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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sandintoes who wrote (30237)	11/18/2002 7:19:55 PM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

Its a great line. Who did he rip off? I'm sure that you already know that "Profiles in Courage" was probably written by Sorensen. I don't think that Sorensen has ever copped to scam. Imagine accepting a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by someone else. siliconinvestor.com Exposing the dark side of the Kennedy myth, how they imprisoned themselves Coming of age in the 1960s in the U.S. one could not help but be swept up in the Kennedy mystic. Garry Wills book explores that mystic. It was as if genes and the tightly controlled environment of the Kennedy family predestined the siblings to act as they did and to arrive at the fate that awaited them. Wills first examines the preoccupation of the Kennedy men with sexual conquests. The patriarch of the family Joseph Kennedy was a man who prided himself on his sexual prowess. "Gloria Swanson has described the way Joseph Kennedy flaunted her presence on a ship to Europe, even though Rose Kennedy was traveling with them," Wills writes. "According to Mary Pitcairn, he was similarly uninhibited in the home he share with Rose." The example set by the elder Kennedy was adopted enthusiastically by the sons. John "Kennedy pursued ‘stars’ (Sonia Henie and Gene Tierney) the way his father had." Wills explains. "And since his father had taken Gloria Swanson and other mistresses to Hyannis Port, daring any family member to object, John Kennedy met his women in the White House. The Hyannis Port competition for women, which made that compound partly a fraternity house, was repeated in the executive mansion. Mrs. (Judith) Exner was a prize up for grabs, not only between brothers but among Kennedy ‘gofers’ as well." Marital infidelity does not disqualify a man from being the President. However, the careful construction of the outward appearance of a traditional family while secretly being otherwise was indicative of behavior that would be repeated in many other aspects of the Kennedys’ public service. What was perhaps more galling was that the circle of powerful people around the Kennedys’ helped to perpetuate the myth. Wills explains that John Kennedy’s famous book Profiles in Courage was actually written by Jules Davids, Theodore Sorensen, and others. "In time, John Kennedy surpassed his father in skill at creating the right image for himself." Wills writes. "Though a lackluster student at Harvard, Kennedy left school with material for a book (Profiles in Courage) that made him seem a promising young intellectual. Having others write the book was the least serious sin. Having powerful men ensure it won a Pulitzer Prize is a far more serious one. According to Wills, two more worthy books were set aside so that Kennedy’s book would win. The two historians who had chosen Alpheus Mason’s Harlan Fiske Stone: Pillar of the Law as the winner and three other books as next most likely winners had not made the change. "The Pulitzer Advisory Board has the power—and the bad habit—of overruling its own judges’ recommendations," writes Wills, "and that happened in 1957, when Arthur Krock (the New York Times journalist) ‘worked like hell’ [in his own words] to get the prize for Kennedy." Having a life filled with these kinds of privileges, created men who were far more reckless than those forced to behave more conventionally. No where is that more evident than in the Kennedys’ handling of Cuba. First, the Bay of Pigs in which the CIA armed a paramilitary force to invade Cuba with the aim of overthrowing Castro. Then when that failed, employing Mafia hit men to assassinate the Cuban leader. "The evidence that the Kennedys directly ordered Castro’s death is circumstantial but convincing," writes Wills. "When Robert Kennedy was told of the Mafia’s use against Castro, on May 7, 1962, he blew up at the man briefing him, but expressed neither surprise nor anger at the plot against Castro, only at the killers being used." Bobby Kennedy was vigorously pursuing his own crusade against organized crime. Even Lyndon Johnson, Wills asserts, in an interview with television journalist Howard K. Smith, stated that he believed Kennedy’s gangland hit on Castro backfired in Dallas. The Kennedy Imprisonment is subtitled "A Meditation on Power." In a section of the book entitled "charisma," the author criticizes Kennedy’s admirers who claim that charisma was a "‘much pawed-over concept Kennedy brought back into clarity.’" Wells refers to Max Weber’s definition of three types of authority, traditional, based on custom; legal, based on contractual obligations; and charismatic, based on the special gifts of a single ruler." How John Kennedy adopted the third is a large part of this very insightful book. If you want an inside look at the ugly underworld beneath the myth of Camelot, this book is for you. In many ways, it makes this long-suffering family far more real than all the images the family and its supported contrived over time.