History Behind the Scenes

Accuracy in Academia ^ | July 8, 2010 | Malcolm A. Kline

[bs9021]

History Behind The Scenes

Malcolm A. Kline, July 8, 2010

Two events in recent weeks point out the danger of leaving history to the historians. One is the inclusion of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in a D-Day memorial commemorating an invasion he never took part in. The other is the rating of Stalin ally Franklin D. Roosevelt as America’s greatest president, according to leading academics.

“Richard G. Pumphrey, a professor of art at Lynchburg College, in Virginia, spent about a year sculpting the former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin,” Sophia Li reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education on July 1, 2010. “When he was finished, the bronze bust took its place as part of the National D-Day Memorial, in Bedford, Va., along with Mr. Pumphrey’s sculptures of six other leaders of Allied forces in World War II.”

“It might represent an inconvenient history for some, but it is history,” says Professor Pumphrey. The actual history is more revealing and might really inconvenience the professor.

“Allied losses had been high: 2,500 men at OMAHA alone, another 2,500 among the American airborne divisions, almost 1,100 for the Canadians, and some 3,000 for the British—more than 9,000 men in all, one-third of whom were killed in action,” the official U. S. military history of the invasion reads. Note that Soviet troops didn’t make this breakdown.

Meanwhile, “The Siena College poll, which surveyed 238 presidential scholars at U.S. colleges and universities, asked scholars to rate the nation’s 43 chief executives on 20 attributes ranging from legislative accomplishments to integrity and imagination,” Emily Schultheis reported in the Politico on July 1, 2010. “In the overall ranking, Obama rated two places below Clinton, who was 13th best, and three better than Reagan, who is ranked as the 18th best.”...