Howard Hughes Kidnapped?
Over the years there have been statements and personal accounts of people who claim Hughes had an obsessive-compulsive disorder and drug addiction which turned him into isolation. Reportedly he no longer cut his hair or fingernails. Change in overall attitude/ personality with no other identifiable cause. Some have theories about disease. Others say it is more likely that he suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder, commonly known as OCD. He allegedly held excessive need for privacy; kept doors locked or closed, wouldn't let people in. Another common belief is that he was so afraid of being contaminated that he refused to leave his room or have contact with anyone outside of his entourage. Although for a select few it may all seem a bit too convenient....
Consider for a moment that his last photograph was reportedly taken in 1956 or 57 then died roughly twenty years later in Houston, Texas of kidney failure. Can it really be possible for a man of his popularity and status to simply disappear for twenty years without at least one single photograph or video taken? Besides that, when one takes into realization that this man was consistently in the headlines with a new celebrity girlfriend attached more frequently than magazines are published it becomes that much more difficult to believe. Did he suddenly suffer an overnight overhaul of such magnitude? Don't forget all reports of his current status was merely heard by word of mouth with no official evidence of all the rumors that had circulated from the late fifties to his reported death in the mid seventies.
Frankly for me personally, I can't honestly say I believe either side.
Here's an exerpt:
"1956: Howard Hughes, Texas millionaire who had inherited Hughes Tool Co., specializing in drill bits for oil wells, had expanded into aircraft design and manufacturing. He was buying his way toward control of the U.S. electoral process. He bought Senators, Governors, etc. He had developed Hughes Aircraft's position as the U.S.'s leading defense contractor. He finally bought his last (and biggest) politician: newly elected Vice President Richard M. Nixon, via a $205,000 non-repayable "loan," secured by a $13,000 vacant lot, to Nixon's brother Donald. The money was ostensibly for Donald's failing restaurant, "Nixonburger," in Whittier, California. A few months later, the restaurant closed. The money was never repaid. Instead, Donald Nixon used it to finance his way into Mob-connected real estate operations.
Early 1957: V.P. Nixon repaid the favor by having the IRS and Treasury Department grant tax-free status (refused twice before) to the "Hughes Medical Foundation", sole owner of Hughes Aircraft, creating a tax-free, non-accountable money funnel or laundry for whatever Hughes wanted to do. The U.S. Government also shelved various anti-trust suits against Hughes' TWA (Trans World Airlines), etc.
January 17, 1957: Jean Peters, a Hollywood star who had been romantically involved with Howard Hughes, divorced Stuart Cramer.
Early March, 1957: Howard Hughes lived in a secluded bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, romancing movie stars. Unfortunately for him, his business and political success had caught the eye of an even bigger fish. Onassis conceived a brilliant, ruthless, carefully planned event: He had Hughes kidnapped from his bungalow, bribing and using Hughes' own men (headed by Chester Davis, born Cesare in Sicily). Hughes's other men quit, got fired, or stayed on in the new Onassis organization.
March 12, 1957: Noah Dietrich, Hughes's right-hand man for 32 years, suddenly got fired, by "Hughes", over the phone, and never saw Hughes again.
March 13, 1957: Howard Cannon, City Attorney of Las Vegas, Nevada (who later became Senator Cannon) arranged a fake "marriage" between Hughes and Jean Peters in Tonopah, Nevada, to explain Hughes's sudden loss of interest in chasing Hollywood stars. Jean Peters received $1 million cash to take part in the deception. No actual record of the marriage has ever been found. The fake wedding was announced in Louella Parson's gossip column, leading some unkind souls to remark that Howard Hughes and Jean Peters were apparently married by a Parson name Louella.
Hughes, battered and brain damaged in the scuffle, was carted off to the Emerald Beach Hotel in the Bahamas. The entire top floor had been rented for thirty days for the "Hughes party" with "top security." Hughes, now a helpless invalid, was shot full of heroin for thirty days, then dragged off to a "hospital" cell on Onassis's private island, Skorpios, where he was the only "patient". Onassis now had a much larger power base in the U.S. (the Hughes empire), and control over V.P. Nixon and other Hughes-purchased politicians�as well as that wonderful money-laundering device, the "Hughes Medical Foundation."