Typed onto a piece of paper attached to the image: "Howard Hughes is welcomed by New York on return from Round the World flight. Grover Whalen is on the left. 7/15/38."
Description printed on photograph's accompanying sheet of paper: "Howard Hughes after his round the world flight shaking hands with Secretary of State Cordell Hell as R. Walton Moore Counselor of the Department of State looks on. July 1938."