It was against this background that Los Angeles police began to investigate the new heist at 7000 Romaine. In a confidential report written several weeks after the break-in, LAPD detectives noted some curious aspects of the bizarre case:
• “The building is taped and wired for an electrical alarm system, but it had not been operative for one year. Without knowledge of this fact, it appears the alarm is operative.”
• “The physical layout of this building and the type of material kept in each office is not general knowledge, even within the organization.”
• “Although only one large Mosler walk-in vault was torched, there are 18 additional vaults on the same floor which were not attacked.”
• “Three of the offices were entered with keys. One of the most important was that of Kay Glenn. Investigating officers tried to shim this door and others and found it was not possible.”
Even more troubling were the results of polygraph examinations administered to the Hughes employees. Mike Davis, the lone security guard on duty the night of the break-in, failed to appear three times and finally refused to take a lie-detector test. “I just don’t believe in it,” he explained. “A man should be trusted on his word.” Davis was fired. The only witness to the burglary was now himself a suspect.
His boss, Vince Kelley, Summa’s West Coast security chief, did take a polygraph—but failed. He “displayed guilty knowledge to all four examiners who reviewed the tape,” according to the police report. A later FBI report on Kelley’s test was more explicit: “He was asked about prior knowledge, where the stolen property was located, and if he was present during the robbery. He ‘failed miserably’ when answering all these questions.”
To clear himself, Kelley arranged a second polygraph test through a private eye, who found him “clean.” What Kelley didn’t mention was that the same private eye and two of their mutual friends had been involved in one of the five earlier Hughes break-ins, the Encino job, and had actually ended up with the stolen scrambler.
Yet although he had failed to report the earlier theft, failed to install a burglar alarm at Romaine, failed his lie-detector test, and then chose a pal connected with one Hughes burglary to clear him of complicity in another, Kelley was not dismissed. He remained West Coast security chief.
Adding to this strange puzzle, Kelley’s boss, Ralph Winte, the man in charge of security for the entire Hughes empire, had himself been involved in plotting the theft of another cache of secret Hughes papers. E. Howard Hunt had just recently revealed in sworn Senate testimony that he had plotted with Winte to seize a stash of Hughes’s memos by busting open the safe of Las Vegas newspaper publisher Hank Greenspun, in a joint venture between the Hughes and Nixon forces, approved by Attorney General Mitchell.
An FBI report on Romaine, noting Winte’s role in that aborted break-in, mentioned that when called before a Watergate grand jury Winte “became so nervous and nauseated that he did not testify.” Yet Winte, like Kelley, not only kept his job but also worked closely with the Los Angeles police in its Romaine probe.
Still, the police could not help but note that the entire Hughes security apparatus—from the Romaine guard to the top command—was now suspect. The LAPD report on the break-in concluded that “someone within the corporation set up or supplied information for this burglary.” The conclusion seemed both obvious and inevitable: the Great Hughes Heist had been an “inside job.”
But who was the inside man, who were the burglars, who was behind them, and who had the stolen secret papers?
The police remained baffled. The FBI was soon drawn into the case, and a top-secret task force was set up at the CIA. The directors of both agencies huddled with each other in Washington, sent emissaries to the chief of police in Los Angeles, finally even briefed the president of the United States and pledged a million dollars to the quest—all in a desperate effort to track down the burglars and recover, if need be buy back, Howard Hughes’s dangerous secrets.
But the break-in was never solved, and none of the stolen papers were ever found. The papers were still missing, and the mystery still remained, when I began my own investigation years later.
What follows is the true story of the Great Hughes Heist and of how I found the secret papers of the world’s most secretive man.
“Got a guy that tells me he can put us right into Howard Hughes’s stash,” said the Jiggler to the Pro.
That’s how it all began. Early in May, over lunch in a Los Angeles drugstore. Sitting in the booth across the table, the Pro just smiled.
Funny little guy, the Jiggler. Always had some “big deal” going. He’d come by, talking out of the side of his mouth, acting tough, telling the Pro about his latest scores. But the Pro knew he was small change, the lowest order of thief, just a key-jiggler who hung around parking lots at public swimming pools and private country clubs, breaking into empty cars, snatching wallets and watches from the glove compartments.
And here he was talking about taking Howard Hughes. Sitting in some damn drugstore, talking about the all-time fucking ultimate Big Score.
“Okey-dokey,” said the Pro. “We’ll hit Hughes first, then knock over J. Paul Getty. Maybe take the Rockefellers too.”
The Jiggler didn’t laugh. He knew that this Hughes job was for real. He could just feel it.
“Look,” he told the Pro. “Look, I’ve stumbled into one hell of a thing. This red-headed guy says he can put us right into Hughes’s stash. He wants to meet. He wants to talk right now.”
The Pro was intrigued. Not buying, but definitely intrigued. “No names,” he told the Jiggler, looking hard across the table, letting him feel the stare.
“No names,” the Jiggler assured him. “Red, he don’t know your name. I ain’t told him nothing.”
So they took the freeway to Red’s place, and the Pro was impressed. It was on the better side of Hollywood, an expensive apartment with lots of good jewelry lying around and closets full of hot suits, Red being a fence. But Red himself was a real sleaze, and the Pro saw scam, not score.
Red asked him about opening vaults, big walk-in jobs, asked if he could handle it. The Pro said he could bust anything. They talked for an hour, but no one mentioned Hughes.
A couple of weeks later, the Jiggler was back. Told the Pro that Red was ready to show him something.
“What do ya know about 7000 Romaine?” asked Red. The Pro said he’d never heard of it. “That’s Howard Hughes’s stash,” said Red. “I got an inside man who can put us in the place.”
“I thought you were going to show me something,” said the Pro.
“I am,” said Red. “I’m gonna show you the inside of Hughes’s stash.”
The three of them—Red, the Jiggler, and the Pro—drove over to Romaine late that evening, pulled into the parking lot out back. An impatient guy was waiting nervously outside the building, motioning them to come over, not openly waving his arm but making a surreptitious little gesture with his hand held close to his side.