Guess I will have to Read a Book . . .
I subscribe to the Atlantic and have done so for about a decade. I subscribe to the print version also which accompanies me on long flights. An Interesting read and I like to turn pages.
This morning I ran across an article by John Virtue, “How John F. Kennedy Fell for the Lost Cause. And the grandmother that will (did) not let him get away with it.”
The article itself is interesting enough to read. Maybe you have access to the link I provided . . . hopefully and see for yourself. I am taking an interest in this book. My aunts on my father’s side were forceful people also. Then too, nothing could be better than living in western New York state. Everything was far superior then what existed in the uncivilized Northwest Territory. They were forceful enough and instilled in me enough desire to prove them wrong.
A side-walk or step (above) from the topic.
George Plimpton was asked by then President John Kennedy to ask his grandmother Blanche Ames to lighten up on her letters to him about his great-grandfather Adelbert Ames. Blanche was (as Plimpton called her) “a Massachusetts woman” who was incensed as how John Kennedy portrayed Adelbert Ames in his book “Profiles in Courage.” From the discussion in the book, it appears John Kennedy may have been wrong about Ames. No amount of information would sway John Kennedy or others to change the information written in the book. Just like my western NY aunts, nothing would sway Blanche Ames from her accurate portrayal of her grandfather. John was asking for mercy from the onslaught.
Why would I read the book?
I had the opportunity to read some of the actual letters written by a supposed ancestor who was an officer serving with the Iron Brigade. He died at Cold Harbor. The wording of his letters was different than how we might write or speak to each other today. This in itself makes it and Blanche’s writing interesting to me. I also would like to read what Blanche Ames had to say and also her relentless approach to Kennedy.
Anyway, my $.02 on why I might read a book.
Of course, Ted Sorensen actually wrote “Profiles in Courage.” JFK edited his drafts.
Wikipedia – Adebert Ames
Relevant responses don’t post.
Profiles in Courage, Adelbert Ames, JFK and Reconstruction Racism
JFK’s ‘Profiles in Courage’ has a Racist Problem
The NYer – July 23, 2020
Fred:
The system learns who to sort out and it bounces you as a result of past comments.
What a system!
Fred:
Learn by it. Too many links and you go to trash. Post the same without the links and you go to trash. It figures out Fred is troublesome.
I appreciate the admonishment.
Fred:
Go forward, flourish, and sin no more.
I’m more than a bit dubious about anything JFK this late in the day. Seems innocuous enough, but citing it as a ‘Lost Cause’ sensationalizes it at a time when JFK conspiracies are again rearing their ugly heads.
@Ten,
“JFK conspiracies” or JFK assassination conspiracies?
That was a rather broad brush ~ I have noticed some new commentary of late about the assassination. It was sixty years ago, I think it’s time to let it go
Maybe I’m admonishing myself? There is a connection: as a six or seven year old Army brat I shook JFK’s hand, all dressed up in little Class A. My mother stil displays that picture
J.F.K.’s “Profiles in Courage” Has a Racism Problem. What Should We Do About It?
Kennedy defined courage as a willingness to take an unpopular stand in service of a larger, higher cause. But what cause?
By Nicholas Lemann via The New Yorker on July 23, 2020
… Three of Kennedy’s eight Senate heroes were slaveholders. None won inclusion in the pantheon for having taken what we’d now think of as a lonely liberal stand. Taft’s courageous act was opposing the Nuremberg trials for the members of the Nazi high command, because they had not broken any German law; he preferred that they be put in a Napoleon-like exile in some remote place. “These conclusions are shared, I believe, by a substantial number of American citizens today,” Kennedy asserted. Daniel Webster’s was breaking with anti-slavery opinion in his home state of Massachusetts to support the Compromise of 1850, which included the Fugitive Slave Act, making it a federal crime for Northerners to give shelter to escaped slaves. For Webster, Kennedy noted admiringly, “the preservation of the Union was far dearer to his heart than his opposition to slavery.” John C. Calhoun, the most influential pro-slavery politician of the nineteenth century, didn’t get a full-dress profile, but Kennedy included him in a chapter devoted to senators who almost made the cut, and mentioned him throughout the book, always with the greatest respect, as, for example, “that revered sage of the South.” …
J.F.K.’s “Profiles in Courage” Has a Racism Problem
Was JFK looking forward to a presidential run in 1956 when Profiles, more or less ghost-written by Theodore Sorensen, was published, and needed to flatter southern politicians to get the nom?
Adelbert Ames was not actually one of those profiled in the book. Lucius Lamar was …
Wikipedia –