Obviously, however, Hughes could not wait around for Laxalt to perform that meager act, nor could he any longer depend on the other local politicians.
He would have to take his fight directly to the people.
“Anything the AEC can do in brain-washing, we can do better,” he declared, plotting his public-opinion campaign. “The advantage always favors the one who is trying to create fear, over the one who is trying to erase it.
“Bob,” he went on, “it is essential that we cast fears in the public’s mind—real fears—as to water pollution, earthquakes, damage to the tourist trade.
“We must draw the public’s attention to the plight of the sheep in Utah to destroy the simple all-out faith that people seem to have in any info released by the government.
“I dont give a damn how much it costs or what extremes must be resorted to.”
Should the blast be detonated, all was lost. Having survived the holocaust, the populace would assume a stance of false bravado, ignorant of the real, hidden peril, ready to accept continued bombing without question. The whole awful scenario was all too clear:
“People love to be near danger and tell their friends about it, saying, ‘Oh, it was nothing, really.’
“I can picture the local residents writing to friends in other cities, and saying: ‘Well, we had another Nuclear test today, we are all beginning to get used to them now, so that we just take them in stride.’
“And Bob, when that attitude prevails, I assure you more and more people will be swung over to the N.T.S. supporters. Those people will lose confidence in us because we were unable to stop the blast. They will reason that it must be safe or the U.S. Government never would have allowed it.”
There was only one answer. To stampede public opinion now and block the impending test. No approach was off limits, no conceivable ally was to be ignored.
“Bob, I see this as a proposition where all the peace seekers, beatniks, etc. could be carefully persuaded by a skillful publicity campaign, that this explosion would benefit only big business—the big corporations, the Establishment,” wrote Hughes, willing now to denounce capitalism and consort with welfare mothers to end the bombing.
“The protestors are saying: ‘If you have money enough to send men to the moon, how about taking care of the poor on earth.’
“Well, this same logic can be used, I believe, to generate a protest against the testing of nuclear weapons here in Nevada.
“In other words, all your efforts have been channeled toward the hazards of bomb testing in terms of earthquakes, pollution, etc.,” he concluded. “But, maybe, without lessening in any slightest way your efforts in this direction, you can generate added protest against the nuclear tests here, on the basis that the expenditure of funds should be directed instead toward domestic anti-poverty causes.”
Of course, no such high-minded appeal would reach the jaded citizens of Las Vegas. For them, an entirely different approach was necessary.
“I think it will take a campaign that hits at the pocket book to carry any weight,” lamented Hughes. “In this short-sighted community, where everybody lives for today, people are not very interested in morallity. They have been sold the bomb program on the basis that it provides jobs. I think that only by suggesting that the bomb is taking jobs away from Las Vegas will we make any headway.”
That was it: he would announce that the bomb threat had caused him to abandon the “New Sands”—a one-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar futuristic hotel complex he had long ago promised but never actually intended to build.
To this scheme, Maheu added his own inspiration. Perhaps they could convince archrival Kirk Kerkorian to join the antibomb campaign by halting construction of his International Hotel. It was a classic three-cushion billiard shot. Hughes had originally announced the “New Sands” only as a ploy to prevent Kerkorian from securing needed funds for the International.
“The more I think of your Kerkorian strategy, the more I like it!” the billionaire exclaimed. “I think the idea of telling him we postponed the 4000 room Sands because of the tests is terrific.
“Now, I think you should tell K I at no time announced to anyone that our reason for cancelling the hotel was related to the bomb tests,” he continued. “However, now with the resumption of testing (and at an even greater level) I feel it is my firm duty to tell K the whole story.”
Still, the primary appeal must be to gut fear. To arouse mass hysteria.
“We must make a real stink, and accuse the AEC of all kinds of perfidy and incompetence,” wrote Hughes. “We must have some headlines. Let me see them right now, please!
“We must go further than you will want to go, Bob, but if we are to make headlines, we must make accusations—serious ones.”
Maheu was wary. “To start hurling accusations at this time will necessarily cause the AEC, Dept. of Defense, and the Administration to join forces and really take us on—but big,” he cautioned. “Howard, they simply have larger armies and we can end up being clobbered.”
Clobbered? The Hughes empire? Never! “I dont agree that we should back off into a state of inactivity, just because the government is big and rich,” Hughes objected. “Bob, if we are going to be afraid to challenge [the government], on the theory that ‘they have bigger armies than we have,’ I just dont want to live in this country any longer.”
Maheu’s caution was well founded, however. Hughes was single-handedly reviving the nuclear protest movement, and with his success came a growing counterattack.
AEC Chairman Glenn Seaborg charged that the billionaire was “creating an atmosphere of harassment in our national security programs,” and James Reeves, the director of the Nevada Test Site, appeared on local television to denounce the Hughes campaign.
“Did you see ch 13 at 10:30 tonight?” a worried Hughes asked Maheu. “Reeves really made us look terrible. I tell you Bob, in 30 min. tonite he wiped out everything you have so painstakingly accomplished toward giving me a new image. 18 months of effort shot down the drain by a bumbling, doddering old fart who looks so stupid you feel sorry for him.
“I tell you, when he shoots that blast off and no buildings fall down, then the wreckage of our little red wagon will be complete.”
Finally the counterattack grew so intense that Hughes was threatened with a congressional subpoena.
“What is this I just saw on TV news where some ass-hole said that some congress committee might hold hearings and ask me to come to Washington and tell what I object to in the test program?” the recluse demanded.
Yet as terrified as he was of being forced out of hiding, Hughes remained defiantly determined to stand firm against the bomb.
“I dont agree with your fear that a strong campaign and embarassment of the AEC will lead to a subpeona,” he told the fainthearted Maheu.
“I think the only way to win this battle is to discredit the AEC and emerge with public opinion on our side. I think it is defeat and loss of public favor that could lead to a subpeona. They dont want to force me to come to Washington if we are forging a successful campaign.
“Bob, where is your ‘lead from strength’ philosophy?
“I didn’t win the Senate hearing conflict by a defensive attitude,” continued Hughes, recalling his “Spruce Goose” triumph twenty years earlier. “I did it by charging Sen. Brewster with corruption—with trying to bribe me in a room in a Washington hotel.
“Bob, if you dont take some measures to debunk the present attempt to reduce the issue to a simple question of whether to support the red white and blue, national defense, patriotism, etc., or whether to follow Mr. Hughes and be a traitor, I am sure we will not only lose the battle, but I will be subpeonaed.