A blog devoted to the actors and public policy issues involved in the 1998 District of Columbia Court of Appeals decision in Freedman v. D.C. Department of Human Rights, an employment discrimination case.
In the spring of 1973 I took a course at Penn State in European history (History 19), taught by Claire Hirshfield, Ph.D. I can remember that on one occasion Dr. Hirshfield talked about the cartoon above that caricatured the divisions in French society during the Dreyfus Affair.
The drawing depicts "a family supper," and is from the French newspaper Le Figaro of February 14, 1898. At the top, somebody says "above all, let us not discuss the Dreyfus Affair!" At the bottom, the whole family is fighting, and the caption says "they have discussed it."
The idea of being at the center of a mind-rending controversy is something that has always appealed to me, apparently.
Watch New York Congressman Anthony Weiner have a conniption fit on the House floor in response to the action of a Republican colleague reading from an allegedly fake document in House debate concerning the health care reform bill.
Compare my reasoned, rational, objective and factual presentation on my blog, My Daily Struggles, of two suspicious documents foisted on the D.C. Department of Human Rights by Dennis M. Race, Esq. of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld.
The Justice Department has voiced concerns about what it has termed the "anger" I have expressed in my writings since November 2009. On January 15, 2010 two officers from the Justice Department interviewed me at my residence, purportedly to investigate the law enforcement concerns raised by the tone and content of those writings. One officer asked me: "How would you react if you saw Dennis Race in a men's room?" The question I would ask is, "How would Anthony Weiner react to a Republican congressman, with a fake memo, on the House floor?" -- Anyone?
You want to know what I think? I think my behavior is actually pretty tame considering my ethnic heritage.
Incidentally, Weiner is a friend of Ben Affleck -- the actor and longtime friend of actor Matt Damon -- whom Weiner met while Affleck was researching the role of a young and ambitious politician on Capitol Hill in 2008. "We got into a chest-to-chest shouting match over Obama–Clinton within about four minutes. Literally, people were outside the office wondering if they should go in and separate us," Weiner has said about one of their first encounters. And people worry about my potential for violence? Is there any evidence that I ever got into a shout-and-tug with anybody?
Jessye Norman singing Liebst Du Um Schönheit by Gustav Mahler--
Gustav Mahler dedicated both the above song and his Eighth Symphony to his wife, Alma.
The final line of the song is "Liebe mich immer, Dich lieb' ich immerdar." In English translation: "Love me ever, I'll love you evermore!" (See 2:38 on the above YouTube video)
In the Second Part of the Eighth Symphony, Mahler set the final scene from Goethe's Faust (Part II) to music. The final scene contains the line: "Erleuchte mein bedürftig Herz!" or, in English, "Bring light to my needy heart!" (See 5:00 on the following YouTube video)
Both of the referenced melodic lines of the song and the Eighth Symphony, respectively, are nearly identical; so is the harmonic treatment. Is that simply a coincidence? Would Alma Mahler be considered severely disturbed (and potentially violent) if she saw a connection between both lyrics: if she saw both lyrics as relating to her?
Do I see this parallel because I am severely disturbed or because I am observant?
I suppose there are people who read the posts on this blog and wonder how I can go on and on about life's trivialities. Not to mention the fact that most of the trivialities I write about happened twenty years ago.
But think about it. If I were in psychoanalysis, I would be talking to my analyst for 50 minutes, four to five times a week. I would fill up my 50-minute hour with trivialities: most of which happened years ago.
Think of this blog as a kind of self-medication. Some people drink or take drugs as a form of self-medication. I don't drink and I don't take drugs. I write a blog. That's my self-medication.
"You need to go to like Vienna or something." My luck--I didn't need to go to Vienna; Vienna came to me!
I used to work with a guy named Jesse Raben. That was twenty years ago. The guy's now a big time lawyer; so he's too good to deal with me, a fake mental patient.
We once went to a Chinese restaurant together. That was the extent of our friendship. Anyway, I was following him on Twitter. So then he blocks me. I can no longer read his scintillating tweets.
As Jesse Raben put it: "Do I have to suffer for the rest of my life because I like Chinese?"
On one side stands Moses, conveying the divine truth and will--a truth and will as unequivocal as their conceiver. On the other side stands Moses' brother, Aaron, leading a people's endeavor to approach that very truth and that very will with the tools of their human selves--a subjective mind with which to seek, an equivocal heart with which to feel, and actions subject to the circumstances under which they are undertaken. Or some such thing!
Moses--visionary prophet. Aaron--the practical leader. There were bound to be misunderstandings between the brothers, resulting from Aaron's limited ability to understand his brother's abstract conceptions.
The story is told that on one occasion Aaron was called to task by the Higher Authorities, who inquired of Aaron:
"Why did you tell us all those things about your brother? It was all useless information. That's not him at all. At least Miriam gave us useful information."
Aaron had mistaken his subjective, equivocal impression of his brother, Moses, for objective, absolute truth. Aaron had grossly distorted the man Moses -- his character and his life history -- in his representations about his brother.
Actually, I made up that story. The tale is what Claire Hirshfield would call apocryphal: "If it didn't happen, it should have!"
Some things never actually happened, but they should have. Dennis Race never actually spoke to Gertrude Ticho and learned that I was severely disturbed. But he should have. It was about time that somebody recognized me for the nut case that I actually am!
Be that as it may.
All of this brings me to the subject of this post: Schoenberg's opera Moses and Aaron.
Moses und Aron is a three-act opera by Arnold Schoenberg with the third act unfinished. The German libretto was by the composer after the Book of Exodus. Moses und Aron has its roots in Schoenberg's earlier agitprop play, Der biblische Weg (The Biblical Way, 1926–27), which represents a response in dramatic form to the growing anti-Jewish movements in the German-speaking world after 1848 and a deeply personal expression of his own "Jewish identity" crisis. The latter began with a face-to-face encounter with anti-Semitic agitation at Mattsee, near Salzburg, during the summer of 1921, when he was forced to leave the resort because he was a Jew, although he actually converted to Protestantism in 1898. It was a traumatic experience to which Schoenberg would frequently refer, and of which a first mention appears in a letter addressed to Kandinsky (April 1923): "I have at last learnt the lesson that has been forced upon me this year, and I shall never forget it. It is that I am not a German, not a European, indeed perhaps scarcely even a human being (at least, the Europeans prefer the worst of their race to me), but that I am a Jew."
Schoenberg's statement echoed that of Mahler, a convert to Catholicism, some years earlier: "I am thrice homeless: as a Bohemian among Austrians, as an Austrian among the Germans, and as a Jew throughout the entire world. I am an intruder everywhere, welcome nowhere."
The Mattsee experience was destined to change the course of Schoenberg's life and to influence his musical creativity, leading him first to write Der Biblische Weg, in which the central protagonist Max Aruns (Moses-Aaron) is partially modelled on Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism; then, to proclaim in Moses und Aron his uncompromising monotheistic creed; and finally, upon his official return to Judaism in 1933, to embark for more than a decade on a relentless mission to save European Jewry from impending doom. Der Biblische Weg should be considered as both a personal and political play. Moses, at the center of the biblical Exodus story had become from the time of Heine to that of Herzl and Schoenberg, the ideal incarnation of a national and spiritual redeemer.
From the sketchy outline of the play (1926) to its final version (1927) and to the inception of Moses und Aron as an oratorio (1928) and then into an opera, it was composed between 1930 and 1932. Despite its unfinished status it is widely regarded as Schoenberg's master work.
The opera has also been interpreted as representing the conflict between the visionary artist (Moses/Schoenberg/atonality) and the mundane, concrete world (as embodied by the tradition-bound Aron/tonality).
After settling in the United States, Schoenberg was interviewed at his residence in Brentwood, California by two officers of the Justice Department. The officers inquired: "What was your motivation in writing Moses and Aron? Just how many years ago was it that you were forced to leave the resort?"
Speaking literally and metaphorcally, some people just never forget about the experience of being forced to leave the resort.
To close with a bit of Holocaust humor (the genre is meager, as you can imagine):
Many listeners still cannot stand Schoenberg. When the Metropolitan Opera presented his "Moses und Aron," in 1999, an elderly woman was heard to mutter, "I survived Auschwitz—I don't have to sit through this."
Ol' man river,
Dat ol' man river
He mus' know sumpin'
But don't say nuthin',
He jes' keeps rollin'
He keeps on rollin' along.
He don' file pleadins',
He don't try cases,
An' dem dat tries 'em
is soon forgotten,
But ol' man river,
He jes keeps rollin' along.
You an' me, we sweat an' strain,
Body all achin' an' racket wid pain,
Tote dat barge!
Lif' dat bale!
Write a blog,
An' you land in jail.
Ah gits weary
An' sick of whinin'
Ah'm tired of livin'
An' skeered of tryin',
But ol' man river,
He jes' keeps rolling' along.
Let me go 'way from the Mississippi,
Let me go 'way from de white man boss;
Show me dat stream called de river Jordan,
Dat's de ol' stream dat I long to cross.
Ol' man river,
Dat ol' man river,
He mus' know sumpin'
But don't say nuthin'
He jes' keeps rollin'
He keeps on rollin' along.
I'm a regular viewer of the TV news program Inside Washington, hosted by Gordon Peterson -- who, until 2006, coanchored the evening news on Washington TV station WJLA with Kathleen Matthews.
For years, I've had paranoid suspicions about the following regulars on Inside Washington: Charles Krauthammer, M.D. -- a psychiatrist; Evan Thomas, Newsweek editor and biographer of Edward Bennett Williams, founder of the law firm of Williams and Connolly; and Nina Totenberg, National Public Radio's Supreme Court reporter. I am moved to inquire: What do these people know and when did they now it? I can ask questions like that. I'm paranoid. In fact, I get paid to be paranoid.
Charles Krauthammer (born March 13, 1950) is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist and political commentator. His weekly column appears in the The Washington Post and is syndicated in more than 200 newspapers and media outlets. He is a contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and The New Republic. He is a Fox News contributor, a regular panelist on Fox’s evening news program Special Report with Bret Baier and a weekly panelist on Inside Washington.
Krauthammer was born on March 13, 1950 in New York City. He was raised in Montreal, Canada, where he attended Herzliah High School and McGill University and obtained an honors degree in political science and economics in 1970. From 1970 to 1971, he was a Commonwealth Scholar in politics at Balliol College, Oxford. He later moved to the United States, where he attended Harvard Medical School. Suffering a paralyzing diving accident in his first year of medical school, he was hospitalized for a year, during which time he continued his medical studies. He graduated with his class, earning an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1975, and then began working as a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital. In October 1984, he became board certified in psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
From 1975–1978, Krauthammer was a Resident and then a Chief Resident in Psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital. During this time he and a colleague identified a form of mania resulting from a concomitant medical illness, rather than a primary inherent disorder, which they named "secondary mania" and published a second important paper on the epidemiology of manic illness. The standard textbook for bipolar disease (Manic Depressive Illness by Goodwin and Jamison) contains twelve references to his work.
I wonder if Dr. Krauthammer has ever heard of that rare clinical entity known as asymptomatic paranoid schizophrenia -- which, in my case, was preceded by a bout of asymptomatic bipolar disorder?
In 1978, Krauthammer quit medical practice to direct planning in psychiatric research for the Jimmy Carter administration, and began contributing to The New Republic magazine. During the presidential campaign of 1980, Krauthammer served as a speech writer to Vice President Walter Mondale.
In January 1981, Krauthammer began his journalistic career, joining The New Republic as a writer and editor. His New Republic writings won the 1984 "National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism." In 1983, he began writing essays for Time magazine. In 1985, he began a weekly column for the Washington Post for which he won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for commentary.
In 2006, the Financial Times named Krauthammer the most influential commentator in America, saying “Krauthammer has influenced US foreign policy for more than two decades. He coined and developed 'The Reagan Doctrine' in 1985 and he defined the US role as sole superpower in his essay, 'The Unipolar Moment', published shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Krauthammer’s 2004 speech 'Democratic Realism', which was delivered to the American Enterprise Institute when Krauthammer won the Irving Kristol Award, set out a framework for tackling the post 9/11 world, focusing on the promotion of democracy in the Middle East.”
In 2009, Politico columnist Ben Smith wrote that Krauthammer had "emerged in the Age of Obama as a central conservative voice, the kind of leader of the opposition that economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman represented for the left during the Bush years: a coherent, sophisticated and implacable critic of the new president. “ New York Times columnist David Brooks says that today "he's the most important conservative columnist.”
Apart from the Pulitzer Prize and the National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism, Krauthammer has received numerous other awards, including the People for the American Way's First Amendment Award, the Champion/Tuck Award for Economic Understanding, the first annual ($250,000) Bradley Prize, and the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism, an annual award given by the Eric Breindel Foundation. (Until February 2007 Elliot Mincberg, Esq., for whom I worked at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson, served as Vice President, General Counsel and Legal Director of People For the American Way and People For the American Way Foundation.)
On July 6, 2009, former MSNBC television personality Dan Abrams launched a website service, Mediaite, reporting on media figures. The site ranks all print and online columnists in America by influence. Krauthammer ranks, as of March 27, 2010 at #7.
Evan Thomas (born 25 April 1951) is an American journalist and author. He currently teaches journalism at Princeton University.
Thomas was born in Huntington, New York and was raised in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. A graduate of Phillips Andover, Harvard University, and the University of Virginia School of Law, since 1991 he has been the assistant managing editor at Newsweek. He formerly worked for TIME. Thomas began his reporting career at The Bergen Record in New Jersey. He won his numerous journalism awards, including the National Magazine Award in 1998 for Newsweek’s coverage of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and the 2009 Clarion award.
Thomas is the author of The Man to See, a best-selling biography of the legendary lawyer, Edward Bennett Williams, founder of the Washington, DC law firm of Williams and Connolly.
Thomas is a regular panelist on the weekly public affairs TV show Inside Washington.
On June 5, 2009, while being interviewed by Chris Matthews -- who is married to Kathleen Matthews, formerly of WJLA-TV -- on Hardball with Chris Matthews, Thomas provoked controversy by stating that Barack Obama was "sort of God."
Nina Totenberg (born January 14, 1944) is an American legal affairs correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR). Her reports air regularly on NPR's newsmagazines All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition. She is also a panelist on the syndicated TV political commentary show Inside Washington.
Totenberg is the daughter of the classical violinist Roman Totenberg.
(I wonder if Totenberg knew Heifetz? That would be a fine symmetry, wouldn't it?)
Interview of Roman Totenberg:
Nina Totenberg is the widow of the late Democratic Sen. Floyd Haskell (Colo), whom she married in 1979. In March 2010, Totenberg's sister Amy Totenberg was nominated by President Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court in Atlanta.
"These were dramatic cases with a lot of press interest and concern and excitement and some serious allegations of wrongdoing by prominent people." -- Vernon E. Jordan, Jr.
Lorin Maazel is a musician of the highest order. He is what might be termed a "musician's musician." If he had been a conservatory student, he would have graduated at least third in his class. (Pardon the sarcastic reference.)
Boisterous timpani, joined in the fray by blazing brass, set the scene for the riotous fifth movement, presented above. Here is quasi-film music, pomp and pageantry and great dramatic gestures all rolled into a piece that demands intense orchestral display. Formally, the movement is a rondo that acts as the theme for a set of eight variations, capped off by a dramatic coda. There are parodies of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow, as well as of Mahler's own Fifth Symphony and the famous Lutheran Hymn "Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott", not to mention other ironic and sarcastic references. Little wonder that of all the Symphony's movements this has come in for the greatest amount of criticism and puzzlement.
Mahler conducted the premiere of his Seventh Symphony in Prague in 1908. A few weeks later he conducted it in Munich and the Netherlands. Both the audience and the performers at the premiere were confused by the work, and it was not well received. It remained for a while as one of Mahler's least appreciated works, often accused of incoherence.
More recently, scholars and conductors have experimented with a range of interpretations of the work, especially the tempo of the finale, and the work has thrilled more audiences worldwide and has since become more popular.
I just don't feel like blogging today. I'm in a non-blogging mood. And, by the way, I'm sure you noticed that I never finished posting my document submission to the Social Security Administration from June 1993. I'll have to get to that. The reason is that I didn't feel like typing up all those documents. There are not too many pages left.
My former employer, the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, determined that I became unfit for employment effective October 29, 1991. The firm was advised by a psychoanalyst -- an individual whose livelihood is based on attaching an unconscious meaning to his patient's trivial utterances -- that I have severe mental illness that causes me to attribute a negative meaning to trivial events, a condition that might be associated with a risk of violent behavior.
It would appear that I remain unemployable using Akin Gump's criteria. I offer the following anecdote about my current thought process.
Last night I saw a British Petroleum executive interviewed on TV. He said BP is working on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico "remorselessly." A Freudian slip or simply an error of diction? I think he meant relentlessly. Remorselessly means without any feelings of guilt. No, wait. Maybe he did mean remorselessly after all!
Let us pause for a moment. Let us examine what I did. I heard a man say "remorselessly." I thought he meant to say "relentlessly." I proceeded to attach a negative meaning to his slip, and concluded that he unconsciously meant to say "remorselessly" after all. I took his slip as an unconscious admission that he and his company have no feelings of guilt about the oil spill in the Gulf.
Yes, I am severely disturbed. How else can one explain these bizarre thoughts? The irony is that if I were a psychoanalyst I would be paid to make these interpretations. Wait!! I am being paid to make these interpretations -- paid handsomely by the federal government, in fact.
Dwight Schrute: Just think, that temp agency could have sent you anywhere!
Ryan Howard: I think about that all the time.
On the TV sitcom "The Office" the character Ryan Howard was sent by his temp agency to work at the Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
In early March 1988 my temp agency sent me to work at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. They could have sent me anywhere, but they sent me to Akin Gump. And the rest is history.
There is an element of the uncanny in my being assigned to work at Akin Gump by my temporary agency in March 1988.
In 1983, five years earlier, I took a course at The American University Law School taught by the late Seymour J. Rubin, a nationally-prominent figure in the field of international law. The course concerned codes of conduct for multinational corporations. Professor Rubin served on a United Nations commission that was in the process of formulating such codes.
I wrote a paper for Professor Rubin on the Soviet Union's posture at the United Nations concerning the formulation of codes of conduct for multinational corporations.
Professor Rubin appended the following typewritten note to my paper:
Mr. Freedman
I found your piece to be first class. I am of course rather intimately aware of the views of Soviet representatives and scholars, such as Shchetinin, who has been a co-member of the UN Commission with me for many years, but I had really never taken the time to read his views as published. It was very stimulating to read them, against the background which you give very well, of the development of Soviet industry, the background of fear of excessive foreign direct involvement, etc.
You also write very well.
S.J. Rubin
[handwritten:] Grade A
Incidentally, Professor Rubin had been a student of Felix Frankfurter's at Harvard law school in the 1930s.
The irony is that in 1991, while I was employed at Akin Gump, Bob Strauss, the firm's founder, was named by President George H.W. Bush to be the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union -- the last American to serve in that post. The Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991 and was succeeded by the Russian Federation .
Yes, that temporary agency could have sent me anywhere. What do you have to say say about that, B.J. Novak?
The Washington Psychiatric Society
A District Branch of the American Psychiatric Association
September 29, 1999
Mr. Gary Freedman
3801 Connecticut Ave NW #136
Washington, DC 20008-4530
Dear Mr. Freedman:
The Council of the Washington Psychiatric Society, based on the recommendation of its Grievance Committee, has decided to close the complaint that you filed against one of our members, Albert Taub.
The Council concluded that Dr. Taub had no obligation to sign the statement that you requested him to sign. The Council found no ethical or other practice violation in his professional conduct in this matter.
We want to thank you for your letter bringing this matter to our attention. It is by consideration of such issues brought before us that we are able to ensure the highest quality of psychiatric care in the community.
Sincerely,
/s/
Eliot Sorel, M.D.
President
At the time this letter was written the late Lawrence C. Sack, M.D., one of my former treating psychiatrists, served as Assembly Representative at the Society.
GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
OFFICE OF PROFESSIONAL LICENSING
May, 1, 1999
Mr. Gary Freedman
3801 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Suite 136
Washington, D.C. 20008-4530
Re: Albert H. Taub, M.D.
Dear Mr. Freedman:
The D.C. Board of Medicine (the "Board") considered your complaint against the above referenced physician and his explanation (copy enclosed) at its meeting on April 28, 1999.
It was the decision of the Board that there were no apparent violations of the Health Occupations Revision Act to warrant initiating disciplinary action against Dr. Taub.
The matter is closed before the D.C. Board of Medicine.
Sincerely,
James R. Granger, Jr.
Executive Director
Enclosure
cc: Albert H. Taub, M.D.
3246 P Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20007
During the year 1990 I was in weekly psychotherapy with Stanley R. Palombo, M.D. (202 362 6004), a Washington, D.C. psychiatrist in private practice. At that time I was employed as a paralegal at the D.C. law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. My employment was terminated on October 29, 1991 by reason of severe mental illness that rendered me not fit for employment -- or so the story goes.
I entered weekly psychotherapy at the George Washington University Medical Center Department of Psychiatry in September 1992, while I was unemployed. My psychotherapist was a resident named Suzanne M. Pitts, M.D. Beginning in January 1993, Dr. Pitts recommended that I take lithium for bipolar disorder. The illness underwent a (mysterious) spontaneous remission in early 1993.
In April 1993 I applied for Social Security Disability Benefits. In August 1993 Dr. Pitts recommended that I take antipsychotic medication to address my paranoia, although she never disclosed a diagnosis. My relations with Dr. Pitts were difficult.
In mid-August 1993, the Social Security Administration approved my claim for benefits. A brief time later I made an appointment to see my former treating psychiatrist, Dr. Palombo. Dr. Palombo therefore has first-hand knowledge of my psychotic mental state as of August 1993.
August 26, 1993
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC 20008
Stanley R., Palombo, MD
5225 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Scheduled Appointment on August 30, 1993
Dear Dr. Palombo:
This will confirm our scheduled appointment at 5:30 PM on Monday August 30, 1993.
I would like to discuss with you certain difficulties I am experiencing with my current treating psychiatrist, Dr. Suzanne M. Pitts, a psychiatry resident at the George Washington University Medical Center.
Also, Dr. Pitts' consideration of prescribing a neuroleptic calls into question the soundness of your therapy of me, which seemed to assume that I was non-psychotic and which did not involve the prescription or consideration of a neuroleptic despite my seeming paranoid (psychotic) thought processes.
I look forward to seeing you. Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman
I recall that at the scheduled consult I asked Dr. Palombo why he did not recommend that I take anti-psychotic medication during my therapy with him in 1990. He explained that I was employed at that time, with all that implied about the severity of my illness and my ability to function. Dr. Palombo reinforced Dr. Pitts' recommendation that I try a neuroleptic.
In February 1996 Dimitrios Georgopoulos, M.D. at GW diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia.
"The homosexual is literally infected with a pathogen (HIV) and will infect heterosexual soldiers; the homosexual will metaphorically infect and weaken the military with his depravity."
The following webpage contains observations about Jews that are as old as Louis Pasteur. "The Jew is a pathogen who is infecting the white race."
Is there a parallel between the designations "potentially infectious" and "potentially violent?" One wonders. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries anti-Semitism moved away from a religion-based prejudice and became "scientific." Jews came to be viewed as "genetically inferior" and incapable of redemption through religious conversion. The Jews had to be eliminated.
Compare the following: We spoke with a physician who warned about the possibility of violence. He was "unredeemable" and had to be eliminated. He posed a danger to others.
(Note that I make these observations without mentioning any names!)
American Civil Liberties Union Fund
of the National Capital Area
1400 20th Street, NW.
Washington, D.C. 20036
202-457-0800
January 12, 1998
Gary Freedman
3801 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., #136
Washington, DC 20008-4530
Dear Mr. Freedman:
Thank you for submitting your resume to the American Civil Liberties Union of the National Capital Area. We are a very small office, with a staff of four, and, at this time, there are no job openings available.
Your resume is most impressive, and we wish you success in your job search.
With best regards,
/s/
Mary Jane DeFrank
Executive Director
*****************************
January 5, 1998
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW #136
Washington, DC 20008-4530
Robert Plotkin
Chairman
American Civil Liberties Union of
The National Capital Area
1400 20th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
RE: Employment Opportunities - ACLU
Dear Mr. Plotkin:
I am an attorney, and am licensed to practice in Pennsylvania.
I am writing to inquire about present and anticipated employment opportunities for lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), as well as any information pertinent to the specific hiring procedures of the ACLU. Any information you can provide will be useful to me.
The enclosed letter dated December 16, 1997 addressed to District of Columbia Deputy Corporation Counsel, Charles L. Reischel, Esq. will serve to discharge my duty of care to the ACLU, in the event of my future employment with the ACLU, arising out of concerns relating to my mental health and stability (including the risk of violence): concerns placed at issue by the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, my former employer, and affirmed as genuine and nonpretextual by the District of Columbia Office of Corporation Counsel.
Enclosed for your information is a computer disc (IBM format) that contains the pleadings I filed in the D.C. Court of Appeals in the currently pending appeal referenced in the letter addressed to Mr. Reischel.
Incidentally, supervisory special agent David M. Bowie, FBI Washington Metropolitan Area Field Office, is familiar with this matter, and may be able to respond to any concerns about my reported risk of violence. The telephone number of the FBI Washington field office is (202) 252 7801.
Note Dr. Menninger's statement that it would not be appropriate for him to draw any conclusions based on just a few bits of information when he was really unaware of all of the scope and details of the issues to which I referred in my letter to him. Wouldn't that be the response of any ethical psychiatrist? Yet, my former employer, the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, successfully asserted to the District of Columbia that Gertrude R. Ticho, M.D. -- a nationally prominent psychiatrst -- offered a clinical assessment about me based on the "few bits of information" the firm provided to her. Are Akin Gump's assertions about Dr. Ticho's behavior at all credible?
January 20, 1998
Mr. Gary Freedman
3801 Connecticut Ave., NW #136
Washington, DC 20008-4530
Dear Mr. Freedman:
Let me acknowledge your letter of January 16 and the accompanying materials. Your request is not a matter that I can comfortably respond to. It would not be appropriate for me to draw any conclusions based on just a few bits of information when I am really unaware of all of the scope and details of the issues to which you refer.
Sincerely,
/s/
W. Walter Menninger, M.D.
*****************************************
January 16, 1998
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC 20008-4530
William Walter Menninger, M.D.
Menninger Foundation
P.O. Box 829
Topeka, KS 66601
(913) 273-7500
Dear Dr. Menninger:
During the period June 1988 to October 1991 I was employed as a legal assistant at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. Akin Gump terminated my employment in late October 1991; in pleadings filed by the employer with the D.C. Department of Human Rights, pursuant to an unlawful termination complaint that I had filed with the agency, the employer alleged that its termination decision was based on concerns about my mental health and stability (including the potential for violence). The employer alleges that its concerns about my mental health were based on a consultation it had with a psychiatrist concerning me: Gertrude R. Ticho, M.D., a physician licensed to practice in the District of Columbia. Dr. Ticho has denied in writing having consulted the employer as alleged. The unlawful termination matter is currently on appeal before the District of Columbia Court of Appeals: Freedman v. D.C. Department of Human Rights, no. 96-CV-961.
During the 1960's Dr. Ticho was a member of the staff of the Menninger Foundation. You or your colleagues may recall her.
Circumstances ancillary to my job termination have prompted inquiries by the U.S. Secret Service and the Federal Protective Service. The said inquiries were prompted by reports made by co-workers and senior managers that I may have posed a risk of armed violence during my tenure at Akin Gump, my former employer.
During the period 1992 to 1996 I received out-patient psychotherapy at the George Washington University Medical Center, in Washington, D.C.
There a several peculiarities relating to my psychotherapy at GW:
The initial diagnosis of bi-polar disorder (1992) was succeeded by a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia (1996). Bi-polar disorder is considered a rule-out for paranoid schizophrenia, that is, the two diagnoses are mutually inconsistent.
A battery of psychological tests performed by GW in May 1994 failed to disclose any psychiatric illness, and failed to disclose any psychotic thought processes. I was not on any medication at the time of testing.
Additional psychological testing performed in March 1996 (one month after I was officially advised of the diagnosis paranoid schizophrenia, see letter dated February 14, 1996 from Dr. Georgopoulos) failed to disclose any psychotic thought processes. I was not on any medication at the time of testing.
Results of IQ testing performed by the Philadelphia Public Schools when I was 11.5 and 12,5 years old yielded IQ scores of 125 and 122, respectively. The IQ score yielded by the testing performed in May 1994 by GW was 125. The literature indicates that, typically, severe mental illness tends to depress IQ scores significantly.
May I request that, if at all feasible, you review the enclosed materials (including the documents contained on the enclosed computer disc) and offer any pertinent comments to FBI Supervisory Special Agent David M. Bowie at the FBI Washington Field Office: telephone no. 202 252-7801.
I understand that you have served as adjunct professor of Corrections & Criminal Justice at Washington University. I believe that your expertise in both the mental health field and in criminal justice will render especially useful to the FBI any observations you choose to offer pertinent to the professional opinion attributed by the Government of the District of Columbia (Charles L. Reischel, Esq.) to former Menninger Foundation psychiatrist Gertrude R. Ticho, M.D., relating to my mental health and stability (including the potential for violence).
I worked at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld from June 13, 1988 to October 29, 1991. My friend Craig W. Dye worked at the law firm of Hogan and Hartson during that time.
Mr. Dye's telephone number from 1989 to October 29, 1991 (and thereafter) was (202) 637 5942. His email address was CWD@DC4.HHLAW.COM.
According to Akin Gump, the firm (Dennis M. Race, Esq.) had determined that I was potentially violent in late October 1991. My direct supervisor at the time (Chris Robertson) advised her employees that I might kill her, and arranged to have the firm (Stella Edmondson?) take corrective measures against a feared homicidal assault I might commit.
Did anyone at Akin Gump contact Craig Dye in late October 1991 about me to learn about my mental state or possible weapons possession? On the afternoon of July 14, 1993 I had a telephone conversation with Craig Dye during which I told him that I owned a gun. I advised the U.S. Secret Service (Philip C. Leadroot) in writing about that conversation. (In fact, I was joking about owning a gun; I have never owned a gun.)
November 1967. I was thirteen years old and in the ninth grade. I played second violin in my high school orchestra at The Central High School of Philadelphia. There was a parent/teacher get together one evening. My mother attended. Parents followed their son's school schedule, spending 15 minutes in each class, with the teacher giving a little speech. I remember my mother's comment about Elliott Cades, my English teacher: "He looks like a shoe salesman."
In the school auditorium the orchestra performed the Carmen Suite no. 1 from Bizet's opera, under Sidney Rothstein. Rothstein wore a red vest.
I can recall that during a reheasal Rothstein had told a joke about a tuba player complaining that he only had two notes to play in Carmen. I can't really remember the story now.
We would like to make you aware of a change within our online hiring system that may affect you. As of 05/26/2010, when you submit a new application, you will be required to re-answer certain core and demographic questions that you may have previously answered within the agency’s system. Under normal circumstances, you would only be presented with these questions once during the registration process. However, due to recent improvements in some of the questions, the FBI needs to collect your adjusted responses.
Please note that you do not need to do anything special to comply with this requirement. The system will simply prompt you to answer the revised questions when applying to a new vacancy announcement. Also, this change does not impact any applications you may have submitted prior to 05/26/2010. You will not need to make any adjustments to those applications.
Richard E. Cohen has been congressional reporter for National Journal since 1977. In that position, he writes about both legislative and electoral politics and deals regularly with a broad cross-section of Members of Congress. He joined the magazine's staff in 1973. He was the 1990 winner of the Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for distinguished reporting of Congress.
In addition to his magazine work, Cohen is an author of numerous books about Congress. Since 2001, he has been co-author with Michael Barone of The Almanac of American Politics, the biennial "bible" of 535 Members of Congress and their districts, which is published by National Journal Group. His biography of former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-IL), the long-time chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, was published by Ivan R. Dee Publisher of Chicago in 1999. His previous titles include Washington at Work: Back Rooms and Clean Air, on the enactment of the 1990 Clean Air Act, which was initially published by Macmillan Publishing Co. in 1992. In 1993, he authored another book for Macmillan, Changing Course in Washington: Clinton and the New Congress, on how President Clinton and the Democrats in Congress initially sought to change the direction of government. In 1981, he wrote Congressional Leadership: Seeking a New Role, a monograph published by Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies. He also has been a frequent contributor to other publications, and he has been a regular guest on TV and cable news programs. He has served many years as a member of the executive committee of the congressional periodical galleries, including as chairman.
He graduated in 1969 from Brown University, where he was publisher of the Brown Daily Herald, and in 1972 from Georgetown University Law Center. During law school, he was an aide to U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-MA). A native of Northampton, Massachusetts, he attended local schools there. Cohen is married to Lyn Schlitt, who is Director of External Relations at the U.S. International Trade Commission.
Michael H. Stein, Esq. was the General Counsel at the U.S. International Trade Commission during my tenure at that agency as an intern, from January to June 1984. My internship was sponsored by The American University Law School, where I was an LL.M. student in international trade law, under the supervision of Dean Claudio Grossman.
Later in July 1997 I sent a nearly identical letter to the then USITC General Counsel Lynn Schlitt; Lynn Schlitt sent the Federal Protective Service after me.
Why is it that lawyers and law professors (see post below) are responding to letters I wrote in the 1990s that the Justice Department viewed, in January 2010, to be concerning? Am I paranoid to think that dirty work is afoot at the DOJ?
Gary Freedman
#136
3801 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20008-4530
Dear Mr. Freedman:
I have had no contact or communication concerning you with Akin Gump or anyone else.
Yours very truly,
/s/
Michael H. Stein
July 9, 1997
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC 20008-4530
Michael H. Stein, Esq.
Dewey & Ballantine
1775 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20006-4605
RE: Weapons Possession - Intent to Inflict Grievous Bodily Harm/Possible Intent to Commit Murder - D.C. Corporation Counsel Affirmation - Possible Concealment of State and/or Federal Weapons Law Violations
Dear Mr. Stein:
During the period March 1988 to October 1991 I was employed as a legal assistant in the Washington, DC office of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld ("Akin Gump"). Attorney managers at Akin Gump terminated my employment effective October 29, 1991 upon determining, in consultation with a psychiatrist, that a complaint of harassment I had lodged against several co-workers was attributable to a psychiatric symptom ("ideas of reference") prominent in the psychotic disorders and typically associated with a risk of violent behavior. See Freedman v. D.C. Dept. of Human Rights, D.C. Superior Court no. MPA 95-14 (final order issued June 10, 1996) (name of state court judge redacted at the implicit direction of the Justice Department). In the period immediately after my job termination senior Akin Gump managers determined that it was advisable to secure the office of my direct supervisor against a possible homicidal assault, which it was feared I might commit.
In pleadings filed in the District of Columbia Superior Court, the District of Columbia Office of Corporation Counsel (Charles F.C. Ruff, Esq.) affirmed that Akin Gump personnel had genuine concerns that I might have had plans to procure firearms for an unlawful purpose and possessed the intent to inflict grievous bodily harm or commit murder. Mr. Ruff currently serves as chief White House Counsel to President Clinton (telephone no.: 202 456 1414).
I have been under investigation by the U.S. Secret Service as a potential security risk to President Clinton, and was interrogated at the Washington Field Office by Special Agent Philip C. Leadroot (202 435-5100) as recently as February 1996, about 16 months ago. Questioning by Mr. Leadroot centered on the issue of presidential assassination.
During the period January 1984 to June 1984 I served an internship in the U.S. International Trade Commission, Office of General Counsel, in fulfillment of the degree of Master of Laws at The American University. During my internship I assisted in the preparation of a General Counsel memorandum with staff attorney Tim Yaworski, who, I understand, still works at the agency. The memorandum, no. GC-H-084, dated June 6, 1984 (the first page of which is enclosed for your reference) lists Mr. Yaworski and myself as co-preparers.
At the time of my internship, in 1984, you served as the agency's General Counsel; your initials, "MS," appear on the first page of the referenced memorandum.
I believe that I may have provided a copy of the memorandum to the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld (Margarita Babb) in June 1988 in connection with my application for permanent employment at that firm.
There is a remote possibility that Akin Gump's attorney managers may have contacted you in connection with that memorandum to obtain background information about me in connection with my employment, in which case, you may, therefore, possess information pertinent to a criminal investigation conducted by the U.S. Secret Service during the period December 1994-February 1995 relating to the security of the President of the United States.
I request that you disclose to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (David M. Bowie, Supervisory Special Agent, Washington Field Office, 202 252 7801) the content of any communications you may have had with any Akin Gump attorneys regarding me. Attorneys who may have directed inquiries to you include Earl L. Segal, Malcolm Lassman, or Laurence J. Hoffman (managing partner), among others.
As you know, Akin Gump has a major international trade practice.
Enclosed are some additional documents that provide background to the matters discussed in this letter.
Be advised: President Clinton's own lawyer, chief White House Counsel Charles F.C. Ruff, is talking real guns, real bullets, real brain tissue.
On Friday January 15, 2010 the Justice Department sent two officers to my residence to interview me about a law enforcement matter. One of the officers said he had been reading my blog, My Daily Struggles, since November 2009 and that he was concerned by the law enforcement implications of the tone and content of my writings.
Funny thing. A federal appeals court judge read one of my letters -- the type of letter that the Justice Department had concerns about -- and, not only did he not contact the authorities, he had his secretary send me a cordial reply. Now why do you think that is? Why would the Justice Department have concerns about my writings: concerns that were not shared by a federal appeals court judge? Could it be that the Justice Department's concerns were not genuine -- but simply a sham? Could it be that the Justice Department was using a law enforcement interview as a form of intimidation to get me to stop writing my blog?
How striking that a senior management partner of my former employer has close ties the highest levels of the Justice Department. But then, some things are just coincidence. And, of course, reading comprehension skills are not what they used to be in this country. Message for the Justice Department: You should try to hire people with at least minimal literacy.
Judge Tatel was the billing partner on a document production task on which I was assigned at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson, in the 1980s. I never had any contact with Judge Tatel. Judge Tatel is a personal friend of Elliott Mincberg, Esq., a former Hogan partner with whom I did have contact.
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse
April 14, 1997
Mr. Gary Freedman
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW #136
Washington, DC 20008-4530
Dear Mr. Freedman:
Judge Tatel has reviewed your letter of April 2, 1997 and has asked me to let you know he has no recollection of any of the events described in your letter and has no information to report.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Doris Brown
Secretary to Judge Tatel
***********************************
April 2, 1997
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW #136
Washington, DC 20008-4530
Hon. David S. Tatel
U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
Washington, DC 20001
RE: Weapons Possession - Intent to Inflict Grievous Bodily Harm/Possible Intent to Commit Murder - D.C. Corporation Counsel Affirmation - Possible Concealment of State and/or Federal Weapons Law Violations
Dear Judge Tatel:
During the period March 1988 to October 1991 I was employed as a legal assistant at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld ("Akin Gump"). Attorney managers at Akin Gump terminated my employment effective October 29, 1991 upon determining, in consultation with a psychiatrist, that a complaint of harassment I had lodged against several co-workers was attributable to a psychiatric symptom ("ideas of reference") prominent in the psychotic disorders and typically associated with a risk of violent behavior. See Freedman v. D.C. Dept. of Human Rights, D.C. Superior Court no. MPA 95-14 (final order issued June 10, 1996) (name of state court judge redacted at the implicit direction of the Justice Department). In the period immediately after my job termination senior Akin Gump managers determined that it was advisable to secure the office of my direct supervisor against a possible homicidal assault, which it was feared I might commit.
During the period September 1985 to February 1988 I served a long-term temporary legal assistant assignment, as an employee of the temporary agency Personnel Pool, at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson, of which your honor was formerly a member. From October 1985 to April 1987 I was assigned to work, within the Computer Applications Department of Hogan & Hartson, on a document coding project for desegregation litigation involving the client Milwaukee Public Schools, of which your honor was billing partner. 1/
I have been under investigation by the U.S. Secret Service as a potential security risk to President William J. Clinton, and was interrogated at the Washington Field Office by Special Agent Philip C. Leadroot (202 435-5100) as recently as February 1996, about one year ago.
I request that your honor candidly disclose to federal authorities any information, rumor, or reputation evidence derived from my assignment at Hogan & Hartson, that in any way supports Akin Gump's concerns--affirmed as genuine by the D.C. Office of Corporation Counsel--relating to my potential for violence, intent to acquire firearms, or intent to inflict grievous bodily harm (or commit murder).
Akin Gump admits that it was aware that I worked at Hogan & Hartson. Freedman v. D.C. Dept. of Human Rights, no. MPA 95-14, Record on Appeal at 139 and 142. I therefore further request that your honor disclose the content of any possible communications you may have had with any Akin Gump attorneys (possibly including Malcolm Lassman, Earl L. Segal, Dennis M. Race or Laurence J. Hoffman) relating to the subject matter of my work at Hogan & Hartson.
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman
__________________________
1/ Other Hogan & Hartson billing partners for whom I worked comprise: William Bradford (client: AVCO), Jerome Sonosky (client: Mercedes Benz), and James Hourihan (client: Chrysler).
Arnold Schoenberg's early work, Gurrelieder met with critical acclaim. But the first performance of the piece took place years after the composer had abandoned a late romantic style, in which Gurrelieder is written, in favor of atonality.
Schoenberg wrote the following about the success of Gurrelieder: "I was rather indifferent, if not even a little angry. I foresaw that this success would have no influence on the fate of my later works. I had, during these thirteen years, developed my style in such a manner that to the ordinary concertgoer, it would seem to bear no relation to all preceding music. I had to fight for every new work; I had been offended in the most outrageous manner by criticism; I had lost friends and I had completely lost any belief in the judgment of friends. And I stood alone against a world of enemies."
Schoenberg's sentiments about individualism are echoed by Sigmund Freud in a letter he wrote late in life. In 1926, when Freud's lodge brothers celebrated his seventieth birthday, illness kept him from attending the celebration, but he wrote to them:
"What bound me to Judaism was, I must confess, not belief and not national pride . . . Other considerations . . . made the attractiveness of Judaism and Jews irresistible . . . Because I was a Jew I found myself free from many prejudices which limited others in the use of their intellect, and being a Jew, I was prepared to enter opposition and to renounce agreement with the 'compact majority.'"
Do I seek a spiritual connection? My answer? I find my spiritual connection in standing alone.
December 11, 1996
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC 20008-4530
Allen S. Melser, Esq.
Mason, Fenwick & Lawrence
655 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
RE: Mason, Fenwick & Lawrence Employment Inquiry - Homicide/Violence Risk
Dear Mr. Melser:
During the period March 1988 to October 1991 I was employed as a legal assistant at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld ("Akin Gump"). Attorney managers at Akin Gump terminated my employment effective October 29, 1991 upon determining, in consultation with a psychiatrist, that a complaint of harassment I had lodged against several co-workers was attributable to a psychiatric symptom ("ideas of reference") prominent in the psychotic disorders and typically associated with a risk of violent behavior. See Freedman v. D.C. Dept. of Human Rights, D.C. Superior Court no. MPA 95-14 (final order issued June 10, 1996) (name of state court judge redacted at the implicit direction of the Justice Department). In the period immediately after my job termination senior Akin Gump managers determined that it was advisable to secure the office of my direct supervisor against a possible homicidal assault, which it was feared I might commit.
By way of a letter dated October 2, 1992, approximately one year after my job termination by Akin Gump, I submitted an employment inquiry to Mason, Fenwick & Lawrence, as evidenced by the enclosed response signed by you and dated November 6, 1992. I do not know what communications, if any, you may have had with Akin Gump's attorney managers or supervisors at the time of this employment inquiry.
I have been under investigation by the U.S. Secret Service as a potential security risk to President William J. Clinton, and was interrogated at the Washington Field Office by Special Agent Philip C. Leadroot as recently as February 1996.
I request that you candidly disclose to federal authorities the content of any communications you may have had with any senior Akin Gump supervisors or attorney managers, including Dennis M. Race, Esq. (whom I expressly designated as a job reference in the employment inquiry to Mason, Fenwick & Lawrence), relating to the subject matter of my job termination by Akin Gump, including facts relating to the firm's alleged determination that I suffered from a paranoid mental state that rendered me potentially violent, or facts relating to the firm's concerns that I might have been armed and homicidal and possibly poised to carry out a homicidal assault on the firm's premises.
January 11, 1997
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW #136
Washington, DC 20008-4530
Joseph L. Manson, III
Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand
Suite 700
901-15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005-2301
RE: Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand Employment Inquiry - Homicide/Violence Risk
Dear Mr. Manson:
During the period March 1988 to October 1991 I was employed as a legal assistant at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld ("Akin Gump"). Attorney managers at Akin Gump terminated my employment effective October 29, 1991 upon determining, in consultation with a psychiatrist, that a complaint of harassment I had lodged against several co-workers was attributable to a psychiatric symptom ("ideas of reference") prominent in the psychotic disorders and typically associated with a risk of violent behavior. See Freedman v. D.C. Dept. of Human Rights, D.C. Superior Court no. MPA 95-14 (final order issued June 10, 1996) (name of state court judge redacted at the implicit direction of the Justice Department). In the period immediately after my job termination senior Akin Gump managers determined that it was advisable to secure the office of my direct supervisor against a possible homicidal assault, which it was feared I might commit.
During the summer of 1992, within one year after my job termination by Akin Gump, I submitted an employment inquiry to Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand ("Verner Liipfert") as evidenced by the enclosed response signed by Recruitment Administrator Diane F. Ross and dated July 29, 1992. I do not know what communications, if any, Diane F. Ross may have had with Akin Gump's attorney managers or supervisors at the time of this inquiry.
I have been under investigation by the U.S. Secret Service as a potential security risk to President William J. Clinton, and was interrogated at the Washington Field Office by Special Agent Philip C. Leadroot as recently as February 1996.
I request that you counsel Diane F. Ross to candidly disclose to federal authorities the content of any communications she may have had with any senior Akin Gump supervisors or attorney managers, including Dennis M. Race, Esq. (whom I expressly designated as a job reference in my employment inquiry to Verner Liipfert), relating to the subject matter of my job termination by Akin Gump, including facts relating to the firm's alleged determination that I suffered from a paranoid mental state that rendered me potentially violent, or facts relating to the firm's concerns that I might have been armed and homicidal and possibly poised to carry out a homicidal assault on the firm's premises.
Verner Liipfert and Akin Gump have had professional ties--as you may know Verner Liipfert assumed the representation of Eastern Airlines from Akin Gump in the year 1990--so that any disclosures made by Akin Gump to Verner Liipfert concerning my employment history at Akin Gump may, therefore, have been unusually candid.
Additionally, Frederick J. McConville, Esq., Verner Liipfert Of Counsel, was associated with Akin Gump at the time of my tenure, and, coincidentally, Mr. McConville's office was located immediately adjacent to that of the Akin Gump partner in charge of that firm's legal assistant program, Earl L. Segal, Esq. (I believe that Mssrs. Segal and McConville shared a secretary.) Mr. McConville may have become involuntarily privy to information relating to Akin Gump's legal assistants.
reconstruction July 13, 1998
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW #136
Washington, DC 20008-4530
William Styron
RFD
Roxbury, CT 06783
Dear Mr. Styron:
During the period March 1988 to October 1991 I was employed as a legal assistant at the Washington, DC office of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld ("Akin Gump"). Attorney managers at Akin Gump terminated my employment effective October 29, 1991 upon determining, in consultation with a psychiatrist, that a complaint of harassment I had lodged against several co-workers was attributable to a psychiatric symptom ("ideas of reference") prominent in the psychotic disorders and typically associated with a risk of violent behavior. See Freedman v. D.C. Dept. of Human Rights, D.C. Superior Court no. MPA 95-14 (final order issued June 10, 1996) (name of state court judge redacted at the implicit direction of the Justice Department). In the period immediately after my job termination senior Akin Gump managers determined that it was advisable to secure the office of my direct supervisor against a possible homicidal assault, which it was feared I might commit.
I have been under investigation by the U.S. Secret Service as a potential security risk to President William J. Clinton, and was interrogated at the Washington Field Office by Special Agent Philip C. Leadroot as recently as February 1996 on a referral by high-ranking attorneys at the U.S. Department of Justice.
I have also been under investigation by the Federal Protective Service (Jerry McGill, S.A.) incident to concerns, affirmed as genuine in 1996 by then District of Columbia Corporation Counsel--now White House Counsel to President Clinton--Charles F.C. Ruff, Esq., that I posed a risk of violence, including armed violence or homicide, at the law firm of Akin Gump.
Pursuant to the investigation instituted by the Federal Protective Service ("FPS") I forwarded a document to the FPS, under cover letter dated September 8, 1997 (copy attached), that is a creative piece titled "Significant Moments."
I request that you disclose to the Washington Field Office of the U.S. Secret Service (Phillip C. Leadroot, S.A., telephone no. 202 435 5100) whether you have at any time been made aware, by any source, of the existence of this document. I enclose a copy of the first page of the document to refresh your recollection. I know that you will appreciate the serious nature of any concerns relating to presidential security and that any disclosure you make to the U.S. Secret Service will be full, candid, and truthful.
Background facts that prompt this inquiry are the following:
You have a summer house on Martha's Vineyard;
Akin Gump partner Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. vacations on Martha's Vineyard, sometimes accompanied by his friend President William J. Clinton and his family; Jordan is active in the arts and socializes with artists and writers;
Your neighbors and their guests on Martha's Vineyard have included Philip Roth (a Jewish writer one of whose fictional creations is the sexually-obsessed Portnoy); Art Buchwald (a politically-connected humorist); and Senator Edward M. Kennedy (a prominent Democratic politician);
You have served as an honorary consultant to the Library of Congress, an institution that is referenced in "Significant Moments," the creative piece referred to above;
One of your books The Confessions of Nat Turner concerns the issue of slavery in nineteenth-century America; another one of your books Sophie's Choice concerns the holocaust.
July 14, 1998
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW #136
Washington, DC 20008-4530
Arthur Miller
Box 320 RR #1 Tophet Road
Roxbury, CT 06783
Dear Mr. Miller:
During the period March 1988 to October 1991 I was employed as a legal assistant at the Washington, DC office of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld ("Akin Gump"). Attorney managers at Akin Gump terminated my employment effective October 29, 1991 upon determining, in consultation with a psychiatrist, that a complaint of harassment I had lodged against several co-workers was attributable to a psychiatric symptom ("ideas of reference") prominent in the psychotic disorders and typically associated with a risk of violent behavior. See Freedman v. D.C. Dept. of Human Rights, D.C. Superior Court no. MPA 95-14 (final order issued June 10, 1996) (name of state court judge redacted at the implicit direction of the Justice Department). In the period immediately after my job termination senior Akin Gump managers determined that it was advisable to secure the office of my direct supervisor against a possible homicidal assault, which it was feared I might commit.
I have been under investigation by the U.S. Secret Service as a potential security risk to President William J. Clinton, and was interrogated at the Washington Field Office by Special Agent Philip C. Leadroot as recently as February 1996 on a referral by high-ranking attorneys at the U.S. Department of Justice.
I have also been under investigation by the Federal Protective Service (Jerry McGill, S.A.) incident to concerns, affirmed as genuine in 1996 by then District of Columbia Corporation Counsel--now White House Counsel to President Clinton--Charles F.C. Ruff, Esq., that I posed a risk of violence, including armed violence or homicide, at the law firm of Akin Gump.
Pursuant to the investigation instituted by the Federal Protective Service ("FPS") I forwarded a document to the FPS, under cover letter dated September 8, 1997 (copy attached), that contains references to the psychoanalyst Anna Freud. The document, titled "Significant Moments," is a somewhat experimental creative piece that is, in form, on the borderline between a kind of novel and play.
I request that you disclose to the Washington Field Office of the U.S. Secret Service (Phillip C. Leadroot, S.A., telephone no. 202 435 5100) whether you have at any time been made aware, by any source, of the existence of this document. I enclose a copy of the first page of the document to refresh your possible recollection. I know that you will appreciate the serious nature of any concerns relating to presidential security and that any disclosure you make to the U.S. Secret Service will be full, candid, and truthful.
Background facts that prompt this inquiry are the following:
You are a nationally-prominent playwright who has had contacts over the years with William Gibson, a playwright and husband of Margaret Brenman-Gibson, a psychoanalyst affiliated with Harvard Medical School as well as the Austen Riggs Center; Dr. Brenman-Gibson wrote a definitive biography of the early years of playwright Clifford Odets; a colleague of Dr. Brenman-Gibson's at the Austen Riggs Center, Albert Rothenberg, M.D., is a nationally-prominent expert in the field of research in creativity to whom I have previously forwarded one of my writings; Dr. Rothenberg is acquainted with my former treating psychiatrist in Washington, DC, Stanley R. Palombo;
You are the former husband of Marilyn Monroe (now deceased) to whom you were married from 1956 to 1961; Marilyn Monroe left a substantial part of her estate to further the work of Anna Freud, whom she had seen briefly for analytic help in 1956 (the year of your marriage); it is reported that the bequest was apparently achieved through (the undue influence of) her analysts, who were intimately connected to Anna Freud;
Coincidentally, my father was a close friend of a cousin of Clifford Odets, Benjamin ("Benny") Rossman, who lived in Philadelphia. Mr. Rossman's mother, Clifford Odets' Aunt Esther (Geisinger), was a "second mother" to Odets.
Freud compares a child to a creative writer. Might we not say that every child at play behaves like a creative writer, in that he creates a world of his own, or, rather, re−arranges the things of his world in a new way which pleases him? Kids spend a lot of time and emotions in these games; so do creative writers in creating their fictional written worlds. It would be wrong to think he does not take that world seriously. Both writer and child use their imagination to invent characters, plots, and settings. Children take these games so seriously that they even forget about the real world that surrounds them. Freud states that kids are not able to differentiate fiction from reality. Writers, on the other hand, do have this ability.
The reason one creates an imaginary world is that some things can only be enjoyed if imagined in one's mind. For many things which, if they were real, could give no enjoyment, can do so in the play of fantasy, and many excitements which, in themselves, are actually distressing, can become a source of pleasure for the hearers and spectators at the performance of a writer's work. Kids like to play as if they were heroes that got hurt but yet survived; if they really got hurt and had to go through all the troubles they imagine, they would not enjoy it at all! Similarly, readers enjoy novels because they are a source of entertainment that liberates their mind letting them participate without being really involved. Therefore, a lot of times desires ought to remain just desires because if they were to become real they wouldn't live up to the idealized image that the person had of them.
Salman Akhtar’s extensive review has shown that rejection, traumatic overstimulation, and neglect in the first two years of life are common in the history of schizoids. The schizoid condition was first described by the Scottish psychoanalyst Fairbairn in the 1940s. Fairbairn found that his patients had withdrawn from parents who were overtly rejecting. They preferred to live in a rich, imaginary world. Many fiction writers are schizoid because the ability to create a vivid inner world in one’s head gives one a head start at writing fiction. The downside is that the schizoid’s sense of other people is impoverished.
On Friday January 15, 2010 two officers from the Justice Department were sent to interview me at my residence about a law enforcement matter. One officer asked me if I had been to the opera lately. I told him I attended the opera on November 15, 2009: to see a performance of Wagner's Gotterdammerung.
In the second act of the Gotterdammerung, Wagner specifies the use of steer horns, animal horns similar to a ram's horn, or the shofar used in the Jewish religion for ritual purposes.
At another point in the interview, the officer asked me if I was seeking a "spiritual connection."
Yes, some things are just coincidence. It's interesting to note, however, that Wagner grew up in a Jewish neighborhood where he might have heard a shofar blast in childhood.
[But he [New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani] and [Police Commissioner] Safir have now been exposed as encouraging a runaway police force to be in wholesale contempt of the Constitution. These police subject not only black and Latino citizens but whites as well to kinds of abasement that have not been seen in a big city since the reign of southern mayors and police commissioners before the Civil Rights revolution.
The American Jewish Committee and the New York Board of Rabbis have joined the black and Latino communities in sharply criticizing the mayor and his police commissioner.
Rabbi Robert Levine speaks of New York under Giuliani as "a racially polarized city in which there are two standards of justice."
The rabbi says he is sending a shofar blast to further awaken the city. The shofar (a ram's horn) is blown at the start of the Jewish New Year to proclaim a truly new beginning. In biblical times, it was a call to battle.]
