“The whole country will be focused on this deal, and they will all know that it was the Justice Dept. who caused it with a charge of anti-trust violation. And that has a nasty sound in itself. Also, somebody will dig up the fact that I am presently being sued by T.W.A. on an anti-trust violation, that is the biggest civil law suit in history. I can just see the editorials, like: ‘Can’t that man go anywhere without running afoul of those anti-trust laws??’
“Take my word, and I mean this, if we do not close now, this deal will never go through.”
Maheu encouraged Hughes in his bravado.
“You can bet your life that the anti-trust division will live to regret their contemplated action,” he boasted.
“Yesterday, they had ‘first hand’ evidence that we have many friends in Washington who truly believe in us. Today, they have received many inquiries—including one from the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee—and that is just the beginning.
“Howard Cannon called me this afternoon to inform me that he and Senator Bible have been told all day long—by fellow Senators—that they can depend on full support and assistance in sustaining their position that we obtain the Stardust.
“I’ve been in constant touch with George Franklin and Governor Laxalt, and they are both ready to challenge the Justice Department ‘single-handedly.’”
Laxalt, in fact, made good on his pledge. He immediately shot off a letter to the attorney general, threatening to join forces with his hidden benefactor.
“If suit is instituted,” warned the governor, “we would be faced with no alternative other than to intervene and oppose the action with all the resources of the State.”
It was all to no avail. Ramsey Clark stood firm.
And Hughes was weakening. His ten-year battle over TWA had left him with a permanent fear of litigation, and he lived in dread of a subpoena.
“Suppose we take possession of the Stardust, and suppose we then notify Justice we want to talk,” he wrote. “Suppose they say: ‘Fine, let’s talk!’ So we talk, and while we are talking a story appears in the Sun that a U.S. Marshall is looking for me with a subpoena.
“Now, Bob, I dont have to tell you that this community is used to heroes who fall on their faces.
“Sinatra had the world in the palm of his hand during certain portions of his vivid, colorful life, only to fall off the pedestal and into horrible disrepute immediately afterward.
“So, as I say, this town is conditioned to the extremes of glorious success and failure to the criminal degree. Also, dont forget, Bob, that most people regard a subpoena or a court summons as equivalent to guilt and conviction. I assure you they dont bother to read the fine print.
“I repeat, they are used to seeing the guys on top fall off their thrones around here. So, when a story appears about me involving a subpoena, you can bet your life everybody in Clark County is going to have only one thought:
“‘Well, it had to happen sooner or later! Those big guys on top always wind up making some lousy little mistake, and then they get trapped with their hand in the cash register.’
“Dont forget, Bob, there is a crime crusade going on, and all of those loyal supporters of the Kennedies are just looking for somebody to nail to the wall.”
Knocked off his throne and nailed to the wall. What an inglorious end to his grand adventure! No, Howard Hughes would not be denied his domain. He would expand it.
It was not enough to own Las Vegas. It was not enough to own Nevada. It was not enough to own Laxalt. Hughes would have to reach beyond his besieged kingdom and buy America.
He had been spying on it all the time—through television.
4
Network
It was Saturday night. Date night. Howard Hughes, alone with his television, stared blankly at the square of light.
“From Hollywood… the dating capital of the world… in color… it’s ‘The Dating Game’!” A fanfare of upbeat music. Wild applause. A half-enclosed round stage turned, coming full-circle to reveal the grinning host of the show. All teeth and double-knits, he stepped off the revolving disk as the music reached its crescendo, making his grand entrance through a superimposed heart.
“I feel I should have walked onstage with a Band-Aid across my mouth this evening because we have so many secrets up our sleeve,” announced the game-show host, with a teasing pull at his cufflinks. “Why all the mystery?” he asked with a sinister chuckle. “That’s a mystery, too!”
Hughes watched silently. The laughtrack tittered appreciatively, then roared, but the billionaire didn’t even smile. Neither the TV show nor the wild incongruity of his listening to its fatuous emcee simper and smirk about secrets seemed to amuse him.
“I can tell you that game one brings to our ‘Dating Game’ stage one of television’s brightest young actors,” the announcer continued, drawing out the word young suggestively, now positively bursting with the secret to which he alone was privy. But he was not yet ready to divulge it. Instead, leering, he introduced a “swinging threesome” of starlets “designed to gladden any young bachelor’s heart.” Once more the stage turned, this time to bring into view the mystery bachelor’s three potential “dates”—“an actress who loves to cook,” a dancer (who also loved to cook), and a Playboy bunny.
Hughes watched the display impassively. Women no longer interested him. But now something happened that definitely seemed to pique his interest. From offstage—“we’ve kept him isolated in a soundproof booth”—came the “young bachelor,” arriving to the rising laughter of the studio audience, finally let in on the big secret.
A small black child walked across the stage. Hughes stared at him in dismay.
The game-show host prattled on, enjoying the joke, never knowing the incredible impact that his secret would have on one viewer who had some secrets of his own, who at that very moment was deciding the fate of the TV announcer’s entire network.
A network of his own. The idea had become an obsession.
Hughes watched television compulsively, around the clock, tuning in everything from “Sunrise Semester” (which he detested) to the “Late Show” (which he loved). He watched until the stations shut down, and even then often left his set on, falling asleep to the pictureless hum, waking up to test patterns.
Television was not only his sole source of entertainment but also his chief source of information. Hughes literally monitored the world through TV. It was as if he had a closed-circuit system spying on the feared outside, and virtually all he knew of the alien planet beyond his bedroom was the flickering images on the video glass.
The TV, always on and always at top volume, was his constant companion. He frequently wrote memos seeking to manipulate national policy or making multimillion-dollar deals while sitcoms or B-movies boomed in the background, sometimes making momentous decisions based solely on a chance encounter with a news broadcast, a commercial, even a game show.
Memo after memo would begin, “I just saw something on TV…,” to be followed by an order, a complaint, or a plan of action.
Sometimes it was merely a suggestion that others tune in an especially good program: “Ask Maheu to look at 13 on his set. This is the finest color television transmission I have ever seen. This looks like an oil painting…. Some of these scenes look almost as if they were paintings taken from one of the best known museums.” (Not at all surprising, given the fact that Hughes was watching a special on Michelangelo.)