Volume 12, Number 5 · March 13, 1969
The Real McCoy
By Jason Epstein
The Teachers Strike: New York, 1968
by Martin Mayer
Harper & Row, 122 pp., $3.95
Martin Mayer describes his book on the New York teachers' strike as 'an attempt at history.' What he has written instead is a courtroom melodrama in which he himself plays the prosecutor, the judge, and the courtroom reporters, while the rest of the players, with a few exceptions to be noted later, sit speechless in the dock. This is not to say that the events he describes have no relation to reality though, as was bound to happen in such a complex scenario, many minor errors of fact inevitably turn up (John Lotz of the New York City Board of Education was never an executive of the Health Insurance Plan. Whitney Young of the National Urban League had nothing to do with an ad placed in the Times by the Urban League of Greater New York denouncing the strike. It is not true that John Doar, the Board President, has no children in the public schools. The mysterious dinner at Armando's Restaurant, of which Mr. Mayer makes so much, was not called at the request of the Mayor nor was it attended only by the Mayor's new appointees to the Board.)[1]
Review, 11047 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |