BARNEY ROSSET, THE FORCE BEHIND THE GROVE PRESS]

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000100570023-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 22, 2004
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: August 12, 1979
• Content Type: NSPR

ARTICLk APPEARED Approved For Release'MZ?9/27 CIA-RDP88-01314R00010
EXCERPTS:
me MT Rossei, the
Betund the Grove% Pre, SS
By Randy Sue Coburn
-Grenade Through the Window
Rosset may have been pointlessly
protesting history when, at the age.
of 17, he picketed "Gone With the
.Wind" as -a racist movie. But it helps
explains why he later published Le..
.Roi Jones and "The Autobiography
of Malcolm X." Once, in what ap-
pears to be classic Rosset style, he
managed to offend both civil rights
activists and opponents by printing
what now seems to be simply a sensi
tive photograph of a white woman
and-a black child, both of whom are
nude.
That photograph appeared in
Evergreen Review, Grove's bi-
monthly cultural magazine - "a
lewd little satellite in the publishing
empire of Barney Rosset," in James
J. Kilpatrick's description some
years ago. In 1965, as an Evergreen
cover featuring Cho. Guevera hit the
streets, a band of Cuban exiles
launched a grenade through a Grove
Press window, an act Rosset regards
(without substantiation) as one of
the most successful CIA-directed
anti-Castro missions.
Besides generating controversy,
Evergreen harmonized perfectly
with Grove's books, printing works
by Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferling-
hetti, Richard Brautigan,` Pablo=
Neruda, Norman: Mailer, Terry
Southern, Jean Paul Sartre and Rob-
ert Coover, . among others:: Allen
Later, Rosset would confuse his
fans at the CIA and FBI by publish.
ing in paperback a book called "The
Crisis in Communism; The Turning
:Point' of Socialism." The hardcover
,version, as, it turns out, was pub-
lished by a CIA-subsidized house. "I
call that unfair competition," Rosset
says. He is not kidding. That accusa-
tion is a pearl in the string of suits
Rosset has filed against about a
dozen officials, including Richard
Helms, William Colby, and James
Schlesinger. .
"So far," says Rosset, "we've won
the right to sue. And it's hopeless,
you know. I don't want a money set-
tlement, except to cover legal ex-
penses (which the ACLU Is helping
to defray). I want an information set-
tlement."
When this interview ends, it has
progressed from awkward to com-
fortable. Tomorrow, Rosset is told,
things should probably get more
specific. "Oh," he says, "that's never
as much fun."
t is not unusual for Barney Rosset to
dream that he is an aerialist. In these
dreams, the spotlight is on him and his
attire is clearly meant for flying -
through the air. There's just one problem: he
does not know the first thing about being an
aerialist.
As the trapeze swings toward him, he rea-
sons with dream-like logic, "This. is obvi-
ously what I am, so I must know what to do.".
Without any idea of how he'll keep from
crashing to the ground, he always grabs the
trapeze. At that point, with Rosset confident
that another element will somehow surface
and be responsible for his survival,..the
dream always ends.
For the past 27 years, that is pretty much
the way it has been for Barney Rosset and
Grove Press, the publishing house built
around his highly developed insincts.
At first, it was a one-man operation with
not many more titles, financed by a million
dollar-plus legacy from Barnet Lee Rosset
Sr., a Chicago banker. After 10 years of skat-
ing on the edge of bankruptcy - a state exac-
erbated by Rosset's involvement in the land-
mark obscenity trials that gave us "Lady
Chatterley's Lover" and "Tropic of Cancer,"
and freed writers' to consider sex Grove
blossomed into the publishing house of the
'60s, flush with dramatically new ideas,
interests and profits.
For a number of reasons, some of them ex-
ceedingly, curious,. Grove has shrunk back to
an eight-person business.. Now, when pub-
lishing houses are more easily associated
with corporations,than individuals, it is only
slightly theatrical to call Rosset the last inde-
pendent publisher in New "York.-
"Who else Is'there?7 an editor, from "a.
corporate subsidiary wonders rhetorically.
"There's Barney and-there's Farrar, Straus;
and Giroux.",
Because Grove reflects Rosset's personal-
ity to such an extent,.the two of them are<
impossible to separate.
.The FBI, the CIA and the Army, whose A
records include, a_ somewhat baffling chart of
Rosset's existence, would probably agree. Ac-
cording to the Rockefeller Commission re-'
port, Grove was the only private enterprise ;
to be unduly harrassed by intelligence agen-
cies. In Rosset's office, three large cabinet
drawers are filled to capacity with files ob-
tained through the Freedom of Information"
Act. The data goes back to his days as a stu-
dent at Chicago's ro ressiv ra i W
Ginsberg's "Howl" first. reached a
wide public through Evergreen Re
view's second edition, which was de-
voted to "The San Francisco Renais-
sance.".
When financial difficulties finally
shut down Evergreen in- 1973, it
.:went out with the Rosset. imprint.
Parker School,; wIN9~I~Rl~i$11 2004/10/28: CIA-RDP88-01314R000100570023-8
describes as ,"a, bigger influence on me than
my parents or coIege." ,,; J
,
 Approved For Release 2004/10/28 : CIA-RDP88-01314R000100570023-8
r "That is an interesting story," says
Fred Jordan. "Maryland's case
against 'I Am Curious Yellow' was
the first to reach a state supreme
court. They held against us, and we
appealed. At the time, Jerry Ford
was minority leader of the House,
and he was launching a drive to im-
peach Justice William 0. Douglas.
Barney and I were coming back from
Denmark when we saw the Herald
Tribune - Ford was on the cover
waving a copy of Evergreen Review,
saying that Douglas was writing for
a pornographic"magazine." (Ever-
green had excerpted the last chapter
from Douglas' book, "Points of
Rebellion.")
Douglas subsequently excused
himself from all cases involving
Grove - including the court's next
case "I Am Curious Yellow." That
ended in a tie vote, which had the ef-
fect of upholding the previous deci--
Sion.
But then,. Grove has demonstrated
something of a knack for closing the
door on itself. After opening up the
sexual dialogue in literature, much
of Grove's erotica (like the 'The
Story of 0,' a French prostitute's ac.
count of sexual slavery) was
crowded out and stripped of its mys-
tique by totally artless porn. After
Grove invested "I Am Curious Yel-
low" profits into avant-garde foreign
films, that market promptly dwin-
dled, thanks, in part, to the porno,
wave started by "I Am Curious Yel-
low" (a film that would scarcely
merit an R-rating today).
But before the Supreme Court had
its say, angry women were standing
outside the new Mercer Street build-
ing wearing buttons that. read, "I Am
Furious Yellow." Their'protest was
against Grove's "sado-masochistic
literature and pornographic films
that dehumanize and degrade
women." Led by several women
whom Grove had employed, they
were arrested for occupying execu-
tive offices. Grove did not press !
charges. "The shame of it was that
Grove would have been interested
in publishing the sort of books they
wanted," says Kent Carroll, now Ros-
set's top editor.
The Chaos Was Total
Simultaneously, the Fur, Leather
and Machinist: Workers was adding
to the crush on the sidewalks in_
front of Grove; that old, leftist union
was picketing in its attempt to male
Grove its first publishing conqu
For months, Rosset says, "the chaos
at Grove was total." Whether the
union won or lost, he told the union,
financial difficulties would force.
Rosset to fire~a large number of em-
ployes. The union lost, and' did not
attempt to unionize another publish
ing house.
"We destroyed them," Rosset says,
"and that was really painful to me.
The demands we got were things
like I had to abandon my house-in
East Hampton to a black women's
collective, divide all the profits and
put in a day care center. In the end,.
it was a disaster for everybody. . I
deeply believe the FBI and CIA
backed it all, and that Grove's anti-
war stance had something to do with
it. I think that's one of the pieces I'm
missing. But I don't think the head
of the union, or some of the women,
were aware of being duped.:]
Approved For Release 2004/10/28 : CIA-RDP88-01314R000100570023-8