Staughton Lynd
I am reluctant to consider Staughton Lynd a full-fledged Warren critic
because as far as I know he published only once on the subject, an article in The
New Republic of 21 December 1963 entitled Seeds
of Doubt: Some Questions About the Assassination, in which he was second author behind Jack
Minnis. But what an article it was! Appearing only two days after Mark Lane's
longer and better-known Oswald
Innocent? A Lawyer's Brief, it is a big cut above Lane's. Where Lane
distorts, Minnis-Lynd report faithfully. Where Lane tells only part, Minnis-Lynd
include all. Where Lane is clearly on a mission to discredit the Warren
Commission, Minnis-Lynd go for the truth. Where Lane tells, Minnis-Lynd ask.
Where Lane is full of himself, Minnis-Lynd quietly keep the focus on the
principals in Dallas, where it belongs. The achievement of Minnis and Lynd is
made all the more remarkable by the fact that Staughton Lynd, at least (I don't
know anything more about Jack Minnis), was a liberal activist much like Lane.
The educated, urbane Lynd shows by example that not all dedicated Leftists need
be biased and flaming.
Staughton Lynd is now 70 years old. The short description of
him is
that he is a political activist, historian, and attorney who specializes in
labor law. The medium one is that he is a socialist Quaker with a leaning
toward Marxism, the holder of a Ph.D. from Columbia who has always felt as
comfortable with the worker as with the intellectual. A longer biography is
provided by Dan O'Brien in a 2 March 1999 story in The Business Journal.
To give a better feeling for Lynd, I offer two other
selections, a review of his 1996 book We Are All Leaders: The Alternative
Unionism of the Early 1930s and a recent article by him entitled Overcoming
Racism.