THE CONGRESS: Duel under the Klieg Lights

More than 1,200 sweating spectators had squeezed into the humid, marble-walled caucus room of the Senate Office Building. Before them klieg lights glared; six movie cameras were trained on one vacant chair. Michigan's Senator Homer Ferguson, a man with a reputation as a prosecutor, stood behind a little forest of microphones and an underbrush of wires, and kept his eyes trained on the main door.

Howard Hughes, the Hollywood playboy and planemaker, about whom the public had heard very much but actually knew very little, was late for his date with the...

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