Days of Grace Read Free

him. Sometimes, indirectly, I had to lie about AIDS. Now and then, I had to lie about it directly. In November 1991, when I wanted to go to South Africa, Ilied on the application for my visa and said that I did not have an infectious disease. But I never lied without a sharp twinge of conscience, even in lying to the government of South Africa.
    I also told Policinski flatly that I had no intention, at that time, of confirming or denying the story. I tried to argue with him, to make him see my position.
    “Look,” I said with some force, “the public has no right to know in this case.”
    As I saw this situation, the public’s right to know really meant the newspaper’s right to print. Of course, there would be people interested in, even titillated by, the news that I had AIDS; the question was, did they have a
right
to know? I absolutely did not think so. The law was on the side of the newspaper, but ethically its demand was wrong, as well as unnecessary.
    “I am not a public figure anymore,” I argued. “I don’t play professional tennis anymore. I officially announced my retirement in 1980. I am not running for public office, so my health is no one’s legitimate concern except my own. I haven’t committed any crimes, so I am not fair game. And I haven’t been caught in any scandals. Why do you think differently?”
    “You
are
a public figure,” Policinski insisted. “And anytime a public figure is ill, it’s news. If he has a heart attack, as you did in 1979, it’s news. We have no special zone of treatment for AIDS. It’s a disease, like heart disease. It is news.”
    Match point had come, and I had lost it. All I could do now was try to control the announcement itself, to have it heard first directly from me and not as a blazing story in a national newspaper. I asked Policinski if I could have a little time, say, thirty-six hours, to call friends, talk to other journalists, and prepare a public statement. I reminded him that I had
not
confirmed his story, as far as I was concerned.
    Policinski was polite but firm. No, it was not his role as the managing editor of a newspaper to help me plan a newsconference, and he could not in good conscience withhold a story if he considered it newsworthy and if he had proof of its accuracy. However,
USA Today
had certain standards and practices which it would stick by in this story as in any other. In general, it did not print stories with elaborately vague sources—information attributed to “informed sources” and the like. And the newspaper did not approve of backing crablike into a story, by reporting a rumor and then declaring that the person or persons involved had denied it. Policinski and I ended the conversation without coming to any agreement, except that I stood by my refusal to confirm the story, and he stood by his determination to continue to investigate it, as well as his right to publish it if he could find confirmation. I fully expected to see the story in the next morning’s edition.
    I like
USA Today
. In fact, I have the paper delivered to my home every day. In its beginning and even now, some people deride it as
McPaper
, a kind of fast-food approach to journalism. The truth is that it is an extremely informative newspaper, attractive and dependable, and well written. And if you travel as much as I do, it keeps you abreast of events around the country and the world. At that moment, however, I hated the paper for what it was doing, although I was also glad that it was making a conscientious effort to determine if the story were true. It had given me time, much needed time.
    I had to decide what to do next. First, I canceled my MRI. I canceled the tennis clinic, which was for my own Safe Passage Foundation, working with young people, in Newark, New Jersey. The next day, I was supposed to go to Washington, D.C., to be with my old tennis partner Stan Smith and Donald Dell, who is my lawyer and one of my closest friends, and speak to the Washington