Bob Hope Funny Statement About Democrats
This Is Bob (Politician‐Patriot‐Publicist) Hope
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October 4, 1970
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As you know, we asked your son and another soldier to pose for photographs with Miss Dianna Lynn Batts (Miss U,S.A.) when she arrived in Los Angeles in prepara tion for her upcoming trip to Viet nam with the Bob Hope troupe. Your son requested a photograph and Mr. Ted Pettit of my office took his name and address. We then had Miss Batts autograph them for the boys.
MR. AND MRS. WILLIAM C. K____ P.O. Box ____ MOUND VALLEY, KAN. Dear Mr. and Mrs. K____:
These photographs of your son were recently returned to us from Vietnam, and I thought you might like to have them. I believe that a request was made by you for them in a letter to Bob Hope.
I showed the photographs of Charles to Bob Hope, who asked me to offer you his heartfelt sym pathy on behalf of himself and his family.
I wish I could say much more than I am terribly sorry about your great loss.
Sincerely, FRANK LIBERMAN (Mr. Hope's press agent)
IN more than a few American homes, such souvenirs of the Bob Hope Christmas Tour hold a place of honor on mantelpiece or coffee table. Their black frames in close incongruous scenes: pert star lets, their snub noses wrinkled in mer riment; long‐limbed beauty queens, languorously, uncoiling their sequined svelte; or the troupe's star, that famous jaw thrust out in a lopsided leer. And propped next to the glamor ous visitors, mouth still agape with disbelief, is the beloved son, brother or husband. Such boisterous tableaus may seem inappropriate in these homes; but when it's the last picture you have of a dead relative, you aren't too particular.
World War II offered a wider selec tion of these macabre pin‐ups. The last picture of a boy killed at Bas togne or Bougainville might have been taken with any of several hundred front‐rank entertainers. In a popular war, with the whole country mobilized for total victory, Holly wood stars clamored to do their bit. Hope was there, but so were Spike Jones rapping out "in der Führer's face"; Katharine Cornell playing "The Barretts of Wimpole Street"; the An drews Sisters harmonizing "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree"; Gary Cooper drawling "hi, pardner" and Ann Sheridan showing her gams.
By the Korean "police action," America was confronting the ambi guities of limited war; but Hollywood once more turned out a distinguished roster of "soldiers in greasepaint": Hope again and Marilyn Monroe, Mickey Rooney, Jack Benny, Danny Kaye, Debbie Reynolds and Jayne Mansfield.
When American troops first began fighting in Vietnam, Hollywood re sponded again, almost by reflex. In the mid‐sixties, stars like Charlton Heston, Eddie Fisher and Jonathan Winters made the trip. But as the war became increasingly unpopular, the big names bowed out. In recent years, the U.S.O. has relied chiefly on obscure acts like "the Sig Sakow itz Show" or "Danny Fuller and his Nebraska Playboys" and a handful of faithful stars: Sebastian Cabot, Raymond Burr, Martha Raye and— Bob Hope. Last December, Hope made his sixth consecutive Christ mas Tour to Vietnam. So dogged have his efforts been on the Vietnam circuit that one Pentagon official was prompted recently to call this "Hope's war."
OF late, his identification with the war has broadened into more openly political activity in behalf of "Americanism" and those he feels exemplify it. Through 1967 and 1968, he was a self‐proclaimed hawk. Since the Nixon Administration took office, he has backed its policy of Viet namization and gradual U.S. disen gagement, but with obvious reluc tance and nostalgia for a simpler solution. Last July 4, he served as co‐chairman of Honor America Day. And in speeches at colleges, state fairs and banquets he has increas ingly denounced demonstrators, dis senters and others he calls "antis."
Some of Hope's associates feel he is now modeling his political stance after one of his closest personal friends—Vice President Spiro Agnew. He is friendly with President Nixon —as he has been with every Presi dent since Franklin Roosevelt—and Mr. Nixon even landed in a helicopter on his back lawn last winter to play golf and thank him for his latest Vietnam tour. "But Spiro is much more Bob's kinda guy," says one of his public relations men.
Hope is outspoken in his admira tion for the Vice President. "He's a wonderful guy. We're very fond of him. He's developed into such a popular guy because he's got the guts to stand up and talk."
The friendship has blossomed quickly. The two men met first in June, 1968, when Mr. Agnew was Governor of Maryland and Hope came to Baltimore to accept the Humanitarian Award from Variety Clubs International. They sat next to each other at the head table and apparently hit it off immediately. The Governor made what Hope re calls as "a nice little speech"; in reply, Hope said Agnew "could make it in our racket; with the right kind of make‐up man he could move." The next morning, Agnew came into his Annapolis office bubbling with enthusiasm about what "a great guy" Hope was. An aide recalls Agnew retelling his favorite Hope gag from the night before: "I used to play a little football, but I had to quit be cause I was ticklish. I played center and I kept laughing when the quar terback put his hands between my legs." The Governor, his aide recalls, "thought that was very funny."
BARELY two months later, Agnew was nominated in Miami and Hope sent him a telegram: "See what one dinner with me will do?" Over the Labor Day weekend, when Hope did his annual stint at the Ohio State Fair, Agnew was in Ohio and Gov. James Rhodes (a close friend of both) invited them and Gov. Raymond Shafer of Pennsylvania out for a round of golf. "After we played," Hope recalls, "Agnew took my wire out of his pocket and threw it on the table. He loved it. He has a marvelous sense of humor." When Agnew was elected in November, Hope sent him another wire: "Say, can you imagine what having lunch with me will do?" By all reports, the Vice President loved that one, too.
During the campaign, Hope and Agnew talked frequently on the telephone. Sometimes Agnew would call to ask for a few jokes to open a speech. Or Hope would call and say, "I've got a good line for you." Or they would just trade the latest jokes. "Agnew loves jokes, any kind of jokes," Hope says. "It got to be a thing where he'd call me about something and start throwing the jokes at me and I'd throw the jokes at him."
Trading jokes on the tele phone late at night is one of Hope's favorite pastimes. He has several close friends among them Jack Benny, Phyllis Diller and Ben Gimbel (a Philadelphia television ex ecutive)—whom he calls at 1 or 2 A.M. with the latest jokes. The group has come to be known as "the circuit" and that fall Hope paid Spiro Agnew his highest homage— he plugged him into the cir cuit. One circuit member con cedes that most of the jokes that hum along those night lines are "what you'd call dirty; Bob loves a good dirty joke and so does the Vice President" One recent joke on the circuit involved the last words spoken by Robert Kennedy as he lay dying on the floor of the hotel kitchen in Los Angeles. But early in the Adminis tration, some White House staffers became apprehensive about the Vice President's idea of a joke and suggested his image could be improved if he directed more of his shafts inward. They turned to the chief writer for Rowan and Martin's "Laugh In," Paul Keyes—a conserva tive Republican and former campaign TV adviser to Nix on, who later quit "Laugh‐In" in part because of its need ling of the Administration. They also asked for material from Hope, whose humor mines precisely that self‐de precating vein (making fun of his own nose, golf shots or cowardice).
ON those occasions where the two both contributed, there is some dispute about whose jokes are whose. One line Agnew used at a dinner —"I don't fly Air Force One. I fly Air Force Thirteen. It's a glider"—is credited to the Hope camp, but Keyes in dignantly contends, "That's not Hope's; that's my person al joke."
Some jokes can be traced to Hope because he has used identical lines in a different context. Hope recently said, "I'm not against criticism. A lot of it is justified. Only yes terday I read a real nasty piece about Danny Thomas and I thoroughly enjoyed it." Agnew used the same line, substituting Senator Fulbright for Danny Thomas.
Occasionally lines are open ly attributed to Hope. William Safire, a White House speech writer, recalls working on an Agnew speech shortly after the Vice President returned from his Asian tour last win ter. "He said, 'Get that joke Hope is telling about me in the Philippines.'" So the speech's opening includes this line: "I spoke to Bob Hope when I got back and he said he heard I'd done fine, but he thought it was a bit much for me to wade ashore at Manila."
Hope contributed to Ag new's speeches at both the 1969 and 1970 Gridiron din ners. As with his own ap pearances, he farmed the 1970 assignment out to his staff of eight writers, asking each of the four teams to turn in several pages of material. Then he selected the best and sent it on to the Vice Presi dent. Much of what he sent related to Mr. Agnew's recent New Orleans speech denounc ing the Eastern press estab lishment (a speech which Hope liked so much he called the Vice President to tell him so). Here is a sampling of what Hope's writers turned out—much of which the Vice President used:
"I'm fed up with being mis quoted. I never said Huntley and Brinkley are a funnier team than Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman.
"Nor did I ever say Eric Sevareid is the illegitimate son of Winnie Ruth Judd! Lizzie Borden, maybe. . .
"I have nothing against you fellows. Some of my best friends are newspapermen. In fact, only last week a news paperman bought a house on *my block . . . and so far no body's moved.
"It's easy to spot his house. . . It's the one without the 'For Sale' sign.
"Let me be frank. You peo ple have a tendency to over react, you become unduly alarmed over little things. What if we are going to re peal the First Amendment? There are still 24 others!
"I may not agree with ev erything you say, but believe me, I'll fight for 30 seconds for your right to say it.
"Newspapers perform a great service. I know at our house we couldn't do without The Baltimore Sun. We have two puppies and a parakeet.
"I wish they'd start pub lishing again [The Baltimore Sun was then on strike]. We tried The New York Times and it's not nearly as absor bent.
"I read The New York Times every day. I enjoy good fic tion.
"No, I really respect the Sunday edition of The New York Times. The only news paper that comes with a truss."
The two writers who turned out these particular jokes re sented the assignment. Like most of Hope's associates they are liberals who disapprove of his current politics, "We're reluctant dragoons," said one. "We hate writing for a re pressive reactionary like Ag new. But when you work for Hope these days, that's part of the job."
THE Hope‐Agnew relation ship has grown ever closer. The Vice President has at tended the weddings of Hope's two adopted daughters. The Hopes gave 14‐year‐old Kim Agnew a dog she calls "Lea." On Mrs. Agnew's birthday last April Hope came to dinner bearing a decanter of Italian liqueur shaped like a British soldier. During the Vice Pres ident's recent campaign tour, he stopped off at Hope's Palm Springs house for a golfing weekend — even though the comedian wasn't there.
But perhaps the most re vealing Hope‐Agnew encoun ter began at Ohio State Uni versity on June 7, 1969, when both men got honorary degrees (Hope's granted only after the faculty council turned it down and a deter mined President Novice Faw cett skirted faculty objections by making the nomination himself). At a luncheon before the ceremony, Hope called the Vice President "a solid American," but on the rostrum outside he needled him: "Ag new's library burned down and destroyed both of his books; one he hadn't even colored yet." The audience roared, the line was carried in newspapers all over the country and some people won dered how the Vice President would take being publicly ridiculed.
But Hope puts the incident in a different light. "Spiro loved that joke. The next January, on the way back from Vietnam, I stopped off at Guam. The commanding general said, The Vice Pres ident was through here the other day and left a book for you.' In the V.I.P. quar ters I found this book and a note inside which said, 'Look at page 22. I did it all myself.' Don't tell me he didn't ap preciate that joke."
"Of course, the Vice Pres ident appreciates Bob's hu tnor," says Frank Liberman, Hope's longtime press agent. "Bob made Spiro what he is today with those jokes about him all the time."
HOPE has often been lauded for daring to rib the mighty. "He scoffed at sacred cows, he satirized the stuffed shirts," reads an award from the Publicists Guild.
Certainly Hope, far more than any comedian since Will Rogers, has drawn his humor from politics and directed his jokes at the mightiest men in the land. But those who know his humor best—the men who write it—say the jokes are never really meant to scoff, satirize or prick balloons. "His stuff seems braver than it is," says Chuck Henry, who has written Hope's lines for 20 years. "When you examine one of his jokes, it's never lethal. We always pick on a man's superficial aspects. We never do anything about a politician that really matters —it's always their golf shots or their noses or their money —never their policies, never what they're doing to the country. That's the way Hope wants it."
"Look at how we handle Agnew," says another writer. "The thing we've hit hardest has been how wild he is on the golf course or a tennis court. Ever since he bounced that ball off Doug Sanders's head at the Hope Classic we've done the joke every possible way. Bob says he gets combat pay for playing golf with the Vice President; he says the Classic has been renamed the Blue Cross Open; he says the last time he played with him, Agnew hit a birdie, an eagle, a moose, an elk and a Mason. Now don't tell me that hurts Agnew. Hell, it's great for him. It makes every golf duff er in America identify with him."
Hope concedes much of this. He says he has never used political humor as a weapon or an instrument for change. "I just do it for comedy effect," he says, "to get people to laugh." He be lieves those who use humor for political or social pur poses — like the late Lennie Bruce or Mort Sahl — are doomed to failure because "they go a little too deep and people resent it, so they aren't invited any more." He feels his technique—"to prick but never deep enough to hurt"—has worked over the years. "I've been telling jokes about Presidents from the time Eisenhower tried to push the piano down the hall all the way through Johnson and the barbecue pit. But they love you for it. I've remained friends with them, so I know I haven't hurt them too much. They always invite us back."
"Any President knows that being close to Bob is good politics," says Allan Kalmus, one of his public relations men. "Nixon won't always be President, but Bob will still be there."
Hope's favorite example of a President's response oc curred at the U.S.O.'s 25th Anniversary Dinner in March, 1966. President Johnson ar rived unexpectedly and Hope played the situation for ev erything it was worth. Turn ing to the President, he said: "I want you to know that this material was written without the knowledge that you were going to be here (embarrassed gulp). Uh, it's nice to be back here in Washington or, as the Republicans call it, Camp Runamuck (laugh, pause, gulp). Nice to be back here in Birdland and I just wanted to say (delayed laugh, pause) I have to‐ do it, sir, it's on the paper (big laugh)." De scribing the scene later, Hope said, "Johnson just sat there and did straight man for me. He timed it like a minstrel end man. I'd tell the joke and look over his head and he'd look up and I'd catch his eye and it was just wha! wha! wha! Three big laughs."
But the best evidence of Hope's intent can be found on those rare occasions when he slips and says something truly offensive. At a 1968 din ner he turned toward Hubert Humphrey and ad ‐ libbed, "Whenever I look at the Vice President, I realize what great burdens our President has to carry." That brought down the house and Hope seemed gen uinely embarrassed. "I didn't mean it that way," he pro tested. "You know, I'd never say a thing like that." And he wouldn't.
One man who would is Mort Sahl. Over coffee at a Beverly Hills drug store the other day, he talked about his humor and Hope's. "I do satire and satire is essentially subversive. To do satire you have to be on the outside. We have enough people at the country club. When I was in obscurity in San Francisco I could say it all. I know the first time I go to dinner at the White House I'm through.
"Is Bob really satirizing anybody? Isn't he going to meet them for golf later — or before? If someone says, 'Agnew is the Richard Nixon of this Administration,' that's a satirical line. If you talk about Agnew hitting people on the head with golf balls, that's a joke."
When I brought up satire during my interview with Hope, Kalmus remarked, "Satire is what closed Sat urday night,' George Kauf man used to say." Across the table, Hope laughed and said, "That's right."
ANOTHER critic of Hope's humor is John Lahr, an edi tor of Evergreen Review and author of "Notes on a Cow ardly Lion," a biography of his father, Bert Lahr. "The satirist is an outsider," he says, "But the clowns—men like my father, Hope, Benny —are outsiders who crave to be insiders. The comedian's whole impulse is to be loved. They want applause, laugh ter, love. They can't risk being offensive because they might be pushed out in the cold again. That's why vir tually all clowns in the American theater have been conservative men.
"The great clowns — like Chaplin and my father — somehow remained outsiders even when they succeeded. Because whatever turned them to the stage—a sense of failure, of need—was not satisfied by success. Their wound stayed open and that kept them open and looking at life.
"But I don't think Rope ever had the kind of inner wound that makes an artist. He may have felt a bit out side, but that small craving was easily satisfied by suc cess. So today he's a true in sider. Like Will Rogers who said, 'I've never met a man I didn't like' — he may use political humor but ba sically he preaches accept ance, satisfaction with what is."
If Hope ever felt outside, perhaps it was because, he began as an immigrant. Les lie Towns Hope was born in Eltham, England, in 1903 and four years later his stone mason father brought the family to Cleveland. Lahr notes that many of America's clowns have been immigrants; yet, by contrast with an Ital ian or even an Irishman, an emigrant from England could n't have felt very alien.
Hope doesn't talk much about his early years; he rare ly talks at all about his inner life; so those who write about him probe vainly for the well springs of his character. Kalmus recalls a woman re porter who was interviewing Hope on an airplane. "She kept asking him why he worked so compulsively. He kept giving these offhand answers that didn't satisfy her. Finally, she got up to go to the ladies' room and I said, 'Bob, this gal comes from New York where they're very big on psychoanalysis. The only way to stop her is to tell her you work so hard be cause you're the fifth of seven sons and you had to compete for your mother's attention.' When the lady got back, she asked the question again. Bob gave her my answer and she smiled happily." Sure enough, her article re ported Hope's response, made in "a rare moment of intro spective analysis."
Whatever the reason, Hope turned early to a performing career: first as an amateur boxer, then as a softshoe dancer and blackface vaude villian. In the early thirties, he won featured roles in several Broadway musicals. In 1941, he made "Road to Zanzibar," the first in the "Road" series with Bing Cros by and Dorothy Lamour. Don Hartman, who wrote many of these films, recalls, "You could take a piece of chewing gum and flip it at a map; wherever it stuck you could lay a road picture so long as the people there were jokers who cook and eat strangers." The countless shots of Bob and Bing being boiled for din ner by incoherent savages may have contributed to many middle‐aged Americans' naive image of Asia and Africa.
ALTHOUGH these were comedy roles, Hope wasn't a slapstick, pie‐in‐the‐face comedian. Photographs from those days show a suave, dapper young man with a profile good enough for the romantic lead. In the years since, Hope has made his ski nose a comic trademark, but he has never been bad‐look ing and this, John Lahr notes, sets him apart from many comedians of his era. "Most of the great clowns were either Jews or very deeply ugly. But with a little polish and money, Hope could hob nob with society."
In the late thirties, Hope developed his irreverent, topical style. But he makes clear today that it stemmed not from any abiding interest in public affairs but from a fruitless search for a surefire formula. "I was floundering around trying lots of things. Then all at once I found that if I really moved, sort of Winchell style, it worked. I would just fly, almost run away from the audience. They once timed me at 44 jokes, in four minutes."
And the rapid delivery led naturally to topical material. For with one‐liners tripping on each other's heels, Hope depended on instant recogni tion, material as fresh yet familiar as the morning head lines. So what better than the headlines themselves? "Best of all was something that had just happened, something in the audience's mind that no body had mentioned yet," he says. "They delight in that. The light goes on and—wow —they love it."
By his start on the Pepso dent show in 1938, the for mat was set and Hope has not tampered with it since. The character is the guy in front of the drugstore, the fastest tongue in town. And his lines are brisk, flip wisecracks de livered with a mixture of breezy self‐confidence and pouting frustration: "This is Bob 'Use Pepsodent 'Cause Your Girl Won't Let You Squeeze 'er if You Got Va cancies Under Your Breeze? Hope."
One of his prime assets is economy of effort. A few deft syllables, delivered with ex quisite timing. At its best, such dialogue can be dazzling. Take this exchange with a girl in the park:
HOPE: Some park.
Gnu.: Some park.
HOPE: Some grass.
GIRL: Some grass.
HOPE: Some dew.
Gnu.: I don't.
Hope's jokes have often been called "one‐liners," but Mort Lachman, Hope's chief writer, says this is mislead ing. "We rarely do a single line. More typically we'll do an establishing line and then run a whole series of jokes off it, making it pay off three or four times." Norman Sul livan, another Hope writer, likens this to "casting with a fly rod—flicking in and out."
THE image is apt because Hope's jokes float on the surface of life like a trout fly on a mountain lake. They rarely deal with emotion or the human predicament. They never reveal Hope's own feelings or much of anything about him. Some feel there is little there to reveal. "Bob's been so preoccupied with building an ever‐bigger ca reer, the private man has long since merged with the public image," says one col league.
He has been married to the former nightclub singer Do lores Reade for 36 years and they have four adopted chil dren. But it is no secret in Hollywood that there is little intimacy left in the marriage. "Bob is a bit Rabelaisian," says one of his press agents. "But with all the beautiful women he's acted with, it would be pretty hard to resist the temptation." Dolores is a devout Catholic who attends mass every day and tells in terviewers that life is "a vale of tears."
Next to his career, Hope's greatest interest is undoubted ly golf. When he stepped up recently to accept the Golf Writers Golden Tee Award, he quipped, "You know this is my real racket. The other thing is just a sideline." He belongs to about 18 country clubs and has played golf on some 1,500 courses around the world. His Hollywood home is only two minutes from the Lakeside course, where he plays frequently, and if he doesn't want to go that far he has a 190‐yard hole in his back yard. Of late, he has begun carrying a golf club everywhere, even on the long walks he takes at 2 A.M.
But Hope loves all sports. Toots Shor says, "When Bob and I go out of town we'll watch anything: football, baseball, racing, boxing. I think Bob would go watch a guy throw quoits." He owns a piece of the Cleveland In dians and once owned part of the Los Angeles Rams. Rais ing funds for the U. S. Olym pic team, he said, "Nothing strengthens the backbone of our country more than the hard‐hitting, All‐American feeling toward solid sporting events."
"Bob admires success in sports, success in anything," says Mort Lachman. He's not so wild about segments of society who haven't made it. In 1966, an interviewer asked whether he'd been involved in the civil‐rights movement. "Not at all," he said. Mort Sahl recalls Hope rushing up to tell him a joke about "making Martin .Luther King a cardinal so L. B. J. doesn't have to kiss anything but his ring." And in 1968 when the Oscar ceremonies were de: layed following King's assas sination, Hope as m.c. was greeted by what The Times called "a few amazed and embarrassed titters" when he said, "About the delay of two days, it didn't affect me, but it's been tough on the nomi nees. How would you like to spend two days in a crouch?"
Some critics feel Hope's disinclination to probe be neath the surface of life has produced a prefabricated hu mor which simply isn't very funny in a world so increas ingly absurd. Some audiences laugh even before Hope's punch lines, as if they were responding not to the joke but to the man. "We're pro gramed to laugh at certain people," says one critic. "For more than a generation we've been told Bob Hope is one of the funniest men alive. So we laugh even when it isn't funny any more."
Mort Lachman concedes his boss is a "limited" comedian. "He can't do faces or pan tomime. He's not a physical comic at all. He doesn't tell stories particularly well. He's the worst dialect man I've ever heard" (Phyllis Diller disagrees: "He does two great dialects — Negro and fag — he just can't do them in public"). But Lachman concludes: "He just happens to be the greatest monologist in the business."
HE also happens to be the greatest businessman in the business. He drives a wicked bargain. " 'Not enough' is the phrase I've heard most often from Bob," says his agent, Jimmy Saphier. "Be hind Bob's easy‐going manner is an active executive's mind," says Dolores. "If God hadn't given him his great talent for making people laugh he would have made an astute businessman." He's done pret ty well as it is, parlaying in vestments in oil and Southern California real estate into a fortune variously estimated at between $150,000,000 and $700,000,000 (making him by far the wealthiest man in show business).
He is the ultimate entre preneur of laughs. Over the years, he has assembled a peerless organization — Hope Enterprises, Inc., and its var ious adjuncts — which grinds out an endless stream of profitable projects. Hope could be called a comedy broker, a middleman between his eight talented writers and the public. There are those who criticize his wholesale reliance on writers (once, coming down on a grass run way, he shouted, "Quick, give me grass jokes"), but nobody can deny the formula works.
Just as important as the writers is Hope's stable of public‐relations men. He has one full‐time publicity direc tor, an earnest young man named Bill Faith; two more who spend much of their time on Hope—Kalmus on the East Coast, Liberman in the West; and various others at N. B. C. At any given time, perhaps seven men are work ing to publicize Bob Hope.
And several of his col leagues are frank to admit that Hope's greatest single public relations effort has been his entertainment of the military at home and abroad for the last 29 years. "That doesn't mean it's just a gim mick," says one. "He's genu inely patriotic. But he's very shrewd, too. He knows full well what it means to his image and audience ratings. After all, if you counted just the G.I.'s he's entertained in three wars, their relatives and friends, you'd have all the audience he'd ever need right there."
It has been said that the turning point in Hope's ca reer was May 6, 1941, when he did his first radio show for servicemen at March Field, California. From then until World War II was over he traveled ceaselessly to en tertain troops in England, the Continent, North Africa and the South Pacific.
But almost everybody was doing that then. Perhaps a more important turning point was December, 1948, when he accepted an invitation from Stuart Symington, then Secretary of the Air Force, to entertain troops of the Berlin airlift. This began Hope's overseas Christmas Tours which — with a gap from 1951 to 1953 — have continued every year since. These trips have generated a torrent of publicity and re cently a spectacularly suc cessful annual television spe cial. This year the special got an almost unheard of 46.6 per cent of the viewing audi ence, the best for any pro gram in television history. And the audience generated by this show did no harm to Hope's other eight Chrysler specials—six of which ranked in the top 11 of the year. (These other specials have in creasingly been built around Hope's appearances at other popular, all‐American events: a fund‐raising dinner for his pet project, the Eisenhower Medical Center, or the open ing of the new Madison
"Hope is unquestionably the most valuable property in television today," says one network executive. "And I'd credit much of that to the identification he's made with the G.I.'s in Vietnam:"
Spectacular exposure like this has boosted Hope into a new bracket unmeasurable by mere Nielsen ratings. He has become an American in stitution, "an animated na tional monument like Old Faithful or Niagara Falls." His public treats him with a res pect bordering on reverence. One night he called a movie theater to see what time the show began and the manager asked, "What time can you be here?" When Frank Liber man asked a long ‐ distance operator to place a call to Hope, she said, "I shall be honored." When the chief kidnapper of Frank Sinatra Jr. was on trial several years ago, an F. B. I. man testified that the gang had originally planned to kidnap one of Hope's sons, but abandoned the idea because — in their words — "Hope is such a good American and has done so much in entertaining troops."
There is scarcely an award given by the Government, the military, veterans' as sociations or civic groups which Hope has not won. They range from the Freedom Leadership Award of the Freedom Foundation at Val ley Forge ("not for any ac complishments as an enter tainer but for his over‐all stature as an exemplary American citizen"), through the Sylvanus Thayer Award from West Point ("for giving freely his time and talent to raise the morale and warm the hearts of two generations of servicemen") to the Con gressional Gold Medal voted in 1951 to "Bob Hope, Ameri can patriot . . . one of the great humanitarians of our time."
HOPE'S public‐relations men have never been reticent about these distinctions. In 1952, a company largely owned by Hope and his as sociates applied for a Denver television license. Appearing before a Federal Communica tions Commission examiner, Jimmy Saphier submitted a 78‐page document on Hope's career. Noting that "Bob Hope, from the very inception of his professional career, has devoted a large portion of his talent in the interest of: PUBLIC SERVICE," it went on to list, with accom panying pictures, hundreds of awards Hope had received, largely for the entertainment of servicemen.
The next day, while testi fying about these awards, Saphier said, "Bob has never made an appearance at a camp without making certain to go over to the hospital and visit all the men there." Then he told about the day Hope was playing golf in Hawaii and suddenly remembered a birthday party for patients at the Shriners Hospital. "He said, 'Let's surprise them. We'll play nine holes instead of 18' . . . He walked into the hospital and spent at least five minutes with each of those kids and spread a lot of good cheer, for which there could be no publicity or pay off of any kind except in the knowledge that he was doing some good or brightening the lives of some people."
The opposing lawyer ob jected and the examiner or dered Saphier to stick to the point. "I'll do that," he said, "although it is pretty difficult not to get emotional about that man."
Hope may have sought no payoff, but he got the tele vision license.
CERTAINLY those visits to hospital wards are no mere publicity gimmick. Hope cred its them with turning him in to a hawk on Vietnam. "You go into Japan a couple of years ago and the colonel says, 'Come into the burn ward,' and you go in and you see Americans burned to a crisp and you go into the in tensive‐care ward around Danang and you see those kids — and if you've had a little of this before, which had in 1943 around Bizerte, seen Americans also burned, and smell that stuff, you know it gets a little in your blood and you say, Well, Christ, what's going on, here you got guys that are really fighting under orders and paying off, and you say, How can this guy sit back in Washington and endanger this guy's life over there? It's not exactly a solid foot ball team going on here and it kinda bugs you a little."
Those who know him best believe the 1966 Christmas trip set Hope on his current course. He'd been to Vietnam twice before, but in 1966 he got particularly close to Gen. William Westmoreland. "Bob and Westy would sit up talk ing a lot that trip," recalls Gen. Emmett (Rosie) O'Donnell (Ret,), president of the U.S.O., who accompanied Hope on the 1966 tour. "They'd talk about the war, what was happening at home, what it all meant. And that reinforced what Bob was seeing in the hospitals. He was terribly torn up by those wards, trying to be gay with a guy whose guts are coming out. He'd put on a bold front, but when he got into the back room with his drink — vodka and orange juice—he'd ask why we subject our boys to this, to get killed and maimed for what — to fight but not to win."
On Dec. 30, 1966, Hope arrived back in Los Angeles and told newsmen that Viet nam was "an experience that defies description." When a reporter said he seemed more aggressive about the war, he said, "I'm afraid I am. But I'd rather be a hawk than a pigeon."
In the weeks that followed, he became increasingly out spoken. On Jan. 18, 1967, he told an interviewer, "Every body I talked to there wants to know why they can't go in and finish it, and don't let anybody kid you about why we're there. If we weren't, those Commies would have the whole thing, and it wouldn't be long until we'd be looking at them off the coast of Santa Monica."
That winter Hope attended the Alfafa Club dinner in Washington. Toots Shor re calls sitting around with him in his suite afterwards. "There was Symington, Clark Clifford, Bill Rogers, John Daly, Rosie O'Donnell and General Quesada. We started talking about the war and Bob was more hawkish than any of those guys, including the generals."
One man in that suite who has watched Hope's evolu tion with growing concern is Stuart Symington, long the comedian's closest friend in Washington. Once a hard liner himself, Symington has become increasingly skeptical about our role in Vietnam. His growing difference with his old friend is a delicate matter which the Missouri Senator prefers not to discuss directly.
"I'm so dedicated to Bob as a human being we just don't talk about those things any more," he said. "But I can tell you this. I used to think a lot like he does when I was only on the Armed Services Com mittee listening to generals. Then Bill Fulbright asked me to come on the Foreign Rela tions Committee, too, and I've been getting both sides. I'm afraid Bob still hears only one side."
When I repeated this to Hope, his voice quavered for a moment — the only open emotion he showed in our interview — and he said, "Oohhh, Mr. Stuart Syming ton used to be the biggest hawk ever known. Then he got all mixed up with Ful bright and they became picky, picky, picky, our Stuart who I love so much."
One of his writers feels the policy break with Syming ton was a crucial event in Hope's swing to the right. "Symington was a civilizing influence on Bob," he said. "Now his role as political mentor has been taken by Agnew."
Just how far Hope has swung depends on whom you talk to:
Rosie O'Donnell: "Like a lot of us, Bob wonders where this country is going and whether democracy is a via ble instrument in this day and age in our country. Govern ment has three basic aims to maintain international se curity, to maintain law and order and to maintain a sound currency—and it isn't doing any of them right now. Bob understands that the mili tary wins the war and the far‐out liberals, promising everything to all these minor ity groups, lose the peace."
Senator George Murphy: "Bob feels a real sense of mission these days. He knows he's got access to a lot of high‐level information others don't have and he's worried, just like I am, about getting the facts to the people here and abroad. Imagine if we could harness the potential of people like Bob Hope and Duke Wayne for a world propaganda tour to tell the truth about America. It would be more effective than all the atom bombs and troops we have. I remember when Joan Crawford went to Africa she outdrew the Queen two to one. Imagine what Danny Thomas could do in Lebanon."
One of Hope's writers: "It's not so much that Bob's a right‐winger. He's just ter ribly unsophisticated and simplistic. He doesn't under stand what's going on and he fears what he doesn't un derstand. I'm afraid he's al lowed himself to be used by the far right."
HOPE'S first appearance as a national spokesman came in October, 1969, when he ac cepted the honorary chair manship of the Week of Na tional Unity. Hope did little more than give a couple of news conferences to publicize the week, which was designed to counteract the Moratorium demonstrations by displaying American flags, keeping lights on during the day, and sponsoring various patriotic observances. Much of the week's financial and organiza tional support came from Knotts Berry Farm in Buena Park, Calif., owned by Walter Knott, a long‐time contribu tor to right‐wing extremists.
Boston's Wake Up Amer ica Day, at which Hope ap peared last April 26, was the brainchild of Arthur Stivalet ta, a Dedham contractor. Stivaletta had not been active in such matters until the night before the first Mora torium when he had a dream in which six men appeared to him — Pope John XXIII, John F. Kennedy, Robert Ken nedy, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln and Bob Hope. Inspired, he hired a plane and flew over the Bos ton Common the next day dropping leaflets which ac cused the Moratorium demon strators of "abetting and com forting the enemy." Stivaletta is probably a well‐meaning nail, but he has been very close to Young Americans for Freedom. A few days be fore Wake Up America Day, Daniel J. Rea Jr., head of Massachusetts Y. A. F., said, "We are trying to use rallies, such as the one to Wake Up America, to radicalize people to the right just as the stu dent mobilization groups are trying to radicalize people to the left."
When I asked Hope wheth er the Y. A. F. role in the Boston rally bothered him, he said, "No, not at all. I con sider them a pretty good group. I don't consider they're too extreme or anything, not when you see some of these other cats that stand around, these Students for a Demo cratic Society. Some of the things they'll say will shock the hell out of you."
Honor America Day—last summer's July 4 spectacular in Washington—was backed by more traditional elements. Yet it, too, aroused contro versy. The Mankiewicz‐Bra den newspaper column said it had been inspired by the White House to work up sup port for the President's poli cies. The rally's organizers heatedly deny this, contend ing that the idea developed during a May 19 conversation between Hobart Lewis, the Readers Digest editor, and the Rev. Billy Graham. But even the conservative Wash ington Star, a month before the rally, said its list of spon sors read "for the most part like a roster of President Nixon's personal friends and political supporters," and warned that unless its back ing was substantially broad ened it would "turn out to be just another partisan and essentially divisive demon stration."
Democratic sponsors among them Senators Mans field, Muskie and McGovern —were quickly rounded up, in part through the efforts of Hope's friend, Stuart Sy mington, and by the time the rally took place its backing was reasonably broad. But the "cooperating organiza tions" included Young Amer icans for Freedom, the Amer ican Legion, Citizens for God and. Country, the National Rifle Association, the Nation al Guard Association, and not a single representative of the New Left.
And this year Hope has en dorsed and made appearances for a number of Republican candidates, including George Murphy, Governor Rhodes and Republican gubernatorial candidate Lenore Romney in Michigan.
SUCH activity would seem to violate an old show‐busi ness adage: "Don't take sides on anything your audience really cares about." Hope re calls that Sam Goldwyn once wanted him to go to Wash ington to do "some kind of a show for F. D. R." But Albert Lasker, president of the ad vertising company which handled his Pepsodent Radio show, vehemently opposed the project. "Bob, if I were you, I'd stay out of politics," he said. "You're selling tooth paste. Republicans brush their ‐ teeth, too." Through most of his career Hope has followed that advice. Those closest to him knew he was a Republican — and made substantial contributions to Republican campaigns — but he carefully preserved his public neutrality. In 1965, when word leaked out that he was firing off telegrams to Washington demanding a tougher stance in Southeast Asia, Hope confessed some uneasiness about his hawkish position. "When the public knows what your politics are, it makes it harder to make jokes at the expense of both sides," he told an inter viewer. "Suddenly your jokes are colored. Besides, the spon sors don't like it."
But when I interviewed him last month he betrayed no doubts about the wisdom of his current course. He feels that the country is in such a crisis that ordinary rules do not apply "People appreciate the fact that you would stand up at this time when we need it so badly. I think if you go out in an ordinary year when we're just floating along and then you become political, it's a different kind of thing." Moreover, he suggested that he could afford to ignore the people who disagreed with his "patriotic activities" be cause they represented such a tiny minority of Americans. "When I step out and do an Honor America Day, I really honestly think it's the way all people feel about the con ditions in the country today . . . I'm sure it's on the right side because you're just talk ing about our country and most everybody feels the same way about it."
Hope has little patience with the minority that doesn't feel that way. When Kal mus once suggested that one of his speeches was "a bit too patriotic for my taste," Hope shot back incredulous ly, "How can you be too pa triotic?" More than half his appearances these days are on college campuses — where he reports his reception is "just marvelous" — but most of the places he visits are little touched by radicalism and youth culture: Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia, Clemson, Bradley, Auburn. He sees the dissidents only as a few raised fists or tousled heads on the edge of his crowds, so he brands them as "fringe groups that are trying to louse it up, backed by certain people, subversive forces."
Some members of his staff feel he is growingly out of touch even with the troops he visits every year in Viet nam. "He just doesn't under stand how the G.I. of today feels," says one of his writers. "When he sees a V sign in his audience he thinks two guys want to go to the bath room." Another says Bole refuses to believe reports that many soldiers in 'Viet nam smoke pot: "He thinks they only get high off him."
Although his reception in Vietnam is still generally en thusiastic, there are signs that some G.I.'s no longer ap preciate Hope as their fathers did. Newsweek reported that Hope was met by "a barrage of boos" last December when he said President Nixon bad asked hini to tell the troops he had "a solid plan for end ing the war."
And just last month, Ken neth D. Smith, entertainment coordinator for Special Serv ices in Europe, told Ohio newsmen that entertainers like Hope and Georgie Jessel were "out of tune" with most U. S. soldiers overseas. "The kind of entertainment popu lar 20 years ago," he said, fails to bring laughs and ap plause from soldiers turned onto pot‐smoking and rock music." When this report reached Bill Faith's office in Hollywood, Hope's public relations operation ground into high gear. Transconti nental phone calls buzzed back and forth for two days, resulting in a claim from Mr. Smith that he had been mis quoted, an official disclaimer from the Pentagon and a let ter from U. S. O. to Variety contending that Hope was still "socko" with the troops. "If there is anything resembling an everlasting American in stitution — Uncle Sam with out the whiskers, if you please — that man is Bob Hope," the letter said.
Hope believes that such distortions develop because the news media simply are not telling the truth about Vietnam. He has remained skeptical about the reports of a massacre at Mylai. And in 1969 Hope accused N. 13. C. — his own network — of slanting a filmed report which indicated that Negro soldiers in Vietnam were treated dif ferently from whites. Charg ing that the networks "look for provocative clips and a lot of times will rig them," he said the N. B. C. film was "anti‐American." And he added: "This kind of thing could cause censorship, you know. They're taking a hard look at this in Washington today."
Thus he sees his annual trip to Vietnam as serving two equally important functions— —entertaining the G.I.'s there and bringing back film which will accurately portray these soldiers to the American pub lic.
At the end of his hour‐and a‐half Christmas special broadcast last Jan. 15, Hope delivered an earnest homily to his audience on "the in curable humanitarianism of our average G.I."
"The number of them who devote their free time, energy and money to aiding Viet namese families and caring for orphans would surprise you," he said, moving into a long interview with two soldiers who had been nurs ing an undernourished Viet namese boy back to health. "That's what they're prac tically all like," he went on. "And don't let that image get tarnished by the occasional combat‐disturbed casualty who may freak‐out‐and‐cl eate the horrible headline. . ."
He concluded by urging full support on the home front for "these men who lay their lives on the line every day." In return, he said, "They ask for one thing . . . time to do a job. For us to be patient, to believe in them, so they can bring us an honorable peace. While we at home bicker over the speed of the troop withdrawals and debate the fine points of the Presi dent's plan, these men cannot afford‐ that luxury."
THIS plea for support of the President's Vietnam policy concluded a show made pos sible only by substantial logistical support from the Department of Defense. The Pentagon supplied a huge C‐140 transport to take Hope, his cast and film crew (73 persons in all) around the world. It supplied helicopters to ferry them from base to base in Vietnam as well as ground transportation at every stop. Other incidental expenses — for food while in the field, stages and sound systems, and the time of es cort and Special Service men assigned to the troupe—cer tainly runs the cost to the taxpayer well up into six fig ures.
But considering that the January show had the largest audience in the history of television (27,260,000 house holds, according to Nielsen), the Pentagon got its money's worth. ■
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1970/10/04/archives/this-is-bob-politicianpatriotpublicist-hope.html
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