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CORRESPONDENCE
Media vs. Military
I have virtually memorized key elements of “The Media and the Military” (July/August). This piece could not be more timely.
Bernard Shaw
CNN America, Inc.
Washington, D. C.
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Media vs. Military
Peter Andrews relates that Westbrook Pegler “tried” to get an interview with Gen. John J. Pershing and that Pershing was rudely brief with Pegler during the interview. Donald Smythe, Pershing’s biographer, relates the incident as follows:
“A very busy man, [Pershing] disliked wasting time in pointless talk or fruitless digressions. He also resented being interrupted. When the newspaperman Westbrook Pegler walked in unannounced one day and asked for a statement, he got one. ‘Pegler, get the hell out of my office!’”
Perhaps Pegler should have asked for an interview rather than a statement; he got no more and no less than he deserved.
Herberts. Mazerov
Pittsburgh, Pa.
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How to Dump the Veep
I read with great interest Bernard Weisberger’s article “The Abominable No. 2 Man” (September), which drew on historical precedent to suggest the unlikelihood of Dan Quayle’s being removed from the ticket. But if Bush does want to engineer the removal of his Vice President next year while publicly appearing to support him, he need not look any further than the example set by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944.
Henry Wallace, like Quayle, did not command a great deal of respect or power in the Senate. But also like Quayle Wallace had been a loyal Vice President for four years and the President and his wife liked him. FDR was a politician first, however, and despite the fact that his chances for re-election to a fourth term were excellent, victory was a relative term for him. He made a career out of winning big and he wanted to win big again.
FDR’s actions in this matter are still confusing historians. In his 1990 biography, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Rendezvous With Destiny, Frank Freidel speculates that Roosevelt’s strategy was to encourage many vice-presidential candidates, so that when he made up his mind at a late stage none of the others would have gathered the depth of support necessary to overtake his final choice. Close aides of the President knew that Wallace was out (unlike Wallace himself, whom FDR had strung along until the end). During the summer before the convention, FDR actively encouraged several to run for the second spot.
Besides Wallace and James Byrnes, he sent signals to Scott Lucas, a senator from Illinois. One week before the convention, he told two aides that William O. Douglas should run with him. FDR did not mention Truman’s name until the day after that at a meeting with various political leaders, when he wrote a letter to the convention stating that he would be happy to run with Truman or Douglas. But he also wrote a letter to be read at the convention saying that if he were a delegate, he would vote for Wallace. At the same time, he was telling Wallace supporters that while he supported Wallace, he could not publicly say so.
Two days before the convention, he privately pledged his support to Byrnes. A day later, he put the word out that he was for Truman. Confusion reigned at the convention as FDR’s supporters, not really knowing whom the President wanted, pushed for Wallace. Only at the end of the convention did the wily President finally pull the strings and get Truman elected on the second ballot. In the smoke screen, FDR managed to dump his Vice President, win the election, and all the while retain his popularity.
Edward F. Aldrich
Rowayton, Conn.
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How to Dump the Veep
Bernard Weisberger says of the Vice Presidency: “If the job is so important, why shouldn’t it require at least the two-thirds vote that a nominee for the cabinet or an ambassadorship needs from the Senate?” In fact there is no such constitutional requirement for a two-thirds vote by the Senate to confirm any presidential nomination.
J. B. Cook, Jr.
Chester, Va.
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Texas Tower
The 1966 “Time Machine” piece in the July/August issue left the impression that hatred of a parent and “a lifelong fascination with guns” pushed Charles Whitman toward the Texas Tower and mass murder. Recall that Whitman’s autopsy revealed a sizable brain tumor. I suspect it deserves at least equal billing.
Russell S. Gilmore
New Paltz, N. Y.
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Don’t Kill All the Lawyers
As a recent law school graduate, I read John Steele Gordon’s “Reforming the Law” (“The Business of America,” September) with interest. Mr. Gordon is quite correct in ascribing the success of Dudley Field’s code to the efforts of lawyers, but he goes astray when he quotes Henry VI, Part II as support for his proposition that lawyers are normally part of the problem and not of the solution.
Shakespeare’s oft-quoted line should be taken in context. Henry VI was the last English king of the House of Lancaster. The House of York believed it held a better claim to the Crown. When a popular uprising, Jack Cade’s Rebellion, occurred in 1450, the Yorkists seized the opportunity to challenge Henry VI and (eventually) drive him from the throne. This conflict began what is usually known as the “Wars of the Roses.”
In Act 3, Scene 1, York admits that he has “seduced a headstrong Kentishman, John Cade of Ashford, to make commotion, as full well he can.” Later, in the scene quoted by Mr. Gordon, Cade promises the impossible and calls it reformation: seven halfpenny loaves of bread for a penny, a three-hooped pot with ten hoops, no more money, eating and drinking always at Cade’s expense, and so on. It is at this point that one of Cade’s collaborators exclaims that “first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
In context, Shakespeare’s words do not attack lawyers; they support them as standing guard over the public interest. Notwithstanding the occasional scoundrel, such a concept of lawyers remains true to this day.
Michael H. Riddle
Papillion, Nebr.
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Just a Question of Maintenance
Your excellent article “The Tyranny of the Lawn” (September) left out the classic English lawn anecdote:
SCENE—Two men stand before a grand English estate lawn, acres of velvet without so much as a cloverleaf showing, clipped as a putting green, smooth as a cat’s back.
TOURIST: My, it must be a lot of trouble to get a lawn like that.
GROUNDSKEEPER: No, sir, no trouble at all. You just go over it now and then for the odd weed, and you roll it once every day.
TOURIST: Every day?
GROUNDSKEEPER: Exactly. Every day for five hundred years.
Michael Kernan
Baltimore, Md.
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