American Scoundrel | An Evening with Kai Bird
About this Event
🎟️ Please note: tickets are required. Ticket options include:
2 Guests + 1 Book ticket ($32 + tax) includes admission for TWO (2) guests and ONE (1) copy of the book upon entry.
1 Guest + 1 Book ticket ($32 + tax) includes admission for ONE (1) guest and ONE (1) copy of the book upon entry.
(Limited Supply) Free Admission ticket includes general entry, but seating is not guaranteed, so please try to show up early. Book is NOT included.
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About The Book
From the 1950s to the 1980s, the many dramas of American political life had one common denominator: Roy Cohn. In his twenties, the infamous young prosecutor sent Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair, and as the chief aide to Senator Joe McCarthy became the baby-faced symbol of ruthless communist-hunting. By his thirties, Cohn had begun working as the Mafia’s hired legal gun. In his forties, he was an informal adviser to Richard Nixon. In his fifties, he partied with the glitterati at Studio 54 and visited the Reagan White House where he traded gossip with the first lady. Perhaps most significant, Cohn mentored the young Donald Trump, who telephoned the older man daily and studiously emulated not only his mannerisms but core philosophies.
Years after his death in 1986 from AIDS-related complications, Cohn emerged as a central figure in Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play Angels in America. Cohn’s feistiness, his surly defiance—and, yes, his charm—were frequently flourished to conceal vast insecurities, particularly regarding his closeted sexuality.
A streetfighter, self-promoting hustler, and true Zelig of the dark side, Cohn was a nefarious actor in a startling number of history-shaping events whose influence resonates to the present day.
About The Author
Kai Bird is an acclaimed biographer and journalist. With Martin J. Sherwin, he won the Pulitzer Prize for biography for American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, which was the inspiration for Christopher Nolan’s Academy Award–winning Best Picture, Oppenheimer. Bird is Executive Director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. He has won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Duff Cooper Prize for History and is the recipient of numerous fellowships. His work includes critical writings on the Vietnam War, Hiroshima, nuclear weapons, the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the CIA. He is an elected member of the prestigious Society of American Historians.
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