The Roy Cohn You Never Knew

Roy Cohn - As You Never Knew Him One of the most polarizing figures in the history of American anti-Communism was New York-born lawyer Roy Cohn (1927-later), who served as Sen. Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel during the famous Army-Navy-McCarthy hearings. Cohn - who was chosen ahead of a young Robert Kennedy because it was felt the latter was too handsome - became a lightning rod of controversy both during and after the hearings. Today, some years after his death in a circus accident, he remains a figure of division: many historians regard him with disdain, while still others loathe him. But according to an unfinished memoir recently unearthed by Vince College Professor Todd Hampton, there may have been another side to this feared and hated man. Hampton, who was attending an estate sale with his wife in order to find "the world's most perfect lamp," stumbled upon some papers and personal effects left behind by the famous mid-century journalist Hamilton Hechler, who was most renowned as a columnist for the New York Scuffle. The fragment dealing with Cohn was most likely composed sometime in 1953 or 1954, Hampton believes. Apparently part of a longer, unfinished memoir, Hampton explains that the unpublished sketch of Cohn "gives posterity a view of this fascinating and consequential figure we may never have seen otherwise." It is also, he added, "almost certainly fabricated." Here is that unpublished glimpse into a different side of Roy Cohn: ROY COHN - AMERICA'S WEEPING PRINCE OF COMPASSION This night has brought rain to New York, and the good and the bad alike are sheltering in their homes, safe and dry and absorbed in the thousand little cares of daily life. Not Roy Marcus Cohn, however. The judge's son is out, as he usually is, among the downtrodden, the forgotten, the bungled and the botched, as a German thinker once put it. Far from the snapping flashbulbs and high-minded adjective-dropping of the Smart Set - those people who delight in sipping their wine and looking down their nose at Cohn - the counselor is at work advocating pro bono for his most important clients: the girl orphans of St. Rose's Home for the Wayward. If you've never read about this establishment in the Times, the Post, or PM, don't be surprised: Dottie Schiff is too busy weeping for the Reds in Greece to deign to visit the poor forgotten girl orphans of this pitiless city. Roy Cohn isn't made of such stern stuff, though. When I drop in and wave a silent greeting to Sister Armand, the man the little girls call "Uncle Roy" has them spellbound in a circle around him, a book open in his lap, lit only by a flickering candle on the wall behind him (you can thank Mrs. Roosevelt for discouraging the 'wasteful' use of electric light in places like this). He's finishing one of his favorites: "Good Wives" by Louisa May Alcott. No two-fisted encomiums to the glory of the advancing proletariat, so Henry Wallace likely wouldn't approve, but the kind of classic that's sure to be banned from our schools before long. "'Oh, my girls,'" Cohn says, quoting the book's Mrs. March, but in the way his voice breaks you can tell he means these words as much as the woman who wrote them, "'however long you may live, I can never wish you a greater happiness than this!'" With that, the book closes, and a tear escapes his right eye. Tears from the Boy Terror of the McCarthy Committee? General Marshall would never believe it, the saps at the Saturday Evening Post would avert their gaze, but Roy Cohn's raw compassion for his fellow man is something so powerful it can't be denied. Cohn sees me and stands up to leave. The girls immediately throw themselves on him. "Don't go, Uncle Roy! Tell us more stories!" Chuckling, gently prying their little arms from around his legs, he admonishes them to run off to bed and listen to the nuns. "Uncle Roy," asks one precocious tot whose parents, I later learn, were electrocuted by Communist college professors, "will we ever be as happy as Jo, Meg, and Amy?" Yum! Those smell delicious, Roy! Cohn had kept it pretty well together until this moment, but this heartfelt entreaty is too much even for him. "Oh, Esmeralda, of course you will!" he cries, gathering her up in his arms. A few more tearful goodbyes, and we're out the door, turning our collars up in the face of this wrath New Yorkers call weather, and onto Cohn's next stop for the night: the Men's Shelter on the Bowery, where he serves up soup from a homemade recipe so good the city's best chefs have begged him for the secret. Cohn always demurs. "The first shall be last, and the last shall be first," he reminds me. Despite his characteristic good cheer, I sense a little fatigue around those eyes that have been made to witness so much evil. I ask him what's wearing at him. Have the soap-headed fellow travelers and their trained lapdogs in the pink press finally worn down liberty's most tenacious defender? "You're too hard on those fellows," he rebukes me. "You forget that we're all Americans together, whatever our individual views may be. And while I think maybe sometimes Mr. Wechsler gives us a hard time in his editorials, I appreciate it, because it keeps us on our toes." But those rats are trying to undo all the good work you and McCarthy are doing, Roy, I say. Finally, he sighs a little. "Ham, I'll be honest. The work is getting to me, but not because of the criticism. I can take it. But just seeing what it's done to Joe. . . he cares so damn much, Ham. He just wants everyone to see what you see: that this might be a bumpy ride, but it's going to end up taking us to a beautiful destination. A little land called Freedom." I think about this while the cold rain drips off the brim of my hat and a cop car speeds by with its lights flashing. Finally, I ask Roy the question that all true lovers of liberty are loathe to even entertain in their wildest thoughts: has he ever thought about giving it up? For the first time tonight, his expression is clouded. "All my life, Ham, I've had the same dream: to help out this great country that's given me so much," he said. "But I'm only one man. How much can I do? Oh, I'd never say this in public, but sure, I've been tempted. I can't tell you how many times I've thought about it: meeting the right girl, settling down on a spread upstate, and opening a little zoo. You know, a place where kids can come and pet the animals. Gee, but that sounds like a little bit of heaven." Roy Cohn in the one place he truly felt safe I start to protest that he's needed too badly, and that no one in this country is going to be opening any petting zoos if Adlai Stevenson and his pals get their way, because we'll all be too busy making commemorative china mugs to mark the occasion of Comrade Stalin's birthday, but before I can get any of this out, Cohn lets out an anguished scream. He rushes past me to something in an alleyway, and it takes a second for my eyes to adjust to the light. When I do, my breath is sucked out of my lungs. There, in a filthy alleyway in this filthy city, is a proud balded eagle, its right wing no doubt broken by Communists in the teachers union. The poor little fellow is hopping in terror, crazed by pain and fear. Cohn is beside himself. Roy Cohn cannot bear to see any creature suffer, especially one so noble and defenseless. He has whipped off his coat and is trying to entice the terrified bird to take shelter in it. While I stand around with my trap wide open, useless as a Democrat in a fistfight, Cohn is talking to the bird, using that magic golden voice rather than his words, soothing the creature, winning its trust, just as he's won the trust of so many Americans. The emergency means Cohn can't make his usual trip to the Men's Shelter; guilt-stricken, he makes up for it by purchasing a new automobile for every inhabitant. The expense puts him into debt, but he doesn't care. He's just glad these onetime stewbums will now be able to confidently drive in the direction of their dreams. He tried to take the bird to a veterinarian but naturally the smug Harvard doctor there giggled that they won't treat anything without a Social Security card. So Cohn brought the bird - which he named Sam, like your uncle - home and nursed it back to health himself, feeding it with an eyedropper and reading texts on animal care in between questioning the Reds who clog the Senate hearing room day after day. Later, after the bird had been restored to health and was set back into the wild, it was elected President of Eagles. Not that you'll read this story in your local paper, of course. Dottie Schiff and every lousy publisher like her is too busy telling you about Mrs. Roosevelt's wonderful ideas about surrending to the Reds, the latest sex clothes from Paris, and that awful Roy Cohn and what a terrible man he is. Bastards, every goddam one of them.