SEX PUBLISHER: IF YOU GOT IT, FLAUNT IT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000100420004-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 11, 2010
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: June 27, 1971
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/11: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100420004-7
P17 J U;N 1977
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By Fran lflyI1az . Pet erso1i-
G: LE N1NG BACK in his
armchair behind a cluttered
? des?k irS his Now York oi'iice,
49-year-old publisher L y 1 e
Stuart cheerfully exclaims:
"Look at the current best-
selier lists! Random House
has four bestsellers among
the nonfiction top 10, and the
combined circulation of those
four is loss than that of my
;'Sensuous Woman,' which ha s
already sold 010,000 copies."
Boasting is as natural to
Stuart as chinking, dating and
sleeping. "I've only been to
one publisher's party in the
last year, and I Went to that
one dressed as sloppily as
possible, just to shake every-
one up," he boasted slightly.
All don't care vihat they think
of me. They all know what I
11,
or 45
think of thc?n. I do $4
million a year gross. How
many publishers can say.
~
that?"
Aside from. "The Sensuous
Woman" and its sequel, "The
Sensuous Man," 'the Stuart
fortune has boon bola d along
long-play
by Dr. Albert Ellis'
ing lib; ary of sexual how-,
Nvny- and when-to books.
Nevertheless, Stuart goes out
of the way to point out that
his publishing company's suc-
fo:lded
t reall
y
cess was no
on sex tomes. eluded books by Jim Peck, a the sex revolution in 1953 by
Isis first venture vas a leader of C. 0. R. E. ["We. putting out Dr. Albert Ellis'
racy expose tabloid, Inde- Who Would Not Kill"], and "Sex Without Guilt." Ile
pendent, which he published once-blacklisted film Writer recalls that Esquire maga-
Dalton Truroblo [the unnerv- zinc turned down ads for the
while. holding down a fall. ingly powerful novel "Johnny
time job as business many et boor: because they said it was,
of 11Jad magazine. Stuart Got His Gun"]. Trumbo's "too pro-sex." "We were the
used to delight in needling hook was made into a film first to publish. books which
Walter Wirchell in his ?Inde- that created a sensation at said sex wasn't bad-it's good
pendent, and when the pro- this year's Cannes Festival. for you, it's fun, live it up.
voiced columnist struck back Another nonscx title Stuart, "before we came on the
.too hard Stuart countered by lowed in 1900, was "'l'ire scc::he, b o a k s would say,
winning 'a '21,000 libel judg- Gangrene," a narrative about 'Don't do too much and be
ment. Algerians who were tortured careful.' We then got the
With this largesse he then by French Police overzealous reputation for being hot-book
proceeded to finance his first in their efforts to stn 1 the publishers, which we aren't
In the
lution
ll"
e
f
.
a Y.
revo r
book, "The Pulse Test," a tide o
popularized medical work by
Imogene Coca's uncle, Dr.
Arthur Coca.
Dr. Coca contended that by
daily recording one's own
pulse's , highs and lows, a
person can keep close tabs on
the state of his health, as well
as avoid painful allergies.
OJi
7ne boo.; lost. 44,500 m its "Tile We Stuart imprint
first half-year in print. on a book has very often
"Instead of dumping it line.
other publishers would have come to designate a book that
done," Stuart says with a other publishers hesitate to
toss of his shaggy head "I publish because it miglht
sank another 000 into gads offend pressure groups. This
with money I had won from book has offended the entire
Walter Ninchell. Arch_trlen French government.
the book took off?" . 1 When Stuart published J111,111
the, date, it has sold a SArevalo's~ "The Shark and the
comfortable 90,0:;0 copies. Sardines" in 1961, he was
of his share of the called on by former Sen.
Out
grits, Stuart bought his o,vn Thomas Dodd to testify be
p.; fore the latter's Senate In-
4:.C0 pulse meter to save the
drudgery of counting his ternal Security Subconlmit-
puise for 15 seconds every tee. The book, in Stuart 's
morning. "Nell, if you cot it, words, "told Americans what
flaunt i t ," he proclaims Latin American intellectuals
jauntily. thought about the United
Having learned his lesson Stites. Up 'until that time we
with "The Pulse Test,"' Lyle thought we were everybody's
Stuart continues to write all herc2s.
of his own boo'.: ads. Ile's The senator :,nd Stuart
willing to delegate what he
calls less important jobs to exchanged barbs thruout the
employes, like reading manu- he_ar;ns, ending in Stuart's
scripts and writing checks. words on the closed session,
"The :;lost important thin, -;'by Dodd breaking the gavel
to keep in mind when writing
, and callin me the most
g
ads for a book is don t
promise more than you can impudent witness he had ever
deliver," he says. "You 'can heard." Stuart thinks of this
fool boric buyers once or incident as a triumph for the
twice with an inflated ad, but good guys.
they'll catch on." According to Stuart, he
t 1, i t -,~~-- t f h
advocating birth control thin
the mail." Stuart also points
out that he did this without
court trials and flamboyant
publicity. ,
In a poetic mood, Stuart
says, "Every one of my
books is like a painting, but
`The Sensuous Woman' was
like my Rembrandt." .J the
n o t -s o-anonynhous author,
used to work for Stuart
publicizing h o o k s. "She
couldn't Write," Stuart re-
calls.'
"She had perpetual writer's
block. But she was just as
sweet and homely as could
be, and honest. J eventually
left my cnlp',oy, but we kept
in touch. One day she told nhc
how broke she v:as," Stuart
recalls.
"Sc) I told her to write me
one chapter of a book on how
to be the world's sexiest
woman. She brought nhe the
whipped cream chapter and I
gave her $500 right on the
spot."
He boasts that he has never
read any-of the manuscripts
of his bestsellers except his
first, "The Pulse Test."
"I do better by picking the
right., person-a friend or
freelance reader -to go over
a manuscript and tell' me
whether it's worth publishing.
if the answer is 'yes,' I
promote the hell out of it,"
he explains.
This year, Stuart's icono-
clasin has shifted from sex to
politics. He has high hopes
for "The Anarchist Cook-
book," despite the fact that it
has been v;idely denounced.
Already 20,000 copies have
been sold, both hardcover and
ally wrote for the volume, "We broke the United States soft.. Featured in tlhe boo': are
Stuart says, "This book prob- custom ban against impo:'tine a variety of how-toe, ranging
ably' would not have been erotic art and b:o'~e the Post from a recipe for pot pie
published in America if the made with marijuana to
French government had not 0.fice ban against sendin Y detailed diagrams for , sue-
ordered its seizure in France. birth control information and cessfuliy dynamiting a
bridge.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/11: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100420004-7