Fact & Fiction

The Most Unsordid Act in History ?

by James Lachlan MacLeod

Iraq's chief civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer said it, in evidence before the senate appropriations committee on Sept 22, 2003. Charles Krause, distinguished foreign correspondent of the "NewsHour," said it in a special report about the Marshall Plan airing on PBS in 1997. John W. Snyder, secretary of the treasury in the Truman Administration, said it in 1969. Former British Prime Minister John Major said it in 2002. It has been said countless times in essays, articles,

The Truth About the War Memorial to Fallen Journalists

by Timothy J. Reese

"Senior Bush administration officials and media executives gathered here yesterday at the only national war correspondents memorial to unveil a plaque in memory of four American journalists who died covering the war in Iraq and the war on terror. It was the first time since the Civil War that US journalists who lost their lives covering military conflicts were honored here." -- Bos

Media Watch: Do You Know Your President’s IQ?

by HNN Staff

AN IQ OF 91?Nothing as a student was more delicious than learning how somebody else scored on a test. To find out their IQ, of course, was like gaining the rare chance to feast at King Henry's table. So it is no surprise that a news

Why was Caesar Really Killed?

by Michael Parenti

On the 15th of March, 44 BC, in a meeting hall adjacent to Pompey's theater, the Roman Senate awaited the arrival of the Republic's supreme commander, Julius Caesar. This particular session did not promise to be an eventful one for most of the senators. But others among them were fully alive to what was in the offing. They stood about trying to maintain a calm and casual pose---with daggers concealed beneath their togas.Finally Caesar entered the chamber. He had an imposing presence, augmented by an air of command that came with being at the height of his power. Moving quickly to the front of the hall, he sat himself in the place of honor. First to approach him was a senator who pretended to enter a personal plea on behalf of a relative. Close behind came a group of others who crowded around the ceremonial chair. At a given signal, they began to slash at their prey with their knives, delivering fatal wounds. By this act, the assailants believed they had saved the Roman Republic. In fact, they had set the stage for its complete undoing.

Donald Rumsfeld Was More Right than Wrong About the American Revolution and Its Aftermath

by Thomas Fleming

Click here for a response by Mary Beth Norton. In the July 19 New York Times Cornell historian Mary Beth Norton scathingly rebuked Donald Rumsfeld for comparing unrest in Iraq with unrest in United States at the close of the American Revolution. She sneered at his claim that "roving loyalists" still resisted the new g

So Henry Cabot Lodge Was One of History's Villains?

by Thomas Fleming

Maybe it's time to revive one of Massachusetts' most famous men. From a distance of almost a hundred years, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge may have a lot to tell us about how to conduct America's foreign affairs in a chaotic world. For too long Lodge has been demonized as the prototype of the isolationist, because he led the fight against President Woodrow Wilson's 1919 attempt to make the United States a member of the League of Nations. In fact

Joe McCarthy: Dangerous Buffoon

by Ronald Kessler

In her latest book, Treason, Ann Coulter claims that Joseph McCarthy was a hero. Mr. Kessler in this excerpt from his recent book about the FBI, reminds us why McCarthy is usually remembered as a dangerous buffoon. On February 9, 1950, Joseph R. McCarthy, an obscure Republican senator from Wisconsin, gave a speech to 275 members of the local Republican women's club at the McClure Hotel in Wheeling, West Virginia. The spy cases had heightened concerns about Communis

Top 5 Myths About the Fourth of July!

by Rick Shenkman

Credit: Wiki Commons.#1 Independence Was Declared on the Fourth of July.America's independence was actually declared by the Continental Congress on July 2, 1776. The night of the second the Pennsylvania Evening Post published the statement:"This day the Continental Congress declared the United Colonies Free and Independent States."So what happened on the Glorious Fourth? The document justifying the act of Congress-you know it as Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence-was adopted on the fourth, as is indicated on the document itself, which is, one supposes, the cause for all the confusion. As one scholar has observed, what has happened is that the document announcing the event has overshadowed the event itself.When did Americans first celebrate independence? Congress waited until July 8, when Philadelphia threw a big party, including a parade and the firing of guns. The army under George Washington, then camped near New York City, heard the new July 9 and celebrated then. Georgia got the word August 10. And when did the British in London finally get wind of the declaration? August 30.

Strom Thurmond's Mixed Record

by Kari Frederickson

Editor's Note: This article was published last December after Trent Lott declared that the United States would have been better off if Strom Thurmond had won the presidential election of 1948. The piece suggested that it was ironic that Thurmond was to become the icon of the segregationist movement because when he first came to power he was regarded as a moderate. As of this moment, Mississippi Senator Trent Lott is fighting for his political life. With a few sentences last Monday

Will the Rosenberg's Son Robert Ever Admit the Truth?

by Ronald Radosh

Dear Robert: It has been fifty years since your parents’ execution, and it is understandable that as the son whom their actions betrayed -- along with their country -- you should still cling to the idea of their innocence. But in the decades since 1953, we have learned much about your father, Julius Rosenberg, and the contributions he made to the Soviet Union as an active espionage agent. We also know, contrary to what you claim in your new book, An Executi

How Bob Dallek Became a Prince in the Kingdom of Camelot

by Thomas Reeves

HNN: The JFK Medical Files

Parallels with William Lanouette's Work

Editor: The following parallels were compiled by William Lanouette.Comparison of Brian VanDeMark's Pandora's Keepers (PK) (Little, Brown, 2003) with William Lanouette's Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, The Man Behind the Bomb (GS) (Scribners 1992, University of Chicago Press 1994) and "The Odd Couple and the Bomb" (SA) (Scientific American November 2000, 104-9).

McNamara Versus McNamara

by HNN Staff

Did Lyndon Johnson lie to the American people about the Tonkin Gulf attack, as alleged by Daniel Ellsberg in his memoirs (and in countless other publications and forums)? LBJ claimed that in early August of 1964 the North Vietnamese attacked U.S. ships traveling in the Tonklin Gulf on two separate occasions, first firing upon the Mattox on August 2, then on the Turner Joy on August 4. In his memoirs El

Have Muslims in the Middle East Really Remembered the Pain of the Crusades for a Thousand Years?

by Edward Peters

Many political figures and media in the Muslim/Arab world, and a few in Europe, now commonly refer to the American and European presence in the Middle East and elsewhere as a "Crusade." 

McCarthyism: This Time It's Found a Home on the Left

by John Moser

In the past few weeks an old term has made its return to American political discourse. That word is "McCarthyism." Critics of the current war complain that there is a move in this country to silence dissent. They point to the refusal of radio stations to play music by the Dixie Chicks, who expressed their shame that the president is, like them, a Texan. They direct our attention to the recent firing of Phil Donahue, an antiwar liberal, from MSNBC. They claim that teachers h

Did We Fabricate the Pretext for War?

by Christopher Gerteis

HNN FUND RAISING DRIVE If you like the service HNN provides, please consider making a donation. Once again the United States has squandered its international credibility on a war that most of its closest allies do not believe was justified. And even if the war's milit

Did the United States Break the Agreed Framework?

by Leon V. Sigal

"My predecessor, in a good-faith effort, entered into a framework agreement. The United States honored its side of the agreement; North Korea didn't. While we felt the agreement was in force, North Korea was enriching uranium," President Bush told reporters on March 6. Other advisers are less charitable: they say Bill Clinton yielded to blackmail. They are misreading the past and misleading the president. When you're in a dark alley and a man menaces

How the NYT Misled Readers About Communist Herbert Aptheker

by Ronald Radosh

Last week the longtime Brooklyn resident, Communist historian Herbert Aptheker, passed away at the age of 87. The most well known "intellectual" in the old Communist movement, Aptheker’s death was marked by obituary articles in most of the nation’s newspapers. None, however, outdid in hosannas what the March 20th New York Times ran, in an obituary penned by their former literary critic, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt.If you read the Times

So You Want to Build a Democracy

by Henry Butterfield Ryan

We hear constantly these days that the United States will build a city on a hill in Iraq, a constitutional democracy whose example will change the Middle East. We built democracies in West Germany and Japan after World War II, and that, people say, proves we can do it in Iraq. But the differences between Iraq and Germany or Japan are far too great to make them credible models for this task. Both Germany and Japan had had important experiences with democratic institutions within

Those Wacky Editors at the Wall Street Journal Strike (Out) Again

by Rick Shenkman

According to the editorial writers at the Wall Street Journal, "The Senate dealt America's wartime economy a blow ... by voting to chop President Bush's tax cut proposal by more than half, to a maximum of $350 billion over 10 years."So why did the Senate act? "The excuse, at least for the TV cameras, was that America can't pay for a war and cut taxes at the same time."The Journal went on to claim: "We've heard some whoppers out of Washington, but this one deserves its place in history." The editors then pounced on a statement by Montana Democrat Max Baucus, who claimed that the United States has "never" cut taxes during a war.Oh really? asked the editors. Never? What about during the American Revolution. Poor Baucus "forgot" "that America's first war more or less started over the issue of taxes."