David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

hadn’t felt that way about a photograph
since he published a Pulitzer Prize–
winning photo seventeen years before of
a woman jumping from an upper-story
window in a hotel fire in Atlanta.
Laxon took the picture and sent it out
over the wires. The next day, the New
York Times published it above the fold
across three columns on the front page of
its Saturday paper, as did virtually every
major paper in the country. President
Kennedy saw the photograph and was
appalled. The secretary of state, Dean
Rusk, worried that it would “embarrass
our friends abroad and make our
enemies joyful.” The photo was
discussed on the floor of Congress and
in countless living rooms and