Mary McGrory and the lost art of the Washington prima donna.

[Douglas Caddy]

Queen Mary

Mary McGrory and the lost art of the Washington prima donna.

 

From the article: Then, in what has to be one of the most awkward and unromantic propositions in presidential history, Johnson tried to make the case that since McGrory had always admired Kennedy, she should now transfer her affections to him. “He wanted to have a reporter who had been their favorite reporter,” says Maureen Dowd, the New York Times columnist and McGrory protégée who heard about the encounter from McGrory and attributed it to LBJ’s perpetual rivalry with the Kennedys. “It wasn’t so much him pouncing on her as him competing with JFK.” In LBJ’s mind, sleeping with McGrory, like raising the height of the toilets in the White House, was just another way to one-up the late president. As McGrory’s friend Phil Gailey put it to me: “He assumed, I guess, that the only reason she loved the Kennedys was because they had power. What a klutz.”

 Listening to Johnson’s declaration, McGrory later told her friends, she felt flattered, startled and mortified at the same time. She took a deep breath and said, “I admire you, Mr. President, and I always will. And I think you are doing a terrific job, and that is where it stops—right there.”

President Johnson finished his drink and said, “I just wanted you to know.”

 

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/queen-mary-105906#.U2U1mGdOV3x