Maheu had evidence that Hughes had been kidnapped. He knew that Gay had long been on the outs with Hughes, despite the father-son image. One memo later circulated by Maheu expressed Hughes’s opinion that Gay was responsible for the breakup of Hughes’s marriage to Jean Peters. “I feel he let me down utterly, totally, completely,” Hughes wrote. He added, “If I were to list all the grievances, it would fill several pages.” In another memo to Maheu, dated March 21, 1968, Hughes had written of Gay, “Apparently you are not aware that the path of true friendship in this case has not been a bilateral affair. I thought when we came here and I told you not to invite Bill up here and not to permit him to be privy to our activities, you had realized that I no longer trusted him. . . . My bill of complaints against Bill’s conduct goes back a long way and cuts very deep. Also, it includes a very substantial amount of money, enough to take care of any needs of his children several times over.” Meier shared his evidence of Hughes’s dislike for Gay. He explained that the money reference is to Hughes Dynamics, a computer-software company Gay had set up in the early Sixties without Hughes’s knowledge or approval. Gay had spent millions of dollars hiring a staff of “computer experts,” who, according to documents in Meier’s files, prepared studies on the computerization of such institutions as police departments and the U. S. Postal Service. Hughes Dynamics had also assisted the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City, at Hughes expense; in beginning to computerize it’s operations. “They had offices all over the States, hundreds of people, they were lending millions of Hughes’s dollars,” says Meier, who was on the staff of Hughes Dynamics himself until he was tipped off that Hughes was not even aware of the operation and advised that he should get out. Meier resigned, and not long after that, Hughes’s wife saw a TV news story about Hughes Dynamics and reported it to Hughes, who ordered the entire staff fired within 24 hours.
11/31/1970