Ben:
Sorry to barge in again.
Kay:
Maybe I should give you a key.
Ben:
Uh… I’m not here to crash your party.
Kay:
What’s up?
Ben:
Well, I could use a minute. So, can I ask you a hypothetical question?
Kay:
Oh, dear, I don’t like hypothetical questions.
Ben:
Well, I don’t think you’re gonna like the real one either.
Kay:
Do you have the papers?
Ben:
Not yet.
Kay:
Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh. Because you know the position that would put me in. You know, we have language in the prospectus that we’ve—.
Ben:
Yeah, I know. I know that the bankers can change their mind. And I know what is at stake. You know, the only couple I knew that both Kennedy and LBJ wanted to socialize with was you and your husband, and you owned the damn paper.
Of course, that’s the way things worked. Politicians and the press, they trusted each other, so they could go to the same dinner party and drink cocktails and tell jokes while there was a war raging in Vietnam.
Kay:
Ben, I don’t know what we are talking about. I’m not protecting Lyndon.
Ben:
No, you got his former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, the man who commissioned the study. He’s one of about a dozen party guests.
Kay:
I’m not protecting him. I’m not protecting any of them. I’m protecting the paper.
Ben:
Yeah? Well, I wasn’t a stooge for Jack Kennedy. The night he was assassinated, Tony and I were down at the Naval Hospital, so we would be there to meet Jackie when she landed.
She was bringing Jack’s body back on the plane from Dallas, and she walked into the room. She was still wearing that pink suit with Jack’s blood all over it. She fell into Tony’s arms, and they held each other for quite a long time.
And then Jackie looked at me and said, “None of this, none of what you see, none of what I say is ever going to be in your newspaper, Ben.” And that just about broke my heart.
I never…I never thought of Jack as a source. I thought of him as a friend. And that was my mistake.
And it was something that Jack knew all along. We can’t be both. We have to choose. And Uh…And that’s the point. The days of us all smoking cigars together down on Pennsylvania Avenue are over. Your friend McNamara’s study proves that. The way they lied. The way they lied…Those days have to be over. We have to be the check on their power. If we don’t hold them accountable, I mean, my God, who will?
Kay:
Well, I’ve never smoked a cigar, and I have no problem holding Lyndon or Jack or Bob or any of them accountable. But we can’t hold them accountable if we don’t have a newspaper.
Ben:
When I get my hands on that study, what are you going to do, Mrs. Graham? Oh, um…Happy birthday, by the way.