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Kittens & Rabbits. Salinger's showing came as a bit of a shock to those who remembered him as a White House press secretary who could always be counted on to enliven dull news days in the Kennedy years. Those were the days when Pierre delivered solemn pronouncements on little Caroline's Tom Kitten, or offered brisk communiqués about a trumpet-playing rabbit, or exhibited a grand disdain for the 50-mile hikes so highly recommended by the Kennedys. Considering his background, it is hard for many Californians to remember that Pierre is now a genuine U.S. Senator—one who has served for all of two months since his appointment to fill the seat of the late Clair Engle.
Pierre was born in San Francisco on June 14, 1925. His father, a New York-born mining engineer and a devoted amateur musician, died in a 1941 auto crash. His mother, daughter of a minor French politician-journalist, was and remains, in her sixties, an effervescent, amiable busybody with a penchant for supporting liberal causes. She now lives in Carmel, Calif., enjoys nothing more than regaling reporters with clinical details regarding the problems she had nursing little Pierre.
The Reporter. Pierre was a piano prodigy, at six played Haydn in a recital at the Canadian National Exposition in Toronto. But he finally concluded that the piano was not his forte, decided to forgo a musical career, although he still plays a passable Bach.
After a World War II stint in the navy, Pierre headed for a journalism career on the San Francisco Chronicle, finished college on the side, made a name for himself as a sharp investigative reporter. He deliberately got himself tossed into jails as a drunk and a vagrant, wrote a 17-part exposé on conditions that resulted in improvements in the county penal system.
The exposé also led to a new career for Salinger. In 1957, a big story was Dave Beck, the crooked boss of the Teamsters Union. Collier's Magazine assigned Salinger to write a series of articles about Beck, but the magazine folded before Pierre got into print. During the course of his work on Beck, Salinger met Bobby Kennedy, who was soon to be appointed counsel to the Senate subcommittee investigating labor racketeering. Bobby asked Pierre what he was going to do with the material he had gathered on Beck. Pierre offered it to Kennedy, and later was rewarded with a job as staff investigator for the committee. Among the subcommittee members: Massachusetts' Senator John F. Kennedy.
Outsider. By 1959, the subcommittee investigation had pretty well run its course, and Salinger was offered an attractive publicity job with the Democratic Advisory Council, an adjunct of the Democratic National Committee. He was tempted, and he said so to Bobby. Recalls Salinger: "He told me not to make a decision for 24 hours. The next morning J.F.K. called up and asked me to come to his office. He said he'd heard about the job I was offered, and he hoped I wouldn't take it because he counted on me working in his presidential campaign."