SFExamine r JA Hughes 1J ulnas/zed 2 8 1972 How Maheu Fooled PY By Ron Laytner gone in th vast Hughes LAS VEGAS — A young- Last in a series of empire, b the former er man would think very articles revealing the rela- chief sp kesman for carefully before tangling tionship between billion- Hughes is c early different physically with Robert A. aire. Froward Hughes and than most. Maheu. The former FBI Robert Maheu, Hughes' agent is 56, but hp gives Nevada chieftain who is Maheu h s refused to take his the impression of b,aing an suing him for $50 million smissal lying extremely dangerous man. for firing him. down and h s armed him- self with a ough attorney, Maheu is one of the few Morton Gal ne. who once FBI agents in its history badly trounced Maheu and ever to have made a per- ing to Howard Hughes. the Hughes f u roes in court. fect score in shooting and spoke in a bizarre tele- Maheu an Galane had he has won an FBI medal phone press conference. for achievement. Ile is The voice accused Maheu been discus ing the possi- known as a master of of stealing from Howard bility of o conversation weapons. being moult red by listen- Hughes. ing devices •ecretly plant- On Jan. 7 a mysterious Over the years many ex- voice, identified as belong- ecutives have come and --Turn to Page.= Col, 'I

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In 1938, Hughes was given a ticker-tape parade in tured in a rare smile,, is center of photo. Official New York City, recognizing his record - breaking New York greeter at that ime was Grover Whalen, around the world flight. The young Hughes, cap- left; at right is Albert I. L dwick.

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—From Page 1 embassy. Our investigators dcl in Maheu 's rented there finally :broke him down and he told them the hnuse. story I am telling you now "If anyone is listening." — claiming it was always said Maheu, "I hope they his intention to tell the understand it is a felony in same story after he ar- this state. There are also rived in the U.S." federal regulations which After receiving speciat- preclude the use of bugging training in German espio- devices." nage techniques Costes, op- e have nothing to erating under great person- hide," added Galane, "Ev- al pressure, followed his erything we have done in orders and "fled" . this litigation has been Counter Agents above board and has hap- pened in the courts using At the time of his in- proper precedures volvement in the case Ma- Maheu became national- heu and his wife had a ly known over a year ago five-and-a-half month old when h e was suddenly son. He had just opened a fired by aides of Hughes resident agency for the FBI in Aberdeen, Wash. who said they were acting on instructions from the There he received an or- wraith-like industrialist. der to report immediately Accounts at . that• time at Washington for a special and ever since have de- DISCUSSED EAVESDROPPING POSSIBILITY assignment. scribed Maheu as a "super Attorney Morton Galane, left, and Robert Maheu At the Capital Maheu ipy." FBI agent and coun- was briefed on the back- terspy. He was rumored ground of the case and giv- once to have been under worked for the Federel Bu- of information. It did a en instructions on his cover contract to the Central In- reau of Investigation," Ma- good if Nazi intelligen 'e story. Because of his fluen- telligence Agency to aEsas- heu "The early part got the information after cy in French it had been . sinate Cuba's Fidel Castro. of 1942 was a time when es- the fact," Maheu e decided that he would be Just who is Maheu - pionage had evolved to a plained. the counter agent to work what did he do for the FBI point where there were The lead man they cho .e with the Nazi radio team. during the war and after? runny double and triple to send was a famo s He reported later in Mi- Why did Hughes choose a gents " French aviator, Dieudon e ami, turning in his creden- him to eventually become The Germans had decid- Costes. He had been one f. tials, gun, badge, every- his official spokesman and ed to send an the great pilots of Wor d thing that was identifiable / administrator of a $300 mil- team to the U.S. using a War I. At the time of t e — even clothing that held lion Nevada empire? lead man who was to offer German takeover laundry-marks. his services to the U.S. France ' he was a vic Maheu became Robert A. Work for FBI government., he continued. president of the Hisp. Marchand, a French- In this exclusive inter: The Germans would then Suiza Co. Costes is the m n Canadian black-marketeer, view Maheu finally sets the send a technician to set up who returned Lindbergh's and checked into a small record straight and de- a radio transmitter. flight in 1930. hotel on Miami Beach ' scribes his career in the "As you know, one of the "He arrived in where he waited for Costes FBI. big problems in those days Maheu said. -and we t to arrive. "During World War II, I was the quick transmission straight to the Americ. Costes arrived in the U.S. by way of Buenos Spain on Oct. 12. 1943 and he could build a radio for Normandy were either Aires, in June. 1943 and went into action. transmitter to open contact relocated or left_ in south-. was told that Maheu was On Nov. 30 he managed with but the FBI ern France." an FBI agent. "We took to get the French authori- placed a number of road- When 1. e war ended the calculated risk that he ties at Washington to rein- blocks in his way. . Costes went back to was a and state him as a lieutenant in Finally. Cavaillez h a d France where he was first would not, in fact, become the French Air Force so the set working and the tried as a spy then exoner- a triple agent." that he could wear the FBI let him transmit a few ated with the help of the For a long while the French uniform while oper- messages. always with Ma- FBI and recognized as a French aviator and Maheu ating as a German spy in heu at his side in case h hero. Cavaillez was first worked on the method of the U.S. tried to tip off the Nazis sentenced to five years by secret writing that Costes According to Connelley. that it was a FBI trap. a U.S. Federal court, then had been taught to use by the French-uniformed Nazi After the Germans had sent back to France a pris- the Nazi intelligence. This spy did considerable re- been convinced that Costes oner. was the code which would search work in the Library had access to solid infor- mation the espionage team After the war Maheu be- be Used to send messages of Congress and in the New came assistant to Cannel- baCk to Germany and Ma- York Public Library, ob- started sending messages that the invasion of Europe ley and worked on many of heu had to be completely taining material from the America's major eases familiar with it. restricted shelves on the was going to be staged in southern France. with the FBI's top The French war hero and strength of his French uni- trouble-shooter. When Con- RI-mined German spy form and credentials. At first it was reported to nelley's special squad was gave Maheu exact details But he sensed something German intelligence that broken up, Maheu became of his training at a German was wrong with his con- Costes had been called to supervisor of the adminis- espionage school in Ham- tact. Costes, and kept the Pentagon to answer tration division. burg and advance informa- away, much to Maheu's some questions abou tion on the top Nazi spy southern France. "After a while 1 re: dismay. signed. And after a short who was to join him. Troops Shifted In charge of this whole -Our surveillances dis- period of being in business closed that Cavaillez would project at the time. said And then the messages I formed my own compa- Maheu. was FBI Assistant attend a certain mass at became increasingly force ny. It was a combination St. Patrick's every Sunday Director E. J. Connelley ful so that the last were ab of international investiga- at a given time. And so we who has since died. solutely certain—there wa. tive work. public relations arranged in New York City no doubt —t h e invasion and management consult- Misled Nazis one Sunday for Costes and would take place in south ing. "Mr. Connelley had the he to bump into each other ern France. "Then one day in 1955 -- authority to go into any without their realizing "After the war." sai without knowing it --- FBI office and pre-empt they'd been maneuvered. Mallen, was told that went to work on a secret any case. He was in charge "Contact was now finally when the espionage papers assignment for Howard of this particular opera- established and eventually of the Germans wer Hughes. My life has never tion. I was introduced to Cavail- seized it was determine been the same since "Our whOle purpose in lez." said IVIaheu. "After a that—God knows ther 1 The Endi I working with the Nazis was while he and I be came were enough troops in Nor (coov right lc) 1972 by Ron Layt- to provide them with false good friends." mandy—but it was learne net. From the boo k. Howard Hughes: The Maheu Files. to be inforniation about the inva- Maheu said the Nazi spy that some. of the Gentle' Published in ADM by Quadrangle Books. Distributed by NEA Spe- sion of Europe." began buying parts so that troops which were destine cial Services.)

Maheu said that after a time he and Costes started sending messages to mail drops in Spain and Portu- gal. This was supposed to be a temporary method of coremtulication until the Nazi radio operator came over to set up his facility. Costes and he sent out many messages. but the ones they sent out were not the ones the Germans re- ceived. The FBI agent was still not sure at this time if Castes was a triple agent. "We would work together on a message," said Ma- heu, "and then I would get it to a mail drop. Unknown to Costes, however. the messages were flown to Washington a a d another message was prepared in the same code." The man the Germans eventually sent as the ra- dio operator was Jean Pant Marie Cavaillez. Cavaillez was an eleetri- : cal engineer. He had helped establish and oper- I ate a secret radio in the German . espionage head- quarters in the Hotel Luti- cia in Paris before France fell to the Nazis. Top Nazi Agent Accordina to the FBI he had built powerful transmitters for use in Ber- lin. He was one of Ger- many's top secret agents. The spy arrived in New Orleans on the steamship Magellanes from Vigo.