The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News--And Divided a Country (70 page)

  
83.
Bob LaPorta was
Author interview with Robert LaPorta.

  
84.
During this period
McGinniss,
The Selling of the President
, xi.

  
85.
“Roger and I”
Author interview with Joe McGinniss.

  
86.
Politically, Ailes
Ibid.

  
87.
When a crew member
Author interview with a friend of Roger Ailes.

  
88.
A year after
Author interviews with Bob LaPorta and Kenny Johnson.

  
89.
He formed
Author interviews with Robert LaPorta and Kenny Johnson. According to Pennsylvania state filings, Bounty Enterprises was created on July 8, 1968. Project Five Productions, Inc. was created on August 12, 1968. Roger Ailes’s profile in
Broadcasting
on November 11, 1968, mentions Bounty Enterprises.

  
90.
“He had so much”
Author interview with Robert LaPorta.

  
91.
Ailes filmed a couple
Author interviews with Robert LaPorta and Kenny Johnson.

  
92.
For Larry Rosen, the trigger came
Author interview with Larry Rosen.

  
93.
nominated for two Emmys
“The Complete Emmy List: Over 160 Nominations Are Made in 33 Categories with CBS Leading,”
Broadcasting
, May 8, 1967, 82–83. Alyssa McGovern of PMK*BNC confirmed on behalf of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences that Larry Rosen was listed as the producer on the nomination for the program achievement award. Mike Douglas was also nominated for an Emmy in Individual Achievements in Daytime Television.

  
94.
“Roger wanted only”
Author interview with Larry Rosen.

  
95.
As it happened
Robert E. Dallos, “ ‘Death of a Salesman’ Wins Emmy as Best Drama,”
New York Times
, June 5, 1967. Mike Douglas took the prize for Individual Achievement.

  
96.
A few weeks later
Author interview with Larry Rosen. His departure was noted on page 68 of the October 2, 1967, issue of
Broadcasting
. “Larry Rosen, producer of
Mike Douglas Show
, appointed producer for
Screen Gems
in Hollywood,” the magazine reported. Screen Gems produced
The Outcasts
.

  
97.
“When Roger took over”
Harris,
Mike Douglas
, 121.

    
1.
During a 1968 segment
Author interview with Kenny Johnson.

    
2.
During George Wallace’s appearance
Ibid.

    
3.
“I’d operate like a third base coach”
Harris,
Mike Douglas
, 60.

    
4.
“Roger was really gunning for him”
Author interview with Kenny Johnson.

    
5.
One morning in the summer
Author interview with Launa Newman-Minson.

    
6.
After losing a run
Peter Kihss, “Nixon, Happy as New Yorker, Says Job Is Law, Not Politics,”
New York Times
, Dec. 29, 1963.

    
7.
Newman thought Nixon
Author interview with Launa Newman-Minson.

    
8.
Kenny Johnson recalled one conversation
Author interview with Kenny Johnson.

    
9.
Nixon was scheduled
Memo from Nixon aide Dwight Chapin, Oct. 6, 1967.

  
10.
The day before the interview
Memo from Clint Wheeler, Feeley & Wheeler advertising agency, Jan. 8, 1968.

  
11.
At 9:45
Daily agenda for Richard Nixon, Jan. 9, 1968.

  
12.
The earliest account
McGinniss,
The Selling of the President
, 63.

  
13.
“I remember being 27”
Marshall Sella, “The Red-State Network,”
New York Times Magazine
, June 24, 2001. Ailes also repeated this account to the journalist Zev Chafets, who wrote his 2012 authorized biography,
Roger Ailes: Off Camera
. On page 32, Chafets quotes Ailes: “We had Little Egypt on the show that day. She was an exotic dancer who performed with a boa constrictor. I figured I better not put her and Nixon in the same greenroom.”

  
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.