High life
Words and deeds
Taki
enata Adler is a 47-year-old writer who can best be described as a walking neurosis. She is a handsome woman, but one who looks as if she was being put on the rack at all times, and I am told she looks like that even when she's asleep. She is also a formidable journalist and movie critic, one who has exposed such phonies as Pauline Kael and the rest of the hucks- ters who make Hollywood what it is today. I like her because she's fearless, where writing is concerned, and because she's made more enemies through her writing than I have, and most of her enemies are like mine: rich, powerful, and terrible bullies. This week her book on two of the biggest bullies in the USA comes out, and I shall be lining up early to buy a copy. The name of her book is Reckless Dis- regard, and it deals with two famous libel cases of the recent past — both won by the defendants, mind you — that of General Ariel Sharon v. Time Inc, and of General Westmoreland v. CBS. People who have read her opus say that Renata sets out to prove that CBS went to extraordinary lengths to twist the truth and distort the record, and that Time used tricks and deception in order to defend errors, even when those errors were proved to have been committed in good faith while in pursuit of the story.
Now it sounds almost ludicrous for someone like myself to be taking the side of the plaintifs in a libel action. But having followed the Westmoreland case closely, and knowing a bit how their people (who set out to crucify a brave and noble man) operate, I can only say it was about time (no pun intended) that someone gave those bullies a taste of their own medicine.
Not that Renata distorted or lied, as CBS tried to pretend in its rebuttal of her charges. (It has since been proved that even the rebuttal by CBS was false.) What I like about the whole brouhaha is that neither CBS nor Time can take it, but as everyone knows who has ever heard of them, they can surely dish it out. Mind you, Adler was severe with them, and some have called her opus among the toughest pieces of criticism of the press and media ever written by a hack. Good for her, say I.
I first met Renata in Sardinia, 14 years ago to be exact. She was staying with of all people the brother of the . . . Aga Khan. I had begun a book called Jetstream, which had as central character and hero, Taki, of High Court fame. I showed it to her and she went out of her way to encourage me to continue. Although the book was fact, she obviously thought it was fiction, because every time I've seen her since, she laments the fact that I did not continue as a novelist. Little does she know that every- thing I have written since has been fiction, but at least, unlike CBS, I admit it.
Not that I've seen Renata lately. Her friends are people like Brooke Astor — a soi-disant grande dame but one for whom I have grande doubts — and Oscar de la Renta, a social-climber par excellence whom I used to know when I spent my time in ways I cannot describe in a family magazine.
And speaking of families brings me to my old friend Claus Von Bulow, and his latest problems. There is nothing that irritates me more than when the press report that Claus won his appeal on tech- nical points. It is simply not true. He won because the court finally ordered the discl- osure of Richard Kuh's notes from his first interviews with Sunny's children and her maid. During the second trial it was proved beyond any doubt that the 'black bag' and the needle were planted, and that Sunny was never injected by insulin but brought on her own demise through her drinking. But her family is still not content with having ruined Claus's life, not to mention his reputation. They now are disputing Cosima Bulow's rights to her mother's money, pretending that it might go to Claus, although he has already renounced any claim to Sunny's will. Libel laws prevent me to from saying what I want to about the greed of certain people, but I can say that when a man was approached and asked to beat me up prior to a boxing match, it did happen to be my closest friend. I guess it shows how wrong some people always get it.
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