ECCENTRICS / Rashomon, Starring Howard Hughes

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tapings. Hughes told Irving that none of his associates knew about their meetings or about the book. He warned Irving to be careful that no one Xeroxed the manuscript: if Irving so much as went to the men's room while showing the book to publishers, Hughes said, his hosts would Xerox 200 pages "before he got his fly zipped up." Of his own interviews, Hughes said: "I don't want you to twist any of this—this is Howard Hoghes, warts and all. That's the way I want the world to see him."

Irving says that his last meetings with Hughes took place in an American city late last fall. Hughes' physical condition had been deteriorating steadily over the months, Irving said. At those meetings, Hughes lay in bed, wheezing heavily and frequently waving Irving out of the room. Had Hughes read the manuscript? The weak reply: "As much as I could." That was the morning of Dec. 7, the day that McGraw-Hill announced the book in New York. Hughes signed the typed, finished version of a preface to the book. When Irving sought another meeting four days later, Hughes' intermediary was "in a flap" and said he could not arrange it. Irving never saw Hughes again.

No Fangs a Lot.

Irving's version of how the book was assembled was almost instantly challenged. The McGraw-Hill and LIFE announcement of the book brought a denial of its authenticity from Hughes Tool Co. representatives in California. On Dec. 14, the company's general counsel, Chester Davis, appeared in Time Inc.'s New York offices and put through a telephone call to a man purporting to be Hughes. The man spoke with Frank McCulloch, New York bureau chief for the Time-Life News Service. McCulloch, the last reporter to interview Hughes face-to-face—in 1958—believes that it was Hughes on the telephone. Their conversation was off the record, at Hughes' insistence, but McCulloch said that Hughes denied any knowledge of the book or of Irving. Three weeks later, with McGraw-Hill and LIFE insisting on the manuscript's authenticity, Hughes' public relations counselor, Richard Hannah, arranged an extraordinary "press conference" in a Los Angeles hotel. Seven newspaper, wire-service and television reporters, all selected because they had once known Hughes, sat confronting microphones, cameras and a small telephone-amplifying box, which broadcast what was said to be Hughes' voice. For 2 hrs. the reporters questioned the voice. All of them afterward agreed that the occasionally quavering Texas drawl, the verbal mannerisms and the sometimes rambling descriptions of aviation minutiae could only have come from Hughes. Their judgment was later corroborated by Noah Dietrich, who had worked for Hughes and been his intimate for 32 years before they parted in 1957.

Hughes said that he was speaking from Paradise Island in the Bahamas. Among many other subjects, he discussed a report that he had turned into a troglodytic creature with waist-length beard and eight-inch fingernails. Said Hughes: "Why, hell, how could I write my name if I had fingernails?" Each reporter had prepared test questions to establish Hughes' identity, and Hughes was often vague and uncertain in his answers. Hughes was adamant, however, about the manuscript. "This must go down in history," he said. "I don't remember any script as