America's Reluctant Prince by Steven M Gillon

Author:Steven M Gillon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-07-09T00:00:00+00:00

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Over the next eighteen months, the two partners arranged meetings with wealthy investors, many of them friends of John’s mom, along with a handful of publishing houses. “Every door was open to them,” said a friend of John’s. “But that was good news and bad news. Did these people believe, or did they just want to meet John?” At one point, John and Michael joked that they could fund the magazine simply by charging people $1 million to meet with John.

Their initial meetings did not go well. Even if Michael and John attended a meeting together, it would become clear that everyone wanted to see and hear from John. The two men were invited to make a presentation to a large publishing house. Michael did all the talking, and John sat largely silent. When the publishing executives were asked afterward how the meeting went, one said, “We were pissed. We had no intention of giving them any money. We just wanted to hear from John, and all we got was Berman. We could not kick them out of the office fast enough.”

Some potential investors found them unprepared and unfocused. One of those they approached described it as “very much amateur hour.” The president of a small publishing company said that John came to him with only a vague idea about his magazine’s direction. “He gave me his feelings about the marketplace, that young people are interested in politics, but we don’t realize it and it doesn’t show up in the stats,” he recalled John explaining. He then asked John about a magazine article suggesting that only 15 percent of any generation find government or public affairs interesting, but John dismissed the observation. “It was the worst presentation I have seen in my business life,” the executive stated. “He was like, ‘I’m JFK, so there you go.’ He just knew he had this perfect idea; he was so worked up.”

Even close friends of the family rejected him, including Jann Wenner, whose negative response especially disappointed John. He initially thought that Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone magazine, would at least offer constructive comments. Instead, John complained afterward, “He shit all over it.” “Politics doesn’t sell,” Jann told him bluntly. “It’s not commercial.” He then proceeded to offer John a job at Rolling Stone. John suspected that Wenner simply did not want the competition. “John was hurt and felt betrayed by Jann,” a colleague recalled.

They also set up a meeting with David Koch, an oil billionaire from Wichita, Kansas, who donated heavily to both the Republican and Libertarian Parties. But Koch seemed less interested in buying the magazine than he did in purchasing Mrs. Onassis’s apartment, which he’d seen and wanted a second look at even though potential buyers were allowed only one visit. “I am planning to get married, and I’m looking at your mother’s apartment,” he told John. “Your mama was a lot like mine. Neither one of them likes spending a penny. That apartment is a mess.”

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