September 1976. The 28e edition of the Frankfurt Book Fair is coming to an end. In a hotel in the city, John GH Halstead, Canadian Ambassador to Bonn, West Germany, meets the members of the Canadian delegation and announces to them that the publisher Alain Stanké will publish the memoirs of Richard Nixon. In French. In the whole world.
Posted at 11:00 a.m.
Stupor and astonishment. With an offer of $100,000, Stanké, 42, is making a huge splash in the publishing world. He has capped major French houses: Fayard, Stock, Laffont. In an article from Figaroit is called the “Canadian wolf”.
Two years earlier, on August 9, 1974, the 37e President of the United States had resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal and left the White House in disgrace.
But the memoirs of a former president are worth their weight in gold. To publish those of Nixon in English, the publisher Warner Books Communications of New York spent 2.5 million US!
PHOTO PROVIDED BY BANQ
Article of The Press of September 21, 1976 announcing the news
Well put
Arrived in Montreal in 1951, Alain Stanké is a journalist, writer, publisher. He founded Éditions La Presse in 1971 and Éditions internationales Alain Stanké in 1975.
“I had branches in New York, Paris and Montreal,” he says on the phone. Howard Kaminsky of Warner Books Communications flew me to New York and asked me to research French publishers to find out who would be best placed to publish Nixon’s memoirs in French and how much they would pay. I left for France. I made a list of the most interested houses. And I added my name. »
In Frankfurt, Irving Paul Lazar, a famous American artist agent nicknamed Swifty, leads the auction. “After four days, we were down to $45,000,” Stanké said. I gambled for everything. I offered $100,000. We told me : Alain, you’ve got a deal. »
Stanké, the “Canadian wolf”, returns to Montreal and goes to see his bank manager. “He welcomed me into his office with all the newspaper clippings,” laughs the editor. I said, “Now find me the $100,000.” Because I didn’t have them. »
Plumbers in Louiseville
Against all odds, Alain Stanké forged a long relationship with Nixon. He often goes to meet the former president at his home in San Clemente, California.
He [Richard Nixon] told me not to walk on the grass, because there were detectors everywhere! He had a small library of western books in his room that he adored.
Alain Stanke
simply titled Memoirsthe book was released in the fall of 1978. The Montreal publisher and the ousted president invented codes to avoid piracy “by the guys in the washington post “. “The book was printed, among other things, at the Imprimerie Gagné in Louiseville and they sent plumbers in the hope of getting their hands on it,” assures the former publisher.
PHOTO BRUNO DESROSIERS, PROVIDED BY ALAIN STANKÉ
Alain Stanke
The collaboration between the two men does not stop there. Nixon grants his first interview to a written media, the Figaro Magazine, written by Stanké (the interview with David Frost took place on television). They then reunite on the show. Screen folders hosted by Armand Jammot on Antenne 2.
“To grant this interview, Nixon said yes on the condition that we could take the Concorde. He asked for a fee of $25,000 to buy presents for his grandchildren. »
Mr. Stanké recognizes that Nixon “made a big mistake”, but describes him as a “man like any other” and especially “gone from afar”, unlike Kennedy, born into a comfortable family.
The two men spoke to each other one last time shortly before Nixon’s death. “He always sent me things he wrote,” says Mr. Stanké. I had a good relationship with him. He was extremely courteous. »
On April 24, 1994, two days after Nixon’s death, Stanké published a long article devoted to Nixon on the cover of The Press. Its title: “Nixon: the strength of a survivor”.