Dreamers and Deceivers Read online

  Among those MacDonald told was a Connecticut doctor named Leander Jones.

  New York City

  August 28, 1893

  6:45 P.M.

  “I’m calling with the biggest scoop you’ve ever heard in your life!”

  E. J. Edwards spoke quickly into the phone to a stenographer for the Philadelphia Press. “It’s too big for me telegraph it to you, so I’m going to dictate everything I’ve written over the phone. Are you ready?”

  The real question, Edwards believed, was whether the country was ready.

  “Make seven headlines. The top one should say:

  THE PRESIDENT A VERY SICK MAN

  Then, below it:

  AN OPERATION PERFORMED ON HIM ON MR. BENEDICT’S YACHT

  PART OF THE JAW REMOVED

  A DISEASE WHOSE SYMPTOMS GAVE INDICATIONS THAT IT MIGHT BE SARCOMA

  Follow that with:

  MR. CLEVELAND’S PRESENT CONDITION SUCH AS TO GIVE ENCOURAGEMENT

  THE CASE NOT UNLIKE GRANT’S

  Finally:

  FOUR DAYS IN BED AFTER THE USE OF GAS AND KNIFE—SEVERAL OF NEW YORK’S EXPERT PHYSICIANS CONCERNED”

  Edwards’s voice was full of excitement. For decades, he had tracked down every lead, cultivated countless sources, and had taken care to write one of the most reliably accurate and eloquent columns in the country. Now he was ready to inform the nation that their president had recently been diagnosed with cancer.

  Cleveland, Edwards would report, had assembled a dream team of doctors on the Oneida to surgically remove his malignant tumor in an environment that would be free of leaks to the press. He had enlisted his friends—in particular his secretary of war—to cover it up with lies, all in the service of a president twice elected by the American people on the basis of his reputation for unwavering honesty.

  Edwards continued dictating into the phone. “Mr. Cleveland, with Mr. Lamont, whose faithful attendance . . . approaches that of filial affection and has been a matter of much comment during the summer, left Washington quite suddenly upon the day when the call for the extraordinary session of Congress was issued.

  “Arrangements were made in this city with celerity, and Mr. Cleveland was met when he arrived here by Dr. Bryant and another physician, and by Dr. Hasbrouck, all of whom boarded the yacht with him. The baggage of these physicians contained the instruments of surgery and the apparatus for anesthetic administration.”

  When Grover Cleveland had presented himself, per doctor’s orders, in his underwear, Edwards reported, the saloon he stood in had been converted into an operating room. Its only piece of furniture was a reclining chair for him to sit on during the surgery. Oxygen and nitrous oxide were stored in tanks beside it. Before him was his friend Joseph Bryant, along with three other surgeons, plus the White House physician, and Dr. Ferdinand Hasbrouck, who would administer anesthesia and pull the teeth blocking the tumor.

  “When the time came, the President of the United States submitted himself to the surgeon as calmly, as gently, and as willingly as though he were merely lying down for brief slumber,” Edwards told the stenographer. “The operation did not require very long, but it entailed the cutting away of a considerable part of the upper jaw bone upon one side, the instrument boring through the bone and tissue as far as the orbital plate.”

  After the operation—which caused Cleveland’s heart rate to fall and his temperature to surge—the president was left with a two-and-a-half-square-inch hole in his mouth where five teeth, a third of the roof of his mouth, and a considerable chunk of his upper jawbone had once been.

  Faced with the most deceptive and audacious disappearing act in presidential history, Edwards took care not to exaggerate any aspect of the story. If anything, he felt he downplayed the peril the president was in. After all, only about 5 percent of patients who underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor survived for more than three years. In other words, the odds were only one in twenty that Grover Cleveland would serve the remainder of this presidential term.

  Nevertheless, Edwards assured readers that, although the president was “perhaps a very sick man,” his doctors expected him to recover. “Mr. Cleveland recovered from the shock even better than the physicians had dared to hope he would. He was kept in bed, so well treated that he slept much of the time, and after four days’ absence, during which time the country was wondering where he was, it was deemed safe to permit him to land at Gray Gables.”

  Of course, Edwards did not need to exaggerate anything in his exposé. The truth was incredible enough.

  It was so incredible, in fact, that a strange thing happened after it was reprinted in newspapers from coast to coast over the next few days: The public didn’t believe it. The nation simply wasn’t willing to take E. J. Edwards’s word over their president’s.

  EPILOGUE

  On the president’s behalf, his allies in the press waged a vigorous onslaught on Edwards’s veracity. The reporter was labeled a “panic-monger,” “a disgrace to journalism,” and a “calamity liar” whose reporting was “the very depth of despicable journalism.” Not a single person with firsthand knowledge of the president’s surgery went on record to confirm Edwards’s story and vindicate the maligned journalist. Edwards could have boosted his own credibility by revealing Hasbrouck’s name—or even the dentist’s connection to the surgery—but to protect his confidential source, Edwards refused to do so.

  Edwards endured attack after attack from Democratic-leaning newspapers like the Philadelphia Times. Its front-page story the day after the exposé was published was typical:

  The only element of truth in the latest story of President Cleveland’s illness which has been printed in Philadelphia is that he suffered from a toothache and that the teeth which pained him were removed on board E. C. Benedict’s yacht.

  Mr. Edwards surrounded his report of that event with all the cruel and cold-blooded details, true and false, which his imagination could call up.

  The article added that Cleveland’s tooth extraction was “one of the commonest, simplest operations known to dentistry” and that “there was no question of cancer or of sarcoma. Any comparison between Mr. Cleveland’s toothache and the serious malady from which General Grant suffered and which caused his death was only another evidence of the exquisite heartlessness of the newspaper correspondent.”

  Without hesitation or exception, Cleveland, Lamont, and their allies tenaciously held on to their “toothache” story, and when the dust settled in the wake of Edwards’s article, the American people believed that, from July 1 to July 5, 1893, President Cleveland had gone fishing, suffered from some rheumatism, and had a few teeth extracted.

  On the back of Cleveland’s popularity, and after one of the longest Senate filibusters in American history, Congress repealed the Silver Purchase Act on October 30, 1893. The president’s gambit to protect his political capital had worked—and the result was a radically new economic policy for the United States.

  Thanks to Cleveland’s deception, silver was out and gold was in, where it would remain until 1933, when the gold standard was abandoned by another former governor of New York, a Democratic president who shared with Cleveland a talent for covering up medical conditions: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

  • • •

  Although he never regained all his energy or weight—or, unfortunately for the White House staff, control over his temper—the president served out every remaining day of his term in office. In a stroke of immense luck, Cleveland’s cancer turned out to be unusually slow growing. When he died in 1908 (there is some debate about whether the cancer caused his death), not a single obituary mentioned his disappearance in July 1893 or the radical surgery his doctors performed in the saloon of the Oneida.

  Not only did the president physically and politically survive the surgery—his tumor survived as well. Retained by one of his doctors as a souvenir, the clump of bone, tissue, and teeth today sits at the bottom of a glass jar on display in the New York Academy of Med
icine’s Mutter Museum. The caption beside it reads, “Tumor—Specimen Removed from the maxillary (upper) left jaw of President Grover Cleveland on July 1st, 1893.”

  In light of all the misreporting and obfuscation about the president’s time on the Oneida, there is something fitting about the caption at the Mutter Museum: The date is wrong and the word cancer is not mentioned.

  Perhaps the only thing that did not survive this bizarre episode of history intact was E. J. Edwards’s once sterling reputation. Although he would continue to write his column and investigate with tenacity and success, his readers and peers were unwilling to place the trust in “Holland” they’d once had. Cleveland had salvaged his political strength and his economic agenda only by slandering and irreparably injuring a blameless reporter who dared to expose the truth.

  It was not until 1917—nearly twenty-five years later—that one of the surviving doctors from the Oneida operation admitted publicly that Edwards’s story “was substantially correct, even in most of the details.” In a lengthy article in the Saturday Evening Post, Dr. William Keen, the most prestigious surgeon in the country, explained in intricate detail how he assisted Dr. Bryant and the other doctors who had operated on Grover Cleveland.

  It had taken more than two decades, but in E. J. Edwards’s seventieth year, his readers finally learned once and for all that he was an honest man—and that Grover Cleveland was not.

  Cleveland was, of course, hardly the last president to lie to the American people or engage in a nonstop war against transparency. Nor was he the last to have his word held in high esteem by a compliant press corps. What has changed in modern times, however, is that the media—the so-called fourth estate made up of America’s best and brightest journalists—are no longer trusted.

  Sadly, that leaves the American people with no one to rely on: not the politicians; not the media.

  Nature may abhor a vacuum, but political systems abhor a vacuum of trust even more. If we don’t find someone to fill it—someone who can unify the country behind the truth—then that vacuum will be filled for us.

  2

  “I Did Not Kill Armstrong”: The War of Wills in the Early Days of Radio

  January 31, 1954

  River House Apartments, 13th Floor

  East 52nd Street, New York City

  Numbers don’t lie, Armstrong thought. That fact had always been a cold comfort, even through the worst of times.

  In the quiet of his room he let his mind tick through the equations once again. The results were still the same: There was a high probability that his remains would be smashed beyond recognition by his impact with the sidewalk far below.

  He’d done the math on his impending suicide because he was, above all else, an engineer. But there were still many variables to consider: the winter breezes gusting over the East River, updrafts and downdrafts flowing between the tall buildings, humidity, air density, and drag coefficients—even the courage with which he would take his fatal step from the ledge. To a layman, these concerns might seem minor compared to the most obvious unknown that he faced: What kinder world, if any, might await him on the other side?

  His mind turned back to the matters at hand.

  Armstrong knew that when it was all over—after the police and the coroner arrived—a quick identification of his body might ease the burden of his loved ones. So, in the likely event that his features would be destroyed by trauma, he had dressed himself in the usual careful fashion that his neighbors would immediately recognize.

  He stood before the mirror, straightened his tie, and saw himself as he would soon be discovered: an evening overcoat, a wool scarf, gloves, and his favorite walking hat. All was as it should be.

  On the corner of the desk lay his last words. The pages were placed under a paperweight to protect them from the winds that might sweep in upon his exit through the open window. He’d intended to leave only a brief goodbye, but once he’d begun, writing a lifetime of memories had passed before his eyes. Many things long denied had finally become clear to him, but in the end, none were more certain than this: Every one of his inventions, all of his achievements, and everything he’d once dreamed for the world would soon be buried and forgotten—right along with his name.

  His signature was the last detail to consider. Most acquaintances addressed him only by his middle name of Howard, while old friends often called him the Major in recognition of his permanent army rank and his many contributions to his nation’s victories in wartime. Whoever should first find this note might not know him at all. For clarity, then, he’d signed his name in full, as one might put a finish to a legal document.

  God keep you; and the Lord have mercy on my soul.

  Edwin Howard Armstrong

  At the turn of the twentieth century, the national mind was alive and brimming with wondrous possibilities. Our heroes were the adventurers, the explorers, the visionaries, and the inventors. Even small children knew their names.

  Their promises were breathtaking: One day soon winged vehicles would fill the skies and rockets would venture beyond Earth’s atmosphere; automobiles would be as common as horse-drawn carts and buggies; synthetic materials and mechanized workers would revolutionize manufacturing and agriculture; great works of art and theater would be beamed to every living room in moving pictures, real as life; new medicines would eliminate dread diseases; new forms of abundant energy would bring security and prosperity to every hearth and home; and thinking machines would sit upon our desks to help us solve the profound mysteries still facing mankind.

  It was not an era for timid bystanders. The means to pursue the next amazing breakthrough were available to every thinking man and woman. Their laboratories were attics, basements, and garages, and every citizen scientist with the will, the intellect, a blackboard, and hand tools could feel in their grasp the potential to change the world.

  As that new century dawned, a great unexplored frontier awaited man’s conquest: the still primitive, misunderstood medium that would one day be called radio. The wireless transmission of information across many miles through invisible airborne waves was the stuff of dreams, and its pursuit captured the ambitions of three very different men.

  Lee de Forest, David Sarnoff, and Edwin Howard Armstrong all ran the same race on separate courses toward an unknown finish line.

  Only one would ever cross it.

  48 Years Earlier

  Yonkers, New York

  April 4, 1906

  “Edwin! Edwin Armstrong, you come down from there this instant!”

  He could barely hear his mother’s voice over the noise of the wind singing through the wires all around him. He’d heard enough to know she was angry, though—she only brandished “Edwin Armstrong” when she was mad as a wet hornet.

  The young man was sitting in a bosun’s chair a hundred feet above the ground, suspended by four thin ropes alongside his latest and greatest antenna. He’d finished work on the tower almost an hour before, but he loved the feel of the air up there. If given a choice he would probably never come down.

  “I’ll be inside in a few minutes!” he shouted.

  “Not in a few minutes, now. And I mean right now! And if you break your neck, Howard Armstrong, don’t you dare come running to me!”

  When his mom had turned and gone back inside in a huff, he made his way down to join the family for dinner. It was a generous meal at one of many regular gatherings with his parents and sisters and most of his uncles and aunts and cousins. As the food was passed around the table, his relatives quizzed him about his latest experiments, and then listened intently as if his words were the most important ever spoken.

  Though his mom was still a little miffed at his earlier high-wire act, Howard could tell she’d forgiven him yet again. She believed in him, they all did, and there was never a doubt in his mind that within the comforting walls of this big, beautiful home, he was loved.

  Howard never blamed his mother for being overly protective. She’d almost lost him when
he was eight and came down with rheumatic fever. There were complications—he’d missed two years of school, and the disease had left him with a tremor and a tic in his face that still dogged him to this day, especially when he was nervous. That’s why they’d moved from their beloved Manhattan to this spacious home in tranquil Yonkers. His parents wanted the best for their only son, and his entire family had been there to nurse him through his long recovery.

  In addition to his fascination with great heights and his love of all things electrical, Howard had also learned to treasure solitude. In the quiet and safety of his attic laboratory, his mind was free to explore. Although he was humble to a fault, he also understood that he was gifted. When a family friend had seen his first crystal set—a cobbled-together little wonder that he’d created from scratch—the friend had declared him to be a true prodigy. Though he’d had to look up that word prodigy in the dictionary, something told Howard that what this visiting engineer had whispered to his dad might really be true.

  Where others saw just a tangled box of components and wires, Howard couldn’t help but visualize the myriad ways they might be connected. As he read through The Boy’s Book of Inventions the concepts came alive before his eyes. He could see within the black-and-white circuits and schematics the interplay of flowing currents, the ebb and flow of resistance, impedance, reactance, capacitance, and induction. He could see in these forces the seeds of great discoveries—a world-changing treasure just waiting to be found.

  Then there was radio—which was currently nothing more than a curiosity, a hobbyist’s toy beyond the means of most laymen. An elaborate antenna, a pair of sensitive headphones, and an expensive receiver were required just to pull in a weak, scratchy signal from any distance at all. But in those waves of airborne electricity and magnetism, young Howard Armstrong saw an amazing untapped potential.