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SISTER ALICE: Mr. Mason, it's hard to believe
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that you're the right person for the job.
PERRY MASON: I'm the only person for this job.
♪ ("SOLID GROUND" BY MICHAEL KIWANUKA PLAYS) ♪
It's a complicated case.
This one's really got its hooks in me.
♪ (MUSIC INTENSIFIES, CONCLUDES) ♪
This is my grandfather, Julius Rosenberg.
And this is
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg together.
My father and my uncle were...
around ten and six...
um, when they were electrocuted.
They were accused of stealing the atom bomb secret.
I wanna ask my dad
how people started thinking about
why Ethel and Julius stole the atom bomb secret.
Why he accused them.
What happened was that
the government of the United States wanted to...
make your grandma and grandpa...
make up some lies about a lot of people,
so that these people,
who the government of the United States didn't like,
would all get put in jail.
But they refused to tell those lies because if they did,
then other people would be killed.
What I wanna do is I wanna say
to the people who killed my parents,
25 years ago, you killed two people,
but you did not crush our struggle.
We are still here, and we are still struggling,
and we are united in the statement
that it will never happen again.
♪ ♪
Barry Farber: Roy Cohn, when he was virtually just a teenager,
sent Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair.
You've had 30 years,
30 years since the Rosenbergs were executed.
Have you spent one of those nights
sleepless for sending this couple to the chair?
Of course not, Barry. This couple was convicted by a jury,
and if ever the death penalty were appropriate,
it was in that case.
♪ ♪
Is there a police officer?
(indistinct dialogue)
Roy Cohn: What can I say?
That I haven't been discreet?
I never claimed to be discreet.
(indistinct chatter)
Hey, Ernie. Come on.
I claim to be upfront and totally candid.
And I claim not to be a hypocrite.
We believe that the free world is gonna win the Cold War,
and win this fight by one thing: the truth.
I'm a guy who's taken tough positions,
starting with the Rosenberg case,
starting with the McCarthy period.
I don't see the difference
between Nazism and Hitler on the one hand,
and Communism on the other hand.
What I do, I do on the basis of moral judgments
as I make them, as only I must make them,
according to my own conscience.
I reserve that right, the right to make judgments
about myself and other people,
and have other people make them about me.
Someone wants to be my detractor,
that is that person's privilege.
I just don't care.
Pat Buchanan: "I'll show them what the national interest is.
I'll hold up the army to ridicule."
I said that?
-According to a book I read. -Well, read another book.
(indistinct dialogue)
Cohn: I found out one thing in life.
Don't ever threaten unless you intend to follow through.
♪ ♪
Cohn: Everything I do has to be true.
I will not say anything that I cannot repeat under oath.
♪ ♪
Peter Manso: In 1980, I went to "Playboy Magazine,"
and I said I'd like to do an interview
of Roy Cohn for the magazine.
Manso (on tape): Testing, testing.
Roy Cohn, Peter Manso.
Actually, why don't we do this? Why don't we just break here?
Cohn (on tape): Okay. Have we covered a lot of...
Manso (on tape): We're getting there, we're getting there.
Manso: I simply called Roy at his law firm,
Saxe, Bacon, & Bolan in New York,
uh, left a message, and five minutes later,
the phone rang, and it was Roy at the other end of the phone.
"Sounds interesting. When do you wanna
get together to talk about it?"
♪ ♪
We started taping at his place in North Greenwich,
an hour or so north of New York.
Cohn: Okay, go ahead.
Manso: Uh, so, presumably, your clients,
the wealthy, social register types, da da da,
have come to you over the years because you gained a reputation
for getting things done. For winning.
Does all this go back to what you learned from McCarthy?
The so-called "Achilles heel" technique?
Cohn: Uh, I wouldn't say
it's what I learned from McCarthy.
I think it's what I started learning during the Rosenberg trial,
what I learned at the US district attorney's office,
when I made up my mind that law is an adversary profession.
One side wins, one side loses.
And I don't-- I don't like to lose.
-I hate to lose. -Manso: Mm-hmm.
Cohn: So, I just made up my mind I was gonna do
everything I could in the way of careful preparation...
-Manso: Mm-hmm. -Cohn: ...in the way of tough fighting
to be a winner.
Manso: It became clear to me right away
that my stereotyping of Roy was inadequate.
To call him evil, it's true,
but it doesn't explain 100 other things about Roy Cohn.
He was bright, he was contentious,
but I think what appealed to me most about Roy is
that he was a lawless madman.
Cohn: I would say I'm probably more of a maverick.
I do have a crazy list of clients.
The usual reaction isn't "Ah, Roy Cohn represents the mob."
It's "Roy Cohn and Studio 54.
"Roy Cohn and anti-Communism.
"Roy Cohn and the archdiocese.
"Roy Cohn, the friend of...
"the lawyer for Donald Trump.
"Roy Cohn, good friend of George Steinbrenner
"who owns the New York Yankees.
"Roy Cohn, the friend of congressmen,
senators, judges."
♪ ♪
(explosion)
Narrator: Someone had passed America's atomic bomb secrets to Russia.
This was an undisputed fact that the whole world knew.
The federal government had laid the crime at the doorstep
of two native New Yorkers, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
♪ ♪
Michael Meeropol: My parents grew up during the Great Depression.
The Communists were the ones who were fighting
for the rights of tenants and workers,
and so, they were naturally drawn to it.
In World War II, given the wartime alliance
with the Soviet Union,
Communism was allied with Americanism.
It became a natural thing
to politically support
the survival of the Soviet Union.
My father made a big deal at the trial
that he liked the Soviet Union
because it had torn the guts out of the Hitler beast
that killed six million of my fellow Jews.
♪ ♪
When my children were young,
they learned that Judge Kaufman
sentenced their grandparents to death.
David Greenglass, my mother's brother,
who was a machinist at Los Alamos,
claimed that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
recruited him to be a spy for the Soviet Union.
And that's where Roy Cohn enters the scene.
He coached David Greenglass to develop his testimony,
examined David Greenglass at the trial.
The two of them together were the reason
my parents were convicted,
and the reason they were executed.
(birds chirping)
Ivy Meeropol: Think back when you were a kid.
-Did you-- Were you aware of Roy Cohn? -No.
In 1955, I read
"The Judgment of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg" by John Wexley.
And there was the reference to Roy Cohn,
and I'd already heard about him because of McCarthy.
-And how old were you? -1955, I was 12.
-Wow. That's quite a book to read when you're 12. -Yeah,
well, 'cause I didn't understand it much, but it certainly--
the name Roy Cohn stuck in my mind
'cause I had seen the stuff on TV about McCarthy.
And I knew that McCarthy was a "bad man,"
not that I knew any of the details.
♪ ♪
Cohn: I had graduated from college and law school,
and gotten both degrees in three years and four months.
I went to the US attorney's office.
I was a kid. I was not yet 20.
I had prosecuted internal security cases, counterfeiting,
narcotics, and I had a minor name because of that.
I examined David Greenglass.
I was then...
a big, fat 23 years old
and I sort of put the case together.
I think that the death sentence
imposed by Judge Irving R. Kaufman
in the Atom Spy Trial had a very strong deterrent effect.
I think it's been a very good year
on the anti-Communist front in this country.
Alan Dershowitz: He was known as the guy
who got the conviction and execution of the Rosenbergs.
And I think he saw this as a stepping stone to glory,
and it worked.
♪ ♪
Cohn: I became Chief Counsel
for the Senate Investigating Committee
when Senator McCarthy became chairman.
Government agencies had covered up security risks
and had left people in sensitive positions.
Our job was to show cover-ups.
David Lloyd Marcus: He had to always be the tough guy in the room.
He had to be the one who was the most macho.
Now, how to do it in the '50s? Well, you went after Communists.
I don't think you understood the question.
The question was, do you know this man?
Can you look at the picture and tell us whether you know him?
I would assume the answer is yes or no.
Senator Joseph McCarthy: Can you answer
the simple question of whether he's a Communist?
-(indistinct) -Abraham Unger: Your statements--
Your statements about him
-have made it difficult for me-- -(banging)
-I want it put on the record-- -McCarthy: Officer, will you remove the man?
-Will you remove him? -I want--
David Lloyd Marcus: McCarthy didn't know anything about Communists, really,
but Roy found
by being on his shoulder,
by pushing, pushing, pushing him,
he was a mover and shaker.
He didn't wanna be in McCarthy's seat being the Senator,
but he wanted to be the guy behind the power brokers.
Cohn: The last way to be politically ambitious
as a Jewish New York Democrat, which I was and am,
is by becoming counsel for Senator McCarthy,
so I was hardly down there for any...
political ambition.
I was down there to do more in this type of work,
in which I believed then, and which I believe now.
Taki Theodoracopulos: Roy was a hero to many...
(applause)
who had seen Communism up close,
as was the case of myself.
For me, Communism was far worse
than any-- anything I'd ever seen.
I could imagine the worst thing you could be was a Communist
because you were a danger to--
To our way of life, to our way of thinking,
and Roy was brought up in that climate.
Tony Kushner: I imagine this guy
coming of age during World War II,
and the terror
of what would we happen when we ceased to be
the only country in the world that had nuclear weapons.
The Communist Party is not a political party.
It's a criminal conspiracy.
Its object is the overthrow of the government of the United States
by force and violence
as soon as the right time arrives.
Yes, they're traitors to America.
Woman: Why don't we do something about it?
They are enemies! They are not Americans!
(indistinct shouting)
They are homosexuals! They're Communists!
-(yelling) -They're Communists!
Kushner: The two groups that were initially tagged
with the red taint
more than any other groups in this country
were homosexuals and Jews.
-(gavel banging) -McCarthy: There's another group...
about which I hesitate to...
talk, but I think the picture isn't complete unless we do.
Some of them have that unusual affliction
because of no fault of their own.
Most, of course, because they're morally weak.
♪ ♪
The pervert is easy prey to the blackmailer.
It follows that if blackmailers can exhort money from these individuals,
espionage agents can use the same type of pressure.
They're dangerous to this country.
We know that Communists writing about the United States
are not giving the true picture.
And that is why we don't believe
that Amerika Haus, which is supposed to give a true picture
of life in the United States,
should contain books written by Communists,
who are dedicated to wiping the United States
off the face of the Earth
and substituting the freedom we have in America
for the spiritual and mental enslavement
you have in the Soviet Union.
Announcer: The McCarthy Committee was now charging that
State Department libraries overseas
contained subversive volumes.
Cohn and his friend, G. David Schine,
the young Harvard graduate
and heir to the Schine Hotel fortune,
were dispatched on a tour of our libraries overseas.
♪ ♪
We suddenly became the enemy
of McCarthy and his cohorts.
They said, "Do you have "The Maltese Falcon"?"
I said "Yes, they're right over here in the library."
And Cohn turned and says,
"You see? Nothing but Communist books
here in the library."
They didn't really succeed very much
on this particular junket.
But they became notorious.
(upbeat rock music playing)
Lois Romano: They were two kids
that were encouraged by McCarthy and others
to go make this global trip.
And people who encouraged them were adults
who didn't realize how bad it was gonna look.
Kushner: There were stories that I had heard
of them sort of chasing each other through
the Ritz in Paris in their towels.
Theodoracopulos: After Cohn and Schine came back from Europe,
Schine got drafted.
He was just a GI, just a buck private.
Roy used his position with McCarthy,
and tried to get the army
to give Schine favorite treatment.
(inaudible)
Senator McCarthy said,
"Roy thinks that Dave
"ought to be a General
"and operate from a penthouse
on the Waldorf Astoria," or words to that effect.
(chuckling)
I asked him what would happen if Schine got overseas duty.
He responded with vigor and force,
"We'll wreck the army."
I never knew what hung on Schine's walls--
Joseph Welch: You did know what hung on Schine's wall
when that was handed to you, sir.
Did you think this came from a pixie?
(laughter)
Counsel, to my benefit, define--
-I think he might be an expert on that... -Welch: Yeah.
-...on what a pixie is. -Welch: Yes, I should say...
I should say, Mr. Senator, that a pixie
is a close relative of a fairy.
(loud laughter)
Trying to find out why...
Kushner: Roy Cohn risked being exposed
on national television as a pixie,
the close relationship to a fairy.
He went after the US Armed Forces
because he wanted his boyfriend back.
And he dragged poor, drunk,
stupid McCarthy along with him,
into this debacle for the two of them.
♪ ♪
Romano: Everybody thought he was finished after that.
This little snot-nosed 26-year-old who was grilling people.
They thought he was just gonna be some has-been,
and everybody was gonna dance on his grave.
And, you know, from the ashes, he rose.
(big band music playing)
Manso: By the time you returned to New York,
after leaving McCarthy in '54,
there was quite a lucrative law practice waiting.
Cohn: Oh, I suppose through
my derivative friendship with my father's friends,
who had known him in the course of
his quarter of a century on the bench.
That brought me together
with the top Democratic leadership in New York.
And from there on, I steadily worked my way up.
♪ ♪
(party chatter)
Reporter: There's always that one event, that one party
where some people want to be, and they wanna be seen there.
Bob O'Brien: The limousines came to the back door
of Studio 54 tonight.
Roy was celebrating his birthday at a black tie affair
for over 200 of his close friends,
thrown by close friend Steve Rubell.
Some of Cohn's friends included former Mayor Abe Beame
Deputy Mayor Herman Badillo,
and Brooklyn Democratic leader Meade Esposito.
I was here for his last year's birthday party,
and it was really fun, so I had to come again.
O'Brien: Why does Joey Adams come to say happy birthday to Roy Cohn?
I wanna tell you something.
Roy has been my buddy for a long time,
and I don't need him. I'm not getting a divorce.
I'm not a member of the mafia. I don't sniff coke.
I don't need him, and yet he's my friend.
They know I'll be there,
and I always know that they'll be there, so it's...
The people here tonight really aren't a question of
who did what for whom.
It's just a question of
who's meant what to whom over a long period of time.
David Lloyd Marcus: That's him at his Greenwich house.
-Oh... -Being his usual notorious, pernicious self.
-Alice Marcus: Yes, indeed. David Lloyd Marcus: I think a lot of people have
family members they don't wanna talk about.
Family members who were-- have some evil, but he was...
he was a personification of evil.
-Absolutely. -Yep.
-Every family has its Roy Cohn. -Alice: Oh, I hope not.
The world would be a terrible place if that happened.
David Lloyd Marcus: I grew up in a family where our family activity
was to march against the Vietnam War, so
I was very conscious of the fact that my parents, you know,
were very upset about the Rosenbergs, about McCarthy,
about all these things that Roy was--
was intricately involved in.
But I was a budding journalist,
and I paid attention to him.
♪ ♪
Roy was the outer borough kid,
an only child who grew up in the Bronx.
Roy's mother was Dora Marcus,
who married Al Cohn, who became a judge.
His dad was a very powerful Democrat in the Bronx,
who mingled with Democrats all the time.
And yet, Roy somehow morphed into a Republican.
Somehow morphed into arch-conservative.
I think Roy grew up with this notion
he had to do better than his father.
He had to be more important,
more impressive, more in the news.
♪ ♪
And then he lived with this specter
of his Uncle Bernie,
who was involved in a savings and loan problem,
going to Sing Sing.
He always talked about going to see Uncle Bernie in Sing Sing,
and that was a scarring, scary memory for him.
Ivy Meeropol: I mean, I can't help thinking about he then sent
my grandparents to Sing Sing.
He sent your grandparents-- I'm sitting here,
talking to you about my cousin,
who sent your grandparents to Sing Sing,
after watching my grandfather
go to Sing Sing and be ruined.
Roy's lesson was, "That's never gonna happen to me.
I'm never gonna be the victim."
♪ ♪
Ivy Meeropol: Do you remember when we went to DC
-and went to see the AIDS quilt? -Michael Meeropol: Yes.
We walk in from a particular location,
and right in front of us,
the first quilt we see is Roy Cohn.
-Ivy Meeropol: It was crazy. -Michael Meeropol: It really was.
Thousands of panels and...
probably, you know, I mean, any number of ways
-we could've come onto the mall. -Absolutely.
-We couldn't believe it. -And it--
It did feel like a-- some strange message.
And what's interesting about that is, of course,
if we had come someways else, we might not have even
-known he had a panel. -Right.
♪ ♪
Michael Meeropol: It was like a holy shit moment.
It's almost like God wanted us to find
Roy Cohn's panel to remind us
that we were still in the middle
of this unbelievable battle.
I see the universe, Joe,
as a kind of sandstorm in outer space,
with winds of mega hurricane velocity.
But instead of grains of sand,
it's shards and splinters of glass.
Kushner: I think that the character of Roy Cohn
jumped out at me
because he was not only Jewish
but-- like me, but also gay like me.
-I have... -Kushner: And he also seemed to be
one of the worst human beings that ever lived.
Listen, Ailene, you think I'm the only goddamn lawyer
in history ever missed a court date?!
Don't make such a big fucking-- Hold.
-(beep) -You hag!
Nathan Lane: Most people, when they think of Roy Cohn,
think of the character in the play.
And it's only now that people
really are more aware of the real...
person Roy Cohn.
I think Mr. Vidal has lapsed into an uncharacteristic modesty
and I don't think he should. He's very articulate...
Lane: On talk shows,
he's nerdy and creepy,
but very sort of lawyerly, polite,
everyone is Mister and Missus.
But, in private, I think he was very different.
(jazzy music playing)
Theodoracopulos: I first met Roy,
as everybody did in those days, in El Morocco
in '56.
And he, of course, was famous by then.
El Morocco was the chicest
and most exclusive nightclub of the time.
It was the kind of place where only very high society went,
plus some loose characters
who were welcome because it gave
sort of some spice to the place.
That's where Roy made all his contacts.
He would come in with those hooded lids, looking so ominous.
(laughs) He was like Dracula coming out of his box at midnight.
(inaudible)
Cohn: What came out of the McCarthy period, even its disasters,
was the feeling that I was different from most other lawyers.
People didn't perceive me as a typical
bill-by-the-hour, do-nothing shyster,
but as someone who can be trusted.
When people call Roy Cohn to solicit his services,
what are they looking for? What are they buying?
I think a principal thing they're buying is scare value.
It was not in his briefcase.
They do not allege it was in his briefcase.
I've read the complaint, and I was in court,
and you weren't.
Manso: People hired Roy
because Roy was without conscience,
and Roy would get them a victory
because he knew no rules.
He would do whatever he needed to, to win.
♪ ♪
Manso (on tape): It has been mentioned
in the media that you have represented,
or continue to represent,
-the world's richest men. -Cohn: Okay.
Now, there's a prominent New York real estate tycoon,
a very, very young man
who's, uh, who's made it.
I mean, he started off with a few million dollars,
I suppose, that his father had made.
Maybe 10 million, 20 million...
-Manso: Can we identify him? -Cohn: Donald-- Donald Trump.
Manso: I think that's fairly transparent.
Everyone knows who it is.
Cohn: Donald-- Donald Trump.
Manso: Is it fair to say at this point that he's the most
powerful real estate guy in New York?
Cohn: I think it is.
Romano: His currency was money,
but he was a boy from Queens,
and he was a sheltered boy from Queens.
He didn't have any access to the big city.
So, at first, Roy brought him into New York.
Cohn: I met him at a supper club,
which I rarely go to. I'm not too much of a night man
because I have so much work to do during the day,
and I guess the same can be said of Donald.
He hates anything social,
and he really doesn't like anything political very much either.
One night, at Le Club,
we were seated at tables next to each other.
He said, "I've spent two days
"with these establishment law firms
about a case we have." It was a civil rights case.
He says, "I followed your career, and you seem--
"You're a little bit crazy like I am, and
you stand up to the establishment. Can I come see you?"
Donald Trump: This was a lawsuit against numerous landlords in New York,
and I didn't like it because it wasn't true.
We've never discriminated. We don't believe in it.
And I just thought, on a principal ground,
I should-- I should fight, and other landlords didn't.
Manso: Trump was delighted by Roy's attorney's response
to this suit against the two Trumps,
and that was to counter-sue the US Justice Department.
Roy called them Nazis!
Roy called them the Ku Klux Klan!
You know, but the whole point was to resist,
to throw it back at them.
Trump fell in love with that. Never admit that you're wrong.
And the suit was settled.
You serve a complaint, start an action,
and then there's a settlement...
Manso: Roy settled
65-75% of all his cases out of court.
He used his influence with magazines,
newspapers, and individual journalists
to get people to settle lawsuits.
The fear of publicity can be a very important factor
in inducing a settlement,
and we'd all be crazy
if we didn't acknowledge that as a fact.
Cindy Adams: Roy grew to understand he could use me
when I joined the "New York Post."
There were stories he was doing,
and it would have served him
if I would take care of the people he didn't like.
Ivy Meeropol: How did he pull that off?
By asking me.
-Oh. -And I did it
because he was my friend,
so it's loyalty.
♪ ♪
Cohn: Look,
a good part of my life,
legally and extra-legally,
consists of having friends in all walks of life.
For example, the way I met Rupert Murdoch.
His, uh, when they wanted a front-page interview
with Carmine Galante, the Godfather. -Manso: Mm-hmm.
Cohn: I never heard of a Godfather
giving a newspaper interview before.
The metropolitan editor of "The Post" called me and he said,
"We really want this interview,
"and the boss says that he's read about you,
"and if you put your mind to something,
you can get it done."
-Manso: Did you do it? -Cohn: Yes.
(crowd chatter)
Romano: He wanted to make himself this
indispensable power broker,
sort of like the original fixer.
(inaudible)
There was no clear boundary between his personal life
and his professional life. It all kind of overflowed.
♪ ♪
The townhouse was this combination of residence
and place of business.
Upstairs, there were floors of offices.
Second and third floors were his apartment.
And then, way up top, was the roof deck.
He would sit up there, with his shirt off,
and he would even receive clients while he was doing this.
I assumed that this law firm
had been in existence for many years,
but his name was not on the masthead.
And my understanding is that
he had divested himself of all his assets,
so that he could not be sued.
Everything was owned by the firm.
Manso: It's true that you personally own nothing at all?
Cohn: 100% true.
Reason number one, obviously,
is my dispute with Internal Revenue.
So, I made up mind I was not going to have bank accounts.
I carry cash.
I also have no credit cards.
Manso: You live very, very well.
You have jets, limousines,
-yachts at your disposal. -Cohn: Now, wait a minute.
I have very rich friends and clients
who have confidence in me.
I can name you 10 right now
I could call up and say, "Look, I hate to trouble you,
"but I'm having a few problems.
"Would it be convenient for you to loan me
a large amount of money?"
The answer would be, instantly,
"Yes."
Morley Safer: Roy Cohn manages to spend, I guess,
a half a million dollars a year as expenses,
without paying a penny in tax on it.
When we talk expenses, now that isn't so.
First of all, I have paid an astronomical amount of taxes.
I, very frankly, don't wanna earn
any more than I have to earn
because I don't like the way this country
punishes the workers, the middle class,
the blue collar people, the white collar people.
I think it's lousy.
Manso: Roy Cohn wanted to die owing the IRS millions.
He never paid his bills.
Here we have a bill from a lease for 1983 Porsche Cabriolet.
"This vehicle was repossessed on 4/30/84
for reason of three months delinquency."
In Roy's handwriting, "Lillian," one of the women
who worked at Saxe, Bacon, Bolan,
"Please try to close it out with no payment."
The Four Seasons Clift Hotel in San Francisco.
Roy's handwriting. "Not necessary to pay."
Unpaid laundry bill of $1,598.21.
The 21 Club, 10 and a half grand.
Sheridan Hotel, 1,100 bucks in Hawaii.
Ivy Meeropol: Did any of these establishments really go after him?
Oh yeah! There were suits against him, sure.
But, you know, did they collect?
♪ ♪
Adams: Roy wanted to have some
Indonesian and Ming artifacts.
I have a dealer here.
So, Joey said, "Well, let's take Roy."
And I said, "No, not good because Roy doesn't pay his bills."
Roy wanted to go anyway,
and he went, and he picked out three items.
It was about $70,000.
Six months went by, he hadn't paid.
Finally, the dealer came up to me and he says,
"Ay, your friend, he don't-- he don't pay nothin'."
And I said, "Not to worry."
I brought my car down there,
and I went and knocked on the door.
Elvira was his longtime housekeeper,
and she knew me for years and years and years.
And I said, "I came to collect something."
She says, "Go ahead. Take whatever you want."
So, I went in with my driver,
and we took out the three pieces of art,
put them in the car, and brought them back to the dealer.
That night, he took me to dinner.
He never mentioned it.
He never brought it up ever.
As we walked out, he said to the maitre d',
"The check is in the mail."
♪ ♪
John Klotz: I'd been very active in judicial reform politics.
So, in 1979,
I decided that we needed a task force on Roy Cohn.
A lot of people knew that what Roy Cohn had
was enormous power with the media.
And we were trying to create a counterweight, essentially,
and also document what was really going on with Roy Cohn.
♪ ♪
Roy Cohn was a hidden investor
in a series of businesses
that dealed with all cash primarily.
Among them was parking lots.
Wayne Barrett: His cash cow
was city-owned parking lots by the water.
And he controlled the companies
that had the parking lots that were city-owned,
and it was just an enormous amount of money.
The guy who leased those parking lots to him, Rick Mazzeo,
wound up under federal investigation,
and they found his body in the trunk of a car,
and all he did was give parking lots
to Roy Cohn.
That's what he did for a living.
Roy Cohn was...
one of the most evil presences,
and I mean evil presences,
in our society during most of my adult life.
He was not just a lawyer for the mob.
He was an active participant.
♪ ♪
Allen: Occasionally, there were times
where I'd be farmed out to pick up something or other.
One time, I went to Philadelphia
to some federal penitentiary to pick up parole papers
for whoever the Godfather was.
There were trips over to New Jersey
for various client matters.
Manso: It sounds almost like you're a gangster now.
Is this what drew such, you know, alleged,
lemme put it this way, Godfathers?
Galante,
Genovese,
"Fat Tony" Salerno...
Cohn: Let's eliminate Tony Salerno right away.
Tony is a-- is a good guy.
-Tony is a gambler. He's filed income taxes... -Manso: Uh-huh.
Cohn: ...paid heavy income taxes for over 40 years.
I like him better than a lot of my other clients.
I know that I can take his word.
Uh, I know he has guts.
I found him to be a warm, decent human being
in his treatment of other people,
particularly other people who needed help.
What are the charges against your client,
Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno?
Cohn: This indictment says that they
supervise gambling, prostitution.
They talk about a cement company and labor piece,
and that's really about all.
If there's substance to this, I just don't see it.
Tony, you've read the charges in this indictment.
Did you do any of those things--
All false.
♪ ♪
Klotz: In 1981,
there was a strike of cement workers.
No ready-mix concrete project in Manhattan
was allowed to receive concrete by the union.
Only Trump Tower got their ready-mix concrete.
Barrett: Trump Tower, when it was completed,
was the tallest concrete structure,
all-concrete structure, in the United States.
No steel in the building.
Donald made that choice at a time when the mob
completely controlled the concrete industry in New York.
Trump Tower and Trump Plaza, his co-op project,
they were built by Fat Tony Salerno's company.
Donald met in Roy Cohn's office with Fat Tony Salerno,
during the very time period
that they were in construction.
Klotz: Through Cohn, Trump received access
to the worst organized crime figures
on the New York crime scene.
Protesters: Close the FBI! Open up the files!
(cars honking)
Close the FBI! Open up the files!
Close the FBI!
Open up the files!
Close the FBI! Open up the files...
Michael Meeropol: After we were adopted,
we had extraordinarily normal lives.
Went to high school, went to college,
got married, had kids.
Very few people that we knew
knew that we were the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
It wasn't until 1973,
Robby and I made a decision to come out publicly
and reclaim our parents.
Reporter: Michael and Robert Rosenberg, aged 10 and 6,
paid a final visit to their parents at Sing Sing.
Twenty-five years later, they and their supporters
are still fighting to clear the Rosenbergs' name,
still insisting their parents were railroaded
in a climate of hysteria.
They have taken the name of Meeropol
after the family which adopted them.
Working through the Freedom of Information Act,
the Meeropols have compelled the government to release
100,000 pages of secret documents.
Among other things, the papers suggest
the Rosenbergs might have been granted a last-minute reprieve
had they volunteered to confess and testify
about their activities.
Michael Meeropol: It's the era of Watergate.
It's the era of Nixon
being forced to resign.
This is a time to launch a campaign.
FBI close down, open up the files!
All: FBI close down, open up the files!
FBI close down...
(inaudible)
Michael Meeropol: I remember my brother in speeches saying
that by exposing the frame up of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg,
we were fighting Watergate at its roots.
-And that's true. -(applause)
We were actually sticking it to the government,
and that felt good.
We felt confidence in ourselves
that we could make the case.
I took a leave from my job.
Robby was only working part-time.
We wrote our book together.
We went on speaking tours.
Basically,
from spring of 1974
through June of 1978,
I had three jobs.
I had my job to earn money,
my job to be your and Greg's dad and Mom's husband,
and the job of public Rosenberg
fighting to reopen the case.
I'd like to see a judicial judgment,
not just that my parents were innocent,
but that individuals
conspired criminally to convict them falsely.
I'd like to see the perpetrators locked up.
This was the 1970s.
You know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
And I was relatively serious,
didn't do much drugs by any means.
-(singing) -I liked music.
My music experience was sitting around in the living room
with four people playing guitars, singing songs, you know.
All (singing): ♪ Guantanamera ♪
♪ Guantanamera... ♪
(groovy music playing)
(street noise)
(indistinct chatter)
-Tom Snyder: Do you go there for fun? -Cohn: Oh, sure.
Do we see Roy Cohn on the dance floor? Like, you know--
-Well, I'm not too good on the dance floor, -Neither am I.
but I like to go in there-- I like to go in there and watch.
If they go back to Viennese waltzes,
I might-- I might come back into style.
(club chatter)
Cohn: You look to your left, and you see a bunch of kooks.
You look to your right,
and you'll see movie stars, ambassadors,
senators, congressmen, and it's a kick.
It's just a thing all of its own.
♪ ♪
(club chatter)
Marcus: Why was Roy Cohn involved with Studio 54?
It was the hottest disco in the world, and somehow,
Roy was the lawyer for one of the partners,
and also sort of the lawyer for Studio 54.
We cooperate fully with the authorities.
But if you want a bond posted that no one ever smoked a joint
in a discotheque in the United States,
you're talking to the wrong guy.
Roy knew how to get permits taken care of,
unions to do your bidding,
the mafia to leave you alone.
Manso: Roy played godfather to Rubell and Schrager,
and they rewarded him appropriately.
They not only paid him well,
but Roy had a key to the joint.
♪ ♪
Theodoracopulos: Studio 54, it was the first time
that a nightclub
operated on a completely different level.
There was sex upstairs, open sex,
mostly gay, and people dancing downstairs,
and a hell of a lot of drugs.
And Roy was there a lot.
(inaudible)
Manso: Roy had alliances.
I don't think Roy ever had a relationship.
Roy was not interested in a relationship.
For years, Roy pretended to be straight.
To the extent of announcing that he was engaged to Barbara Walters.
We're getting married when we're both 60.
(laughs)
Lane: Roy would call Cindy Adams and say,
"Would you, you know, put an item in your column?
Barbara Walters and I may get married."
Adams: I knew the boyfriends.
I can't remember who they were now,
but they were all nice-looking and young.
(laughs)
You know? Should happen to me.
Absolutely. (laughs)
It was fine.
Yes, of course I knew.
We all knew.
(film scratching)
Homosexuality is an enigma.
Even in this era of bold sexual mores,
it remains a subject that people find disturbing.
Embarrassing.
Most Americans are repelled by
the mere notion of homosexuality.
The homosexual, bitterly aware of his rejection,
responds by going underground.
♪ ♪
In the '70s, I was working--
Well, hooking, at a bar called Rounds.
I was picked up by this guy that I thought was very attractive.
So I was like, this is great
'cause I'm gonna get paid plus he's really cute.
They wanted me to meet somebody.
And they drove me deep in the woods somewhere.
It was very secretive. It was very covert operation-like.
(crackling)
Sitting on the sofa was Roy
in this black velour robe.
He was very tanned,
and very, uh, you know,
kinda lizard-like, you know?
But-- but like an old auntie.
Like that had just come home from bingo and was cold.
He asked me to sit down on the sofa next to him.
He made me a cocktail.
I think I asked for a screwdriver.
♪ ♪
I saw an album
of Mabel Mercer and Bobby Short,
and I was a fan of this album.
-("When In Rome" playing) -So, we started talking about that,
and he was really surprised that I knew who Mabel Mercer was.
After a very long talk,
I went upstairs
and had sex with this guy that I guess was his boyfriend.
I don't know what was happening.
And then, a couple weeks later,
it happened all over again where they brought me to him,
but at that point, I thought we were "friends," you know?
♪ I can't explain ♪
♪ Please ignore my fondness for... ♪
I said, "What exactly did you...
"do you-- did you want me to come here for?
Was I supposed to have sex with you?"
(song stops)
That's when it turned...
in a-- in a very strange way.
♪ ♪
And he got angry with me.
Didn't raise his voice so much as
his eyes and the tone of voice was strange,
and he said, "I asked you here to discuss music."
He was done with me at that point.
It's sort of like, you know,
Blanche DuBois, you know?
"I don't want reality! I want dreams."
Lane: He came from a certain generation
where you obviously couldn't be openly gay,
and work in the world that he was working in.
Allen: I remember that there was an assistant named Vincent.
He was a young, good-looking guy who kind of passed in and out,
and gradually, it dawned on me that
there's probably some kind of personal relationship
between him and Cohn.
Cohn: Did you remember I had a lunch date with Barbara Walters?
-When is that? -Cohn: Today.
Kushner: He knew how to be a gay man who was in the closet.
But, he'll play games with it also.
He was flaunting it in a certain sense,
and sort of daring people to see how much room
there was to do whatever you wanted.
♪ ♪
(birds cawing)
Cohn: I'm basically an introvert.
I'm basically a private person.
When I'm with my friends,
under circumstances of privacy,
that's what I really love.
I think what makes my adrenaline go
more than anything else is this combination.
I can't have one without--
-Manso: The public and private. -Cohn: Right.
Manso: Many people were shocked
that Roy Cohn appeared in Provincetown,
which is probably the world's leading summertime gay community.
He was summering in Provincetown,
quite out in the open, quite conspicuously.
♪ ♪
(indistinct chatter)
Roy loved the craziness of Provincetown.
He loved the drinking, he loved the games,
the social crap that went on downtown.
(cheering)
John Waters: When I saw him, I was appalled that he was here.
The only place I ever saw him in person
that I remember was in Front Street, repeatedly.
It was a jumpin' scene.
I mean, it was definitely the place to be in Provincetown.
And he was always in there with hustlers,
and it infuriated me.
(indistinct chatter, glasses clinking)
All these boys around the table.
They were ordering champagne and fancy food and, you know.
It didn't seem like they were discussing
the history of Communism.
I would've been a Communist then.
Just meant a liberal, really.
(laughs) You know, I was worse.
I was a young--
just lunatic myself, really,
so I never spoke to him.
And complained that he was in there
to the people that owned it, who was my dear friend
Howard Gruber, who was Jewish!
He said, "Well, I just always spit in his food
every time when I serve it."
I would've done more than spit.
♪ ♪
Noreen Bahring: He'd stop into Front Street
to make a reservation for a 25-person seating.
He was a true perfectionist.
Before any of the guests arrived,
he had to see it set up.
He would bring in these candy dishes,
and he would fill them with cocaine.
A substantial amount of cocaine.
He would then place these Tuinals
to the right of every setting.
It's a sedative,
so if they got too crazy on the cocaine,
they would have a Tuinal to level themselves out.
Waters: It was a coke pit.
It was during the cocaine years.
And I did cocaine in the bathroom there.
Everybody did.
Did I ever do coke with him? I wouldn't have!
I wouldn't have had my nostril
on the same straw as that pig!
♪ ♪
He came here for easy sex
and handsome men
and probably easy access to drugs.
And no paparazzi.
And maybe the fact that people didn't know who he was.
(birds cawing)
(sighs)
(clinking)
This is Roy's cottage that he rented there.
It's fixed up somewhat now.
And this is my house.
So you can see, we were very connected.
A neighbor up the street came to me that he had a renter.
I had never rented before. I said, great.
And he didn't tell me who it was.
He said, "But don't worry about it."
So, lo and behold,
Roy Cohn moves in.
I didn't know that much about Roy,
but I knew enough.
The neighbors right away
knew much more than I did.
"How could you have done that to us?
"How could you have made that man
live across the street from me?" And so on.
But, the rent was paid, the house was clean,
and he was a good tenant.
And he had lots and lots of guests
all the time.
Tall, blonde, blue-eyed, built like...
(grunt) yummy.
I never saw him alone,
except for when he went swimming.
♪ ♪
That's an interesting thought.
Never alone.
Always at least two or three people,
if not more... hovering.
How important is it to spend time with yourself?
I rented to him a second year,
and he then came to me and said he wanted to buy it.
I said, "Well, it's not for sale."
And he looked at me
with these very cold eyes.
Said, "Things have a way of being sold
that aren't for sale, Anne."
I just shivered.
(birds cawing)
Fortunately, he bought the place two houses from me.
Manso: Norman Mailer and I were buying a house together.
Roy jumps into that project,
and snags for himself
the cottage that's on the property.
♪ ♪
I can recall one Sunday on his big deck.
Roy is surrounded by newspapers.
You know, the "LA Times," the "New York Times," London papers.
Norman Mailer had recently gotten back from Russia,
where he did a piece for "Parade Magazine,"
praising Russia to the skies.
He loved Russian food.
"The borscht, oh! You've never had borscht
"like you can get in Moscow.
"Russian women!
Nothing like it!"
Roy was looking at Norman's piece,
and Roy looks up and he says, "Have you read this?
"You know, your friend Mailer
"you know, is so fucking in love with the Russians,
"he'll really be happy when, you know,
"the Ruskies drop a nuke on him.
That'll bring him to his senses maybe!"
(TV static)
(classical music playing)
Guilty or innocent?
The question lingers after 30 years,
and still divides many people here and abroad.
I would like to introduce briefly our guests tonight.
To my left, Marshall Perlin,
a lawyer involved with the case.
To my left, Professor Michael Meeropol,
one of the sons of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
And to my right, attorney Roy Cohn.
♪ ♪
Michael Meeropol: When Robby and I got a lot of publicity,
we discover that Roy Cohn has taken on
the mantle of defending the government.
Why was clemency not granted?
What was standing in the way?
Well, it is justified in the case of two people
who stole secrets involving a bomb
which could take thousands and thousands of human lives,
and turning it over to an enemy,
which has blacked out a good part of the world,
and taken many human lives.
What could be worse than
-selling out your own country? -Host: Mr. Meeropol?
Yes. The first thing that people have to realize is,
of course, that the man who's saying all this
was part of a prosecution team
that engaged in subornation of perjury
and a conspiracy to deprive civil rights
by false prosecution.
Now, he's not gonna stand on television in the United States
and confess to doing that.
He hasn't been in the habit
of confessing crimes in his entire career,
and I don't expect he's gonna start now.
Fact remains that ever since 1953,
we have uncovered perjuries on the part of prosecution witnesses.
We have uncovered forgeries.
We've uncovered factual material--
Now, you're accusing me of corruption--
-No, no, no, no... -That's a strong thing to say.
Now, let me make a very interesting comment
that your viewers may be interested in.
We have a way of reopening the case right now.
If I just told a lie
about Mr. Cohn's criminal conduct,
-I've committed libel. -Host: We don't--
-We've got a perfect chance to have a courtroom. -Host: Again--
Again, we don't want to get into this right here.
Michael Meeropol: He knows what he did. He doesn't wanna do it.
Host: I would like to hear more about the motivation...
Michael Meeropol: Of course, he did know what he did.
The point is he didn't care.
If it wasn't for me, Joe,
Ethel Rosenberg would be alive today.
I would've fucking pulled the switch if they'd have let me.
Why? Because I fucking hate traitors.
Because I fucking hate Communists!
Was it legal? Fuck legal.
Am I a nice man?
Fuck nice!
They say terrible things about me in "The Nation."
Fuck "The Nation"!
You wanna be nice?!
Or you wanna be effective?!
Make the law, or subject to it! Choose!
The Rosenbergs convicted themselves
by taking the witness stand
and lying through their teeth.
There were a number of other people,
recruited by the Rosenbergs,
working with the Rosenbergs, who escaped.
I welcome a full inquiry.
I urge you to use the power of subpoena,
get secret documents, talk to witnesses,
put people like Mr. Cohn under oath,
and keep at him
about things that were developed, prosecution,
changes, etc., etc.
I feel the people who framed my parents
trampled the American flag in the mud,
and I think it's up to us to wash it.
I could look him in the eye
and I could point at him and say,
"You knew what you did."
And I kept saying,
"Come on! If I'm lying, sue me!"
And he just brushed it off.
Manso: "Who elected Ronald Reagan?
"It was union members, defying their leaders.
"It was the blue collar worker, the truck driver.
"Because they're the ones who are getting hit by our economy.
It's the middle class that's been going under."
You know what?
That is the subtext to the election of Donald Trump.
Hmm.
And this was what? 1981.
♪ ♪
Mike Wallace: You have claimed to have been a fan
-of Ronald Reagan, supporter of Reagan. -Cohn: I haven't claimed.
-I have been. -Wallace: Alright, wonderful.
For many years. Way before,
-way before a national-- -Cohn: No, I can tell you exactly when.
When he made the speech for Barry Goldwater in 1964.
Ronald Reagan came across as a giant.
Ronald Reagan: We're at war with the most dangerous enemy
that has ever faced mankind in his long climb
from the swamp to the stars.
And it's been said if we lose that war,
and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours,
history will record with the greatest astonishment
that those who had the most to lose
did the least to prevent its happening.
(applause)
Crowd: We want Reagan! We want Reagan!
We want Reagan!
(chanting, cheering continues)
Marcus: Many people did not expect a governor from California,
who was not sophisticated about international relations,
to be elected.
(patriotic music playing)
Roy predicted that he would be elected well before he was.
(crowd cheering)
Roy ushered in that Republican revolution.
(upbeat music playing)
(crowd cheering)
Cohn: Since the time Governor Reagan
in New York made his announcement
until the election,
I don't know where I got the time from
because my partner, Tom Bolan, was--
had the main role as finance director
for Governor Reagan in New York,
but I had to do an awful lot
and through all hours of the night.
Marcus: Roger Stone was a young campaign person
who was working in New York,
and he met Roy because
Roy hosted him at parties,
actually introduced him to Donald Trump.
And Roger Stone got a lot of money,
so that when Reagan was elected,
Roger Stone and Ed Meese and people around him
felt that they owed a lot to Roy
for making connections and getting him money.
Ronald Reagan also helped his fellow Republicans
make a major change in the philosophy of Congress.
It has become much more conservative
in the Senate and in the House.
John LeBoutillier: 1980, it was a big Republican year.
And I got elected to Congress
as the youngest member of Congress.
I just turned 27 during the campaign, so I was...
young.
And within a week or two after I got elected,
I get a phone call and a letter
asking a favor
from this law firm that was Tom Bolan
and his law partner, Roy Cohn.
They wanted their friends
to get jobs from the Reagan White House.
They asked me to support a candidate
for a federal judgeship.
And along the way, they asked me to write this letter,
and they keep pushing it, which I ended up writing.
It might've been the first letter of recommendation I wrote,
and it was for Maryanne Trump,
Donald Trump's older sister,
to be a federal judge.
I've never been asked to do such a thing in my life!
A year earlier, I'm in school!
And in the new administration, the next year,
President Reagan did appoint her to the federal bench.
♪ ♪
Right from the get-go, they were very influential
with the President of the United States.
I became very involved in the issue of American prisoners of war
that were left behind during the Vietnam War.
I am now on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House,
and I have a Laotian pilot
that I'm hiring to go back to Laos
to look around for information.
But we needed to accelerate his citizenship,
so I asked Roy Cohn.
And to this day,
it is the single most impressive use of power
that I've seen in my life.
He said, "I've got it all set.
"Here's what you're gonna do.
"You're gonna go to Los Angeles.
"You're gonna go to the federal courthouse.
"You're gonna go to some courtroom,
"and there is a Judge Roy Carstairs
"will be running a federal trial.
"And you will wait in the back of the courtroom, standing.
"Judge Carstairs will see you there,
"he will call a recess of the trial,
"and he will swear your Laotian in
as an American citizen right on the spot."
That is how (chuckles) to wield power.
Dershowitz: Before I met him, I knew him as a fixer.
A guy who got things done.
It wasn't what you knew. It was who you knew.
(crowd chatter)
The only occasion I ever had to work with him
was during the Claus Von Bulow case.
I was handling the criminal aspect of it.
He was handling the estate.
I was, I wouldn't say charmed by him,
but I was pleasantly surprised by the fact
that he wasn't the ogre that I had been told he was.
And he was determined to make me like him some how.
♪ ♪
He emphasized that he really admired me
because of my support for Israel,
my support for Jewish values.
He tried to persuade me
that he grew up at a time
when Communism was associated with being Jewish.
Not only the Rosenbergs.
Klaus Fuchs and, you know, so many of the other people
who were alleged to be spies were Jews,
and so many of the leaders of Communist parties were Jews.
And he thought it was terrible
that Jews were being associated with Communism.
And he made a decision to stand up against Communism
as a visible Jew, with a name like Cohn,
that can be seen around the world
as Jews standing up against Communism.
And he went into great detail with me
about the Rosenberg case.
♪ ♪
And the story he told is that they knew for certain
that Julius Rosenberg was a spy
because they had wiretaps from some embassy
that they couldn't disclose
'cause they're not supposed to be taping embassies,
but they were 100% confident.
But they couldn't use the evidence.
And so, they "enhanced" the evidence.
They "improved" the evidence.
And he thought it was a morally just thing to do.
Bob Simon: The star witness for the prosecution
was David Greenglass.
He now says this man made him do it.
And did Cohn encourage you to testify that you...
saw Ethel typing up the notes?
Of course he did.
Did you realize at the time
or when you were testifying, the importance of this...
the evidence you were providing?
I had no idea it was important at all.
♪ ♪
Dershowitz: He also said that he did have
many ex-party conversations with Judge Irving Kaufman,
that they talked on the phone.
They had agreements about how to handle certain pieces of evidence.
He never denied
that the case was fixed.
He used the term, "We framed guilty people.
"We tampered with the evidence
"in order to persuade
"the judge and the jury
that these guilty people were, in fact, guilty."
Michael Meeropol: In 1995, the CIA released the Venona transcription
that attempted to prove that the government was right
that Julius Rosenberg, my father, was a spy.
Well, the media's reaction was,
"The Rosenbergs are guilty."
We were skeptical of it. But, of course,
I had to contemplate what would it mean if it were true.
If we agreed that this stuff was real,
half of our case was already made for us.
It was clear that your grandmother was not a spy.
She never got a codename!
♪ ♪
Dershowitz: If the whole truth had come out,
we would have known at the time
that Julius was guilty of being a spy for the Soviet Union,
but that the information he provided them
was not nearly as important or critical
as the way the government made it sound.
He was not the man who "gave" the atomic bomb
to the Soviet Union.
The other thing we would know for sure
is that Ethel Rosenberg was not guilty
of the crime for which she was charged.
But there was a plot afoot.
And the plot was,
from the highest levels of government,
to frame Ethel Rosenberg
in order to get Julius to wanna save her life
by ratting out the people who he was in contact with.
I don't think we've ever had a miscarriage of justice
that parallels the Rosenberg case in my lifetime.
♪ ♪
Ivy Meeropol: You told me before why you never wanted
-to go to the grave. -Michael Meeropol: Yeah, 'cause I didn't wanna
put myself through the anguish
of actually seeing the grave.
(inaudible)
Most of the reopening effort was highly intellectual.
It involved arguing, articulating...
In the case of my parents...
But there is a very, very personal side to this.
Remember, the family was broken up for a good two years.
The period of time when we visited them was so amazing.
Hugging them and kissing them.
We played, we sang.
There was no pain because it was always,
"We've still got hope, and, you know, see you next time."
The reason the last visit was so terrible
was that there was no next time.
I was wailing, "One more day to live, one more day to live."
Then they kissed us and left.
♪ ♪
(rumbling)
The last place I saw your grandparents was Sing Sing.
Going to Sing Sing is a way of connecting to that 10-year-old.
Memory is important.
Reminding myself of it is important.
There were times in my teen years,
and in my 20s where...
the press of everyday life would,
would sort of, take charge, but I always...
I always reminded myself where I came from.
♪ ♪
Dershowitz: Roy Cohn represents a type of person
who recurs throughout history.
Uh, we know "the" Roy Cohn,
but every era has a Roy Cohn, an opportunist,
somebody who will stretch the law and ethics
to make the ends justify the means.
♪ ♪
Cohn: This picture of Donald and me hangs in my office.
He says, "Roy is my greatest friend."
(car starts)
The man is, as I say,
the closest thing to a genius I've ever met in my life.
When he sees an opportunity,
he's always there to take it.
And I have a feeling someday,
not too far distant future,
you're gonna see Donald Trump
in other parts of the country as well.
Romano: In the early '80s,
I was living in Washington,
and I had just joined "The Washington Post."
After 30 years, the Republicans were hot again.
And so, all of us, as young reporters,
were pursuing all the new, young operatives.
Among them was Roger Stone and Paul Manafort.
And somewhere in there, Roger Stone,
who I had cultivated as a source,
said, "You need to meet my friend, Roy Cohn."
Roy was very magnetic,
and he knew how to cultivate the media.
I mean, I used to see him at parties,
and, you know, he'd be in town.
He'd always stay at the Madison,
which is across from "The Post."
And he'd say, "I'm over here at the bar.
Come on over and have a drink."
And he would say, "I've got a good story for you,"
but it always served his purposes, too.
Which is how I came to do a profile on Donald Trump.
♪ ♪
Throughout the whole two hours I'm with him,
all Trump says is, "Either you got it or you don't,"
about everything.
"Either you can get a table at a restaurant or you can't.
Either you can do this or you can't."
So, during the course of this, he says,
"I could be the nuclear arms negotiator."
He said, "I could know everything there is to know
about missiles and nuclear arms in an hour and a half."
And he said, "You know, Roy really wants me to do this.
Roy thinks that I would be a really good nuclear arms negotiator."
And during this period, he apparently sends word back
to one of George Bush's operatives
that he could be working in the administration.
So, he was starting to feel pretty heady about himself
and what he could be doing in government.
Male Interviewer: Would you like to be in a position
of negotiating disarmament?
Is that really what's in your head?
I don't know who's negotiating for us, who had in the past.
I used to watch, under Jimmy Carter's regime,
I used to watch people going over
and looking at these Russians.
And I could look at the Russians,
and I could look at these people on our side,
and I could say there's no chance.
That's like the Pittsburgh Steelers
playing my high school football team.
Female Interviewer: Is it arrogant of Donald Trump
to even think about negotiating a treaty with the Russians?
It's not arrogance.
It's the fact that he sees
he has a talent in a certain area.
Look, his next stop might very well be Moscow.
(indistinct chatter)
Romano: I think what Roy Cohn saw in Donald Trump
was sort of an unpolished stone.
He had some smarts, he had ambition, and he had money.
And he had nerve. He wanted to shake things up.
Roy is building this foothold in Washington, DC,
and Don wants a piece of this
and Roy wants him to have a piece of it.
♪ ♪
(indistinct chatter)
(inaudible)
Manso: There's this wonderful photograph
of Roy and his...
arm candy lover, Peter Fraser,
at the White House on a receiving line.
And there's Nancy and there's Ron.
He's introducing his beautiful for-hire boyfriend,
and both he and his lover, Peter,
are being received like royalty.
Like they're very important people.
♪ ♪
In the early through mid '80s,
Peter Fraser was Roy's squeeze of choice.
Peter Fraser was tall, blonde,
athletic-looking New Zealander.
Roy got him made the Aramis Man of the Year.
Aramis is the men's division
of Estée Lauder Cosmetics!
Estée and Joe Lauder were Roy's 20-, 30-year-old,
right-wing, multi-millionaire friends and clients.
Peter Fraser was the kept partner,
and actually served a function in the Roy orbit.
Here is a letter dated February 1, '85,
on Saxe, Bacon, Bolan letterhead.
"To Whom It May Concern,
"This is to confirm that Peter Fraser's employed
"by the law firm Saxe, Bacon, Bolan,
"and he resides at the company house
"in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Yours truly, Roy M. Cohn."
Wild.
"Pay to the order of Peter Fraser."
$5,284.
See now, here are credit card receipts
in Peter Fraser's name.
Now, Roy could not use credit cards.
You know, 'cause any purchase would be trackable,
and subject to, you know, IRS scrutiny.
Who was this? Oh my God, this is more transfers.
Holy shit.
Bank of New Zealand for $10,012.50.
On the same day,
there is another transfer of $10,000.
Jesus Christ.
Deposits, $43,000,
$50,000, $90,000, $45,000,
$50,000.
You know, this is money laundering.
You know, Roy is using Peter as a cut-out.
You know what a cut-out is in spy language?
You're on one side of the fence, I'm on the other.
But, I have this guy over here,
and he gets everything I have,
even though you're focusing on me.
I mean, I don't know what these...
you know, 90 and $100,000 balances
in his accounts represent.
Where is that money coming from?
It's coming through Roy,
but where is that coming from?
♪ ♪
Reporter: Two years ago, Richard Dupont had this idea.
He would open a health club in the West Village for gays.
He took over an abandoned six-story warehouse
on Greenwich Street near Barrow,
and spent the next year
and almost $1 million renovating it.
What I think most people are afraid of
is the very fact is they may see
homosexual people as real people.
As people who aren't deviants and perverts.
Klotz: Richard Dupont originally met Roy in Miami Beach,
where he turned a trick for Roy as a gay prostitute.
Manso: Richard Dupont was a grifter,
a guy who lived on his wits.
And such people could be useful to Roy Cohn.
(Ray Kiley speaking):
(Dupont speaking):
Manso: And the guy decided to wreck revenge,
and he got to Roy like no one else got to Roy ever.
♪ ♪
Klotz: He would call the airline and say,
"This is Roy Cohn calling and...
you know my reservation for 2:00 to Texas? Cancel it."
So, Roy Cohn would show up at the airport with his bags,
and his reservation had been canceled. (laughs)
At the Ford shareholders meeting,
a woman came with a delivery of flowers for him,
and the flowers were wilted.
There was a note with the flowers saying,
"Roy Cohn can lick anyone."
I believe that was a double entendre.
Manso: One morning, where Roy's office was
on East 68th Street, for the whole block,
every five feet,
(laughing) there was a stenciled message.
"Roy Cohn is a fag."
Roy was going crazy.
I mean, this is the devil visiting the devil, as it were.
(phone dialing)
(Cohn and Dupont on phone):
(hangs up)
I'm surprised he didn't have him killed,
but maybe it would've been too obvious.
He couldn't scare him off.
And Dupont just kept going.
(disco music playing)
(crowd chatter)
Klotz: In 1980, on Gay Pride Day,
there was a publication of a magazine called "Now East,"
which contained all of Dupont's fantasies about Roy Cohn.
♪ ♪
Manso (on phone): It's obvious that you are out to do in Roy.
-Do you think that you'll outlast Roy? -Dupont (on phone): Oh God.
Oh God, the second issue.
-Manso: The second issue is gonna do him in, you think? -Dupont: And the third issue.
Manso: And the third issue?
There's a third one coming, too?
Dupont: Yes, there'll be every issue.
Manso: I mean, how long is this magazine gonna go on?
I mean, people eventually may become bored with Roy Cohn.
Dupont: I don't know whether they'll become bored with Roy Cohn or not.
I really don't know, Peter.
Manso: These were distributed.
They were left in restaurants,
fancy clothing stores,
gay bars.
Roy was genuinely agitated,
and Roy didn't show anxiety easily.
"I'm gonna get that motherfucker. I'm gonna kill him.
I'm gonna put him away. This is gonna end."
Tonight, we have a story about a man
who is not charged with a violent crime,
but he is the object of a lot of attention
from the Manhattan district attorney.
John Miller: This is Richard Dupont.
He was arrested in, what his lawyer described as, a pre-dawn raid
in which four detectives came crashing into his apartment.
I received information from my client
that he had learned
from associates of Mr. Cohn
that he was to be indicted on Friday.
Klotz: "Were we here because of 'Now East'? Baloney.
"We're here because Richard had the temerity
to ignore that warning and mess with Roy Cohn."
(Dupont speaking):
♪ ♪
Klotz: He was acquitted the first two counts,
but he was convicted of four or five misdemeanors.
Misdemeanor clients don't go to penitentiaries.
And I felt at the time,
given who he was dealing with,
uh, the, uh...
virtual member of organized crime,
or the attorney Roy Cohn,
that Richard wouldn't have lasted in a penitentiary.
And Richard Dupont, as I recall,
served 18 months in state prison.
For fuckin' with Roy Cohn!
Don't mess with Roy Cohn! Moral of the story!
-(whistle blowing) -(crowd chatter)
(clapping)
(crowd chanting)
Ethan Geto: In the '80s, you could be fired as a schoolteacher
if you were known to be gay.
You could be denied an apartment.
That happened constantly
in a liberal bastion like New York City.
You could be denied service
in a restaurant or a bar!
You had no recourse.
-(protesters chanting) -For 15 years,
the Gay Rights Bill came up for a vote and it was voted down.
Cohn: My greatest concern in life
is not about open restaurants
or this Gay Rights Bill.
I think if you're a man about things
and you can fight your own fights,
things come out okay in the long run.
Geto: Roy Cohn was very involved
with politics in New York City.
He was a lobbyist and spokesperson
for the Archdiocese of New York,
which, in those years,
was very, very powerful politically
because the Cardinal of New York
had enormous control and veto power
over legislation in the City Council.
Roy Cohn started making public comments.
...cannot be done, and the proof is not in what we say,
but in the city...
First of all, I don't like any of these rights bills.
Women's rights bill,
such as was defeated in New York, very properly.
I don't like that.
If the Gay Rights Bill goes to a referendum,
I think the people will defeat that, too.
I think there are features of that bill
that constitutes a clear and present danger
to the upbringing of children and to family life,
and I don't think it's a cut-and-dried issue at all.
♪ ♪
Geto: Taking a very public, hostile stance to gay people
made everybody who wasn't in the know feel,
"Of course, there's a rumor
that Roy Cohn is a homosexual, but that's ridiculous!"
The other thing was the Catholic Church,
and they had a similar problem.
Cardinal Spellman was thought,
by many people, to be gay.
He was a very close social friend of Roy Cohn's,
and he was very, very reactionary.
That's the environment that Roy Cohn reinforced
and pushed and supported in a way
that oppressed millions of people.
To know that this man
was actively gay in his personal life
and his social life and his sex life and so on.
Again, I say the ninth circle of Hell
is reserved for hypocrites.
You feel pretty good.
-I feel great. -Why?
I mean, you were at death's door
six months ago, three months ago.
I was shaving one morning, and I had a...
I felt a little bump.
So I called the doctor, he said come in.
And they did a biopsy, and they found I had liver cancer,
uh, and they found that-- which spreads in...
strange directions,
and I was treated for three and a half weeks
at the National Institute of Health.
♪ ♪
Marcus: He told me he was in an experimental program
for liver cancer.
I think they did not actually have
an experimental program for liver cancer.
It was trying AZT and other drugs for AIDS.
Health officials will announce today whether an anti-AIDS drug
is safe enough for widespread use against the disease.
The drug AZT has been tested for more than a year
on 140 AIDS patients around the country.
While AZT does not cure the disease,
it does reduce some of its symptoms.
Did you get that radical treatment at NIH
-that that Dr. Rosenberg, I believe, is now doing? -Cohn: No.
-You did not undergo that? -No. I did not undergo that.
-You scored! -Impressively.
There may be 30 people in the whole country getting this drug?
Now, there are 31.
There are 100,000 people who need it.
♪ ♪
-(birds cawing) -(water lapping)
Packard: He spent a lot of time here when he had AIDS.
That's when I would see his poor,
diminished body
'cause I lost a lot of friends, too.
(inaudible)
Waters: The town was so struck by AIDS.
I mean, three-quarters of my friends died.
He was one of-- the whole town was dying, basically.
Packard: I wonder what Roy thought
about the fact that he got AIDS.
And those that escaped it, and those that didn't,
but not Roy Cohn.
He shouldn't have gotten AIDS.
Right?
I felt sorry for him.
Doesn't mean I liked him or approved what he did,
but I felt sorry for him as an individual.
He didn't hide in that corner. It was right over there.
But-- but he didn't want to be... out there,
and-- and he wanted to show the poor kid he was with
that he did have a life here.
And he certainly couldn't take him dancing
'cause he was at the point where he couldn't walk,
never mind dance.
He was gay and he was sick.
And he's got this child with him that he's infecting.
You know, this really is sick.
I was looking at a broken man,
and he was everything he didn't wanna be.
♪ ♪
-Wallace: Do you have AIDS? -Oh, no.
That's easy to answer.
I'm goin', Ethel.
Finally, finally done with this world
at long, long last.
The Almighty parts the sea of death,
and lets his Roy boy cross over to Jordan!
On dry land,
and still a lawyer.
Don't count your chickens, Roy.
-It's over. -(gasps)
-Over? -I wanted the news should come from me.
The panel ruled against ya, Roy.
No, no, they only started meeting two days ago...
They recommended disbarment!
Why do you think they're after you?
There are disbarment proceedings.
We're talking about two cases,
in neither one of which anyone was injured
even slightly, except me.
Wallace: He borrowed $100,000 from a client,
Iva Schlesinger, and then,
despite his numerous written promises,
he failed to repay her that $100,000.
(Cohn speaking):
-Romano: Mm-hmm. -(Cohn continues)
-Cohn: Pardon me? -(Romano continues)
Anyone who knows me knows I don't plead.
And I'm not pleading in this case.
Lane: He's fighting for his life,
and, on some level, more importantly, his reputation.
He probably cried more over the disbarment
than the AIDS diagnosis.
That's how important it was to him.
In this last interview, I show up in Florida,
and I was actually taken aback
because I hadn't seen him in about a year,
and he was extremely frail.
He had lost a lot of weight, he had to be helped into a chair,
his clothes were baggy, but he was game.
He wanted to get stuff off of his chest,
and we talked for an hour or so
in this mansion that was--
I don't even remember whose it was,
but it was this beautiful mansion on Worth Avenue.
And then we went out to dinner.
And, um, and I asked him,
I said, "You know, what do you think about now?
What do you dream about?" And he said,
"You know, I dream about death,
and I think about my funeral."
(Romano speaking on tape):
(Cohn speaking on tape):
(applause)
Crowd: ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
(singing continues, indistinct chatter)
Woman: You have to make a very special wish.
Ivy Meeropol: Did he feel that people were abandoning him?
I'm not sure that he would ever show
that side of him.
But there are some of us who don't abandon friends,
no matter what.
Romano: Donald was plugged in.
And I'm sure he had heard that Roy had AIDS.
And when he's dying, Trump pulls away,
and-- and it hurt Roy.
He felt like he had done a lot to promote,
to help bring Donald Trump along.
Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in a salute to a winner,
and a friend, Mr. Donald Trump.
♪ ♪
(applause)
Trump: Thank you.
I would like to just introduce quickly my family.
My wife, Ivana, my father, Fred,
my sister, the judge, thanks to the President.
(laughter)
LeBoutillier: It was a wrenching thing to watch.
But a lot of Roy's so-called friends
blew him off after he got sick.
Brit Hume: Roy Cohn, the unorthodox and colorful lawyer
who may have made more prominent enemies
and more prominent friends than any American of his time,
is dead.
Cohn died early this morning of a heart attack.
The virus HTLV-3, which is believed to cause AIDS,
was listed as a secondary cause of death.
(water flowing)
Romano: How do you wanna be remembered?
Cohn: I have no choice
because I know I am gonna be Joe McCarthy's
Chief Counsel for the rest of my life,
no matter what else good or bad I should ever do.
(somber music playing)
Romano: If you could turn back the clock to 1953 or four,
-would you do anything differently? -Cohn: Sure.
Who, 25 or 30 years later,
wouldn't do something different?
Romano: What? Do you think you were too abrasive
-as some people say? -Cohn: Sure.
But, I'm not sure if I hadn't been too aggressive
if I could've gotten any results.
Romano: What do you say to people who say
you ruined people's lives?
Cohn: I say name one.
Because I know what the truth is and they don't.
(typewriter clicking)
(ding)
("Exhuming McCarthy" by R.E.M. playing)
♪ You're beautiful ♪
♪ More beautiful than me ♪
♪ You're honorable, more honorable ♪
♪ Than me ♪
♪ Loyal to the Bank of America ♪
♪ It's a sign of the times ♪
♪ You're sharpening stones ♪
♪ Walking on coals ♪
♪ To improve your business acumen ♪
♪ Sharpening stones ♪
♪ Walking on coals ♪
♪ To improve your business acumen ♪
♪ Vested interest united ties ♪
♪ Landed gentry rationalize ♪
♪ Look who bought the myth ♪
♪ By jingo, buy America ♪
♪ It's a sign of the times ♪
♪ You're sharpening stones ♪
♪ Walking on coals ♪
♪ To improve your business acumen ♪
♪ Sharpening stones ♪
♪ Walking on coals ♪
♪ To improve your business acumen ♪
♪ Enemy sighted ♪
♪ Enemy met ♪
♪ I'm addressing the realpolitik ♪
♪ Look who bought the myth ♪
♪ By jingo, buy America ♪
Welch: Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator.
You've done enough.
Have you no sense of decency, sir,
at long last?
Have you left no sense of decency?
♪ ♪
♪ You're sharpening stones ♪
♪ Walking on coals ♪
♪ To improve your business acumen ♪
♪ Sharpening stones ♪
♪ Walking on coals ♪
♪ To improve your business acumen ♪
♪ Enemy sighted ♪
♪ Enemy met ♪
♪ I'm addressing the realpolitik ♪
♪ You've seen start ♪
♪ And you've seen quit ♪
♪ I've always thought of you as quick ♪
♪ Exhuming McCarthy ♪