The Kingdom and the Power (66 page)

John Corry’s story was on page one that night, and he felt like a small hero as he walked into the newsroom the next day. The other reporters congratulated him, and asked Corry how he managed to get the exclusive. Corry tried to look knowing. Claude Sitton came by, smiled, and repeated that
The Times
was “going all out” on this one, and offered Corry more help. “What do you need—money, more reporters?” Sitton asked. “How about hiring a helicopter?” Sitton smiled again, but Corry felt that had he requested it,
The Times
might have given him a helicopter.

Later that morning, Sitton told him that the Kennedy people were planning a press briefing, and he gave Corry a telephone
number that turned out to be Senator Kennedy’s New York apartment. Corry called the number, identified himself, there was a pause; then Richard Goodwin, a thirty-five-year-old former Kennedy speech writer, came on the phone and told Corry that the briefing would be in Mrs. Kennedy’s office at 3:30 p.m. but, if Corry wished, he might drop over to Senator Kennedy’s apartment earlier for a private session.

When Corry arrived at the address, a towering new glass skyscraper at Forty-ninth Street and United Nations Plaza, a doorman greeted him deferentially but firmly, asking if he could help. “The Senator’s apartment,” Corry said. “Oh, yes,” the doorman said, seeming to sense who Corry was, and he made a motion to a uniformed guard behind the revolving doors of the lobby. The guard, smiling, led Corry to the elevator. Corry was impressed that the doorman had not called ahead, which he imagined a lesser doorman would have done; Corry had passed some little test. He brooded about this in the elevator.

The housekeeper led Corry into a large room with big windows all around, some paintings on the walls, pictures of President Kennedy and other Kennedys on the shelves, a curiously unlived-in atmosphere. There were two white telephones with maybe six buttons on each, and several men were seated or standing at one end of the room. Richard Goodwin stepped forward, dark, big eyes, bad skin, looking like a hungover Italian journalist. He introduced Corry to Burke Marshall, a slightly-built forty-four-year-old lawyer wearing glasses, the chief spokesman for the Kennedy family; John Seigenthaler, thirty-nine, a rugged-looking Nashville newspaperman credited with helping Robert Kennedy dig up the evidence to convict James Hoffa; and Frank Mankiewicz, a somewhat stocky balding man of forty-two who was Kennedy’s press secretary, and a nephew of the Hollywood producer.

Corry began by asking Burke Marshall if he would help
The Times
get a look at the autopsy photos on President Kennedy, Marshall having represented the family when the photographs were turned over to the Federal archives. But Marshall refused and quickly shifted the subject to the Manchester book, going through the whole chronology—when the manuscript had been finished, who had read it, what Mrs. Kennedy’s objections were. John Corry listened, nodded, and took notes. But every once in a while he kept reminding himself,
I am being told exactly what they want to tell me
. But this was fair enough, he thought, and
he found himself liking Kennedy for having such smart men around. None of Corry’s questions, even those he thought provocative, seemed to disturb the composure or patience of Marshall or Goodwin, nor to cause them to give the impression that the Kennedys were ever at a disadvantage. When Corry asked, “Won’t the book strain political relations between Senator Kennedy and President Johnson?” one of them said, softly and off the record, “Bob comes off very well in the book” and its publication would only help him.

Burke Marshall’s briefing was over within an hour, and then Goodwin explained that they were going to hold a strategy session and he hoped Corry would not mind going over to Mrs. Kennedy’s office alone while they huddled in the car. Corry graciously agreed. No matter how often he had reminded himself to keep his emotional distance, he could not help admiring their informality, their disarming way of letting him in on their little behind-the-scenes planning.
It’s not me, it’s
The Times
they’re catering to
, Corry corrected himself.
These people wouldn’t spit in my eye if I wasn’t on
The Times. He had to be careful with them, stick to the facts. Make one mistake in any of these stories, and these men will go right over your head, over Sitton’s head, and complain to Sulzberger himself. Still, Corry had felt very comfortable in the presence of these four Kennedy men. They had made his job easier, and he felt very relaxed around them. Perhaps it was Goodwin’s bad complexion, he thought, or the fact that Burke Marshall speaks in a squeaky voice and looks like a clerk. Or that Seigenthaler was wearing a checked shirt and a crummy-looking tie, or that Frank Mankiewicz was a chain-smoker. John Corry, now up to three packs a day, could not help noticing how Mankiewicz had nearly kept pace puff by puff.

Fifteen minutes later Corry was in Mrs. Kennedy’s office on the fourteenth floor of a building on Park Avenue. The room was crowded with newsmen, and against a wall were four gray steel cabinets with twenty boxes of envelopes on top, and on the floor were cardboard cartons, one of which, in ink, was labeled “Tributes for Library.” A small color photograph on the wall showed Mrs. Kennedy in the foreground, the President in the background. Mrs. Kennedy was not present at this gathering, but Corry noticed in
the crowd Mrs. Kennedy’s secretary, Pamela Turnure, wearing a ratty cardigan, her hair limp, no makeup. Corry distrusted her instantly. Irrationally but instantly.

A moment later Burke Marshall walked in with Goodwin, Seigenthaler, and Mankiewicz. Marshall, presiding, immediately began to brief the press on the Manchester book. He presented the facts in exactly the order that Corry had heard them an hour before. Corry smiled. It now occurred to him that he had served as a dress rehearsal for this briefing. He was almost sure that, on their way to Mrs. Kennedy’s office, they had evaluated his knowledge of the controversy, observed his reaction to what they told him, and had gained from his questions a better idea of what questions they might now expect from the other newsmen. And it had worked. Corry’s questions were now being repeated by the other newsmen, and the Kennedy men answered with ease.

For the next week or so, life went very well for John Corry. His stories were on the front page nearly every day, and Sitton seemed pleased. Late one afternoon in the newsroom when Corry let it be known that he was due at a black-tie dinner party that night, and had been unable to get away from the typewriter long enough to go out and buy a suitable pair of shoes and a cummerbund, Sitton offered to send a copyboy out to shop for Corry. But another editor, hearing that Corry wore size 9½ shoes, volunteered to lend Corry his shoes and cummerbund, and a copyboy was dispatched to get them.

Corry had not yet gotten to Manchester, but he had gotten a close look at Jacqueline Kennedy during the past week. Having learned that she would appear at 1 p.m. in the law offices of Sullivan & Cromwell, 48 Wall Street, Corry arrived one hour early and waited along the sidewalk with a second
Times
reporter and a photographer. At 1:15 p.m. a new blue Oldsmobile cruised down the street—in it were Mrs. Kennedy, her lawyer Simon H. Rifkind, and Richard Goodwin. The car slowed down, but then Goodwin spotted Corry, and it sped away. Corry told the other
Times
reporter to run after it and see if they got into the building through a side or rear entrance. A few minutes later, the Olds-mobile came around again. This time it stopped, and Mrs. Kennedy stepped out, followed by Rifkind and Goodwin. The
Times
photographer began snapping pictures of the three of them entering the building, and Goodwin glared at Corry. The look was so expressive that
The Times
used that photograph on page one the next morning, and it was picked up by both
Newsweek
and
Time
and used again. The three of them marched past Corry through the revolving doors into the building, the wrong building. Corry had been standing in front of Number 50 Wall Street, not Number 48, and he watched the three of them in the lobby staring up at the directory on the wall while a cleaning man with a mop stood nearby, gazing at Jacqueline Kennedy, his mouth open. A moment later Rifkind came spinning through the door, squinted up at the building number, then went back in again, and then came out this time with Mrs. Kennedy on his arm. Goodwin followed. Goodwin looked at Corry and smiled, weakly.

Corry, after they had disappeared into the law offices, returned to the
Times
building, leaving the other reporter to patrol the sidewalk and get any comment that might be made after the session in the law office. The story that Corry wrote that day was typically objective and made no reference to their entering the wrong building at first, nor to the startled expression of the cleaning man with the mop. Corry was tempted at times to slip these little absurdities into his stories, but he doubted that they would get past the copydesk.

For no particular reason, and without his awareness at first, things began to go wrong for John Corry in early January, 1967. It he had to pinpoint a date of decline, he could not, nor could he logically analyze what was happening. It was just a vague feeling within him that things were not as good as they had been. The compliments were not coming, and he sensed that some
Times
editors felt that they had overplayed the story, and now wanted to jump off this merry-go-round that they had helped create but could not because the other newspapers and media kept it going day after day. Corry suspected that he was tired of writing about this subject,
Times
editors were tired of printing it, the Kennedys and Manchester were tired of reading it, and everybody was a little tired of one another. He did not know. But the second-guessing within the newsroom, he was sure, was increasing.

On the Friday before, January 6,
Look
magazine had sent over six advance copies of its issue containing the first installment of the Manchester book, and the
Times’
editors sent one copy to Tom Wicker in Washington, who was to read it for political revelations; one copy to Gene Roberts in Atlanta, who was to read it for any data on the assassination; and gave one copy to Corry, who was to do the general wrap-up story containing all other details. The
Look
release date was 6 p.m., Monday, January 9. But during the weekend the
Chicago Daily News
broke the release, and suddenly on Saturday before noon John Corry was called and told to come quickly to the office and do his story for the Sunday edition. Since Roberts in Atlanta had not yet seen his copy, Corry was told to include any assassination angle in his story. Sitton then telephoned from his home in Westchester and told a deskman to have Corry also include items of political significance, but another editor in the bullpen later countermanded this. Then Clifton Daniel, who was hardly ever seen in the
Times
building on a Saturday, appeared. He withdrew to his office and sent out word that he wanted to read Corry’s story page by page as it came out of the typewriter. After Corry had written a few pages he received word that Daniel wanted something in the story, high up, on how the
Chicago Daily News
broke the release date. Daniel left shortly afterward, but later telephoned an editor in the bullpen with the reminder that
Times
readers would wish to know what, exactly, had been revised by
Look
in its first installment, and he also wanted to know if anything had been taken out of
Look
’s first installment and moved into later installments.

As these and other questions were relayed down to Corry, who was writing against an early deadline, he began to fret. Replying to one of Daniel’s questions, Corry quickly typed out an insert: “It was not known if anything had been taken out of
Look
’s first installment and moved into later installments.” But other requests for new inserts kept arriving—it was as if Daniel’s mere presence had made the editors more literal-minded than usual. After Corry had written that
Look
’s first installment “tells of laxity in the Secret Service,” there was a discussion among four editors, three from the national desk and one from the bullpen, on Corry’s use of “tells.” Was that the right word? Corry was too distracted to care. And he was also disturbed by something else. He had gotten a telephone call from William Manchester a few moments ago, a complete surprise after weeks of unsuccessful effort, and the conversation
had left Corry very nervous and confused. Manchester had apparently called in response to a telegram or note from Daniel, requesting that he cooperate with
The Times
, but what confused Corry was Manchester’s friendly informality over the phone—he called Corry “John”—and Manchester’s conditions under which he would agree to be interviewed.

“Do you take shorthand, John?” Manchester had asked.

“No.”

“Do you take notes rapidly?”

“Average.”

“You ought to use a tape recorder, John. I have all these letters, memos, documentation …”

And then Manchester said something that left Corry completely stunned: he suggested that Corry tape their interview with a recorder, and then he,
Manchester
, would edit it!

“I’d want any tape to begin with the words ‘This tape is the property of William Manchester, and will not be re-recorded or transcribed’ …”

Incredible
, Corry thought,
incredible, mad, wild
—here is Manchester, the persecuted writer and victim of Kennedy censorship, trying to do the same thing to
me
that they were trying to do to him!

There was a pause on the phone. And Manchester seemed to sense the irony too.

“This would in no way be censorship,” he said quickly. “It would just be to see if the names, dates, that kind of thing, were accurate …”

“I d-d-don’t know,” Corry said, looking at the clock, his deadline getting closer.

“It’s not censorship,” Manchester repeated.

“I just … it’s not
Times
policy to do that,” Corry said finally. Corry wanted to get off the phone, fast. He did not want to antagonize Manchester and ruin a possible future interview, but Corry could not commit himself to what Manchester was suggesting. Corry would never be that naive again, not after his experiences with Ralph Ellison and Algernon Black.