Robert Maheu, 90, Surrogate for Howard Hughes, Is Dead

Robert A. Maheu, a chief aide to Howard Hughes who engineered the deals for the Hughes business empire that helped change the face of Las Vegas but who never once met his boss in the decade and a half he worked for him, died Monday in Las Vegas. He was 90.

Communicating with Hughes through countless handwritten messages and phone calls, Mr. Maheu bought a host of Las Vegas hotels and casinos and other real estate in and around the city for Hughes in the late 1960s. Those deals, adding a corporate presence to a city with a reputation for mob influence, were arranged while Hughes was secluded at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas, seen only by a few aides and doctors.

“If Howard wanted someone fired, I did the firing,” Mr. Maheu recalled in his memoir, “Next to Hughes,” written with Richard Hack. “If he wanted something negotiated, I did the bargaining. I was his eyes, his ears and his mouthpiece. I met with presidents, appeared before committees and entertained the rich and famous.”

Mr. Maheu was remembered as well for his involvement in an affair going far beyond the bizarre world of Hughes, the billionaire businessman, movie producer and aviator turned recluse. In 1960, Mr. Maheu was enlisted by the C.I.A. in a plot to have the underworld carry out the assassination of Fidel Castro.

Mr. Maheu’s roots were far from the glittering world of wealth and power he ultimately entered. He was born and reared in the mill town of Waterville, Me., the son of French-Canadians. His father owned a grocery store.