Harris, David. Dreams Die Hard. New York: St.Martin's/Marek, 1982. 341 pages.
David Harris's affecting memoir of the 60s and their aftermath tracks
the lives of three men: Allard Lowenstein, promo man for inside-the-system
social change; his protege Dennis Sweeney, who became a civil rights hero,
a draft resister, and finally a casualty of the times; and Harris himself,
another Lowenstein protege turned charismatic, high-profile resister, jail-
bird, and finally disabused mainstream journalist. The human drama centers
on Sweeney, who got "freedom burned" in Mississippi, declined from isolation
into paranoid schizophrenia -- and in 1980 assassinated his former mentor
Lowenstein. By that date, Harris was divorced from Joan Baez ("the first
family of the Resistance," they had once styled themselves) and writing for
the New York Times Magazine.
Harris's political revelations concern Lowenstein, remembered today
(if at all) for starting 1968's "Dump Johnson" movement. But before that,
Lowenstein channeled innumerable young men into the civil rights movement
and into the liberal National Student Association -- later revealed to be
CIA-funded. Harris makes a persuasive case that the complex, brilliant
Lowenstein, despite his repeated denials, knew the score. A later book on
Lowenstein (The Pied Piper by Richard Cummings) confirms the Harris thesis
with solid research.
-- Steve Badrich
ISBN 0-312-21956-3
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