With that, Hughes was off again, giving Maheu his lines, determined to write, direct, and produce this melodrama as he saw fit.
“If you were with the President,” he told his alter ego, “you could tell him about the 200 million dollar loss I am swallowing on the helicopter, due to my patriotic zealousness in accepting a contract at a price that did not even pay for the bill of material,” presenting as noble his bungled bid to corner the market for the war in Vietnam.
“Also, you could convince the President that, had it not been for his personal identification with the Air West order by the CAB, I would have extricated myself from that unfortunate involvement 100% by now, instead of finalizing the deal,” he continued, also claiming altruism for the illegal takeover he had just paid Nixon to approve.
“I think you could convince him that our arrival here in Nevada was an event of great good fortune to the state, as evidenced by the fact that Nevada has become a true oasis in the sea of campus disorders, race riots, poverty, etc.,” he added, claiming credit for the tranquility as if it had resulted from his Monopoly game.
“So, Bob, to summarize, I think what I am asking, in relationship to what I feel we have contributed, is God-damned little.
“And, if cost is disturbing the AEC,” he concluded, as final proof of his selflessness, “I feel so intensely about this thing, I will even pay the cost of moving this test to Alaska, out of my own pocket.”
The script had a shameless audacity worthy of Nixon himself, but the president would never hear it delivered. Maheu left Key Biscayne for Washington to mollify his boss, but before going he filed a discouraging report.
“Howard, I have just completed a long conference with Rebozo,” he told Hughes. “It is his humble opinion (and we must remember that he understands the top man, perhaps better than the rest of the world put together) that it would be a very serious mistake in strategy to try and see the President without going through Kissinger first.
“He recommends, therefore, that we make immediate plans for Kissinger to fly to Las Vegas and have a meeting with you in order to afford you the opportunity to convince them that what they are doing is wrong.”
Henry Kissinger was a power second only to Nixon himself. There was no door closed to him anywhere in the world. Except on the ninth floor of the Desert Inn in Las Vegas. Even in his final day of desperation, Hughes would not receive him.
Instead, as the relentless countdown continued, the sleepless recluse pushed frantically to reach Richard Nixon, calling Maheu all night and into the predawn hours with pleas to stave off nuclear devastation.
“Please give me some idea of what you plan to do in a last minute attempt to obtain some kind of a temporary reprieve in order to permit a direct request from me to the President asking for an audience to be granted you,” he scribbled at four A.M. on the morning of the scheduled blast.
“It seems to me that, after 64 years of devotion to this country, I should be entitled to a 10 minute audience before the President.”
At 4:45 A.M., Hughes sent Maheu another message for Nixon.
“I wish you would tell the man that in 64 years as a citizen of this country I have not ever once asked the President to do or not do anything whatsoever,” he wrote, apparently forgetting that just in the last few months he had asked Nixon to scuttle the ABM, submit his cabinet appointments for approval, and move all bomb tests to Alaska.
“I have not even ever sent a message of any kind to any President, except the one plea to Pres. Johnson to stop the other blast here.
“Please say a three day delay will satisfy me, and forget the personal audience. It seems to me that if he grants this and I am satisfied, it would be 3 days well spent. If he will grant the 3 days and his answer is still ‘no’, I will not resist further, and will feel that I have been treated right.”
At 5:15 A.M., in a final appeal, Hughes scrawled numbered points for Maheu to make to Nixon:
“1—Cheap price to pay to satisfy me.
“2—I will be content with the delay, even tho the decision thereafter is still go.
“3—I cannot believe the pres. would be criticized for granting this plea even if it should be established at some later date that the purpose was solely to satisfy one important local citizen and avoid causing him to move elsewhere and destroy all of his extensive plans.
“4—Certainly there can be no real deficit from a few days delay except a small increment of cost which I will gladly bear.”
It was all in vain. None of the desperate pleas Hughes scribbled through the night ever reached Nixon. It is unlikely that the president had any real concept of the billionaire’s terror and outrage, much less that to Hughes the bomb test was the test of their entire relationship.
At 7:30 on the morning of September 16, 1969, the blast went off on schedule. Three distinct shock waves rippled through Las Vegas. The penthouse swayed for a full minute. But the real impact of the explosion would not be felt for years. And then it would shake the entire nation.
Its immediate impact was quite evident as Hughes grabbed his yellow legal pad half an hour later.
“This test produced more ground motion than either of the other two,” he wrote in a hand that still showed the full effect of the blast.
“I want you to contact Nixon-thru-Rebozo and say that I am really disappointed in this matter because I feel I was misled.
“Anyway, Bob, I have had it. I want you to try today, while we are still in the position of having been turned down, to make an all-out effort to get an agreement that they will not test any more megaton, or ‘in name only’ bombs of the same general magnitude.
“If they reject this, I am going to announce publicly my withdrawal from Nevada, and the abandonment of all my future plans here. I am going to state my extreme regret and explain why.”
At the bottom of the page Hughes scrawled, “Rebozo for Nix only.” It was a cryptic warning that the president and his confidant would not comprehend. Not until it was too late.
In the months that followed, Howard Hughes, assured by Maheu that the nuclear nightmare was now over, settled down to the routine business of buying the rest of Las Vegas.
His Monopoly game had been stalled for almost two years, ever since Lyndon Johnson’s attorney general Ramsey Clark blocked the Stardust deal in April 1968, threatening antitrust action. Hughes had tried to run that blockade several times, then relented, waiting for a more friendly administration to take power.
“If we emerge from the forthcoming election with the kind of strength we anticipate,” Hughes had confidently predicted during the 1968 campaign, “there will be no need for a negotiated settlement of this matter.”
Maheu had concurred: “I strongly suggest we call off this caper and take another look at it six months hence—after the elections.”
And, indeed, on January 17, 1969, as Richard Nixon prepared to move into the White House, the Justice Department did allow Hughes to acquire a sixth Las Vegas hotel, the Landmark. But the Landmark was a special case. Hughes was allowed to buy it only to save it from bankruptcy.
Otherwise, the antitrust blockade remained in force.
Now, early in 1970, Hughes prepared to test the new administration. He was eyeing the Dunes Hotel and Casino, a major resort on the Las Vegas Strip.
His own lawyer, Richard Gray, warned him it was a dangerous move. “While the Republican Attorney General might have a different view than his predecessor,” he wrote, “it is my humble opinion that the acquisition of any additional hotel would make us a prime target for antitrust action.”
Hughes decided to take the risk. Maheu had assured him that John Mitchell was an ally who could be reached through Rebozo, and that the new head of the antitrust division, Richard McLaren, was “our #1 choice.”