May 31, 1961: The Times publishes a Page 1 editorial urging readers to reelect Mayor Norris Poulson because Sam Yorty would “ruin good government.” Despite The Times’ aggressive endorsement of Poulson, voters elected Yorty, who was mayor until 1973, when he was defeated by Tom Bradley.

May 24, 1961: Radio and TV comedy star Joan Davis dies of a heart attack and gets a Page 1 obituary with a jump. Raymond Chandler got an six-paragraph obituary on Page 4.  Davis was 48 when she died.

May 12, 1961: Mayor Norris Poulson accused challenger Sam Yorty of being “backed by the underworld” and Yorty responded with a libel suit.   The basis of Poulson's charge was that as an Assemblyman, Yorty supported a bill to legalize bookmaking and as an attorney, he received $12,500 from operators of a Las Vegas casino-hotel for trying to get them a gambling license in Nevada.

Also on the jump: A full-page ad for Moral Re-Armament, one of those cultural forces that took root in the 1930s and may be remembered for the Up With People traveling productions that began in 1965 and struggled to survive in the 1980s.    

May 7, 1941: Mayor Fletcher Bowron is reelected and another Times endorsement goes down in flames.

Out of curiosity, I picked up Gladwin Hill’s “Dancing Bear” at the Southern California Library’s book sale.  I never met Hill (d. 1992), the New York Times bureau chief in Los Angeles, but I had heard about him at luncheon gatherings of Times retirees who call themselves the Old Farts. 
 
I tend to avoid reading about politics in my spare time. I get a healthy dose of it at work, and the minute dissection of old political intrigues – stiffly written prose about half-remembered names and long-forgotten battles  – isn’t terribly interesting to anyone but the most confirmed political junkie.

With expectations that “Dancing Bear” would be nothing but a stale time capsule, I was quite pleasantly surprised by Hill’s engaging account of California politics, and his insights not only on the state’s curious history, but especially his perspective on the early career of Ronald Reagan.  

April 11, 1961: Mayoral candidate Sam Yorty sues Mayor Norris Poulson for slander! Life is good (if you’re a newspaper)!
 
Al Capp interviews a stewardess for American Airlines – none of this flight attendant stuff in 1961, you know.

Paul Coates writes about a young lad who received a series of those painful shots – 14 of them – to prevent rabies after being bitten by a dog. Only they didn’t all that much, the boy says.

April 8. 1961: Red Cars are being replaced by buses on service between Los Angeles and Long Beach, San Pedro and Compton. Transportation conspiracy buffs please note: The Metropolitan Transit Authority is making the switch because Pacific Electric won’t grant a long-term lease on its tracks.

 
March 30, 1941: In a classic example of one its attempts to meddle in local politics, The Times publishes a Page 1 editorial about the mayor’s race, sharply criticizing the incumbent, Fletcher Bowron, and advocating a man you most certainly have never heard about: Stephen W. Cunningham. Although this editorial is unsigned it is quite likely the handiwork of Kyle Palmer, The Times political powerbroker and would-be kingmaker who capped his career with an ardent and utterly unsuccessful campaign to put Richard Nixon in the White House in the 1960 election.

Perhaps The Times was embarrassed by Cunningham’s poor showing, because the 1941 election stories reported Bowron leading by 32,000 votes, rather than giving a total or a percentage. It is only in Cunningham’s 1956 obituary  that we get the actual numbers. Apparently unable to acknowledge defeat even many years later, The Times said: “"He lost the election by a narrow margin, receiving 149,721 votes to Bowron's 182,172.”  That “narrow margin” works out as 54% to 45%.  

In a recent interview, I called Palmer “one of the most contemptible people to ever work at The Times.” For a while, I thought this might have been too harsh until I read his coverage of the 1941 mayor’s race.

The lesson in all of this is that The Times' editorials and political endorsements weren't nearly as influential as people believe today. The voters obviously weren't shy about ignoring The Times' candidates.

Few sights are more depressing that a yesterday's screen beauty with 20 years added to her face, Jimmie Fidler says.

ALSO

Kyle Palmer on the Daily Mirror

Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador, June 5, 1968, photo courtesy of Howard Decker	Robert F. Kennedy in an undated photo by Paul Jacobs

L.A. Observed recently posted a photo – from Chip Jacobs’ blog -- of Robert F. Kennedy outside the Biltmore Hotel during his 1968 presidential campaign. Jacobs’ older brother Paul snapped the photo and the question arose of when it was taken. Jacobs believed it was from June 5, 1968, the day Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador. According to L.A. Observed, Kennedy aides, including  Paul Schrade, who was wounded in the shooting, said Kennedy didn’t go to the Biltmore that day.

A comparison of a photo taken by Daily Mirror reader Howard Decker (alias Fibber McGee) the night Kennedy was shot and Jacobs’ photo shows a number of differences, including the length of Kennedy’s hair. Kennedy’s tie is similar in both photos, but the stripes are angled in different directions. 

One possible date is April 19, 1968, when Kennedy made a Town Hall appearance at the Biltmore Bowl. The story, by Carl Greenberg, notes that Kennedy arrived at Burbank Airport and had a private security escort rather than the LAPD.

It’s unclear whether the LAPD’s absence was due to ill feelings between Mayor Sam Yorty and Kennedy,  but Kennedy said: "It was nice of Mayor Yorty to provide me with a police escort -- it was just when I started to go through Pomona."

July 13, 1984-- The Times’ Karen Tumulty profiles the Democratic vice presidential candidate: “Geraldine A. Ferraro likes to refer to herself as ‘a housewife from Queens,’ the conservative, blue-collar borough of New York where the television show "All in the Family was set." But if it's Archie Bunker's district that she represents in Congress, her supporters say, it was the big-hearted Edith Bunkers of her district who elected her."

March 24, 1961: Paul Coates dips into the mailbox for items on the mayor’s race and women’s measurements.