John Lukacs ("Revising the Twentieth Century,” September issue) is himself guilty of a bit of revisionism. D. Worth Clark, the senator from Idaho from 1939 to 1945, was a rapscallion, a liar, a cheat, a drunk, and a lot of other bad things—but withal he was not a Republican, as Mr. Lukacs would have him. He was an anti-New Deal Democrat and was well recognized in his day as the black sheep of an otherwise honorable Democratic family. (His niece Beth became the wife of Sen. Frank Church.) My first involvement in a political campaign was working for the election of Glen Taylor to replace Clark.
George M. Joseph Portland, Ore.
Revisions
Historical revisionism isn’t all bad. The article ”. . . Love, Jackie” (September) certainly revised my impressions about the relationship between Jackie Kennedy and the Johnsons. What a refreshing look at the concern these three diverse personalities evidenced for one another. It was indeed a pleasure to read.
Fran Heffernan San Francisco, Calif.
Cars From the Good New Days
Anyone who is heard to whine and pine for the automotive good old days ought to have Brock Yates’s sidebar to his wonderful article “Duesenberg” in the July/August issue permanently embossed on his forehead so he can read it every morning when he looks in the mirror to shave. Out in the real world, among people, stoplights, curves in the road, and things to run into, an old car is a beast. This applies regardless of how powerful it may be, or how well crafted, or where made, or by whom. It becomes graphically apparent to me anytime I fire up my 1966 Olds 98 or think back to all the knuckles I busted bolting after-market chassis hardware onto my 1969 Ford Mustang in order to make it corner and stop about as well as my 1992 Pontiac Sunbird does right out of the box.
Of course they don’t make them the way they used to. In every area of performance that matters today—efficiency, safety, maneuverability, emissions—they make them better than ever before. Yates is right. Anybody who wants to drive one of these old monsters faster than a Fourth of July parade has either a faulty memory or a death wish.
Thomas H. Beers Walbridge, Ohio
Cars From the Good New Days
Brock Yates did his usual excellent job, condensing the story of the mighty Duesenberg into a single fine magazine article, but I’d offer one correction. On page 94 there are two photos of the same Duesenberg, 2585/J-560. A JN convertible coupe with body by Rollston, it was later modified by Bohman & Schwartz. Despite what the caption says, Clark Gable did own this car.
Gable’s name has also been associated with another Duesenberg, 2595/J-567, a short-wheelbase supercharged roadster later labeled “SSJ.” It is this roadster that was probably never owned by Gable. It was lent to him by Duesenberg’s Los Angeles distributor, but after the original two-month loan period stretched into six, the dealer retrieved the car, refurbished it, and sold it to the MGM musical director Géorgie Stoll.
A near-twin to this roadster was owned by Gable’s friendly rival in exotic car one-upmanship, his fellow movie star Gary Cooper.
Josh B. Malks San Jose, Calif.
Aliens Then and Now
The “weirdly titled book” being held by a smiling woman in the photograph featured in your “Readers’ Album” in the September issue brought back many memories.
Flying Saucers Have Landed by Desmond Leslie and George Adamski was a supposedly factual account of Mr. Adamski’s meeting with a man from the planet Venus in the California desert in the early 1950s. George Adamski was one of a number of people during that time who claimed to be in contact with extraterrestrials. These people, known as contactées, wrote books, gave lectures, and were frequent guests on radio talk shows. They all described the aliens as beneficent “space brothers” who were coming to earth to warn humanity of the danger our nuclear weapons posed to the order of the universe. Mr. Adamski’s next book, Inside the Space Ships, described his journey around the moon and visits with Venutians, a handsome race of long-haired Nordic people. My parents were fascinated by all this, and we spent many a summer night on our roof in Brooklyn, telescopes in hand, looking for flying saucers.
How things have changed. Flying saucers have become UFOs, and the beautiful, wise, well-meaning space brothers have been replaced by reports of large-headed, bug-eyed little creatures who snatch people out of their cars on late-night roads and bring them into spaceships where painful experiments are performed on their bodies.
But possibly it is we as a society who have changed and the aliens are but a reflection of ourselves.
Christopher Gamboni Moriches, N.Y.
Theater of the Macabre
It was a breath of fresh air to read Geoffrey C. Ward’s column ("The Life and Times,” April) about the two latest “books” concerning the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh’s son. I recently saw Noel Behn, the author of one of these works, on a network news magazine. He was standing in front of the crime scene and expounding on his thesis that Lindbergh’s sister-in-law had killed the child.
As the network interviewer listened intently and with great seriousness, I watched at home with a sinking feeling in my stomach. The most outrageous claim Mr. Behn made with the straightest of faces—and which went wholly unchallenged—was his assertion that Charles Lindbergh buried his own son in a shallow grave to begin the cover-up.
As the father of two young sons I know that is absolutely impossible.
Mr. Ward’s article says what I’ve been feeling since watching Mr. Behn’s theater-of-the-macabre performance: it is time to give up these morbid fascinations and let the baby rest in peace.
Robert E. Brennan Van Nuys, Calif.
Big Draw
Frederic Schwarz’s column “History Happened Here” in the May/June issue was excellent, except I felt that the writer left out the most interesting object in the Farmers’ Museum at Cooperstown, New York. The Cardiff Giant, probably the most successful hoax perpetrated on the American public during the nineteenth century, is on display there and deserves some recognition.
