Alan Alda as Owen Brewster Ex-governor, senator in film about Howard Hughes

Thursday, January 8, 2004

As far as Maine is concerned, "Empire Falls," based on the book by Maine author Richard Russo, set in a fictional New England town and filmed in Skowhegan, Waterville and other Maine locales, will be a must-see movie when shown on HBO in 2005.

Quite a lot, actually.

Hughes, who somehow managed to be both reclusive and flamboyant by turns, made several fortunes in various fields of endeavor, from moviemaker to tool manufacturer to airplane designer. It was in the latter role that he crossed paths with Brewster.

Brewster had set out to bring the uppity billionaire down a peg, partly through a congressional investigation into war contracts, but the Maine senator ended up being undone himself.

His full name was Ralph Owen Brewster. He shortened to the last two names, it is said, because the use of his full-name initials in the shorthand of newspaper headline writers made him the object of scornful humor by his enemies.

Brewster succeeded Percival P. Baxter as Maine governor in 1924. The two Republicans began as allies but eventually parted ways bitterly, in part because Brewster had been endorsed by -- some say he was a member of -- the Ku Klux Klan, which was briefly a significant political force here back then.

He went on to serve several terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, where he was known primarily for his implacable opposition to New Deal programs.

In 1947, as a senior Republican in a GOP-controlled Congress, Brewster was named chairman of the Special Senate Committee Investigating the National Defense Program. He promptly announced that one of the first things on his agenda was a probe of a multimillion-dollar contract awarded to Hughes by the Roosevelt administration to build a huge, lightweight transport plane made of plywood and dubbed the "Spruce Goose" by reporters.

Hughes had reason to question Brewster's motives. Two years earlier, after Hughes' Trans World Airlines was granted rights to fly the Atlantic in direct competition with Pan American Airways, Brewster sponsored a bill that would have taken back TWA's overseas routes.

Hughes spread the word that Brewster was little more than a paid agent for Pan Am and that the Senate probe of Hughes' wartime contracts was simply a continuation of the attack on TWA.

In fact, Brewster was well known from his friendliness toward Pan Am and had accepted free flights and other accommodations on numerous overseas trips. Political gossip columnist Drew Pearson once referred to him as the airline's "kept senator."

In any case, the congressional inquiry turned into a circus, with Hughes engaging in scornful banter with committee members and playing shamelessly for laughs to an appreciative audience of spectators and reporters in the hearing room. The chairman of the subcommittee appointed by Brewster to cross-examine Hughes spent much of his time furiously banging his gavel and calling for order.

Now on the offensive, Hughes claimed that Brewster had secretly offered to sidetrack the inquiry if Hughes would agree to a takeover of TWA by Pan Am.

In an bizarre move, Brewster voluntarily yielded his authority over the proceedings and appeared as a witness before his own committee to stoutly deny the charge. Hughes had succeeded in making his chief tormentor the central figure in whatever scandal attached to the hearings in the public mind.

In a final gesture of defiance following the hearings, Hughes personally test-flew his Hercules flying boat -- the Spruce Goose -- for the first and only time. The flight of the eight-engine wooden plane with its 320-foot wingspan lasted slightly more than a mile. It was then towed back to its hangar and has remained in mothballs ever since.

Brewster was badly wounded by his confrontation with Hughes. His reputation suffered back home. In the 1952 Republican primary, he became the only incumbent senator in Maine history to be denied renomination by his own party.

It was later revealed that Brewster's successful GOP challenger in the primary, Gov. Frederick Payne, had been heavily -- and secretly -- bankrolled by the legendary Howard Hughes.

Jim Brunelle of Cape Elizabeth has commented on Maine issues for more than 35 years. His e-mail address is jbrune@maine.rr.com.

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