Talk:Grant Stockdale

Suicide disputed

On July 24, 2013, user Amakua made an edit with the comment: "It is said that my father comitted suicide, but in fact a later investigation proved this to be wrong. Also,Senator Smathers who came to the scene told the coroner to state suicide when there was evidense to the contrary." This user is clearly an interested party and provided no documentation, so I reversed the edit. I'll try to investigate soon.

1. The edit added the text in bold (pre-existing citations removed):

Before leaving for Ireland, Stockdale was sued in 1961 for using "undue influence" to win government contracts for a Miami vending machines company in which he held stock, and the suit was dismissed by the courts as "frivolous". This suit was brought by Senator Smathers who had an intense jealousy of the relationship between Stockdale and JFK. Congress investigated those vending machine companies as part of the Bobby Baker scandal investigations into bribery of members of Congress, though Stockdale was NOT [replace "not"] a target of the investigation.

He was targeted by another lawsuit with respect to vending machines operations in September 1962. That lawsuit also found Stockdale innocent.

2. This sentence was added without any citation:

Stockdale was one amoung many associated with Kennedy who were killed shortly after JFK's assassination.

3. This text:

Stockdale committed suicide by jumping from his office on the 13 floor of the duPont building in Miami, Florida.(citation to the New York Times obituary)

was changed to:

Stockdale fell from his 13th storey of the DuPont building in Miami 10 days after the assination of JFK. Senator Smathers told the coroner to say it was suicide, and no investigation was made until the 1990's,when it was proved that Stockdale was dead before being thrown out the window.(no citation provided)

Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 20:36, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

I've done what I can. Written some bits more carefully, removed a sentence that was an apparent misunderstanding. I've found no evidence that Smathers and Stockdale were anything but friends. Nor any evidence of a later investigation. I suppose there's still a wealth of Kennedy assassination literature out there to be mined. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 21:21, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Private/original research, unsourced

A lot of material was added by someone who appears to be a relative, who also deleted all previous references, substituting this

All references are from the original files of the Grant Stockdale Family; Trustee, Colonel (Ret.) Lee L. Stockdale, US Army Judge Advocate General's Corps

I removed those edits. Much of it seemed to consist of quotes from private papers not available to Wikipedia editors. Here is some material that perhaps can be properly referenced:

Stockdale was 16 when, in 1931, the country was in the depths of the Great Depression. Four years earlier, his family’s home, in Greenville, Mississippi, was destroyed by the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, still the most devastating flood in U.S. history. Stockdale’s father, Lavert, never regained his footing and died as a result of these double circumstances. In 1931, Stockdale’s mother, Lydia Virgin Stockdale, determined she could no longer provide food for the entire family. Stockdale’s mother took his two younger sisters, with her, to live with relatives in Calera, Alabama, leaving Stockdale, 16, to fend for himself. Known about those years is only that he painted the school in exchange for lunches, and was an outstanding high school football player.

Stockdale received a football scholarship to the University of Georgia. He arrived in Athens early and hitchhiked to Miami, Florida. When he arrived, a man affiliated with the University of Miami picked him up and they talked football. The man asked: “Why don’t you come play for the Hurricanes?” Stockdale tried out then and there, received a scholarship, and played halfback for four years as a Miami Hurricane. As a football player he was known as “the Mississippi Mudcat.” Stockdale was employed by the Miami Kennel Club during college to walk the greyhounds. However, his first job was as a painter. He needed employment, happened by a group of men painting a building, picked up a paint brush and started painting. When the foreman eventually came by and asked who he was and what he was doing, he told the man he worked there. The man agreed that he did. It was at the University of Miami that Stockdale met and married Alice Boyd Magruder, a young poet, writer, and member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, from Canton, Ohio. Stockdale was a class president; Member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, President (1938-9); President of the University of Miami Alumni Association (1948-9); inducted into the Iron Arrow Honor Society, “The Highest Honor Attained at the University of Miami” (1954); and voted the "Outstanding Alumnus" by the University of Miami Alumni Association (1961). Stockdale was the first alumnus of the University of Miami to be appointed a U.S. Ambassador.

When World War II hit, Stockdale applied for an officer’s commission in the Marines, but paperwork was slow and he enlisted. He had almost completed boot camp at Parris Island when his commission came through. He trained at Quantico, Virginia, Newport, Rhode Island, and at the Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, North Carolina, as an Intelligence Officer, with a concentration in intelligence for Pacific Theater Night Fighter Squadrons. At the end of the war he visited both Hiroshima and Nagasaki and witnessed the aftermaths of the atomic bombs.

Another young Miami leader was attorney George Smathers, also a Marine, who returned stateside before the war’s end. On September 30, 1945, Smathers wrote Stockdale, then on Okinawa, that he was being urged to run for Congress: “I’ve advised them that I’m withholding a final decision until I can find out if I can get several youthful progressives to assist me in the race.” Smathers asked Stockdale to “take the lead” in his campaign, with three others. Stockdale agreed and Smathers won the election. Stockdale’s enthusiasm caused Smathers to ask him to go with him to Washington. Again, Stockdale agreed.

the first bill he introduced, "The Women's Jury Bill," would extend jury duty to women. He told a Miami newspaper, “The past war showed us that women could do practically anything. I believe it will make for better government to have women serve on our juries. It will increase their interest and make them better citizens.” The bill was controversial, but finally passed both houses and became law without the Governor’s signature.

I found a source for this and added what I could document. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 17:41, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

In 1948, Stockdale introduced what was known as the “Anti Ku Klux Klan Bill,” the first of its kind in Florida or any southern state. The law did not prohibit the KKK, but prohibited their wearing of masks and hoods in public.

Found a citation for this too. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 18:01, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Stockdale’s third bill, noted in that letter, “The Illegitimate Child Law,” ensured that the birth records of children born out of wedlock would not be stamped “Father Unknown,” but would bear the name of the adoptive parents. Birth certificates of children not adopted were placed in a secured, confidential file, with release granted only through a court order.

Found a little on this too. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 18:15, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

That Stockdale provided JFK with the inspiration for the title of Profiles in Courage.

Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 21:08, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Religion

An editor writes: "We went to St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Coconut Grove, FL." We really need a source, since JFK said he was a Baptist.

More than anything, we could use a long obituary from a local Florida source, perhaps something from the University of Miami? Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 18:21, 19 November 2013 (UTC)