Subject Had One Big Reputation-Damaging Public Scandal But Made A Comeback – Page 3

Joseph Anton

The Book of the Week is “Joseph Anton: A Memoir” by Salman Rushdie, published in 2012. This ebook describes an author’s life, and the furor created by his controversial novel, “Satanic Verses.”

Rushdie grew up in India and England in the 1950’s and 60’s. His parents identified with Islam but did not provide him with a religious education. He became fascinated with the subject at university. In the late 1980’s, he wrote Satanic Verses, which was extremely critical of Islam. Some powerful people became offended by it; over the course of the next decade, serious repercussions– not hilarity– ensued.

Iran’s leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a “fatwa,” or death threat, against Rushdie. Scotland Yard learned that Muslim groups were plotting to kill the author. There were protests by Islamic fanatics. A price was put on his head.

Rushdie’s publisher, Viking Penguin received threatening phone calls, and over time, a few actual bombs exploded at bookstores that carried the book. In international incidents– injuries and sometimes death befell bombing victims, the book’s translators and a publishing executive. The government of the United Kingdom pressured Rushdie and his family to go into hiding, and endure 24/7 police protection. He changed his name to Joseph Anton.

India became the first nation in the world to prohibit importation of Rushdie’s book. For years, India also denied him a travel visa. However, “India was surrounded by unfree societies– Pakistan, China, Burma– but remained an open democracy; flawed, certainly, perhaps even deeply flawed, but free.” He was deeply hurt. Many other Muslim countries later followed suit.

At one point, he met with a political Muslim organization to negotiate an end to the fatwa. He ended up regretting signing a statement acknowledging that his book was offensive to some Muslims, and also saying that he himself was of Islamic persuasion.

“British Muslim attempts to indict him [Rushdie] for blasphemy and under the public order act were heard in court.” New York Times bestseller status bestowed upon Satanic Verses was probably not due to true likability by the public, but rather, due to all the hullabaloo. Rushdie wrote, “I conclude that my difficulties are not with You, God, but with Your servants and followers on Earth.”

For more than a decade, because the author’s life was thought to be endangered, his ability to live like the citizen of a modern nation was severely curtailed. Read the book to learn about the people who helped him through all of the unanticipated trouble stemming from his writings; the ideology behind his various literary works; and the difficult family situations unrelated to his career, of which he was admittedly the cause.

Just Plain Dick

The Book of the Week is “Just Plain Dick: Richard Nixon’s Checkers Speech and the ‘Rocking Socking’ Election of 1952” by Kevin Mattson, published in 2012. This ebook details the 1952 U.S. presidential election in which vice presidential candidate Nixon became more the center of attention than presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower.

The dirt that generated bad publicity for a candidate in that election was of a slush fund of Nixon’s. When the news broke in September 1952 about Nixon’s alleged campaign finance impropriety, there was lots of hand-wringing among Eisenhower and his advisors as to whether Nixon should be dropped from the ticket.

The nature of the new medium of television– a visual, collective, simultaneous experience for a large audience– was a game-changer. It allowed Nixon to deliver directly to the American people, what turned out to be the perfect message in a way that repaired his reputation and ultimately helped him and his superior win the election.

Nixon’s emotional appeal persuaded his audience that he was a member of the middle class– not an elitist. Mention of his wife’s cloth coat and his dog struck just the right tone. To top off his speech, he skillfully initiated crowd sourcing by inviting voters to contact the Republican Party to express their opinion on whether he should withdraw from the race.

Read the book to learn the details of this memorable, fascinating episode in American political history.

High Priest

The Book of the Week is “High Priest” by Timothy Leary, published in 1995. This is a personal account of a man who, in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, developed a reputation for experimenting with brain-altering chemicals such as LSD. He used students as guinea pigs at his Harvard University laboratory.

Some of Leary’s impressionable charges unwisely updated their parents on their religious and philosophical enlightenment; others “quit school and pilgrimaged eastward to study yoga on the banks of the Ganges.” Unsurprisingly, the parents and school administrators felt that Leary was a bad influence, and he was fired. He attempted to relocate his spiritual profiteering to Mexico, but was busted in 1963 for failing to obtain authorization to run a business there. He then took his allegedly raunchy, psychoactive, disease-spreading endeavors in the dark arts to Antigua in the West Indies.

Read the book to learn the details of this ideological character’s psychedelic research results.

Secret Life: An Autobiography

The Book of the Week is “Secret Life: An Autobiography” by Michael Ryan, published in 1996. This book tells the story of how Ryan became a sex addict as an adult. The root cause of his problem began when he was about five years old. He had an otherwise relatively normal boyhood in 1950’s and 1960’s America, but for his alcoholic father. Read the book to learn the details of the situation that could happen to any child whose parents are too trusting.

One Of Us

The Book of the Week is “One of Us” by Tom Wicker. This is a biography of Richard Nixon, published in 1991.

This book discusses aspects of the late president’s psychology as well as his life story and historical events. Nixon had an inferiority complex. He always felt like an outsider in Washington because he was a Duke University, rather than an Ivy League, graduate. He used an apt phrase to describe the focus one needs to succeed in a law career: a “lead butt” that can sit in a chair for hours, reading.

Despite his shameful crimes and resignation, he still took some actions that benefited the United States, the most well known of which was “opening up” China.