Portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in the Martin Scorsese movie The
Aviator, Howard Hughes is legendary as a playboy and pilot--but he is
notorious for what he became: the ultimate mystery man. Citizen Hughes
is the New York Times bestselling exposé of Hughes's hidden life, and
a stunning revelation of his "megalomaniac empire in the emperor's own
words" (Newsweek).
At the height of his wealth, power, and invisibility, the world's
richest and most secretive man kept what amounted to a diary. The
billionaire commanded his empire by correspondence, scrawling thousands
of handwritten memos to unseen henchmen. It was the only time Howard
Hughes risked writing down his orders, plans, thoughts, fears, and
desires. Hughes claimed the papers were so sensitive--"the very most
confidential, almost sacred information as to my innermost
activities"--that not even his most trusted aides or executives were
allowed to keep the messages he sent them. But in the early-morning
hours of June 5, 1974, unknown burglars staged a daring break-in at
Hughes's supposedly impregnable headquarters and escaped with all the
confidential files. Despite a top-secret FBI investigation and a
million-dollar CIA buyback bid, none of the stolen secret papers were
ever found--until investigative reporter Michael Drosnin cracked the
case.
In Citizen Hughes, Drosnin reveals the true story of the great Hughes
heist--and of the real Howard Hughes. Based on nearly ten thousand
never-before-published documents, more than three thousand in Hughes's
own handwriting, Citizen Hughes is far more than a biography, or even
an unwilling autobiography. It is a startling record of the secret
history of our times.
