Bill Mandel wtrote, "The [FSM] Executive Committee made policy, and Goines' book contains more than one error and omission. Michael Lerner's flair for public relations applied in the FSM as later. He asked me if I would debate Clark Kerr. I responded by asking Lerner what made him think Kerr would agree to debate me?" I don't doubt the specificity of your memory of this encounter, Bill. But I question its timing, which accords more probably with the spring following the FSM or later, on grounds independent of Lerner -- for as Kerr would not even speak with us privately during the conflict's course, save once during the cop-car trucemaking, a public challenge to debate were empty rhetoric. Had we seriously proposed debate, then or later, I imagine it would have been with Mario or Michael Tigar as our representative rather than an elder. Had an elder had been proposed, he would most logically have been your peer Hal Draper, whose pamphlet on The Mind of Clark Kerr had brought the textures of Kerrr's managerial thinking most vividly to our attention. As for Lerner, your anecdote can be construed as applying only to that following spring, when we know he was present and noticeable on campus. But it's disturbing to see you insist, on no evidence more apparent than your recall, that "Lerner's flair . . . applied in the FSM," in view of Jo Freeman's more-buttressed assessment agreeing with mine that he was not visible in the FSM. What disturbs me is less the particular about Lerner, than what your insistence in this instance may imply. For I must say, in all sincerity, that although I often am put off by how you couch them, my views have often been gratefully informed by your historical observations and perspectives, and I would quite regret coming more to doubt their precision and dependability. As for Goines' book, in the course recently of archiving the FSM's documents and venturing deeper writing about it, I have come both to appreciate even more the richness of texture and detail that Goines chronicles, and to recognize how much of the action and beast of our movement remains invisible in this and all other histories combined. Even so, I doubt that Goines simply neglected Lerner. Jo's summary -- "If Lerner was even a participant, let alone in the leadership, someone should have noted it some place" -- remains for you to deal with, though her unseemly taunt may have distracted your attention from the challenge. As for your enthusiastic appraisal, here and earlier, of the Executive Committee's place in the FSM, I would chide you more for vague memory and idealization if the mainstream of summary views did not so nearly accord with yours. Nonetheless, closer attention to the detailed textures of the episode will show immediately that ExCom's control and direction of the Steering Committee was quite sporadic, in some junctures operating nearly in reverse, at times in ways that occasioned hot debate and active dissension. Beyond this, I think that both bodies were as much led as leading, as much moved as moving, in ways too intricate and deep to begin to discuss here, though I am trying privately to explore them. Collegially, Michael Rossman <mrossman@igc.org>
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