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Carl Byoir and Associates, a large Los Angeles public relations firm, numbered among its accounts prominent celebrities and corporations, but the firm’s most challenging and demanding client was no doubt Howard Hughes. In 1996, Special Collections acquired from the Howard Hughes Corporation in Las Vegas the Hughes account and reference files of Dick Hannah, the Byoir Vice President and account executive who handled Howard Hughes’s publicity. Like other Hughes agents, Hannah did far more than his title would imply. He not only directed public relations by drafting countless news releases and preparing mountains of press kits with sets of “authorized” photos, he gathered enormous amounts of information concerning what was written about Hughes or about subjects in which Hughes had interest. Hannah’s job for Hughes was to control the public image of Howard Hughes and his far-flung business and political interests, and to monitor the press for any report of Hughes himself or of anything in which he might have an interest or feel threatened.

The timesheets, which Hannah carefully prepared for billing, document his multifarious and sometimes unconventional activities on behalf of his client:

April 19, 20, 23, 1951: "Preparing a special report on the activities, reputation and financial support given the National Association of Colored People, at request of client."

November, 1951: "Working with editors of a national news magazine concerning one of their writers and the general, over all management of the magazine. Relaying information to the west coast."

April 1, 1952: "Working with editorial writer of New York daily newspaper on background material for an editorial on Mr. Hughes's fight against communism in the motion picture industry."

July 24-25, 28, 1952 - 8 hours: "At request of account, checking back-issue newspapers for reviews of a certain musical show, and sending a report to the west coast."

The most immediately revealing and compelling documentation of Howard Hughes's Las Vegas years remains the mysterious trunk of memos, which form the basis of Michael Drosnin's Citizen Hughes. The documentation left by Dick Hannah, on the other hand, is less revealing of Hughes the man, but reveals much about the Hughes operation, driven by paranoia and the compulsion to know and to control. Hannah's operation monitored and analyzed the press and public perception, and devised the spin. Much of it is simply the grist of the clipping services: boxes of clippings on the construction and "flight" of the Spruce Goose, or publicity for Hughes's RKO films. There are also files on the Las Vegas properties, and press reports on things that might affect or threaten Hughes -- from the Atomic Energy Commission; to Clifford Irving; to the Mafia; to the Watergate Hearings; to any writer, journalist, or television producer who attempted to portray Howard Hughes. One of Hannah's most problematic challenges was the persistent rumor that his client was in fact dead.

When Howard Hughes slipped into Las Vegas on a special Union Pacific train on the night of November 27, 1966, and took up his bizarre residence on the top floor of the Desert Inn, Hughes had already become an eccentric and increasingly mysterious recluse. Although he continued to play monopoly with his companies and fortune through an army of dedicated agents and aids, his public career as a celebrity -- the great Industrialist-Aviator-Movie Producer -- was over.

Howard Hughes did not build a thing in Las Vegas; in fact he was spooked by the city. His idea of Las Vegas was the movie set for his 1952 production of The Las Vegas Story with Jane Russell, Victor Mature, and Vincent Price. He had used the Flamingo, as Alan Hess recounts, "to represent all that was glamorous and exciting about Las Vegas . . . as the example of grandeur and the luxury of plush gambling on the Las Vegas Strip." That was the Las Vegas that the delusional Howard Hughes returned to in 1966, to hide from subpoenas and the media, and to build an empire in the desert. But by 1966 the glamour world of the Flamingo was a delusion from the past. Hughes was living another reality in 1966 controlled by a cohort of Mormon advisors, communicating with his lieutenants, even the chief of his Nevada Operations, via memo. Hughes was horrified by what he would have glimpsed from his penthouse windows had they not been permanently covered to shield him from the dangerous sunlight and germs. Circus Circus was bringing Coney Island next door, and his nemesis, the federal government, was shaking his penthouse by testing nuclear devices just down the highway. To the paranoid Hughes, Las Vegas had become a place of Fear and Loathing.

Hughes had purchased the Desert Inn, as the story goes, because he couldn't get a room there, and took over the top floor. He then proceeded to purchase the Sands, the Frontier, the Silver Slipper, and that monument to failed dreams, the Landmark, with its space-needle saucer-on-a-stick. Hughes is credited with bringing corporate legitimacy to Las Vegas, and running out the Mafia. The State of Nevada did oblige Hughes by changing its gaming licensing laws for him, thereby ushering into Las Vegas publicly traded hotel corporation like Hilton and Marriott, who changed the face of Las Vegas and whose hotels looked like hotels and corporate towers, not like roadside motels with big signs.

Under Hughes, or Hughes's people, his hotels continued business as usual, and for all intents and purposes under their previous management. Moe Dalitz still ran the Desert Inn, Jack Entratter and Carl Cohen, the Sands. The story was that people like Dalitz and Entratter were tired of Bobby Kennedy's Justice Department's relentless investigations of their business associates and decided to sell out to Hughes. But the economic changes that were affecting Las Vegas hotels and driving the expansion of convention centers and room additions would have occurred without Hughes. How Hughes's people marketed their hotels as tourist, convention and entertainment centers was no different than what other hotels were doing, or from what Hughes properties had been doing before he took them over.

His hotels were not the most profitable part of Hughes's Nevada Operation, and were unloaded after Hughes skipped town in 1970, to die soon after. The fact that the Hughes Corporation owned significant chunks of the Las Vegas valley, to be developed by its Summerlin Corporation subsidiary, was the lasting legacy of Howard Hughes in Las Vegas: master planned communities within a master planned community where even Howard Hughes might have felt safe from the horrors of the Strip and the Test Site.

Hughes fled Las Vegas, haunted perhaps by the Merry-Go-Round of Circus Circus; the Circus Circus, about which Hunter S. Thompson in his drug apocalypse, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, said "is what the whole hep world would be doing on Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war." But to Hughes it meant kids. Hughes described this apocalypse in his own words in a memo:

Hughes Electronics was the child of Howard Hughes the Aviator, as opposed to Howard Hughes Movie or Hotel/Casino Mogul. In 2003, Special Collections received from Hughes Electronics Corporation their corporate archives.

Howard Hughes took over control of Hughes Tool Company in 1924 at the age of 19, after his father's death. In 1932 he formed Hughes Aircraft as a division of Hughes Tool Company, essentially to keep track of the expenses of his personal interest in flying and aircraft. This personal passion for flying and developing experimental aircraft established Hughes as a celebrity test and racing pilot, as he set one speed record after another. His company won defense contracts during the war to develop high speed pursuit and reconnaissance aircraft and communication systems, most of which never went beyond prototypes and never entered production. Perhaps the most famous of these experimental prototypes was the HK- 1 Flying Boat, better known as the 'Spruce Goose', the gargantuan wooden cargo plane that Hughes himself piloted on its brief and only flight of one mile, 70 feet above Long Beach Harbor in 1947. Also in that year, and of far greater and lasting importance, the Radio Department of Hughes Aircraft formally morphed into the Electronics Department, where the future of Hughes engineering lay.

Hughes turned over the electronics portion of Hughes Aircraft to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and in 1954 Pat Hyland took over control of Hughes Aircraft as Vice-President and General Manager. Under Hyland's direction, Hughes Aircraft became a leader in avionics, developing radar, guided missiles and missile and weapons guidance systems, the synchronous orbit communications satellite, and the Surveyor Lunar aircraft. When Hughes died in 1976, Hyland became the company's president and CEO.

The Archives of Hughes Electronics Corporation contain the files and publications of the corporate communications department and include complete files of its corporate newsletters Hughes News, 1948-95, and Hughes Herald, 1996-7; press releases, 1956-96; Annual Reports; technical, informational and marketing publications; videos; corporate speeches; biographical files of executives; historical bio files; and photographs of Howard Hughes and aircraft (particularly the 'Spruce Goose'), developed by Hughes Aircraft and test flown by Howard Hughes.

One of the most intriguing files in the Hughes collections concerns a three-part series Look magazine published about Hughes in 1954. This particular series, one of the earliest extended bios of Hughes to appear in the popular media, was different from the countless other magazine articles that appeared or would appear about Hughes in that Howard Hughes himself agreed to meet with the writer, Stephen White, an associate editor of Look magazine. Hughes had met with and sometimes talked at length to reporters, but usually in the context of a particular event such as his around-the-world flight or the Senate Hearings in 1947, but he seldom commented on his own life. Look agreed that Hughes could read drafts of the story and have the opportunity to suggest changes or revisions and to correct factual inaccuracies.

Hughes: My only comment here is Howard Hughes came in contact with speed at an early age and then if you could strike out 'that even today he drives a Chevrolet substantially faster than the law of common sense would call advisable'...

...Good grades at Fessenden and was an outstanding student at Thatcher but I was not goaded by my father and this had nothing to do with my learning to fly. The first opportunity I had to come in contact with the operation of an aircraft was at New London, Connecticut. We were at that time staying at the Griswold Hotel on the Thames River and we attended the Yale-Harvard boat races. My father had been on one of the crews at Harvard. I doubt that it was the Varsity Crew but he had some interest in rowing at Harvard and he was ardently anxious that Harvard win the race and promised me anything I wanted if Harvard should win. This was back in the old days when Harvard used the short stroke and Yale the long stroke. I remember that very well. We sat in the train and watched the race. My father thought I was going to ask for a canoe with a sail on it which I had been badgering him all summer to buy for me, but instead when Harvard won and he was ready to pay off his obligation to me I asked to be permitted to fly with a pilot who had an old broken down seaplane anchored in the river in front of the hotel and my father begrudgingly consented. He didn't like he looks of the contraption, corroded wires and so forth and so on but he finally gave in and this was the very first contact I had with flying...The age is correct -- 14.

White: Had your father done any flying?

Hughes: No. None at all. He was an ardent automobile driver but to my knowledge had never been up in an airplane.

I remember the airplane very well. It was a Curtis Flying Boat - not a land plane on pontoons. It was a single hull flying boat and the engine was overhead. It was a by-plane, and I'm quite sure it was a pusher. I think the engine was ahead of the propeller. If I remember right it was an OX5V-8 engine...

Father, high living and extravagant...anything but an efficient manager.

Hughes: The men in Houston worship him - why not say "his father, though a brilliant inventor, was prone to be extravagant." I wouldn't like anything about his management.

1. He owns a factory that pours money into his pocket. . . .
2. He hasn't seen the factory for 15 years and
3. he runs it by telephone...

Hughes: (1) That isn't true - it makes some money but that goes into the Aircraft, etc. It doesn't pour into my pocket (2) This isn't true either - it hasn't been 15 years

White: Well, how long has it been?

Hughes: I don't know exactly - but more like 18 months. And on (3) that would be very much resented by the people down there.

White: OK I'll fix it.

Hughes: "It says the plane with which he set the land speed record was, as the fact indicates, the fastest plane built up to that time is not correct because there had been one or two seaplanes built for the Schneider Trophy Race which were faster. However they had practically no range and were only usable on a very very smooth lake with fuel enough for a few minutes flight, utterly impractical. This airplane [H-1 Racer] which is under discussion here was the fastest land plane which had ever been built and was the most efficient airplane ever built up to that time by a considerable amount... You see this airplane was fast because it was clean and yet it attained its speed with a Pratt and Whitney engine of perfectly normal design with normal reliability.

Now this follows - Hughes submitted a pursuit plane version of his design to the Army Air Corps and felt confident that after his demonstration of his trans-continental flight the army would be interested because this airplane was definitely faster than any military aircraft anywhere in the world - pursuit plane, bomber, or anything else... However the Army Air Corps did not accept this design. Right here I don't know exactly what reason to give. I don't want to indict the Army Air Corps for passing up the airplane so a little thought should be given to this. I have my own ideas as to why they didn't accept it but after all I'm doing a lot of business now with the Air Force and let's not generate any ill-will here.

Now regarding the Japanese Zero... The Japanese Zero was a shock of the utmost magnitude to the United States because it had been thought up to that time that the Japanese were far inferior mechanically, I should say in point of aircraft design and mechanical aptitude, to the United States and nobody expected the Japanese to have an airplane that would be at all competitive. Well, in any event, when one of these Japanese Zeros was finally captured and studied and analyzed it was quite apparent to everyone that it had been copied from the Hughes plane which has been discussed earlier here. That is the only relationship between the Japanese Zero and the Hughes H-I design. I had no dealings with the Japanese or any other foreign government for the plane and to the best of everyone's knowledge the Japanese had no other access to it except through whatever espionage they may have had or through seeing photographs of it which naturally were published all over the world.

Bill Utley: (attending the meeting as the Hughes company publicist, recounts how before the war a delegation of Japanese air force generals had seen the H-1 in a hangar in New Jersey) "They were late for a banquet in New York where they were being toasted and they saw your airplane and I have been told by Al Ludwick I think, that they couldn't drag them away from it, that they climbed all over it, that they examined it from head to toe, and that was the start of their interest in your airplane"

Hughes: Oh, really?

Utley: Yeah.

Hughes: Well, I don't think we better bring that in because there might be some question as to why the hell they were let in the hangar.

Utley: They had been invited here by the United States Government

Hughes: I know, but you can't explain all those things without going into too much detail

...There were photographs all over the place and I don't think the Japanese would have to see it to copy it - they could copy it from the pictures.

And I wouldn't say the first integrated radio navigation system or the first inclusive instrument panel... I think you can say that the radio equipment - which I did not design personally but was designed under my supervision, while my round the world flight was the first, well, I don't think you could even say first - I should say it was the best long-range radio communication system ever designed for an airplane and the entire navigation system both radio and celestial was certainly by far the most efficient ever installed or used up to that time and the navigation carried out on the flight was by far the most accurate of that performed in any long distance flight up to that time. The navigation throughout that flight around the world was so accurate that the plane was never more than a few miles off of the desired course

Utley: It was six miles

Hughes: It was amazingly accurate, and the combination radio and celestial equipment and dead reckoning systems and the entire system and procedure of navigation was amazingly effective and efficient but I don't think it's right to say it was actually the first of anything on here...

Now this part of the story, however, and everything to do with Lockheed should be handled with some consideration not to peak (sic) the pride of Lockheed too much. In other words, naturally, if you give the Hughes version of this thing they are not going to be very happy about it and, naturally, their story would be somewhat different but I think the facts sustain what I have just said. Of course I probably haven't given myself any of the worst of it.

Jack Frye, President of TWA when it was acquired by Hughes, did in fact have a somewhat different story which he provided in a letter to the editor of Look magazine.

"As a reader of Look, I have noted with personal interest the references made to me and TWA in your current series of articles - The Howard Hughes Story.

A number of my friends in the aviation field have called my attention to, and I have recognized as much myself, several gross errors appearing in the article which refers to Mr. Hughes's introduction to TWA and that part concerning me...

The references concerning that part Mr. Hughes performed in connection with the Boeing Stratoliner and Constellation are grossly exaggerated . . . TWA had already secured bids from one manufacturer on the airplane in question that ultimately evolved into the Constellation - before Mr. Hughes ever showed interest in TWA or became its principal stockholder.

In conclusion, I would like to say that Mr. Hughes deserves credit for having the courage to financially support the purchase of the Stratoliner and Constellation after he purchased a stock interest in TWA."

I don't say that my version and testimony should prevail over the conclusion of this Board. But, likewise, I don't think it fair to say that this was an impartial board; there were very strong indications that this Board did not make a careful study of the accident. There was a great deal of evidence which was not available at the time this conclusion was reached. In fact, the Board if Inquiry was composed of a group of young officers who were jealous, in the first place. Secondly, as I say, they didn't have the facts. There was a strong doubt in the minds of the officers on this Board as to whether there had really, in fact, been a malfunctioning of the propeller. Their entire conclusion, as I say, was one which I feel was loaded with partiality, and I think that one factor influencing this report of this Board of Inquiry was that the government had an enormous amount of money in this super hydromatic propeller which was on this airplane. And the Air Force certainly did not want to see the establishment of any proof that this propeller actually was a failure or malfunctioned.

Now I feel there is no question but what had an impartial Board of Inquiry met on this matter after it was thoroughly proven that this propeller was, in truth, defective, that then the result would have been quite different. Because the theory, that I should have known that this dissymmetry in the airplane's flight tendencies and attitude was caused by the propeller, and by some other structural failure. That theory is a very, very thin one, because with a dual rotation propeller and only half of the propeller in reverse - not all of it - it was very obvious that all instruments indicated the power plant and the propeller to be functioning normally. And I just don't think that a more thorough scrutiny of this matter would lead anyone to the conclusion that the pilot had any rhyme or reason or opportunity to believe that the trouble was caused by the propeller.

...now getting back to the Flying Boat. In this particular situation the Services were even more opposed to this project than they would have been had Douglas or Boeing, for example, designed and built an airplane on speculation without Air force participation. The Services were violently opposed to this airplane because they felt it had been pushed through by political pressure. It was not wanted by the Services. The Services considered it, in truth, a sort of slap or insult to their own efficiency up to that time. In other words this project was pushed through by Henry Kaiser on the basis that there was a crying need for it and why hadn't somebody built some cargo planes up to that time.

In other words, this thing was a black sheep. Nobody wanted to fool around with it or become contaminated by it and that probably accounts for the meager information. I don't believe anybody harried me for any reports to reveal progress or any of the rest of that. I just don't believe that occurred.

Now, I say, up to that time this airplane, and I think you will find this in my testimony, represented a lesser cost per pound to the taxpayers and a quicker delivery per pound than any... and consequently I think this represented a very, very cheap and very quick job.

Now in the case of this aircraft, the Hughes flying boat, the controls were so large, so much larger than any designed before, that for the first time we crossed into the area wherein it is absolutely impossible for any human being, whether he be Jack Dempsey or Joe Lewis rolled into one, it's utterly impossible for any human being to move the controls of this airplane - consequently it became necessary for the first time to design power control system which was as safe, let's say, as the structure of the airplane

So, although I may have admitted here that we could have done the airplane faster had we been less cautious and less careful in some respects, this was not intended to acknowledge that in any way the design or the manufacture of this airplane by standards of cost or time was in any way inferior to what it should have been. In fact, I say again, the facts show that it was a damn sight better than anyone could have expected.

Needless to say, I implore that this be deleted in its entirety. This would be an extremely unfair statement to make. The design of this airplane is not obsolete in any way. As a matter of fact, it is still way ahead of the power plants available... The design is not obsolete; in fact I defy anyone today to design an airplane substantially more efficient than this one for its purpose; namely the economical hauling of large heavy pieces of military equipment, such as tanks, field guns, artillery pieces, etc., over long distances.

Air combat scene from "Hells Angels" (pictured above). The movie was originally shot as a silent movie. The sound and the ingénue starlet Jean Harlowe were added later.

(1) ...The studio has lost a fortune since he took it over, (2) it makes virtually no pictures at all

Hughes: (2) is pretty rough. We made enough pictures to carry our distribution set up.

White: I think you made the magnificent sum of 5 pictures in one year but I can't remember which year it was.

Hughes: I suppose you didn't count the independent productions. Those should be considered part of the total.

White: Even if you count independent productions - it is far less than was planned at the beginning of the year.