Tycoon (30 page)

Anne hugged her. “The operation is easy, Joni,” she whispered. “It'll be over in five minutes.”

“I believed it couldn't happen,” Joan wept. “I didn't
want
it to happen! I was afraid.”

She was very careful not to stare at John, who sat opposite her. The passenger cabin was configured as a sort of little living room.

“The big point,” said Jack, “is that we keep a family secret. I'm not going to press you about who it was. But could it have happened when you were visiting us in Greenwich?”

“It happened then,” Joan wept. “And that's all I'm going to say about it. Don't try to figure it out.”

“We're not going to say we don't care who it was,” Anne whispered to her. “But you don't have to say. What difference would it make?”

Joan sobbed and nodded. “A whole lot of difference!”

“But you don't want to tell us?” asked Jack.

“I'll
never
tell!” Joan shrieked. “I'll never tell!”

“Well, answer one question,” Jack said grimly. “Was it Dodge Hallowell?”

“
No!

Anne hugged the girl tighter. “When we fly back, you'll feel better.”

“But I'll have
killed my baby!”
Joan screamed.

Anne nodded. “Just remember, there's nobody with you on this trip who doesn't love you.”

1949

C
URT
F
REDERICK'S CONTRACT CAME UP FOR RENEWAL IN
1949. He was by now one of the most respected broadcast journalists in the United States. Jack had released to him all copyright claims to his wartime broadcasts, so he could make an LP record, which was called
As It Happened
. Such cuts as his 1940 broadcast from Sedan, with the roar of German artillery behind his voice, won him brisk record sales and millions of new listeners who still did not have LNI stations in their communities.

Jack also released to him some snippets from more recent broadcasts, including the South Carolina Dixiecrat yelling “Truman! Truman! That nigga-lovin' cocksuckah!” Many thousands of records were sold to people who had not heard the broadcast and still had to be convinced that the words had actually been spoken on the radio.

“I hardly need tell you I'm grateful to you,” Curt said to Jack over lunch at the Harvard Club, “but I've also got to tell you I'm a little tired. Doing a nightly news show five times a week is wearing me down. Betsy keeps telling me she doesn't want me to have a heart attack, and she says we don't need the money.”

“I can't imagine you'd actually retire,” said Jack. “What are you looking for, Curt?”

“Maybe a weekly show, a whole half hour exploring some topic in depth, with interviews and so on.”

“I've got a different idea,” said Jack. “Sooner or later we're going to start telecasting. Suppose you did a television show, maybe twice a month. You'd make a hell of a fine appearance on television.”

“Maybe. Or maybe I'd look like an idiot. Anyway, how soon do you plan to go into television?”

“Let's think in terms of next year. In the meantime, do me a favor and continue the nightly radio news for one more year. Right now, let's suppose you take a month's vacation. We'll put that in your contract: a month off every year. Of course,” Jack added, “we can also work a little more money into the deal.”

I
N
A
PRIL
J
ACK CALLED A MEETING IN THE OFFICES IN THE
Chrysler Building. With him in the conference room were Cap Durenberger, Herb Morrill, and Mickey Sullivan—the three longtime members of the management team of LNI—plus Ray l'Enfant of Broadcasters Alliance and Professor Friedrich Loewenstein.

The meeting was held early in the evening.

Jack presided. In 1949 he was a new man. Exuberantly happy in his marriage to Anne, he had cut down on drinking and smoking and had lost a few pounds. Anne had measured him meticulously and sent the new dimensions to his Savile Row tailor, who kept him handsomely clothed. Jack was not the proper conforming gentleman Kimberly had wanted to make of him, but he was a gentleman in a better style.

“The purpose of our meeting, obviously, is to talk about this thing called television,” he said. “I think we have to get into it. We have no choice.”

“That's going to be a little difficult,” said Herb Morrill.
“The FCC has frozen the issuance of new television broadcasting licenses. RCA owns most of the stations now operating. CBS has a few. The independents are—”

“For sale,” Jack finished the sentence. “Five years from now a television license is going to be worth ten fortunes. Right now they're not. In the first place, there's not much programming. What is worse, the cost of sending out the signal, to only relatively few receivers, is prohibitive. How many television receiving sets are there in the United States? Cap? You know?”

“Half a million, maybe,” Durenberger said. “Almost all of them within fifty miles of New York City.”

Jack nodded. “Okay. Suppose we acquired a license in St. Louis or, say, Dallas. Suppose we put up a broadcasting tower that reached halfway to the sky. Suppose we sent out a signal that could be picked up for two hundred miles—by people who were interested enough to raise their receiving antennas high, maybe as much as fifty feet. Professor Loewenstein?”

“You could reach
sree
hundred miles, Mr. Lee-ar.”

“Okay,” Jack went on. “Forgive me. I've thought this through. Maybe too much. Maybe my enthusiasm is running away with me. What good's a television receiver in Tulsa? It's worth nothing because there's no signal for it to receive. But suppose we were sending a strong long-distance signal out of Dallas or St. Louis—”

“Or Kansas City,” said Cap. “Look at your demographics. Look what you could reach from Kansas City.”

“You overlook something, gentlemen,” said Professor Loewenstein. “You could have a broadcasting station in Kansas City, let us say, but with
satellite
transmitters in Dallas, Tulsa, Wichita, and so on. You could send the signal from Kansas City to those transmitters by
wire.”

Jack turned and stared at the professor. “Are you willing to join our company, Professor Loewenstein?”

“Yes, I guess so. And we must look into something else. There is a good technology coming along called microwave transmission.”

T
HOUGH THE COMPANY WAS CALLED
S
OUTHERN
T
OBACCO, ITS
offices were in New York—in fact, in the Chrysler Building a few floors above Jack's offices. Jack had seen Luther Dickinson in the elevators, though they had never met until now.

After they had exchanged pleasantries, Dickinson went straight to the point. “Mr. Lear, my advertising agency is recommending we drop sponsorship of
The Sally Allen Show
and, indeed, of anything you broadcast.”

Jack smiled wryly. “Mr. Dickinson, you need a new ad agency.”

“I've had six of them over the past fifteen years. I sometimes wonder, quite frankly, if we sell Amber cigarettes because of the commercials or in spite of them.”

“Have you considered trying to sell cigarettes without advertising?”

“We're not considering dropping advertising, just dropping advertising
with you.”

Jack smiled. “Because I won't let you call the new Sally Allen show
The Amber Cigarettes Hour.”

“My advertising agency says we shouldn't accept that. They insist on identification.”

Jack shook his head. “I won't do it. It will be
The Sally Allen Show,
sponsored by . . . whoever. That's enough identification. Also, I don't know if your ad agency has told you this, but we won't allow a sponsor to inject product mentions into the scripts.”

“The ad agency also insists we have script approval.”

“Out of the question,” Jack said.

“We've done it our way for many years.”

“But you're not happy with the results. Why else would you have had six advertising agencies in fifteen years? I'm serious when I say you need a new agency. You need somebody with new ideas.”

“Easily said,” Dickinson remarked dryly. “Can
you
give me a new idea?”

“Yes, I can,” said Jack. “Ambers are identified with
The Sally Allen Show
and with a couple of shows you sponsor on other networks. Each week the same people tune in to Sally Allen and are exposed to your commercials. A substantial part of that audience already smokes Ambers. Another substantial part will never smoke Ambers. I'm going to suggest to you that your advertising dollars will be better spent if you
diversify.
Advertise on various programs at various times and reach different audiences. For example, I can open a place for you on
The Curtis Frederick News.”
Jack paused and smiled. “You wouldn't ask for script approval on that program, would you?”

“You are a persuasive man, Mr. Lear.”

Jack smiled. “You run a successful business, Mr. Dickinson. Maybe I'm presumptuous in telling you what to do. But I do know something about broadcast advertising.”

“I'll review your suggestions with my people,” Dickinson said. “So . . . would you care to have lunch at the Yale Club one day soon?”

J
ACK AND
A
NNE WERE SO PLEASED WITH THE HOUSE THEY
had leased in Greenwich that, in the spring of 1949, they bought it. With a second child coming, the brownstone in New York began to seem confining. They decided to keep the brownstone and not move its elegant furnishings into the country house, where they would have looked out of place anyway. The Greenwich house, which stood on an acre and a half of land, had been built in the 1890s as a reproduction of the eighteenth-century New England Colonial style. The Lears bought it furnished and agreed they would not spend a great deal of money decorating it. The purchase itself had placed a strain on their finances, and Anne had to put the last of her
Weldon inheritance into it, It was to be a comfortable retreat from Manhattan when they needed one.

In June they sent Mrs. Gimbel and Little Jack to Greenwich. The little boy, now two, loved the beach and was encouraged to romp on it all he wanted. Priscilla went out to take care of the house and to get it ready for Jack and Anne, plus John and Joni, who would take up residence the first of July.

In the town house, Jack and Anne reveled in their newly regained privacy, which they had cherished in the past.

On a Friday night late in June, Jack broke away from the office early and reached the townhouse by six o'clock. Anne was waiting for him, dressed in an ivory brocade satin short teddy, which she wore with a matching G-string. Garters attached to the teddy supported sheer black stockings.

“God!”
Jack exclaimed.

“While I can. Next month I'll start to swell.”

She had Johnnie Walker Black on the coffee table, with a bucket of ice. Because she was pregnant she would drink nothing more than a glass of white wine. After he poured a Scotch and soda for himself and wine for her, they stood at the window looking down on the FDR Drive and the East River.

“It seems,” Anne said, “that I may be named one of the ten best-dressed women in the world.”

“No doubt you're the one who spends the least for the honor,” he said.

“The honor should go to someone who knows how to do it without spending a fortune. I've got eleven pairs of shoes, including tennis and beach shoes. I counted them today after I read that one of the candidates has
sixty
pairs.”

“What would anyone do with sixty pairs of shoes?”

“Damned if I know.”

“Is the honor for conspicuous consumption or for taste?” Jack asked.

“I won't comment.” She laughed.

They stood close together, far enough back from the window so that someone below wouldn't see them. His arm was around her.

Anne put her hand in his crotch and felt for an erection. She found one. “The honor is partly for appearing at the right places at the right times,” she explained. “Which reminds me
that we have two appearances to make before we retreat to Connecticut. A dinner at the English-Speaking Union and one at the Lotos Club. By the time the fall season opens, I'll have an incontrovertible reason for failing to appear at the right places and times.”

“And I won't go without you,” he said simply.

“Well, we have to think about that. There will be places you need to go, need to be seen. You are not just an ordinary businessman. You are becoming something of an institution, Jack. Some functions will not be complete if you're not there!”