A History of Howard

Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2001 | 9:36 a.m.

Pitching a new book about Howard Hughes on NBC's "Today" show earlier this month turned into one of the most dramatic moments in the life of author Richard Hack.

Hack is in Las Vegas today discussing with various media the biography "Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters" (New Millennium Press; $28). Hughes was a Las Vegas resident from 1966-70, living the life of a recluse in a penthouse on the ninth floor of the Desert Inn.

Because of his research and writing of Hughes, the 43-year-old Hack was sought out by the national media. He recalled in a recent telephone interview from his home in Los Angeles the fateful morning he was in front of the television camera with "Today" host Matt Lauer at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. It was about 8:50 a.m. on Sept. 11.

"I have got to interrupt you right now," Lauer said to Hack, and then announced to viewers that there was a breaking story at the World Trade Center, which was almost 50 blocks south of Rockefeller Plaza.

Initially, Hack said, everyone thought a plane had accidentally crashed into one of the center's two towers. As news teams sought more details, Lauer wrapped up his interview with Hack. Motivated by his years as a journalist, Hack took a cab toward the chaotic scene.

He saw the second airplane crash into the second tower.

"I was in the car, probably 10 blocks from the buildings," Hack said. He got out of the taxi and looked at the chaotic scene before him.

A few minutes later the first building collapsed in front of him, but he didn't realize what he was seeing was one of the world's tallest structures imploding.

Because of the thick cloud of dust that shrouded the entire area, Hack thought a building had imploded, but not the World Trade Center.

"The idea that (the World Trade Center) would not be there after the dust settled never entered my mind," Hack said.

Dust rolled over the fleeing crowd.

"The dust cloud coming up the street looked like baby powder," Hack said, "but it was full of glass and steel and pieces of concrete -- like shrapnel."

Hack said everything else seemed irrelevant for a time after terrorists attacked the Trade Center and Pentagon.

All of his interviews with other media outlets were canceled. He was stuck in the city for several days, until airline service was restored between New York and Los Angeles.

Since the tragedy Hack has replayed the morning's events again and again in his mind.

"It was quite inspiring, what I saw," he said. "The courage of all those people, it was amazing -- even the street vendors."

Hack, a former investigative reporter for the Hollywood Reporter, said he was impressed with the journalists who covered the story.

"In less than three minutes, that thing was on TV," Hack said. "It was astounding how they can pull it all together. Buildings were still falling."

The collapsing building left Hack's book tour in shambles, but he is picking up where he left off.

Making book

More than a dozen books have been written about Hughes, the man who often is credited with changing the way Las Vegas does business. Hack wrote a book in 1992 with Las Vegas resident Robert Maheu, Hughes' longtime assistant, titled "Next to Hughes."

Hack's most recent effort may be one of the most thoroughly researched of all the books about Hughes, thanks to court documents created by years of litigation -- by people claiming to be Hughes' heirs and by states trying to determine the billionaire's legal residence.

"Millions of dollars were spent by Nevada, California and Texas to determine his legal residence," Hack said. "During the course of the litigation, over 100,000 pages of documents were subpoenaed."

Hack had access to thousands of memos written in longhand by Hughes, who died in 1976 at age 71.

Many of the people intimately involved with the lawsuits are dead now, among them Noah Dietrich, who ran the Hughes Tool Co. in Houston (the initial source of Hughes' wealth) for more than 30 years.

Hack interviewed Dietrich shortly before the release of 1980 film "Melvin and Howard," which told a true story about a man who claimed to have befriended Hughes and made an heir by the recluse.

"(Dietrich) pitied Hughes," Hack said. "The things Noah told me related to Howard's personality, that some thought quite quirky and eccentric. But in retrospect, (Hughes') actual behavior patterns aren't so extreme anymore. Maybe he was not quite as nuts as everyone thought -- he was just ahead of his time.

"He began to drink bottled water in the '40s, and when people heard that they thought it was weird. Now everyone drinks bottled water. And when people heard Howard Hughes filtered the air he breathed, people thought he was crazy. Air filters now are everywhere."

Vegas ties

Hughes was a frequent visitor to Las Vegas. In 1957 he bought 27,000 acres in the desert west of Las Vegas, where the Howard Hughes Corporation (then called Summa) later built Summerlin.

Hughes accurately predicted the city would have a population of more than a million residents before the end of the century.

Hack recalls that Hughes moved into the Desert Inn and, after being threatened with eviction several months later, bought the facility. Then he bought the Sands, Castaways, New Frontier and Silver Slipper -- all of which are now defunct.

Hack described Hughes as an innovator who developed the first cellular telephone in the 1950s. Hughes also utilized computers before they became so pervasive. He used them to keep track of supplies and to track hotel reservations and cash flow. Hack noted that Hughes also bought CBS television affiliate KLAS from Hank Greenspun, founder of the Sun.

Hughes also bought the North Las Vegas airport, plus 1,300 adjoining acres of land.

Hiding out?

In 1966 Hughes received more than $500 million from the sale of 78 percent of his stock in TWA, according to Hack. And the richer Hughes became, the more reclusive he became.

"When you realize this was a man who, everytime he went out, he was besieged by people," Hack said. "He was hit up for money, for jobs. So when he discovered he could do business over the telephone and not see anybody, he chose to do that.

"(Since he was sealed off from the world) he saw no reason to cut his hair or to make himself presentable." Nor did he see a need to wear clothes when he was alone.

Hughes' behavior was obsessive-compulsive in many cases.

"But quite often (the behavior) was not directed toward himself, but toward others," Hack said. "For example, he insisted people wash their hands a certain amount of times.

"He did it out of fear of catching germs from others. He had sealed himself off, he filtered his air. The only way he could get germs was if they were brought into the room. He was like a boy in a plastic bubble, so he made sure everyone did these things (washed their hands, used tissues when touching things) -- he never did any of it, because he thought he was already clean."

And he was, according to Hack.

"He wasn't sick much in his entire life," he said.

Of course there was the matter of Hughes saving his urine, something that became an obsession in his later years when he was addicted to codeine and began loosing control of his financial empire to unscrupulous aids.

"A lot of it had to do with drugs," Hughes said. "He was not out of his mind. Even in the last weeks of his life his memos were quite cogent and consistent with his policies."

Part of Hughes' personality was that he would become obsessed with whatever intrigued him at the moment and he blocked out everything else.

"You know how it is when you or I focus on something and we look up and 10 hours have gone by," Hack said. "Hughes might look up and three days would have gone by."

During his periods of intense concentration he rarely ate or slept.

"There was no night and day for him," Hack said. "He ate when he was hungry, he slept when he was tired.

"When you look at it like that, it's more like somebody who was dedicated to what he was doing, not somebody who was nuts. He loved what he was doing, he was not miserable. He was quite happy."

The downfall

Hughes' downfall "was brought about by his isolation," Hack said. "That made it impossible for anyone to check on him. The only ones who saw him were those paid to see him, and they were yes men, most of whom would do anything he demanded, no matter how bizarre."

Often, Hack said, Hughes would tell an aide to do something odd just to see if he would perform the task.

"It was a kind of game for him, to tell someone to stand in a corner for four hours," Hack said. "But it turned serious when he became addicted to codeine and was unable to get the supply he needed without bending to the will (of some of his assistants).

"But even at the end, he was not cooperating with them that much. He would tell them to just get out and leave him alone."

When Hughes died he left behind one of the largest fortunes in the world and a list of accomplishments that included owning an airline (TWA), setting flight-speed records, inventions and producing films.

"His legacy," Hack said, "is that someone who never completed high school -- never even completed an entire grade of school because he was taken out of every class he entered -- could educate himself to the point that he could create grand things.

"His legacy is that if you have that instinct to allow your mind to work you can do anything."

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