COVER STORY McGinniss gets hit from all sides

By Deirdre Donahue Author stands USA TODAY behind 'The NEW YORK — An angry red flush comes and goes Last Brother' over author Joe McGinniss' face. But it the controversial despite author is angry, upset or frightened about the titantic charges of reaction — all of it negative — to his new book on Seri_ plagiarism Edward Kennedy, The Last Brother (Simon & Schuster, $25), he's not admitting it. Sitting in his publisher's office in , McGinniss, 50, presents a calculatingly calm exterior as he defends his reputation, his techniques and his book, for which he re- ceived a reported $1 million. "This was never a book intended to contain a great deal of original reporting," says McGinniss. "I wasn't out to un- earth new facts about Teddy Kennedy. I was trying to as- semble the pieces that already existed in an original and fresh way so as to give a reader a sense of what life may have been like for this guy." Rushed into bookstores this week, the 626-page book has ignited a firestorm. The reviews have been savage. And the articles even more damaging. critic Jonathan

Please see COVER STORY next page ► Chronicling Kennedy

► The Selling of the President A best-selling ac- By Peter Freed count of 's campaign and how his UNDER FIRE: Writer Joe media advisers, including , were ma- McGinniss' book on Sen. nipulating Nixon's image. Edward Kennedy Is the talk ► Going to Extremes. A look at 's physical of the publishing world. 'The beauty and changing economy. Last Brother' has not only ► Fatal Vision. The best-selling story of Dr. Jef- gotten poor reviews, but frey MacDonald, convicted of murdering his preg- also has other authors up in nant wife and his two daughters. MacDonald later arms saying their material sued McGinniss, claiming that the author misled was lifted and threatening to him. (He expected to be exonerated by McGinniss. sue. McGinniss' book who portrayed him as guilty.) McGinniss' publisher contains no previously settled out of court without admission of liability. unpublished information. COVER STORY `You can't copyright his

Continued from 1.13 views and articles about The Last Brother stem from the Yardley judged it the worst press' love affair with the Ken- book he's reviewed "in nbarly nedys, whom it still sees as three decades." Newsweek mythic heroes, McGinniss says. claimed it contained "the "It's hard to watch a dream The first critical salvo about cheapest kind of novelistic die. ... If someone tells me, the book was heard in late May landfill." And Time said it was this wasn't really a dream, this after Simon & Schuster re- "the :'5, most slowly exe- was a nightmare, you just leased the opening chapters at c book report." didn't understand it, there's a the American Booksellers As- And there's more, incluch natural, psychological resis- sociation convention in Miami threats of lawsuits from histori- tance to that." (Damore's book, to promote the book. It con- an William Manchester, who owever, is very critical of tained a note — now removed says his 1967 account of the ennedy.) by a joint publisher/author de- Kennedy assassination, The Moreover, McGinniss be- cision — that said "some Death of a President, has been li the Kennedys are mas- thoughts and dialogue attribut- plagiarized by McGinniss. t rs without peer at public rela- ed to figures in this narrative "I'm not going to stand still ons. were created by the author or this," says Manchester. "My One fact that seems to have based on such research and his b b . is up. I'm going to do gotten lost in the controversy: knowledge of the relevant peo- some McGinniss' book doesn't reveal ple, places, and events." And Leo Dam. that anything about 's McGinniss insists this was McGinnis has "virtually lift- life that hasn't been document- simply to alert readers that he ed" his book about Chappa- ed before. Readers eager — or was employing an unusual - quiddick, Senatorial Privilege. dismayed — at the prospect of though not unprecedented - "I am so shattered by this. You further revelations about Ted- technique of getting inside have to talk to my lawyer be- dy, the Chappaquiddick acci- someone's mind. It's a tech- cause I intend to file. (McGin- dent, the JFK assassination nique Truman Capote used in niss') position is that I gave him and what happened that night In Cold Blood, says McGinniss. a license to steal. I never told with nephew William Kennedy McGinniss writes that Teddy him to steal my book." Smith in Palm Beach will may have entertained these Also unhappy is historian search in vain for gory new de- thoughts as he and Eunice took Doris Kearns Goodwin, who tails involving women, wine or a walk at Hyannis after the as- wrote The Fitzgeralds and the Mafia conspiracies. sassination: "Suppose — not Kennedys. Although she does The Last Brother begins that there is any evidence he not intend to sue Simon & with its most controversial sec- considered this — he suddenly Schuster — her own publisher tion. McGinniss presents Nov. just veered left, away from his — she believes McGinniss has 22, 1963, as seen through Ted- sister, and plunged, fully ripped off her research by not dy Kennedy's eyes. It follows clothed, into the roiling, frigid including footnotes. Teddy as he looks for a phone waters of Nantucket Bay? Just McGinniss responds that lots to reach his brother Bobby and swam out into the mist until ex- of books don't have footnotes, travels to Cape Cod to tell his hausted?" including Manchester's. (The father that JFK has been mur- Although this mixing of fact Death of a President does have dered. and fiction may infuriate pro- extensive source notes and a The rest of the book is a fessional historians, not to men- bibliography.) And he points more conventional narrative tion the subject, it's not the kind out that he singles out all three that describes Teddy as an af- of writing that lands people in authors and their books in The fable, average boy warped by a court. Last Brother's afterword. mixture of parental neglect, Which is where Manchester "Quotations and facts, once family arrogance and the and now Damore are at least they are published, are in the machinations of a diabolically threatening to see McGinniss. public domain," he says. ambitious father with ties to The problem, according to Many of the outraged re- the mob. The book concludes Manchester, is not McGinniss