Mary McGrory: Interview #1

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Currie: So I wonder if we could start by talking a little bit about how you became a journalist.

McGrory: After I finished college, I went to the Hickox Secretarial School, and I learned

shorthand and typing, and I became secretary to the book editor of The Boston Herald.

And I was crazy about newspapers and wanted to write and wrote book reviews and wrote a

couple of dog stories, and then, through the greatest good fortune, I became acquainted with

John K. Hutchens, who was the editor at the time of The New York Herald Tribune Book

Review, and he invited me to do reviews for him. And I think he moved over to The Times and

invited me to review for him there, as well.

And then, a friend in Boston was driving to Washington and had to drive slowly because it was a

new car, and wanted company. So, I went with her. We drove to Washington, and I just loved

the city. It was so green and wide and all.

And John Hutchens gave me a letter to his old friend, the drama editor of The Washington Star.

His name was J. Carmody. And, so I interviewed with the Sunday editor. They were looking for a

second book reviewer, and several weeks later, I got a letter from him offering me the job, which

paid $70 a week, and I came.

And I spent seven years as a book reviewer. And then, Newbold Noyes, who was the national

editor, said to me one afternoon in the newsroom, “Say, Mary, aren't you ever going to get

married?”

I said, “Well, you know, I hope so, but I don't know.”

And he said, “Well, because if you're not it, we just always figured that you'd get married and

have a baby and leave us, so we haven't tried to do a great deal, but we think you can do

more.”

I had been contributing odd pieces to the Sunday section. I did profiles of politicians and things

because, being from Boston, I was very into politics. And then I wrote light editorials. Editorials,

which in England are known as the “Fourth Leader.” They were always the light ones. And I

wrote about squirrels and dogs and buses and raspberries and summer vacations and things

like that.

I was very, I received a great deal of encouragement at The Star from everybody. So, he said,

“Well, we think you should add humor and…” Let’s see. Humor and color and two other things to

the news pages… humor, and color, and charm… maybe he said flair. I have it down

somewhere, I can't remember exactly.

And I said, “Oh, is that all?” And he said, “Yes.” And he said, “We want you to start at the Army-

McCarthy hearings.”

This was in 1954, and I was appalled because I didn't know anything about it. And, you know, it

was a great deal of pressure.

But he, he told me how to do it. When I came back on the first day, I wrote one way, and he

said, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” He said, “You must write it like a letter to your favorite aunt.”

Well, at the time, I wrote letters to my Aunt Sarah, who was a very nice, lonely person in our

family. So once he gave me that, I knew what to do.

So I wrote, I think it was 36 pieces on the Army-McCarthy hearings. And the idea was he said to

treat it like a drama critic, you know, just from the point of view of spectacle. And I sort of

laughed at him. I just thought he was an Irish bully, seen the type.

And so, it, it created a great deal of interest. You could even say, a stir. I mean, people, I started

getting letters. People wanted to have me to dinner. They wanted to adopt me. They wanted to

kill me. You know, a tremendous reaction. And the managing editor, who was a very proper,

conventional sort of a person, was simply appalled.

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He did not like people reacting that vehemently to anything in his newspaper. So, but Newby

kept all that from me. And, it, it, it went over very well. I have to say that in a general way.

And then, I sort of went on the national staff after that and wrote what we called then the “with

stories.” I never wrote leads. I wrote, you know, we tried to find the biggest story, and then I

would come in on the side of it and say what it was like to be there and what the people looked

like and what the atmosphere was, and, you know, trying to represent the people who weren't

there. The best description I ever saw of it was in a remark of Charlotte Brontë. No, Emily

Brontë. People asked her why she didn't go about in society, and she said, “Why should I? My

sister will bring it all home to me.” And that's, that's how I see it as sort of…..

Currie: You were going to be the sister bringing it home.

McGrory: I hoped to be. Yes, I hoped to be.

So I did that. And then, the UPI, it was United Press then, wanted me to come to them, as a

reporter, and, you know, run out of the room every hour and dictate a new lead and all that stuff.

And I said, “Nah.” I said, “Sure, I could do it, I guess, but what is it? It's like teaching a dog to

dance. It's, it's, you know, it's sort of an achievement, but what does it get you?” So I didn't do

that.

And I think it was UP that wanted to syndicate a column. And we hadn't thought much about

that, but we decided to do it. So, I wrote one four times a week, and it just floated in The Star. It

went wherever. And, I stayed with The Star till it died, and then I went to The [Washington] Post,

where I've been for almost ten years.

Currie: That's a lot of history.

McGrory: Yeah.

Currie: I'd like to go back maybe now. Where did you get your ideas about being a journalist

when you were a young woman?

McGrory: Well, we all read Jane Arden in the newspaper, the comic strip, and I thought that

was quite wonderful. And something I would like to do. I don't remember. It always had a pull for

me. It always had an aura. But I, you know, and I had an uncle by marriage who worked for The

Boston Post, but that didn't amount to a great deal. I, you know, that wasn’t a…. It was just what

I wanted to do.

My father was very bookish and read a lot. And you know, we talked a lot, and I was always

interested. I read all the time, very interested in English.

Currie: And I understand you were an English major?

McGrory: Yes, I was, yes. And I’d studied Latin for six years at a school called Girls’ Latin

School.* So, that teaches you something about the, you know, the meaning of words and

structure and all those things.

Currie: What kinds of things did you read? What were you drawn to?

McGrory: Oh, English novels. You know, the Brontës. I never liked Dickens, too wordy for me.

Loved Thackeray, Samuel Butler read all that stuff. Worked in the Boston Public Library one

summer in the stacks and just read all day, every day.

Currie: Were there, there any ways in which you could get information about a career in

journalism? This was in the ‘30s, I believe, when you were in college.

McGrory: Yeah, I never looked into it. It just happened. Just happened.

Currie: How did you get your first job at the Boston Herald?

McGrory: Well, I, I was, I was an editorial assistant, sort of, at The Houghton Mifflin Company,

the publishers. And I was in the educational art department, and I had no idea what I was doing,

but I loved being in the world of publishing.

And then, I left there to go and work for a really eccentric Boston politician named Joseph Lee.

Today, it is Boston Latin Academy, a public school in Boston, MA, known for academic excellence.

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And that didn't work out at all. He was just, you know, off the wall, and the personnel director at

Houghton Mifflin got in touch and said she'd heard that Mrs. Bond was looking for a secretary,

Alice Dixon Bond, the book editor.

So I went there, and I worked for her for five years. Always wanting to write.

Currie: Was this, at that time, a job that would be considered an entry to writing, or how was

that presented to you?

McGrory: It was just as a job. I mean, that was just a job. And you’re on a newspaper, so if the,

if there was a chance of writing, you would write. And I wrote, I wrote book reviews.

Currie: Did you get encouragement from someone to write these book reviews at this point?

McGrory: Oh, and I covered book lunches. And I always remember my first instruction in

journalism.

An Englishman, it was during the war, and an Englishman came and made a speech about, I

don't know, Burma or something. So I, being a reader of English novels, wrote it as a story

about how quiet it all was and how peaceful, and then this man made this announcement and,

you know, the place went up. So the next day, the carbon of the story was stuck in the door of

the office, and there was a note saying, “See me.”

And it was Bill Mullins, who was the city editor, and he came by with the carbon, and he said,

“This isn't the way you do it, honey.” And he, he showed me, you know, how I should have a

lead and all that. That was my first lesson in daily journalism. Very much appreciated.

Currie: What had you done wrong?

McGrory: Well, I wrote it like a story. I wrote it, I wrote it chronologically, not with the most

important thing first. I thought it was more interesting that way. I still do, actually. [laughter]

Currie: Did, did, Alice Dixon Bond give you any guidance?

McGrory: No. She was essentially a clubwoman. She was the head of the Women's City Club,

and that was a consuming interest of hers. And she liked to lecture to ladies’ clubs about books

and things. No, she was not into journalism at all. No. So what I did, I did on my own.

Currie: After your, your encounter with Mr. Mullins, then, were there other ways in which you

learned the ropes in Journalism?

McGrory: From reading the paper, and observing what people did, and talking to people. I had

no formal instruction, whatever.

Currie: Had you ever worked on a school newspaper?

McGrory: Oh, yes. I was the editor of the Jabberwock at Girls’ Latin School. No, I wasn't, I was

the business manager, which was ridiculous. That was just a way…. And I wrote a little gossip

column called “With Malice Toward Some.”

Currie: And that was gossip about the school?

McGrory: Yeah, about my classmates.

Currie: What did you learn from, from working on this high school newspaper?

McGrory: Writing is hard, and you have to do it all the time. I don't remember.

Currie: Was there anything that you were able to use later on from this experience?

McGrory: You use it all, eventually. I don't think so.

I was very proud of having gone to Girls’ Latin School. It was a very difficult school. It was sort

of like the Marine Corps, you know, it was basically impossible. Nothing was good enough. They

were, you know, implacable. That's what I got out of that. And how to structure a sentence. You

know, we used to diagram the sentences, which is very useful. It is very useful.

Currie: Was Girls’ Latin run by an order of nuns?

McGrory: Oh, no. It was a public school.

Currie: How did, how did you apply for admission then?

McGrory: Yeah, I think you just had to apply. And then they could let you go if you didn't

measure up, which was what made it different from other schools. I was completely swamped

the first, when I first went there, but luckily, my father was a Latin scholar. He had been the best

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Latin scholar they ever had at South Weymouth High School, so he was able to help me, just to

keep me going.

I had terrible trouble with math and got 26 on the geometry mid-year. It was awful. And so I had

to take a chemistry college board, you know, it was very difficult. Great spirit, though, great

spirit, we're all very proud of having made it.

Currie: What, what was your best subject now that you've …. ?

McGrory: English.

Currie: What was it that drew you to English?

McGrory: I like to read. I like poetry, like novels. I liked everything. I was wordy, you know, I was

interested.

Currie: I wonder, too, if we could, I could ask you a little bit about what The Boston Herald was

like when you went to work there. It would have been. I think you went to work there in 1939?

McGrory: No, I think it was ‘41.

Currie: Okay. ‘39 is a year given in one article I read.

McGrory: Yeah. It wasn't a very happy place, but it was a newspaper, and very congenial

people, very congenial people. Had very nice parties and sang a lot. Lots of funny Irishmen,

very funny Irishmen, wonderful writers, very fine writers. And Mr. Minot was the editor. He, Mr.

George E. Minot, he never encouraged me at all.

Currie: Who was the owner of the Boston Herald?

McGrory: Pardon me?

Currie: Who was the publisher? Owner of.

Mcrory: Mr. Robert Choate. He was a rather remote figure to us. We didn't see him very much.

Currie: And that was at a time when there were a number of newspapers in Boston?

McGrory: I think we had The Post and The Globe. I don't remember.

Currie: Where did the Herald fit in?

McGrory: It was Republican and rather conservative and not a tabloid the way it is today, with

eight pages on the Kennedy business. It was a morning paper. I don't know where it fitted in.

Currie: Can you maybe describe the newsroom for us? What did it look like?

McGrory: It was big, and on one side was The Boston Traveler, which was the evening paper,

and on the other side, and that was very genial and funny and relaxed. And then there was The

Boston Herald, which was much more staid and formal and full of itself. That was on the other

side. And then the copy desk was in the middle of the room. The rim they called it, it was a

semicircle. And I don't really remember much about it anymore.

Currie: Do you remember if there were other women working there as reporters?

McGrory: Oh, Catherine Coyne was a great star. She had been a war correspondent, so she

was our celebrity.

Currie: Okay. And what did she cover?

McGrory: Well, she covered all the big stories. She covered, like when Madame Chiang Kai-

shek came to Wellesley and stayed overnight, she wrote the story. She. Oh, she was a great

star. She was the most prominent person on the paper.

Currie: Were there other women in the newsroom?

McGrory: There was someone named Beth Shoppe. I was very envious of her. She covered

more local news. I think they were the only two on The Traveler side. There was Anne Hicks,

who was quite a star in her own right. And Francis Morton. Oh, and Sarah White. Sarah was a

great crusading kind of a reporter, you know, did women and children, and murders and stuff.

She was very good. Sarah and Alice Burke. Allie Burke was an absolutely solid reporter. Did a

series on alcoholism. The Traveler was more hospitable to women, I have to say.

Currie: Why do you think that was?

McGrory: Well, of course, during the war, they had to let them in because men all went away.

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I don't know how The Post held the line…. The Herald held the line. But, you know, the war was

a great breakthrough for the women.

Currie: You came in ‘41, so that would have been during wartime?

McGrory: Yeah. The war began December ’41, didn’t it?

Currie: I was going to ask if you saw any differences in the newsroom as the war progressed

and….

McGrory: I don't remember.

Currie: Did you see any changes after the war ended? When men came back.

McGrory: Well, we were very glad to see them, but I think the women, I think they kept them

on.

Currie: Some people told us that they heard of women who had to sign agreements to leave

their jobs after the War. [audio equipment is moved … audio distorted]

McGrory: I didn't see that.

Currie: How did the women do who were hired during the war?

McGrory: Great. Just great. They were first-class, professional, much respected.

Currie: How did the men in the newsroom react to this influx of women?

McGrory: I never heard them say. But you see, I wasn't out there. I was in the book department,

so I didn't…. I didn't get all that firsthand.

The person who would be great for you to talk to is Alice Burke. Oh, she's up in, in Rockport,

Massachusetts. And she lived all through that. She's a wonderful reporter

Currie: And she was on The Boston Traveler?

McGrory: Yes. Yeah.

Currie: Also, you said you were somewhat jealous of Beth Shoppe?

McGrory: Yeah, because she was in the newsroom, and I wasn’t.

Currie: So that had become an aspiration?

McGrory: Yes

Currie: How like when did when did you adopt that as a goal?

McGrory: I guess when I was there.

Currie: Did you lay any plans to get yourself into the newsroom?

McGrory: Well, I tried, but they didn't want me. I mean, I asked Mr. Minot and so forth, and he

let me just never would consider it.

Currie: Did he say why?

McGrory: I don't remember. Just know the answer was always no.

Currie: Frustrating.

McGrory: Yeah.

Currie: And he was the one who could have made that decision?

McGrory: Yes.

Currie: What kept you forging ahead, then?

McGrory: Well, yeah, I did. You know, I had these, did a lot of book reviewing. I did a lot of

writing, and I had to have a job. And then I got this offer, the first real chance I got to go, I went.

Currie: And in the meantime, you've also been freelance of doing some extra for stories for The

Herald, like the …

McGrory: Dogs.

Currie: How did you get those assignments? How did you get those particular assignments?

McGrory: I didn't, I just submitted them. And people, if you'd asked, people would have said,

“No.” But if you present the accomplished fact, they put it in the paper. It's my experience. Don't

ask. Just do it. Submit it.

Currie: So you pretty much had to do these stories on your own time?

McGrory: Oh, sure. Sure.

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Currie: How would you go about, for example, just seeking out which story you were going to

do and getting it?

McGrory: Well, it wasn't that it was all strictly extraneous. You know, the only thing I can

remember at the time was the dog. We had a terrible dog named Mac. And I wrote a story about

him and about how paranoid he was and how difficult. People love dog stories. They just love

them. And they like to laugh, too, so you can always sell a dog story. I can't remember what else

I did. I really can't remember. Of course. I was busy with the reviews because I was reviewing

for The New York Herald Tribune and The New York Times, so I had a lot to do.

Currie: Yeah, it sounds it. How did you get The Herald Tribune and The Times?

McGrory: John Hutchens.

Currie: Had he seen your work?

McGrory: Yes. He was wonderful, John Hutchens, very encouraging, very nice. And then, of

course, sent me to the, to The Star, which was the great breakthrough.

Currie: What can you tell me about John Hutchens?

McGrory: Small, fair-haired man, terrific sense of humor, very elegant writer. He was, became

the president of the Book of the Month Club. Very distinguished journalist. Lovely man.

Currie: Did he tell you what, what he liked about your work?

McGrory: No. Just said he wanted, wanted me to write for him.

Currie: Were you able to select what you were going to review for him?

McGrory: No. He sent the books.

Currie: Did he send you a particular kind of book?

McGrory: Novels.

Currie: And all the time you were still doing secretarial work?

McGrory: Yep.

Currie: I don't know, I've been in that position, and I sometimes would despair that I was never

going to get out of it.

McGrory: I did, I did. And the endless gossip about the Women's City Club wasn't particularly

enjoyable, but I was working at a newspaper, which was important to me.

Currie: And the Women’s City Club was a social….?

McGrory: Was very important to her. Very important. So, as I say, she was more of a club

woman than a journalist. And so, you know, there wasn't a great deal of nurturing to be had

there.

Currie: Was there anything that you learned from her?

McGrory: I don't think so. Her writing was very effusive. No.

Currie: Was there anyone else at The Herald who gave you pointers? You mentioned Bill ….

McGrory: I don't know, you learned all the time. You know, sat with the reporters afterwards and

listened to their stories, and just sort of inhaling it all. I think, yeah.

Currie: It sounds like almost total immersion?

McGrory: Yeah. That's right.

Currie: And what was your social life like? You mentioned that you...

McGrory: Well, everyone had gone to war, so, you know, the women socialized a lot. Went

apple picking, went to the beach, whatever.

Currie: Were your friends outside the newspaper business or inside the newspaper business?

McGrory: Both.

Currie: Was there, for example, you mentioned you'd sit around after work and listen to these

stories. Was there a hangout for the newspaper or places where people in the newspaper would

go?

McGrory: There was a place across the street. I can't remember the name of it.

And then they had parties, parties where they told many funny stories and sang a lot.

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Very witty people there. John O'Connor was very funny. He was a wonderful writer who used to

tell stories about Boston politicians who were endlessly amusing. A man named Russo, whose

motto was R, for righteousness, U for unity, SS for Social Security, and O for honesty. I mean,

they’d tell stories like that. So, it was very entertaining.

Currie: And you were included in all of this?

McGrory: Yeah.

Currie: Were the, did the women and the men in the newsroom pretty much socialize together?

McGrory: Oh, I think so. Yeah. I can't remember specifically, but that's my memory.

Currie: Well. Maybe we could go out a little bit, get a little more detail about how you moved

from The Boston Herald to The Star. And that was. Let's see you, I believe you were 29 at the

time.

McGrory: Yes. Yes.

Currie: And John Hutchens…

McGrory: … sent me to his friend J. Carmody, the drama editor of The Star, who sent me to

John Henry, the Sunday editor. And he made the offer.

Currie: And what were you thinking on this? About this?

McGrory: Well, I liked Washington, and I thought it would be a change, and I, an opportunity. I

thought it would be good and it was.

Currie: What was your understanding about what you're supposed to be doing?

McGrory: I was supposed to write book reviews.

Currie: Like you had been doing?

McGrory: Yes. Carter Brook Jones was the chief book reviewer, and I was there as the second

book reviewer. And I reviewed three books a week for seven years.

Currie: And, I'm actually, I should have asked you before… how much were you making at The

Boston Herald?

McGrory: I don't remember, but I know I went to The Star for $70 a week.

Currie: And that was your first real journalism job?

McGrory: Yes.

Currie: Can you tell me what The Star was like when you first went to work there?.

McGrory: It was heaven. It was just great, just wonderful, kind, welcoming, funny place, full of

eccentrics and desperate people trying to make five deadlines a day. It was just wonderful,

loved it. The minute I set foot in it.

Currie: Oh, maybe you could describe for me your first day on the job?

McGrory: Well, I walked in, and Mr. Hudson Grunwald, who was then in charge of the book

pages, said… I said, “I'm Mary McGrory.” And he said, “God bless you.” And I said, “Wonderful.”

And then, I met everybody, and everybody was kind and welcoming, and I had two desks. I had

one upstairs in the Sunday department, and I had one downstairs in the book review office.

And, I went from one to the other, and I spent a great deal of time hanging out in the newsroom,

which was the most entertaining place I'd ever been in my entire life, full of excitement and

humor and rushing about. Just wonderful.

Currie: Where physically was The Star?

McGrory: 11th and Penn.

Currie: How would you describe walking into that newsroom?

McGroary: Well, there was the little pen. Everything was wrought iron. And, you know, it was

very carved wood and wrought iron and all that. It was very picturesque and 19 th -century. And

there was a little pen and benches around it where the copy boys and girls sat waiting to be

called. And one of them used to read the Iliad in the original Greek. We had very erudite copy

boys.

And then there was the metro desk, which was called the city desk, and the editor, city editor sat

in the middle, and on one side was Virginia, and on the other side was Maryland. And then there

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was the clerk, who was probably the most important person of them all.

Then you went up to the news desk, which was, when I first went there was presided over by

Chuck Egan, who was built like a truck and who had an enormous voice. They all had quite loud

voices and, terribly interested in, in, in everything. One of the most erudite people I ever knew.

Knew the Kentucky Derby times, knew the year of who won, knew everything.

And then at the far corner there was the rim, the, the copy desk.

And then the reporters were in a double row down the middle and a row on the edge. It was an

oblong room.

And Chuck Egan. When I got there, after a while, I'd been there I, I was allowed to cover a

James Mason autographing party, and I said his eyes were Brook Brown. And Chuck Egan, this

imposing, square-faced, rather formidable man, came over and said, “Brook brown?”

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “Where did you get that?”

I said, “Well, in New Hampshire, the water flows and the brook flows over the rocks, and it's

brown.” I said, “I've seen it.”

And he said, “Okay.” And he ran it. But it showed the, the precision of his interest and his caring

about how things should be.

And in due course, I took to writing the editorials I told you about. The light editorials.

And Mr. McKelway, Mr. Benjamin M. McKelway, a perfectly splendid man, who was the editor.

We had, the title was The Editor. And we didn't have an executive editor like that. And he would

write these notes in his beautiful, flowing handwriting, thanking me for these efforts. It was just a

wonderful atmosphere. I mean, you were just totally encouraged, totally. It was wonderful.

They’d put anything in the paper that made sense.

Currie: I have to turn the tape over.

[Tape ends]

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[Tape 265_01 begins]

Currie: Okay. Before we took the break, we were talking about the Army-McCarthy hearings.

McGrory: Right.

Currie: How was covering these hearings? Can you contrast it with what you had done before?

McGrory: Well, I never did anything like that before, so there was no contrast. It was an

absolute first. It was what I had thought I wanted to do all along. And it was right. It was what I

wanted to do. Take huge events and get a little angle on them, a little corner of them, and try to

explain to people what was going on.

Currie: What did you draw on in order to do this?

McGrory: All the people there. I mean, they were just waiting to be described and mocked and

delineated. I mean, you didn't really have to have much beyond an interest in human nature,

which was the essential thing. The way they reacted to each other, and the preposterous things

they said and did, just be a spectator at the human colony. I didn't have to draw on anything. I

had nothing to draw on. I never been to anything like that before.

Currie: Were there any skills that you picked up before that helped you in covering these

hearings?

McGrory: Well, I suppose I went back to Girls’ Latin School and diagramming sentences. So,

you know, just putting it all together, observing closely and accurately and picking out the right

thing, the right person to, to begin with, to be the focal point. And then, sort of going through it

all, and making a pattern or some sort of sense of it.

Currie: Of course, this was a big story in its day, too. Can you tell me about some of the other

press people who were covering this?

McGrory: Well, Ed Lahey and Doris Fleeson were there all the time. Walter Winchell was there,

and he used to write me little notes. “Dear MM,” and they were always signed, “WW.” And he

was reading me, which was, rather flattering. And, because we had our own reporters there who

were very helpful and patient with me, and helped me with details.

Currie: Was there anyone that you were reading?

McGrory: No. No one. That was Newby’s great breakthrough; no one had thought of laughing

at them before Newby. And so nobody was doing that. And most of them, when they read it,

they liked it a lot, but no one else was trying it. There was a lot of commentary, but it was more

solemn. And, you know, government and integrity and public service, that kind of abstract kind

of thing. But nobody was doing it from the point of view of personalities and theater. So, not

arrogance on my part, it was just nobody else was there.

Currie: Well, did Mr. Noyes get any pressure from advertisers or others that you know of?

McGrory: I don't know, I'm sure we got pressure from Mr. Cohen, our managing editor, who did

not like his readers to be stirred up that way. But I don't know, because he never told me about

it. Other people told me. He just observed that he himself. I think the others were dubious, but

they kind of enjoyed it, and they went along.

I don't know whether advertisers got after him. I don't, I have no idea.

Currie: How did you feel about all the attention? Both ….

McGrory: Oh, I like, I liked it a lot. I was very disconcerted by it, and I was exhausted because it

took me so long to write it, but I was pleased. Getting all this mail, I'd never gotten mail before. I

was told I got all sorts of telephone calls, but of course, I never heard them.

So, oh. It was great.

Currie: Did you answer the mail?

McGrory: Sure. Always was brought up to answer my mail.

Currie: What kinds of letters can you? Do you remember any in particular?

PAGE 16

McGrory: I remember one written in very crabbed handwriting and no margins on the paper.

So, you have joined Judith Copland and Alger Hiss and others who are trying to get our

wonderful Senator Joseph McCarthy, that kind of stuff. And then, you know, I remember a letter

from a Maryland couple. We never heard of you before, but we think you're wonderful, and we'd

like you, to have you to dinner. And is someone protecting you and watching over you, and so,

you know, it was very intense mail. It was very interesting.

Currie: Did you go to dinner at their house?

McGrory: No.

Currie: How did you respond to…. ?

McGrory: Oh, thank you very much for your letter. I am sorry you feel I am being unfair to

Senator McCarthy. Sincerely yours. Or in the case of the, the dinner invitation, how nice it was.

But that I never got out before 11:00 at night and, and like that.

Currie: I notice, too, that you take shorthand.

McGrory: Yes.

Currie: Did you use your shorthand when you were covering the hearings?

McGrory: Yes. Can’t always read it back. But it's been a help. It's been a great help.

Currie: Do you, did most reporters take shorthand?

McGrory: I don't think so. No. And Newby always told me to take lots and lots of notes, which I

still do to this day. Very copious notes. Too much, really.

Currie: Now, why did he tell you to take so many notes?

McGrory: I don't know, I should have asked him. I think he thought, well, you, you don't know

what you're going to need, I suppose. Now people have tape recorders. I've never had one. I

should probably. I'm very poor with any machinery of any kind. So, I've never had one. But see,

these reporters have brought out a tape recorder, so they don't need….

Currie: Most tape recorders fail. And sometimes notes have saved me when the tape recorder

has failed.

McGrory: Really?

Currie: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Or the tape recorder goes too fast or something.

And what about typing? Are you a touch typist?

McGrory: Oh, yes. Very fast. Yep.

Currie: And how do you put together a story from your notes once you?

McGrory: That's the hard part. On a lot of stories, I save string for a long time. Then I don't

organize it correctly, so there's a great frantic scrambling at the end to find out, you know, where

I put certain notes.

But like on P.O.W.’s, MIAs, I got a letter from a man, an impassioned letter. Why have I

neglected these people? Am I being fair? So then, I wrote him a letter and said I hoped I wasn't

being unfair, but I really didn't know what to do because, you know, there were no events. So

then, he wrote back and said there was a hearing on such and such a date. And then, I went to

the hearing. It didn't produce much. And then, oh, then the photographs came. Questionable

photographs. So then I had to put that all together with a lead. I don’t remember what I said.

Oh, I know.

Then, I finally went to the White House. Brent Scowcroft was briefing on Europe on the, the

Moscow summit. So I went, and I asked a question. I said, “Is there any hope to be had on the

P.O.W.’s in Moscow?” And he said, “No.” He said that the Vietnamese were being, the

Vietnamese, were being fairly cooperative. And then someone else said, “Do you believe that

any Americans are being held against their will in Vietnam?” And he said, “No, I do not.” It was

page one news. But that was the, that was the final, the news peg that I was able to string it all

together with.

PAGE 17

Currie: So you save these things until they, they gel?

McGrory: Yeah. Not always. Sometimes something happens out of the blue, and you just do it

on its own terms. But a lot of it is saving.

You know, the Thomas nomination. For instance, I wrote a piece last week comparing the

Thomas to the Gates nomination and how Thomas is being towed around by Senator Danforth.

I talked to Senator Danforth weeks earlier about his civil rights bill, and I just brought home a

block of notes yesterday and read them. And found out from my Danforth notes. Anyway.

“Talk to Ed Rollins to find out if Gates had anybody like Senator Danforth.”

“Senator Danforth has a great reputation in the Senate as a man of honor and integrity. and

passionate devotion to civil rights. And he was towing this, this man around, taking him into

every single Senate office and explaining him and interpreting,” and then I called Senator Boren,

Boren's office, about the Gates nomination and found out that Danforth had just been there with

Thomas, which, you know, gives you more of a picture of how extensive this is.

And Ed Rollins promised to find out, I couldn't get from Ken Duberstein. Used to be the White

House chief of staff, doesn't return my calls. I wanted to find out. See, he was the grand

strategist on Thomas. But Thomas is obviously out of trouble now, so I was calling him to find

out if there was a comparable person on Gates. And there isn't.

And then I went to a dinner party, and I sat opposite Senator Cohen, and he said, “You think

there was anybody helping Gates?” So, it's a long process. It’s a long process.

Sometimes you get the people you need to talk to, and sometimes they don't call you back. I

wouldn't call me back either if I were them.

And I like to tell people something they didn't know. If I'm going to tell them what to think about

something, it seems to me I have an obligation to tell them as much as possible about what it's

about.

Currie: It's hard to do in a column.

McGrory: It is very difficult to do. Some columnists are supposedly news columnists like Jimmy

Breslin, and Murray Kempton, and me. We go to places, we talk to people. Other columnists

stay in the office and write it from the vantage point, and they can do that. And I mean, they do it

very well. I just don't have enough confidence in my own opinions. I just feel I have to give them

more reasons. You know?

Currie: And in some other things I read you, I had to, I read that you described yourself as an

intuitive person. Can you say more on that?

McGrory: Oh, no, I hope I never did.

Currie: Well, now's the time to correct.

McGrory: Well, you know, I don't think I'm any more intuitive than anybody else. I mean, I have

feelings about things, and. But, you know, often one is wrong. Often. The most important thing

in this business is to have an open mind. That is the single most important thing, so that when

you get information counter to what you think or what you feel, you, you, you accept it, and you

accommodate it into what you think. It’s important.

Currie: How do you sort through all this, all this information that comes to you?

McGrory: Well, that's part of the difficulty of the job.

Now, on this BCCI, you know, where to begin? You know, I know, I know what it means to John

Kerry. John Kerry, who's been overshadowed by Teddy Kennedy, by Michael Dukakis, and by

the other Kerry. Now suddenly he's the man of the moment. He's come into his own. And

people, you know, he got snubbed and sidetracked and, you know, ignored. And now he's, he's

there. Well, I know… that's something I know. I’ll write right about that. And that's one way to

begin it. But it's not too substantial.

So, I’ll go and see Mr. Blum tomorrow, and I'll call Mr. Von Rabb again, and I'll just sort of poke

around and wallow in it for a couple of hours and then try to produce something.

PAGE 18

Currie: Does there come a moment when you wallow and all of a sudden there's a clear

direction?

McGrory: I wish. What happens is that it gets to be 3:30 and if I'm going to write for the next

day, I’d better get to it. A lot of this pressure, 90% of it is pressure. I would say. You just have to

move. You just have to go, whether you have it or not, you gotta do it.

Currie: Has there ever been a time when you went and then thought, “Oh, I shouldn't have?”

McGrory: All the time. All the time. But I'm lucky I haven't missed any.

I often say to my editor, Steve Bauer, I said, “Well, the only good thing you could say about this

is that it's done. I don't, you know, I don't think I've done it well, or right, or anything.” Never

good enough, as far as I'm concerned. I can't bear to read it in the paper.

Currie: Do you read it in the paper?

McGrory: No.

Currie: And has there ever been a time…. You've done a column since 1960, I believe?

McGrory: ‘61, maybe. Well, maybe ‘60.

Currie: It's getting off a bit. This is so interesting. Has there ever been a time when you've been

dried up completely? I know some columns seem to.

McGrory: Couldn't. Couldn't. No choice. Had to keep going. I take a month off every year.

Currie: What do you do with that?

McGrory: I generally go to Italy. I go to New Hampshire, and I go to Italy.

Currie: Do you read a newspaper while you're in Italy?

McGrory: Yeah, I read the Italian newspapers, which is great fun because my Italian isn't quite

good enough, so I miss a lot. Just a little off. I missed a lot of big stories, like the October

Massacre. Stuff like that. I, I was in Rome when that came down, and I was taking my niece to

the airport, and an American, another American, came up to me and he said, “You know, I think

something's happened.”

I said, “You do.” I said, “What do you think happened?”

He said, “Well, I don't know. But I think big news.”

I said, “Well, I watched the TV last night, but I couldn't make head nor tail of it. I didn't know

what they were talking about. They talk too fast on TV.”

So he said, “Well, look at this.” And it said Cox lucentiato Nixon. I said, “Lucentiato? License

maybe just giving him a broader jurisdiction?” So we took it over to an English-speaking TWA

clerk, and we said, “You know what's going on here?”

And he said, pointed to Nixon, said, “E fire eem,” pointing to Cox and Richardson. So we, you

know. But perhaps not the ideal way to get one's news, eh? But I didn't have to write about it.

And I almost missed Nixon's resignation. Almost. I was in New Hampshire in a lake. But we got

back in time.

Currie: And that was a very famous column you wrote, right?

McGrory: No, it wasn't actually. The famous one was the one I got the George Polk Award, I

think, for the one about Nixon at his press conference in California when he was beaten for

governor. And he was so awful and, you know, trashed his supporters.

Currie: The one where he said, “Nixon, you won't have Nixon…..”

McGrory: Yeah, yeah. It's terrible. Just terrible that that that I think that was what got the

George Polk Award.

Currie: I've gotten ahead a little bit now. I also since this I, I'd like to…..

[Tape ends]

Page 5

[Tape 266_02 begins]

Currie: So I guess, we're talking about Doris Fleeson.

McGrory: Yeah. So I'm going to try to get that book for you.

Currie: Okay. Yeah. That would be great.

McGrory: If you leave me your name and address and I'll call her tomorrow. I have to call her

anyway. And I'm embarrassed. It was done by Harvard University Press, and I wrote the piece

about her. So I think maybe the detail you asked me about may be in it, I hope so.

Currie: Well, it's, you know, whatever. It'll be a good addition to the record. Okay. Were there

any other people that you admired, whose work you admired?

McGrory: Oh, yeah. Of course, Russell Baker, I think he's just a great artist.

Ed Lahey, whom I mentioned. Brilliant reporter. Didn't go beyond the eighth grade, but had such

a flair for words and such an instinct for news, such a kind heart and a wonderful, very morose

sort of a man. Extremely funny.

Currie: Do you even talk a little about your transition from the newsroom to becoming a

columnist?

McGrory: I couldn't tell the difference.

Currie: Really?

McGrory: No. I wrote four times a week, and I ran around and went to events and just did what

I've been doing. The only thing was, it was syndicated.

Currie: Did they want you to infuse more opinion into your columns or?

McGrory: Strange as it seems, we never really went into it. It just sort of evolved. They wanted,

they wanted color pieces for the news section, and that's what I wrote them. And if somebody

wanted to syndicate it as a columnist, that was perfectly all right with them. You know, then I got

more opinionated as I went on. And now I'm, you know, a lot of opinion, but, you know, it just

evolved, never very formally thought out, worked out.

Currie: How did you actually get your column?

McGrory: I just did what I always did. I went out to large events and tried to get a little angle on

them. And pick out a personality who was central to it. And try to illuminate the situation through

that one person. You hoped you would choose the right person.

Currie: I guess a better question to ask is, when they wanted to syndicate you, how did they

approach you on that?

McGrory: I'm very vague about this. I think they had to go to a Newby, and he asked me, and I

said, “Yeah, yes. If you think.” And, I'm very vague about it.

I'll tell you, one of the reasons is that about that time I was invited to dinner by Gilbert Harrison,

who I think then the editor of The New Republican, and one of the guests was Walter Lippmann,

who was so charming and so kind and so pleasant, and told me he thought I was really a

novelist and I should really write a novel, and that he was a reader, and it was terribly flattering.

And he said, “I hear you are about to be syndicated.”

And I said, “Yes, that is correct.”

He said, “May I give you a bit of advice?”

And I said, “Oh, I wish you would.”

He said, “Pay no attention to it, my dear.” He said, “They will give you lists of papers who

publish you and papers who didn't publish you, and papers who cut your copy, and a list of what

columns they ran and what they didn't run and how they read it.” He said, “It will drive you mad.

Pay no.. just make up your mind. You're not going to pay any attention to it.” Whatever. So that's

what I did. That was my inclination, mind you. But, from such a high source, I could hardly

dispute. So, I never did to this day.

PAGE 28

I care about The Boston Globe because that's where it came from, and I like them to publish it,

and I get very upset when they don't. But other than that, up to them. They don't have to print it.

I just have to write it. That's their choice.

I get more and more mail from the West Coast, to which I think all the liberals in this country

have fled. It's the, they've been driven to the sea. And I hear a lot from Oregon, the state of

Washington, a lot.

Currie: When you first became syndicated, did you start getting this? Was there a difference in

the mail you were getting?

McGrory: I got more because I was in more places. I still get a fair amount. I answer it all.

Currie: Was there any difference in, say, the audience you were thinking about when you… ?

McGrory: No. I remember I got a letter once, which meant a great deal to me. I was covering

General de Gaulle, who was, I guess, he was President de Gaulle at the time. And I just wrote a

little description of what his day had been like. And I got a letter from a woman who lived on

16th Street, and she said she couldn't tell me what it meant to her. She had enjoyed it so much,

and she'd been sick, and she'd had a dreadful operation, and she really didn't feel up to much.

But after she read that, she decided that she wanted to go on. Well, that's pretty major. And, I

thought, well, I ought to keep that in mind.

And I do get a lot of mail from older people who say they can't see, they can't hear, and then

discouraged and so forth, and, and, they enjoy reading about where I've been and who I've

seen and stuff like that.

So, I don't write for my sources. That's the one thing I don't do. And I think this is perhaps the

distinguishing thing. I think a lot of people write for their sources. I don't have any sources. So,

you know, I really don't. I have 435 members of the House who are very nice and approachable

and tell you things, and I have maybe half the Senate, nobody in the White House.

George Will goes to lunch with the Secretary of Defense, but if I want to catch the Secretary of

Defense, I got to catch him at the hearing, which is okay. Okay. Makes you scurry around a bit,

but you hear people reacting to what they say, and you don't get beholden to them, which is

good too.

Currie: Since you don't have access to some of these sources. How do you, how do you decide

about how to approach something?

McGrory: Well, I go to the Hill, and you can find out anything you need to know if you're willing

to sit in the Speaker's lobby in the House of Representatives. 435 people starved for attention,

who, they hear mostly what's going on. They hear the gossip. They hear the rumblings from the

White House. I mean, you just sort of hang out with them, and sooner or later.

You know, it's no help for something like BCCI, which is so enormous and so inside, I can't do

any of that stuff, unfortunately. But when it gets out to where the public can see it, I can see it

too.

Currie: How…Have you ever tried to develop particular sources?

McGrory: I hope, but I mean, you can't write the kind of stuff I write and expect people to call

you back. They think you’re just going to clobber them. So, I don't blame them. Just don't do it.

Currie: Unless they think you're sympathetic to them.

McGrory: Well, you know, Brent Scowcroft gave a briefing which everybody could attend, and I

went to the briefing, and I was able to ask him a question I needed to ask him. And the stuff they

give you behind the scenes, you know, it's just the line anyway. It's not worth much. They're just

pushing their own propaganda, I tell myself.

Never could work the White House, just beyond me.

Currie: What do you think it takes to work a White House?

McGrory: I don't know. Maureen Dowd does a brilliant job. She writes critically, but she hasn't

alienated them. Or she hasn't alienated them all, so that she's able to get what she needs. And

PAGE 29

she, you know, she does news stories, and then she does commentary. She's one of our Star

girls, you know.

Currie: She started at The Star. Have you ever had trouble maintaining objectivity on a story?

McGrory: Yes. About 99, 90, oh, 85% of the time. You know, I was very much opposed to the

Vietnam War. I was opposed to the Gulf War. Very much opposed to all this Pentagon spending.

$291 billion when the Cold War was over. It's crazy. And I'm not objective about that stuff.

I don't like the way we treat children. I don't like buying a space station when children need to be

immunized.

So there's a lot of, Well, I'm not supposed to be objective anyway. That's not what columnists

do.

Currie: Do you think you could go back and be a straight news reporter?

McGrory: Well, since I never really was one, I don't think about it. I don't know.

Currie: Was there ever a story that presented you with an ethical dilemma?

McGrory: Oh, gosh. I suppose they all do in a way; you wonder if you're representing the

opposing view strongly enough, wonder if you've found out everything that you really need to

know before you start writing.

You know, in 1968, when I was covering the McCarthy campaign, McCarthy was a friend, and

he was opposing the war. So, I probably didn't apply to him the standards I would have applied

to anybody else.

Adlai Stevenson. I thought the world of him.

I did not think the world of Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, George Bush.

Currie: In some ways, it might be harder to cover someone that you don't think the world of?

McGrory: Yeah, probably. Probably.

Currie: How do you handle it when, for example, covering, like you, Richard Nixon or Ronald

Reagan?

McGrory: Luckily, it doesn't come up anymore. I mean …

Currie: .. or George Bush?

McGrory: Yeah. You see, I think what George Bush is doing about race is simply

unconscionable. I just think that is indefensible, and that nice, poor John Danforth trying to play

it straight, right down the middle. Keeps saying, “You know, can’t attribute bad faith.” Well, it

looks to me like it’s a strictly campaign tactics play, quotation. Disgusting. I think. So I'm not

objective about that.

Currie: I wonder, too, if we could go back and talk a little bit and have another big story that you

worked on, was the Watergate?

McGrory: Yeah, sure.

Currie: How did you first get onto the Watergate, do you recall?

McGrory: Alas. Courtesy of The Washington Post. They were the ones who did that.

And I knew Carl Bernstein because he worked on The Star. He was a copy boy. Very sloppy. He

was, too, very unkempt. After he achieved fame, I said, “What a mistake you made. You've just

gone on to achieve fame and fortune. You could have stayed with us and gotten our copy, and

coffee, and pencils for the rest of your life.” Blew it.

Anyway, I wrote them a note, which apparently meant a great deal to them at the time and said,

“You know, I don't, I don't really know what you're doing, but I'm glad you're doing it. Keep it up.”

You know, we learned about Watergate from them. It was a very hard time for The Star. We just

couldn't get it. Just couldn't get it. Tried. Had the right leads. Did everything The Post did, but we

were always a step behind them. It's just too bad.

So then, you know, we went to the hearings, and that's where I could, felt at home. You had, you

had that wonderful personality. You had Sam Ervin this, you know, cockcrow kind of a Democrat

and a lover of the Constitution, you know, a master of sort of, the theater of the absurd would go

to the, to the telephone booth to call up the president and say, “Please give us the tapes.”

PAGE 30

And you had him. He was the constant. It was the rock that they, all those waves had to dash

against. So that was, that was easy. That was easy.

And then you had all those characters and personalities and it was…. Then they had the

Watergate trials, which were marvelous. But, you know, it always comes down to a question of

character. Certain people take hold and stand up and stand for something, and they may

become the sort of essence of the story. And that's, that's what Welch did in the Army-McCarthy

hearings. And that's what Ervin did in Watergate. He was the one. I always said how lucky we

were to have him, because he had the character and the picturesqueness and the moral force

and a great sense of a sense of theater and a sense of the Constitution, reputation. And he

came from, he was a Southern Senator, and there's no better base in the Senate than the

South. Those people stick together.

So that, you know, that was how I. I never knew anything that anybody else didn't know.

Woodward and Bernstein were all over it. They had it, and he had it cold, not cold, but they had

it.

Currie: Did you see any differences between the Watergate hearings and the McCarthy

hearings? What, what had changed in the country, or not changed?

McGrory: Character. They say there was a character in one that saved the country, and it was a

character in the other who saved the country again.

I mean, there were many personalities in the, in the Watergate drama, the whole drama, the part

that I saw the most on the Hill was, was a question of Sam Ervin.

But you had a night school law graduate, Judge John J. Sirica, who knew he was being turned

around and would not accept it and dug in and got the admission out of McCord that started to

pull the whole thing apart.

Then, you had Peter Rodino, another late-night law school graduate for the impeachment

committee, a very cautious man. Some thought he was too timid, but he proceeded along a line,

aided and abetted by my great friend Francis O'Brien, who has the best, the best political sense

of almost anybody I know, and who understood the action.

You had to have a Republican to complain about the absence of the tapes. And had they got

Cohen. Cohen signed a letter complaining that they hadn't gotten the tapes. And then you had

to have Southerners, Southerners, very central. And they got Caldwell Butler. Remember him?

They got Mann of Georgia. I can't remember his first name. And they brought it home.

That was a wonderful story. Terrible but wonderful.

Currie: What made it so wonderful?

McGrory: That we did it. That we, that we did not accept the fraud and the violence to the

system and the secret arrangements and the Houston plan and the spying.

I was on the enemies’ list.

Currie: I know.

McGrory: Oh, Yes, Indeed. great. That was very interesting, too.

Our reporter, I think it was Barry Kalb at the time, knew Dean's lawyer. And they were going to

issue the enemies list the next day, which meant we couldn't have it. And he just went down on

his knees to him and said, “I will never tell anybody where I got it. Have we got anybody on the

list?” And they said, “Yeah, you got Mary McClory.” Well, they were just thrilled and delighted.

And Art Buchwald was very funny about it and complained that he hadn't been on it and he'd

written as much anti-Nixon stuff as I had, and he was going to bring a class action against Nixon

for not putting him on the list. And he took me to lunch at a restaurant that no longer exists, The

Sans Souci. And I came in, and there was a standing ovation. All his pals were there.

So one of my friends said, “You know, you should be very indignant about this. This is a terrible

reflection on democracy and, you know, freedom of expression.” And I said, “Yeah, it is all that.

But we found out about it. I wrote a piece about it.” I wrote an open letter to Chuck Colson and

said he really had me fooled, that my house had been broken into, and I thought it was honest

PAGE 31

thieves, and my income tax had been audited. But I thought that was just, because of

conscientiousness. And I realized now that it was all his doing, and just wanted to congratulate

him for fooling me so completely.

Currie: Do you, do you think really that they audited your income tax?

McGrory: I know they did. I mean, I went, I had to go.

Currie: And because you're on the enemies list, that was harassment?

McGrory: I don’t know. It ended up with them giving me a small refund. So. I don't know, but I

think they were capable of anything.

Currie: And covering the Watergate story, did you go down to the hearings every day?

McGrory: Oh, sure. Every day. Never missed one.

Bill Greider covered them for The Post and did it brilliantly, did a wonderful job.

He used to be an assistant managing editor of The Post, but he left in, I regret to say, in 1981. A

very fine reporter, a wonderful writer, a seriously gifted newspaper person.

Currie: Can you describe a little bit what it was like for the press covering the Watergate

hearings?

McGrory: Well, it was fine. It was all there. It was all spread out for. You didn't have to get….

That's not an inside story. Once it gets to the hearing stage, it's no longer an inside story. It's for

people like me who just had to sit there and take notes and try to figure out what was the most

interesting thing that was said, or who was the most dominant personality of the moment.

And, you know, like that.

Currie: Did you get any guidance from an editor on what, what they wanted you to pursue on

the Watergate story? How did that work?

McGrory: No, they, they watched it in the office. It was televised, and they had views about it.

But by this time, I'd been doing it a fair amount of time. So they figured, I think they figured,

although I always talked to John Cassidy, my editor, who was the loveliest man in the business,

and we would discuss it, but nobody said.

Currie: Did you get any editing on any of the reporting you did on the Watergate?

McGrory: Editing?

McGrory: Editing? They always had a very light hand at The Star and at The Post, as well. I

have no complaints. I think it has always been understood that if they change anything, I will go

out the door, never to return again. Total freedom of expression is what I require.

Currie: Is that something that you've actually spoken with The Star about?

McGrory: No. It just seems to be understood. I have terrible fights with the Sunday editor at The

Post about this and that. And I said, “Well, you know, my name's on it.”

He said, “Well, you get a lot of mail.”

And I said, “Only in your nightmares.” I mean, he's very picky. I never had that at The Star.

And my editor at The Post is very easygoing and, and seems to understand what I'm trying to

say. And if he doesn't, then we go over it and sort of work it out together. Comb it out together.

Currie: And your reporting on the Watergate won you the Pulitzer Prize?

McGrory: Yeah. They said it was. I think they said it was the body of work. Wait, I have it, I

haven't. I just happened to have it here.

Currie: Let me just unhook you.

[Tape ends]