Once again Hughes grabbed a yellow legal pad and, in one last futile gesture, scrawled a threat to leave the country, taking all his assets with him.
“Bob,” he wrote, “I dont know where to begin.
“You said the president couldnt care less whether I remain in Nevada.
“This may well be true in the literal sense.
“However, bear in mind that, if I pull up stakes here, I am not going to some neighboring state.
“I am going to move the largest part of all of my activities to some location which will not be in the U.S.
“The president already has the young, the black, and the poor against him. Maybe he will be indifferent if the richest man in the country also finds the situation in the U.S. un-livable, and because of the country’s intense preoccupation with the military.
“I know one thing:
“There is at present a violent feeling in this country against all the experimental activities of the military….
“So, I just don’t know how the public would react to a frank statement by the wealthiest man in the U.S. that he, also, considered he was being elbowed aside by the military.
“I know one thing: It would, or, at least, it could be a hell of a newspaper story.”
Before the year was out, Hughes would make good on his threat. He would leave the United States forever. And his departure would set in motion a chain of events that would, indeed, become a hell of a newspaper story. One that came under the headline “WATERGATE.”
Richard Nixon, in bombing Howard Hughes, had unwittingly brought about his own destruction as surely as if the White House had been ground zero.
13
Exodus
This was not just another move. It was going to be, it had to be, the Great Escape.
Alone in his darkened bedroom, Howard Hughes plotted each step as if he were about to break out of the most tightly guarded cellblock on Alcatraz rather than his own penthouse at the Desert Inn.
Once more he reread the “Exit Plan.”
“The exit plan is to divert the penthouse security guard, enter the elevator and, by using a key, proceed non-stop to the first floor,” his Mormons had written, refining days of tense scheming to a one-page master plan.
“At a signal from us about 20–30 min. before leaving this floor, Hooper’s men will place a screen across the path that leads from the elevators to the front desk-casino area. We make a left-hand turn and proceed to the side door of the building.”
So far so good. Out of his cell, past the guard, down the elevator, and out the door before anybody suspected a thing. Now for the big getaway.
“We then pass through the side door, walk 50 feet or so towards the west and a limousine or conveyance will be waiting for us there,” the Exit Plan continued. “This is the point at which we have little control over people who are walking from hotel to hotel or are walking from the parking lot to the hotel or from people just windowshopping in front of this building.”
Wait. What was this? Suddenly exposed to the outside world, for fifty unpredictable feet, with “little control.” All the warning signs started to flash as Hughes pictured himself caught in the Yard, frozen in the searchlight, halfway between the Big House and the Wall.
“We should enter the car at 11:30 PM,” he read on, finishing the escape plan, but already certain it was dangerously flawed. “Hooper’s Cadillac could be used, as it is less conspicuous than a limousine. However, you will have to enter any car without the use of the stretcher.”
Without the stretcher? This entire harebrained scheme would have to be scrapped. Howard Hughes was determined to leave Las Vegas the same way he arrived: unseen and carried on a stretcher.
There would be other plans, urgent plans day-by-day as Hughes continued feverishly to plot his escape, never letting up until he finally did sneak out of town—more than a year later.
It all began in September 1969.
The Utopian dream that had brought Hughes to Las Vegas was crumbling, the dream that he could remake Nevada, indeed America, to his own perfect vision. It had been crumbling for years. Now the first Nixon bomb blast exploded it completely. His kingdom was no longer even safe.
“Bob,” wrote Hughes in the grip of nuclear terror, “my future plans are in a state of complete chaos, as a result of what is happening.
“I have things I want you to do in both New York and Washington, and thereafter, unless something surprising occurs, I will want you to come here to Las Vegas to supervise a massive sale of practically all of my Nevada assets.”
It was time to go, and take all his assets with him. Whether he should also take Maheu was a whole other question.
“I am sorry you dont apparently view this matter as the total defeat I consider it to be,” Hughes continued, blaming Maheu for allowing the bombing.
“As far as I am concerned, the AEC and the bomb test program has been the #1 item on our list of projects. It has stood at the very top of the list ever since our arrival.
“AEC—number one
“Pollution of the lake—number two.
“That is why I am at a loss to understand why you seem to view this situation with such coolness.
“Anyway, unless something unforeseen happens, there will be much to do.”
Hughes had come to Nevada to create a world he could control completely. That was his vision of paradise—a world free of contamination and competition, a world where he would not only rule, but which he would not even have to share. A world where only he existed.
“Ever since our arrival, I have felt certain uneasy foreboding qualms about the future,” he explained, revealing a deep dissatisfaction with Nevada that went far beyond the bomb. “These qualms have centered around the AEC, the water situation, and lately a mass of miscellaneous problems which mainly seem to be the product of sharing the state with a number of other people.
“In other words, the unions, the minorities, the threat of overabundant competition…” The list just went on and on.
It was time to escape from the complications, the contamination, the competition, to flee Nevada, to find a new Eden.
“I am prepared to invest almost every cent I can scrape together in the development of an entire new community and way of life in some location where some of the restraints, incumbrances, and competition of this area are not present.
“I want to make this new development the last and, I hope, most important project of my life.”
Having failed to buy the government of the United States—what better proof of that than the Nixon bombing—Hughes was determined to achieve “Empire Status” elsewhere, to leave the country and make some other nation a “captive entity.”
Hughes gazed at the globe, surveyed the imperfect world for a safe haven, for some unfallen paradise. First he ruled out the entire continental United States and all of Europe.
Next he turned his gaze south of the border, taking Maheu on a tour of prospective paradises.
“I cannot think of any location worthy of consideration except Mexico and the Bahamas,” wrote Hughes imperiously. “Of course, Onassis had the really ideal set up with Monaco. However, I prefer a location close enough to the U.S. so that the U.S. would never permit any hostile intervention by outsiders. I feel both Mexico and the Bahamas qualify in this respect.
“So, lets, for the moment, compare those two. Which government do you think would be the most reliable and lasting?
“It seems to me that the Bahamian situation is very unpredictable due to the recent change in the complexion of the government,” he continued, his racist fears aroused by the blacks’ ouster of minority white rule there.