Joseph Wright Alsop (1910-1989)
“Never trust the teller; trust the tale,” D. H. Lawrence
JOE’S TALE
In 1957, Joseph Alsop on his first and only visit to Moscow was caught by the KGB in a “compromising situation” with another man, in which photos were taken and intended for blackmail. “When Soviet agents attempted to coerce him into becoming an agent of influence, Alsop not only refused but requested copies of the blackmail photos for his personal collection. He quickly notified his friend, American Ambassador Chip Bolan, and the two of them were able to get the Soviet agent to end the blackmail attempts. <www.nndb.com/people/608/000089341>
D. H. Lawrence, age 21 (1906)
However, David Herbert Richards (D. H.) Lawrence English author, poet, playwright, essayist and literary critic, himself a homosexual cautions, “Never trust the teller; trust the tale.” As to his own sexuality he wrote in 1913, “I should like to know why nearly every man that approaches greatness tends to homosexuality, whether he admits it or not.” Moreover he declared, “I believe the nearest I’ve come to perfect love was with a young coalminer when I was about 16.” <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._H._Lawrence > D. H. Lawrence’s relevant admonition about thrust and tale telling becomes more relevant as the tale of Joseph Alsop, a journalist and political operative continues.
AMERICAN GOTHIC
“Joseph Alsop was born into a socially prominent family in Avon, Connecticut; the son of Joseph Wright Alsop IV (1876-1953) and his wife Corinne Douglas Robinson (1886-1971). His mother was the niece of Theodore Roosevelt, as her mother (Joseph’s grandmother), Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, was Roosevelt’s sister. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roosevelt_family Thus, Joseph and his brother Stewart were the great-nephews of Theodore Roosevelt. His mother was also related to President James Monroe. . . . After graduating Harvard in 1932, he became a reporter. . . . Because of his family ties to the Roosevelts, Alsop soon became well-connected in Franklin Roosevelt’s Washington. By 1936 he was working for the Saturday Evening Post, and by 1940 he was working for the New York Herald Tribune. . . . In 1941, Alsop used his political connections to be assigned to Claire Chennault’s . . . Flying Tigers, while the group was training at Toungoo, Burma. While on a supply mission for Chennault in December 1941, Alsop was interned at Hong Kong by the Japanese. Repatriated on the neutral liner Gripsholm, he rejoined Chennault in Kunming, China and served with him for the rest of the war.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Alsop
ALSOP’S POLITICS & PERSONAL LIFE
Despite his identity as a conservative and a Republican, Alsop was an early supporter of the presidential ambitions of Democrat John F. Kennedy and became a close friend and influential adviser to Kennedy after his election in November 1960. Alsop was a vocal supporter of America’s involvement in Vietnam, a fact that subsequently led to bitter breaks with many of his liberal friends, [which included Noam Chomsky http://www.nybooks.com/articles/11232] and a decline in the influence of his column as well. Alsop kept his homosexuality private. . . . He was married from 1960 to 1972 to Susan Mary Patten (nee Jay), the widow of William Patten, an American diplomat who was one of Alsop’s friends. By this marriage he had two stepchildren, William and Anne.” http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Joseph_Alsop
SUE’S TALE
Susan Mary Patten
Edwin M. Yoder Jr. wrote an obituary of on Susan Mary Alsop’s on salon.com: Not just a socialite, but a gritty survivor. She like Joseph Alsop himself was American Aristocracy. <http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/09/28/susan_mary_alsop > “She was descended from distinguished early-American families—she was originally a Jay of the John Jay line; and her social contacts on two continents were unmatched for variety and intimacy. In youth she had been courted by English and French nobility and introduced to Edith Wharton. . . . In later life, she had carved out a niche for herself as a writer on architecture and diplomacy. I came to know her because 10 years ago when I wrote a small book, “Joe Alsop’s Cold War,” about her former husband, the Washington columnist and gourmet. . . . In 1957, during his first and only visit to the Soviet Union, Joe was entrapped by the KGB in a Moscow hotel room in a compromising situation with another man. Photographs were made, apparently meant to be used in retaliation for Joe’s fiercely anti-Soviet polemics. They never were, but thereby hangs a tale.”
<http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/node/32992> Their Hearts Were Young and Gay
“She and Joe had been best friends for years—their vivid correspondence is one of the many gems of the Alsop papers—when Joe called on her one day in Paris after her husband, Bill Patten, died. He asked her to marry him. “I was stunned,” she said, “by Joe’s proposal, but even more stunned when he said, ‘Susan Mary, there is something you should know before you answer.’” That something was that he was gay—of course she didn’t use that silly but now inevitable word. “but I want to take care of you and the children,” he said. She accepted and moved to Washington, where she and Joe were at the epicenter of President Kennedy’s social circle during those legendary 1,000 days. that was far from the end of the story.”
Art Buchwald
“Buchwald had caricatured Joe, who could be pompous, in a Broadway comedy of his called “Sheep on the Runway,” and Joe had proclaimed that he would not enter a house where Buchwald was received. The Russkies must have thought Buchwald would be eager to get back at Joe, but then no one ever accused them of grasping the nuances of American political and social life. It was a grotesque miscalculation and the beginning of the end of a nasty campaign. The harassment did not stop until the Russians were put on notice through back channels that the CIA had dirt with which to retaliate. . . . Susan Mary Alsop. . . . the woman I knew was a gritty survivor who had been rescued by Joe Alsop from a vulnerable widowhood, only to find that he too was vulnerable in unsuspected ways. She met the challenge with loyalty, silence and humanity, and that is the way I shall remember her.” However, as D. H. Lawrence admonishes “Never trust the Teller; Trust the Tale.”
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James H. Chapman
Saturn Smith
Torman
Jocelyn Testes-Harder
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Scott Mendelson
Salon.com
Comments
I'll need to digest/assimilate (chew) later.
Cud.
I share:`
this trivia.
My Mother had a D. L. Lawrence book. The book is personally signed by D. L. Lawrence. There were only 1,200 books published in the first printing. I bet some book collector would barter for a canter of communion wine. I'll ask her if she sold the perfect condition, signed by the author book ... at the weekend yard sale?
My comment can be deleted?
You always have substance.
If I had a tail? I'd be wagging.
This deserves a quality time.
I now have to admit that I now adore you. ;)