Content area
Full text
Howard Hughes and TWA. By Robert W. Rummel. (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. x + 431 pp. $29.95, ISBN 1-56098-017-6.)
Few aviation figures have been as controversial or enigmatic as TWA's Howard Hughes. Rich, handsome, a superb flier, and a daring entrepreneur in a high-risk business, Hughes in his later years was reclusive, depressed, and possibly even schizophrenic. In this book, Robert W. Rummel, who joined TWA in 1943 and served as the airline's chief engineer from 1949 to 1978, provides insight into the often tortuous relationship between TWA and Hughes, who was the firm's major stockholder from 1939 to the end of 1960.
Of most interest to the historian are Rummel's accounts of aircraft procurement during his years with TWA. Rummel analyzed the airline's requirements, recommended the equipment best suited to its needs,...