Howard Hughes In Las Vegas

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AVAILABLE NOW ON AMAZON.COM AND IN MAJOR BOOK STORES

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THE TRUE STORY OF HOWARD HUGHES IN LAS VEGAS


By Ron Laytner
Copyright 2009
Edit International

[FROM THE BOOK]

It was 2am in Miami and I was parked across from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute trying to understand the mystery man funding it. I had four hours to kill before my flight to Las Vegas and wondered who I’d meet when I got to Nevada.

The dark building had tall fences round it and high tech internal security. It was more secretive now than ever because the entire world was asking, ‘Where is Howard Hughes?’

The unseen billionaire, and his rings of body guards and private handlers, had secretly been moved from Nevada to somewhere on the globe.

It was done without the knowledge of Robert Maheu, once third highest man in the FBI, who worked for Hughes at $10,000 a week ($50,000 in today’s money) for 17 years running his Las Vegas Empire and its 18,000 employees.

I was on my way to interview Maheu for the only true story about Howard Hughes’ secret years in Nevada. It would be the first information on Howard Hughes in decades.

It started well. The New York Times was syndicating my story to hundreds of publications. Sales in America and overseas were so good the Times commissioned me to write a book on the interviews. Success was in the air and even the Book of the Month Club was calling.

It was my first book and my new friends at the Times assured me I would end up a millionaire from its sales.

David Rimmel, managing editor of one of my client newspapers, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, told me “Ron your life has just changed. You won’t be a journalist any longer. From now on you’ll be an author.” …

But he was wrong. They were all wrong. My dreams quickly went down the drain.

The literary attack came out of Spain. An American writer, Clifford Irving, living on the island of Ibiza, came out with a book he claimed he’d written from secret interviews he’d had with Howard Hughes himself.

My New York Times syndication contracts and foreign edition sales were cancelled. I believed my book, the only true story of Howard Hughes’ life and dealings in Las Vegas, was finished.

That crook, Irving, had made up the entire story. He’d tricked America’s great publishing houses into putting up almost one million dollars in cash for the chance to publish his bogus book. He put the money into Switzerland where banking secrecy laws would protect him. He was positive that Hughes, who had never spoken to anyone in years, would deny he’d ever met or talked with Irving..

But Howard Hughes did make denials (all detailed in this book) and the Swiss banks lifted their veil of secrecy. Disgraced, Irving had to return the swindled money. Irving went to jail, sentenced to two and a half years, his wife was sentenced to jail in Switzerland. And his victims were forgotten, including me.

Now Clifford Irving is exposed again in the movie HOAX, (distributed by Disney Studios) starring Richard Gere, from a book written by reporters at the London Sunday Times.

And it turned out my book wasn’t finished. Over the years, it kept right on selling. Readers have been and always will be captivated by Howard Hughes. And the only man who knew what happened in Las Vegas, Robert Maheu, told me the entire story.

The book is being reprinted with lots of information and photographs and is now available on www.amazon.com - you will be able to find it under Howard Hughes or Ron Laytner.

And so here it is, with all its drama and colorful characters, Frank Sinatra, (having his teeth knocked out) Richard Nixon and bribes, mafia gangsters (that Hughes threw out) and many more. Read it and tell me what you think by email: ron@howardhughesbook.com.

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I’m still a journalist and enjoying it greatly, go to my website: www.editinternational.com and you’ll see some of the greatest stories in the world.

Robert Maheu worked as a young FBI agent during the Second World War posing as a Nazi sympathizer. He then formed his own investigative company doing jobs for the CIA which they couldn’t do themselves.

In 1960 before the Bay of Pigs invasion, Maheu was hired by the CIA to get American mobsters involved in an unsuccessful plot to kill Fidel Castro. He started working for Howard Hughes tracking down and stopping blackmailers and finding information on business rivals until he was hired full time to buy up, start and run Hughes Las Vegas Empire. He is credited with ridding Las Vegas of its gangsters.

By Ron Laytner
Copyright 2009
Edit International



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