Clearly, Capa fudged the truth and even lied outright whenever it served his purposes, telling multiple versions of his anecdotes and choosing his sometimes extreme variations according to how he gauged his listeners and the professional consequences of his disclosures. For reasons of his own, John Morris still chooses — at least publicly — not to see it that way. […]
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So we end up back where we started out — but with a considerable twist: a major newspaper putting its imprimatur on our revisionist version of the Capa D-Day story, and the originator and most dedicated teller of that now-tattered tale, John G. Morris, at long last ceasing and desisting from repeating yet again his discredited version. […] Richard Whelan’s work on all matters related to the subjects of Robert and Cornell Capa should be considered fatally compromised and entirely unreliable, except when their overall narratives and specific claims can be verified by credible outside sources. It will take decades to undo the contamination of the literature on Robert Capa that traces directly to Whelan’s efforts on Cornell Capa’s behalf. […] In short, we have clear evidence of a pattern of intimidation and obstruction of independent Capa research by individuals at the very top of the ICP chain of command, going back to the institution’s origins. This does not bode well for the future of Capa scholarship, nor for the future of ICP. Moreover, it raises serious questions about ICP’s claim to credible status as a research institution. […] By any standards, the touring Robert Capa retrospective launched by Cornell Capa via Magnum in 1960 proved an overwhelming success. The show toured in three sets through 1969, with stops at no fewer than 100 venues across North America and Europe: museums, college and university galleries and student unions, high schools, banks, churches, public libraries, even county fairs. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |