Comparing the Two Manuscripts

WELL before Clifford Irving's conspiracy began to crumble, he made a tantalizing observation to his former attorney, Martin Ackerman. "You know, I was more of an editor than a writer on this project," he said. At the time, that remark seemed a possible reference to the editing of taped interviews with Hughes, but the damning truth now shows through in a comparison of Irving's manuscript with one prepared for former Hughes Aide Noah Dietrich by Reporter James Phelan. Irving brought considerable editorial ingenuity to reworking parts of the Phelan story in order to avoid outright duplication of language. He embellished incidents, arbitrarily changed statistics, had Hughes sometimes doing precisely the same things that the Phelan book claims Dietrich did.

Yet Irving, either sloppily or unconsciously, frequently retains similarity of writing structure. The same basic ideas often follow each other within paragraphs and in like-constructed sentences in the two manuscripts. Moreover, the same anecdotes sometimes follow each other, even when no logic compels it. In the boxes on the following pages are two extended examples of parallel episodes from the two books. In addition, herewith a selected reading of other similar incidents:

The Personal Ticker

PHELAN. Tired of driving to a broker's office in downtown Los Angeles at 6 a.m. to get the earliest readings off the stock market ticker, Hughes in the late '20s wanted a private ticker of his own in his Ambassador Hotel suite. As Phelan tells it, Dietrich ingeniously got around regulations against such a personal installation. He rented a downtown office, had a ticker legally put in there. Then he discovered that a trolley line to the Ambassador had some unused insulators on the poles and that he could get a private line strung on them at 250 a year per insulator.

But when the ticker was disconnected by "a friend who knew a lot about electricity" and carried to the Ambassador, a red light flashed at Western Union offices. Dietrich's friend had incorrectly hooked up a resistor that should have prevented this. The Western Union men rushed to the rental office and found Dietrich holding only the glass top of the ticker. They asked where the rest of the machine was. He ad-libbed, said it had been knocked over and was being repaired. They offered to repair the machine themselves, and Dietrich had to retrieve it from the Hughes suite. Finally, Dietrich took a more direct tack, threatened to complain to state officials if Hughes could not get service--and the machine was quickly hooked up beside Hughes' bed. He lost some $5,000,000 by ignoring expert advice and playing the market based on his own readings off the ticker.

IRVING quotes Hughes as saying: "I got in touch with a man named Paul Williams who headed up the Western Union office in Los Angeles. But he wouldn't run a private line out for me --wouldn't break regulations. So I rented an office on Figueroa, near Seventh, where there was a line, and had a ticker-tape installed there ... I drove down there in the middle of the night and laid this whole thing from Figueroa in downtown Los Angeles along the trolley power line to my room at the Ambassador Hotel . . . But I got the terminals reversed, and this immediately showed up on the Western Union Board--a red light flashing--and so they sent over a couple of workmen to the Figueroa Street office that I'd rented ... They found Noah Dietrich there, standing there like an idiot with the glass dome of the ticker-tape machine in his hand--but no ticker-tape. I don't know how he got out of that one, but he did ... and so I hooked the terminals up again properly, and the machine ran perfectly--and it only cost me, as I say, about four million dollars."

The Dime Notebook

PHELAN. During his moviemaking days, Hughes carried a 100 notebook in which he jotted down technical points about the craft that he picked up along the way. Says Dietrich: "One day he called me in a state of agitation and told me he had lost it. 'I've got to get it back,' he said. 'Do what you have to do to recover it.' I offered a reward in every available medium, and advertised for weeks. I spent over $1,000 trying to retrieve his 100 notebook, but we never got even a nibble."

IRVING quotes Hughes: "I made up a little code for figures, for prices and costs . . . Then I lost the notebook. I was beside myself because it seemed that everything I knew was in that notebook, and I had lost it." Hughes ordered Dietrich to retrace every step that he, Hughes, had taken on the day of the loss, to get down on his hands and knees every 25 yards along the route to inspect the ground. Adds Hughes: "He sent me the cleaning bill for his trousers, the cheap bastard."

A Call from Hedda's Closet

PHELAN. Convinced that the telephones of his associates were tapped, Hughes had a practice of calling at any hour of the night, demanding that his aides go to a public telephone booth and call him back. He also insisted that they give him the number from which they were calling. When Perry Lieber, Hughes' publicity man at RKO, got such a call at Hedda Hopper's house, he did not feel like hunting up a public phone. He waited, took a long extension cord and called Hughes from Hedda's closet, feeling that this was private enough. But Hughes insisted on knowing the number--and recognized it as Hedda's private listing. The chastised Lieber then went out and found a phone booth.

IRVING. The essentials are virtually identical, and Phelan believes he is the only source for the anecdote. Lieber told it to him years ago and had forgotten the telling when asked about it last week.

The "Jesus Christ" Aircraft

PHELAN. With its 320-ft. wingspread, 220-ft. fuselage and 8-story-tall tail, the Hughes plywood flying boat was one of the fiascoes of World War II. Phelan tells how it came to be known among the men building it as "the Jesus Christ": "When people walk in here [the hangar] for the first time, they are overwhelmed. They stand there with their mouths open and tilt their heads back until they are looking away up there at the top of the plane. Then they say, 'Jeeeezuzz Chriistt!' "

IRVING. The episode emerges in much the same way except for the addition of one poignant detail.

When to Pay Damn Quick

PHELAN. Hughes was concerned about being kidnaped for ransom and gave Dietrich specific instructions on what to do if it happened. "If they ever grab me, Noah, don't pay any ransom. Don't pay any attention to any notes you get from me, because if I write you a ransom note it will be because I was forced to do it. Don't give anybody a goddam dime." But Dietrich asks: "Suppose you become convinced that you're going to be killed, for sure, if the ransom isn't paid?" Hughes' reply: "That's a good point. In that case I'll write the ransom note and put PDQ down at the bottom under my signature. That will mean 'Pay Damn Quick.' "

The Phelan manuscript then goes on to relate Hughes' experience with a bumbling former Texas Ranger he hired as a full-time bodyguard. The Ranger cashed his first $400 paycheck and had his pocket picked before he could spend the cash. He later shot himself in the foot while twirling his gun.

IRVING tells the incident similarly, and in the same order.

Shooting Seagulls

PHELAN. Dietrich tried futilely to get Hughes interested in such relaxations as fishing and hunting and thus was surprised when the captain of a yacht described Hughes as "a hell of a shot." Explained the captain: "Whenever we take the boat out he sits in a chair with a .22 and knocks off all the seagulls when they land on the rigging. I asked him what he had against seagulls and he told me, T don't like them crapping on my boat.' "

IRVING. The point is the same in this version, but Irving uses even earthier language.

A Gift for Truman

PHELAN. When Harry Truman was running against Thomas Dewey in 1948, Hughes contributed to Truman's election fund. "When Truman was campaigning in Los Angeles, Hughes and his then political lawyer. Neil McCarthy, called on the President at the Biltmore Hotel. Hughes waited in an outer room while Neil went in, wished Truman well and gave him a $12.500 cash contribution in an envelope. While Neil was chatting with Truman. Howard stalked into the room and bluntly told the President. 'Mr. Truman, I want you to know that that is my money Mr. McCarthy is giving you.' "

IRVING. The story is substantially identical.

A Case of Athlete's Foot

PHELAN. Hughes' rumpled style of dress was well known. Says Dietrich: "The widely publicized stories about his slouching around in tennis shoes were true, but not for the reasons cited. The best-known story was that he took to sneakers during the war when he ran out of shoe rationing stamps. Actually, for a considerable period of time he had an infection like athlete's foot that he couldn't shake."

IRVING. Dietrich's version is recounted in much the same way.

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