Who edited Rush to Judgment? Mark Lane & Benjamin Sonnenberg, Jr, in their own words

[Paul Rigby]

I’ll let the extracts do the talking – it’s only too clear who was telling the truth and when the truth became inconvenient - save for observing that rumours concerning Paul McCartney’s alleged “death” began circulating in early September 1966, not long after his meetings with Lane in London (1). Did Sonnenberg's chums misidentify his wife's lover? 

Mark Lane, Rush To Judgment: A Critique of the Warren Commission’s Inquiry into the Murders of President John F Kennedy, Officer J D Tippitt, and Lee Harvey Oswald (London: Bodley Head, 1966)

Acknowledgments, 25:

"I am deeply indebted to Benjamin Sonnenberg, Jr, whose numerous and invaluable suggestions found their way into this volume."

Mark Lane, A Citizen’s Dissent (New York: Fawcett Crest, April 1969):

54-55:

The Bodley Head became engaged in two tasks. It sought to secure publication of the book in the United States and in other countries, and it subjected the manuscript to the most minute examination of a leading firm of libel solicitors in London. Plaintiffs in defamation actions in England enjoy far more advantages than their counterparts would in an American court. Nevertheless only a few trifling changes were made regarding the substance, while the style was considerably improved due to the careful editing of Benjamin Sonnenberg, Jr., an American then residing in England.

70:

In London, just before returning to the United States for the film, my wife and I met Paul McCartney at a cocktail party given by Benjamin Sonnenberg, Jr., who had edited my book, and his wife, Wendy.  McCartney became deeply interested in the subject and asked if he could read the manuscript. A copy was sent to him, and several days later a chauffeur returned it. Later that day, McCartney called to say, “Well, he could not have done it, could he?”

We met for dinner twice during the next few nights, and McCartney agreed to write the musical score for the film after I had raised that possibility. I warned him that the subject was highly controversial and might have an adverse effect upon his career. He said that he was aware of that but unconcerned by it. I asked him why he might be willing to jeopardize his future, and he replied, “One day my children are going to ask me what I did with my life, and I cannot just answer that I was a Beatle.” Eventually we decided that the film should be stark and didactic, and therefore without music.

Benjamin Sonnenberg, Jr., Lost Property: Memoirs & Confessions of a Bad Boy (Washington: Counterpoint, 1991):

163:

I was asked to edit a book about the assassination of President

Kennedy. I felt I knew something about this because on the day Oswald was shot to death by Jack Ruby I was in New York, watching it on TV with my father and Abe Fortas. My father said, "Whoever shot Kennedy, you can be sure it wasn't Oswald." And Abe Fortas agreed.

About the assassination itself, my feelings were mixed. Detestation of the Kennedy administration was uppermost. Also, when it occurred, I was with Maria at the Bronx Zoo and we heard about it in the cab going back to Manhattan. She was upset. I thought only, "There goes the evening. "*

* Compare "Thank goodness it happened on a Friday," i.e., when the Market could close for the weekend, which I heard from a banker friend of my father's. Compare also Malcolm X's remark, "It's a case of the chickens coming home to roost.' I'm not sure how much I knew then of the Kennedy policy of "selective assassination/' but Merle Dankbloom had shown satisfaction over the death of Patrice Lumumba in 1961. He went about as though he'd caused the awful event himself, as is said about Natasha and the town fire in Act Three of Three Sisters.

164:

I took a tiny office in Albemarle Street to work on the assassination book. 1 tacked my calling card to the door. One morning I found that someone had drawn a swastika under my name…

165:

The CIA was not involved in the book I was editing. When I told Merle Dankbloom about it, he said, "My god! Can't they leave that poor man alone?" Kennedy? Oswald? Earl Warren? It turned out that the poor man' was an obscure White Russian emigre who lived on Cape Cod (where, as it happened, I once met him). He was at the very fringe of the Warren Commission investigation…

A second bad thing was Alice's friends. One was living with Paul McCartney. When the four of us went out, the talk was of nothing I cared about…

183:

Alice and I went to New Orleans to stay with the author of the book about the Kennedy assassination which I had edited. He and his wife had taken an apartment in the French Quarter. He was working on some new lead. There it was that Alice told me that she had had an affair with him in London at the time I was working on his book. It had continued for some weeks in New York, and now it was over. "It's over now," Alice said. And here we were staying with him and his wife. Alice felt bad about that, she said.

Mark Lane, Citizen Lane: Defending Our Rights In The Courts, The Capitol, And The Streets (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2012):

163-164:

While living in London during that time I attended a small party of about a dozen people. One of them was Paul McCartney. He walked up to me, offered his hand, and told me his name. The introduction was hardly necessary as he was one of the most famous people in the world. He seemed very young and remarkably modest. That was because he was twenty-two years old, and he was not impressed with his accomplishments. He said, “I understand you have written a book about Kennedy’s assassination. I would like to read it.” I told him that it was still in manuscript form and that there were only two mimeographed copies, one at the publisher’s office and one at the flat where I was staying. Paul said, “If I could just borrow your copy I would keep it safe and get it back to you in a few days.” I agreed. The next day a man in a chauffeur’s outfit arrived and asked if I had a package for Mr. McCartney. He took it.

Several days later he returned with the manuscript, neatly wrapped. I took it to my desk, opened it quickly, and began to search for the note that would be my first review. There was no note; I was very disappointed and thought that evidently he had not been impressed or perhaps, I hoped, he had just been too busy to read it.

Early that evening while I was in the throes of editing, the telephone rang. The caller said, “Well he could’na done it, could he?” I was irritated by the interruption, the obscure message, and the failure of the caller to identify himself. I said, probably in a less-than-generous tone, “Who is this? And who could not have done what?”

He replied, “Sorry. Paul, Paul McCartney, we met the other night. And I meant that Oswald could not have killed President Kennedy.” I may have been one of the very few people on the planet who would have failed to recognize that most famous voice. Paul seemed not at all put out. He said, “Could we have dinner together to talk about it? Maybe tomorrow?”

A few days later he invited me to his home, suggesting that I drop in at about noon. He opened the door and showed me to a parlor, asking if I minded waiting a few minutes as he walked into another room where John Lennon was seated at a piano. Paul called out, “Mark, this is John. John, this is Mark.” We each said hello, and the two of them continued working on a song. They hummed, they sang, and they played the piano and Paul played the guitar. When they were satisfied, they agreed to call their associate who was going to write it down. Neither Paul nor John could write music. Then we had lunch prepared by a woman who worked there. It was sliced white bread toasted and covered with baked beans, apparently a Liverpool favorite. Paul’s very large English sheepdog stayed outside, guarding the house.

Paul, of course, had a very busy schedule and said he would call when he could. He did a few days later and suggested a late dinner at a place I might recommend. I told him about a Polish restaurant where the food was excellent, and since all the diners and staff were ancient and spoke primarily Polish, he might not be recognized. The owner seated us near a window and then returned in a few minutes and nodded toward a table where an obviously wealthy woman in her nineties was seated.

“Madame Slovenskia wondered, Mr. McCartney, if you could sign her menu, which she would like to present to her granddaughter.”

Paul smiled and wrote, “Happy dinner, Paul McCartney, friend of Mark Lane.” The owner was bemused, and his customer was bewildered. Paul smiled and said, “I guess they heard of the Beatles in Poland.”

As our dinner continued past the closing hour it was fortunate the door was locked. Paul had been spotted. Before long, the crowd grew to more than two hundred. The owner showed us a seldom used back door, and we ran to Paul’s car. He drove me to my apartment in a rather deserted section near World’s End. No one was on the street. Paul brought out a guitar, and we walked just a few steps before a young couple appeared. She screamed, ran up to Paul, and ripped a handkerchief from his pocket as we ran to the building. We settled into the den and caught our breath.

During a meeting at my London publishers, James Michie mentioned that there was an American named Ben Sonnenberg who was eager to assist me as a volunteer quasi-editor. I met Benjamin Sonnenberg Jr. and Wendy, his charming wife. Ben appeared to have neither a job nor a profession but was accustomed to a very rich lifestyle because of the largesse of his father, a multimillionaire who had practically invented the profession of modern public relations. His suggestions for the book were uniformly without value, and some were counterproductive. I ended our professional relationship, and my publisher agreed when I stated that I was accepting none of Ben’s concepts or language. I considered Ben to be well meaning but not competent, and my parting gift to him was words of appreciation for his efforts, since I did not want to do him harm, either to his ego or his future prospects. I likely would have been less gracious if he had not waited so many years to write his autobiography.4  In his memoirs Sonnenberg admitted, really boasted, that he was working for the CIA when he attempted to edit Rush to Judgment, all the while reporting back to his CIA contact about its contents and how to alter them to protect the agency.

While I was working with and against Sonnenberg, Bodley Head was engaged in finding an American publisher. They were finding it a struggle until Arthur A. Cohen, editor in chief of Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, requested a copy of the manuscript.

175:

I met with Paul McCartney at my flat. He asked about the film, and I described it. He asked if there was going to be music, and I said that the director and I had not even thought about that yet. “Well,” he said, “I would like to write a musical score for the film, as a present for you.” I was astonished by that generous offer and speechless for a moment. I thanked him, but then I cautioned him that the subject matter was very controversial in the United States and that he might be jeopardizing his future. He added, “One day my children are going to ask me what I did with my life, and I can’t just answer that I was a Beatle.” It became clear to me that he had not grasped the enormous contribution he had made to music and to the lives of young people everywhere. During that meeting, Paul said he had just finished composing a song and he wanted me to hear it. “You’ll be the first,” he added. I told him that I really enjoyed his music but that I was practically tone deaf and not the person who should give him the first review, that he should play it for someone else first. He laughed and took the guitar out of its case.

He played the melody and sang bits of the lyrics he had composed. I didn’t really get it; it had a haunting and sad sound. I said, “I think this is a little complex for me the first time hearing it.”

“You don’t like it?” he asked.

I said I did, but I would have to give it more thought.

He added as a joke, “I gave you your first review, and it was much more favorable.”

The next morning Mike Lester, who was staying at the flat, asked what Paul was playing. I didn’t remember the name, but I recalled that it had a refrain about all the lonely people and that some father was darning his socks at night. I had apparently been the first person to hear “Eleanor Rigby.” When it became a huge hit, my friends made sarcastic remarks about my musical ear, suggesting that I might consider giving up the law for a new career as a music critic. Paul called and said, “What do I have to do to write the musical score for the film?” I arranged a meeting at the King’s Road flat for Paul and D and myself to discuss the subject.

176:

D asked Paul, “What have you written for us?” Paul politely said that he wanted to see the film and then compose. D ruled that reasonable suggestion out. Paul then asked D how the film would begin, and D described a scene where the plane landed and the president and his wife walked to the tarmac. That had not been discussed as the opening scene and was not used in the film. D said, “So play your music for that scene.”

Paul said, “You want me to audition now?”

D said, “Yes, right now.”

There was a long and awkward silence broken when Paul picked up his guitar and created a bit of music. D, even less musically talented than I was, immediately said, “No good. It’s boring.”

Paul laughed and agreed by saying, “I tried to match the scene you had described.”

I argued with D about the musical score to no avail. He insisted that a score by Paul McCartney would not increase the film’s popularity or reach and would prevent it from being “stark and didactic,” a phrase that I still did not comprehend and one D could never adequately explain.

The film without a musical score was stark enough and was moderately successful. Its debut was on BBC in 1967…

(1) Paul is Dead: Beginnings

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_is_dead

Although rumours that Paul McCartney's health was deteriorating existed since early 1966,[1] reports that McCartney had died only started circulating in September of that year. The Beatles' press officer, Tony Barrow, recounted this in his book, John, Paul, George, Ringo and Me. Fleet Street reporters started phoning Barrow one day early that month, to confirm rumours regarding the Beatle's health and even a possible death, to which he replied that he had recently spoken with McCartney.[2]

(1) "My Broken Tooth - by Paul McCartney". The Paul McCartney project. Retrieved 24 March 2024.

(2) Barrow, Tony (2005). John, Paul, George, Ringo & me : the real Beatles story. Internet Archive. London : Andre Deutsch. ISBN 978-0-233-00140-1.

[Paul Rigby]

Mark Lane’s publishers in UK & US

US publisher: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston

Penn Jones, Jr., Someone Must Have Cut The String? (The Continuing Inquiry, V3 N5, 22 December 1978, 1-3)

At the 1975 conference  staged in Boston, Mass. by the Boston-based Assassination Information Bureau, I revealed in my lecture that the publishing house of Holt, Rinehart, and Winston was owned by the Murchison interests of Dallas at the time Lane’s book, Rush To Judgment, was approved for printing and distribution.

Full piece:

https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/someone-must-have-cut-the-string-by-penn-jones-vol.-3-no.-5/675986

British publisher: Bodley Head

1) Herbert Harold Tucker, born 04/12/1925 (OBE 1965)

British Diplomatic Oral History Programme, interview with H H Tucker, 19 April 1996 (15pp)

Tucker joined the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department (IRD) in 1951. He later served as Counsellor (Information), Canberra, 1974-79; then Consul-General, Vancouver, 1979-83. For a fuller account of his career, follow either of the links below:

https://archives.chu.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Tucker.pdf

Reference Code: DOHP 11

https://oa.churchillarchives.libnova.com/view/1801

Tucker interview, 6:

We encouraged the production of commercial books by “see-safe arrangements”…This is an old publishing arrangement whereby provided there is a decent idea or decent manuscript, publishers are often prepared to publish and quite happy to publish if you take the risk out of their doing so. Basically it works like this - if you have an author who has a book in him, a publishing house will often agree to publish if someone takes the risk out of it for them by, for example, agreeing to buy, say, 15,000 copies of the book. The publisher is quite happy because that covers their costs and distribution and everything and anything above that is sheer profit for them. And so we had an arrangement - this was some time later - but we had an arrangement with (I don't think I'm giving any secrets away) with the Bodley Head under Max Reinhardt which published a series of what turned out to be a very popular, very widely-read series of books called 'background books' which dealt with subjects in which the IRD were interested. Our role, primarily, was to suggest authors, suggest themes and to buy the end product. We were not looking for 100% support or anything like that and quite a lot of well-known people wrote for the series, often not fully realising that, behind the scenes, there was this see-safe arrangement.

2) How the FO waged secret propaganda war in Britain

By Richard Fletcher, George Brock & Phil Kelly

Observer, Sunday, 29 January 1978, page 2

http://www.cambridgeclarion.org/press_cuttings/fo_deceit_unit_obs_29jan1978.html

A SECRET Foreign Office department set up after World War Two to distribute anti-Communist propaganda abroad also covertly planted material in Britain.

Over a period of 30 years material and money from the Information Research Department (IRD) went into books published under highly respectable imprints. Some of them are still available in public, school and university libraries. Anti-Stalinist material was also infiltrated into trade union literature.

After 30 years, the IRD finally became an embarrassment to Ministers, who feared its approach to propaganda was out of date and a threat to detente relations. Its activities were first curtailed by the late Anthony Crosland, and last May it was closed down by his successor as Foreign Secretary, Dr David Owen.

Documents in the hands of The Observer reveal that within a year of its foundation in 1948 the department was paying a hidden subsidy to an anti-Communist magazine, Freedom First, which was circulated to trade unionists.

It was negotiated secretly between the editor and Mr. Christopher Mayhew, then a Foreign Office junior minister and the man who created IRD.

The department used a small publishing company, Ampersand Ltd, which published IRD-inspired material for 20 years and bought thousands of books for distribution by IRD.

A director of Ampersand since 1953, Mr. Stephen Watts, confirmed to us that IRD paid his firm's costs, including office bills and authors' fees, and he 'always understood' that the money was from the secret vote, the Parliamentary allocation of money for the intelligence services.

The IRD began life in January 1948 after the Attlee Cabinet approved a plan put up by Mr. Mayhew for a vigorous information offensive against the Iron Curtain countries which, according to his memo, were winning the ideological cold war.

Mr. Mayhew had asked his officials to draw up plans for a 'team of two or three "devillers",' who were to prepare and assemble material under a 'specialist in ideological warfare.'

In a 'Top Secret' memo to the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Ernest Bevin, in December 1947 he said : ' The material would be concocted and devised by the Communist Information Department' (IRD's provisional title).

He proposed a book extolling the merits of British social democracy, suggesting as a title 'The Straight Answer.' He added: 'It would probably. be inadvisable to issue an English edition for public circulation at home, since this could be attacked as expenditure of taxpayers' money for internal political purposes; but the private circulation to key people in this country of a limited number of the English language edition would be practicable and extremely helpful.'

Mr. Mayhew, his officials and his confidants at Labour Party headquarters were well aware of the risks they were running.

Mr. Mayhew, now a member of the Liberal Party, said last week that IRD dealt in 'true facts' and commented: 'It's difficult to make out that there's anything sinister about this. We were ahead of our time in fighting Stalinism. In the post-war years there were many illusions about Stalinism, not least inside the Labour Party. We were certainly taking great political risks, and quite right too.'

In May 1948 Mr. Mayhew told Bevin that he had made arrangements with Herbert Tracey (an official in the Labour Party's international section) for the dissemination in the Labour movement at home of anti-Communist propaganda.

Mr. Tracey ran an anti-Communist committee called 'Freedom First.' Mr. Mayhew noted a month later that the committee's material should be supplied by IRD on a 'strictly confidential basis.'

The note went on : 'Mr. Tracey would work out a financial estimate on the basis of 5,000 copies covering three or four languages. We would then see what we could do in the way of a hidden subsidy - e.g. by purchase of copies for use and distribution by our information officers.'

An idea of IRD's information-collecting methods, as opposed to dissemination, can be gathered from a note from Mr. Mayhew to one of his officials in January 1949. It suggests 'grey' propaganda - carefully selected material energetically reproduced and distributed - rather than 'black' propaganda of lies and fiction.

Mr. Mayhew recommends using the Press monitoring section at the Moscow Embassy to gather suitable material.

In addition to sponsoring anti-Communist books IRD also distributed British news-paper articles to developing countries. Newspapers in those countries were carrying material supplied by Russian and Chinese news agencies because it was all they could afford.

So IRD, wishing to counter that influence, made arrangements with some British news organisations (including, in 1968, The Observer Foreign News Service), which gave IRD the right to distribute articles cheaply, or even free of charge to the media of selected countries. In the case of THE OBSERVER Foreign News Service, which syndicates articles by Observer writers, it was a condition that the articles could not be altered.

The arrangement between IRD and Ampersand for subsidising and publishing anti-Communist books began in the 1950s.

Mr. Stephen Watts, the head of Ampersand, said last week that he would discuss possible book titles with the heads of IRD. Those books would be commissioned and edited by Mr. Watts, who would arrange for sales of copies to IRD for distribution overseas.

That discreet arrangement was merged with conventional current affairs publishing. Mr. Watts, as a freelance publisher's editor, created and edited a series of more than 100 volumes called Background Books, which was published by two small firms between 1950 and 1960, when Bodley Head took over.

IRD paid for the books in two ways: by buying up to several hundred copes of a title they wanted and by meeting production costs for titles published by Ampersand under their own imprint.

Ampersand also acted as a purchasing agent for IRD, buying Bodley Head books and other publishers' books through Bodley Head's credit facilities.

Ampersand's accounts for the years 1967-76 list total payments to Bodley Head of £55,991 but Bodley Head were not able to confirm this.

They also show 'reimbursement' of publishing expenses and overheads over the same period of £89,670. Mr. Watts said that this had been paid by IRD.

The accounts were audited each year and a copy of them was sent to the Foreign Office, which then paid reimbursements to Ampersand.

Mr. Max Reinhardt, managing director of Bodley Head, said : 'Ours was an orthodox publishing arrangement with Stephen Watts. I naturally had no ides of Ampersand's connection with IRD or the Foreign Office.'

 Mr. Watts told us that the arrangement between IRD and Ampersand had been suggested by the late Mr. Leslie Sheridan, a wartime intelligence man. He was deputy head of IRD in 1961 and the founder of Ampersand.

Although the British public didn't know about IRD's activities, ironically the Russians were handed details of what was happening on a plate.

When Mr. Mayhew was assembling his staff a colleague approached him and recommended a young diplomat as a 'man deeply versed in communism.' That man was Guy Burgess, one of Britain's most famous post-war defectors, who was on the staff of IRD for several months until sacked by Mr. Mayhew for being 'dirty, drunk and idle.'

(Additional research by Paul Lashmar, Tony Smart and Richard Oliver.)

[Sean Coleman]

16 hours ago, Paul Rigby said:

I’ll let the extracts do the talking – it’s only too clear who was telling the truth and when the truth became inconvenient - save for observing that rumours concerning Paul McCartney’s alleged “death” began circulating in early September 1966, not long after his meetings with Lane in London (1). Did Sonnenberg's chums misidentify his wife's lover? 

Mark Lane, Rush To Judgment: A Critique of the Warren Commission’s Inquiry into the Murders of President John F Kennedy, Officer J D Tippitt, and Lee Harvey Oswald (London: Bodley Head, 1966)

Acknowledgments, 25:

"I am deeply indebted to Benjamin Sonnenberg, Jr, whose numerous and invaluable suggestions found their way into this volume."

Mark Lane, A Citizen’s Dissent (New York: Fawcett Crest, April 1969):

54-55:

The Bodley Head became engaged in two tasks. It sought to secure publication of the book in the United States and in other countries, and it subjected the manuscript to the most minute examination of a leading firm of libel solicitors in London. Plaintiffs in defamation actions in England enjoy far more advantages than their counterparts would in an American court. Nevertheless only a few trifling changes were made regarding the substance, while the style was considerably improved due to the careful editing of Benjamin Sonnenberg, Jr., an American then residing in England.

70:

In London, just before returning to the United States for the film, my wife and I met Paul McCartney at a cocktail party given by Benjamin Sonnenberg, Jr., who had edited my book, and his wife, Wendy.  McCartney became deeply interested in the subject and asked if he could read the manuscript. A copy was sent to him, and several days later a chauffeur returned it. Later that day, McCartney called to say, “Well, he could not have done it, could he?”

We met for dinner twice during the next few nights, and McCartney agreed to write the musical score for the film after I had raised that possibility. I warned him that the subject was highly controversial and might have an adverse effect upon his career. He said that he was aware of that but unconcerned by it. I asked him why he might be willing to jeopardize his future, and he replied, “One day my children are going to ask me what I did with my life, and I cannot just answer that I was a Beatle.” Eventually we decided that the film should be stark and didactic, and therefore without music.

Benjamin Sonnenberg, Jr., Lost Property: Memoirs & Confessions of a Bad Boy (Washington: Counterpoint, 1991):

163:

I was asked to edit a book about the assassination of President

Kennedy. I felt I knew something about this because on the day Oswald was shot to death by Jack Ruby I was in New York, watching it on TV with my father and Abe Fortas. My father said, "Whoever shot Kennedy, you can be sure it wasn't Oswald." And Abe Fortas agreed.

About the assassination itself, my feelings were mixed. Detestation of the Kennedy administration was uppermost. Also, when it occurred, I was with Maria at the Bronx Zoo and we heard about it in the cab going back to Manhattan. She was upset. I thought only, "There goes the evening. "*

* Compare "Thank goodness it happened on a Friday," i.e., when the Market could close for the weekend, which I heard from a banker friend of my father's. Compare also Malcolm X's remark, "It's a case of the chickens coming home to roost.' I'm not sure how much I knew then of the Kennedy policy of "selective assassination/' but Merle Dankbloom had shown satisfaction over the death of Patrice Lumumba in 1961. He went about as though he'd caused the awful event himself, as is said about Natasha and the town fire in Act Three of Three Sisters.

164:

I took a tiny office in Albemarle Street to work on the assassination book. 1 tacked my calling card to the door. One morning I found that someone had drawn a swastika under my name…

165:

The CIA was not involved in the book I was editing. When I told Merle Dankbloom about it, he said, "My god! Can't they leave that poor man alone?" Kennedy? Oswald? Earl Warren? It turned out that the poor man' was an obscure White Russian emigre who lived on Cape Cod (where, as it happened, I once met him). He was at the very fringe of the Warren Commission investigation…

A second bad thing was Alice's friends. One was living with Paul McCartney. When the four of us went out, the talk was of nothing I cared about…

183:

Alice and I went to New Orleans to stay with the author of the book about the Kennedy assassination which I had edited. He and his wife had taken an apartment in the French Quarter. He was working on some new lead. There it was that Alice told me that she had had an affair with him in London at the time I was working on his book. It had continued for some weeks in New York, and now it was over. "It's over now," Alice said. And here we were staying with him and his wife. Alice felt bad about that, she said.

Mark Lane, Citizen Lane: Defending Our Rights In The Courts, The Capitol, And The Streets (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2012):

163-164:

While living in London during that time I attended a small party of about a dozen people. One of them was Paul McCartney. He walked up to me, offered his hand, and told me his name. The introduction was hardly necessary as he was one of the most famous people in the world. He seemed very young and remarkably modest. That was because he was twenty-two years old, and he was not impressed with his accomplishments. He said, “I understand you have written a book about Kennedy’s assassination. I would like to read it.” I told him that it was still in manuscript form and that there were only two mimeographed copies, one at the publisher’s office and one at the flat where I was staying. Paul said, “If I could just borrow your copy I would keep it safe and get it back to you in a few days.” I agreed. The next day a man in a chauffeur’s outfit arrived and asked if I had a package for Mr. McCartney. He took it.

Several days later he returned with the manuscript, neatly wrapped. I took it to my desk, opened it quickly, and began to search for the note that would be my first review. There was no note; I was very disappointed and thought that evidently he had not been impressed or perhaps, I hoped, he had just been too busy to read it.

Early that evening while I was in the throes of editing, the telephone rang. The caller said, “Well he could’na done it, could he?” I was irritated by the interruption, the obscure message, and the failure of the caller to identify himself. I said, probably in a less-than-generous tone, “Who is this? And who could not have done what?”

He replied, “Sorry. Paul, Paul McCartney, we met the other night. And I meant that Oswald could not have killed President Kennedy.” I may have been one of the very few people on the planet who would have failed to recognize that most famous voice. Paul seemed not at all put out. He said, “Could we have dinner together to talk about it? Maybe tomorrow?”

A few days later he invited me to his home, suggesting that I drop in at about noon. He opened the door and showed me to a parlor, asking if I minded waiting a few minutes as he walked into another room where John Lennon was seated at a piano. Paul called out, “Mark, this is John. John, this is Mark.” We each said hello, and the two of them continued working on a song. They hummed, they sang, and they played the piano and Paul played the guitar. When they were satisfied, they agreed to call their associate who was going to write it down. Neither Paul nor John could write music. Then we had lunch prepared by a woman who worked there. It was sliced white bread toasted and covered with baked beans, apparently a Liverpool favorite. Paul’s very large English sheepdog stayed outside, guarding the house.

Paul, of course, had a very busy schedule and said he would call when he could. He did a few days later and suggested a late dinner at a place I might recommend. I told him about a Polish restaurant where the food was excellent, and since all the diners and staff were ancient and spoke primarily Polish, he might not be recognized. The owner seated us near a window and then returned in a few minutes and nodded toward a table where an obviously wealthy woman in her nineties was seated.

“Madame Slovenskia wondered, Mr. McCartney, if you could sign her menu, which she would like to present to her granddaughter.”

Paul smiled and wrote, “Happy dinner, Paul McCartney, friend of Mark Lane.” The owner was bemused, and his customer was bewildered. Paul smiled and said, “I guess they heard of the Beatles in Poland.”

As our dinner continued past the closing hour it was fortunate the door was locked. Paul had been spotted. Before long, the crowd grew to more than two hundred. The owner showed us a seldom used back door, and we ran to Paul’s car. He drove me to my apartment in a rather deserted section near World’s End. No one was on the street. Paul brought out a guitar, and we walked just a few steps before a young couple appeared. She screamed, ran up to Paul, and ripped a handkerchief from his pocket as we ran to the building. We settled into the den and caught our breath.

During a meeting at my London publishers, James Michie mentioned that there was an American named Ben Sonnenberg who was eager to assist me as a volunteer quasi-editor. I met Benjamin Sonnenberg Jr. and Wendy, his charming wife. Ben appeared to have neither a job nor a profession but was accustomed to a very rich lifestyle because of the largesse of his father, a multimillionaire who had practically invented the profession of modern public relations. His suggestions for the book were uniformly without value, and some were counterproductive. I ended our professional relationship, and my publisher agreed when I stated that I was accepting none of Ben’s concepts or language. I considered Ben to be well meaning but not competent, and my parting gift to him was words of appreciation for his efforts, since I did not want to do him harm, either to his ego or his future prospects. I likely would have been less gracious if he had not waited so many years to write his autobiography.4  In his memoirs Sonnenberg admitted, really boasted, that he was working for the CIA when he attempted to edit Rush to Judgment, all the while reporting back to his CIA contact about its contents and how to alter them to protect the agency.

While I was working with and against Sonnenberg, Bodley Head was engaged in finding an American publisher. They were finding it a struggle until Arthur A. Cohen, editor in chief of Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, requested a copy of the manuscript.

175:

I met with Paul McCartney at my flat. He asked about the film, and I described it. He asked if there was going to be music, and I said that the director and I had not even thought about that yet. “Well,” he said, “I would like to write a musical score for the film, as a present for you.” I was astonished by that generous offer and speechless for a moment. I thanked him, but then I cautioned him that the subject matter was very controversial in the United States and that he might be jeopardizing his future. He added, “One day my children are going to ask me what I did with my life, and I can’t just answer that I was a Beatle.” It became clear to me that he had not grasped the enormous contribution he had made to music and to the lives of young people everywhere. During that meeting, Paul said he had just finished composing a song and he wanted me to hear it. “You’ll be the first,” he added. I told him that I really enjoyed his music but that I was practically tone deaf and not the person who should give him the first review, that he should play it for someone else first. He laughed and took the guitar out of its case.

He played the melody and sang bits of the lyrics he had composed. I didn’t really get it; it had a haunting and sad sound. I said, “I think this is a little complex for me the first time hearing it.”

“You don’t like it?” he asked.

I said I did, but I would have to give it more thought.

He added as a joke, “I gave you your first review, and it was much more favorable.”

The next morning Mike Lester, who was staying at the flat, asked what Paul was playing. I didn’t remember the name, but I recalled that it had a refrain about all the lonely people and that some father was darning his socks at night. I had apparently been the first person to hear “Eleanor Rigby.” When it became a huge hit, my friends made sarcastic remarks about my musical ear, suggesting that I might consider giving up the law for a new career as a music critic. Paul called and said, “What do I have to do to write the musical score for the film?” I arranged a meeting at the King’s Road flat for Paul and D and myself to discuss the subject.

176:

D asked Paul, “What have you written for us?” Paul politely said that he wanted to see the film and then compose. D ruled that reasonable suggestion out. Paul then asked D how the film would begin, and D described a scene where the plane landed and the president and his wife walked to the tarmac. That had not been discussed as the opening scene and was not used in the film. D said, “So play your music for that scene.”

Paul said, “You want me to audition now?”

D said, “Yes, right now.”

There was a long and awkward silence broken when Paul picked up his guitar and created a bit of music. D, even less musically talented than I was, immediately said, “No good. It’s boring.”

Paul laughed and agreed by saying, “I tried to match the scene you had described.”

I argued with D about the musical score to no avail. He insisted that a score by Paul McCartney would not increase the film’s popularity or reach and would prevent it from being “stark and didactic,” a phrase that I still did not comprehend and one D could never adequately explain.

The film without a musical score was stark enough and was moderately successful. Its debut was on BBC in 1967…

(1) Paul is Dead: Beginnings

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_is_dead

Although rumours that Paul McCartney's health was deteriorating existed since early 1966,[1] reports that McCartney had died only started circulating in September of that year. The Beatles' press officer, Tony Barrow, recounted this in his book, John, Paul, George, Ringo and Me. Fleet Street reporters started phoning Barrow one day early that month, to confirm rumours regarding the Beatle's health and even a possible death, to which he replied that he had recently spoken with McCartney.[2]

(1) "My Broken Tooth - by Paul McCartney". The Paul McCartney project. Retrieved 24 March 2024.

(2) Barrow, Tony (2005). John, Paul, George, Ringo & me : the real Beatles story. Internet Archive. London : Andre Deutsch. ISBN 978-0-233-00140-1.

 

[Sean Coleman]

Great find, great read, well done!!

Was in Liverpool yesterday, obviously went to the Cavern Club for a bevvy!