Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking (33 page)

Lawyer Y of San Francisco, defending in a highly publicized murder trial, told me he requires “complete anonymity.” But he was willing to confide his searing experience of December 13, 1977, when he met Jack O’Hara at 12:30 p.m. by the flower stand in front of Gump’s and gave him fifty dollars.

“
Fifty dollars!
” I exclaimed. “You were overcharged; thirty-six-fifty is the standard price.”

“Well, actually he asked for forty-two dollars, but I didn’t have the change,” said Lawyer Y somewhat sheepishly.

“Ah! So you gave him an eight-dollar tip?”

Y, now belligerent: “Hell, no, it wasn’t a tip!”

Beside the sweetly scented flower stand, O’Hara had unfolded his story. He said he was a retired Marine with a wife and two children, had worked for fifteen years in the Presidio. He was printing up a clandestine wiretap report on Y’s client for the Strike Force, the special Justice Department bureau that roams the country investigating organized crime.

“If he’d produced what he said he had, it would have been
extraordinary!
” said Y ruefully. “The Strike Force has been interested in my client for years. O’Hara had information going back many years that he couldn’t have gotten from the newspapers, that’s why he was so completely plausible.”

My random check turned up half a dozen more distinguished lawyers who had waited for O’Hara: a former counsel for ACLU in Los Angeles was promised a “dossier on ACLU compiled by Evelle Younger,” then district attorney; a San Francisco lawyer, under threat of disbarment, paid for a copy of “a lengthy and libelous undercover investigation of my background by the bar association”; a group of Southern California lawyers working for the California Rural Legal Assistance were offered “wiretap information about us and our cases to be printed for the Reagan administration.”

While O’Hara changes employers with chameleon-like rapidity —now P. G. & E., now the Democratic Central Committee, now the bar association—his patter and demeanor remain amazingly constant. The steady type with wife and children, he has almost always worked in the same place for fifteen years. He doesn’t approve of the client,
but
... He apologizes for his work clothes, is agitated and perspiring. The sweaty upper lip recurs in most descriptions of his appearance; does he, I wonder, hide a vial of glycerine about his person to produce the beads of sweat, much as Hollywood stars are said to use it to simulate real tears?

Had any of the victims reported their misfortune to the prosecuting authorities? It seemed unlikely, but I thought I should check with the D.A.’s office. The San Francisco deputy with whom I spoke knew of no such reports, but he would ask around and phone me back. In short order I got a call from Chandler Visher, assistant D.A. in the Consumer Frauds Division, who was boiling over with angry frustration. “I wish I could get my hands on him!” he exclaimed. “He’s caused me untold grief. He pulled his routine in a case I’m involved in.” This time O’Hara had contacted the business agent of a labor union in connection with an antitrust suit being investigated by Visher last October. The business agent had handed over fifty dollars for Xeroxes of reports on the potential defendants—“statements made at meetings, undercover agreements, various illegal activities. Bilking the business agent out of fifty dollars wasn’t a big crime, but the reason I am chagrined is I wasted a lot of taxpayers’ money trying to lay hands on O’Hara’s supposedly hot information. Our people spent endless time and trouble looking for him. I sent a guy to stake out the secret meeting place where O’Hara was to turn over the documents. It’s a strange M.O.—for that kind of money.”

Without exception, the O’Hara victims with whom I spoke betrayed an awed if grudging admiration for the man and his methods. “He has a genius for perceiving exactly what a lawyer would like to hear,” said Pesonen. “A parasite feeding on the most parasitic profession. He must research meticulously. One brilliant little touch was his mention of B. B. D. & O.—how did he
know
they handle the P. G. & E. account? And that we suspect P. G. & E. of trying to manipulate the media in this case through their public relations people? He’s not only a good strategist but a marvelous actor, completely believable.” So believable, in fact, that in almost every case the realization that he had been taken dawned exceedingly slowly in the victim’s mind; his first impulse, after being stood up, was to try to find the man, to track him down at any cost, by his own efforts or through private investigators, and retrieve the promised booty. Some even admitted to a fleeting fear that O’Hara might have met with foul play.

Bob Treuhaft thinks he “uses the adversary system, developed to a high art, in his choice of subjects.” He plays on people who rightly or wrongly believe the other side is devious and corrupt—P. G. & E., the state university trustees, the Angela Davis prosecutors—and who are therefore predisposed to accept his story at face value. Treuhaft also surmised that, in view of his geographically widespread activities, O’Hara may be more than one person: “Perhaps he’s a franchise operation, like Colonel Sanders.”

Estimates on O’Hara’s weekly take vary wildly. Dave Fechheimer believes he makes a very good thing out of it, possibly as much as $50,000 a year. “Let’s say he does five a day, that’s about a hundred and ninety dollars at his going rate. Roughly nine hundred and fifty dollars for a five-day week. How many people do
you
know who take home nine hundred and fifty dollars tax-free, with no overhead?” Hal Lipset takes the opposite view, thinks he “does it for jollies.” I’m with Lipset; being something of an investigator myself, I cannot conceive of anybody, even a researcher of O’Hara’s stature, being able to track down and absorb the kind of detailed information needed for his line of work at the rate of five jobs a day—aside from the fact that he would soon run out of pigeons. One a
week
is more like it—yet so far my own superficial search has turned up Chandler Visher in October, 1977; Pesonen, November 29th; Margolin, December 6th; Lawyer Y, December 13th—were there others waiting for O’Hara during that time span?

Why have the lawyers failed to notify law enforcement authorities or at least to spread a word of warning throughout the legal fraternity? First, I suppose, because nobody (least of all a lawyer) likes to appear naive and easily gulled. Thus Doris Walker, possibly wishing to avoid an unmerciful ribbing, neglected to inform her own partner of the episode. Second, nobody likes to admit to the universal weaknesses that all con men prey on: the larceny that lurks in every heart, a hankering after forbidden fruit, the hope of getting something for nothing. Third, there is the nagging matter of bar association ethics: “This is a serious question for the victim, and perhaps a reason he doesn’t report it to police,” said Margolin. “Is the lawyer’s effort to get a copy of O’Hara’s material ethical? Or is the promised document stolen property? I don’t know; I’ve done a lot of lecturing to law students on this very subject....”

Mr. O’Hara—Jack, if I may be so bold?—I feel we know each other so well, though we’ve never met. As you gulp down this issue of
New West
along with your usual quick cup of coffee, do not think harshly of me, for in fact you are the hero of this story. I hate to blow your cover. Yet somewhere, on the back burner of my mind, there simmers the recollection of soaring hopes and thudding downfall when you promised to deliver the trustees of San Jose State into my waiting hands—and failed me.

Dave Fechheimer says he would like to catch you at it one day, but not for the purpose of turning you over to the police. A more fitting end to your extraordinary career, he feels, would be a testimonial dinner to be tendered to you by your victims—at $36.50 a plate. Bring the wife and kids; it should be a star-studded occasion, marred only by the presence of Chandler Visher, who vows he will show up with an arrest warrant.

COMMENT

The O’Hara saga first came my way via lawyers’ corridor gossip. Dave Pesonen, a partner in Charles Garry’s renowned law firm, ran into my husband in court one day and related his crushing experience at O’Hara’s hands. “You’ve joined the club!” said Bob, and told him what had happened in the San Jose fingerprint case. It just might make a jolly little piece for a magazine, I thought, if only I could find a few other O’Hara pigeons. There was delicious irony to be milked from the fact that these super-sophisticated, high-powered lawyers, whose own livelihoods depend on the myriad devious tricks of their trade, were as a class the victims selected to be tricked by O’Hara—a turning of the tables that might appeal to the reader’s sense of rough and ready Western justice.

Starting with the two San Francisco private eyes, Fechheimer and Lipset, I began to accumulate case histories—but no names; private investigators are, of course, obliged to preserve the confidentiality of their clients’ affairs. And, as Lipset pointed out, although lawyers are generally avid for publicity it was unlikely that they would want this ego-bruising story splashed in the public prints.

Bob and Doris, whose egos had long since been calloused by the vicissitudes of their law practice and whose O’Hara-connected cases had been fought through to victorious conclusions, were not averse to being featured in the article. Pesonen was uncertain; he was loath, while his suit against P. G. & E. was pending, to publicly concede his lusting after the illicit documents, which might be construed by the opposition as a sign of weakness. While it might be possible to write the piece giving only two names, referring to the others as Lawyer A, B, C, and so on, this would soften the impact and might even cause the reader to wonder whether the whole story was a fabrication.

A break came when Lipset consented to call the victim of December 6th and ask if he was willing to talk to me. In short order, Ephraim Margolin telephoned; he and his secretary, Sondra Rosen, unfolded their harrowing tale and gave permission for use of their names. After this it was fairly plain sailing. Pesonen decided that if Margolin had no objection, he would also go along. Both lawyers ruefully acknowledged the humor of the situation, and before turning in the piece I checked and double-checked with them each passage in which they were quoted. In the end, the only holdout was Lawyer Y.

Although the article flushed out a number of other O’Hara victims who wrote or telephoned to tell their stories, the phantom printer himself remained as elusive as ever. Has he set up shop in some other state? Left the country? Or has he reformed and decided to go straight? Having a sneaking admiration for the fellow —and even, in some recess of my nature, an affinity for him and his dreadful methods—I cannot help feeling that the last outcome would be the saddest of all.

EGYPTOMANIA: TUT, MUT, AND THE REST OF THE GANG

GEO /
1979

My earliest impressions of Egypt stemmed from two main sources: the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, when I was quite a small child—wonderful photographs of the golden boy-king and his treasures in the
Illustrated London News
and the
Sphere
—and the fascinating sepia spreads in the film-fan magazines of the doomed Rudolph Valentino galloping across the desert in his sheik’s getup or, better yet, close-ups of his kissing scenes. My older sisters, who had seen his movies (I was considered too young for such torrid entertainment), pretended to be madly in love with Rudy, so naturally I followed suit. He soon died and we greedily pored over accounts of the mob scenes at his funeral, with photos of his body decked out in formal evening clothes lying in his silvered-bronze open casket.

Thereafter Valentino and Tutankhamun merged in my childish mind. They looked amazingly alike from the photographs: so young to die! So rich and desirable! Their beautiful, if somewhat androgynous features so well preserved by the embalmer’s art! Those early loves soon faded—after all they weren’t too viable, to use correctly for once a commonly misused expression—to be replaced by more immediate, pressing occupations.

I gave no further thought to matters Egyptian until the summer of 1977 when I met James Manning, an archaeologist who was traveling round America with the great Tutankhamun exhibit. As he spoke of his work in Egypt, in the Luxor-Thebes area, his eyes took on the faraway look that I was to encounter time and again when I began to meet his colleagues: that of a visionary, semi-holy, not quite of this world. He is part of the Brooklyn Museum expedition financed by the Coca-Cola Company, excavating the Precinct of Mut at Luxor, he told me. (Mut who, I wondered?) Thanks to twentieth-century techniques of excavation, he said, it is now possible for the first time to think in terms of learning details of the day-to-day life of Egyptian priests, artisans, peasants. For example, a mysterious stone covered with hieroglyphs carved into tiny squares, found near the Precinct in 1817, was only recently deciphered by a modern scholar—it turned out to be a crossword-puzzle hymn to Mut! In fact, Egyptology is in its infancy; we are witnessing the sunrise of real discovery. Wouldn’t I like to come along and watch? It did sound rather fascinating; perhaps a predynastic Scrabble game would turn up next. And so it was settled.

“Fancy you going to Egypt,” an English friend wrote. “So hot and dusty, full of foreigners wearing long dirty nightgowns.” But how to prepare for this great adventure? The very word “Egyptology” is daunting, redolent of aged antiquarians who have devoted their entire lives to this subject, of vast museums, repositories of mummies, hieroglyphic inscriptions, pottery, jewelry, and vaster libraries of tomes purporting to explain these artifacts....

Not for me the role of Instant Expert. I confined my preliminary reading to two incredibly useful books that I recommend to anybody seeking a fast introduction to Egypt: the 1929 Baedeker; and
An Alphabet of Ancient Egypt
, by Mary Chubb, recommended for ages seven to ten, which was kindly loaned to me by my youngest grandchild. I also skimmed
Death on the Nile
, a 1938 Agatha Christie murder mystery.

Thanks to Mary Chubb, I learned that the word “cartouche” (which I had vaguely thought was French for cartridge) means the oblong lines round the hieroglyphic names of Egyptian kings, and that pylon is not only a steel tower connecting telephone wires but is also the gateway of an Egyptian temple. From Baedeker (which contains chapters with such titillating titles as “Intercourse with Orientals”) I discovered that Luxor is four hundred miles south of Cairo, its mean maximum temperature in March is 85 degrees, but that “with this warmth a bracing effect is obtained from the dryness of the air.” In
Death on the Nile
, an American tourist remarks (aptly, in view of my mission), “The guide says the name of one of these gods or goddesses was Mut. Can you beat it?”