Poisoning The Press

by Mark Feldstein

  SFRC

  Senate Foreign Relations Committee files, Center for Legislative Affairs, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (1963 hearings on foreign lobbying)

  SWC

  Senate Watergate Committee files, Center for Legislative Affairs, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

  Telecon

  Transcripts of telephone conversations secretly made by Henry Kissinger’s stenographer assistants

  UPI

  United Press International

  WHT

  Richard Nixon White House tapes, National Archives, College Park, MD

  WP

  The Washington Post

  WS

  The Washington Star

  WSJ

  The Wall Street Journal

  WSPF

  Watergate Special Prosecution Force files, National Archives, College Park, MD

  PROLOGUE

  Hay-Adams: www.hayadams.com; chilly afternoon: “Weather,” WP (March 25, 1972), E5; “thorn in [his] side”: testimony, E. Howard Hunt (Jan. 10, 1976), 10, JFKAA; “got to do something”: WHT #643-13 (Jan. 3, 1972).

  assassination plot: Church Report, 133–37; Bob Woodward, “Hunt Told Associates of Orders to Kill Jack Anderson,” WP (Sept. 21, 1975), A1ff.; Liddy, 207–10.

  Paul Revere: Douglas Martin, “Jack Anderson, Investigative Journalist Who Angered the Powerful,” NYT (Dec. 18, 2005), 38; seventy million: Sheehan, 10; suicide: Tricia Drevets, “A Man Who Digs Up What’s Covered Up,” Editor and Publisher (July 18, 1987), 32, and “Abscam Figure Sues Writer,” NYT (Feb. 4, 1982), B19.

  Nixon kept his distance: Greenberg, 150; “ugly thoughts”: Dean, Blind, 88; “arch nemesis”: Colson, Born Again, 242.

  “fight, bleed”: Wicker, 685.

  “Few reach”: JA and Clifford, 3.

  “much inflamed”: Tebbel and Watts, 13; “concubine”: Newton, 7; “putrid state”: Spear, 35.

  press corruption: Ritchie, Press, chps. 3–5.

  1: THE QUAKER AND THE MORMON

  “wasn’t a town”: Ambrose, Education, 19; Quaker background: Chuck Fager, “The Quaker President,” Washington City Paper (June 10, 1994), 21–27.

  “ground into me”: Morris, 128; eschewed the more familiar “Dick”: Morris, 9; “never had a meal without grace”: Nixon, RN, 95; “commitment to Christ”: Morris, 87.

  talk to men on the street: Ambrose, Education, 19; “unquestioned tribal closeness,” “plain, exacting life”: Morris, 25, 47; “honest lawyer”: Morris, 83; “be of some good”: Morris, 85; “wonderful missionary”: Morris, 108.

  bounced from job to job: Gellman, 9; “playing was daydreaming”: Morris, 34; “scrappy, belligerent”: R. Dallek, 5; Frank’s temper: Morris, 34, 50, 64–65; “beating”: Brodie, 40.

  “cultured, refined”: Morris, 54; “mother’s favorite”: Morris, 139; “saint”: Lukas, 568.

  “hard,” “cranky and puritanical”: Brodie, 54; “switch in her hand”: Morris, 62.

  “In her whole life”: Summers, Arrogance, 9, 13.

  “sank into a deep impenetrable silence”: Morris, 147; “taking charity”: Ambrose, Education, 51; “three sons in one”: Ambrose, Education, 57.

  “very strict parents”: Morris, 50; “Just don’t argue”: Morris, 78.

  “offended some of his Quaker teachers”: Morris, 102; polio student: Morris, 167.

  “very serious child”: Morris, 42; “kept mostly to himself”: Morris, 60; “Gloomy Gus,” grind: Ambrose, Education, 36, 46, 75; “didn’t smell good”: Ambrose, Education, 27; “oddball”: Morris, 176; “stuffy!”: Ambrose, Education, 66; starched shirt: Morris, 59.

  “very tense”: Morris, 140; “nasty temper,” “slightly paranoid”: Volkan et al., 45; “something mean”: R. Dallek, 7.

  “never could get up the nerve”: Morris, 93; “didn’t know how to be personable”: Ambrose, Education, 50; “be harsh and I’d cry”: Ambrose, Education, 67.

  “any pay”: Ambrose, Education, 37–38; mock radio shows: Morris, 76; “far-off places”: Ambrose, Education, 26.

  Harvard or Yale: Morris, 110; speakeasy: Gellman, 15; “sixteen weeks of misery,” “twelve long hard hours”: Morris, 66.

  “clapboard shack”: Gellman, 16; “What starts the process”: Ambrose, Education, 39.

  “fifteen colors of the rainbow”: Gellman, 18; “love at first sight,” “Don’t laugh!”: Volkan et al., 46–47.

  Nixon in the navy: Ambrose, Education, chp. 7.

  1946 campaign: Ambrose, Education, chp. 8.

  Mormon beliefs/polygamy: Ostling and Ostling, xix, 72; Nils Anderson: Gibbons, 4–5; JA intv. Gibson; Loveless intv.

  Orlando Anderson: Gibbons, 7–8; Chambless, “Muckraker,” 3–4; JA, W. Anderson intv., Chambless; “patient and persevering”: JA and Gibson, 24.

  religiosity: Gibbons, 11–12; tithing, homeless man: JA intv.

  bike trip: JA and Gibson, 26; Tudor house, “martyr complex”: Harrington, 21, 23; “craps in the outhouse,” JA intv.; “better for my health”: JA, essay, “Good Night” (Nov. 12, 1940), JAP.

  “smoldering volcano,” Alaska, “spinning the whole day”: JA intv.; “opened his fingers”: Knudsen intv.

  “rock-hard Utah soil”: JA and Gibson, 23.

  “Jack psychologically escaped”: Harrington, 40.

  cub reporter: Harrington, 23; “Jack rode his bicycle”: Omer intv.

  “Informant 42”: JA FBIFOIA (Dec. 18, 1940); “big black madam”: Bailey intv.

  “cute girls”: Bagley intv.; “uppity-up”: Harrington, 23; “too many honors”: JA intv.

  Warren believed: W. Anderson intv.; “All these high ambitions,” “trying to restrain”: Harrington, 40.

  “waste of time”: JA intv. Gibson; going undercover, “towering rage”: JA and Gibson, 26–30; “steam, fire, brimstone!”: Harrington, 40.

  “wanted me out”: JA intv. Gibson; taxicab: JA and Gibson, 30; throng of girls: W. Anderson intv.

  missionary experience, “grab an audience”: Gibbons, 16, 34, 38; speaking style: Chambless, “Secular Evangelist,” v, 27; wooden soapbox: K. Anderson intv.; “moss-covered woods”: letter, JA to Cousin Axel (Dec. 14, 1943), JAP; “pluck, faith”: Dowling, 96.

  spartan: Gibbons, 38; “Suddenly I am asked”: JA intv.

  “hauled me up,” “hard-headed”: JA intv.

  “missionary experience”: JA and Boyd, 42.

  five feet, ten inches: JA seaman’s ID certificate (Sept. 13, 1944), JAP; Senator Thomas: JA and Gibson, 33; “didn’t relish,” “boondoggle”: JA intv.

  safeguard lifeboats: letter, JA to parents (Oct. 1, 1944), JAP.

  “serve my country”: letter, JA to parents (May 29, 1945), JAP; “possibility of his indictment”: letter, George M. McMillan to O. N. Anderson (Aug. 6, 1945), JAP.

  “My father worked”: Harrington, 40.

  “only white man”: JA, autobiographical essay, F174, 1 of 2, DPP; “greased brown paper”: JA and Gibson, 45; “Soviet activity,” “Communist influence”: letter, JA to parents (Aug. 24, 1947), JAP.

  “It is hardly”: letter, JA to parents (Sept. 25, 1945), JAP; “chiefly to avoid trouble”: letter, JA to parents (Nov. 9, 1945), JAP.

  “Working for Stars”: letter, JA to Frowso (March 25, 1946), JAP; “VD ward”: letter, JA to parents (June 1, 1946), JAP; “chatted breezily”: letter, JA to parents (May 17, 1946), JAP; “minor celebrity”: letter, JA to parents (July 9, 1946), JAP.

  “hates newsmen,” “reminded him firmly”: letter, JA to parents (Oct. 14, 1945), JAP; “wired a terse message”: letter, JA to parents (March 16, 1946), JAP; “steadfastly refused”: letter, JA to Frowso (March 25, 1946), JAP.

  military discharge: JA and Gibson, 52.

  “calling”: JA intv.; Mormon influence: Chambless, “Muckraker,” 7–11.

  “On numerous occasions”: JA and Gibson, 18.

  “Over the years”: Harrington, 22–23.

  Lives of great men: Morris, 77.

  2: WASHINGTON WHIRL


  “white linen suits,” “spats,” trolley cars, pressrooms: Brinkley, 23, 186, 107, 232, 281.

  1946 election: Morris, 341–42; Ambrose, Education, 141.

  “news center of the world,” “narrow hospital trundle bed”: letters, JA to parents (March 27, 1947, and April 11, 1947), JAP.

  “fusty, old-fogey”: letter, JA to parents (Oct. 12, 1947), JAP.

  “million other,” “simple expendient”: letter, JA to father (Feb. 14, 1947), JAP; renounced, ashamed: JA intv.

  “The name Drew Pearson”: JA and Boyd, 8; “most intensely feared”: Time, “Querulous Quaker” (Dec. 13, 1948); “career spanning”: Pilat, 2.

  “trivial, reactionary”: DP, Washington, 321.

  “Scorpion,” Patton: Pilat, 5, 11.

  Coughlin, MacArthur, stroke: Pilat, 141–46, 191, and “Bankhead Services Set for Today,” WP (June 14, 1946), 6.

  “polecat”: JA and Boyd, 10; paid tipsters: Kluckhohn and Franklin, 67, 71, and Frederick C. Klein, “Writer Drew Pearson Stirs New Storms,” WSJ (May 25, 1966), A1, 9; bribery and burglary: Pilat, 33, 166; censors: Sweeney, 157, 138–39; eavesdroppers: JA and Boyd, 6; “extract”: FBI memo (March 21, 1951), DP FBIFOIA.

  “man of great principle”: JA intv. Gibson.

  “not compatible”: JA and Gibson, 59.

  “overly impressed”: JA intv.; “fresh-faced youth”: Dowling, 96.

  Pearson’s mansion: Pilat, 200–201; “combination newsroom”: JA and Boyd, 5–6.

  Ku Klux Klan: JA and Boyd, 35–53; “Snooping for scoops,” “fox hunts”: letters, JA to parents (June 9, 1947, and June 23, 1947), JAP.

  “laughably naïve,” “what to make of all this,” “brought up to regard”: JA and Boyd, 25, 49, 34.

  “won the Hiss case in the papers”: Kutler, Abuse, 7; “Nixon entered”: Morris, 349.

  “admitted pervert,” “spurned homosexual”: Weinstein, 359, 497; Chambers gay: Tanenhaus, 345, 579; Rosetta stone: Weinstein, 493–94; Tanenhaus, 244; WHT #640-5 (Dec. 22, 1971).

  Thomas: Gellman, 203; JA and Boyd, 133; JA and Gibson, 67–69; JA, “The Scorned Secretary Did Him In,” Parade (June 3, 1979), 13; kickbacks, “The man at the head,” “amazing capabilities,” “premixed martinis”: DP, MGR (Aug. 7, 1948, Dec. 9, 1949, Sept. 7, 1948, and Aug. 13, 1948), JAP.

  behind the scenes: DP, Diaries, 94; “get the job done”: JA and Boyd, 168, 341.

  plagiarism: Greenberg, 55; “Here I was”: TV transcript, JA intv. Deke DeLoach (Feb. 22, 1995), JAP; Hoover leaked: Sullivan, 45, 267.

  “pal of mine”: JA and Boyd, 115; “I don’t have a thing”: JA intv. Gibson.

  “For one thing,” “across-the-board”: JA and Boyd, 210, 124.

  “For ten minutes”: JA and Boyd, 215; “You will be”: Mazo and Hess, 128.

  “pink down to her underwear”: Ambrose, Education, 218; “Don’t vote the Red”: R. Dallek, 21.

  “castrate”: Arnold, 13; “lousy cunt,” “stupid fucking bitch”: McCulloch intv.

  “see that Dick,” “needed a larger home”: Morris, 759, 768; equivalent of $160,000: www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm; corporate interests: Morris, 636–37.

  “needed time,” “considerable care”: JA and Boyd, 379; “Dick tells me”: JA intv.; “Bill, are you sure”: JA and Gibson, 82.

  scooped by Nixon: Morris, 758–61; “kids love the dog”: R. Dallek, 24.

  “from beginning to end”: memo, JA to DP, “Nixon Record” (Sept. 20, 1952), G281, 2 of 3, DPP.

  “unearthed a slew”: Greenberg, 50; false story: Eisenhower, 127; “seldom gave”: JA and Boyd, 14.

  “interceded,” “tax reduction”: DP, MGR (Sept. 29, 1952), JAP; Malaxa background: Morris, 648–49; Summers, Arrogance, 130–31; bribe allegation: Hersh, Camelot, 158–61; Summers, Arrogance, 132–34; $900,000 contemporary equivalent: www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.

  election-eve attacks: DP, MGR (Oct. 6, 8, 10, 1952), JAP; “characteristically teeming”: Nixon, RN, 109; twenty years later: Ambrose, Triumph, 588.

  “never pulled any wires”: transcript, DP broadcast (Nov. 2, 1952), #SM 63, RNL; telegrams: Carter Products to RN (Nov. 3, 1952) and RN to Robert E. Kitner (Nov. 3, 1952), vice presidential correspondence, DP file, Box 583, RNVPP.

  “premature exposure”: JA and Boyd, 380–81.

  “once powerful”: Greenberg, 50; “half-truth” and “smear”: Nixon, Crises, 126; “character assassination” and “permanently and powerfully”: Nixon, RN, 108; “deep scar”: Nixon, Crises, 128; press reaction: DP and JA, Congress, 433; DP, Diaries, 263; Rowse, 3–4, 8–9.

  “largely admiring”: Morris, 737, 768.

  “Washington is buzzing”: DP broadcast (Dec. 7, 1952) cited in letter, Franklyn Waltman to John Moore (Dec. 9, 1952), #120, RNL; “dug up”: letter, JA to parents (Nov. 5, 1952), 2, JAP; “more than $52,000”: letter, H. W. Sanders to Franklyn Waltman (April 10, 1950), #120, RNL; equivalent of $500,000: www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.

  “libel,” “forgery”: Nixon, RN, 109; “highly unlikely”: letter, JA to parents (Nov. 5, 1952), 2, JAP; circulated a copy: DP, Diaries, 239.

  Senate probe: Nixon, RN, 109; “purported letter”: letter, Franklyn Waltman to John Moore (Dec. 9, 1952), JAP; forgery: W. H. Lawrence, “Forgeries Charged to Nixon Accusers,” NYT (Feb. 10, 1953), 1, 17.

  “You wait”: JA and Gibson, 72; “big, thick hands”: Nixon, RN, 138; “Moscow-directed”: “M’Carthy Accuses Pearson and Aide,” NYT (March 25, 1954), 15.

  sexual liaisons: Gentry, 433–34; DP, Diaries, 188–89, 250; Oshinsky, 222–23, 310; JA FBIFOIA (May 17, 1954); “disreputable pervert”: DP, MGR (April 22, 1954), JAP; “unusually preoccupied”: DP, MGR (June 5, 1954), JAP; “pint-sized”: DP, MGR (April 1, 1954), JAP; rest of the media: Joseph and Stewart Alsop, “McCarthy-Cohn-Schine Tale Was Half Told,” WP (March 15, 1954), 11; Bayley, chp. 7.

  “almost certain,” “wage their entire campaign”: DP, MGR (Oct. 17, 1955), JAP.

  Chotiner background: Morris, 292–93; Kennedy subpoenaed: Warren Unna, “Probers Call Nixon’s ’52 Manager,” WP (April 26, 1956), A1ff., and C. P. Trussel, “Nixon’s Aide in ’52 Denies Trying to Sway Contracts,” NYT (May 4, 1956), A1ff.; leaked to Anderson: memo, JA to DP (May 23, 1956), “Chotiner, Murray #4,” G230, 1 of 2, DPP; influence-peddler: DP, MGR (Sept. 4, 1956), JAP; “communist smear”: memo, “Re: Murray Chotiner” (May 1, 1956), “Chotiner, Murray #1,” G230, 1 of 2, DPP.

  “contact man”: DP radio broadcast (May 12, 1956), cited in memo, A. H. Belmont to L. V. Boardman (May 14, 1956), DP FBIFOIA; Cohen background, “I’ve killed no one”: Martin Weil, “Retired Racketeer Mickey Cohen Dies at 62,” WP (July 30, 1976), C10; $25,000: Cohen and Nugent, 232–33; quarter million dollars: www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm; “slanderous”: letter, Murray Chotiner to WTSP-TV (May 23, 1956), Chotiner #3, G230, 1 of 2, DPP; lobbied Robert Kennedy: memo, “Suggested Questions of Chotiner” (ND), Chotiner #1, G230, 1 of 2, DPP; “flatly refused”: memo, JA to DP (June 20, 1956), Chotiner #5, G230, 2 of 2, DPP.

  youngest vice president: Volkan et al., 57.

  “When I saw”: JA intv. Gibson; “dirty trick”: JA intv.; “After he stopped”: Harrington, 43.

  maternal inspection: Olivia Anderson intv.; “only news”: JA to father (April 24, 1949), JAP; wedding ceremony: Fritsch intv.; supervisors now kept a close watch: JA and Gibson, 68.

  “We have had children”: Frank Farmer, “New Ride on Old Merry-Go-Round,” Springfield (MO) Sunday News and Leader (Feb. 7, 1971), B-5ff.; $130-a-week: memo, Washington Field Office to J. Edgar Hoover, “John Mitchell Henshaw” (March 20, 1951), 7, JA FBIFOIA; “hand-me-downs”: Bruch intv.; hundred-dollar bonuses: JA intv.; slave quarters: JA and Boyd, 5.

  “wouldn’t say anything”: JA intv.; “very unsophisticated”: Abell intv.

  Anderson promotion: JA and Gibson, 80–81; JA intv. Gibson.

  party animal: Reynolds, Bruch intvs.; disguise: Mayfield intv.; “obvious to everyone”:
Smolonsky intv.; surrogate husband: Mayfield intv.; “madly in love”: Bruch intv.;

  Opal’s lovers: intvs., Denton, Mitchell, Whitten.

  Opal’s lovers included a mobbed-up Washington lobbyist named Fred Black, who reportedly supplied call girls to members of Congress from a “hospitality suite” he rented in the Sheraton-Carlton Hotel, three blocks from the White House. Among the politicians who allegedly took advantage of Black’s generosity in the early 1960s was then-congressman Gerald Ford, who had a room key to the suite. According to Bobby Baker, a business associate and friend of Black, “Ford on several occasions got oral sex” there from a high-priced call girl whom Baker befriended, Ellen Rometsch. A beautiful young brunette, Rometsch had sex with several dozen of Baker’s powerful friends, most famously President Kennedy. As Baker put it, “She spread a lot of joy in Washington.” Eventually, the FBI bugged Black’s hotel room as part of a federal corruption probe and Jack Anderson reported that the government’s “hidden listening device picked up bedroom scenes,” including that of a “prominent Washington figure [who] brought a girl into Black’s suite” and “utilized the bedroom.” But Anderson didn’t name names, perhaps because of his secretary’s own affair with the lobbyist at the heart of the scandal. At least one of Ford’s encounters with Rometsch was recorded by the FBI, Baker said, adding that J. Edgar Hoover used the incriminating evidence to blackmail Ford for political support.