WITH THE KENNEDYS
by Barry Chamish
chamish@netvision.net.il
copyright 2003
CHAPTER ONE
It was on November 22 of 1963 that my association with the Kennedys began. The night
before I picked my girlfriend, Marilyn Sitzman, up at the Carousel Club, and she insisted
I take lunch hour off and see the Presidential parade with her and her daytime boss,
Abraham Zapruder.
I liked Marilyn and admired her devotion and initiative. Two years before she badly
needed work, and family connections directed her to a bustling dress factory owned by
Zapruder. He hired her as a receptionist and paid her fairly. But two bad seasons in a
row had cut into Zapruder’s profits and he told her he might have to let her go. Marilyn
was certain the factory would get back on the right track and liked Zapruder personally.
So she agreed to take a cut in salary and sought a second job to make ends meet. Turning
to her family again she was told to see Jack Ruby. He offered her work at his night club.
I was less than enthused about her night time place of work. It was a dingy hangout for
creeps, in fact a strip joint. Ruby offered Marilyn a waitressing job, which she accepted.
Later she found out the strippers made twice as much as she did and requested such a
position at the club. Everyone opposed the idea; I thought it was demeaning, Ruby
would not allow a Jewish girl to take off her clothes in public, and the strippers
themselves objected—Marilyn was quite lovely, noticeably shapely, and they didn’t want
the competition.
Whatever compunctions I may have had about Ruby were slowly dissipated when I saw
his crowd included many of Dallas’s finest. Clearly Ruby had nothing to fear from the
police, since they frequented his club on their off hours. And Ruby himself offered his
hospitality and friendship in return for their welcome patronage. It was an amicable
arrangement.
Ruby and I had only one thing in common, but it was strong enough to create a bond.
Neither of us remember our real parents. I was raised by victims of the Nazi Holocaust
who had lost their own children in Poland. Ruby was raised in foster homes when early
in his life the city of Chicago declared his own parents unfit to raise children. He viewed
us as fellow orphans though I resisted belonging to the fraternity. I never viewed the
wonderful couple who raised me as anything but my true parents. I was proud of my
lineage, he was obviously ashamed of his.
Marilyn was an insistent girl, and she was positive the Presidential parade would be
memorable. So certain was she that she purchased Abe Zapruder a Bell and Howell 8mm
camera to record the event. Abe had never used a movie camera before and was certain
he had no talent for filmmaking. But why look a gift horse in the mouth? He’d try his
hand at it if his receptionist insisted. Maybe, she told him, he’d get some good shots and
make some money selling them later on. Ridiculous, he thought.
I was also a reluctant parade witness. My job at the Teamsters local consumed a great
deal of time, and I usually ate at the office. Previously I organized public relations for
the Teamsters, but a few months earlier I was given the added task of editing and pretty
well writing the entire local newsletter. I was good at the task and was receiving citations
from within the Union. I felt driven to give my all to my work after I heard rumors that I
was being considered for the position of national PR director of the Teamsters. I had
even received a phone call from the big Boss, Mr. Hoffa, congratulating me on my good
work.
At noon I met Marilyn and Abe beside a bridge overlooking Dealey Plaza. I was in a
sour mood. Why did Marilyn pick such an out-of-the-way post to view the parade? She
could have found something a bit closer to both our places of employment. But she
prepared a box lunch and had a thermos full of lemonade. That was welcome on such a
hot, muggy day.
The conversation was dull. Abe asked what temple I’d chosen for the upcoming high
holidays, and Marilyn fidgeted nervously and seemed aloof from the discussion. At
twelve ten I saw an acquaintance walking down the street below. He was Police Officer
Harry Olsen who came to the Carousel Club at closing time to pick up his girlfriend, a
talented exotic dancer named Kay Coleman.
“Hey,” I said to Marilyn. “There’s Kay’s boyfriend, Harry.”
Marilyn looked down, saw him and said, “He’s supposed to be there. He’s on duty.”
“I’m going to go down for a second and say hello.”
“Don’t bother him, Norm. He’s on duty.”
“Oh, it’s just for a second. I’ll be right back.”
I started to leave and Marilyn grabbed my sleeve and pulled me back.
“Norman, please. Don’t go down there. Please.”
I yanked my sleeve hard and her grip loosened. She then grabbed it again.
“What’s the matter the matter with you, Marilyn? I’m sure he won’t mind, and if he sees
us he’ll be a little hurt I didn’t say hello.”
“You barely know him. He doesn’t want to see you.”
“Come on. Half the time I pick you up at club, he’s there waiting for Kay. We’ve had
drinks a dozen times together already. I like him, and I’m going to say hello.”
“Then I’m coming, too.”
“Look,” said Zapruder. “You dragged me here so the least you can do is keep me
company. I don’t know why the place is so empty now but if a crowd comes we’ll lose
each other.”
I walked away unimpeded. On the way to meet Harry I passed the Texas School Book
Depository. I had never understood its purpose. Were there really so many spare books
in Texas that a ten-story warehouse was needed to store them? I saw a hawk-faced young
man walk towards a side entrance holding a long cardboard box. That aroused my
suspicions enough to yell to him, “Hey, what you got there?”
“Curtain rods,” he yelled back.
I thought to myself, why would someone bring curtain rods into a warehouse? I caught
up to Harry in an uncertain mood.
“Hey, Norm,” he said, “How ya doin’, buddy?”
“Fine. Listen, Harry…”
“Whadya think of this little parade, huh? Why d’ya think Kennedy came?”
“You know, the bickering between Connally and Yarborough, show of unity and all that.
Listen, Harry, I have to change the subject. I just saw a guy walk into the book
depository with a long box. It could have been a rifle. Can you check it out?”
“Just your imagination, buddy.”
“All the same, better safe than sorry.”
Harry seemed agitated and said, “I’ll let you talk to my superior here.”
As he walked away I saw a man standing curbside across the street that also aroused my
attention. He was wearing a raincoat and had opened an umbrella, then closed it again. It
was 83 degrees in the shade, and though it rained in the morning, there was no threat of it
now. Was he hiding something under the raincoat?
I thought to myself, what is going on? I’m not a suspicious person by nature. Why am I
seeing subterfuge wherever I look? The confusion became unbearable when I looked in
the direction of a rolling piece of grassy tract, which later became known as the grassy
knoll.
If I may diverge for a moment, I never understood how the term knoll became accepted
to describe the site. Very few people use the word knoll in any context anymore and
fewer even know what it means. Yet, through I testified to the area being a patch of
grass, the term grassy knoll was what stuck.
At the back of the knoll a white Rambler was parked. One man was seated in the driver’s
seat and started up the engine. The other was leaning against the car body, caressing a
black metal pipe.
Observation and memory are now unfathomable to me. Though I could be so perceptive
as to think that looks like a rifle silencer, although I had never actually seen one other
than on television, I had not noticed that the Rambler was a station wagon. Yet that is
what the others, who were drawn to the scene for whatever reasons, swore they saw.
Harry came back with two policemen who I later learned were Sergeant Gerald Hill and
Officer Paul Bentley. Hill said to me, “You got a problem, buddy?”
“Look, officer,” I replied, “I’m not a nut or some kind of loony tune. But I swear
something’s funny around here.”
“Like what?”
“Like a guy wearing a full-length raincoat in 80 degree weather.” I pointed to the man
and continued, “Like a guy carrying a long box into a perfect ambush site and claiming
he was carrying curtain rods. And like those two over there beside the Rambler. What’s
that he’s got in his hands?”
“Looks like an ordinary pipe,” said Bentley.
“Yup. That’s what it looks like to me,” agreed Hill.
“You mean, neither of you are even going to go see what it is?”
Hill lifted his walkie-talkie and spoke into it.
“Control. Yeah, Hill here. Get Tippet away from that theatre and have him come to the
Plaza plain clothed. Tell him to make it pronto. We got a little trouble here.”
As I backed away I said, “Look, officers, I’m no troublemaker. I was just trying to be a
good citizen. I guess I was wrong about everything.”
When I reached the next street corner I ran for the nearest phone. I saw no public phone
anywhere so I ran into a novelties store. On the shelves were displayed such ingenious
items as lava lamps, crystal radios and singing yo-yos. I thought to myself, when this is
over I must come here just to browse leisurely.
I ran up to the main counter and said to the clerk (or owner, perhaps), “Please let me use
your phone. Someone is trying to kill the President.”
“Ah, come on,” he replied, “That gag went out with the whoopee cushion.”
“I’m not kidding. There’s four of them. Two of them, at least, have rifles.”
“You think I was born yesterday? I’ve been in the business a long time. I singlehandedly brought the hula hoop to Dallas.”
Time was running too short. I looked for some sort of weapon to force him to give me
the phone. The first thing that caught my eye was a slinky. No threat there. Then a
Davey Crocket fur hat. Of no use. Maybe the Crocket rifle. Was I losing my judgment?
Finally I did something new to me. I punched him as hard as I could in the jaw. As he
lay stunned on the floor I said, “If you try and get up you get it again. I’m sorry but
national security is at stake now.”
I must digress at this point. Because of my PR position with the Teamsters, I was
acquainted with a few top-ranking law enforcement officials. Attorney General Robert
Kennedy had, I believed then, falsely accused my personal president, Mr. Hoffa, of
misusing union funds and consorting with elements of organized crime. As a result, I
was spending more time clearing his and our good name in the press than attending to the
urgent business of an all-inclusive membership drive. The police and FBI had ransacked
our offices on three separate occasions, and I had to deal with them personally and the
press after. Usually I would charge the police with illegal entry and harassment.
I called Jesse Curry, Chief of Police.
“Mr. Curry, it’s Norman Mandel.”
“What do you want? We haven’t raided you in weeks and don’t plan to for another
month.”
“I’m at Dealey Plaza. They’re going to kill the President when he passes here.” There
was a long pause. “Do you hear me? Kill the President.”
“I hear you, Mandel, and this time you’re going too far.”
“I’m not going anywhere. You have to stop the motorcade. Reroute it. Do anything, just
don’t let it pass Dealey Plaza. Then get some men into the book depository and to the
little park on Elm Street. He’ll be here in less than ten minutes.”
“And when he gets there, wave to him for me.”
Curry banged down the phone.
I immediately phoned the FBI number of Inspector James Hosty.
“Mr. Hosty, it’s Norman Mandel. I’m at Dealey Plaza, and this is no joke. I saw
assassins ready to shoot the President.”
“Mandel, this is the most perverse PR stunt you’ve ever pulled.”
“Please, don’t argue. Gamble, and if I’m wrong, expose me in the press. I don’t care
what you do, just get here with some armed men.”
“Why didn’t you call the police? There are hundreds of them along the parade route.”
“They don’t believe me.”
“Okay. I know a cop who might. Stand in front of the book depository and wait for
Lieutenant Jack Revill.”
“How long will he take to get there?”
“Fifteen minutes if you hang up now.”
I thought, there isn’t enough time. I looked at the owner’s Mickey Mouse watch. Only
seven minutes to go. I ran out of the shop and back to the Plaza. Crossing the street
against the light, I was almost run over by a souped-up Edsel. I ran to the raincoated man
and said, “The whole thing’s off. The FBI is onto us.”
“I thought they were in on it,” he said.
“Not everyone. Now run to the book depository and call them off. I’ll take care of the
Rambler.”
Slowly and confidently, he lowered his umbrella and sauntered to the depository. I went
up to the crew cut man leaning on the Rambler and told him the plan was off.
“Who are you?” he asked menacingly.
“Man…Mann of the FBI. The Bureau found out. We’ll get him next time. If we try this
time all the work has been for nothing.”
The President’s limousine approached. The crew cut was handed a rifle by his partner in
the driver’s seat and placed the silencer on it. He lifted the rifle butt against his shoulder
and took aim.
“I don’t care,” he said. “I want him, and I’ve got him in my sights.”
I yanked the barrel downward as he shot. Mrs. Connally grimaced, then screamed as she
was hit.
“I SAID IT WAS OFF AND I MEAN IT,” I screamed.
He pushed me hard to the ground and applied what I assume was some sort of karate
chop. Helplessly I watched him aim, and then I heard a shot. He crumpled to the ground
as Hosty and Revill arrived.
“Cutting it pretty close, aren’t you?” I mumbled to Hosty.
“Shut up. Where are the others?”
“Book depository.”
They ran towards the building and I forced myself to follow them. At the cafeteria
drinking a coke was the man I saw with the curtain rods. “That’s him,” I told Revill.
“Oh yeah, well how was he going to kill the President, splatter him with soda?”
“I don’t know. Just believe me. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have found out about the
others.”
Revill handcuffed him, and we heard shots from somewhere in the building. Soon after
we learned that Hosty was shot dead with an obsolete Italian combat rifle in a firefight
that resulted in the death of two and the arrest of one attempted assassin.
CHAPTER TWO
The horrible irony is that the President succeeded in what he set out to accomplish in
Dallas. Mrs. Connally was rushed to Parkland Hospital and pronounced dead at one
thirty in the afternoon. Senator Yarborough requested Vice-President Johnson’s
intercession and received a moment with the governor to express his condolences and
promised his close cooperation in the future. All former wounds were sincerely healed
with a touching embrace by the two previous adversaries.
I need not remind my readers that I became an overnight hero. I have considered what
heroics involve, and everyone from Billy Mitchell to Sergeant York was right. A hero is
someone who does the only thing possible in a situation he accidentally walks into.
That night I went to my temple and saw Jack Ruby praying. He approached me and said,
“What are you praying for, Norm?”
The question took me by surprise. “Well, Jack,” I answered, “If I was a better man, Mrs.
Connally would be alive today.”
“No,” he answered, “If you were a better man, John Kennedy would be dead today.”
Then he walked away. To Ruby I was clearly no hero.
However he seemed unique in his opinion. The next morning Vice-President Johnson
appeared at my door without advance warning. I was dressed in a bathrobe and felt selfconscious. Is this what they meant by the Kennedy administration’s informality?
“I’m sorry I disturbed you, Mr. Mandel.”
“You could have called first,” I answered, and then realized who I was talking to. “But
since it was you,” I feebly recovered, “There was no real need.”
“Mr. Mandel, may I be seated?”
I invited him in, he apologized for disturbing my Sabbath and then came right to the
point.
“President Kennedy is extremely grateful to you, has been briefed on your writing and
promotional talents and requests that you join our team as a speech writer and image
builder.”
It took me a few moments to formulate my response. “Is the President aware that I work
for the Teamsters?”
“Of course. That’s why we have a Secret Service.”
“You could have fooled me yesterday.”
“Yesterday is too complicated to talk about yet. You can be assured that you are
classified as a loyal citizen, not a security risk, despite your employers.”
“Tell the President that I am deeply honored and will accept if my employers offer me a
leave of absence. That, I can assure you, is not a certainty.”
“Yes, it is, Mr. Mandel. We contacted Mr. Hoffa personally and have received his
blessings on your appointment. Welcome to the team.”
The Vice-President left, and I sat down to contemplate my fate. Why was I always
among the favored few? I was only a good student of journalism at Wayne State, not a
great one, yet as soon as I graduated I was offered the Dallas position in the Teamsters’
organization. And if it were not for Marilyn, I would never have been in the position to
save a President’s life. Was I blessed, lucky, or was someone greater than I watching
over me and sending me headlong towards greatness?
I turned on the television hoping there would be news about the assassins. The dauntless
reporters came up with information that made no real sense to me. The young man with
the curtain rods was one, Lee Harvey Oswald, a former defector to the Soviet Union.
One of the assassins actually worked for the CIA and was involved in the training of
Cuban refugees who were later slaughtered at the Bay of Pigs. The other two were
known Mafia hitmen with twenty-four acknowledged hits between them. Could such a
motley group actually have formed a conspiracy somehow? Either that, or by a grand
coincidence, hoods, communists, and anti-communists had all gathered at the same spot,
at the same time, to do the same thing.
I turned off the set and began thinking. Did I really want to work for Kennedy?
Certainly I had voted for him in 1960 believing him to be more pro-Labor than Nixon,
but my employers supported Nixon as less of a threat. Still, I was swept into the
Kennedy fold by the youth of the man, the glamour of his wife and the intelligence of his
advisors. He seemed right for the times, an era where monkeys traveled in space, and
some television shows were being broadcast in color.
Kennedy seemed an optimistic choice, and I am by nature an optimist. There was no
reason not to be. I had a first rate career, my country was the greatest in the world,
possibly in history, and there was no end in sight to our accomplishments. We were the
greatest cultural force on earth, and our great artists such as Lucille Ball and Frankie
Avalon were heroes to the world, and no country, big or small, could ever defeat us
militarily.
Yet I had some doubts. Could Kennedy stand up to the communists like Nixon did in the
Kitchen Debate? Would he have the nerve to tell Kruschev where to get off? I feared he
admired some things about the socialist way of life and was soft on Communism.
When he let those gallant fighters bleed to death on the beaches of Cuba my worse fears
were confirmed. He had not sent in our Marines to rescue those brave Latin democrats,
and I knew in time Castro would come to haunt him. I didn’t know how soon after the
haunting would begin.
But, in my mind, Kennedy redeemed himself during the Missile Crisis. Any man who
would offer a nuclear showdown on behalf of American security, had guts. Clearly, he
was not soft on Communism, just a true liberal. Yes, I admired him, true with some
misgivings, but I would be proud to work with him.
CHAPTER THREE
At twelve forty-five I arrived at the Carousel Club to meet Marilyn. I had made a
decision in the car that Marilyn had to quit her job at the club. Ruby’s comment the day
before had led me to the conclusion that he was of unstable character. But I couldn’t ask
her to quit unless I had something better to offer. I knew she loved her work with
Zapruder, but I felt the enriching life of Washington, the people she would meet, the
overwhelming sense of playing a role in history, could persuade her to leave. Of course,
I would have to ask her to marry me.
“She greeted me as I entered. “Norm, there’s someone here to see you.”
“Harry Olsen?”
“No, not Harry Olsen. Look at the back wall.”
After gazing through the smoke I saw Jimmy Hoffa sitting alone at a table for two. Did
he come just to see me? It didn’t make immediate sense. I walked to the table.
“May I join you, Mr. Hoffa?”
“Enough of this mister stuff. You’re on the Presidential staff. That earns you the right to
call me Jimmy. Pull up a chair, cowboy.”
Jimmy offered me a cigar. Though I don’t smoke I felt obliged to accept. When I read
the label I saw it was Cuban.
“There are still a few around,” he explained.
I felt so intimidated, so overwhelmed by his presence, that I opened with the dumbest
cliche‫י‬in the book. “To what do I owe this great honor, Jimmy?”
“No, no. The honor is mine. You are the only Teamster on the White House staff. You
outrank me in some quarters. Some very safe quarters. Look, Norman, you on the staff
is good for the Kennedys. It proves they got nothing against Teamsters, just against me
personally.”
“I can’t believe that expedience had anything to do with my appointment. I have just
been honored by a grateful President.”
“Right. Have it your way. Just remember this, you’re an employee of the Teamsters on
an approved leave of absence. Someday there may be a conflict of interest. If that day
comes.”
“I assure you, if that day comes, I’ll resign.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll use your influence to clear our good name and mine in
particular.
“How could I do that?”
“Because you’ll be in the inner circles of the White House with access to information
that…”
“I would never betray…”
“The Teamsters. That’s who you’d never betray. Your first oath is to us. Now that little
wimp, Bobby, is getting in my way. And if it wasn’t for you…”
“What’s that?”
“Oh, never mind. Just be a source of pride to all Teamsters. Do your job with dignity as
I do mine.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now get lost. Go somewhere with your broad.”
I walked away as Ruby approached the table.
“Mr. Hoffa, sir,” he said. “It would be a great honor if you signed a photo and added
how much you enjoyed your visit to my club.”
“MANDEL,” Hoffa screamed. “You’re still our PR Chairman till Monday. Arrange a
nice photo for Mr. Ruby here, and get the guy who does my signature to write a personal
note to Mr. Ruby here. You still know how to do these things, right?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll have it done before I fly to Washington.”
I sat with Marilyn in the car. She looked lovely, yet she fidgeted like at Dealey Plaza. I
decided marriage would have to wait. I yearned for her with a great lust but satisfaction
would have to be delayed. Suddenly she brightened up and said, “You won’t believe it.
This is wild. Mr. Zapruder took his film in to be developed, and I picked it up tonight.
He overexposed the whole roll. Nothing came out.”
CHAPTER FOUR
My flight to Washington was proof of the miracles of the Jet Age. I was greeted at the
White House, not by the President but by his Press Secretary, Pierre Salinger, and by the
Chairman of his Party, Larry O’Brian. They invited me to sit down and then let me in on
my purpose.
“People tried to kill our President, and we don’t know who they are or why they did it.
But it looks like a broad conspiracy. The way to unravel it is to find out who Lee Harvey
Oswald is.”
“Don’t you know who he is?”
“That’s just it,” said Salinger. “He’s really nobody or lots of people. He joins the
Marines, learns Russian and defects. We don’t believe that’s possible. Then the
Russians house him in Minsk, a highly sensitive military city. We don’t understand it.
Then they let him emigrate to America with his wife, Marina, the niece of a top KGB
commissar.”
“And it gets stranger,” added O’Brian. “He sets up a committee for Fair Play For Cuba
in the same building as a CIA anti-Castro storefront. They had to be in contact with him.
We have to know, who is he and what was he doing in Dealey Plaza? We know this
much…he wasn’t shooting anybody. We checked his Marines’ record. He couldn’t hit a
barn with a baseball.”
“So how do I fit in?” I asked.
“You are going to have to testify against him,” said O’Brian. “Marina refuses to believe
her husband was involved but you are implicating him. She has agreed to speak to you
hoping you’ll forget you saw him with the cardboard box.”
“What do I ask her?”
“You’ll be briefed. It’s only a few days’ work, then you’ll get down to speechwriting and
image boosting for five more years, I expect.”
I wasn’t certain I wasn’t being used. But this obviously was important work, and my
President personally asked me to take on the assignment. What greater honor is there?
At supper I met him. Brother Robert joined us after the meal for coffee and conversation.
It was a dream, really, sitting with the two most charismatic figures in America. Both as
brimming with youth and attractiveness even at close quarters. The President’s hair, I
noticed, was turning grey, yet his demeanor underaged his looks by twenty years.
“Bob, Mr. Mandel is quite charming. He’ll be a fine addition to our team.”
“And do you, Mr. Mandel,” said Bobby, “approve of your first assignment?”
“It sounds very important?”
“It’s vital,” answered the Attorney General. “Somebody, or some group attacked our
whole system of democracy. We have to find out who they are or they’ll try it again.”
“But why Marina?” I asked.
“Because,” continued Bobby, “Her husband isn’t saying anything. And there’s reason to
believe he doesn’t know anything. Yet what are the odds of such a character just being in
Dealey Plaza? Not likely, I’m afraid.”
“Norman,” added the President, “If you find something interesting, you’ve done a great
service. That will be two I’ll owe you. I repay my debts, Norman.”
I phoned Marilyn and told her I was coming back for a few days to lease my apartment
and prepare to move to Washington. She met me at Dallas Airport, and we drove back in
her late model Studebaker. She seemed cheerful and asked what the President was like
and how I felt meeting him. I tried to act inconspicuously, but perhaps she detected some
new reticence to communicate on my part. What if she found out I was seeing Marina
Oswald? Would she understand that it was in the line of duty or misinterpret the whole
thing? I would see her when I could, but Marina was the real reason I was in Dallas.
CHAPTER FIVE
I am certain my first meeting with Marina would have gone much smoother had she
understood English, or for that matter, had I understood Russian. But since neither was
the case, communication was somewhat restricted.
When I entered her modest bungalow I was first struck by the picture of Czar Nicholas
the Second on her living room wall. Was this a clue to her politics? If so, she was
obviously quite nostalgic.
“Kack tee posh oh vayish?” she asked. Of course I had no easy response since I didn’t
understand what she said. Sensing my confusion she tried a new question.
“Shto Novo Ho?”
“Look,” I said bluntly, “your husband was at the scene of an attempted political
assassination. What was he doing there?”
“Lee good man,” she replied. “No kill nobody.”
“Mrs. Oswald, your husband has a rather perplexing past. He defected to your country,
retuned to ours and initiated pro-Castro demonstrations. That alone, though
circumstantial, makes him a prime suspect in a murder case.”
“Lee good man. No kill nobody.”
“And you, Mrs. Oswald. You are the niece of a top KGB official. How did you get out
of the Soviet Union?”
“Lee good man. No kill nobody.”
It was obvious I would get nowhere with this line of questioning. I left in frustration,
telling her I would return that evening. She seemed to understand my intent and kissed
me on the cheek before I left.
“Mrs. Oswald,” I exclaimed. “You’re a married woman.”
“Lee good man,” she replied.
“I know,” I said. “No kill nobody.”
“You know?” she asked. “Is good.”
When I got to my hotel I phoned Pierre Salinger in Washington. “Look, Mr. Salinger,” I
said. “How am I supposed to discover anything when she only speaks six words of
English?”
“The six words wouldn’t happen to be, “Lee good man. No kill nobody.?”
“Yes, those are the words. How did you know?”
“That’s what she’s been telling the press. We assume she knows a few more. Just keep
pressing her. Use a little force if you have to.”
“What about me trying the old Mandel charm?”
There was a pause before he answered.
“If nothing else works it couldn’t hurt to try,” he replied unenthusiastically.
With Marina in the back of my mind and knowing I had permission from the top to pull
all stops with her tonight, I visited Marilyn at Abe Zapruder’s dress factory. After the
perfunctory greetings Marilyn kissed me on the cheek exactly where Marina had kissed
me just an hour before.
“You taste like borscht,” she said.
I turned beet red and made an excuse. “Uh, yes. My baba brought that custom from the
Old Country. I often wash my face in borscht.”
I could sense by her silence that she didn’t believe me. I hoped she didn’t suspect the
truth.
“Norm,” she replied, “I would prefer if you stopped that superstition. What could borscht
have that simple soap doesn’t?”
Yes, she accepted my story. “Non-alkaline enzymes,” I said confidently.
“Is that good for zits?”
“I never saw a zit on my grandmother’s face.”
“Maybe I’ll try it,” she said ending the issue.
I soon learned that Abe had taken a fancy to his new movie camera and had signed up for
a film-making course. He had asked if Marilyn would agree to pose nude for him, but
she adamantly refused.
“He wasn’t even planning to pay me,” she said in disgust. I had heard enough. I barged
into Abe’s office. He was visibly distressed.
“You see what these are, Norm?” he asked holding a pile of papers. “These are returns
on crinolines. For years I made the best crinolines in the southwest. Now no one wants
to wear them. Not even in the little girl sizes. I’m stuck with a warehouse full of
shmatas.”
“I’m sure they’ll come back into fashion,” I said trying to console him. “You know how
quickly things change in the trade. They’ll start moving again in the Spring.”
“No. Corduroy is in now. Everyone’s making things in corduroy. Can you imagine
corduroy dresses? Who’d have guessed? Not me, and now I can’t buy a yard of it from
anyone. It’s all committed to New York. And me, I’ve got three miles of Dacron and
half a barn of gabardine.”
“Look, Abe,” I said, trying to change the subject. “It’s about your movie camera.”
“The only pleasure I have in this world.”
I made my excuses and left the room.
“What’d he say?” asked Marilyn. “Is he going to pay me?”
“He said a sweet girl like you should be ashamed of herself for even thinking of agreeing
to pose for his stupid camera.”
“You mean he won’t agree to the crinoline promotion?”
“No, not even that. And he said never to bring up the subject again.”
I left with mixed emotions after agreeing to meet her at the club when it closed. Arriving
in the evening at Marina’s home, the burden of responsibility dawned on me. Someone
had tried to kill my President, and I would find out if it was this Oswald creep.
I was mildly surprised to see Marina had prepared me a romantic candlelight dinner. The
candles were placed in rather bulky holders of either zinc or nickel, and the white wine
turned out to be vodka, but I had a nice time despite the peculiarities of custom.
“Do you like potatoes and cream cheese?” she asked.
“Da,” I answered.
“And perhaps some borscht with it?”
“Nyet,” I answered. I hate borscht.”
“Then we make toast together.”
She poured the vodka into paper cups, lifted hers in the air and said, “Pravda.” I repeated
the process also toasting, “Pravda.” After swallowing the contents in one gulp she
crumpled the cup and threw it in the wastebasket.
I couldn’t swallow a cup of vodka like that without gagging, but I covered my weakness
by asking, “What is Pravda?”
“Truth,” she answered.
Propriety forbids me providing a detailed description of our after dinner activities, but I
will hint that her bra had eight hooks in it. In the afterglow of what is known as necking
and getting to first base, I asked her what her husband would say if he found out.
“Vladimir never find out. Never see me no more.”
“I was thinking more of Lee.”
“Lee not my husband. Lee bad man. Maybe shoot somebody.”
At last I had broken through. The story that followed the confession, however, I assumed
to be a lie. Before I left her place she kissed me deeply on the cheek. When I arrived at
my hotel I washed my face for several minutes and applied several coatings of Aqua
Velva to my right cheek. Then I phoned Pierre. He was happy to hear from me.
“How’d it go?”
“I think terribly. I got some strange information from her.”
“Like what?”
“Like Glad Bags.”
“Like what?”
“Glad Bags. She says it’s America’s greatest invention. She says Soviet housewives
have to take the garbage out in heavy cans. This is a major technological breakthrough,
and she asked me for the formula. Do you have any disinformation on Glad Bags?”
“Forget that. What about her husband?”
“I don’t know if it’s worth telling you.”
“Try me.”
“You sure?”
“Just spill it, will you?”
“Promise not to laugh.”
“I promise.”
“Okay, I’ll hold you to that. Lee Harvey Oswald never went to Russia. She married
someone else there, and before she arrived in America Lee traded places with him.”
“Come on. Honest?”
“That’s what she said.”
“But why?”
“She refused to say. That’s as far as I could get with her.”
“Okay, we’ll check it out.”
I later arrived at the Carousel Club expecting to pick Marilyn up. Jack Ruby seemed
genuinely exhilarated to see me.
“I let Marilyn off early tonight. She’ll expect you for drinks at her place later. Some
doll, that Marilyn.” He jabbed me playfully in the upper arm and added, “You’ve got a
real winner there, Norm.”
He jerked his head to the left twice and said, “My club has been honored once again by
the visit of your employer. Why don’t you sit down and have a drink with him?”
I saw Mr. Hoffa nursing what appeared to be a glass of bourbon. What an honor it was to
be visited by my benefactor!
“Sit down, Mandel,” he almost barked. I obeyed instinctively for reasons I barely
understood.
“You recognize these people,” he asked while handing me a photograph. Of course I
recognized them.
“They’re my parents. Where did you shoot it?”
“This time we shot it with a camera yesterday. Someday we could shoot it with
something more lethal.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let me explain to you what I mean. You see, this here Bobby Kennedy is out to crucify
me. You understand that the Union invests its dues in projects that will pay dividends
come retirement. And we’re good investors. We’ve arranged some enviable pensions for
our members. You know that.”
“What’s that got to do with Mom and Dad?”
“Please, allow me to go on. You see this Bobby creep has the whole apparatus of the
Justice Department and the FBI at his disposal. And he’s attacking me like I was
poison.”
“Then I’ll speak to him about it. If you’ve been subjected to illegal harassment I will
bring it to the highest…”
“Mandel, will you shut up? Some of my investments are going to get me ten years in the
can, and nothing can stop that unless Bobby is snuffed permanently. And you’re going to
do it or your parents will be in the next world a bit early.”
“You don’t mean that?”
“I do. You’re going to poison our illustrious Attorney General at the first convenient
moment before I’m convicted. After that things are taken care of.”
“I can’t. I haven’t got it in me.”
Hoffa called Ruby over and said, “Sure you do. We all do. Tell him about it, Jack.”
“Well, you see,” said Ruby humbly, “I began my career as a messenger for Al Capone in
Chicago. I was a good messenger and word got out. In time, my enthusiasm and
ambition carried me to the vice-presidency of the local Wastehandlers Union. One year
our president began some reforms that were detrimental to the interests of our members.
So I had to kill him. It was easy and actually quite a lot of fun. Needless-to-say, the
Union took very good care of me, and no one was the wiser for it. In time I was given an
important, though unpublicized position in Dallas, and as they say, ‘the rest is history.”
“Jack, you have the right personality for the job. I’m squeamish. I don’t have the
stomach for murder. Get someone else to do it, and don’t tell me about it. I don’t want
to know.”
“Norm, Norm, Norm,” Ruby repeated. “We’re from the same tribe, remember? I know
what your parents went through. And I know you want the best for them. Believe me, I
understand suffering. I cry every time one of my dogs gets sick. You couldn’t make
your parents suffer any more. Not after what they’ve been through.”
Hoffa pulled a package the size of a matchbox from his suit pocket. “A little powder in
his coffee. You pick the place. If there’s any trouble we’ll have the FBI personally
escort you to the airport with a new passport and a ticket to a place where a million bucks
is in your bank account. You’ll love Honduras. The broads, (kissing the tips of his
thumb and forefinger), mwah! All of ‘em honeys.”
In a fog I walked into Marilyn’s apartment building. I knocked on her door. She opened
the door, and I saw her face was all red. Her hands tried to cover the odd completion.
“How could you, Norman? I washed my face in borscht like you said, and the stuff
doesn’t come out.”
CHAPTER SIX
The next morning Pierre called me at the hotel. “Norm, you’re a genius. I think I
severely underestimated you. The stuff on Oswald is being confirmed. It checks out.
We think you uncovered an incredibly intricate conspiracy. Maybe even a planned
takeover.”
“No!”
“No more of the naive act, Norm. You proved it. You’re good, and you’re on the team.
Fly into Washington today. We’ve got a tough job for you. We’re going to legislate civil
rights and we’ll need you to move public opinion and Congress.”
I phoned Marina and wished her good-bye. I knew we’d meet again. She said she hoped
it wasn’t in a court of law. Even there, I told her, my feelings for her wouldn’t change.
Marilyn drove from work to take me to the airport. She was wearing a black veil over her
face. She complained all the way to the airport.
“It’ll never come out. I tried using Ajax this morning and it just got redder.”
“Funny,” I answered. “That never happened to my grandmother.”
“And this veil, everyone asks me why I’m wearing it. I’ve told fifty people I’m in
mourning for Mrs. Connally.”
“She was a fine woman.”
“I’ve never met her. You try telling people why you’re in mourning for someone you
never met. Everyone now thinks I’m the Lone Star patriot.”
“Is that why you put the Confederate flag on your bumper?”
“Yeah. And what’s worse is police cars escort me all the time. They think I’m a
Connally.”
At the airport I shook Marilyn’s hand when we parted. She refused to kiss my cheek as
lovers are apt to do before a separation of undetermined length. How I wished it was
Marina’s hand in mine.
But thoughts of love evaporated as I sat in on my first high level government meeting.
Here I was with the controllers of America’s destiny about to ply their trade. The
President was humorless, even dour as he said, “This Administration is going to present
to Congress a National Civil Rights Act. Most of you have read the proposed bill… may
I have your reactions?”
“Jack,” said his brother Bobby. “the section on education. You can’t bus Negroes to
white schools. You’re from Boston, you know better than that. You’ll lose the next
election on that one issue alone.”
“This is beyond electoral politics,” the President answered. “Negro children will benefit
from the higher standards of suburban schools, and in the end the country will benefit.”
“Even if you’re right,” added Dean Rusk, “It’ll take years to see the results. Leave that as
a local school board issue.”
The President was resolute.
“No school board will tip the applecart. Most Americans want to give the Negro an even
break, and we’ll give the school boards an excuse to bus. They’ll be breaking the law if
they refuse.”
“All I can say,” added Bobby, “is that every parent whose kid comes home from school
with a bloody nose is going to blame us next November.”
“Then we’ll start bussing only elementary school children. They are too young to have
picked up prejudice.”
“Jack,” interrupted Bobby, “Think back a bit. What did Dad say about Jews during the
War? Would we have gone to school with Jews back then?”
I cringed at the conversation. The President noticed and said, “I’m, sorry, Norm. But our
father had his shortcomings. But don’t worry. We overcame them.”
I thought this was terribly considerate of the President and relaxed thereafter. This was
the moment I came to understand the greatness of the man.
Pierre Salinger also opposed the bill based on his fear that it was too drastic, providing
too much, too quickly. He was convinced neither white nor Negro America could handle
the significance of a revolution in race relations.
“Mr. President, I have a report financed by the Army. It is sociological in nature and
stresses a new concept called Rising Expectations. If you raise people’s expectations too
quickly and they are not quickly satisfied, violence born of frustration results.”
“Who wrote that?” demanded the President.
“A Nobel Prize-winning scientist named Shockley. He helped invent the transistor.”
“And do you feel he understands the Negro?”
“He certainly has a deep admiration for their athletic and musical gifts.”
“Anything else?”
“I’m certain much remained unwritten in other areas.”
“Just as I thought. Another academic study of no worth foisted on the taxpayers. The
Negro, when he sees how much his fellow citizens care, will be pacified and grateful, not
violent.”
When riots broke out from Harlem to Watts, from Newark to Detroit, and most places in
between throughout his second term, the President occasionally expressed a confused
disappointment, but his faith in the goodness of Americans never flagged.
“Norm,” he said as I froze momentarily thinking to myself, ‘what did I do?’. “Bobby is
right. There will be resistance. I’m told you understand the importance of appearances.
How do we break down this resistance?”
Thinking on my feet I said, “The most important thing is to find a black spokesman
acceptable to almost all Americans. He has to appeal for his rights and even the most
hardened skeptics have to be moved. We have to place him in a high cabinet post and
overnight make him the official leader of the Civil Rights Movement. It is very
important that he is a team player. There can be no signs of disagreement on this issue
from within the Administration.”
“Norman, you are absolutely right. And you are assigned to interview charismatic Negro
leaders and find our man.”
I had achieved my first professional breakthrough with the President. I was his man on a
highly historical mission.
“Norm,” he continued. “The man you will choose must have those qualities we so
appreciate in a Negro leader. He must be obedient, yet humble. He must be of an
acceptable appearance to all and must know his place. I know you will find the man to
lead the American Negro out of the wilderness.”
“Jungle,” Rush muttered.
The first man I interviewed was a priest named Martin Luther King. He had gained some
national notoriety two years previously when Americans saw him leading a protest for
equal opportunity in Montgomery, Alabama. During the first days of the protest the
feisty and principled Police Chief of Montgomery, Bull Conner, had hosed down the
protesters with high-pressure water blasts and then sicked Doberman pinchers on them.
Americans were amazed at King’s aplomb. When asked his reaction to the hosing he
said calmly that he needed a shower anyway. When asked if he also needed some dog
bites he was more reluctant to answer.
I found him a man radicalized by the bitterness of his struggle. His approach to civil
rights was a program, more of an attitude really, called Negro Power, Right On.
“Negro is beautiful,” he told me. “Negroes is better lovers than Whiteys, Negroes is
better fighters than Whiteys, and Negroes is smarter than Whiteys. You got that straight,
you racist Honky? We is the beautiful people of this country.”
Next I interviewed a less grating individual with the unusual name of Malcom X. He felt
that education would save the Negro and had a wonderful slogan prepared to express his
belief. It went, Learn, Baby, Learn.
After that I interviewed a rather pompous man, prone to exaggeration and quoting false
figures to prove his rather extreme view of history. His name was Stokely Carmichael.
Of the remaining interviews I was most impressed with the straight-laced humanity and
over-riding sense of obedience of Roy Wilkins. For his organizational and fund-raising
abilities he was twice named Negro of the Year by the new “Ebony” magazine. He was
later appointed head of the NAACP and founded their magazine, serious competition of
“Ebony”, called “Uncle Tom.” The editorial stance of the magazine was progressive yet
realistic. Wilkins in his Pulitzer Prize winning first editorial wrote the now classic lines:
“Our cynical detractors, those nabobs of negativism led by a man of no destiny, Martin
Luther King, called those Negroes who see success within the American system, Uncle
Toms. So we will wear our yellow star with pride. We glory in our success, we revel in
our progress, we are proud Uncle Toms.”
This marvelous tract contrasted in my mind with King’s recent overbearing “I Have a
Dream” speech, which I found too demanding. Especially the part that went:
“I have a dream. I see two cars in the home of every Negro in America. I have a dream.
I see the day when all young Negroes will do their homework in air conditioned rooms,
when no Negro child will go to bed overheated. Lordy, Lordy, it’s over. Real freedom at
last.”
In comparison with Wilkins’ theme stated in his magazine’s poignant slogan, We Have
Overcome, King was too eccentric for a Kennedy Administration appointment. And I let
the President know when discussing my results at the selection meeting with him and his
brother. I was upset that Bobby was there knowing the more I came to like him, the more
tasteless my future task on behalf of the Teamsters would become.
“So, Mr. President, I see the choice narrowed to Malcom X and Roy Wilkins.”
“What does the X stand for, Norm?” he asked.
“Well, Mr. President, that’s our problem. Malcom insists that’s his full name. So we
have an image problem. Americans judge by a person’s name. For instance, your
decision to reject McGeorge Bundy’s appointment was the right one. His name should
be George McBundy. But as it stands, people will suspect he has his head on backwards,
and that’s not a good reflection on this Administration.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Bobby. “I’m lucky, I guess. Robert is a harmless image.”
“True,” I acknowledged, “But Robert Francis is troublesome. Francis sounds, well,
girlish.”
“It was a present,” he replied defensively. “I was too young to oppose it. I would have,
you can be sure of that.”
“Then it’s Roy Wilkins,” said the President.
“It seems so, with your approval,” I conferred.
“Then we will introduce him with a splash. I’ve decided to invite him to spend a night at
the White House. And not in the servants’ quarters either. He will be the first Negro to
sleep in the Presidential residence of the White House. And America will know about
it.”
“No, Jack, no. Don’t be crazy.”
“It’s a risk, Bobby, my mind’s made up. Norm, I’d like you to find out what foods he is
used to, when he goes to sleep, what activities he enjoys…the works...to make his stay
pleasant.”
There was fanfare the evening Wilkins came to stay. But the tension dissipated at dinner.
I had chosen a meal of black-eyed peas, fried chicken and chitlins. The President asked
Wilkins to join him at the table.
“Yassuh, Misser President, I’s comin’.”
When the first course arrived his eyes practically bulged out of their sockets.
“Oh boy, my favorite. Chitlins.”
“Uh, Norm,” asked the President, “What is this delightful looking concoction?”
“Deep fried goose or hogback. You’ll love it.”
“Isn’t it a bit burnt?”
“Yassuh, Misser President. But please don beat the cook. She didn’t mean no harm by
it.”
It was clear that Wilkins had much natural charm, and the President took to him
immediately. The next day he was convinced Roy Wilkins would enter the nation’s
cabinet despite Jackie’s claim that silverware was missing from the kitchen. But how
could he be appointed without appearing to be pandering to Negroes? And what position
could he hold? The President had suffered two appointments’ scandals when Bobby was
named Attorney General, and his brother-in-law, a hack actor named Peter Lawford, was
appointed head of the idealistic and ultimately disastrous attempt at appeasement of the
Third World called the Peace Corps. Could Wilkins turn into another controversy? We
would have to find him a position of genuine importance, and he would have to be right
for the job.
The President overcame these obstacles brilliantly in February when we gathered for the
Vietnam strategy meeting. Kennedy inherited a headache from the French in Southeast
Asia. Divided in two at a Geneva Conference, the Communist North was infiltrating the
democratic and capitalistic South, and the Communists clearly were aiming for a
takeover. This we could not tolerate. Communism had to be contained at any price. All
America agreed on that.
Two years previously Kennedy had sent his Vice-President, the sophisticated Texan,
Lyndon Johnson, and his trusted aide, Walter Jenkins, to Vietnam to review the situation
there and discuss options.
At the debriefing Jenkins said he had a wonderful time. The Vietnamese were lovely
young men, virile yet cute. Johnson publicly claimed that President Diem was the
Winston Churchill of Southeast Asia, a statement Churchill protested, and Kennedy was
mollified until Buddhist monks self-immolated themselves before television cameras,
expressing the true repressive nature of the Diem regime. The President approved a plan
for his removal and his replacement by a seemingly more benevolent reformer named Ky.
But the situation deteriorated under Ky, and the insurgents from the North exploited the
insecurity and had gained effective control of the countryside outside the big cities.
“This has to stop,” said the President. “We will assume that Ky must go too. And maybe
Ky’s successor will be another turkey. But someday we’ll find a good leader for them.
Till that day, that sham in the South must be preserved. We can’t have the Communists
taking over every place on earth suffering internal crisis. There’ll be nobody left to trade
with that way.”
“I agree,” said Bob MacNamara. “But I don’t want to commit ground troops to defend
the likes of Ky. I suggest we nuke Hanoi and keep nuking till the insurgents return
home.”
“Too drastic,” said the President. “Though I do agree with the spirit of your idea, the
Soviets are Ho Chi Minh’s chief suppliers, and they might decide a nuke on Saigon is the
correct response to your proposal. I know I’d respond that way if I was in their shoes.
No, we have to teach this ragtag South Vietnamese army to fight and, and they have to
purge the countryside of insurgents conventionally. I intend to send troops as advisors.
They will fight, teaching by example. I estimate 16,000 should be enough to contain the
North till the Southern army is prepared.”
“But,” interrupted Bobby, “Of those 16,000 more than a third will be black, and a lot of
the rest uneducated country boys. The rich kids all have college deferments or have paid
shrinks to make them 4F. I’m not certain the blacks in their present mood will be
motivated to kill brown people, and I’m not at all sure the country boys will be motivated
to fight with black people.”
“I’ve considered all that, and I think I’ve got the solution. I am appointing a Secretary of
State for Vietnam and a Secretary of Defense for Vietnam. Bob here will stay Secretary
of State for all other nations, and Dean will take care of all army issues unrelated to
Vietnam, but Bull Conner will be our Vietnamese Secretary of Defense, and Roy Wilkins
our Vietnamese Secretary of State.”
I immediately saw the brilliance of the scheme. The people Reagan would later call the
Silent Majority loved Conner and admired the courageous stand he took against Luther
King’s band of radicals and Roy Wilkins could now enter the Cabinet, easing the passage
of the Civil Rights Bill. I was overcome by the brilliance of the concept and interrupted
the meeting. “Mr. President, I’m young and believe in your vision. When the upcoming
election campaign is done I will enlist in the army and fight in Vietnam.”
“Norm,” he said, “I’ll worry about you like you were my own brother. Bless you and
come back whole. We’ll need you here when your duty is up.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The 1964 campaign began for me with a lecture on the press given to me by Pierre
Salinger.
“Norm” he said, “We need the press, everyone needs the press, but you have little
experience with them.”
“Well, I’m told I handled them well when Hoffa started making the news.”
“Not well enough. I predict Bobby gets Hoffa to trial sometime after the election. You
have to understand reporters. I work with them daily, and believe me, they’re the most
pathetic lot I’ve ever seen. They drink too much, travel too much, and see too much.
Their marriages are wrecks, they are incredibly jealous of anyone who gets ahead, dream
of Pulitzer Prizes they’ll never get but keep trying for the Prize by uncovering dirt. The
dirtier the dirt, the faster they think they’ll get ahead. They think they’re performing a
public service by exposing a politician’s private quirks, but no one has ever found a
correlation between private morality and public duty. Look what they’ve done to
Rockefeller. The guy remarries a pretty young gal and they crucify him for it. Hell, who
wouldn’t do the same thing if they could.”
“A man who can’t handle his own marriage wouldn’t be very good managing the
country,” I suggested.
“Do you really believe that? Asked Salinger. “That’s the press’s line to justify their
voyeurism, but there’s not an ounce of truth in it. He had an empty first marriage, and
this new woman, what’s her name, Bouncy, Sleepy, Dopey?”
“Happy,” I said.
“Right, she makes him feel alive again. The man’s in tune with the country and could
beat us. He’s rich, but that’s no issue. Joseph Kennedy was no slouch either. But the
press knocked him out of the race, and the Republicans are going to be stuck with
Goldwater. You watch.”
“So how do we handle them?”
“You gotta keep ahead of them. Keep finding interesting non-controversial stories for
them to write about the administration. We’ll worry about keeping the bad ones out of
their hands.”
So I looked for gimmicks essentially. I hired William Manchester to write a glowing
biography of Mrs. Connally which was less flattering than we intended. To justify our
entry into Vietnam I ghost-wrote a book for the President called “Profiles in
Cowardice—A History of American Expediency.” The President found six examples of
moments America should have entered a war and lost, by lack of resolve, either trading
partners or nations on the road to democracy. The chapter that won him the most praise,
“Yalta, the Sacrifice of Eastern Europe”, was my idea, but Kennedy proposed that a small
nuclear device on Moscow in 1945 would have brought down the Iron Curtain. I liked
the idea and enjoyed expanding on it. The chapter I excluded was, in fact, never written:
The loss of Cuba in 1959 and the refusal to back the Bay of Pigs invaders with the
military support they so deserved.
Bobby ran his brother’s campaign skillfully, and I didn’t have much to do at times.
Bobby’s campaign assistant, Dick Tuck, appeared at Goldwater rallies, and trouble
seemed to plague Goldwater wherever he went. But I am responsible for one coup…I
hired Allan Sherman, that magnificent song parodist who made the summer of “63
memorable with his hilarious “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh”, to write a pro-Kennedy
campaign song called “Let’s All Call Up AT&T and Protest To The President’s March”.
It was a send-up of Kennedy’s physical fitness programs as sung by fat, lazy people. It
was a wonderful vehicle for the campaign.
Six months previously Sherman recorded “Beautiful Teamsters” and was paid well for
the effort. The song, sung to the tune of “Beautiful Dreamer” had such lines as:
Beautiful Teamsters, please let me join
Can’t drive a truck, but I’m willing to loin…
Driving by night with no opposition
Tanks to the Interstate Commerce Commission
There was one minor image crisis which I helped manage. Pope John XXIII had died,
and we had to decide if it was politically wise for the President to appear at his funeral.
But the truth is Kennedy wasn’t fond of the Pope. He once threatened to excommunicate
him if he didn’t change the name of the Statue of Liberty to Our Lady of the Harbor. The
President never forgave him that threat and decided to send Johnson instead. But
Johnson was from a Baptist background and didn’t know any Catholic Church protocol,
so Teddy Kennedy represented his brother in Rome. Sadly, the week-long wake in his
hotel room raised a few eyebrows in the Holy City and we had to control the damage in
the press. But Pierre had experience covering up such stories. When Bobby threw
parties, guests were known to fall into his pool fully clothed, but these events never
gathered much press space even when Senator Mills died. Bobby, however, was
bereaved and spent months consoling Mills’ close friend and constant companion, Fannie
Foxe, a brilliant Argentinean social wit and performer of exotic dance.
I guess I should mention the rather touchy subject of Jackie, an issue I helped defuse.
According to a close confidante of mine who I will, in the name of propriety, call Fred
Sorenson, the President and his wife were for all purposes separated. He had liaisons and
used to send Jackie off to the far corners of America to accommodate them. One night
she would attend a Rotary Club Dinner in Casper, Wyoming, the next day dedicate an
Old Age Home in Seattle. Her familiar leopard skin pill box hat became the subject of an
amusing song by Bob Dylan who would later sing it at our campaign rallies. He was a
nice boy, and we belonged the same Zionist Youth Organization.
Everyone in the press was aware of the President’s activities, but no one would besmirch
his name or sink so low as to reveal them. The result was a misdirected attack on
Jackie’s extravagant spending habits. I defused the potentially explosive issue by hiring
Chubby Checker to create a dance sensation called “The Jackie”. That made her a hero
to youth and untouchable to the wary press.
Now according to Fred, and I could never confirm this from anyone else, a major crisis
involving the President’s friendship to actress Marilyn Monroe almost leaked to the
press. Apparently Mr. Hoffa sent former baseball star, Joe DiMaggio, to the White
House to request an end to the Justice Department’s investigation of the Teamsters.
Apparently, Marilyn was beginning to speak of her friendship with the President and did
so with DiMaggio a few hours before she tragically passed away. Although I used
DiMaggio’s visit as a fine photo opportunity aimed at the Italian and jock votes,
DiMaggio used the opportunity as a concerned ex-husband of the deceased to speak on
behalf of Mr. Hoffa. I know none of the details except what we all know: that is, that
after Mr. DiMaggio’s terrible accident, he was named the American Ambassador to the
Fiji Islands.
This incident did get back to Jackie, and she threatened a divorce right in the middle of
the campaign. Remembering what the press did to Rockefeller, this had to be prevented
at all costs. And it did cost, when they finally divorced. But during the campaign Jackie
was the model of propriety. When Teddy’s ex-wife, Joan, married Greek shipping
magnate, Aristotle Onassis, she expressed memorable disapproval. And I’ve been told
the night she danced “The Jackie” with Chubby Checker on the “Ed Sullivan Show” she
won our side another 5 million votes. Chalk that idea up to me.
But I guess our biggest containment problem concerned the Office of Economic
Opportunity. It was a tremendous victory when, despite a filibuster of old Southern
Senators, the Civil Rights Act followed. The Act authorized an agency to find
employment for the underprivileged and offer food stamps so all those who had fewer
opportunities could at least have the inalienable right to minimum nutrition.
The first problem was the appointment of brother-in-law, Sergeant Shriver, to head the
office. Once again nepotism charges arose. I used the image of Arthur’s Knights of the
Round Table at Camelot to describe Kennedy’s inner circle, but the media used images
like a clan or The Klan. I ever found the right image to justify this blatant nepotism.
Camelot just never caught on, though we gave it a good shot, even leaking to the press
that “Camelot” was the President’s favorite play. The tack failed totally with the public.
The second problem was that some people were abusing the food stamps program
unmercifully, even going to the extreme of reading the obituaries and registering for
stamps under the names of the deceased. Often the food was sold in a kind of inner city
black market and often the spare stamps were used to buy such luxury items as expensive
liquor. The press put us on the defensive, and I tried to retaliate.
I spoke of the few exploiters and many benefactors. An old ploy, but based on truth
nonetheless, even if not an absolute truth. I quoted studies proving protein deficiency in
youth lowers the I.Q., and thus the intellectual potential of poor Americans. I claimed we
were fighting juvenile delinquency and the drop-out rate. But juvenile delinquency rose,
and the drop-out rate rose, and since Americans spoke of a crisis in education ever since
the Sputnik was launched, so many statistics disproving my claims were found that I felt
it wise just to ignore the food stamps crisis and hope it would go away.
But the issue wouldn’t go away, and the President’s liberal economic policies, which are
based on the modern welfare state, were called into serious question by Goldwater. He
was picking up in the polls on this one little issue. The President called me into his office
to discuss the dilemma.
“Norm,” he said, “Goldwater’s new slogan worries me. The one that goes ‘In Your Heart
You Know He’s Right.’”
“Why does it worry you?”
“Because in my heart I know he’s right.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Look, there are two kinds of economics: Goldwater’s kind and mine, which are liberal
for the time being. Liberal economics means taxing people to death to finance pie in the
sky social projects that never work. Goldwater’s economics recognize that despite the
disgust most people feel towards big business, if big business is healthy, the nation is
healthy. In everyone’s hearts they think Goldwater is right and this food stamp business
is bringing it all to a head. We have to counter it fast.”
“How can you espouse economics you don’t believe in?”
“Because America is now rich enough to cure its race problems. This is an opportunity
that has to be taken advantage of now. Look, my dad was in big business and big
business got me where I am. But big business can afford a slack period, the Negroes
can’t. I think most Americans feel that , and will vote with their hearts and not their
pocketbooks, but I can’t be sure. Please counter the Goldwater strategy.”
It was a big assignment, and it was mine. The President even gave me a staff of idea
men, one of whom suggested we play on Goldwater’s Jewish connection and stir up a
little anti-Semitism. Needless-to-say he didn’t last long.
Finally Goldwater gave us the issue we needed. Speaking to an audience of American
Legionnaires in Philadelphia, he asked why Americans should die for a bunch of
ungrateful and even hostile foreigners when one nuclear bomb could send the insurgents
packing. Even though Kennedy personally favored such a strategy, he had the wisdom
not to articulate it in public. After that the race was on.
First I had a commercial prepared for the World Series spots. A little girl picking petals
off a daisy and counting downward with each petal is montaged with a nuclear
countdown. Republican protests were so loud the commercial was scrapped from the rest
of the series. I asked Sandy Koufax, a distant cousin, if he’d mind objecting to the
commercial being taken out. He agreed, and Goldwater’s nuclear policies became small
talk for Dizzy Dean and Peewee Reese between pitches.
But the topper was my counter-slogan, “In Your Guts You Know He’s Nuts.” Dick Tuck
had the sign prominently appearing at Goldwater rallies throughout the country.
Goldwater was so rattled that he made a statement that was his doom. Visiting a typical
family in New England, with the cameras rolling, he thanked them for their hospitality
and left saying, “This was a fine opportunity for you both to speak your mind and see if I
have one.” That was it. He was pegged a nut. Even his Vice-Presidential candidate, the
charismatic William Miller, stopped campaigning and with two months left before the
election took a ten-day trip to Tokyo to see the Olympics. In November Goldwater won
the Southwest and overwhelmingly took the Japanese vote. But that was it. My man,
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was to be President for four more years.
CHAPTER EIGHT
With the campaign over, I was to enlist for Vietnam. I was excited. We were making
progress. Every night on the news we saw Vietnamese soldiers fighting side by side with
their American superiors looking proudly on. It reminded me of the proud father
standing beside his growing son and beaming with pride as his son recites a perfect
Haftorah in the Bar Mitzvah ceremony. I was anxious to be a part of the team.
Television took advantage of the nation’s newfound love of their Vietnamese allies.
Several shows featuring Vietnamese stars were broadcast, the most famous concerning
the Vietnamese army officer who sets up a detective agency in Los Angeles employing
three beautiful Vietnamese girls as his detectives. Of course I’m referring to “Charlie’s
Charlies”.
Before I was to enlist I was to appear in the Oswald trial being heard in Dallas. I was to
be the last witness for the defense. Before I flew to Dallas, this strange case was already
world news.
It seemed incredible at the time though time has dulled the sense of incredulity, that a
strange conspiracy between the Mafia and the CIA was the guilty party in a Presidential
assassination attempt. But that is what the defense, skillfully headed by William
Kunstler, was claiming. And more and more this preposterous line of defense was
winning out.
Back in the Batista days of Cuba, organized crime used the island for gambling revenues,
laundering money, prostitution rings and the like. It was a very profitable place for
organized crime, and they wanted the man who threw them out, Fidel Castro, removed.
The CIA, for reasons of national security, also wanted Castro removed, and a group
which included skilled agents such as Howard Hunt, Eugene Martinez and Bernard
Barker, organized a group of disgruntled refugees into a small militia to retake the island
by force.
They turned to organized crime originally for their contacts within Cuba, and their
knowledge of the island, which became valuable intelligence material. Later the Mafia,
as organized crime is commonly known, took a greater interest in the project and even
financed certain aspects of it.
By an odd coincidence the new Attorney General, Bobby Kennedy, began a campaign
aimed at eliminating organized crime. Top Mafia chieftains were jailed on any pretext
and others harassed day and night. After the Kennedy Administration refused to
militarily support the Bay of Pigs operation, the CIA group decided only a different
administration would have the guts to challenge the Marxist cancer in the Caribbean.
The Mafia, meanwhile, decided that the Kennedy Administration had to be eliminated.
So an alliance of these Bay of Pigs planners was formed.
Organized crime knew how to kill someone coolly, professionally and without getting
caught. The CIA knew how to set up a sucker and make him look like a lone, demented
assassin. Lee Harvey Oswald had been waiting for an assignment for years. He had a
strange cover arranged for him ready to use when the moment required. He was now
ordered into action. He would head the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and he would
publicize pro-Castro beliefs in the press and on radio. Why, he did not know, but he
obeyed his superiors and was rewarded with his own office in New Orleans and a pay
hike to boot.
I testified after a trio of hoods names Roselli, Giancanna and Trafficante. Kunstler
tripped them all up, and each took the Fifth to avoid self-incrimination. As a member of
the President’s personal staff, I was to appear last to make the best impression on the
jury.
I waited in the anteroom until I was called to testify. I entered the courtroom and saw
Marilyn on my right in the third row from the back. She seemed more mature, wearing
much rouge and face powder. I smiled at her and then saw Marina seated in the row
behind her. I made a compromise—I stared in between them, not committing myself to
either and waved. Three people all waved back at me at the same time, Marina, Marilyn
and the bag lady I was staring at who usually preferred dirty divorce cases over political
conspiracies.
I testified to seeing Oswald at the scene of the crime, with what appeared to be a
suspicious package which, when asked, he claimed were curtain rods. Kunstler then
asked me to identify a package which, I agreed, looked like the one I had seen Lee
carrying. He pulled out a receipt from a hardware store. The rods were purchased on
November 22 of 1963.
Then I testified that moments before the attempted assassination I saw Lee in the second
floor cafeteria drinking a Coke, not in the seventh floor shooting gallery. This really
saved the case. Lee was seen away from anywhere a President could be shot from. A
Presidential aide had said so and that was alibi enough. The jury freed him after only a
thirty-minute debate.
After hearing his verdict the ebullient Lee insisted I join him and his “wife” for
celebration drinks when things quieted down, maybe the next day. I took his number,
which I knew by heart anyway, as Marilyn came up to me and kissed my cheek for the
first time in months. He looked at her and said, “And please bring your pretty friend with
you.”
“Great,” I said, “I’ll call tomorrow.”
Marina hugged her jubilant “husband” while staring over his shoulder at me. I hoped she
would be discrete tomorrow.
Lee was something of a national hero by the time we all met for drinks the next night at
the Carousel Club. Jack insisted on serving our table personally.
“Congratulations, Mr. Oswald,” said Ruby. “I hear they’re going to make a movie of
your story.”
“The news is out already?”
“Sure. They even named the actor who’s gong to play you.”
“Who?”
“Cliff Robertson.”
Jack presented a photo of Lee he clipped out of a magazine. “Mr. Oswald, I’d be
honored if you’d sign this photo. I’d like to display it on my wall beside the picture of
Jimmy Hoffa, another frequent patron.”
“Sure, Jack. What should I write?”
Jack gave him a pen and said, “Please write, ‘To Jack Ruby from his good friend Lee
Harvey Oswald.’”
“Sure, Jack, my pleasure.”
Marina and I shared a secret together. Neither of us was altogether successful in feigning
unfamiliarity. Our self-conscious attempts at coldness revealed our true feelings for each
other. Marina kept the conversation light. “You have a lovely red glow in your
complexion,” she told Marilyn.
“Thank you.”
“It’s so rare for a hot climate. Do you use borscht?”
Oh no, I thought. Marilyn would put two and two together.
“I did once but I found it too harsh,” she answered.
Fortunately Lee changed the subject. “Norman, Jack Anderson told me you’re going to
enlist in the army.”
Marilyn looked shocked.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “No one’s supposed to know yet. Someone must have leaked it
to him.”
“Why, Norman, why?” she asked somewhat desperately.
“Because the man I serve called our country to support him in a just war, and I’m
answering his call.”
She sat silently. Lee became agitated. “Norm” he said, “When Anderson told me that I
got to thinking. I wasn’t a very good Marine, and I let people use me. Now it’s time I
showed I’m a real American, not a friend of Castro’s. They could use a good radio
instructor in Nam, what do you figure?”
“I’m sure they could,” I answered.
“Well, I think I’ll re-enlist and maybe join you there.”
Marina and Marilyn stared at each other with great emotion. Lee and I both felt it. Was
it because they shared the common grief of sending their men to war, or was it deeper
than that? I tried not looking at Marina although Lee kept staring at Marilyn. And not
only into her eyes. Lower even. But Marilyn just kept staring at Marina.
Jack disturbed the unpleasant, pregnant silence with a note which he said a friend of mine
had asked him to deliver. I read it:
“Congratulations. You won the election. Bet your folks are very happy. Remember,
first safe opportunity.”
- Jimmy
“What is it, honey?” asked Marilyn. She never called me honey before. Was this the
sign of better things for tonight, the last time I would see her before going to war?
As it turned out, no. Marilyn shared the same archaic view as I, that no man respected a
woman whose virtue was in doubt. I ripped up the note and said, “Let’s get out of here.
It’s getting crowded.”
“But the strippers are starting soon,” said Marilyn.
“Yeah, Norm,” agreed Lee. “What about the strippers you promised us?”
“Lee, I want you to look me up in Nam when you get there. But tonight Marilyn and I
have important things to discuss.”
“We do?” asked Marilyn.
“You do?” said Marina.
“Yes, we do,” I told them both and stormed out of the club.
Of course we didn’t, but too much was on my mind. The pressure was getting to me.
The next day on the way to the airport I said to Marilyn, “When I get back, maybe we
should, you know?”
“Get married?”
“No, I mean, you know?”
“What do you mean, you know?”
“Yeah, I meant maybe get married for, oh, you know?”
“Children and a family.”
“Yeah, you know.”
CHAPTER NINE
I must say my enlistment was not a quiet affair. I appeared on the Vaughan Meader
Show. A surprise guest, President Kennedy, showed up and presented me with a
mezuzah, saying after he hoped it would bring me home safely and protect me all my
days.
Ironically Vaughan Meader began his career imitating John Kennedy. The success of his
First Family album led him to a career as a talk show host after Jack Paar left the
“Tonight Show”. Three people were up for the lucrative job: him, Woody Woodbury and
Johnny Carson. Woodbury was deemed a bit too racy and Carson refused to leave his
highly acclaimed afternoon show, “Who Do You Trust?”
So Meader got the post after stealing Ed McMahon from Carson to host the new “Tonight
Show”. Unfortunately, that chemistry wasn’t right, and McMahon left the show to head
the publicity department of Schlitz beer, and Meader broke new ground by having a
hostless talk show.
Meader’s success spurned offshoots. The notoriously depraved comic, Lenny Bruce,
found great success with this sketch:
John Kennedy is supposed to host Ray Charles for lunch at the White House. But just
before Ray arrives, a major crisis with the Russians calls him away. He doesn’t want to
disappoint Ray, who came all the way from Atlanta to visit him, so he calls Vaughan
Meader and asks him to sit in for him and pretend he’s the President. Ray wouldn’t know
the difference anyway. Vaughan, who is pretty eccentric, agrees.
“What an honor to meet you, Mr. President,” Ray tells Vaughan.
“The honor is all mine,” says Vaughan in an exaggerated imitation of Kennedy. “You
have a wonderful sense of rhythm and are a credit to your race.”
“Thank you. And how is Jackie?”
“Jackie who?”
“Your wife, Jackie.”
“Oh, she’s fine. She’s pregnant again.”
“But she just gave birth last week.”
“Oh yes. Well, we don’t believe in wasting time around here.”
“And how’s your daughter, Caroline?”
“Oh, she’s getting ready for college.”
“But she’s only three.”
“I see. Yes. Well, it takes her a long time to get ready.”
The President loved Meader’s First Family and despised Bruce’s misguided monologues.
But in a free country anyone can express themselves as they choose, and ironically
Bruce’s career is still going strong while Meader eventually faded into relative obscurity,
finally taking work as a sign assembler in Portland, Maine.
Also on the show was a rock and roll group called the Beatles. I met them backstage and
took a liking to their witty spokesman, Ringo Starr. He thought they should have been
more popular than they were and assumed that America wasn’t ready for their unique
contribution. “The times are against us,” he said. And I guess he was right. How could
these mopheads compete with the genius of a Bobby Rydell or Connie Francis?
Kennedy’s appearance on the show was a triumph. He was both dignified and playful.
He replaced Ringo on the drums for a rousing though off-beat version of a song called
“Twist and Shout”. And when the time came to present my mezuzah, he was austere, and
prepared, even offering a prayer in badly enunciated Hebrew. For this he received some
mild applause that was prolonged by the Jews in the studio audience led by Brian
Epstein, the manager of Ringo and his band.
The next day I enlisted, possibly the first enlistment to be recorded on television since
Elvis Presley’s. I hoped I would not share the same fate as Presley who is still recovering
from his shrapnel wounds.
Shortly after my enlistment, the President declared war on Vietnam officially and
whether through my example partly or just the President’s, half a million more young
men volunteered for service the following week.
The White House had planned a fine good-bye party for me, and I would be taking a
guest. Jack Ruby was in town, he claimed on business, and begged me to let him meet
the President. How could I refuse? He was my girlfriend’s employer after all.
The party was, as they say in the movies, a gala affair. The President spared no expense
and what a guest list was prepared! There to wish me luck were the likes of Averil
Harriman, Arthur Goldberg, Cardinal Cushing, Adam Clayton Powell and Shelly
Fabares.
I introduced Ruby to the President and he was gushing with praise. He said it was the
most memorable day of his life and thanked the President effusively for taking the time to
greet him. The President gave the old any friend of Norm’s reply but seemed astounded
when Ruby said, “Norm is really becoming a top aide to you, huh?”
“He’s become very valuable, indeed,” said the President. I blushed in gratitude.
“But he’s more than just an aide, isn’t he?” asked Ruby.
“What do you mean?”
“The more he works with you, the more you two resemble each other.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ruby. It was a pleasure meeting you.”
“Why, my friend, Mr. Hoffa, says you’re practically like brothers.”
The President’s face joined me in blush and he walked away quickly. I was ashamed of
Jack for pumping my importance up so much. The President liked me, but what was this
brother business of Jack’s? And why mention Hoffa when Ruby was aware that Bobby
was committed to convicting him within two years?
But other than this incident, my send-off was inspiring. My Service at the beginning was
less so. As a child I hated both Phys Ed class and summer camp. The army was a perfect
combination of both. But, against my will, I was put into an officer’s training course. I
would have been satisfied being an ordinary foot soldier, but the army insisted on
promoting my advancement. Though we have an egalitarian force, my being a
Presidential aide possibly influenced my advancement to rank of second lieutenant by the
time I arrived in Vietnam.
No war is good, but the camaraderie and sense of purpose made this one special. Our
enemy from the North fought too valiantly and was prepared to take upon himself too
much personal sacrifice. In fact, the war was being fought to a draw until Kennedy
announced his trade embargo on the Soviet Union, the Viet Cong’s chief supplier. The
President convinced even food exporters like Argentina, Australia and Canada to obey
his call for an embargo, and eventually food shortages in Moscow meant arms shortages
in Hanoi.
But China filled the vacuum just as the Soviet Union seemed ready to talk peace, or at
least, settlement. It was then that the President ordered his two-pronged offensive. I led
my unit in the invasion of North Vietnam at Na Tinh, just north of the eighteenth parallel,
joined by Australian, Thai, Korean and New Zealand forces. By the time the twopronged attack was over we had formed an effective barrier across the 17th parallel into
Laos, cutting off the North Vietnamese men and material to the South and we had
invaded the North, establishing an impregnable beachhead that threatened Hanoi itself.
Of course, in this invasion I was wounded as my Jeep drove over a mine. I felt
tremendous guilt lying in the hospital while my unit shared the glory of victorious
achievement, but I was fortunate enough to share a hospital room with Cassius Clay, a
boxer who had served with great distinction in Nam but whose career was to end because
of disfigurement of his face, arms and hands. A modest fellow by nature, I never heard a
peep of disappointment from him though I’m certain his anguish was well-hidden. He
just read Milton and Keats and spoke of the day when he could walk to church by
himself, like he was so fond of doing in Louisville.
Lee was a great comfort to me, and when the World Series began, he got a ten-day
furlough to come watch it with me. Were it not for the glories of the Telstar satellite, this
war would have been unbearable for the men. But television and war became natural
allies. While it beamed Dr. Kildare and Hazel to us, it also beamed bravery and good
spirits back to the U.S.
I introduced my friend to my roommate. “Lee Harvey Oswald, I’d like to make your
acquaintance with Cassius Clay.”
“Hey,” Lee said, “Didn’t I see you fight Chuvalo?”
“Yeah, but that was a long time ago.”
“You were great. The guy’s a Mack truck, but you pulverized him.”
“Yeah. He had an iron jaw and no punch. I flew like a butterfly and I stung like a bee.”
“So, who do you think’s gonna take the series?”
“I give it to the Dodgers. Koufax and Drysdale together can’t be beat.”
I interrupted to disagree. The Twins were the most exciting team in recent American
League history. What an outfield led by today’s Hall of Famer, Bob Allison! And what
an infield! Zoilo at short, Harmon at first, and the greatest hitter of modern times, Richie
Rollins, at third. As for the mound, Earl Battey could barely hold onto Jimmy Kitty
Kaat’s knucklers or the sliding fastball of Negro pitcher Mudcat Grant.
My instincts were better, but not by much. The Series went seven games. Killebrew
could not hit off Koufax, but on the first pitch of the bottom of the tenth inning at Dodger
Stadium, Jimmy Hall sent a curve ball into the second row of the right field bleachers,
and it was all over. The Twins dynasty had begun.
When I was recovered enough to walk, I acted as a White House liaison for special
visitors. I hosted Lyndon Johnson and his aide Walter Jenkins, who insisted on saving
taxpayer’s money by staying at the Saigon YMCA. Later Bob Hope led his band of
beauties for a USO show, and I was asked to host him.
I remembered Lee taking his whole furlough to help me recover, and I saw an
opportunity to repay him. I knew he loved Bob Hope, and I’d arrange a backstage seat
for him. He was thrilled but this led to our first altercation. It was, of course, over a girl.
Bob brought beautiful women to boost our soldiers’ morale, and besides Miss America he
brought the lovely and leggy star of “Barbarella”, Jane Fonda, with his show. We met
her at rehearsal, and Lee immediately decided he had to meet her personally.
Unfortunately, that was my idea as well.
“You’re married,” I told Lee. “What about Marina?”
“I fake married her because the CIA made me. If you leave me alone with Jane, I’ll let
you have her when we get back.”
This was admittedly tempting, but Jane was here and Marina was there so I fought for
Jane. Lee rushed to her after she finished her shtick with Bob.
“I loved you in ‘Tall Story,’” he said. “It was a brilliant film.”
I arrived and said, “I thought ‘Any Wednesday’ was better. Especially the “she has an
unusual name, Elaine,” scene.”
“Boys, boys, you’re both right. Both films were marvels of comic timing.”
Though we fought over her at first, I won in the end. She heard I stayed at a military
hospital in Saigon until I was fit again for battle, and she just had to visit me there. I was
told later that her publicized visit to my Saigon hospital was a publicity coup for her back
home.
Unfortunately China’s material, if not actual, physical, support was beginning to undo the
President’s good work and that of his scrupulous General, Westmoreland. The insurgents
had succeeded in gaining control of the countryside around Saigon, and the capital was
literally under siege.
It was at this moment that Kennedy arrived and gave his famed “I am a Saigoner” speech
and threatened a nuclear attack on China if the insurgents did not cross the 17th parallel
immediately.
Talk about brinkmanship working. China had exploded a bomb, and that may have been
its only one. And it had no way to reach America by either plane or missile. There was
tension, of course, when she threatened to nuke Saigon, as Kennedy had calculated, but
she relented in the face of overwhelming superiority and the insurgents went home. I can
now reveal that this was because of a face-saving plan by Kennedy. He agreed privately
to send all American troops home in return for China’s promise not to interfere with the
South. So China claimed it threw out the Americans. We claimed we saved the Southern
democracy, and the war ended.
CHAPTER TEN
Post Vietnam was a turbulent era for America and the world. Returning Negroes found
no work for themselves and rioted viciously. The man who quelled the worst of the riots
was Roy Wilkins, who proved himself a major leader of our times in Vietnam. He
appeared in Watts. Literally walking into a firefight and begged for cooled tempers. He
would find work for each and every returning veteran.
The press took this as a literal promise, and Kennedy appointed Wilkins to head the
Office of Negro Employment. A national campaign to hire Negroes was the result, and
many people who thought they couldn’t afford live-in help decided that if they skipped
vacation this year to do their part, well, maybe they could. It was the end of inner city
unemployment that stopped the riots.
Of course when Castro decided to spread his revolution worldwide, that was his undoing.
He gathered a meeting of revolutionary groups and Third World dignitaries in 1966 and
began planning hijackings, bombings and kidnappings to bring down the capitalist order.
He set an example by blocking water supplies to our naval base at Guantanamo Bay and
Kennedy reacted forcefully. The invasion lasted a week before Havana fell, and though
pockets of resistance still exist in the jungle, today Cubans are happy-go-lucky Latins,
dancing and singing for the tourists who crowd the island. And President Ricky Ricardo
is loyal to America and trustworthy to a fault. Today’s leader, Little Ricky Ricardo,
follows in his father’s noble footsteps.
My own triumph on the world stage came after the Six Day War. The Arabs blockaded
Israel in June of ’67, and Israel reacted with surgical strikes that won them the Sinai
Peninsula from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria and Judea and Samaria from Jordan.
The President conferred with Arthur Goldberg and a brilliant plan resulted. World
opinion was so pro-Israel and so anti-Arab that the time was ripe for solutions.
Israel was asked by Kennedy to declare the Sinai Peninsula from the Gaza Strip to El Arish and down to Ras Muhammed at the Southern tip, a Palestinian State. The land had a
population of only 15 thousand Bedouin and could support a state with proper planning
and a huge infusion of cash and Nile River water.
It was a daring plan, but something daring had to be done. When Saudi Arabia declared
an oil embargo against the U.S. in retaliation for its pro-Israel stance during the
humiliating war, other Arab nations followed. A serious energy crisis resulted from a
shortage of oil at the refineries.
We had trouble dealing with the crisis and tempers in America rose when gas rationing
combined with lowered thermostats became emergency law. People were actually killed
in lines to gas pumps. Lyndon Johnson suggested a public relations ploy that we
accepted. He suggested saving energy at the White House by shutting off the lights at
night. The program was judiciously cancelled when Jackie broke her leg trying to find
the bathroom.
My assignment was to fly to Israel and convince Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, of
the worthiness of Kennedy’s plan. I couldn’t understand why he chose me. He said it
was because I was Jewish, and she’d be more sympathetic. But I told him, Arthur
Goldberg was Jewish and it was his idea. Then he added that I was a recent war veteran
who was wounded in action. She would respond to that.
Respond isn’t the word. The lady practically smothered me to death. I sat in her kitchen
explaining Kennedy’s plan point by point, and all she said was, “Please, have some more
cheesecake.”
She told me she knew my former boss, Mr. Hoffa, very well. As a representative of the
Israeli Labor union, the Histadrut, she met world union leaders. Apparently she and Mr.
Hoffa had met in the early fifties and got along splendidly. In fact, in Detroit in 1956,
Jimmy organized a huge fundraising dinner for the Jimmy Hoffa Children’s Home in
Israel.
I got nowhere with her the first night and got up to leave for my hotel.
“Wait a minute,” she said.
I stopped. Had she had a change of heart?
“You forgot to put on a sweater.”
“It’s July,” I answered.
“You can never be too warm. One little wind, and you’ve got a cold. A strong breeze
and it’s pneumonia. You don’t want you to get a stroke like your father.”
I was certain she had received false briefing. My father was healthy as a horse, and I told
her.
“Oh, yes,” she replied. “And I’m glad to hear it. But put on a jacket, just for me,
maybe?”
Well, the old Mandel charm broke her down. She finally accepted Kennedy’s plan,
saying, “If you think it’s a good idea, then who am I to argue? What does an old lady
know? But remember, when you get back home, always listen to your mother and be
good. She may not live forever.”
The Palestinian state was rejected vehemently by Egypt, but Anwar Sadat’s triumphant
visit to El Arish a decade later was the start of a new era in cooperation. Sadat offered
the waters of the Nile for irrigation and with the help of Israeli agricultural technology
the Sinai Desert is blooming again. I cannot but feel goose bumps when I consider my
role in this feat.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
My own day of reckoning was soon to arrive. In the Fall of ’67 Robert Kennedy
appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to head a commission on Teamsters activities.
Bobby was determined that Mr. Hoffa be exposed for his supposed excesses and links to
organized crime.
Bobby knew the quandary I was in, or at least he thought he knew. He invited me into
his office and explained that his attack on my previous and future employer was justified.
He had ordered the BGI to tap Mr. Hoffa’s phone, and he played me the recordings.
I was shocked. The man whom Golda loved, and who was holding a gun to my parents’
heads was consorting with criminals, taking Union funds, and making loans for drug
deals, for financing casinos in Cuba, for blackmailing Senators. There was no doubt, the
Attorney General had the stronger case of the two. And there was no doubt Hoffa was
capable of and probably would kill my parents if I disappointed him. I stared at Bobby as
if through a gun sight and urged him to pursue the investigation.
If Vietnam had taught me anything, it was a repugnance of violence. Sure, there were
good times. There was the beer at the PX, the card games into the night, the bars of
Saigon, but all that paled in my mind when I considered napalmed children I had seen,
the ooze of brain matter dripping onto the shirt of a surviving companion, the intestines
held in the hands of the orderly as the soldier was admitted to my hospital. I despised
murder and was asked to perform one. Yet if I didn’t do it, two more murders would
result.
I began planning how I would do it, then I found some excuse to put it off. At a Bobby
Kennedy party I offered to bring him a drink. He accepted, and this was my opportunity.
I put the powder in his glass and gave him the drink. As he was about to sip it I grabbed
it from his lips and threw it into the swimming pool. Bobby looked astonished. But he
relaxed when I said, “It’s a Jewish custom. If a guest throws his host’s drink into a pool
as he is drinking it, the host will live to a hundred and twenty.”
Bobby said it was a beautiful tradition, and when Arthur Goldberg’s son was Bar
Mitzvahed, Bobby took the wine cup from Arthur’s mouth as he was about to drink,
threw it in the punchbowl and said, “May you live to a hundred and twenty.” Mr.
Goldberg took several moments before deciding to thank the Attorney General. When
Bobby took a sip of his drink, Mr. Goldberg assuming he had witnessed an Irish custom,
thrust the cup from his lips and threw it in the punchbowl. When Mr. Goldberg did the
same thing at the Kennedy’s anniversary party, the President was unamused until Bobby
defused the situation explaining that it was an act of respect among the Jewish people.
Yet it was the President’s own courage that convinced me I could not give in to Hoffa.
What I am about to relate has never been revealed before. In l967, four-year-old John
Kennedy, Jr., “John John” as we called him, was snatched from his nanny and two Secret
Service men brutally murdered by men claiming to represent the Teamsters but claiming
also that Mr. Hoffa was unaware of the plot they hatched in his behalf.
A President’s son kidnapped. The ransom? The Justice Department would drop all
charges against Jimmy Hoffa. The President did not let the kidnapping leak to the press
and attempted to conduct the affairs of state as usual lest he endanger his son’s life.
Jackie, Bobby, Teddy and Rose all pressed him to drop the charges. But he would not.
He was no longer John Kennedy, citizen, he was the Government of the United States,
and the nation could not be blackmailed by crooks.
The President called me into his office. He had not slept in days and he slurred his
words. Unfortunately the press were writing of the President’s weariness or drinking
habits, depending on maliciousness, and I understood why. He was not himself. He
looked very much older.
“Norman,” he said, “I have an assignment for you. You are going to save my son.”
“How?”
“You are Teamster on my staff, and they want you to conduct negotiations in Dallas.”
“What will you give them for your son?”
“Lower interstate highway tolls which were planned anyway. And that’s it.”
“But if I fail, you’ll blame me for your son’s loss.”
“I would never be so petty, Norman. Just do your best. I trust you.”
I knew then that I would never, ever kill Bobby.
I arrived in Dallas and went to my old office. The message awaiting me was to meet at
the Carousel Club at midnight. So what else is new, I thought?
I had time to spare and a great desire to see Marina, so I arranged to see her while Lee
worked. I would see Lee later.
Her home had changed. The picture of Czar Nicholas the Second came down, and it its
place was a picture of Jane Fonda in black boots and skimpy garb taken from the classic
Roger Vadim film, “Barbarella”. But there was more. Jane had been typecast as a sex
queen and wasn’t getting the serious roles she wanted. She campaigned strongly for the
role in “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” Rumor was that Liz Taylor would get the
part, so Lee formed a “Fair Play for Jane” committee. Jane Fonda fans throughout the
country united behind their favorite star.
“He’s obsessed,” said Marina. “What went on between them in Vietnam?”
“Nothing,” I answered. “Honest. Absolutely nothing.”
“I’m losing him, Norm. I can feel it.”
And I was losing her. I could feel it. Jealousy was about to make Marina love Lee
despite the circumstances of their marriage. I promised her I’d help work things out. She
showed me a letter from Peter Fonda. No one would let him make a motorcycle movie
about America’s natural beauty, and he wondered if Lee would form a “Fair Play for
Peter” Committee. This had gone too far I could see.
When I saw Marilyn at the Carousel Club that evening it was as if I were seeing her for
the first time again. She was lovely, Marina was drifting from me, and Marilyn was
thrilled to see me. Overwhelmed even. Maybe I had missed her in Vietnam though I
didn’t feel it then.
But more important business was at hand. Mr. Hoffa awaited my presence. “You let me
down, Norm” he said.
“I couldn’t do it. I told you that, and you didn’t believe me. Well, I can’t do it.”
“We know. Jack convinced me to leave your parents be. He’s an old softie about them.
So we had to take a different strategy. Thus you being here tonight.”
“You know, if you don’t return the child I’ll be forced to hand in my resignation to the
Teamsters.
“Norman, sometimes I wonder if you’re real. We’ll kill him, Norm if those charges
aren’t dropped.”
“The President told me to inform you that you also have family, and he also has armed
men in his employ. He finds the whole affair revolting, but if his child dies you and your
loved ones are in danger. Want the full text of his message?”
“I was afraid he’d think like that. I should have guessed it after Nam and Cuba. Now for
the last time, Mandel, will you kill Bobby?”
“No.”
“Alright, the side of justice and truth will be victorious. Inform your President that he
may pick up his child tomorrow in Dallas.”
The President flew to Dallas. We were told to have a normal social evening that would
attract little suspicion. The child would be waiting for him at the Carousel Club.
I called Jack Ruby and asked him to close the club. The President could not be seen at a
strip joint. He refused saying the child would be there, and the President would
autograph a picture for his now famous wall.
Having no choice, the President, Marilyn, Lee, Marina and I planned an evening together.
As we approached the club Jack Ruby was waiting outside for us. He had a blank, cold
stare on his face and did not react as I approached and said, “Hi, Jack.” He lifted a pistol
from his pocket, and I jumped on the President. The shot hit me in the back of my thigh.
Lee lunged at Ruby, fought for the pistol and a shot was heard. We saw Jack Ruby slump
to the ground killed by Lee Harvey Oswald. A voice cried, “Daddy, daddy,” as John
John ran from the club into his father’s waiting arms.
CHAPTER TWELVE
1968 was a year of turmoil in America as a result of the backlash against Kennedy’s
Vietnam policies. It was not going to be easy electing a Democrat to the Presidency, and
at least one Democrat, a hawkish wimpy Senator from Minnesota by the name of Eugene
McCarthy exploited the dissatisfaction of the nation’s youth.
McCarthy was fortunate to have a determined campaign manager in Abbie Hoffman.
Organizing brigades of volunteer students, Hoffman literally knocked on every door in
New Hampshire on behalf of his candidate. He struck a chord with the citizens of this
tiny conservative backwoods state, considered by many an island of ignorance in a sea of
enlightenment. They, too, despised what they called the retreat from Asia or the Vietnam
sellout.
McCarthy argued that since we sacrificed so much in Vietnam, the only true victory
would be for us to stay there, or as the President called it, to colonize the place.
McCarthy was only puppeting the cries of an empty youth movement that five years later
was a dying force.
When the President announced his complete troop withdrawal from Vietnam, ROTC
members on campuses throughout the country began teach-ins against the decision.
These evolved into full-scale riots and takeovers of buildings throughout the nation. The
hotbed of this radicalism was the University of Minnesota, but even more staid
institutions such as Columbia and the Berkeley campus of the University of California
joined in the nonsense. By the end of the school year American higher education was
virtually at a standstill.
Then came the Summer of Hate, and the whole political equation of America turned
topsy-turvy.
I suppose America first became aware of the extent of this new youth movement that
weekend in June when half a million self-styled survivalists crowded into a cow pasture
in Watkins Glen, near Woodstock, New York, to hear their movement’s spokeswoman,
Diana Ross. Between the music, crowd agitators twenty years older than the average age
of the audience offered one vindictive speech after another against the President’s
Vietnam policy. A Jewish soul group called Hy and Family Cohen went so far as to burn
our noble flag.
This counterculture movement determined that America must stay physically fit to greet
any attack from the Asians or the Commies, and while the music blared they fiendishly
swallowed diet pills and Metrical cookies. Overdoses were common, and fake cookies
laced with high doses of sugar were pawned off as the real thing to the gullible
youngsters. Cookie dealers preyed on the innocence of youth and fortunes were made in
a weekend.
Then that awful Friday night in California when Charles Manson’s gang, after gorging on
the deadly amphetamine/metrical cocktail and singing the revolutionary verses of the
Four Seasons burst into director Clint Eastwood’s Beverly Hills home only to find him
not there. I need only capsulize the rest of this gruesome history. Clint’s pregnant wife,
Annette Funicello, was brutally stabbed along with dinner guests Shecky Greene and
Nipsey Russell. Written in blood smeared on the wall above her were the ominous
words, “Rag Doll,” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry.”
Attacks on Kennedy came from all quarters, even literature, as a scathing satirical
denunciation of his Vietnam policy appeared in a widely read volume called “MacJack.”
It was against this background that we had to elect a Democrat to the Presidency. The
President realized our dilemma and sought the first show of toughness he could find.
Evidence came to us that the Soviet Union, against all the peace accords, was still
filtering weapons to the few remaining insurgents in the South. Kennedy retaliated by
supplying arms to Czech and Polish underground terrorist groups. Many saw this policy
as too little, too late.
I tried a couple of PR moves to boost the President’s image and give his party a shot at
the upcoming election. First I arranged a cameo appearance on the irreverent TV show,
“Laugh-In”. He had a pail of water thrown at him and replied, “Sock it to me”. Many
thought he was a good sport after that, but the stunt made merely a dent in his Gallup
approval rating: from 25 percent to 25.5 percent, the lowest since Truman left office.
Next I tried for the women’s vote by having him appear as a judge at the show that has
become the greatest source of pride to American Womanhood, the “Miss America
Pageant” held that year in Houston. Bert Parks introduced him, but applause was mixed
with boos. In fact, the boos dominated. And the final winner, a luscious, leggy blonde
named Gloria Steinhem, refused to accept the crown from him as an embarrassing
political gesture on behalf of our brave boys in Vietnam.
On the Republican side, there was some good news for us. Governor Romney, up till
then the Party’s frontrunner, had eliminated himself in a blaze of controversy. He was
returning to his summer home on Mackinac Island with a devoted, young female
campaign worker, when his car overturned into a pond, and she was drowned. Finding
no one up at that hour on the island, he claimed he swam Mackinac Straits and part of
Lake Michigan and arrived at a motel in Marquette where, dripping wet, he phoned the
police after complaining to the switchboard of a noisy party in the room below him.
Needless-to-say, no one believed a word of this hogwash, and his career nationally was
wrecked.
But that still left Rockefeller, Nixon or Reagan, and polls showed all of them would have
swamped any Democratic candidate if the election were held today. Only McCarthy put
up a reasonable opposition, and that is one man I opposed if only because of his wretched
poetry.
More worrying was our second most popular contender, George Wallace. The former
governor of Alabama split the white vote with McCarthy but won the Labor vote hands
down. Only Bobby and Humphrey represented the liberal wing of the Party, and they
were buried in the polls. Nixon was part of the reason. He called Bobby a member of the
Kennedy Clan, which created an administration of the worst and the dumbest. He called
Humphrey, Hubert Horatio Hornblower, which aptly described his blabbermouth
tendencies, and that image stuck with the poor man.
A dark horse in the figure of Jimmy Carter, Governor of Georgia, appeared, but the
President dismissed his chances after reading an FBI report that claimed his family was
mostly insane. One sister was a “holy-roller”, and his younger brother, Billy, was fond of
urinating into public drinking fountains.
So who could be built up into a winner for the party? For many weeks we worked on the
most natural choice, Vice-President Johnson. But the task was thankless. His actions
made him more of a public liability than anything else. In a one-week span he held two
of his kittens up by their tails for the cameras and showed off his hemorrhoids to the
press.
But while I undertook the job of turning him into a true Presidential candidate, two crises
erupted around his daughter, Lynda Bird. Lynda Bird was engaged to marry a very
peculiar actor named George Hamilton. As the wedding neared, a perfect PR event, an
old promise came to haunt Lyndon at the Johnson Ranch. While on a goodwill mission
to Pakistan, the Vice-President invited a camel driver to come visit him at his ranch. One
day the camel driver showed up, camel and all, to the mixed delight of the press. A
major human political story took shape nationwide.
It wouldn’t have been so bad had he been a polite guest, but if anyone thought Johnson
had boorish tendencies, they’ve never met Ahmat Teware. Okay, so he refused to eat
with cutlery and thought belching after a meal was a compliment. But when he explained
why he couldn’t shake hands with his right hand, even the usually stoic Lady Bird
Johnson was moved to revulsion.
And to add to the PR difficulties, he had fallen in love with Lynda Bird, and Lynda Bird
was showing no public disapproval, to my great chagrin.
I spoke to her privately and asked her why she was playing with his affections in public.
“I want to break the wedding with George,” she answered.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because,” she said, and burst out sobbing, “because,” she tried again. On the third
attempt she blurted it out. “Because he’s a vampire.”
“What?”
“I mean it. A vampire. He has a disease called ‘porphyria.’ A vital heme is missing in
the blood, and it causes all kinds of strange reactions to the sun. If he’s out in daylight
for five minutes he starts growing hair all over his body that falls out at night. The only
way he can go outside is if he gets a small transfusion of blood with the heme. Like
mine, for instance. You think these are hickeys?” she said as she pulled down her collar.
Her neck was ghastly. “You notice that half the mirrors on the ranch are cracked? Figure
it out. My mother hasn’t been able to.”
“Did you tell her you were marrying a vampire?”
“She said she understood the problem, but we were committed. She suggested I refuse to
consummate the marriage until after the election and then get it annulled.”
“What about your father?”
“He said a vampire’s not so bad. At least George isn’t a colored boy. That would kill
him in the South. Maybe everywhere. So that’s why I’m playing up to Ahmet. Maybe
he’ll get the hint and get me out of this Transylvanian nightmare.”
There was no doubt about it. Lynda had a problem. But then so did her father and by
proxy, me. It wasn’t easy getting the photographers to squelch the photo of Lynda taking
her moonlight camel ride into the Texas desert. I owe a few people on that one.
One morning he made his final offer to the Vice-President. “Fifty camels for your
daughter.”
“Young man,” Johnson replied. “That is absurd.”
“Please, Daddy,” cried Lynda. “Fifty isn’t so bad.” Turning to Ahmet she whispered,
“Offer him sixty.”
“Sixty,” he said, “And one of my wives. The one that please you most.”
“Come on, Daddy, that’s fair.”
“And where would you young lovebirds live?” demanded the Vice-President.
“Pakistan,” they replied in unison.
“Young lady,” said Johnson. “When I become President you will live in Romania
because your husband George will be appointed Ambassador to there. And that’s final.”
I had a first class PR problem on my hand. The first thing that had to be arranged was
Ahmet leaving with or without his camels. This was achieved with easy and spectacular
success by methods I cannot divulge but Ahmet is now the director of the American Post
Office on one of the Solomon Islands today. And, as you know, Lynda and George, after
a tempestuous marriage, are no longer husband and wife.
My own personal choice as candidate was Bobby Kennedy, but the LSD business was
having a deleterious effect on his chances. By the spring of ’68 the survivalist movement
had become a real force in the nation. Millions of bearded, middle and upper class young
people, mostly college students and their beaded women with their unshaved legs were
busy building fallout shelters, stocking them with freeze-dried food, enjoying daily
rounds of target practice and taking a drug called LSD.
In the summer of ’67 young idealists seeking an escape from liberal, sellout America,
gathered in San Francisco Harbor and began preparing to escape the coming nuclear
holocaust in ships fitted for two years of survival at mid-sea. Because of this they were
called “shippies.”
The “shippies” began experimenting with a drug developed in Switzerland in the midthirties called “Lysergic Acid Diethylmide” or LSD. The “shippies” claimed they saw
reality more clearly by uncovering truths buried deep in the subconscious and surfacing
in the form of detailed hallucinations. A sub-movement led by former Admiral Timothy
Leary spread the joys of this drug, and millions were experimenting with it.
Unfortunately, this put Bobby in an uncomfortable situation. The Justice Department had
jurisdiction over the FDA , and LSD was then a legal drug. By banning it, Bobby would
isolate the survivalist vote which was then considerable in California, a state he had to
win in the primaries. But average Americans were shocked when their children began
experimenting with the drug, and in a moment of divine inspiration expressed the belief
that their parents were “pigs.”
A decision had to be made, and Bobby’s solution was to take LSD and decide by
personal experience. He apparently enjoyed its effects, though publicly he spoke of it as
a danger.
Still, it made my life more difficult. Of all the primary candidates I chose to be PR
director for Bobby, though Teddy begged me to run his campaign. We shall arrive at that
aspect of the campaign later.
Just before the Oregon campaign we had a strategy meeting. Bobby said to me, “Norm,
I’ve thought of the greatest slogan ever. Get ready for this: “God is Groovy”.
“Pardon me?”
“God is Groovy. Bobby for President. Isn’t that great? It’s so optimistic, yet so true.
Who could resist voting for a candidate who thinks God is groovy?”
“I don’t think that’s an issue in Oregon.”
“Excuse me, Norm, I didn’t mean to interrupt or anything, but your face is melting.”
“What?”
“Norm, now listen carefully. I want you to tell me if I should go public with this
announcement…I know what it’s like to be dead.”
“No, I think we should keep a lid on that.”
“But I’m the only candidate who momentarily was in touch with infinity. I died for a
moment, rose to the ceiling, looked down and saw myself dead. I have astral projected. I
have left my body as a free spirit and chose to reunite with it just to win in Oregon. I
think the people would appreciate knowing that. I could say I came a long way to meet
you folks and really mean it.”
“Not a catchy campaign approach.”
“Okay, then, try this. You know how I love to walk barefoot on the beach early in the
morning. Well, get this. I was on a beach near Portland minding my own business when
guess who I see in the water? You’ll never guess. I saw King Neptune. So I went in and
joined him. I splashed around in the water with THE King Neptune, and if you don’t
believe me ask Vinnie Lombardi, my Secret Service agent. He practically caught
pneumonia dragging me to shore.”
The Oregon campaign was tough. Bobby listened to my appeals and publicly came off
well till the Eugene speech now mockingly referred to as Bobby’s ‘ego lecture’. Bobby
decided the people of Oregon should be told of his marvelous discovery; that there is no
ego, or as he unfortunately said, “ego is bullshit.” He accused the other candidates of
running, not for the nation’s good, but because they are insecure people who need power
to fulfill their bruised egos. He said he wasn’t like that. He just enjoyed politics which
he called “a far out job. One crazy gig after another. Last week I played in Omaha to a
great crowd and this week I’ve been getting high just listening to you Oregonians. You
know you’re a real trip.”
Teddy was frightened by the new Bobby and wanted to see a Kennedy dynasty
continued. So he entered the race against his brother and with his other brother’s
permission, if not outright backing. Teddy, who is not as witty as John, received a great
routine from his brother which made him a popular speaker wherever he went. The
routine would begin after he was introduced on the dais by an overly long speech.
Staring first at the introducer he would say, “I remember once someone introduced me
saying I was a graduate of Yale. As if that weren’t information enough he explained
what Yale’s letters meant. Y was for Youth and spent ten minutes explaining the virtue
of my youth. A was for Athletics, and he spent ten minutes saying what a great
sportsman I was and so on. Finally I got up to speak and said to the audience, ‘You
people are very lucky. You’re lucky I didn’t graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.’”
The crowds loved that, and he was on his way. Bobby was afraid of his brother winning,
and on the day that turned the tide against him he was thrilled.
“Can you believe it? Joan’s announcing their divorce tonight!”
“How do you know?”
“Joan phoned Jack Anderson and said her husband was keeping her a virtual prisoner
because she threatened to tell all. I knew their marriage was on the rocks, but how’s that
for revenge? She’s announcing it now, and you can bet Teddy’s doing what he can to
stop her. This is juicy.”
“Why is she demanding the divorce?”
“According to Anderson she wants to grow and she feels smothered in their relationship.
She’s tired of being Teddy’s wife, she wants to find herself, the real Joan. And there’s
more. She met some Greek, and they’re going off in his boat somewhere to seek truth.
She’s running off with a rich “shippie”. And best of all, she won’t fight for the children.
Ted can keep them, because—now get this, it’s rich—because she’s tired of being just a
mother. Women have been repressed for too long, and she’s—listen closely, it’s
hilarious—striking a blow for women’s liberation.”
Bobby was on the floor, tears rolling down his cheeks. He had trouble catching his
breath, and I thought he was a secret epileptic. But this attack of laughter was nothing
compared to the one that followed Joan’s televised press conference. Not only did she
say everything Bobby claimed she would, but at the end of the conference she turned
around, took her bra off, put her blouse back on, turned around and burned her bra. First,
Bobby’s face crinkled up, a distorted smile appeared which was followed by a two hour
laughing fit followed by days of spontaneous giggling. Often he would mimic a song
called “We Love You, Conrad” from the hit play, “Bye Bye Birdie”, singing instead,
“We Love You, Joanie, Oh Yes We Do.”
Strangely, Joan struck a nerve with millions of American women, and when the reigning
Miss America called the coveted pageant a meat show and burned her bra on the
“Vaughan Meader Show,” a movement started out of nowhere that was destined to lead
millions of women to unfortunate careers, childlessness, frustration, man-hatred,
lesbianism, and loneliness. The sanctity of the American family was also threatened by
Joan’s irresponsibility, and divorce rates soared as women big and small decided they
wanted to grow. Many were attracted by the survivalists and joined communes, others
finding in Joan a role model, drifted towards the “shippies.”
Of course Teddy’s hopes were dashed by all this. At rallies rowdy women would accuse
him of “depriving his wife control over her own body,” a concept he was entirely
unprepared to deal with for no answer seemed to be satisfactory when the concept was
foreign. Average men and women spouted the old standard “if you can’t control your
wife, how can you control the country” dogma.
Politics do make strange bedfellows, and after the California primary, Newsweek hired
the Harris Poll to see if any combination of Democrat Presidential and Vice-Presidential
tickets could win the election. While McCarthy-Muskie and Kennedy-Carter would be
swamped by any of the Republican contenders, a Humphrey-Wallace ticket would win
the election. It seems that Humphrey, being the leading liberal candidate, and Wallace,
being the leading conservative candidate, attracted a wide enough constituency to win the
upcoming election.
Now I know personally that neither candidate wanted this, but a grassroots upsurge
promoting a Humphrey-Wallace ticket grew and grew and grew. Both candidates were
forced to consider the possibilities. Interested interlocutors willing to do anything to put
their candidates in power, and seeing their only hope in this ticket, met and presented
each candidate with a list of issues and a questionnaire asking how each would deal with
them. The idea was to find common ground for an alliance. It was discovered that the
only matter on which the two shared an opinion was that Jefferson City should remain the
capital of Missouri.
But the possibility of the alliance would not go away. It seems both candidates had the
most loyal supporters, and they wanted to see their men in power no matter who he was
associated with. Wallace supporters especially were thrilled when this golden
opportunity to share power arose.
Once again the interlocutors sought compromise. They gave both candidates a list of
issues, and both were asked in two words to answer where they stood on each. A
computer would compare the results and plan a viable campaign.
The following, for the first time in print, was the result of the questionnaire:
SUBJECT
Cuba
Vietnam
Civil Rights
Soviet Union
France
Crime
Pornography
Unions
Nuclear proliferation
African relations
China
States Rights
HUMPHREY
Improve relations
Leave gracefully
Improve programs
Detente initiated
Closer ties
Rehabilitation programs
Local standards
Support programs
Create ceilings
Strengthen role
Handle gingerly
Certain areas
WALLACE
Nuke ‘em
Nuke North
Cancel legislation
Dismemberment of
Who cares?
Chain gangs
Selected castration
Mass lockouts
Begin immediately
Misogyny enforcement
Sterilization drugs
Favorite topic
The results were fed into a computer by whiz kid, Steven Jobs, and the computer, after
shorting out, refused to start up again. A higher K—IBM was next employed and said
the solution was in the hands of higher powers than itself. IBM officials claimed this was
the first instance of a computer hinting at the existence of God.
The movement died when both candidates publicly killed it. Still, there was no denying
Wallace’s popularity in California. It portended a real change of mood in the country that
we were sadly reluctant to acknowledge. We hoped it would go away by Election Day
and, of course, we were very mistaken.
Here was Bobby’s strategy with which I concurred and helped plan. Cezar Chavez was
leading a boycott of California grapes to protest working conditions of Mexican laborers,
and seeking both the liberal and Chicano vote, we backed him. I arranged photo sessions
with Bobby and Chavez, and he endorsed us publicly.
Wallace, on the other hand, stressed that the Mexicans were mostly in the country
illegally and had no rights as American citizens, especially not the right to strike. He
spoke of Latin Catholic America’s horrifying birthrate and predicted that if this illegal
immigration kept up, they would swamp Anglo-America. He asked why Anglos aren’t
moving there, and he spoke of a time when revolutionary groups would claim the
American Southwest was Latin originally and would try to win it back with violence. His
solutions included an electric fence along the whole Mexican border and border guards
with orders to shoot to kill smugglers of immigrants and labor camps for the immigrants
themselves.
And on this issue he won the primary. That was certain to divide the upcoming
convention, yet California left a more profound effect on the Republicans. The shooting
at the Ambassador Hotel had shocked me. As a child whose parents knew violence and
came to America to escape it, I had felt personally violated. Though I never liked the
victim, it was as if the gunman had attacked me, not Richard Nixon, and shot down many
of the beliefs and concepts I held dear.
Nixon addressed supporters, and his final words were, “On to Miami.” He was the
jubilant winner of a state that rejected him for governor because of his amazing statement
that, “the nation can’t stand pat,” which led to his later divorce. After his loss he called
an embarrassing “last” press conference apologizing to reporters for his attacks on their
integrity and thanking them for their support over the years.
With his final words spoken, he entered the kitchen of the hotel where a crazed
Palestinian and leader of an unknown lunatic group called the PLO, Yassir Arafat, pulled
the trigger.
I can still recall the screams of “Oh no, no, no,” as Roman Gabriel, an ardent Nixon
supporter and pantyhose executive, wrestled Yassir to the ground, and Nixon lay
motionless in a pool of blood.
Thank God for modern medicine. Rushed to the operation that saved his life, Nixon was
saved, though he remains paralyzed from the waist down today.
One must dwell on the “what ifs” of Nixon. What if he had not been shot? He, in my
opinion, would have been the Republicans’ candidate despite the half-truth labels that
stuck with him all his life and gave him his nickname, Sticky Dickie. What if he had
been President? I believe he would have been a do-nothing president, avoiding issues
and scandal. And I believe he would have presided over a quiet period in American
history characterized by nothing.
Yet, “what ifs” mean nothing. The Republican convention held in Miami was a shootout
between Reagan and Rockefeller which was Reagan’s victory after the third round of
voting. In desperation, a Rockefeller-Lindsay coalition tried to stop the Oscar-winning
thespian, but to no avail. Reagan’s Shakespearean background made him too fine a
dramatist to ever lose to the scion of America’s wealthiest family and the inventor of
modern prison reform as we know it today.
Chicago was a different convention. I thought it was a bad choice. The Negroes had
recently rioted there, and the largely Polish-German white population despised the
President’s retreat policy from Vietnam. But as Fred Sorenson explained to me, if it
weren’t for Mayor Daley stuffing ballot boxes in 1960, we would have lost Illinois and
the election.
As an aside, Lyndon Johnson won his 1948 Senatorial seat by 87 votes, and there were
rumors that he stole votes to win. Later he would jokingly say, “I never stole ‘em. Ah
just borrowed them. Ah gave ‘em all back in 1960.”
Outside the convention at Lincoln Park, Abbie Hoffman had gathered his “McCarthy is
President” (MIP) Party, and it’s followers called MIPPIES, to protest America’s
surrender in Asia. As the reader is well aware, blood was shed in their confrontation with
the police. Later at the Chicago Eight trial, conducted partly in Yiddish by both Abbie
and Judge Hoffman, it was revealed that a conspiracy of industrialists and students had
crossed state lines to foment anarchy.
Of course the biggest embarrassment of the convention was when Hoffman led his
students to the Vietnamese Consulate in Chicago and took it over, holding the innocent
diplomats hostage until all American soldiers serving in Vietnam stayed there until
replaced.
With blood and kidnapping and blackmail and extortion on the airwaves, we tried to hold
a convention. Coming into the Amphitheatre, George Wallace who claimed he wanted to
change the Peace Corps in the Peace Corpse, had the most committed delegates. We
liberals were prepared to do anything to stop him and combined, our support
outnumbered his.
But, of course, the convention became deadlocked and voting meant nothing. It was a
convention decided by committee. The question was how much the final candidate
should divorce himself from the President’s policies without compromising the Party’s
principles. Two days before, the Ray Coniff Singers, hardly a political outfit, had
performed at the White House, and before singing pleaded to keep the boys in Nam. This
embarrassing incident was news everywhere as we decided on our man to run for the
presidency.
Bobby had isolated his hopes by telling delegates he had actually seen the Jolly Green
Giant overlooking the little folks of the San Joachin Valley while he was campaigning in
California. Lyndon and Ted had their own problems, previously explained , and
McCarthy was viewed as too right wing for a coalition of delegates determined to
nominate a liberal candidate. From the smoke filled back room came our surprise
compromise, Senator George McGovern of South Dakota.
McGovern won the nomination, despite a complete apathy towards his candidacy by
most of the delegates, and he named Thomas Eagleton of Missouri as his running mate.
(Since the election they have not seen each other, even socially.)
And the race was on. While Eagleton defended the President, Reagan used his
Hollywood connections to run what is now called a media campaign.
He convinced his good friend and everybody’s favorite sergeant, Phil Silvers, to perform
on his behalf in Vietnam. The episode of Sergeant Bilko was beamed live to 120 million
Americans, the largest single audience for any show in history. And what a hilarious
episode it was.
Bilko buys a Geiger counter to get rich quick by finding uranium. After some searching
he finds a high level of radiation under Colonel Hall’s house. He has to dig for the
valuable ore so he lures Colonel Hall to a Bridge game with another officer at a base a
hundred miles away.
The colonel comes back early and discovers all of Bilko’s platoon, including Rocco and
Doberman, busy digging up his basement.
“Bilko,” he says, “What is the meaning of this?”
“Oh, Colonel Hall,” he answers, “You discovered our little surprise.”
“What do you mean, Bilko?”
“Well, because your men love you so much, we were going to build you a rec room. But
you came in and spoiled everything.”
“Bilko, I’m very touched.”
So the digging goes on and the uranium was just a watch with a glow dial. The crowd of
soldiers loved it. Paul Ford took five long ovations, and Phil Silvers literally could not
leave the stage. And then the plug for Reagan. Oooh, that hurt us.
And, of course, the Eagleton affair. The press found out Eagleton was a pyromaniac,
having started two churches on fire and was arrested three times for child molestation.
Still, McGovern, for reasons one cannot yet fathom, said he would back his man 1000
percent. However, after Eagleton privately confessed that yes, he enjoyed torching
churches, but it should have no effect on how he conducts the business of government,
McGovern dropped his candidate and even more crazily nominated the head of the much
hated Peace Corps, Sergeant Shriver, as his new Vice-Presidential choice. What a
headache his campaign was becoming. What else could possibly go wrong?
Well, as we all know, the television debate with Reagan was the what else. Defending
Kennedy’s rapprochement with the Communist East, McGovern claimed the North
Vietnamese would be as free as good men are in Poland today.
Now I’m prepared for a little hyperbole now and then, but no one in the Iron Curtain
nations can be truthfully called free. The next day the Los Angeles Times printed a
cartoon of a group of Polish workers. The caption read, “I don’t know? How many
George McGoverns does it take to screw in a light bulb?”
After that the McGovern joke fad spread like wildfire. Why is TGIF written on
McGovern’s shoes? To remind him that Toes Go In First. Why did McGovern ask for
his pizza to be cut into four pieces? He can’t finish eight. And on and on ad infinitum.
He became a joke, and Ronal Reagan became President of the United States.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
With the campaign over I kept a personal promise to Marina and flew to Dallas. Though
it was against every instinct in my soul, I said I would save her marriage to Lee, and my
contacts within the Democratic Party would assure the success of my plan.
The bungalow was now a museum to Jane Fonda. Outside was a huge sign reading,
FAIR PLAY FOR JANE. Inside pictures of Jane in every conceivable pose, stills from
her films: “Getting Straight”, “Zabriskie Point”, the anti-Kennedy war thriller
“M*A*S*H” (she, of course, played the repressed Nurse Hoolihan), “The Raspberry
Statement” (famous for its marvelous soundtrack by composer Wild Man Fischer), and
the pro-“Shippie”, “Alice’s Floating Restaurant” with its famous pro-Zionist song lyrics,
“You can get anything you choose/At Alice’s Restaurant for Jews.”
Marina was in emotional shambles.
“It get much worse, Norm. He call me Jane in close encounters.”
“What time does Lee get home from work?”
“Lee work till eight. School just start two months ago. Lots of returned books.”
“Well, at nine your troubles will all be over.”
Marina hugged me and cried chokingly on my shoulder.
“He make fun of me all the time,” she sobbed. “He say he wish I was Negro. Then I be
Black Russian. I no get it. He laugh.”
Lee came home at eight as Marina said and was thrilled to see me. But all he could talk
about was Jane Fonda and the work he had done in her behalf. At nine, my friend,
Senator Tom Hayden of California arrived with his new bride, Jane Fonda. When Lee
first saw Jane he practically melted.
“Your highness,” he said, “How I’ve waited for this moment.”
“Lee,” she answered. “I dearly appreciate what you’ve done for me. Because of you I’ve
landed my first serious role. I will be playing, not just playing, starring in a film called
‘Klute’. My first starring role,”
She kissed him and Lee turned beet red.
“May I offer you some borscht?” said Marina, trying to make her presence felt. “Lee
hates the stuff, but he is my husband, you know.”
“No, thank you, dear,” said Jane. “But I’d like you to meet my husband. Tom and I
married yesterday. I wanted Lee to be the first to know. Even the press hasn’t gotten
wind of it yet.”
Lee sulked the rest of the evening. The next day the sign on the lawn came down as did
the pictures in the living room one by one, followed by the bedroom and ending with the
last still from the semi-classic, “Candy”, in the bathroom beside the shower stall.
I had saved one marriage and decided to initiate another. It wasn’t the most romantic
place for a proposal, but I asked Marilyn to marry me in Abe Zapruder’s new film studio.
She accepted without hesitation, and Abe broke out the schnapps to celebrate.
I phoned the President with the announcement. I wanted him to be the first to know,
even before my parents.
“Norm” he said, “I’m only here two more months, but I’d like, as my last Presidential act,
to be the host of a White House wedding.”
“Me, married in the White House?”
“I think it’s rather appropriate,” he answered. “And tell the Sitzmans not to worry about
the costs. I can get the hall wholesale, and I’ve got a great caterer who owes me one. Oh
yes, he’s Kosher.”
What a wedding it was. First we went to City Hall for the license. There I had a double
ceremony. Lee and Marina were finally wedded legally with Marilyn and I. Though I
considered Lee as best man, the President was, naturally, my final choice, though Marina
was a maid of honor.
After the ceremony, the fun began. First the President made a toast. “I’d like to raise a
toast to a man whose fate is intertwined with mine and Norm’s. This man was to be
blamed for my murder. But Norm prevented my premature dismissal from life, and Lee
became a great soldier and true patriot. Everyone, please rise. I toast Lee Harvey
Oswald.”
With great emotion I stood up, took a sip of wine which the President accosted from my
lips. He threw the wine glass into the punch bowl and said, “Until a hundred and
twenty,” and then the show began.
First, Marilyn was photographed in her lovely bridal gown, designed by Abe Zapruder
and photographed by him. He had sold the dress factory and begun a business that today
is common: the filming of weddings, bar mitzvahs, graduations and special occasions.
Little did Marilyn realize when she first bought him the Bell and Howell 8mm camera
where it would all lead.
Then the entertainment. The President had gathered a group of the finest popular Jewish
musicians of the time. Jan Peerce was our cantor of the ceremony, but in the evening he
invited such Jewish musical stars as Leslie Gore and Neil Diamond to perform as well as
Jewish bands such as Country Joe and the Fish, Janis Joplin and the Doors, and for the
quiet moments guitarist Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield serenaded us with their acoustic
guitars while the guests ate and conversed.
The President invited only two representatives from television, both Jewish: Barbara
Walters of CBS and the soft spoken Mike Wallace of ABC. They made me a national
figure, and because of this Marilyn appeared on the covers of Vogue and Cosmopolitan.
But her sweet demeanor never changed with fame and some minor notoriety.
But the beginning of 1969, just a week later, brought in the Reagan era, and my life in
politics slowed down considerably. But there were moments here and there.
For instance, the ex-President was to receive an honorary PHD from Yale University and
asked me to write an appropriate speech. I wrote the now famous lines which the
President delivered with such great timing: “Now I have the best of two worlds: a
Harvard education and a Yale degree.” It was hard to say, but reports were that the
Harvard crowd laughed harder at the delivery.
By an odd coincidence, three of us Democratic survivors went into sports. Hubert
Humphrey headed a group that bought the Minnesota Vikings in 1969. Humphrey hired
a Minnesota coach who had been a winner in Canada, named Bud Grant. Grant lured
former Rose Bowl star, quarterback Joe Japp, from his team in Western Canada, and
tightened his defensive front four, later called the Purple People Eaters. While that line
consisting of Eller and Wrong Way Marshall, so called because he once picked up a
fumble and ran it for a touchdown in the wrong end zone, stopped all opposition running
attacks, Kapp, though he could never throw a ball properly, kept hitting wide receiver
Gene Washington for touchdowns while fullback Oscar brown sent shivers down the
spines of league defenders. Humphrey had created a dynasty.
Meanwhile, the Kennedy brothers bought the Boston Bruins, their local hockey club.
After acquiring Phil Esposito, a journeyman center from the Chicago Black Hawks and
placing him on a line, with former hacks Wayne Cashman and Ken Hodge, had created
the greatest line in hockey history. Bobby Orr, their new defenseman, teamed up
brilliantly with his partner, Don Awrey, and average players such as Dallas Smith, Pie
Face Mackenzie and 52 year old Johnny Bucyk, became inspired by the smell of victory.
The Kennedys also produced a winner.
And I was chairman of the new board of the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. I moved back
to Detroit where I hadn’t lived since student days, to be closer to my family. I
participated in Jewish organizations, and one decided to honor former Tigers star, Hank
Greenberg with some sort of honor. One thing led to another and we funded the new
Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in Detroit. I hosted the opening ceremony when I personally
inducted Sid Luckman, my distant cousin Sandy Koufax, Dolph Shayes, and the deceased
boxer Benny Leonard into the Hall. A year later I inducted Maxie Rosenbloom, Red
Auerbach and Canadiens owner, Sam Pollock, into the exclusive fraternity of great
American sports legends. Though no Europeans were to be inducted, Canadians were
since there is very little difference between our and their culture, and we share teams in
the same professional leagues and sports.
Of course, this led to my appointment as the chairman of the Jewish Cultural Hall of
Fame in Los Angeles. I personally inducted the great comedians Groucho Marx, Jack
Benny, George Burns, Jerry Lewis and the Three Stooges into the Hall of Greats. Tony
Curtis inducted the late Clara Bow, John Garfield and Paul Muni in the acting field while
Sophie Tucker inducted the late Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor and Fanny Brice into the vocal
section.
But politically this was a hopelessly slow period for Democratic Presidential politics, and
I have little to report. Bobby spent a year in Mexico claiming he ate, of all things,
mushrooms and communed with a wise Indian philosopher. He returned politically
refreshed and won a Senate seat in New York, though he set up residence there only six
months before and hated the place. He preferred Oregon or Colorado, but there were no
political openings in sight there, and New York was expediently chosen as his new home.
I got off the hook personally when Earl Warren, after spending two years investigating
the Teamsters, declared that “Teamster activities are guided by one man and one man
alone, Mr. Jimmy Hoffa. After extensive and exhaustive study we have found Mr. Hoffa
to be an exemplary citizen, and any charges of misdeeds are entirely unfounded.”
President Reagan dropped all charges against him, and Jimmy took over the reins of the
Union until his disappearance six months later. Of course, two years later his body was
discovered in many pieces at the bottom of Miami Harbor.
Life was not easy for President Reagan. After the patrol boat Pueblo was seized off the
North Korean coast in the spring of ’69, Reagan ordered the bombing raid of Pyong Yang
and all the crew members were murdered by the angered victims of the raid.
General Westmoreland, who was supervising the tragic retreat from Vietnam, demanded
a landing on North Korea by sea and an attack from the 38th parallel. Reagan rejected
the idea and Westmoreland took his views to the press. Reagan had no choice but to fire
his wayward General, and he appeared before Congress uttering his immortal observation
that “Old soldiers don’t die. They just quietly fade away.” Westmoreland had the
noisiest fading away in history, attacking Reagan’s weaknesses at rallies, ticket tape
parades and suppers. He cut into Reagan’s popularity tremendously to our great
amusement and joy. 1972’s prospects brightened as Reagan completed Kennedy’s hated
retreat yet refused to accept responsibility for punitive action against the “Pueblo
massacre.” Already Salinger suggested as a future campaign slogan, “Remember the
Pueblo.” But as a sloganeer, Salinger was not respected by the Kennedys. As John once
told me, “Do you know what he once suggested as a slogan for my programs? The New
Frontier. Can you believe that cliche? After the New Deal he has the nerve to try and
rehash something as dumb as the New Frontier.” Actually, my slogan, the Great Society,
was the one that stuck within the administration, though the public at large took no notice
of the catchy coinage.
Reagan, himself, was no great sloganeer. He plagiarized Kennedy’s Inauguration
question, butchered it in fact, reflecting the new mood in America. At his first State of
the Union Address he said, “Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what you
can do for yourself.”
Reagan turned out to be quite a political novice. During his presidency he had received
small gifts from supporters, a stereo from bobby Baker, some fertilizer for his ranch from
Bill Sol Estes. Then when the press blew these incidents up he was embroiled in a
conflict-of-interest scandal, resolved only when it was discovered he had taped his Oval
Room conversations and had to hand over these tapes to a Senate investigating
committee, though one tape had a mysterious gap of eighteen minutes apparently caused
by his secretary pressing on the erase pedal while she was peaking on the phone. The
damning conversation, now called the “smoking gun,” went as follows:
Baker: Ron, the speakers give a (expletive deleted) sound. Listen to this Connie Francis
disc.
Connie Francis: Lipstick on your collar told a tale on you.
President: (unintelligible)
Connie Francis: Lipstick on your collar said you were untrue.
Baker: (unintelligible) woofers, (unintelligible), tweeters.
Connie Francis: Bet your bottom dollar, you and I are through.
President: (unintelligible) How much is it?
Connie Francis: ‘Cause lipstick on your collar.
Baker: (unintelligible) dollars.
Connie Francis: Told a tale on you.
President: (expletive deleted)
Baker: That’s the going rate.
Connie Francis: Yeah, told a tale on you.
President: Alright. I’ll that the (expletive deleted) deal.
Connie Francis: Mmmmm. Told a tale on you.
Further difficulties arose in his Presidency. The space program suffered a major setback
as Neil Armstrong set his foot on the moon said, “This is one small step for mankind,
whoops,” and was never heard from again as he sunk into the lunar quicksand. Soviet
unmanned flights were sending back more information, cheaper and without the loss of
astronauts, and Reagan was caught in his own Sputnik-like controversy. Bobby,
grabbing on the weakness, began speaking of a “rocket gap” with the Soviets, a phrase I
humbly take credit for.
Two diplomatic failures also marred the Reagan Presidency. In a last gasp effort at
international prestige, Reagan sent a stuttering college professor, Henry Kissinger, to
China to try and mend fences there. Two days after his arrival, Kissinger was arrested for
spying and still languishes in Chung Chu prison despite intense diplomatic efforts to free
him.
And of course, there was the Kirkpatrick episode. A democratic intellectual, Jean
Kirkpatrick, was appointed Ambassador to Uganda. Invited one evening to a dinner at
the Presidential Palace of Idi Amin she disappeared and was rumored to have been eaten
by the President and his cabinet.
Criticizing Reagan became a media passion. On a television interview Reagan was asked
by meek Mike Wallace who his favorite president was. Reagan said Wilson because of
his unbending principles. Perhaps a noble choice, but the press compared Reagan to
Wilson, a weak politician who got none of his grand plans to work, and the image stuck.
Then came the disastrous interview. Gay Liberation was new to America, but led by
Walter Jenkins it became a potent issue. Gay, an underground codeword for queer,
started flexing its political muscles and affecting mayoral elections on the West Coast.
Reagan agreed to be interviewed by Playboy, a magazine founded in the fifties,
propounding antiquated liberal sexual views, but kept alive by a combination of tradition
and an aging readership. The interviewer asked Reagan where he stood on gay rights,
and he gave a typically political answer, neither for nor opposed. He said though he
himself felt lust in the heart occasionally for some men that his strong sense of morality
prevented him acting against his better nature. Naturally he was attacked both for his
admission and for agreeing to be interviewed by such a lurid magazine. And on this
point I must agree with the media. It is beneath a President’s dignity to appear in the
same magazine as half-clothed nubile young women. Marilyn was especially upset by
this breach of the sanctity of the Presidency.
But Reagan had his moments. It was he who suggested a Cuban team in the American
Baseball League, and it was at his urging that freed insurgent Fidel Castro agreed to
coach the team. And it was their victory over the Mets in the 1970 World Series that
cemented Cuban-American relations.
And the shrewd futurist prepared a new candidate for ’72. Reagan kicked off the opening
of the ’70 Super Bowl won by the Buffalo Bills over the Kansas City Chiefs. Preferring
to go with the winner, he invited Jack Kemp over Len Dawson to a personal dinner
highly publicized by the media. He claimed Kemp was highly articulate and a natural
leader. How funny is fate. Had the Chiefs won, it could have been Len Dawson sitting
in the Senate and vying for a future Presidency.
It is a peculiarity of American politics that athletes who get in the news get into power.
Inspired by Joan Kennedy’s example, two women swimmers, Sharon Wichman and Kaye
Hall accepted their gold medals in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics by holding their fists
in the air in the feminist salute during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner, and
instead of being punished now sit in the California Legislature, and U.S. Congress,
elected by a misguided but activist female constituency. And even entertainers like
Reagan himself are at an advantage. Pat Paulsen, a star of the hilarious, though antiKennedy Smothers Brothers Show, took a joke write-in candidacy where he declared his
opponent to be a “known heterosexual,” into a genuine house seat.
Yet one can never find a formula for success in American politics. Bob Beamon is a
loser. At the ’68 Olympics he broke both legs in the long jump event, yet today he is the
first black mayor of Wichita, Kansas. There is just no simple explanation for voter
preference. Once the media makes the public aware of a person even a good, though
losing, try can be an attribute
By 1970 the philanderies of Michigan Senator Jim Royal had become rumor and then
confirmed. A Senate seat was going to be open, and the Michigan Democratic Part tried
to draft me to run for it. Though pregnant with our first child, Marilyn encouraged me to
run for it, but I had to speak to the Kennedys first. They were my benefactors, after all.
A meeting at the Chappaquidic home of Teddy was arranged. It was very peaceful there.
Teddy’s two children took their swimming lessons from their able teacher, Mary Joe,
while the meeting took place. A surprise guest arrived, William Randolph Hearst II.
While his daughter and her friend, Squeaky Fromme, splashed in the pool with Mary Joe
and the Kennedy children, high politics as being decided. Hearst came to say his Detroit
paper would back my candidacy unconditionally. That meant a lot of votes.
But the Kennedys had mixed feelings about the candidacy, and John was violently
opposed to it.
“Reporters start looking into candidates,” he said. “Things are discovered, other things
are revealed. It can be embarrassing,” he said.
“But, Mr. President, I have nothing to hide.”
“You think you have nothing to hide. You don’t know what you have to hide.”
I didn’t understand the implication that Bobby made the final statement. “John, we have
something good for us in the future. Let’s say I try of ’72. Norm here would carry on the
line so to speak. I couldn’t ask Teddy to be my Vice-President. That would look
ridiculous . But Norm here would be a very good candidate if he’s been an acceptable
Senator.
For some reason that ended the discussion. I would be running against Bill Milliken with
the blessings of Hearst and the Kennedys.
The fight against Bill Milliken was touchy, but I came out the victor. I was a good
Senator, though not a controversial one. I was loyal and voted with my Party. But I
knew that ’72 and the Vice-Presidency was my objective. Bobby had to win.
There was a lot of objection to Bobby at first. He was considered ruthless because of the
way he harassed the now-martyred Jimmy Hoffa. Previous to the New Hampshire
Primary it looked like the Presidential candidate would be Ed Muskie. But an odd event
occurred. Thinking he was one of the gang, he called a group of French Canadians
“Canucks.” The Manchester newspaper, a proud and independent journal, called Muskie
a racist and made attacks on his wife’s character. On a snowy evening, Muskie broke
down in tears before the TV cameras.
“Look, my wife’s not perfect. Some nights, I mean some days, she can be, she can be, I
mean, sometimes she’s a bit, but over all, she’s…”
And then the tears flowed unabashedly. He was through, and Bobby was in. No one was
prepared for Muskie falling to pieces, and we were there to pick them up. The years in
Mexico and the years in New York had prepared Bobby for his task, and what a
candidate he was.
The Republicans had chosen Vice-President Agnew as their candidate. Though Agnew
would not have run had Reagan decided to, the Pueblo massacre and public
dissatisfaction with his lack of reprisal led to his resignation speech on the eve of the
New Hampshire Primary. He swore on national television that he would seek peace with
North Korea, and he would not seek nor accept the candidacy of his Party.
Angew’s main rival was General Westmoreland, but heisted Pentagon documents, edited
by former State Department official, Daniel Ellsberg, and published in the Los Angeles
Times, revealed Westmoreland’s role in the retreat from Asia. The General was shown to
be a party to deceit of the American public and far less resolute than his public image
revealed. Agnew’s reputation for scrupulous honesty won him the nomination.
But Agnew could not live down Reagan’s failures. Even with the burden of a Jewish
Vice-President, Bobby won thirty-eight states and the Presidency. Marilyn was so proud
the night we won. She would be Second Lady and our son, Aaron, twelfth child.
It was at the Inauguration that my life finally made sense to me. Of course it was a busy
time for all of us. On the podium Rod McKuen read one of his lovely pieces of poetry,
and the new coach of the Cuban baseball club, Che Guevara, a former guerilla who
recanted revolution in favor of money, gave a moving speech recounting the closer ties
between his country and our since the first Kennedy Administration.
Then Bobby gave his speech and for the first time in almost a decade, I played no role in
its content. But I was Bobby’s major theme. He stated that for the first time a Jew and
the son of Holocaust refugees was Vice-President of our great Republic, and if evil or
unfortunate fate held sway that I would lead the nation. He spoke of my experience as a
rebirth, and that was to be America’s experience under his administration—a rebirth.
That was the label that stuck with him through his successful years as President.
Just before the Inauguration Ball Bobby and John called me into a private study in the
White House. John was first to let me know.
“Norm” he said, “I’ll be blunt. You’re my brother.”
“Well, sir,” I replied, “I’ve always felt close to you, and I appreciate…”
“Norm,” Bobby interrupted. “In 1939 Golda Meir spent time in London as representative
of the Jewish Agency there. My father, Joseph P. Kennedy, met with Golda on many
occasions. She was soliciting American support for the concept of a Jewish homeland in
Palestine. As it turns out they had what today we call a fling. Perhaps more than that.
From the letters we have in our archives we believe he genuinely loved her.”
“You’re not trying to say…”
“Norm,” said John. “You are the result of their liaison. You were born on a kibbutz in
Palestine in 1940. Your foster parents had escaped to Palestine from Germany but found
life there too difficult. Golda made a search. She wanted a couple who applied both for
adoption of a child and a visa to America. When your foster parents were located and
interviewed, both you and their visas were granted. Golda took care of the adoption, my
father arranged the visa.”
“Why didn’t she just raise me?”
“You weren’t her husband’s child, and my father could arrange your successful future.”
“You mean I’m Vice-President by his manipulations?”
“No. Here’s where the gods intervened. Golda used her friendship with Jimmy Hoffa to
get you started in life with a good job. You preventing my assassination was divine
intervention. But when it took place we spared no effort in furthering your career. Don’t
forget, in 1963 you were not ready to be a Presidential advisor. You were inexperienced,
and your talents were not really apparent to anyone. You’ve grown as we expected from
a Kennedy.”
I sat down, my face blanched. Then came the documents. The letters between Golda and
Joseph, my adoption papers, the letter from Joseph to the Immigration Department
recommending, demanding, the immediate acceptance of my parents’ visas. There was
no doubt. I was the Kennedys’ half-brother. What could I do? I hugged my new family.
My parents have since departed. They knew their son only as their prodigy who would
someday become President. Time has passed, and I will always be Norm Mandel to my
wife and children and President Mandel to the American people. But as far as John,
Bobby and Teddy are concerned, I am now President Norman Kennedy Mandel.
THE END
.