Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America

by Shirley, Craig

  Someone in Rockford, Illinois, vouched for Corbin's character, but virtually everybody else questioned every aspect of his character. Of the dozens of people the FBI's Chicago office interviewed, nearly all condemned Corbin in harsh terms, some questioning his patriotism.77 A second reference was made to family problems with his wife. Women mentioned his “suggestive statements and actions,”78 and one claimed that he'd attempted to sexually assault her and had backed off only after she hit him.79 It was revealed that he'd briefly been in the employ of Congressman Gerald Flynn of Wisconsin, who had asked for Corbin's resignation when he discovered the operative's nefarious activities.80 Corbin claimed that he had resigned because of a “misunderstanding.”81

  A detailed report filed from the Milwaukee office stated that an informant called Corbin a “tap man,” meaning someone whose job it was to raise funds for union activities, but “Corbin had the reputation of keeping a large portion of such collected funds for himself.” The individual said the thought of Corbin working in the government made “his skin crawl.” Others remembered hearing Corbin make favorable comments about Joseph Stalin.82 He also had been denied membership in the Janesville Country Club.83

  A theme was emerging in the FBI field reports, as nearly all were shot through with terms like “controversial,” “troublemaker,” “untrustworthy,” and “crude”; one report said that Corbin “played one Democratic group against the other.” When people were asked about Gertrude Corbin, however, it seemed she was universally liked.84

  Gertrude herself was interviewed by the FBI, and though the document redacted her name, the last sentence said that she “stated, of course, that she would not hesitate to recommend PAUL CORBIN for a position of trust in the government.”85

  A telling report from the FBI office in Racine, Wisconsin, based on an interview with Congressman Flynn, might have explained RFK's attraction to Corbin: “He was much hated by his fellow members of the Rock County Democratic organization … but as a campaigner, he was an extremely hard worker and when he tackled a job he always put it over. It was just this same ability that appealed to the JOHN F. KENNEDY campaigners.” This report credited Corbin with doing much to win upstate New York for JFK in 1960, something no one thought possible in this Republican stronghold. The report concluded, “As a tireless perfectionist in whatever job he is engaged in, he is of unquestioned value and to that end, despite his reputation, may lie his greatest attraction.”86

  For Seigenthaler, however, those talents weren't enough to overcome the obvious red flags. When he met with Kennedy, he informed the attorney general that under no circumstances could Corbin be given a job in the Kennedy administration: “You can't hire him! You can't hire him!” RFK responded, “I don't want you to tell me what's in [the FBI file], but why?”87 Kennedy pleaded that all Corbin wanted was a salary, a desk, and a phone at the Department of the Interior.

  Seigenthaler made it clear to RFK that the worst thing that could be done would be to give Corbin a job in the government, especially with access to a phone. “It won't be too long before he's … an embarrassment to the administration,” Seigenthaler said.88

  At RFK's direction, Corbin was instead quietly put on retainer with the Democratic National Committee. According to Walinsky, his role there was straightforward: to act as the eyes and ears of the Kennedy White House and especially of Bobby Kennedy. “Corbin's function was to be snooping around,” Walinsky remembered. “His job was to find out who was stealing anything before the FBI and the newspapers found out so that person could be quietly gotten rid of.”89

  CORBIN ALMOST GOT HIMSELF thrown out of the DNC by JFK personally. One day Kenneth O'Donnell, the president's scheduler, was having lunch at a Washington hotel when he spotted Corbin sitting by the pool, having a drink and sunning himself. When O'Donnell—who never liked Corbin—got back to the White House, he told President Kennedy, “I want you to know that Paul Corbin is helping you get reelected in '64 by sunning himself by the pool.”90 According to Seigenthaler, Ben Bradlee of Newsweek, a close friend of JFK's, called Corbin at the hotel wanting to know why he wasn't at the DNC working for Kennedy's reelection. Corbin must have suspected that President Kennedy was listening on an extension, as he began to jerk Bradlee's chain. “I'm out here, Ben, by the pool, with a broad in one hand and a drink in the other,” he said. He added, “Look, if Jack doesn't straighten up we're going to have to pull him out of there and run Bobby in '64.”91

  JFK called his brother and demanded that Corbin be fired. RFK stormed to Seigenthaler, “Why can't he just work over there and keep his mouth shut?”92 The attorney general told Seigenthaler to call DNC chairman John Bailey and have Corbin fired. Seigenthaler talked Robert Kennedy out of it and then told Corbin to make himself scarce for a couple of days. Corbin's little joke had backfired and it nearly cost him his job. Bradlee wrote an embarrassing squib about the incident for the Periscope section of Newsweek. Corbin had to go to Hickory Hill and grovel to RFK as per Seigenthaler's counsel. It worked: Seigenthaler recalled that their breakfast was “like old home week.”93 Later, Corbin was invited to Madison Square Garden to witness Marilyn Monroe seductively sing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” to JFK.94

  John F. Kennedy was often indifferent to or not sure about Corbin, and Corbin's relationship with Teddy Kennedy was complicated. Most of the “Irish Mafia” around President Kennedy despised Paul.95 Only Dave Powers liked Corbin. But Corbin had a strong rapport with other Kennedys. He intimated that the head of the Kennedy clan, Ambassador Kennedy, took a shine to him. And why not? They were cut from the same cloth.

  Most important, RFK, Ethel Kennedy, and their brood loved Paul and Paul's wife, Gertrude. When Bobby became the attorney general, he was issued two keys to the private elevator at the Justice Department, which went directly to his office on the top floor. Kennedy kept one and gave the other to Corbin. While others scraped and bowed to RFK, calling him “Mr. Attorney General” and later “Senator,” Corbin simply and always called him “Bob.”96 (RFK hated being called “Bobby.”)

  This relationship with RFK made Corbin practically bulletproof in the Democratic Party and in Washington. Few understood Bobby's close friendship with Corbin, however. Old Kennedy hand Joe Dolan called Corbin “the dark side of Bobby Kennedy.” Columnist Rowly Evans, a social friend of the Kennedy family, once said to RFK, “You ought to drop Paul Corbin. He's really hurting you.” Kennedy barked back, “Listen, Rowly, when I want your advice, I'll ask for it!”97 Evans did not know what RFK's daughter Kathleen Kennedy Townsend knew: “My father appreciated somebody who would find out what's going on in the government or in politics and would be forthright about telling him so that he could have eyes and ears in places that he wouldn't normally have them.”98 Columnist Drew Pearson characterized Corbin's role more bluntly: he was “Bobby's backstage henchman.”99

  For the next few years, Corbin lurked in the shadows, handling political matters for RFK, gathering political intelligence, and looking out for Kennedy family interests. Corbin successfully ratted out a number of corrupt government officials and they were gently eased out before becoming an embarrassment. As Walinsky said, “It takes a thief …”100

  Gertrude Corbin served as Ethel Kennedy's private secretary for a time. In 1961, Corbin and his wife became Catholics and Bobby and Ethel Kennedy became their godparents.101 Corbin's sister said Paul had been born Jewish but later become an atheist.102 Indeed, the Catholic conversion was probably a matter of political convenience for Corbin. According to Walinsky, who knew both Corbin and Kennedy well, it may have been RFK's idea that Corbin become a Catholic, as a way of appeasing Congressman Francis Walter. A devout Catholic, Walter happened to be chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which, like the FBI, remained very interested in Paul Corbin.103

  THE FBI CONTINUED TO monitor Corbin and asked the House Committee on Un-American Activities for any information it had on Corbin.104 Congressman Mel Laird, a Republican from Wisconsin, confidently
predicted that Corbin would be dismissed from the Democratic National Committee.105 The FBI, in an attempt to embarrass the Kennedy administration, did an “information dump” with the Milwaukee Journal in August 1961.The paper published a long story covering Corbin's Communist ties and his numerous scams, under a large headline, “Many Are Wondering: What of Corbin's Part?”106 In September the Journal headlined a piece “Reds Backed Corbin at Divorce Trial,” reporting that two Chicago Communists, Kenneth Born and Ishmael P. Flory, had been character witnesses at his divorce trial in the 1940s.107

  DNC chairman John Bailey was forced to publicly defend Corbin, dismissing the mountains of evidence and saying simply that Corbin was a “controversial figure.” Laird inserted in the Congressional Record the unbelievable rumor about Corbin's both being a Communist and having business affiliations with the late Joe McCarthy.108 Corbin denied having embraced either Communism or Joe McCarthy. Another Wisconsin representative, Democrat Clement Zablocki, sent a letter to Bobby Kennedy asking that Corbin's FBI file be released, but Seigenthaler rebuffed Zablocki.109 One FBI report written around this time observed that Corbin “has been continuously defended by the Attorney General in these criticisms,”110 while another complained that “the Attorney General … seems to have gone completely overboard in trying to defend Corbin. He has suppressed any and all references to our report detailing Corbin's Communist activity.”111

  On July 2, 1962, Corbin testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Predictably, he denied ever having been a member of the Communist Party.112 For the benefit of the congressmen, he went through a play-act with his flamboyant attorney, John Jay Hooker. Turning to his lawyer, Corbin said in an indignant stage whisper, “I do not care what you say, Hooker! I am not going to lie to this august group!”113

  In a 1962 deposition a Marine who served with Corbin in the South Pacific said that while Corbin was “a radical … I consider him an opportunist and it is my opinion that he would affiliate himself with any group if he thought it would be profitable to him financially.”114 Corbin had once growled to a young Republican friend, “I can argue it both ways.”115

  J. Edgar Hoover, who hated the Kennedys, saw Corbin as a way to embarrass his nemeses. A later document confirmed their ongoing war, as it noted that the FBI director was furious “over the personal attack which Senator Kennedy made on Mr. Hoover.”116 Dozens of Corbin-related memos were flying around the FBI by December 1962. One report cited Corbin's “perjurous statements during testimony before HCUA.”117

  But then, that same month, the FBI's intense interest in Corbin ended abruptly. An almost completely redacted memo said, “No further action will be taken by this office.”118

  It is unclear what caused this sudden turnabout. The FBI had dug up a lot of incriminating information on Corbin. The bureau had clearly been stymied—and would remain so for nearly two years.

  IN JUNE 1963, CORBIN was part of a group of Democrats in Washington who formed the “New Frontier Club” as an organizing tool for JFK's reelection campaign.119 Five months later, President Kennedy was dead and Robert Kennedy was devastated, a lost soul. Several weeks after JFK's assassination, Corbin showed once more the special relationship he had with Bobby Kennedy. Those were understandably black days for RFK, but several weeks after the shooting Corbin concluded that Bobby had moped around long enough. According to Walinsky, Corbin yelled at the mourning attorney general, telling him to pull himself together. “Corbin went to him at one point and said, ‘You've just got to get off your fucking ass, Bob, and stop this bullshit sitting around crying and get up off your ass and … run for the U.S. Senate.’ Nobody in the whole world said that to Robert Kennedy … except for Paul.”120

  A short time after November 22, a bereaved RFK went through the Oval Office and gave Corbin many personal effects of the late President Kennedy's, including a cut-glass water pitcher that Lyndon Johnson and the Kennedy cabinet had given to JFK on his birthday in 1961.

  A FEW MONTHS LATER, Corbin found himself—and his friendship with Bobby Kennedy—under renewed scrutiny. In early 1964 the new president, Lyndon Johnson, caught wind of the fact that Corbin was orchestrating a “Draft Kennedy for Vice President” write-in effort in the New Hampshire primary. LBJ was no fan of the Kennedys, and the last thing he wanted was a restoration, even a partial one, of Camelot. Johnson had already stopped referring to the New Frontier and begun using his own catchphrase, the Great Society.

  Johnson called John Bailey at the DNC to ask what he knew about Corbin.121 Corbin was the subject of at least nine presidential phone calls between February 10 and March 12, 1964, as LBJ reached out to Bailey, O'Donnell (who had stayed on in the Johnson White House), Ben Bradlee, Jack Valenti, Bill Moyers, and Larry O'Brien.122

  On March 10, LBJ won the New Hampshire Democratic primary with ease. But RFK received nearly as many votes as a write-in candidate for vice president as Johnson did for the top spot on the ticket—an astounding 25,861 write-in votes versus the 29,635 votes that LBJ received.123

  Corbin hadn't even traveled to New Hampshire, but by working the phones he had scored this victory for Bobby Kennedy, which was an embarrassment to President Johnson. John Seigenthaler's worries about Corbin and access to a telephone had been prescient.

  Suddenly the FBI set its sights on Corbin again. In April 1964 agent N. P. Callahan sent J. Edgar Hoover an internal memo complaining that someone was protecting Corbin from Justice Department prosecution and FBI investigation. Agent Callahan was clearly frustrated by Corbin's prevarications. He wrote, “How familiar is the Attorney General [Robert Kennedy] with these unresolved contradictions and has the Department of Justice exhausted all possibilities of resolving them? At this point, I do not profess to know.—Especially, in view of the reported new political activities of Mr. Corbin, I am totally unwilling to regard the subject as closed.”124

  President Johnson angrily had Corbin thrown off the DNC payroll in August 1964 (though it was reported that he had “resigned”). When LBJ told Kennedy he was getting rid of Corbin, the attorney general said, “President Kennedy wouldn't approve of that.” Johnson tersely replied, “But Bobby, I'm president now.”125

  The Kennedy family—they of the long loyalties and even longer memories—put Corbin on the payroll of the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, an enormous wholesale-goods business that Joe Kennedy had purchased in 1945. Corbin was still on the Merchandise Mart payroll at the time of his death in 1990.126 A news report in 1964 said that Corbin had also been placed on the payroll of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation.127 The family was taking care of its own.

  In September, a month after President Johnson forced Corbin out of the DNC, RFK resigned as attorney general in order to run for a U.S. Senate seat in New York. Naturally, Corbin was involved in the campaign. He ran around upstate New York making “his usual underhanded deals,” joked Walinsky.128 Eventually, though, Corbin stepped on so many toes that he was banned from the Empire State and had to operate out of New Jersey, according to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.129

  The troublesome Corbin was mostly sidelined in the 1968 presidential campaign by old Kennedy hands Kenny O'Donnell and Larry O'Brien, who were nominally in charge of the freewheeling operation. They prohibited Corbin from traveling, but made the mistake of giving him a phone and a desk at the headquarters in Washington. Corbin spent his days “trashing them,” said Walinsky. He once compared Corbin to RFK's dog, Brummus, a large Newfoundland, which RFK once told him “did not have a single redeeming social characteristic.” At Kennedy lawn parties, recalled Walinsky, “Brummus literally just walked up to some woman, lifted his leg, and drenched her. Paul was like a human version of Brummus.”130

  When RFK was assassinated in June 1968, Corbin was shattered. His friend, his political protector, the center of his universe, was gone. He had loved Robert Kennedy and RFK had loved Corbin.131

  But his friend's death did not exactly soften Corbin.

  Corbin was on the funeral train carryi
ng RFK's remains from the service in New York to Washington for burial. On the train, a bereaved Kennedy man who had often knocked heads with Corbin sidled up to his old adversary and offered an olive branch. Crying uncontrollably, Joe Dolan, who had been RFK's top aide on Capitol Hill, said to Corbin, “Let's let bygones be bygones.”

  Corbin squinted at the weeping Dolan and growled, “Bob never trusted you.”132

  AFTER THE FUNERAL, SEIGENTHALER saw the rough time Corbin was having and advised him to leave Washington and politics. Seigenthaler, who had become editor of the Nashville Tennessean, urged Corbin to move to Nashville to better deal with his grief. In Nashville, Seigenthaler tried to put Corbin into several business deals, including a publishing venture, but Corbin had trouble with the other partners. In his first meeting with the others, Corbin promised to “only skim 10 percent off the top.” The partners laughed, thinking Corbin was kidding.133

  Corbin then got involved with the Country Music Wax Museum and delighted all by taking the boots off such wax figurines as Johnny Cash and wearing them around town. He became an immediate hit with the locals and cultivated a young activist, Bob Dunn, a student at Vanderbilt. He later helped Dunn get a job on the staff of his friend Governor Pat Lucey.134