Reid’s book claim disputed

The son of a longtime Nevada congressman disputes that his father said the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was "a good thing," a claim made by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., in his 2008 autobiography "The Good Fight."

"There is no way my dad would have said anything like that, much less to Harry Reid," said Jeff Baring, 55, son of former Rep. Walter Baring, a conservative Democrat who served more terms in the House of Representatives than any other Nevadan.

Baring said he was surfing the Internet recently when he came across the excerpt from Reid's book recounting the conversation. He says he is speaking out to clear the name of his father, who died in 1975.

"I didn't have any ax to grind until I saw this," Baring said. "I've done something for my dad because he couldn't speak for himself."

Reid declined to discuss his recollection of the Baring conversation. "With all respect to the family, this was a private conversation, and Senator Reid is not going to get into a debate about it with people who weren't there," spokesman Jon Summers said.

Without third-party witnesses, that leaves, then, the account in Reid's book, the public record, and speculation about what transpired between the two men.

Jeff Baring suspects Reid has antipathy toward his late father stemming from the elder Baring's drift to the far right that angered his fellow Democrats.

"They didn't care for him because my dad stood up for the little guy. He locked horns with the other guys because he was out for the people who elected him," the younger Baring said.

Walter Baring's controversial positions included harsh criticism of civil rights leaders. He was also blamed for preventing the formation of Great Basin National Park. Reid considers the park, created in 1986, among his first major legislative victories.

Baring also endorsed Reid's opponent, Republican Paul Laxalt, in the 1974 race for U.S. Senate, which Reid lost by 611 votes following a recount.

"I think it is just kind of sticking in (Reid's) craw," Baring said.

Baring and Reid each have support for their own point of view on the book passage.

Baring, a registered Republican, has news clippings reporting his father's public statements mourning Kennedy on the evening of the assassination.

Reid provides his own account from a private interaction with Rep. Baring on Nov. 22, 1963, hours after assassin Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed Kennedy in Dallas.

In his book, Reid described Baring as a reactionary, obsessed with thwarting communism and recalled a conversation between himself and Baring on the evening of the assassination.

Reid wrote: "But on the evening of Kennedy's death, I sat with Congressman Baring of Nevada as he nursed his drink. And I was shattered. Then Baring said something that I will never forget. He was a conservative Democrat, reactionary actually, one of those guys for whom there was a Communist behind every bush. Fluoride was a Communist plot. And Kennedy, too, had been leading us down the path to Communism, Baring told me. It was probably a good thing that he was murdered. That's what he told me."

A former Nevada congressman familiar with Baring and Reid said he'd be surprised if Baring said what Reid alleged, but also didn't think Reid would fabricate a story.

"I ran against (Baring) twice, but he was a gentleman and patriotic and I can't imagine in my wildest dreams he would have made a statement such as you mentioned," said former Rep. Cliff Young, R-Nev., who defeated Baring by 771 votes in 1952 and by 7,003 votes in 1954.

Young also knows Reid and said, "But Harry is not a malicious person."

Jim Bilbray, another former Baring opponent, recalled Baring as among the most conservative Democrats in the nation and as a fierce critic of the Kennedy administration.

"He detested the Kennedy administration," Bilbray said of Baring. But he stopped short of saying Baring was glad when Kennedy died.

"I think he would be unhappy about anybody's death, but he felt that LBJ (Lyndon B. Johnson, the vice president who succeeded Kennedy) would be a better president than John F. Kennedy."

Bilbray did say Baring held Kennedy's politics in low esteem.

"He said that he was a socialist and that Johnson was becoming a socialist," Bilbray said.

Retired Nevada archivist Guy Rocha affirmed Bilbray's recollection of Baring as an ultra-conservative Democrat who had strident anti-communist views and who was out of step with leading Democrats who endorsed the civil rights movement and other progressive efforts.

Baring served 10 terms in Congress in two stints, from 1949 to 1953 and again from 1957 to 1973. His shift from moderate to conservative occurred after he lost in the 1952 election to Young, who acknowledges he was riding on the electoral coattails of President Dwight Eisenhower.

Although Baring worked with Kennedy on legislation to help the blind early in his career, Rocha said Baring's ultra-conservative shift made him an outspoken Kennedy opponent by the time Kennedy was president.

A biography of Baring by the Review-Journal said he became "a pariah" among Democrats around the time of a 1962 speech to the Reno Chamber of Commerce in which he lashed out at Kennedy.

"I am seriously concerned over the foreign aid give-away programs and the constant spirit of defeatism which has existed over the last 10 years," Baring said, according to the biography. "The constantly increasing federal controls through centralization of government activities are extremely detrimental to the American way of life."

Rocha didn't quibble with Reid's description of Baring's politics, but also said there is a difference between being an opponent of the president and being grateful for an assassination.

"Does it seem in character in terms of the direction (Baring) was going? Yes," Rocha said of Reid's account. "But is it definitive? Hell no."

That said, Rocha questioned why Reid would include the anecdote about Baring in his book if it weren't true.

"You make a statement like that, you have got to figure you are going to get heat over it," Rocha said. "It makes no sense that the senator would lie about this."

The younger Baring, whose given name is Thomas Jefferson Baring, saved a clipping of an Associated Press report on Rep. Baring's public statements after Kennedy's death that he says bolsters his dismissal of Reid's account.

"It was the exact same evening," Baring said of the statement. "It is totally contradictory."

According to The Associated Press, in the hours after Kennedy's death Rep. Baring said, "I am stunned by the tragic death of our president and as congressman for Nevada, I join the people of the nation throughout the world in this dark hour, in mourning the death of our President, John F. Kennedy, and in extending our deepest sympathies to Mrs. Kennedy and family."

Rep. Baring continued, "The president's death has so stunned the world that only history will fully reflect the impact of this tragic event. The people of the United States in every walk of life will ask why must the president's life thusly be taken, and words are not adequate with which to reply."

Baring's son also saved telegrams his father sent expressing condolences to the Kennedy family following the death and friendly correspondence between Kennedy and Rep. Baring, as well as an excerpt from the book, "Kennedy" by Theodore Sorenson, in which Kennedy says of Rep. Baring, "I have high regard for him."

Another piece of correspondence Baring's son produced is a letter dated June 28, 1974, from then Lt. Gov. Harry Reid to Baring.

The letter was in response to Rep. Baring's decision to support Paul Laxalt over Reid in a campaign for U.S. Senate.

In the letter Reid speaks favorably of Rep. Baring, stating, "It would be inconceivable for me to believe that your motives (for supporting Laxalt) were anything other than honorable."

Reid continues, "As a result, I would like to extend you a continuing hand of friendship and admiration." He closes with, "My gratitude for the many ways you have helped me in the past remain firm."

Rocha says historians often struggle to reconcile personal anecdotes with the official record of history, and this case is no different in that regard.

The best anyone can do is look at the evidence and decide for themselves, he says.

"You won't be able to document what actually transpired, but Walter Baring is dead and he can't defend himself," Rocha said. "We are not able to verify it and we are not able to prove it wrong. It will forever be in a gray area."

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861.