Talk:H. Bruce Franklin

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Contents

[edit] edits by 70.111.24.80; balance

I agree with Jmabel's reverts today of 70.111.24.80's edits. AFAIK, there is no debate about whether Franklin actually said the things about Stalin and violent resistance to the war. I do feel that the article is somewhat unbalanced, because apparently Franklin is quite a well known academic, and the article barely touches on that. However, the solution to that is for someone knowledgeable about his Moby Dick work, etc., to write something about that, not to erase history concerning his revolutionary activities. Jmabel's comment on the revert is also relevant: "restore: I don't agree with these views of Franklin's from the early '70s (he may not now himself) but I see no reason to doubt the quotations are accurate. I heard him say roughly this about Stalin." The remarks about Stalin are from a published book. The Examiner quote may also be publicly available (not sure if the interview was in fact published).--Bcrowell 02:55, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

FWIW, I studied under Franklin, I respect him, and (concurring w/ Bcrowell) I don't think one is doing him (or anyone) any favors by "toning down" his politics. Yes, I think the article would be greatly improved by some focus on the less controversial aspects of his work. And, sorry, but this one isn't a priority for me, at least not currently, I'm pretty backlogged. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:38, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] edits by 70.111.6.82

70.111.6.82 deleted the two Franklin quotes, deleted the information about Venceremos believing revolution was imminent, and inserted the following:

According to FBI documents obtained under FOIA (Freedom of Information Act), by 1969 the FBI decided that Franklin must be "neutralized" and that the FBI was no confident that it could accurately imitate his writing style. Accordingly, the agency planted phony "interviews" and even wrote articles and messages signed with Franklin's name and forwarded them to key media opionion makers.

I've reverted the text. The Stalin quote is from a book Franklin published, which is obviously not an FBI plant. Although I'm familiar with some of the nasty things COINTELPRO did (e.g., the Viola Liuzzo case), I'm having a hard time believing that the FBI could convince a reporter to publish an entire false interview. Likewise it's not clear that this has anything to do with Venceremos's belief that revolution was imminent; is anybody disputing that Venceremos was a revolutionary organization? It would be helpful to have a verifiable source for the FOIA thing, and an explanation of how it relates to the rest of the article.--Bcrowell 15:38, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] requested comments from Franklin

Here's the text of an e-mail I sent to Franklin:

Hi,

I don't know if you're familiar with Wikipedia, which is
an online encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to. I've
done a lot of work on its Robert Heinlein article,
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein  ,
and that led me to do some work on the article about you:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Bruce_Franklin   .
Recently the factual accuracy of the latter article has been
questioned, and I was wondering if you could comment on
a few of the facts. In particular, there are questions
about the following points:
- whether a belief in the imminence of revolution was
  one of the reasons for Venceremos's split from the RU
- whether the San Francisco Examiner quote is genuine,
  or a COINTELPRO fabrication.
If you could shed any light on the matter, that would be
great. Given the controversy, it would be very helpful to
have references to verifiable sources of information. 
You can actually edit the article yourself, if you like,
but since you're the subject of the article, it might be
better if you could go to the article's behind-the-scenes
talk page at
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:H._Bruce_Franklin
and give your point of view. Just click on "Edit this
page."

Franklin has replied, and provided a helpful online newspaper source for information about the Examiner interview. I've tried to make appropriate revisions to the text.--Bcrowell 20:59, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

This guy is Stalinist scum. Anyone who "respects" this garbage needs to explain his defense of two of the biggest mass murderers in human history. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.189.32.215 (talk • contribs) 4 Nov 2005.

[edit] Franklin on Stalin

Possibly of interest: Gazpacho recently provided this link at Talk:List of Stalinists. It's Franklin's 39-page introduction to The Essential Stalin: Major Theoretical Writings 1905–1952, Anchor Books (1972) ISBN: 0385091923. It's in the form of a series of unlovely jpegs, but legible. Might well be worth someone reading through, either online or otherwise. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:17, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The M.I.A./P.O.W. myth vs. the K.I.A./B.N.R. reality

Franklin does not merely make "claims" about the creation of the Vietnam War U.S.-M.I.A./P.O.W. myth post 1980 -- he describes and documents conclusively beyond any reasonable doubt (as this phrase is understood in a court of law) the creation and promotion of this malign myth (as have others, there was an article in The New Republic ca. 1985 by (if memory serves) James Ridgeway) in his books M.I.A. : Mythmaking in America and (much of the same material) in Vietnam and Other Fantasies. The seed of the lie was and is the deliberate conflation of the categories Killed in Action/Body Not Recovered with Missing in Action/Prisoner of War. Yes, there were many M.I.A.s - servicemen known to have been killed in action, and their bodies not recovered -- in percentages much lower than U.S. servicemen in the Korean War or WWII.

The knowledge we have available of the creation of the M.I.A./P.O.W. myth (post 1980, note) as a result of historical study is as definite and well-grounded as anything is in history. I'll compromise on "shows" rather than "demonstrates conclusively beyond any reasonable doubt" (which is actually the case) but substituting "claims" for "shows" is not remotely NPOV given the nature of the refutation; it is de facto quite strongly POV (as if the issue were in serious doubt) in service to a malign myth. 137.82.188.68 05:14, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I generallly agree with this. I've read some of Franklin's work on the subject. It seems very solid to me. - Jmabel | Talk 06:02, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
The actual The New Republic magazine article reference referred to above is "The Myth of the Lost POWs" by James Rosenthal (not Ridgeway), July 1, 1985 issue, pgs. 15-19. 137.82.188.68 03:47, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some quotes from Bruce Franklin on the POW/MIA myth

The following quotes are taken from the paperback edition of Vietnam and other American Fantasies (University of Massachusetts Press, 2001). Among other things, these quotes demonstrate that Franklin is explicitly aware that the true POW/MIA myth was not and could not be created by the White House, contrary to an earlier version of the main entry. Italic emphasis in original; interjections delimited by double parentheses.

  • pgs. 187-188 "Having no intention of honoring the U.S. pledge of aid ((the secret pledge Nixon made to Pham Van Dong for postwar reconstruction aid)), Nixon made accounting for the MIAs the issue. But accounting is a meaningless issue unless there is some belief in the possibility of living POWs. Hence each postwar administration has tried to exaggerate this possibility of living POWs. But no administration could afford to claim that there actually were POWs, because then it would be expected to rescue them. True believers, however, knew that reconnaissance, episonage, and the debriefing of defectors would have to reveal the existence of POWs to U.S. intelligence. Hence by the late 1970s the POW myth was beginning to incorporate belief in a government conspiracy precisely the opposite of the real one: while the government was pretending that there might be POWs, the POW/MIA myth saw the government pretending that POWs might not exist.
Not all the machinations of the Pentagon, political opportunists, scam artists, the media, and presidents can create a true myth, however, unless that myth resonates with deep psychocultural needs of a society. There are some fairly obvious needs being met by the images of American POWs tortured year after year by sadistic Asian communists. We, not the Vietnamese, become the victims as well as the good guys. ..."
  • pg. 189 "Because the postwar POWs are, unlike ((John)) McCain, imaginary beings, elaborating the POW/MIA myth and implanting it deep in America's collective imagination has been the job of art forms specializing in imaginary beings: novels, comic books, television soap operas, and, of course, movies. Although the story of American prisoners abandoned in Southeast Asia could not become a major American myth until the dream factory geared up its assembly line for mass production of the essential images, Hollywood was actually involved in creating bits of the history that its POW rescue movies would soon fantasize."

137.82.188.68 07:05, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent edits

While there are some good changes in this recent edit, it also drops a lot of quite well-cited material. Since the person who made these edits wrote no summaries and made no comments on the talk page, I will refrain from guessing at a rationale. It's one thing to make a minor edit without summary, but significant deletions from an article should be explained. - Jmabel | Talk 01:58, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] tenure-review committee details

The article says the following: "composed of associate or full professors who had hopes of advancement: two of them expected to become President of Stanford some day, and one of them actually did--Donald Kennedy." I don't understand the purpose of this information. It seems extraneous or someone should explain why the aspirations of committee members were important and its direct affect on the committee decisions. Moreover, there is no verification of whether these committee members had high aspirations or that Kennedy and an unnamed colleague expected to be president.Dwr12 (talk) 05:34, 19 April 2008 (UTC)