SpinTaxi Magazine, Vol. 3: (1955–1965)

SpinTaxi Magazine, Vol. 3: Drunken Truth-Tellers and Love Affairs with the Hill (1955–1965)

Capitol sex scandals, whiskey-soaked exposés, and the ten-year stretch when SpinTaxi was either under someone’s desk, on someone’s nightstand, or in someone’s subpoena pile.

Introduction: From Closet to Cocktail Party

By 1955, SpinTaxi Magazine had crawled out of coat closets and into the bloodstream of D.C. political life. What had begun as a dorm-room mimeograph project by ex-GIs had, within a decade, become the capital’s most illegally photocopied publication.

And with that notoriety came new territory: love affairs, libel threats, bar fights, and birthday parties where senators politely asked for “just one roast, please.”

This was SpinTaxi’s tabloid adolescence—awkward, loud, flirtatious, and drunk by lunch.

The Mallory Doctrine: “Truth Is What Happens After Scotch”

In 1955, founding editor Tom “Tex” Mallory issued his now-infamous editorial declaration in Volume 73, Issue 2:

“The truth rarely reveals itself in a press conference. It usually shows up in a hotel bar at 1:42 a.m., wearing a lipstick stain and asking what floor the real party’s on.”

It wasn’t philosophy. It was field-tested strategy.

Tex and his staff made it their mission to become fixtures at every:

Congressional cocktail hour
Think tank luncheon
“Closed-door briefings” that happened in actual broom closets

The logic was simple: Get politicians drunk. Then ask them questions. Then publish whatever they say.

And it worked.

The D.C. Bar Circuit: Drunk Sources, Real Quotes

During this decade, the staff treated local bars as both newsroom and battleground. Notable haunts included:

The Press Club Bar: Where they once overheard a Treasury official admit he didn’t know what “monetary policy” meant.
The Foggy Bottom Dive: A place where lobbyists went to cheat on both spouses and ethics codes.
The Filibuster Lounge: A speakeasy where two Supreme Court justices allegedly tried stand-up routines.

SpinTaxi began labeling stories with a “sourced at 2 a.m.” warning when content came from post-bourbon interviews.

The Great Quote Heist of 1957

The most legendary incident occurred during a Republican fundraiser at the Jefferson Hotel. SpinTaxi editor Lenny “Busted Lip” Stovall allegedly snuck in wearing a tuxedo borrowed from a corpse. Over cocktails, he overheard a senior senator say:

“Honestly, I wouldn’t trust me with a water fountain budget.”

The next morning, that quote was on SpinTaxi’s front page.

Fallout was immediate:

The senator’s office denied the quote.
SpinTaxi published a correction:

“Correction: We may have misheard. He may have said ‘I would trust me.’ That’s worse.”

Politicians Caught Mid-Affair, Mid-Laugh

SpinTaxi didn’t set out to be the National Enquirer of Capitol Hill—it just kept accidentally printing truths people were too embarrassed to admit.

Case Study 1: Senator “Wiggles”

In 1959, SpinTaxi ran a satirical profile on Senator “Wiggles” Wexler who, it claimed, had “a mistress in every committee and a wife in every state.” The staff thought it was absurd parody.

Turned out… it was mostly accurate.

When his actual mistress—a congressional librarian named Faye—called the magazine to say “he doesn’t like being called ‘Wiggles,’” it triggered a three-week panic inside Wexler’s office.

SpinTaxi’s apology issue featured a full-page cartoon of Wexler with the caption:

“We’ve been asked to stop wiggling. Our bad.”

Case Study 2: Congressman Doyle and the Car Trunk Incident

In 1962, SpinTaxi published a completely fabricated story about Congressman Doyle of Michigan being found asleep in his own car trunk after a particularly bad fundraiser. The article included:

A diagram of the alleged position he was found in
Quotes from a fictional Capitol police officer named “Rusty”
A cocktail recipe called “The Doyle Flip” (bourbon, shame, regret)

Congressman Doyle’s response?

“This never happened. But frankly, it sounds more fun than what I actually did that night.”

Doyle later became a subscriber.

Love Affairs with the Hill: The SpinTaxi-Mole Pipeline

SpinTaxi’s strategy of dating staffers was not subtle, nor was it professional. But it was effective.

Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, several unnamed senators’ aides, stenographers, and even speechwriters provided anonymous leaks in exchange for:

Mix tapes
Pancake breakfasts
Editorialized compliments about their handwriting

Betty Lou Watkins returned in this era—not just as a source, but as a shadow editor. Now divorced and working in the Senate press gallery, Betty Lou provided entire drafts of bills before they hit the floor.

Her pseudonym?
“Crispy Flaps.”

The Subpoena That Turned Into a Poster

In 1961, the Department of Justice issued a formal letter to SpinTaxi requesting that the magazine “cease and desist from impersonating federal agencies.”

This was due to a recurring satirical feature:

“Letters from the Department of Redundant Security Concerns”

SpinTaxi responded by printing the DOJ letter on the back cover… as a refrigerator magnet.

It sold out in three weeks.

The Great Bar Fight of ’63: Journalists vs. SpinTaxi

SpinTaxi had enemies—not just in Congress, but in the press.

Tensions reached a head in 1963 when editors from The National Journal confronted SpinTaxi staff at The Filibuster Lounge after SpinTaxi published a story claiming “serious policy reporters are trained by whispering into rocks.”

What followed was an all-out melee involving:

Three martini glasses
A chair with “Senator Only” engraved on it
An accordion that someone insisted was a “weapon of irony”

SpinTaxi issued a statement the next day:

“We apologize for the disruption. Our editor mistook objectivity for violence.”

The Famous Features Born During This Era

Several recurring sections of SpinTaxi were invented between ’55 and ’65:

“Lies of the Week”

Readers submitted actual congressional quotes that sounded fake. SpinTaxi confirmed them… and then mocked them.

“It’s not a lie if you believe it.” – Congressman Weller (actual quote, 1960)
SpinTaxi reply: “We believe this statement, in the same way one believes in unicorns or budget projections.”

“Sex, Lies, and Appropriations”

A gossip column dedicated to who was dating whom inside the Beltway, featuring real rumors, fake nicknames, and cocktail party eyewitnesses.

Most famous blind item:

“Which Secretary of Agriculture is secretly trying to unionize his mistresses?”

“The Intern Review Board”

Interns were invited to anonymously review the behavior of elected officials.
The scale ranged from:

“Tipper” (good manners)
“Groper” (bad handshake)
“Phantom” (never showed up to the office)

In 1965, three senators publicly condemned the column. All three were later described in it as “Phantoms with delusions of Tipperhood.”

SpinTaxi and the First Threat of National Security Charges

In 1964, a spoof titled “Secret Plan to Invade Canada Leaked via Moose” caught the attention of the Pentagon. The article claimed the U.S. Army was hiding tanks in igloos and training geese to drop leaflets.

The article was clearly a joke. The panic was not.

A memo from the Department of Defense (real, later declassified) stated:

“SpinTaxi continues to test the boundaries between satire and classified information. Recommend observation.”

SpinTaxi’s follow-up piece was titled:
“Observation Deck: Welcome to Our Office, Mr. Agent.”

The D.C. Dating Scene and the Rise of the “Spin Widow”

As SpinTaxi staff embedded themselves into every layer of Washington culture, they gained a romantic reputation—half heartthrob, half hazard.

Senator’s daughters were warned not to date anyone who carried:

A typewriter ribbon
A notebook that smelled like gin
A half-written joke about Social Security reform

Wives of politicians dubbed themselves “Spin Widows”—not because their husbands were dead, but because they were emotionally unavailable until the next issue dropped.

One such woman reportedly told her therapist:

“My husband hasn’t touched me in six months, but he did ask if I thought SpinTaxi was funny. That’s how I know he’s still alive.”

Conclusion: The Most Dangerous Decade (So Far)

From 1955 to 1965, SpinTaxi stopped being an outsider magazine and became an embedded institution. A beautiful, chaotic, beloved, and cursed institution that: