Stone was far from a mere dissenting polemicist. “Izzy realized some things that most journalists forget — when the decision on the controversy is taken, it is only then that you really begin to have available to you the facts that brought the crisis about,” reflected Reston. “Most reporters, I [James Reston] among them, usually when the decision is taken, go on to something else, but not Izzy . . . He would go back and read and interview and then bring together a story about what had really happened–which was usually so much better and accurate than the day-to-day coverage.”

http://www.ifstone.org/biography-refuted.php

1. i think that we should applaud bob silvers and barbara epstein of the nyrb for giving izzy a real, public, national audience. it may not have been his first piece for that rag, but the 1968-1969 multi-part investigations into the perfidies/prevarications of robert strange mcnamara constituted the first disrobing of the whiz kid.

izzy’s investigation was great, but it was silvers and epstein that allowed it to get real air.

2. and while we are on the subject of journalism and honor and integrity, i think we should consider the source of so many of our national prevaricators, today’s journalist mad men. i find it fascinating how so many of them earned their press credentials at donny graham’s harvard crimson. let us consider a few: bo jones, bob samuelson, jono fuerbringer, tj matthews.

3. finally, myra, while on the subject of honor, didn’t you stiff my brother-in-law, a literary agent in LA, concerning this book?

The Lake totally rawks…!

Could we do more? Of course, but with the resources we have and what is publicly available (in the tradition of Stone) we are doing quite a lot.