The Selling of Friendly Fire, Part One

In late 1975, Dad asked agent Carl D. Brandt to send manuscripts of Friendly Fire to more than 80 opinion makers. His fear --as he put it--was "that because it deals with Vietnam no one will want to read it.". He was hoping for a blurb or at least some word of mouth.

Among the names on that list are reporters, politicians, intellectuals,  writers, musicians, actors and editorial cartoonists.

 In no particular order they were:

William F Buckley, Jr.

William Fulbright
James Reston
Arthur Schlesinger
Tom Wicker
Marquis Childs
Theodore White
Peter Farb
Dan Rather

John Gardner

Howard K Smith
Anthony Lewis
Evans and Novak
Barbara Jordon
Walter Cronkite

Bella Abzug

Bernstein and Woodward
Samuel Eliot Morrison
James J Kilpatrick
Iowa Gov. Harold Hughes
Frances Fitzgerald
Ben Bradlee
Joan Didion

Hunter Thompson

Clark Moellenoff ( of the Des Moines Register)
Gloria Steinem
I.F. Stone
Norman Podhoretz
Paul Harvey

Truman Capote

Jack Anderson
Shana Alexander
Joe Pultizer
Meg Greenfield
Hodding Carter III
Barbara Howard

Gregory Peck

Director, ACLU
Director, Amnesty International
Daniel Boorstein
Elizabeth Drew
Editor, Atlanta Constitution
William Sloane Coffin

John Kerry, VVAW

Shirley MacLaine
Annie Dillard
The Berrigan Brothers
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr
Tom Hayden
Gary Trudeau
Bernadette Dorn
John Leonard
John Blum
Robert S McNamara

Judy Collins

Arthur Schlesinger
Bill Moyers
Calif Gov Brown
James Michener
Bill Mauldin
Bernadette Dorn
Ramsey Clark
Commander, VFW
Commander, American Legion
Clarence Kelley
Elizbeth Hotzman
Elizabeth Janeway

Richard Nixon

Spiro Agnew

Edward M Kennedy
John V Tunney
Seymour Hersch
David Brinkley
Buckminster Fuller
Jean Jacques Servan- Schreiber
Robert Audrey
Carlos Fuentes
George S McGovern
Hubert H Humphrey
All Presidential Candidates

Dad followed up some of these people with letters, most notably Vonnegut, Capote, Michener and Shirley MacLaine. More on that effort in a later post.