TYCOONS: The Hughes Will: Is It for Real?

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Ever since Howard Hughes died in an air ambulance over Texas early last month, a frantic search has been under way to find the will of the reclusive billionaire. Unless a valid last testament is found, Hughes' vast estate, estimated at $2.3 billion, is certain to become the subject of the largest probate battle of all time. Last week what was said to be Hughes' will suddenly appeared in Salt Lake City, but the document seemed more likely to cause new legal problems than to resolve the old ones.

Large Scrawl. The circumstances surrounding the will's discovery were mysterious. As a public relations executive of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) was sorting through the mail on his desk one afternoon, he came upon a tattered yellow envelope. The envelope, bearing a partly illegible Las Vegas postmark, was addressed to Spencer W. Kimball, president of the Mormon church. Inside the first envelope was a smaller one that bore instructions written in a large scrawl. They ordered Kimball to deliver the enclosed will to legal authorities in Clark County, Nev., "after my death or disappearance." It was signed Howard R. Hughes. In a bizarre coincidence, a few hours before the discovery, Texan John Connally turned up at the Mormon offices. Frank W. Gay, the chief executive of Hughes' Summa Corp. and a devout Mormon, also happened to drop by Salt Lake City just before the will was found. A Mormon spokesman insisted that Connally met with churchmen on an unrelated matter, and Big John branded any connection "a vicious, malicious, irresponsible story." Gay was in town for a meeting of the University of Utah advisory council.

Inside the envelope, Kimball found a three-page handwritten will on lined legal paper identical to the type Hughes regularly used for memos to his staff. It was dated March 19, 1968, a time when Hughes was living atop the Desert Inn in Las Vegas. There were no witnesses' signatures. The will assigned one quarter of Hughes' assets (about $600 million before taxes and executor's fees) to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, his tax-free research foundation. One-eighth was to be divided among Houston's Rice University and the Universities of Texas, Nevada and California. Eight different groups of beneficiaries got one-sixteenth shares (about $150 million each): the Mormon church; William Lummis, a cousin in Houston; and a man named Melvin Dummar, who leases a gas station in Willard, Utah. Hughes' former wives (Ella Rice and Jean Peters) were to divide a one-sixteenth share. Aside from bequests to the Boy Scouts, an orphans' home and a school scholarship fund, Hughes' inner circle of aides stood to collect the rest of the estate, some $450 million.

Mormon church leaders submitted the document to a Utah handwriting expert, Mrs. Leslie King, who had studied Hughes' handwriting in an earlier court case. After a hurried examination, she declared: "There is a good chance that Mr. Hughes did write that will." The Mormons then rushed to Las Vegas, the seat of Clark County, to file the testament. "It could be an actual legal document or a hoax," said Mormon Spokesman Wendell Ashton. "This was a hot potato to land in our office."