QUESTIONS REMAIN ON BUSH'S SERVICE AS GUARD PILOT
Published on October 31, 2000
Author(s):    Walter V. Robinson, Globe Staff

"THE RESPONSIBILITY TO SHOW UP AND DO YOUR JOB." - Texas Governor George W. Bush, reflecting on the values he learned as a Texas Air National Guard pilot during the Vietnam War era, in a 1998 interview with the National Guard Review.

For Vice President Al Gore, the character issue is like chewing gum stuck to the sole of his shoe: Hardly a day passes without Republicans challenging Gore's character, especially his storied tendency to embellish facts.

Click for complete article (1535 words)

 THE ROAD TO THE ELLIS STORY
Published on July 2, 2001
Author(s):    JACK THOMAS

LIKE THE BEST STORIES IN A NEWSPAPER, IT BEGAN AS A TIP. ONE PERSON WHO KNEW THE TRUTH TOLD A FRIEND WHO MENTIONED IT TO AN ACQUAINTANCE WHO PASSED IT ON TO WALTER ROBINSON, A TENACIOUS REPORTER, AND THAT SET IN MOTION A SEQUENCE OF EVENTS THAT WOULD LEAD TO THE EXPLOSIVE REVELATION THAT PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING BIOGRAPHER JOSEPH ELLIS WAS FABRICATING A VIETNAM WAR RECORD IN LECTURES AT MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE.
Here's what happened.

Robinson was unable to act immediately. As head of
Click for complete article (1012 words)

PROFESSOR APOLOGIZES AGAIN FOR FABRICATIONS
Published on June 23, 2001
Author(s):    Wayne Washington, Globe staff

WASHINGTON - Pulitzer-Prize winning author Joseph J. Ellis, before a national audience last night, apologized again for fabricating a Vietnam War record during his lectures at Mount Holyoke College.

"I want to again repeat that I deeply regret having let stand and later confirmed any assumption that I had served in Vietnam," Ellis told the 100 people who had come to the National Archives to hear him discuss his latest book, "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary
Click for complete article (499 words)

PROFESSOR FACES INVESTIGATION AT MOUNT HOLYOKE
Published on June 21, 2001
Author(s):    Walter V. Robinson, GLOBE STAFF

Mount Holyoke College officials said yesterday they will investigate admissions by Pulitzer prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis that he deceived his students into believing he served in Vietnam. They expect to resolve the issue before students return for the fall semester.

 

Meanwhile, Vincent Ferraro, a professor of political science and one of Ellis's friends on the faculty, said last night that he and other faculty members are angry that Ellis has "betrayed the principles we
Click for complete article (734 words)

COLLEGE NOTES REGRET ON FALSITIES BY PROFESSOR
Published on June 20, 2001
Author(s):    Walter V. Robinson, GLOBE STAFF

Mount Holyoke College President Joanne V. Creighton yesterday expressed regret at "the effect" of the misrepresentation by the college's Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Joseph J. Ellis, who in the classroom and in newspaper interviews has made false claims that he served in Vietnam.

 

Meanwhile, the college said Ellis has decided that he will no longer teach the Vietnam and American Culture course, where he had led students to believe he had served in
Click for complete article (624 words)

AT WAR WITH THE TRUTH
Published on June 20, 2001

JOSEPH J. ELLIS, revered history professor, distinguished scholar and writer, was a success story that needed no editing, but, sadly, he didn't read it that way.

As Boston Globe reporter Walter V. Robinson revealed this week, Ellis fabricated his military background, telling Mount Holyoke and Amherst College students in his popular courses on the Vietnam War that he fought in that conflict when he actually spent his Army years teaching history at West Point.

The supposed real-life
Click for complete article (504 words)

PROFESSOR APOLOGIZES FOR FABRICATIONS
Published on June 19, 2001
Author(s):    Patrick Healy, and Walter V. Robinson, Globe Staff

Declaring that mistakes are made "even in the best of lives," Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Joseph J. Ellis yesterday issued an apology for fabricating a Vietnam War record and for "other distortions" in his personal life.

His statement came after the Globe reported yesterday that Ellis, a nationally regarded historian, has for years cited his experiences in Vietnam during classroom discussions and newspaper interviews, even though his Army service was confined to a
Click for complete article (1331 words)

PROFESSOR'S PAST IN DOUBT DISCREPANCIES SURFACE IN CLAIM OF VIETNAM DUTY
Published on June 18, 2001
Author(s):    Walter V. Robinson, GLOBE STAFF

SOUTH HADLEY - At Mount Holyoke College, Joseph J. Ellis has never been more revered. He is a beloved mentor to many students, and perhaps the college's most popular and engaging professor. Now he has become a national literary icon for his 1997 Jefferson biography and the Pulitzer Prize in History he just received for his latest best seller, "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation."

 

Yet Ellis's historical focus extends beyond the country's early days. For
Click for complete article (2665 words)

UNTANGLING PAUL PARKS'S TALL TALES\ RECORDS CONTRADICT MORE WARTIME STORIES
Published on October 22, 2000
Author(s):    Walter V. Robinson, and Thomas Farragher, Globe Staff

BERLIN - When Boston civil rights leader Paul Parks receives the Raoul Wallenberg Award here tonight for his 1945 role in liberating the Dachau concentration camp, the applause may be tentative, given fresh evidence that he was nowhere near the Nazi death camp and that his multiple stories about his involvement in the D-day landing were also concocted.

But there is much more about the Parks record to question: A review of military documents, interviews with other soldiers, and a close
Click for complete article (3026 words)

A VETERAN'S STORY OF WWII EXPLOITS RAISES QUESTIONS\ \ B'NAI B'RITH AWARD NOW UNDER REVIEW
Published on October 12, 2000
Author(s):    Thomas Farragher, and Walter V. Robinson, Globe Staff

B'nai B'rith International is questioning a prestigious award slated to be given to former Massachusetts education secretary Paul Parks for his role in liberating the Dachau concentration camp in 1945 after other veterans asserted that Parks was not there.

Moreover, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who has studied records of Parks's military unit has said that Parks's account of his harrowing experiences on a Normandy beach on D-Day is also false.

Parks, who at 77
Click for complete article (1638 words)

AL GORE, GRASPING A NEW BIOGRAPHY FINDS A SOLID ACHIEVER WHO EMBELLISHES WHEN NONE IS NEEDED
Published on September 3, 2000
Author(s):    Curtis Wilkie

The subtitle of this campaign biography could be: The Riddle of Al Gore.

Why does a disciplined, earnest, intelligent man with high morals have, as the authors describe it, "an occasional propensity to enhance his role in events?" To believe that as a 20-year-old he contributed to Hubert H. Humphrey's acceptance speech at the 1968 Democratic convention? To claim that he was "shot at" in Vietnam when he never faced enemy fire? To expand his job description at The New
Click for complete article (1088 words)

THE TRUTH ABOUT AL GORE
Published on May 15, 2000

I am cheered to find that the brickbats thrown at Al Gore are of such relatively lightweight material ("Record shows Gore long embellishing truth," Page A1, April 11).

His claim to have created the Internet has become comic fodder. The jokes, actually, almost invariably rely on the term "invent," which appeared nowhere in the transcript of Gore's remark.

"Invent" is an embellishment preferred by pundit William Kristol, House majority leader Dick
Click for complete article (161 words)

THANKS FOR TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT AL GORE
Published on April 14, 2000

Kudos to the Globe for running the long story about Al Gore's tendency to embellish the truth ("Record shows Gore long embellishing the truth," Page A1, April 11). Hopefully, your readers took the time to read all of it. Playing fast and loose with the truth has been a fact of Clinton-Gore life from the start. Sadly, committed Democrats have elected to ignore this reality, sacrificing integrity and honor to the cause of keeping their people in power. At the same time, their
Click for complete article (167 words)

RECORD SHOWS GORE LONG EMBELLISHING TRUTH
Published on April 11, 2000 Page A1
Author(s):    Walter V. Robinson and Michael Crowley, GLOBE STAFF

Vice President Al Gore brings a remarkable life story to the presidential race: His father was such an unwavering supporter of civil rights that it cost him his Senate seat. His older sister was the first-ever volunteer in the Peace Corps, that heroic outpost on President Kennedy's New Frontier.

By Gore's account: He was raised in hardscrabble Tennessee farm country. He was a brilliant student, in high school and at Harvard. And despite his political pull, he received no special
Click for complete article (3034 words)

GORE RECORD SCRUTINIZED FOR VERACITY
Published on January 28, 2000
Author(s):    Walter V. Robinson and Ann Scales, GLOBE STAFF

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Wednesday night, Vice President Al Gore stepped out on a limb where few politicians dare to venture: "There has never been a time during this campaign when I have said something that I know to be untrue," Gore declared in his televised debate with former Senator Bill Bradley.

Several times during the debate, and again yesterday, Gore insisted that he has always supported both a woman's right to choose an abortion and Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court
Click for complete article (1384 words)