Dish by Jeannette Walls Read Free Book Online Page A

to create a stir. One of hottest subjects of the day was organized crime, and Wallace invited Mickey Cohen, the former mobster and confessed murderer, to appear on the show. Cohen, who had left the underworld and owned a flower shop and an ice cream parlor, did not disappoint. Once the cameras were rolling, he erupted into a tirade on live television, calling Los Angeles Police Chief Bill Parker a “sadistic degenerate,” an alcoholic, and a “reformed thief.”
    Parker was watching the show. “I hope Mike Wallace has a lot of money,” he said. Parker and the LAPD sued Wallace and every ABC station that carried the show for a total of $33 million. “Has Wallace’s prying gone too far?” asked one reviewer. “There are those who believe that if Wallace continues sinking his scalpel too deep, it eventually will plant itself between his own shoulder blades.” The network rushed onto air with a profuse apology and retraction, ABC made an out-of-court settlement with Parker, and Wallace was told to tone down the show. Things went downhill from there.
    “Is he a sadist, as some contend?”
Newsweek
asked in September 1957. “Does he really think he is performing a public service by allowing ex-hoodlum Mickey Cohen and scandal sheet private eye Fred Otash to give their questionable views a public airing? What are his rebuttals to the charge that he is an untrained reporter and a sensation hound, and that his show, ‘Mike Wallace Interviews,’ is no better than the TV equivalent of
Confidential
magazine?”
    Shortly after the Cohen fiasco, Wallace invited Drew Pearson to be a guest on his show. Pearson was at the time one of the most respected newspapermen in the country, an investigative reporter with a syndicated column who had dared take on the powerful Kennedy dynasty. In the late 1950s, Pearson had written a number of columns attacking the Kennedys, pointing out Joseph Kennedy’s ties to organized crime and the disgraced anti-Communist Joe McCarthy. Pearson also wrote a column questioning the politicalascendency of the young Senator John F. Kennedy. Wallace thought that the controversial but highly credible Pearson would make an ideal guest on his show.
    “You wrote that Senator Kennedy’s—and I quote—‘millionaire McCarthyite father, crusty old Joseph P. Kennedy, is spending a fortune on a publicity machine to make Jack’s name well-known.’ ” Wallace said to Pearson on air. “What significance do you see in this, aside from the fact that Joe Kennedy would like to see Jack Kennedy president of the United States?”
    “I don’t know what significance other than the fact that I don’t think we should have a synthetic public relations buildup for any job of that kind,” Pearson replied. “Jack Kennedy’s a fine young man,” the reporter continued, “but he isn’t as good as that public relations campaign makes him out to be.” Then Pearson let loose a bombshell: “[John F. Kennedy] is the only man in history that I know who won a Pulitzer Prize for a book that was ghostwritten for him.”
    Wallace’s eyes grew wide with astonishment. “You know for a fact, Drew,” he asked, “that the book
Profiles in Courage
was written for Senator Kennedy … by someone else?”
    “I do,” Pearson said, who maintained that Kennedy speech-writer Ted Sorensen actually wrote the book.
    “And Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for it?” Wallace asked. “And he has never acknowledged the fact?”
    “No, he has not,” Pearson said. “You know, there’s a little wisecrack around the Senate about Jack…. Some of his colleagues say, ‘Jack, I wish you had a little less profile and more courage.’
    ABC executives didn’t congratulate Wallace for his scoop. To the contrary. Joe Kennedy called his lawyer, Clark Clifford, yelling, “Sue the bastards for fifty million dollars!” And in no time, Clifford and Robert Kennedy had showed up at ABC and told executives there the Kennedys would sue unless the