(6 of 11)
When the CIA conceived the plan to raise a sunken Soviet submarine from the Pacific seabed, the agency turned to Hughes for cover. Summa organized the construction of the Glomar Explorer, under the guise of an oceanic mining and exploration ship. Its real mission remains the subject of suspicion. Despite Government denials, there is speculation that the ship may have been performing different duties—like implanting a weapons systern on the ocean floor. Last week the Government sought to dispel those suspicions by allowing newsmen to visit the huge barge that accompanied the Glomar Explorer on the mission. The craft looked harmless, but it was not large enough to accommodate a retrieved Soviet submarine, as the CIA at first asserted.
In any event, some U.S. intelligence experts will miss Hughes.
On learning of his death, James J. Angleton, the former CIA chief of counterintelligence, became misty-eyed. Said he: "Howard Hughes! Where his country's interests were concerned, no man knew his target better. We were fortunate to have him."
Hughes was fortunate too. Under both the Johnson and Nixon Administrations, he received kid-glove treatment. Not until 1971 did the IRS subject the Hughes holdings to an overall audit; the results of that audit have been kept secret. The Hughes Medical Institute has continued to enjoy tax-exempt status though its small volume of contributions does not meet IRS regulations for tax exemption. When Hughes in 1970 was faced with an antitrust complaint for attempting to buy another hotel in Las Vegas, former Attorney General John Mitchell personally intervened on his behalf.
The opening chapters of Hughes' life read like a rather special American Dream Texas version. He had just about everything —money, talent, ambition. As a boy, he showed a remarkable innate talent for tinkering; he built one of the first licensed "ham" stations in Texas, using an old doorbell and an auto-ignition system. His father, known as "Big Howard," had developed the first oil-drill bit that could bore through rock, thus opening vast untapped fields to exploration. "Little Howard" was only 18 when his father died, but he persuaded a Texas court to declare him to be of age. He bought out his relatives and took over the Hughes Tool Co. as sole owner.
Becoming restless, Howard soon headed for Hollywood, where he used the earnings from Toolco, as the company became known, to teach himself the art of film making. He was such a fast learner that within two years he won an Oscar for a silent comedy and went on to produce Hell's Angels, an epic of World War I aerial combat. For the leading lady, he discovered Jean Harlow, whose wondrously sculpted shape, platinum hair, plus a certain charming vulgarity, gave her a unique place in the American libido.
Meanwhile, Hughes, who learned to fly as a teenager, built his own highly advanced H-l racer in which he set a world speed record of 352 m.p.h. in 1935. Three years later, Hughes, who was already predicting the era of ocean-spanning aircraft, flew round the world in 91 hr. 14 min., breaking the old record by four days.