George Smathers – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Although it is sometimes said that Time Magazine reported that Smathers had said, “Are you aware that Claude Pepper is known all over Washington as a shameless extrovert? Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law, and he has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an established fact that Mr. Pepper before his marriage habitually practiced celibacy,” the magazine actually referred to the quote as a “yarn.” No Florida newspapers covering the campaign ever reported such remarks contemporaneously. Smathers offered $10,000 to anyone who could prove he said it, and to this day there have been no takers.
He may have had to deny it just to give it that ring of truthiness: whether he said it or not, he has benefited from the coverage of it.
Smathers died just this week, on Jan 22. The book “They Love a Man in the Country: Saints and Sinners in the Political South” has more of this kind of thing.