So As I Was Saying . . .: My Somewhat Eventful Life (39 page)

Leaving aside the questionable assertion that the Kennedy administration tried to kill Castro, it is worthy of note that in Califano’s telling, LBJ explicitly blamed both John and Robert Kennedy and was so convinced Castro assassinated John Kennedy that he asked the FBI to take special precautions to protect himself and his family. Califano said LBJ, too, had not believed the Warren Commission and had wanted to “reopen” the investigation but had not done so out of a desire “not to inflict any more pain on the Kennedy family.”

*   *   *

I built a public relations campaign for Oliver Stone’s movie
JFK
based not on defending or explaining the movie’s conspiracy theory but on urging the House Select Committee on Assassinations to release documents, reports, and evidence it planned, in the late 1970s, to keep under seal another fifty years. Indeed, tens of thousands of pages of primary source material related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, much of it from within the CIA, remains classified.

Oliver Stone called his movie on the JFK assassination “an alternative myth to the Warren Commission myth.” Of course, Stone knew the story in the movie was fiction, but explained he wanted to get people “to rethink history, become politically active, and to be determined to shape a better future.” I don’t know if the movie achieved any such goals, but it all comes down to this: Why was Lee Harvey Oswald roaming around New Orleans in the summer of 1963, distributing obviously bogus pro-Castro literature while maintaining a headquarters in the same building as anti-Castro zealots with a proven record of violence? People who argue that such questions are unimportant or conspiratorial and need no answer are the true distorters of history. They are the people, when you think about it, who keep this story alive.

*   *   *

I thought the most significant thing about
JFK
was the reaction of the mainstream media not just to the movie itself but to the
idea
of the movie. What accounts for the extraordinary ferocity of the attacks on the film, almost without exception by older journalists active at the time of the Kennedy assassination? Many in the major commercial media set out not just to discredit or to attack Oliver Stone and his film but to
destroy
it, and nearly succeeded in doing so. The effort was enormous, and so, luckily, was its failure.
JFK
was a great box-office success, seen by millions of Americans and many millions more abroad, and has been much sought after in the home video market.

Why the venom? Why, for example, would
The New York Times,
ordinarily the grayest and calmest of newspapers, devote nearly thirty articles, op-eds, letters, notes, addenda, editorials, and columns to the most savage attacks on the film? Why would journalists who had never since 1963 cast a questioning eye, or a story or any research, on the questions concerning the assassination of President Kennedy devote so much destructive energy to the task of turning Americans against this film? The
Times
even published “news” stories from Hollywood wondering editorially why Warner Bros. permitted the movie to go ahead and suggesting the studio censor it. Finally, there was a blast at the movie by the Warren Commission consultant David Belin, whose complaints about the film had been reprinted in
Variety
to coincide with the final days of voting on the Academy Awards by motion picture industry members who were its readers.

We have to wonder about the mainstream journalists, who almost certainly did not see the film (because they describe it as setting forth a theory of a vast conspiracy, when in fact the film posits a very narrow and precise one). Others who were directly involved in reporting the events of November 22, 1963, in Dallas but who—except for an occasional sneer at assassination historians—hardly gave the event a backward glance thereafter, became self-appointed guardians of that particular history and the comforting “lone crazed gunman” theory of the assassination. They amusedly labeled as “kooks and cranks” anyone who questioned the Warren Commission verdict. But an overwhelming majority of Americans had on the record their strong disbelief in the Warren Commission’s finding—that the lone gunman Oswald had killed President Kennedy (with no discernible motive) and that he had then been killed by another lone gunman, Jack Ruby, also apparently acting on a vagrant impulse.

*   *   *

Another reason the assassination might never be “solved” is that JFK’s hold on us is, perhaps, beyond explanation. When he was president, many people somehow believed we were part of something bigger than ourselves: a cause, a community, a sharing of interests and ideals that was driving history forward. And once Kennedy was gone, this feeling was gone, too. And it’s never come back. And maybe people who did not experience it directly can never understand it. They analyze his speeches and his policies, and the more they dice their facts, the less they seem to understand.

*   *   *

When I write something, like most journalists before this era of computers, I put either an “MTK” or a “30” at the end of the last page—a tradition borrowed from the telegraph industry. In the mid-nineteenth century, Western Union assigned the numbers 1 to 92 to a special code that made messages shorter; “30” meant “This is the end; there will be no more.” Newspaper journalists quickly adopted this, writing “30” at the end of each story, to let editors know they would be sending no more telegrams about that particular story. If they planned to write more, journalists instead wrote “MTK,” which meant “More to come.” Why
K
and not
C
seems lost in journalistic lore.

The JFK assassination story seems more of an “MTK” than a “30.”

18

In Which the Various Strands Seem to Come Together and My Story Ends—at Least for Now

Various strands of anyone’s stories, I know, never fit together with any logic. In my case, Hollywood, politics, news media, Fidel Castro, the Kennedys, social justice, the Peace Corps, public relations, assassinations, Watergate,
Citizen Kane,
war, power in America, and so much more seem held together only by the passage of time and, some may think, my enduring optimism.

Thus, I have long since given up on stumbling upon some “aha!” moment from which one great, overpowering insight will arise, or finding a “Rosebud” mystery, the solution to which will place vital aspects of my stories into sharper focus.

There are, moreover, many ideas I still want to pursue. One is what I call Golden Ageism, the belief that most things—or a specific list of very important things—were better fifty years ago. What has happened to great books? Where are they? Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, we had John Kenneth Galbraith’s
Affluent Society,
Paul Goodman’s
Growing Up Absurd,
Theodore H. White’s
Making of the President, 1960,
Vance Packard’s
Hidden Persuaders,
Rachel Carson’s
Silent Spring,
Michael Harrington’s
Other America,
and other books that changed the way we thought about life in the United States. Now I can’t think of one recently published book that’s changing our way of thinking.

In the 2060s and 2070s, will people look back at our world today and talk about the great books we produced? I think not. Certainly young people in my wartime generation, in a Battle of the Bulge foxhole, did not yearn for an era, half a century earlier, that had offered peace and the certitude of progress. And people in the 1960s were not looking back with longing at the World War I era. No, I suspect I look back so fondly on the books of the 1960s because that was the time when America changed forever, when many possibilities began to fade and many of today’s problems started to dominate.

I mostly blame television, which in my view has transformed us. But I’m still left wondering: Will people in the late twenty-first century look back on us, today, and say, “
That
was when America changed forever”?

*   *   *

I have time. I have reached my ninetieth birthday in good health, and actuarial tables say this means the chance of my reaching a hundred in good health is hardly remote. And if I reach a hundred, who knows what medicine or special treatment might be available?

When the end of this century approaches, someone who is young now will, like me, sit in a diner or the equivalent around the year 2100 and discuss his or her life. Part of those conversations, I hope, will focus on an enduring American trait that has provided such comfort and sustenance to me: a spoken and unspoken optimism—a certainty that we are, despite setbacks and stupidities, moving in the right direction.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Frank never got to write his Acknowledgments for this book, the last manuscript on which he worked.

As the book makes clear throughout, Frank’s life was enriched by many, many, many people. His plan was to write a detailed essay about all the people—still living—who occupied special places in his life. That way, he said, everyone who picked up the book and looked to see how “they were in it” would find an accurate description of what they meant to him. These were the people—family and friends—who packed his funeral and would have packed a hall ten times bigger had they been able to come. Frank’s heart was huge—his family and friends lived within it, but far more than that, they made it big. To all of these people—you know who you are—I can only say: Frank was thinking about you as he told these stories. He was more than aware of his affection for you, indebtedness to you, and loyalty to you. He knew, far more than do most people, that what made his life meaningful and often beautiful was you. Our plan was to go off to the country, alone, for a week or two and finish the book.

All names cited below are in random order, and my apologies to anyone omitted as the final “letting go” of this manuscript occurs. One can only imagine the wisdom, critical eye, and encouragement that came from Frank’s wife, Patricia O’Brien, an accomplished journalist, author, and novelist. Linda Cashdan, in addition, provided professional advice. People at HK Strategies inspired Frank and often drove him home after long workdays, or helped him keyboard changes—included are Kathie Boettrich, Jenn Capps, Paul Taaffe, Norman Mineta, Tom Hoog, Michael Kehs, Gary Hymel, Jim Jennings, David MacKay, Lindsay Hutter, Chad Tragakis, Judi Durand, and Michelle Casasola. Our mutual friends, including Marylin Bitner, Kirby Jones, Jeff Trammell, Bob Witeck, Kirby Jones, and Steve Behrens, offered essential wisdom and encouragement at moments key to the “getting it on paper” of this book. At the American City Diner, owner Jeffrey Gildenhorn and his staff, including John Hobson, Moises Vasquez, Mario Leon, and (the late) Jerry Matthews, are on every page—especially Joyce Mitchell, who sometimes flirted with Frank and danced right next to our corner booth. At the Old Ebbitt Grill, maître d’ Tony Aleman always saved the best booths for “Frankie and Joey,” and wait staff—with whom we had amazing conversations—included Fabian Clyde Luis and LaToya Bullitt.

For me, there are also key people: Marjorie Share, my wife, without whose insights, advice, wisdom, and creative talents this book never would have been born and would have died many, many times before its birth, and our sons, Aaron and Paul, both critical thinkers who read books all the time and brought special strengths and courage and love when they responded to e-mails from me that read something like “Attached are a few chapters from the Frank book; do you think it works; do you have any suggestions?” Among my friends there were many—including (the late) Willie Blacklow, Dan Moldea, Marty Bell, Matt Schneider, James Clad, and Marty Zwick, who offered essential encouragement; Carol Berger provided a wonderful writer’s retreat.

In the publishing world are—as usual—unsung heroes, primary among them literary agent Alexander Hoyt, who always saw things in this book that no one else was able to see, and who always had the right word or insight when a problem appeared. He did not appear in our lives until after the book was “done,” but I see now that Frank and I exchanged more than twelve hundred e-mails (!!!) with him. To Hugh van Dusen goes a huge thank-you for introducing us—and, more important, the book—to Alex. And at St. Martin’s, Thomas Dunne bought the book and contributed big things, like the title; Will Anderson was our Action Officer for working with talented and impressive staff at St. Martin’s, including Meg Drislane, Joy Gannon, and Joe Rinaldi.

Frank and I often discussed the arrival of this moment, beyond which names cannot be added to the Acknowledgments. When everyone Not Mentioned will be Never Mentioned. “That’s your problem,” I said to him. “It’s going to take a lot of work.” He would smile and reply, “It will be the easiest part of this.” And so all I can say to you, if you’ve read this far into the Acknowledgments, is that you are the heart of the Frank Story—and Frank knew it.

About the Authors

FRANK MANKIEWICZ
(left) was a public relations consultant, lawyer, writer, and journalist. He is best known as Robert F. Kennedy’s press secretary but was also the president of NPR, a regional director for the Peace Corps, and George McGovern’s campaign director. You can sign up for email updates
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