by John Norris
In late 1969, Mary: McGrory, interview by Currie; Mary McGrory, columns, April 18, 1975, and December 7, 1969; Von Drehle, “Columnist Illuminated.”
Kissinger, “with the wise look”: Mixner, Stranger Among Friends, 110–11.
Mary, who had downed: Henry Catto, Ambassadors at Sea: The High and Low Adventures of a Diplomat (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010), 32.
“Mary was very upset”: Belford, Brilliant Bylines, 270–78.
Newby replied to her: McGrory, interview by Currie.
“I think it was always understood”: Ibid.
“I love her but”: Mary McGrory Papers, container 162, commentary by Edward P. Morgan of ABC News, May 7, 1975.
“Many of the letters”: Mary McGrory Papers, container 1.
“All the cute guy reporters”: “National Press Club Fourth Estate Award.”
Gene McCarthy delivered: Mary McGrory Papers, container 105; Mary McGrory, column, August 2, 1970.
“You know all they”: Susan Brophy, interview by author, May 16, 2014.
“She did have a temper”: Phil Gailey interview.
If everything about Antrim: “Nixon to Attend Stag Lunch,” Washington Star, July 23, 1970; “President Attends Stag Luncheon,” Washington Star, July 24, 1970; Mary McGrory Papers, container 1.
“The question arises”: Mary McGrory, column, March 15, 1971.
One policeman wondered: Elizabeth Kastor, “The Grand Old Gridiron; the Club for Press and Political Play Marks Its 100th Year of Follies,” Washington Post, March 23, 1985.
The first woman: Mary McGrory, column, March 18, 1973.
In 1971, Bella Abzug: McGrory, interview by Currie; Mary McGrory, column, July 21, 1985.
Writing jobs were for men: Braden, She Said What? 24–34.
Stahl, who had gotten: Lesley Stahl, Reporting Live (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), 25.
“She definitely fit in”: Phil Gailey interview.
“Mary was not of the women’s”: Jack Germond interview.
Elizabeth Shannon remembers: Elizabeth Shannon interview.
Journalist Marjorie Williams noted: Marjorie Williams, “A Woman Who Knew Her Due,” Washington Post, April 25, 2004.
Mary would send nice handwritten: Williams, “A Woman Who Knew.”
Williams also received: Marc Fisher, “Honored to Have Known Mary McGrory,” Washington Post, April 27, 2004.
“Mentoring, in today’s parlance”: Gloria Borger, “An Inspiration Named Mary,” U.S. News & World Report, May 3, 2004; Capital Report, CNBC News Transcripts, April 22, 2004, 28.
“Mary was very much”: Cokie Roberts interview.
Yet within the halls: Hernandez, “Nixon and the Press”; Mary McGrory Papers, container 102; Mary McGrory, columns, May 16 and September 18, 1971, and February 27, 1997; Tim Russert, CNBC News Transcripts, March 9, 1997; Brian McGrory, “Simply the Best,” Boston Globe, November 11, 2003; Lance Gay interview.
Ironically, Mary eventually received: Mary McGrory Papers, container 165.
“Intellectually, Nixon saw her”: Frank Mankiewicz interview.
“The New Hampshire primary is”: Mary McGrory, column, February 25, 1972.
Mary noted in her: Mary McGrory, column, February 29, 1972.
As the convention played out: Mary McGrory, columns, July 10, 13, and 14, 1972.
As Mary jested, McGovern: Mary McGrory, column, August 4, 1972.
When Senator Eagleton read: Joe McGinniss, “I’ll Tell You Who Is Bitter, My Aunt Hazel,” Life, August 18, 1972, 30–31.
150 “What a mistake you made”: “A Writer’s Life.”
“That story happened because”: “A Writer’s Life”; “National Press Club Fourth Estate Award.”
When the president expressed: Mary McGrory, column, October 17, 1972.
“If the same coalescence”: Mary McGrory, column, October 22, 1972.
Crouse had seen Mary: Timothy Crouse, The Boys on the Bus (New York: Random House, 2003), 342–46.
“I hit the pits”: Mary McGrory, column, September 23, 1979.
“One day you make a complete”: Linda Daily, “McGrory Pursues Politics in Iowa,” Quad-City Times, January 11, 1980.
Chapter Seven: Enemy
Mary described the scene: Mary McGrory, column, February 26, 1973.
“The president knows”: Mary McGrory, column, April 15, 1973.
Mary scoffed at Nixon’s: Mary McGrory, column, April 23, 1973.
One of the security guards: McGrory, interview by Currie.
With Dean’s lengthy testimony: Mary McGrory, column, April 20, 1980.
Mary called Nixon: Mary McGrory, column, June 26, 1973.
The response: “Mary McGrory”: McGrory, interview by Currie.
Mary was delighted: Gale Reference Team, “Biography.”
As Mary walked into the restaurant: Von Drehle, “Columnist Illuminated.”
“I wondered why my tax returns”: Mary McGrory Papers, container 12.
When Mary learned that: McGrory, interview by Currie.
Mary insisted that Colson: Mary McGrory, column, March 31, 1974.
“The Mary McGrory named”: “National Press Club Fourth Estate Award.”
“That was typical of Nixon”: Haynes Johnson interview.
“His bright eyes”: Mary McGrory, column, July 22, 1973.
In the fall of 1973: Sanborn, “Byline Mary McGrory.”
“It was torn apart”: Mary McGrory, column, July 24, 1974.
Her editors had told her: Mary McGrory, columns, September 11, 1994, and October 1, 1995.
On August 8: Mary McGrory, columns, August 6 and 8, 1974; Sanborn, “Byline Mary McGrory.”
As she wrote to a Nixon defender: Mary McGrory Papers, container 11.
“He was a man”: Daily, “McGrory Pursues Politics.”
But at the same time: Mark Perry, “The McGrory Story,” Washington City Paper, May 20, 1982.
On August 22, 1974: Mary McGrory Papers, container 161.
“She understood something”: Gailey interview.
She endured raids: Mary McGrory, column, February 18, 1975.
Mockingbirds dug up: Mary McGrory, columns, August 29, 1982, and June 26, 1983.
“For many years, the surest”: Todd Purdum, “Spring Hatches in Washington,” Vanity Fair, April 27, 2009, http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2009/04/spring-hatches-in-washington.
Her frequent complaints about squirrels: Mary McGrory, columns, June 2, 1985, May 22, 1988, August 27, 1995, July 13, 1997, August 5, 2001, and September 10, 2002; Braden, She Said What? 24–34; Mary McGrory Papers, container 117.
“She had her scraggly”: “She Loved, She Loathed and Oh, How She Lived,” Washington Post, May 2, 2004.
Her response to what she called: Mary McGrory, column, September 9, 1974.
Ford wrote to Mary: Mary McGrory Papers, container 7.
Major change came to Washington: Dale Russakoff, Ron Shaffer, and Ben Weiser, “The Death of the Washington Star: Time Inc. Had a Vision of Reviving a Great D.C. Newspaper,” Washington Post, August 16, 1981; Dale Russakoff, Ron Shaffer, and Ben Weiser, “The Death of the Washington Star: Bitter Feud Erupted at Times Star; Bitterness on Bridge of Sinking Ship; Church and State Dissolved in Acrimony,” Washington Post, August 17, 1981; Dale Russakoff, Ron Shaffer, and Ben Weiser, “The Death of the Washington Star: Downward Spiral Wouldn’t Stop; Slick Promotion Failed to Shore Up Reader, Advertiser Losses; Problem Was Getting Paper to Readers; No More Rabbits Left in the Hat,” Washington Post, August 18, 1981; J. Y. Smith, “Washington Star Editor Newbold Noyes Dies,” Washington Post, April 10, 1974; Mary McGrory Papers, container 5; David Montgomery, “The Bank of Dad; Interest Is High as Robert Allbritton We
ighs the Future of the Washington Institution Acquired by His Father,” Washington Post, June 23, 2004; Lance Gay interview; Edwin Yoder, interview by author, July 28, 2010; McGrory, interview by Currie; Mary McGrory Papers, container 111; Jack Germond interview; Edwin Yoder, Telling Others What to Think (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004), 124–29; Carl Stepp, “The Peripatetic Jim Bellows,” American Journalism Review, April, 2002, 65; Allan Jalon, “The ‘Lion’ in Winter: At 79, a Former Newspaper Editor Pitches a Quirky Story—His Own,” New York Times, April 14, 2002; Larry Kramer and Art Harris, “Star Editor Bellows Quits for Calif. Job,” Washington Post, November 16, 1977; Kurtz, “A Star Is Mourned”; Mary McGrory, column, July 26, 1981; Curtis Wilkie, “Opining for the Past,” Washington Post, September 14, 2004.
“Oh, she was offended!”: Jack Germond interview.
In May 1975: Mary McGrory Papers, containers 161, 162, and 163; McGrory, interview by Schmalzbauer; Russakoff, Shaffer, and Weiser, “Time Inc. Had a Vision”; Gale Reference Team, “Biography”; Von Drehle, “Columnist Illuminated”; Wyper, “Mary McGrory: Tiger”; Spencer, “A Reporter at Her Primitive Best”; McGrory, interview by Currie; Sanborn, “Byline Mary McGrory”; Dudar, “A Pulitzer Prize.”
Her dedication to: Mary McGrory Papers, container 168.
Mary was so delighted: Rita Markley, interview by author, December 9, 2014.
The charge had some merit: Mary McGrory Papers, container 7.
But for Mary and the Star: Mary McGrory, column, July 6, 1976; Edwin Yoder interview; Montgomery, “The Bank of Dad”; McGrory, interview by Currie; Lance Gay interview; Ed Yoder, “Personal Encounters,” Washington Times, June 9, 2004; Yoder, Telling Others, 128–31.
“Our party after the close”: James Dickenson, “Washington Star Memories,” Washington Post, August 7, 1981.
Chapter Eight: The Death of a Star
In February 1977: Mary McGrory Papers, container 55; Yoder, Telling Others, 132–36; Edwin Yoder interview; Stepp, “The Peripatetic Jim Bellows”; Stephen Klaidman and Douglas Watson, “Star Actions Spur Paper Sale Rumors,” Washington Post, February 11, 1977; McGrory, interview by Currie; McGrory family correspondence; “Allbritton’s Name Is Back on the Washington Star but as Chairman Now,” New York Times, February 20, 1977.
“It seemed for a brief stretch”: Edwin Yoder interview.
“The matter was of earthquake proportions”: Mary McGrory Papers, container 5.
“I feel quite strongly”: Mary McGrory Papers, container 110.
There was certainly a case: Mary McGrory Papers, containers 110, 2, and 1.
In early August 1978: Mary McGrory, column, May 18, 1981.
Mary did not like: McGrory, interview by Schmalzbauer.
Her own belief was: Ibid.
“Mary was so wonderfully”: Anthony Lewis interview.
“When I came out”: Mixner interview.
Mary was not about to remain: Belford, Brilliant Bylines, 270–78.
“I’m totally against nuclear power”: Mary McGrory, column, April 3, 1979.
Mary wrote to a reader: Mary McGrory Papers, container 7.
Mary shredded Kennedy’s performance: Mary McGrory, columns, November 5, 1979, and January 22, 1980.
At one point Mary: Elizabeth Shannon interview.
Although she was disappointed: Lance Gay interview.
Mary wrote that “Reagan was”: Mary McGrory, column, March 2, 1980.
She described the likely clash: Mary McGrory, column, April 14, 1980.
Mary likened the scene: Mary McGrory, column, July 18, 1980.
The Democratic convention: Mary McGrory, column, August 13, 1980.
The speech had given Kennedy: Mary McGrory, column, August 19, 1980.
“Everything is a big deal”: Hardball with Chris Matthews, CNBC News Transcripts, November 24, 1999.
“That was no election”: Mary McGrory, column, November 7, 1980.
He wrote to Mary: McGrory family correspondence.
Indeed, she took strong exception: Fisher, “Honored to Have Known”; “National Press Club Fourth Estate Award”; Mary McGrory Papers, container 7; McGrory family correspondence; Mary McGrory, columns, March 17, 1981, February 17, 1981, and July 15, 1986; Mary McGrory Papers, container 115.
On a rainy day: Mary McGrory, column, April 5, 1981.
Mary shared the sentiment: Mary McGrory, column, April 12, 1981.
At the Star, circulation: Russakoff, Shaffer, and Weiser, “Downward Spiral Wouldn’t Stop”; Margot Slade and Eva Hoffman, “Time and Money Are Not Enough to Save the Star,” New York Times, July 26, 1981; Gregg Easterbrook, “Who Will Catch the Falling Star?” Washington Monthly, May 1, 1981, 13–26; Mary McGrory Papers, container 2; B. Drummond Ayres, “Washington Star Is to Shut Down after 128 years,” New York Times, July 24, 1981; Neil Henry, “A Hell of a Loss to This Town: Employees, Readers Feel Shock, Loss and Outrage,” Washington Post, July 24, 1981; Lynn Rosellini, “A Bitter and Angry News Staff Mourns Its Fallen Star,” New York Times, July 24, 1981; Julia Malone, “Business Ups and Downs: A Newspaper Demise, TV Gold Mine, Chrysler Outlook; In the Nation’s Capital: A Star Falls,” Christian Science Monitor, July 24, 1981; “Death in the Afternoon,” New York Times, July 25, 1981; McGrory, interview by Currie; Haynes Johnson interview; “Star Follows Long Trend of Declining Evening Papers,” Washington Post, July 24, 1981; Mary McGrory Papers, containers 1, 5, 19, and 139; Mary McGrory, columns, July 26, 1981, and May 24, 1992; Dowd, “A Star Columnist”; Dowd, Are Men Necessary? 130–34; Lynn Rosellini, “Star Employees Put Last Issue to Bed,” New York Times, August 7, 1981; Yoder, “Personal Encounters”; Christian Williams, “Unhappy Hour; the Star’s Final Fling,” Washington Post, August 8, 1981; World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, ABC News Transcripts, April 22, 2004; Von Drehle, “Columnist Illuminated”; Mark Feeney, “Mary McGrory, 85, Columnist with Poet’s Gift, Eye for Detail,” Boston Globe, April 23, 2004; Yoder, Telling Others 141–44; Stepp, “The Peripatetic Jim Bellows”; Kurtz, “A Star Is Mourned”; Kramer and Harris, “Star Editor Bellows Quits”; Montgomery, “The Bank of Dad”; “Murray Gart, Time Writer, Last Star Editor,” Associated Press, April 5, 2004; Garrett Graff, “See Howie Run,” Washingtonian, July 1, 2005.
Chapter Nine: Life at the Post
Mary McGrory was a columnist: Ben Bradlee, A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 452; Ben Bradlee interview; Cokie Roberts interview; “A Writer’s Life”; Mary McGrory Papers, container 164; “F.Y.I.,” Washington Post, August 9, 1981; Don Graham interview; Mary McGrory Papers, container 9; Phil Gailey interview; Lance Gay interview; McGrory, The Best of Mary McGrory, xii–xviii; Gale Reference Team, “Biography”; Braden, She Said What? 24–34; McCarthy, “Mary McGrory, Post Columnist, Dies”; “National Press Club Fourth Estate Award”; Perry, “The McGrory Story”; Kurtz, “A Star Is Mourned”; McGrory, interview by Currie; Mary McGrory Papers, container 8; Belford, Brilliant Bylines, 270–78; Mary McGrory Papers, container 2; Bob Woodward, interview by Larry King, Larry King Live, CNN, April 23, 2004; Eric Alterman, interview by author, March 11, 2010.
“We dated,” Abernethy remembered: Bob Abernethy, interview by author, April 28, 2010.
“Bob Abernethy was her last”: Phil Gailey interview.
Mary’s transition to the Post: Mary McGrory, columns, May 24, 28, and 31, 1981, October 22, 1981, October 3, 1995; Elizabeth Shannon interview; Mary McGrory Papers, container 2; “Clarification,” Washington Post, November 18, 1982.
On January 19, 1982: Mary McGrory, columns, June 22, 1986, and January 24, 1982; The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, PBS, January 19, 1982; Ronald Reagan Press Conference, Washington, DC, January 19, 1983, http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1982/11982b.htm; Federal News Service, “National Press Club Luncheon with Longtime White House Report
er Helen Thomas,” Washington, DC, July 13, 2000.
Mary also noted that Republicans: Mary McGrory, columns, December 15, 1983, and July 30, 1987.
She had received a letter: Perry, “The McGrory Story”; Mary McGrory, columns, December 16, 1984, November 28, 1993, and December 19, 1995; Kim Masters, “Revering the Irreverent; the Jane Austen Society, Celebrating Her Timeless Sensibilities,” Washington Post, October 8, 1990; Mary McGrory Papers, container 125; Mary McGrory and Linda Wertheimer, discussion about Jane Austen, Woman’s National Democratic Club, Washington, DC, January 19, 2002; “Most of Jane Austen’s Texts Are Being Made into Movies,” All Things Considered, National Public Radio, November 15, 1995.
“In the ugliest moment”: Mary McGrory, column, July 13, 1982.
Republicans remained thirsty: Mary McGrory, column, July 26, 1983.
After presidential counselor Ed Meese: Mary McGrory, column, March 2, 1982.
Mary was delighted: Perry, “The McGrory Story.”
Mary was smitten: Mary McGrory Papers, container 65; Mary McGrory, column, March 16, 1982.
Mary, in full cheerleading mode: Mary McGrory, column, May 11, 1982.
The head of the National: Mary McGrory, column, April 8, 1982.
“What he has going for him”: Mary McGrory, column, September 25, 1983.
When Cuomo sat down: Mary McGrory, column, December 11, 1983; Mary McGrory Papers, container 6.
One of Mary’s favorite: James Clarity and Warren Weaver, “Briefing,” New York Times, January 19, 1984; Cameron Barr, “Mary McGrory’s Liberal Voice,” Christian Science Monitor, March 7, 1991; Alterman, Sound and Fury, 151.
“Mary allowed us all to shout”: Borger, “An Inspiration Named Mary.”
Mary could sit patiently: “She Loved, She Loathed”; Dowd, “A Star Columnist”; Dowd, Are Men Necessary? 130–34.
The September 1984 Vanity Fair: Robert Yoakum, “The Op-Ed Set,” Vanity Fair, September 1984, accessed in Mary McGrory Papers, container 163.
With Walter Mondale: Mary McGrory, column, February 19, 1984.
Mary liked Mondale, but: Mary McGrory, column, March 4, 1984.