National Affairs: Lawyers & Flacks Made Goldfine a Production

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"YOU WILL BE GREAT!!"

PRINTED in block letters with bright red grease pencil at the top of the first page of the statement read last week by Bernard Goldfine to the House Special Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight were the encouraging words "YOU WILL BE GREAT!!" Author of the inspirational message: Manhattan Pressagent (and TV Performer) John Reagan ("Tex") McCrary Jr. Coauthor: Washington Lawyer Roger Robb If nothing else, the words reminded Goldfine that he had behind him one of the gaudiest retinues of lawyers and flacks in the whole history of congressional investigations. This is how the retinue operated — and what it did for and to Bernard Goldfine:

The basic facts and figures of Goldfine's cobrful life and complex business dealings were assembled by Boston Lawyer Lawrence Cohen and New York Lawyer Lester Lazarus, both Goldfine regulars. The information was polished in statement form by 1) Boston Lawyer Samuel Sears, dropped in 1954 as counsel to the Senate subcommittee investigating the Army-McCarthy fracas after it was discovered that he had made statements highly favorable to McCarthy, and 2) Washington's Robb. attorney for ousted Air Force Secretary Harold Talbott, for ousted Federal Communications Commissioner Richard Mack, and Government attorney in the successful 1954 ouster action against Atomic Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. Also helping write the statement was Sol Gelb, onetime assistant to New York District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey, and latter-day attorney for Teamsters Boss Jimmy Hoffa. Gelb, an expert at crossexamination, spent hours shooting at Goldfine the sort of questions the House subcommittee might ask.

"No Fee — For Free." It was Lawyer Robb who laid down the major strategic lines: 1) make Goldfine appear as a simple, innocent, underdog type being persecuted by a powerful congressional subcommittee, and 2) permit Goldfine to answer only those questions that related, directly and demonstrably, to his relationships with the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Sherman Adams. On paper, the plans looked good — at least to their authors. In practice, they exploded in some wildly improbable directions.

First off, onto the scene hove Tex McCrary, husband of sometime Actress-Model Jinx Falkenburg, and a money-making operator who shrewdly combines his TV-radio work with his publicity business. Tex already had sent one of his vice presidents, William Safire, to Boston for a three-hour interview with Goldfine to get "the feel" of his personality. In Washington, McCrary allowed that as an old Sherman Adams friend he had come at the beck of Lawyer Robb to help Goldfine on a basis of "no expenses, no fee — for free."