Las Vegas can't get enough of Howard Hughes. Another panel discussion about his time in Las Vegas is set for 6:30 p.m. Nov. 5 at the Springs Preserve. Yours truly will be involved, as will others who actually knew the man. Lynn Zook will moderate. Please note that there is a fee to attend events at the Springs Preserve.
This discussion comes on the heels of a successful panel discussion about Hughes that I was involved in associated with the Clark County centennial celebration. Paul Winn, who worked for Hughes in Los Angeles, and Burton Cohen, who worked for him in Las Vegas, also sat on the panel.
The centennial panel was televised live, then rebroadcast about a hundred times on the county cable channel, generating a surprising number of people who told me they saw me on TV. I didn't realize so many people watched the county government channel. But there's an explanation: It's Channel 4, so it's hard to miss if you start surfing at Channel 2 or 3.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
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20 comments:
Is there any chance this could get posted on a video sharing network?
What will the format be? (I'm not the same anonymous).
Geoff:
It's me: (the gad fly).
Boy I sure wish I could make that Nov item at the Spring Ranch but will probably be international interviewing people at Hughes' London, and South American haunts.
BTW: Among the Spring Ranch docents you will find a former manager of one of Hughes' casinos, that would make an excellent expert panelist. He and his wife are both docents.
Also: there are other docents who had personal experience with Hughes businesses in LA and LV (some had several family members who made a career of working in Hughes enterprises). Some have interesting insights on the Hughes controversies and would make a good member of the panel from the public at large! I'm not giving their names here because, as Paul says, "I'm paranoid". lol
On paranoia: I have a cup that says, "Only the paranoid survive."
Also to quote a friend about paranoia, "If you're right, YOU'RE NOT." In other words, the fact that my hair has been parted with a bullet and I ambushed a hit man, would seem to indicate that someone IS really after me and therefore, I'm not paranoid!!!
Just for the record, the panel discussion will be at the Springs Preserve, not Spring Mountain Ranch State Park.
Getting ready to head East in about a month myself. To where, I'll not say for obvious reasons. Be careful on I70. A lot of traffic.
Last winter I ran into an ice storm while towing west on I70. Saw lots of semis slide off the road. Not pretty. Lost a sister in a car wreck many years ago, she left 5 kids.
Be careful and take care of those kids. They are often the best thing we do in life!
Further on the strange May 12th 1954 fanatic note.(Jean was living with Cramer at the time) (Exactly 5 months from our Lady of Guadeloupe day) 1954, request by a supposed "sister" of a Hughes associate for Hughes to contribute 10 million dollars to her favorite charity! Discussed this with a panel of pretty smart people as to what could have been really going on here. Here are some salient questions and points.
The question of blackmail has been raised. A handwritten note was on the back of the envelope sent to the FBI. Here are the reverent facts on the note and the investigation by the FBI.(as far as is evident by the note. The FBI redacted the person's name so we must do some deduction.
1. The FBI talked to the sister of the note sender who stated her sister was a "fanatic" only in the area of religion.
2. The address area on the back of the note started, quote: "The Marian Year". Now what kind of name is that? Even more interesting is that Jean used the name 3 years later to get married "Marian Evans". Now mate that with the fact that this person evidently knew Jean VERY intimately! Was Marian Evans, Jean's REAL name or perhaps a name know only to Jean's Closest family? My panel concluded that this was a line to establish that the blackmailer knew the intimate details of Jean's life and may have used the line to establish they knew of the pregnancy(assuming there was one).
2. Her marriage to Cramer ended in a first separation 33 days after the nuptials. (Early to Mid June 1954). Why? Hughes of course! And Robert Maheu the Ultimate fixer. What did they find to turn Jean against Cramer? Jean wouldn't at first sign the papers for divorce and briefly returned to Cramer for a very short period in late 1955 or 1956. Evidently this was the final straw and she then went to Nevada for the required residency to get a divorce.
Too long: Continued below!
3. The Lady of Guadeloupe Day mentioned in the note is Dec. 12 (1954). A place, a future date, and a monetary amount, and inside information (bona fides) are all in the note. Could Dec. 12 (a christening day) have been the day the blackmailer intended to deliver the baby in exchange for $10 million dollars?
Posssible Scenario: The blackmailer had Jean in hand and might have been using that info to try to get the money from Hughes. How did they intend to deliver the child to the church on that date is unknown. When Jean returned to Hughes and LA, did that frustrate the plan altogether or did they retrench???
4. If the redacted name of the confidential FBI informant was in fact Jean Peters (Marian Evans), was she covering for a close family member?? Was the expected date of delivery (birth) July 12, 1954??
If so, did the kidnappers succeed and Hughes refuse the ransom, or did Hughes through the ultimate fixer Maheu or others, kidnap his own child and stow him away somewhere for future reference???
5. It is noted that those in control of the Hughes assets all did one thing in common: they got rid of all records possible and all evidence of the 1953-1954 time period in Hughes chronology.
6. The fact that a man of Howard's acumen in business and eccentric genius in life, left no will is not plausible. It is more plausible that he left many copies of a will and someone was very careful to destroy all known copies
! All the above is just speculation as the principles are dead. However, Howard's and Jean's DNA still survives and that alone can tell the truth!
7.Handwriting analysis of the final line, "Blessed expressly for J. Edgar Hoover by cardinal James Francis McIntyre of Los Angeles California", really appears to be written by a different person entirely. Gone is the sweeping strokes earlier seen and the J in Hoover's name is made entirely different from the J in John earlier. Did Maheu add the religious literature, the note about religion to indicate a fanatic (to give the blackmailer a door out) and send the letter to the FBI as a way to get a professional examination while at the same time, intimidate the blackmailer into backing off??? Kind of sounds like Maheu's type of fix doesn't it??? Now if we can get the FBI to let us see the names involved without the irritating redactions!
8. The FBI has already been alerted to read this blog at regular intervals. Maybe some enterprising agent will pull the original file and ask these same questions himself! lol
For the earlier discussion and reply from Paul Winn, see the earlier blog, "Another Museum for Flying Boat Enthusiasts" earlier started by Geoff!
On the strange statement, "The Marian Year", you DO realize that it you just read it, it sounds like "The Marrying Year", Southerner's often pronounce the word "Here" as "year", so the sentence would become "The Marrying here". Is this a reference to the marriage of Jean to Cramer or perhaps a reference to the fact that Howard needed to marry Jean to set things right! A play on words is not unusual.
1954 was the first time the Pope had declared a "Marian Year" (check it out on the internet, as I did). Only twice has the Pope declared a Marian Year. Nothing sinister here - and not difficult to figure out.
I re-checked the FBI files and read again the information. The letter and religious items were sent to the FBI by this strange person. This fits very much a pattern we had at Romaine Street for years. There was a woman who called Operations every Friday morning at 10am for years. One time she was on the roof of the Romaine Street bulding. There were many of these "kooks". I see nothing here indicating that she had any connection to anyone in the Hughes organization. The file indicates she was once employed by Elizabeth Arden in new York. As for attempting to get money to build a church, this is very similar to an account in Bob Maheu's book, and the timing is eerily close, so I'm wondering if it was perhaps the same incident.
Now, to the "green house". Hughes never spent a night in that place, and Jean wasn't there at that time. No, I wasn't employed during that time, but I have talked to the guy who was with Hughes, who negotiated the lease for the house and was with Hughes when he was there. He says Hughes was in the house during the daytime quite a bit, but NEVER spent a night there.
Now, with respect to me burning things from the house: If you turn to page 187 of Empire, there you will find a partial listing of the inventory of items found in the house, including "a 1953 appointment diary believed to belong to Jean Peters, . . ." If I had burned it, it surely would not have appeared on the inventory! I did not burn anything, but turned everything over to the Estate. Those items were in the Corporate Records Department at the time I retired. I don't know what became of them after I left, but I surely did NOT burn anything.
Now, about the accusations about anyone doing away with any will: Think about it. Every piece of evidence about any of Hughes' wills indicates that he would have left everything to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. If there had been a will and everything was left to HHMI, Bill Gay and Chester Davis would have remained in charge as the successor trustees of HHMI. Absent the will, and with a challenge to their status as successor trustees, they lost control, as everyone knows. Tell me how there would have been any incentive to destroy a will if one had actually existed. They were anxious to find a will, because without a valid will they lost control. I spent an entire year after Hughes died working with others in an attempt to find a will. There was none, and no one destroyed any. He simply did not execute one, period. We may all speculate as to why he did not, but knowing Hughes' propensity to procrastinate, it is completely understandable to me. Again, if I can help in whatever it is you are searching for, I would not hesitate, but if you are going to continue to poke fun at me and accuse me of dishonesty, forget about it. Paul B. Winn
Again: Thanks for your insight! I am no Catholic and was throwing out ideas about that phrase to get some ideas. As I said, I have asked several people who are considered smart to help me. They hadn't heard of a Marian Year either. Even so, the phonetic alliance with the events of Jean Peters life with "The Marrying Year," is very interesting too. From the handwriting analysis I have so far, it has been suggested as being, first very grandiose (the flourish writing) and then insecure (the shakiness along with the grandiosity in the next line)as maybe bipolar.
Anyway, I'm not making fun of you but playing devil's advocate to get people to reexamine long held ideas(mine included).
Now about the will: assuming as you said there was one; If the will left the bulk of the estate to someone unknown (say maybe a child as discussed earlier), that would give Bill and Chester a motive to destroy it, wouldn't it. Especially if it was someone in viewpoint and reputation so totally an antithesis to their viewpoints, so as to comprise the Will Lummis faction as a better devil than the one they were faced with. Would that not cause a concealment. Not that the person was in truth a problem, but as you and I know from the last election, the spin of information is often a bigger impression than the information itself. ??? Just something to consider!
For example: Say Warren Buffet's lawyers found that he left his entire estate to a subversive. Would his lawyers in finding that will feel justified in destroying it and letting the blood heirs (or the know ones, fight it out?)?? Just encouraging you to look at alternatives (there are always ones that haven't been considered).
What did you think of my birth house description? Did you know of such a place and if you did,can describe either the crib or the toy??? That description came from a very confidential source. I am looking for a second source to verify the location.
The Marian year date is not the most interesting part of this: Evidently this person got directly to Hughes himself with this irritation! How if not a family or staff member. Also, Maheu was a Catholic. I understand that Jean had other sister(s) too?????
Regardless of your friend's contentions, I just can't see Hughes not spending any nights there, when he had the house so long. Obviously it had a huge emotional TAG with him, to seal it. Jean was obviously also there with him, as her appointment book was found there.
How about the burning in the yard? Are you saying you have no knowledge of that?
Thanks for the elucidation on the disposition of the items you inventoried, I have also interviewed someone who watched a burning of effects from the house and I thought they were the same event, as they mentioned your name as being there! But maybe we are talking about two different events and two parties visited the house????
There WAS NO BURNING OF ANYTHING IN THE YARD!! PERIOD!!! If you have talked to someone who saw something, they were on something pretty strong at the time. I know that in Geoff's book Bob Stoldahl is quoted as having seen lots of suits and says something about Summa people burning them. That is just plain B.S. I invetoried everything in that house and there were very few clothes, certainly no suits. I don't recall exactly what was there, but perhaps a couple of shrts - I do recall a very nice bathrobe in a gift box that someone had given Hughes. A pair of little used tennis shoes, but no suits. If Bob Stoldahl saw any suits in the house they were put there after we sold the property. By the way, my signature is on the deed to Landmark Communications, who bought KLAS-TV.
No matter what you say about Hughes not sleeping in the house, he did not - and Jean was not there. Incidentally, I was not certain at the time, nor am I now that the appointment book or whatever it was belonged to Jean. At the time Hughes was in and around the house Sally Godley was in town and she and her parents were having dinner with Hughes almost every night. The guy who was there with Hughes and negotiated the lease on the house is not one who is full of B.S. If he says Hughes never stayed overnight in the house you can put it in the bank that he did not.
I'm not as smart as you and your friends, and I'm not Catholic, but the first thing that popped into my mind when you put "Marian Year" in the first message was to check it out on the internet - and there it was. I didn't jump to any fancy conclusions or anything like that.
There is nothing in the FBI file that even remotely indicates that the sister referred to was anything but the sister of the kook who submitted the papers. That the FBI says Hughes was annoyed is understandable, but I'll bet that Hughes didn't even know about this person. It would be the likely scenario that they assumed (because some contact at the Hughes organization said Hughes was upset or concerned) that Hughes himself was involved. I have seen so many of these things happen, and people believed Hughes was personally involved when he was not, that I just don't buy that he knew anything about it. That's why he had the staff and Kay Glenn and Bill Gay and Nadine Henley (it is my belief that something like this would have been handled by Nadine). It would have been typical for her to take care of this by passing it to Bill Utley or Dick Hannah or perhaps Bautzer's firm. Maheu was only coming on board at this time, but he recounts an incident something like this in his book.
I had to split the message because it is too long - here is part 2:
I am more familiar with the history of Hughes' wills than almost anyone alive, and if there had been a will it would have been placed in safe keeping. It would have been written by an attorney and a copy kept (there was a copy of the 1929 will in the files at Andrews Kurth). Hughes was not stupid enough to leave it laying around somewhere. I just don't buy that there was a will, number one, or that it might have been destroyed, number two.
I don't get your idea that Hughes had some sort of emotional attachment to that green house. He had houses in Palm Springs and other places that he had sealed up and one day was going to go back there and never did. Besides, if you saw that house, it's not the kind of place Hughes was accustomed to living in. If you go to the house today KLAS has some things up there about the house that are totally fictitious. I have talked to them about it, but they have made no changes - the more sensational they make it the more people are interested in it. For example, there is a photo of a metal box that "was found under the floor when it was dug up". No, there was no metal box or anything else under that floor - I know, because myself and my assistant handled the jackhammer that dug up the floor and there was NOTHING there. There are other things at the house that are just as much B.S. - particularly any idea that there were lots of clothes there - there were not - or that they were burned by Summa employees - they definitely were not!
Here is part 3:
To answer your birth house description, I think it is nuts. You asked what I thought. There it is. I have no idea what you are pursuing or trying to prove, but if someone claims to be the offspring of Jean and/or Howard, it should not be difficult to get DNA. This sleuthing around doesn't seem to me to be productive of anything except perhaps big fees if someone is paying you for your time. I am not being paid for mine. As for Will Lummis, I have no power over him and I haven't talked to him for several years.
I have talked to people who saw Hughes on the street in downtown Las Vegas; Bonnie whateverhernameis at Bonnie Springs Ranch says Hughes came over there from Spring Mountain Ranch several times for dinner during the time he was at the Desert Inn - we all know that didn't happen. Bob Deiro says he flew Hughes to a Brothel - Melvin Dummar says he picked up Hughes in the desert - lots of folks swear to things that are figments of their imagination. I would love to see Diero's pilot logs of the supposed flights with Hughes. He doesn't have any such item.
I am not quoting any anonymous sources here - Kay Glenn was with Hughes at the green house, and he would know whether Hughes ever stayed there and he would know if Jean was ever there. He negotiated the lease and all of that. He was with Hughes that whole period.
About the crib and toy - I have not a clue what you are talking about.
It seems silly to do this by posting on a blog. You know who I am, where I am, and how to reach me. This all seems to me to be a waste of time.
Correction:
It would be the likely scenario that they assumed (because some contact at the Hughes organization said Hughes was upset or concerned) that Hughes himself was NOT involved.
Strike the correction - the original text is correct. When I re-read it, I went too fast. Sorry about that.
Thanks for your insights: We'll never agree on everything and you know a lot of things I don't and I've got a few aces up my sleeve.
Those will be used in time, but right now, I'm just reviewing anything and everything about the 1953 to present time frame and testing theories. Contrary to what many think, it is more important to solve this mystery, negative or positive (either will do)than to walk away with a big payday! My personal history is proof positive that this isn't a money thing!
I'll be in touch, but have some pretty heavy commitments for the next little while and intend to take a nice vacation while in South America, maybe see the Aztec glyphs on some recently discovered ruins.
You say It's simple to get the DNA. Maybe for you but not for me. My tests have to have court approved methods and al la "Deep Throat", the tests are being done in complete anonymity, through private investigators.
We have some success so far with that but are only about 50 % there as I see it. I can still promise someone a pretty nice chunk of change for DNA of Howard or Jean. Or opinion is that we have some "close" relatives, but the gold standard would be theirs.
Given past history:
Given the ease of which Romaine was robbed and the obvious insider nature of the event:(my personal hunch was that the whole object was to either destroy all copies of the will that might be stored there or to give a plausible explanation of why it wasn't there) I am VERY skeptical of the motives, assertions or other pronouncements of history by the Gay or Davis faction. In reading the various histories etc, I am struck that Noah Dietrich seemed to be a fairly straight shooter, but as the shrinks tell us, we all tend to bend history in our minds to make heroes of ourselves. Just an observation.
Geoff:
Just how much does it cost to get into you panel discussion??? And is there any restrictions for foreigners?
Going to interview Hughes associates in far and distant places, may be in lands and places where I can't monitor you on this site. Know Paul will be happy but I hope others not so much!
Did you know the KGB had a file on Howard?
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