(12 of 12)
That at least would prove he exists. For today, Howard Hughes is surrounded by such mystification that some entertain the ultimate theory: he is dead, a phantom evoked and impersonated by a band of conspirators in order to keep his holdings together. If nothing else, this conjecture is an index of how the invisible and difficult man stirs fantasies.
Perhaps, having talked out his life to the brink of print, he has once more been overcome by a sudden affliction of shyness, and he trembles in the gusts of exposure that simply the announcement of the book has sent through his sanctuary. It must be very hard for an authentic mystery to go public, and the spectacle may merit some sympathy. For all his trophies, his scrapbooks, his power, his billions, Howard Hughes, says Clifford Irving —and the judgment has the ring of truth—"is a very vulnerable man."
* Originally, Hughes demanded that no publicity be given the project until 30 days after the final manuscript had been received and approved. But word seeped out that Robert Eaton, a sometime Hollywood novelist and sixth husband of Lana Turner, was about to publish a book on Hughes. In a handwritten, nine-page letter dated Nov. 17, 1971, Hughes told McGraw-Hill Book Co. President Harold McGraw Jr. that he had nothing to do with Eaton's project and that it was now all right to announce Irving's book. A version of Eaton's work on Hughes is being published by the Ladies' Home Journal this week.