While working for Howard Hughes, he caught glimpses of his enigmatic boss twice but never met with him face-to-face, communicating instead by phone and memo.
He majored in economics at Holy Cross College in Massachusetts, and attended Georgetown University law school. In 1940 he joined the FBI, and during World War II worked in counter-espionage, posing as a German sympathizer. He left the FBI in 1947.
[from his 1992 autobiography "Next to Hughes"] If he wanted someone fired, I did the firing. If he wanted something negotiated, I did the bargaining. If he had to be somewhere, I appeared in his place. I was his eyes, his ears, and his mouthpiece.