“One more thing. Are you really sure it is going to be cool enough in that bubble with hundreds of people present? You know a crowd dissipates a lot of heat.
“To my knowledge there has never been a crowd in that tower and, you will remember, one of my first questions re Landmark was about the air conditioning.”
The image of partygoers packed into the bubble, trapped inside without air conditioning in the blast-furnace heat of a Las Vegas summer, got fixed in his fevered mind.
“I dont suggest a dry run,” added Hughes. “I just urge somebody make careful calculations adding in the necessary correction to compensate for the crowd. I think you might also investigate alternate machinery and alternate power source, in case of a failure of some kind.
“Boy, oh Boy, would some people laugh if something like that were to happen on the opening night.”
With the opening only hours away, Maheu had more immediate problems on his mind. It was not that Hughes had authorized only forty-four invitations and seemed unable to find any more equally qualified guests. Maheu had taken care of that. He had secretly invited another 440 people to the party, enough to fill the small Landmark showroom.
No, Maheu’s big problem was the food. Hughes would not let him order it. Finally, at five P.M., two hours before the big gala, Hughes relented.
“I will not ask you further to withhold the procurement of food for tonight’s dinner at the Landmark,” he wrote, even now adding a caveat.
“However, I will be very grateful if you will keep such procurement to the bare minimum, until I am able to discuss with you, in considerable length, some of my views relative to the procurement of food.”
Shortly before seven P.M., as the first arrivals drifted into the bizarre Landmark lobby for a VIP cocktail reception, one final message arrived from the penthouse.
Maheu was already at the hotel when Hughes’s memo reached him, greeting guests with his usual aplomb, flashing his big gold cuff links, confidently standing in for his unseen boss. And although something was obviously askew about this grand opening, although there was a bit of a buzz about the last-minute telephoned invitations, none of the guests could have imagined what Maheu had been through, and none would have grasped the unintentional black humor in the two sentences scrawled on the sheet of yellow legal-pad paper that Maheu now removed from its sealed manila envelope.
“Bob—You and your people have my wishes for good luck tonight, in every way,” Howard Hughes had written from the safety of his seclusion.
“Is there anything further I can do to be helpful?”
12 Nixon: The Betrayal
Three thousand miles from Las Vegas, someone else was planning a party. It was to be the greatest party the world had ever seen. A lavish state dinner in honor of the first men to walk on the moon. The host was Richard Nixon.
Although he hated playing host, Nixon threw himself into planning this affair, driving everyone crazy, from his top White House staff to his wife to the waiters, getting personally involved in the smallest details, picking the menus, making the seating arrangements, even choosing the party favors. And, of course, approving the guest list.
There were 1,440 invitations to this August 1969 dinner, the most prestigious state dinner in history, and Nixon went through them several times, name by name, simultaneously compiling a list of the people he didn’t want invited, his first “enemies list.” Nixon was still making final revisions the day before the big party.
There were governors and senators and Supreme Court justices, Hollywood celebrities, business and religious leaders, fifty astronauts, diplomats from ninety nations, luminaries from every walk of life. But most important were the special honored guests, aviation and space pioneers like Charles Lindbergh and Wernher von Braun—and Howard Hughes.
Hughes was puzzled by the invitation. “Re the President’s party, what is it you actually need from me?” he asked Maheu, uncertain how to R.S.V.P. “In other words, Bob, I will not be able to attend. But I am sure you already knew this.”
The invitation also puzzled White House aides. Nixon rarely discussed Hughes with even his closest advisers—and never disclosed his dealings with the billionaire to anyone except Rebozo—but all his top men were aware of the old loan scandal, knew that it still touched a raw nerve. And Hughes was feared in Nixon’s White House, an unspoken yet palpable fear that emanated from the Oval Office.
Now, with the hundred-thousand-dollar payoff finally arranged and about to be delivered, the president’s submerged fears started to surface. As the secret deal went down in the weeks before the party, Nixon initiated a series of stealthy inquiries about his hidden benefactor, working through the back channels of the federal bureaucracy.
He had already ordered the Secret Service to bug and tail his brother, worried that Donald’s bumbling deals with John Meier would revive the loan scandal and blow his own bigger dealings with Hughes. Rebozo was constantly on the phone with Danner, demanding that Meier be kept away from Donald. “The President is truly concerned about wheeling and dealing involving these two characters,” Maheu informed the penthouse. “We are reliably informed that they have opened an office in Geneva, are involved in very precarious oil leases in Alaska, and God knows what all else.
“The President and Rebozo have confided in us that brother Don is, by far, one of the biggest threats to the future of the President’s political career,” Maheu added. “They are fearful in Washington that the combination of Don throwing his brother’s name around, and Meier throwing yours, will eventually cause serious embarrassment to both you and the President.”
Late in June the Secret Service wiretap had overheard Donald trying to finagle a “finder’s fee” for Hughes’s acquisition of Air West, just as the president was preparing to approve that illegal takeover, and early in July, as Nixon moved to consummate the big payoff, the Donald problem had come to a head.
On July 8, the president’s brother was caught at a secret airport meeting with Meier and a known organized crime figure, Anthony Hatsis, and the three men were photographed together by Secret Service agents. Donald had always denied his connection with Meier, but now the White House had undeniable proof. Back at the Oval Office, Nixon spent a long time studying the evidence, and it couldn’t have made him comfortable about his own Hughes connection.
While he continued to keep tabs on his brother, Nixon had tried to improve his intelligence on Hughes, seeking help from the federal agency that seemed to know the most about him, the Atomic Energy Commission.
Late in July, Will Kreigsman, a White House staffer whom Nixon would later name to the AEC, made an unusual and very confidential inquiry. He wanted all available information on the “Howard Hughes Matter.” An “eyes only” AEC report to the chairman noted, “Higher levels have requested that he be fully informed on this.
“He requested that we conduct an investigation, in the most discreet manner possible, of the background of Hughes organization staff members, emphasizing the obtaining of information from AEC-Nevada people who are in close contact with the Hughes staff.”
Nixon was not only trying to figure out why Hughes was so opposed to the nuclear tests—very much a mystery to the president, because he couldn’t see the profit in it—but he was also clearly seeking some solid facts about Hughes himself and the true nature of his shadowy empire.
What the president got was a detailed eighteen-page report on the billionaire’s ban-the-bomb campaign but little insight into his motivations, which were also very much a mystery to the AEC. One claim in the report would soon boomerang on Nixon, a false assurance that “Hughes will not object to the current test program as long as detonations do not exceed a megaton.” And there was nothing about the phantom himself.