Galbraith Defends Kennedys' Action in Book Dispute

The Kennedys' decisions in the Manchester book controversy were those that best served history, John Kenneth Galbraith; Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics, states in this week's Saturday Review.

Galbraith's statement appears in the lead article of a five-part discussion of the implications of Mrs. John F. Kennedy's recent suit to prevent publication of William Manchester's book. Mrs. Kennedy had commissioned the book, The Death of a President, as the authorized history of the assassination.

Other contributors to the Saturday Review discussion include Arnold Gingrich, publisher of Esquire, and Irwin Karp, legal representative for the Authors' League of America.

Galbraith contends that commissioning an authorized account, as the Kennedys did, was the best possible way to deal with the history of the assassination. He suggests three alternatives: Mrs. Kennedy could have written a history herself; she could have given access to all private recollections and papers involved, to anyone who wished it; or she could have maintained complete silence.

But, Galbraith says, the first two would have led to sensationalism and distortion, and to maintain silence would have been to cheat history.

Galbraith continues his defense by arguing that it was proper for the Kennedys to have the right to review and make deletions from Manchester's manuscript. But he does concede that the author "might have been entitled to an earlier reading by Mrs. Kennedy of the disputed passages."

Mrs. Kennedy's taped interview with author Manchester--in which she allegedly told intimate details of the events surrounding the assassination--was conducted under the assumption that she would have a reviewing right, and that none of the material would be used without her consent, Galbraith says.

Without this assurance, Mrs. Kennedy's choice "might well have been to keep all her thoughts and recollections to herself.

And "this would have served the ends of history far less well thought it would have been less criticized," Galbraith concludes.