The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News--And Divided a Country (72 page)

  
76.
In June 1970
Letter from James Cordes of WordCraft Productions to Roger Ailes, June 16, 1970.

  
77.
Ailes told Nixon aide
Letter from Roger Ailes to Nixon aide Jeb Magruder, July 3, 1970.

  
78.
In the summer
Memo from Nixon aide Gregg Petersmeyer to Herbert Klein, Aug. 13, 1970.

  
79.
Ailes sent Haldeman
Roger Ailes’s marked-up, signed copy of the memo proposing a White House news service.

  
80.
just a few months earlier
Nyhan, “Roger Ailes: He Doctors a Politician’s TV Image.”

  
81.
“It should be expanded”
Roger Ailes’s marked-up, signed copy of the memo proposing a White House news service.

  
82.
A prescient 1973 document
Memo from T. O’Donnell to H. R. Haldeman, March 12, 1973.

  
83.
By November 1970
“Memorandum for Bill Carruthers File,” by Dwight Chapin, Nov. 16, 1970.

  
84.
On November 19
Unsigned White House memo, Nov. 19, 1970.

  
85.
The day before Thanksgiving
Ailes proposal to Haldeman, Nov. 25, 1970.

  
86.
He hired Carruthers
The announcement was made in
The Hollywood Reporter
. “President Nixon Names Carruthers Consultant,”
Hollywood Reporter
, Feb. 1, 1970. On December 29, 1970, Chapin wrote to Carruthers, “Bob Haldeman has talked to Roger Ailes and Roger is fully aware of your coming aboard here as well as Mark Goode’s.” See also Haldeman,
The Haldeman Diaries
, 266.

  
87.
The White House worried
Chapin memo to Haldeman, Dec. 23, 1970.

  
88.
A meeting was scheduled
Haldeman,
The Haldeman Diaries
, 270.

  
89.
A talking paper
Undated document, “Re: Roger Ailes’ Meeting,” Nixon Presidential Library Archives.

  
90.
A few weeks later
Letter from Roger Ailes to H. R. Haldeman, Feb. 9, 1971.

  
91.
“No need for H.”
Memo from Nixon aide Bruce Kehrli to Lawrence Higby (undated).

  
92.
“I have been getting a lot”
Letter from Roger Ailes to Lawrence Higby, Feb. 12, 1971.

  
93.
The Real Tom Kennedy Show
Author interview with Tom Kennedy.

  
94.
An article in
Backstage
“Ailes, Business Is Not Ailing,”
Backstage
, March 5, 1971.

  
95.
a speech
Roger Ailes, “Candidate + Money + Media = Votes” (transcript of speech), Town Hall of California, June 8, 1971. The speech was mentioned in the pages of
Broadcasting
on June 14, 1971, in an article titled “Nixon’s Specialist on TV Defends Its Political Use.”

  
96.
He told White House photographer
Letter from Roger Ailes to Nixon photographer Oliver Atkins, May 14, 1971.

  
97.
“Roger got caught up”
Author interview with Robert Ailes Jr.

    
1.
“He was trying to figure out”
Author interview with Robert Ailes Jr.

    
2.
Paul Turnley, a liberal Democrat
Author interview with former Ailes assistant Paul Turnley.

    
3.
On May 15
Letter from Roger Ailes to H. R. Haldeman, May 19, 1971. Even though Ailes lost out on the White House television position, he continued to cultivate a relationship with the administration. In this letter, Ailes told Haldeman that when he traveled to Indiana, he learned that Gene Pulliam, the publisher of
The Indianapolis Star
, was turning against Nixon. “He has gone as far as to say he is going to back Scoop Jackson for 1972,” Ailes wrote, advising Nixon not to attend the Indianapolis 500 car race. “I think it would be a very bad idea. The situation in Indiana is just too volatile at the moment and I can’t see anything that the president could gain from it politically.” On May 21, Jon M. Huntsman, special assistant to the president, wrote Ailes that he would make office space available for him “during your consultation visits to the White House, as a White House Consultant.” On May 28, Ailes wrote to Haldeman, thanking him for the offer of office space. “I am very happy to know that our relationship is to continue,” Ailes wrote. “As you know, my personal and professional loyalty is with the President and I want to do everything I can to help get him re-elected in 1972. As you pointed out, Bob, I have become somewhat of a political animal now as well as a media adviser and I think this does give me some added strength and in some ways makes me a double-threat man. I was used by Westinghouse Broadcasting as a trouble-shooter in trouble program areas and I think I could serve the same role politically in some of the states where we have problems.… Thank you for your confidence in me.” On June 2, Haldeman replied, “I wish you the best of luck in
your new political trouble shooter role. I am sure you will do an excellent job.” Documents available at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum do not indicate that the administration used Ailes in any substantive way. On July 1, Ailes wrote Haldeman’s assistant, Larry Higby, suggesting that Nixon attend a Washington Senators baseball game, at a time when the team was considering relocating to Texas. “We have done nothing recently to build up his ‘sports enthusiast’ image,” Ailes wrote, “and it might be worth a trip during his ‘private hours’ over to the ballpark to see the Senators or to talk to their management about their problems—not as the President but as a sports fan trying to keep the Senators in Washington.” Ailes told Higby that the stunt would “give the President a down-to-earth look.”

    
4.
“I don’t have this burning thing”
“Nixon’s Roger Ailes,”
Washington Post
.

    
5.
Ailes arranged for a barber
Author interview with Paul Turnley. In an interview, Andrew Stein confirmed that he wore a hairpiece but said he could not recall Ailes calling in a barber. Stein praised Ailes’s talents for communication. “He was a force of nature then too. It was a terrific experience.… I remember him saying something once: ‘Sometimes it’s important to say nothing, to have a pause. Some people always think they have to be talking, but that’s not true.’ ”

    
6.
Jim Holshouser
“Holshouser Releases Promised Tax Records,” United Press International (printed in Lexington, North Carolina’s
The Dispatch
), Aug. 12, 1974. See also
http://www.wral.com/former-gov-jim-holshouser-dies/4369405/
,
http://www.unctv.org/content/biocon/jamesholshouser/installments
.

    
7.
Holshouser flew to New York
Author interview with Paul Turnley.

    
8.
“I don’t think”
Author interview with Paul Turnley.

    
9.
On February 12
Letter from Roger Ailes to Jack Rourke, Feb. 12, 1971.

  
10.
born Ellen Boulton
Earl Wilson, “Snakes Alive! Patrice Munsel Has Pet Boa,”
Milwaukee Sentinel
, June 24, 1974,
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=EmlRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=rBEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6410,1719404&dq=kelly-garrett&hl=en
.

  
11.
four years younger
Tom Sharpe, “Kelly Garrett 1944–2013: Acclaimed Singer Had Roots in New Mexico,”
New Mexican
, Aug. 12, 2013.

  
12.
she grew up in Santa Fe
Jay Sharbutt, “Kelly Garrett Isn’t ‘Overnight’ Success,” Associated Press, published in
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
, July 1, 1974,
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19740710&id=e2QwAAAAIBAJ&sjid=YW0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=3300,1401941
.

  
13.
At age twenty-two
Author interview with Kelly Garrett’s sister, Georgia Pearson. See also “California, Marriage Index, 1960–1985,” index, Michael T. Mikler and Ellen M. Boulton (1966), FamilySearch.

  
14.
She got a divorce
“California, Divorce Index, 1966–1984,” index, Ellen M. Boulton and Michael T. Mikler (1970), FamilySearch.

  
15.
Rourke responded
Letter from Jack Rourke to Roger Ailes, Feb. 24, 1971.

  
16.
Ailes chose
Mother Earth
Entry for
Mother Earth
on Internet Broadway Database,
http://ibdb.com/production.php?id=2966
.

  
17.
But the conservative spirit
South Coast Repertory (historical account on the company’s website),
http://www.scr.org/about/scrstory.aspx#.UYp1YYLuf3o
.

  
18.
Toni Tennille
Bob Thomas, “Both Critics and Audience Like ‘Mother Earth,’ Stage Musical,” Associated Press, published in
Daytona Beach Morning Journal
, Aug. 25, 1971.

  
19.
The musical, he wrote
Script of original production of
Mother Earth
.

  
20.
The show opened
“Repertory Show Will Start Jan. 8,”
Los Angeles Times
, Dec. 27, 1970.

  
21.
“I am one”
Script of original production of
Mother Earth
.

  
22.
“After we ended”
Author interview with South Coast cofounder Jim dePriest.

  
23.
After successful runs
Margaret Harford, “ ‘Mother Earth’ to Move to Bay Area,”
Los Angeles Times
, May 23, 1971; Gregg Kilday, “ ‘Mother Earth’ Set at Hartford,”
Los Angeles Times
, July 25, 1971.

  
24.
Ray Golden
“Screen News Here and in Hollywood,”
New York Times
, Feb. 22, 1941; “The Theatre: New Revue in Manhattan,”
Time
, Sept. 19, 1955; “Openings of the Week,”
New York Times
, Jan. 15, 1950.

  
25.
“Roger came back”
Author interview with Paul Turnley.

  
26.
Over lunch
Author interview with April Garrett, Ron Thronson’s widow.

  
27.
A couple of months before
Louis Calta, “2 Musicals Set Their Premieres,”
New York Times
, Sept. 7, 1972; author interview with April Garrett.

  
28.
“It turned into”
Author interview with Martin Benson.

  
29.
“We got bamboozled”
Jan Herman, “Toni Tennille: No Hits but ‘Always Sold Out,’ ”
Los Angeles Times
, April 10, 1988.

  
30.
he met the Broadway producer
Scott Collins,
Crazy Like a Fox: The Inside Story of How Fox News Beat CNN
(New York: Penguin, 2004), 29.

  
31.
His string
Albin Krebs, “Kermit Bloomgarden, Producer of Many Outstanding Plays, Dead,”
New York Times
, Sept. 21, 1976.

  
32.
“Given the circumstance”
Author interview with Kermit Bloomgarden’s son John Bloomgarden.

  
33.
During the height of McCarthyism
California Senate,
Report of the Senate Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, 1948: Communist Front Organizations
, 1948,
http://archive.org/stream/reportofsenatefa00calirich/reportofsenatefa00calirich_djvu.txt
.

  
34.
Though Bloomgarden was never called
See, for instance, Elia Kazan,
A Life
(New York: Da Capo, 1997), 440, 461, 592.

  
35.
“What the hell”
Author interview with Robert Cohen. Bloomgarden was not a Nixon supporter. During the 1968 campaign, he helped produce a “Garden Rally for McCarthy” hosted by Tony Randall at the Waldorf-Astoria. The A-list crowd of attendees included Mike Nichols, Dustin Hoffman, Leonard Bernstein, Alan Arkin, Neil Simon, Barbra Streisand, and Arthur Miller. (Private Papers of Kermit Bloomgarden obtained from the Wisconsin Historical Society.) When Robert Cohen went to work for Ailes, Bloomgarden would ask Cohen about Ailes’s politics. “Every now and then Kermit would ask, ‘Do you talk about politics with Roger?’ ” Cohen recalled. “And I said, ‘As little as possible to be very honest with you. It’s not my politics, you know that.’ He goes, ‘Yeah.’ ”

  
36.
Bloomgarden earned
Author interview with Stephen Rosenfield.

  
37.
To finance
Mother Earth
Author interview with Howard Butcher IV.

  
38.
Frank Coombs
Author interview with dancer Frank Coombs.

  
39.
Cast member John Bennett Perry
Author interview with actor John Bennett Perry.

  
40.
“He’d sit in the back room”
Author interview with actor Rick Podell.

  
41.
“She was striking looking”
Author interview with John Bennett Perry.

  
42.
“Roger made sure”
Author interview with Rick Podell.

  
43.
Frank Coombs, who was asked
Author interview with Frank Coombs.

  
44.
Inviting John Bennett Perry
Author interview with John Bennett Perry.

  
45.
Looking back, Podell recognized
Author interview with actor Rick Podell.

  
46.
Robert Cohen thought Ailes
Author interview with Robert Cohen.

  
47.
By staging a photo shoot
Author interview with Frank Coombs.

  
48.
Ailes made another plug
Joe McGinniss, “The Resale of the President,”
New York Times Magazine
, Sept. 3, 1972.

  
49.
Ailes also reached out
Memo from Peter Flanigan to Starke Meyer, Oct. 11, 1972. “Leonard Garment has asked me to let you know about a new musical being produced by Roger Ailes, called ‘Mother Earth,’ ” Flanigan wrote. “Please let me know if you are interested.”

  
50.
After the curtain
Author interview with Robert Cohen.

  
51.
John Bennett Perry got a call
Author interview with John Bennett Perry.

  
52.
In a savage review
Clive Barnes, “Stage: ‘Mother Earth,’ a Rock Revue,”
New York Times
, Oct. 20, 1972.

  
53.
“The second night”
Author interview with Rick Podell.

  
54.
Within a week
Author interview with John Bennett Perry.

  
55.
After just a dozen performances
Clara Rotter (compiler), “Closing the Record Book on 1972–1973,”
New York Times
, July 1, 1973.

  
56.
“My eyes”
Collins,
Crazy Like a Fox
, 30.

  
57.
“The main discussion”
Author interview with Paul Turnley.

  
58.
“Don’t ever chase critics”
Collins,
Crazy Like a Fox
, 30.

  
59.
As he would later tell it
Collins,
Crazy Like a Fox
, 30. When asked if Ailes scouted productions himself, Robert Cohen said: “Not that I know of. He depended on me. I was the guy who had to go find these things.” He went on: “The fact of the matter is, Roger wasn’t in the club.… Roger subscribed to every trade publication on earth and I would sit with a razor blade and I would be clipping out articles. You can do that forever but by the time it’s in the trade, it’s been picked up.” Cohen said that Ailes usually rejected his ideas. “There was Roger with his big Roger office. There was me in my little office, and I would get ahold of every agent in New York and read every play they would send to me,” Cohen recalled. “But the problem was the stuff I was interested in Roger wouldn’t go for at all. All this left-wing stuff about hippies and banning the war. I’d go, ‘Read this,’ and he’d go, ‘I don’t want to do things like this. I want to do American things.’ ”

  
60.
He hired
Author interview with Robert Cohen.

  
61.
One day in February 1973
Author interview with Robert Cohen.

  
62.
Lanford Wilson, a cofounder
Circle Repertory Company Records, New York Public Library,
http://archives.nypl.org/the/21737
.

  
63.
depicted a group
Lanford Wilson,
The Hot l Baltimore
(New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1973), 7.

  
64.
“I thought, My God”
Author interview with Robert Cohen.