Visitors shouldn't expect splendor when they see the suites, Harris warns. "It was the VIP suite, so it was considerably nicer than the wards back then, but it's a huge contrast to modern hospital rooms. It's like a bad 1955 hotel room. But walking into it really gives you a sense of what it was like."
For Plested, the incident that exemplifies the differences between press coverage in 1955 versus today revolves around a set of red silk pajamas the press corps gave Eisenhower to commemorate his 65th birthday, on October 14. Plested arranged for the PJs to be adorned with five gold stars and monogrammed with the phrase "Much Better, Thanks." The President liked them so much that he wore them in a photo that wound up on the cover of Life magazine.
Brett Amole
Still writing after all these years: Eisenhower chronicler
Dolores Plested.
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A restored Eisenhower left Denver in November, and afterward, Plested mostly reported about individuals of less national significance -- but there were exceptions. The first vacation taken by Jackie Kennedy after the 1963 assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy, was in Aspen; she was accompanied by family members such as young John-John Kennedy and future senator Robert Kennedy. Plested was assigned to get the story, but she faced an unanticipated obstacle. "One of the photographers I got wanted to give them a lot of privacy," she says, "so I had to sneak the pictures myself."
Most of the folks in these snapshots have gone on to their final reward, as have the majority of Plested's colleagues. "There aren't many of the KMYR people left," she admits, "so mostly I stay in touch with the kids." She's also planning to take another pass at Some Reminiscences Along the Way because "there are a lot of typos. I want to get it right."
No doubt Ike would have liked it that way.
Pubic access: When the Kobe Bryant trial that's expected to take place next year is finally over and assorted commentators have finally exhausted the question of who got off in every sense of the phrase, Denver attorney Pamela Mackey should offer seminars in how to handle the press. She may not be a favorite of Saturday Night Live faux newscaster Tina Fey, whose recent Mackey routine was recapped by the Denver Post in its sports section, of all places, but she deserves recognition as the media manipulator of the year.
Why? Because Mackey knew that if she could get sexually titillating factoids into the marketplace of (usually boring) ideas via this month's two-part preliminary hearing, members of the punditocracy would go bonkers, and man, have they ever. Reporters are now commonly referring to the young woman who says Bryant raped her as the basketballer's "accuser" -- a word that carries a pejorative taint -- and many legal experts have already buried the prosecution case. The only thing talking-head Craig Silverman seems to like better than treating Eagle County District Attorney Mark Hurlbert like Zippy the Pinhead is lingering lovingly over words like "semen" and "yellow panties." Somebody hose this guy off.
Which isn't to say that such specifics should be banned from discussion. The Aspen Daily News's decision to become a Kobe-free zone is an obvious publicity stunt designed to captivate the likes of Orlando Sentinel columnist Kathleen Parker, who described the move as a triumph for Americans "tired of feeling like they need a shower after reading the newspaper or watching the evening news." Sterling Greenwood, publisher of the rival Aspen Free Press, understands the silliness of this gesture; in a letter to Westword, he vowed that his paper would ban Bryant in favor of covering "a sodomy case in Buzzardsville, Co., where a wino has been reportedly spreading jelly on his male member and allowing the town dawgs to lick it off."
To put it another way, not reporting about a legitimate but unwholesome news story is as wrong as doing it in a libidinous, heavy breathing way that's wholly inappropriate to what may have been a serious crime. But more power to Mackey for knowing that so many media types would take to the low road like a four-wheeler in a mud pit. If you decide to launch a lecture series, Ms. Mackey, I'll be the first to sign up.
