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According to a piece in the Sep 2010 issue of Military History Magazine there are now questions about the veracity of Stephen Ambrose's Biography of Eisenhower The Supreme Commander. According to the deputy director of the Eisenhower Presidential Library there is no evidence that Ambrose spent hundreds of hours with Ike as he claimed but instead only evidence e that he spent 2-3 hours with him. If true, where did he get all the material he put into the book that was supposedly based on personal interviews with Ike?This is not the first time Ambrose has been accused of poor scholarship, it is certainly starting to look like there is plenty of truth behind these accusations. After all, "where there is smoke, there is usually fire."I have attached a scanned copy of the piece below
Wasn't there something about this story some months back (or last year?)? A lot of these popular biographers seem to be on the receiving end of fabrication charges.
Stories about Ambrose seem to come more often than about any others. Perhaps it has something to do with his fame?
He's laughing all the way to the bank.
He's dead. So his heirs are laughing all the way to the bank.
There is an interesting development on this piece. I am a member of the Society for Military History and in the summer issue of the SMH HQ's Gazzette Ambrose's son posts a response and refutation of the allegations of fabrications made by the Eisenhower Library archivist and Journalist who wrote the original story I posted above. I have attached scans of the refutation below.To my mind all this means is (dramatic music) The Plot Thickens. The riposte is pretty heated and I don?t know if it is simply the son defending his father or if he is offended that further accusations to sully Ambrose's reputation have surfaced. For the record, even if he was a plagiarist, Stephen E. Ambrose wrote some outstanding books and it is sad to see his name sullied especially given the huge amount of work he did on behalf of veterans and getting the National WWII Museum endowed and built.
I imagine his status is what is bringing on this parade of charges. Professional jealousies against someone who made a bright mark that they did not, is not too uncommon in the world of scholarship. If you can't make the grade on your own, you might get some notoriety if you can bring down someone who has. Cheap fame, but fame nevertheless.
