Customer Reviews

REMEMBERING THE MAINE

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Samuels, Peggy and Harold Samuels 1995 Remembering the Maine. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC and London ISBN 15609847430

Even though this volume uses non-neutral terms e.g. "jingoism" and "yellow journalism," which are so tactlessly and unnecessarily accepted in some academic circles, this book is surprisingly even handed. It carefully details and patently examines each and every exhaustively researched point. One notes a previous review (see below) accusing the authors of bias because they aggressively examined the life and writings of each witness or analyst and sought endless obscure details. Yet I found these examinations necessary, impartial and courteous. In my view, this book most carefully examines each hypothesis of cause, and gives them a fair hearing, leaving the reader to draw his or her own conclusions. For instance, this book considers and explores the possibility that Cuban independence fighters could have set the first explosion that then is suggested to have triggered the blasts in the coal bunkers and the magazines. However, when they do this the Samuels carefully point out that the direct action Weylerite Voluntarios, who were unconditional supporters of Spanish hegemony, had far greater cause, access, history and motivation and thus must be considered primary suspects in any deliberate action hypothesis. However, the book is not without flaws the example of Cuban rebel action involving the sinking of a Spanish patrol boat on the Cauto River is incomplete (it was carried out by Carlos Garcia Velez, a son of General Calixto Garcia, a fact not mentioned in this text see page 150). This is because the authors do not mention that Garcia Velez's action was accomplished with dynamite (not gunpowder) as were other Cuban rebel ambushes such as a very effective action against a troop formation directed by Antonio Maceo and attacks on a least one train carrying Spanish soldiers. However, the authors carefully point out the supply of dynamite available to the Cuban rebels. The missed point of this argument is that after the authors spend time explaining that gunpowder, not dynamite, is far more consistent with the observed lack of fish kill (often cited by the Spanish authorities in support of the accident hypothesis) they do not apply their own conclusions to this particular hypothesis. Neither do the authors note that Cuban forces were also very short of gunpowder and small arms ammunition propelled by gunpowder ("black" and smokeless). On the other hand the Spanish loyalist "Guerrilla" scouts (a rural version of the Voluntarios) often used older rolling block rifles which presumable, (unlike the Spanish regular forces who used Mauser rifles with smokeless powder) still used black powder cartridges. Despite these particular points made here in this review, this book is the most careful examination of the facts of this tragedy I have ever read, and presents the best and most impartial evaluation of the circumstances of the Maine disaster presented to date.

I was severely disappointed by Remembering the Maine. What struck me first and foremost about the book was its excessively vituperative tone. Peggy and Harold Samuels are not content to portray authors who disagree with them as wrong; they have to insult either their intelligence or motives. Thus we get the bizarre uncorroborated suggestion that the Rickover report was the product of a grudge against the Navy, plus numerous insults directed against many distinguished naval officers who analyzed the wreck of the Maine.

Furthermore, the Samuels systemmatically misrepresent the arguments of those authors who disagree with them. Having read other analyses of the explosion of the Maine, I found that the Samuels ignore the most telling and cogent arguments made in favor of an accidental explosion.

Having attempted to kneecap their intellectual opposites, the Samuels descend into the depths of absurdity by trotting out the obscure account of one Walter Mitty-ish figure, James Brice, who claimed in 1911 to have been told of a plot to destroy the Maine. They never explain why their unlikely Deep Throat kept silent long after the deaths of McKinley, Fitzhugh Lee or John Long, or why no corroborating evidence of Mr. Brice's claim has ever emerged from either Washington or Madrid - particularly when Mr. Brice claimed that Madrid knew of the plot and that he had told McKinley a week after the blast.

Clearly they were grasping at straws when writing the final chapter. Having written a needlessly vituperative hatchet job, they needed to forego the better, more cautious instincts of historians and write a conclusion that went for the jugular and theatrically unveiled the true culprit. Somewhere along the way, they forgot that they were historians.

The only fact truly revealed by their conclusion, however is that their book should not have been written at all.