Main Article RKO Pictures

From the 1940’s to the Late 1950‘s, the Hughes Tool Company ventured into the Film Industry when it obtained Partial Ownership of the RKO Companies, which included RKO Pictures, RKO Studios, A Chain of Movie Theaters known as RKO Theatres and A Network of Radio Stations known as the RKO Radio Network.

In 1948, Hughes gained control of RKO, A Struggling Major Hollywood Studio, by acquiring the 929.000 Shares Owned by Floyd Odlum’s Atlas Corporation, for $ 8.825.000. Within Weeks of Acquiring the sSudio, Hughes dismissed 700 Employees. Production Dwindled to 9 Pictures during the First Year of Hughes’s Control, Previously RKO had Averaged 30 per Year. ^{[6]  :  234 – 237}

Hughes shut down production at the studio for six months, during which time he ordered investigations into the political leanings of every remaining RKO employee. Only after ensuring that the stars under contract to RKO had no suspect affiliations would Hughes approve completed pictures to be sent back for re-shooting. This was especially true of the women under contract to RKO at that time. If Hughes felt that his stars did not properly represent the political views of his liking or if a film’s anti-communist politics were not sufficiently clear, he pulled the plug. In 1952, an abortive sale to a Chicago-based five-man syndicate, two of whom had a history of complaints about their business practices and none with any experience in the movie industry, disrupted studio operations at RKO even further.^[21]

In 1953, Hughes became involved with a high-profile lawsuit as part of the settlement of the United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. Antitrust Case. As a result of the hearings, the shaky status of RKO became increasingly apparent. A steady stream of lawsuits from RKO’s minority shareholders had grown to become extremely annoying to Hughes. They had accused him of financial misconduct and corporate mismanagement. Since Hughes wanted to focus primarily on his aircraft manufacturing and TWA holdings during the years of the Korean War of 1950 to 1953, Hughes offered to buy out all other RKO stockholders in order to dispense with their distractions.

By the end of 1954, Hughes had gained near-total control of RKO at a cost of nearly $24 million, becoming the first sole owner of a major Hollywood studio since the silent-film era. Six months later Hughes sold the studio to the General Tire and Rubber Company for $25 million. Hughes retained the rights to pictures that he had personally produced, including those made at RKO. He also retained Jane Russell’s contract. For Howard Hughes, this was the virtual end of his 25-year involvement in the motion-picture industry. However, his reputation as a financial wizard emerged unscathed. During that time period, RKO became known as the home of classic film noir productions, thanks in part to the limited budgets required to make such films during Hughes’s tenure. Hughes reportedly walked away from RKO having made $6.5 million in personal profit.^[22] According to Noah Dietrich, Hughes made a $10,000,000 profit from the sale of the theaters and made a profit of $1,000,000 from his 7-year ownership of RKO.^{[6]: 272–273}

Real Estate

According to Noah Dietrich, “Land became a principal asset for the Hughes empire”. Hughes acquired 1200 acres in Culver City for Hughes Aircraft, bought 7 sections [4,480 acres] in Tucson for his Falcon missile-plant, and purchased 25,000 acres near Las Vegas.^{[6]: 103, 254} In 1968, the Hughes Tool Company purchased the North Las Vegas Air Terminal.

Originally known as Summa Corporation, the Howard Hughes Corporation formed in 1972 when the oil-tools business of Hughes Tool Company, then owned by Howard Hughes Jr., floated on the New York Stock Exchange under the “Hughes Tool” name. This forced the remaining businesses of the “original” Hughes Tool to adopt a new corporate name: “Summa”. The name “Summa”—Latin for “highest”—was adopted without the approval of Hughes himself, who preferred to keep his own name on the business, and suggested “HRH Properties” (for Hughes Resorts and Hotels, and also his own initials). In 1988 Summa announced plans for Summerlin, a master-planned community named for the paternal grandmother of Howard Hughes, Jean Amelia Summerlin.^{[citation needed]}

Initially staying in the Desert Inn, Hughes refused to vacate his room, and instead decided to purchase the entire hotel. Hughes extended his financial empire to include Las Vegas real estate, hotels, and media outlets, spending an estimated $300 million, and using his considerable powers to acquire many of the well-known hotels, especially the venues connected with organized crime. He quickly became one of the most powerful men in Las Vegas. He was instrumental in changing the image of Las Vegas from its Wild West roots into a more refined cosmopolitan city.^{[citation needed]} In addition to the Desert Inn, Hughes would eventually own the Sands, Frontier, Silver Slipper, Castaways and Landmark and Harold’s Club in Reno. Hughes would eventually^[when?] become the largest employer in Nevada.^{[citation needed]}

Aviation and Aerospace

Another Portion of Hughes’s Commercial Interests Involved Aviation, Airlines, and the Aerospace and Defense Industries. A Life Long Aircraft Enthusiast and Pilot, Hughes Survived Four Airplane Accidents. One in A Thomas Morse Scout while Filming Hell’s Angels, One while Setting the Airspeed Record in the Hughes Racer, One at Lake Mead in 1943, and the Near Fatal Crash of the Hughes XF 11 in 1946. At Rogers Airport in Los Angeles, he Learned to Fly from Pioneer Aviators, Including Moye Stephens and JB Alexander. He Set Many World Records and Commissioned the Construction of Custom Aircraft for Himself while Heading Hughes Aircraft at the Airport in Glendale, CA. Operating from there, the Most Technologically Important Aircraft he Commissioned was the Hughes H 1 Racer. On September 13, 1935, Hughes, Flying the H 1, set the Land Plane Airspeed Record of 352 mph, 566 kmh. over his Test Course near Santa Ana, California. Giuseppe Motta reaching 362 mph in 1929 and George Stainforth reached 407.5 mph in 1931, Both in Sea Planes. This marked the last time in history that an aircraft built by a private individual set the world airspeed record. A year and a half later, on January 19, 1937, flying the same H-1 Racer fitted with longer wings, Hughes set a new transcontinental airspeed record by flying non-stop from Los Angeles to Newark in seven hours, 28 minutes, and 25 seconds (beating his own previous record of nine hours, 27 minutes). His average ground-speed over the flight was 322 mph (518 km/h).^{[23][6]: 69–72, 131–135}

The H-1 Racer featured a number of design innovations: it had retractable landing gear (as Boeing Monomail had five years before), and all rivets and joints set flush into the body of the aircraft to reduce drag. The H-1 Racer is thought^{[by whom?]} to have influenced the design of a number of World War II fighters such as the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, Focke-Wulf Fw 190, and F8F Bearcat,^[24] although that has never been reliably confirmed. In 1975 the H-1 Racer was donated to the Smithsonian.^{[6]: 131–135}

Hughes Aircraft

In 1932 Hughes founded the Hughes Aircraft Company, a division of Hughes Tool Company, in a rented corner of a Lockheed Aircraft Corporation hangar in Burbank, California, to build the H-1 racer.

Shortly after founding the company, Hughes used the alias “Charles Howard” to accept a job as a baggage handler for American Airlines. He was soon promoted to co-pilot. Hughes continued to work for American Airlines until his real identity was discovered.^[25][26][27]

During and after World War II Hughes turned his company into a major defense contractor. The Hughes Helicopters division started in 1947 when helicopter manufacturer Kellett sold their latest design to Hughes for production. Hughes Aircraft became a major U.S. aerospace- and defense contractor, manufacturing numerous technology-related products that included spacecraft vehicles, military aircraft, radar systems, electro-optical systems, the first working laser, aircraft computer systems, missile systems, ion-propulsion engines (for space travel), commercial satellites, and other electronics systems.^{[citation needed]}

In 1948 Hughes created a new division of Hughes Aircraft: the Hughes Aerospace Group. The Hughes Space and Communications Group and the Hughes Space Systems Division were later spun off in 1948 to form their own divisions and ultimately became the Hughes Space and Communications Company in 1961. In 1953 Howard Hughes gave all his stock in the Hughes Aircraft Company to the newly formed Howard Hughes Medical Institute, thereby turning the aerospace and defense contractor into a tax-exempt charitable organization. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute sold Hughes Aircraft in 1985 to General Motors for $5.2 billion. In 1997 General Motors sold Hughes Aircraft to Raytheon and in 2000, sold Hughes Space & Communications to Boeing. A combination of Boeing, GM, and Raytheon acquired the Hughes Research Laboratories, which focused on advanced developments in microelectronics, information & systems sciences, materials, sensors, and photonics; their work-space spans from basic research to product delivery. It has particularly emphasized capabilities in high-performance integrated circuits, high-power lasers, antennas, networking, and smart materials.

Round the World Flight

On July 14, 1938, Hughes set another record by completing a flight around the world in just 91 hours (three days, 19 hours, 17 minutes),^[28] beating the previous record of 186 hours (7 days, 18 hours, 49 minutes) set in 1933 by Wiley Post in a single-engine Lockheed Vega by almost four days. Hughes returned home ahead of photographs of his flight. Taking off from New York City, Hughes continued to Paris, Moscow, Omsk, Yakutsk, Fairbanks, and Minneapolis, then returning to New York City. For this flight he flew a Lockheed 14 Super Electra (NX18973, a twin-engine transport with a crew of four) fitted with the latest radio and navigational equipment. Harry Connor was the co-pilot, Thomas Thurlow the navigator, Richard Stoddart the engineer, and Ed Lund the mechanic. Hughes wanted the flight to be a triumph of U.S. aviation technology, illustrating that safe, long-distance air travel was possible. Albert Lodwick of Mystic, Iowa, provided organizational skills as the flight operations manager.^[29] While Hughes had previously been relatively obscure despite his wealth, better known for dating Katharine Hepburn, New York City now gave him a ticker-tape parade in the Canyon of Heroes.^{[30][6]: 136–139} Hughes and his crew were awarded the 1938 Collier Trophy for flying around the world in record time.^[31][32] He was awarded the Harmon Trophy in 1936^[33] and 1938 for the record-breaking global circumnavigation.^[34]

In 1938 the William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas—known at the time as Houston Municipal Airport—was renamed after Hughes, but the name was changed back due to public outrage over naming the airport after a living person. Hughes also had a role in the financing of the Boeing 307 Stratoliner for TWA, and the design and financing of the Lockheed L-049 Constellation.^[5]

Other aviator awards include: the Bibesco Cup of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in 1938, the Octave Chanute Award in 1940, and a special Congressional Gold Medal in 1939 “in recognition of the achievements of Howard Hughes in advancing the science of aviation and thus bringing great credit to his country throughout the world”.^{[citation needed]}

President Harry S. Truman sent the Congressional medal to Hughes after the F-11 crash. After his around-the-world flight, Hughes had declined to go to the White House to collect it.^[6]: 196

Hughes D 2

Development of the D 2 began around 1937, but Little is known about its Early Gestation because Hughes’ Archives on the Aircraft have Not Been Made Public. Aircraft Historian René Francillon speculates that Hughes designed the Aircraft for Another Circumnavigation Record Attempt, but the Outbreak of World War II closed Much of the World’s Airspace and Made it Difficult to Buy Aircraft Parts without Government Approval, so he Decided to Sell the Aircraft to the US Army instead. In December 1939, Hughes Proposed that the United States Army Air Corps, USAAC, Procure it as A “Pursuit Type Airplane“. ^[35] It emerged as A Two or Three Seat Twin Boom Aircraft Powered by Two Pratt & Whitney R 2800 49 Engines and Constructed Mostly of Duramold, A Type of Molded Plywood. ^[36] The United States Army Air Forces, USAAF, Successor to the USAAC, Struggled to Define A Mission for the D 2, which Lacked Both the Maneuverability of A Fighter and the Payload of A Bomber, and was Highly Skeptical of the Extensive Use of pPywood, However, the Project was Kept Alve by High Level Intervention from General Henry . Arnold. ^[37] The Prototype was Brought to Harper’s Dry Lake in California in Great Secrecy in 1943 and First Flew on June 20 of that Year. ^{[38]  [39]} The Initial Test Flights Revealed Serious Flight Control Problems, so the D 2 Returned to the Hangar for Extensive Changes to its Wings, and Hughes Proposed to Redesignate it as the D 5 . ^[39] However, in November 1944, the Still Incomplete D 2 was Destroyed in A Hangar Fire Reportedly Caused by A lightning strike. ^[40]

Fatal Crash of the Sikorsky S 43

In the spring of 1943 Hughes spent nearly a month in Las Vegas, test-flying his Sikorsky S-43 amphibious aircraft, practicing touch-and-go landings on Lake Mead in preparation for flying the H-4 Hercules. The weather conditions at the lake during the day were ideal and he enjoyed Las Vegas at night. On May 17, 1943, Hughes flew the Sikorsky from California, carrying two Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) aviation inspectors, two of his employees, and actress Ava Gardner. Hughes dropped Gardner off in Las Vegas and proceeded to Lake Mead to conduct qualifying tests in the S-43. The test flight did not go well. The Sikorsky crashed into Lake Mead, killing CAA inspector Ceco Cline and Hughes’s employee Richard Felt. Hughes suffered a severe gash on the top of his head when he hit the upper control panel and had to be rescued by one of the others on board.^[41] Hughes paid divers $100,000 to raise the aircraft and later spent more than $500,000 restoring it.^[42] Hughes sent the plane to Houston, where it remained for many years.^[6]: 186

Hughes XF 11

Main Article Hughes XF 11

The XF 11: The 6.000 Horsepower Plane that Nearly Killed Howard Hughes

Flight Dojo

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CORRECTIONS TO THIS VIDEO

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Clarification

When I make Reference to “Mixing it Up” with Other Allied Aircratf. I mean it as A Hypothetical Contest to Determine which Aircraft Might Maneuver Better My Personal Favorite WWII Aircraft will Always Be the P 38 Lightning. Yes, in the Late War, it may have been Outclassed and A Little Too Large to Really Mix it Up like A Spitfire or a Bf 109, but there’s Just Something about A Good Twin Boom Design that I seem to like. That’s Why whenI Discovered that Howard Hughes had Tried to Build A High Speed, Overpowered, Photo Reconnaissance Plane that could Fly Faster than A P 5. I knew it was Time for A New Video. As Most of you Know, Just about Anyone in the Airplane Manufacturing Business and, Some that should have Probably Stayed Out, was Trying to Get A Piece of that Sweet, Sweet, Uncle Sam Money and Get Orders with Either the Navy or the Air Corps throughout WWII. And, Unsurprisingly, the Story of the XF 11 starts with Howard Hughes Trying to Get A Piece of that Pie.

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Acting on a recommendation of the president’s son, Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, who had become friends with Hughes, in September 1943 General Arnold issued a directive to order 100 of a reconnaissance development of the D-2, known as the F-11 (XF-11 in prototype form).^[43] The project was controversial from the beginning, as the USAAF Air Materiel Command deeply doubted that Hughes Aircraft could fulfill a contract this large, but Arnold pushed the project forward. Materiel Command demanded a host of major design changes notably including the elimination of Duramold; Hughes, who sought $3.9 million in reimbursement for sunk costs from the D-2, strenuously objected because this undercut his argument that the XF-11 was a modified D-2 rather than a new design. Protracted negotiations caused months of delays but ultimately yielded few design concessions.^[44] The war ended before the first XF-11 prototype was completed and the F-11 production contract was canceled. The XF-11 emerged in 1946 as an all-metal, twin-boom, three-seat reconnaissance aircraft, substantially larger than the D-2 and powered by two Pratt & Whitney R-4360-31 engines, each driving a set of contra-rotating propellers.^[44] Only two prototypes were completed; the second one had a conventional single propeller per side.^[45][46]

Near Fatal Crash of the XF 11

Howard Hughes Plane Crash (1946)

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1946 Newsreel (video Wikipedia)

Hughes was almost killed on July 7, 1946, while performing the first flight of the XF-11 near Hughes Airfield at Culver City, California. Hughes extended the test flight well beyond the 45-minute limit decreed by the USAAF, possibly distracted by landing gear retraction problems.^[47] An oil leak caused one of the contra-rotating propellers to reverse pitch, causing the aircraft to yaw sharply and lose altitude rapidly. Hughes attempted to save the aircraft by landing it at the Los Angeles Country Club golf course, but just seconds before reaching the course, the XF-11 started to drop dramatically and crashed in the Beverly Hills neighborhood surrounding the country club.^[48][49]

When the XF-11 finally came to a halt after destroying three houses, the fuel tanks exploded, setting fire to the aircraft and a nearby home at 808 North Whittier Drive owned by Lt Col. Charles E. Meyer.^[50] Hughes managed to pull himself out of the flaming wreckage but lay beside the aircraft until he was rescued by Marine Master Sgt. William L. Durkin, who happened to be in the area visiting friends.^[51] Hughes sustained significant injuries in the crash, including a crushed collar bone, multiple cracked ribs,^[52] crushed chest with collapsed left lung, shifting his heart to the right side of the chest cavity, and numerous third-degree burns.^{[53][54][55][56]} An oft-told story said that Hughes sent a check to the Marine weekly for the remainder of his life as a sign of gratitude. Noah Dietrich asserted that Hughes did send Durkin $200 a month, but Durkin’s daughter denied knowing that he received any money from Hughes.^{[6]: 197 [57]}

Despite his physical injuries, Hughes took pride that his mind was still working. As he lay in his hospital bed, he decided that he did not like the bed’s design. He called in plant engineers to design a customized bed, equipped with hot and cold running water, built in six sections, and operated by 30 electric motors, with push-button adjustments.^[58] Hughes designed the hospital bed specifically to alleviate the pain caused by moving with severe burn injuries. He never used the bed that he designed.^[59] Hughes’s doctors considered his recovery almost miraculous.

Many attribute his long-term dependence on opiates to his use of codeine as a painkiller during his convalescence.^[60] Yet Dietrich asserts that Hughes recovered the “hard way—no sleeping pills, no opiates of any kind”.^[6]: 195 The trademark mustache he wore afterward hid a scar on his upper lip resulting from the accident.^[61]

Hughes H 4 Hercules

The War Production Board (not the military) originally contracted with Henry Kaiser and Hughes to produce the gigantic HK-1 Hercules flying boat for use during World War II to transport troops and equipment across the Atlantic as an alternative to seagoing troop transport ships that were vulnerable to German U-boats. The military services opposed the project, thinking it would siphon resources from higher-priority programs, but Hughes’s powerful allies in Washington, D.C. advocated for it. After disputes, Kaiser withdrew from the project and Hughes elected to continue it as the H-4 Hercules. However, the aircraft was not completed until after the end of World War II.^[62][63]

The Hercules was the world’s largest flying boat, the largest aircraft made from wood,^[64] and, at 319 feet 11 inches (97.51 m), had the longest wingspan of any aircraft (the next-largest wingspan was about 310 ft (94 m)). (The Hercules is no longer the longest nor heaviest aircraft ever built – surpassed by the Antonov An-225 Mriya produced in 1985.)

The Hercules flew only once for one mile (1.6 km), and 70 feet (21 m) above the water, with Hughes at the controls, on November 2, 1947.^{[65][6]: 209–210}

Critics nicknamed the Hercules the Spruce Goose, but it was actually made largely from birch (not spruce) rather than from aluminum, because the contract required that Hughes build the aircraft of “non-strategic materials“. It was built in Hughes’s Westchester, California, facility. In 1947, Howard Hughes was summoned to testify before the Senate War Investigating Committee to explain why the H-4 development had been so troubled, and why $22 million had produced only two prototypes of the XF-11. General Elliott Roosevelt and numerous other USAAF officers were also called to testify in hearings that transfixed the nation during August and November 1947.^{[citation needed]} In hotly-disputed testimony over TWA’s route awards and malfeasance in the defense-acquisition process, Hughes turned the tables on his main interlocutor, Maine Senator Owen Brewster, and the hearings were widely interpreted^{[by whom?]} as a Hughes victory. After being displayed at the harbor of Long Beach, California, the Hercules was moved to McMinnville, Oregon, where as of 2020 it features at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum.^{[66][6]: 198–208}

On November 4, 2017, the 70th anniversary of the only flight of the H-4 Hercules was celebrated at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum with Hughes’s paternal cousin Michael Wesley Summerlin and Brian Palmer Evans, son of Hughes radio technology pioneer Dave Evans, taking their positions in the recreation of a photo that was previously taken of Hughes, Dave Evans and Joe Petrali on board the H-4 Hercules.^[67]

Airlines

In 1939, at the urging of Jack Frye, president of Transcontinental & Western Airlines, the predecessor of Trans World Airlines (TWA), Hughes began to quietly purchase a majority share of TWA stock (78% of stock, to be exact); he took a controlling interest in the airline by 1944.^[68] Although he never had an official position with TWA, Hughes handpicked the board of directors, which included Noah Dietrich, and often issued orders directly to airline staff.^[68][69] Hughes Tool Co. purchased the first six Stratoliners Boeing manufactured. Hughes used one personally, and he let TWA operate the other five.^{[6]: 11, 145–148}

Hughes is commonly credited as the driving force behind the Lockheed Constellation airliner, which Hughes and Frye ordered in 1939 as a long-range replacement for TWA’s fleet of Boeing 307 Stratoliners. Hughes personally financed TWA’s acquisition of 40 Constellations for $18 million, the largest aircraft order in history up to that time. The Constellations were among the highest-performing commercial aircraft of the late 1940s and 1950s and allowed TWA to pioneer nonstop transcontinental service.^[70] During World War II Hughes leveraged political connections in Washington to obtain rights for TWA to serve Europe, making it the only U.S. carrier with a combination of domestic and transatlantic routes.^[68]

After the announcement of the Boeing 707, Hughes opted to pursue a more advanced jet aircraft for TWA and approached Convair in late 1954. Convair proposed two concepts to Hughes, but Hughes was unable to decide which concept to adopt, and Convair eventually abandoned its initial jet project after the mockups of the 707 and Douglas DC-8 were unveiled.^[71] Even after competitors such as United Airlines, American Airlines and Pan American World Airways had placed large orders for the 707, Hughes only placed eight orders for 707s through the Hughes Tool Company and forbade TWA from using the aircraft.^[69] After finally beginning to reserve 707 orders in 1956, Hughes embarked on a plan to build his own “superior” jet aircraft for TWA, applied for CAB permission to sell Hughes aircraft to TWA, and began negotiations with the state of Florida to build a manufacturing plant there. However, he abandoned this plan around 1958, and in the interim, negotiated new contracts for 707 and Convair 880 aircraft and engines totaling $400 million.^[72]

The financing of TWA’s jet orders precipitated the end of Hughes’s relationship with Noah Dietrich, and ultimately Hughes’s ouster from control of TWA. Hughes did not have enough cash on hand or future cash flow to pay for the orders and did not immediately seek bank financing. Hughes’s refusal to heed Dietrich’s financing advice led to a major rift between the two by the end of 1956. Hughes believed that Dietrich wished to have Hughes committed as mentally incompetent, although the evidence of this is inconclusive. Dietrich resigned by telephone in May 1957 after repeated requests for stock options, which Hughes refused to grant, and with no further progress on the jet financing.^[73] As Hughes’s mental state worsened, he ordered various tactics to delay payments to Boeing and Convair; his behavior led TWA’s banks to insist that he be removed from management as a condition for further financing.^[69]

In 1960, Hughes was ultimately forced out of the management of TWA, although he continued to own 78% of the company. In 1961, TWA filed suit against Hughes Tool Company, claiming that the latter had violated antitrust law by using TWA as a captive market for aircraft trading. The claim was largely dependent upon obtaining testimony from Hughes himself. Hughes went into hiding and refused to testify. A default judgment was issued against Hughes Tool Company for $135 million in 1963 but was overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1973, on the basis that Hughes was immune from prosecution.^[74] In 1966, Hughes was forced to sell his TWA shares. The sale of his TWA shares brought Hughes $546,549,771.^{[6]: 299–300}

Hughes acquired control of Boston-based Northeast Airlines in 1962. However, the airline’s lucrative route authority between major northeastern cities and Miami was terminated by a CAB decision around the time of the acquisition, and Hughes sold control of the company to a trustee in 1964. Northeast went on to merge with Delta Air Lines in 1972.^[75]

In 1970, Hughes acquired San Francisco based Air West and renamed it Hughes Airwest. Air West had been formed in 1968 by the merger of Bonanza Air Lines, Pacific Air Lines, and West Coast Airlines, all of which operated in the western U.S. By the late 1970s, Hughes Airwest operated an all-jet fleet of Boeing 727-200, Douglas DC-9-10, and McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30 jetliners serving an extensive route network in the western U.S. with flights to Mexico and western Canada as well.^[76] By 1980, the airline’s route system reached as far east as Houston (Hobby Airport) and Milwaukee with a total of 42 destinations being served.^[76] Hughes Airwest was then acquired by and merged into Republic Airlines (1979–1986) in late 1980. Republic was subsequently acquired by and merged into Northwest Airlines which in turn was ultimately merged into Delta Air Lines in 2008.

Business with David Charnay

Hughes had made numerous business partnerships through industrialist and producer David Charnay.^[77][78] Their friendship and many partnerships began with the film The Conqueror, which was first released to the public in 1956.^[79][80] The film caused many controversies due to its critical flop and radioactive location used in St. George, Utah, that eventually led to Hughes buying up nearly every copy of the film he could, only to watch the film at home repeatedly for many nights in a row.^{[citation needed]}

Charnay later bought Four Star, the film and television production company that produced The Conqueror.^[81][82]

Hughes and Charnay’s most published dealings were with a contested AirWest leveraged buyout. Charnay led the buyout group that involved Howard Hughes and their partners acquiring Air West. Hughes, Charnay, as well as three others, were indicted.^{[83][84][85][86]} The indictment, made by U.S. Attorney DeVoe Heaton, accused the group of conspiring to drive down the stock price of Air West in order to pressure company directors to sell to Hughes.^[87][83] The charges were dismissed after a judge had determined that the indictment had failed to allege an illegal action on the part of Hughes, Charnay, and all the other accused in the indictment. Thompson, the federal judge that made the decision to dismiss the charges called the indictment one of the worst claims that he had ever seen. The charges were filed again, a second time, by U.S. Attorney DeVoe Heaton’s assistant, Dean Vernon. The Federal Judge ruled on November 13, 1974, and elaborated to say that the case suggested a “reprehensible misuse of the power of great wealth”, but in his judicial opinion, “no crime had been committed.”^[88][89][90] The aftermath of the Air West deal was later settled with the SEC by paying former stockholders for alleged losses from the sale of their investment in Air West stock.^[91] As noted above, Air West was subsequently renamed Hughes Airwest. During a long pause between the years of the dismissed charges against Hughes, Charnay, and their partners, Howard Hughes mysteriously died mid-flight while on the way to Houston from Acapulco. No further attempts were made to file any indictments after Hughes died.^[92][93][94]

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

In 1953, Hughes launched the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Miami, Florida, (currently located in Chevy Chase, Maryland) with the expressed goal of basic biomedical research, including trying to understand, in Hughes’s words, the “genesis of life itself”, due to his lifelong interest in science and technology. Hughes’s first will, which he signed in 1925 at the age of 19, stipulated that a portion of his estate should be used to create a medical institute bearing his name.^[95] When a major battle with the IRS loomed ahead, Hughes gave all his stock in the Hughes Aircraft Company to the institute, thereby turning the aerospace and defense contractor into a for-profit entity of a fully tax-exempt charity. Hughes’s internist, Verne Mason, who treated Hughes after his 1946 aircraft crash, was chairman of the institute’s medical advisory committee.^[96] The Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s new board of trustees sold Hughes Aircraft in 1985 to General Motors for $5.2 billion, allowing the institute to grow dramatically.

In 1954, Hughes transferred Hughes Aircraft to the foundation, which paid Hughes Tool Co. $18,000,000 for the assets. The foundation leased the land from Hughes Tool Co., which then subleased it to Hughes Aircraft Corp. The difference in rent, $2,000,000 per year, became the foundation’s working capital.^[6]: 268

The deal was the topic of a protracted legal battle between Hughes and the Internal Revenue Service, which Hughes ultimately won. After his death in 1976, many thought that the balance of Hughes’s estate would go to the institute, although it was ultimately divided among his cousins and other heirs, given the lack of a will to the contrary. The HHMI was the fourth largest private organization as of 2007 and one of the largest devoted to biological and medical research, with an endowment of $20.4 billion as of June 2018.^[97]

Glomar Explorer and the Taking of K 129

In 1972, during the cold war era, Hughes was approached by the CIA through his longtime partner, David Charnay, to help secretly recover the Soviet submarine K-129, which had sunk near Hawaii four years earlier.^[98] Hughes’s involvement provided the CIA with a plausible cover story, conducting expensive civilian marine research at extreme depths and the mining of undersea manganese nodules. The recovery plan used the special-purpose salvage vessel Glomar Explorer. In the summer of 1974, Glomar Explorer attempted to raise the Soviet vessel.^[99][100] However, during the recovery a mechanical failure in the ship’s grapple caused half of the submarine to break off and fall to the ocean floor. This section is believed to have held many of the most sought-after items, including its code book and nuclear missiles. Two nuclear-tipped torpedoes and some cryptographic machines were recovered, along with the bodies of six Soviet submariners who were subsequently given formal burial at sea in a filmed ceremony. The operation, known as Project Azorian (but incorrectly referred to by the press as Project Jennifer), became public in February 1975 after secret documents were released, obtained by burglars of Hughes’s headquarters in June 1974.^[101] Although he lent his name and his company’s resources to the operation, Hughes and his companies had no operational involvement in the project. The Glomar Explorer was eventually acquired by Transocean and was sent to the scrap yard in 2015 during a large decline in oil prices.^[102]

Personal Life

Early Romances

In 1929, Hughes’s wife of four years, Ella, returned to Houston and filed for divorce.

Hughes dated many famous women, including Joan Crawford, Debra Paget, Billie Dove, Faith Domergue, Bette Davis, Yvonne De Carlo, Ava Gardner, Olivia de Havilland, Katharine Hepburn,^[103] Hedy Lamarr, Ginger Rogers, Janet Leigh, Pat Sheehan,^[104] Mamie Van Doren and Gene Tierney. He also proposed to Joan Fontaine several times, according to her autobiography No Bed of Roses. Jean Harlow accompanied him to the premiere of Hell’s Angels, but Noah Dietrich wrote many years later that the relationship was strictly professional, as Hughes disliked Harlow personally. In his 1971 book, Howard: The Amazing Mr. Hughes, Dietrich said that Hughes genuinely liked and respected Jane Russell, but never sought romantic involvement with her. According to Russell’s autobiography, however, Hughes once tried to bed her after a party. Russell (who was married at the time) refused him, and Hughes promised it would never happen again. The two maintained a professional and private friendship for many years. Hughes remained good friends with Tierney who, after his failed attempts to seduce her, was quoted as saying “I don’t think Howard could love anything that did not have a motor in it”. Later, when Tierney’s daughter Daria was born deaf and blind and with a severe learning disability because of Tierney’s exposure to rubella during her pregnancy, Hughes saw to it that Daria received the best medical care and paid all expenses.^[105]

Luxury Yacht

In 1933, Hughes made a purchase of a luxury steam yacht named the Rover, which was previously owned by Scottish shipping magnate Lord Inchcape. “I have never seen the Rover but bought it on the blueprints, photographs and the reports of Lloyd’s surveyors. My experience is that the English are the most honest race in the world.”^[106] Hughes renamed the yacht Southern Cross and later sold her to Swedish entrepreneur Axel Wenner-Gren.^[107]

1936 Automobile Accident

On July 11, 1936, Hughes struck and killed a pedestrian named Gabriel S. Meyer with his car at the corner of 3rd Street and Lorraine in Los Angeles.^[108] After the crash, Hughes was taken to the hospital and certified as sober, but an attending doctor made a note that Hughes had been drinking. A witness to the crash told police that Hughes was driving erratically and too fast and that Meyer had been standing in the safety zone of a streetcar stop. Hughes was booked on suspicion of negligent homicide and held overnight in jail until his attorney, Neil S. McCarthy, obtained a writ of habeas corpus for his release pending a coroner’s inquest.^[109][110] By the time of the coroner’s inquiry, however, the witness had changed his story and claimed that Meyer had moved directly in front of Hughes’s car. Nancy Bayly (Watts), who was in the car with Hughes at the time of the crash, corroborated this version of the story. On July 16, 1936, Hughes was held blameless by a coroner’s jury at the inquest into Meyer’s death.^[111] Hughes told reporters outside the inquiry, “I was driving slowly and a man stepped out of the darkness in front of me”.

Marriage to Jean Peters

On January 12, 1957, Hughes married actress Jean Peters at a small hotel in Tonopah, Nevada.^[112][113] The couple met in the 1940s, before Peters became a film actress.^[114] They had a highly publicized romance in 1947 and there was talk of marriage, but she said she could not combine it with her career.^[115] Some later claimed that Peters was “the only woman [Hughes] ever loved”,^[116] and he reportedly had his security officers follow her everywhere even when they were not in a relationship. Such reports were confirmed by actor Max Showalter, who became a close friend of Peters while shooting Niagara (1953).^[117] Showalter told an interviewer that because he frequently met with Peters, Hughes’s men threatened to ruin his career if he did not leave her alone.^[117]

Connections to Richard Nixon and Watergate

Shortly before the 1960 Presidential election, Richard Nixon was alarmed when it was revealed that his brother, Donald, received a $205,000 loan from Hughes. It has long been speculated^[118] that Nixon’s drive to learn what the Democrats were planning in 1972 was based in part on his belief that the Democrats knew about a later bribe that his friend Bebe Rebozo had received from Hughes after Nixon took office.^[119]

In late 1971, Donald Nixon was collecting intelligence for his brother in preparation for the upcoming presidential election. One of his sources was John H. Meier, a former business adviser of Hughes who had also worked with Democratic National Committee Chairman Larry O’Brien.^[120]

Meier, in collaboration with former Vice President Hubert Humphrey and others, wanted to feed misinformation to the Nixon campaign. Meier told Donald that he was sure the Democrats would win the election because Larry O’Brien had a great deal of information on Richard Nixon’s illicit dealings with Howard Hughes that had never been released;^[121][122] O’Brien did not actually have any such information, but Meier wanted Nixon to think that he did. Donald told his brother that O’Brien was in possession of damaging Hughes information that could destroy his campaign.^[123] Terry Lenzner, who was the chief investigator for the Senate Watergate Committee, speculates that it was Nixon’s desire to know what O’Brien knew about Nixon’s dealings with Hughes that may have partially motivated the Watergate break-in.^[124]

Last Years

Physical and Mental Decline

Hughes was widely considered eccentric^[125] and suffered from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).^[126][127]

Dietrich wrote that Hughes always ate the same thing for dinner; a New York strip steak cooked medium rare, dinner salad, and peas, but only the smaller ones, pushing the larger ones aside. For breakfast, he wanted his eggs cooked the way his family cook, Lily, made them. Hughes had a “phobia about germs”, and “his passion for secrecy became a mania.”^{[6]: 58–62, 182–183}

While directing The Outlaw, Hughes became fixated on a small flaw in one of Jane Russell’s blouses, claiming that the fabric bunched up along a seam and gave the appearance of two nipples on each breast. He wrote a detailed memorandum to the crew on how to fix the problem. Richard Fleischer, who directed His Kind of Woman with Hughes as executive producer, wrote at length in his autobiography about the difficulty of dealing with the tycoon. In his book Just Tell Me When to Cry, Fleischer explained that Hughes was fixated on trivial details and was alternately indecisive and obstinate. He also revealed that Hughes’s unpredictable mood swings made him wonder if the film would ever be completed.

In 1958, Hughes told his aides that he wanted to screen some movies at a film studio near his home. He stayed in the studio’s darkened screening room for more than four months, never leaving. He ate only chocolate bars and chicken and drank only milk, and was surrounded by dozens of boxes of Kleenex that he continuously stacked and re-arranged.^[128] He wrote detailed memos to his aides giving them explicit instructions neither to look at him nor speak to him unless spoken to. Throughout this period, Hughes sat fixated in his chair, often naked, continuously watching movies. When he finally emerged in the summer of 1958, his hygiene was terrible. He had neither bathed nor cut his hair and nails for weeks; this may have been due to allodynia, which results in a pain response to stimuli that would normally not cause pain.^[60]

After the screening room incident, Hughes moved into a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel where he also rented rooms for his aides, his wife, and numerous girlfriends. He would sit naked in his bedroom with a pink hotel napkin placed over his genitals, watching movies. This may have been because Hughes found the touch of clothing painful due to allodynia. He may have watched movies to distract himself from his pain—a common practice among patients with intractable pain, especially those who do not receive adequate treatment.^[60] In one year, he spent an estimated $11 million at the hotel.

Hughes began purchasing restaurant chains and four-star hotels that had been founded within the state of Texas. This included, if for only a short period, many unknown franchises currently out of business. He placed ownership of the restaurants with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and all licenses were resold shortly after.^{[citation needed]}

Another time, he became obsessed with the 1968 film Ice Station Zebra, and had it run on a continuous loop in his home. According to his aides, he watched it 150 times.^[129][130] Feeling guilty about the failure of his film The Conqueror, a commercial and critical flop, he bought every copy of the film for $12 million, watching the film on repeat. Paramount Pictures acquired the rights of the film in 1979, three years after his death.^[131]

Hughes insisted on using tissues to pick up objects to insulate himself from germs. He would also notice dust, stains, or other imperfections on people’s clothes and demand that they take care of them. Once one of the most visible men in America, Hughes ultimately vanished from public view, although tabloids continued to follow rumors of his behavior and whereabouts. He was reported to be terminally ill, mentally unstable, or even dead.^[132]

Injuries from numerous aircraft crashes caused Hughes to spend much of his later life in pain, and he eventually became addicted to codeine, which he injected intramuscularly.^[60] He had his hair cut and nails trimmed only once a year, likely due to the pain caused by the RSD/CRPS, which was caused by the plane crashes.^[60] He also stored his urine in bottles.^[133][134]

Later Years in Las Vegas

The wealthy and aging Hughes, accompanied by his entourage of personal aides, began moving from one hotel to another, always taking up residence in the top floor penthouse. In the last ten years of his life, 1966 to 1976, Hughes lived in hotels in many cities—including Beverly Hills, Boston, Las Vegas, Nassau, Freeport^[135] and Vancouver.^[136]

On November 24, 1966 (Thanksgiving Day),^[137] Hughes arrived in Las Vegas by railroad car and moved into the Desert Inn. Because he refused to leave the hotel and to avoid further conflicts with the owners, Hughes bought the Desert Inn in early 1967. The hotel’s eighth floor became the center of Hughes’ empire and the ninth-floor penthouse became his personal residence. Between 1966 and 1968, he bought several other hotel-casinos, including the Castaways, New Frontier, the Landmark Hotel and Casino, and the Sands.^[138] He bought the small Silver Slipper casino for the sole purpose of moving its trademark neon silver slipper which was visible from his bedroom, and had apparently kept him awake at night.^{[citation needed]} After Hughes left the Desert Inn, hotel employees discovered that his drapes had not been opened during the time he lived there and had rotted through.^[139]

Hughes wanted to change the image of Las Vegas to something more glamorous. He wrote in a memo to an aide, “I like to think of Las Vegas in terms of a well-dressed man in a dinner jacket and a beautifully jeweled and furred female getting out of an expensive car.”^{[citation needed]} Hughes bought several local television stations (including KLAS-TV).^{[citation needed]}

Eventually, the brain trauma from Hughes’s previous accidents, the effects of neurosyphilis diagnosed in 1932^[140] and undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder^[141] considerably affected his decision-making. A small panel, unofficially dubbed the “Mormon Mafia” for the many Latter-day Saints on the committee, was led by Frank William Gay and originally served Hughes’s “secret police” headquartered at 7000 Romaine. Over the next two decades, however, this group oversaw and controlled considerable business holdings,^[142][143] with the CIA anointing Gay while awarding a contract to the Hughes corporation to acquire sensitive information on a sunken Russian submarine.^[144][145] In addition to supervising day-to-day business operations and Hughes’s health, they also went to great pains to satisfy Hughes’s every whim. For example, Hughes once became fond of Baskin-Robbins’s banana nut ice cream, so his aides sought to secure a bulk shipment for him, only to discover that Baskin-Robbins had discontinued the flavor. They put in a request for the smallest amount the company could provide for a special order, 350 gallons (1,300 L), and had it shipped from Los Angeles. A few days after the order arrived, Hughes announced he was tired of banana nut and wanted only French vanilla ice cream. The Desert Inn ended up distributing free banana nut ice cream to casino customers for a year.^[146] In a 1996 interview, ex–Howard Hughes Chief of Nevada Operations Robert Maheu said, “There is a rumor that there is still some banana nut ice cream left in the freezer. It is most likely true.”^{[citation needed]}

As an owner of several major Las Vegas businesses, Hughes wielded much political and economic influence in Nevada and elsewhere. During the 1960s and early 1970s, he disapproved of underground nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site. Hughes was concerned about the risk from residual nuclear radiation and attempted to halt the tests. When the tests finally went through despite Hughes’s efforts, the detonations were powerful enough that the entire hotel in which he was living trembled from the shock waves.^[147] In two separate, last-ditch maneuvers, Hughes instructed his representatives to offer bribes of $1m to both Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon.^[148]

In 1970, Jean Peters filed for divorce. The two had not lived together for many years. Peters requested a lifetime alimony payment of $70,000 a year, adjusted for inflation, and waived all claims to Hughes’s estate. Hughes offered her a settlement of over a million dollars, but she declined it. Hughes did not insist on a confidentiality agreement from Peters as a condition of the divorce. Aides reported that Hughes never spoke ill of her. She refused to discuss her life with Hughes and declined several lucrative offers from publishers and biographers. Peters would state only that she had not seen Hughes for several years before their divorce and had dealt with him only by phone.^{[citation needed]}

Hughes was living in the Intercontinental Hotel near Lake Managua in Nicaragua, seeking privacy and security,^[149] when a magnitude 6.5 earthquake damaged Managua in December 1972. As a precaution, Hughes moved to a large tent facing the hotel; after a few days, he moved to the Nicaraguan National Palace and stayed there as a guest of Anastasio Somoza Debayle before leaving for Florida on a private jet the following day.^[150] He subsequently moved into the penthouse at the Xanadu Princess Resort on Grand Bahama Island, which he had recently purchased. He lived almost exclusively in the penthouse of the Xanadu Beach Resort & Marina for the last four years of his life.^{[citation needed]} Hughes spent a total of $300 million on his many properties in Las Vegas.^[137]

Auto Biography Hoax

In 1972, author Clifford Irving caused a media sensation when he claimed he had co-written an authorized Hughes autobiography. Irving claimed he and Hughes had corresponded through the United States mail, and offered as proof handwritten notes allegedly sent by Hughes. Publisher McGraw-Hill, Inc. was duped into believing the manuscript was authentic. Hughes was so reclusive that he did not immediately publicly refute Irving’s statement, leading many to believe that Irving’s book was genuine. However, before the book’s publication, Hughes finally denounced Irving in a teleconference attended by reporters Hughes knew personally: James Bacon of the Hearst papers, Marin Miles of the Los Angeles Times, Vernon Scott of UPI, Roy Neal of NBC News, Gene Handsaker of AP, Wayne Thomas of the Chicago Tribune, and Gladwin Hill of the New York Times.^[151]

The entire hoax finally unraveled.^[152] The United States Postal Inspection Service got a subpoena to force Irving to turn over samples of his handwriting. The USPS investigation led to Irving’s indictment and subsequent conviction for using the postal service to commit fraud. He was incarcerated for 17 months.^[153] In 1974, the Orson Welles film F for Fake included a section on the Hughes autobiography hoax, leaving a question open as to whether it was actually Hughes who took part in the teleconference (since so few people had actually heard or seen him in recent years). In 1977, The Hoax by Clifford Irving was published in the United Kingdom, telling his story of these events. The 2006 film The Hoax, starring Richard Gere, is also based on these events.^[154]

Death