How Clifford Irving Sold ' By Stephen Isaacs waiduasion Post matt Writer NEW YORK, Jan. 29 — Suppose you are a book pub- lisher. Further, suppose one of your authors offers you a crack at one of the psiblish- ing coups of all time. The coup, you are assured, will be the 100 per cent, bona fide autobiography of McGraw-Hill His Howard R. Hughes, the most secretive and perhaps the most fascinating man in the world. You have your doubts. A 3 ' After all, this author has '1HE WASHINGTON POST Sunday, Tan. 30, 1972 always been one of your, well your more flaky au- thors, a hit of an adven- turer, a promiser of big things, who always delivers too late, who always tries to nudge a bit more in advance Latest Project royalties. After all, every other au- thor and journalist in the world wants to get at the re- clusive Hughes. Maybe it's just another promise. But, because you want the coup — if it's there to be had — you humor him, you say we'll go along if it's real. Soon, you start finding out It's not just talk. Corrob- oration starts flowing in. Wilson, corporate vice presi- believers, because they had The author is calling you dent of Time, Inc. (which wanted desperately to be- from this place and that, was, for $250,000, to run lieve. saying he's meeting Hughes, three excerpts of the hook BecauSe they wanted the And, the next thing you in its Life magazine), how coup, neither of the publish. know, he has documented he was so sure that this was ing firms did any checking prof, letters from the man the real item. into the author's claims. himself. "Oh, we're absolutely posi- They wanted the coup so The excitement of the im- tive" Wilson confided. badly that they feared, as pending coup overwhelms "Look, we're dealing with the author warned them, your customary caution. people like McGraw-Hill. that they might lose what Since you want to believe it, And, you know, we're not they had if they probed too you talk yourself into believ- exactly a movie magazine. far. ing it. This is Time, Inc., and Mc- All they had for corrobor- And you get had. Graw-Hill t a I k i n g. We've ation was 999 pages of what This, apparently, is what checked this thing out. We the author, Clifford Irving, has happened to the Mc- have proof." said was a transcript of 100 Graw-Hilt Book Co., a pub- He seemed offended, as hours of tapings he had with lishing house noted for its did Al Leventhal, vice presi- Hughes, Irving's travel and integrity, a house known for dent of McGraw-Hill's book expense receipts, several let- its high-priced ' and authori- division, that anyone would ters purported to be in tative technical publications. have the temerity to ques- Hughes' hand, and two can- "autobiogra- — and for the tion the veracity of one of celled checks, totaling phy" of Howard R. Hughes. their undertakings. Early Questions They had all become true On Dec. 7, 1971, when McGraw-Hill announced hurriedly that It was publish- ing Hughes' own life story, this reporter asked Donald $600,000, with the endorse- Graves and his assistant- his sympathetic handling of ment of H. R. Hughes on the managing editor, David Ma- the subject of the book, El- ness, were certain they had backs. myre de Hory, an alleged Hughes' life story, and they art forger Irving had met on They checked . the hand- planned to syndicate ex- the Spanish island where he writing with one graphology cerpts abroad, as well as lives. firm, and it said the writing publish three 10,000-word segments in Life, along with More Letters was Hughes'. Irving's own story of how he Irving told Stewart- that, Tht was all. No pictures of got Hughes' cooperation, furthermore, Hughes had Hughes. No nothing. Irving They did not, however, written him two more let- said the man forbade that. show the manuscript to ters, both in January, and he thought he might be able Garry Valk, Life's pub- their own Frank McCulloch, head of the Time-Life news to talk Hughes into collabo- lisher, was not even told de- service in New York. Mc- rating on a biography. Stew- tails of the project. Several Culloch, a tough, highly re- art, after conferring with days after the announce- spected newsman, was one Leventhal, told Irving to go ment, he told this reporter of the last journalists known ahead. that "I was afraid I might to have interviewed Howard blurt out something at a Hughes—back in 1957. party. So I told Ralph (Ralph Graves, Life's man- Expert Was Sure Soon thereafter, Stewart aging editor) not to even tell When McCulloch did read and Leventhal started get- the book, it was only after me what he was doing." ting calls from Irving from Irving had them sewn up. the Howard Hughes he knew had talked to him over various places where, Irving Manuscript Convincing the telephone on Dec. 14 told them, he was meeting He had also provided and told him the autobiogra- with Hughes. them wih a whale of a man- phy was a fake. Last March, Irving ap- uscript. Even after McCulloch was peared in New York bearing Graves will say in an arti- told that, and was given the a book contract between cle to be published in Life's manuscript, be was sure the him and Howard R. Hughes, issue on sale Monday that "I manuscrip was authentic. signed by him and Howard was skeptical about any- But he and Graves then R. Hughes, and dated March thing involving Howard undertook an investigation 4. Hughes" but was convinced to find out If Irving had McGraw-Hill could not do by those 999 pages of tran- been telling the truth about any checking. however. Irv- script. how he got the information ing insisted that Hughes had I "It was marvelous stuff," for the book. told him he would back out his article says. "Outspoken, On Jan. 20, Graves and of the project if that were full of rich and 'outrageous McCulloch grilled Irving for done—that Irving had t o anecdotes, as well as de- four hours. Irving stuck to guarantee complete secrecy. tailed accounts of Hughes' his story. Leventhal, anxious to youth, his movie-making. his Thursday night, Irving fi- preserve the coup, complied. career in aviation, his busi- nally told McCulloch ihst On March 23, Irving got ness affairs, his private life, the two McGraw-Hill cheeks i McGraw-Hill to sign a con- his opinions and crotchets. made out to H. R. fluqh tract with him for the "He explained why he and another for $50,000 that 'Hughes book for $500,000 in phoned people on business - he had purchased to the advance royalties. Irving matters in the middle of the order of H. R. Hughes, had was paid $100,000 of that night (he kept strange hours been deposited by his wife, three weeks later. anyway, and it caught them Edith, in a Swiss bank, and The Selling Game at their weakest moment). the money later withdrawn "He explained his philoso- McGraw-Hill then immedi- by her. ately went to work selling. phy of business negotiation With Irving's credibility (one man always plays lion, now somewhat In question, It confided its coup to one man plays donkey, and there remains, of course, it is always better to be the how he got the material—a lion and eat the donkey). "He told business yarns Dell Publishing Co. and con- ranging from high finance tracted with it (for several in TWA (Trans World Air- hundred thousand dollars) lines) to the time a high- question still very much un- for paperback rights, and ranking corporate friend with the Book-of-the-Month was caught swiping a box of answered. Club for book club rights. cookies from the supermar- It began a year ago, when ket. Even the boring parts Irving called his editor at were persuasive: Howard McGraw Hill, Robert Stew- Hughes has always been fas- art, to ask Stewart whether cinated by the minutiae of he could tell Howard aircraft design and perform- Hughes, supposedly the real ance, and the transcript had Howard Hughes, that Mc- lots of it. I think we bad all Graw-Hill was his publisher. sat down to read with hope He told Stewart that he but with severe doubts. We had sent Hughes a copy of finished with the conviction his last book. "Fake," (which that these 1,000 pages of McGraw-Hill published in talk were authentic." 1969) and that Hughes had From – that moment, written him a letter praising Clifford Irving, right, with an unidentified man, interviewed in New YoArr Piraidday?."38 `Mrs. Irving' Calls Bank ZURIC H, Switzerland, Craw-Hill Inc., the New with a man he is convinced Jan. 29 (AP)—A woman who York publishers of a dis- was Hughes. identified herself as Mrs. puted Hughes book au- Suskind said Hughes "of Clifford Irving, wife of the American writer, has tele- thored by Irving. They said fered me a prune and we phoned Swiss police to say they had paid the money to talked for a minute or two that she withdrew the Hughes. about one thing and an- $650,000 intended for How- The district attorney said other." Suskind said he re- ard Hughes from a Zurich the woman told police Irv- ported this in an affidavit to hank account.