Heartland

New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. Hardcover. 158p., first edition clothbacked boards in unclipped dust jacket. A very good copy, quite sound and perfectly clean and unmarked. Awful dust jacket photo (cowboy silhouette indicating a typical heartland citizen we must suppose) and no catchy subtitle. Sometimes a bad jacket will kill a book and here, I think, is an instance of its deadliness. At any rate : This guy knew and possibly still knows everybody, and people needed to get to know him. He wrote [patter? unclear] for JFK that Bobbie asks about; there is substantial Kennedy-family stuff here, it's all epigrams and goes by quick, but it's there --and conspiracy constructions on both assassinations are front and center. Sahl spent time with Jim Garrison and Garrison is one of the few celebs here whom Sahl does not insult in the course of defining who they are. His takes on Abbie Hoffman, Stokeley Carmichael and Daniel Ellsberg are useful even in retrospect. He notes, refreshingly, how yippies dropped the ball on the assassination and related matters that could have engaged THE HEARTLAND along with the thirty-seven other yippies. How Angela Davis, when she wanted to protest injustice & hypocrisy, joined the communist party, made up (per Sahl) of 850 senile Jewish men from NYC, and a thousand FBI agents. Then, he says, still attacking Davis, she goes where the action is --Bulgaria. Sahl has dinner with Nixon and grabs the check. He got Hollywood taped. He's worth getting to know even if you disagree with him and love the people he pops.