The matter was straightened out, and I sent Malcolm X some rough chapters to read. I was
appalled when they were soon returned, red-inked in many places where he had told of his
almost father-and-son relationship with Elijah Muhammad. Telephoning Malcolm X, I reminded
him of his previous decision, and I stressed that if those chapters contained such telegraphing to
readers of what would lie ahead, then the book would automatically be robbed of some of its
building suspense and drama. Malcolm X said, gruffly, "Whose book is this?" I told him "yours, of
course," and that I only made the objection in my position as a writer. He said that he would have
to think about it. I was heart-sick at the prospect that he might want to re-edit the entire book into
apolemic against Elijah Muhammad. But late that night, Malcolm X telephoned. "I'm sorry. You're
right. I was upset about something. Forget what I wanted changed, let what you already had
stand." I never again gave him chapters to review unless I was with him. Several times I would
covertly watch him frown and wince as he read, but he never again asked for any change in what
he had originally said. And the only thing that he ever indicated that he wished had been different
in his life came when he was reading the chapter "Laura." He said, "That was a smart girl, a
good girl. She tried her best to make something out of me, and look what I started her intodope
and prostitution. I wrecked that girl."
Malcolm X was busy, busy, busy; he could not visit my hotel room often, and when he did, it
shortly would get the feeling of Grand Central Station. It seemed that when the telephone was not
ringing for him, he was calling someone else, consulting the jotted numbers in his ever-ready
memorandum book. Now he had begun to talk a great deal with various people from the Middle
East or Africa who were in New York. Some of these came to see him at the hotel room. At first, I
would sit by the window engrossed in reading while they talked by the room's door in low tones.
He was very apologetic when this occurred, and I told him I felt no sensitivity about it; then,
afterwards, I would generally step out into the hallway, or perhaps take the elevator down to the
lobby, then watch the elevators until I saw the visitor leave. One day, I remember, the phone had
rung steadily with such callers as C.B.S., A.B.C., N.B.C., every New York City paper, the London
Daily Express, and numerous individuals-he and I had gotten no work at all accomplished; then
a television camera crew arrived and filled the room to tape an interview with Malcolm X by
A.B.C.'s commentator Bill Beutel. As the crew was setting up its floodlights on tripods, a Dayton,
Ohio, radio station called, wishing to interview Malcolm X by telephone. He asked me to ask them
to call him the following day at his sister Ella's home in Boston. Then the Ghana Ministry of
Information called. I turned with a note to Malcolm X to whom the commentator Beutel had just
said, "I won't take much of your time, I just have a few probably stupid questions." Glancing at my
note, Malcolm X said to Beutel, "Only the unasked question is stupid," and then to me, "Tell them
I'll call them back, please." Then just as the television cameras began rolling, with Beutel and
Malcolm X talking, the telephone rang again and it was Life magazine reporter Marc Crawford
to whom I whispered what was happening. Crawford, undaunted, asked if the open receiver could
be placed where he could hear the interview, and I complied, relieved that it was one way to let
the interview proceed without interruption.
The manuscript copy which Malcolm X was given to review was in better shape now, and he
pored through page by page, intently, and now and then his head would raise with some
comment. "You know," he said once, "why I have been able to have some effect is because I
make a study of the weaknesses of this country and because the more the white man yelps, the
more I know I have struck a nerve." Another time, he put down upon the bed the manuscript he
was reading, and he got up from his chair and walked back and forth, stroking his chin, then he
looked at me. "You know this place here in this chapter where I told you how I put the pistol up to
my head and kept pulling the trigger and scared them so when I was starting the burglary ringwell,"
he paused, "I don't know if I ought to tell you this or not, but I want to tell the truth." He eyed
me, speculatively. "I palmed the bullet." We laughed together. I said, "Okay, give that page here,
I'll fix it." Then he considered, "No, leave it that way. Too many people would be so quick to say
that's what I'm doing today, bluffing."
Again when reading about the period when he had discovered the prison library, Malcolm X's