The Presidency: Battle of the Book

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When the bids were opened July 29, all but LIFE and Look were quickly eliminated. Congdon admitted that at one point "LIFE did offer the most dough," but LIFE was unwilling to meet Congdon's insistence that Manchester should have complete control over the serialization—down to headlines and captions. LIFE ultimately went to $600,000; Look got it for $665,000, and gave Manchester considerable control. LIFE offered him only what it has given to authors from Winston Churchill to Arthur Schlesinger Jr.: the right to recommend changes and approve the final excerpts. As for the money, Manchester received $365,000 from Look in August, was to be paid the rest in five installments ending in 1971.

Ear-Searing Lecture. Just after the Look deal was closed, Jackie Kennedy returned from a Hawaii vacation. "She reacted strenuously to the magazine idea," said Evan Thomas. "The promotion, the fireworks—it was bothering her emotionally." She was even more deeply disturbed after former Kennedy Speechwriter Richard Goodwin, a neighbor of Manchester's near the Wesleyan University campus in Middletown, Conn., saw the author's agreement with Look. Goodwin, realizing that Manchester had assured the magazine of no interference from the Kennedys, took alarm. He and Manchester flew up to Hyannis Port with Look's publisher, Gardner Cowles, and there Jackie gave them an ear-searing lecture.

At that point began what a member of the Kennedy family describes as "a long era of negotiations." Through its agents, the family took a closer look at Manchester's first manuscript and realized that much more was wrong than a few factual errors. Pamela Turnure Timmins, Jackie's secretary, drafted a three-page memo detailing passages that Jackie found objectionable. Bobby met with Manchester at his Senate office in Washington and at his Virginia home the following month to discuss changes. Kennedy agents told Look that they had to approve the articles, but Look rejected the suggested changes. Through the autumn, Kennedy advisers met frequently, zeroing in finally on two major objections: the book was still too anti-Johnson, and much of the material from Manchester's interview with Jackie was mawkishly handled. Copies of the Look galleys were sent to the White House, where Bill Moyers read them but offered no suggestions.

After Thanksgiving, semifinal page proofs of the book were sent to the Kennedys by Harper. The Kennedys now claim that changes that they had recommended had not been made, and that portions deleted from one section had been slipped into another. A full 15 pages of Jackie's personal reactions remained in the proofs. "I read them with horror," said one family friend. Goodwin called on Manchester, told him of all the objections that remained. "I'll go think about them—and talk with my lawyer," said Manchester. He seemed in no mood to yield. A monthly Manhattan tabloid, Books, quoted him as taking, around that time, the position: "Let's get out the book as I wrote it—and to hell with the Kennedys."