Tabloids on Trial

In the middle of the night, Florence's door exploded inward in a shower of wood and glass. Before she could react, a group of men rushed in. A blinding light flashed in her face. Florence huddled in her bed, paralyzed by fear and then nothing. She heard one of the men yell, we've got the wrong place. They turned around and ran out through her kitchen, breaking glasses and leaving a mess. Once she was certain they were gone, Florence called the police,

who couldn't make heads or tails of the event. It must have been an attempted burglary. An officer told the terrified woman she was lucky to have escaped unhurt, and because she hadn't seen any of the men's faces blinded by the bright lights they'd shown, there wasn't much for the police to go on. The case wasn't likely to get solved. Florence learned she would just have to live with the fear. But less than a year later, a shocking break in the case arrived from an unusual source

a tabloid magazine. In September nineteen fifty five, Confidential magazine, the tops celebrity scandal sheet in the country, published a story about the break in at Florence Cott's apartment. It might seem like a strange story for a celebrity magazine to care about, but Confidential had good reason. The men who had broken into Florence's apartment that night, the article claimed,

were none other than Frank Sinatra and Joe DiMaggio. In the article titled the Real Reason for Marilyn Monroe's Divorce, Confidential explained how the famous singer and the Yankee star had come to be there. Florence Cotts, it turned out, lived in the same small apartment building as one of Marilyn Monroe's friends, an actress named Sheila Stewart, Joe DiMaggio, still reeling from his in Monroe's divorce, had become convinced that Monroe was using Stuart's apartment to meet with the

man he thought Monroe had left him for. Acting on information from the private investigator he'd hired and likely fueled by more than a few drinks, DiMaggio had enlisted some friends, including Sinatra, to help him catchman Row in the act. It was a sloppy plan, and it had unsurprisingly gone very wrong. Instead of going into Sheila Stuart's apartment on the second floor, the group had broken into the first

floor home of Florence Cotts. So Florence finally got some answers about what had happened to her that night, and she eventually got some reparations. She sued DiMaggio, Sinatra, and the other men and got a settlement. But the story of the Wrong Door Raid, as it came to be known, was far from over because California officials had some questions

about how Confidential magazine had gotten their story. In February nineteen fifty seven, California State Senator Fred Graft held a series of hearings to determine if Confidential had gotten the story by paying off a private investigator. You might be wondering why would a state legislature care where a scandal magazine got its stories from. Well, Confidential Magazine wasn't just

any scandal magazine. It was one of the most powerful publications in the country, with a reader base in the millions and the ability to ruin a star's career with a few carefully worded sentences. People all across America worried

that Confidential's salacious content would corrupt the country's youth. In California, politicians and entertainment executives worried that its shocking stories would destroy the lucrative movie industry, and so by nineteen fifty seven, the studios and the government were lo looking for ways to take the magazine down. The state Senate hearings into the Wrong Door Raids story were only the first step.

Three months later, in May nineteen fifty seven, a grand jury convened by the ambitious California Attorney General Pat Brown, indicted Confidential, along with several key employees and partner businesses, on, among other things, charges of conspiracy to commit criminal libel and conspiracy to publish obscene and indecent material For years, Confidential had held Hollywood hostage, using a network of informants

to dig up dirt on America's biggest celebrities. But now Hollywood was fighting back with the assistance of the government. The ensuing trial would put the right of freedom of the press into question because Confidential stories were nasty, no doubt, but the magazine would claim they were all true, and could publishing the truth, no matter how indecent, ever be a crime. Americans were about to find out. Welcome to History on trial. I'm your host, Mira Hayward. This week

the State of California v. Confidential. Confidentials creator and publisher Robert Harrison was no stranger to scandal. After coming up as a reporter for the New York Gossip Rags, Harrison had gone into business for himself, creating a number of so called girly magazines, publications filled with images of scantily clad women. Harrison was a hands on magazine executive, regularly acting as a photographer for his magazines and sometimes even

posing in photos himself. He was also an ambitious man. When his girly magazines failed to make ends meet, Harrison began casting around for a new, more profitable concept, and he found it on television. Throughout nineteen fifty and nineteen fifty one, a Senate committee led by Senator estes Ki Fauver investigated the state of organized crime in America in a series of hearings that were broadcast live on television. Americans were glued to their TV screens as a procession

of mobsters testified in front of the committee. The March nineteen fifty one hearing in New York attracted an estimated thirty million viewers. Harrison was also inspired by the Confidential series of books, which came out between nineteen forty eight and nineteen fifty two and profiled different American cities New York Confidential, Chicago Confidential, and so on. The Confidential series claimed to reveal what was really happening in these cities.

The books shocked their readers with depictions of crime, sex, and debauchery happening allegedly in the heart of every city. They had a distinct point of view, As historian and law professor Samantha Barbis puts it in her book on the magazine Confidential Confidential, the Confidential books were racist, sexist, homophobic,

and largely false. They were also best sellers. Seeing the public interest in the Key Father hearings and the Confidential books, Harrison had a realization the American people craved this kind of content, the story behind the story, a glimpse into the private lives of public figures and the dirty underbelly of modern life. Thus Confidential Magazine was born. The first issue of Confidential, which hit newsstands in September nineteen fifty two,

set the tone for what was to come. The cover, printed in lurid, eye catching blue, yellow and red, featured giant headlines that leapt from the page. Photographs were grainy, blown up, and unflattering, and like that of its namesake book series, the magazine's content was sleazy, shocking, and bigoted. This type of magazine focused on expose's and gossip were often called scandal magazines. Confidential wasn't the only scandal magazine on the market, so Robert Harrison had to find a

way to set it apart plan a lie. If his reporters couldn't find juicy enough stories, they could just make up better ones. Early issues of Confidential featured completely invented tales of sex and crime, bolstered up by posed or composite photos. But even Bonker's creations like a mob barun grave robbing ring couldn't boost the magazine's circulation. Harrison needed a new angle. In the summer of nineteen fifty three,

he found it. In the August issue, Confidential ran an article about the relationship between Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe, who were then dating. The piece, called why Joe DiMaggio Is Striking out with Marilyn Monroe, alleged that Monroe's mentor, the seventy six year old co founder of twentieth Century Fox, Joe Shank, was interfering in the relationship, either out of concern for Monroe's career or because Shank was sleeping with Monroe himself. The magazine heavily implied it was the latter,

and Americans ate it up. Confidential circulation doubled overnight. Harrison knew he was onto something. If people liked reading about the secret lives of mobsters, they loved reading about the secret lives of movie stars. Throughout the rest of nineteen fifty three and nineteen fifty four, Confidential increasingly focused its coverage on Hollywood. We've got to have more Hollywood stories.

Harrison told his staff, the hotter, the better. A decade earlier, it would have been impossible for a magazine like Confidential to get the kind of Hollywood stories they wanted. For the first half of the twentieth century, Hollywood had been tightly managed by the movie studios. Studios controlled every step of the film business, from production to distribution, and they controlled the lives and images of their contracted stars with

the same iron fist. The only way for journalists to get access to stars was to play along with the studios and to produce the kind of positive coverage they wanted. But by the nineteen fifties, the studio system was crumbling. In nineteen forty eight, Supreme Court decision United States v. Paramount Pay Pictures, Inc. Had ruled that the studios held an unfair monopoly. Studios were forced to give up control over many aspects of the business, dealing them a serious

financial blow. At the same time, the rise of television had decreased movie attendance. As the studios lost power, their threats to blackball journalists who didn't cover stars in the right way lost weight, and the stars who were used to the studios covering up their bad behavior were suddenly very exposed. The gossip cup was running over, and Confidential was ready to catch every last drop. Harrison began coordinating

a network of informants across Los Angeles. Everyone from sex workers to police officers to studio employees, and even movie stars themselves soon learned that Confidential would pay well for good dirt. Confidential paid nannies to spy on employer's wressers to listen in on client conversations, and waiters to remember who wait with whom to get their stories. Confidential equipped its sources with all sorts of spy gadgets, including bugs to tap phone lines and watches that held hidden recorders.

Harrison's niece, Marjorie Meade and her husband Fred eventually moved to Los Angeles and established a company called Hollywood Research, Inc. Which coordinated and organized the information coming in from tipsters. Harrison had correctly gauged the public's interest in Hollywood Gossip. By nineteen fifty five, the magazine's circulation was close to

four million. Most copies were passed along to additional readers, and estimated four readers per copy, putting Confidential's readership at close to sixteen million people, or one in every ten Americans. With that kind of audience came great power. Confidential stories

could make or break a star's career. A March nineteen fifty five story about an alleged interracial romance between the white actress Ava Gardner and the black singer dancer Sammy Davis Junior led to Gardner's films being boycotted and banned in parts of the country. Two months later, a story about the actor Rory Calhoun's criminal past and how he had turned his life around thanks to religion earned Calhoun

eight thousand fan letters and completely revitalized his career. As Confidential's influence grew, the movie studios increasingly came to view the magazine as a threat. The studios were more vulnerable than ever. Their profits were down and their audiences were straying. People also thought Hollywood was corrupting the country's morals. The studios even faced a Senate inquiry into whether movies could

be tied to a rise in juvenile delinquency. The last thing Hollywood needed was a magazine digging up all of the industry's buried bodies. In the mid nineteen fifties, the studios decided to fight back and they were prepared to fight dirty. In the summer of nineteen fifty five, studio publicity heads met in secret at the Beverly Hills Hotel to discuss the Confidential problem. Shortly after the meeting, one of the publicists traveled to New York to meet with

Confidential editors. Wouldn't it be better for everyone, he asked the editors if the magazine focused on athletes, or politicians, or really anyone besides Hollywood stars. Confidential editors laughed him out of the office. This straightforward approach having failed, the publicists moved on to something more cloak and dagger. Enlisting movie producers and an actress to help them, The publicists

cooked up an elaborate trap for Confidential. The team planted gossip about the actress, backing up their story with witnesses. They made sure the story eventually got to Confidential via a chain of tipsters. When Confidential sent a private investigator to look into the story, everything seemed to check out. But had Confidential run it, they would have been vulnerable to an enormous libel suit because the story the publicists had planted was entirely, verifiably false. At the last minute,

though the magazine had doubts and killed the story. The studios were foiled again. If they couldn't control Confidential, the studios decided maybe they could control the flow of information out of Hollywood. Each of the six largest studios agreed to contribute to a fund which would pay for private security force to monitor star's behaviors and interfere with Confidential's information gathering network. But the studios eventually balked, fearing that

Confidential would discover their plans and attack. A plan to blacklist anyone thought to be a Confidential informant was abandoned. For similar reasons, Celebrities, sick of having their dirty laundry aired in the magazine's pages, wanted the studios to fight harder. Many stars felt powerless on their own. They had the option to file libel suits against Confidential. Yes, but there were a number of reasons not to. First, a suit could draw attention to the very thing that the stars

hoped to keep hidden. Filing a suit would only give Confidential the publicity they want, said Marlon Brando, and maybe I'd get an award of eight cents. There was also the that a suit would provoke Confidential into spilling even more information about the star. It was well known that Confidential often published only parts of the stories they received from tipsters, holding on to the most damaging titbits as insurance against legal action. And finally, there was the problem

of jurisdiction. Confidential was a New York based company. Most of the stars it wrote about lived in California and filed their rare libel suits against the magazine in that state, suits that judges quickly dismissed, saying that California did not have jurisdiction over a New York company. The New York courts were notoriously backed up, and filing there might have meant a year's long wait to be heard. As stars considered how best to deal with Confidential, the studios escalated

their battle to the federal level. In August nineteen fifty five, several studio heads reached out to Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield with a bold request. They wanted the Post Office to revoke Confidential's mailing privileges. One movie producer was alleged to have told Summerfield, unless they take away Harrison's mailing privileges, this industry is done. For Summerfield, who saw obscenity as one of the gravest threats to American society. Had his

own reasons for disliking Confidential. On August twenty seventh, he issued a withhold from dispatch order on the November issue of Confidential. Under the order's terms, no issue of Confidential could be mailed without first being reviewed by the Post Office and being found free of improper content. The determination of whether content was or was not improper was entirely

up to the Post Office. Harrison responded by filing suit against Summerfield, and a judge eventually ruled in the magazine's favor, saying that the Post Office was violating the magazine's right to do process by threatening to ban it with no notices, charges or hearings. Confidential had won again. The fight with the Post Office had even raised the magazine's profile and with that, its circulation. But a raised profile also brought unwanted scrutiny. The studio executives were not alone in their

concerns about Confidential. Segments of the American public were worried about the effect scandal magazines might have on the nation's morals. To some, these magazines seem to represent everything wrong with the country. As one Californian told the newspaper, quote, all scandal magazines should be taken off the market. They are a menace to society. They caring nothing but trash, and that is no good for our youth. Scandal magazines weren't

the only target for criticism. Many Americans worried about the effect of any reading materials that freely discussed hot button topics like sex, violence, and race. Throughout the nineteen fifties, many communities set up review boards which determined if publications were inappropriate. If they were found to be so, local distributors, including booksellers, newsstands, and libraries were strongly encouraged not to carry these items under the vague threat of legal action.

What about freedom of the press, you might ask. Here's one magazine writing on that very question in nineteen fifty seven. Quote, the framers of the Constitution never meant the First Amendment to protect filth peddlers who poisoned minds. And this magazine wasn't the only one to take this position. Many journalists and publications believed that scandal magazines like Confidential were not entitled to the same legal protections as more traditional publications.

They feared that aligning themselves with scandal magazines could end up damaging their own rights. Back in Hollywood, the studios sent that the tide of public opinion might be turning their way. In October nineteen fifty six, when Harrison appeared on The Tonight Show to defend Scandal Magazine's the audience booed him it was time for the studios to strike. In December nineteen fifty six, MGM released Slander, a movie about an unscrupulous scandal magazine publisher unfairly ruining the life

of a well meaning actor. The movie was melodramatic, it ends with the publisher's mother killing him, disgusted by what her son has become, and flopped at the box office, but its heavy handed message did not go unnoticed. Slander quote reeks with the motion picture industry's long pent up sense of vengeance, wrote Texas's Amarillo Globe. Harrison responded in a typically cheeky fashion, hiring models to picket the movie outside a Broadway theater holding signs that read Slander is

unfair to Confidential. But the studios weren't done there, though their attempt to get Confidential through the post office had failed, they now recognized the power of governmental attacks on the magazine. In January nineteen fifty seven, the California State Senate formed a committee to investigate the practices of private detectives in the state. Or at least that was the committee's alleged purpose.

In reality, the committee had been formed at the behest of the studios and planned to look into how Confidential got its stories. This was the committee mentioned in the prologue that looked into the wrong door raid at Florence Cott's apartment. The committee's investigation eventually fizzled out in March, with lead Senator Fred Kraft declaring that though the magazines were a quote national disgrace, the field is beyond this scope of a single state legislature. But the state's war

on Confidential was far from over. California Attorney General Pat Brown announced that his office, in tandem with the Los Angeles County District Attorney, would now be pursuing charges against Confidential. Brown said his decision was motivated by a desire to protect children from the magazine. He also claimed that Confidential Quote caused divorces and broken homes and led to blackmail, but behind the scenes, the studios were again pulling the strings.

Brown was pursuing a run for governor, and the film industry had made it clear to him that they would look favorably upon a candidate who supported their crusade against Confidential. In May nineteen fifty seven, Brown and Los Angeles County District Attorney William McKesson convened a grand jury to look

into Confidential. On May fifteenth, the grand jury indicted Confidential members of its staff, its printer and distributor, and its sister Magaze Whisper on four charges, including conspiracy to commit criminal libel and conspiracy to publish obscene and indecent material. Robert Harrison addressed the charges directly in an editorial and Confidential, this magazine is under assault in the California courts. Harrison wrote, this is a determined effort initiated by a segment of

the motion picture industry to get this magazine. He positioned the Confidential as a brave truth teller, a publication unafraid to reveal to the American people what the elite did not want them to know. Is an American jury going to get us for daring to tell that truth? Harrison asked, we don't believe so his assumptions would soon be put to the test. Confidential's trial was scheduled to begin in August.

It almost ended before it started, though, because it seemed that both sides had lost their appetite for the fight. Throughout the summer, Harrison's lawyers had been issuing subpoenas for celebrities. Most stars had managed to avoid the summons, flipping out of back entrances, heading to Las Vegas, even leaving the country, but some hadn't. Dean Martin, Launa Turner, and Gary Cooper were among those who had received subpoenas. Studio executives panicked.

The last thing they wanted was for their biggest box office draws to have to confirm or deny their sins under oath. Arthur Crowley, the high powered Los Angeles lawyer running the defense, knew just what he was doing. I want to make it clear that the reputations of many persons will suffer if this case goes to trial, because we are going to offer the truth as a defense, he stated. Studio executives heard Crowley's message loud and clear, and they started to have second thoughts about the trial.

George Murphy head of the Motion Picture Industry Council, approached the prosecutors and urged them to reach a compromise. The defense was receptive. Harrison knew that this trial, no matter the outcome, would be enormously expensive, so the two sides came to an agreement. Confidential would stop focusing on celebrities in exchange for some of the charges being decided by a judge and others being dropped. But Judge Herbert Walker

rejected the deal. The state had brought charges for good reason, he said, and this compromise didn't do enough to address those charges. The trial would proceed. Stars and Confidential executives alike held their breath. No matter who won the case, everyone knew scandal was sure to ensue. On August second, nineteen fifty seven, the trial began at the Los Angeles Superior Court. Robert Harrison wasn't there. In fact, only two of the people charged and the grand jury indictment were present.

All summer, Confidential's lawyers had been battling to prevent the extradition of their clients from New York, and they had succeeded. The face of Confidential at the defense table would not be its infamous publisher Harrison, but his niece Marjorie Need and her husband Fred. Marjorie and Fred had flown back into Los Angeles in May to surrender, and Marjorie, decked out in furs and diamonds, had asked reporters, then, don't you think this whole thing has a little to do

with destruction of freedom of the press? Now she sat quietly in the courtroom, her dyed red curls and large eyes, drawing admiring looks. The prosecutors, William Ritzy and Clarence Lynne, presented quite a contrast to the glamorous Meads. Ritzy, a Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney, and Lynn, an Assistant Attorney General, were both serious religious men. Lynn taught Sunday school back home in San Francisco, and they weren't letting the spotlight

dazzle them. Though the trial had largely come about due to political pressure, Ritzy and Lynn were confident that the law was on their side. One of their first jobs was making the connection between the meds and confidential clear, given that the Meads were the only defendants present. That connection came, the prosecutors claimed, through a company called Hollywood Research, This was the Los Angeles business that organized and followed up on informants tips and sent them back to Confidential.

The magazine had long claimed that Hollywood Research was a completely independent organization. This was part of their strategy of claiming to have no corporate presence in California, thus making it harder for stars to sue them. But the prosecution thought otherwise, and they had good reason to think so, because Hollywood Research had been run by none other than

Marjorie Mead. The prosecution took several steps during their case to prove their point, submitting phone records that showed a huge volume of calls between the Confidential office and the Hollywood Researching Office. They also brought out a witness, Paul Gregory, who claimed that Marjorie Mead had extorted him over keeping a story out of Confidential. Gregory's testimony had provided a

dramatic moment. As he testified about Marjorie, she began to sob, and once the jury left the room, she collapsed entirely furious. Her husband, Fred had stalked over to the prosecution table and slamming his fist down, yelled at prosecutor Ritzy, you must want to win this case pretty bad by putting

that lying character on the stand, Ritzy was unfazed. The defense would later provide records proving that Meade could not have been with Gregory when he claimed she had the biggest scores for The prosecution's argument about the California Confidential connection actually came during Fred Mead's own testimony. He revealed that Harrison had been the one to suggest that he

and Marjorie get into the gossip business. Harrison had even given them money to get started on cross Ritzy got need to admit that Marjorie's brother was the company's vice president, and that the supposedly independent Hollywood Research had only ever sold information to two magazines, Confidential and its sister magazine, Whisper. Whatever the exact nature of the relationship between Hollywood Research and Confidential Engine, true prosecutors were right. Hollywood Research had

been set up by the magazine. It was clear from the testimony that the Needs were involved in this business up to their necks, and in the course of this business, the Needs and the rest of the Confidential crew, the prosecutors claimed, had conspired to commit obscenity and libel. The prosecutors now set out to prove these charges. First up

the question of obscenity. What is obscene material. That's a hard question to answer, a question that even the law struggles with, because what makes something obscene is often subjective in California law. At the time, material was obscene if quote it has a substantial tendency to deprave or corrupt its readers by inciting lascivious thoughts or arousing lustful desire.

In other words, if it turned people on. The magazine had been charged with not just the publication of obscene material, but also the conspiracy to publish it, meaning that two or more people had arranged knowingly to commit the crime. So now Ritzie and Lynne had to prove not only that Confidential had published obscene material, but also that they had knowingly done so. The prosecution argued that Confidential had done just that. They brought Ronnie Quillen, a sex worker

and frequent Confidential tipster, to the stand. Quillen testified that Harrison had wanted stories quote primarily dealing with the sexual activities of celebrities, and that he'd made it clear that quote, the more lewde and lascivious the story, the more colorful the magazine, But the defense rebutted that notion, claiming that the magazine had always been careful not to cross the line into obscenity, and how had they defined that line.

Daniel Ross, one of the magazine's lawyers, explained that he and Robert Harrison had compared the magazine to others published material. To prove Ross's point, proudly, the defense attorney submitted into evidence a whole stack of books which Ross claimed to have used to learn what the public found acceptable in terms of obscenity. The stack included best sellers like John

Steinbeck's East of Eden and Grace Mettalius's Peyton Place. Whether or not these books made senses benchmarks for obscenity, and more importantly, whether or not Confidential had ended up publishing obscene content despite these precautions would be up for the jury to decide. The next charge was libel. The state had again gone with a conspiracy charge, so they would

have to prove two things. That the magazine had published afammatory material and that it had done so with intent, Because the magazine was charged not with civil libel but with criminal libel, a little used charge that basically doesn't exist today, the burden of proving whether or not the stories were true fell to the magazine. Prosecutor Clarence Lynn had said when the charges were announced that he didn't think the magazine would be able to prove that their

stories were true. Like many people, he seemed to assume that Confidential was sloppy in their standards, publishing anything, no matter how questionable, as long as it sounded good. But in that assumption, Lynn was very wrong. Though Confidential had started out by publishing made up stories, once they graduated into the world of Hollywood gossip, Robert Harrison had wanted

to make sure that Confidential was legally safeguarded. When the magazine decided to move forward with a tip, private investigators were hired to double check the information. We have to have the exact type, exact date, everything documented just in case, Harrison said. Then the magazine's lawyers would prepare affidavits for their sources to sign, which read quote, I swich that all the events described in the above story are true

and that I was a participant in these events. Based on these affidavits, confidentials writers would then put together a piece, but the legal review wasn't over yet. Lawyers would now check over every word of a story, often demanding rewrites or deletions. Their oversight was so intensive, one reporter said that he once requested a disclaimer that an article was an attorney's work, not his own. Writers quickly learned that the best approach was to imply conclusions, not state them outright,

in order to protect themselves from liability. Confidential, the testimony suggested, was very, very careful with the truth, but two of the trials most eye catching witnesses would reveal that Confidential's fact checking process was not infallible. Hollywood's fears about stars being called by the defense hadn't materialized. Defense lawyer Arthur Crowley didn't want to risk being bound by the testimony of witnesses who might perjure themselves to protect their reputations. However,

there were some stars who wanted to testify. Their names were Maureen O'Hara and Dorothy Dandridge. O'Hara, an actress, came to court to respond to a March nineteen fifty seven article titled quote it was the hottest show in town when Maureen O'Hara cuddled in Row thirty five. The article alleged that O'Hara had had a sexual encounter with a lover in the back row of Grammin's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles. O'Hara vehemently denied it, and she had proved

to back up her denials. On the same day that Confidential claims she was getting busy in Los Angeles, O'Hara's passport showed that she had been in London. Dorothy Dandridge, a singer actress, also testified. Confidential had published an article called only the Birds and the Bees Saw What Dorothy Dandridge Did in the Woods, claiming that Dandridge had had sex with a man in the woods near a resort

in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Now, Dandridge appeared on the stand, stating for the court that what Confidential claimed could never have happened. Dandridge was black, and the man the story alleged she had had sex with was white. During the period in which she had been in Lake Tahoe, Dandridge explained, racial prejudices there had not only precluded her from interacting with white people, but also from walking freely around the

resort grounds. She couldn't have even gone into the woods, let alone met a white man there, so Confidential was not infallible. But had they meant to defame the subjects of their articles. Opinions on that varied. One disgruntled former reporter testified that he had wanted to hear those he wrote about, while others claimed that they were just reporting facts like any other news publication. The real blame for any damage done, when witness said, lay with the movie studios,

who did not enforce the moral clauses in their stars contracts. Again, it would be up to the jury to decide. In closing arguments, the prosecution doubled down on their themes. They pointed out the familial and financial bonds between Confidential and Hollywood Research. They argued that Confidential had no motive for exposing scandal other than financial gain. They railed against the low morals of the magazine. Look at them, shouted William Ritzy,

pointing his finger at Marjorie and Fred Mead. They are the self appointed purveyors of filth and gossip in the United States. For the defense, Crowley fought back, Oh, was Confidential so much different, so much worse than any other publication? He asked, what about girly magazines with their erotic content. Why wasn't the government pursuing them unlike those magazines, Crowley continued, confidential is accepted by the community. It is sold over

the counter, not under the counter. And then he brought up another point, one that had nearly gotten lost amongst the discussion of celebrities and gossip and smut, the issue of free speech. The prosecution wants to indulge in censorship, to do your thinking for you. Who is the prosecutor to tell you what you can and can't read? He asked, If you find my client's guilty, Crowley told the jury, you will be taking a precious piece of liberty. Would

this plea be enough? After more than a month of testimony and nearly thirty witnesses, the trial ended and the decision was left in the jury's hands. Soon it became clear that it would not be a quick deliberation. One day passed, and then another, and then another. The jury returned to the courtroom to ask Judge Walker some clarifying questions. They left again. Things were getting heated amongst the jury. At one point marshals had to step in. Several jurors

had allegedly threatened to throw another juror out of the window. Finally, after a then record breaking fourteen days of deliberation, the jury returned to the courtroom on October first, but they still had no verdict. They were hopelessly stuck, they told Judge Walker, and could not reach a unanimous verdict. Reluctantly, he declared a mistrial. Later, it would emerge that the jurors had voted seven to five in favor of conviction on the charge of conspiracy to commit criminal libel and

eight to four on conspiracy to publish obscenity. Now the government had the option to retry Confidential, but did they want to publicly? California Attorney General Pat Brown was quick to declare his desire for a retrial, but privately he wanted the whole thing to be over and done with, and so did the studios who had first urged him to take the case. The trial had been expensive and exhausting. He wrote to Prosecutor Clarence Lynn on October ninth and

urged him to settle the case with Confidential. Publicly, Robert Harrison was thrilled by the trial's outcome. He threw a lavish dinner to celebrate Arthur Crowley in New York City and hired a violin player to serenade him privately. Was terrified. The first trial had cost him an estimated three and a half million dollars in legal fees in today's money. He was worried that another trial would ruin him and

perhaps even land his niece Marjorie in jail. So when the prosecutors reached out to discuss a deal, Harrison was receptive. The lawyers got to work hammering out terms. Meanwhile, Pat Brown announced his run for governor. He was elected less than a year later and served two terms. On November twelfth, Judge Burton Noble approved a proposed deal between California and Confidential. The terms were simple. The state would drop all charges

except the count of conspiracy to publish obscenity. A judge would determine the magazine's guilt on this charge based on the grand jury and trial transcripts. In exchange for the reduced charges, Confidential agreed to stop publishing exposes about celebrities. They also agreed to take out ads publicly announcing this change in editorial direction. In December, Judge Noble found Confidential and her sister magazine whisper guilty of conspiring to publish obscenity.

Each magazine was fined five thousand dollars. Where were the studios in all of this? During the trial, Now aware that taking the legal route ran the risk of unwelcome exposure, the studios had created another internal anti scandal magazine committee members, including a politically ambitious actor named Ronald Reagan, brainstormed measures to fight Confidential and its cronies. In mid October, they

announced a campaign to root out magazine informants. We will organize effective opposition to fight these people, writers, said one committee member. But their efforts proved unnecessary because though Confidential had made it through the trial, they had not come out of the battle unscathed. In the spring of nineteen fifty eight, the magazine revealed its new approach to readers. We're quitting the area of private affairs for the arena

of public affairs. Read the announcement. If wiseacres say we've retreated from the bedroom, we'll say, yes, that's true. From now on, we'll search the thoroughfares of the globe for stories of public interest. These so called public interest stories including gems like what's wrong with the oil burner in the White House Basement and Penicillin Can Save Your Life. Unsurprisingly failed to interest the public at all. Circulation numbers

collapsed after three issues of the new Confidential. Robert Harrison had had enough. He wanted a magazine that drew attention, that started conversations, and most of all, that made money. Under their restrictions placed by the California Deal, Confidential could no longer be that magazine. Plus Harrison was now facing a number of celebrity libel lawsuits. He announced that he was selling the magazine. The new publisher tried to revive interest,

but couldn't find an audience. The magazine steadily lost readership and eventually folded. Many people saw Confidential's collapse as a victory for American morality. One newspaper editorial put it like this, these magazines still may not be fit for most living rooms, but it is generally agreed that they are not quite

so bad as they were before. The heavy expenses of the trial appear to have made the publishers and editors of Confidential and her scandalous sisters more conscious of their responsibilities. But other observers were concerned about the potential chilling effects of the trial, the journalist Maurice Solitau expressed these fears governmental power has been used to alter the editorial content

of a national magazine. It has been shown that the cost of defending such a charge is so expensive that by merely threatening an indefinite series of prosecutions, any publication can be put to death. Regardless of one's personal opinion of Confidential, many may regard the use of the judicial power to muzzle a magazine any magazine, as an act discouraging freedom and controversy. Fortunately, Zlatao's views were not immediately realized.

In the decade after the Confidential trial, the American public and the judicial system seemed to lose their appetite for censorship. Many of the local and state level literature review boards which served as de facto censorship organizations, disbanded, usually due to court rulings against them, but censorship has never fully vanied from our landscape. Recently, the country has seen a rise in community efforts to ban or censor books from

public and school libraries. The American Library Association reported in September twenty twenty three that the first eight months of that year contained the highest number of book challenges since it began recording the data in two thousand and three, the number of book challenges had already nearly doubled between

twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two. Unlike Confidential, which was invested in reinforcing racist, homophobic, and sexist stereotypes, most of the publications being challenged today are those that explore or are supportive of gender, racial, and sexual diversity. But the question at the heart of all these challenges has remained the same. Who chooses what the public gets to read? The American Library Associations Deborah Caldwell Stone is a statement

about book challenges. Said quote, to allow a group of people, or any individual, no matter how powerful or allowed, to become the decision maker about what books we can read or whether libraries exist, is to place all of our rights and liberties in jeopardy, Or, as Arthur Crowley put it in the Confidential Trial, who is the prosecutor to tell you what you can and can't read? There are

some lighter parallels between Confidential and today too. Though Confidential itself may not have lasted long, it set the tone for nearly all of the celebrity gossip we consume today. Before Confidential and other scandal magazines like it. Hollywood stars had highly polished images. Confidential revealed the truth behind the glamour. Once the truth was out, there was no going back, and many stars decided that it was better to capitalize on the public's interest in their foibles than try to

deny them. In nineteen sixty four, Robert Harrison was profiled in esquire Ma magazine and told the reporter quote, you couldn't put out a magazine like Confidential again because movie stars have started writing books about themselves. They tell all. No magazine can compete with that. Many magazines, of course,

have tried. From confidentials Ashes Rose Publications has varied as The National Inquirer and People Magazine, as well as online gossip sites like TMZ and television programs like Entertainment Tonight. Robert Harrison, for all his quirks, knew what news sold, and as I sit here now telling the story of the hidden forces at work behind his magazine's trial, I

can't help but think of some of his words. I sincerely believe the basic vehicle of the story behind the story will be here long after we are all dead. That's the story of California. V Confidential Stay with Me after the Break to learn more about the tragic rise and fall of one of the magazine's star writers, who

embodied many of the nineteen fifties darkest trends. In the spring of nineteen fifty three, Robert Harrison was looking for a reporter to write a hit piece about one of his loudest critics, the New York Post editor James Wexler. None of his usual freelancers would do. Harrison wanted to highlight Wexler's youthful membership in the Young Communist League, and thus wanted a noted anti communist journalist to write the piece. So he reached out to the source of all things

anti communists, the office of Senator Joe McCarthy. Three years earlier, McCarthy had made national news by declaring that he had a list of hundreds of Communists working at the State Department. Since then, he had ruthlessly and often baselessly accused hundreds more Americans of Communist sympathies, ruining reputations and lives with his hearings in the Senate. One of the main sources of information for these hearings was a prominent anti communist

journalist named Howard Rushmore, who now worked for McCarthy. When Robert Harrison called McCarthy's office in the spring of nineteen fifty three, it was with Rushmore that he wished to be connected. Rushmore had not always been an anti communist. In fact, he had once been a passionate communist. Born on July second, nineteen twelve, in Sheridan, Wyoming, Rushmore grew up in profound poverty. As a young reporter in Missouri, he had been radicalized by witnessing both terrible working conditions

and the lynching of a young black man. Rushmore was desperate for a better world and admired the conviction with which communist organizations railed against injustice. By the nineteen thirties, he was prominent in the communist movement and served as film critic for the major communist newspaper, Daily Worker. But in nineteen thirty nine, Rushmore had a catastrophic falling out with the Communist Party over his positive review of the film Gone with the Wind. Other Daily Worker employees accused

him of being racist and of sympathizing with the Confederacy. Outraged, Rushmore left both the paper and the Party and decided to devote himself to destroying communism in America. His rise in the anti communist movement was just as swift as it had been in the communist movement. He was hired by the right wing journal American Newspaper and became the country's first full time reporter on the communist movement. By the nineteen forties, With his anti communist expertise established, Rushmore

became a popular witness for government investigations. He was a key witness in the House on American Activities Committees' hearings on communism in Hollywood. In nineteen fifty three, Senator McCarthy made Rushmore his research director. His power seemed limitless, but under the surface cracks were appearing. Rushmore was an alcoholic with violent tendencies. He had a prickly personality, a combative nature, and a condescending manner. He also had a tendency to

fabricate evidence. Once, he had claimed to have an FBI report showing that whe hundred and fifty government employees in Washington State were Soviet spies. When the FBI asked him to produce this report, he gave them a letter he himself had written, and he would eventually lose his job with McCarthy after it was revealed that he was using private testimony from the Scent hearings for his articles in

The Journal American. After agreeing to write that first article for Confidential onn Wexler, Rushmore had contributed occasionally to the magazine, writing mainly anti communist expose is Like the Strange Death of J. Robert Oppenheimer's Red Sweetheart. Rushmore thought the tabloid business was beneath him, but when and the Journal American fired him in nineteen fifty four over personality and pay disputes, he came to Confidential full time. Eventually, Rushmore became Confidential's

chief editor. His main passion was exposes of stars for communist leanings or homosexuality, but he'd chafed against Harrison's requirements that he also report on what Rushmore saw as a less consequential celebrity gossip. In turn, Harrison was annoyed by

Rushmore's obsessive focus on politics. By nineteen fifty five, the two men had fallen out, and Rushmore left the magazine that September under less than amicable terms, though Confidential gave him severan's pay and promised to assume liability for any libel suits on articles published under his watch, as he had done with the Communist Party. Rushmore became determined to

destroy the organization he felt spurned by. He took his severance pay and bought a plane ticket to California, where he met up with an A. Turneri, who was representing several celebrities in suits against the magazine. He would eventually testify at Pat Brown's grand jury hearings, where his testimony that quote some of the stories are true and some have nothing to back them up at all, would go a long way towards convincing the grand jury to bring an

indictment against Confidential. At the trial, Rushmore testified for the prosecution, continuing his assault on the magazine. When Arthur Crowley pressed Rushmore on cross about his goals in writing for Confidential, asking did you have this specific intention yourself to injure someone? The lawyer clearly expected a no, but Rushmore shocked Crowley in the courtroom by replying, I certainly did. Though Rushmore seemingly got what he wanted with the destruction of Confidential,

the trial also ruined him. This was the second time he had publicly turned against an organization that had employed him, and no one could trust him anymore. THEO. Willson, who reported on the trial for the New York Daily News, called Rushmore quote a professional turncoat on the skids. He was unemployable, unlikable, and sinking ever deeper into the bottle. When prosecutor Clarence Lynn approached Rushmore in the fall of nineteen fifty seven about testifying in a potential confidential retrial,

he found a broken man, he told me. Lynn said that he thought he had been ruined by his activities in the Confidential trial. Much of Rushmore's anger ended up being channeled against his wife, Francis, who he physically abused. On January third, nineteen fifty eight, the worst happened. Rushmore killed Francis and then himself in a taxi in New York City. Robert Harrison received the news in another taxi

on his way home from the airport. The driver asked him if he'd heard the news that the publisher of Confidential had just shot himself. Harrison, who was actually the publisher of Confidential, was baffled. Howard Rushmore's story is a sad and sordid one, but his journey also tells us so much about the country he lived in. As a young man, he witnessed terrible things and hoped for a better world. When he could not achieve that, he set

out to watch the world burn. He wrote the progressive wave of the nineteen thirties, rallied behind nationalist causes in the nineteen forties, and played on fears during the Red Scare in the nineteen fifties. He recognized the country's interest in celebrities, and he made money off of it, but it sickened him too. He was a mess of contradictions, a difficult man, and despite his protests that Confidential was beneath him, there is probably no better avatar for the

magazine's potent brand of scandal. Thank you for listening to History on Trial. The main sources for this episode were Samantha Barbas's book Confidential Confidential, The Inside Story of Hollywood's notorious scandal magazine and Henry E. Scott's book Shocking True Story The Rise and Fall of Confidential, America's most scandalous scandal magazine. For a full bibliography, as well as a transcript of this episode with citations, please visit History on

Trial podcast dot com. History on Trial is written and hosted by me Mira Hayward. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Trevor Young and executive producers Dana Schwartz, Alexander Williams, Matt Frederick, and Mira Hayward. Learn more about the show at History on Trial podcast dot com and follow us on Instagram at History on

Trial and on Twitter at Underscore History on Trial. Find more podcasts from iHeartRadio by visiting the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.