The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News--and Divided a Country

by Sherman, Gabriel

  14. The guests during Mike Douglas Show talent log for the week of Jan. 8, 1968. The dance duo John Brascia and Tybee Arfa, who were regulars on the talk show circuit and opened for the likes of Frank Sinatra and Lena Horne, had been scheduled to come into the studio on January 9, but were bumped back a day according to a talent log for that week’s shoots. Tybee, as she was known, was certainly exotic. But she never performed under the name Little Egypt. And the snake? “No one has any recollection of Tybee ever dancing with a boa,” recalled John Brascia’s daughter, Christina, in an author interview.

  15. Mike Douglas later told an interviewer Archive of American Television interview with Mike Douglas conducted by Karen Herman on March 31, 2005, Part 1 of 7, 30:47 mark.

  16. Kenny Johnson was standing Author interview with Kenny Johnson.

  17. The meeting lasted See also “Nixon’s Roger Ailes,” Washington Post. Ailes told the interviewer: “I spent an hour with him personally.”

  18. As it happened In a note to Mike Douglas on January 16, 1968, Nixon writes “my sincerest thanks to you and your staff for the birthday cake.”

  19. “We went to commercial” Archive of American Television interview with Mike Douglas conducted by Karen Herman on March 31, 2005, Part 3 of 7, 16:00 mark.

  20. After the broadcast Daily agenda for Richard Nixon, Jan. 9, 1968.

  21. A few days later “Week’s Profile: How to Change Debate Loser to Arena Winner,” Broadcasting, Nov. 11, 1968, 101.

  22. “The name of the game” Author interview with Dwight Chapin, a former aide to Richard Nixon.

  23. Soon after, on an afternoon Author interview with Raymond Price, a former speechwriter for Richard Nixon.

  24. A rare moderate Leonard Garment, Crazy Rhythm: From Brooklyn and Jazz to Nixon’s White House, Watergate, and Beyond (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo, 1997), 106.

  25. “Asia After Viet Nam” Richard M. Nixon, “Asia After Viet Nam,” Foreign Affairs, Oct. 1967, Vol. 46, No. 1.

  26. The campaign’s television production Alfred M. Scott was born on Oct. 6, 1914. “Cornell Alumni News” (Feb. 17, 1938, Vol. 4, No. 18, page 259) mentions his early work as an NBC sound technician. In the 1960s, he became head of the international broadcasting division of J. Walter Thompson (see Broadcasting, June 25, 1965, page 39). He worked as a television adviser under Harry Treleaven on the 1968 campaign. “Al Scott was a terrific guy,” said Dwight Chapin. “He was a guy of the old television age. He was shuttled to the side as I recall. What happened was Roger.” After the election, Scott continued to work with the Nixon administration. He died in 1989.

  27. “Roger was not at all awed” Author interview with Fred Malek, a former adviser to Richard Nixon.

  28. Ailes was hired Robert Windeler, “Nixon’s Television Aide Says Candidate ‘Is Not a Child of TV,’ ” New York Times, Oct. 9, 1968.

  29. “He’s got guts” Nyhan, “Roger Ailes: He Doctors a Politician’s TV Image.”

  30. “Nixon’s a doer” Nyhan, “Roger Ailes: He Doctors a Politician’s TV Image.”

  31. Ailes would later tell “Nixon’s Roger Ailes,” Washington Post.

  32. In New Hampshire Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1968 (New York: HarperCollins, 1969), 155.

  33. winning the primary “Nixon in New Hampshire: Granite State Saved Nixon’s Political Life,” Manchester (New Hampshire) Union Leader, April 23, 1994.

  34. as Garment later wrote Garment, Crazy Rhythm, 133.

  35. “For sixteen years” Garry Wills, Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), 414–15. See also Gladwin Hill, “Nixon Denounces Press as Biased,” New York Times, Nov. 8, 1962.

  36. Five days after the election Peter Kihss, “Nixon Aide Says TV Program Twisted ‘Life of Great American,’ ” New York Times, Nov. 13, 1962.

  37. The man who revived him Garment, Crazy Rhythm, 65–69, 126, 128.

  38. “This game” Author interview with Dwight Chapin.

  39. After he campaigned Donald Richard Deskins, Presidential Elections, 1789–2008 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010), 439.

  40. “The man and his times” Garment, Crazy Rhythm, 121.

  41. Harry Robbins Haldeman J. Y. Smith, “H. R. Haldeman Dies, Was Nixon Chief of Staff; Watergate Role Led to 18 Months in Prison,” Washington Post, Nov. 11, 1993.

  42. “The time has come” Christopher Matthews, Kennedy & Nixon: The Rivalry That Shaped Postwar America (New York: Touchstone, 1996), 257.

  43. In the summer of 1967 Ed McMahon and David Fisher, Laughing Out Loud: My Life and Good Times (New York: Warner, 1998), e-book.

  44. In July, Nixon also took a meeting Garment, Crazy Rhythm, 129–31.

  45. An ardent conservative “Reagan Chooses Ex-U.S.I.A. Head,” New York Times, May 16, 1981.

  46. Several weeks later Garment, Crazy Rhythm, 131. See also McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 45.

  47. In 1966 McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 43–45.

  48. “Political candidates are celebrities” Harry Treleaven, “Upset: The Story of a Modern Political Campaign” (unpublished).

  49. In his TV spots Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (New York: Scribner, 2008), 234.

  50. Marshall McLuhan’s McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 181, quoting from McLuhan’s Understanding Media.

  51. Price’s assumption McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 193–94, citing Price memo.

  52. One morning in June Ibid., xii–xvi.

  53. “No, no” Author interview with Joe McGinniss.

  54. Treleaven’s openness Irvin Molotsky, “H. W. Treleaven, Nixon Consultant, Dies at 76,” New York Times, Dec. 20, 1998.

  55. He told McGinniss McGinniss, The Selling of the President, xvi.

  56. “We were intrigued” Author interview with Leonard Garment. He died on July 13, 2013.

  57. The thirty-minute program “Nixon and TV: Changing a ’60 Weak Suit into a ’68 Trump,” Broadcasting, July 22, 1968, 53. See also video of a Nixon television special shot in Michigan during the 1968 presidential campaign, YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFeWFjbeEQ8.

  58. On July 6 Memo from Roger Ailes to Leonard Garment and Frank Shakespeare, July 6, 1968.

  59. A few days before Harris, Mike Douglas, 52, 122; “Week’s Profile: How to Change Debate Loser to Arena Winner,” Broadcasting.

  60. “When I started out” “Nixon’s Roger Ailes,” Washington Post.

  61. “I think Mike was hurt” Author interview with Robert LaPorta.

  62. He and Douglas Harris, Mike Douglas, 47; see also page 122. Ailes told Harris, “When I told Mike I was going to do the thing with Nixon anyway, he granted me the leave of absence, but by then our relations—after six and a half years of being so close—were not so good.”

  63. In the early 1980s “TV Personality/Singer Mike Douglas Dies at 81,” Billboard, Aug. 11, 2006.

  64. Ailes had drifted “Mike Douglas Tribute Scheduled Saturday,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 19, 2006.

  65. Ailes tried small talk Author interviews with Larry Rosen and Deborah Miller.

  66. When Douglas died Author interview with Robert LaPorta.

  ACT II

  FOUR: SELLING THE TRICK

  1. On his first full day Roger Ailes expense report filed with the Richard Nixon presidential campaign, Aug. 21, 1968.

  2. Until then, he would be Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon, Vol. 2: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962–1972 (Los Angeles: Premier Digital Publishing, 2013), ebook.

  3. “We are going to win” The American Presidency Project, Richard Nixon acceptance speech (transcript), Aug. 8, 1968, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25968.

  4. Shortly after the convention Author interview with Joe McGinniss.

  5. McGinniss followed Ailes to Chicago McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 64–67.

  6. “The subliminal message” Memo from Roger Ailes to Leonard Garment a
nd Frank Shakespeare, Sept. 27, 1968.

  7. a “balanced” group McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 64.

  8. “Two would be offensive” Ibid.

  9. “Let’s face it” “Nixon’s Roger Ailes,” Washington Post.

  10. “I agree with Frank” McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 66.

  11. At The Mike Douglas Show Author interviews with Mike Douglas producers.

  12. “The audience” McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 66.

  13. At 9:00 p.m. “Nixon in Illinois” (DVD of Chicago campaign broadcast), Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.

  14. It was Treleaven’s idea McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 68.

  15. “If the material” Memo from Roger Ailes to Leonard Garment and Frank Shakespeare, July 6, 1968.

  16. Thus he Perlstein, Nixonland, 331.

  17. Years later Ailes and Kraushar, You Are the Message, 82.

  18. “Mr. Nixon is strong now” McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 73.

  19. Nixon would tape E. W. Kenworthy, “ ‘The Richard Nixon Show,’ ” New York Times, Sept. 22, 1968.

  20. Nixon made a four-second taped appearance Diane Werts, “You Bet Your Bippy That ‘Laugh-In’ Is Back,” Newsday, Feb. 7, 1993.

  21. Ailes had already developed McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 72–76.

  22. On September 18 Ibid., 97.

  23. “He never forgot I was writing” Author interview with Joe McGinniss.

  24. “We’re doing all right” McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 97.

  25. “Nixon gets bored” Ibid., 98–103.

  26. The Philadelphia taping Ibid., 103–5; “Nixon in Pennsylvania” (DVD of Philadelphia campaign broadcast), Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.

  27. He questioned McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 106–11.

  28. After the taping Kenworthy, “ ‘The Richard Nixon Show’ on TV Lets Candidate Answer Panel’s Questions.”

  29. “Mr. Nixon came off” Memo from Roger Ailes to Leonard Garment and Frank Shakespeare, Sept. 27, 1968.

  30. “Boy, is he going” McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 111.

  31. On September 30 R. W. Apple Jr., “Humphrey Vows Halt in Bombing if Hanoi Reacts; a ‘Risk for Peace,’ ” New York Times, Oct. 1, 1968.

  32. Shakespeare McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 134.

  33. “My honest opinion was” “Nixon’s Roger Ailes,” Washington Post.

  34. Ailes gave a candid interview Robert Windeler, “Nixon’s Television Aide Says Candidate ‘Is Not a Child of TV,’ ” New York Times, Oct. 9, 1968.

  35. Ten days later Crocker Snow Jr., “Nixon in Boston Tonight,” Boston Globe, Oct. 17, 1968. See also McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 129.

  36. On October 25 McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 133.

  37. Kevin Phillips Kevin P. Phillips, “The Emerging Republican Majority” (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1969).

  38. On Sunday, Nixon reversed McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 136–37.

  39. To blow off steam Ibid., 148. See also Garment, Crazy Rhythm, 135.

  40. “It’s going to be a dull” McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 149.

  41. The Humphrey telethon White, The Making of the President 1968, 456, McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 136–37.

  42. “That’s crazy” McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 156.

  43. Rick Rosner Author interview with former Mike Douglas producer Rick Rosner.

  44. Throughout the evening Arlen J. Large, “Mr. Nixon on TV: ‘Man in the Arena,’ ” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 1, 1969.

  45. After breakfast McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 160–61; author interview with Joe McGinniss.

  46. Ailes had arranged for Marje McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 162.

  47. A slew of White, The Making of the President 1968, 456, 458.

  48. Then, triumph Ibid., 459–61.

  49. Ailes watched McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 164.

  50. “I saw many signs” Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, Nixon in the White House: The Frustration of Power (New York: Random House, 1971), 33–34.

  51. “I remember my dad” E. G. Marshall, “Television & the Presidency,” Part 13, 1984, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky30KChtz_Y.

  52. “This is it” McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 162.

  53. “may have made that up” William Safire, “The Way Forward,” New York Times Magazine, Sept. 2, 2007. In November 1968, a New York Times reporter tracked down a Deshler girl with such a sign and the paper ran a story about her, accompanied by an Associated Press photo of her holding the sign. See Anthony Ripley, “Ohio Girl, 13, Recalls ‘Bring Us Together’ Placard,” New York Times, Nov. 7, 1968. Safire later wrote, “When I asked Dick Moore years later if he had really spotted that girl or whether he had imagined the sign that day, his eyes took on a faraway look.” William Safire, Safire’s Political Dictionary (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 83.

  54. “I decided that after the campaign” Harris, Mike Douglas, 122.

  55. Ailes and McGinniss Author interview with Joe McGinniss.

  56. Even before the campaign was over Author interview with Philadelphia lawyer Ronald Kidd.

  57. He called it REA Productions Articles of Incorporation filed with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of State, Corporation Bureau, Oct. 28, 1968.

  58. At a Pennsylvania Society dinner Author interview with Howard Butcher IV.

  59. In Philadelphia Junod, “Roger Ailes on Roger Ailes: The Interview Transcripts, Part 2.”

  60. “Roger was very determined” Author interview with Howard Butcher IV.

  FIVE: REA PRODUCTIONS

  1. In November 1968 Memo from Roger Ailes to unnamed Nixon advisers, Nov. 1968.

  2. In the winter of 1969 Roger Ailes letterhead from the time. Ailes told Chafets that he drove up to New York in a snowstorm. Chafets, Roger Ailes, 37.

  3. “Roger was going” Author interview with Joe McGinniss.

  4. “At night” Author interview with Robert Ailes Jr.

  5. One of his first assignments Roger Ailes letter to Jack Rourke, Jan. 8, 1969.

  6. Jack Rourke “Passings: Jack Rourke, 86; Producer of Sam Yorty’s Show,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 21, 2004.

  7. On January 8 Letter from Roger Ailes to Jack Rourke, Jan. 8, 1969.

  8. “I saw RN” Letter from Jack Rourke to Roger Ailes, Dec. 30, 1968.

  9. Spiro Agnew Letter from Roger Ailes to Jack Rourke, Jan. 8, 1969.

  10. In late January Letter from Roger Ailes to Jack Rourke, Jan. 29, 1969.

  11. Lucy Winchester Biographical note on Nixon social secretary Lucy Winchester, Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/forresearchers/find/textual/central/smof/winchester.php.

  12. “I’m glad” Letter from Jack Rourke to Roger Ailes, Aug. 1, 1969.

  13. “I regret to report” Author interview with Lucy Winchester.

  14. In early March Letter from Dwight Chapin to Roger Ailes, March 10, 1969; letter from Dwight Chapin to Nixon secretary Rose Mary Woods, March 10, 1969.

  15. On March 14 President Richard Nixon’s Daily Diary, March 14, 1969. They met from 12:55 to 1:05 p.m.

  16. A few days later Letter from H. R. Haldeman to Roger Ailes, March 27, 1969. “This is just a note to acknowledge your March 18 letter,” Haldeman wrote Ailes. “I have contacted Rogers Morton and informed him of your interest in being of assistance to any Congressmen or Senators seeking guidance on arrangements for television appearances.”

  17. To that end Letter from H. R. Haldeman to Rogers Morton, March 26, 1969. On April 3, 1969, Haldeman wrote Ailes, “I have received word from the Honorable Rogers Morton the other day that he had discussed your participation in future events with Herb Klein and Harry Treleaven. Congressman Morton requests that you be in contact with Harry Treleaven at the Republic
an National Committee after April 15 to try and develop fully your future relationship with the RNC.”

  18. Morton signed Ailes up Letter from Roger Ailes to H. R. Haldeman, June 8, 1970. “For the past year my company has had a small consultancy contract of $12,000.00 with the Republican National Committee,” Ailes wrote. “Can you advise me if there is any chance of getting it renewed?”

  19. In May H. R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House (New York: Putnam, 1994), 75.

  20. in June Memo from Nixon aide Stephen Bull to Carson Howell, June 30, 1969.

  21. The next month http://nixonfoundation.org/2012/09/roger-ailes-recalls-the-moon-landing/. “I was watching the feed from the moon and I realized we could have the first inter-planetary split screen,” Ailes told Bill Hemmer in a 2012 interview. “The problem was that there was no way to predict which way Armstrong would be standing and facing.” After having monitors placed on both sides of the president’s desk, Ailes cued Nixon which way to look. On the screen, it appeared as if Nixon and Armstrong were facing each other. “That was my contribution,” Ailes recalled.

  22. “He felt” Memo from Haldeman aide Larry Higby to H. R. Haldeman, Aug. 6, 1969.

  23. “The White House” Mary Wiegel, “Apollo 11 to Star on Earth,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 13, 1969.

  24. Sheraton Gibson Hotel Jack Rourke letter to Roger Ailes, Aug. 1, 1969. The letter was mailed to the hotel. See also Fred Ferretti, “Nixon TV Adviser on Standby Call; Roger Ailes Flew in from Ohio for Briefing at U.N.,” New York Times, Sept. 21, 1969. Ferretti writes of Ailes, “He maintains an apartment here as well as others in Washington and Philadelphia, has a hotel room in Cincinnati, and a house in New Jersey.”

  25. “Yesterday’s premiere” Lawrence Laurent, “Wholey Does His Thing,” Washington Post, Aug. 19, 1969.

  26. “Roger would say” Author interview with liberal TV personality Dennis Wholey. Despite their political differences, Wholey and Ailes got along well. “I didn’t see eye-to-eye with him,” Wholey said, “but I recall him having a presence, having a strong sense of humor, and having a great sense of confidence.” Wholey was also struck by Ailes’s bluntness. In one conversation, Ailes confronted Wholey about his excessive drinking. “Only two people I can recall ever called me on my drinking. Roger was the first,” Wholey said. “As I recall, he said, ‘You certainly like to drink, don’t you?’ And I replied, ‘Yes, I like to drink!’ ” Ailes stared back at him. “He said, and this was the point that scored with me, ‘That’s a good way to lose a career.’ I said, ‘What do you mean by that?’ He said, ‘If you get caught in any kind of an incident, disorderly conduct’—specifically he mentioned drinking and driving—’that’s a way to totally lose a career.’ ” Ailes’s advice stayed with him even as his alcohol problems worsened. It was not until the early 1980s when Wholey thought he had run another car off the road, that he got himself into rehab. “It’s amazing how few people step up to the plate to say you have a problem,” he says. “Roger recognized it way back.”