Robert Maheu
| Robert Aime Maheu | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 30, 1917 Waterville, Maine |
| Died | August 4, 2008 (aged 90) Las Vegas, Nevada |
Robert Aime Maheu (October 30, 1917 – August 4, 2008) was an American businessman and lawyer, who worked for the FBI, CIA and as the chief executive of Nevada operations[1] for the industrialist Howard Hughes.
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[edit] Biography
Maheu was born in Waterville, Maine, and held degrees from Holy Cross and Georgetown University. During his law studies at Georgetown, he was hired into the FBI (1941), and worked as counter-intelligence officer in Europe during World War II. He left the FBI in 1947, becoming a self-employed business owner, consultant and investigator. His contract with the Hughes company started in 1955.[2]
Maheu was a very close confidant to brothers President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.[3]Although Maheu was for years a close confident of Howard Hughes, he never met the man face-to-face, as they worked via memo and telephone. He was dismissed by Hughes in 1970 after losing a power struggle with Chester Davis and Bill Gay; in a resulting libel law suit, Maheu was paid $2.8 million.[4] As part of the struggle to get rid of Maheu, Hughes wrote a manuscript letter to Davis and Gay which was published in facsimile by Life in January 1971; this publication provided Clifford Irving with a sample of Hughes' handwriting which he later used to attempt to forge Hughes' autobiography.[5]
Maheu was implicated in the plot to assassinate the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in the early 1960s. At the request of the CIA, Maheu was to enlist the help of Mafiosi John Roselli and Salvatore Giancana, who both had connections in Cuba.[6][7] In testimony before the Church Committee, in 1975, Maheu told of his role, saying that he thought the United States "was involved in a just war."[8]
He died in 2008 at the age of 90 in Las Vegas. The cause was said to be heart failure. [9]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Levitan, Corey (2008-03-02). "Top 10 scandals". Las Vegas Review-Journal. http://www.lvrj.com/living/16160347.html. Retrieved 2008-03-03.
- ^ "Robert Maheu Able Opponent in Hughes Row". Los Angeles Times. 1970-12-10.
- ^ >"JFK: A Presidency Revealed". The History Channel. 2009-04-11.
- ^ "Howard Hughes Company Must Pay $2.8 Million to Slandered Ex-Aide". The Washington Post. 1974-12-05.
- ^ Stephen Fay, Lewis Chester, Magnus Linklater, "Hoax: The Inside Story of the Howard Hughes - Clifford Irving Affair", Book Club Associates, London, 1972, p. 61-63.
- ^ Jack Anderson (1971-01-18). "6 Attempts to Kill Castro Laid to CIA". The Washington Post.
- ^ "The CIA's Family Jewels". The National Security Archive. June 2007. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/index.htm.
- ^ "Maheu Relates His Part in CIA Plot to Kill Castro". Los Angeles Times. 1975-07-31.
- ^ Goldstein, Richard."Robert Maheu, 90, Surrogate for Howard Hughes, Is Dead". The New York Times.
[edit] Further reading
Drosnin, Michael. Citizen Hughes: In his Own Words, How Howard Hughes Tried to Buy America. Portland, Oregon: Broadway Books, 2004. ISBN 0-76791-934-3.
