Friday, March 12, 2010

And I Suppose Robert S. Strauss, Esq. Is Paranoid and Potentially Violent?

Page 89 of Social Security Document Submission (June 1993)

This letter to my sister points out the ironic fact that according to Akin Gump's own criteria, the firm's founding partner, Robert S. Strauss, Esq., might be deemed "paranoid and potentially violent" since he may hold an idea about the burglary of his home (which occurred in 1972) for which there is no conclusive evidence. I recall that at the "Breakfast Meeting With Bob Strauss," held by the firm on April 3, 1989, Strauss said: "I don't believe in coincidences." (He also said he didn't like sports metaphors. I wonder what Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler would make of that?)
Dear Stell,

A short while back I noted the following coincidence, and suggested that the coincidence might have meaning. You said that the mere noting of the coincidence was "paranoid."

--A former Hogan attorney, Douglas Rosenfeld, who began working at Akin Gump on Monday March 13, 1989, may have served as a conduit of information between the two law firms. Doug Rosenfeld was a friend of a former roommate of Craig's, named Daniel Cutler, who also worked at Hogan, until about late April 1989.

The following is an excerpt from a biography of Robert Strauss from Current Biography 1974, at 401. A coincidence is noted, with the clear implication that the coincidence might have meaning. Would you say that the mere noting of the coincidence is "paranoid?" If not, why not?

--As for the Watergate affair, [Robert] Strauss had been pressing the Democratic National Committee's $6,400,000 suit against the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP). In April 1973 he rejected a $525,000 offer for an out-of-court settlement, on the grounds that the offer amounted to an "admission of guilt" on the part of the Republican committee. But by February 1974 Strauss was willing to agree to an out-of-court settlement of $775,000. The agreement included a promise by the Republicans not to engage in countersuits against the Democrats. Strauss's own home had been burglarized shortly after the Watergate break-in in 1972, although there was no conclusive evidence linking the two events.

GF

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