The Golden Story

When he landed at New York's Idlewild Airport, a woman from his publisher's office met him with a copy of the unsigned, poison-pen letter--neatly typed, grammatically written and essentially correct. "Harry Golden," it said, "is an ex-convict" who once ran a stock-racketeering Manhattan "bucket shop." Barrel-shaped, cigar-chewing Harry Golden smiled long and thoughtfully. "I've been expecting it for some time," said he.

Harry Golden, social critic, humorist, essayist and author of the leading nonfiction bestseller Only in America (World; $4). tactfully withdrew from the scheduled CBS-TV program on integration that brought him to Manhattan, and confessed that he was indeed an ex-convict. That done, Golden flew back to Charlotte, N.C. to pace his house with a cigar in one hand and a glass of beer in the other, and wonder what would happen when his friends and readers learned that he had served three years and eight months for mail fraud in the early '30s.

For Golden, the disclosure came at a critical time. He was well on his way to becoming a national figure. Not only is his volume of pungent comment and reminiscence selling well, but the Carolina Israelite, his one-man, monthly-or-so newspaper (circ. 25,000), is so successful that even Southern neighbors chuckle at his wry, raucous gibes against segregation (TIME, April 1, 1957). What is more, Golden felt perfectly at ease in the old Southern town of Charlotte, his adopted home since 1941, despite the fact that he was no planter's-punch Southerner but rather a Jew from Manhattan's East Side.

The reaction to Golden's confession was overwhelming. Neighbors stopped by to shake hands, telegrams poured in, both phones jangled incessantly. Financier Bernard Baruch, U.N. Mediator Frank Graham and Adlai Stevenson sent their firm support. Poet Carl Sandburg, who wrote the introduction to Golden's book, told a reporter: "This only ties me closer to him." Wired a New York friend: "So what else is new?"

Said Golden: "It's unbelievable. I guess maybe I'm not dead after all."

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