Four Shotgun Blasts, Six Dead

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"The crime was a psychological accident, virtually an impersonal act; the victims might as well have been killed by lightning. Except for one thing: they had experienced prolonged terror, they had suffered. And Dewey could not forget their sufferings. Nonetheless, he found it possible to look at the man beside him without anger — with, rather, a measure of sympathy — for Perry Smith's life had been no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage or another."

Truman Capote, In Cold Blood (1966)

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I suppose the fact that I grew up in a small town has something to do with it, but I always related to how Truman Capote described the town of Holcomb, Kansas, in his book about the murders of the members of the Clutter family in 1959.

My hometown has always been considerably larger than Holcomb, and my hometown is still a small town today, even though it is much larger than it was when I was growing up there. The folks in Holcomb probably would regard my hometown as a city, but it will have to get much bigger than it is today before it can justify being called a city. Until that day comes — and it may never come — my hometown is a small town, and what was true of Holcomb in 1959 is true of any place that qualifies as a small town.

I guess that explains why I have always found the descriptions of the town to be the most compelling parts of Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood," which was published in book form 50 years ago this month after running in a serialized form in The New Yorker.

After all, Capote's observations of small–town America — and how such a small town reacts to an event as horrific as the murders of four family members in their own home in the dead of night — are rooted in his experience. He was born in New Orleans, but he spent his formative years in tiny Monroeville, Ala., where he became friends with Harper Lee, the eventual author of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and Capote's assistant in his research for "In Cold Blood."

There was a time in my life when a senseless murder reverberated through my hometown. Having lived through that, I think I can imagine what it was like in Holcomb, Kansas in 1959.

"In Cold Blood" was truly a tragic tale, not just about the four lives that were taken in the middle of a November Kansas night but also about the two men who took them and the price they ultimately paid for it.

It was a powerful book, the book that defined Capote's life and career. My current copy of the book — and I have owned several over the years — is always on my desk because there are often times when I want to refer to it in one way or another or there are times when I simply want to confirm something that I know from having read the book so many times. Sometimes I just want to re–read certain passages.

(My current copy of "To Kill a Mockingbird" is always on my desk, too.)

I don't remember when I first read "In Cold Blood." College, probably. I read a lot of true crime books at that time — but I did read "Helter Skelter" when I was in high school so it is possible, but not probable, that I read "In Cold Blood" in high school.

Whenever I did read it for the first time, that is probably when I got my first copy of the book — because I have no memory of being assigned to read it in any sort of English class I ever took. Therefore, I must have chosen to read it, and I have seldom borrowed books from libraries. I usually buy them — paperbacks preferred, although they are no bargain these days.

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"The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call 'out there.' ... The land is flat, the views are awesomely extensive: horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them."

Truman Capote, In Cold Blood (1966)

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So while I can't be sure when I first read it, I'm quite sure that, when I did, I did so on my own — independently of anything I did for school.

At this point, though, that really isn't important, is it?

I thought Capote summed things up very succinctly when he wrote of the events that transpired on that night in 1959: "Four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives."

That's what matters.

The Roots of an American Family

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"When you clench your fist, no one can put anything in your hand, nor can your hand pick up anything."

Alex Haley
"Roots" (1976)

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On this day in 1976, the publishing world was changed by the publication of a once–in–a–generation kind of book ...

Alex Haley's "Roots."

There had been other books that had come before that had been about the black experience in America. And there were certainly books that came along later that spoke of it in greater detail.

But "Roots" seemed to be unique. Never before (to my knowledge, at least) had a novel told the story of a young black man — captured in 18th–century Africa and sold into slavery in the North American colonies — and his descendants, both slave and free, and the generational struggle to find their way back to their point of origin.

As it turned out, the story wasn't unique. Someone had told it — or something remarkably similar — before Haley did. But I'll get back to that in a minute.

Ostensibly, it was the tale of Haley's own family, his attempt to put a little meat on the bare–bones stories that he said had been handed down in his family from one generation to the next. Initially, it was presented to the public as nonfiction, but, ultimately, Haley had to acknowledge that parts of the story were fiction — if not borrowed fiction.

Haley reportedly said, "Roots is not just a saga of my family. It is the symbolic saga of a people."

In that respect, I suppose, it was really a writer's story — and that is the kind of thing that the writer in me has never been able to resist.

I think, too, that one of the things about it that attracted me was the similarity — in concept if not in actual writing style — to the works of James Michener, a writer I greatly admired.

Michener wrote books that told the stories of places through the generations that lived there. He did it so well, in fact, that my father, who taught religion and philosophy on the college level when I was growing up, used a book Michener wrote on the Middle East ("The Source") as a textbook.

In "Roots," the locales changed — and so did the people, for that matter — but the roots that linked them to one another went back hundreds of years and extended for thousands of miles. Even when you read the more modern stories of his descendants, you were always aware of Kunta Kinte and the influence he continued to have through the oral legacy he handed down to his daughter and was kept alive by succeeding generations.

It is important to remember, after all, that "Roots" wasn't a literal history — even though it was initially promoted as nonfiction. That, at least, is what is on the old paperback copy on my bookshelf — and that edition was printed in 1977.

Haley said it was his family's oral history that inspired the book, and that was logical. Because of the circumstances behind the arrival of most black people in America, there is little documentation that can prove where they were born, when they left their homes or what became of them after that.

Slaves wouldn't have been treated as people. They would have been treated as cargo. If one got sick and died while the ship was crossing the Atlantic, the body would have been thrown overboard, but it is doubtful that much note would have been made of it in the ship's log.

Haley apparently learned all he could and filled in the gaps based largely on educated guesses. Given the circumstances, what else could be done?

I remember reading the book as a teenager, and I found it enthralling. I couldn't pinpoint the sections where Haley had made educated guesses or where he wrote of documented events and/or conversations. I found the reading experience to be smooth and logical, seamless.

But it may not have been as original as it seemed.

Haley (who would have turned 90 last week if he was still living) originally claimed that the inspiration for the book and his own research had been the stories he had been told as a child.

But genealogists challenged his research, and so did a man named Harold Courlander, who published a book in 1967 called "The African." It was the story of an African who was captured by slave traders and brought to America, where he tried to hold on to his African heritage as much as possible.

If you ever read "Roots," you will recognize the premise.

In 1978, Courlander filed suit against Haley, whose dizzyingly best–selling book, by that time, had been turned into an extremely successful TV miniseries as well. Courlander alleged that Haley could not have written "Roots" without the material that had been lifted from "The African."

The parties settled the case five weeks after it was brought to court. The settlement included a financial payment and a statement that read "Alex Haley acknowledges and regrets that various materials from The African by Harold Courlander found their way into his book."

I have never read "The African." Perhaps, in the interest of fairness, I should. But I can say, from having read "Roots," that Haley's work was rich and rewarding — whether it was mostly fact or mostly fiction.

Whatever the truth may be, it was worth reading in 1976. It is still worth reading today.

Remembering The Final Days

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I guess my brother and I really turned out differently.

We had the same parents, of course, and we grew up in the same house — but my brother probably has always preferred to build a motorcycle from spare parts while I have always leaned more toward reading and writing.

Like most siblings, we had different interests. Nothing wrong with that. The thing we had in common, the thing we both got from our parents, was an appreciation for creative expression. We expressed our creativity in different ways, that's all. Still do.

There are probably several reasons why that is true, and I'm sure it would make for a fascinating — and, in all likelihood, lengthy — essay, but I only mention it to make the point that I did a lot of reading when I was growing up.

My parents were both teachers, and they believed in reading. They encouraged me to do as much of it as I could so it wasn't unusual for me to read book after book after book during my summer vacations.

It also wasn't unusual for me to read books that were supposedly over my head — or, at least, "beyond my years," as my grandmother often said.

(My grandmother contributed to that, incidentally. She often gave me books that would have been incomprehensible to many of my peers — but I read most of them from cover to cover and got a lot from them.)

My grandmother probably was right — to a certain extent. I did read a lot of things that I really didn't completely understand at the time — but I have re–read them since then, and they made a lot more sense the second time around.

In the summer of 1976, I read a lot of books that probably should have been hard for me to comprehend, starting with Woodward and Bernstein's recently published sequel to "All the President's Men" — which kind of left readers hanging. At the end of that book, President Nixon was telling the nation in early 1974 that "I have no intention ... of walking away from the job the American people elected me to do."

And, at the time, it was hard to see — on the surface and to the untrained eye — how Nixon, who had been tripped up by several untruths in 1973, could possibly be removed from office without a so–called "smoking gun." All that anyone seemed to have against him were the words of one other person and what would be considered circumstantial evidence.

Yet, when Woodward and Bernstein resumed the story in "The Final Days," the emphasis from the start was on the behind–the–scenes efforts to persuade the president and his loyalists that he had to resign — efforts that led to Nixon's resignation in August 1974.

Like everyone else in America, I had been following the Watergate scandal, even when the topics were beyond my years.

And there had been times (i.e., when the so–called Senate Watergate Committee was questioning witnesses) when the topics clearly fell in that category.

There were also times — when the House Judiciary Committee was considering articles of impeachment against Nixon — when it was hard for me to keep up.

Part of that may have been an overabundance of characters in the story. I knew the names of the major players, of course, but sometimes I got lost in the maze of deputies and aides and lawyers who made up the vast supporting cast.

I came to the conclusion rather early in that process that many of those underlings were like the German soldiers from World War II — the ones who protested after the war ended that they had merely been "following orders" when they executed people in the concentration camps.

Even so, I followed things pretty well — if I do say so myself — and I still understand aspects of the Watergate scandal that people who lived through it never have understood.

I've got to admit, though — I enjoyed reading the inside stuff in "The Final Days" that nobody heard about at the time — how Nixon and Henry Kissinger got on their knees and prayed together in the Oval Office or how an inebriated Nixon wandered the halls of the White House, carrying on conversations with the portraits on the walls.

Those excerpts had been frequently published in the weeks before I finally got a copy of "The Final Days," and I was eager to read them for myself.

(I will never forget a wickedly funny Saturday Night Live parody of the book in which Nixon asked a portrait of Lincoln, "Why are they doing this to me, Abe?" and the portrait replied, "Because you're such a dip, Dick.")

I don't remember how I acquired my hardback copy of "The Final Days" — somebody must have given it to me because I hadn't started working in the summers yet and, even when I did, it probably would have taken me a day or two to earn enough take–home pay to purchase it on my own.

But I've still got that copy. The once–white cover has yellowed with age, and the dust on it betrays how long it has been since I read it, but it means a lot to me.

It took on even more value for me when, while I was teaching journalism at the University of Oklahoma, co–author Carl Bernstein came to campus. I went to hear him — with my copy of "The Final Days" in hand — and I got Bernstein to sign it after his lecture.

(I'm not usually an autograph hound — but I make an exception whenever I have an opportunity to meet a world–class journalist.)

Ultimately, I felt the Watergate story was a story of the triumph of the American system over an individual's paranoia and unquenchable thirst for power.

"The Final Days" completed the story that was started in "All the President's Men."

The Origin

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Bert Cates: "For our science lesson for today, we will continue our discussion of Darwin's theory of the descent of man. Now, as I told you yesterday, Darwin's theory tells us that man evolved from a lower order of animals. From the first wiggly protozoa here in the sea to the ape and finally to man. Now, some of you fellahs out there are probably going to say that's why some of us act like monkeys."

Inherit the Wind (1960)

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Back in February, on the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth, I observed that it was also the bicentennial of Charles Darwin's birth. In the history of mankind, rarely have two such influential individuals been brought into the world on the same day.

I am reminded of that because today is the sesquicentennial of the publication of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species," which is regarded as the foremost scientific work on evolutionary biology.

I am not a scientist, but one does not have to be a scientist to understand the profound influence Darwin's work has had. Certain evolutionary theories already existed before Darwin's book was published, and Darwin's writing served to put many of those theories into context for people like me.

Unfortunately, it also drove a wedge between those who accepted the Bible's account of the beginning of human life on earth and those who found answers in Darwin that supported recent biological discoveries.

That conflict between biblical literalists and those who believed Darwin had solved some of the riddles of existence has continued for 150 years.

It could be seen in the famed "Scopes monkey trial" of the 1920s, in which John T. Scopes was convicted of "teaching evolution" in public school — in violation of Tennessee state law. That trial was the inspiration for one of my favorite movies, "Inherit the Wind."

It could be seen in the conflict produced by laws that were passed (and then struck down in court) in recent decades that required balanced teaching of "creation science" and evolution in public schools.

And it has been seen recently in the "intelligent design movement."

Well, it's all theoretical, I suppose. What bothers me is how people so often feel they must support one side or the other. Those who take Genesis' account of creation literally probably cannot be persuaded to accept Darwin's theories, and vice versa.

As for myself, I have never believed that Darwin's writings were, in any way, irreconcilable with religious faith. In fact, it seems to me that the theory of evolution supports the belief that life is a long, ongoing miracle.

If You Can Find It, Read 'FDR's Last Year'

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"Time magazine, alert to the importance of Roosevelt's state of health, published an article ... and opened by quoting the New York Sun: 'Let's not be squeamish. It is convention not the constitution which forbids open comment on the possibility that a President may be succeeded by his Vice President. Six Presidents have died in office.' The New York Daily News stated it for the subway readers: 'Dewey is 42; Roosevelt is 62.'"

Jim Bishop
"FDR's Last Year: April 1944-April 1945"

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When I was about 12, I discovered the writings of Jim Bishop.

My father was a professor at a small liberal arts college in central Arkansas. From time to time, I would walk from my middle school or my junior high school (both of which were only a short distance from the college campus) to his office and ride home with him.

And, on some of those occasions, I stopped off at the small on-campus bookstore to browse before continuing to my father's office.

The bookstore carried all the textbooks that were required in each class that was being offered, of course, as well as a fairly wide selection of mass market hardback and paperback books — all crammed into a small store/office in what was called the "student union," although I guess, on most campuses these days, it would be called a "student commons" or "student activity center."

Small it was, but it was large enough to serve the relatively small student body.

Anyway, that was where I discovered Jim Bishop. A lone copy of his "The Day Lincoln Was Shot" was hidden behind copies of "Sounder," "Portnoy's Complaint" and "Slaughterhouse-Five." I don't recall how I found it. I just did.

I took it to the cashier, paid for it and left with my newly acquired treasure.

(I still have that book, by the way, and the price on the cover — 85 cents — testifies to how much times have changed.)

The book told the story, hour by hour, of the day that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Originally, it was published in 1955, and it paved the way for similar narratives — "The Day Christ Died" and "The Day Kennedy Was Shot" — that I read after I finished the book on Lincoln.

But those books were old news in the publishing world by the mid-1970s. You could still find them in bookstores, but they were becoming increasingly difficult to locate.

Then, in 1974, Bishop published a book that took a similar approach to historical storytelling as his books on the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations and the crucifixion — but it followed the developments of an entire year instead of a single 24-hour period.

It was called "FDR's Last Year: April 1944-April 1945," and it was a huge success, a nationwide bestseller.

I bought it when it came out in paperback the following year. (I had to pay more for it than I paid for the Lincoln book — $2.45 — but that would still be a bargain compared to the price of books today.)

The book is relevant in the modern political climate, if only because, in both presidential election campaigns, the nominee of the party in power was significantly older than the nominee of the challenging party. Health was a mostly unmentioned issue.

In Roosevelt's case, health questions simply took a backseat to the role he played in leading the allied war effort. In that final year, of course, the Allies began the liberation of Europe with the invasion of Normandy in June.

But, even though big and important things were happening in the world, there were people who insisted on giving events an election-year spin.

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"There were some men in high places who, ignoring the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, said that there would be no election in 1944. It is not an accident that most of the rumormongers were members of the Republican Party. Politics, a national pastime in democracies, would continue as usual. The Republican Party had been out of executive power for 12 years. Some were embittered to the point where they accused the president of staging D-Day to coincide with the Republican convention in June, and the Democratic in July. Others counseled that, as the argument against a third term had borne no elective fruit, it would be witless to fight against a fourth. The target, if FDR ran again, should be that the government was in the hands of 'tired, quarrelsome old men.'"

Jim Bishop
"FDR's Last Year: April 1944-April 1945"

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In John McCain's case, the subject of his health hasn't been mentioned frequently primarily because of the media's apparent assumption that it doesn't matter because he won't win.

But if McCain surprises observers and wins the election, his health will suddenly take center stage. And it will be too late to ask questions about his vice president's experience and qualifications.

As you read Bishop's book, you become more aware of how Roosevelt's 1944 running mate, Harry Truman, was nothing more than an afterthought. Few, if any, of the voters who preferred FDR gave any thought to the possibility that Truman might become president.

The book is nothing if not a cautionary tale, although it doesn't explore the successes or failures of Truman's presidency. It only tells us, in the course of telling the story of those fateful 12 months, in which the war was won and the president died, how Truman came to be chosen for Roosevelt's ticket — and, consequently, was elected vice president.

Truman had been vice president for less than three months when he was summoned to the White House in April 1945 — and was told that Roosevelt had died.

As someone who has earned a degree in graduate school, I can tell you that Bishop's writing is not perfect — from the perspective of historical research, his books lack the kind of footnotes and bibliography that would be required of a graduate school history student.

Yet, The New York Times Book Review said, in its review of "FDR's Last Year," that Bishop possessed "the gifts of a born storyteller," and it called the book "absorbing."

That is when history is most "absorbing," in my opinion — when, as Andy Griffith (speaking as TV's Sheriff Andy Taylor) said, a gifted storyteller "puts a little jam on the bread."

Even without footnotes and bibliography that would be considered adequate by academic journals, Bishop provides a lot of "jam" in "FDR's Last Year."

His book was probably more absorbing in 1974, though. The book was published nearly 30 years after Franklin Roosevelt's death, and many of the people who read it at that time were old enough to remember FDR and his presidency.

Today, Roosevelt has been gone for more than 60 years, and the majority of the people who were old enough to remember even the wartime FDR (never mind the younger FDR who guided America through the Depression) are no longer with us. For most of the people who would read Bishop's book today, FDR is an historical figure, someone from the history books, like Lincoln and George Washington.

As I understand it, "FDR's Last Year," like most of Bishop's books, is out of print now. Some bookstores may be able to locate and special-order a copy for you. And you might be able to find a copy at a used book store.

If you find a copy, get it and read it.