Clifford Irving: The Howard Hughes Hoax

December 8, 2025·53 min·4 clips

Clifford and Richard take turns doing Howard Hughes impressions, spinning tales about germophobia and fake beards.

Early January 1972 gets the bright-light treatment. Mike Wallace, already four years into 60 Minutes, sits in a fancy Park Avenue townhouse while Clifford Irving enters the story with a briefcase full of forged Hughes letters. That is the engine of the con. Clifford comes off as a talented nonfiction writer who keeps choosing invention when the facts would have caused fewer legal problems. He studies the handwriting closely. After reading part of a real Howard Hughes letter, he spends weeks copying the style until he can pass off a whole correspondence. McGraw Hill bites. The forged letters say Hughes knows Clifford's father, thanks him for a biography about Elmire, and seems open to a life-story project. The timing could hardly be better for Clifford. Howard Hughes's dramatic exit from Las Vegas has kept people talking for months, so an exclusive biography looks like an easy bestseller. Secrecy becomes the cover. Clifford says Hughes demands absolute secrecy and a Catch-22 clause that keeps McGraw Hill from contacting him directly. Convenient is doing a lot of work there. The publisher wants the book badly enough to accept a deal where the only path to Hughes runs through the man selling the story. Then Clifford adds the Mexico scene. He claims Hughes arranged a dawn meeting in Oaxaca, with an associate driving him to ancient ruins on a mountain. It is almost too cinematic. In Clifford's version, the reclusive billionaire waits in a Volkswagen in a parking lot, ready to approve the project. The real trip is smaller and messier. Clifford does go to Oaxaca, but with Nina, not Howard Hughes. That gap is the story. The episode follows how forged letters, a famous target, and a publisher's appetite give one writer's lie enough speed to keep going.

As heard by us

A literary hoax, a famous name, and a very sturdy stack of lies.

Clifford Irving's Howard Hughes hoax plays like a scam story with a literary streak: forged letters, a convinced publisher, and years of secrecy all stack up behind the grin.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play for a scam that turns fake correspondence into a publishing deal.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Scamfluencers