27-06-2018, 02:09 PM
(This post was last modified: 27-06-2018, 02:44 PM by Jim DiEugenio.)
Lauren,
Janney says a lot of things in his book that are extensions of dramatic license in order to fit into his overall scheme. This is why, at the end of my review, I used the example of Procrustes from Greek mythology.
In the last five years, I have probably read as much as anyone about Kennedy's policy meetings and his process of decision making. In none of those books, documents, or records is there any such notation.Here is what I said in one part of my review:
Because there is no credible evidence to show that Mary Meyer was the foreign policy maven that Janney wants needs her to be. The closest that anyone can come is to say that she once worked as a reporter for both NANA and UPI. (Janney, p. 159) She also freelanced articles to Mademoiselle on things like sex education and venereal disease. (New Times, July 9, 1976) This was in the early to mid forties. So what does Janney do to fill in the breach of the intervening years? He tries to say that Mary, the housewife and mother, furthered this interest while married to Cord Meyer while he was president of United World Federalists (UFW). So I went to Cord Meyer's book Facing Reality to see if there was any proof of this. There isn't. For example, while on a working holiday, Mary was not helping him write, she was fishing. (Meyer, p. 39) In fact, Cord Meyer actually writes that his position in UWF had created a distance between him and his family and this is one reason he resigned. (Meyer, pgs. 56-57) Cord then went to Harvard on a fellowship in 1949-50. If Mary had any special interest in foreign affairs, this was the place to develop it. Yes, she did take classes, but they were in design. And this is where she first discovered her painting ability. In 1951, Cord Meyer is about to join the CIA. If Mary had really been helping Cord in his UFW work, wouldn't she have said "No, that is not what we believe in." Again, the opposite happened. Mary was all in favor of him joining the CIA. (Ibid, p. 65) But further, Cord Meyer kept a journal. In his book, when he is discussing their decision to divorce, the split in not over the nature of his work. Its simply because he spends too much time on it and therefore is not a good husband since he doesn't take enough interest in her. (ibid, p. 142) This, of course, is a common complaint among housewives.
This is what I said about another aspect of this formulation:
So this whole idea that Janney is peddling, that somehow a single mom and fledgling painter like Mary Meyer was going to teach the sophisticated John Kennedy what the likes of Gullion, John K. Galbraith or Chester Bowles could not, this is simply not tenable. It can only exist in utter ignorance of who Kennedy really was, way before he got to the White House. So when Janney tries to pull off a rather cheap trick, as he attempts to do on pages 259-74, for anyone who knows Kennedy, it's transparent. What he does here is set up Jim Douglass' JFK andthe Unspeakable on one side of the table. On the other he has a calendar of when Mary was at certain presidential functions in 1963. He then tries to argue that, somehow, if she was there when such a thing happened, then she had advised JFK to do it. Once you understand the method, it gets kind of humorous to watch. For instance, when Kennedy goes to the Milford, Pennsylvania Pinchot estate for a family dedication in September of 1963, he is about to announce NSAM 263, the withdrawal order from Vietnam. Also, the back channel with Fidel Castro is heating up with Cuban diplomat Carlos Lechuga, ABC reporter Lisa Howard and American diplomat Bill Attwood. Presto, Mary is again responsible. (By the same logic, Kennedy's limo driver could have been advising him also, since he was there too.) What Janney doesn't tell you is that Kennedy's withdrawal plan began two years earlier, in the fall of 1961. That's when he sent John K. Galbraith to Saigon in order to present a report to Secretary of Defense Bob McNamara recommending a draw down in American forces. (James Blight, Virtual JFK, pgs. 72-73) The back channel actually began in late 1962 and early 1963, when New York lawyer James Donovan was negotiating the release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners. (See Cigar Aficionado, "JFK and Castro", September/October 1999.) An author should not deprive the reader of important information like that. But this is how intent Janney is to abide by his Mary Meyer social calendar so he can make something out of nothing. Its also how intent he is on diminishing Kennedy.
Janney says a lot of things in his book that are extensions of dramatic license in order to fit into his overall scheme. This is why, at the end of my review, I used the example of Procrustes from Greek mythology.
In the last five years, I have probably read as much as anyone about Kennedy's policy meetings and his process of decision making. In none of those books, documents, or records is there any such notation.Here is what I said in one part of my review:
Because there is no credible evidence to show that Mary Meyer was the foreign policy maven that Janney wants needs her to be. The closest that anyone can come is to say that she once worked as a reporter for both NANA and UPI. (Janney, p. 159) She also freelanced articles to Mademoiselle on things like sex education and venereal disease. (New Times, July 9, 1976) This was in the early to mid forties. So what does Janney do to fill in the breach of the intervening years? He tries to say that Mary, the housewife and mother, furthered this interest while married to Cord Meyer while he was president of United World Federalists (UFW). So I went to Cord Meyer's book Facing Reality to see if there was any proof of this. There isn't. For example, while on a working holiday, Mary was not helping him write, she was fishing. (Meyer, p. 39) In fact, Cord Meyer actually writes that his position in UWF had created a distance between him and his family and this is one reason he resigned. (Meyer, pgs. 56-57) Cord then went to Harvard on a fellowship in 1949-50. If Mary had any special interest in foreign affairs, this was the place to develop it. Yes, she did take classes, but they were in design. And this is where she first discovered her painting ability. In 1951, Cord Meyer is about to join the CIA. If Mary had really been helping Cord in his UFW work, wouldn't she have said "No, that is not what we believe in." Again, the opposite happened. Mary was all in favor of him joining the CIA. (Ibid, p. 65) But further, Cord Meyer kept a journal. In his book, when he is discussing their decision to divorce, the split in not over the nature of his work. Its simply because he spends too much time on it and therefore is not a good husband since he doesn't take enough interest in her. (ibid, p. 142) This, of course, is a common complaint among housewives.
This is what I said about another aspect of this formulation:
So this whole idea that Janney is peddling, that somehow a single mom and fledgling painter like Mary Meyer was going to teach the sophisticated John Kennedy what the likes of Gullion, John K. Galbraith or Chester Bowles could not, this is simply not tenable. It can only exist in utter ignorance of who Kennedy really was, way before he got to the White House. So when Janney tries to pull off a rather cheap trick, as he attempts to do on pages 259-74, for anyone who knows Kennedy, it's transparent. What he does here is set up Jim Douglass' JFK andthe Unspeakable on one side of the table. On the other he has a calendar of when Mary was at certain presidential functions in 1963. He then tries to argue that, somehow, if she was there when such a thing happened, then she had advised JFK to do it. Once you understand the method, it gets kind of humorous to watch. For instance, when Kennedy goes to the Milford, Pennsylvania Pinchot estate for a family dedication in September of 1963, he is about to announce NSAM 263, the withdrawal order from Vietnam. Also, the back channel with Fidel Castro is heating up with Cuban diplomat Carlos Lechuga, ABC reporter Lisa Howard and American diplomat Bill Attwood. Presto, Mary is again responsible. (By the same logic, Kennedy's limo driver could have been advising him also, since he was there too.) What Janney doesn't tell you is that Kennedy's withdrawal plan began two years earlier, in the fall of 1961. That's when he sent John K. Galbraith to Saigon in order to present a report to Secretary of Defense Bob McNamara recommending a draw down in American forces. (James Blight, Virtual JFK, pgs. 72-73) The back channel actually began in late 1962 and early 1963, when New York lawyer James Donovan was negotiating the release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners. (See Cigar Aficionado, "JFK and Castro", September/October 1999.) An author should not deprive the reader of important information like that. But this is how intent Janney is to abide by his Mary Meyer social calendar so he can make something out of nothing. Its also how intent he is on diminishing Kennedy.