Roscoe Born: What really happened in The Journal's investigation of the JFK victory over Hubert Humphrey in the 1960 West Virginia Democratic primary
As a long-ago friend and colleague of Bob Novak when we both worked for The Wall Street Journal in Washington, I lament his passing. In my 45 years in this business, I never knew a reporter who worked as hard as Bob. His typewriter and piled-high desk were only about three feet from mine, so I knew something of his work ethic. Later, his long-running syndicated column, though by definition filled with opinion, showed that he never quit reporting—as illustrated in the Valerie Plame case.
At his passing, though, I feel compelled to correct the record (as he wrote it in his memoir, The Prince of Darkness) concerning The Wall Street Journal's extensive investigation of the crucial JFK victory over Hubert Humphrey in the West Virginia Democratic primary in 1960. At some point, someone will surely do a biography of Bob Novak, and I—considering my age—might not be around then to be interviewed. And I am perhaps the only living person who can recount what really happened in The Journal's investigation, a five-week effort by a team of four, sometimes five, Journal reporters in West Virginia, to see if it was true that Kennedy money had corrupted the election.
Bob's version of the events in Prince of Darkness was foreshadowed by Seymour Hersh's book, The Dark Side of Camelot. Hersh phoned me for a series of interviews for that book, and it was clear from the start that someone had misinformed him about The Journal's investigation. He already "knew" that I had written the expose, and that the editors—implicitly at the behest of the Kennedys-- had killed it. It was obvious to me, from the context, that Bob Novak was his source, although Bob had no part in the investigation. I made it clear to Hersh that this was incorrect, that in fact, I, as the reporter designated to write the story, had never actually written it. I explained why, and it had nothing to do with Kennedy money or influence.
Yet Hersh wrote, "Their story . . . never made it into print."
Then came Novak's more pointed account in his memoir, stating that Joe Kennedy "bought the presidential nomination for his son in West Virginia," which our team's investigation indeed showed to be true.
"To my knowledge," Novak wrote, "The Wall Street Journal was the only news organization that tried to find out why all those West Virginia Protestants voted for Jack Kennedy. Two of the paper's best reporters, Joe Guilfoyle from New York and Roscoe Born from Washington, were sent to West Virginia for five weeks. . . . Born wrote a carefully documented report of how a presidential nomination was purchased in West Virginia through illegal, clandestine payoffs to sheriffs who controlled the voting process. The story was killed by the newspaper's high command in New York. The official explanation was the refusal of sources to sign affidavits . . ."
To repeat: I did not write such a story. There was no story to be killed. And this is the real reason:
When The Journal first contemplated the investigation of the primary, Guilfoyle and I were assigned to proceed, but with this firm instruction from the New York editors: Since the story of any Kennedy corruption could be highly explosive, we would have to get affidavits from any source we interviewed to support their accounts. This was made very clear at the beginning, and Guilfoyle and I did not hesitate to accept that unusually high standard.
But we all reckoned without the secrecy and suspicion of West Virginia political operators. They were reluctant to even talk with us, much less confide any information about election bribery. They did not want to be seen with us. They did not even believe we were from The Journal, some later told us; they thought we were FBI agents. As the weeks went by, though, under endless persuasion, some began to loosen up, with details about who ran the local political machines and how and where they were bribed to produce a Kennedy victory...
Read entire article at The Wall Street Journal
At his passing, though, I feel compelled to correct the record (as he wrote it in his memoir, The Prince of Darkness) concerning The Wall Street Journal's extensive investigation of the crucial JFK victory over Hubert Humphrey in the West Virginia Democratic primary in 1960. At some point, someone will surely do a biography of Bob Novak, and I—considering my age—might not be around then to be interviewed. And I am perhaps the only living person who can recount what really happened in The Journal's investigation, a five-week effort by a team of four, sometimes five, Journal reporters in West Virginia, to see if it was true that Kennedy money had corrupted the election.
Bob's version of the events in Prince of Darkness was foreshadowed by Seymour Hersh's book, The Dark Side of Camelot. Hersh phoned me for a series of interviews for that book, and it was clear from the start that someone had misinformed him about The Journal's investigation. He already "knew" that I had written the expose, and that the editors—implicitly at the behest of the Kennedys-- had killed it. It was obvious to me, from the context, that Bob Novak was his source, although Bob had no part in the investigation. I made it clear to Hersh that this was incorrect, that in fact, I, as the reporter designated to write the story, had never actually written it. I explained why, and it had nothing to do with Kennedy money or influence.
Yet Hersh wrote, "Their story . . . never made it into print."
Then came Novak's more pointed account in his memoir, stating that Joe Kennedy "bought the presidential nomination for his son in West Virginia," which our team's investigation indeed showed to be true.
"To my knowledge," Novak wrote, "The Wall Street Journal was the only news organization that tried to find out why all those West Virginia Protestants voted for Jack Kennedy. Two of the paper's best reporters, Joe Guilfoyle from New York and Roscoe Born from Washington, were sent to West Virginia for five weeks. . . . Born wrote a carefully documented report of how a presidential nomination was purchased in West Virginia through illegal, clandestine payoffs to sheriffs who controlled the voting process. The story was killed by the newspaper's high command in New York. The official explanation was the refusal of sources to sign affidavits . . ."
To repeat: I did not write such a story. There was no story to be killed. And this is the real reason:
When The Journal first contemplated the investigation of the primary, Guilfoyle and I were assigned to proceed, but with this firm instruction from the New York editors: Since the story of any Kennedy corruption could be highly explosive, we would have to get affidavits from any source we interviewed to support their accounts. This was made very clear at the beginning, and Guilfoyle and I did not hesitate to accept that unusually high standard.
But we all reckoned without the secrecy and suspicion of West Virginia political operators. They were reluctant to even talk with us, much less confide any information about election bribery. They did not want to be seen with us. They did not even believe we were from The Journal, some later told us; they thought we were FBI agents. As the weeks went by, though, under endless persuasion, some began to loosen up, with details about who ran the local political machines and how and where they were bribed to produce a Kennedy victory...