Collection Documenting Far Right Conspiracy (1 results)

The March, 1962 issue of the satirical magainze The Realist contained the text of an entry in The Blauvelt Family Genealogy which indicated that President Kennedy had been previously married to a two-time divorcee named Durie Malcolm, and also contained a White House denial of the genealogy's accuracy. The book was compiled by Louis L. Blauvelt and privately printed for the family, although Blauvelt died in 1957 a year before it was published. The White House and the mainstream media ignored the story hoping it would go away, but the far right fringe editorialized on it in organs such as The Thunderbolt, The Winrod Letter, Kill, and Myron Fagan's News-Bulletin, and disseminated the original Blauvelt entry to their mailing lists. In today's parlance, the story went viral. Finally in September, 1962 Parade published a letter from a reader asking why the story hadn't been debunked, and later that month Newsweek - among other mainstream periodicals - finally published an article titled The Blauvelt Campaign, in which the story was refuted. The Realist weighed back in their November 1962 issue in a short article titled "The Kennedy Caper (Concluded), in which they criticized the press for not dealing with the story honestly. A Columbia Univ. student, Bill Goring, became interested in the story and collected clippings and publications covering it. He wrote to Newsweek magazine asking them to comment on their claim that a Bircher named Hubert Kregelch of the Connecticut-based Valley Paper Company was distributing copies of the genealogy leaflet, to which Newsweek replied. He also wrote to Kregelch and to the White House asking for clarification as well. Kregelch denied any involvement and White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger sent the White House's official response in the form of a stapled reprint of the Washington Post's article, "The Press and the Gossips." This collection, which we've added to, consists of the original Blauvelt entry as reprinted by the Christian Educational Association and Poor Richard's Bookshop and a photostat copy made presumably by Goring; issues 42 & 43 of The Thunderbolt (the first right wing periodical to cover the expose), three issues of The Winrod Letter that covered the story (July, August, October, 1962), four successive numbers of Myron Fagan's News-Bulletin series (nos. 90-94), all with Kennedy and his alleged first marriage as the focus, as well as a separate Fagan reprint of the content from no. 92; letters from Newsweek, the White House, and Hubert Kregelch and onion skin duplicated copies of Goring's original letters to Kregelch and Newsweek; the March 1962 issue of the Realist, in which the story was first published, as well as clippings from the Nov. 1962 issue of the Realist, Newsweek, and the New York Times. A singular collection.