ROGUES' GALLERY THE MONEY The Battle for Howard Hughes's Billions By James R. Phelan and Lewis Chester Random House 270pp $23 Howard Hughes's slide from entrepreneur, aviator, and film producer to paranoid, drug-addicted recluse is an absorbing but oft-told tale. Now comes The Money by James R. Phelan and Lewis Chester, two seasoned reporters and longtime followers of the Hughes saga. Focused on the aftermath of the billionaire's death in 1976, The Money makes a worthy, if prosaic, addition to the vast Hughes bibliography. Mercurial to the end, Hughes left no will, opening the door to protracted shenanigans. Remember Melvin Dummar, the young gas- station operator who claimed to have picked up a grateful Hughes in the desert and transported him to Las Vegas? He is only the most familiar of a rogues' gallery of cranks and impostors who, along with dozens of relatives, laid claim to Hughes's fortune. But the book's central figure is William Rice Lummis, a cousin who was appointed temporary administrator of Hughes's estate. In the authors' view, Lummis acquitted himself well, persevering through epic battles with tax collectors and the self-serving triumvirate that ran Summa Corp., Hughes's holding company. The infighting is authoritatively recounted, but it is hardly compelling reading. That said, the resolution of the drama turns on two richly satisfying ironies. Before he died, Hughes repeatedly said that he didn't want his relatives to inherit a penny. But thanks mainly to Lummis' skillful work, he and 21 other relatives ended up sharing $500 million. Moreover, long before Hughes's death, he had bequeathed his most valuable asset--his stock in Hughes Aircraft--to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Hughes saw the tax-exempt institution only as a colossal tax dodge, and during his life, it funded little medical research. But in 1985, the institute's new trustees sold Hughes Aircraft to General Motors Corp. for $5.2 billion--transforming the tax shelter into one of the world's great philanthropic institutions. Howard Hughes must be spinning in his grave. By ANTHONY BIANCO

Updated Oct. 16, 1997 by bwwebmaster
Copyright 1997, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
Terms of Use