17-01-2011, 05:34 AM
(This post was last modified: 17-01-2011, 05:53 AM by Jim DiEugenio.)
I can barely believe what I am reading.
In his rush to defend Nelson's book, Fetzer is endorsing Seymour Hersh over Schlesinger, Sorenson, Powers, Salinger and O'Donnell. He is saying that they are all liars. Wow. Repeat: wow.
BTW, Schlesinger mentions Evelyn Lincoln as being in the JFK suite with many others at the convention. Somehow, she was privy to this blackmail yet no one else in the room was.
Secondly, Fetzer misses a key point that Charles Dunne used at Spartacus to knock the helium out of Morrow's balloon. If the forces for LBJ--Hoover, Graham, ALsop--were oh so intent on using any piece of info to make LBJ VP (which he really did not want by most reports) why did they not use this blackmail to derail JFK's express and make LBJ president?
Third, Raskin offers no reason at all why JFK chose LBJ as VP. Nothing.
Now, although Raskin is attributed by Hersh as working for RFK in his role as campaign manager, his name is not in Schlesinger's mammoth two volume biography of Bobby Kennedy! It is not in Newfield's RFK: A Memoir, and it is not in Robert Kennedy In His Own Words, an oral memoir. RFK must have felt he was a real important guy huh?
He is not mentioned as being part of the VP search in Sorenson's book, in Schlesinger's book, the Salinger book, or the O'Donell and Powers book. In fact, in all those close to 2,800 pages of the four books, he is mentioned by name only twice. Both in the Sorenson book. He is described as a Stevenson man who RFK hired as a, get this, a "part time" organizer for JFK's campaign.
So to say, as Hersh does, that this low level, part time staffer would know more than the guys right in the room, actually part of the search team, is simply preposterous. Its like saying, as Lamar Waldron does, that Jack Ruby knew about JFK's plan to invade Cuba, but McGeorge Bundy did not. But it is the kind of nuttiness that one resorts to when an author has a giant agenda in place, as did Waldron, and as did Hersh when he wrote his crazy book. Which, by the way, one critic said should actually be titled "The Dark Side of Seymour Hersh", since it revealed more about Hersh than it did Kennedy.
As per Fetzer, I agree with CD. In his unfathomable defense of Judy Baker, and now in his sinking so low as to defend both Hersh and Nelson, he does not realize what hits his credibility has taken. The younger and newer people writing in the field do not consider him a credible person anymore.
But what is startling is that, like Ahab, he does not understand how low he has fallen.
PS: Jim, CD did not put you on moderation. It was Morrow. What he was doing was lamenting your decline and issuing a warning about being preoccupied with Hershian sexual tall tales as a substitute for rational analysis.
In his rush to defend Nelson's book, Fetzer is endorsing Seymour Hersh over Schlesinger, Sorenson, Powers, Salinger and O'Donnell. He is saying that they are all liars. Wow. Repeat: wow.
BTW, Schlesinger mentions Evelyn Lincoln as being in the JFK suite with many others at the convention. Somehow, she was privy to this blackmail yet no one else in the room was.
Secondly, Fetzer misses a key point that Charles Dunne used at Spartacus to knock the helium out of Morrow's balloon. If the forces for LBJ--Hoover, Graham, ALsop--were oh so intent on using any piece of info to make LBJ VP (which he really did not want by most reports) why did they not use this blackmail to derail JFK's express and make LBJ president?
Third, Raskin offers no reason at all why JFK chose LBJ as VP. Nothing.
Now, although Raskin is attributed by Hersh as working for RFK in his role as campaign manager, his name is not in Schlesinger's mammoth two volume biography of Bobby Kennedy! It is not in Newfield's RFK: A Memoir, and it is not in Robert Kennedy In His Own Words, an oral memoir. RFK must have felt he was a real important guy huh?
He is not mentioned as being part of the VP search in Sorenson's book, in Schlesinger's book, the Salinger book, or the O'Donell and Powers book. In fact, in all those close to 2,800 pages of the four books, he is mentioned by name only twice. Both in the Sorenson book. He is described as a Stevenson man who RFK hired as a, get this, a "part time" organizer for JFK's campaign.
So to say, as Hersh does, that this low level, part time staffer would know more than the guys right in the room, actually part of the search team, is simply preposterous. Its like saying, as Lamar Waldron does, that Jack Ruby knew about JFK's plan to invade Cuba, but McGeorge Bundy did not. But it is the kind of nuttiness that one resorts to when an author has a giant agenda in place, as did Waldron, and as did Hersh when he wrote his crazy book. Which, by the way, one critic said should actually be titled "The Dark Side of Seymour Hersh", since it revealed more about Hersh than it did Kennedy.
As per Fetzer, I agree with CD. In his unfathomable defense of Judy Baker, and now in his sinking so low as to defend both Hersh and Nelson, he does not realize what hits his credibility has taken. The younger and newer people writing in the field do not consider him a credible person anymore.
But what is startling is that, like Ahab, he does not understand how low he has fallen.
PS: Jim, CD did not put you on moderation. It was Morrow. What he was doing was lamenting your decline and issuing a warning about being preoccupied with Hershian sexual tall tales as a substitute for rational analysis.