Ed and I were chatting this morning and something on a re-run of The West Wing triggered my memories of being in an important job.

When I worked at Times Books as assistant to the president, I got to do some pretty interesting stuff. We were publishing Haldeman’s memoirs (I met him before he showed up for his stay at Lompoc) and the book was very hush hush. No one was to know what was in it but we needed a review. Mordecai Richler, who lived in Westmont in Montreal, agreed to review it. Tom, the president of TB, said to me, I’m going to Chicago tomorrow, you’re going to Montreal. Meet me here tomorrow at 4 a.m. You’re taking the ms to Mordecai Richler, you are waiting till he reads it, you are bringing it back. Oh.

I hardly got a couple hours’ sleep, I packed a bag, I showed up at a darkened office clicking lights as I made my way to my desk. Gallagher, the subsidiary rights guy (a charming Scot/Irishman) showed up and walked up to my lonely light. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” I said.
Tom and I got into a cab in the early morning and rode to the airport while he dictated stuff. When we got there, he took a plane to somewhere else, I got on a plane for Montreal.

I took a cab to Westmont, an exclusive and pricey suburb of Montreal. Richler took the ms., did not say he would put me up (that I thought was rather tacky of him), and I took a cab to the Ritz Carlton. The following day I took a cab back to Westmont and picked up the ms. I had hours before my plane departure and I walked around Montreal. It was cold. I got back to the hotel (I had already checked out and my bag was being held at the desk for me) with a developing case of the flu and sat in the lobby until the airport limo got there.

When I got back to NY, I submitted an expense account. Tom said (he had this macabre sense of humor), “I’m not paying this. I said go to Montreal, I said nothing about reimbursing you.”

Earlier, on a Sunday, I got a call at home, “Go to the office, pick up blah blah, and bring it to me at the Hilton (I think it was the Hilton). So I did. In the room were Tom, Joe DiMona, Haldeman’s co-author, and Haldeman himself. I refrained from telling him I was a Democrat and couldn’t stand Nixon. I was graceful. He was very mannerly. I sat around listening to them debate the fine points of the ms and felt strange indeed to be so occupied.

I was very fond of Joe DiMona -- he was a seasoned drinker and knew all the bars in town. Joe called one afternoon while Tom was out. "Get him back," Tom said. I started by calling his home and then started calling all his haunts and leaving messages all around midtown. Late that day, Joe finally called back. "What did you want, Joe?" I asked. "Sweeheart," he drawled, "it's all a dim memory now."

I opined to Ed that I had enjoyed being part of a team that did interesting things. Ed replied that traveling on business was exciting for the first year or so and after that it was ho-hum. I said, “Dear Ed, as a Kenyon college graduate and with an MBA from Boston University, you will excuse me for saying that your expectations for position and status far exceeded mine. I started out as a file clerk when I was 17. The very idea that I would be sent flying around the country to promote a major book and meet people of national prominence is, in my modest view, an enduring thrill.”

I still feel that way. For a while, I met prominent people, did unusual things compared to your average office person. I sat in a top floor of Chase Bank in Lower Manhattan, typing Kissinger’s memoirs while Bruce Munn did the editing. Bruce was an old UP hand. He was a superb editor. I was a bionic typist. This was before computers. Bruce handed me pages, I rattled them off at more than 100 wpm. We were doing the work at Chase because, this, too, was not to be leaked. Kissinger liked Bruce’s work so much, he phoned him. Bruce exited the office where he was doing the work, walked over to me, extended his hand, and said, “You may kiss my ring.” He was a hoot.

David Rockefeller invited Bruce to lunch at the Executive Dining Room. Being a lowly female, I was not included (it is to larf). Bruce came down afterward, white faced. “David doesn't drink, there was NO LIQUOR,” he gasped. Bruce was old school United Press – head of UP in England during WWII, a blue pencil man, straight out of “The Front Page.” Liquor was the staff of life.

He dropped into my office after he was retired, while I was out. He left me a note, "This office is a disgrace to journalism," it said, and he went on about how disorderly it was. I was beyond happy that he liked me enough to insult me.

Bruce and I made up for his liquorless lunch by going to Harry's of Hanover Square the next day, on the company. We had martinis and wine and medallions of something. It was great.

Hig, another UP hand was coming to New York. He said I was to call Bruce and the three of us would have dinner. I got on the phone to Bruce's home in New Jersey. He answered. "Hi," I said, "is this Cuddles?" Silence. "Cuddly poo?" I persisted. "Madam," he finally said, "You have a WRONG number." Of course, he knew it was me.

Bruce is gone now. So is David (to that great dairy bar in the sky). Kissinger is around but not talking much. I later delivered some material to Kissinger at his exclusive apartment building – I think it was called River House – on the upper East Side. The doorman wouldn’t let me in at all.
I didn’t mind.

I had a good time while it lasted.

xx, Teal