The New York Times looks at one of the MAJOR influences on the life of Donald John Trump even to this day…
The book cited, is new biography of Mr. Cohn, “American Scoundrel,” by Karl Bird, which will be released by Scribner next week…
The book’s cover photo has its own story…..
‘Soundrel”?…….A villain, rascal, or petty criminal. It describes someone who treats others badly or intentionally causes trouble.
It is an arresting, menacing image: the scarred face of Roy M. Cohn, the notorious New York City lawyer, fixer and master of the political dark arts, floating bodiless in a pool of black, his hooded eyes staring directly back at the viewer.
The photograph, taken by Robert Mapplethorpe in 1981, is an unforgettable depiction of its subject, and the celebrated author Kai Bird thought it would make the perfect cover art for his new biography of Mr. Cohn, “American Scoundrel,” which will be released by Scribner next week.
That the picture never ended up on the book’s cover is a matter of regret to Mr. Bird — and a small but telling illustration of the anxiety that has taken root in the nonprofit world because of Mr. Cohn’s most famed protégé, an ambitious real estate developer now serving his second term as president.
President Trump loomed large in the decision by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, which administers the artist’s estate and catalog, to decline the request to license the photograph, according to three people familiar with its deliberations….
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Mr. Bird, whose 2005 biography of Robert Oppenheimer, “American Prometheus,” was adapted into the Oscar-winning Christopher Nolan film, said in an interview that he was “thunderstruck” and “outraged” when he learned that the Mapplethorpe Foundation had declined to license the portrait. “It’s astonishing that these people are being so cowed, so easily,” he said….
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Several First Amendment lawyers, none of whom were involved in the foundation’s discussions, said the use of a photograph for a scholarly biography would not typically constitute political activity. But the lawyers acknowledged that it was difficult to ignore the uneasy atmosphere the Trump administration has created.
“The idea that a photograph of a dead mobster lawyer could somehow qualify as political activity, even under the Trump administration, is hard to fathom,” said Suzanne Nossel, a former chief executive of the free expression group PEN America. “And yet, we’re in an environment where no one feels they can rule anything out.”
The photograph itself has a colorful history….
image….The cover of “American Scoundrel” by Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark, with a portrait of Mr. Cohn by the photographer Britain Hill.
Cohn, not Cohen (no E)