America's Reluctant Prince

by Steven M. Gillon

  One occasional visitor was Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, an aspiring Republican consultant who performed stand-up comedy at night. She could often be seen roaming the office handing out free passes to her shows. She would later get married, change her name to Conway, and become a White House advisor to President Donald Trump. Even John’s friends and family, especially his sister, popped up unannounced.

  Initially, there were so many interruptions that it was hard getting work done during regular business hours. “We were like a new toy,” RoseMarie reflected. Thus, the real work of putting together the magazine didn’t start until night, when all the distractions disappeared. The cost-conscious Hachette did not help matters by turning off the air-conditioning every evening at five o’clock, when the executives fled the building, leaving the people who produced their magazines stuck in sweltering offices.

  Privately, John faced another potential distraction in the summer of 1995. According to FBI files declassified as part of my lawsuit against the US Department of Homeland Security to secure FBI and Secret Service files related to John, the ruthless Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco de Trujillo, who went by many names—“Cocaine Queen,” “the Godmother,” and “Black Widow”—was believed to have threatened to kidnap John. It was not uncommon for the FBI to receive threats against John. One example occurred in May 1985: while he was working for the City of New York, someone called the Herndon, Virginia, police department and “stated to the effect that he and seven other individuals intended on kidnapping John Kennedy that evening at 8:00 P.M.” Since the caller was identified as “an apparent intoxicated white male,” there seemed little urgency to deal with the threat, although the FBI did attempt, unsuccessfully, to contact John.

  But this time, the FBI took the threat seriously. Trujillo, who was part of the Medellín Cartel, initially established her foothold in the cocaine business in Miami before moving to New York, where she took on the Mob and murdered anyone who got in her way. In 1994 she had been convicted of three counts of drug-related homicide and sentenced to federal prison. The hundreds of pages of FBI files are heavily redacted and difficult to follow, but this much is certain: in July 1995 someone contacted the FBI’s San Francisco office claiming that “he had information concerning a plot to kidnap John F. Kennedy Jr. in New York City.” Two associates of Trujillo planned to abduct John while he rode his bicycle and then use him as a bargaining chip to get her released from jail.

  The San Francisco office sent out a priority notice to the FBI director and to the New York office. Given her violent history, the FBI knew that Trujillo had the ability to carry out such a threat. On July 20 the San Francisco office filled in more details from its informant. The kidnappers would travel from Colombia to New York, grab John while he was riding his bike, and then take him to a private residence. Although all the identifying information has been removed, it was clear that the FBI conducted a background check on the owner of the home. Prison officials agreed to track all visitors to Trujillo’s jail. The informant also said that “he never heard any statements from anyone who suggested that Kennedy would be harmed.”

  The following year, on May 9, 1996, an FBI agent interrogated Trujillo at the Federal Correctional Institution in Marianna, Florida. “De Trujillo was questioned regarding her knowledge of a plot to kidnap a prominent individual,” one document noted. “De Trujillo was then advised the FBI had received information [of] a plan to kidnap John Kennedy Jr.” At that point, the agent noted, she “became very defensive, saying this is not true and terminated the interview.” Shortly afterward, the FBI contacted the private company that provided security for the Kennedy family. It, in turn, informed John of the threat. (Trujillo was assassinated in 2012 in Medellín, eight years after she was released from the US prison.)

  This plot, the most serious since the 1972 attempt by eight Greek nationals, had little impact on John. He had grown immune to potential threats on his life. He often said that he refused to live in fear. If he cowered in the face of every possible threat, he would never leave his house. I never saw John maneuver to avoid a crowd or show any trepidation when walking the crowded streets of New York or entering a packed subway car. For the most part, he had a fatalistic view: if someone was going to try to harm him, there was nothing he could do about it. I also felt that he believed he was strong enough to fight off any potential kidnappers, at least until help arrived. There is no evidence that John took extra precautions on this occasion, either, and he could still be seen riding his bike around town and back and forth to the George office. He was preoccupied with launching his magazine and nurturing his relationship with Carolyn. Everything else was clutter.

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  Although they created the magazine, neither John nor Michael had a clear vision for how to turn this somewhat vague concept of mixing politics and culture into printed words on a page. While most start-up magazines struggle with their identity, George faced this challenge acutely. John and the staff confronted a central question: “What is a George story?” They could find no clear answer. Some people envisioned George as the Rolling Stone of politics, but Hachette told editors they saw the magazine as a political version of Vanity Fair. Meanwhile, John told a reporter that he thought George should look like the Hachette-owned Mirabella, which was a smart women’s magazine. Even the tagline—“Not Politics as Usual”—described the magazine by what it was not, begging the question: How did George plan to cover politics? Since the magazine could be characterized only in relation to other magazines, editors struggled to produce stories that made George unique. Each editor proposed his or her own ideas. “It was hard to get people to buy in to John’s vision, and as a result, the magazine never found its true identity,” recalled associate editor Hugo Lindgren. “We tore up the magazine over and over again before the launch.”

  In terms of the editorial content, John was attracted to stories that were unconventional and counterintuitive. He liked lists—such as “The Ten Most Powerful Women in Washington”—and would later oversee publication of a George book of lists. According to associate editor Ned Martel, John found articles in political magazines like The New Republic “tedious and overbaked.” When he talked to the reporters who wrote those stories, he discovered that many of the more interesting tidbits of information had been edited out to make the piece sound more authoritative. “No,” John would say, “that’s useful intelligence for somebody who wants to evaluate political candidates and political ideas on their own terms.” The material left on the cutting-room floor of highbrow political magazines, he believed, was ideal for the first-time, consumer-oriented reader that George was trying to reach.

  John was inspired by the people he read about while doing research for the annual Profile in Courage Award, which recognized political figures who took controversial positions despite obvious political risks. They chose only one recipient a year, but he knew there were dozens of stories about people standing up for principle. Those were the kinds of people he wanted in the magazine, and if George did write an article about a well-known political figure, he searched for a unique angle for presenting the story—one that would emphasize human qualities more than political positions.

  While John found meetings with advertisers tedious, he did pick up valuable information that he planned to incorporate into George. He learned, for example, that women made decisions differently than men. Men were loyal to certain brands, while women were more likely to evaluate products and choose those that were best for their families. The same was true for the way they bought cars and groceries. As a result, he wanted the magazine to provide women with more information about politics and the political process. John wanted to demystify politics by finding stories that explained in clear language how the Electoral College worked or how gerrymandering shaped elections.

  Unfortunately, Eric Etheridge, the magazine’s executive editor, had his own ideas, and the two often clashed, partly because they had d
ifferent understandings of their roles. “Eric thought that John was going to be a celebrity editor and a figurehead, and that he was going to make all the decisions,” Lindgren recalled. “Under the cover of John Kennedy’s glamor, he was going to make a nerdy magazine.” Etheridge thought “it was his magazine,” Lindgren observed, “and it turned out that John wanted to be the boss,” adding that the executive editor assumed that John “was going to open doors to get them access and then get out of the way.”

  Furthermore, Etheridge came to George with a conventional view of how to cover politics, proposing stories that could have appeared in any other magazine. “John found a lot of things that Eric was pitching him to be boring,” Lindgren recalled. In Kennedy’s opinion, the types of articles that Etheridge pushed were too reverential toward authority and lacking a sharp journalistic edge—akin to what John referred to as “kissing your sister.”

  But developing story ideas was only part of the challenge. Since they were starting from scratch, the staff also needed to figure out the structure of the magazine. Hachette refused to pay for focus groups, which were commonly used, and since there was no clear model, they made it up as they went along. They decided there would be longer features followed by shorter stories under the categories The Art of Politics and The Politics of Art. John was involved in every decision and every story. “Nothing went into the magazine without John’s approval,” claimed a senior editor.

  The finished product contained both serious pieces (a long profile of FBI chief Louis Freeh) and conventional ones (an article about White House photographer David Kennerly). But it also showcased the offbeat in a distinctive way. Instead of adding to the mountain of stories already written about House Speaker Newt Gingrich, George featured a piece about his lesbian half sister, while John’s friend John Perry Barlow sat down for an interview with the Speaker himself. Saturday Night Live comedian and future senator Al Franken wrote a piece about reducing the budget. Pointing out the millions of dollars that motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel had received for his failed attempt to jump over Idaho’s Snake River Canyon in 1974, riding atop a sort of rocket bike (more rocket than bike) called the Skycycle X-2, Franken proposed putting an elderly person in a rocket every Sunday and then “[firing] it over the Snake River and [putting] it on pay-per-view. The revenues go straight to reducing the debt.” Further highlighting the link between celebrities and politics, John commissioned a story about actress Julia Roberts’s humanitarian trip to Haiti.

  One of the shorter pieces that John created and enjoyed the most was “If I Were President.” This quirky and playful feature captured the essence of what it meant to combine politics and pop culture by having politically minded celebrities discuss important issues. John wrote to Madonna and pitched her two ideas: designing “an ideal voting booth” that would be “provocative futuristic” and attract a younger crowd or writing an article about what she would do if she were president. Madonna passed on the voting booth idea but agreed to pen “If I Were President.” In the essay, which bore the title “A Political Virgin Takes a Romp Through the White House,” she promised to pay schoolteachers more than movie stars, sentence right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh and ultraconservative North Carolina senator Jesse Helms “to hard-labor work camps for the rest of their lives,” and allow gays and lesbians in the armed forces to come out of the closet.

  John knew that the most important piece in the magazine would be his Editor’s Letter, since it would, finally, define for readers what George was all about. Most of the letter rehashed what he and Berman had been saying for two years: that politicians were using new methods to reach voters and that the line between politics and entertainment had blurred. George differed from conventional political magazines, he claimed, since it aimed to illuminate “the points where politics converges with business, media, entertainment, fashion, art, and science.” Furthermore, it defined politics “extravagantly,” encompassing everything from elected officials to ordinary Americans. “If we can do just one thing at George, we hope to demystify the political process, to enable you to see politicians not just as ideological symbols but as lively and engaging men and women who shape public life.”

  If David Pecker and others at Hachette expected John to use this forum to specify his own political views, they were sorely disappointed. The only glimpse John offered was to describe himself as a “lifelong spectator of the giant puppet show that can turn public people into barely recognizable symbols of themselves.” The letter, which became a regular and popular feature in the magazine, accompanied a photograph of John reaching over a desk to shake hands with former Alabama governor George Wallace. Even that detail almost did not make it into the magazine. “What editor has his picture taken with the person he is interviewing?” John fumed. Reluctantly, he agreed, but only because it was the first issue.

  George differed from other magazines not just in terms of content and approach; the atmosphere at the office had no parallel. Matt Berman, the creative director, called the George offices “a circus.” While Blow described the staff as “a motley but enthusiastic crew,” other staffers offered more critical assessments. “It was very much like a junior high school yearbook,” an anonymous editor told Spy magazine in 1998. “Everything there was junior high.” The one common feature was youth. Etheridge, at thirty-eight, was the oldest, and except for John and Michael, both in their midthirties, everyone else, including senior editors, was in his or her twenties. The staff discovered that most also shared another unique characteristic: nearly all were the youngest children in their families.

  It was also clear from the first day that John was the sun around which everyone else revolved, but not always in a healthy way. Young staffers imitated him by wearing their wallets on pickpocket-proof chains. Senior editors hung on to John’s every word and tried to interpret his expressions and body language. “If John cleared his throat, all heads pivoted in his direction,” Blow recalled. “If we were debating an idea, everyone would monitor John’s expression. Was he frowning or nodding in agreement?”

  Many of the editors competed for his attention and time, and securing lunch with John became a combat sport. “There was a lot of jealousy and infighting,” reflected a senior editor. “There was always someone looking to stab you in the back,” especially if it got the person a step closer to John. It was not an unfamiliar environment for John. Since he was a child, he noticed that people around him fought and jockeyed for his affection, bragging that they were friends with him. Over the years, John had learned how to weed out celebrity hounds who courted him because of his fame. Outside his small group of close friends, he tended to categorize and compartmentalize acquaintances based on the roles that they played. However, that strategy did not work amid the intense office environment at George, where he had to deal with the same people all the time. In response, John made it a point to schedule individual lunches with all the editors to make sure they felt loved.

  But he also tried to keep them at a distance, relying on RoseMarie to limit unwarranted intrusions on his privacy. Despite their rocky start, John grew increasingly close to his assistant. He valued her loyalty and enjoyed her irreverent sense of humor. Meanwhile, Rose relished the opportunity to play the role of the “Bronx badass.” Never known as quiet or unassuming, Rose magnified her foul mouth, often launching dozens of F-bombs in a matter of minutes. “I wanted them to be a little scared of me,” she recalled, “but I also did it for John, who loved my Bronx-y façade. When I strung together four or five curse words by way of an answer, he found the sassy street attitude charming.”

  Most of the editors, especially those educated at elite schools, were put off by RoseMarie’s style. One editor dismissed her as a “dumb girl with a Bronx accent.” They did not realize that John wanted someone tough to protect him from the constant barrage of requests—including from them. On one occasion, John, who had been told that the staff was going out for lunch, returned to the office from
a meeting and discovered Rose at her desk.

  “Oh, you didn’t have to wait for me to get back,” he said. “You could have gone to lunch with everybody else.”

  “I wasn’t invited,” she responded.

  “What? Why?”

  “They never invite me.”

  Clearly annoyed, John invited her to join him for lunch. He took her to the same restaurant where the staff was eating and requested a nearby table. “I didn’t need to look over at their table to know they got the message,” she recalled.

  Although John worked long hours, he insisted on exercising every day. On most days, John barely could contain his energy and needed a variety of outlets. He would pull out a Frisbee or a football and start tossing it around the office. To help blow off steam, he even invited the staff to Central Park for an afternoon game of Frisbee, where he was disappointed to learn that not everyone in the office shared his appreciation for competitive sports. He continued his usual exercise routine, slipping out late afternoons to go to the New York Athletic Club for brutal games of racquetball and intense weight lifting sessions.

  I had just moved to Oxford, England, the previous January, so I was not around much that summer, but I recall meeting him a few times. This had been our routine for more than a decade, but I noticed something different about John that summer. He seemed to be trying harder but achieving less. I even managed to beat him on the court, something I had not done in quite a few years. He labored to match his typical number of reps on the bench press. He looked thinner. I said nothing to him, because I was enjoying a brief period of physical dominance. Only later did I discover that he suffered from Graves’ disease, a thyroid disorder that required him to drink a disgusting concoction of iodine and seltzer. Apparently, anxiety only aggravated the problem. He was having trouble sleeping, often waking up at five o’clock, leaving him completely drained at work. “By midafternoon on many days, he would be slumping in his chair, looking mystified by his body’s betrayal,” wrote Blow. Fortunately, John’s condition was easily treated with medication, and soon the debilitating symptoms disappeared.