Plain Speaking
Brudnoy, David
Dr. George Washington Plunkitt, our prize-winning political analyst, is celebrating the publication of his new book, which is now available at avant-garde bookstores throughout New Jersey. Dr....
...We hate America's crass materialism and we will go to any length to fix America's attention on the plight of the proletariat and the oppressed...
...Such advanced ideas are always sure-fire with the Review people...
...And of Stalin...
...it have anything to do with the Potawatomi women...
...GWP F,,,or Plain Speaking HARRY TRUMAN has ascended steadily in the estimate of historians, moving from the presidential ash can into which historians had cast him to the Top Ten, even outstripping Ike, "the fella that succeeded me," as" he almost invariably referred to General Eisenhower, whom he cordially loathed, and whose (alleged) war-time peccadillos figure in this book...
...Without their simple faith you would have no means of livelihood...
...Bernstein: Though it may be an indication of an incipient disengagement from serious American politics, I must admit that I have yet to meet any members of the Symbionese Liberation Army...
...Irving: I am honored to have received a communiqu4 from such an illustrious name in the world of letters...
...I liked him," the otheraTise shrewd Tr~=c.qan asseged: And ,.m...
...Yet Truman was by no means faultless...
...During all that pother over the Howard Hughes book I was quite taken by your grace and high purpose, and though I cannot say that I admired your ends I always admired your means...
...Like his biographer, Trmnan was to the end unwilling to say an unchm~table word ai~)ut A!~er Hiss...
...Plunkitt's book is about the importance of altruism in politics and it is titled What's in It for Me...
...This is true not because of his domestic policy, but because of his foreign policy...
...At present, Tnmlan has su~rc, d the downgrading cf "re~dsiotfist" hist.:;rians, who see him as a trigger-happy coid warrior, simultanem~ with the re~mwc<i appreciation of old liberals and even conservatives...
...Plunkitt: My husband, I_~nard, and I have been at the vanguard of the people's struggle, throughout this wretched period of war, strife, and conspicuous consumption...
...So it is that Lenny and I have committed ourselves to undertake such a gesture...
...Miller's superb new biography is far more than just a compendium of such ]uicy An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman by Merle Miller Pumam $8.95 gossip, the latter of no more---nor tess-importance than the behind-scenes gales of J. Edgar Hoover or Martin Luther King or the Kennedy brothers that surface from time to time in pop literature and only decades later make their way into ~scholarly" histories...
...But he knew his Nixon, and knew him well: "a shifty-eyed, gr~ddarrm 24 Yhe Ai~:,r~c~i+~ ~ June--Sep~,rnb:2~ 1974...
...11, Box 360, Bloomington, Indiana 47401, Continental U.S.A...
...Surely the New York Review of Books will publish you...
...Merle Miller writes that Truman said he had destroyed a correspondence between Generals Eisenhower and Marshall, the latter having informed Ike that Ike's intention to divorce Mamie was unthinkable and would force the Azzny Chief of Staff, Marshall, to ruin Eisenhower...
...Not only would progressive intellectuals like yourself lose their markets, but think of the hard times awaiting thousands of politicians, millions of bureaucrats, and the frauds of Nat|onal Public Radio...
...It is the only way my husband and I have left to speak out on their behalf...
...But I cannot say that I know any of the SLA worthies...
...But I can live with my sadness, after all, think of the hardships endured by m i s t s like Oscar Wilde and Lenny Bruce...
...What really troubles me is the moral climate of our country...
...GWP Dear Dr...
...If the American people continue to lose their faith in government I suspect there will be a lot more freedom in the land, and if they lose their faith in general I suspect they will be a lot richer, though probably not so contented...
...I suggest you hold a symbolic cocktail party at a local insane asylum and invite Bella Abzug to represent the SLA...
...Plunkitt expects to earn ten million dollars from sales of his new book, he has agreed to continue to advise public figures through, this column...
...Unfortunately I am not yet acquainted with any actual members of the SLA and I do not know what it is the SLA is in favor of...
...And Truman's intervention in Korea, now an ingredient in the New Left condemnation, likewise seems to leveler heads a reasoned response, and a just one...
...Can you help me get one or two good-looking specimens of the SLA to my party, and do you know what noble cause they are furthering...
...What are needed are courageous, selfless, and audacious gestures forwarding the just goals of the oppressed and of criminals in general...
...Tell them how often you have been interviewed on National Public Radio, and mention your theory that no one should be imprisoned for a crime unless the victim actually loses his life or is seriously injured...
...I can understand your distress concerning the possibility that the American people are losing their faith...
...We shall invite all the right people and we shall take a collection for the furtherance of whatever it is that the SLA wants...
...I do know several members of the Knights of Malta, and after the war I knew a retired member of the Foreign I_~gion who ran a beauty parlor in New York's famed Artichoke Area...
...Also is the SLA a tax-exempt army...
...Nor does it seem that I will be meeting any, for I fear once these folks surface they will be locked in the slammer...
...Many Americans are not only losing their faith in government, but they are losing their faith in genera ! . What will happen to America if the majority of Americans lose faith...
...As things stand today I probably could not even get published in the New York Review of Books, even with a hyphenated name...
...I have been jailed and exposed to such unfortunate publicity that even my artistic integrity is being called into question...
...Although Dr...
...Regardless of our fate, we intend to make bold to invite the Symbionese Liberation Army to a cocktail party...
...Plunkitt: As you are probably aware the government has hounded and persecuted me for my political beliefs...
...Cordially, Felicia Bernstein Dear Mrs...
...Address all correspondence to The Bootblack Stand, c/o The Establishment, R.R...
...Dear Dr...
...Sincerely yours, Clifford Irving Dear Mr...
...We know now that Tnmmn was quite right to press for aid to Greece and Turkey, the Marshall Plan, Point Four, and NATO...
Vol. 7 • June 1974 • No. 9
