His fictional biography of
Howard Hughes was indirectly the cause of the
famous Watergate scandal. While writing the book, he received
information about Hughes giving a loan to
Richard Nixon's brother Donald to
help him obtain contracts with The Pentagon. Nixon had been plagued by
scandalous rumors about this incident, and the book threatened to show
proof of impropriety. Even though the book was never published, and was
publicly dismissed as a fraud, Nixon remained paranoid about the
information becoming public, and feared that the Democrats were
receiving information from Hughes. One of the motivations behind the
Watergate break-in was to find out if the Democratic National Committee
had any connections to Hughes.
