The Rothman Scandal (78 page)

With the utterance of that last remark, Mr. Waxman turned dramatically to the members of the government's prosecution team, who were already looking unhappy, and declared, “And this, gentlemen, is the man you claim has single-handed control of Rothman Communications!”

This last provoked a histrionic outburst from Mrs. Anna Lily Rothman, 85, H. O. Rothman's wife, who was among the courtroom spectators. Pointing to the prosecution lawyers, Mrs. Rothman cried out, “You've done this to him! Does he deserve this at the end of a long and productive life? This case has almost killed my husband! It would serve you right if he died right here in this courtroom—murdered by the IRS!” Mrs. Rothman made various other slurring references to the “Infernal” Revenue Service before she was silenced by the judge and by nurses who rushed to her side to calm her.

More Surprises

Following Mrs. Rothman's outburst, Mr. Waxman then proceeded to introduce new evidence. In response to a hand signal, court wardens wheeled in a dozen portable file cabinets on dollies. These proved to contain hundreds of stock certificates, many of them dating from the first third of the century, indicating how shares of the family-owned company have been distributed over the years. This provided an intriguing glimpse of how ownership in a normally very secretive company has been divided over the nearly eight decades since its foundation.

The largest individual stockholder is indeed H. O. Rothman, but other family members also control large blocks of stock. These include Mr. and Mrs. Herbert J. Rothman, and Mr. and Mrs. Arthur R. Rothman, respectively H. O. Rothman's two sons and daughters-in-law. Another large stockholder turns out to be Mrs. Alexandra Rothman, the widow of the H. J. Rothmans' son, Steven, and the current editor-in-chief of
Mode
, the Rothmans' fashion publication. Still another large block of stock is controlled by the Steven Rothman Trust, whose beneficiary is Joel Rothman, Mrs. Alexandra Rothman's son, and a great-grandson of the founder, with his mother as sole trustee and fiduciary officer until her son reaches age 25. An eighth important stockholder, to no one's surprise, turned out to be Mrs. Anna Lily Rothman, who still serves as the company's treasurer. Two other Rothman grandchildren own small amounts of shares.

But the most surprising revelation in the courtroom today was that a large and important block of Rothman Communications is owned by Leonard J. Liebling, the only nonfamily shareholder. Mr. Liebling, who is thought to be in his seventies, has been a longtime Rothman employee and family intimate.

Rudderless Arm

Meanwhile, though H. O. Rothman will retain the honorific title of founding chairman for his lifetime, the operational heads of the company and its various divisions remained somewhat problematic and up in the air. Arthur Rothman continues to head the Broadcast Division and, until recently, Herbert Rothman headed the Publishing Division. Herbert then, in light of his father's incapacitation, briefly assumed the title of president and chief executive officer of the company, leaving the publishing arm rudderless. But Herbert J. Rothman, 67, has recently become incapacitated as well. A massive stroke left his right side completely paralyzed, and left him without the power of speech. The degree of mental damage he may have suffered has not as yet been fully assessed. He was in the courtroom today, in his wheelchair, and appeared angered at the proceedings. Periodically, he tried to scribble messages to the Rothman attorneys with his left hand which, the
Times
learned, were unintelligible.

And so the questions remain as to who will take overall operating charge of the corporation, as well as who will take over the publishing arm. There has been speculation that Leonard Liebling may be handed one or another of these posts, but Mr. Liebling brushed aside such speculation without comment.

Other Shifts Deferred

Other proposed shifts and staff realignments in the company have been deferred, at least for the time being. Earlier this year, for instance, Herbert Rothman announced that his daughter-in-law, Alexandra Rothman, would thenceforth share her editor-in-chiefship of
Mode
with Miss Fiona Fenton, an English fashion expert. Mrs. Rothman was said to have been unhappy with this arrangement, and this plan has apparently been abandoned. Efforts of the
Times
to reach Miss Fenton for comment were unsuccessful, since her telephone is reported disconnected, with no forwarding number.

Meanwhile, faced with such overwhelming evidence in the defense's favor, and even as the file boxes of stock certificates were being marked for exhibit, the government attorneys for the IRS approached the bench and announced that they were dropping their action against the Rothmans. This drew a tart and caustic comment from the presiding judge, Hon. Walter Liebmann, 57. “The next time the IRS decides to bring a case of this magnitude to court,” Judge Liebmann said, “it should try to have sufficient evidence to support its allegations. This case has already cost American taxpayers in excess of $200,000.” Judge Liebmann's comment drew cheers and applause from the Rothman side of the courtroom.

Mel Jorgenson and Alex Rothman were married in a quiet ceremony not long after the trial. Joel Rothman served as his new stepfather's best man.

Alex has moved out of the apartment at 10 Gracie Square, and she and Mel now live in Mel's house on Beekman Place, with Cronkite, of course, and the Bouché portrait moved with her. Having discovered that she owned the apartment, or at least a substantial share of the corporation which held the title, she put the apartment up for sale. The asking price is $2.9 million, but in today's soft real estate market there have been few nibbles. Alex is in no hurry, however, now that her career future and her financial future are both secure.

Joel is now a freshman at Harvard where, from all reports, he is doing very well. But he has also fallen head over heels in love again, this time with the famous young model from Kansas City named Melissa Cogswell, who became an overnight sensation when the photograph of her was published with honey bees swarming in her long blonde hair. Melissa seems like a perfectly nice girl to me, if a bit empty-headed, and it is hard to know whether this romance will lead to anything at this point. Joel has had her up to Cambridge for several weekends. I suppose it is in the nature of eighteen-year-olds to fall head over heels in love several times a year. As for me, I choose not to remember what it was like to be eighteen years old.

Otto, Joel's former bodyguard, now drives a truck for United Parcel. He considers it a very important job because he gets to wear a beeper.

As I say, the bee-swarming photograph became a sensation when it was published. Wisely, I think, Alex chose not to put it on
Mode
's cover where, she reasoned, it might too quickly become overexposed. Instead, she dropped the photograph almost casually in the middle of a sixteen-page spread on picnic fashions. For weeks after it appeared, it seemed, people could talk of nothing else but that photograph—at least in the circles I move in.

Helmut posed her in a one-piece swimsuit, sitting on a fallen log. There was a suggestion of mists, and forest sunlight, and water, in the background. Melisssa sat, with her head thrown back, her long hair streaming down, and the swarming bees seemed to form a moving, gauzy glow around her, almost like a halo. But it was the expression on her face that was so extraordinary, a kind of flushed rapture that suggested sexual arousal. It was an enormously erotic photograph, for some reason, and someone quipped that it was the first time anyone had photographed a woman having an orgasm. The actual cause of the expression was no doubt sheer terror, and only a few people knew that it had taken five full days of posing, with the apiarist applying various chemicals to Melissa's hair, before the bees in the overcrowded hive decided to cooperate, and Helmut had exactly seventeen minutes to get his shot.

The photograph was taken up by serious art critics, one of whom wrote, “Newton's photograph becomes a metaphor for life itself—the throbbing need of wild creatures to establish new territory, a new resting place, a new leader, a Queen, and to propagate the species—the pulsating force that has driven nature since the dawn of time. And in the young woman's face is an image of not only life's nurturing joys and rewards, but also life's uncertainties, dangers, fears, and the dark certainty of death. Newton's photograph speaks eloquently of
en passant, ça va
, as poignantly and heartbreakingly as an Edith Piaf song.” Oh, well …

The photograph has already won a number of important prizes and awards, including an award from the American Society of Magazine Editors, the industry's highest honor. The Pulitzer Prize Committee is very secretive, but my spies tell me that the picture has a good chance of winning the prize for feature photography. If it does, it will be the first time a magazine has won that particular Pulitzer since 1969, when it was won by a publication whose name I won't even deign to mention. Alex is often asked where she came up with the concept for that photograph. “It wasn't my concept at all,” she replies. “The concept came from Gregory Kittredge, one of our bright young editors.” Yes, Gregory has been promoted to assistant editor, quite a step up from being an editorial assistant. And Gregory is definitely a young man on the rise around here, something of the fair-haired boy, and if Alex ever decides to retire, there are those who say that Gregory will be her handpicked successor.

By the way, we had our little letter-burning party—just the three of us, Alex, Charlie, and I—not long after Herbert's stroke. We committed the letter to the flames of our fireplace at the Gainsborough, and the document from the Jackson County Court House met the same fate. During the cremation rite, I couldn't help noticing Alex's eyes traveling briefly to the pair of stained-glass windows. Then her eyes withdrew and, afterward, we went into another room and drank champagne, and got a little tiddly. I considered a toast to Skipper's memory, but then thought better of it.

With Melissa Cogswell—suddenly the hottest, and priciest, young model in the country—in her stable, you'd think that Lucille Withers would be doing very well. Still, to save money, she continues to take the bus when she comes to New York from Kansas City, as she did for Alex's stylish little wedding.

Ho Rothman picked me to succeed Herbert as president of the Publishing Division of Rothman Communications. This was my reward, I suppose, for having saved the company nearly a billion dollars in taxes. But I also suspect that Ho realized that my talents were better suited to the business, rather than the editorial, side of publishing, that I am more of a financial person than an editor. The Publishing Division is doing well enough, though the late-1990 recession has caused our revenues to dip somewhat.
Mode
has felt the pinch, too, but whereas other magazines have suffered revenue losses of up to ten percent,
Mode
is down only three percent, so
Mode
is still ahead of the pack.

Also, now that she is freed of the constraints Herb Rothman placed upon her, Alex is able to have much more fun running her magazine. Already—subtly, gradually—she is introducing new themes and motifs into the book, changing it in ways Herb never would have approved of. I can't reveal the little surprises she is planning for the future, but the atmosphere on the fourteenth floor is suddenly exciting again. It is almost as though she had been given all the money in the world, and allowed to create her own new magazine—those are the sort of changes you'll be noticing in the months ahead. For instance, I can tell you that if Herb Rothman was scandalized by last June's cover, wait till you see the cover she has planned for this coming May! Even Ho, who is hard to scandalize, may raise his eyebrows at this one, though Ho never wails too loudly as long as the bottom line looks good.

As for Ho himself, he has made an astonishing recovery, just as Aunt Lily said he would, once the nightmare of the IRS suit was settled in our favor. As Aunt Lily says, it is shocking to think that a federal agency, such as the IRS, could come so close to destroying a man who has been a conscientious taxpayer for so many years. Though Ho no longer has the complete power that he once had, and must share his power with other stockholders, he is still very much in charge of things at the age of nearly ninety-five. He has moved back into his old squash-court-sized office on the thirtieth floor—the office with the huge map on the wall—and there is no question of who tells whom what to do. Ho's doctors say that they have never seen a case of what was diagnosed as advanced senility reverse itself so dramatically. It is as though the hardened arteries have thawed. Some physicians credit his comeback to his hardy, immigrant genes. One doctor has said that Ho was never senile at all, but was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, rather like that suffered by veterans of the Vietnam War—in Ho's case, the IRS being the equivalent of the Vietnam experience.

But another doctor has decided that Ho was the victim of what this man calls “hysterical senility,” brought on, again, by the IRS. Hysterical senility, this physician maintains, is like a hysterical pregnancy. Hysterical senility, of course, fits no known medical category, but this man is writing a scholarly paper on the subject.

Poor Herbert, on the other hand, has not been well, I am sorry to say. In the aftermath of his stroke, the right side of his once-almost-handsome face now sags rather horribly, making it difficult to look at him. To me, Herb Rothman's face calls to mind a sand castle that has been ravaged by the tide. Occasionally, he still tries to write company memos, if that's what they are, with his left hand, in a handwriting which, alas, no one can decipher. So, for the most part, he is reduced to a mute and angry, bitter glare from his wheelchair, as he watches the world pass him by.

But in the meantime, Herbert's illness has softened Pegeen considerably. It even seems to have saved their faltering marriage. In the process, Pegeen has lost her Razor Blade thinness, and has put on at least thirty pounds. Perhaps what Pegeen always needed was an invalid husband to care for, and Herbert's disability may have given her at last an opportunity to be splendid in a way she never knew how to be, or dared to be, before. Everyone comments on her obviously caring ministrations to her handicapped husband—the way she wheels him on daily outings in Central Park, and takes him to movies, plays, and concerts, activities he never enjoyed before. She has had all the doorknobs in the River House apartment lowered by six inches, so he can grasp them with his good hand from his chair. She has had an orthopedic toilet, with grab bars, installed in his bathroom. People have begun calling the new plump Pegeen Rothman a “saint,” the way darling Marlene called Charlie and me saints. Thus beatified, Pegeen's personal star has risen consequentially in that fickle firmament known as New York Society.