02-05-2012, 09:14 PM
A woman who worked in JFK's White House as an intern has published a memoir:
http://www.amazon.com/Once-Upon-Secret-P...063&sr=1-1
She was 19 when it started, and is 69 now. That is a long time to keep quiet about something that was both a formative event in her own life, and that would have been a subject of overwhelming public interest (think OJ + Princess Diana) if it had been known at the time. Even now, in 2012, I still predict it will generate a fair amount of media-attention.
Her 50 years of silence is both rational and admirable in many ways, and I don't know what prompted her to tell her story now as opposed to any other time. But I can't help but think how, if she had tried to tell this story in the 1960s or the 1970s or the 1980s, she would have been denounced, attacked, condemned as a liar or worse, and generally given the kind of workout in the mainstream media that (for example) Sarah Palin and Ken Starr have been given in more recent times. If any of Ms. Alford's family had tried to defend her, then they would have come under attack as well.
Those were the years when most media-liberals ardently shielded Kennedy's legacy from any unpleasant facts, and spoke of his memory in the same tones of hushed reverence they use to speak of (for example) Martin King Jr's memory today. It is understandable that Ms. Alford would not have wanted to incur the wrath of people like that. It is also ironic, since many of those same people will now -- now that liberals no longer feel invested in preserving JFK's reputation -- react to her disclosures by saying "So what? We knew this all along."
http://www.amazon.com/Once-Upon-Secret-P...063&sr=1-1
She was 19 when it started, and is 69 now. That is a long time to keep quiet about something that was both a formative event in her own life, and that would have been a subject of overwhelming public interest (think OJ + Princess Diana) if it had been known at the time. Even now, in 2012, I still predict it will generate a fair amount of media-attention.
Her 50 years of silence is both rational and admirable in many ways, and I don't know what prompted her to tell her story now as opposed to any other time. But I can't help but think how, if she had tried to tell this story in the 1960s or the 1970s or the 1980s, she would have been denounced, attacked, condemned as a liar or worse, and generally given the kind of workout in the mainstream media that (for example) Sarah Palin and Ken Starr have been given in more recent times. If any of Ms. Alford's family had tried to defend her, then they would have come under attack as well.
Those were the years when most media-liberals ardently shielded Kennedy's legacy from any unpleasant facts, and spoke of his memory in the same tones of hushed reverence they use to speak of (for example) Martin King Jr's memory today. It is understandable that Ms. Alford would not have wanted to incur the wrath of people like that. It is also ironic, since many of those same people will now -- now that liberals no longer feel invested in preserving JFK's reputation -- react to her disclosures by saying "So what? We knew this all along."