On Doing Your Own Investigation: The Late Writer William Styron

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.

Sincerely,

Gary Freedman