Sunday Notes

by Cliopatria

Africa: Jason Roberts,"The Great Opportunist," Washington Post, 23 December, reviews Tim Jeal's Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer; and Douglas Foster,"Imperial Hubris," Washington Post, 23 December, reviews Martin Meredith's Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa.

Civil Liberties: Tim Weiner,"Hoover Planned Mass Jailing in 1950," NYT, 23 December, cites a newly released document for J. Edgar Hoover's plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.

Civil Rights: Mitt Romney's story that he watched his father, then Michigan governor, George Romney, march with Martin Luther King, continues to draw attention. The Boston Phoenix stands by its story, but there's increasing evidence that the elder Romney did march with King. The larger historical issue is of considerable importance for late twentieth century American politics. Had George Romney, rather than Richard Nixon, been the Republican nominee for President in 1968, the massive transfer of Dixiecrats from the Democratic to the Republican Party, led by Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms, might never have happened; and the public faces of our two national political parties might be much different than they now are.

Modernism: Michael Dirda,"Artistic rebels and psychological explorers in music, art and literature," Washington Post, 23 December, reviews Peter Gay's Modernism: The Lure of Heresy From Baudelaire to Beckett and Beyond; and David Leavitt,"A Beast in the Jungle," NYT, 23 December, reviews Sheldon Novick's Henry James: The Mature Master.

Patricia Cohen,"Scholars and the Military Share a Foxhole, Uneasily," NYT, 22 December, looks again at the controversial collaboration of academic personnel and military authorities.

Finally, Joel Achenbach,"Programmed for Love," Washington Post, 23 December, reviews David Levy's Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships.

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Ed Schmitt - 12/24/2007

Thanks Ralph. Initially I felt the same way - he was right in spirit. And again, I agree, maybe more sources will corroborate his story. But to this point, the limited weight of authoritative evidence is against him. He also wasn't that little, as a bright sixteen year-old at the time. Unfortunately for him this works like the Edwards haircut, even if it is ultimately insignificant in the specifics (and again, right in spirit), it serves to confirm a pre-existing popular image held by critics. The "I meant it figuratively" response by his campaign certainly sounds slippery. It almost makes one wonder if perhaps Mitt Romney, like George W. Bush in other ways, "overlearned" what he took to be the lesson of his father's political demise - a moment of unique candor about Vietnam. But maybe this is unfair. At any rate, a blessed Christmas and Happy New Year to you.

Ralph E. Luker - 12/24/2007

Thanks, Ed, for following up on that. I don't think that we've yet got definitive evidence, one way or the other. Mitt Romney's account is probably flawed because it asserts that the two marched together and little Mitt saw it. I think it's a bit unforgiving to hold him to the literal meaning of his words, because George Romney was so clearly on the side of the civil rights marchers.

Ed Schmitt - 12/24/2007

Thanks for the follow-up on the Romney/King march, Ralph. I think your statement about the larger historical significance of the Michigan governor is certainly plausible and worth considering. Nevertheless in the heat of the run up to the Iowa caucuses, it's apparent where public interest lies on this - what Mitt Romney's remembrances and responses to challenges to them say about him rather than his father. I think it may be literally fair to bill these two supposed eyewitnesses as "increasing evidence" that the Massachusetts governor was initially right, but is it good evidence? This is where we as historians should be able to reach into our toolbags and make a contribution. We don't have to just rely on the Detroit Free Press archives or 2 other completely unexamined (so far as I've yet to see) eyewitnesses. There should be lots of sources out there. Everything I've pulled up on one source base - the proverbial "first draft of history" in contemporary newspapers - newspaperarchive.com -suggests that nowhere in 1963 did King and Romney march in the same place at the same time. According to the Free Press, to UPI and AP reports, King was in Detroit the week (June 23) before as part of a series of marches the NAACP had planned for open housing, and Romney stepped out to lead the march in Grosse Pointe the following Saturday, surprising just about everybody. The next place to look for any plausible corroboration of Mitt Romney's reminiscences would be with the new eyewitnesses, Shirley Basore and Ashby Richardson.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7524.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/061826.php

One said she saw the governor and King "hand-in-hand" from the window of her hairdresser and went outside. Perhaps it seems unnecessary to get into the minutiae of the logistics of this, but any number of factors could have come into play that could be questioned here. Surely we'd expect King and Romney to have been instantly recognizable given their prominence, but from a distance, at the wrong angle, latter day motives or fading memories, etc., etc. It still seems implausible the Free Press, UPI, and AP would have all missed this eye-catching detail. And in another interesting tidbit I found after King's death, Romney made a pronouncement that annually each Monday closest to the anniversary of the June 23, 1963 march in Detroit should be celebrated as "Martin Luther King and Afro American Freedom March Day" in Michigan. In the statement as reported by AP, Romney himself made no mention of marching together with King, which upon the occasion of King's passing and the bestowing of such an honor would have been nearly irresistable for a politician - even though Romney was already out of the presidential race at that point - not to mention. (The Ironwood Daily Globe, April 15, 1968, p. 6 in newspaperarchive.com)
So maybe there are other sources out there, but right now the sources seem to still be against Mitt Romney's specific remembrances. Again, as a study of the current presidential candidate, it is fascinating. It seems he would have have been much better served to just say that while his own memory may be flawed, his father had an impressive record, and that he took pride in that. Unless new evidence is unearthed...