On Doing Your Own Investigation: The Late Playwright Arthur Miller

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.

Sincerely,

Gary Freedman