Hillary Rodham senior thesis

In 1969, Hillary Rodham wrote a 92-page senior thesis for Wellesley College about the views advocated by community organizer Saul Alinsky, titled "There Is Only the Fight . . .

[4] The thesis sought to fit Alinsky into a line of American social activists, including Eugene V. Debs, Martin Luther King Jr., and Walt Whitman.

"[5] In 2016, reporter Michael Kruse quotes the thesis and describes a centrist theme: "Alinsky's conclusion that the 'ventilation' of hostilities is healthy in certain situations is valid, but across-the-board 'social catharsis' cannot be prescribed", she wrote.

Clinton researchers and political opponents sought it out, contending it contained evidence that Rodham had held strong far-left or socialist views.

[3] Biographer Donnie Radcliffe instead used extensive recollections from Schechter to describe the thesis in her biography published later that year, Hillary Rodham Clinton : A First Lady for Our Time.

[7] David Brock was similarly unable to access the thesis for his book The Seduction of Hillary Rodham (1996), writing that it was "under lock and key".

[8] By the mid-1990s, Clinton critics seized upon the restricted access as a sure sign that the thesis held politically explosive contents that would reveal her hidden radicalism or extremism.

It was claimed that this copy had been mailed anonymously to the campaign of Clinton's 2000 United States Senate opponent Rick Lazio, before being obtained by Political USA.

The thesis is also available through interlibrary loan on microfilm, a method reporter Dorian Davis used when he obtained it in January 2007, and sent it to Noonan and to Amanda Carpenter at Human Events, who wrote a piece[19] on it in March.

[4] A Boston Globe assessment found the thesis nuanced, and said that "While [Rodham] defends Alinsky, she is also dispassionate, disappointed, and amused by his divisive methods and dogmatic ideology.