Society of the Silurians EXCELLENCE IN JOURNALISM AWARDS BANQUET The Players Club 16 Gramercy Park South Tuesday, May 19, 2015 Drinks: 6 p.m. Dinner: 7:15 p.m. Meet Old Friends and Award Winners Published by The Society of The Silurians, Inc., an organization (212) 532-0887 of veteran New York City journalists founded in 1924 Members and One Guest $100 each Non-Members $120 MARCH 2015 Throw Another Blog on the Fire BY MARVIN KITMAN to be zero. Nada. Zilch. Bubkus. It was Not paying the workers for their labors “The Arianna Huffington Miracle Diet.” hy don’t I write more often for definitely below poverty level at the time. — and not going to jail — was the start Why don’t you just start a blog, my this fine distinguished journal? HuffPo argued they were doing writ- of something really big. trendy friends suggested? WIt’s a question others might ask. ers a favor, offering a platform to express Now if the garbagemen would pick up To blog or not to blog — that is the In my case, I blame it on my being a ca- their views. We were lucky we didn’t the garbage, the mail person deliver the dilemma plaguing writerkind since Al Gore sualty of the digital revolution. My prob- have to pay them for the honor, I gath- mail, the dentist fix your teeth, the corpo- invented The Internet. Should I cast my lem began after I left Newsday as the ered. rate executives, big banks and Wall Street lot with the approximately 5, 454, 678 media/TV critic in 2005. As I brooded about the pay scale, my guys all do their thing without compensa- (the numbers increase as we read) band As I explained to my readers in my son and other young alternative journal- tion this would be something truly monu- of brothers who are having the fun and farewell column, “Newsday had given me ists said, “Do it anyway, dude.” It will mental. They were giving new meaning excitement of writing for nothing? a tryout and after 35 years we mutually make me a now person; at the time I was to the term wage slave. It was Samuel Johnson who observed agreed it wasn’t working out.” Not since already a then person. It will get your Ariannaism, I soon found, was spread- in 1759, “Sir, nobody but a blockhead ever the Acropolis and the Parthenon had there name out there. Advance your career. ing. “What are we, stupid?” other pro- wrote except for money.” been so many splendid columns on one They were right. I was soon inundated prietors of web sites were asking. This blockhead, nevertheless, decided site. As the longest sitting TV critic in his- with offers to write or speak for nothing. “Arianna isn’t paying, why should we?” to throw another blog on the fire. tory – my couch will be going to the There was a Nobel Prize in economics It was then that I discovered a serious Smithsonian — it is the reason TV is so in this for someone, even though it re- creative problem. Whenever I sat down good these days. minded me of the Pharaoh’s Method of to write a blog I couldn’t get past the lede. In the summer of 2007, Arianna building the Pyramids. I had become, as my friend Christo- Huffington invited me to join the original It was then that I decided to go on pher Lehmann-Haupt explained, blogged, 934 notable contributors to HuffPo as a strike at HuffPo – for higher wages. It the digital age equivalent of being blocked. media critic. Flattered, I asked a subeditor was a hunger strike. The approximately It turned out I was a coin-operated how they paid for the honor? Was it by 2,324, 278 writers who seemed happy writer. I could always pay myself to get the piece or per word, or was this some- After 37 pieces, my accountant warned enough to blog without being paid did not the creative juices flowing. But that thing my agent should call about? She that at this rate I would soon be in a higher join in the struggle. “Ye wretched of the didn’t seem like such a good business seemed surprised that I should ask such tax bracket. earth, you have nothing to lose…etc…” plan, either. a question. What a business plan Arianna had, I did not resonate, since they literally had I mention all of these travails now not My starting salary as a media critic — remember thinking at the time. nothing to lose. to alarm anyone, but to explain why I have where I would be writing 1,000-word For a while I thought I was contribut- But it wasn’t a total loss. I had lost 32 not been joining all these other wonderful posts, blogs, or whatever they called the ing to an important economic experiment, pounds. Before I looked like Chris journalists. Please, not a word of this to columns — taking into account such fac- a system that could be bigger than So- Christie; after I had lost one of my three anyone. I have a reputation as a big bucks tors as longetivity, timeliness, hits — was cialism, Communism, or even Capitalism. chins. Be sure to check out my next book, writer to maintain. My Dinner With Fidel BY CLAUDE E. ERBSEN he call to AP president Lou Boccardi came in early Novem- T ber 1998. Cuba’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Bruno Rodriguez Padilla, told Boccardi he needed to see him. Boccardi responded that his door was open and he would be happy to see the ambassador at any time at AP’s head- quarters at 50 Rockefeller Plaza. Ambassador Rodriguez was one of the many senior Cuban officials we had been lobbying for many years in an effort to get the Castro government’s O.K. to re- open AP’s Havana bureau, shuttered AN OPENING At a dinner in Havana, Fidel Castro talks to two members of The Associated Press, Claude E. Erbsen, left, since the expulsion of John Fenton and Louis D. Boccardi, president of the wire service. They flank Ricardo Alarcon, then head of the National Assembly. Wheeler in 1969. Our pitch had been con- On Castro’s side of the table are Felipe Perez Roque, an aide, and interpreter Juanita Vera (hidden by Castro). sistent: The AP was impartial, we served publications and broadcasters of every Rodriguez, and his predecessor Ricardo Newhouse and I had visited Cuba in the was always the same: “We know you, but political coloration throughout the world, Alarcon, who had become the Foreign mid-1990’s. And AP staffers on reporting it’s premature.” and would cover Cuba in the same im- Minister of Cuba, and later President of assignments, most notably Mexico bureau Rodriguez’s call was the first positive partial way. the Cuban National Assembly, and was chief Eloy Aguilar; Mexico and Central response, and it came directly from Fidel It was a tough sell, given Castro’s an- familiar with AP’s work after many years America news editor Anita Snow; and Castro. tipathy to the United States, the despised of living in New York. I made several trips newsman John Rice built a network of Rodriguez came to Boccardi’s office embargo, and AP’s base in the United to Havana, starting as early as 1977. Mem- helpful and often supportive contacts promptly and sitting across from States. bers of AP’s board of directors and mem- among midlevel officials in the Foreign Boccardi at his desk, he read from a small But we kept hammering away. ber editors traveled to the island in the Ministry and the Cuban media. piece of paper. Boccardi met often with Ambassador 1980’s. Boccardi, board chairman Donald But the answer to our bureau quest Continued from Page 2 PAGE 2 SILURIAN NEWS MARCH 2015 President’s Report An Interview With Walter Winchell BY ALLAN DODDS FRANK Got Me a Byline and a Job s we head toward what prom- ises to be a wonderful “Excel- BY STEVEN MARCUS tion. But I do remember feeling excited Alence in Journalism” Contest and hen I was a young boy grow- and very grown up. It was as though Awards dinner on Tuesday, May 19th, ing up in the 1940’s and early Winchell were personally informing me, a I am pleased to report that the Society W1950’s, radio was still the domi- mere boy, about all the important goings of the Silurians is hitting record-break- nant home-entertainment medium in most on in the adult world. ing stride. homes, including mine. I remember lying Of course, I had no idea that our paths Our membership now exceeds 300 on the living-room floor next to the radio, would briefly cross years later, in 1967. in spite of the unfortunate deaths of which was on a lower shelf of one of the In the fall of that year, I was a some of our beloved members and bookcases in the room, listening to my rewriteman at The New York Post, on a friends. With the leadership of Mem- favorite shows: “The Shadow,” “Johnny three-month tryout and very anxious about bership chairman Mort Sheinman and Dollar,” “The Lone Ranger,” “The Cisco my chances of being put on staff. The Post ace recruiter Myron Kandel, we added Kid.” in those days had a revolving-door hiring 33 members last year, one short of the But the show I liked most of all was policy. To save money on health care and Walter Winchell modern-day record of 34, which we Walter Winchell’s 15-minute broadcast on pension benefits, the paper would often achieved in 2005 and 2010. Given that Sunday nights. I can still hear his stac- bring reporters in for a tryout and then fire Winchell over the election of a new board five-year interval, and our six new cato, high-pitched voice, accompanied by them just before the three months were up, of directors. members this year, maybe we can the incessant clacking of a telegraph key, which was permissible under the Newspa- “See if you can reach Winchell and crack 35 in 2015. as he declared, “Good evening Mr. and per Guild’s contract with the paper. get his side of the story,” Bott said. Perhaps the most unexpected loss Mrs. America, from border to border and One day at the end of October, The By this time, Winchell’s career was vir- was the death of CBS correspondent coast to coast and all the ships at sea. Let’s Post’s city editor, Johnny Bott, handed tually over, and he had faded from the spot- Bob Simon in a car wreck two months go to press.” me a statement Arthur Godfrey had is- light. His top-rated radio show, which at after the Silurians enjoyed his presence I no longer remember any of the sued, announcing that he had just resigned the height of its popularity reached more at the December awards dinner hon- mélange of celebrity gossip tidbits, scoops from the board of Winchell’s charity, the than 20 million listeners, had been discon- oring his old CBS boss Sandy Socolow, and other items that Winchell delivered, Damon Runyon Memorial Fund for Can- tinued in the late 1950’s. His syndicated the longtime producer of “The CBS in rapid-fire sequence, after his introduc- cer Research, after a dispute with Continued on Page 5 Evening News With Walter Cronkite” who played a major role in making ing the pictures to his entourage. be needed to set up the operation - nei- Simon a star. Doubly unfortunately, Soon the entourage melted away, and ther of which could happen without gov- Socolow never fully recovered from a My Dinner we were ushered to dinner. Alarcon had ernment approval, theirs and ours. stroke he suffered in Malaysia and was Castro had come to the table with a in Lenox Hill Hospital during the din- remained, and a young aide, Felipe Perez stack of wire service copy - ours and oth- ner in his honor. Simon had promised With Fidel Roque (who later became Foreign Minis- to treat the Silurians to some humorous ter until purged by Raul Castro in 2009) ers’- and he made easy reference to this stories about Socolow, but out of re- Continued from Page 1 joined Fidel and his long-time interpreter or that item he had seen in the file. He spect, declined to roast Socolow once “He said it was a message from Fidel Juanita Vera. had done his homework. he realized Sandy would not be there to me,” Boccardi recalls, “to the effect We would not leave the dinner table One other aspect of the conversation to receive the gentle barbs he intended that he, Fidel, would receive ‘someone for six hours. that I recall: His frequent use of the con- to hurl with love. We also lost longtime you trust’ to visit on the subject we had There was some casual bantering and struction “You should do this ...” or “Why Silurians Timothy Lee, an alum of The long been discussing. I told him ‘I trust at one point I told Castro that early in my did you do ...?” referring not to the AP New York Post, CBS and public rela- me,’ and that a small group would be in career he had greatly helped my financial but to the U.S. government. That was tions, and Mort Gordon, a former re- Havana as soon as I could arrange it.” situation. That intrigued him and he asked something I would confront again and porter and editor at Fairchild Publica- The paperwork took a few days, and me to elaborate. I told him that after the again in a long AP career dealing with tions. early on Nov. 11 Boccardi, Newhouse and Bay of Pigs episode I had been stationed our international operations. Try as we Many thanks are in order to the Sil- I set out for Havana from Teterboro Air- in Key West to cover Cuban radio and might, there were some people who urian board, which has been active in port in New Jersey, just a few miles from TV broadcasts, while the AP bureau in seemed incapable of grasping that we helping Awards chair Carol Lawson the George Washington Bridge. In Ha- Havana was shut down. “I was on the 8 were not the government’s news agency. spread the reach of our contest wider vana we were joined by Snow and that A.M. to 4 P.M. shift,” I told him, “but And so it came to be that after a 29- than ever and put it fully online for the evening we met with Alarcon and For- whenever a speech by you was announced year break, AP was about to re-establish first time. Wendy Sclight also did a ter- eign Minister Roberto Robaina. They I would go back to work to team up with a permanent base in the Cuban capital. rific job as chair of the Socolow dinner. were sphinx-like in responding to our the night person starting at 8 P.M., when We named Snow to the post of bureau Secretary Linda Amster (with occa- questions about whether this was going you were scheduled to begin. You always chief a few days later. sional pinch-hitting by Linda Goetz to be another “exploratory conversation,” started two or three hours late, spoke for Until then, only one U.S.-based news Holmes) has done a great job of re- or a “green light” meeting. three or four and by the time it was all organization had been allowed to main- cording the proceedings of the Silurians. The next day we had lunch with over I had a couple of extra days’ pay in tain a full-time operation in Cuba, CNN, Treasurer Karen Bedrosian Richardson Robaina and were told we’d be picked overtime money.” Castro roared with a byproduct of a close personal relation- has been diligent in keeping our finances up at our hotel “around 8 P.M.” We de- ship between Ted Turner and Castro. in better shape than ever, with many laughter, then turned serious, and stroking Throughout the dinner I was fascinated thanks due to our generous members. cided to have an early snack at the hotel, his beard replied “Don’t you think you owe More than 40 of you have contributed and waited. Soon enough we were me a commission?” by the performance of Juanita Vera, more than $2,000 this year, in addition driven to the presidential palace and ush- Still no talk about the bureau opening, Castro’s interpreter. First of all - and I to your dues. ered into a reception room. Out of the but that led into the most fascinating part have seen or heard dozens of interpret- And congratulations to Richardson corner of my eye I spotted a seating chart of the evening, as Boccardi asked him ers over the years - I was struck by her and First Vice President Betsy Ashton on an easel next to a closed door and fig- about the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs inva- skill at finding exactly the absolutely per- for really keeping the party going by ured “this is going to be a quickie. He has sion. fect words and right nuance for every getting the crowds under control and guests for dinner.” It was only after I stole That was the start of a 45-minute mono- sentence she translated in either direc- quickly watered at our monthly lunches. a glance at the seating chart that I real- logue in which he recounted the battle in tion, into English or into Spanish. She is Barbara Lovenheim and Bill Diehl con- ized we were the dinner guests. minute detail, including frequent references the finest interpreter I have ever come tinue to work on improving our website And then Castro swooped into the room to the invading force as “bandidos.” He across, and I wish I knew more about and getting more Silurians to share news with a small retinue, wearing his usual dismissed them as ill-repaired, despite their her background. It was also interesting about themselves and their professional olive green pressed fatigues. He jovially C.I.A. support, and no match for his to watch her interaction with Castro. She pursuits. Bernard Kirsch is making the greeted Newhouse, Boccardi and me. troops. He gleefully recounted how the gently brushed the crumbs from his uni- Silurian News better than ever. And if Snow had not been invited, most likely an “bandidos” had blundered into a swamp form, and made sure he did not let his you check our website, which our friend unintended slight, since the invitation was they didn’t seem to know was there. It food get cold. There seemed to be a very Fred Herzog keeps tuned up, you will to what the Cubans called “the delega- was like Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf’s warm but also very respectful relation- find links to videos of the lunches you tion,” the visitors from New York. briefings during the first Iraq war, only ship between them, almost like a niece may have missed. In anticipation of the meeting we had more passionate. toward a beloved uncle. At one point she Liz Smith was sensationally funny decided we should bring a gift of some After the Bay of Pigs discussion, and left the table to visit the restroom, and as at the February lunch and Time Inc kind, and of course it had to be non-politi- many references to the injustice of the em- Castro kept talking I stepped in to pro- Chief Content Officer Norman cal and in character. We settled on a bargo, the conversation finally turned to vide at least a minimal interpreting effort. Pearlstine was tremendously insightful couple of enlarged photographs of Castro the matter at hand, and Castro told us he’d When she came back and saw that things about the future of news at our Janu- playing baseball, taken from the AP photo were more or less under control, she ary lunch. On Wednesday, March 18, been reading AP copy and was ready to went to the back of the room to get a cup Margaret Sullivan, the Public Editor of archives. When the pictures were un- have us reopen a bureau in Havana. the New York Times, will be our guest wrapped, Castro howled with delight, and Boccardi thanked him, but emphasized we of coffee before returning to her place at and on Tuesday, April 21, Neal Shapiro, told an aide to call his personal photogra- would not accept censorship. Castro said the table. Later, Boccardi teased that I the President of WNET (Channel 13), pher to “come and have a look at this.” there would be none and that he expected could now add “interpreter for Fidel who also is a former President of NBC He turned to Boccardi and said, “You the Havana bureau would operate in the Castro” to my resume. I haven’t. Yet. News, will be addressing the Silurians. must have millions of pictures at the AP.” same way AP operated in the rest of the (Claude E. Erbsen retired from AP Many thanks to all of you who have “Yes,” Boccardi deadpanned, “we do, world. He said his government would help in 2003 as Vice President and Direc- helped make the Silurians so vital. but they are not all of you.” Castro was us find office space, and would facilitate tor of World Services after a 43-year delighted with the crack, and kept show- the import of whatever equipment would career with the news cooperative.) MARCH 2015 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 3 The Politics of a Relationship

BY GEORGE ARZT the best speech I have ever s I stood outside the heard. It was a road map of Frank E. Campbell Democrats to follow in the AFuneral Parlor waiting age of Reagan conservatism. to pay my last respects to He showed a different Mario Cuomo and bracing America than the “Shining myself against the afternoon City” portrayed by Reagan. I frostiness, my thoughts turned told him that right after the to the topsy-turvy world of speech but it did not seem politics and my upside-down to matter. It is even more relationship to Mario. amazing that Mario helped I first met Mario when save The Post - given what Mayor John Lindsay ap- he thought of its reporters and pointed him to be the media- the paper - when it was in its tor in the dispute over con- darkest hour many years struction of low-income hous- later. He despised the paper, ing in Forest Hills. As in most but it was his influence with things he did in his life, Mario both the courts and the F.C.C. did a splendid job in this role that helped deliver the paper and he helped both sides reach back to Rupert Murdoch’s a compromise that shrank the ownership. Mario publicly planned 24-story residential acknowledged that he often towers by half. Mario and I disagreed with the paper but got along very well during this the freedom of the press was time. The Forest Hills media- too important to allow The tion served to propel Mario’s Post to go under. career into public service, and Life went on. Mario left that is when politics got in the the Governor’s office and way of our relationship. around the same time, I started The first time was when I a public relations and political put a minor item in my col- Joe Vericker consulting firm. We had very umn in The New York Post little contact at this time, until about Mario putting his name Gov, Mario Cuomo in 1985 with George Arzt, then the City Hall bureau chief for The New York Post. one morning in 2006. I was into consideration for Lieuten- at a breakfast meeting at the ant Governor and Attorney General with the City for nonpayment of taxes. I each day it was re-hung to my further hu- Regency Hotel in midtown Manhattan the then “New Democratic Coalition.” I wrote the story. miliation. when suddenly a large shadow was cast used the term “Hamlet of the Hudson” to Needless to say, my phone rang yet And yet when my mother died coming over my French toast. It was Mario describe Mario’s well-known indecisive- again. “George Arzt? This is Mario home from my wedding in 1983, Mario wrote standing over me – “George isn’t it about ness. He tried to call me at home about Cuomo. The sewer runs to your me an extremely heartfelt letter saying how time Ed and I patched up our relation- my use of the phrase, but instead spoke desk. You just hit a poor 70-year-old he knew the importance of family and knew ship?” I peered up at Mario and simply with my mother. When I came home, my Italian immigrant, who can’t even how painful my mother’s loss must be. I said, “What did you have in mind Mario?” mother chastised me and said, “Why can’t speak English, over the head. And was really appreciative and have never for- “I need Koch to endorse Andrew for At- you be nice, he is a nice man,” and in her you let the Sandy Weill’s of the world gotten it torney General.” I shrugged, and said I Yiddish eyes, was a “Shabbos goy.” destroy the campaign finance sys- I did not, however, do much to dispel the would take it to Ed. Mario and I never connected about the tem.” I explained to Mario that his theory for Mario that I was in Koch’s camp When I told Ed of Mario’s request, Ed incident, nor did we realize it would be father-in-law appearing before the when I left the Post in 1985 and became said, “I don’t want to go to my grave with just the first disagreement between us. Board of Estimate was a story. He Press Secretary to Mayor Koch. Though a feud. I’ll do it. I’ll endorse Andrew.” Eventually, Mario became the Secre- did not relent in his attack, and I did my interactions with Mario Cuomo were few Koch held a press conference at City Hall tary of State in the Gov. Carey Adminis- not yield in my defense. during this time, I could feel the aloofness. to endorse Andrew and the relationship tration, and later Lieutenant Governor Later, during the Democratic Con- During my time with Mayor Koch I un- between Ed and Mario thawed quite a under Carey. He ran for Mayor in 1977 vention, my friend Andy Logan of derestimated how bad the relationship was bit, and my relationship with Mario was in a hard fought three-campaign race New Yorker magazine approached between Koch and Cuomo, especially after almost friendly again. Though, at a fo- against Ed Koch, which Koch won. As Mario and chided him for attacking a the incident in the 1977 campaign when post- rum on the Koch Administration, which this point, I was back on good terms with responsible reporter. Mario said he ers began to appear that read, “Vote for convened at the Museum of the City of Mario. It would be short-lived. was only defending his family, but a Cuomo, Not the Homo.” Mario always de- New York, Mario told the audience of Mario and I would meet again in 1982, young Andrew Cuomo later reached nied any responsibility but Ed felt differently. Koch, “I like him much more than he likes when Mario ran for Governor against out to me and apologized. It was too At my first joint press conference in Al- me,” which Ed responded to with, “That’s Koch. Mario had just won the endorse- late; my relationship with Mario would bany with Mayor Koch and Governor right!” The audience roared in laughter ment of Koch’s old club, the Village In- never be the same. Cuomo, I stood in the rear of the room trying but I knew Ed had mixed feelings. He dependent Democratic Club. However, But still there were many more to stay away from the action. Mario walked couldn’t forget 1977, but he really admired by that time Koch had lost a great deal of exchanges. Once following a debate by and as he passed, he threw an elbow into Mario. support in the club and my story on the in Buffalo, he sat next to me on a long my stomach that completely doubled me Waiting outside the funeral parlor on endorsement was less than enthusiastic plane ride back to New York City. He over. The State Police who were there this afternoon, I thought about all these for this reason. looked uncertain. I told him he was laughed. The City police officers that were incidents, and wished that our relationship Mario called me and said, “I hate this out-shining Koch in the debates, but part of our detail came to my aid (one more could have been different. We spoke story, I hate this headline, I beat Koch in still he was concerned, “I wish I had example of a downstate/upstate split). I many times on policy and political strat- his own club.” I told Mario that the re- a crystal ball to see how this is going guess Mario had his vengeance, and I ex- egy, but there was always a great deal of formers already control the club and that to work out.” He should have had no perienced first-hand Mario’s well-known wariness between us. is why my story framed the endorsement fear. reputation as a sharp-elbowed basketball As reporters our role as observers can the way it did. Mario’s response was that Mario Cuomo won the race for player. In fact, I know of one of the quickly shift to participant. Once Mario “Koch still fought hard to get the endorse- Governor handily despite a New York Governor’s speech writers who had his eye- called me in 1977 to take issue with my ment,” and that I was nothing more than Post poll which ran a week earlier socket cracked by the Mario in a pick-up story, he dragged me into the world of a “shill for my opponent.” Two more with my byline predicting he would game. He played a rough game on and off politics. At the time, it was hard for me phone calls followed, followed by two lose to Koch by 18 points. Mario won the court. not to take Mario’s phone calls person- phone calls from campaign aides and one by 6. Mario accused me and the Months later, my brother-in-law met the ally. But I was not unique; Mario’s phone from Cuomo friend Jack Newfield, who newspaper of making up the poll. I Governor and told him who he was – Mario calls were famous among the press. also told me in no uncertain terms that later asked him why in the world raised his hands very defensively, and sim- New York lost a transcendent leader my story had the wrong slant. would I attach my name to a poll that ply said, “George and I have had our differ- and one of the last of the golden age of Our relationship only further deterio- I knew was incorrect and look like a ences over the years.” It was a fair as- New York politics when Mario Cuomo rated when I saw an older gentlemen fool a week later. Mario did not have sessment of our relationship. My brother- died. His impact could be seen in the long walking around City Hall with an enor- an answer, but as far as he was con- in-law later asked me rather incredibly what line of people waiting in the cold for hours mous Mario Cuomo campaign button. I cerned, I was, and had always been it was that I did to the Governor. just to pay their respects - too cold for asked around about the man and learned in Koch’s camp. I didn’t think I did anything to the Gover- some who like myself, had to leave be- that he was Mario’s father-in-law, Charles For a time that poll story was en- nor and in fact, I very much respected him fore they could get into the funeral parlor. Raffa. Apparently Raffa was there to larged and hung each day in The Post as a leader and a thinker. To this day, I be- I wish I could have gotten in and paid my appear before the Board of Estimate to library. Each day I ripped it off the lieve the keynote speech he gave at the 1984 respects, and I wish Mario and I could get back property he owned, but lost to wall and threw it in the garbage. And Democratic Convention in San Francisco is have had a better relationship. PAGE 4 SILURIAN NEWS MARCH 2015 2013 Interviewing Katharine Hepburn BY BARBARA LOVENHEIM as (unknown to me) she was already plan- y first interview with Katharine ning to have the distinguished biographer Hepburn occurred in the fall of Scott Berg write the definitive Hepburn M1983, soon after I began writ- biography and publish it after her demise. ing for The Wall Street Journal arts page. Instead she offered me an autographed In the course of looking for article ideas, photograph. I selected a black-and-white I learned that Anthony Harvey, who had photo that didn’t show up her signature won accolades for directing Hepburn in well, but somehow Kate always looked “The Lion in Winter,” was in Manhattan more natural to me in black-and-white directing Hepburn in “The Ultimate Solu- than in color. I left, carrying the photo tion of Grace Quigley,” a dark comedy along with a box of brownies that Norah about an eccentric elderly woman who had baked. starts a suicide society for octogenarians. A few weeks later I called to ask for I quickly pitched the story to my editor pictures from her personal collection for Ray Sokolov and he immediately re- the McCall’s article. “Tell your editor sponded: “Terrific. Can you get to her?” there are hundreds in stock houses. Use Hepburn was still highly selective about those,” she snapped. I tried a new tack. granting interviews, but I had an edge: I “I’m only doing my job,” I rebutted: Af- had met and interviewed Tony Harvey in ter all, she had often told me that the world London and was confident about calling was ruled by the strong — not the weak him to smooth the way. He immediately — and if you go up the mountain, don’t asked me to write a letter to her and send stop halfway because you are tired. I had it to him; he would then forward it to Kate. boxed her into a corner: The strategy A few days later he called me, irate: “If worked and she told me to come over the you want the interview, you’d better spell next morning. her name right!” Alas, I had spelled It was a Friday — two days before I Katherine with an “e” instead of was leaving for a month’s trip to China Katharine with an “a” — an egregious — and it was raining, so I wore my green mistake that, he said, would have turned Burberry raincoat that I had bought in her against me immediately. Later I London. When I entered the house I laid learned that whenever fans misspelled my coat on a hallway bench, then joined her first name, she would put a big circle Phyllis to select photos. I was still poring around the misspelling and return the let- over images when Phyllis and Kate left ter to the sender. for the Hepburn family house in Fenwick, My revamped letter worked; I snagged Conn., where they went every weekend. one of only two interviews that she would Norah, who had taken a liking to me, do. (The first was for The New York stayed and gave me lunch. When I was Times.) When I finally arrived at her ready to leave, my raincoat was nowhere townhouse on East 49th Street a stagger- to be found. Norah panicked. Kate, she ing three months later, I was more than a figured, had swept it up with a pile of little nervous; her reputation for being THE LADY WAS A SKATEBOARDER Katharine Hepburn, out for a ride. clothes lying on the bench and taken it to cantankerous with reporters was well- Fenwick. known and the long wait for the interview sentence seemed charged with drama. belief that people should be allowed to No matter, I told Norah. “But you’re hadn’t helped. When I rang the bell, an This was not just an interview; this was a take charge of their own lives. “I was going to China on Sunday,” she said. elderly woman with gray hair and bushy private performance. She chatted end- always in a state of terror,” she said, her “You’ll need a raincoat.” She ran upstairs, eyebrows immediately came to the door. lessly and easily about her childhood, her eyeglasses dangling in mid-air. As for returning with a paper-thin green army Phyllis Wilbourn was Hepburn’s confi- adoration for her parents — a safe sub- being a feminist icon, she quickly demol- poncho that had belonged to Spencer and dante, personal assistant, and companion ject that she returned to often, her views ished that notion: “I’ve lived my life as a had a cigarette hole in the corner. She who came in every day. Dowdy, pleas- on women, her years at Bryn Mawr, and, man,” she said many times. “And I knew would hear no excuses and folded up the ant, and efficient, Phyllis immediately sent finally, “Grace Quigley,” her upcoming film, I might regret it, not having children and poncho, assuring me that “Miss Hepburn” me up a steep set of stairs to the sitting which she described as a comedy in the a family. But I made a conscious deci- (Norah never called her Kate) would want room, where Hepburn was waiting. “Guinness” tradition. sion not to get tied up in the domestic life me to have it. I had always imagined Katharine When I timorously mentioned Spencer because I thought it would bore me — I Of course I told everyone in my tour Hepburn as tall and elegant. That’s how Tracy, she abruptly snapped, “Spencer is wanted adventure. I just wanted to be group that I was traveling with Katharine she looked in the Tracy/Hepburn com- a friend, and that is all.” Even though myself, and if you want to be yourself, Hepburn’s poncho. And when it rained edies, where she always seemed to stand Spencer’s wife, Louise, had died the year you should not try to be the mother of during our trek on the Great Wall of China on an equal footing — literally and psy- before, Kate was still wary of talking four and the companion of a fascinating and I wore the poncho, all the cameras chologically — with Spencer Tracy. But about their clandestine relationship. I man. I never thought of having one child flashed. when I entered the modestly decorated wanted to dissolve into the couch. But she — I thought of having four. And I would When I returned to New York, I re- room, I found myself staring at the back quickly forgot my remark—as I would not have made a good mother. It just never ceived a call from my father: Kate had of a small woman stoking hot coals in the later learn, she was quick to forget and occurred to me that I could have a ca- called him in his office, having retrieved fireplace. Her gray hair was piled loosely forgive. reer and a family. You cannot have it all.” his number from my answering machine on top of her head; she wore khaki slacks, After The Journal published my article As I had by this time gained her trust, (remember those?) and told him she had a white turtleneck sweater, and a black in February 1984, I called to request a she asked me to turn off the tape and my raincoat. What’s more, she had it dry- short-sleeved jacket. Even though I was follow-up interview for McCall’s. Kate told then confided that when she was in her cleaned! Well, my father never got over only 5 feet 5, I seemed to tower over her, me that while she hadn’t read my article sixties and Spencer was out of work due that one! His favorite actress had dry- a feeling I found discomfiting, since in my — because she never read pieces about to severe health problems, she left her cleaned his daughter’s raincoat! The next mind she was not only tall, but a giant. herself (“Quite inadvertently,” she said, career to take care of him. The picture day I made a date with Kate and took the “So you’re Tony’s friend,” she said “you will write something that will turn me offers she was getting, she said, were not poncho to her house, hoping to exchange turning around. Then she invited me to sit off”) — the people around her said that all that great and she knew that if she my Burberry for her cigarette-stained on a simple sofa upholstered in white the profile was very good. (I recently was working and Spencer wasn’t, it would poncho. No way! She would not part with duck. She sat in a black leather recliner learned from her niece Katharine be the end of their relationship, and pos- the poncho. But she thanked me for the at right angles to me, her shoulder draped Houghton, who co-starred in “Guess sibly the end of Spencer. So they retired photo of me wearing her poncho on the with a red woolen scarf that she often Who’s Coming to Dinner?” that this was to their small cottage on the property of Great Wall of China that she had always wore in TV interviews. When I took out hardly true: Kate read everything that was George Cukor, a close friend who had wanted to visit. my tape recorder and nervously tried to published about her, and this was her way directed their early comedies. For the next McCall’s planned to publish the 4,000- place it in the exact right spot on a large of saying that she liked my article.) Kate five years Kate painted landscapes (sev- word article with 21 photos from her wooden coffee table, she barked: “Set it then agreed to the interview. eral of which were on her walls), took personal collection in November. How- there. I think you’ll find out that I project Again I waited months — impatiently. care of the house, cooked for Spencer, ever, Grace Quigley opened and closed quite well!” My first interview with her had affected and sat by him nightly to make sure he before the issue would hit the news- We both laughed, and that seemed to me deeply; on some level she personified slept soundly. stands. To give the article a news peg, break the ice. Minutes later, she called the mother I never had — the strong, Before leaving, I summoned up my I discovered that according to all her good-natured cook Norah to bring us fiercely independent, successful role courage and said I would like to work printed biographies she would turn 75 coffee and cookies. Despite my anxi- model I found not in my mother, but in my with her on her autobiography. She was on November 8th. So my editor ran the eties—perhaps due to them—the inter- father. I finally met Kate in late July. This silent for a few minutes, and then she said, article with the title “Kate at 75.” But view went very well and lasted two hours. time I was more relaxed and she was less cagily, that she would think about it. It he ran a lackluster actor as the main From the first words she spoke, Hepburn defensive. Again she talked about her was a strategy, I surmised, to restrain me cover image instead of Kate. I was, of had a mesmerizing effect on me; each parents, her upbringing, and her strong from doing an unauthorized book on her, course, furious. And so was Kate! MARCH 2015 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 5 The Evil That Is Cloaked in Black BY ANNE ROIPHE wishes. And for us who believe in the free It is more about pride and hatred of the he background is the empty press, this attack on journalists who attempt other dressed up as a holy desire to live desert, blue sky stretching out to cover conflict in dangerous places is es- with ancient rules, with certainties, without T over the distant sand dunes. In pecially painful as we see colleagues, the confusions of modern life. They want the foreground two men in orange jump known personally or not, about to lose their to rule over more land and people, creating suits sit on their knees. The man behind lives because they were doing the work inside their fortress a world that oppresses them, all in black, with rifle and mask and they choose, because they were walking woman, deprives many of education, im- bullets wrapped around his waist stands on streets, in market places, in cafes where poses a complete tyranny of the religious there and we know the text without hear- they could be identified as enemy combat- mind, limits health care and economic and ing the words.. These are the captives who ants, even though their only weapons were intellectual creativity for the expanded will be beheaded within weeks. Behead- populace that will suffer under the au- ing is worse than execution by bullet. It is thority of these self-appointed rulers. cruel, primitive, and even more frighten- Someday they will look like I wonder why hateful regimes choose Beheaded, these journalists are mourned ing than death itself. At least to the viewer, nasty children, dangerously black uniforms. I wonder if they think the by their families and by many in the free sitting on a sofa in safety staring at a color of night is the color of death. Do they world. They are certainly mourned by those television set, it seems that way. Perhaps armed, playing at terror, see themselves, not as only as protectors of us who are pledged to write, to report, to it doesn’t matter much to the victims, but when the terror turns of Holy Words but also as avengers, as investigate the powers that rule or seem to rule. We are the ones who will sow the seeds it matters to us who see Isis as an evil against them. the bearers of the wrath of God against force, possibly unstoppable, rageful, mer- those who would have put Him aside and of rebellion and we are the ones that can ciless, without humanity, soulless like a with Him his legions of fighters and fol- pull back the wizards curtain and reveal rabid wolf or a hungry leopard leaping on words and cameras. lowers, bombers, blasters, snipers, tank his small stature and his petty trickery. its prey. That is what they want us to see The ransom asked is absurdly gigantic. drivers, murderers of young children. And this profession of ours takes with it and that is what we see. There is an irony here we can appreciate. The Nazis were more orderly then Isis wherever it goes, into kitchens, restau- These soldiers of Allah cover their faces Money, capitalism, our need for oil which and were not afraid to show their faces. rants, hair salons, palaces, parks, wars, with a mask, not to prevent identification. is translated into petro dollars, coin of the But they too thought their kind were the refugee camps, an obligation that rests on They don’t worry about our knowing their realm, is splashed back on us. Our cruel- only kind that should survive and their reli- all of us to remain and do our work. names. They cover their faces because ties about money, how much we have of it, gion the only one deserving of respect. We won’t all be beheaded. We won’t all without individual features they become how little others around the globe have, has You can bar journalists from your house. be silenced, not at once. Maybe there will even more inhuman, more like killers and created a perfect storm of hatred and envy You can refuse to give them a comment or be places we won’t go and truths and pho- less like shopkeepers or farmers or phar- and loathing of the colonial master who for pull your coat over your head so they can’t tos we can’t take sometimes but we will macists. They hide behind their masks be- centuries back stole the land, has taken take your photo but to behead them, as they return, we will find ways to get the word cause their lives are not theirs alone to spoils from the earth, from the people, from sit helpless before you, what is that? A out, to tell others what goes on in prisons, live, they belong to a rampaging pack. They the sea. They know we prize money more manhood that is so frightened of Journal- in towns, on small mountain tops where a may think they are doing the work that their than holiness, (however defined). So when ists seems a strange manhood indeed. trapped group prays for water. God demands of them but they cannot let we hear the groups of terrorists demand- And all of us who write or have writ- These masked murderers think they are us see their faces which would make them ing huge sums of cash we can grind our ten for papers, television, movies, maga- in control, holding their weapons above the look like our brothers, fathers, and sons. If teeth in anger but we have to admit this zines know that when we speak of the heads of their captives but in the end their we could really see them then we could money business, this equation of human life obligations of the press to tell the truth, to violence toward others will beget violence make a claim on them, be human, be kind, with money, is not original to the angry hold a mirror to our communal deeds, to toward them. In the end the rage they remember everyone is someone’s child. tribes of the Middle East. It is not just the ask questions and check the facts the au- feel toward the democratic governments They avoid that possibility by remaining followers of a few foul-minded Imams thorities employ to weave their tales, that of the West will erupt in their own neigh- anonymous, covered, masked. who want to have billions and will kill for is sacred too. That is our sacred work. If borhoods and turn against them. Some- Our enemy is not dueling with us, no it. That is an old habit of Western cultures we are kept from our task by intimidation, day they will look like nasty children, dan- seconds stand by to apply bandages. He too, made specific here. Unsubtle certainly, by fear for our very lives, than the forces gerously armed, playing at terror, when is unashamed and well armed. His rea- in a masked man wielding a sharp-edged of oppression grow ever bolder and crawl the terror turns against them. soning seems psychotic by most standards. blade. What will hurt the West the most? out from their sewers and destroy what- There is something about this beheading He is Hannibal Lector as a political leader Loss of dollars, they think. ever joy and love and hope had taken root that is so primitive that it makes the stom- with an army to carry out his most demonic Of course it is not really about money. across the countryside. ach turn. It reminds of long ago eras when thieves were crucified along the road and when so-called witches were burned at the stake and when nothing was too cruel for Winchell Interview Got Me a Byline and a Job an inquisition that feared a hidden menorah Continued from Page 2 ticle and handed it in. A few minutes later, I had understated the amount of money in a Madrid cupboard and black men and column, which had appeared in more than I glanced up from my desk and saw Bott, that the cancer fund had raised for re- women were chained in the holds of ships 2,000 newspapers worldwide and had an the managing editor and the executive edi- search. There was also a postscript: Would headed for the New World, a New World estimated 50 million readers, basically tor conferring in a corner of the city room. I like to become an honorary member of then infected by very ancient viciousness ended in 1963 when Winchell’s paper, The They were looking at what I somehow the fund’s board of directors? But all that was centuries ago and the hard Daily Mirror, folded after the 114-day news- guessed was the article I had just written I sent Winchell a brief reply, apologizing part for us now is to realize that civilization, paper strike. – and they seemed to be nodding approv- for the error and saying that I would be humane civilization cannot be taken for As I result, I wasn’t sure I would be ingly. honored to become an honorary board granted. Our humanity is not very humane able to reach Winchell. But I got the name No one said anything to me, but when member. Then I forgot about the article and it can slip away in a moment, as fast as and phone number of the syndication com- the final edition came up, it contained my and Winchell’s offer. a blade can decapitate a journalist. pany that had distributed his column. And article along with my byline. At the end of December, Bott took me The ease with which these fanatic not expecting that anything would come To refresh my memory, I paid a visit aside and said I had passed my tryout. I groups destroy veins and arteries, cut of it, I called and left a message. to The Post’s library a few months ago to was now on staff. through muscle and bone, brings us back About 15 minutes later, my phone rang. try to track down the article. Thanks to About two years later, in 1969, a large to earlier times when killing was more per- When I picked up the receiver a familiar Laura Harris, the head librarian, I found manila envelope was waiting for me on top sonal, less mass. Bombs from drones keep voice said, “This is Walter Winchell. I’m it. of the typewriter at my desk when I ar- the bloodletting from our eyes. We could returning your call.” The article ran on Oct. 27, 1967, with rived for work. Inside the envelope was destroy the city of Dresden from the air in I was pressed for time – Bott said that the headline, “Godfrey Quits Runyon Post the cancer fund’s annual report. And just a way we would not have done had our he wanted a story for the paper’s final in Winchell Row,” rather tame stuff when as Winchell had promised, my name was soldiers been moving through the streets. edition later that day – so I didn’t mention compared with the celebrity feuds of to- listed among the honorary board members. But perhaps this is a distinction that mat- to Winchell that I was once among his ra- day. The lead said: I was in pretty good company. Among the ters not at all. dio show’s devoted listeners. I asked him “Arthur Godfrey resigned today as other honorary members were such lumi- In the image of the about to be be- what his feud with Godfrey was all about. president of the Damon Runyon Memo- naries of the day as Bob Hope, Frankie headed journalist we see condensed into “There’s no feud between us,” he re- rial Fund for Cancer Research, apparently Laine, and Mr. and Mrs. Richard Rodgers. one terrible moment the vileness of the plied. “We’ve been friends for a long time. because Walter Winchell was trying to put Winchell announced his retirement on human animal. Perhaps that is what causes In fact, Arthur has often testified that I more newspapermen on the board of di- Feb. 5, 1969, a year after his son commit- us to feel such a strong mixture of terror was the one who gave him his first break rectors.” ted suicide. He spent the last two years of and anger. Is it never going to end? Will in radio and helped him make a lot of As I reread the article 47 years later, his life living as a recluse at the Ambassa- we forever swing between Beethoven and money.” with a more liberated perspective, I winced dor Hotel in Los Angeles, and died in 1972. Himmler? Will one generation see the Winchell went on to explain that he at my sexist reference to “newspaper- Although he is barely remembered to- building of great cathedrals, synagogues wanted a new board of directors to be men,” especially since The Post back in day, he lives on in my memory. How can I and mosques, labs that work to save us elected because not enough newspaper 1967 had a cadre of exceptionally talented forget the person who, albeit indirectly, from cancers and plagues and the next people were on the board. “This is a fund women writers, including Nora Ephron, helped give me my start as a reporter on a see the murder again of little children. founded for a newspaperman, and I want Jean Crafton, Helen Dudar, Fern Eckman, New York City daily? Unlike what he may those same cathedrals, synagogues or newspaper people to be the guardians of Judy Michaelson, Hope McLeod and Bar- have done for Arthur Godfrey, Winchell mosques, those same labs, concert halls, it,” he said. bara Yunker. didn’t help me make a lot of money. But I universities reduced to piles of broken After a few more minutes, I thanked A couple of days after my article ap- don’t hold that against him. Working as a glass, burnt wood, smashed stone, or a Winchell for speaking to me and hung up peared, Winchell sent me a letter. He liked reporter was a wonderful experience, and journalist on his knees wearing orange the phone. Then I quickly wrote the ar- the article, he said, but he had a complaint: I have no regrets. pajamas? PAGE 6 SILURIAN NEWS MARCH 2015 A Prosecutor On the Stand His career as a Federal prosecutor and as a defense counselor included some of the most famous cases of the last decades of the 20th century - from Whitewater, to the mob, to the death of Vince Foster - and Robert Fiske Jr. recalled them in fas- cinating detail. He did not have to embel- lish the stories as he spoke without hesi- tation at the Silurians’ November luncheon at the Players Club. One minute he related of being next to Donald Trump as the Donald discovered a suit he had led against the National Foot- ball League - which was defended by Fiske - was worth the grand total of $1. And then Fiske as prosecutor told how he had helped sentence the infamous Robert Fiske Jr. Bill Diehl Harlem drug lord Nicky Barnes, who had repeatedly escaped prosecution, to a life- He recalled how Trump, and his United time in prison. States Football League, had sued the es- And there were other sensational tablished N.F.L. for more than $1.5 bil- Bill Diehl cases, including his conclusion as a Spe- lion, alleging, among other things, a con- Jonathan Socolow cial Prosecutor that Foster had commit- spiracy to keep out the U.S.F.L. While ted suicide and had not been murdered. the jury found the N.F.L. guilty on many There was a sizable percentage of anti- counts, it awarded damages of $1. For Socolow, One Last Honor Clinton conspiracy theorists who insisted Fiske recounted that John Mara, who Sandy Socolow, who died on Jan. 31 And Jonathan Socolow remembered that Foster was murdered because he was the Giants’ chief operating officer, in New York, was honored on Dec. 10 his father’s “subversive” sense of humor: knew of alleged illegal Clinton dealings. was seated next to Trump when the ver- by the Silurians with a Lifetime Achieve- Cronkite - once named in a poll as He seemed to relish still the N.F.L.’s dict was reached. ment Award. Socolow was too ill to at- America’s most trusted person - told victory, which he also has detailed in a “Mara reached into his wallet and tend the dinner but spoke by phone from Sandy that he was the man he trusted newly published book called “Prosecutor handed Trump $1,” said Fiske, still savor- his hospital bed as his children accepted most. “Does that make me the most Defender Counselor: The Memoirs of ing the memory. the award for him. trusted man in America?” Sandy Socolow Robert B. Fiske Jr.” – Gerald Eskenazi Socolow and his old CBS buddies re- remarked. called the funny and the inane and the A former colleague Scotti Williston re- serious. He was one of television’s gi- membered how Socolow understood the ants as the producer for Walter Cronkite’s dangers that his correspondents often At 100 and Counting evening news during a 32-year run at the faced. “He always made sure everyone The age level at a festive party in Se- network. Silurians’ president Allan Dodds was covered and protected,” she said. attle in December ranged from 2 to 100. Frank visited Socolow in the hospital that “He always asked about the people.” The occasion was George Bookman’s day, and was regaled with the The long-time TV columnist Marvin 100th birthday, when 40 relatives and octogenarian’s tale of how the censors Kitman described Socolow as playing “an friends from the U.S. and abroad gath- during the Korean conflict refused to al- important role” in the history of network ered to welcome him into the ranks of low him to do a story on prostitutes and news, an opinion echoed by Gary Paul centenarians. soldiers. He cajoled and wheedled but to Gates. George, who is the oldest dues-paying his everlasting chagrin was turned down. – Gerald Eskenazi member of the Silurians, moved from Manhattan to Seattle last year to be close to his son Charles (whose grandson Hugh was the youngest one at the party). Till a Overseeing The Changes few years ago, George was a regular at- tendee at the society’s luncheons and din- Even with the title of Chief Content all the newer platforms, Norman ners. While he isn’t as spry as he once Officer and Executive Vice President Pearlstine told Silurians, “It’s very hard was, he’s mentally sharp and he’s still a of Time Inc., charged with exploring to predict where things will be five news junkie, reading three newspapers a years from now.” day and answering e-mail messages George Bookman He was speaking at the 2015 kick- promptly. off luncheon, in January, and touched One highlight of the dinner was the three-day festivities ended with a small on his journalistic career that began as birthday cake, a large sheet cake that rep- dinner at one of Seattle’s best restaurants, a copy boy at The New York Times, licated a Time magazine cover from the and when the other patrons learned of the stripping carbon copies, and eventually 1950’s, showing George on the cover occasion they sang a rousing “Happy to a 10-year stint as Time’s editor-in- above a “Man of the Century” banner. Birthday.” As usual, George ended the chief. He left for other jobs, including (He was the lead reporter for at least 19 meal with a dish of his favorite ice cream. five years as Chief Content Officer at Time cover stories in the 1950’s.) The — Myron Kandel Bloomberg LP. The speed and changes in the me- dia business still consume him. He quipped how everyone once thought the gluepot was going to be the next The Last of the ‘Murrow Boys’ big thing in publishing. Dick Hottelet, last of the famed He was born in Brooklyn. Still, he conceded that the present “Murrow Boys,” died recently at age 97. After his noon radio gig, Dick would state of publishing is rife with chal- I knew him from my days at CBS Ra- leave the Broadcast Center on West 57th lenges, and even giants in the industry dio. I was a newswriter for Radio, but I Street and head for the United Nations. — including his own company - never wrote a word for Hottelet. He Covering the UN was his beat for CBS struggle to get things right. wrote and read his own words. He was News, radio and television. He very sel- “If we don’t transform ourselves on the air every weekday at noon. That dom made air. But that didn’t seem to from a company known for print, which was back in the sixties when CBS Ra- bother him. is now 85 percent, it will be a difficult dio was considered an esteemed news In none of the many conversations I Bill Diehl time for us,” he said. organization. We had writer-readers like had with Dick did he once refer to the Norman Pearlstine Transformation was a major reason Charles Collingwood and Alexander Murrow days; nor did he ever mention he was brought back to Time two Kendrick and Stuart Novins and Dou- the Normandy invasion, or the Battle of years ago. He admitted that he used glas Edwards. the Bulge, two stories he had covered; Society of the Silurians to believe major changes could be I remember being delighted when nor did he talk about being imprisoned for PO Box 1195 achieved in three to five years in the Hottelet referred to me as “chum,” until four months by the Nazis when he was Madison Square Station industry — but now, he says, the newer I realized that chum was what he called working for UPI in Berlin, or having para- New York, NY 10159 offshoots are looking at “three to five everyone. He had an air about him: dis- chuted from a flaming bomber during the 212.532.0887 months.” tinguished in an old-fashioned European war. He didn’t have to. Farewell, chum. www.silurians.org — Gerald Eskenazi way, a gentleman, a man of the nobility. – Joel Bernstein MARCH 2015 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 7 That Was Life on West 43d: Ruth and Mike BY BETSY WADE in those days held down the corners of hat this picture of the New York the first page of the second section. The Times City Room does not con- obituary was two columns long, with a Wvey fully is that in my late twen- picture. No byline. ties, when I was the solitary female on The funeral, in that big place on the third-floor copy desks, I was crazy Amsterdam Avenue, was mobbed, and about most of the men I worked with, right afterward, about noon, we flooded into a along with being crazy about my job. saloon across the street. Starting time on Mike Berger was one of the men, but the City Desk was 4 p.m. or so, so we in his case, I was just another of his wor- drank until we had to go. It was impos- shipers. Berger joined the paper in 1928, sible not to love Mike, a man who danced before I was born, and it was understood on desks, scattering coins from his pock- that everyone doted on him. He was gen- ets, who lodged no criticism of almost any erally agreed to be the finest writer on sin in the world, although there is a sen- the paper. He apparently knew almost tence or two in “The Eight Million” where everybody and was on a first-name basis he seems irritated at Al Capone. Our grief with the headmen of Murder Incorpo- was genuine. rated. His classroom education ended in No one sat at Mike’s desk. For many the ninth grade, but his thirst for learning Meyer Berger Ruth Adler days, a glass was on top of it with a rose was never slaked. His long, startlingly “It was just Ruth,” he said. “Not im- showed her face in the City Room in that was replaced when it wilted. But a austere account of the return of the first portant right now.” Mike’s lifetime, although the jingle-jangle city room does not have shrines like a high- World War II dead from Europe, carried Just Ruth? Who? What did this mean? of that old triangle resonated into the 21st way. The desks were finally shifted some, on October 27, 1947, is a classic. Even He assumed I knew. The interview con- century. The dedication of his book “The the spot became less identifiable and the if everything you know about World War tinued, but I kept puzzling. Was there a Eight Million” reads, “For Mae, who de- waters closed over. II is from the movies, it gets hard to read clue I missed? Anyone with any sense serves better.” Enigmatic, yes? Then began an impossible saga. Mae the type when you reach “the sweet mel- would have said that to him: “Ruth Who?” The night in 1959 that Mike had a Gamsu came to the Times, speaking to ancholy of the dirge ‘The Vanished I had no sense. stroke was a classical newspaper scene, whom the story does not report, to ask Army.’” Some time after the interview, I dem- and though I lived to see many others, for her widow’s mite, which was to say, a The love we bore for Mike had no onstrated a modicum of sense, however. this one became my imprint of the Janus job at the Times, because there was no link to sex; he seemed almost androgy- I got him to autograph my copy of “The face of the news business: Bad news is provision for widows, just as there was nous. But not quite, dear friends, not Story of The New York Times,” the cen- good news, and the worse it is the better little provision for retirement. Helen, the quite. tennial history he had spent a miserable it is. copy editor Willard Crosby’s widow, It was through Mike Berger I first several years writing, which proved to be Rotund and pink of face, Frank Adams worked in ready reference. Sanka Knox, glimpsed the pervasive reign of sex in both a bad job and a whitewash. was the city editor. He was standing by who covered antiques and decoration in the Times city room — and I don’t mean He wrote: “To Betty Wade, who has his desk, hands on the bottom of his vest. a zany way, had come on to the reporto- gender, I mean lust, dangerous, job-jeop- just set foot in the journalistic door. With He was called to a phone. When he hung rial staff by the same route, and later, Jane ardizing, panting-in-the-hallways sex. sincere good wishes. Meyer Berger. May up, he went over to the pillar where he Morgan Cianfarra, who became the Correctly the quote is “Liquor is the curse 8, 1952.” Later, when I was established could be heard both by the copy desk and widow of Camille Cianfarra in the An- of the Tribune and sex the bane of the on the City Desk and had often enough the night rewrite man, probably George drea Doria-Stockholm crash off Cape Times,” although it was usually quoted edited his column, I carried this volume Barrett. “Mike Berger’s had a stroke,” Cod, was given a reporting job in women’s wrong because people could not fathom back to the office and asked Mike to sign he said loudly, as the men on both sides news. But to Mae Gamsu, the public what went on in the building that published it again. He joined to the earlier inscrip- of him, and I, looked up. “George, get an school English teacher of long standing, a newspaper that was the antithesis of tion, with a handsome swash, the follow- obit ready.” the answer was no pasaran. She returned sexuality, except for the Sunday bra ads. ing: “and has, since, come to ornament I knew not to gasp, although that was to the classroom. Nor could I comprehend, to start with. and heighten the prestige of the Times the impulse. Everyone looked at Adams The belief was that the Times was pro- When I first saw the sway of sex at the City Desk. July 30, 1958, MB” for another half-minute, and then bent to tecting Ruth Adler, already an employee, Times it was in an indecipherable form, When I arrived back in that newsroom, work again. Silently. from someone expected to be relentlessly like the shadows in Plato’s Cave. in October 1956, with a very well-paid There was once a plaque in the lobby hostile. Ruth had other powerful friends, I was two very giant employment steps job ($150 a week, $20 above the Guild of the Journalism Building at Columbia notably the assistant managing editor in away from the Times, still a student at minimum), knowledge of the carnal world about a reporter trapped in a train crash charge of everything, Ted Bernstein. the Columbia School of Journalism, a had reached me. I learned that “Ruth” who as his dying act summoned some- What anyone actually said to Mae is un- proper, polite and determined person, a was Ruth Adler, not an Adler-Adler, part one to call his paper. I had now seen this known, but she could not possibly have former virgin but someone who was in all of the dynastic family at the Times, but reflex in life, but it was a while before I failed to see what was at issue. Why an important respects ignorant of the world some other sort of Adler. She was by no could read the overlayer on Adams’s two influential editor at the Times did not call out there. A 14-year-old today is savvier means a wrong-side-of-the-tracks Adler sentences: a newspaper takes care of its another paper to secure a job for Mike’s than I was. because she had attended the Sorbonne own. Firefighters produce uniformed lines relict is beyond understanding. Those who Each member of our class of 65 had to and graduated from Smith, and Mike, of to honor their colleagues; the military fires saw her after Mike’s death said that bit- write an article about how some particu- course, had graduated from noplace. She rifles. Newspapers give their best to re- terness bubbled just under the surface all lar Pulitzer Prize article came about. just wasn’t part of the ownership. It was porters they love. the time. Oddly, one of the 10 women in the class sometimes cruelly — but not inaccurately Mike lived a few days in a coma, and Mae established an annual prize at the of 65 – me — was assigned to examine — said that Ruth looked like Mike Berger several reporters worked on the obit, and Columbia School of Journalism to honor the shootings by the amok veteran Howard in a wig. But she was unlike gentle, sweet half a dozen editors, including Gerry Gold, Mike. First awarded in 1960, it brought a Unruh in Camden, N.J., an account that Mike because she was so ferocious that who sat next to me. It appeared on Feb. plaque and $1,000. She herself presented won Mike Berger the Pulitzer Prize in later she was often referred to as Rude 9, 1959, under the headline “Meyer it so long as she was able. If Mike did not 1950. Adler. Berger, 60, of Times is dead.” It was a belong to her in life, by god, he would in After many tries in 1952, I finally got a Like Frankie and Johnny, Ruth and “B” head, the single-column headline that death. date to interview “Mister Berger.” I found Mike were lovers, and had been for an Ruth Adler lived on at the Times, a my way through the Times’s trivial third- untold number of years. Mike must have cranky nonwidow who poured drinks in floor security and went to the southeast- said “it was just Ruth” because every- her office for male friends seeking a post- ern corner of the vast bloc of reporters’ one in the world from 40th Street to 44th deadline respite. She became estranged desks in the newsroom. There he was, Street knew and he probably assumed I from a friend who failed to write her a scrawny, nervous, overwound and con- had some smarts. Nor was it “just Ruth” condolence note on Mike’s passing; the centrated on the phone receiver. He in the sense that she was unimportant to friend said she had no clue what to write. didn’t have his famous hat on, but he was him – I think now that she had seen Mike Ruth published two books deriving from listening and scribbling notes steadily on leave the City Room with a nubile maid her role as editor of Times Talk: In 1966, folded copy paper. I sat and waited, over- and was checking up. Rather, it was “just “The Working Press,” which collected come with shyness. Finally he hung up. Ruth” in the sense that he could call her pieces from the house organ, and in 1971 “Sorry,” he said. “It was someone who in her office, where she was editor of the “A Day in the Life of The New York wanted to have me cover his trip rolling house organ, Times Talk, anytime he Times.” They are both good. A few a peanut down Broadway with his nose. liked. Their affair was, like others in that friends who occasionally had lunch with Not too likely, but you never can tell. block-long simmering cauldron, a quite her came away with headaches, often Should we have a coffee?” open secret. saying they wouldn’t do that again. She We went to the cafeteria on the 11th The Mike-Ruth story continued so long was harsh, and she got harsher. Retired floor, and got two thick crockery cups that its poisonous ending comes after all in 1980, she died August 1, 1997. of coffee. I asked a few of my ques- the principals are gone. But even with Mike and Ruth gone, tions, and then the cashier came over. Mae Gamsu, a schoolteacher, Mike’s the struggle for possession was not re- “Mike, it’s the phone for you,” she said. wife of many years — there were never solved. At the end of the 20th century, He excused himself. He was not long, any children — was acutely aware of Jeff Roth, a distant cousin of Mike’s who and came back diffident and apologetic. Ruth Adler, and so far as I know never Betsy Wade Continued on Page 8

Bill Diehl PAGE 8 SILURIAN NEWS MARCH 2015 A Portrait That Was Life Of the On West 43d Continued from Page 7 held a humble, difficult job in the Times Ambassador morgue, undertook to organize an anthol- ogy of Berger material that had not oth- ow many artists can trace their erwise been collected. Significantly, this work in a descending line straight would have put between covers the ar- Hfrom Gilbert Stuart, whose fa- ticle on the return of the war dead. He mous paintings portrayed George Wash- also planned to include the Capone trial, ington and other Founding Fathers of our some “About New York” columns that nation? Well, Betsy Ashton can. Her por- fell between two Berger collections, “The trait of Philip Lader, former Ambassador Eight Million” of 1942 and the 1960 post- to the Court of St. James’s, now hangs in humous book, “Meyer Berger’s New a place of honor at the U.S. Embassy in York,” plus a few pieces that appeared in London. Betsy attended the unveiling Harpers and The New Yorker and else- in November, along with Lader, the where. present Ambassador and Embassy staff- Mae was Mike’s executor and held ers. Stuart’s portrait of the first Ameri- the rights to his work for the paper, as can ambassador, John Adams, started a well as to the other articles. Her agree- tradition of former envoys providing por- ment with the Times was apparently oral, traits for the Embassy. or it is likely that since the 1960 book It was not an easy assignment was in the making when Mike died, the for Betsy, who is a journalist-turned-art- Times just let it go ahead with Mae listed ist and is serving as first vice president of as the copyright holder. the Silurians. She usually gets the subjects Roth was a friend to Mae and occa- of her portraits to sit several times for a sionally had dinner with her at her place couple of hours, following an initial photo near Gramercy Park. But when she got session. But it was almost impossible with the impression that Roth would be writ- Lader. He’s a globetrotter, as chairman ing a biography for the anthology, Mae of WPP, the advertising and communica- blew up, accusing Roth of having strung tions conglomerate; as an adviser to Mor- her along to write about Ruth and all that. gan Stanley; as a member of several other Others besides Roth tried to set the mat- boards; as a South Carolina lawyer, and ter straight, but it was not repairable. It as co-director, with his wife, Linda, of the made no difference that Ruth Adler was Renaissance Weekend gatherings in vari- gone. Jeff sadly put the idea away. ous parts of the U.S. Betsy had to rely on Mae died in the spring of 2003. In one brief sitting, photographs and a The artist Betsy Ashton is flanked by Philip Lader, left, the former Ambassador 2004, Fordham University reissued memory of Lader’s visage when she to the Court of St. James’s, whose portrait hangs on the wall, and Matthew “Meyer Berger’s New York,” with its started attending Renaissance Weekends Barzun, the present Ambassador. old foreword by Brooks Atkinson and a some years back. new introduction by Pete Hamill. It was What made it even more of a chal- from one end of the British Isles to the accolades of the Embassy and the Laders otherwise identical to the original, includ- lenge was that Lader wanted to be por- other end, and a depiction of the boots and their two daughters, so Betsy says ing the dedication page: trayed as he looked when he served as he wore during those excursions. So to all her hard work was worth it. And now “One day, while discussing the selec- ambassador a dozen years earlier. And get that all in she had to produce a full- she’s working on some new and easier tion of the columns for publication, Mike he also wanted her to include a picture of length portrait. It turned into a yearlong assignments. told me that the book’s dedication was Linda on his desk; a map of his walks task. But the finished product won the — Myron Kandel to read; ‘Once more for Mae.’ “I want to share this honor with his colleagues on the New York Times, his Society of the Silurians New Members In Memoriam friends and his readers. They made many Officers 2014-2015 David Corcoran, newly retired from The New York Times, joined Sandy Socolow, a CBS News veteran who worked of the columns possible by asking ques- the paper in 1988, filling a number of roles before becoming the alongside Walter Cronkite for many years and was a key President editor of Science Times, the weekly science section. Prior to that, influence on coverage of major news events ranging tions, contributing ideas, and sending in ALLAN DODDS FRANK he had been education editor and deputy Op-Ed editor. from space launches to Vietnam to Watergate, died on unusual items that led to research and

First Vice-President Jan. 31 in New York. He was 86. A month earlier, in BETSY ASHTON Charles DeLaFuente is a veteran journalist with a law degree adventures ‘About New York.’ Grate- whose byline continues to appear in The New York Times even December, Socolow had been honored by the Silurians fully, Mae Berger. ” Second Vice-President though he is officially retired. He joined The Times as a copy editor with a Lifetime Achievement Award. The Bronx native BERNARD KIRSCH The opposite page said the Berger in 1998 and was on staff until 2013. He is an expert on libel law. joined CBS in 1956 as a writer for Cronkite, eventually Treasurer becoming co-producer and executive producer of the material was copyright to Lisa and Gil- KAREN BEDROSIAN Steve Dunlop was a Bulletin Center correspondent for the CBS “CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite,” as well as bert Gamsu. RICHARDSON Evening News and he anchored the CBS News program “Up to vice president of CBS News. He left CBS in 1988 and Secretary the Minute.” Prior to joining CBS, he wrote, reported or anchored was executive producer of “World Monitor,” the Christian Meyer Berger’s “400,000 in Silent LINDA AMSTER for such news organizations as NBC, CNN, Reuters, Metromedia Science Monitor’s nightly newscast on the Discovery Tribute as War Dead Come Home” of Board of Governors and the Associated Press. Channel. In 1993, he rejoined Cronkite, and was execu- 1947 remains uncollected, as does the RALPH BLUMENTHAL Bill Farrell was at The Daily News from 1972 to 2006 and tive producer of Cronkite-Ward Productions. trial of Al Capone, the Legs Diamond JACK DEACY was a reporter and feature writer for almost every section of BILL DIEHL the paper, including sports, as well as a columnist. He is now Mort Gordon, a former reporter and editor who covered piece and others you might enjoy. GERALD ESKENAZI the men’s-wear industry for Fairchild Publications, died What is odd is that Mike Kandel, who TONY GUIDA communications director of Pitta Bishop Del Giorno & Giblin, a LINDA GOETZ HOLMES government relations firm. on Jan. 30 in Boca Raton, Fla. He was 87. Gordon’s graduated from the Columbia School of CAROL LAWSON journalism career began in 1952, when he joined Fairchild Sherrye Henry, now retired, was a commentator and program as a reporter for Daily News Record in its Philadelphia Journalism in 1953 and also went to the BARBARA LOVENHEIM host of a popular interview program that was broadcast over BEN PATRUSKY bureau. He was assigned to the New York headquarters Times, had a different conversation with WOR Radio from 1973 to 1989. Prior to that, she was a re- ANNE ROIPHE in 1959 and became the newspaper’s managing editor. In Mike Berger, a man-to-man conversa- WENDY SCLIGHT porter for WMCA from 1968 to 1970 before moving to 1969, Fairchild named him publisher of its Men’s Wear WCBS-TV as an editorial director. tion, one must assume. Berger was dis- MORT SHEINMAN magazine, a role he filled for 10 years before launching Governors Emeritus Bethany Kandel’s journalism career began in 1980 as a re- his own licensing business. cussing Edmund G. Love, author of the GARY PAUL GATES porter for the Bridgehampton (L.I.) Sun. She later became a book “Subways Are for Sleeping,” which HERBERT HADAD reporter at The Daily News, at The Associated Press, and at Tim Lee, a veteran newspaperman who found his way eventually became a Broadway musical. ROBERT McFADDEN to journalism after toiling as an ironworker during his LEO MEINDL USA Today. Since 1993, she has been a freelancer. days growing up in New York, died on Jan. 20. He was According to Kandel, Berger re- Elaine Louie, who specialized in writing about food, entertain- Committee Chairpersons 79. Lee was a reporter and night editor at The New York marked that Love, with his profits from ing and interior décor, was on staff at The New York Times Post in the middle part of the last century, then went to Advisory from 1990 through 2014. She is also the author or co-author of “Subways,” had undertaken the strange MYRON KANDEL CBS News and later was a freelance writer before switch- more than a dozen books, including “The Shun Lee Cookbook.” task of eating a meal in every restaurant Dinner ing to public relations. He was a press aide to Percy listed in the Yellow Pages phone book, in WENDY SCLIGHT Barbara A. Ross has been covering the courts for The Daily Sutton when the former Manhattan borough president ran Legal News since 1985. From 1978 to 1985, she reported on transpor- for mayor in 1977, and he later joined Burson-Marsteller, alphabetical order. Love kept pursuing KEN FISHER tation and politics at The New York Post, and before that, she a global PR firm, and then Dean Witter Reynolds, a stock Berger to write about this continuing Membership reported for the Gannett chain in Westchester County. brokerage and securities firm, before retiring in 1997. project. Berger told Kandel that in addi- MORT SHEINMAN Michael Serrill is assistant managing editor of Bloomberg Mar- tion to this weird undertaking, in his spare Nominating kets magazine. He has been with Bloomberg since 2006. Samuel T. Suratt, the archivist of CBS News from 1969 BEN PATRUSKY Thomas G. Watkins, now a freelance reporter, was with CNN to 1991, died on Oct. 27. He was 81. Suratt was origi- time Love was sleeping with Mae Gamsu Silurian Contingency Fund Trustees from 1990 until last year, first as a producer in the medical unit, nally hired by the network to oversee its information Berger. LARRY FRIEDMAN, CHAIR where he coordinated the network’s AIDS coverage, later as a resources and was instrumental in ushering CBS into the Kandel, in telling me this story, said he NAT BRANDT news editor on CNN Wire. He was a member of CNN teams that computer age. Prior to joining CBS, he was an archivist JOY COOK had never heard that Ruth and Mike were MARK LIEBERMAN won a Peabody and four News and Documentary Emmys. at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. In 1977, he MARTIN J. STEADMAN Leslie Wayne, a former business reporter for The New York Times, helped found the International Federation of Television lovers. Archivists. In retirement, Suratt was a volunteer in the Silurian News is an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School Hello, sweetheart, get me Solomon. I BERNARD KIRSCH, EDITOR of Journalism. She was with The Times from 1981 to 2010. map division of the New York Public Library. need a judgment.