Interview with Jack Nelson October 30, 1993 Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library

Georgia Government Documentation Project

Series D: Politics and the Media

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CITATION:

Nelson, Jack, Interviewed by Clifford Kuhn & Paul Shields, 30 October 1993, P1993-01, Series D. Politics and the Media, Georgia Government Documentation Project, Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta.

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

GEORGIA GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTATION PROUJECT

SERIES D: POLITICS AND THE MEDIA

NARRATOR: JACK NELSON

INTERVIEWERS: CLIFFORD KUHN, PAUL SHIELDS

INTERVIEW DATE: OCTOBER 30, 1993

DOWNTOWN RITZ-CARLTON HOTEL, ATLANTA

KUHN: This is an interview with Jack Nelson, October 30, 1993, done by Paul Shields

and Cliff Kuhn for the Georgia Government Documentation Project at Georgia State

University. I always ask people first about your background and sort of what got you

into the field. And I know a little bit about that. I know you grew up in Biloxi--

NELSON: Yeah.

KUHN: --And worked for the Biloxi paper. So I am maybe interested in your experience

in Biloxi and then how you came to come to the Constitution.

NELSON: Well, actually I was born in Talladega, Alabama.

KUHN: Okay.

NELSON: October 11, '29. Just had my 64th birthday.

KUHN: Okay.

NELSON: And I grew up, basically, in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. I moved to

Atlanta as a kid. I attended O'Keefe Junior High School here, for example. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library KUHN: O'Keefe.

NELSON: My dad used to be a--He actually worked at a drugstore in the Hurt Building; and I

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

sold papers outside of it. I sold the Atlanta Constitution and the Atlanta Journal. And

the fact is, I remember running down the street--down Peachtree Street, hollering "Two

thousand Hawaiian casualties! Read all about it!" on Pearl Harbor Day. And not

terribly long after that, he went into the--what was called the Army Air Corps then and

was sent to Keesler--Keesler Field, then, now Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi,

Mississippi; and that's how I wound up down there. I was in the eighth grade there, and I

went through high school, and I got my first newspaper job there. I answered a want ad

on the Biloxi--what was then called the Biloxi Daily Herald. And the ad was "General

assignment reporter wanted. Knowledge of sports desired." And I had participated in

every damn sport there was in high school except on water and ice. I mean, I boxed. I

played football. I played softball, basketball, and ran track. So I--that's the reason I

answered the ad, basically. And I was a reporter there for three and a half years. And

then--

KUHN: Right after high school?

NELSON: Right after high school. You could do that in those days before going to college--

VOICE: Yeah.

NELSON: Before going to college. And I was--in my National Guard outfit, I was in the

150 AAA Gun Battalion, and it was federalized, and I went to what was called Camp

Stewart, Georgia, then--Fort Stewart, Georgia now in Hinesville; served as a sergeant and

public information officer there and worked part time on the Savannah Morning News, Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library with the Liberty County Herald, and I also did some correspondence with the

Atlanta Constitution. When I got out of service in December of 1952, I went to work for

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

the Atlanta Constitution and went back to Camp Stewart not terribly long after that in

1953. In fact, I won the Sweepstake Award from Georgia A.P. for exposing a lot of

corruption at Camp Stewart. That's sort of where I--I had begun as an investigative

reporter on the Biloxi paper. There was a lot of gambling there, and I had written about

all the gambling and everything. So, then, what happened was that when I got on at the

Atlanta Constitution, there was a general there by the name of General Mayo who called

me and said, you know, there was so much corruption down there that he needed some

help in exposing it, and--

KUHN: Was this somebody you had known or come across in your--

NELSON: I actually didn't know him. He knew me by reputation because I was already

doing investigative reporting on the Constitution. And so I went down there, and you

could actually stand and touch the gate of Camp Stewart and touch one of the nightclubs

right outside the gate. You could touch the fence and touch the nightclub where they had

gambling and prostitution and so forth. And so I did a series of stories on corruption

there, including a piece about a deputy sheriff named E.E. "Slim" Dykes. He was

anything but slim. He was about 6'2" and weighed about 240. And the grand jury met

down there as a result of the stories that I did, and they returned, as I remember it,

twenty-one indictments. Anyway, it was over twenty indictments. One of the guys they

indicted was Dykes for running a--running a whorehouse. And Dykes, after the grand

jury returned its indictments, spread-eagled me over the hood of an automobile and--Time Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library Magazine wrote some of this, so this is all sort of in the record--

KUHN: Yeah--

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

NELSON: But he had me over the hood of an automobile, and I broke away from him and

ran back to the courthouse lawn. And there was an officer there, a policeman named

Carter. And I told him that if he didn't protect me that the FBI would get him for

violating my civil rights. And there was a judge there by the name of Paul Caswell.

And the judge was a brother-in-law of Sheriff Paul Sykes. And Sheriff Paul Sykes was

sort of the boss of the corrupt county machine there. And Paul--I'll never forget it

because Paul Caswell came out. And it was a moonlit night. It was dark as hell, and

there were a lot of people in the audience who either had been indicted or their relatives

had been indicted or their friends had been indicted. And they were all saying, "The

little son of a bitch got what he deserved." You know. And, "We ought to hang the

bastard." And all that sort of stuff, and that's the reason I told him he better protect me.

And I told the judge when he came out, I said, "Judge, I want to have that man arrested."

And he turned around and told somebody, "Go get a warrant." And he turned back and

looked at me and said, "What's his name?" And the guy brough him a warrant, and I

didn't know his name at the time. And I said, "I don't know his name, but there he is."

And I pointed to him. And, of course, obviously, the Judge knew who he was. He was

the chief deputy sheriff. Caswell took that--Judge Caswell took that warrant like that

(demonstrating), crumpled it up, dropped it on the ground, and said, "If you don't know

what his name is, I can't have him arrested." So I grabbed--I grabbed this Carter, and I

said, "You'd better protect me, or the FBI"--and he did. He put me in his police car and Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library drove me out to Keesler Air Force Base.

KUHN: Keesler? Stewart?

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

NELSON: No, I'm sorry, Camp Stewart, drove me out to Camp Stewart. And I got out

there, and Herman Talmadge--My, my--The managing editor was Bill Fields, and Bill

Fields called down there. At the time, General Mayo had left. I mean, he was still the

commanding general, but there was a colonel. Do you want me to go into all this detail?

KUHN: Sure.

NELSON: So there was a colonel there who was in charge. And I forget the colonel's name,

but Bill Fields got ahold of him because he was the acting commander. And the colonel

says, he says--"Just call me Colonel 'X'." [Laughing.] He was being very mysterious.

He said, "We've got your man here, Nelson; and we've got him under protective custody."

And Fields talked to Herman Talmadge, who was governor then. And Talmadge was

on the verge of calling out the National Guard.

KUHN: To spring you?

NELSON: Well, because of all the talk in town of, you know, revenge and everything else

and people being upset in Liberty County. I mean it wasn't a riot, but people were very

upset.

[Inaudible]

SHIELDS: Tense?

NELSON: That's right, very tense. Anyway, what happened was, the General Mayo--I

mean, not General Mayo but General Frazier, who was the major general in charge of the

48th Infantry National Guard from Hinesville came out to the gate because Slim Dykes Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library swore out a warrant against me.

KUHN: Came out to the gate of the fort?

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

NELSON: Yeah, because Slim Dykes swore out a warrant against me charging me with

disorderly conduct or some damn phoney charge or something. And Fields, the

managing editor, thought I should go back to answer the charge. So Mayo came back so

he could sign my bond at the gate and I wouldn't be turned over to the sheriff's

department, to go back to the jail.

Anyway, that's the way all that stuff happened. And that was my first big thing in

investigative reporting for the Atlanta Constitution, and--

KUHN: So this episode where you got spread-eagled, it was after the indictments came

down?

NELSON: That's right.

KUHN: After the grand jury met?

NELSON: Right. Right.

KUHN: And was this after Phenix City, or was it? It was a couple of years after?

NELSON: Yeah. Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. No, no, this was before Phenix

City.

KUHN: Okay.

NELSON: Then, I went down and covered Phenix City. Phenix City was in--See, this was

in 1953. Phenix City was in, like, nineteen fifty--It may have been '54 or '55.

KUHN: I mean, it sounds so much like the Phenix City--

NELSON: Oh, yeah, I went down and covered Phenix City, too. But, no, it was not. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library KUHN: There you had a state line to deal with as well.

NELSON: Yeah.

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

KUHN: Who broke the Phenix City story first? Was that the Constitution?

NELSON: No, no, no. That was basically the Columbus paper and some of the Birmingham

papers--and Columbus, Georgia papers.

KUHN: All right.

NELSON: The other investigative reporting that I did on the Constitution was, number one,

in 1957. In 1957, I did a series on lottery in Atlanta.

KUHN: The bug?

NELSON: Involving the Atlanta Police Department and the Horace Ingram garage out on

Howell Mill Road. And I stayed in a house next door for eleven days from early in the

morning 'til late at night watching the police coming and going to Horace Ingram's garage

out on Howell Mill Road, with, part of the time with a guy by the name of Tom McRae,

who was the assistant managing editor of the paper and who had a movie camera. And

he took pictures of these guys coming and going. And I watched them exchange money.

Well, the grand jury wound up, the federal grand jury wound up indicting several people,

and so did the state grand jury. And the interesting thing was they convicted some of the

gamblers--and I think, as I remember, including Horace Ingram--of bribery, and acquited

the officers of accepting the bribe. But in connection with the whole fall-out of that

investigation, Chief Jenkins' brother, Lieutenant Marion Jenkins, was indicted. I think

he also finally was acquitted. I'll never forget Mayor William Hartsfield was really upset

about it because he was coming up for re-election. And he came to the Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library Atlanta Constitution newsroom. And he said, "After the election, there's going to be

some changes around here." But there never were, of course. I mean, people always

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

stood up behind me at the paper. And Ralph McGill came to me at that time, and, of

course, I had a lot of respect for him. But McGill came to me and said, "Are you sure

we've got the deadwood?" And I said, "Mr. McGill, we've got the deadwood, no

question about it." And he went back and wrote an editorial in the Atlanta Constitution

and said that "A few rotten apples don't spoil the barrel." He was, you know, very

protective of Ivan--Of William Hartsfield.

KUHN: Yeah, especially at that time.

NELSON: Yeah. And, of course, the managing editor of the paper, Bill Fields, was not

particularly a friend of Hartsfield's. And I'll never forget Hartsfield, you know, he was

very alliterative in his cursing, but he was very profane at times. I mean, you know, you

remember that far--

SHIELDS: Oh, yes, certainly.

NELSON: You know, you do remember.

SHIELDS: Oh, yeah.

NELSON: So he used to refer to Bill Fields, the managing editor of the Constitution as "that

beady-eyed bastard," and he referred to Jack Spalding, the editor of the Journal, as "that

supercilious shit-ass." [Laughter.]

But what I have to say about the people, you know, is that they always stood

behind what I did as a reporter. And I did a lot. I mean, I did a lot of investigative

reporting, if I do say so, before investigative reporting was terribly fashionable. And Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library there was at least one guy on the Journal who did a lot was John Pennington.

KUHN: John Pennington, I was going to bring him up.

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

NELSON: And then, later, Charles Pou did some, too. And--

KUHN: Charlie Pou.

NELSON: Charlie Pou did some.

SHIELDS: I guess, what, your biggest story had to be Milledgeville?

NELSON: Well, Milledgeville. I guess Milledgeville was the biggest. Actually, the

investigations I did of the Marvin Griffin administration were--

SHIELDS: Uh-huh.

NELSON: I did an awful lot of stuff on that. But, you know, you have to say that

Milledgeville was the biggest because it got the Pulitzer.

KUHN: Let me back up a bit. How did, say, the lottery story break? What sort of got

you on to that?

NELSON: I had gotten tips about what was happening. And I was told that the Horace

Ingram garage out on Howell Mill Road was, you know, was sort of a headquarters.

KUHN: Was Horace Ingram a lottery kingpin?

NELSON: Oh, yeah, sure. He was paying off--

KUHN: And he ran a garage out of--an operation out of his garage?

NELSON: Right, right.

KUHN: So the runners would go--

NELSON: Right. And the police came out there, in and out of there all the time. And we

took the tag numbers of all the police cars. We ran, on page-one in the Constitution, Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library photos of the police cars that were out there. I mean, I remember one--I remember two

of the police car numbers, 242 and '49.

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

KUHN: These were the police actually assigned to the lottery, if I'm not mistaken, or

maybe different--

NELSON: I don't recall whether they were actually assigned or not, but they were obviously

protecting it.

KUHN: Wasn't there a time also during the Allen administration that--I came across the

name, Reggie Crawford, does that name ring any bells, in Cobb County, perhaps?

NELSON: I didn't have anything to do with that.

KUHN: Shipp maybe had--

NELSON: I did write about Margaret Hodges, though, "the lottery queen."

KUHN: Who was she?

NELSON: Oh, Margaret Hodges was known as the Atlanta Lottery Queen, and I did a series

on her here. In fact, I remember doing it during the Eisenhower administration because

Eisenhower was visiting at Augusta when my series ran, and they were all waiting to see

the next day's paper, because, you know, to have a woman as a lottery queen was a big

thing at the time. That's all I remember. But I never did anything in connection with the

police protection of her. But she was a big name here in lottery.

KUHN: Why don't we go into Milledgeville and sort of talk about how that broke, then,

maybe come back and talk about the the [inaudible] administration.

NELSON: When I first heard about Milledgeville, I was doing a story on a corrupt judge

named Maylon Clinkscales over in Commerce. And I was working on that story, and I Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library got a call from Bill Fields, the managing editor, and he said he had a call from Phillip

Chandler, who was the state representative, who said there were a lot of things going on

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

at Milledgeville State Hospital.

KUHN: Was he the Baldwin County--

NELSON: Yeah, the Baldwin County repersentative, he and Culver Kidd--

KUHN: I was going to ask that.

NELSON: Yeah, and Phil Chandler--But Phil Chandler had a--I think it was his father-in-law

who was on the staff at Milledgeville State Hospital. But, anyway, Fields told me that he

wanted me to get off the Clinkscales case, which was a pretty big case since it involved a

judge. And he wanted me to get off that and get on Milledgeville. And, then, frankly

speaking, I wasn't really delighted to do it, because I was--

SHIELDS: You had a good line on that one, and a judge, yet.

NELSON: Right. But I did. And I got down there, and I found out that there were a couple

of doctors there who were very upset about what was going on. And they wanted to talk

about it--And, you know, one of the things that I did as an investigative reporter was I

drafted a lot of affidavits. I must have, over the years, drafted hundreds of affidavits

because I found that it was very effective to write in a story that, say, three highway

department engineers swore in affidavits that this corruption had taken place, rather than

that they said it, because it strengthened the story, and it made damn sure that you weren't

going to be accused of misquoting somebody.

KUHN: So you--How did you sort of pick up on this practice?

NELSON: On the practice? I don't know how-- Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library KUHN: It's sort of an unusual technique--

NELSON: Well, it was unusual, and I don't remember how I first learned about it, but I began

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

doing it in the very early fifties. And I just did it as a matter of routine, so much so that,

after awhile, I had people who would volunteer. I mean, they knew I would draft the

affidavits because they would read my stories. And I even had people who would

volunteer, "I would be willing to give you an affidavit on that," which was great because I

usually asked for them if it was a matter of somebody accusing somebody else.

KUHN: Were you a notary yourself, or--

NELSON: No, I would always seek out a notary. I found--You know, you can find notaries

anywhere. And I would go out, hell, I've typed up affidavits in barnyards. You know, I

did it all over the goddammed state because that's basically what I did. I mean, I was an

investigative reporter, and I looked for affidavits when I could find them.

SHIELDS: Let me get back to Milledgeville for a little bit. What were some of the

conditions that you found when you first got in there--

NELSON: Yeah.

KUHN: And you first started to blow the whistle on the place.

NELSON: Well, what would happen was--And it didn't take long when you started writing

some of these stories. What happened was there were various--There were several

specific things that were really bad wrong there. Number one, there was a chief surgeon

there by the name of Wallace Gibson who, even though there was a surgical backlog at

the time at Milledgeville State Hospital, was operating, spending time doing operations at

a private hospital not too far by. In other words, he was making money doing that and Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library was the chief surgeon at the hospital.

SHIELDS: Um-hm--

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

NELSON: Meanwhile, there was a nurse there--There was a nurse there who was sort of his

girlfriend. She was filling in for him at the hospital and performing hip nail operations

on patients. I mean, that's a very tedious operation.

KUHN: What kind of operations?

NELSON: Hip nail operations.

SHIELDS: What is that?

NELSON: When they have fractured hips, and they put in these nails.

SHIELDS: A nurse was doing those?

NELSON: She was not only doing them, but some surgeons won't even do them. You've got

to really be proficient. But she was doing them. So that was one of the things. Then,

there was a guy named Dr. Zeb Burrow there. And Burrow was working--He had

worked out a deal with pharmaceutical firms where he was administering experimental

drugs to patients without their knowledge, without the knowledge of either their

guardians or their relatives. And, of course, he was making money from the

pharmaceutical firms.

Then, there was the fact that out of the 48 doctors there, twelve of them had

alcoholic or drug addiction backgrounds. Some of them had been hired off the ward by

the superintendent; it was a snake pit--by the superintendent, Dr. Peacock, who himself

had drug addiction and who, when I came to interview him, after I had the first one or two

of my stories had run, and I came in to interview him, got on the phone with Dr. Gibson, Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library the surgeon who had performed the surgeries--And I wrote this in my articles--got on the

phone with him and said, "Yeah, I've got that goddamned Jack Nelson in my office now,"

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

reporter for "that goddamnned Ralph McGill nigger-loving, Communist-loving goddamn

Atlanta Constitution newspaper, and we ought to throw him in there with those patients

who took care of that other guy." And I quoted him on all of that.

SHIELDS: The whole stuff--

NELSON: I quoted every goddammed thing he said because I took notes on it all. And

when they had the big cleanup down there, one of the first things they did, of course, was

to get rid of Dr. Peacock. The other thing that was really bad there--but, I mean, there

was so much bad there, but I did a series, as I remember it, it was seven articles. They

were spending, at that time, for the housing and the feeding and the medical care of the

patients a total of two dollars and fifty-two cents a day--

SHIELDS: A day?

NELSON: Per person. Two dollars and fifty-two cents per day. There were twelve

thousand, five hundred patients there, twenty-five hundred more on an out-patient basis.

It was the largest mental institution (inaudible).

KUHN: Now, hadn't there been an investigation of Milledgeville in the early fifties?

NELSON: There had been repeated over the years some sort of things, but nothing ever

really, you know--nobody had ever written this kind of shit, of course, you know. But,

Ernest Vandiver was the Governor, and he appointed a committee, or he got the Medical

Association of Georgia to appoint a committee, headed by Dr. Bruce Schaeffer of Toccoa,

the Schaeffer Committee; and, you know, I mean they really did do a thorough job. They Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library went into it. And when they saw how serious it was--

KUHN: What--I was wondering about the reaction from any number of places. The two

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

state reps, Culver Kidd and--

NELSON: Phil Chandler--

KUHN: Phillip Chandler. And then the welfare department. Because wasn't it true that

the--

NELSON: Alan Kemper, well, Kemper addressed a meeting--I think it was either a regional

meeting--I believe it was a regional meeting of welfare staffers and officials over at

Athens, Georgia, and I forget exactly what he called me. I think he called me "a hatchet

man" and said that I was a cross between a sadist and a rattlesnake.

KUHN: And Kemper was head of the state--

NELSON: Oh, yeah, he was state welfare department--

KUHN: And this was under the welfare department.

NELSON: Oh, yeah, it was under the welfare department. And during the investigation,

'cause I quoted him on this, he was so loud I could hear him; he later accused me of

having borrowed--George Landry was a reporter for the Macon Telegraph at the time.

Landry had a hearing aid. And he later accused me of borrowing Landry's hearing aid

and putting it up to the room so I could hear what he was saying inside, which wasn't true,

of course. He was talking so loud I could hear him inside talking to Schaeffer's

committee. But one of the things I quoted him as saying was, you know, was, 'They can

cut my guts out, but they'll pay for every drop of blood.' I mean, he was making a real

stand because he thought everything was okay at Milledgeville. And, of course, Kemper Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library was one of the big problems.

KUHN: Let's talk about how--Okay, you get the word from Fields to drop Clinkscales and

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

go on to Milledgeville. And let's sort of take it day by day and week by week.

NELSON: Well, I went down to Chandler's house, and he practically turned his house over to

me. And I had the help of a doctor by the name of Dr. Joe Cones and the help of another

doctor whose name right offhand--

KUHN: So a lot of the doctors were critical.

NELSON: Oh, absolutely.

KUHN: Was there a walkout, or was that an earlier time? A walkout of doctors or

something like that?

NELSON: No, there was not.

KUHN: That must have been an earlier time.

NELSON: But these doctors obviously were upset about it. And the way, by the way, that I

was able to prove one of the most damaging things, which was the nurse performing that

surgery, was that they had this guy who was a technician by the name of Buford Quinn.

And Buford Quinn had been in the operating room and had seen her performing

operations. But I only had one witness, and he gave me an affidavit. And I had one

witness. Barmore Gambrell was our lawyer here, our libel lawyer.

KUHN: Oh, sure.

NELSON: We always liked to have at least two on something where you are going to accuse

somebody of wrongdoing. And Barmore Gambrell said, "Can you get one of the doctors

to give you an affidavit?" And I said, "Well, I'll try." None of the doctors had actually Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library been in there and seen her doing it. Only this operating room technician had seen it. So

Gambrell, I never will forget it, because Gambrell wanted to help you get the story. I

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

mean, he wasn't trying--You know, a lot of lawyers, they are so damned conservative,

they won't, you know, particularly--

KUHN: Yeah, but he wasn't trying to snow you?

NELSON: No, what Gambrell wanted to do was to find a way to get the story in the paper.

So Gambrell says, "Well, can you get a doctor who knows Buford Quinn to give you an

affidavit saying he knows Buford Quinn and that he would believe Buford Quinn under

oath?"

KUHN: That's interesting.

NELSON: And so I did. I got Dr. Joe Cones, and he gave me an affidavit saying that he

believed Buford Quinn. And so on that basis, we ran the story. And, of course, the

story was accurate. There was no question about it.

KUHN: And so you went to Chandler's house.

NELSON: And we stayed--I don't know. I didn't stay there over a couple of weeks. I had

people--I would ask them to bring certain people to me. People would come into the

house. I'd write up affidavits. You know, I'd go back and check with other people.

KUHN: Did you ever get on site yourself?

NELSON: Oh, yeah, sure. I went out there and interviewed Peacock.

SHIELDS: Did you ever have the feeling that the Vandiver administration was trying to cover

up at any point?

NELSON: No. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library KUHN: What was the response of Vandiver?

NELSON: Their response was almost immediate.

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

KUHN: Had Vandiver appointed Kemper?

NELSON: No, Kemper, I think had been a holdover from. I'm pretty sure he was a holdover

from Talmadge.

SHIELDS: Griffin.

KUHN: No, Marvin Griffin was before Vandiver.

NELSON: That's right, but he may have actually been--

KUHN: Back into the Talmadge days.

NELSON: I know he was a Talmadge guy but whether Griffin appointed him. Griffin may

have appointed him, I'm not sure.

KUHN: So, at any rate, what was the response of the executive--

NELSON: Vandiver--

KUHN: Well--

NELSON: Do you remember B. Brooks?

KUHN: Yeah, sure.

NELSON: The State Pardon and Parole Board.

KUHN: A big Talmadge--

NELSON: B. Brooks, though, was, I think, a very key person in that because he looked at it.

And he saw it as something that really needed to be done.

KUHN: To be reformed?

NELSON: Oh, yeah, to be reformed. So I think B. Brooks was actually a very key figure. It Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library was never written that way at the time.

KUHN: This is the same B. Brooks who worked for the Statesman at one point?

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

NELSON: Not that--Well, he could have. He may have done that. I didn't know that

background, but he may have. But he became a source of mine over there. And even

after I was with the L.A. Times he became a good source of mine.

KUHN: Right, til he got in his own troubles.

NELSON: Right, right, exactly. He got shot didn't he?

KUHN: Yeah.

NELSON: Through the door or something.

KUHN: Yeah.

NELSON: I was in Washington when that happened, but-

KUHN: What about the relatives of patients? Were they a source or not?

NELSON: No. Well, not much. Most of the sources on exposing the corruption were

people who actually worked there. And, of course, the representatives, particularly

Phillip Chandler--not Culver Kidd so much but Phillip Chandler.

KUHN: Did assist the investigations?

NELSON: Oh, yeah. Phillip Chandler was the one that called us in.

KUHN: Then, was Peacock a physician, or was he--

NELSON: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, he was a medical doctor.

KUHN: He was a medical doctor. And like I say, one of the first things they did after the

medical committee delivered its report--

KUHN: This was the Schaeffer Committee? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library NELSON: Yeah, the Schaeffer Committee, was to get rid of Peacock, and to bring in Dr.

Erville McKinnon from Columbia University, who later, I think, maybe got into some

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

sort--

KUHN: I'm not sure of that, no.

NELSON: That was after I left. I went back, as a matter of fact, and did another piece. See,

I wrote that article, those articles, in--

KUHN: '56?

NELSON: '59.

KUHN: '59.

NELSON: '59, and got the Pulitzer in '60. In '64, I went back and did five years after and

reported how bad it still was despite the fact that you'd had all those reforms. I mean, the

reforms, there's no question about it. It was not nearly as bad, but you could still ride a

bicycle across some of the beds they were so close to each other. I mean, so that

although you had this huge reform, and it had been a huge reform--I mean, you know,

they had--

KUHN: Including building?

NELSON: Well, building, you know, breaking up the hospital, building another center here

in Atlanta, bringing in a whole new staff, apropriating a lot of money, changing the whole

system, putting a lot more patients on an out-patient basis. So I mean they did a lot

of--They did a lot of good things, but it was still bad. And there was no getting around

it.

SHIELDS: Now, as you say you went back five years later, did you have that much trouble Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library getting support to get back inside?

NELSON: No.

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

SHIELDS: To dig through the--

NELSON: No.

SHIELDS: After they knew what you had done the first time?

NELSON: No, not really. Not really. As a matter of fact, they were not hesitant about my

seeing it because it was--They were not--The people at the hospital were not at fault.

The fault was--

SHIELDS: With the higher-ups--

NELSON: --with the system and you still didn't have enough money to take care of the

patients.

KUHN: It got transferred to the Health Department, right?

NELSON: That's right, to the health department under Dr. Venable.

KUHN: And isn't there something I saw Governor and Betty Vandiver tour the site at some

point.

NELSON: Right.

KUHN: --during the course of all of this, too.

NELSON: Yeah.

KUHN: So Vandiver was pretty much on board with this whole thing?

NELSON: Oh, absolutely, from the outset.

KUHN: I saw--Let me flip this--No, we have time. I saw some story about you getting

struck on the jaw by a Dr. Charles Jordan. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library NELSON: No.

KUHN: Now, what is that?

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

NELSON: No, Gibson.

KUHN: Gibson.

NELSON: The chief surgeon.

KUHN: Okay.

NELSON: Well, there was a Baldwin County medical society meeting which was meeting

sort of to talk about some of this stuff after I had written it--meeting at a restaurant. I

forget the name of the restaurant, but a meeting at a restaurant in Milledgeville. And I

went to cover the meeting. And he attacked me outside the restaurant and so--

KUHN: Meaning what? Meaning, he just accosted you in the parking lot or something?

NELSON: Well, I mean more than accosted me. I mean, he slugged me, you know. And I

sort of broke away from him. But we had a big story on it. And the medical society, as

I remember, put out a resolution condemning me for what I had written. Then, of course,

the Medical Association of Georgia appointed that committee. And it was the Medical

Association of Georgia, by the way, that nominated me for the Pulitzer.

KUHN: Right. Who were some of the key players in that organization? Because it

sounds like they could have gone either way. I mean, they could have been defensive

or--

NELSON: They could have been. And there were a few doctors who were, but I don't think

they were very prominent. Well, Dr. Schaeffer was the main one. But Dr. Corbett

Thigpen from Augusta, who is the co-author of Three Faces of Eve-- Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library KUHN: Right.

NELSON: He was one of the key guys. I think maybe Dr. Bernie Holland was. He was

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

later at Emory University, a psychiatrist at Emory University.

KUHN: Well, how--

[End of Tape 1, Side A]

[Interview continues on Tape 1, Side B. Transcript follows.]

KUHN: I gather you were one of the last people to find out that you won the Pulitzer, too.

You were in Athens. [Inaudible.]

NELSON: I was in Athens on the Pie Edwards (??) story.

KUHN: And what was that?

NELSON: Well, that was a story where I do have to say we sensationalized the title of the

series a little bit. We called it "Sin in the Classic City." [Laughter.] But what I was

writing about was--And, by the way, the mayor--the Mayor Ralph Snow called me over

to do that one because he said he couldn't trust his police chief. And I went over there,

and what he said was, "We've got a slot machine factory here. We've got whorehouses

operating. And we know that there are payoffs." And I have been--This is what the

Mayor said--"I have been offered,"--as I remember, it was ten thousand dollars a year to

let each of the whorehouses operate, which would have been forty thousand a year. And

he said, "We need something done about it." So I said, "Okay." So I went over, and I

followed a guy named William Lamont Harn [?] from Las Vegas. I followed him from,

you know, clubs back to this slot machine factory that was operated by the Chambers

Music Company. And Chambers Music Company stayed there for years after that, too. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library In any event, I know he was working on what then was new. Today, it wouldn't be

anything, but, then, it was new. It was a four-reel slot machine. At that time, they only

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

had three reels. [Inaudible] But, anyway, so I followed him, and I found out where I

could get the records on who he was and everything. He had a big background in

gambling, illegal gambling and stuff like that. And I--You know, I saw some students in

some of the nightclubs losing their money. One of the other things was that the Mayor

said that some of the parents of the students were complaining because the students

were--some of them were getting v.d., and some of them were losing their money at

gambling, you know, and this was corrupt and all this, that, and the other. So he said,

you know, they've got these four whorehouses operating. And I was about through with

covering everything, and I talked to--I'll never forget I talked to Bill Fields on the

telephone, and he said, he said, "Well, what about the whorehouses?" And I said, "Well,

the Mayor says there are four of them down there." And he said, "Well, have you been

in any of them?" And I said, "Well, no."

[Laughter.]

And he said, "Well, how do you know they are whorehouses?" I said, "Well,

hell, the Mayor said it, but"--I said, "I guess I'll go in one of them." And he said, "Okay."

So I had a photographer with me named Bill Young with the paper. I guess Bill Young

is still around.

SHIELDS: I don't know. I haven't seen him in a long time.

NELSON: His brother is a photographer, too, named Jack Young. But, anyway, you

remember Bill Young, don't you? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SHIELDS: Yes.

NELSON: Anyway, so Bill Young--I told Bill--I said, "Well, shit, we've got to go to these

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

whorehouses."

KUHN: Duty calls.

NELSON: That's right. So we went to a cab stand right across the street from a police

station, and I had Bill with me, you know, and he didn't have his camera, obviously. But,

anyway, I told the cab driver, I said, "Take us to some women." And he looked at us,

and he said, "Well, what do you mean?" And I said, "You know, we want to go out and

get a little, you know. Take us to some women." And he said, "Well, there are four

houses down there by the river." And I said, "Well, okay, let's go. You know." So we

took off and went down there, you know. And I said, "Well, which one would you

say?" And he said, "Well, I wouldn't take--I wouldn't let my dog go in that first one."

And he said something else about two of the other ones. He said, "I think I would go in

this one." You know? And I said, "Okay." He said, "Just tell her that Number 52 sent

you." So I said, "Okay." So, we went up and knocked on the door and this

grandmotherly looking lady opened the door, and it was Effie. Opened the door, you

know. And she says, "Where you boys from?" And I said, "Atlanta." She says, "Well,

what do you want?" I said, "We are looking for some girls." I said, "Number 52 sent

us." She says, "Come on in."

We went in, and I never will forget. Two girls sitting on the counter there, one

brunette and one blonde, neither one of them very attractive, watching "Sargeant Bilko"

on television. So we came in, and I will never forget, ole Effie said, "Don't sit on my Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library chihuaha." She had a chihuaha sitting on the couch there. And we sat down, and those

girls kind of looked at us and went back to looking at "Sergeant Bilko" you know. And

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

so in a minute, one of those girls said, "Well, there's two of y'all and two of us, let's go."

So I picked the least ugly and said, "Well, I'll take you." And I went down the hallway

with her. And we were doing this all ad hoc. We hadn't, I mean, you know--ad

libbing--I hadn't thought of any plan at all.

VOICE: You were winging it.

NELSON: That's right. So I went into the second bedroom and Bill Young went in the first

one. And as soon as we got in, this girl started pulling off her dress, and she says--and I

said, "How much?" And she said, "Well, what do you want to do?" And I said, "Well,

we want to take you out all night." And she said, "Well, we can't do that." And I said,

"What do you mean you can't do it?" And she said, "She won't let us do that." And I

said, well, you know, I was making it up as I was going along. And I said, "Well, I'm

sorry but my friend and I said we wanted to take you out all night." And she said, "Well,

we just can't do that." In a minute, I heard these feet padding down the hall, "What's

going on in there?" And so she opened up the door, and Effie came in, and she said,

"What's the trouble with you boys?" And I said, "Well, you know, we want to take them

out all night somewhere." And she said, "We can't do that." And I said, well, Number

52 said you could. Of course, I was making it up as I went along, and she says, "He gets

paid for what he does. He doesn't run this place. I run this place." She said, "You can't

do it." And I said, "Well, I'm sorry, then." Bill Young, he came out of--He heard all the

commotion and came out of the front room zipping up his pants because the girl was Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library already pulling his pants down.

Anyway, that's the way we got out of it. We went out of there, got back and

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

walked back downtown to where our car was.

But, anyway, I wrote that series of stories. And I was over there in Athens on

some aspect of it when Bill Fields--I was in a telephone booth. I never will forget and he

told me. And the funny thing was when he said I had won the Pulitzer, the first thing I

said was, "Me or the paper?" Because the paper had won the [inaudible] public service

award from Sigma Delta Chi. And it is a very interesting thing. This part doesn't have

anything to do with what you want, but it is very interesting, anyway. After I got to the

Washington bureau of the L.A. Times in 1970, when they started subpoenaeing reporters

to identify their sources--

KUHN: Right.

NELSON: I decided that I ought to do a story about how reporters really depended upon

confidential sources because I had to develop really terrific stories that had a very

favorable impact. So I went up to Columbia University to check the Pulitzer entries, and

those that had won particularly, you know, to just show--and I did write that story but in

the process of doing it, you know, this was in 1970, and so my entry that the paper had

sent out was in a big black stack that was ten years old. It was up there with a little dust

on it. And I just happened to run across it while I was doing it. I just happened to see

1960. There it was, you know. So I pulled it out. And--

KUHN: There it was.

NELSON: There it was, you know. There was a letter in there to the Pulitzer advisory Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library committee from Bill Fields, the managing editor, which said, "At your request, we are

sending you all of these letters from doctors recommending Nelson for the Pulitzer, but

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

we still think it should go to the paper and not Nelson."

SHIELDS: Um, did you ever confront Fields on that?

NELSON: I never did. I never did. And you know something else? The interesting thing

was--I mean, you know it's a small world sometimes when you know different people in

different places. Benjamin McElway of the Washington Star, who was on the advisory

committee, told me how I happened to get the Pulitzer instead of the paper. And it was

very interesting because Fields, and I guess others on the paper, had gotten the Georgia

Press Association to nominate the Constitution for the public service medal. McElway

said, and he told me this years and years ago, long before I went to work for the

L.A. Times, he said--Not "long before," but a few years before I went to work for the

L.A. Times, he said, "You know, what happened was the Los Angeles Times had a great

series on drug smuggling out of Mexico. And there had been a tie between the Los

Angeles Times and the Atlanta Constitution for public service, a tie vote on the advisory

committee, five to five, and that either he--and it probably was him since he was telling

the story--or one of them said, "Well, look, Nelson did all this story on the Milledgeville

story. So why don't we give it to Nelson in the reporting category and give it to the Los

Angeles Times in public service." So that's the way it happened, so, you know, it was

very fortunate that I got it.

SHIELDS: Yeah.

NELSON: But I damn sure wanted to know since I already knew that-- Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library SHIELDS: Right--Let me ask you, Jack, when you are writing a series like that and you've

gone that far with the investigation--

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

NELSON: Yeah.

SHIELDS: Any thought way back there somewhere that it might be an award-winner; not

necessarily a Pulitzer but--

NELSON: You know what? I tell you the truth. I never--I never really did think that much

about it. Now, that may sound strange because, you know, while I was with

the Constitution, you know, not every year but almost every year I was there, they were

putting me up for some award or another, A.P. awards, you know?

SHIELDS: Yeah.

NELSON: But I mean I liked what I was doing so much--

SHIELDS: That you were really caught up in the act?

NELSON: Yeah, I was really caught up in the act. And to tell you the truth, I wasn't

positive--I really wasn't positive some of the time when I was up for the things. I mean,

it just happened, and it happened that I got it. I wasn't positive I was up for it. And

McElway also told me that I was nominated--No, he didn't tell me this. The guy who

told me this was the guy who was the executive secretary of the Pulitzer advisory

committee, whose name I can't recall at the moment. He no longer is, but he was. And

he wrote a book on the Pulitzers. He said, "You know, you were nominated three years

in a row." And he said, "It always does help to have been nominated before. I mean, it

doesn't hurt because a lot of--particularly on the advisory committee, they know that you

have been if you have gone anywhere before." I was nominated for the Atlanta lottery Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library series, and I was nominated for the Milledgeville--for the Griffin administration

investigations, which, in many respects, I do think was--I did more, in a sense, on that

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

that I did on Milledgeville. And it was harder to do.

KUHN: Let's talk about that. Why don't we start--What kinds of things and why was it

harder?

NELSON: Well, it was harder because, for one thing, it was all over the lot. I mean, it was

purchasing scandals. It was highway construction scandals. It was local. A lot of it

was locally based and involved many different state officials. We wrote so many stories

about corruption in the Marvin Griffin administration that--And I got so many letters

from people telling me about so many various acts of corruption that I had to sort out

those that, say, were, you know, paving driveways with state employees. I mean, that

was nothing. If it didn't involve, you know, a cabinet member, it was practically nothing.

You really had to have some priority with what you did with your time. I mean, Lester

Veeley of Reader's Digest came down here and did a story in Reader's Digest about the

Marvin Griffin administration and corruption. And he said something like "Never had so

many stolen so much" and--

KUHN: That's right. I remember that.

NELSON: Yeah. But, you know, I wrote about, for example, one of the things I wrote about

was in Baxley, Georgia.

KUHN: Baxley Road.

NELSON: J. M. "Buck" Dunn.

KUHN: Tell me about that. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library NELSON: J.M. "Buck" Dunn. You know about that?

KUHN: Well, tell me more. I know, in passing. Famous story.

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

NELSON: Yeah. Mayor Dunn was down there, and I had this information that they

were--that the city had contracts from the state highway department for curb, and gutter,

and sidewalks, and so forth. And they were being paid for it. And, in some instances, it

wasn't being done. And in other instances, when it was being done, it wasn't being done

by his--his--See, he had his own highway contractors.

KUHN: The mayor?

NELSON: Yeah.

KUHN: Which would have been a conflict of interests. But, beyond that, it wasn't even

being done by that. It was being done by state labor, by state prison labor. And, so, I

went down there, and one of the things I needed to do was to look at the contracts the city

had, you know. And at first he wasn't going to show them to me, and I just stood him

down on them, you know. I just said, "I've got a right to see them." And so-and-so.

And they let me see the contracts. And I saw where, you know, it said "two point three

miles of curb and gutter" was supposed to be on this particular street here and there, and

so forth. And I checked it out, and none of it was there, and everything. And it wound

up it was about two hundred and sixty thousand dollars, as I remember, that they had just

stolen outright, you know, two hundred and sixty thousand dollars.

And he had a brother who was head of the state personnel board, a Dunn, too, J.

R. Dunn. And he was involved in it some way, I forget exactly what his connection was.

Anyway, this was really an interesting story because I got all of it--I got affidavits, you Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library know, from everybody down there. And I came back and was writing the story. And I

had interviewed two highway engineers, one named Jack Tabulon (?) and one named

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

Harry Emanuel. And they had, you know, they had tried to persuade me that there wasn't

very much to it or something, this, that, and the other. And they called me up one

afternoon when the first big story was getting ready to run the next morning. And they

asked me, well, what are you doing. And I said, "Well, the story is running in the

morning." And they said, "Well, you can't do that." They said, "If you do that, you are

going to be in a lot of trouble. You are going to be in a lot of trouble." And I said,

"Well, I'm telling you." And they said, "Well, we've got to come up and talk to you."

KUHN: They drove all the way up from Baxley?

NELSON: That's right. They drove all the way from Baxley. I never will forget it. Howell

Jones was the city editor. And so Howell--Howell says, "Well, let's go and"--and McGill

walked in, so we went into McGill's office to talk. This sounds like something out of a

Hollywood movie, but it's true. We walked into McGill's office and sat there and talked.

And Howell backed me up all the way. And they said, "Well, you're wrong. You don't

know how to read this. You don't know how to read it. Look at this. The contract

might say that, but that's not what it means." You know, and Howell would look at it,

and he would say, "Well, look, to me, it says 'two point three miles of curb and gutter and

sidewalks.'" He'd say, "'I don't know how you read it any other way."

And they'd say, 'No, you just don't understand. It might say that on the face of the

contract, but that's not what it means, and you're going to be in a lot of trouble.' You

know, they were obviously trying to save us a lot trouble. And, then, all of a sudden, all Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library of a sudden while we were talking there, you could feel the building rumble; it was the

presses running. And, so, Howell Jones said, "Well, it's too late, now." He said, "The

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

presses are running. The papers are going." And they broke down and admitted the

whole goddammed thing, broke down and admitted the whole thing right there.

SHIELDS: Poured it all out right in McGill's office?

NELSON: Right. That's exactly right.

KUHN: So the engineers--

NELSON: The two engineers, yeah, yeah.

KUHN: --were connected with it, too.

NELSON: Yeah.

SHIELDS: You know, mentioning relatives, who can sometimes be embarrassing--What

about Cheney Griffin?

NELSON: Well, Cheney Griffin, you know, they used to have a joke about Cheney. They

said you have to give the governor--you have to give Cheney at least a box of cigars if

you want to get in to see the governor. And I guess that's right.

KUHN: Cheney was a state rep at the time or in the legislature or what?

NELSON: No, you know, I don't remember whether Cheney ever was. He was an aid to the

governor, and I don't remember him ever being a state representative. I don't think that

he was. But, you know, he was indicted, but, as I remember, he was acquitted--or the

indictment was thrown out or something or the other. I don't know whether we still have

that law here. At one time they were thinking about changing it. We used to have a law

in Georgia that when a state official was going to be indicted that he had the right to go Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library before a grand jury and plead his case.

KUHN: I'm not sure. Was this grand jury in Decatur County?

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

NELSON: No, it was here, Fulton County--Fulton County. And, so I don't remember

exactly what happened on that. There was a famous investigation that went on here, a

special prosecutor thing, Paul Cadenhead was head of it, the Cadenhead investigation. A

guy named Candler Jones was the businessman, and there was this great story.

KUHN: What was that one?

NELSON: Well, Candler Jones was involved in a big purchasing scandal, and the grand jury

was investigating it, and we all had this tip--or at least Cadenhead and his folks had this

tip. There were two ex-FBI agents. I think they are both still living--still in

Georgia--Frank Hester and Frank Grimsley. And these two ex-FBI agents were the top

agents for Paul Cadenhead, who, as you know, is still a lawyer here. And running this

investigation, Candler Jones, the information was, was going to try to block the foreman

of the grand jury--I think it was the foreman. I'm pretty sure it was the foreman. And,

of course, the foreman let Cadenhead and them know. The new courthouse was being

built down there.

KUHN: Where?

NELSON: Where it is now. It was being built. And Chandler Jones met the foreman of the

grand jury in a goddam telephone booth. It was like a goldfish bowl. And there were

about eight or ten of us up there in the--on about the sixth or eighth floor or

something--of the courthouse building that was under construction--where we were just

looking right down on it. It was like seeing the whole damn thing. And, sure enough, Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library Chandler Jones came in there with a bunch of money while the guy was on the telephone.

Well--yeah, came in there while he was on the telephone, with the money, and Frank

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

Hester and Frank Grimsley came running down to try to arrest him. I'll never forget.

And he ran down the damn street. One of them dropped their gun right in the middle of

the street there. I mean, it was a funny damn show. Ken Patterson, who was the

photographer, shot it all, right there from the sixth or eighth floor, and on top of page one

of the Constitution, there were six photographs of Chandler Jones and--

KUHN: [Inaudible]

NELSON: And the grand jury foreman, yeah. So that was, you know, that was part of--

KUHN: This was the purchasing department?

NELSON: Yes, state purchasing scandal. Candler Jones was a businessman who was

involved in the purchasing scandal. And I forget whatever happened to him.

KUHN: And how did that story break?

NELSON: I don't remember. Actually, that could have been a Charlie Pou investigation.

He did a lot of purchasing scandal stuff.

KUHN: Then, didn't you do more Revenue Department--Red Williams and-

NELSON: Yeah, yeah. I did some of that.

SHIELDS: And you would occasionally--

NELSON: By the way, when I did the Baxley thing, Roy Chalker was head of the State

Highway Department--

KUHN: And Roy Chalker called a press conference where he said he was going to tear my

hide off. And I went over there to the press conference with other people where he tried Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library to put up a defense on it, and he was absolutely torn apart. I mean, that will all be part of

the record back there. You can see in the papers that Roy Chalker just--well, you know,

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

Roy Chalker was a newspaperman in Waynesboro, right?

KUHN: Waynesboro, Burke County.

NELSON: That's right, exactly.

KUHN: And his son has the paper now.

NELSON: Does he? Marvin Griffin's son probably has the Bainbridge Post-Searchlight.

And I did--I'll tell you one of the things I did. Red Williams and some other people--J.

R. Dunn, I think, was one of them--______Dunn's brother. They had a shipping line

called the "Carib" shipping line that was going to Cuba. And they were going to build

some state docks at Bainbridge.

KUHN: The famous port of Bainbridge.

NELSON: That's right, the famous port of Bainbridge. And I was, you know, I was writing

about that. I found out all about that and was writing about it. And Marvin Griffin

called a press conference. I wrote about how the state was spending all this money and

everything. He called a press conference to denounce me. And TV was there, you

know, in those days. It wasn't as big as it is now, but it was there. And he waved a

check. He waved a check like this (demonstrating), and he said, "Here it is." He said,

"Here it is right here." He says the state paid for it, but here's the check for that right

there. And I'm way in the background, and the TV cameras are off and everything, and I

go up there, and I say, "Well, Governor, what's the date on that check?" And he gives

me the date. And, of course, it's just about the same time my story ran or something. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library And I said, "Well, how come it's dated like that--so long?" And he says--and this is

where the word "joree" came from--

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

KUHN: I was going to ask you that.

NELSON: Yeah, this is where it came from. He said, "Because I thought some joree like

you would come around and ask about it, that's why." And that was where the joree

thing got started.

KUHN: The "joree birds"?

NELSON: That's right. And do you know what it turned out to be, though? Because we

ran a picture--I got our photographer to take a picture of the check. It was a goddammed

Georgia Ports Authority check, so it was state money, all along.

KUHN: Well, let me talk about that--

NELSON: Yeah.

KUHN: Both sort of the intimidation factor and, then, kind of the complicated relationship

with Marvin who personally liked people, but--

NELSON: Yeah, you're right--

KUHN: What was the relationship with the Atlanta newspapers, and, you know--

NELSON: Well, as a matter of fact, I kind of--in a way--kind of liked Marvin Griffin myself.

I mean, I knew that he had a very corrupt administration, but he was sort of a likable

guy. And he was sure as hell fun to cover. I mean, he was very colorful. The last time

I saw Marvin Griffin before he died--I came down here--I don't remember the year now,

but quite a number of years ago. And I came down here as a Georgia Press Association

"Cracker Crumble" at the Biltmore Hotel and went with several other people afterwards Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library over to the --Fan and Bill's. And Griffin was there, and, you know, he had been drinking

quite a bit. And so he saw me, and he says, "Come on over. Come over and sit down."

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

And I said, "Hey, Governor, how are you doing?" You know. And so he went to sit

down, and his damn chair went right out from under him. Well, I mean, the Governor

there--there he was splattered all over the floor, and the whole restaurant stopped, looked

down, you know. And I was trying to pass it off, you know, I said, "Governor"--I said, "I

think that chair's broken." He says, "Yeah, let's put it this way. It's about half broke,

and I'm about half drunk." [Laughter.] And he was, too.

KUHN: You would chat with him and--

NELSON: Oh, yeah.

KUHN: I am almost intrigued by--Did Marvin need the Atlanta newspapers to be doing

this stuff? You know, it was kind of a curious relationship, you know. Papers become

an issue, yet at the same time--

NELSON: Well, I guess, in a way because, you know, he was so damn colorful. Remember

his "Willie Highgrass," this character he always referred to? That to stop the speeders he

was going to have Willie Highgrass back there behind the persimmon trees and all that

kind of crap.

KUHN: Yes, well, what about intimidation. I mean, you've talked about press

conferences and threats, and, so--let's talk about, not only against reporters but the

opposition as well. Sort of the hard ball politics of the fifties.

NELSON: Well, there was obviously reall hardball politics, but I don't ever recall feeling any

sense of intimidation insofar as the press was concerned. I'm not saying there wasn't Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library some and that maybe some people felt it. Maybe I was too young and too aggressive to

feel it. But I never felt any real intimidation.

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

KUHN: I know some of the people, say, from the Fulton County delegation have told me

stories. James Mackay has told me a story.

NELSON: Oh, well, I'm sure that those guys felt some it. But, you know, it's an interesting

thing though. It's very interesting that you bring that up. That's part of the story that

never really got covered. And it may be because people like Mackay and them never

told it to anybody. But I'm sure it went on because I know how tough they were. The

only time that I ever heard of any real intimidation, it was like--It was considered so

routine that people almost made a joke out of it. You remember the great George Bagby

story?

KUHN: Yeah, the ham house, and--

NELSON: Yeah, and that is a true stroy, you know, a true story, and it was funny. And so

everybody expected that. I mean, in other words, there was no question about it, Marvin

Griffin followed the old rules of reward your friends and punish your enemies--unlike

Jimmy Carter, for example. I mean, Carter never really rewarded his friends. I mean,

all his friends would tell you that. As a matter of fact, up at the White House, you know,

in the press room on the bulletin board, they had a saying during the Carter

administration. It was: Doing a good job around here is like wetting in your

pants--wetting your pants in a dark suit. It gives you a warm feeling, but nobody pays

any attention. And I mean, that was the real feeling because Carter never went around and

patted anybody or-- Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library KUHN: Well, when he was Governor, he went after some of his opponents. You know,

he ran people against--

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

NELSON: Oh, yeah, yeah.

KUHN: --the guy from Perry and some other places.

NELSON: But that didn't mean he rewarded his friend. I mean, that was the thing about--

KUHN: Was that part of his political downfall from a Washington point of view?

NELSON: Carter's? Oh, yeah, I think so. I really do think so. I think that he was a very

unusual politician. He didn't--And, the fact is, I had a good interview with him here, an

hour-long interview on public television a couple of years ago where he admitted a lot of

the kinds of mistakes he made. And one of them was that he didn't pay--really didn't pay

proper attention to Congress. And he didn't to the press either.

SHIELDS: He ran as outsider and--

NELSON: Continued to be one, continued to be one--

KUHN: Let me--]

[End of recording on Tape 1, side B. Transcript follows from Tape 2, Side A]

KUHN: Let's shift into kind of civil rights coverage. I mean you, by and large, were not

a civil rights reporter, but--

NELSON: Well, that was very interesting, as a matter of fact. Bill Fields always thought,

and I never disagreed with him, that as an investigative reporter, if I got involved with

coverage of civil rights, that it would wreck my sources, particularly, my law enforcement

sources. And he was probably right about that. I look back on it, and I regret not having Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library been in on some of the earlier civil rights coverage because I missed some of the great

coverage.

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

KUHN: But weren't you on some of the--I mean--

NELSON: Well, I did go cover--I covered Little Rock. But the interesting thing was--I

did--I covered Little Rock, and as a matter of fact, I was covering the Montgomery bus

boycott when I got a call from Bill Fields. And he said, "Get into Little Rock as soon as

you can. Ike has ordered the troops in there. Well, you couldn't get a plane to go there

very quickly, so I drove all night. And I'll never forget going through north Mississippi,

stopped in a little town there, you know--I was going--getting there as quickly as I could.

And the police chief--which means, he may have been--it was a small town, so he may

have been the only policeman in there. He stopped me, and pulled me over and said,

"Where are you going, Boy?" And I said, "I'm going to Little Rock. Ike has ordered

troops there, and I'm a reporter." He says, "Is that right?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "I'll

tell you what you do." He says, "You came into this town going mighty fast." And I

said, "Yeah, I know." He says, "You left it going mighty fast." And I said, "Yeah, I

know. I'm trying to get there before the troops do." He said, "Well, I'll tell you what

you do." He said, "You kill me a nigger, I'll let you go." I said, "Yes, sir, Officer."

And I went on up there and covered the story. Now, I covered the story, I have to

say--and I think I did a credible job on it. But I covered it more as a police story. You

know what I mean? I covered it: What happened? What happened? I wasn't

covering anything about the social ills or what the meaning was or anything else. And I

had covered the Montgomery bus boycott or started covering it. And I had covered the Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library Tuskegee gerrymandering.

KUHN: Right, the Gomillion versus Lightfoot.

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

NELSON: Right, from a mile square to fifty-second points, or whatever it was--

KUHN: [Inaudible] courts in a political thicket.

NELSON: Right. Basically, I didn't cover civil rights until I went to work for the Los

Angeles Times, and I went directly from Atlanta to Selma in February of '65. And I was

on page one of the L.A. Times for day after day, week after week, month after month

because that's all I was covering was major civil rights stories. And, see, I had never

even covered Martin Luther King until then.

KUHN: Correct me if I'm wrong, did you not do a series on the Highlander Folk School?

NELSON: I did do a series on the Highlander Folk School.

KUHN: Talk about that one.

NELSON: Well, I did a series, and I think it was Bill Fields who sent me up there to do it.

KUHN: This was after--well, you tell the story.

NELSON: This was after--All I remember about it is that Miles Horton had been named by

any number of--House Committee on UnAmerican Activities and others of having

Communist associations, and so forth. And I wrote these stories, and probably not the

proudest part of my career if I looked back at it. At that time--

KUHN: You talked about various people.

NELSON: Oh, yeah, I talked about various people.

KUHN: It was a five-part series.

NELSON: It was then cited--Bill Fields thought it was terrific, you know. He was the Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library managing editor.

KUHN: The question I have is a more general one on this story--

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

NELSON: Yeah.

KUHN: The coverage of the civil rights movement and the emphasis--to what degree there

was emphasis about, you know, leftist involvement with the movement; and where did

that come from--the relationship between the president and the FBI--Who at the Atlanta

newspapers was sort of saying this was an angle that we should pursue?

NELSON: Well, that was Bill Fields who assigned me to do the Highlander Folk School

thing. And I don't know what his--

KUHN: Was this after Ed Friend had gone up there in '57?

NELSON: Who is Ed Friend, now?

KUHN: He was the photographer that the Georgia Education Commission--

NELSON: Oh, yeah, yeah. I had forgotten all about him. I didn't even know he went up

there, but that's possible--

KUHN: And caught King at Highlander in 1957 and is the one with the pictures on the

billboards and so forth--was at the 25th anniversary of the Highlander Center. But, at

any rate--

NELSON: What year? See, I don't even remember what year my stories were. Do you

know what year they were?

KUHN: I'm not sure. It's right in that time, though.

NELSON: I thought they were earlier--even earlier than that. I thought they were in the

fifties. But I don't know. I mean, all I remember is that Fields really thought that this Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library was a hotbed of Communists, and it was something that ought to be written about. And

I wrote about it and didn't think a hell of a lot about it at the time. I look back on it, and I

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

realize I probably was pretty naive.

KUHN: Well, again, not you alone, but--

NELSON: No, but I look back on it, and I figure I probably was. I mean, I'd have to go back

and read it myself to see how naive I really was. But I probably was. I mean, I was

writing something that I knew relatively little about other than what I saw and what

records I saw and what the managing editor was telling me. And I knew none of the

history, for example. And that probably was the main thing.

KUHN: In an interview I did with Bill Shipp, we, again, talked about some of the

movement covered--there would be the story of an event--a sit-in or a demonstration or

whatever--

NELSON: Sure, sure.

KUHN: --and a sidebar where someone says--

NELSON: Sure, sure--

KUHN: --where someone says affiliations--

NELSON: Sure.

KUHN: --and there would be various "UnAmerican" group's names--HUAC or

whomever--

NELSON: Right.

KUHN: He also talked about--in his interview with me--about going to Grant Field and

meeting with an FBI agent, taking off their jackets and walking around the track, every so Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library often, you know, and the guy would give him information about--

NELSON: Oh, really.

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

KUHN: You know, this contact or this contact or this organization and so forth--

NELSON: Well, I never did any of that. I never did any of that. The only thing I really ever

did on that, really, was--Certainly--My memory is pretty good on these things--

KUHN: Um-hm.

NELSON: --and I even remember names, and dates, and places--The only thing I remember

on that, though, is I did that series, but I never did--

KUHN: Have that kind of contact?

NELSON: No, and I never got involved in any other coverage of the so-called, you know,

"Communist conspiracy" involved in any of the civil rights movement or anything like

that. I was too busy covering what actually was going on in the civil rights movement

and what effect it would have.

KUHN: Um-hm. I noticed when you went up to Harvard on the Neiman--You know, I

saw some reference to the fact you were critical of northern journalists' coverage in the

South of the civil rights movement--

NELSON: I was--

KUHN: Maybe you could talk about that a little?

NELSON: Oh, sure. I was very critical of it because, to begin with, I mean, I learned right

away that there was a lot of looking down the noses at the South by people who had just

as much bias and problems as far as dealing with the racial situation as the South did.

Number one, I went into a--I lived in Belmont, Massachusetts when I was a Nieman at Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library Harvard. And that's, you know, a suburb of Boston, and the home of Robert Welch, the

founder and head of the John Birch Society.

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

KUHN: Right, sure.

NELSON: And I went into a barber shop there--a three-chair shop with an Italian and a

couple of--his brother-in-law and a third guy--and as soon as he heard my accent, he said,

"How's your nigger problem down there?" And I said, "Well, you know, I'm from

Atlanta." And I said, "We just desegregated without any problem." I said, "We didn't

have any problem." I said, "You know, we've got a mayor down there who says we're

the 'city too busy to hate.'" He says, "Well, I'll tell you one goddammed thing." He

says, "We don't let the sons-of-bitches live here." He says, "We had a nigger doctor tried

to move in here." And he said, "We answered it like it was a fire call or something."

He says, "We got his ass out of here right away." Well, and you know what? He wasn't

lying. Belmont was all white in 1961-'62, when I was there. It was all white, and they

did keep blacks out. And the other thing was, I remember they had a big fight during a

football game in Boston. It involved a lot of whites and a lot of blacks. And all the

stories said that it wasn't racial. I mean, it wasn't racial, right? I mean, if it had been in

Atlanta, it would've been racial. But, anyway, so, you know, I heard a lot of talk up there.

And I made a talk at Harvard University where I told people--

KUHN: [Inaudible]

NELSON: I said, "Look, you know, there are problems in the South. There is no question

about it." But I told them about Belmont, and I said, "You've got Harvard professors

living in Belmont, and a lot of them look down their noses at what's going in the South." Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library And I said, "They're living in an all-white community. It's true."

S: Have they invited you back since?

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

NELSON: [Laughing.] I never went back to speak to that particular group, I think.

KUHN: You know, you kind of brushed on this just a minute ago. You were talking

about Atlanta's de-segregation and sort of how things happened in Atlanta so that I would

be curious about your take, your perceptions, your memories of both Hartsfield and Ivan

Allen, for that matter, but especially Hartsfield.

NELSON: Well, Hartsfield--Hartsfield I always thought was--was a little bit corrupt in a

way. I mean, he was very much--There's no question about it--He was very much a

mayor who did his best to try to have racial peace in Atlanta, although in his later years,

you know, he began to warn that Atlanta was going to become all black.

KUHN: Right, right. I know that--

NELSON: Yeah, but it's like I say--Well, maybe I didn't mention this to you. I've said it to

other people. But after these indictments were returned in the Horace Ingram lottery

case, you know, he was up for re-election in the next year. And he said, "There are going

to be some changes. There are going to be some changes after the re-election."

KUHN: He was talking about cleaning house--

NELSON: Yeah, right. And he said there were going to be some changes up here. But,

then, of course, there never were. But he was, in many respects, there is no question

about it, a very good mayor. But he was also a very tough political guy.

Ivan Allen I always thought was a super man. And I was down at the riot

there--what's the part of Atlanta? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library KUHN: Summerhill.

NELSON: Summerhill. I was there when all of us were ducking behind the damn cars and

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

trucks, and he--

KUHN: And he got up--

NELSON: He got up on the damn hood and began--

KUHN: Right.

NELSON: You know--I mean, I thought the guy had more courage than just about everybody

I had ever seen except John Lewis--

SHIELDS: He lost a lot of friends, too, along the way--some of his old friends.

NELSON: Well, that's all right, those were probably friends he didn't need.

KUHN: Now, Ivan Allen spoke on behalf of the public accommodations civil rights act.

NELSON: Right.

KUHN: Gene Patterson did not, if I'm correct, at first.

NELSON: I don't recall that. You may be right.

KUHN: I would be kind of curious--I've noticed that it was literally within a day or two

after you received the Pulitzer that Ralph McGill moved up to be publisher and Gene

Patterson took McGill's spot. I was kind of interested if you could evaluate each of those

men in terms of their contributions and sort of the overall situation at the paper.

NELSON: Well, I mean, I thought McGill, you know, was a fantastic influence. Everybody

knows that. There's no question about that. And a lot of people--even people who

didn't like him held him in awe. I'll give you a good example. I did a series on sales tax

fraud in Dublin, Georgia. The grand jury met down there, and they subpoenaed McGill Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library to come down there, just as a matter of harassment. And they were all talking about

what they were going to do when McGill got there and everything. And you know what

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

happened down there? He got down there, and they went in the grand jury room, and

they were so goddammed overawed by the man that they hardly could ask him question.

And that's the truth. He--You know, McGill was not a saint. Gene Patterson--I've heard

him say many times, 'He was a saint.' He wasn't a saint. He was a human being, and he

had flaws. He had flaws like, you know, like anybody else. But they were flaws in the

overall, you know, you can overlook. Like I say, he did an editorial that said there are

only a few rotten apples to my series. He didn't exactly give me a ringing endorsement

for what I was doing on exposing corruption in the police department because it was the

city police department and Hartsfield was the mayor and he liked Herbert Jenkins--

SHIELDS: Right.

NELSON: You know, so that. The other thing--I'll tell you one other story that is rather

interesting. I used to have my damn files on this, and I don't know what the hell

happened to them. They may be still somewhere, but I think they are probably all gone.

This is really an interesting story. Remember Annalee Porter?

SHIELDS: Um--

NELSON: Annie Lee Porter was head of the Massey Business College.

SHIELDS: Oh, that's right.

NELSON: I had been down to speak at LaGrange College, and the dean--I don't know

whether it was the dean of admissions, but a dean down there who had heard me speak

called me up one day. And he said--got me at home because I was on vacation. Didn't Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library make enough money at the Constitution to go anywhere but home on a vacation, but I was

at home on a vacation. He called me up, and he said, "Listen, you came down here and

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

you talked to us on the value of investigative reporting and everything." He said, "I've

got you a good investigation." And I said, "Well, what's that?" And he said, "Well,

Massey Business College has been flimflamming all these students, particularly out in the

rural areas, coming in here. And there was an accreditation committee appointed, and I

was on it, named by the State Superintendent of Schools. And I was on it, and we made

our report. We were unanimous. We said they should not be granted junior college

status by the state because there were too many things wrong with their program and too

many students bilked and everything else." And he said, "I've got a copy of our report."

Well, even though I was on vacation, I said, "Okay, I'll come in and do that story." So I

came in, and I talked to Cal Cox who at that time was the city editor, and I said, "I am

going to do this story." And he said, "Fine." And he said, "Well, Reg Murphy says he's

been working on that story." And I said, "Well"--He was a political writer then--

VOICE: Sure.

NELSON: --I said, "If Reg wants to work with me on it, that's all right, but I've got the

goddammed report, you know?" I said, "But if he wants--you know, I'll write it with

him." Fact is, then, I went over to see this school superintendent. It wasn't Claude

Purcell--I don't think--Who came after him?

KUHN: Who? Here? City Schools?

NELSON: Yes.

KUHN: Ledson. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library NELSON: No--state school--

KUHN: Oh, not Cherry--

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

NELSON: Not Cherry.

KUHN: Not Werner Rogers--

NELSON: No. It may have been Claude Purcell. If it wasn't Claude Purcell, it was the one

who came after him. Anyway, it was the state school superintendent--superintendent of

schools. And he said, "Well, we did go ahead and [inaudible] even though that

committee made its report. But we had a lot people write letters in here and said, you

know, they deserved to have it. And we just thought they ought to have it. And he said,

"We got a whole lot of letters." And I said, "I'd be glad to get some copies of them."

And he said, "Well, there's one of them you don't want." And I said, "Well, is that

right?" He said, "Yeah." And I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "I don't think you

want this one. It really praises it high and says we need to give them junior college

status." And I said, "Well, who is it?" And he says, "It's Ralph McGill." And I said,

"Well, I'd like to have a copy of that." So he gave it to me. And they used that old

brown paper thing. It was before you had Xerox. It smelled like hell, like camphor.

And it'd fade in about three days.

KUHN: [Inaudible]

NELSON: Yeah, anyway I had copies of them all made. You know, and I went back to the

paper, you know, and I had McGill's letter. So I called him up, you know. I said, "Mr.

McGill, it's Jack Nelson; I'm doing this story on Massey Business College [inaudible]--He

said, "Yeah, I wrote that letter. I think we need more junior colleges here, and I Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library think--"--you know, this, that, and the other. And I said, "Okay, I'll be glad to quote

you." So I put his--what he said in there, as publisher of the paper, you know. So the

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

damn story ran on page one. So the next day, I get a call from Cal Cox. He says--You

know, they used to send you these little pink memoes. He says, "You've got a pink

memo in your box." And I said, "Well, what did you call me for. Is it important." He

said, "Well, I think I know what it says." He said, "I've got a copy of it. There's a copy

of it to me and to Jack Tarver, and to Bill Fields and it went to you and Reg

Murphy"--because my name and Reg Murphy's was on the story. So I said, "Well, what

does it say?" He says, "It says, 'I read the story by Nelson and Murphy, page one, of

the Constitution this morning, and I couldn't believe it. It's one of the worst pieces of

journalism I've ever seen.'"--[mimicking] za-za-za-za-za-za-za--When he got through, he

says, "What do you want to do?" I said, "Hell, I don't want to do anything." I said,

"That's just Ralph McGill and Annalee Porter, you know." I mean, Annalee Porter used

to--you know. He was a very good friend of hers. I don't mean there was anything

necessarily sexual--

KUHN: Right--right--

NELSON: But they were very close friends after McGill's first wife died. She used to come

over and see him and everything. Like I say, I'm not--

KUHN: Right--suggesting--

NELSON: I'm not even suggesting--

KUHN: Romance--

NELSON: I'm not suggesting anything except they were very close friends. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library KUHN: Right.

NELSON: And that's the reason he wrote the letter.

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

KUHN: Right.

NELSON: Because he wrote it in view of all the evidence that it shouldn't be granted--

KUHN: Right.

NELSON: In any event, I said, "Well, I'm not going to do anything." I said, "Hell, that's just,

you know, McGill and Annalee Porter."

So he said, "Okay."

So the next day I got another call from Cal Cox, and he said, "Well, I got another

memo here from McGill and everybody got a copy of it, and he said"--and it went on

about how awful everything was, you know. He said it was one of the worst pieces of

yellow journalism he had ever seen. No, I don't think that second one said that--Yeah,

the second one did say that. The second one said it was the worst piece of yellow

journalism he had ever seen. And I said, "Well, hell, I'm not going to put up with that."

I said, "I'm going to write a goddammed memo in return to everybody on there." And so

I did. I sat down, and I typed up a memo, and I said, you know, that I had received these

two memoes from Ralph McGill and that he certainly owed me an apology. But, judging

from the tone of his memoes, I didn't expect to get one. However, the facts were these:

I was on vacation. I got a call from this dean down there who was a member of this

committee who told me that this is what the committee said. I said I looked at the report.

I reported accurately and fairly, in a balanced way, what the report said. I called up Mr.

McGill. I got his quote. I said: I don't have anything further to say about it, and I stand Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library behind the story.

So, the next day, I get another call from Cal Cox. He says, "We got another

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

memo."

I said, "Well, what does this one say?"

He says, "Well, this one says, 'After receiving a polite but firm note from Reg

Murphy'"--

KUHN: --from Reg Murphy?

NELSON: Reg Murphy is always going to retire--going to quit. He is always going to quit

the paper: I'm going to quit, going to quit. I never did believe him. Anyway, he sent

him a polite note, and 'a strident, accusatory note from Nelson,' I must say that if anybody

was offended by what I wrote--I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember word for word,

I regret that they feel that way about it. I mean it was a really half-assed, back-handed--

SHIELDS: Begrudging--

NELSON: Right--begrudging, kind of halfway--

SHIELDS: Apology.

NELSON: Apology. And he never ever said one single word to me about it in person.

Never once. And, you know.

SHIELDS: Did it change your relationship personally after that?

NELSON: Well, it was a little cool, but not much. And I have to say that my admiration for

McGill only grew over the years. While I was there, and after I left, I thought he

was--As a matter of fact, I'll tell you the truth. When Gene Patterson had his falling out

with Jack Tarver and left, my office in the L.A. Times was on the seventh floor of Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library the Journal-Constitution building. And McGill--and the Constitution was on the fifth

floor. McGill came up to my office and asked me if the Los Angeles Times had

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

something for Gene Patterson. And I told him that, you know, I had no idea, but I would

certainly make a call. And I had probably no sooner made a call out there than it turned

out that he was being considered both by the Louisville Courier-Journal, I think, and the

Washington Post. And he went to the Washington Post very shortly after that.

KUHN: Huh, well, what about some of the relationships between Tarver and McGill and

Splading and Biggers and Fields and sort of the editorial--

NELSON: Yeah, Biggers I really don't know much about at all because Biggers--I wasn't

there very long while Biggers was there. He was sort of far removed from me. Tarver's

relationship with McGill as far as I could see--and remember, I wasn't operating at that

level--I wasn't in the newsroom--but I thought from what I could see and observe that

Tarver had enormous respect for McGill and, in a sense, even though McGill, at times,

was a real burr under his saddle because of what he did and what he wrote and

everything, Tarver stood up for him because he saw that he was a man of real principles

and that he was of real value to the paper. But McGill never had any--McGill never had

any real say-so over the news side of the paper--when he was editor or when he was

publisher, he just didn't have any real--

SHIELDS: Did he want that much, do you think?

NELSON: No, probably not because what McGill did mostly was write his column and wsa,

you know--

SHIELDS: Right. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library NELSON: Set the tone for the paper as best he could otherwise, but--

KUHN: Sort of above the fray.

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

NELSON: But if you notice, hell, the Constitution didn't even cover Selma.

KUHN: Well, I was going to say. You know, it's ironic that you jumped into Selma when

you went to the L.A. Times The big one, and the Constitution--

NELSON: There must have been two or three hundred national journalists in there and

nobody from the Constitution.

KUHN: Tell--My thought about that and amplify or correct me if you know more--is that

had some connection to the coverage of the Ole Miss riot and the suit that was brought by

General Walker against various newspapers.

NELSON: If it did, I don't know that. It is possible that it did. But I think it had more to do

with that they just saw that as something that they didn't need to be covering, that they

could handle--let AP handle that--it was just spending money and you weren't going to

get anything for it beyond what you could get from AP anyway. I mean--you know--they

didn't have any interest in it. I mean, Bill Fields didn't on the Constitution, and Bill Ray

didn't on the Journal, and when they both eventually became executive editors of the

paper. They were both pretty conservative guys, and they were pretty much in charge of

the news operations.

KUHN: And that was one story, the famous one, that the Constitution didn't send people

to?

NELSON: Oh, that's right, absolutely. It's unbelievable that they didn't do that. And, yet,

you know, they had two great editors there in McGill and Patterson, and both of them Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library very liberal on the social, racial issues, yeah--both won their Pulitzers on, basically, that.

KUHN: The bombing--

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

NELSON: The bombing and the bombing. The synagogue and the church.

SHIELDS: Yeah, that's right.

KUHN: But you felt throughout the fifties and into the sixties that you got pretty strong

support from the people over you there?

NELSON: Yeah, I did.

KUHN: I would be curious if you could maybe talk a little bit about some of the other

reporters who have been kind of obscured by history--

NELSON: Yeah.

KUHN: People like Al Riley or M. L. St. John, Pennington, or--

NELSON: Yeah, Al Riley and M. L. St. John were both very good, solid, political reporters.

Al Riley--one of the great, real Southern gentlemen of our time in the word, too, and was

good and solid; and M. L. St. John was, too. Neither one of them were--They weren't

boat rockers. They didn't--But there weren't a hell of a lot of boat rockers. Pennington

was. Charlie Pou was.

SHIELDS: Was Murphy? Would you classify him--

NELSON: Not really. Not really. He did a little bit, but not much. I mean--I probably

don't have to say that.

SHIELDS: Say it.

NELSON: [Laughing.] Well, one of the things that Sylvan Meyer told me--

KUHN: Gainesville? Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library NELSON: Yeah, this is what Sylvan told me anyway that Tarver told him after Gene

Patterson, when they named Reg Murphy, they would never again have a strong

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

editor--after Patterson, that was the last strong editor they would have. That's what

Sylvan said, and I don't have any reason to doubt it. See, they didn't--Reese Cleghorn

would have been sort of a logical choice, too. Reese was a terrific reporter and then

editor, you know. Reese is now dean of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

SHIELDS: Was Jack Spalding a strong editor?

NELSON: I don't quite know how to answer that. I don't think so. I don't think you could

say he was a strong editor. I think he was probably adequate as an editor. But, again, he

didn't take any real strong stands.

SHIELDS: And he was not a boat rocker?

NELSON: No, you would never call him--even though Hartsfield did call him a supercilious

shitass [laughter], but, no, I don't think he was that strong of an editor.

KUHN: What about the national folks--Johnny Popham of the Times, Claude Sitton, of

course--

NELSON: Well, Claude Sitton was a sensational reporter, rockribbed integrity, very

courageous. Johnny Popham--the first time I ever saw Johnny Popham, I was in the

Biloxi Daily Herald newsroom as a teenage reporter, and he came in there--I was

introduced to him--You know, he didn't fly anywhere. He drove everywhere. He was

afraid of flying. And I don't remember what story he was writing. But he borrowed a

typewriter and sat down at another desk, and I saw him tear off paper and throw it in the

wastebasket and tear off paper. And I was thinking to myself: "Here is this big shot Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library reporter from the New York Times, and he can't even write his lead." Of course, what I

didn't realize was, he was really writing a lead about a really important story. And I was

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

sitting writing a story about two cars colliding at the corner of [inaudible]--

KUHN: [Laughing] That's funny.

NELSON: But I saw him over the years, and he was a very good reporter. But Claude Sitton

is a living legend for covering civil rights--

KUHN: Right.

NELSON: He set the pace for covering civil rights because he started in the early dog days,

and he went to really mean places, and it's a wonder he didn't get his ass shot off.

KUHN: I'd be curious, you know, you came of age when McGill was there and all these

people sort of steeped in state politics, and they had a very, sort of interesting relationship

with the state political figures--

NELSON: Right.

KUHN: --as well--I guess I'm going to flip this after I ask the question. The question I

have is: Over the thirteen years that you were there at the Constitution and then around

the scene, how did that relationship evolve over the years, you know, with the

newspaper's involvement in state politics.

Let me flip this. [End of recording on Tape 2, Side A. Recording--and

transcript from it--continues on Side B.]

[Tape 2, Side B]

[A little piece not recorded, then--] Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library KUHN: I mean, you have McGill who was a political issue himself.

NELSON: But McGill by the time--particularly by the time of the sixties--McGill had

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

become such an international figure.

KUHN: Right, I am talking about when you got on board.

NELSON: Yeah, when I got on board, of course, everybody knew him. And he had, you

know, he was the straw man. He was the straw man for Herman Talmadge and Gene

Talmadge and for all of those people. You know, "Tell 'em about 'Rastus' McGill."

And, you know, the Klan used to picket him and everything else. It's a wonder he didn't

get shot, too, as a matter of fact. But he had tremendous, you know, he had tremendous

standing because of the early stand that he took on--

SHIELDS: He was also a damn good writer--

NELSON: Yeah, a very good writer and not--It wasn't just a matter of de-segregation but

upon justice. You know, he insisted on justice, and because of that--and also because it

was obvious that he loved the South. And that came through. I mean, it wasn't that he

was--People couldn't go around saying that he was, you know, denigrating Georgia or

trashing the South or anything like that, because it wasn't true. And he used to write

about loving the South.

KUHN: Right.

NELSON: And I think that's one of the things that gave him so much credibility--

KUHN: He'd write about hunting and dogs--

NELSON: Yes--

SHIELDS: And Soddy Daisy, Tennessee-- Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library NELSON: That's right. And it gave him credibility with people who didn't necessarily agree

with his other views, you know, well, he's not trashing the South.

GGDP, Jack Nelson, Date: 10/30/1993

I've got to tell you, though, by the time, particularly, that I started working for the

L.A. Times, McGill came to me because Scotty Reston of the New York Times had asked

him if he knew of any young journalists in the South--any good young journalists. And

McGill, by this time, had become such an international figure--He didn't know any young

journalists in the South who were outstanding and so he came to ask me who did I know.

And among those that I told him were Bill Kovich, who is now, you know, with the

______Courier, and, of course, came down here for awhile.

KUHN: Right, right.

NELSON: --who, at that time, was on the Nashville Tennesseean, and Jim Wooten, who is

now with ABC but went with the New York Times for awhile. And, I don't know. I

told him two or three others but, I mean, Reston picked those two out right away. But

McGill had really gotten so far beyond just the local state stuff that he couldn't--

KUHN: He couldn't identify who the up and coming young folks were.

NELSON: That's right.

KUHN: I think we are going to maybe cut it now--

NELSON: Okay.

KUHN: Why don't we do that--

NELSON: And you--[end of interview]