Tom Whitbread

Sam Smith - I was sad to learn belatedly that Professor Thomas Whitbread of the University of Texas had died last fall. After all, I had known him for about sixty years and had never grown tired of this fine poet going “Woof” in response to something I had just said.   As the obituary …

Passings: Marion Barry

Sam Smith, 2006 - Marion Barry and I split back in the 1980s. I can't remember the exact issue, but it was one time too many that Marion had promised one thing and then done another. I first met Marion in 1966. We were both in our 20s and he was looking for a white …

Chuck Stone

Sam Smith - Chuck Stone, who edited several newspapers, was a Tuskegee Airman, a professor, columnist and founding president of the National Association of Black Journalists, has passed at age 89. Stone’s columns also appeared regularly in the Progressive Review for many years. Paul Brock described Stone this way: "Chuck Stone was a journalistic legend. …

My JFK moments

Sam Smith In the summer of 1957, I covered a Senate investigation of the Teamsters Union. Among those seated at the long panel table was young John F. Kennedy from Massachusetts. His brother, Robert, served as a counsel for the committee. At one point, a prostitute witness made some off-color comment that brought guffaws from …

John Neary

Sam Smith The only writing by John Neary that I ever published was a letter he sent in 1964. I was starting an alternative journal, The Idler, and had tried to drum up some free submissions from writer friends. Neary, who passed away a few days ago, responded with this: Dear Sir, toward Washington, lurching …

RUTH & SAMMIE ABBOTT

Sam Smith: Ruth Abbott, who passed recently, was half of one of America's most remarkable couples. For starters, she met her future husband in 1937 while he was in jail. She told the Montgomery County Gazette, "He and my father were arrested for picketing in New York. They were both sentenced to 30 days in …

TED KENNEDY: THE LAST RESPECTABLE LIBERAL

Sam Smith, Progressive Review - It was sad to lose Ted Kennedy, but as I followed the coverage I couldn't help feeling a bit angry as well. It was almost as if the media, rather than helping in the burial, had stolen his body instead. And then those endless encomiums from those who hardly ever …

Stewart Mott

Sam Smith WHEN ANNE ZILL called me in the mid 1980s and told me that she and Stewart Mott would like to have lunch with me, I thought, well, I better be on my good behavior. This, after all, was in mind the guy who had, funded the 1960s, not to mention giving the buck …

Jazz: Cooler and cheaper than war

Sam Smith A HALF CENTURY AGO , jazz musician Dave Brubeck became a star in an anomaly: some American foreign policy that actually worked. He recently was in Washington celebrating his participation in the Jazz Ambassadors program of the 1950s,which sent musicians abroad to show a different side of America. Among the other participants: Dizzy …

FIDEL & ME

IF there has been one constant in my journalistic life it has been Fidel Castro. Even Teddy Kennedy had just been admitted to the Massachusetts Bar when I covered Castro for the first and only time. And though I would never actually see him again, Fidel would ceaselessly reappear like some ghost of revolutions past, …

WELCOME BACK, IMUS

Sam Smith Don Imus is returning to radio. While he was away, Ann Coulter's stock seems to have risen markedly but I guess liberals can only deal with one hater at a time. Actually, Imus isn't really a hater so much as a poorly acculturated old grouch who never learned when to shut his mouth …

Resurrection in a pew

SAM SMITH - The memorial service for Gene McCarthy ran a bit long, considering it was a tribute to a man who had once suggested reducing the number of commandments from ten to four. And it was disturbing to see Bill Clinton shamelessly delivering a tribute to a man of integrity, especially one who had …

Gaylord Nelson

SAM SMITH,  - When I met my wife she was working as assistant press secretary to Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin. Nelson was notable in two regards: good legislation and good stories. For example, he was once delivering a speech when he stopped a few paragraphs in, looked over his glasses at the audience and …

Ralph Nader: An Unreasonable Man

Sam Smith A FORTHCOMING documentary on the life of Ralph Nader - An Unreasonable Man - includes many critics as well as supporters and reminds me of how despicable the Democrats' attacks on Nader have been. It isn't that Nader can't drive you a bit crazy with his waverless path. I know. I wrote to …

Bobby Kennedy, June 7, 1968

Sam Smith [Robert Kennedy's assassination completed a hat track of evil begun four years earlier with the killing of his brother, followed by the slaying of Martin Luther King and, two months later, of RFK. While the other deaths may have been more tragic to more people, in one respect RFK's was the most profound, …