Kathi Appelt Quotes
Flat or uninteresting writing often signals something deeper that is being covered up.
Appelt, Kathi. "On Writing." Vermont College of Fine Arts.
In the early 1950’s Costello’s Health Minister Noel Browne introduced proposal to provide health care for mothers and children. The Irish Catholic Bishops objected and in the face of their opposition the remainder of the cabinet abandoned the plan. When the public found out, it became a cause celebre. Browne resigned, and the Protestants of Northern Ireland argued that this was an example of Catholic religious control of the Southern Irish government. The President was distressed that the public had ever found out.
Komer, Wesmoreland, and the Military Command in Vietnam had been lying about American success in the Vietnam War. The CIA analysts (see {634522}) had figured out that if the Westmoreland numbers of enemy killed were correct, there would have been almost no young men left to fight in North Vietnam, and yet their military was as large and strong as ever. The CIA director sent Carver to Saigon to tell Komer and Westmoreland that CIA was about to issue their findings. Komer was an ultra-hawk, known as “Blowtorch Bob”, who had personally sent many memos to the White House reporting that we were winning in Vietnam and the only question was how soon we could attain total victory. For his work in Vietnam, he was made Ambassador to Turkey. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by LBJ. Some critics believe that Johnson’s after Vietnam treatment of Komer was to assure his silence as he knew everything about the deception and was a major perpetrator of it. Discipline for lying was out of the question with someone who knew all that Komer did.
Kathi Appelt is an American author of more than forty books for children and young adults. She won the annual PEN USA award for Children's Literature recognizing The Underneath (2008).
