Ralph de Toledano, R.I.P.

RALPH DE TOLEDANO was the saddest man I ever knew. One only hopes that his death on February 3, at 90, ended that sadness, though it requires a very dogmatic belief in God to be confident of it.

I heard from Toledano ("not de Toledano," he instructed me years ago) at regular intervals. There are perhaps 150 letters from him in my files and, without exception, they complain. That he is friendless in Washington, that he cannot find a publisher for his books, that the world no longer has any interest in his accomplishments.

Much of this was correct, though the fault was not always that of others. Toledano, although he had published more than 20 books, was not good at self-promotion, by which here is meant writing copy that has a fair chance of catching the eye of editors because it will serve their purposes. The only purpose Toledano ended up serving by his prolonged absences from the public stage was the care and feeding of his muse.

No one can ever have expressed Weltschmerz more fully, more evocatively, more eloquently. "Do you know anyone ready to buy an oil lamp, long in my family, which goes back to Cervantes' time?" He was speaking of his imminent poverty. And "For all my efforts, I find myself unwept, unhonored, and badly sung--contemplating two books that I cannot get published and wandering about my apartment talking to Eunice [his late wife], whom I mourn every day."

He had had a great deal to write about. He was an editor at Newsweek during the great Chambers-Hiss trial. It was during this trial that he became a close, apostolic friend of Chambers (Regnery published a volume of their letters in 1997, titled Notes from the Underground). During the trial Toledano became, also, a friend of Richard Nixon, and it was widely assumed that if Nixon reached the White House, Toledano would be appointed his press secretary.

Another betrayal?

Toledano wrote on, but the market for his material diminished to virtually zero. "A case could be made [for publishing his then-current book] with ISI, AEI, or Cato. But I know no one at any of these organizations." Question, why? "In fact I have discovered that I know no one anywhere these days. Can you suggest someone at the above to whom I might make an approach?"

One of his projected books teemed with politically licentious material. He tried it out on Regnery's Marji Ross. "With Friends like Dick Nixon would not have been a bio but a tell-all account of a long 'friendship,' with anecdotal material never before published, with now-it-can-be-told inside disclosures of what went on behind the scenes during various brouhahas, [Nixon's] relations with J. Edgar, Ike, Pat [Nixon], the why of his doublecross of Herb Klein [press secretary] and attempted ditto of Rose Woods [Nixon's longtime personal secretary] and how Pat blocked it, how he used me and then cut my throat--that's a book, a kind of Deep Throat, that would sell, but Marji Ross says there are too many bios of RN.... But enough of this. It's bad enough being a has-been without inflicting it on you."

It can't be predicted that this poet of melancholy will live on, other than in the archives. But it won't be said that he passed on without the affectionate notice of devoted admirers. He was a truly learned friend of the West, a superb literary technician, who despite his sadness gladdened the lives of those who knew him.--WFB