Castro & Schlesinger books coming out
1. Arthur Schlesinger, historian and aide to FDR and JFK, died earlier this year at a fine old age, and left a lot of journals for publication.
I imagine we may hear for the first time what he really thought of Kennedy’s murder. But maybe not.
The book is due in November, and a small excerpt appears in the current Vanity Fair, along with a passel of never-before-seen Jackie & JFK photos.
God the mag stinks with fashion smellers. $4.50 off the newsstand.
Bonus, however: The issue also contains a piece by Christopher Hitchens — a gent who helped me stitch together the very first issue of the print New Combat — kinda apologizing in a backdoor way for beating the war drum so articulately that he inspired a talented young videogamer from California to enlist and go get his head blown off.
2. Fidel Castro is publishing a memoir in November: My Life. There’s a nice chat with him at the Guardian. E.g.:
Guardian: In 2005 the CIA announced that you have Parkinson’s disease. What comment do you have about that?
Castro: It must be a confession of what they haven’t been able to do for so long: assassinate me. If I were a vain man, I might even be filled with pride by the fact that those morons now say they’ll have to wait until I die. Every day they invite some new story - Castro’s got this, Castro’s got that. The latest thing they’ve come up with is that I have Parkinson’s. Well, it just doesn’t matter if I get Parkinson’s. Pope John Paul II had Parkinson’s and he travelled all over the world for I don’t know how many years.
