Intriguing questions about Hughes book

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32838, 11 February 1972, Page 9

Intriguing questions about Hughes book

(By

WALLACE TURNER,

, of the Neto York Times News Service, through N.Z.P.A.)

SAN FRANCISCO, " February 10. J More excerpts from “The Autobiography of ' Howard Hughes” came , into the possession of i the “New York Times” today and, as did earlier ’ passages, they raisej intriguing questions j about the controversial book. If Howard Hughes did not ] help Clifford Irving produce : this thick manuscript, how was it produced? If those are not Howard Hughes’ words in those interviews, whose words are they? Could they have come from a reputed Hughes data bank? From confidential documents in circulation somewhere in the nation? The latest excerpts include some details that, unlike earlier excerpts that became available to the “New York

Times,” do not appear to have i come from newspaper and magazine files. One excerpt mentioning. Perry Lieber, who has worked for Hughes off and on for about 25 years, was read to Lieber. “You’ve shaken me,” Lieber said. “I don’t want to lend any credence to that book, but this story was never published. “I have never used it in a speech and I cannot remember even telling it to anyone. How could Irving have learned of it?” The story appears in the final verste” of the book as it was planned for publication by McGraw-Hill, Inc. until the recent disclosures caused a delay. “You must have had to carry a sack full of dimes and quarters around with you wherever you went,” Inring is purported to have said to Mr Hughes in what is represented as a tape-recorded ! interview. Mr Hughes is depicted as

answering in these words: “I’d charge the call to my office number. Some smart guy, one of my publicity men was visiting one of those Hollywood columnists one time—Hedda Hopper, I think it was—and I called him and told him to get out to a public telephone and call me back. A few minutes later —this was Perry Lieber, a publicity man, he called. I asked him his number and he gave it to me, and right away I knew something was wrong. I checked my book, and the number he’d given me was Hedda Hopper’s unlisted number. “So I got back on the wire and said, ‘What the hell are you trying to pull, Perry? When I want you to call from a public telephone I mean a public telephone, because that’s private. Hedda Hopper’s privav- telephone is about as public as you can possibly get, and I mean public in the worst possible way. What are you doing?’ ” Mr Lieber now is in Las

Vegas, where he is a public relations consultant for Hughes’s hotels. He said in a telephone interview that one day about 20 years ago he was in Miss Hopper’s office, listening to an interview between the columnist and an actor client. A maid, he recalled said that Lieber, was wanted on the telephone. It turned out to be Mr Hughes, he said, and the industrialist told him to go to a public telephone. “I stalled around long enough so he could think I’d had time, and then I took the phone to Hedda’s broom closet and called him,” Lieber said. “It was the only time I ever lied to him. I told him I was in a phone booth and he asked for the number. I told him, and he didn’t have to consult any phone book —he knew it was Hedda Hopper’s phone and told me to please call him as he’d asked. I did. And that time he didn’t ask for the number when I had one I could give him.”

Other excerpts were read ■ to Lieber ahd he said either i that he did not recognise the ; details or that Mr Hughes, iin the Excerpts, did not i sound the way he remembered Mr Hughes sounding. : In one of them Mr Hughes is , said to have favoured a gun , control law since 1931. Lieber said: “That is not ■ Howard Hughes.” Meanwhile, the great bulk i of the 220,000 words of “The Autobiography of Howard , Hughes” is still closely held ! by the editors who worked ! on it with Irving as it was i produced last year. > Other observers have sug- , gested that it would be posI sible to produce a scintillat- , ing volume by using known, i publicised incidents as the basis for fictitious conversa- ! tions with Mr Hughes. i It is in relation to this i theory that the computerised i biographical project of Rosei mont, Inc., conducted at Encino, California, by Hughes i Tool Company employees becomes important.

While the tool company has refused to allow outsiders to see anything about this project, its spokesmen have said the project is based on files of clippings and personal papers about Hughes’s life- .. . As it is sketchily described, this material has been indexed and cross-indexed by name and subject matter in such a way that a computer printout can be obtained on almost any aspect of Hughes’s life. Each index entry is keyed not to a publication but to a file, a shelf or a folder.

So, some observers say, it would be theoretically possible for a fictionalised set of answers to be produced from the established facts computerised at Encino. At any rate, until the purported conversations with Hughes are available for testing against various standards of accuracy, the question of how the book was produced will remain up in the air.