Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [97]
“Boxcar,” the government agency declared, was a “weapons-related experiment, designed to improve the nation’s nuclear armament capacity”—specifically, to develop a warhead for the then-envisioned antiballistic missile system. A moratorium was out of the question.
“Any delay of the scheduled test,” the AEC maintained, “would have an adverse effect on national defense.”
Hughes was enraged. Not only had the peace been broken but his patriotism had been called into question.
“Where do they come off waving the American flag in my face and implying that I am some kind of bumbling idiot who, in his ignorance, might sabotage a one billion dollar defense installation?” he demanded.
“Me, who has done more for defense than the N.T.S. [Nevada Test Site] ever dreamed of. After all, only two nuclear weapons have ever been used, and the N.T.S. did not exist at that time. My equipment has been used extensively in World War #2 and in Korea and in Vietnam.”
Moreover, Hughes was convinced that the AEC had lied. As an arsenal of democracy, he was not only privy to classified information but had actually helped develop the ABM.
“I am right on top of the entire anti-missile program for this country,” he explained. “We have actively bid on these projects since the first one about seven years ago. Actually, we had a large part of the first system that proved at all successful.”
The claim of national defense was, to his mind, entirely without foundation.
“Of course, we must be careful not to place ourselves in the position of disclosing military secrets,” cautioned the billionaire. “But I can tell you, based on actual Defense Dept. technical information legally in my hands, that this last AEC statement is pure 99 proof unadulterated shit.
“If you want to know the plain blunt truth, it is that these explosions are not needed for anything,” Hughes continued, now certain of his foe’s malevolence. “The AEC is only making an issue out of this because, if they do not, and if they stop blasting, then it will be demonstrated for all to see that all of this destruction and damage and all of these violations of ordinary decent conduct were totally without purpose.
“You take it from me that these tests have no valid military purpose! This is not conjecture or supposition, this is fact! I can even prove it!”
At commission headquarters in Washington, AEC officials were equally suspicious about, but considerably less certain of the hidden Hughes motives. Rumors that he was plotting to block the “Boxcar” test had been filtering in for days, including one report that the mysterious recluse had readied “a fleet of aircraft to follow the radioactive cloud” if the bomb was detonated.
Already the agency had received an unprecedented rash of letters and telegrams inspired by the Hughes protest, and officials worried about moves he might make in the political arena. In a constant flow of confidential cables between Las Vegas and Washington, they traded tidbits of fact and speculative theories concerning their strange adversary.
One “eyes-only” report claimed that his agents had offered bribes to several scientists in return for antibomb statements, another lamented that “Hughes’s fears concerning contamination and ground shock remain unpredictable,” while a third suggested that Hughes might be “kept in an agitated state by people connected with the Hughes Biomedical Foundation in Florida, with the hope that Hughes would abandon his Las Vegas interests and consider moving to Miami.”
All the while, the countdown at Pahute Mesa continued, as test-site workers began to cork the bomb shaft in final preparation for the big blast.
And now, after a week of illusory peace, with only four days left until the scheduled detonation, the battle of the bomb was finally joined in earnest.
Badly shaken by the rejection of his moratorium, Hughes resumed direct command of the campaign, forsaking sleep for the duration, ready to make any alliance, try any strategy, pay any price in his desperate bid to stave off nuclear attack.
His first instinct was to buy his way out