Victor Lasky

Victor Lasky (1918-1990) was a conservative columnist who wrote several best selling books.

He was one of the first journalists to do a serious, critical analysis of President John F. Kennedy. His 1963 book "JFK: The Man And The Myth" pointed out many negative things about the popular young president. Lasky questioned Kennedy's wartime heroics on the PT-109 and pointed out he had a lackluster record as a congressman and senator. Lasky also wrote a similar negative book about Robert Kennedy.

Lasky's most controversial book was "It Didn't Start With Watergate" published in 1977. The author argued that the scandal that drove Richard Nixon from office was little more than a media event. He claimed the press disliked Nixon and subjected him to unfair scrutiny no other president had ever experienced. Lasky pointed out that Franklin Roosevelt had used wiretaps on political opponents as well as John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

Lasky professed the greatest political "crime of the century" was not Watergate but the theft of the 1960 Presidential election. Lasky pointed out that widespread voter fraud took place in Texas and Illinois that swung the election to Kennedy. In 1979, Lasky wrote another controversial work called "Jimmy Carter: The Man And The Myth". He said Carter was one of the most inept presidents of all time and there was rarely a chief executive who showed so quickly an inability to conduct even the simplest affairs of state.

ee also

*Floyd Abrams and the McCarthy documentary case
*Helen Whitney
*Luella Mundel