by John Norris
“I have been a reader”: Mary McGrory Papers, container 10.
Ben Bradlee and: Mary McGrory Papers, container 5, cable of November 8, 1962.
“Four of us read 78 entries”: Mary McGrory Papers, container 1, W. P. Hobby letter to Mary McGrory, March 11, 1963.
“It would have been hard to say”: JFK Library Press Panel.
Perhaps Mary’s only regret: Debra Gersh Hernandez, “Nixon and the Press; There Were a Handful of Journalists that the Late President Didn’t Hate, but Most Were Viewed as Ideological Enemies,” Editor & Publisher, June 25, 1994, 82–91.
Mary enlisted the Kennedys: Mary McGrory, column, March 28, 1976.
At the Star, Newby Noyes: “Catch a Falling Star,” Time, April 19, 1963, 108.
Mary swam in the bracing lake: Mary McGrory Papers, container 165.
“Death came to Pope John XXIII”: Mary McGrory, column, June 4, 1963.
When someone suggested that: Mary McGrory Papers, container 67, Daniel Patrick Moynihan letter to Mary McGrory, June 27, 1963.
“It was interesting that”: JFK Library Press Panel.
They were just twenty feet away: Louis Harris, interview by Vicki Daitch, April 12–13, 2005, John F. Kennedy Oral History Program.
“Dynamite has become”: Mary McGrory, column, September 19, 1963.
On a plane ride back: Mary McGrory Papers, container 162.
“It is not my responsibility”: McGrory, interview by Schmalzbauer.
Mary thought of herself: Dudar, “A Pulitzer Prize.”
“Her role was to influence”: Haynes Johnson interview.
But Barry Goldwater: Mary McGrory, column, September 18, 1963.
Mary wrote that when Goldwater’s: Mary McGrory, column, November 1, 1963.
“This most rational man refused”: Mary McGrory, column, November 24, 1963.
Calm and deliberate: Lance Gay, interview by author, May 9, 2007.
“The men picked up”: Mary McGrory, column, November 23, 1963.
They headed back to: Clark family papers, Mary McGrory letter to Blair Clark, n.d.
As he stood over her: Belford, Brilliant Bylines, 270–78.
The news story came: McGrory, interview by Currie.
“He brought gaiety”: Mary McGrory, editorial, November 23, 1963.
“She wrote that column”: Lance Gay interview.
The staff was replacing: Tim Russert, CNBC News Transcripts, December 16, 2000.
“Heavens, Mary,” Moynihan replied: Mary McGrory Papers, container 7.
“I don’t think there’s any point”: Martin Nolan, “Across America, a Loss of Youth and Promise,” Boston Globe, July 23, 1999.
“When he came to the White House”: Mary McGrory, column, November 24, 1963.
“No, I can do it”: “A Writer’s Life.”
During the ceremony: Ephraim Hardcastle, Daily Mail (London), January 1, 1999.
After the funeral, Mary walked: McGrory, interview by Currie; Tim Russert, CNBC News Transcripts, March 9, 1997; Phil Gailey, “Words That Emblazoned History,” St. Petersburg Times, October 26, 2006; “A Writer’s Life”; “Longtime Washington Star Editor John Cassady,” Washington Post, August 2, 2003; “National Press Club Fourth Estate Award.”
Mary’s column on Kennedy’s funeral: Mary McGrory, column, November 26, 1963.
Jackie Kennedy wrote to Mary: McGrory family papers, Jackie Kennedy letter to Mary McGrory, December 20, 1963.
“He invaded Cuba”: Mary McGrory, column, November 20, 1983.
He did his best: Walter Sheridan, interview by Roberta W. Greene, June 12, 1970, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.
Mary coaxed Bobby: Charles Kaiser, 1968 in America: Music, Politics, Chaos, Counterculture, and the Shaping of a Generation (New York: Grove Press, 1988), 10; Mary McGrory Papers, container 139; Arthur Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times (Boston: Mariner Press, 2002), 613.
Chapter Four: Picking Up the Pieces
“Miss Mary McGrory, passenger”: Mary McGrory Papers, container 5, cable of January 10, 1964.
“For millions of Americans”: “L.B.J.: Naked to His Enemies,” Time, April 19, 1976, 36.
“The moment that would provide”: Mary McGrory, column, March 1, 1964.
“When I sat down”: Gloria Cooper, “Hey, Hey, LBJ: How Many Journalists Did You Tape Today?” Columbia Journalism Review, May/June 1998, 71.
Johnson also complained: William Miller, Fishbait: The Memoirs of the Congressional Doorkeeper (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1977), 173.
Johnson warned that Mary: Lyndon B. Johnson, conversation with Senator Mike Mansfield, August 18, 1964, Presidential Recordings Program, Miller Center, University of Virginia, http://millercenter.org/presidentialrecordings.
“You learn that Stewart Alsop”: “L.B.J.: Naked to His Enemies.”
With a bracing chill: Maier, The Kennedys, 486.
“Oh,” interjected John Jr.: Weekend All Things Considered, National Public Radio, July 18, 1999.
Despite the light moment: Maier, The Kennedys, 486.
But with the television lights: Mary McGrory, column, November 21, 1965.
He sobbed in response: Mary McGrory, column, June 9, 1968.
Mary knew that many angry: Mary McGrory, column, March 17, 1964.
Nothing in life made Mary: Robin Toner, “Mary McGrory, 85, Longtime Washington Columnist, Dies,” New York Times, April 23, 2004.
The Wayfarer also offered: Jules Witcover, interview by author, September 8, 2010.
“The Senator, handsome”: Mary McGrory, column, September 20, 1964.
“The Senator is not a bloodthirsty man”: Mary McGrory, column, May 27, 1964.
With Goldwater stumbling: Mary McGrory, column, June 22, 1964.
She described McCarthy as: Mary McGrory, column, December 29, 1963.
The Kennedy family still fumed: Maier, The Kennedys, 509.
“Gene’s mother was German”: Martin Nolan, “The Baffling Gene McCarthy,” Boston Globe, December 12, 2005.
“Gene really felt terrible”: Kaiser, 1968 in America, 7–8.
This led LBJ to grumble: Michael Beschloss, Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963–1964 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 489.
In Mary’s words: Mary McGrory, column, August 28, 1964.
Gene McCarthy, an assiduous: Sandbrook, Eugene McCarthy, 115–16.
When Mary wrote: John Skipper, Showdown at the 1964 Democratic Convention (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012), 153; Mary McGrory, column, August 28, 1964.
While he had a knack: Gates, Air Time, 108–9.
He then became the associate: Marilyn Nissenson, The Lady Upstairs: Dorothy Schiff and the New York Post (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007), 295–98.
Mary told Blair: Clark family papers, Mary McGrory letter to Blair Clark, August 16, 1964.
“She always downplayed herself”: Anthony Lewis interview.
Crowds often booed: Mary McGrory, column, October 23, 1964.
Mary called it “the most moving”: Mary McGrory, column, October 11, 1964.
The next day, Johnson: Beschloss, Reaching for Glory, 51.
As she confided to Blair: Clark family papers, Mary McGrory letter to Blair Clark, September 1960.
Mary’s friend Elizabeth Shannon: Elizabeth Shannon interview.
“It wasn’t so much him”: Maureen Dowd, interview by author, February 2, 2010.
“He assumed, I guess”: Phil Gailey, interview by author, April 12, 2010.
Perhaps it was no coincidence: Mary McGrory, column, January 20, 1965.
Watergate co-conspirator John Ehrlichman: Henry Mitchell, “Ehrlichman’s View; His Adventures in the Flag Lapel Pin Years,
” Washington Post, February 1, 1982.
As the workers jostled: Mary McGrory, column, November 4, 1964.
As Tommy Noyes recalled: Thomas Noyes, “Washington Star Memories; Newsroom Nostalgia and Legends of the Washington Star; Celebrity Lunch Circuit,” Washington Post, August 7, 1981.
Still, the Star continued: Howard Kurtz, “A Star Is Mourned; 10 Years after the Newspaper’s Demise, Reporters Recall Its Headline Days,” Washington Post, August 6, 1991.
Indeed, Mary once bragged: Belford, Brilliant Bylines, 270–78.
“She held grudges”: Haynes Johnson interview.
By 1966 she embraced: Mary McGrory, column, February 6, 1966.
Some readers resented Mary’s: Sanborn, “Byline Mary McGrory.”
Mary dubbed Vietnam: Mary McGrory, column, November 22, 1966.
By mid-1966 Mary was advocating: Mary McGrory, column, July 31, 1966.
Mary noticed that the BOBBY IN ’68 signs: McGrory, interview by Currie.
For Mary, the intense: Mary McGrory, column, October 25, 1966.
After they had dined: Nissenson, The Lady Upstairs, 297.
Some thought that her admiration: Belford, Brilliant Bylines, 270–78.
“I didn’t think she was a very sexual”: Ben Bradlee, interview by author, November 19, 2009.
“I think for a woman”: Cokie Roberts, interview by author, January 15, 2010.
When several dates between: Clark family papers, Mary McGrory letter to Blair Clark, April 4, 1967.
“Sweet Mary, we had such fun”: McGrory family correspondence.
“By now you will have guessed”: Ibid.
Mary and Joanna would meet: Joanna Rostropowicz, interview by author, January 19, 2012.
“Don’t let your career”: Laura Gross, interview by author, June 11, 2012.
That October, Mary: McLendon and Smith, Don’t Quote Me, 30–39.
The intense and uncomfortable: Mary McGrory Papers, containers 62 and 7, including Mary McGrory interview notes with Robert F. Kennedy, November 16, 1967; Mary McGrory, columns, November 26, 1967, and June 9, 1968; McGrory, interview by Currie; “1968: The Year and the Campaign,” C-SPAN, Washington, DC, September 7, 1993; Kaiser, 1968 in America, 34.
“The sudden, startling emergence”: Mary McGrory, column, November 17, 1967.
Mary asked Seigenthaler why: John Seigenthaler interview.
Mary covered Gene McCarthy’s: Mary McGrory, column, November 19, 1967.
Anything below that 29,000-vote: Mary McGrory Papers, container 62, Mary McGrory notes from meeting with Bill Dunfey, November 21, 1967.
O’Donnell had a bleak view: Mary McGrory Papers, container 62, Mary McGrory notes from conversation with Kenneth O’Donnell, November 26, 1967.
Mary’s conversations led her: Mary McGrory, interview by Dominic Sandbrook, October 17, 1999.
When a reporter asked: Martin Nolan, “The Baffling Gene McCarthy,” Boston Globe, December 12, 2005.
“His skilled and spirited”: Mary McGrory, column, December 1, 1967.
Both McCarthy and Noyes: Mary McGrory, column, October 31, 1989.
Johnson said the lunch: Haynes Johnson interview.
She was particularly eager: Blair Clark, interview by Dominic Sandbrook, April 18, 2000.
Shortly before McCarthy announced: Ibid.
“Fine,” McCarthy responded: Ibid.
Clark quickly learned: Ibid.
Chapter Five: Splendid, Doomed Lives
By early January 1968: Mary McGrory, column, January 14, 1968.
Mary was enraged: Peter Edelman, interview by author, February 3, 2012.
Journalist Rowland Evans remembered: Rowland Evans, interview by Roberta W. Greene, July 30, 1970, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.
While Mary never relented: Mary McGrory, column, March 6, 1968.
“It was in the back”: Kaiser, 1968 in America, 89.
As Mary said, it was as if: “1968: The Year and the Campaign.”
Mary helped the “kids”: Mary McGrory, column, March 12, 1968.
Blair Clark argued that: Blair Clark autobiography.
In an oral history: McGrory, interview by Currie.
Mary noted that she had written: Mary McGrory Papers, container 99.
“You’ve seen Gene a lot”: Blair Clark, interview by Sandbrook.
His speeches tended to: Ibid.
Once, in the middle: “Unforeseen Eugene.”
Flying back up to: Kaiser, 1968 in America, 90.
“You fight from a low crouch”: Mary McGrory, column, March 13, 1968.
“McCarthy, one of the senate’s”: Mary McGrory, column, February 5, 1968.
The headline announced: “1968: The Year and the Campaign.”
The news only further: “Unforeseen Eugene.”
Most pollsters thought McCarthy: William L. Dunfey, interview by Larry J. Hackman, March 23, 1972, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.
“I think I can get the nomination”: “1968: The Year and the Campaign.”
McCarthy then reiterated: Mary McGrory, column, October 31, 1989.
“Kennedy thinks that American youth”: Mary McGrory, column, March 15, 1968.
Ted Sorensen, Jack Kennedy’s: Ted Sorensen, interview by author, March 8, 2010.
Mary described McCarthy as: Mary McGrory, column, March 24, 1968.
“There in the savage orange”: Mary McGrory Papers, container 62.
Mary’s column the next day: Mary McGrory, column, March 29, 1968.
“I think it’s very plausible”: Dominic Sandbrook, interview by author, November, 24, 2010.
Gwen Gibson, a female reporter: Gwen Gibson, interview by author, April 1, 2010.
But Bradlee did not: Ben Bradlee interview.
Student leader David Mixner: David Mixner, interview by author, February 2, 2012.
In February 1968: Blair Clark, interview by Sandbrook.
Haynes Johnson remembered chatting: Haynes Johnson interview.
“And you’ll find out”: Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999), 530.
On April 4, Mary: Mary McGrory, column, April 7, 1968.
“In the church”: Mary McGrory, column, April 30, 1994.
“You know, he kind of brought”: Blair Clark, interview by Sandbrook.
“She had the notion that Gene”: Jack Germond interview.
Asked on The Tonight Show: Mary McGrory Papers, container 62.
As Blair Clark complained: Blair Clark, interview by Sandbrook.
As Mary lamented: “1968: The Year and the Campaign.”
For Mary, the great drama: Mary McGrory, column, May 12, 1968.
“Kennedy has spent most of his time”: Mary McGrory, column, May 22, 1968.
“He just didn’t think McCarthy”: Peter Edelman interview.
The senator said he did not: Blair Clark autobiography.
“It was the ghastly finale”: Mary McGrory, column, June 5, 1968.
David Mixner, who remained: David Mixner interview.
On June 7, Mary received: Mary McGrory Papers, container 96.
“Bobby was a Celt”: Mary McGrory, column, June 9, 1968.
Her parting words for Bobby: Ibid.
123 Time magazine declared: “Second Thoughts on Bobby,” Time, June 21, 1968, 58.
“She just exploded”: John Seigenthaler interview.
On the train, there was discussion: Mary McGrory, column, June 11, 1968.
“Maybe Bobby had gone too far”: Frank Mankiewicz, interview by author, October 6, 2009.
“You would have been hard put”: David Mixner interv
iew.
Mary’s faith in him: Mary McGrory Papers, container 62.
People might have viewed Nixon: Mary McGrory, column, August 4, 1968.
“The Republican convention was”: Mary McGrory, column, August 11, 1968.
There were policemen posted: Mary McGrory, column, August 18, 1996.
Mary had described the New Hampshire primary: Mary McGrory, interview by Sandbrook.
“You would see friends”: “Recent Democratic National Conventions,” C-SPAN, Washington, DC, July 12, 1992.
Mary joined McCarthy: Mary McGrory, column, August 29, 1968.
Mary described the convention: Mary McGrory, interview by Sandbrook.
He was asked to: Mary McGrory Papers, container 111.
As a Star reader complained: Mary McGrory, column, September 8, 1968.
The two finished lunch: Al Spivak interview.
“Many Democrats feel remorse”: Mary McGrory, column, December 5, 1977.
“They quit in the most meaningful”: “1968: The Year and the Campaign.”
Mary wrote that many: Mary McGrory, column, December 1, 1968.
Neither effort was particularly: Mary McGrory, interview by Sandbrook.
“Someday someone will figure out”: Mary McGrory Papers, container 8.
Sister Editha sharply disapproved: McGrory family correspondence.
“You are not helping Mary”: Ibid.
“I breathe better there”: Wyper, “Mary McGrory: Tiger.”
When Mary was asked: Spencer, “A Reporter at Her Primitive Best.”
“She had a great life”: Phil Gailey interview.
Chapter Six: Nixon
“Please come by my place”: Mary McGrory, column, January 26, 1969.
“I had read Mary McGrory’s”: Klein, Making It Perfectly Clear, 68–69.
The Star made the most: Mary McGrory Papers, container 139.
For the first time since: Mary McGrory, column, December 14, 1969.
With her column appearing: Lance Gay interview.
He was also struck: John Ehrlichman, Witness to Power: The Nixon Years (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), 244–45.
“And for that I cut my hair?”: David Mixner, Stranger Among Friends (New York: Bantam Books, 1996); David Mixner interview; Ehrlichman, Witness to Power, 244–45.
She had brought: David Mixner interview; Mixner, Stranger Among Friends, 93–94.
