Steven L. Davis

Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis’ account of Timothy Leary’s years as a fugitive, The Most Dangerous Man in America, tells a detailed but biased story. The primary source material and direct quotations from Leary’s time abroad and from the Nixon administration’s attempts to capture him are somewhat astounding — often to the level of hard to believe, but certainly entertaining. Readers interested in the 1970s counterculture and the government response will definitely find a lot to like in The Most Dangerous Man in America.… (altro)

In "Dallas 1963", journalists Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis, who have spent much of their lives and careers in Texas, provide a gripping narrative of the political climate in Dallas in the three years prior to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This is not another book delving into the conspiracy theories that purport to reveal the "truth" about the murder of JFK. It is a study of the mindset of the ruling class in Dallas and their efforts to undermine the Kennedy administration and to prevent the national liberal agenda from threatening their hold on power in Dallas.

The book begins in 1960, as conservative leaders in Dallas become aware that Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts is likely to win the Democatic nomination for the presidency. W.A. Criswell, pastor of the First Baptist Church, the largest church in the Southern Baptist Conference, is appalled that a Roman Cathollic could become a candidate for president- and might win. His fervent anti-Catholicism is shared by Ted Dealey, publisher of the Dallas Morning News. Their antipathy to Senator Kennedy is felt by most of the political and business elite in Dallas, including H.L. Hunt, perhaps the wealthiest man in America, if not the world. Hunt doesn't really care about religion, but the oil depletion allowance is holy to him- and he sees the liberal easterner Kennedy as a threat to his industry.

Stanley Marcus, of Neiman Marcus, is a lonely member of the Dallas elite who quietly supports the Kennedy campaign, after Senator Lyndon B. Johnson fails in his own quest for the nomination and instead becomes JFK's running mate. Marcus wants Dallas to improve its image, to show the world that it is a civilized city that values the fine arts and is ready to do business with all kinds of people. But as a liberal Jew, he finds himself isolated among racist, right-wing, Christian nationalist fanatics.

Rhett James and Juanita Craft are among the leaders of the civil rights movement in the African American community in Dallas. In 1960, Dallas is the largest city in America in which the school system is still completely segregated. That starts to slowly change in the fall of 1961. But much of the hatred directed at President Kennedy stems not just from his Catholicism, but also in reaction to his stated sympathy for the rights of black Americans.

The anti-Kennedy mentality in Dallas can be manifested in physical violence, as happens at least twice before November 22, 1963. In the last days of the 1960 campaign, Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird, visited Dallas. As they arrived at the prestigious Baker Hotel, they were attacked by a mob of angry women, many wearing mink coats bought at Neiman Marcus, wielding signs accusing LBJ of being a Communist traitor. The women, organized by Republican Congressman Bruce Alger, jeered and spat at Johnson and his wife and came close to hitting them with their signs. The scene was captured on television and featured on the national evening news. A few days later, Nixon lost Texas by less than 50 thousand votes. He angrily blamed "that asshole congressman in Dallas".

Three years later, Adlai Stevenson, elder statesman of the Democratic Party and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, visited Dallas on UN Day, Oct. 24, 1963, to speak on the importance of international cooperation. His speech was interrupted by hecklers and afterwards he was attacked by sign-wielding fanatics, one of whom hit him over the head with her placard. Stevenson urged President Kennedy to cancel his planned visit to Dallas. But JFK and First Lady Jackie Kennedy went to Texas, and got a very friendly reception, from working class and ordinary folks, including those of Dallas.… (altro)

I grew up in Dallas. I was there in 1963 when John F. Kennedy was murdered on its streets. I've read extensively about the assassination, followed all the events from that day in November forward to the wildly varying conclusions that have arisen. But this book isn't about that period. It's about the three years prior to the assassination and about the social and political life of the city in which the assassination occurred. It is one of the most eye-opening things I have ever read, and it utterly astonished me with facts and insights about the town I thought I knew. Of course, I was a child when these events were occurring, so it's not completely surprising that I didn't grasp all the nuances. But the not-so-underground life of Dallas as the very heart of right-wing extremism in the 1960s almost completely escaped me until reading this book. The authors bend so far over backwards trying to be objective they almost come full circle. Yet for all that massive effort to impartiality, one is reminded of the old saying that facts have a liberal bent. Only the furthest right of the furthest right can look at the political climate in Dallas in the early 1960s and believe anything but that the city was a bubbling cauldron of hate and fear. In what other city in American history have high government officials been spat on and battered on television as ambassador Stevenson was during an official visit? In what other place in this country could the sitting Vice President of the United States and his wife be physically abused, intimidated, and spat on by a riotous mob of wealthy mink-clad women? That the passions of so many extreme conservatives in one place were tacitly encouraging violence to the American president is, in the end, an extraordinary irony in view of the apparent fact that it was a left-winger who gunned him down. What DALLAS 1963 does is make it crystal clear that the climate of hatred in the city was so intrinsic and deeply rooted that it actually made the assassination almost inevitable, regardless of the political position of the actual shooter. And ultimately, what is most astonishing is that the city fathers who hated Kennedy, the comparatively few high-level figures in the city who loved him, the president's staff and administrative colleagues, and even the president himself saw clearly that Dallas posed an extraordinary threat not only to his political existence and policies, but to his life itself, yet none of them heeded the alarm bells that were clanging from every direction. If there's a problem with this book, it's in a choice to tell it mostly from a present-tense framework, with inconsistent alternations with past tense. But that's a mild caveat. This is a page-turning, pulse-pounding political thriller with its conclusion already known, but with the roots that led to that conclusion now revealed in ugly glory in an innovative and riveting approach. What is perhaps most powerful in this book is the undeniable implications that the massive polarization and bitterness Americans felt toward others of different opinion in the 1960s is not dead. To paraphrase Bertolt Brecht, the bitch isn't dead. In fact, she's in heat again.… (altro)

In my early 20s I went through a Leary phase. I didn't take my experimentation anywhere near the level he did, but I got very interested in his philosophy of psychedelics and spiritual and intellectual enlightenment. I majored in religious studies in university and I likened Leary's philosophy and practice to a religion. I think I even heard him speak in the early '90s (though that might have been a hallucination). It has been many years since I visited this history, and this book tells the story of a very specific period in Leary's life. It is a very interesting tale, of jailbreak and exile, and the maniacal pursuit executed by Richard Nixon. The Nixon stuff is especially fascinating, seeing it through the lens of Trump's America. I think parallels between Nixon and Trump are inevitable, and indeed this book describes some of Nixon's behaviour as being as erratic and crazed as some have reported Trump to be. The early 70s were a volatile, some might say exciting time, when people rose up and used violent revolutionary acts to express their displeasure with the government. Leary was drawn into that violence because it provided him a means of escape from Nixon's single-minded persecution, but in fact it was exactly counter to his philosophy of joyous contemplation of the universe and humans' place in it. A highly engaging and thought-provoking read.… (altro)