Skip to main content

Historians At Odds

March 2023
1min read


In our October, 1971, issue we printed part of a letter from Thomas J. Fleming, author of a history of West Point, criticizing “A Black Cadet at West Point” (August, 1971), by John F. Marszalek, Jr., for “a severe lack of historical perspective.” Not surprisingly, Mr. Marszalek has reacted with equal vehemence. “Mr. Fleming’s criticisms,” he writes, “while presented with spirit and flourish, are not valid. … his knowledge of the entire matter, judging by his book’s bibliography, was based mainly on a contemporary article written by a West Point professor before the court martial had met. As for the reversal of the decision, it came at a time when the nation had tired of the case and [it] won or lost few votes for the Arthur administration. … Mr. Fleming’s insistence that the cadets would not have been stupid enough to make such a blunder as tying Whittaker, etc., is supposition and nothing more. It is just as logical to offer the supposition that Whittaker was not stupid either. Facts not suppositions determine truth. …”

Rather than extending this interesting controversy any further, we suggest that concerned readers compare the article by Mr. Marszalek with the account of the Johnson Whittaker case given in Mr. Fleming’s book, West Point: The Men and Times of the United States Military Academy (1969) .

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Stories published from "February 1972"

Authored by: Robert C. Alberts

“57 VARIETIES” WAS ONLY A SALES SLOGAN, BUT H. J. HEINZ UNDERSTOOD FROM THE START THAT THERE WAS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR HONEST PRODUCTS AND WELL-TREATED WORKERS

Authored by: The Editors

Pictorial mementos of Father Heinz’s brand of paternalism

Authored by: Bruce Catton

A FAMOUS HISTORIAN RECALLS THE COUNTRY WHERE HE GREW UP

Authored by: David L. Lewis

Henry Ford bought a $75,000 Stradivarius, learned to play “Turkey in the Straw,” and tried to teach all those Model T riders how to do-si-do like Grandpa

Authored by: Janet Stevenson

When one weary woman refused to be harassed out of her seat in the bus, the whole shaky edifice of Jim Crow began to totter

Authored by: Michael Pearson

The key to control of Canada was a city whose defenders doubted they could hold out for long once the American Rebels attacked

Featured Articles

Rarely has the full story been told how a famed botanist, a pioneering female journalist, and First Lady Helen Taft battled reluctant bureaucrats to bring Japanese cherry trees to Washington. 

Why have thousands of U.S. banks failed over the years? The answers are in our history and politics.

Often thought to have been a weak President, Carter was strong-willed in doing what he thought was right, regardless of expediency or political fallout.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.

Native American peoples and the lands they possessed loomed large for Washington, from his first trips westward as a surveyor to his years as President.

A hundred years ago, America was rocked by riots, repression, and racial violence.

During Pres. Washington’s first term, an epidemic killed one tenth of all the inhabitants of Philadelphia, then the capital of the young United States.

Now a popular state park, the unassuming geological feature along the Illinois River has served as the site of centuries of human habitation and discovery.  

The recent discovery of the hull of the battleship Nevada recalls her dramatic action at Pearl Harbor and ultimate revenge on D-Day as the first ship to fire on the Nazis.

Our research reveals that 19 artworks in the U.S. Capitol honor men who were Confederate officers or officials. What many of them said, and did, is truly despicable.

Here is probably the most wide-ranging look at Presidential misbehavior ever published in a magazine.

When Germany unleashed its blitzkreig in 1939, the U.S. Army was only the 17th largest in the world. FDR and Marshall had to build a fighting force able to take on the Nazis, against the wishes of many in Congress.