Robert Watson, PhD Lynn University

November 21, 2010

Robert Watson, PhD
Lynn University
3601 N. Military Trail
Boca Raton, FL 33421

RE: Biographies and ghost writers – A word or two before leaving on your article, “Hidden History”, in today’s Sun-Sentinel

My dear Professor,

I still confuse “smarmy” and “snarky”. Worse, I make them into adverbs, adjectives, collective nouns, and throw away expletives.

Then I toss “tu quoque” into the mix and all I need is “eclectic indignation” to make for a perfect morning.

President Truman [“Captain Harry”, given his druthers] did not savor his stamp collection as his Boss did in the afternoon in the White House. Truman, the failed haberdasher, read Plutarch. And was there ever a more noble Roman that Cicero?

Speaking of Truman’s Boss, he, unlike Bush in 2004, did replace his Vice President. In the tantalizing game of “What If”, a game where any thesis will fit, can you imagine what would have happened if Henry Wallace were Vice President in 1945? Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Containment? NATO? Alger Hiss as Secretary of State? The Berlin Air Lift? Korea? Would the Rosenbergs have gotten the Presidential Medal of Freedom?

Speaking of ghost writers, whom do you think contributed more to “Profiles in Courage”? Schlesinger or Sorenson?

Speaking of President Kennedy, whom do you think authored the line “missile gap”? Who got the country “moving again” by using tax cuts? Who wrote “any place if defensible if free men want to defend it”? Where did that line about “the long twilight struggle” come from?

I mention the above because your subtitle, “Bush Shifts Blame in his Memoirs”, give me pause.

If Lincoln had written his memoirs would he have focused on McClellan or Grant? Would he have focused on the Democratic Party and the New York Times being pro-slavery by their opposition to him prosecuting the war? Would he have spent a lot of time explaining why he suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus? Would there have been much mention of Sherman’s “surge”? How much time would FDR spent on how he raided the Census Bureau to help him round up all those Japanese-Americans? And why, if we paid “I’m Sorry” money to them, why haven’t we paid anything to 40,000 German and Italian Americans we locked up. Would Woodrow Wilson have spent a lot of time explaining his racism and bigotry? I’m not sure but did Clinton spend any time at all explaining the difference between lying and perjury?

It is in the nature of man perhaps to explain but always to defend himself when going on record. Perhaps Dante would be an exception but his journey was complete when he came out of the cave and “looked up and saw the stars”.

When the roll is called for 20th century memoirs that will last into the next century start with “Witness” and Sword of Imagination”.

Perhaps your students could benefit from them.

Perhaps you could.




Kevin Smith