[Leica] VERY OT: Michael Collins

[marcsmall at comcast.net (Marc James Small)]

I'm not desperately invested in having the last 
word, so I doubt if I will chime in beyond the 
following while, of course, reserving the right 
of fair response.  But we seem to have beaten this issue pretty much to 
death.

First, whether this a discussion list or not, 
citing sources is a necessity.  Saying, "I read 
something once upon a time" just causes the 
proposed statement to fall to a zero in 
credibility:  "once upon a time, a guy in a bar 
told me that his grandmother dynamited the Hoover 
Dam".  You might want to revisit the archives and 
check out the early days of the LUG, back when it 
was still an equipment and process forum, and 
citations were a requisite.  I get heartily 
troubled when folks start talking about, "I know 
that this is the case because I read it 
somewhere, once upon a time".  It is hard to 
track down these sorts of references.

Second, no, I had no idea that you were an 
archivist by profession.  I have maintained, for 
forty years, that the finest occupation in the 
world is to be a controller of information, and 
archivists and librarians fill that bill to the 
tee.  We ought to be putting our best and 
brightest into this field, and you are proof that 
some, at least, of these best and brightest have 
ended up in the field of information 
organization.  Now, a tut-tut.  As an archivist, 
you ought to know that a vague reference to, "I 
once read" is so much persiflage.  Tut-tut, and the matter is closed.

Third, Wikipedia gets a lot of negative press 
from folks for reasons which escape me.  Some of 
the topics are hot-button ones which are 
politically charged -- the entry on "The Revolt 
of the Admirals" (a 1948/1949 incident involving 
a dispute between the Air Force and Navy over the 
USS UNITED STATES project, a project ultimately 
killed by the first Secretary of Defense, Louis 
Johnson, who grew up six blocks from where I used 
to live in Roanoke, Virginia) is fatally pro-Navy 
and anti-Air Force, and my efforts to interject a 
neutral note on this (I can send anyione 
interested the text) caused me to be threatened 
with being barred from Wikipedia forever.  It 
turns out that one of the VERY senior editors is 
a drooling fanatic for the US Navy.  Someday, I 
will figure out what Wikipedia means by "talk" 
and I'll pursue the point, but it really isn't 
worth much of a fight:  those interested will 
read the references, which bear out my 
point.  But, in general, Wikipedia is a great 
source for a lot of information.  No, it cannot 
be relied on as dispositive, but, then, if you 
feel an article is improper, then edit it and 
correct the omission.  In general, Wikipedia is a 
great source, almost as great a source as is my 
tenth edition ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, and one hell of a lot easier to use.

Fourth, yes, Tim Pat Coogan has been constantly 
attacked by Irish academics.  Several 
points.  First, academics, that most oddball of 
classes, hate journalists who right 
history:  look to the reaction in those Groves of 
Academe to Manchester's AMERICAN CAESAR, his 
biography of Douglas MacArthur.  They hated it 
until Clayton James, who was writing the longer, 
three-volume, work, praised Manchester, and even 
then the Marine Corps Historical Office, in the 
person of Ben Frank, continued to deride 
Manchester's work, although Manchester had fought 
in WWII as a Marine Corps officer.  There is no 
one as irritated as an academic 
challenged!  Coogan is a journalist who started 
writing history.  He had first access to a number 
of archives and was also able to speak to a 
number of the principals in the 1950's and 1960's 
and 1970's.  Again, the Irish government is 
evenly divided between the pro-Collins and 
anti-Collins folks, and that effects the mix of 
the criticism.  In short, READ Coogan and his 
critics, as I have, and then let's discuss his 
scholarship, but, pray, let us do this in private e-mail.

Fifth, Collins was a remarkable fellow despite 
your demeaning words towards him.  If for nothing 
else, Collins deserves great praise for having 
conducted a guerilla war which NEVER killed 
bystanders.  His hits were always surgical and 
were always magnificently directed at the agents 
of the British crown. (I can argue with this, as 
I have a feeling that Ireland would have done 
best under the Redmond plan, but, events overran 
my thoughts, thanks in large part to British 
stupidity.)  Collins deserves his prise.  Those 
who want to attack him are, in the end, Dev's 
phantom adherents.  He was a marvelous person, 
far beyond those of us of normal ken, and he 
deserves credit for his virtues, and, also, deserves blame for hi many 
faults.

Sixth, Sonny, I have been interviewing EVERYONE 
with whom I fall into conversation since 1960.  A 
bunch of these I have reduced to writing, 
especially those of the White Army vets I spoke 
with in 1966, and the like.  But, as you approach 
the Written Word, I have neglected to write down 
a lot of details which I ought to have 
recorded.  Life is not perfect, and I have done 
the best I have tried to do.  Shoot me if I've not been perfect!

EVERY person you meet on a street car has a 
story.  "There are a million stories in the naked 
city, and this is mine."  Damn! I have known a 
fellow who remembered the Yankee troops coming 
back to his Minnesota home in 1865.  I have met 
veterans of the Boer War and of the 
Spanish-American War.  ASK folks there stories, 
and record them.  It sounds stupid but this is raw history at its best.

Sonny, we have no fight.  If you wish to be a Dev 
adherent, so be it.  One last tale:

I met a fellow six or seven years back who came 
from Boston.  His family were totally Irish.  He 
had to go over to his grandfather's house every 
Friday to set up a card game.  One night in 1973, 
he came in with the requisite half-gallon bottle 
of Jameson's and was told by his grandfather, 
"toss the cap away, lad, we shan't need it this 
night:  the Old Bastard is dead!".  Such was the 
high esteem in which many of the Irish community 
held Eamonn de Valera, that ultimate poseur.

But, again, there are a million stories in the 
naked city:  ask your neighbors about their stories!

Marc




msmall@aya.yale.edu
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!