.By 1958, Howard Hughes had become a recluse. His drug addictions resulting from his disastrous air crash in 1946 which I posted about yesterday were undoing him mentally, physically and emotionally. This once very public figure now cowered in a penthouse hotel suite in Las Vegas, hiding from the world, doing business remotely (and very successfully it must be added). Nobody expected to see him or even hear from him again–he was out of the public eye, a mysterious legend, a haunting cautionary tale that all the money in the world can’t prevent a person from descending into a tragic existence.

And then along came Clifford Irving. Irving was a novelist from New York City who had enjoyed modest success with several novels published in the late 1950s and 60s. In 1970, in Spain, Irving met with Richard Suskind, a longtime friend who was an author of children’s books. They conceived a scheme to write Hughes’s purported “autobiography”: Irving and Suskind believed that, because Hughes had completely withdrawn from public life, he would never draw attention by denouncing such a book or filing a lawsuit for libel.

Suskind took on the work of research in news archives. Irving started by enlisting the aid of artist and writer friends on Ibiza in order to forge letters in Hughes’s own hand, imitating authentic letters they had seen displayed in Newsweek magazine. Irving contacted his publisher,  McGraw-Hill and said that Hughes had corresponded with him, saying he admired Irving’s writing and that Hughes had expressed interest in having Irving ghost write the millionaire’s autobiography. The McGraw-Hill editors invited Irving to New York, where the publishers drafted contracts among Hughes, Irving, and the company, with Irving and his friends forging Hughes’ signatures.^[McGraw-Hill paid an advance of $100,000, with an additional $400,000 to be paid to Hughes;  Irving later bargained the sum up to $765,000. McGraw-Hill paid by checks made out to “H. R. Hughes”, which Irving’s Swiss wife Edith deposited to a Swiss bank account which she had opened under the name of “Helga R. Hughes”. Learning of the planned book, representatives of Hughes’ companies expressed doubts about its authenticity. Frank McCulloch, known for years as the last journalist to interview Hughes, had received an angry call from someone claiming to be Hughes, but after he read the Irving manuscript, became convinced that the book was genuine. McGraw-Hill and Life magazine, which had paid to publish excerpts of the book, continued to support Irving. Osborn Associates, a firm of handwriting experts, further declared the writing samples were authentic. While Irving had to submit to a lie detector test, this indicated inconsistencies but no lies. Irving and Susskind were on the way to getting away with their scam.

And then an extraordinary thing happened, one which Irving had banked on never occurring. Howard Hughes himself decided to come out of seclusion to personally denounce the book and prove it was a fraud. He wasn’t in any kind of shape to appear in public but on January 7, 1972, Hughes arranged a telephone conference with seven journalists whose end of the conversation was televised: in this conference. Hughes claimed that he had never even met Irving, much less corresponded with him. Irving claimed the voice on the phone was an imposter, but it subsequently became clear that Irving was the fraud. Above is a recording of that momentous occasion. The video begins with a short audio expert of Hughes giving testimony in the late 1940s, so we can identify what Hughes voice and speaking style sounded like. The entire forty-minute press conference follows. Hughes hardly sounds like an ill man; he’s forceful, angry, sometimes quite funny and sounds like he wants to make changes in his life. Quite poignantly he says that he misses flying and looks forward to ‘resuming a program of flying planes’ since it’s something he loves and makes him feel good to do. That’s as far as that dream went. Hughes never flew a plane himself again.

What happened to Clifford  Irving? He confessed, went on trial and went to prison for a year and a half. He returned all the money to the publisher and wrote a book about the whole scam. It was made into a very enjoyable movie called ‘Hoax’, starring Richard Gere as Irving. So Howard Hughes, one way or another, wound up earning Clifford Irving a nice piece of change.