CHARLOTTE, Mich. — You may have missed one of last week’s most potentially explosive political stories, possibly because of the intense focus on Britain’s shocking vote to leave the European Union and the financial worries that followed.
But the New York Times reported that Donald Trump, the presumptive presidential nominee, had been both a close friend and a protégé of Roy Cohn, arguably one of the most sordid and repellent behind-the-scenes characters in our political history.
Not only that, but the newspaper charged that the long-dead Mr. Cohn was instrumental in shaping the kind of campaign the flamboyant Republican ran this year.
But is that fair?
A respected Michigan author who is an expert on the McCarthy era thinks the comparison rings very true. But first, a little background: We are indeed talking about that Roy Cohn, the one who sat at the elbow and whispered in the ear of Sen. Joe McCarthy (R., Wis.) back in the early 1950s, when the demagogue was destroying lives and careers by hauling suspected Communists before his subcommittee.
Mr. McCarthy, of course, would later fall from power, be censured by the Senate, and die in disgrace — though the famous Army-McCarthy hearings that led to his downfall put most of the blame for his abuses squarely on Mr. Cohn.
After his government career, Mr. Cohn went on to an equally controversial career as a New York attorney, whose client list included many Mafia figures, New York Yankee President George Steinbrenner — and a young Donald Trump.
According to a detailed investigation by the New York Times, Mr. Trump was somewhat of a “final project” for Mr. Cohn, a closeted homosexual who died of AIDS in 1986.
The two men were so close that Mr. Trump sent Mr. Cohn to negotiate a prenuptial agreement with his first wife that essentially left her with nothing if they divorced. (When Ivana and Donald did eventually divorce, she contested the agreement, noting that her lawyer at the time was close to Mr. Cohn. The couple eventually agreed to a settlement.)
The Times concluded “Decades later, Mr. Cohn’s influence on Mr. Trump is unmistakable. Mr. Trump’s wrecking ball of a presidential bid — the gleeful smearing of his opponents, the embracing of bluster as brand — has been a Roy Cohn number on a grand scale.”
Almost nobody today doubts that Mr. Cohn was despicable. Early on he successfully pushed the government to persecute gay people. He was frequently charged with professional malpractice, and shortly before he died, was finally disbarred for “unethical, unprofessional, and particularly reprehensible conduct.”
But is it fair to equate him with Mr. Trump?
Mike Ranville thinks the answer is definitely yes.
A longtime lobbyist in Lansing, he made a detailed study of the McCarthy era for his 1997 book, To Strike at a King, which looked at the battles between Mr. McCarthy and the legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow, and particularly the case of a Detroit victim of the Red Scare, Milo Radulovich.
The book, which was praised by many journalists, including Dan Rather and Don Hewitt, took an intensive look at the smear tactics of the Red-baiting era.
Mr. Ranville never met Roy Cohn, but after looking at many hours of film and extensively reading transcripts, agrees there are many similarities between Mr. Trump, and Joe McCarthy, who he sees as one of Mr. Cohn’s creations.
“Demagogues both, they appeal to the lowest common denominator. Both set up demons in order to slay them. Trump goes after Mexicans and Muslims — McCarthy, Communists.”
“Both attack the messenger — McCarthy or Cohn went after Murrow. Trump revokes the Washington Post’s credentials and attributes [Fox News’] Megyn Kelly’s probing questions” to her menstrual cycle. Roy Cohn, Mr. Ranville noted, “believed it is imperative to stay in the public eye. Both McCarthy and Trump make outrageous statements, get their headlines, and are constantly in the news.”
He added that both politicians were disciples of what might be a Cohn maxim: “The more outrageous the statement, the longer it will be remembered. Don’t bother defending it.”
There are differences, of course, between the early 1950s and 2016; nor would it be fair to equate Donald Trump with either Mr. McCarthy or Mr. Cohn. But some of the similarities are unnerving. And Mr. Ranville thinks the closing lines Edward R. Murrow delivered in his show exposing Joe McCarthy are just as current now as they were in March, 1954:
“The actions of the junior senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault it that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
Jack Lessenberry, a member of the journalism faculty at Wayne State University in Detroit and The Blade’s ombudsman, writes on issues and people in Michigan. Contact him at: omblade@aol.com.
First Published July 1, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
