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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 5th, 2012 at 11:55 AM and filed under History, Human Interest, Peace, Philosophy, Politics, Reviews. Follow comments here with the RSS 2.0 feed. Skip to the end and leave a response. Trackbacks are closed.

One Response to “Why Mr. Hardball Found JFK Elusive”

1. Michael Butler said:

   Comments fro Tom Sawyer

   Thanks for this, Michael:
   I’m unable to resist citing and commenting on several aspects of this wonderful, insightful piece by Mr. DiEugenio:

   “…What is particularly surprising is that, early on, Matthews writes that one of the things that attracted him to Kennedy and made him write this book was JFK’s management of the Missile Crisis. (See p. 9) But then why ignore The Kennedy Tapes? Since it is, from the American side, the most complete chronicling of the crisis we have today…”

   When the The Kennedy Tapes was published, I was instantly compelled to add an important and very telling scene to JACK. What had leapt off the page for me was the virtually operatic counterpoint: While Generals, Admirals and other Hawks were verbally contemplating the number of airstrikes and troops that would be required, Jack was musing aloud: “What does he (Khrushchev) want? Why is he doing this?” That was Jack Kennedy.

   “…So here is my question to Matthews: If you were a playwright, would you spend, say, 90 minutes of exposition in Act I and only 30 minutes for the tension-building and explosive climax in Acts II and III? Why would you do such a thing? …Matthews’s problematic approach might have some value if the author was trying to relate past formative events to later presidential decisions. That is, what did Kennedy do as a younger man that impacted his policy decisions while he was president? But this is what Matthews really does not do…”

   Especially because Matthews apparently misses (as did all of the dozens of books/authors Holt and I read in researching JACK) the key point: his second-son relationship to his father, and to brother Joe. Incidentally, our show is virtually the only treatment of Jack’s life to really focus on that area, and its explanation for so much of who he was.

   And truly unforgivably, Matthews’s (and most other biographers’) omission of the fact that Jack had issued his executive order to begin removing the troops from Vietnam – unquestionably the final straw in the decision to have him killed.

   All in all, James DiEugenio has written a superb, thoughtful explanation for yet another hatchet-job on Our Last Hero.

   Tom
   http://www.ThomasBSawyer.com

   On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 10:18 PM, Michael Butler wrote:
   Tom,
   I am going to post this tomorrow. I know you will find it interesting. I suggest that we keep this for all Involved with JACK to read it. Not to influence the script but to understand more what type of man Jack was. A great piece. My do we miss him.
   Michael
   http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/276-74/9273-why-mr-hardball-found-jfk-elusive

   Posted on 07-Jan-12 at 8:03 pm | Permalink