It remained a troubling inconsistency. Hughes, however, had promised Maheu a green light within an hour after receiving the latest revised guest list. Now, at 7:40 A.M. on June 28, twenty minutes ahead of schedule, Hughes, true to his word, gave the big go-ahead.
“Here, finally, is the first installment of names for the invitation list,” Hughes announced triumphantly.
“I have marked 3 of the names OK.
“I give my complete blessing to your going ahead and phoning these men.
“What time do you desire to ask them to arrive?
“As I understand it, there will be no written invitations. That is important.”
Three names. And one small problem. Hughes had still not told Maheu the opening date. He could not even invite the three guests Hughes had grudgingly approved.
Three. Maheu had been working day and night for weeks to put together the big party, having to call on all his skills as a clandestine operative to pull it off despite Hughes’s best efforts at sabotage. He had again gone without sleep to prepare the final revised guest list and humor his mad boss. Here was his reward. Three guests. No food. No opening date.
Maheu finally snapped.
“Howard, I really don’t know what you are trying to do to me,” he wrote more in pain than in anger, “but if your desire is to place me in a state of complete depression you are succeeding.
“Howard, I don’t mind making myself available to you every moment of the day, 24 hours a day. It is a hell of a sacrafice to do so, but your staff can verify that in the last 2½ years they have never spent but a few moments to locate me. I feel, however, that all of my efforts to cooperate with you in this matter are becoming an exercise of complete futility.
“Now, Howard, I am getting pretty damned disturbed about what seems to be developing into a compulsive need to give Bob hell,” he added, his anger rising. “I find it very depressing to pick up the telephone and, practically in each instance of the recent past, I am catching hell for what I did, or what I did not do. I am being second-guessed at each corner.”
The longer Maheu went on, the angrier he got. Finally, the scheming Jesuit lost all control, forgot his cold calculations, stopped caring about the consequences, and, as if this absurd party were what really counted, allowed himself to get drawn fully into the Landmark brawl.
“Now, Howard, this may come to you as a shock, but we are soon entering the realm of not being believable.
“All I know is that we have an opening taking place in a few days. Everyone seems prepared for it, except you. There have been many hours of sweat and blood poured into this project, and all we need is evidence of confidence from you. After all, Howard, in the last analysis, only you have something to gain or lose. In my present state of mind, I couldn’t care less if it takes place or not.”
But Maheu did care. Cared deeply. This was his party. It was his sweat and blood that had gone into planning it. And it was he, not Hughes, who was going to be up there in that bubble when the whole thing blew up.
“Howard, all I can tell you in conclusion, is that I have no desire to be identified with a fiasco. But if you are so hell-bent on being the author of one, I am afraid that there is nothing else I can do to prevent you from accomplishing just that.
“If this whole thing means nothing to you, why in the hell should I be concerned about it?
“The opening, if we have one, is now only a few days away, and, as much as I want to help you, we have almost, already, run out of time.
“It is becoming urgent that we announce a definite date.
“If, on the other hand, Howard, you would prefer that I not be involved at all in the Landmark caper, just simply tell me, and you will never live long enough to see how quickly this Frenchman can make the disappearing act thru the nearest escape hatch.”
This was the moment Hughes had been waiting for. Maheu had finally taken the bait. Now it was time to reel him in.
“I am sorry,” Hughes wrote with a heavy heart that barely concealed his secret satisfaction, “but I cannot give a go-ahead on the Landmark until the situation of disaccord which has developed between us is put in better condition.”
It was all working out so well. Not only had he succeeded in drawing Maheu fully into the fight, but now the fight itself was a perfect excuse to keep the opening date open. Better yet, it was clearly Maheu’s own fault. And beyond all else, he had finally flushed out his partner’s true feelings, all the anger he feared, all the passion he desired.
“You keep telling me that I am imagining things when I speak of misunderstandings between us and that none exists except in my mind,” continued Hughes. “Then a time comes like this morning and you take the wraps off and expose a pent-up condition of resentment that is just boiling over.
“I do not agree with anything in your message—not anything at all,” he added.
“I think today is fortunate, in a way, because you have finally taken the wraps off and said what is on your mind, and what is at the root of all our troubles.
“It does no good to gloss over these things and pretend they dont exist,” Hughes went on, warming to his role as marriage counselor in his own stormy marriage. “If we dont lay them on the table in front of us, they will never be resolved.
“I assure you that, if you feel even half of what you said in your message, it has to be straightened out to the point where you look at the situation entirely differently.
“It is just absurd for two people in the position we are in, where each depends as completely on the other as we do, to have the compressed, bursting package of bitterness and resentment, bottled up inside one of us as you disclosed this morning.
“And, I assure you, Bob, it is not a one-way street,” Hughes continued, abandoning his even-handed approach, “because for every feeling of injustice, or whatever it is that is bugging you, I feel just as strongly in the opposite direction.
“Just as convinced as you appear to be that I am wrong and that you are getting the bad end of the deal, etc., just as convinced as you appear to be that you are mistreated, and that you have to take some kind of revenge, just as firmly convinced of this as you seem to be, you may rest assured I feel equally strongly that you are 100% wrong.
“So, I am sure this walled-up bitterness must not be permitted to continue between us,” he concluded, having laid things on the table with a vengeance. He now turned back to the matter at hand.
“Meantime, Bob, please do not allow us to have a further misunderstanding about the Landmark.
“I am asking you, for the record, not to give a go-ahead on the basis of any specific date, and not to make any preparations for the opening. Also, I implore you, Bob, not to permit some rumor to leak out about a July 1st opening, or anything else in connection with this matter, until we get these issues settled.”
Finally, to really nail down an open date, Hughes added a stern P.S.: “Bob, the above is really important if we are to have any chance at all of healing this breach between us.”
Maheu didn’t know what had hit him. The CIA tough guy was flat on his back, crying for mercy.
“Even a person who professes to be as rough and strong as I do will eventually hit the canvas when he is consistently clobbered on all parts of his body and head,” wrote the outmatched challenger, throwing in the towel. “He is bound to become punch-drunk. Then to find himself on the canvas and to be kicked in the groin too, I don’t think he is entirely unreasonable if he eeks out: ‘Ouch, this hurts.’
“As to the Landmark, Howard, I am sure you realize that the logistics involved in an opening are many. If we are not going to open on July 1, we would very much appreciate your giving us a fixed date.”