Raven by Reiterman Tim

Author:Reiterman, Tim
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2010-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

One day late in 1976, Marshall Kilduff of the San Francisco Chronicle got to talking about Jones with some fellow observers of the Housing Authority scene. He, an Examiner reporter and an Authority executive customarily killed time before meetings, chatting over coffee in the executive’s office; on this day, the office door was ajar and some of Jones’s bodyguards loitered in the hall. Kilduff had never put much stock in the Kinsolving series in 1972 because he did not think much of Kinsolving’s work, but he had observed the Temple’s treatment of Chronicle reporter Julie Smith when she attempted a story in spring of 1976. He recalled aloud how Jones had tried blatant flattery on Smith and had somehow learned the exact contents of the story draft in her desk.

Jones’s spies were working on this particular day as well. After the commission meeting, the minister approached Kilduff. “I hear you think I’m eccentric, and try to butter up the press.” Kilduff replied: “I don’t know how you would know that, but I would not say those things in public.”

“I get the feeling you don’t trust me,” Jones said.

Rather than intimidating Kilduff, the exchange provided a catalyst. In the back of his mind, the intrigued reporter formulated an idea for a story—not a hard-hitting expose, but the profile of a colorful local figure with a Pentecostal flair.

One Sunday at 11:00 A.M. in January of 1977, Marshall Kilduff walked into the labyrinth. By prearrangement, he passed through the iron-grille front gate and heavy wooden door to meet Dick Tropp—the Temple’s resident professor—and a black woman from the Housing Authority who took him and about ten other visitors on a standard Temple tour. After a while, Kilduff became aware that the other visitors, who kept asking benignly leading questions about the church’s good works, were Temple shills. Also, he noticed that, while the tour dragged on, about two thousand people were sitting in silence in the main auditorium, evidently waiting. Surely, he thought, they could not be holding up services for his sake. But they were.

On being escorted to a seat near the front of the auditorium, Kilduff discovered his own boss, Chronicle city editor Steve Gavin, and Chronicle reporter Katy Butler among the congregation. As they exchanged greetings awkwardly, he felt intimidated. He was unaware that his own co-workers would be attending the Temple services. Actually, it was Gavin’s first visit, Butler’s second. Kilduff, now decidedly uncomfortable, witnessed a service complete with testimonies, entertainment and a question-and-answer period in which Jones spoke against investments in South Africa.

The next day at the Chronicle Kilduff remarked to Gavin, “Quite a show. Don’t you think we should do a story about this guy? I hear he’s powerful politically.”

“We’ve already done it,” the city editor said, mentioning the Julie Smith article.

“That’s right,” Kilduff agreed, concluding that the Chronicle would not accept another story unless he could find something entirely new. But rather than dropping it, he decided to consider doing the piece free-lance, for a magazine.

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