Mary McGrory

by John Norris

  When Carter stumbled in one of the presidential debates, saying that his young daughter, Amy, had told him that nuclear proliferation was the greatest issue facing the nation, Mary knew a Reagan win was almost inevitable. Carter’s efforts to paint Reagan as a dangerous ideologue just did not mesh well with the former actor’s affable image.

  Reagan destroyed Carter in the election, carrying forty-four states as Republicans gained control of the Senate for the first time in a quarter-century. Mary wrote, “That was no election. That was Mt. St. Helens, pouring hot ash over the whole political landscape, burying a president and much of his party.” The American hostages in Iran were released on Carter’s final day in office, ending a personal and national humiliation and further boosting the sense of enthusiasm that had greeted the Reagan victory. A conservative tide had swept the country, and Mary’s was suddenly a relatively lonely liberal voice in the wilderness. Lots of reporters were still liberals, but the opinion pages of America’s newspapers were increasingly being dominated by ascendant right-wingers.

  • • •

  Mary’s brother, John McGrory, died in the fall of 1980. She very much loved her brother, although his struggle with alcoholism had made it an often demanding and frustrating relationship. Mary no longer had any immediate family alive, and it seemed unlikely that she would ever wed. People across America read her words every day, and she had a wonderful circle of friends and relatives once removed, but Mary was a solitary figure in many ways.

  Even after Mary’s tough words for him in the primary, Ted Kennedy went out of his way to express his condolences. He wrote to Mary, “Having also known the blessing of a brother’s love, and the grief of a brother’s death, my heart goes out to you on the loss of your beloved brother John.”

  Mary thrived despite being at odds with the prevailing conservative national mood. The Reagan presidency reinvigorated Mary’s column and provided her with a seemingly endless wellspring of new outrages. Indeed, she took strong exception to one of Reagan’s very first acts as president. In the waning days of the Carter administration, a lawyer at the Energy Department had made the decision to transfer $1 million in penalties paid by major oil companies, for overcharging consumers, to four charities, including the Salvation Army. The Reagan administration immediately tried to reverse the decision and asked the charities to repay the funds, but they had already spent much of the money helping poor families with winter fuel bills.

  Mary was at home watching her television and saw an interview with Colonel Ernie Miller of the Salvation Army. Miller, emerging from a frustrating meeting at the Energy Department, told a waiting camera crew that the Salvation Army would “put kettles on the streets to ask the public to help” if needed. Mary leapt into the fray, calling Miller for an interview.

  Miller explained that he was under enormous pressure. His national commander was demanding an explanation, and advisory board members from across the country, many of whom were Republican, were screaming for his scalp. Mary liked Miller instantly; his pleasant baritone would become a fixture at her parties for years to come.

  Mary’s resulting columns blazed about “grim feds bursting into a hovel demanding from the resident widow the return of taxpayers’ money for her belated winter fuel.” She arranged for Miller to make a television appearance with Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, and Miller brought the camera crew to meet an out-of-work carpenter whom the Salvation Army had given $39.07 to help pay his heating bill.

  By the time Mary arrived at her office the next morning, there was a message on her answering machine from White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater. “The money is going to the charities.” Mary and the Salvation Army had won in a rout. “With Mary McGrory’s help and interpretation, we were able to turn the situation around,” Ernie Miller recalled. “That was probably the first time the Reaganites reversed course—and it may have been nearly the last time.”

  On a rainy day in March 1981, Mary was scheduled to hear Reagan speak at a local hotel. She was running late and arrived at the Washington Hilton at around 2:30 as a light rain fell. The entrance to the hotel was complete chaos, with police shouting, a Marine band moving about in jumbled confusion, and photographers snapping pictures. Several people were receiving medical attention. Mary thought there had been an accident or someone had suffered a heart attack. She asked a bystander what was happening. “Someone shot at the president,” was the reply. “But he’s okay; he’s gone back to the White House.” Everyone Mary spoke with said that the president, who had been in office just seventy days, had not been hurt.

  The people were wrong. The president was badly wounded by the assassin’s bullet. Mary began an unsatisfying vigil in her office, watching updates on television and hoping that the president would survive.

  The next night, one of her colleagues gave her a ride home. They passed the scene of the shooting, and Mary’s friend wondered, “Can you imagine what it would have been like if that bullet had been a few inches closer?” Mary snapped in reply, “I don’t have to imagine it. I was here for Kennedy’s funeral.”

  Reagan responded to the near-death experience with humor and light. He joked with his doctors that he hoped they weren’t Democrats, and waved sunnily to the public from his hospital window. It proved a turning point in his presidency. Mary shared the sentiment Tip O’Neill had expressed after visiting President Reagan in the hospital: “A beautiful person. I wish he agreed with me.”

  At the Star, circulation numbers brought a steady stream of bad news. By May 1981, the Post was selling more than 600,000 copies a day, the Star only 320,000.

  The declining circulation fed a decline in advertising, a newspaper’s lifeblood. The Star was poised to lose $20 million in 1981. While Murray Gart and the team from Time Inc. had revamped the paper’s editorial content, they had not come to terms with the underlying management rot that was the Star’s real problem.

  A long article in the Washington Monthly eviscerated Time Inc. for its management of the Star, airing complaints long heard in the newsroom about the move away from feature writing, Gart’s aloofness, and Time’s habit of using the paper to shill for its favorite causes. Newby Noyes wrote Mary not long after the story was published: “I can’t help feeling that Time Inc. is bound to wake up and replace Gart if he really is that awful.”

  The news got worse. At a dude ranch in Encampment, Wyoming, the Time Inc. board of directors gathered for its annual meeting. Dressed in country casual attire, James Shepley detailed the Star’s grim vital statistics. Ads and circulation were plummeting, losses were mounting, and Time Inc. had spent $85 million on the Star in a little more than three years. The turnaround Shepley had confidently promised was nowhere to be seen.

  On July 16, the Time board of directors met in more familiar environs, on the forty-seventh floor of the Time-Life Building, in New York. For close to four hours, they debated whether there were any remaining alternatives to save the Star. The ultimate decision: the paper had to be closed.

  Staffers at the Star were unaware that their fate had been set even as construction crews completed one of the new offices just off the newsroom. On July 21, Gart traveled to New York on one of Time’s private jets to meet with Shepley.

  On July 22, Shepley’s committee gathered for a half-hour meeting with Gart. Shortly after noon, they formally voted to close the Star. All present were instructed to keep the decision secret until eight the next morning, when it would be released to the newswires.

  Back at the Star, rumors swirled. Many hoped that Gart’s appearance in New York signaled his imminent ouster.

  On July 23, the calls started before sunrise. Editors of the Star were informed that there would be an emergency meeting in Gart’s office. “The news is not good.” Sixteen grim-faced editors crowded into Gart’s office promptly at seven, many of them disheveled from their rapid commute. Gart silently passed out the text of a Time press release announcing that th
e Star would close in two weeks.

  As he stood in front of his map of the world, Gart insisted that he had fought hard for the paper, neglecting to mention that its fate had been decided before he was consulted. The press release would go out to the wire services within the hour.

  The editors flinched. The Star’s employees would learn they were losing their jobs on the radio, scooped on their own demise. After some back-and-forth, Gart relented and said that editors could inform their own people.

  Executive Managing Editor William F. McIlwain asked how much severance employees would receive and how long their benefits would remain in place.

  Gart didn’t know. He called Shepley, who didn’t know, either. “Time will honor its contracts,” Gart reassured McIlwain.

  The normally soft-spoken McIlwain, who was on crutches following foot surgery, exploded. “What kind of shabby fucking talk is that? You mean the president of the company is going to go out and have a press conference of what’s happening and you haven’t bothered to find out the answer to the most important question for your people?” McIlwain’s passion roiled the room.

  The meeting was completed by 7:45, and at 8:00 A.M. the nation’s capital woke up to the news that the Washington Star was ending its 128-year run. A few minutes after the press release hit, Mary’s phone rang. It was one of the national editors. “Mary, I want to tell you something. Time is closing the Star in two weeks.”

  Mary’s home would be no more. She rushed to the office, wading through a phalanx of camera crews and reporters who had taken up positions outside the paper’s doors, fielding a few questions before saying that she had a column to finish.

  At a press conference at the Madison Hotel in Washington, J. Richard Munro, president and chief executive officer of Time Inc., announced that the Star was hemorrhaging money. “We have no choice but to close it.” It rankled Mary that Munro, a man she had never met, delivered the paper’s obituary. The Star became the 316th afternoon newspaper in the United States to go out of business since 1970, a tidal wave that would leave no survivors. “I never believed they’d do it,” said Mary in reaction. “The capital of the Western world with one newspaper.”

  Gart ventured around the newsroom. He offered little in the way of comfort but made calls to other papers trying to find landing spots for some of his top talent. He offered his hand to Mary. She refused to shake it. One thought burned in Mary’s mind: “You were never part of this.”

  As the shock wore off, the anger mounted among the staff. Bill McIlwain fumed that Gart had still not spoken directly to the employees. “I can’t believe it—the guy doesn’t have the courage to face his staff.”

  McIlwain huddled with Mary, telling her, “I blame him for everything. I blame him for the weather. I blame him for my foot.” McIlwain was already leaving the paper, having accepted a job with the Arkansas Gazette. His going-away party was scheduled for the same afternoon. Mary was not shy in expressing her own opinions. “I’m angry at the way they handled this,” she said of Time, “angry at the town for not supporting us.”

  Reporters anxiously gazed at the bulletin board as openings at other papers were hastily tacked up. “Every time we were on the precipice in the past,” observed Maureen Dowd, who had risen to be a feature writer at the paper, “there always seemed to be a Superman waiting to swoop down and save us. This time . . . there’s no one out there.”

  McIlwain’s farewell party became a very different kind of gathering, and by three o’clock the champagne, beer, and wine had begun to flow. The scene was a swirl. Reporters drank with grim zeal and sang. Others scrambled to update their résumés and placed long-distance calls. People shared war stories, laughed, hugged, and cried. Empty champagne bottles littered the file cabinets. Some reporters pecked away at their stories to meet deadlines—cold comfort in a disappearing routine.

  At around five, Murray Gart finally addressed the newsroom. He was greeted by intermingled applause and muffled hisses. The room grew quiet. Gart said that he had spoken with Ben Bradlee, of the Post, and Mike O’Neill, of the New York Daily News, about finding placement for his reporters. Someone quipped: “A name-dropper to the last.” Gart insisted he had done everything in his power to keep the paper alive. “Maybe a miracle will happen before August 7,” he said. Gart’s speech meandered until finally a compassionate deskman raised a glass and said, “Well, here’s to you, Murray.” The reporters desultorily raised their glasses.

  Gart gestured across the room to the white-haired McIlwain, who awkwardly climbed atop a desk with his crutches to address the crowd. As he began to speak, the reporters broke out in applause, drowning out his words. The cheers and clapping grew louder; people stomped their feet. The whole room erupted in a cathartic cacophony, roaring as if one. The shouting went on for a full two minutes. McIlwain, moved nearly to tears, could only choke out, “I admire you all.”

  With the speeches done, the drinking intensified. Phil Gailey played his autoharp in the middle of the newsroom. A drunken Lance Gay head-butted a computer. Like a desperate Christmas party, the gathering involved much kissing and flirting among the tears.

  In the Star’s final days, Mary received a surge of letters from friends and family. Acquaintances in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Colorado offered their homes so Mary could come, rest, recuperate, and mourn. “People said it was like a death in the family, and it was: telephone calls, telegrams, flowers. But it was worse,” Mary said. “It was the death of a family.”

  On Friday, the Star newsroom was somber as the shock wore off and reporters faced the grim work of trying to find new jobs. Time Inc. did little to burnish its image in the last days. Staff had their bags searched both as they entered and left. A memo from the executive editor was posted on the newsroom bulletin board, warning, NO LIQUOR MUST BE BROUGHT INTO THE BUILDING. Beneath the sign, a newsroom wag scribbled, ANYONE IGNORING THIS MEMO WILL BE FIRED.

  Job security was not an issue for Mary. Meg Greenfield of the Washington Post called her daily to offer her a position. “I don’t want to talk about any of it until the Star is gone,” Mary finally snapped in reply.

  Mary’s waning days at the Star were not without crisis. On Saturday around lunch, Mary got a call at home from the Sunday editor. He was apologetic, but he had been told that he had to spike Mary’s column about the Star. Gart did not want any commentary about the paper’s closure to appear in the Star until its last day, fearing that it might jeopardize any potential last-minute sale of the paper. Mary brooded. All through Vietnam, the tumult of 1968, and the Nixon years, her column had run as she had written it. She had never had a column spiked, although many of her opinions drove the Star’s conservative editors to distraction.

  Mary called her old friend and former editor John Cassady, the steady hand who had guided thousands of her columns to publication. “Well, John, it’s finally happened,” she said. “My column will not run tomorrow.” Mary declared that she would quit if she could not write about the biggest story in the city during her last two weeks.

  “I’m with you one hundred percent,” Cassady responded, “but you know you will lose your severance.” Mary worried that she would look “vainglorious, walking out on a dying newspaper,” but she thought that anything less would send the wrong message. Mary began composing her resignation letter in her head, but she knew that she first had to speak with Gart, who was at a wedding in New York.

  Mary called and left a message. She waited two very long hours before Gart called back. He said that he did not want to jeopardize any possible deals for the paper. Mary said little. Eventually, she said that she did not want anyone to think that she “had collapsed under calamity,” arguing that being professional meant writing about disasters as they unfolded.

  There was a long silence. Gart, realizing that having his most famous columnist quit in protest during the final two weeks of publication would not help his battered reputa
tion, declared that the column would run. Mary claimed it was the only argument she ever won with Gart.

  On July 26, Mary’s remembrance of the Star ran in the Sunday paper. She noted that she had gotten used to reporters from other papers addressing her as if she were the wife of a terminally ill husband—“How is the Star?” She aimed sharp words at Time, saying that the gulf between “the weekly and the daily, between structure and free form, between reverence and cheekiness” had never been never bridged.

  President Ronald Reagan invited himself to a farewell lunch at the Star. Given that he was still recovering from his gunshot wound, Mary regarded it as an incredibly gracious gesture. Reagan, Mary, Murray Gart, White House counselor Ed Meese, Ed Yoder, and several others filled the head table.

  Reagan, with great relish, discussed spaghetti Westerns and some of the memorably bad subtitles he had seen dubbed in foreign productions. While always resisting his policies, Mary liked Reagan. “He has cut food stamps, jobs training, projects that help orphans and widows,” she said. “And he is a demonstrably nice man, capable of kind gestures like bending over a dying newspaper.”

  As most of America was still aglow from the grandeur of Prince Charles and Lady Diana’s wedding in London, August 4 marked Mary’s thirty-fourth anniversary at the Star. Phil Gailey and others presented her with thirty-five long-stemmed roses and champagne. The newsroom was nearly deserted, with only a skeleton crew still working. “I always dreamed that the best way to go would be to be carried out between editions,” Mary said, smiling ruefully. She said that many people had asked why she had stayed at the Star for so many years. “One of the reasons I couldn’t ever leave the Star was I couldn’t imagine what the farewell party would be like.” She added, “And now I don’t have to. And isn’t that nice?” and then she cried.