I Don't Need You When I'm
Cannon, Right Lou
Book Review/Lon Cannon The Great American Flack "There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to shipwreck." —Vic Gold in letter resigning from the Shirley Temple...
...There are people in front of us," I remember one bus driver protesting...
...But when Agnew was accused, Gold was certain that it was a plot against the Vice President, perhaps abetted by the White House...
...They're the same wonderful experts who gave us Ron Ziegler and H.R...
...You can't eat this turkey, but you can wear it...
...Trying to push political candidates on the open market 'like so much Alka Seltzer.' What manipulative wonders we've witnessed in our time, you see, have been the product not of our PR pros but of men and women, young and old, working from the grassroots level rather than the rarefied atmosphere of the board room...
...In my fifteen years as a PR pro," he writes, "American society witnessed: (1) a black revolution (2) a consumer revolution (3) a youth revolution and (4) a revolution in attitudes toward women and sex...
...Haldeman...
...Box 877, Bloomington, Indiana 47401, U.S.A...
...But Gold also returned all of his phone calls, never lied that I am aware of, never tried to tell me how to write a story, and continually worried about his responsibilities to the traveling press...
...Your job is to keep up with the motorcade...
...Walter Lippman considered PR men powerful molders of public opinion, but Gold reduces them to two types, "lapel strokers and writing hacks," and puts himself in the latter category...
...Box 877, Bloomington, Indiana 47401, U.S.A...
...I Don't Need You When I'm Right conveys much of the daily humor of politics,which is, Nixon and McGovern notwithstanding, a very funny business...
...On the second conversation, which made even less progress, I slammed down the phone...
...Shirts are 100% cotton and will shrink...
...I never once heard Vic Gold tell me or anyone else that he was "loyal" to Spiro Agnew...
...In a certain sense Gold himself has been dodging elephant accidents all of his adult life, and most of the elephants were white ones...
...We are always the first bus...
...s or Big Mac Bonds accepted...
...He was out of public relations then, trying to keep his distance from Agnew while establishing himself as a columnist, but Gold defended the man he believed in...
...I like his anecdote about Sen...
...In an administration where Chuck Colson had glorified the assault on grandmothers, Gold was invariably kind, thoughtful, and apologetic—when he wasn't screaming at someone...
...No one was ever run over, of course...
...Gold is no more inclined to glorify his undertakings than was Frank Skeffington, but he isn't apologizing, either, and he has a truer sense about himself than the people who went to Washington with Nixon and Agnew...
...Even funnier is Gold's account of the Haldeman-inspired scripts designed to keep Agnew in his respectful orbit around Nixon...
...Through it all Gold has combined a certain insouciance with a manic frenzy that makes people gnash their teeth when Gold is present and miss him after he is gone...
...Thus, he takes pride in how he derailed Flowers' racist opponent, but can admit that his PR work for Flowers was "demagoguery...
...The President will wave to the convention delegates with arms extended only shoulder high...
...To receive your very own Official Limited Edition Alternative Turkey Tee Shirt—or to order one as a gift for some turkey on your Christmas list—please send the order form below (or a reasonable facsimile) with the appropriate amount of money to The Baron, P.O...
...Under E, for Elephants, the advanceman on his first assignment was cautioned that at all Nixon rallies featuring a live Republican mascot, the animal should be given a thorough enema and left unfed for a specified period prior to the candidate's appearance...
...Run over the people," yelled Gold at the top of his voice...
...For Immediate Release," Montoya barked, snapping a half-stunned, half-stoned audience to attention...
...As a "citizen PR man" Gold wonders why people in public life who say they want to improve the image of their profession go around depicting politics as something they should rise above: "Any time an incumbent—President, governor, or mayor—adopts a PR posture of being 'above politics,' it's a fundamental affront to the democratic process and he shouldn't be allowed to get away with it...
...Gold screamed at the bus driver...
...Haldeman and placed in the Advanceman's Manual, which codified the experience of the various Richard Nixon campaigns...
...What the hell do you think you're doing...
...Haldeman and placed in the Advanceman's Manual, which codified the experience of the various Richard Nixon campaigns...
...John Marchi, the Republican-Conservative candidate for mayor of New York in 1969, "photographs like Pius XI reading the riot act on contraception...
...Walter Lippman considered PR men powerful molders of public opinion, but Gold reduces them to two types, "lapel strokers and writing hacks," and puts himself in the latter category...
...6.95 once told me with a straight face that "1972 was a good year except for Watergate," Gold was a wild, refreshing, honest, angry flack...
...The Official Limited Edition Alternative Turkey Tee Shirt has no equal as a chic gift for those students, part-time athletes, contemplatives, bon vivants, and other tee shirt aficionados on your Christmas gift list...
...What the hell do you think you're doing...
...how to dress and act on camera...how to cope with aggressive interviewers.' "J...
...When the Agnew plane in 1972 left behind a reporter who had slept late or died of boredom, Gold considered the oversight his own fault...
...Gold calmed down only when he was told that Agnew was still in the hotel and that the offending vehicle was a city transit bus taking people home from work...
...At this same lunch Gold also gave me his views, hilariously described in I Don't Need You, about the Newsweek article which had described Agnew's purported interest in two copulating rhinos during a trip to Africa...
...We recommend this size for most men and all buxom women...
...Gold is no more inclined to glorify his undertakings than was Frank Skeffington, but he isn't apologizing, either, and he has a truer sense about himself than the people who went to Washington with Nixon and Agnew...
...The kind of propagandists, that is, who didn't need a two-day $9,600 course given by J. Walter Thompson counseling them on 'how to deal with the news media...
...Barry Goldwater "wasn't so much a candidate as a Candide in his dealings with the smart-ass national press...
...For Immediate Release," Montoya barked, snapping a half-stunned, half-stoned audience to attention...
...Most of the time he screamed at them, in language not suitable for this or any other magazine, to stay right behind the limousine at all costs to their health, safety, and/or manhood...
...James Wooten of the New York Times wrote during the 1972 campaign that Gold was always on the verge of mental health...
...In my fifteen years as a PR pro," he writes, "American society witnessed: (1) a black revolution (2) a consumer revolution (3) a youth revolution and (4) a revolution in attitudes toward women and sex...
...Send orders, notes, and testimonial letters to The Baron, P.O...
...Dear Baron: I'm over/under whelmed...
...Truly loyal people don't go around yammering about their loyalty...
...Number wanted (how many ?): Large...
...Propagandists for causes in which they believed...
...Send orders, notes, and testimonial letters to The Baron, P.O...
...The Official Limited Edition Alternative Turkey Tee Shirt (spotless white on Tyrrell green) comes in two sizes, large and too large...
...s or Big Mac Bonds accepted...
...Trying to push political candidates on the open market 'like so much Alka Seltzer.' What manipulative wonders we've witnessed in our time, you see, have been the product not of our PR pros but of men and women, young and old, working from the grassroots level rather than the rarefied atmosphere of the board room...
...please print) Your Name Address City State Zip If this is a gift: Recipient's Name Address City State Zip Gift Card to Read from Christmas Turkeys Five Dollars Each The Alternative: An American Spectator December 1975 29 liners...
...At the 1972 convention a Haldeman-approved memo came up with this instruction: "When the Vice President stands alongside the President on the speaker's rostrum at the convention, make sure he doesn't raise his arms above his head...
...Please rush the following Official Limited Edition Alternative Turkey Tee Shirts at $5.00 each...
...Box 877, Bloomington, Indiana 47401, U.S.A...
...Dirksen didn't even know that Gold was doing the writing...
...Lodge cut his speech short and beat it to the airport...
...Sen...
...Gold screamed at the bus driver...
...Nor did I ever hear him make the shoddy Watergate defense that everyone else also broke the law...
...Sorry, no C.O.D...
...He has bright observations about the public relations business and even brighter one-liners about politicians he has known...
...The elephant incident, Gold tells us, was catalogued by H.R...
...Gold slips them in like a sharp knife between the ribs while readers are still laughing at his oneNow for the gimmick...
...The host committee and the first five rows of spectators scattered...
...My first conversation with Gold, thank28 The Alternative: An American Spectator December 1975 fully on the telephone, ended when he became enraged at a question of mine about why I couldn't see Agnew—and slammed down the phone...
...He was the flack for the Bourbon Institute while a devout scotch drinker, the flack for former Alabama Attorney General Richmond Flowers, who won anelection and went to jail for extortion, and the flack for Spiro Agnew, who pleaded no contest and avoided a prison sentence...
...I never met a flack who more fiercely defended his employer than Gold, even when no defense was necessary...
...John Marchi, the Republican-Conservative candidate for mayor of New York in 1969, "photographs like Pius XI reading the riot act on contraception...
...In his fine book Running, Chicago Sun-Timescolumnist Bob Greene tells of the occasion in the 1972 campaign when a bus swerved in front of the Agnew press bus, which was parked at a curb outside a hotel waiting for the Vice President's limousine to leave...
...Gold, now a columnist, was a member of that vanishing breed of PR men who are proud of their individual achievements without exalting the purpose of their trade...
...The elephant incident, Gold tells us, was catalogued by H.R...
...Box 877, Bloomington, Indiana 47401, U.S.A...
...The Official Limited Edition Alternative Turkey Tee Shirt has no equal as a chic gift for those students, part-time athletes, contemplatives, bon vivants, and other tee shirt aficionados on your Christmas gift list...
...In his fine book Running, Chicago Sun-Timescolumnist Bob Greene tells of the occasion in the 1972 campaign when a bus swerved in front of the Agnew press bus, which was parked at a curb outside a hotel waiting for the Vice President's limousine to leave...
...how to dress and act on camera...how to cope with aggressive interviewers.' "J...
...The President will wave to the convention delegates with arms extended only shoulder high...
...Unfortunately, Nixon came along to blow it by holding Agnew's hands over his head...
...There are people in front of us," I remember one bus driver protesting...
...Gold was a "Ghost-with-Cover" who wrote for an industrial association which funneled the speeches to the Senator...
...We are always the first bus...
...He believes that flacks have been reacting to events while others have been moving them...
...We recommend this size for most men and all buxom women...
...Lar Also, please send Official Limited Edition Alternative Turkey Buttons at $1 each...
...Number wanted (how many ?): Large...
...g Too Large...
...At the 1972 convention a Haldeman-approved memo came up with this instruction: "When the Vice President stands alongside the President on the speaker's rostrum at the convention, make sure he doesn't raise his arms above his head...
...Gold's insights, however, are no hack's...
...In retrospect Gold offers some valuable observations on the limits of PR and PR men...
...He believes that flacks have been reacting to events while others have been moving them...
...please print) Your Name Address City State Zip If this is a gift: Recipient's Name Address City State Zip Gift Card to Read from Christmas Turkeys Five Dollars Each The Alternative: An American Spectator December 1975 29 liners...
...Most of the time he screamed at them, in language not suitable for this or any other magazine, to stay right behind the limousine at all costs to their health, safety, and/or manhood...
...I have enclosed in full payment...
...Vance Hartke "will go for anything short of greased-pig wrestling if it means a wire service photo in the home-state newspapers...
...Dammit, get in front of him...
...Gold slips them in like a sharp knife between the ribs while readers are still laughing at his oneNow for the gimmick...
...Propagandists for causes in which they believed...
...The host committee and the first five rows of spectators scattered...
...Haldeman...
...Vic Gold in letter resigning from the Shirley Temple Black account Henry Cabot Lodge was speaking at a Republican rally on Chicago's South Side in 1960 when a hitherto composed elephant mascot standing alongside the platform answered a series of wild nature calls...
...In the White House at the same time men were spouting words of loyalty to Richard Nixon and rushing to save themselves...
...Dreaming up shticks for the grand opening of Howard Johnson Motor Lodges...
...Dirksen didn't even know that Gold was doing the writing...
...Gold was a "Ghost-with-Cover" who wrote for an industrial association which funneled the speeches to the Senator...
...Dreaming up shticks for the grand opening of Howard Johnson Motor Lodges...
...Truly loyal people don't go around yammering about their loyalty...
...I never once heard Vic Gold tell me or anyone else that he was "loyal" to Spiro Agnew...
...Everyone has his own favorite story about Vic Gold, most of them about incidents on campaign buses...
...He was out of public relations then, trying to keep his distance from Agnew while establishing himself as a columnist, but Gold defended the man he believed in...
...Run over the people," yelled Gold at the top of his voice...
...If you don't, let me refresh your memory...
...In his book Gold explains that Agnew was even sorer about a Post editorial of the same vintage which compared Nixon's selection of Agnew as his running mate with Caligula's choice of his horse as Roman proconsul...
...In retrospect Gold offers some valuable observations on the limits of PR and PR men...
...g Too Large...
...He saved his rage for bus drivers and for those he thought were savaging his boss...
...On the second conversation, which made even less progress, I slammed down the phone...
...Through it all Gold has combined a certain insouciance with a manic frenzy that makes people gnash their teeth when Gold is present and miss him after he is gone...
...In an administration where Chuck Colson had glorified the assault on grandmothers, Gold was invariably kind, thoughtful, and apologetic—when he wasn't screaming at someone...
...We are indebted to Vic Gold, press secretary extraordinary and Scourge of Bus Drivers, for the aftermath of this long-unremembered speech...
...In a Washington peopled with Haldemans and with Ronald L. Ziegler, who • I Don't Need You When I'm Right: The Confessions of a Washington PR Man by Vic Gold William Morrow & Co...
...Gold's insights, however, are no hack's...
...But Gold also returned all of his phone calls, never lied that I am aware of, never tried to tell me how to write a story, and continually worried about his responsibilities to the traveling press...
...The third conversation was over lunch and Gold explained that he liked the Washington Post just fine but that Agnew was still sore about the "fat Jap" incident four years before...
...David S. Broder of the Washington Post recalls a misdirected bus pulling up at the center-field fence of a baseball stadium and Gold pounding on the fence yelling, "Open up in the name of the national press...
...Gold calmed down only when he was told that Agnew was still in the hotel and that the offending vehicle was a city transit bus taking people home from work...
...He has bright observations about the public relations business and even brighter one-liners about politicians he has known...
...There are also some serious points in this terribly funny book...
...He saved his rage for bus drivers and for those he thought were savaging his boss...
...How the hell did the goddam staff bus get ahead of us in the motorcade...
...Agnew and most of his staff would have just as soon left us all behind...
...To receive your very own Official Limited Edition Alternative Turkey Tee Shirt—or to order one as a gift for some turkey on your Christmas list—please send the order form below (or a reasonable facsimile) with the appropriate amount of money to The Baron, P.O...
...Sorry, no C.O.D...
...Gold and the Nixon men were equally misplaced in their beliefs, but Gold never whined about Agnew's "other achievements" when the truth became known...
...We are indebted to Vic Gold, press secretary extraordinary and Scourge of Bus Drivers, for the aftermath of this long-unremembered speech...
...Thus, he takes pride in how he derailed Flowers' racist opponent, but can admit that his PR work for Flowers was "demagoguery...
...Barry Goldwater "wasn't so much a candidate as a Candide in his dealings with the smart-ass national press...
...If you don't, let me refresh your memory...
...I never knew Gold to be quite this polite to bus drivers...
...Separately and together these revolutions triggered a massive movement away from traditions andcustoms that had existed for centuries...
...Your job is to keep up with the motorcade...
...Walter Thompson, remember...
...Dammit, get in front of him...
...It was something he had learned in the Goldwater campaign, where buses were always becoming parted from the candidate...
...30 The Alternative: An American Spectator December 1975 Book Review/Lon Cannon The Great American Flack "There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to shipwreck...
...I never knew Gold to be quite this polite to bus drivers...
...Separately and together these revolutions triggered a massive movement away from traditions andcustoms that had existed for centuries...
...And what were Vic Gold and his expert fellow manipulators doing while all this was going on...
...He tells how he once wrote 450 pages in three days for the late Everett Dirksen, who needed them for a filibuster...
...When the Agnew plane in 1972 left behind a reporter who had slept late or died of boredom, Gold considered the oversight his own fault...
...Shirts are 100% cotton and will shrink...
...As a "citizen PR man" Gold wonders why people in public life who say they want to improve the image of their profession go around depicting politics as something they should rise above: "Any time an incumbent—President, governor, or mayor—adopts a PR posture of being 'above politics,' it's a fundamental affront to the democratic process and he shouldn't be allowed to get away with it...
...At this same lunch Gold also gave me his views, hilariously described in I Don't Need You, about the Newsweek article which had described Agnew's purported interest in two copulating rhinos during a trip to Africa...
...Under E, for Elephants, the advanceman on his first assignment was cautioned that at all Nixon rallies featuring a live Republican mascot, the animal should be given a thorough enema and left unfed for a specified period prior to the candidate's appearance...
...30 The Alternative: An American Spectator December 1975 Book Review/Lon Cannon The Great American Flack "There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to shipwreck...
...Joseph Montoya, the spearcarrier of the Senate Watergate Committee, getting confused at the National Legislative Conference and reading the press release of the speech he was supposed to give...
...No one was ever run over, of course...
...Everyone has his own favorite story about Vic Gold, most of them about incidents on campaign buses...
...David S. Broder of the Washington Post recalls a misdirected bus pulling up at the center-field fence of a baseball stadium and Gold pounding on the fence yelling, "Open up in the name of the national press...
...I Don't Need You When I'm Right may be the best political book since The Last Hurrah, and for many of the same reasons...
...But when Agnew was accused, Gold was certain that it was a plot against the Vice President, perhaps abetted by the White House...
...I Don't Need You When I'm Right may be the best political book since The Last Hurrah, and for many of the same reasons...
...Please rush the following Official Limited Edition Alternative Turkey Tee Shirts at $5.00 each...
...I Don't Need You When I'm Right conveys much of the daily humor of politics,which is, Nixon and McGovern notwithstanding, a very funny business...
...Agnew and most of his staff would have just as soon left us all behind...
...He tells how he once wrote 450 pages in three days for the late Everett Dirksen, who needed them for a filibuster...
...I never met a flack who more fiercely defended his employer than Gold, even when no defense was necessary...
...Gold, now a columnist, was a member of that vanishing breed of PR men who are proud of their individual achievements without exalting the purpose of their trade...
...Loyalty" was the by-word in the Nixon Administration, but it was a slogan more than a reality...
...Vic Gold in letter resigning from the Shirley Temple Black account Henry Cabot Lodge was speaking at a Republican rally on Chicago's South Side in 1960 when a hithert...
...It was something he had learned in the Goldwater campaign, where buses were always becoming parted from the candidate...
...You can't eat this turkey, but you can wear it...
...It's the Official Limited Edition Alternative Turkey Tee Shirt, designed exclusively for The Alternative through the coordinated efforts of some of the world's toniest fashion salons in Paris, London, and North Adams, Michigan...
...In the White House at the same time men were spouting words of loyalty to Richard Nixon and rushing to save themselves...
...There are also some serious points in this terribly funny book...
...Lodge cut his speech short and beat it to the airport...
...Senator Joseph Montoya, Democrat of New Mexico, last night told the National Legislative Conference at Albuquerque that...
...I like his anecdote about Sen...
...Joseph Montoya, the spearcarrier of the Senate Watergate Committee, getting confused at the National Legislative Conference and reading the press release of the speech he was supposed to give...
...Vance Hartke "will go for anything short of greased-pig wrestling if it means a wire service photo in the home-state newspapers...
...In his book Gold explains that Agnew was even sorer about a Post editorial of the same vintage which compared Nixon's selection of Agnew as his running mate with Caligula's choice of his horse as Roman proconsul...
...Gold considered the remark both accurate and funny...
...Nor did I ever hear him make the shoddy Watergate defense that everyone else also broke the law...
...How the hell did the goddam staff bus get ahead of us in the motorcade...
...Gold considered the remark both accurate and funny...
...In a certain sense Gold himself has been dodging elephant accidents all of his adult life, and most of the elephants were white ones...
...He was the flack for the Bourbon Institute while a devout scotch drinker, the flack for former Alabama Attorney General Richmond Flowers, who won anelection and went to jail for extortion, and the flack for Spiro Agnew, who pleaded no contest and avoided a prison sentence...
...Lar Also, please send Official Limited Edition Alternative Turkey Buttons at $1 each...
...Even funnier is Gold's account of the Haldeman-inspired scripts designed to keep Agnew in his respectful orbit around Nixon...
...In a Washington peopled with Haldemans and with Ronald L. Ziegler, who • I Don't Need You When I'm Right: The Confessions of a Washington PR Man by Vic Gold William Morrow & Co...
...James Wooten of the New York Times wrote during the 1972 campaign that Gold was always on the verge of mental health...
...Gerald Ford is "the foremost representative of [the] modern Nasal Banal School of Political Oratory...
...6.95 once told me with a straight face that "1972 was a good year except for Watergate," Gold was a wild, refreshing, honest, angry flack...
...I have enclosed in full payment...
...Gold and the Nixon men were equally misplaced in their beliefs, but Gold never whined about Agnew's "other achievements" when the truth became known...
...The third conversation was over lunch and Gold explained that he liked the Washington Post just fine but that Agnew was still sore about the "fat Jap" incident four years before...
...My first conversation with Gold, thank28 The Alternative: An American Spectator December 1975 fully on the telephone, ended when he became enraged at a question of mine about why I couldn't see Agnew—and slammed down the phone...
...Gerald Ford is "the foremost representative of [the] modern Nasal Banal School of Political Oratory...
...They're the same wonderful experts who gave us Ron Ziegler and H.R...
...The Official Limited Edition Alternative Turkey Tee Shirt (spotless white on Tyrrell green) comes in two sizes, large and too large...
...Vic Gold in letter resigning from the Shirley Temple Black account Henry Cabot Lodge was speaking at a Republican rally on Chicago's South Side in 1960 when a hitherto composed elephant mascot standing alongside the platform answered a series of wild nature calls...
...Walter Thompson, remember...
...Unfortunately, Nixon came along to blow it by holding Agnew's hands over his head...
...Senator Joseph Montoya, Democrat of New Mexico, last night told the National Legislative Conference at Albuquerque that...
...And what were Vic Gold and his expert fellow manipulators doing while all this was going on...
...Dear Baron: I'm over/under whelmed...
...The kind of propagandists, that is, who didn't need a two-day $9,600 course given by J. Walter Thompson counseling them on 'how to deal with the news media...
...It's the Official Limited Edition Alternative Turkey Tee Shirt, designed exclusively for The Alternative through the coordinated efforts of some of the world's toniest fashion salons in Paris, London, and North Adams, Michigan...
...Loyalty" was the by-word in the Nixon Administration, but it was a slogan more than a reality...
...Sen...
Vol. 9 • December 1975 • No. 3
