ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 18, 1996 TAG: 9607180079
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: RICK HAMPSON ASSOCIATED PRESS note: below
COLUMNIST JOE KLEIN was identified as the man behind the best-selling novel "Primary Colors."
Flushed from hiding by handwriting analysis and grilled like a scoundrel by zealous colleagues, columnist Joe Klein said Wednesday that he signed his best-selling novel ``Primary Colors'' as ``Anonymous'' because he wasn't sure it was any good.
But now that the secret's out, he said he'll be writing more fiction under the same byline. After all, he said, ``It's my trade name.''
The Newsweek writer's concession speech ended a national parlor game that captivated the political set. President Clinton had urged the White House press corps to discover the book's author, calling it ``the only secret I've seen kept in Washington in three years.''
The Washington Post, among the many who took the president's challenge, reported Wednesday that it had obtained a copy of the novel's manuscript with handwritten changes and copies of Klein's handwriting. And it hired a handwriting analyst to compare the two.
Her conclusion: ``Absolutely consistent throughout.''
By the time Klein stepped before his colleagues for a news conference arranged by his publisher, the secret was out. The president ``did not seem particularly surprised'' by the news, the White House said.
``Primary Colors,'' which has sold more than a million copies, is a behind-the-scenes tale of the 1992 primary campaign that some participants have described as strikingly true to life.
But Klein told reporters he had no special access or information. ``I made the dialogue up. I was never in those rooms. It wrote itself.''
He said his use of ``Anonymous'' was motivated by a combination of whimsy and cowardice - ``since I wasn't a fiction writer, I didn't know if it was any good.''
But once the mystery became a linchpin of Random House's publicity, and the book's appeal, it became too valuable to jettison.
Klein said he went public with ``relief and sadness.'' Relief because ``it hasn't been easy not telling the truth about this,'' and sadness because ``the vast majority of people enjoyed the mystery. ... I found I really liked being Anonymous.''
Klein said only three people knew: his wife (who once asked, ``Can I, you know, do it with ... Anonymous tonight?''), his agent, and his editor at Newsweek magazine, Maynard Parker.
``MAYNARD PARKER KNEW?'' gasped one journalist, as if he were secretary of state.
Klein 'fessed up in a room with more reporters and cameras than many of the political news conferences he's covered. And the tone was just as contentious.
When he said ``my credibility will never be questioned,'' one shouted, ``It's being questioned now.''
Among other inquiries:
``This is a hell of a scam, isn't it?''
``How do we know you're not lying now?''
``Some of your friends feel betrayed that you lied to them.''
Well?
``It would have been a burden [for his friends] to spend the last seven months not telling the truth about this,'' Klein replied, sweat forming on his creased brow. ``Most of my friends understand, one way or another.''
Some observed that, with the book finally off most best seller lists, a Hollywood movie in the works, and the conventions looming, it seemed an apt time to stoke the publicity fires.
Asked if the announcement was timed to coincide with the paperback release, Klein moaned, ``Give me a break!''
He'd come a long way from February, when a Post guessing game rated Klein a 50-to-1 shot - well behind ``Doonesbury'' cartoonist Gary Trudeau and White House operative George Stephanopoulos.
Klein had said that Anonymous was ``a very close reader of my column and probably watched me on TV a lot, and may even have been someone I've spoken to.''
But it wasn't him, he didn't have time. ``Listen, I work for Newsweek five days a week, two days a week for CBS, and I have spent the better part of the last two years learning how to act naturally on TV.''
Then, Tuesday, the phone rang. It was the Post. ``That was the toughest moment,'' Anonymous said Wednesday. ``I'll let it go with that.''
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP Joe Klein, columnist at Newsweek, enters a newsby CNBconference at Random House Publishers in New York Wednesday. He says
he published "Primary Colors" anonymously because he had never
written fiction before and wasn't sure if the book was any good.
color.