AMERICAN NO[TE] [B]OOK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200740022-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 20, 2004
• Sequence Number: 22
• Content Type: NSPR

Bookstores .across the land'?
j aren't as content with the
' '~ x~,,2200 0 co iess,,~~~s an-
'\( ~ Approve~tlc~hB~t~e~lfab"~d~~~ or~l
:~~.,,.
' ' `~ - -' ~-?~'+r ~~ the book as a gravy train, but
By fw~ :~ 'riOLS
ir.,a~ .~u.ik :~visired
.ar ago at this time, the
?..;s were warming up in the
w::~gs for that seriocomic af-
w'air of the Kennedys versus
~.,;~rn Manchester over the
"Th Death of a Presi-
~.' = Aftc, a~..: of the great-
... .ablic d?. ws in the immedi-
a'CG W:istory .:~,',ictsers, the book
.I was published cast April. Now,
just seven months later, you
'! ::.~?-~.. .:ear of ? it. The anti-
clur~ax ~s almost deafening.
"r"ow well. has the book sold?
'.his depc..ds a bit on where
;you sit. ;~.~: Manchester and
,;arper & Row, the publisher,
say that about 1,200,000 copies
are in the hands of readers,
about half this figure being
i copies distributed by the Book-
of-the-Month Club. This is in-
deed a lot of readers for a
book with a price tag of $10.
b.; 4~~t1lLG,3 ill3FE 1}idE' fil3?t
8~
.
~~t~~: retail sales wei'~ at the
outset, books-toms reporting
not much of a demand for it
now.
Mr, V;~r,chester, for one, is
content with his 1
200
000 cur-
,
,
? ~ rent .eaucrs. At the moment
- ~-. ha ;v'iddietown, Conn., of-
-~ ~'? :e. .~~ is revising his book
o? the Krupp armament family,
a history he interrupted in
"'or~ie~? to write "The Death of
., President." He and the Ken-
? reedy?;: do not yet invite one
anothe~? to dinner, although
i ""Bobby [Senator Robert] and
s;~oke and shook hands at.
n 3ridiron dinner in Washing-
con."
Behind him as he? works on
'the four generations of Krupps
are some tangible evidences of
,the dispute. On a shelf be-
side his own book and earlier
.. y Manchester writings are three
paperbacks based on the row.
;.They are "Why the Kennedys
!. Lost the Book Battle," by Law-
rence V~r, Gelder; "The Man-
e; Chester Affair," by John Cor-
rey; "Jackie, Bobby and Man-
i' chaswe+;' by Arnold Bennett.
i He inas leafed through them all,?
;but hasn't ~ read every word .
immediately on publication it
became a plaything of the dis-
count houses, which sold it for
as little as $5.99. Since dis-
count houses buy books
i through vdholesalers, it is im- ,
He continues to be recognized'i'!
as he
go
e
s abo
t. Not long I ?
u
~~
~~gg
y
~a"disi~d r~f~ous~e ~~ n~ic
up a -copy of "Jackie, Bobby.
and Manchester." Other? cus-
tourers spotted him, started
.forward, and "it looked like a
??scene from Shirley Jackson's
' 'The Lottery."'
? Although he is working on
the Krupps, his next book will
be out Later this month from
Little, Brown. This will be a
possible to say how many
' copies were sold at discount, ,
~ but an educated guess puts it '
j at 25 per cent of the copies .
distributed by Harper. Seeing
the gravy train vanish to the '
? discounters, some bookstores,
said the devil with the whole
j thing and failed to press the?
' book.
Rights to publish the? book
have been sold to publishers
~ in 14 countries, and, according
to Don Congdon, Mr. Man- .
Chester's agent, . who handles
the rights, the book is doing
fine everywhere save, for some
unknown reason, Greece.
Yn London, the British pub-,
lisher, Michael Joseph, has had
two printings . and calls the
I~Og~ ~i~ bl$~eSE 119HflE~l~13
tyork of the year. Iii Paris,
Les Editions' Robert Laffont
`, has sold over 80,000 copies.
;But there's a suggestion that the'
behavior in Paris is much as i
it was here. Brentano's re- '
'ported the demand for the book
much greater before it ap- .
peered, and so did La Hune,
bookshop of the Left Bank in-
' . teiligentsia. The book sold well
`' there, but less well than had '
been hoped.
A final word or ,two about ,
~ Mr. Manchester. -Last sum- ;
mer, a New England radio i
~: chain announced breathlessly
that he was building a $75,-
~.000 house on the strength ,
of "The Death of a President." ''
At his office the other day,
he said the house had been
in the works all along, and '
consisted mostly of a real-es-
tate swap with Wesleyan Uni-
versity..
Since "The Death of a 1?resi-
dent"..came out, he has, re-
ceived some 6,000 letters about
it and about the row, and he
answers those he can. Several
letters to Mrs. Kennedy have
come in his care, and these he
puts in envelopes and for-
wards:
Lecture circuits have beck-
oned-he's sated. as a $2,000
per lecture attraction--but he
has ~ declined. on the ground
that appearances would be un- ?
ate important,,?authors aren't.'`?,
reissue of "City of Anger," a ?;
novel first published in 1953. ,'
For '..the ? book following the
Krupps, : he has one or two?
ideas, nothing definftely
planned. And the paperback; .
President" will be published i -
by Harper & Row April 15.1 ,
Publisher _ .. _..__ . _
Scattered about the count ~
rYo ?~
often in unlikely places, are ~.
numerous small-book publish-
ers. The individual output runs ;~
to perhaps a dozen titles, on a .,
day's 600 or so, but many do ~;:
extr~ordin~rjj~ fide yrork; ~'hgy ;
dl?ti Iraii~ it b~ii~ ~itli $ew~r= ~
,
books to worry over, each .,~ ~ ~~
takes on a personality of its
own and when the visiting su- ' _
thor comes to lunch, his mar-
tini costs 65 cents instead of ;
the 31.25 you can ffork out
urbanwise.
One of these, in business just
over a decade, is Barre Pub-
lishers, with a slogan "Barre ,~
Books Are Worth Looking At "
They are, aril so is it. The
firm's location is in Barre, ?:
Mass., a town of 4,000 pop- a
ulation, 20 or so miles north-
west of Worcester. The town's ;:
major industries are a machine''
tool and a wool company, Barre ?~
Publishers cheerfully regarding
itself as the third largest busi-
ness there. It has 10 employes, ~ .
this year will offer I1 titles. '
. President' ~ of Barre Publish- .~ ~
ers is Alden P. Johnson, trained ;;
'as an engineer and amachine- ~~ '
tool representative, who de-' ~ .
sided in 1947 to be a pub-
lisher. He bought The Barre ]
`
Gazette, a weekly ("4,000 peo- ;~.
;
pie, 4,000 headers") and ran 'i ~;
that until a few weeks ago
when the pressures of book
? publishing caused him to sell, .
out. The first book came out
in 1956, and by 1963 the year-
lv list had risen to ? titlpc_~
by everywhere familiar for
j thus far Barre lacks a Leon :i ?
~~--?~4~~400~2-