Monday, September 22, 2014

Read Hillary Clinton’s Letters to Saul Alinsky?













Law student Hillary Rodham apparently had quite a thing for left-wing organizer Saul Alinsky — more than she seems willing to publicly admit.


The Washington Free Beacon has been diligently uncovering pieces of the former first lady and presumed 2016 presidential contender’s past, on Sunday publishing letters between the young Hillary Clinton and Alinsky, the author of the community organizing handbook ”Rules for Radicals.”






’The Prince’ was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power,” Alinsky wrote in the 1971 book. “’Rules for Radicals’ is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”
The newly published letters date from 1971, four years before Hillary Rodham married the man who would become the 42nd U.S. president, and reveal some of the depth of Clinton’s admiration for Alinsky.


“Dear Saul,” she began one letter. “When is that new book ['Rules for Radicals'] coming out—or has it come and I somehow missed the fulfillment of Revelation?”


As the Free Beacon noted, Clinton in her memoir seemed to downplay her connection with Alinsky, mentioning him in a single paragraph saying that in 1969 she chose law school over a job with him.
But her correspondences revealed she stayed close with the author after hitting Yale.


“The more I’ve seen of places like Yale Law School and the people who haunt them, the more convinced I am that we have the serious business and joy of much work ahead—if the commitment to a free and open society is ever going to mean more than eloquence and frustration,” Clinton wrote.
The regard was apparently reciprocated: Alinsky’s longtime secretary Georgia Harper wrote back after Clinton requested to meet with Alinsky in Berkeley, California.


“Since I know [Alinsky’s] feelings about you I took the liberty of opening your letter because I didn’t want something urgent to wait for two weeks,” Harper wrote in 1971. “And I’m glad I did.”
She went on to inform Clinton how she might see Alinsky in person.
Read the letters here:

No comments:

Post a Comment