Talk:Merle Miller

MacArthur and Truman on Wake Island

An anonymous editor recently added:

The book is also inaccurate in its depiction of Truman's conference with MacArthur on Wake Island. According to Plain Speaking, MacArthur's plane arrived at the same time as Truman's and circled the field, hoping that Truman's plane would land first and enable the general to upstage him. According to eyewitness accounts, however, MacArthur arrived twelve hours ahead of Truman and was waiting for him at the airport when his plane landed.

I removed this again for two reasons. First, it is uncited. (Which "eyewitness accounts"?) But more important, even if this were well-substantiated, it does not bear on the subject of the section. Miller does not claim that the Wake island meeting occurred as described; he only claims that Truman said it occurred that way. If Truman described the meeting incorrectly, and then Miller accurately relayed that incorrect description, then Plain Speaking is accurate. To rebut this it's not enough to cite eyewitness accounts that the Wake Island meeting did not occur as described; one needs to find evidence that Truman described it correctly and that Miller then changed the description. The rest of the section deals with claims of that type, but the new paragraph does not appear to, so it is out of place.

I hope this was clear. —Mark Dominus (talk) 14:36, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Read any reputable biography of Truman, such as Man of the People, or David McCulloch's biography. They both say the story is false. Whether Truman made up the story or Miller did, it does raise serious doubts about Miller's credibility.97.73.64.168 (talk) 02:04, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Do those biographies explicitly name Plain Speaking or Miller in their criticism of the story? -- JTSchreiber (talk) 05:58, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Read David McCullough's acclaimed biography, "Truman". He explicitly cited Miller's book and said it never happened that way. Any responsible biographer of Truman agrees that Miller's account of the Wake Island conference is false.71.48.148.40 (talk) 20:51, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

There are much stronger challenges to Miller's veracity. The Ferrell-Heller article says that there is nothing about Kay Summersby on the Miller tapes. If this is true, then Miller made up the Summersby stuff in his book. This is a direct attack on Miller's credibility, whereas the Wake Island problem is not. So I think the Wake Island material does not add to our discussion of this issue, and I plan to remove it again. —Mark Dominus (talk) 06:59, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I have done this. —Mark Dominus (talk) 14:40, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Recent rewrite

Lorac72 (talk · contribs) just rewrote the entire article. I am concerned about this for two reasons.

First, when such wholesale rewrites are done all in one piece by users who are newcomers to Wikipedia, and who are therefore unfamiliar with Wikipedia's policies, it often turns out that the new article is a copyright violation, because the text was taken wholly or partly from some other source without permission. This isn't always the case, of course, but I wish we could be reassured on this matter.

Second, the rewrite eliminated everything that was previously in the article. For example the controversy about the truth of Plain Speaking is no longer addressed. This is a real controversy, and was documented and cited in the old article. Material like this is valuable, and should not be removed without a consensus of other editors.

I would like us to discuss these extensive changes. If Lorac72 doesn't return here to discuss them in a few days, I plan to revert the article to the pre-Lorac72 version. —Mark Dominus (talk) 14:29, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Dear Mark,

My name is Carol Hanley a/k/a Lorac72 and I was an associate and close friend of the author Merle Miller and the executrix of his estate. I am in possession of all his journals, correspondence, etc. None of the material that I use is from a text book. As you can see from the Reference section, I do cite my name. It is written by me!! As far as the allegations....if you read the entire text you will see that I do address the criticisms re the authenticity under the heading Plain Speaking. However, the bio that existed previously dealt with a number of allegations that could not be proven since both Truman and Miller are deceased. Merle didn't intend writing the book Plain Speaking as a definitive biography as you will learn from reading the same paragraphs under Plain Speaking. It was just to be a book of conversations. I felt that the Wikipedia page on Merle Miller should reflect his entire body of work and not just concentrate on an isolated controversy....

At the present time several of Merle's books are about to be republished and I feel that it is an injustice to his memory to have such negative information on his Wikipedia page.

Lorac72 (talk) 16:46, 9 March 2012 (UTC)Lorac72 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lorac72 (talk • contribs)

Thanks very much for responding. I am delighted to have you on board to help with this article, and I am relieved to hear that we can stop worrying about possible copyright violation.

I will work with you to clean up the formatting of the article. Your change eliminated all the links to other articles, which makes the new version rather less useful than it might be.

I also want to restore the material about the Ferrell-Heller article in American Heritage. Your new version does not make any mention of this article or of its claims, and I feel that these are important for Wikipedia's reders to know about. I understand that you want an article that is positive to your friend, but that is not what Wikipedia is for: we are writing an encyclopedia, not a eulogy, and our core policy is to retain a neutral point of view and to include all information that is both relevant and verifiable. You will have to take great care that your friendship with the late Mr. Miller does not compromise your ability to edit this article neutrally and dispassionately.

Thanks again. I look forward to working with you. —Mark Dominus (talk) 18:03, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Additional comments re my new Merle Miller page.....The controversy that was cited on the old page was made by Dr. Robert Ferrell in 1995, twelve years ago. Meanwhile, in 2004, Black Dog and Leventhal published Plain Speaking as a "Classic." The controversy is "old news!" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lorac72 (talk • contribs) 18:05, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't matter that Black Dog and Leventhal think that the controversy is "old news". It is verifiable fact reported in a reliable source, and Wikipedia policy is that we don't delete such material without discussing it first, and then only for certain specific reasons. I have restored that material to the article. —Mark Dominus (talk) 21:10, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Updates Corrected

Hello Mark, I did add in the internal citations as corrected. Can you please correct the box at the top of the page that indicates internal citations are needed. Thanks so much for your help with this. Lorac72 (talk) 18:15, 19 March 2012 (UTC)Lorac72

Kaiser's Claims

The additions regarding Charles Kaiser's criticisms of Dr. Ferrell's criticisms of Plain Speaking appear to be completely uncited and unsourced. Furthermore, Kaiser's criticisms listed in the article don't really refute Dr. Ferrell's specific criticisms of Miller's work - noting that Dr. Ferrell "hung up" on him doesn't refute Ferrell's specific criticisms (published in a major, reputable magazine). Given all this, unless proper sourcing and citations are added, this material should be removed. Just a thought. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.145.229.162 (talk) 08:20, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree. —Mark Dominus (talk) 22:06, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Ferrell-Heller article?

We cite this 1995 American Heritage article Plain Faking? as co-authored, but AH has just a byline for Francis H. Heller. So we should have another cite supporting Ferrell as co-author. Maybe the original print article had both?

Thanks to all for an interesting section on the "Plain Speaking" controversy! Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 03:57, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Never mind, here's just that: https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-16892412/plain-faking, with bylines for both men. I'll add this to the article. --Pete Tillman (talk) 04:00, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Done, Pete Tillman (talk) 04:33, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Duplications in article

There's substantial overlap between the section on the book Plain Speaking, and the subsequent section on the controversy. This should be cleaned up sometime. I hope by some other editor.... --Pete Tillman (talk) 04:39, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

OK, I did most of it. I removed this bit as minor, in an already overlong section:

Robert Alan Aurthur, who was present during the filming and interviewing of Truman later said, "...an image I can easily evoke...in that brief time when we knew and worked with Harry Truman, is any moment when Merle Miller walked into a room or office where Harry Truman was waiting...if Truman did not ignore the rest of us completely...for Merle, always a smile, always an inside greeting that had to do with a couple of fellas from Missouri and Iowa...both were from the Midwest; both had strong mothers, weak eyes...a boyhood and lifelong devotion to books and music, total dedication to the truth, and a sense of history which encompasses an uncanny ability to relate past events, great and small, not with 20-20 hindsight or fashionable revisionism, but purely in their own terms as they happened."CITE Merle Miller: A Sense of History by Robert Alan Aurthur. Book of the Month Club News. February 1974. Page 4.

Better now, Pete Tillman (talk) 05:34, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Article on controversy

Harry would give 'em hell if he read `Plain Speaking', 1995 newspaper article.

This one might be worth quoting, as it's somewhat harsher in tone than the Am Heritage article. Seems based on an interview with Prof Ferrell by his hometown newspaper (Bloomington, IN). But since Miller was long dead when this was written, hard to present his side.... --Pete Tillman (talk) 06:44, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

As a side note, both this article and the American Heritage piece make me uncomfortable, as Ferrell & Heller are making serious charges ("kind of a fraud") against a dead man. They listened to the interview tapes Miller used, but apparently didn't read the voluminous notes and transcripts: About 4 linear feet (approximately 8,000 pages) of textual material at the Truman library, copied from a larger collection Miller donated to the LBJ library, http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hstpaper/millerm.htm . Miller also commented, in his circa 1972 book proposal, that he had "nearly two hundred hours of conversation [with Truman], some of them on tape, the rest taking up four full-sized filing cabinets ...."

It seems very unlikely that this matter will ever be resolved. Truman and Miller are both long dead, and Ferrell is 95. --Pete Tillman (talk) 20:07, 12 October 2016 (UTC)