In Oliver Kamm's blog post titled "Chomsky and source material" he asserts that Emeritus Professor Noam Chomsky has misquoted retired UN Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan alleging that Chomsky "doesn’t appear to have read the book he claims to be quoting from." I note this as a very serious insinuation of research fraud against a distinguished Emeritus Professor of world renown which on those grounds alone warranted closer inspection of Kamm's claims.
I repeat Moynihan's quote below from his book "A Dangerous Place" for reference which for ease of illustration I have identified as two consecutive parts #1 and #2.
UN Ambassador Moynihan (retired) wrote:
Part #1 "In both instances the United States wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook." Part #2 "This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success."
Chomsky's own writing paraphrases Part #1 of Moynihan's text:
"Referring to the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, [Moynihan] says that the United States wanted things to turn out as they did and that he had the assignment of making sure that the United Nations could not act in any constructive way to terminate or reverse the Indonesian aggression."
Chomsky immediately continues with his own observation of Moynihan that: "He carried out that task with remarkable success." Note: This sentence is Chomsky's observation not Moynihan's and is clear from Chomsky's use of the word "He".
Chomsky, continues paraphrasing Moynihan saying that: "He then in the next sentence goes on to say that he’s aware of the nature of that success." When Chomsky writes "next sentence" he is obviously referring to the sentence identified as Part #2 above i.e. Part #2 is the "next sentence" following on from Part #1 of Moynihan's quote.
Oliver Kamm, in a masterful stroke of conceit ignores this simple truth instead fabricating that Chomsky's "next sentence" points to ...you guessed it, a completely unrelated sentence on Luanda. Rather than suspect his own close reading ability Kamm has instead attempted a clumsy coup de grâce, stumbling upon his own sword in the process and in doing so rendered himself as the one that "doesn’t appear to have read the book he claims to be quoting from."
