“Bob, the above list includes eleven items, which, relying solely upon my memory, eleven items that I have entrusted to your sole and exclusive handling, are overdue for a report.
“P.S.—I have not included the TWA judgement, which brings the list to twelve, for your easy remembrance.”
Each day began with a similar get-well message.
“How is your knee this morning?” Hughes would inquire, and then launch into another diatribe.
“Bob, please do not take offense at this, but I would appreciate it very much if you would review a list of the projects in work and dictate a brief status report on each.
“You tell me nothing about anything. Nothing about any progress in the TWA affair for a year, nothing about the water system, nothing about the future plans of the AEC, and half a dozen other projects I have asked you to take over.
“Bob, I must be the least informed executive in the whole damned country concerning his own business. I have to learn more from the news media than anyone I know in a comparable position. This must end or I will, in my own defense, be forced to set up an investigative organization to inform me of what is happening in my own organization. This surely would be an all time high in embarrassment and I ask you not to make it necessary.
“I am sorry to complain this way, Bob, but honestly, I sometimes think you are so busy with your very full and complex life, that you perhaps forget I am living in a virtual vacuum.
“Perhaps, while you are staying off your knee, Bob, and unable to keep some of your appointments for meetings, etc., it may give you an opportunity to work on some of the projects and problems I have mentioned, many of which can be advanced by your efforts via the phone.
“I hope you are feeling better.”
“I thank you, Howard, for inquring about my knee,” replied Maheu from his bed. “It continues to be very painful, particularly at night when I make abrupt turns while sleeping which causes me to awaken repeatedly.
“Howard, I truly have been trying to keep you informed. If you feel that these matters give you a reason to control me via some investigative organization within your complex, please be my guest. It might do you some good to find out about some of my accomplishments from another source.”
“Are you and I going to embark on another voyage of hostility?” Hughes shot back.
“I have no desire to quote control you, but Bob, I do not intend to learn about my business affairs from the news media any longer. If I desired to spy on you, I would ask someone to do it, and I certainly would not tell you about it beforehand.
“How is your knee, Bob? Please be careful about getting up. Knowing your restless nature, I have been worrying very, very much about the liklihood of your injuring your knee permanently.”
It went on like that for a month, until Hughes learned that, unfortunately, Maheu had recovered, and quickly moved to keep him from returning to his full and complex life.
“Bob, are you well enough—I mean your knee—to go to a meeting?” he asked innocently. “I assumed you might be well enough because somebody told me you were up the other night.”
They were no longer joined as shut-ins, but they were still joined in unholy matrimony.
SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE: Act III
“Now, Howard, I am getting pretty damned disturbed about what seems to be developing into a compulsive need to give Bob hell. We never talk about the small miracles we pull.
“I am really trying to do a job for you in innumerable areas, but I have to get the feeling when I hit the sack tonight that I do not have your backing and that perhaps I should indulge in the sure-fire way of gaining your complete confidence—DO NOTHING OR SCREW UP THE DETAIL.
“Howard, I really feel very badly about having to speak so frankly, but as they say that’s how the cookie crumbles, and they happen to be your cookies, so you can crumble them any way you choose.”
“I dont desire this unhappiness on your part. I am the one who suffers the most from it.
“It does not make me feel happy, and it certainly does not benefit my health to quarrel with you.
“I do not claim it is a one way street by any means. I will try to improve.”
“Howard, until now, and I repeat now, I have been genuinely interested in protecting our flanks wherever they may be. I have been concerned about a 12:01 AM closing on the Slipper, protecting your image in Ecuador, choosing a Presidential candidate, making sure that all of your investments to date in Las Vegas run profitably, keeping a door open in the Bahamas, stopping the Boulder City Council from passing a resolution condemning our position on nuclear tests,’ preventing the White House from revealing the contents of your letter to the President—the contents of which to date I know nothing—but which they claim could prove embarrassing.
“If all of these things are unimportant then perhaps you should tell me precisely what you expect me to do, because I’ve just about lost my courage in trying to exercise my own judgement. Honest to Christ, Howard, you make it impossible for me to know what you want, how you want it, where you want it, and when you want it.”
“Do I detect in your last message a slight hint of your uncertainty with respect to the future and what it may hold for the two of us?
“If so, I think it is about time you lay it all on the line with no reservations.
“I think our relationship needs re-examination and re-clarification, either as worthless or as deserving of your loyalty and allegiance.”
“Howard, you certainly have my loyalty, devotion, and friendship. It is inconceivable that anything could ever happen which could cause this to change.
“I am referring to many years of continued, consistent dedication and loyalty which I defy you to find in any other human being. If all of this has been in vain, then I feel sorry indeed—not for myself but for you. I say I feel sorry for you because if you, in fact, don’t recognize it when you really have it, then you must be a terribly unhappy person.”
“I must say I am astounded. A month or two ago I asked you if there was not something under the surface that I was unaware of. I said you seemed preoccupied and I feared an explosion one of these nights that would wreck our relationship. You told me I was imagining things.
“I want earnestly, Bob, to achieve immediately a better relationship with you. I know we have been over all of this ground before, and I know that getting you to admit that there could be any improvement is next to impossible.
“But I want to try anyway.”
“Howard, you keep referring to a better relationship. I have no problem in this area, but by indirection you keep sending little messages which indicate that you have certain apprehensions about establishing such a relationship.
“Every time I make a suggestion to help you accomplish what I genuinely believe is your sincere desire, I get dropped on my head.
“I constantly beg for guidance. It just happens that I get none, but do receive an over-abundance of criticism. My oujai board is beginning to runneth over, because I am beginning to realize that when I dip my cup into the liquid fuel I am drinking from a seive I end up having nothing to taste.”