Historian Stephen Ambrose tried to kill "Silent Coup"

[Douglas Caddy]

Len Colodny wrote on Facebook today:

The late historian Stephen Ambrose tried to kill "Silent Coup" with a bad review of it in the New York Times.

But he was later exposed as being highly unethical, and the Times had to retract the review. Below is a brief synopsis of what he did.

SILENT COUP ALSO RECEIVED ROUGH TREATMENT FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, the premier showcase in the country for new books.

Prof. Stephen Ambrose, of the University of New Orleans, dismissed the book as a scantily-sourced "potboiler'' which rehashed old or dubious information. What Ambrose did not tell the Times was that in 1989 he wrote Gettlin and Colodny asking for"an opportunity to look at or talk about some of your findings and conclusions."

Ambrose wanted the material to weigh it when finishing the third volume of his Nixon biography, which covers the Watergate period. The authors declined, citing a contractual obligation with their own publisher, St. Martin's Press.

According to Colodny. Ambrose became furious and said, "A historian like me can make or break a book like this.

In an apology published July 7, the Times said that "if the editors had known of Mr.Ambrose1s letter and Mr. Colodny's response, the book would have been assigned to a different reviewer."

By then, of course, the damage was done.