November 14, 2023 • 32 mins
In the early 1970s, McGraw-Hill Book Company landed what could have been the literary scoop of the 20th century: A writer named Clifford Irving pitched them that he'd obtained the permission of the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes to write a tell-all memoir of the mogul. That manuscript, though, turned out to be one of the biggest literary hoaxes of the 20th century, and it landed Irving in prison.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
In early nineteen seventy one, publisher McGraw hill Book Company
landed what could have been the literary scoop of the
twentieth century. A writer named Clifford Irving pitched them that
he'd obtained permission of the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes to
write a tell all memoir of the Aviator slash movie Mogul.
That manuscript, though, turned out to be one of the
(00:35):
biggest literary hoaxes of the twentieth century, and it landed
Irving in prison. Welcome to Criminalia, I'm Maria Tremarki.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
And I'm Holly Frye. Clifford Irving was an aspiring novelist
when he moved to an artist colony on the island
of Abiza off the coast of Spain in nineteen fifty three.
During the years he lived there, he wrote and published
his first novel, On a Darkling Plane. He spent many
years living on the island and wrote and published additional
works while there, and that's also where he met Hungarian
(01:06):
born artist and forger Elmer d' horri Dehore had moved
to Abisa in nineteen sixty six, but he spent only
two years there. It's a very different story for a
different day, but the short of it is Dehoy was
arrested for reasons other than his art forgery and fraud.
Irving turned de Hori into the topic of a book
(01:27):
which was titled Fake, the Story of elmerd Horri, The
Greatest art Forger of our Time. That book came out
in nineteen sixty nine, and Fake is a work that
will pop up again.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
In this story, Irving was living on Ibitho when he
concoct in an idea that changed the course of his life.
In his own account of the scheme, which was never
the exact same story twice, Irving later explained he got
the seed for writing Howard Hughes's memoir after reading a
magazine article about the billionaire's eccentric lifestyle, a piece to
(01:59):
Time titled the Case of the Invisible Billionaire, published in
the December nineteen seventy issue of Newsweek. We suppose, we
should say the idea for writing a fake memoir.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Irving used the critical success of his as Told to
Him Memoir of Dahore as a springboard for a new project.
He convinced editors at McGraw hill that Howard Hughes had
contacted him to express his admiration for Fake, and that
Hughes had proposed a collaboration with Irving on a similar project.
(02:32):
Excited about the pitch, McGraw hill paid Irving seven hundred
and sixty five thousand dollars for the book, to be
called The Autobiography of Howard Hughes. Life Magazine bought the
serial rights for two hundred fifty thousand dollars, and Dell
Publishing Company obtained the paperback rights for another four hundred
thousand dollars. Payments were to be made to Hughes, but
(02:54):
Irving requested that the money be wired to him instead.
He explained that he would, as the writer of the piece,
act as the middleman. The cash advance was deposited into
a Swiss bank account opened in the name H. R. Hughes.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
So before we continue, let's hit some notes on this.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Howard Hughes Guy.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Hughes was a billionaire tycoon who was an aerospace engineer, businessman, entrepreneur, filmmaker, philanthropist, pilot,
and well known playboy. His life was big, and the
list of things he attempted and the things he accomplished
is long. Along with those accomplishments, though, he's often remembered
by his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle. Though undiagnosed during
(03:38):
his life, stories of his battles with his mental health
are numerous, and, as it happens, range from truth to fiction.
Modern experts, though, agree in hindsight that Hughes exhibited signs
of obsessive compulsive disorder throughout much of his life and
battled mesophobia, which is an extreme fear of germs. He
also lived with chronic pain from a near fatal plane
(04:01):
crash and had increasing deafness. When Irving proposed the memoir
to his publisher, Hughes, who had not spoken to the
press since nineteen fifty eight, had just left Las Vegas
for new residence on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. To
be clear, Howard Hughes was very much alive while Irving
tried to pull off this hoax.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Irving began by studying Hughes's handwriting from a letter reproduced
in that Newsweek article who we mentioned earlier. He became
confident enough to write in Hughes's hand and to fake
his signature. For instance, he forged letters from Hughes to
his publishers to back up the story that Hughes chose
him to deliver his memoir and no one questioned it.
(04:44):
With children's book author and longtime friend Richard Suskind on
board to help research, the pair began studying Hughes's life.
They gathered old news stories in any reference material they
could find. They spent their days interviewing each other. One
pretended to be Hughes while the other interviewed him, and
they would record and then transcribe these imaginary conversations as
(05:08):
evidence of their meetings with their subjects. In one of
these fake interviews, for instance, the fake Hughes described his
friendship with Ernest Hemingway. Note this was totally fiction. Those
two men were not friends. In another fake, Hughes described
the breasts of actress Jane Russell. This one is actually
(05:29):
a real story, but it's not what you might think.
Hughes had designed a unique underwire bra to fix a
problem with Russell's costumes on the set of his movie
Hell's Angels. Suskind not only became involved in research with
Irving he would also become co author of this project.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
We're now going to take a break for word from
our sponsor. When we're back, we'll talk about Irving's travels
to meet with Hughes, his convincing anecdote about a prune,
and how he was so self assured of his oaks
he even took a lie detector test to back himself up.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Welcome back to Criminalium. Let's talk about what happened when
Howard Hughes got winned of the upcoming memoir.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
In nineteen seventy one, Irving traveled to Mexico to meet
with a quote friend of Octavio's that was their code name,
more like code phrase really, that he and Suskind used
for Hughes. Irving claimed that he and his friend of
Octavio's first met at seven am on February thirteenth on
a mountaintop in Wahaka. He also traveled to Puerto Rico
(06:48):
and to the Bahamas to allegedly meet with his subject.
Sometimes they talked in cars, sometimes in motels, he said,
and due to the nature of Hughes' lifestyle, it didn't
seem strange to Irving's editors that Hughes would meet with
a secret biographer on top of a Mexican pyramid. Note
they didn't. On March fourth, Irving reported to his editors
(07:10):
he had finally officially signed a letter of agreement with
Hughes and San Juan, and he delivered the fake document
to their New York office. On March twenty third, Irving
was officially signed with McGraw hill to pen the memoir,
and over the next several months, in an effort to
make his work seem authentic, his editors received calls from Mexico,
(07:31):
Puerto Rico, Miami, and other places around the world where
Irving claimed to be with Hughes. Later, it would be
discovered that much of the time Irving claimed he was
in parked cars with Hughes, he was actually seeing his mistress,
the Danish singer and actress Nina von Pallandt.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
On September thirteenth that same year, Irving arrived at the
McGraw hill New York office with what he claimed were
the complete tape transcripts of his sessions and interviews with
Howard Hughes. Use In reality, these were those tapes and
transcripts that he and Suskan had put together Irving's hoax worked,
at least in part, because he based it on what
(08:10):
was largely genuine. Those tape transcripts seemed real. The manuscript
he was drafting was written in such a way that
accurate details about Hughes's life were intertwined with totally fictional elements.
But it was convincing, and several experienced editors at McGraw
hill in Life magazine found it convincing enough in its
(08:31):
tone and detail about Hughes that still no one questioned
the work.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
But the truth was that Irving's manuscript was identical at
many points with another manuscript that didn't belong to him
or to Richard Suskins. It was penned by a writer
named James Feelin.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Years earlier.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Felin had been hired to ghostwrite Hughes's life story through
a man who knew more about him than anyone else
in the world, who, for thirty two years worked for
Howard Dietrich, was chief executive officer of the Hughes Tool Company,
And instead of reading a whole resume and list, let's
just call him Howard's right hand Matt. There's no solid
(09:15):
answer how Irving got his hands on Felin's unpublished work.
Though there are quite a bunch of different stories about
how it might have happened, authorities believe it was probably
in early nineteen seventy one, and may have also included
one hundred and fifty pages of a transcript of tape
recorded interviews Felan had conducted with Dietrich. Hang on to
(09:36):
this bit. We'll come back around to Felin in just
a moment.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
If you're wondering why nobody from McGraw hill or Life
ever picked up the phone to speak directly with Hughes
about his upcoming memoir, there was actually a reason Irving
had included an interesting clause in his contract with his
publishers because Hughes was so reclusive, Irving felt that there
(10:00):
was a good chance that he would kill the whole
project if he got wind of even a whiff of
publicity surrounding the book, so contractually it was agreed that
the publishers would not meet with or contact the billionaire. Instead,
Irving provided documentation to them from Hughes. Allegedly from Hughes. One,
(10:21):
for instance, was a faked, nine page handwritten letter directed
to the publisher about the.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Memoir, but Hughes did hear about the McGraw hill book
deal and the upcoming spread in Life, and he, or
possibly a representative for him, call the man named Frank McCullough. Frank,
then working in Time Life New York headquarters, was a
journalist and had been the last person to interview Howard
(10:48):
back in nineteen fifty eight. He hadn't heard from Hughes
in years, and he took the call. Hughes was irate,
insisted the entire thing was fake, and wanted this book
deal kill.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Irving had been betting that the tycoon's reclusive ways would
guarantee the quote gorgeous literary caper would succeed, and he
hoped quote Hughes would never be able to surface to
deny it, or else he wouldn't bother. Irving obviously lost
that bet. Although Hughes lived in total seclusion during the
final decade of his life from about nineteen sixty six
(11:24):
to nineteen seventy six, he was not out of touch
with the world, and his lawyers held a press conference
about the pending memoir. The reclusive Hughes himself attended by phone,
and they denounced the book as fraudulent. Hughes also denied
Irving's narrative of their relationship and stated that he had
never met the guy. Hughes's legal team then sued Irving
(11:47):
and his publisher, and in response, Irving appeared on the
television news magazine Sixty Minutes a week later to convince
any skeptics that the memoir was in fact real. He
even shared an annaote of how, during his first meeting
with Hughes, the mogul produced a bag of organic prunes
and offered one to him. That's a quaint little detail.
(12:09):
It wasn't at all true, as the two men had,
of course never met. CBS News correspondent and Sixty Minutes
host Mike Wallace believed and backed Irving's whole story. Irving
now had a credible journalist, one who had been called
a tough guy interrogator by The New York Times, give
his work a stamp of approval on national television.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Hughes's a version to publicity and being among the public
did foster some skepticism about Irving's claims to have actually
interviewed the billionaire, But even though Hughes did call the
whole thing crap, his reputation for eccentricity left some journalists
believing that he was the one lying and that perhaps
(12:52):
he had regrets about what was about to be published.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Irving kept this hoax going and insisted that he had
several secret meetings with Hughes. He even submitted to a
lie detector test at the request of his publisher, and
though there were inconsistencies in the results, he passed. Eventually,
McGraw hill hired specialists to check the handwriting that he
had submitted as Hughes's against samples of Irving's writing dating
(13:20):
back to nineteen thirty six. A report by Osborne Associates,
a highly respected New York firm of handwriting analysts, cast
doubt on the authenticity of the documents Irving claimed were
written by Hughes.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
We're going to take a break for word from our sponsors.
When we return, we'll talk more about compelling evidence against Irving,
and we'll talk about his trial.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Welcome back to Criminilium. Let's talk about Irving's trial and
how the fake memoir did eventually get published.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
On top of all this compelling evidence against Irving, it
turned out that Time Life, parent of Life magazine, had
a copy of his manuscript for weeks but during that
time they hadn't put together an investigative team to authenticate it.
In fact, that didn't happen until after Hughes complained, and
then it still didn't happen until five weeks after the
(14:29):
call from Hughes's team to investigate the authenticity of that memoir.
Said Donald Wilson, a Time Life vice president at the
time at the hoax, quote we made mistakes. I'll admit
we got off to a late start in investigating the manuscript.
A statement by a member of the magazine's staff at
the time alleged that magazine executives resisted comparing the Irving
(14:50):
manuscript with other possible Hughes memoirs that they knew about
in deference to McGraw hill, which owned the work, but
Wilson denied that accusation. He admitted though quote we just
didn't think of it. McCulloch also admitted it didn't occur
to him either, stating quote, I just have to plead
guilty to being that blind.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Frank McCulloch also stated he had known for some time
that James Felan had a manuscript about Hughes, and though
the comparison did not happen with haste. It did eventually happen.
Late one night at his lawyer's office, Irving received a
phone call from Frank, who informed him that quote, We've
got the Felin manuscript on the way to New York.
(15:32):
Felan's flying here with it. We're going to lay it
down alongside your manuscript in the morning and read them together.
According to McCulloch, there was initially silence on the other
end of the line before Irving finally simply said, quote, wow.
When Felan's version of the Hughes slash Dietrich book was
(15:54):
read in tandem with Irving's manuscript, it was suddenly completely
clear Fieland's book was irving source material. In some sections,
the two were identical.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
In February of nineteen seventy two, Time Life reported that
the Hughes memoir provided by Irving drew significantly from writer
James Feelin's manuscript. Here's an example. In conversation with Phelan,
McCulloch mentioned the New York Times had printed an excerpt
from the Irving manuscript, an anecdote involving Perry Lieber, a
(16:29):
Hughes press agent. The short clip goes like this, and
you'd think it'd be a throwaway detail, but it became
a significant problem for Irving. Lieber once had a moment
where he'd been trapped by Hughes as he used a
phone in gossip columnist Hetta Hopper's office instead of making
his call from an outside payphone as he'd been asked
to do. That's it short and sweet, and according to
(16:52):
liber there was absolutely no way Irving knew that detail.
So when Phelan saw the excerpt during the comparison of
the manuscripts, he knew it immediately. It was an anecdote
included in his manuscript shared with him by Dietrich. Suskin
commented on this situation to The New York Times, saying, quote,
(17:13):
don't believe everything you read in Time magazine.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Donald Wilson explained two possible and probable reasons magazine executives
didn't properly vet the work, stating, quote, the manuscript itself
sounded so real, and as it turns out, it was
based on material that came from Dietrich, who was close
to Hughes. And then there was the handwriting. Even when
the handwriting proved not to be Hughes's, there was still
(17:39):
a possibility that the material was really from Hughes and
Irving had somehow got hold of it. Ultimately, so much
of the material from Phelan's book matched Irving's work that
McGraw hill, after just a few hours of deliberation, announced
that it had doubts about the authenticity of Irving's work.
Life Magazine also took action and canceled its agreement to
(18:01):
serialize the memoir.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
In addition to the publishers, both the United States Postal
Inspection Service and the United States Attorney's Office investigated Irving
and his manuscript. The United States Postal Inspection Service is
the federal law enforcement arm of the United States post Office.
Since a big part of Irving's set up for publishing
his forged book had taken place using the mail, remember
(18:26):
he'd sent forged letters to his publisher posing as Hughes,
postal inspectors opened an investigation. They got a government subpoena
to force Irving to give samples of his handwriting. Inspector
John Tarpi told The Toledo Blade in nineteen seventy three,
so this is a recollection of the case. After Irving's
admission of his guilt quote the writing we received was
(18:50):
different from the Hughes documents, but close examination showed that
some characteristics and habits were the same. The teas were
crossed the same, the eyes were dotted the same, and
some letters were broken up alike. We took the samples
to our own handwriting experts, who studied them for two
days and confirmed that they were the same.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
And then there was the United States Attorney's Office. Through
his lawyer Maurice Nessen, on March thirtieth, nineteen seventy two,
Irving admitted that he had forged letters and that he
had faked the famous billionaire's memoir. The United States attorneys
stated that Irving was willing to talk and exchange for
immunity for his wife. Recall that Irving had McGraw hill
(19:32):
sent Hughes's payments to an account Irving could access. That
was to a bank in Zurich, and that's where Irving's wife, Edith,
who was a German born Swiss citizen, used a false
passport with the name Helga R. Hughes to withdraw funds.
If charged, she would face trial in the United States
and in Switzerland. The Irvings promised cooperation if the passport
(19:56):
forgery and bank fraud charges against Edith were dropped or
at least lessened in Switzerland.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
At the urging of American authorities. Swiss authorities investigated the H. R.
Hughes bank account and discovered that, other than the deposits
from publishers, every transaction associated with the account had been
made by Irving's wife. It was problematic, as you can imagine,
when Swiss banking authorities notified McGraw hill that the mister H. R. Hughes,
(20:27):
the person they were paying, was a woman using the
pseudonym Helga R.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Hughes.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
So Swiss authorities they were chilly on the idea of leniency,
but they agreed to consider it on one concession. If
the Irvings returned the six hundred and fifty thousand dollars
that Edith slash Helga had withdrawn in Zurich, maybe she'd
receive a suspended sentence. But ultimately there.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Was no deal.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Some money remained and could be returned, but the Irvings
had spent about one hundred thousand dollars and authorities couldn't
account for an additional one hundred thousand, so thanks were
most certainly at this point totally unraveling.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Irving and his wife were indicted for a conspiracy to
defraud through use of the mails, and pleaded guilty in
federal court. In state court, along with Richard Suskin, they
pleaded guilty to conspiracy and grand larceny. Both men, as
well as Edith, spent time in prison. On July sixteenth,
nineteen seventy two, Irving was sentenced. He served about sixteen
(21:30):
months of a two and a half year sentence in
federal prison. Edith served two months of a two year
sentence in the United States and sixteen months of a
two year sentence in Switzerland. She also divorced Clifford post incarceration.
Suskind went a different path, and he refused to back
Irving in court in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Suskin
(21:52):
testified that contrary to his earlier affidavit, he had never
actually seen Howard Hughes. His punishment was much lighter, and
he served five months of a six month sentence. The
Irvings were also fined ten thousand dollars each while imprisoned.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Irving was dubbed con Man of the Year by Time magazine.
The International Herald Tribune called the fake autobiography quote the
most famous unpublished book of the twentieth century. Irving later
told the reference work contemporary authors quote, I don't see
it as a crime worthy of society's customary revenge. Had
(22:32):
I succeeded, no one would have been hurt. If I
had it all to do over again, I would do
it all with one difference. I would succeed.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
With Richard Suskind. Irving recounted the events of the hoax
in the book Clifford Irving What Really Happened It was,
his autobiography, originally published in nineteen seventy two and then
reissued in nineteen eighty one, simply as the Hoax. In it,
Irving wrote quote, I had never realized I was committing
a crime. I had thought of it as a hoax,
(23:06):
and money, he insisted, was not his motive. He continued, quote,
the whole Hughes affair had been a venture into the unknown,
a testing of myself, a constant gauntlet of challenge and response.
He also admitted that quote a certain grandeur had rooted
itself into the scheme, and I could still spy a
reckless and artistic splendor to the way we had carried it. Out.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
After his incarceration, Irving told the Los Angeles Times he
had felt the scam was quote exciting, It was a challenge,
it became an adventure of the book, and that statement,
the Washington Post wrote, quote call it a prank, scandal, adventure,
criminal conspiracy, or an early piece of fake news. Irving
(23:51):
fooled lie detectors, handwriting experts, publishers, journalists, Swiss Bank officials,
and very nearly the entire United States.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Over the years, Irving has offered different explanations for what
he called the quote writing event. Mostly though, as to
why he decided to write the fake Hughes book, he
deferred to the epigraph of the hoax and a relevant
quote from someone named Jean la Mauchanceau as his explanation.
That quote begins like this, you may look for motive
(24:22):
in an act, but only after the act has been committed.
An effect creates not only the search for a cause,
but the reality of the cause itself. I must warn you, however,
that the attempt to establish relationships between acts and motives,
effects and causes is one of the most time wasting
games ever invented by man. When a reporter from Britain's
(24:45):
Telegraph newspaper asked Irving who Jean la Mauchanceau was. Irving
replied that he was a quote, twelfth century French philosopher,
but then he paused and recanted that statement, saying, quote, actually,
I'm made him up. Any French speakers among our listeners
may have noticed that mau chanset translates to unlucky. So
(25:08):
it kind of seems like a tongue in cheek way
for Irving to convey that he felt the difference between
success and getting caught was just a matter of bad luck.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
His follow up tell All, became the subject of a
two thousand and six movie also named The Hoax, starring
Richard Gear as Clifford and Alfred Molina as Richard Suskins.
Upon viewing it, though Irving insisted his name be removed
as a technical advisor from the credits, stating that the
story quote took too many liberties. On his website, he
(25:39):
wrote of it quote movie Clifford has the energy of
a not too bright psychopath. The movie is best thought
of as a hoax.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Irving also published the work Jaling the Prison Memoirs of
zero zero four zero aka Clifford Irving as an ebook
in twenty eleven. In twenty twelve, his Fake Hughes autobiography
was published also as an ebook under the title Clifford
Irving's Autobiography of Howard Hughes.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Clifford was the son of Jay and Dorothy Irving. Jay
was an American cartoonist known for his syndicated strip Potsey,
as well as covers for Collier's Magazine. He graduated from
Cornell University in nineteen fifty one, and though initially wanted
to be an artist, discovering the prose and lifestyle of
Ernest Hemingway set him down a different path. He began
(26:31):
his love affair with wanderlust and writing shortly after college.
He wrote roughly twenty novels and numerous works of nonfiction,
though some of his nonfiction works have been criticized for inaccuracies.
As a journalist, he reported on the Middle East for NBC.
In his own words about his life, he wrote, quote,
I traveled twice around the world before most people living
(26:54):
in it today were born. Stood guard in an Israeli
kibbutz creude on a fifty six foot three masted schooner
that sailed the Atlantic from Mexico to France, smuggled whiskey
from Tangier to Spain, and one spring I lived on
a houseboat on daw Lake and Kashmere, from where I
rode horseback into Tibet. Clifford died at the age of
(27:15):
eighty seven in Sarasota, Florida.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Would you like a bogus bevy to take us out?
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I kind of need one, okay.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
The obvious one that came up for me. Is another
one that is sometimes misattributed to its invention. Most people,
I think, have heard of an aviation. You'll sometimes also
see it called an aviator on some menused, but usually
aviation is what it goes by. There has long been
like a false story that this was created in honor
(27:50):
of Howard Hughes. Oh really, no, that doesn't make any sense.
This was first noted in writing, I think in nineteen
ten or I'm trying to remember when, but if you
do the math, he would have been a child with
this cocktail first appears in writing. An aviation, by the way,
is absolutely delicious. It is two ounces of gin, a
(28:13):
quarter ounce marisquino, a quarter ounce of crem to violette,
and a half ounce of lemon. Juice. It's a lavender
gray color. It's very pretty. I will say this one
for Bogus bevies. It does taste very different from an aviation,
but it starts with the same bedrock to get that color,
which is we're still using a quarter ounce of crem
(28:34):
to violet and we're still using a half ounce of
lemon juice. But after that we're adding a quarter ounce
of Saint Germain elderflower liqueur and then two ounces of
a pear vodka or if you can find it, a
pear ginger vodka, and you're gonna shake that like the
Dickens with ice, of course, and then strain it into
(28:56):
a chilled coop or you could even use like a
martini glass. This is a very spirit forward drink. We
have said this before, but just in case, you can
if you ever need to dilute down a spirit forward
drink by adding some club soda to it or something
like a ginger ale. I will say I tested that
(29:17):
with ginger ale and with club soda. The ginger ale
did not work. The club soda was great. Good to know,
and that's one of those things. Listen if you're ever
out drinking and you buy a drink because you think
it sounds interesting and it's too hard hitting for you
flavor wise, just order something else from the bar, like
a glass of club soda or a glass of ginger eal.
You pot right in and fix it right up and
make it to your liking. I did that recently in
(29:39):
a bar for a good friend and he was suddenly
very happy. It's super easy. There should be no shame
in that game. If you should drink what tastes good
to you. We are calling this one Postal Inspector because
I just think it's funny that at the end of
the day, the postal service was really where things got
heated up.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Over the seasons, as we've been doing this, I've been
super impressed at what the postal inspectors have been able to,
especially when it comes to fraud.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Don't mess with the Postal Inspector. No, this is another
one where the mocktail is very delicious. You are going
to use your half ounce of lemon juice in lieu
of your quarter ounts of crumb to violette. You're just
going to use violet syrup instead of your son germaine.
You'll just use elderflower syrup and then instead of pear
vodka or pear ginger vodka. You can just use pear juice,
(30:27):
and if you can't find pear juice available on its own,
you can buy a can of canned pears. Strain off
the juice. You're gonna want to dilute that down with
a little bit of water because it does tend to
be very syrupy, and it's different brand to brand, so
you got to use your own judgment here. If you
want to make your own paar ginger, just cut a
slice of ginger, throw it in there for not even
(30:49):
that long thirty minutes to an hour, shake it all
up again, and strain it off, and then you have
a perfect diluted pear juice to use with this. The
mocktail is super delicious. The drink is very good. But
if you don't like tasting alcohol, you might not agree
with me on that, But the mocktail is so yummy.
So that is Postal inspector. I hope you never have
(31:12):
cause to be inspected by the US Postal Service because
they're not messing around. No, they're harsh and they will
get you.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
They always seem to do.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Not think that is a soft organization when it comes
to such things. Throughout history, there are so many stories
of the postal service being the ones that crack a
case or at least bring people to justice. We hope
that there's no need to bring you to justice just
to bring you to the bar for something yummy, whether
that be alcoholic or not. We are so thankful that
(31:44):
you spent this time with us today talking about forgeries
and drinking bogus bevies, and we'll do it all again
with you next week. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland
Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio,
(32:07):
please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
In early nineteen seventy one, publisher McGraw hill Book Company
landed what could have been the literary scoop of the
twentieth century. A writer named Clifford Irving pitched them that
he'd obtained permission of the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes to
write a tell all memoir of the Aviator slash movie Mogul.
That manuscript, though, turned out to be one of the
(00:35):
biggest literary hoaxes of the twentieth century, and it landed
Irving in prison. Welcome to Criminalia, I'm Maria Tremarki.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
And I'm Holly Frye. Clifford Irving was an aspiring novelist
when he moved to an artist colony on the island
of Abiza off the coast of Spain in nineteen fifty three.
During the years he lived there, he wrote and published
his first novel, On a Darkling Plane. He spent many
years living on the island and wrote and published additional
works while there, and that's also where he met Hungarian
(01:06):
born artist and forger Elmer d' horri Dehore had moved
to Abisa in nineteen sixty six, but he spent only
two years there. It's a very different story for a
different day, but the short of it is Dehoy was
arrested for reasons other than his art forgery and fraud.
Irving turned de Hori into the topic of a book
(01:27):
which was titled Fake, the Story of elmerd Horri, The
Greatest art Forger of our Time. That book came out
in nineteen sixty nine, and Fake is a work that
will pop up again.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
In this story, Irving was living on Ibitho when he
concoct in an idea that changed the course of his life.
In his own account of the scheme, which was never
the exact same story twice, Irving later explained he got
the seed for writing Howard Hughes's memoir after reading a
magazine article about the billionaire's eccentric lifestyle, a piece to
(01:59):
Time titled the Case of the Invisible Billionaire, published in
the December nineteen seventy issue of Newsweek. We suppose, we
should say the idea for writing a fake memoir.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Irving used the critical success of his as Told to
Him Memoir of Dahore as a springboard for a new project.
He convinced editors at McGraw hill that Howard Hughes had
contacted him to express his admiration for Fake, and that
Hughes had proposed a collaboration with Irving on a similar project.
(02:32):
Excited about the pitch, McGraw hill paid Irving seven hundred
and sixty five thousand dollars for the book, to be
called The Autobiography of Howard Hughes. Life Magazine bought the
serial rights for two hundred fifty thousand dollars, and Dell
Publishing Company obtained the paperback rights for another four hundred
thousand dollars. Payments were to be made to Hughes, but
(02:54):
Irving requested that the money be wired to him instead.
He explained that he would, as the writer of the piece,
act as the middleman. The cash advance was deposited into
a Swiss bank account opened in the name H. R. Hughes.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
So before we continue, let's hit some notes on this.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Howard Hughes Guy.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Hughes was a billionaire tycoon who was an aerospace engineer, businessman, entrepreneur, filmmaker, philanthropist, pilot,
and well known playboy. His life was big, and the
list of things he attempted and the things he accomplished
is long. Along with those accomplishments, though, he's often remembered
by his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle. Though undiagnosed during
(03:38):
his life, stories of his battles with his mental health
are numerous, and, as it happens, range from truth to fiction.
Modern experts, though, agree in hindsight that Hughes exhibited signs
of obsessive compulsive disorder throughout much of his life and
battled mesophobia, which is an extreme fear of germs. He
also lived with chronic pain from a near fatal plane
(04:01):
crash and had increasing deafness. When Irving proposed the memoir
to his publisher, Hughes, who had not spoken to the
press since nineteen fifty eight, had just left Las Vegas
for new residence on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. To
be clear, Howard Hughes was very much alive while Irving
tried to pull off this hoax.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Irving began by studying Hughes's handwriting from a letter reproduced
in that Newsweek article who we mentioned earlier. He became
confident enough to write in Hughes's hand and to fake
his signature. For instance, he forged letters from Hughes to
his publishers to back up the story that Hughes chose
him to deliver his memoir and no one questioned it.
(04:44):
With children's book author and longtime friend Richard Suskind on
board to help research, the pair began studying Hughes's life.
They gathered old news stories in any reference material they
could find. They spent their days interviewing each other. One
pretended to be Hughes while the other interviewed him, and
they would record and then transcribe these imaginary conversations as
(05:08):
evidence of their meetings with their subjects. In one of
these fake interviews, for instance, the fake Hughes described his
friendship with Ernest Hemingway. Note this was totally fiction. Those
two men were not friends. In another fake, Hughes described
the breasts of actress Jane Russell. This one is actually
(05:29):
a real story, but it's not what you might think.
Hughes had designed a unique underwire bra to fix a
problem with Russell's costumes on the set of his movie
Hell's Angels. Suskind not only became involved in research with
Irving he would also become co author of this project.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
We're now going to take a break for word from
our sponsor. When we're back, we'll talk about Irving's travels
to meet with Hughes, his convincing anecdote about a prune,
and how he was so self assured of his oaks
he even took a lie detector test to back himself up.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Welcome back to Criminalium. Let's talk about what happened when
Howard Hughes got winned of the upcoming memoir.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
In nineteen seventy one, Irving traveled to Mexico to meet
with a quote friend of Octavio's that was their code name,
more like code phrase really, that he and Suskind used
for Hughes. Irving claimed that he and his friend of
Octavio's first met at seven am on February thirteenth on
a mountaintop in Wahaka. He also traveled to Puerto Rico
(06:48):
and to the Bahamas to allegedly meet with his subject.
Sometimes they talked in cars, sometimes in motels, he said,
and due to the nature of Hughes' lifestyle, it didn't
seem strange to Irving's editors that Hughes would meet with
a secret biographer on top of a Mexican pyramid. Note
they didn't. On March fourth, Irving reported to his editors
(07:10):
he had finally officially signed a letter of agreement with
Hughes and San Juan, and he delivered the fake document
to their New York office. On March twenty third, Irving
was officially signed with McGraw hill to pen the memoir,
and over the next several months, in an effort to
make his work seem authentic, his editors received calls from Mexico,
(07:31):
Puerto Rico, Miami, and other places around the world where
Irving claimed to be with Hughes. Later, it would be
discovered that much of the time Irving claimed he was
in parked cars with Hughes, he was actually seeing his mistress,
the Danish singer and actress Nina von Pallandt.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
On September thirteenth that same year, Irving arrived at the
McGraw hill New York office with what he claimed were
the complete tape transcripts of his sessions and interviews with
Howard Hughes. Use In reality, these were those tapes and
transcripts that he and Suskan had put together Irving's hoax worked,
at least in part, because he based it on what
(08:10):
was largely genuine. Those tape transcripts seemed real. The manuscript
he was drafting was written in such a way that
accurate details about Hughes's life were intertwined with totally fictional elements.
But it was convincing, and several experienced editors at McGraw
hill in Life magazine found it convincing enough in its
(08:31):
tone and detail about Hughes that still no one questioned
the work.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
But the truth was that Irving's manuscript was identical at
many points with another manuscript that didn't belong to him
or to Richard Suskins. It was penned by a writer
named James Feelin.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Years earlier.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Felin had been hired to ghostwrite Hughes's life story through
a man who knew more about him than anyone else
in the world, who, for thirty two years worked for
Howard Dietrich, was chief executive officer of the Hughes Tool Company,
And instead of reading a whole resume and list, let's
just call him Howard's right hand Matt. There's no solid
(09:15):
answer how Irving got his hands on Felin's unpublished work.
Though there are quite a bunch of different stories about
how it might have happened, authorities believe it was probably
in early nineteen seventy one, and may have also included
one hundred and fifty pages of a transcript of tape
recorded interviews Felan had conducted with Dietrich. Hang on to
(09:36):
this bit. We'll come back around to Felin in just
a moment.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
If you're wondering why nobody from McGraw hill or Life
ever picked up the phone to speak directly with Hughes
about his upcoming memoir, there was actually a reason Irving
had included an interesting clause in his contract with his
publishers because Hughes was so reclusive, Irving felt that there
(10:00):
was a good chance that he would kill the whole
project if he got wind of even a whiff of
publicity surrounding the book, so contractually it was agreed that
the publishers would not meet with or contact the billionaire. Instead,
Irving provided documentation to them from Hughes. Allegedly from Hughes. One,
(10:21):
for instance, was a faked, nine page handwritten letter directed
to the publisher about the.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Memoir, but Hughes did hear about the McGraw hill book
deal and the upcoming spread in Life, and he, or
possibly a representative for him, call the man named Frank McCullough. Frank,
then working in Time Life New York headquarters, was a
journalist and had been the last person to interview Howard
(10:48):
back in nineteen fifty eight. He hadn't heard from Hughes
in years, and he took the call. Hughes was irate,
insisted the entire thing was fake, and wanted this book
deal kill.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Irving had been betting that the tycoon's reclusive ways would
guarantee the quote gorgeous literary caper would succeed, and he
hoped quote Hughes would never be able to surface to
deny it, or else he wouldn't bother. Irving obviously lost
that bet. Although Hughes lived in total seclusion during the
final decade of his life from about nineteen sixty six
(11:24):
to nineteen seventy six, he was not out of touch
with the world, and his lawyers held a press conference
about the pending memoir. The reclusive Hughes himself attended by phone,
and they denounced the book as fraudulent. Hughes also denied
Irving's narrative of their relationship and stated that he had
never met the guy. Hughes's legal team then sued Irving
(11:47):
and his publisher, and in response, Irving appeared on the
television news magazine Sixty Minutes a week later to convince
any skeptics that the memoir was in fact real. He
even shared an annaote of how, during his first meeting
with Hughes, the mogul produced a bag of organic prunes
and offered one to him. That's a quaint little detail.
(12:09):
It wasn't at all true, as the two men had,
of course never met. CBS News correspondent and Sixty Minutes
host Mike Wallace believed and backed Irving's whole story. Irving
now had a credible journalist, one who had been called
a tough guy interrogator by The New York Times, give
his work a stamp of approval on national television.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Hughes's a version to publicity and being among the public
did foster some skepticism about Irving's claims to have actually
interviewed the billionaire, But even though Hughes did call the
whole thing crap, his reputation for eccentricity left some journalists
believing that he was the one lying and that perhaps
(12:52):
he had regrets about what was about to be published.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Irving kept this hoax going and insisted that he had
several secret meetings with Hughes. He even submitted to a
lie detector test at the request of his publisher, and
though there were inconsistencies in the results, he passed. Eventually,
McGraw hill hired specialists to check the handwriting that he
had submitted as Hughes's against samples of Irving's writing dating
(13:20):
back to nineteen thirty six. A report by Osborne Associates,
a highly respected New York firm of handwriting analysts, cast
doubt on the authenticity of the documents Irving claimed were
written by Hughes.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
We're going to take a break for word from our sponsors.
When we return, we'll talk more about compelling evidence against Irving,
and we'll talk about his trial.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Welcome back to Criminilium. Let's talk about Irving's trial and
how the fake memoir did eventually get published.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
On top of all this compelling evidence against Irving, it
turned out that Time Life, parent of Life magazine, had
a copy of his manuscript for weeks but during that
time they hadn't put together an investigative team to authenticate it.
In fact, that didn't happen until after Hughes complained, and
then it still didn't happen until five weeks after the
(14:29):
call from Hughes's team to investigate the authenticity of that memoir.
Said Donald Wilson, a Time Life vice president at the
time at the hoax, quote we made mistakes. I'll admit
we got off to a late start in investigating the manuscript.
A statement by a member of the magazine's staff at
the time alleged that magazine executives resisted comparing the Irving
(14:50):
manuscript with other possible Hughes memoirs that they knew about
in deference to McGraw hill, which owned the work, but
Wilson denied that accusation. He admitted though quote we just
didn't think of it. McCulloch also admitted it didn't occur
to him either, stating quote, I just have to plead
guilty to being that blind.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Frank McCulloch also stated he had known for some time
that James Felan had a manuscript about Hughes, and though
the comparison did not happen with haste. It did eventually happen.
Late one night at his lawyer's office, Irving received a
phone call from Frank, who informed him that quote, We've
got the Felin manuscript on the way to New York.
(15:32):
Felan's flying here with it. We're going to lay it
down alongside your manuscript in the morning and read them together.
According to McCulloch, there was initially silence on the other
end of the line before Irving finally simply said, quote, wow.
When Felan's version of the Hughes slash Dietrich book was
(15:54):
read in tandem with Irving's manuscript, it was suddenly completely
clear Fieland's book was irving source material. In some sections,
the two were identical.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
In February of nineteen seventy two, Time Life reported that
the Hughes memoir provided by Irving drew significantly from writer
James Feelin's manuscript. Here's an example. In conversation with Phelan,
McCulloch mentioned the New York Times had printed an excerpt
from the Irving manuscript, an anecdote involving Perry Lieber, a
(16:29):
Hughes press agent. The short clip goes like this, and
you'd think it'd be a throwaway detail, but it became
a significant problem for Irving. Lieber once had a moment
where he'd been trapped by Hughes as he used a
phone in gossip columnist Hetta Hopper's office instead of making
his call from an outside payphone as he'd been asked
to do. That's it short and sweet, and according to
(16:52):
liber there was absolutely no way Irving knew that detail.
So when Phelan saw the excerpt during the comparison of
the manuscripts, he knew it immediately. It was an anecdote
included in his manuscript shared with him by Dietrich. Suskin
commented on this situation to The New York Times, saying, quote,
(17:13):
don't believe everything you read in Time magazine.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Donald Wilson explained two possible and probable reasons magazine executives
didn't properly vet the work, stating, quote, the manuscript itself
sounded so real, and as it turns out, it was
based on material that came from Dietrich, who was close
to Hughes. And then there was the handwriting. Even when
the handwriting proved not to be Hughes's, there was still
(17:39):
a possibility that the material was really from Hughes and
Irving had somehow got hold of it. Ultimately, so much
of the material from Phelan's book matched Irving's work that
McGraw hill, after just a few hours of deliberation, announced
that it had doubts about the authenticity of Irving's work.
Life Magazine also took action and canceled its agreement to
(18:01):
serialize the memoir.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
In addition to the publishers, both the United States Postal
Inspection Service and the United States Attorney's Office investigated Irving
and his manuscript. The United States Postal Inspection Service is
the federal law enforcement arm of the United States post Office.
Since a big part of Irving's set up for publishing
his forged book had taken place using the mail, remember
(18:26):
he'd sent forged letters to his publisher posing as Hughes,
postal inspectors opened an investigation. They got a government subpoena
to force Irving to give samples of his handwriting. Inspector
John Tarpi told The Toledo Blade in nineteen seventy three,
so this is a recollection of the case. After Irving's
admission of his guilt quote the writing we received was
(18:50):
different from the Hughes documents, but close examination showed that
some characteristics and habits were the same. The teas were
crossed the same, the eyes were dotted the same, and
some letters were broken up alike. We took the samples
to our own handwriting experts, who studied them for two
days and confirmed that they were the same.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
And then there was the United States Attorney's Office. Through
his lawyer Maurice Nessen, on March thirtieth, nineteen seventy two,
Irving admitted that he had forged letters and that he
had faked the famous billionaire's memoir. The United States attorneys
stated that Irving was willing to talk and exchange for
immunity for his wife. Recall that Irving had McGraw hill
(19:32):
sent Hughes's payments to an account Irving could access. That
was to a bank in Zurich, and that's where Irving's wife, Edith,
who was a German born Swiss citizen, used a false
passport with the name Helga R. Hughes to withdraw funds.
If charged, she would face trial in the United States
and in Switzerland. The Irvings promised cooperation if the passport
(19:56):
forgery and bank fraud charges against Edith were dropped or
at least lessened in Switzerland.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
At the urging of American authorities. Swiss authorities investigated the H. R.
Hughes bank account and discovered that, other than the deposits
from publishers, every transaction associated with the account had been
made by Irving's wife. It was problematic, as you can imagine,
when Swiss banking authorities notified McGraw hill that the mister H. R. Hughes,
(20:27):
the person they were paying, was a woman using the
pseudonym Helga R.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Hughes.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
So Swiss authorities they were chilly on the idea of leniency,
but they agreed to consider it on one concession. If
the Irvings returned the six hundred and fifty thousand dollars
that Edith slash Helga had withdrawn in Zurich, maybe she'd
receive a suspended sentence. But ultimately there.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Was no deal.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Some money remained and could be returned, but the Irvings
had spent about one hundred thousand dollars and authorities couldn't
account for an additional one hundred thousand, so thanks were
most certainly at this point totally unraveling.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Irving and his wife were indicted for a conspiracy to
defraud through use of the mails, and pleaded guilty in
federal court. In state court, along with Richard Suskin, they
pleaded guilty to conspiracy and grand larceny. Both men, as
well as Edith, spent time in prison. On July sixteenth,
nineteen seventy two, Irving was sentenced. He served about sixteen
(21:30):
months of a two and a half year sentence in
federal prison. Edith served two months of a two year
sentence in the United States and sixteen months of a
two year sentence in Switzerland. She also divorced Clifford post incarceration.
Suskind went a different path, and he refused to back
Irving in court in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Suskin
(21:52):
testified that contrary to his earlier affidavit, he had never
actually seen Howard Hughes. His punishment was much lighter, and
he served five months of a six month sentence. The
Irvings were also fined ten thousand dollars each while imprisoned.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Irving was dubbed con Man of the Year by Time magazine.
The International Herald Tribune called the fake autobiography quote the
most famous unpublished book of the twentieth century. Irving later
told the reference work contemporary authors quote, I don't see
it as a crime worthy of society's customary revenge. Had
(22:32):
I succeeded, no one would have been hurt. If I
had it all to do over again, I would do
it all with one difference. I would succeed.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
With Richard Suskind. Irving recounted the events of the hoax
in the book Clifford Irving What Really Happened It was,
his autobiography, originally published in nineteen seventy two and then
reissued in nineteen eighty one, simply as the Hoax. In it,
Irving wrote quote, I had never realized I was committing
a crime. I had thought of it as a hoax,
(23:06):
and money, he insisted, was not his motive. He continued, quote,
the whole Hughes affair had been a venture into the unknown,
a testing of myself, a constant gauntlet of challenge and response.
He also admitted that quote a certain grandeur had rooted
itself into the scheme, and I could still spy a
reckless and artistic splendor to the way we had carried it. Out.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
After his incarceration, Irving told the Los Angeles Times he
had felt the scam was quote exciting, It was a challenge,
it became an adventure of the book, and that statement,
the Washington Post wrote, quote call it a prank, scandal, adventure,
criminal conspiracy, or an early piece of fake news. Irving
(23:51):
fooled lie detectors, handwriting experts, publishers, journalists, Swiss Bank officials,
and very nearly the entire United States.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Over the years, Irving has offered different explanations for what
he called the quote writing event. Mostly though, as to
why he decided to write the fake Hughes book, he
deferred to the epigraph of the hoax and a relevant
quote from someone named Jean la Mauchanceau as his explanation.
That quote begins like this, you may look for motive
(24:22):
in an act, but only after the act has been committed.
An effect creates not only the search for a cause,
but the reality of the cause itself. I must warn you, however,
that the attempt to establish relationships between acts and motives,
effects and causes is one of the most time wasting
games ever invented by man. When a reporter from Britain's
(24:45):
Telegraph newspaper asked Irving who Jean la Mauchanceau was. Irving
replied that he was a quote, twelfth century French philosopher,
but then he paused and recanted that statement, saying, quote, actually,
I'm made him up. Any French speakers among our listeners
may have noticed that mau chanset translates to unlucky. So
(25:08):
it kind of seems like a tongue in cheek way
for Irving to convey that he felt the difference between
success and getting caught was just a matter of bad luck.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
His follow up tell All, became the subject of a
two thousand and six movie also named The Hoax, starring
Richard Gear as Clifford and Alfred Molina as Richard Suskins.
Upon viewing it, though Irving insisted his name be removed
as a technical advisor from the credits, stating that the
story quote took too many liberties. On his website, he
(25:39):
wrote of it quote movie Clifford has the energy of
a not too bright psychopath. The movie is best thought
of as a hoax.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Irving also published the work Jaling the Prison Memoirs of
zero zero four zero aka Clifford Irving as an ebook
in twenty eleven. In twenty twelve, his Fake Hughes autobiography
was published also as an ebook under the title Clifford
Irving's Autobiography of Howard Hughes.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Clifford was the son of Jay and Dorothy Irving. Jay
was an American cartoonist known for his syndicated strip Potsey,
as well as covers for Collier's Magazine. He graduated from
Cornell University in nineteen fifty one, and though initially wanted
to be an artist, discovering the prose and lifestyle of
Ernest Hemingway set him down a different path. He began
(26:31):
his love affair with wanderlust and writing shortly after college.
He wrote roughly twenty novels and numerous works of nonfiction,
though some of his nonfiction works have been criticized for inaccuracies.
As a journalist, he reported on the Middle East for NBC.
In his own words about his life, he wrote, quote,
I traveled twice around the world before most people living
(26:54):
in it today were born. Stood guard in an Israeli
kibbutz creude on a fifty six foot three masted schooner
that sailed the Atlantic from Mexico to France, smuggled whiskey
from Tangier to Spain, and one spring I lived on
a houseboat on daw Lake and Kashmere, from where I
rode horseback into Tibet. Clifford died at the age of
(27:15):
eighty seven in Sarasota, Florida.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Would you like a bogus bevy to take us out?
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I kind of need one, okay.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
The obvious one that came up for me. Is another
one that is sometimes misattributed to its invention. Most people,
I think, have heard of an aviation. You'll sometimes also
see it called an aviator on some menused, but usually
aviation is what it goes by. There has long been
like a false story that this was created in honor
(27:50):
of Howard Hughes. Oh really, no, that doesn't make any sense.
This was first noted in writing, I think in nineteen
ten or I'm trying to remember when, but if you
do the math, he would have been a child with
this cocktail first appears in writing. An aviation, by the way,
is absolutely delicious. It is two ounces of gin, a
(28:13):
quarter ounce marisquino, a quarter ounce of crem to violette,
and a half ounce of lemon. Juice. It's a lavender
gray color. It's very pretty. I will say this one
for Bogus bevies. It does taste very different from an aviation,
but it starts with the same bedrock to get that color,
which is we're still using a quarter ounce of crem
(28:34):
to violet and we're still using a half ounce of
lemon juice. But after that we're adding a quarter ounce
of Saint Germain elderflower liqueur and then two ounces of
a pear vodka or if you can find it, a
pear ginger vodka, and you're gonna shake that like the
Dickens with ice, of course, and then strain it into
(28:56):
a chilled coop or you could even use like a
martini glass. This is a very spirit forward drink. We
have said this before, but just in case, you can
if you ever need to dilute down a spirit forward
drink by adding some club soda to it or something
like a ginger ale. I will say I tested that
(29:17):
with ginger ale and with club soda. The ginger ale
did not work. The club soda was great. Good to know,
and that's one of those things. Listen if you're ever
out drinking and you buy a drink because you think
it sounds interesting and it's too hard hitting for you
flavor wise, just order something else from the bar, like
a glass of club soda or a glass of ginger eal.
You pot right in and fix it right up and
make it to your liking. I did that recently in
(29:39):
a bar for a good friend and he was suddenly
very happy. It's super easy. There should be no shame
in that game. If you should drink what tastes good
to you. We are calling this one Postal Inspector because
I just think it's funny that at the end of
the day, the postal service was really where things got
heated up.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Over the seasons, as we've been doing this, I've been
super impressed at what the postal inspectors have been able to,
especially when it comes to fraud.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Don't mess with the Postal Inspector. No, this is another
one where the mocktail is very delicious. You are going
to use your half ounce of lemon juice in lieu
of your quarter ounts of crumb to violette. You're just
going to use violet syrup instead of your son germaine.
You'll just use elderflower syrup and then instead of pear
vodka or pear ginger vodka. You can just use pear juice,
(30:27):
and if you can't find pear juice available on its own,
you can buy a can of canned pears. Strain off
the juice. You're gonna want to dilute that down with
a little bit of water because it does tend to
be very syrupy, and it's different brand to brand, so
you got to use your own judgment here. If you
want to make your own paar ginger, just cut a
slice of ginger, throw it in there for not even
(30:49):
that long thirty minutes to an hour, shake it all
up again, and strain it off, and then you have
a perfect diluted pear juice to use with this. The
mocktail is super delicious. The drink is very good. But
if you don't like tasting alcohol, you might not agree
with me on that, But the mocktail is so yummy.
So that is Postal inspector. I hope you never have
(31:12):
cause to be inspected by the US Postal Service because
they're not messing around. No, they're harsh and they will
get you.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
They always seem to do.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Not think that is a soft organization when it comes
to such things. Throughout history, there are so many stories
of the postal service being the ones that crack a
case or at least bring people to justice. We hope
that there's no need to bring you to justice just
to bring you to the bar for something yummy, whether
that be alcoholic or not. We are so thankful that
(31:44):
you spent this time with us today talking about forgeries
and drinking bogus bevies, and we'll do it all again
with you next week. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland
Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio,
(32:07):
please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Maria Trimarchi
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