by Robert Farr
Argus Magazine, December 1980
(Argus was a monthly student magazine at the University of Maryland, College Park.)
Once upon a time in the West, after Howard Hawks had driven cattle through the Rio Grande, but before Gary Cooper pitched his spit-shined badge into the dust, there lived a man named John Paul Rosenberg. Born in 1935 to Jewish-parents-turned-Christian and baptized in the Episcopalian church, Rosenberg was no ordinary fellow.
When 1960 rolled around, cutting through the complacency of the San Francisco Beats, Rosenberg had surreptitiously denied his polite schoolboy upbringing, defied the best in Judeo-Chirstian tradition and quietly folded his napkin before ditching his wife and kids.
By the time he reached age 30, after losing his golden boy look and shying away from public beaches, John was emulating the propagandists who had been exerting an undue influence on the world since the second World War. The likes of Leni Reinfenstahl, D.W. Griffith and Ticktockman were established propagandists, but Rosenberg saw room at the top.
