt requested. He now wants Governor Reagan to join in our efforts.”
Hubert Humphrey, Ronald Reagan, Paul Laxalt. Linus Pauling and Barry Commoner. Progress indeed.
The sense of triumph, however, was short-lived.
Maheu, having gathered the support of thirty “prominent scientists,” publicly announced his peace plan the next week. It drew an immediate and complete rebuff from the AEC.