225 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
225 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: THE KLASS BET FILE: UFO2484
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PART 1
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============================================================================
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[The following is a re-type of a White Paper sent to me by
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Phil Klass when I asked about claims apparently made by
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Stanton Friedman regarding a "bet" between the two of them.
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I have done my best to keep the proper emphasis and
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spelling, even where a given word was misspelled. -- David
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Bloomberg]
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Philip J. Klass 404 "N" St. Southwest
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Washington D.C. 20024
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This is in response to your query about whether Stanton T.
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Friedman did indeed "win" $1,000 from me because he was
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correct and I was wrong about one detail of an "MJ-12"
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related memo allegedly written by President Eisenhower's
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aide, Robert Cutler to Gen. Nathan Twining, on July 14,
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1954, which William L. Moore and Jaime Shandera claim to
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have discovered in the National Archives.
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Yes, I paid Friedman $1,000 because he was correct and I was
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wrong. The money came from the interest earned on $1,000
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Friedman had earlier paid me. Here is the full story that
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Friedman never reveals. (It may be reproduced without
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permission.)
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As a boy in Iowa, we had a useful expression: "Talk is
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cheap; put your money where your mouth is." A friend might
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claim he could run around the block in 2 minutes. Bet him a
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dime he couldn't--and if he really believed in his claim, he
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would accept the wager. I have found this is a most useful
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technique in my many years in the UFO field to determine if
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there is "adverse evidence".
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In fact, I used it during my very first contact with
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Friedman, around 1967. He had published a Letter-to-the-
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Editor in the American Instit. of Aeronautics & Astronautics
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journal, claiming there was overwhelming evidence that UFOs
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were ET craft. I promptly sent Friedman a copy of my
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$10,000 Contract to determine if he believed his claim was
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true and to learn what that evidence was.
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Under the terms of this contract, I agree to pay the
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other person $10,000 if/when any hard, incontrovertible
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evidence is found which shows that the Earth has been
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visited by one (or more) ET craft. (The other party does
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not need to find the evidence.) The other party agrees to
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pay me $100 per year until such evidence is found, but with
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a limit/maximum of 10 years of payments. Thus, the maximum
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the other party risks is $1,000. Friedman rejected my $10K
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offer as "ridiculous."
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In my second UFO book, "UFOs Explained," I briefly
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discussed my $10,000 offer and noted that Friedman (among
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others) had refused to sign up. I noted that the most
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Friedman risked losing was $1,000--which was the fee he
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typically was paid for giving a single one-hour lecture
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"Flying Saucers ARE Real." A few months after this book was
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published, Friedman and I appeared on a syndicated talk show-
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-pre-taped in Detroit. During the taping, Friedman whipped
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out a crisp $100 bill and announced he was accepting my $10K
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offer. I promptly sent him the one-page contract which he
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signed. During the subsequent nine years, Friedman made his
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annual payments and as of early 1984, Friedman had paid me a
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total of $1,000. Although I did not put Friedman's payments
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into a special "Escrow" account, if I had done so, the
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compounded interest I earned on Friedman's money would have
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totalled slightly more than $1,000 as of 1989.
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So much for background. One of the two MJ-12 documents
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made public by William L. Moore, Jaime Shandera and Stanton
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Friedman in the spring of 1987 purports to be a document
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prepared in November 1952 by Rear Adm. Roscoe H.
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Hillenkoetter to brief President-elect Eisenhower on UFOs
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and crashed saucers. (Hillenkoetter had been director of
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the CIA from 1947 to 1950.)
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Christopher Allan, a British UFOlogist, first called my
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attention to a very unusual date-format used in this
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briefing document--a hybrid of civil and military format. I
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discovered that only one other person consistently used this
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same unusual date-format in his correspondence: William L.
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Moore, who released the MJ-12 papers. Another anomaly in
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the briefing document allegedly written by Hillenkoetter was
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that he referred to himself as "Adm. Hillenkoetter," rather
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than "Rear Adm. [or Radm] Hillenkoetter," which implied he
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was a four-star (full) admiral rather than a two-star.
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So I requested the Truman Library to send me copies of
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letters which Hillenkoetter had written as CIA director to
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determine if he consistently used this unusual date-format
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and if he correctly identified his rank as Rear Admiral. In
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every one of the letters I received, Hillenkoetter used the
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traditional military date-format and he correctly showed his
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rank as Rear Admiral. Furthermore, from these authentic
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archival letters I discovered that he never signed his
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letters using his first name "Roscoe." Instead he always
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used his initials: "R.H." Yet in the MJ-12 briefing
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document which Hillenkoetter allegedly wrote, he used
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"Roscoe."
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And so on Oct. 30, 1987, using my old "put your money
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where your mouth is" approach, I offered Friedman the
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opportunity to win many thousands of dollars. I offered to
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pay Friedman $2,000 for each and every authentic letter
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written by Hillenkoetter while he was at the CIA IF the
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letter used the unusual MJ-12 date-format and if it was
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signed "Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter," providing Friedman agreed
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to pay me 1/5th that amount ($400) for every Hillenkoetter
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letter I could supply which did not use the unusual date-
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format and which was signed with his initials.
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Thus, if Hillenkoetter used the "MJ-12 format" in even
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one out of every four letters he wrote, Friedman could win
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some of my money. Friedman promptly rejected my generous
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offer in his letter of Nov. 5, 1987. So I sent him a
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slightly revised version on Nov. 10 which he also rejected
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on Nov. 19. (Copy of my offer and Friedman's comments are
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enclosed.)
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Now for the $1,000 wager that Friedman did accept, and
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which he won. On Jan. 16, 1989, based on a modest sample of
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letters written by Robert Cutler which I had obtained from
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the Eisenhower Library, I had reason to believe that the
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typewriters in Cutler's office all used the "elite" (small)
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typeface then used for many executives. But the Cutler memo
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which Moore/Shandera claimed to have found in the National
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Archives used the larger "pica" typeface. Further, I had
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learned that Cutler could not possibly have written the memo
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to Gen. Twining on July 14, 1954, because Cutler was out of
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the country on official business on that date.
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If all of the typewriters in Cutler's office used pica
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type, that would be further evidence that the July 14 memo
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was a counterfeit. So, on Jan. 16, 1989, I challenged
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Friedman on this issue and offered to pay him $100 for each
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letter written by Cutler during this same time period which
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he could find which "uses a typeface identical in size and
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style to that used in the alleged Cutler/Twining memo of
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July 14, 1954." (Fortunately for me, I set an upper limit
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of $1,000 on my payments.) Friedman did come up with
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several dozen Cutler letters with pica typeface.
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I might have quibbled over whether their typeface was
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"identical in style," but I opted to promptly pay off and
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sent him my check for $1,000. My payment to Friedman
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represented the interest I had earned on his earlier $1,000
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payment to me under our $10,000 contract.
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More recently, I extended a similar challenge to
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Friedman under which he could win another $1,000 while
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risking only $100 of his own--a challenge he declined to
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accept. The recent crashed-saucer book co-authored by
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Friedman and Don Berliner ["Crash at Corona"] features the
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tale of Gerald F. Anderson who claims that in 1947 he and
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four other members of his family (all now deceased) stumbled
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onto a crashed saucer on the Plains of San Agustin in New
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Mexico. Anderson claimed that his family was soon joined by
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a group of archaeologists headed by a Dr. Buskirk. Despite
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the fact that Anderson was only 5 years old at the time of
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the alleged incident and the 40+ years which had elapsed, he
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was able to reconstruct Dr. Buskirk's appearance with the
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aid of techniques used by the police to reconstruct the
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appearance of a criminal.
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Thanks to a painstaking investigation, UFOlogist Tom J.
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Carey managed to locate Dr. Buskirk who closely resembled
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Anderson's sketch but who flatly denied Anderson's tale.
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Buskirk had hard evidence to show that he was hundreds of
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miles away from the Plains of San Agustin at the time of the
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alleged crashed saucer incident. However, Carey learned
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that Buskirk had been a teacher at the Albuquerque, N.M.
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high school in the late 1950s when Gerald F. Anderson had
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taken a course in anthropology which Buskirk taught. Yet
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Anderson claimed that he had never seen Dr. Buskirk since
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the crashed-saucer incident in 1947.
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When skeptical investigators tried to obtain a copy of
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Anderson's high school records to see if he had taken a
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course in anthropology (under Buskirk), Anderson instructed
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school officials not to release his records. Anderson then
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released what he claimed to be a photocopy of his school
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records which seemed to show he had not taken a course in
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anthropology. But there were suspicions that the record
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that Anderson made public might have been "doctored."
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On Aug. 8, 1992, I sent Friedman a Memorandum of
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Agreement dealing with this key issue which could reveal
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whether Anderson had resorted to falsehood and altering of
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evidence. My memo noted this issue could be resolved "if
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Anderson will request and authorize the present Principal of
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the Albuquerque High School, or the Superintendent of
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Schools, to carefully examine the transcript of Anderson's
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high school records and issue a public statement that
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Anderson did, or did not, take a course in anthropology."
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I offered to pay Friedman $1,000 if Anderson would
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provide me with a notarized statement authorizing such
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action by Albuquerque school officials, while Friedman would
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pay me $100 if Anderson refused to take such action.
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Friedman never responded. (Within nine months, Friedman and
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Berliner publicly acknowledged that Anderson "can no longer
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be seen as sufficiently reliable." But they added that this
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"does not mean that everything reported by Gerald Anderson
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is without value.")
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=======================================
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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********************************************** |