EVEN before he went into seclusion, Howard Hughes posed unusual challenges for newsmen. In 1944, for instance, he consented, through an intermediary, to a telephone interview with Robert Elson, then in our Washington bureau. Hughes insisted that when he called, Elson was to identify himself by saying: "Hello, Mr. Howard Hughes. How was the weather?" Trouble was, Elson forgot the code question. This necessitated a new round of calls before Hughes was convinced that Elson was not an impostor. In 1948, when we did a cover story on Hughes, he did utter one prophetic statement about his future: "I'll make news for you."

No one knows the Hughes beat better than TIME'S Frank McCulloch, whose clandestine meeting with Hughes in 1958 was the last face-to-face encounter the billionaire is known to have had with a journalist. Last month McCulloch received a phone call from a man who said he was Hughes. The message, conveyed off the record, was an attack on the validity of the Clifford Irving book about America's most diligent practicing mystery man.

McCulloch was unable to report for this week's cover story on Hughes; he was detached from his duties as New York bureau chief to help with LIFE'S up coming serialization of the Irving book. Eight other correspondents took up the task. Donn Downing tracked down friends from Hughes' Hollywood days as well as business associates. In Washington, Jerry Hannifin assayed Hughes' contributions to the aeronautical world, while Jess Cook interviewed Irving. Meanwhile, Roger Williams, John Tompkins and James Willwerth were also sifting Manhattan sources. Don Neff journeyed to Las Vegas and Carson City to interview state officials and former Hughes subordinates. Peter Range's assignment was Hughes' current lair on Paradise Island, where he found a James Bond atmosphere: "You can be sipping a gin fizz, chatting with London on the bar phone, going over the local paper and still keep an eye on Hughes' windows. The poolside steel band is throbbing. Your glance drifts upward and you zoom in on those convex ninth-floor balconies."

The Cover: A Hughes album, showing him as a child in Houston (top left); dancing with Ginger Rogers in 1936 (top right); at a 1939 airfield press conference (upper center); arriving at Glendale, Calif., airport in 1939 (left); in one of his own racing planes in 1935 (center right); appearing at 1947 Senate committee hearing (bottom left); as he might look now (bottom center). Photographs by A.P. and U.P.I., drawing for TIME by Dan Lawler.

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