'Double Play': Book digs beneath the Milk and Moscone killings

[n2doc]

Bob Bragman

Thursday, May 19, 2011


From 'Double Play / By Mike Weiss
1953: Harvey Milk in the Navy, but out of uniform. Photo: Harvey Milk Archives, Gay & Lesbian Center, San Francisco Public Library/From the book Double Play.

"Double Play" by Mike Weiss is a book about Harvey Milk, George Moscone, and Dan White. You know how this story ends. What is less known is why White killed Moscone and Milk and how he got off so easy. In "Double Play," Weiss provides often-shocking answers based on years of research and over 200 interviews. Weiss examined tens of thousands of public and private documents, court transcripts, psychiatrists' testimonies, Board of Supervisor's meeting minutes, newspaper coverage, personal diaries, and police reports, much of which was never available to any other investigators. 

The first edition, published in 1984, earned Weiss the Edgar Award as Best True Crime Book of the Year. The expanded and updated edition reveals additional details of White’s life after his release from prison, what happened to the major characters after the assassinations, and how the killings changed San Francisco irrevocably. It also includes 80 photographs and 10 illustrations, most never before published. See a sampling of them in our photo gallery.

The book, Double Play, by Mike Weiss, is available on Amazon (click here), and comes with a companion DVD that includes Dan White's confession, and great photos.


August 1953: Harvey Milk in uniform during his Korean War servicein the Navy. Harvey was a deep-sea diver.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/05/19/doubleplay.DTL#ixzz1Mvh5iGTU

[Taverner]

1. Whatever DID happen to White after getting away with murder?

When he was still alive I remember Jello Biafra's proposal to put statues of Dan White all over town so people could throw eggs at them...

[Auggie]

2. White committed suicide in 1985

On edit (according to wikipedia):

White served five years of his seven-year sentence at Soledad State Prison and was paroled on January 6, 1984. Fearing White might be murdered in retaliation for his crimes, California State Corrections Officials secretly transported him to Los Angeles, where he served a year's parole. At the expiration of that year, White sought to return to San Francisco; Mayor Dianne Feinstein issued a public announcement of his plans, and a statement formally asking White not to return. White did move back to San Francisco and attempted to rebuild his life with his wife and children. His marriage soon ended.

On October 21, 1985, less than two years after his release from prison, White committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage by running a garden hose from the exhaust pipe to the inside of his car.

LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_White

[frebrd]

4. Shame he didn't just do that in the first place!

Bastard!

[mitchtv]

8. after fathering a child with Down's Syndrome

his luck went from bad to worse

[xchrom]

3. Recommend

[monmouth]

5. I remember this horrid event like it was yesterday. Unfortunately the

Jones incident happened around the same time and pretty much took over the media. If you google this, there is a picture of Dianne Feinstein when she served on the council. She ultimately identified both bodies. How very sad.

[Auggie]

6. I just missed it...

moved to San Francisco three months after the "White Night Riot..." thirty-two years ago tomorrow!

[urbuddha]

7. From a fellow San Franciscan...great pics of Harvey

I remember when it was all happening. Now it seems surreal.