Confidant and aide to Howard Hughes

"A lot of people wished they were Howard Hughes," said Hughes biographer Pat H. Broeske, "but Howard Hughes wanted to be Bob Maheu. He was very envious of Bob in many ways. He liked manly men. In Hollywood, Hughes was a great admirer of Robert Mitchum and everything he embodied. In the world of politics and intrigue Robert Maheu was that figure that Hughes just couldn't be. He was a great presence . . . a real wheeler-dealer," Broeske added.

The son of a grocer, Maheu was born Oct. 30, 1917, and grew up in Waterville, Maine. He majored in economics at Holy Cross College in Massachusetts before entering 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.

After opening his own investigations firm in 1954, the CIA became his first steady client. He was given "cut-out" assignments, jobs involving illegal actions that could not be traced back to the agency.

His most infamous assignment was to arrange the assassination of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Maheu recruited two top Mafia bosses, Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana, who suggested a scheme to poison Castro, but the plot was ditched after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. "The plan was always subject to a 'go' signal, which never came," Maheu told a Senate intelligence panel in 1975.

He was working full time for Hughes in 1966 when the industrialist rented the top floor of the Desert Inn in Las Vegas for a 10-day stay. Hughes did not gamble, and when his visit stretched into 15 days, the hotel owners, anxious to rent their best rooms to high rollers, demanded that Hughes and his entourage leave.

Hughes asked Maheu what to do. "If you want a place to sleep, buy a hotel," Maheu told him. So Hughes bought the Desert Inn, for $13 million.

Once he understood the profit-making potential of the casinos, Hughes grabbed up several more, including the Castaways, Silver Slipper, Sands and Frontier. Maheu was his front man -- "quite literally, alter ego," Maheu wrote in his 1992 autobiography with Richard Hack, called "Next to Hughes." He became the chief executive of the businesses he helped Hughes acquire. "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," Maheu wrote.