mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== Grazian Archive: [1] HOME [2] INDEX E-MAIL: [3]eumetron at hotmail.com [4]TABLE OF CONTENTS [5]previous.gif [6]next.gif _________________________________________________________________ COSMIC HERETICS: Part 4 : by Alfred de Grazia _________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER TWELVE THE THIRD WORLD OF SCIENCE For a decade from the appearance of Worlds in Collision, no quantavolutionary circle existed in the world. V.'s correspondence with his readers was voluminous. Immanuel and Elisheva were socially active for several years, but no scholar who could be said to be of catastrophist persuasion was a frequent correspondent or friend. In July 1956, Claude Schaeffer, author of the monumental comparative study of archaeological levels of destruction wrote Velikovsky his appreciation of receiving from him a copy of Earth in Upheaval. V. had used Schaeffer's work in preparing the book. In 1957, Immanuel and Elisheva visited with the Schaeffers for a week at Lake Lucerne, in Switzerland. Schaeffer did not agree with any part of Velikovsky's ideas except what Schaeffer himself had printed before V.'s work had appeared, that periods of sudden destruction had befallen Bronze Age Civilizations. Two decades later, Deg and Anne-Marie Hueber visited Schaeffer at his home near Paris. Deg wanted to update Schaeffer's inventory of sites, and they had corresponded briefly on the matter. Schaeffer had offered Deg the materials of his files about which he had written to V. many years before. Then he had spoken of "new confirmations of the reality of these crises on a continental scale which I have tried to analyze. I would be glad if I could write now immediately the contemplated second edition of Stratigraphie Comparée in two volumes, for with the new confirmations these Crises could no longer be questioned... so striking are proofs and so accurate the dates established by the new discoveries..." V. had not told Deg of his correspondence or of Schaeffer's intention of moving forward. V. had passed up a rare chance at statistically demonstrating his theses. Nor had he exhorted others to undertake work with Schaeffer. Deg had to suggest the idea to Schaeffer as if Schaeffer had never been aware of the possibility. Schaeffer was ready to collaborate. It was clear to both men that V.'s reconstructed chronology was not be at issue. Their aim was to confirm the ubiquity and internal cohesion of Schaeffer's set of catastrophes. Deg was made aware of Schaeffer's doubts of V. 's chronology, especially that coming after the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, doubts that were even stronger with Madame Schaeffer, who at one moment was with the group and at the next was out of the room tending to her visiting family. Deg conveyed his belief that the catastrophic sequence of Schaefer could slip forward nicely, using the same intervals, to fit the scale that he had drawn back to the neolithic age, which included V.'s fifteenth and eight century disasters. Thus Schaeffer's sequence could serve both the conventional and the quantavolutionary calendar. Deg sought funds for the research from the American Geographical society, without success. [The proposal is carried in The Burning of Troy.] He tried to reach Schaeffer in Paris in 1983. Schaeffer had just died. With the appearance of Stargazers and Gravediggers in 1983, a reader might see how barren was Velikovsky's personal and scholarly life during the 1950's of the very people who were capable of or were independently pursuing studies in quantavolution. The characters in the book are mostly his opponents; few friends and supporters appear. The only persons of catastrophist persuasion mentioned were Alan Kelly (but on nothing to do with his catastrophism) and Claude Schaeffer. Alan Kelly, and Frank Dachille who was his collaborator in Target Earth (1953), lived far apart and they worked alone. In American biology, Goldschmidt and Simpson knew there had been quantum jumps in paleontology and presumably their students acquired some inkling of the anomalies. In circles espousing Biblical literalism, the work of Price and others was discussed. There must have been other catastrophist scientists of the 1950's in America and England, but to this day Deg has not been able to name any. The existence of perhaps half a million readers of V. 's books meant little so far as research and writing were concerned. Some bootleg teaching of catastrophism was occurring, especially among fundamentalist Christians. In Germany there were Schindewolf and Nilssen in paleontology, as I noted elsewhere in these pages. Significant differences came with the sixties. The civil engineer Ralph Juergens left his business in the Midwest and moved to Hightstown, near Princeton, so as to be near Velikovsky and to use the libraries of the University. Warner Sizemore, a minister and graduate student of philosophy appeared on the scene at the same time. Stecchini, historian of science and unemployed professor, was already there, indulged by his wife Catherine, a star teacher of young writers at Princeton High school. While teaching at the University of Chicago in 1950, Stecchini had signed a letter of protest to Macmillan against the treatment given Velikovsky's book. When Deg met V. and decided to publish his story, there was none else in sight. They thought of Eric Larrabee, but none would be paid to write, and Larrabee was busy with unrelated affairs. Since Deg could not do the whole job himself, Velikovsky recommended Juergens, then working for McGraw-Hill as a scientific editor, and Deg and V. persuaded Stecchini to do an historical portion. Thus, all the effective resources of V. amounted to three men who could and would write about his case in depth. This was the first time any cooperative group had engaged itself in the study of V.'s problems. It was also the first time that V. realized the values and capacities of voluntarism in America. He was, however, cunning about the media. For instance, as soon as the American Behavioral Scientist was in the mill, V. could persuade Larrabee to write an article for Harper's Magazine. Larrabee was spurred into action and the article came out two months before he ABS issue appeared. V. was inspired and a new outlook, that of a movement, of helpers, even of collaborators, dawned upon him. Before then he had been a lone wolf in his field of study. Now he had friends who talked his language. Sizemore began to organize locally and to suggest that others organize in other places clubs or study circles under the name of "Cosmos and Chronos." V. referred often to these ghost legions. Sometimes they sprang to life to extend invitations to V. to speak at various places, or they were used as a letterhead denomination when rebuking critics. It was, for example, on 'Cosmos and Chronos' stationery that the Philadelphia disciple and high school teacher of psychology, Robert Stephanos, addressed the Franklin Society in seeking to arrange a lecture invitation to Velikovsky. When the Society reconsidered and hastily closed its gates to V., it brought a certain public disgrace upon itself. Inspired though he was by his association with new and competent men, V. himself could not be organized by them; he could seek only to determine all of their activity, without becoming controlled by them. Time and time again, spurts of organization occurred, with excellent initial results, but thereafter the efforts would slump and expire. The most successful organizing and activity was done out of his reach, in Canada, England, and in Oregon, He was too immense to allow himself even to be the leader; for a leader implies followers who are assigned responsibilities, are allowed judgment, employ initiative, and can be trusted. V. allowed none of these. There was to be no control over this leader; he was superman, distinct from the following, distinct even from a field of science for he refused to call it by a name, such as catastrophism. He would deny such allegations and not even perceive the distinctions. Nor would others, because it was unbelievable. It was nonetheless true of him. Among the types of activists of a movement there may be distinguished: the theorist, the researcher, the publicist, the agitator, the organizer, and the fund-raiser. A movement is oligarchic to the degree that the functions are concentrated in a few hands; it is bureaucratic to the degree to which the oligarchy assigns and restricts these tasks to specialists; it is democratic to the degree to which anyone can do whatever one pleases. Pensée was an oligarchy, Kronos developed beyond oligarchy into autocracy. The S. I. S. was an oligarchy with high turnover and open access. The cosmic heretics as a total aggregate were anarchic, and formed and transformed plastically, so that one could perceive the aforesaid stable organizations, then glimpse pairs, trios, bands, circles, and groups in process of becoming (such as C. Marx's small Basel group that embraced Professor Gunnar Heinsohn of the University of Bremen, and Milton Zysman's Toronto band, and Luckerman's small Los Angeles operation). The attentive public shaped itself over the period into ad hoc opponents and task forces (such as the AAAS panel), into members, supportive audiences, subscribers, book buyers, gossipers, fund-donors, materials-copiers-and-circulators --reflections indeed of the several functions, anarchically undertaken. An instance of the highest type of voluntarism came with Alice Miller, a San Francisco librarian, who put to herself uninvited and uncompensated the task of indexing intensively the works of V., and V. made the necessary arrangements to publish the book. The few scholars who obtained this work could now search to their heart's content for the fullest play and nuances of ideas (where such fullness existed) and for contradictions and errors. The first operation to be performed in serious criticism in as index; the memory of a reading or two rarely sets up written material adequately for analysis. Would that every high school student who today is being hastily introduced to a computer would be instructed in the philosophical logic underlying the indexing of content. Deg longed for an Alice Miller for his Q Series; his indexes were inadequate, even more than V. 's, because his work contained a larger proportion of abstract materials, which are harder to index. He found, for instance, that searching for "monotheism" in V. 's own indexes was useless; in Alice Miller's the idea came forth nicely, even beyond what V. might have wished to expose. We return to Deg's favorite pastime of counting, listing, and categorizing, and to his figures of the numbers involved. They are impressive for they may be exponential. Despite the casualties, the deaths, the desertions, the languishing, and the waywardness, and counting parallel little groupings and isolated active scholars, by the end of the decade of the sixties there were perhaps thirty true scientific catastrophists who had come up by the non-establishment route into the field of quantavolution, and by the end of another decade, there were fifty more creative workers in the field. Shadowing these, watching intently, and supporting them were several hundreds of others, close in. Shadowing the cosmic heretics, too, were a new group, union-card holders of the establishment, who are distinguished most readily by their denial that they are or ever were sympathetic to Velikovsky or any other quantavolutionist, or that they have ever sought or do now seek any ties with cosmic heretics. And these were equal and greater in numbers, carrying out the revolution by partial incorporation, the process whereby a revolutionary movements, as it advances, meets an opposition that has already been infected by and has adopted in part the principles of the revolution. It is at this point that most successful movements subside or are destroyed; their heirs are their enemies. As one can see, if workers number, say, 15 in 1 decade, 30 in another, and 80 in the next, a doubling process may be occurring, against all predictions that might be based upon resources available, unchanged state of the opposition, and so on. At this rate, with 150 to 200 in the 80's and 400 in the 90's taken with the activists who lend support to their views, the quantavolution viewpoint should enter the millennium primed for a large role in scientific thought. At the same time, it should be borne in mind, there will be attrition and desertions, doubling, and trebling the numbers of quantavolutionists outside of (but beginning to merge with) the establishment. But the threat of nuclear warfare to all civilization overshadows projections of science. One is tempted, in all of this speculation, to recite Keynes' ironic words, not about short-term economic policy but about short-sighted world politics: "In the long term, we'll all be dead." _________________________________________________________________ Be it admitted that Deg, publishing a special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist, had a perfect subject and extraordinary materials in the Velikovsky affair. But why should he stick with Velikovsky? Let Velikovsky say his piece and then be done with it. What of next month's issue of the magazine, and the month after? The journal needed continuous attention. What of the state of political science, and of higher education, if which he had always been so critical? What of the state of the nation, ibid? What of his family staggering into adolescence in the disturbed and unruly Princeton atmosphere? What of his meager fortune, skating on a thin monthly bank balance and a home mortgage? And his friends, the women and men who had been no more conversant with Velikovsky than he himself? And his book contracts: especially the American Way of Government, a good textbook in need of revision, whose care would lift his finances from year to year and carry his name around to hundreds of college communities. And the radical book on behalf of congressional supremacy that he was writing? What of his reputation, that, in line with the customary in academic careers, should now begin to rise to a peak, abetted by the constant "mending of fences" and "nursing of the constituency" ordinarily pursued among scholars in his circumstances? Or should he not now throw in his fortunes with a political party, Democrat or Republican, it mattered not, for in both he had "friends in high places." Close friends welcomed his participation in Barry Goldwater's camp and in Hubert Humphrey's; this would appear strange unless one understood that subjectively Deg was confident that he was his own man, and that he could find equal opportunities in both camps to exercise his skills and ideals, which, to put them in several words, were: decentralization, basic income guarantees, voluntarism, legislative rule at home, and representative government for the world. The American party system, however, no wise shared his bent for change. In all of this and through it all, why did Deg continue to involve himself with Velikovsky's problems? Did not he have enough problems of his own -- larger and more serious and worse? Did he not have as grand and earth-shaking ideas himself? Most of all, if he was to spend a great deal of time in promoting somebody, and it was not to be "the next President of the United States" then why didn't he build up his own reputation? He had had mean reviewers, scornful ones, too. His books had not sold very well, he had not yet won any considerable prize, no Pulitzer, no National Book Award. Still he could drum up audiences at colleges around the world. Bill Baroody wished that he might tour the country on behalf of the reconceptualized American Enterprise Institute, addressing public issues and garnering funds in the end. He was in mind as a political campaign manager here and there in the nation. He was offered the job of heading the social sciences division of UNESCO in Paris (and refused). Why should he waste his time on a political campaign in science, especially one that had already been victorious in principle (Jastrow, Polanyi, Sagan, Motz, Neugebauer, Kurtz, Hadas, and dozens of other personages had sooner or later pronounced themselves against the ill treatment of Velikovsky). Did not Elisheva insist to the end that he had opened up the final phase of Velikovsky's public appreciation? Was the establishment of the motions of Venus so important? Or the evidence of ancient catastrophes on Earth? Or the likelihood of collective amnesia, a common enough idea of wise men of all ages? Must the world of science sign line by line in agreement with Velikovsky's book -- the ultimate wish of a cult? No, none of this was so important. Well, what then? Was he sexually deprived? Did he identify Velikovsky with his own father? Many more motives offer themselves. Can one ever know? Why bother to ask, too? Yet it is a question that was asked at scores of lectures, receptions, meeting, and in personal discussions, a question that came out of the interest that people felt in their own motives, out of curiosity about what might be construed as altruism or some other form of abnormal behavior. It's Alfred's halva, Nina would say, meaning the joke about the man who loved sweet "Turkish Delight" and would turn the conversation to it at the slightest cue. Deg behaved as he did partly because he had enjoyed enough successes in other matters and success bored him. Deg did not attend to promoting his academic career because he was already a tenured professor, "heavily published" as they say, and where was there anything further to be gained; universities and colleges seemed ready to succumb to stupidity or insane revolts, but not to total self-evaluation and reform. They were, with governmental help, becoming ever more bureaucratized and inane. Besides he found self-promotion an embarrassment, all the more as he watched his acquaintances climb the rows of ladders inclined against decrepit edifices where committees and trustees held sway, and important research was kept in a corner like a bastard. He was not adverse to fame. To the contrary, he expected it to be "handed to him on a silver platter," to use one of his mother's expressions. Subjectively, he desired glory; objectively, externally, he had to scorn it. He was having his last words on Congress and the executive force, an appeal for the preservation of republican government that went against every major political and economic interest in America (and that communists and socialist when in power also and even more rampantly suppressed). He was, as I said, uninspired by the political movements of the moment, and even more so as they developed through the sixties and seventies of the century. The kindling problems of his family would burst into flame but he had no intention of becoming party to a decade of adolescent rebellion of the kind that ruins the best years of many Americans' lives. Besides, did he not have such splendid plans for going en masse to Europe for a year to teach the children foreign languages and escape the menacing youth and drug culture of Princeton? But look particularly to the controversy surrounding the Velikovsky matter: was it not exciting? The ideas at stake were of the highest order. Not only in sociology: for what sociology is more important than the sociology of knowledge (Sozialwissenschaft) that he had cut his eyes teeth on with Mannheim, Wirth, Shils, and Leites, and which was really the theme underlying his first book, Public and Republic, where ideas of representation were shown to be unconsciously operative and externally effective over hundreds of years and many different political generations? Also there was excitement in the substance of this strange new kind of science. Scattered about but eager to stay in touch were dozens of intelligent people interested in one or more of the hundred fields upon which quantavolution impinged. More exciting and elevating than yachting, the horseraces, gambling, cocktail parties, tourist travel, religious routines, better than the eviscerated or wrongheaded politics of the times. In the final analysis it was the unlimited firing of sky rockets in all directions that held Deg to the course of quantavolution and bound him to his friend Velikovsky. There was the intransigent personality of Velikovsky. Even some opponents, Robert Jastrow, Walter Sullivan and Motz, for instance, found him fascinating. He was always there, the tallest mountain in Princeton and anywhere else, so far as Deg could observe. A series of entries from Deg's Journal, most of them from the year 1968, show what I mean. But first a letter from Velikovsky to Deg, before the ABS issue of September 1963 had made its impact, to show that V. had no intention of letting his new friend escape his camp by crossing the ocean: August 16, 1963 Dear Professor de Grazia: It was very good to have a letter from you in Paris. I like to hear that you may come to the States in October. No old castles here, no ancient arenas, but you will be most certainly engaged in some skirmishes in the tournament for which the scene is being set. Larrabee's article produced certain effect (I assume it was mailed to you) and the foundations of the establishment are being loosened. (...) A few papers started to comment on the issue, one or two colleges invited me to speak before their students, much discussions going on without reaching the printed page, and I am emerging from the "shadow of darkness." (...) I wish I could bring to our side a few prominent scholars and scientists. I write to de Madariaga about Lord Russell whom he knows. You may say again, 'Cabot', but visualize the effect on the closed scientific ring of one such renegade. I wish to think that Mrs. de Grazia and your children are enjoying their many new impressions, and the old villa makes them feel that theirs is part of an old heritage. Turgeniev wrote someplace that two urges live in a human soul -- a striving for far away lands and a longing for the homeland and home. Mrs. Velikovsky joins me in wishing all of you good health and animated months ahead. Cordially Yours, Immanuel Velikovsky PS The mail brings an envelope with copies of letters received by Harper's. Menzel of Harvard Observatory writes a 17 pages letter, unfair, emotional: he exposes himself to embarrassing statements of fact. A battle of letters started. At the present, the response runs 50% against 50%. Therefore any articulate supporter -- or opponent -- should enter the fracas, the earlier the better. Mobilize your friends! -- I. V. A year later, Deg was not only still in the camp, no matter where he was, but he was suffering privately the annoyances of the camp. His journal of September 1st, 1964 from London is relevant. He is on his way to the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, to lecture on American politics and will from there go to Marina di Massa where his daughter Catherine will be wedded to the best-looking boy on the beach, Dante Matelli. Left for London at 10 AM. On way to airport penciled a crude note to Velikovsky, finally telling him bluntly of my feelings towards him. I said, "Dear Immanuel, I am writing this on the bus to the plane. Last night I went again over the letters and material for Rabinovitch, to the detriment of many pressing affairs. I finally decided to send out nothing at the moment. "You will receive the page proofs on the Margolis critique. Please make only absolutely necessary corrections (I do not care if you offer to pay for them.) Issue is already late. Please do not call my office or the printers. Your inability to let go of anything will be the ruin of our friendship and of the magazine. Sincerely, Alfred". I handed the letter to a passenger agent just before stepping aboard the PanAm Clipper. It culminated a day of annoyance and desperation that began when I courteously called Velikovsky to say goodbye. To those who know him well, the history of the next 24 hours was to be clear. He wanted to rewrite letters, call lawyers, discuss imbroglios, in short, utterly and without conscience disrupt my carefully measured out and urgent last hours before departure. And worse, he succeeded. This hardly matters. The friendship, the campaign, continues, and V. is still the mastermind. When Deg goes abroad in 1966, V. has ideas of how he should spend his time in Israel and Egypt: Feb. 14, 1966 Dear Mrs. de Grazia: Please do not send this letter to Alfred if he already left Italy. Im. Velikovsky. Dear Alfred: I received your note written before leaving for airport. Should you visit Jerusalem you may wish to give personal regards to President Zaluccan Shazar -- our friend, especially of Elisheva, of many years. He will be glad to hear that Elsheva is active as sculptor and as a chamber-musician (as good as ever); and Elisheva wishes him to know of the change in the attitude of the scientific world to my book with many discoveries of the Space Age; the fact that I am invited to speak at Yale, Princeton, Duke, Pittsburgh, Wisconsin, Oberlin, Brandeis, etc., is an indication. I wish you good weather (pleasant driving, good new friends, and many invigorating experience). Regards from Elisheva and my regards for Paul and John. Yours, Immanuel. [P. S.] It would be good if at the Cairo Museum you could obtain some organic object of the time of Ramses II or Ramses II (or of both) for radiocarbon test( better seed, mummy swathing, leather, papyrus, linen -- and not wood, if possible) at the lab of the University of Pennsylvania (Dr. Elizabeth Ralph.) To apply to Dr. Isnander Hanna (Director at the Lab at the Museum). The material needs to be sent from museum to museum with all the precautions. By far better not to mention my name. If any difficulty, I shall try to obtain the samples by asking Dr. Ralph to write to Dr. Hanna. Deg's Journal, January 18, 1967 Phoned Velikovsky tonight. Elisheva came on the wire too, at his request. I told them what I was doing to institute a Foundation. He was quite subdued. He is not used to having anything taken out of his hands. Both were happy, I could tell, at the thought of something they had talked so much about moving so quickly to a climax. Anti-Velikovskianism's first line of defense is the impossibility of his theories. Then, I suppose, if proved right, it will be said that he was a simple scribe: he read an inscription which told what happened. That position will not endure, either, for he worked in a superhuman way to piece together the shattered mosaic. Deg's Journal, November 15, 1967 9 P. M. Immanuel called met at twilight to tell me Stephanos had called his attention to the Nov. 3 issue of Science magazine wherein Professor R. Eshleman of Stanford University, Electrical Engineer and Co-Director of the Stanford Center for Radar Astronomy had raised briefly the question whether the baffling puzzle of Venus being 'locked-in' to Earth might be answered by the Velikovskian hypothesis of an historical collision of the two bodies. A year ago Science refused to accept an advertisement for one of his books. "who knows, Alfred, whether the Nobel prize, which has had a poor record very often, might not come." I said, "Immanuel, your biography is your triumph. You do not need these foolish prizes." Deg's Journal, 1/ 4/ 68 [Providence] At 2: 30 I left the ribald company of Mike N., N., Jim Kane, Al Saglio, Tom Yatman, and Edwin Safford at the Spaghetti House to visit Prof. Otto Neugebauer at Brown University. His office is in an old red brick house next to the new Library and has an entrancing scholarly air to it, closed into the basement, holding several tables, everything with a century old appearance that I too should find a perfect atmosphere for quiet study and work. O. N. was somewhat suspicious of me, as well he might be, knowing that I sponsored a special defense of Velikovsky's work. However, like most true intellectuals, once engaged, his defenses were down and he spoke vociferously, indignantly, said he couldn't waste time on the foolishness and trickery of V. but proceeded to amplify at great length, his little blue eyes peering directly into mine and his slight but determined German voice carrying effectively, even colloquially, his arguments. He disputed hotly the idea that there had been or was any conspiracy against V., (I stated that I too disagreed with V. on this point), and he felt that V. was employing the tools of propaganda and sophistry against him and others. Who can deny this, too? But there seemed to be little reason to go into the political aspects of the controversy, inasmuch as O. N. could not know, more than V., the dynamics of this process, and I essayed questioning him upon several critical issues concerning Babylonian tablets. He declared twice that he had "no investment" in the words of the tablets and could take or refuse any interpretation, depending only upon its truth. They were only a minor interest with him, not even "minor," less than minor. He said he had not read Stecchini's interpretations of Kugler's work (and declared offhandedly but vigorously that much had been learned since Kugler's time anyhow). He declared that the observations in the Venusian tablets of Ammizaduga came from erroneous reportings of lunar movements that, in turn, had been used by the Babylonians to measure the movement of Venus. An amateur, he said, would transfer his ignorance of the ancient reports into a wrong interpretation that it was Venus, not the Moon, that was moving erratically. He declared emphatically that from their beginnings around 700 B. C. there were no unexplainable irregularities. (He kept reasserting, and I had to stave off as not relevant to the argument, which was the empirical facts re the tablets, that the whole V. thesis was mechanically impossible, that any 10-year old schoolboy would know how the Earth would be destroyed by anything approaching a collision with Venus, and so forth). He said further that there was little or no reporting of any planetary behavior in a scientific way priot to about 700 B. C. ( I didn't press for the exact date) that, for instance, there was no reporting of Saturn before 400 B. C. Earlier records are largely the oracles which deal with sun, moon, and a bright star (which could have been Venus, since it is the brightest and hence would oppose V.'s theories of the non-existence of Venus before ca. 1500 B. C. ) He asserted further that Egyptian chronology was perfectly established, on the basis of the Egyptian lunar calendar (based on a thirty-year cycle) that carried back to the very earliest times. He claimed that the whole V. affair showed the basically anti-intellectual atmosphere of the population. I asked whether it did not show also the failing of the establishment of science to perceive its "public problems," and offered the opinion that if he, and others such as Harrison Brown, had dealt with V.'s work more seriously, there would have been no prolonged vicious aftermath, to which he grudgingly acceded. Then he added that there should not be such an accent on "going to the moon" so that billions were being largely wasted, for which sums the whole of Mesopotamia could be dug up down to its virgin soil. Then said he, we should have all of these problem solved. To which I agreed. I asked whether someone should not set forth the thirty or sixty principal factual theses of V. and find specialists on each topic to criticize V. He had mixed feelings about the idea (first taking it personally, of course, "I don't have time for that!") holding that V.'s ideas were too vague to discuss, that this would prove that the "conspiracy" actually did exist: that there would be too few to undertake the job in certain areas (such as his own of Assyriology and Babylonia); but that it might be a proper way to get to the heart of the matter. He was, on the whole, quite negative re the general problem and hostile to V. As I was leaving, he said: "I just received a letter from Chandrasekhar of the University of Chicago. He is the physicist. He asks whether we shouldn't do something about the Yale Scientific Magazine issue of V. I replied that there was no use to it." I walked out into the winter snow-threatening afternoon and down the streets of exquisite old structures of Providence's East Side to Mike's house, thinking of what I had learned and of the beauties of this old part of town. 1. N [eugebauer] is convinced V. plays a tricky game: "He couldn't answer my colleague's questions at a Brown University meeting, but said he would reply to them the next day. Then he didn't appear." 2. He believes V. to be a foolish and wicked amateur. 3. His direct assertions concerning the Venusian tablets should be worked into a direct encounter with V.'s words (...) 4. N appeared uncertain about Kugler, and unconvincingly dismissed him. 5. N is persuaded that V. is arguing in a great circle, using established theories as grounds for criticizing deviations and unknowns and for proving the deviations accord with his theories, then destroying the established framework without perceiving that his interpretation of the deviations is itself dependent upon and sponsored by the established theories. N. did not say so, but this kind of problem is fundamental to all theoretical change: man is dependent for what he sees on what he has been taught to perceive, so how can be prove wrong what he has been taught, if his new vision is wholly dependent upon being preceded by the old one ? 6. I feel the need to organize an 'Anti-Velikovsky' symposium where highly reputed scholars are asked to address themselves to a meaningful segment of a carefully prepared set of questions that test the whole fabric of V.'s theories. Logically V. cannot dispute this procedure. It would, I think, cause him to be angry with me. So be it. Deg's Journal, January 20,1968 I have been visiting with Velikovsky once or twice a week since November, and have reread Earth in Upheaval and Ages in Chaos. Since I have been heavily occupied with the theory of activities of the federal government, the American Government text revision, a plan for a business company should I decide to leave the academic world, and so forth, I indicated to V. ten days ago that I could not organize the magazine that we had always talked of publishing. Then, for some reason, a week ago, I thought "We must start a foundation for V. and his work." I asked Richard Kramer to initiate the papers for organization of a corporation not-for-profit in N. J... settled on PO Box 294 and my home as the address, and decided to ask Juergens, Stecchini, Kramer, and Herb Neuman to join me in the first Board of Directors. I called each man to invite them aboard and received their prompt acceptances. Deg's Journal, March 2, 1968 This morning I am resolving to withdraw myself as much as possible from Immanuel's campaign for honors and recognition. A full eight hours went to him yesterday; it is too much, considering what I must, do for my own work. In its way, it deserves the same kind of attention V. gives to his and I give to his. My intellectual children may be scrawnier but I cannot turn them out to starve in the cold. I give up lectures that, just like his, might explain my ideas and bring me income, as for example one that I turned down today for $100 and expenses before an audience of civil service officials in Washington. My ideas go undefended, many aspects of them go unexpressed. I do not give them the tender, fierce, loving care that every man's respectable notions deserve. Let's see whether I can behave by this resolve. Deg's Journal, March 3, 1968 March is come cold and blustering. Jill and I rode our bikes to Mom's where Ed and his young friend, Margaret C... were visiting. We arrived frozen. M. C. has just returned from 2 weeks in Boston, under the tutelage of a Yoga guru. I say to Ed, in greeting, 'Ah, here is the "slim, elegant Sicilian!" ', quoting Norman Mailer's autobiographical novella of the "March on the Pentagon" that is printed in the current Harper's Magazine. [Edward organized the legal defense of the arrested protesters.] Jill says, of Margaret, 'Girls who have had trouble with their fathers work it off well. Girls who have had difficulties with their mothers do not. ' She cites Jung on the point. And we string out many examples. It is probably true, even as an unrefined statement. I ruminate: so important, so simple are basic truths. What conceals it and them? Great truths and discoveries are not hidden by their complexity but by jamming of our ideological cognitive, and perceptive machinery. Velikovsky, the other night, quoted me Butterfield's comment that the very young can understand principles of science and nature that have baffled the greatest minds of history. I think V., who is in essence a philosophical realist, uses this idea in only a limited way. He means that the young haven't had their tender minds distorted by unfact. It is more importantly to be understood that the mind is structured in each generation to receive some truths and reject others, or better, some half-truths. Both V. and perhaps Butterfield unjustifiably abstract the mind from its context. It has, for instance, been pointed out by numerous defenders of classicism, such as neo-Thomists, that we believe the ancients foolish or unperceptive of truth because of our partial and current truth-idolatry; freed from contemporary ideology, we can understand truth as the ancients discovered it and agree with them. Deg's Journal, April 30, 1968 A. M., en route to NYC Half of this past warm flowering weekend in Princeton has been spent with Velikovsky or on matters related to him. We spent Saturday afternoon going over materials that might be suited for the proposed book "V. and his Critics" that I am discussing with Kluger of Simon and Schuster. We spoke also of the foundation for Studies in Modern Science, which I have organized. He named eight major problems that are critical to his theories, and I am taking them into consideration in the memorandum which I am preparing on the program of the Foundation. Bob Stephanos called me on Friday night upon my return from NY to tell me that Mr. Mainwaring of Philadelphia, an admirer of V., intended to help financially. Both V. and I had written letters to M., who runs a family manufacturing firm and is, I hear, a person of some intellectual stature. V. was naturally pleased. He talked on and on, I edging him back to a subject from time to time. Sunday evening, V seized the initiative and called Prof. Philip Hammond of Brandeis U. to ask about his possible interest in excavating at El Arish for signs of the siege of the Hyksos fortress by the allied armies of Saul and Thutmose, about 1050 B. C. in V.'s chronology. The digging would be a crucial test of the V. theory of ancient history. Hammond, who had given indications of sympathy years ago, appeared enthusiastic. He offered to go El Arish with two assistants if we could organize the expedition. After learning this from V., I called David Dietz to ask whether he would still be interested in taking part in the expedition. He was. Yesterday, Monday, I asked Harry Hess of Princeton University Geological Department to serve on the Board of Trustees of the Foundation. After some demurral (later, V. would be mystified by his hesitation since 'Hess definitely agreed to join. ' but I was not mystified.) Poor Hess who is one of the busiest man alive with his Space Board, Mohole and other activities, couldn't take the leap into the cold water without encouragement. So I purred gently, sympathetically, and finally he said with a hopeless smile "Aw hell, OK, put me on"! (...) Deg's Journal, May, 1968 N [ina] and I met at the Museum of Modern Art at six yesterday after discussion with Kluger, of Simon and Schuster. A surrealist exhibition was on. Max Ernst, Nadelman, Matisse, Ram bear up very well. Picasso rarely becomes human enough to excite me. His lines are cold and cruel. De Chirico's colors seem shabby now. It was a brave moment and said a lot. We drank beer and ate cheese and crackers in the garden of the Museum, which filled with grey rosy lights as the sun set. Rodin's Balzac, seen from above, is stern and emotionally stirring. A Picasso She-goat is my great love. Back at Washington Square, N. prepared a light supper at her place and accompanied me to my work. I talked to Velikovsky at length, recounting my conversation with Richard Kluger and explaining my plans and hopes for the expedition. As usual, he was difficult to converse with but excited more than I've ever felt him to be before. I told him that I thought we should film the El Arish episode from beginning to end. and he was fully agreed. I wonder, or course, continuously, whether we shall find what we are after beneath the town -- the siege evidence and artifacts of Saul's army, the Egyptians, the Hyksos. I hung up the phone and went to work sorting out materials to be used in my Reader on American Government N. said "Velikovsky can never finish his work." "Nor can I!" I replied. "He has thirteen books to go, when we last counted them. I am as badly off." She asked me what I had to finish: "You have done so much." "Not at all," I said, impatiently. "We do not measure ourselves by other men, but by an absolute criterion of what we might conceivably do." And then I ticked off what I imagined I might yet do: the publication of my collected papers of the past the American Government books another book of poetry several novels, mostly autobiographical a philosophy of science "the new political order" and whatever would intervene, such as the El Arish story and the government operations study, and who knows what else: editing the Velikovsky and His Critics book, for example (...) I spoke to Sebastian about other matters on the telephone during the day. We are concerned about the troubles that Eddie is having over the custody of the children in divorcing Ellen (...) Bus told me of a quarrel between Renzo Sereno and his wife one time over a lady, possibly a mistress, of Renzo. "The only reason you like her is because she thinks you're great," declared the wife. Bus and I breathed reverently over this gem for a minute of ATT long-distance time and charges. What has come over womankind? What do they imagine to be the foundation for a man's love and devotion, even charm, even presence? After a day of labor selecting readings for my American Government Reader in the company of Eric Weise and John Appel, I entrained for Princeton, snoozing aboard, and arriving happily into the fresh air of the countryside. John, Carl, and Chris were all in excellent mood, the one fixing things on the old Cadillac, Carl playing his Beethoven pieces, and Chris shooting baskets. Mom came to dinner, bringing some freshly picked and cooked wild cardoons. At nine I biked to Velikovsky's home, Francie loping alongside and for two hours, while she stretched comfortably in the middle of his parlor, we talked and argued over who should do what about books, magazines, and the ever-growing prospect of the expedition to El Arish. Prof. Philip Hammond caught me by telephone soon after I arrived from N. Y. C. to reaffirm his interest. I asked him whether he would, in addition to his usual excavation reports, accept co-authoring of a popular book on El Arish that I was proposing to Simon and Schuster and he accepted promptly. I like the sound of him, though we have not yet met. V. was difficult. He holds out things and then pulls them back. He wants to do too much himself. I try to take responsibilities off his shoulders and he fights to keep them and even to take new ones. He wishes to discuss every small decision, to control every document. He is elated over our plans but becomes more demanding and even a little more paranoid as events speed up. He has a poor sense of organization and scheduling where other human beings are involved. His own immense mental world can grab and hold everything and shake it out in marvelous patterns, but the world of affairs has its own ruthless laws, that treat all men equally, and that make their own patterns. Now came time for the Foundation to form and the incorporators met to elect themselves and additional members to the Board of Trustees, and to transact business. R. P. Kramer, L. Stecchini, R. Juergens and Deg coopted Horace Kallen, Harry H. Hess, A. Bruce Mainwaring, John Holbrook Jr., Robert C. Stephanos, and Warner Sizemore. The date was June 2, 1968, a day that would not go down in history. Deg was chosen President and other preliminaries were disposed of. Then the ill-fated excursion to El Arish, where the capital of the Hyksos supposedly lay buried, was taken up. Everyone knew already that Mainwaring and Holbrook had put up some funds, that a Dr. Hammond had been approached to lead the group, and a contract had been drawn up. Deg set forth a budget, even the minimal costs of which were well beyond the pledged resources of group. Besides the preliminary soundings at El Arish, papers on the "hydrocarbons" of Venus and its temperature changes were to be commissioned, a publication was to be prepared, preparations to receive and use V.'s archives were in order, a magazine was to be inaugurated, and besides there were provisions for work on collective amnesia, dating systems, magnetic polarity, evolutionary theory, the psychology of catastrophe, electromagnetic cosmic models, and the reception system of science. A happy set of prospects indeed, every one of which the foundation was to fail to inaugurate, much less carry on to any extent. The case of El Arish will suffice as an exemplum horribilis. In June, A. Biran of the Israeli Department of Antiquities wrote to Deg saying: Indeed there is much interest in the archaeology and history of the area but unfortunately it is not always possible to satisfy this curiosity. Even I with all my interest and curiosity have not yet been either to Kadesh Barbea, Mons Cassius, or Qantara... July found Deg in Naxos, ready to go to Israel if needed, and John Holbrook had gone to Israel to seek permission to begin a site survey at El Arish. Deg is getting a variety of inputs from his assistant: July 10, 1968 ... I spoke with Velikovsky today. He told me that Holbrook had arrived here yesterday. A copy of all the correspondence is on its way to us. The gist of it is that Holbrook saw Biran and Dotan, the chief archaeologist, and that the Israelis would like to see more solid support from Americans. Biran said that FOSMOS seems a bit fly-by-night to them. Another problem is that they don't want to grant foreigners the right to dig in occupied territory. But apparently they have softened a little, and if they could see something more established in support of the dig, well then... So Holbrook is going to ask somebody at Yale about it, a Professor Popo. I read your report of the Natural Museum with interest. I will probably get to the Met sometime this week. The figure you described on the one vase are usually interpreted as Amazons, and I am going to compare the costumes with those of the Busiris vase, out of curiosity. I think there is also a book on Greek arms, with should have something in it about helmets. I am sure you are enjoying Greece -- it's so wild, beautiful, clean and clear... Meanwhile John Holbrook is grinding his gears in Israel and is addressing a set of marvelously detailed letters to V., a copy of which he then sent to Deg. Holbrook writes to V. on July 10, 1968: Now I am in a bit of a quandry. First, I have no reason to doubt Biran's word that the military situation in the Sinai area prohibits any extended work at El Arish at this time. Second, although I shall certainly see Dothan when he returns from the field at the end of the week, I cannot pledge the support of the foundation to the extent of $50,000. Although we have great hopes for it, the treasury of the foundation is still a bit empty. That being the case, I can only explore the possibility of organizing an expedition to El Arish at some indefinite time in the future (when military situation permits) on the most tentative basis. Much will depend upon what I learn from Dothan. At the very least, I hope that I shall be able to get a look at the site before I leave. One other matter deserves mention. There is no way of telling the extent to which opposition to your work played a role in the rejection of our proposal. There were other reasons for rejecting it. Latter Holbrook ventures an opinion on the actual site: Quite frankly, although I am sure that a complete archaeological survey of the Wadi El Arish and its vicinity might be extremely useful, I am willing to bet that the first trench which is dug in the area which I have described above, the northern quarter of town, will not be found empty or unrewarding. Little could be done with the El Arish party, upon which V. had set the highest priority (and did for the rest of his life and rightly so, says Deg). The failure was bad enough, but to Deg the most disagreeable part of the episode was the way in which V. began to find grounds for opposing Hammond after he had agreed on his competence and leadership qualities, and had invited him to lead the operation. V. soon convinced himself, and then Holbrook, that Hammond was pro-Arab and would be persona non grata to the Israeli authorities, until they were actually approaching the Israeli saying in effect "We know how you must feel about Hammond, but we are aware of this situation and are taking care of it," whereupon the Israeli, in the case of President Shazar, said, "What are you talking about, who is Hammond?" Deg's Journal, October 20,1968 Velikovsky and I talked for the first time in a week yesterday afternoon and again last night. He leaves for a grand lecture tour of Texas today. We have counseled him not to go to California to talk, a little later on, because he would become tired and he absolutely should finish Peoples of the Sea. He continues to add new data to the work, which is slender still though, like a stick of dynamite. We argued over the final contract details of Velikovsky and His Critics, which I am not keen to do anyway, given my poor financial state and other projects of greater personal importance. He wanted us to guarantee mutually that we would not submit the final manuscript without his approval, in effect. It is of course a perilous idea, for he hangs onto everything and cannot suffer any criticism. I drew up an appropriate missive, but added words to the effect that we would also be jointly responsible if Simon & Schuster publishers sought damages from us for non-delivery of the manuscript. As I suspected, he balked, and talked of legal formalism. I laughed and expostulated "But you want everything, complete authority and no responsibility!" It is the same with the Foundation we are creating: he wants it to follow his every wish, but does not think that he should be identified with it. He then said, "All right, Alfred, we will agree just among ourselves, without a paper. You will not submit it without my approval." "O. K." And then we went on to argue over the student strike movement, which he fears will undermine authority and disrupt education. "A tiny minority has no right to interfere with the majority who want to study." I told him that minorities are the media of change in any field. I asked whether, if the French students had not rioted in May, there ever would have been the Faure reforms of last week, "No matter!" He would change his mind. I can always win a argument with him on politics, by citing his own case and the history of modern Israel. On these two great contradictions of order, stability, and authority, much of his life is built; they make all of his defenses of authority and majorities vulnerable. "What do you think of Onassis?" I asked to change the subject. "Who?" Onassis, and Jackie Kennedy. "Oh! I tell you that I think it is a second assassination of Kennedy." Beautiful, I thought, either way. His idea is the same as that of all the maudlin sentimentalists, Kennedy-dead worshippers, the sanctimonious, the suttee-ists. My way, it is revenge for a not too great love, followed by the maddening experience of suffering all of this cant and sick reverence. All of these mass-media addicts were hoping she would end up with a crew-cut college sophomore from Princeton. So she picks the ugly old Greek pirate, and I am personally pleased. The Hollywood and Madison Avenue brainwashed crowds have their fairy tale exploded once again. I know that people live off of these fairy tales; that is what makes valid history and rational politics impossible for them. Perhaps I should feel sorry for the great boobery, but I am diabolically pleased with Jackie's revenge upon them. And upon JFK too, with his harrowing political life and difficult character and mistresses. What is there to insult in his memory, I ask myself, and what business is it of old ladies and shopgirls to define her husband. "Onassis, I don't know the gentleman. Probably they like each other. I wish them happiness." Basta. We returned to majorities and here is how he defined the Jewish majority in Palestine. "Over history, the dead of the Jews are a majority in that country. They live in that tradition wherever they are," Voting the dead to make a majority, like the Confederate southerners do, or the bosses of "rotten boroughs" in the northern cities. Grussgott! What would V. say to these majorities and so many others that are alive, as well. But Israel is the idée fixe; facts are the dependent variable. Indeed, as I have known for as long as I have known him, the idée fixe, the highly conventional, traditional literal interpretation of and respect for the Biblical passages: from this conservative position spewed forth in all directions the most radical theories. Deg's Journal, October 25, 1968 Reflecting upon the failure of our infant foundation to launch an archaeological expedition at El Arish last summer, I think it may be well to set down my view, which contrasts somwhat with that of Velikovsky and Holbrook. V. was too willing to accept rumors about Prof. Philip Hammond and placed too strong a weight upon adverse facts. V. had no right, as I told him bluntly, to destroy Hammond's possible role as leader of the expedition on grounds that Hammond was pro-Arab and that he had a mistress who would accompany him. Holbrook, whom I regard highly and even warmly, with all his youthful arrogance, was too ready to accept V.'s evaluations and then afterwards the position expressed by the Israeli authorities, to wit, that we could not afford to support the diggings and that the political situation was dangerous. I felt that we had gone so far in our adventure that we ought to have let Hammond himself battle with the Israeli. He might, I think, have outfaced them and dragged in his crew and equipment over their grumpy dispositions. I doubt that we would have uncovered anything of great significance in a few weeks, but we would have planted our flag. We would have moved on from there. Deg's Journal, November 2, 1968 Met with Velikovsky this afternoon. He is back from a triumphal tour of lectures in Texas. We argued over plans for the foundation. Juergens was present. I asked him pointblank to pull out any materials he might have that others had sent him and might be used as articles for the proposed journal. He did so. [There was almost nothing.] I asked him also to pull together all his address lists and to let us place a man in his house to built up a list of friends with whom we might communicate. He agreed. I was most pleased. I borrowed V. 's manuscript on Peoples of the Sea to read again, and left with everyone in cordial spirits. What a difficult man but what an enormous grasp of everything, intellectually and physically! I must set some probability theorist to work on some of V. 's proofs. They are strong as they stand in their conventional historiographical form. But an application of mathematics would do much more, e. g. the chances that the Greek letter on the backs of Ramses III's tiles might be some 'flowing' or shorthand hieroglyphics. The Foundation spent the fall of the year, following the El Arish fiasco, in some small constructive matters and in self-destructive self-appraisals prompted by V.'s misgivings, Ralph Juergens addressed the Board of Trustees extensively on November 13, writing inter alia: 1. ... He [Velikovsky] is concerned that funds collected, as it were, in his name, as gifts intended to further his own researches, will be diverted to other purposes. Among such other purposes he includes such FOSMOS projects as the Institute in Connecticut, the journal Cosmology (...) To the doctor's way of thinking, only two projects thus far discussed would be legitimate applications of such donated funds: a) the El Arish dig, and b) the hiring of Princeton graduate students to carry out library and/ or laboratory research under his direction. 2. Dr. Velikovsky is aware of our plans to launch a direct-mail campaign early in January and he is offended at not having been consulted in the preparation of mailing pieces. (...) He insists, at the very least, that literature sent out make absolutely clear to the reader that he is not the power behind the foundation and that he will not be a recipient, direct or indirect, of any funds collected by the foundation.(...) It seems to me... that some rather fundamental misunderstandings remain to be cleared up, not only between Dr. Velikovsky and the Board of Directors, but perhaps also among members of the Board. In the first place, there is confusion as to the purposes of the foundation. It may be that Dr. Velikovsky has never seen a copy of our by-laws, which seem to make the point that the foundation is to serve as a clearinghouse for a variety of information, not all of it necessarily related in any obvious way to Dr. Velikovsky's work. This would appear to leave us free to tread ways not yet probed by the Doctor. And of course we thus face the danger of becoming what Dr. Velikovsky would call a clearinghouse for cranks. But our statement of purpose at least broadens our horizons to the extent that we cannot think of our organization as a 'Velikovsky' foundation. Or can we? The confusion seem rooted in the fact that we members of the Board, almost to a man, have been brought together through our common desire to see his work get a fair hearing. Do we really intend to operate a "Velikovsky" foundation in spite of our more abstractly stated purpose? If so, we must accept certain consequences, e. g., foregoing a tax-exempt status and placing absolute veto-power -- quite properly -- in the hands of the Doctor. If not, I suggest that we make haste to disillusion ourselves and Dr. Velikovsky. On November 22, Deg writes a harsh letter to V.: November 22, 1968 Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky 78 Hartley Avenue Princeton, New Jersey 08540 Dear Immanuel, As you have no doubt expected, your succession of favorable and unfavorable comments concerning the progress of the Foundation has created a crisis of morale among the Trustees. For years you longed for just such an organization to dedicate itself to the testing and propagation of your theories, and now that we have constructed it you are undermining it. You trust nobody, delegate nothing, and have, partly therefore, no capacity for administration. You also do not wish anyone to speak in your name but wish help to drift down like manna to dispose of as you desire. Actually, we shall be trying to do both things -- administration and help in spite of you, if you do not disrupt the process. The Board of Trustees has unanimously pledged itself to an independent course. Whatever the Board of Trustees believes to be useful to the advancement of science, it will seek to foster. It cannot bargain with anybody. If it chooses to do one thing rather than another, it does so, not out of friendship to you but out of respect for the work that you and others like you have done. In order to make demands of others, both inside and outside of the Foundation, I have to make demands of you. You should cease making accusations against the Board, even if only among the inner circle. You should cease bargaining over your Archive and the materials that you do not intend to personally use, and let the Foundation work with a copy of them as soon as it can arrange to do so. You should accept what we can offer you (or reject it) in good spirits, knowing that we are doing our best in a complicated setting over which we do not have complete control and that some times we must obtain indirectly what we cannot gain directly. The men on the Board are your friends. If you have better ones, let them step forward and we shall welcome them. The men on the Board are not the best scientists in the world and, if you know better ones, we shall welcome them too. The Board has to finance the Foundation's activities in whatever ways it deems appropriate. If you have the names of persons who, you believe, might contribute to its work, we shall be happy to receive them. If you wish to reserve the names of certain individuals or groups for your personal solicitations, please let us have their names and we shall not approach them, whether in your name or in the name of the Foundation. If you disagree with the policies of the Foundation, we would value your opinions. But you cannot have a veto over anything that the Foundation does. If you do not wish to relate to the Foundation in all of these ways and want to dissociate yourself from the Foundation, I believe that you should do so, either by a personal advertisement in a journal or by letter to all those of your acquaintances who matter. I shall then put a resolution to the Board to the effect that the Foundation will go ahead with its philosophy and plans. If the vote is positive, we shall go ahead with its philosophy and plans. If the vote is positive, we shall go ahead; if not, we shall dissolve the Foundation, an action which will disappoint me and give me immense relief at the same time. Of course, if you do not desire to take any such measures, I would assume that you are basically pleased with our work and will work in tandem with us. With warm personal regards, as always, Sincerely, Alfred de Grazia V., Deg learned from Elisheva and Ruth, was upset. Then he proceeded to put some of the blame upon Juergens, where it most certainly did not belong. Dear Ralph: Yesterday morning, as you know, I received a rude letter from de Grazia with unfounded accusations and it shocked me. Suspecting some provocation, I called you. You disclosed to me that already on November 13 you have sent a memo to him and to the members of the Board of FOSMOS. Next I was surprised to read the memo and its content being your interpretation of a discussion we had at one of our meetings. I wonder why you have not checked with me on the correct presentation of my views or at least mailed me a copy of the memo. Giving it yesterday to me, you gave me also a covering letter. Your intent was good -- you must have suffered observing that I am under wrong impression based on oral declarations made to me, whereas the Board assumes a different policy; and it is good that you brought the situation into the open. Your memo, however, is full of inexactitudes; knowing you for pedantically accurate, I wonder at your rendition of our conversation. The only explanation I would know, is psychological: your opposition to the idea of the Foundation -- or only to the dichotomy (you use the term 'duplicity'), and that can be a subconscious urge during your writing. (...) The sentence in your memo that obviously outraged de Grazia who repeats it is "veto power." Nothing of the kind was spoken between us or between anybody else. There is a wide gulf between a "veto power" and being kept in the darkness, as several instances in this letter testify. (...) If time permits, I shall also put in writing what I exactly expect from the Foundation. As to yourself, you know how I value you; you are also at this time the closest. To you I always opened all my files. I wish you would be the one to organize my archive. I never promised Alfred anything concerning the disposition of it, though we discussed its lodging at Princeton University. Most offensive to me is his reference to my "bargaining" I never responded to his many approaches... Juergens then writes to Deg and passes along a never-sent but typed letter to Deg from V. with the hand-written notation "This transcript of a letter drafted was not mailed nor typed -- it dates from probably 1967. I. V. November 26, 1968." Dear Alfred: Yesterday evening when I was already preparing for sleep I had your telephone call. Elisheva listened too. You told us of your plan to incorporate a foundation for studies in modern science. At your last visit about a week ago you first mentioned of some step taken by a partner of yours to charter a search along the lines pioneered in my books, thus to exploit possibilities now neglected because of the inertia or ever opposition of scientific groups or the entire scientific establishment to new approaches and especially those embodied in my work. You told me yesterday of the founding committee that you intend to convoke in a few days -- two names out of the business world, unknown to me, but also Livio and Ralph, and a few more. You indicated that I should at some point assume honorary presidency of the new venture. A new publication should be one of the projected activities. Organizing of my archive, another project. I was through with my sleep at 3 a. m. when Elisheva that did not yet fall asleep came to discuss the project. Her thoughts and mine (crystallized by the sleep) were very similar. The positive in your plan needs not be recapitulated by me for you. But here are the adverse conditions. For over a quarter century, since 1939, when I came to this country and dedicated my time to research in ancient history, I carried the material load of existence and study and writing with their concurrent expenses entirely by myself. This, at the end, gave me great satisfaction since alone and a stranger in the land facing since 1950 the concerted opposition of faculties, scientific societies, and scientific publications, I now find myself in a changing climate, even though animosity in some circles, or among some individual is even more vitriolic than before, but this can be recognized as defense mechanism. Should your Foundation and money drives be instituted, the following will occur: 1. My adversaries who tried to present me as a charlatan but could not point to any unproper action on my part, would be supplied with ammunition -- a money collection [sentence unfinished] 2. Scientific organization like American Philosophical Society or scientific publications, like Science of AAAS show recently some change of heart; this mimosa-like attitude would be very sensitive to any activities [sentence unfinished] 3. Also many of my friends and followers would experience some shock if they should feel that a monetary pursuit under whatever guise accompanies my work and I would feel embarrassed. 4. I am most averse, even afraid of being made affiliated with other, so numerous, unorthodoxies. Through these years I am under an incessant barrage of such proposals to study the works of others, and in some instances what is known as lunatic fringe. The Yale Scientific issue caused a flow of letters to the editors from various individuals with appeals to have their theories given similar handing to that given to mine. I found often in letters given claims that the writer is in the possession [of ways] to prove me right (as if I failed in this) or to improve my work by modifying it. There are, no question, other worthy unorthodoxies. But I wish to continue my progress not burdened with the defense of others, like say, the organon theory of the late W. Reich. A foundation for studies in new [word missing] cannot close door to new ideas; I, however, cannot and wish not to become a pope all malcontent. 5. Organizations, like foundations, from the start or after a while, institute salaries, incur liabilities, oblige itself [sic] for grants etc., and should the organization be intimately connected with my name, it may disband under conditions of insolvency, after a promising start, causing an irreparable damage to my cause. 6. The small organization of Cosmos and Chronos groups is given to my close supervision and I fell quite comfortable in separating my scholarly pursuits from the work assigned to Cosmos and Chronos extending it to [sentence unfinished]. I know that S. Freud and to even greater extent C. Jung made use of donations, usually by their ex-patients, to establish schools of their respective modes of psychoanalysis or for publishing magazines. But their activities were not in the form of solicitation of funds. In the morning after your call I drafted this letter to let you know how I feel. Deg's Journal, November, 30 1968 Yesterday was one of those fine mornings when most things seems to go wrong, but I didn't much mind. The mail brought a batch of documents from Ralph Juergens -- the gist of which was that Velikovsky was deeply perturbed by my ascerbic letter to him of ten days ago. V. had promptly asked to see Ralph's memo describing V.'s thoughts. Then V. wrote a letter indirectly answering mine, and implying that Ralph has misstated his position, etc. V. added a newly typed version of a letter that he said he had once written me but never mailed, full of forebodings concerning my establishment of the foundation, together with a letter from Arens of Gimbel's of Philadelphia, also full of doubts about the wisdom of proceeding with a foundation. All of this was to justify V. in the face of my attack. I know V.'s pattern of responses so well now that I could tell there was nothing new about the whole business. He writes everything down to have it on paper for some future strategm. He warns against everything to be ready to be proven a prophet should things go badly. He cannot let go of any power over things or people, but plays upon every means of entrapping and embroiling them, sucking them in and pushing them off as he feels the one way or the other in his succession of mobilizing-for-action and trust-nobody moods. I phoned him and visited him in the afternoon. I brought him the copy of Etruscan Tombs at Sesto Fiorentino which Prof. Nicola Rilli had inscribed to him, and he surlily carped at every point of Rilli's development that I brought out. 'Very risky, ' 'I don't think much of him from what you tell me. ' 'He does not seem to be a scholar. ' 'He has very little evidence for what he is saying. ' We finally got to the sensitive subjects of the flurry of documents. He claims his position has never changed. I said, 'Very well, you need not have anything to do with the Foundation, but if you wish to write articles for it or refer people to it, or receive support from it, you are welcome. ' He agreed. (He will of course not keep his agreement, but will intervene at every opportunity.) I offered also to turn the Foundation over to him completely and let him designate someone to carry it on, but he refused that. I said, 'Please name those men and foundations whom you do now wish us to approach for support. ' He would not do that. I promised that his name would not be used in support of the Foundation, which satisfied him. I know what he would like to see happen: the Foundation helping him in every possible way, but he criticizing it constantly for its faults. And provided it does not demoralize others, I do not mind. I have from my first meeting with him concluded that I should do what I thought he basically would want and weather as best as possible the glooms, the negativism, the wounded shouts, the suspicions, and the ingratitude. We drank a glass of dry white wine (the Israeli wines are becoming excellent), and he showed me a few late letters, as he usually does. With some emotion he declared that, for all I have done for him he was going to give me sooner or later the whole history of the case -- the reception of his ideas by science and the public. I didn't fell as grateful as I should, for I need nothing so little as another pile of documents and a book to write, though it be the richest such case archive in history, and I thanked him. I prepared to leave, bidding Elisheva goodbye, and he stepped into the next room to get something. When he came out. I stepped close to him and said 'You know, there is nothing that you can do that will drive me away. ' He said 'I will read you a line of poetry that you wrote' and quoted "the most opposed I will most believing be." 'Not a bad line, ' I said, smiling, and bid them goodbye again. Deg's Journal, December 1, 1968 The Foundation Trustees met today and perused the volume of recent correspondence relating Dr. V. to FOSMOS. They agreed that his conduct was sick. Still Juergens and Stephanos are under his thumb. I pointed this out and questioned whether the Foundation should not slow down its program for a year until everyone clarified their position, especially Dr. V. But we decided to move ahead anyhow, and suffer V.'s conduct as well as possible. The more I think of his behavior, the more indignant I become. Every kind of evidence comes out in his letters, actions, and the experiences of others. Today he told Juergens that the Foundation should get another box number, because he wishes to go ahead with his absurd, presumptions, and self-glorifying Cosmos and Chronos 'Clubs' (of which, in truth, none exist). Day before yesterday, he tried to buy my loyalty by the gift of his papers and documents on how science received his work. 'only for you, not for the Foundation. ' A great collection, but I wish it for others to use, not myself. He is incredibly obtuse on some matters, I try to love him for his faults, but they are too numerous and large to embrace. On Dec. I, the Board of Trustees met in Princeton at Deg's home, without the important presence of Mainwaring and Holbrook. Nor were Kallen and Hess, who played no part in these proceedings anyhow, present. Juergens carried a new letter from V, to the Board, divorcing himself from the Foundation, which, as he asserts, he had never been married to in the first place but with which he is hoping for good relations nevertheless. I repeat the following from the Minutes of the Meeting: "An extensive discussion developed around the subject of the Foundation's relations with Dr. Velikovsky. Juergens reported that Dr. Velikovsky was of the opinion that FOSMOS' aims and activity were to deal only with such work as concerned him directly and as he might approve, and that FOSMOS was changing its direction since its inception. The President moved that, after examining the record, the Board resolve that the Foundation had not deviated from its original aims, which remain unchanged and are reflected in the following description offered by Stecchini, plus the subjects of 'Communications of Science' and 'Science of Science': The Foundation is concerned with conducting and aiding in the investigation of theories A. That the geophysical and astronomical history of the planet Earth has been characterized by sudden changes; B. That these changes have taken place in historical times and, as such are documented by historical records, archaeological findings, mythological traditions, religious practices, and scriptures; and D. That these changes have affected the human psyche and Affect contemporary social behavior." Afterward, Deg addresses V. once more, to tell him that the Foundation agreed with him and had always pursued the course that he now was advocating. And then Deg receives a rather surprising letter from Stephanos who now becomes the instrument of V. in a new way; he lists his benefactions from V. as if he were under hypnosis, and declares: ... I must state that I find your letter to him [Velikovsky] misdirected (it should, perhaps, have been addressed to another), and in its tone, totally unjust and unwarranted. I believe it could be damaging to the interest we all claim to share, the acceptance of Dr. Velikovsky's work, and capable of great personal harm to him and to his good name. Since I was privileged to receive a copy of that letter (...) I want and do here deny its content as my experiences allow, and respectfully request, as a member of the Board, that you write a retraction to Dr. Velikovsky as soon as possible... Deg replies to him: Dear Bob: I am afraid that your letter to me of December 5 and the circumstances of its preparation tend to confirm the contents of my letter of November 22 to Dr. Velikovsky. It also indicates that Dr. Velikovsky should probably not have circulated a personal letter. But thank you for your concern. I am sure that all will end well. Sincerely yours, Alfred de Grazia It did end well enough, except for poor Stephanos. The Foundation moved along cautiously, doing only small projects such as disseminating materials on the Velikovsky Affair, supporting Eddie Schorr's work on the Greek Dark Ages, and soliciting memberships. It was disturbed by a new attitude that V. had taken toward Stephanos, hitherto his most faithful and welcome disciple. He seemed to believe that Stephanos had encouraged persons from the lunatic fringe to become followers of V. and was giving them inside information of V.'s activities and archives. V. wished to dissociate himself from Stephanos and expected the Foundation to do so, too. Sizemore stuck up for Stephanos in private conversation with Deg, who sensed no great loss should Stephanos resign. Then he saw Sizemore's point -- Stephanos should not be sacrificed to V. -- and did nothing. Stephanos resigned anyhow. By the following Spring, Deg was withdrawing, too, as this Journal entry of April 19 seems to indicate. On occasion Dr. V and I have discussed a biography in dialogue form. But the three occasions on which we went to work with a tape recorder were disappointing to me. He becomes stiff, even more aware of his role and audience, and though I try to break through with my informal comment, he remains fixed like a peasant before a camera. I have not seem him in several weeks. My own problems with women and children are many and my book Kalos cries for completion. Immanuel's magnificent self-centering is not consoling or even rational, under the circumstance. I have ceased completely to work on FOSMOS, in part because of the foregoing, but also because the members of the Board were not up to editing a Bulletin, or raising funds. Bill Dix [Director of the Princeton University Libraries] told me, too, that the Velikovsky's during V.'s illness of December, had sought to give (with tax deductions well in mind) V.'s archive to Princeton University. Yet FOSMOS was to have been the beneficiary. Holbrook took over active management of the Foundation, working out of his new office in Washington. He did not succeed in developing it well, and, by general agreement, it was dissolved several years later. V. was doing well enough as his own majordomo as we discover when we read Deg's Journal of October 7, 1972 in Princeton: I borrowed Jill's bicycle and rode it to the Velikovsky's. Francie, whose memory of me hardly dims with my long absence, loped alongside. Velikovsky was issuing directions to a University representative on how to set up the stage for a forthcoming lecture to the Graduate School Residence Hall Club. He spared the man no detail, prescribing publicity releases, and his desire to have his full first name spelled out rather than I. Velikovsky (is there a wish here to conceal the I, egoist, or the normal desire to spread out one's own name, as he said?). He requested that all his books and even a copy of Pensée dedicated to his work be on sale at the University Store beforehand; asked that two parking spaces be kept for his car and that of his daughter; wondered, since the British Broadcasting Company would be video-taping the show, whether the President of Princeton might not come if invited; denied a suggestion that a local radio station broadcast the speech but insisted that provisions for a televised relay into an adjoining hall be provided for people who could not crowd into the banquet hall. He stipulated that some announcements reach New York and Philadelphia so that disciples might come from those places to hear him. The young bald impresario left the Presence dizzy with details V. is many things but he is also a master impresario. He has had to be; his overwhelming need to be recognized for what he is can only be satisfied by mobs of admirers under instructions which, given his detachment from the Establishment machinery, only he can provide, or by some wonderful stroke of recognition, a great prize like the Nobel Prize, the Fermi Prize, or an invitation from a head of state to deliver a series of lectures. I believe that he would then retire from his promotional labors and give himself over to finishing several important books. I thought so yesterday as I watched him masterfully, but yet exhaustingly, promoting himself and his work, and later privately conveyed this thought to Sheva, when he had gone up to nap. For when the door closed on the graduate club representatives, he sat back, listened to me for a few minutes, ate an apple, and began to doze. I enjoyed the chance to talk to Sheva; she can tell me less flamboyantly all that has happened on their trips and where all the characters of the drama of recognition are at the moment -- Mullen and Schorr and Bucaloe and so on. I borrowed a book and biked home to Mom. After dinner, Immanuel called to apologize for falling away from our conversation and I assured him that I was delighted that he could sleep well and hoped that he would always behave in exactly the same way. I had mentioned to him that I contemplated a little book of forays into myth, science and our adventures over the past decade of our friendship; he wondered how I could write it without his archives. I can imagine how I might, but if he would dig into them a little, my work would be greatly improved; I did not, however, suggest that he give me materials. I shall show him the table of contents when it is sufficiently elaborated. Then, if he wishes, he may find some material that would help me. Deg is living in New York City, and only visits Princeton on occasion now. Deg's Journal, October 23, 1972 I telephoned Velikovsky at 10 PM to see how he was. He was well. We talked of the book I intended to write. When I said that I was investigating Hermes he warned me against starting to repeat his work of 20 years. I guess he'd like me to ask for his files and then trap me into an endless affair. I said, don't worry: I have only in mind making several penetrations in depth, at widespread points, to show the method that should be followed to mine the ore. He said that he couldn't "approve" my book unless he read it. Of course. And no doubt there are some bouts ahead. In general, he likes the idea that I will write the book. Then I gave him some firm advice. I said "you must finish Peoples of the Sea and the Ramses II volume promptly and publish them. You must not lecture and run around. Ten people can go around lecturing about you but only you can finish these books. Furthermore, you must not work on the Einstein book, or Stargazers and Gravediggers, or Ash. These can be finished by someone else. You must write something, if only 30 pages, on your theories of what happened in the skies before Venus in 1500 B. C." He agreed, "You are right!" He added, however, that he must write his autobiography because nobody knows him really or how he did his work. He only let out a few facts here and there. Alright, I responded, add that to your required list, following the ante-Venusian article. But that's all. "You're right!" he said again, with unusual accord. And so we left the matter, saying good-night. P. S. V. told me that Harlow Shapley had just died at a nursing home in Colorado. After reading the extensive obituary in the New York Times, V. concludes that Shapley, always a great self-promoter, had seen to it that the Times possessed his own account of his life. Thus Shapley hurls his last insult to V. from the grave. Again on November 9. Deg exhorts him: Had long telephone conversation with Velikovsky. He was in a grim mood, I tried to cheer him up. I also read him the list of chapter titles for my projected book. He said a few approving things but generally he was critical, full of admonitions. careful of his own sources of information, making no generous or even modest offer of assistance, wondering how I could have any new idea (though he did not say this explicitly) when he had them all, and in some manner had published them all. I don't know how he expects ever to encourage serious efforts to follow or parallel him. He beseeches this from the world but then denies in advance that they can either be original or important. I tell him to move rapidly on his theory of the pre-1500 catastrophes -- to publish at least a synopsis of it, lest he accuse even his supporters of plagiarizing him. All I know of this work are a few remarks of John Holbrook relating essentially the truth of the Greek theogony -- Uranus, Chronos (Saturn) Jupiter. I am telling V. that if he doesn't do something soon here instead of parading around the country he will become a successor instead of a predecessor of someone else, Further, his predecessor will probably do a poor job because V. has withheld his information and assistance. And he is concerned whether V. will be elected to greatness: Deg's Journal, November 72 I. V. is running for election. The office he wishes to achieve is premier of 20th Century Science. I believe that he has as good a chance as anyone up to this time of winning the election. However, I am not a campaign manager. And though an election in science is unfortunately like a political election -- in that a campaign biography should be written that will show the candidate in gorgeous lights -- I feel I must pass up the chance to win glory as a publicist. My interest in biography is as Conant [President of Harvard University and chemist] once put it: to find the full meaning of science through its means of creation. Immanuel V. as I see and know him is here, and you must understand to begin with the fact that no person can fully know another one. Problems of health depressed V.: Deg's Journal, December 22, 1972 Called V. He is gloomy, The doctors told him that he must go away to rest. His days are full of calls, visits, correspondence -- too much to handle; his writing lags. I invited him and Elisheva to New York for a day of rest and walking around the museums. Maybe. I also suggested he might go to Yucatan and see the ruins there. He doesn't "want to be carried around by the tour buses." "Let the buses go without you. Stay at hotels. Then provide and make your own daytime itinerary." He wondered when I would be in Princeton. I didn't know, I told him I would think of what he should do and would call him back . The "Apollo" Program suffers severe cutbacks; Deg's Journal, December 23, 1972 Called Stecchini. He is feeling better after a gradual six months' recovery from an old back injury. He said V. may be depressed by the closing down of the Apollo Moon project which, whatever its premises and procedures, had brought forward some support of his views. The signs of volcanic activity are still being reported, though their time of occurrence is naturally placed conveniently far away -- 100,00 years, 500,000 years, their freshness suggesting "recency," but recency being defined arbitrarily on the lengthy geographical scale. If 100,000, why not 3000? No answer. No question, in fact, by anybody, save the Velikovskians. Cape Canaveral (Kennedy) is already being dismantled. The scientific community did not rise to the occasion, said S. "I didn't rise, either," I said. "It was a great waste of world resources." He half agreed. Deg worries both about V.'s health and his attitude towards a friend: Deg's Journal, December 26, 1972 Called V. again yesterday. He is more cheerful, but says his diabetes is moderate, not light. He is grumpy over the stricter diet he must follow. He asked me about all my children and I recited their whereabouts and conditions of life. He asked whether he could help me. I should have said, "Yes, let me read your pre-Venus notes and correspondence." I didn't. He wouldn't; not now. He would ask me to show that him all of my ideas. I would do so, but he might well not reciprocate and even though his materials must be better than mine on the whole, he might very well absorb them and simply look the gate on me by putting me onto this or that matter stretching on endlessly. He cannot help himself. He is authoritarian. And he finds it difficult to think that anyone in the world but himself can supply anything but a few details nor indeed should until he has breathed his last word. This kind of game seems bizarre between friends, but the reason I am perhaps vulnerable to shock by its exposition. As certainly as the sun shines (sic!) he would reject my work repeatedly, absorb all that he had not known, and accuse me in the end of plagiarism. V. begins to exhibit alarming symptoms: Deg's Journal, February 10, 1973 Velikovsky Visit - V. not well at all. Extremely nervous, thin, paranoid cryptic references, taciturn jerky movements from time to time. Is diabetic. Asked him whether 10 years of good work might reconstruct 10,000-600 B. C. He didn't have an opinion. He said he doesn't know whether deluge was 4000 or 9000 BCE. Deg's Journal, February 1973 Called Velikovsky at 5 P. M. Says he is felling better, but is having troubles with "people." Has matter of importance (ominous tone) to talk over with me. If I want to hear it, I must come to Princeton tonight. I tell him it is difficult. Won't tomorrow night do. Maybe. "Who is it?" I ask. "Can't I help." "You come." etc. All remote, intimations of disaster, confusion of personal and the world and of all past with the present. I try to talk of article about Mars. 'The author believes in all miracles except yours. ' He's not sure he read it. But uninterested really. He is involved in his personal huge caravan of suspicions, lawsuits on his house in Israel (so Ruth tells me to make clear his references), forebodings of catastrophes, possible suicidal impulses (my enemies wanted their martyr; now they have it.) Nina hands me a note as she overhears me. "Do not try to get abstract conversation. He is trying to talk about himself." But he is uncommunicative. Finally, I leave it that I may come tonight or in the next couple of days. He is reluctant to close but finally I end the call. Called Ruth Sharon. Father not feeling well. Diabetes out of control. She tells me not to go to Princeton. He will be better and there is nothing I can do. I tell her I fear he will regress irretrievably. She cannot answer to that. She says he may even resent me later if see him in weakness. I tell her I am more concerned with whether he will be helped now if his situation is serious. Maybe she and her mother cannot suffice to pull him out. I ask her to call her mother and if they want me to come to call me. 8. p. m. Ruth calls me back. She has talked to her mother but her father hung onto another phone throughout the conversation. She says, however, that he was feeling a little better and was thinking of driving out to purchase several articles. So I should call and give my regrets for not coming. 8.15 I called V. Sheva came on the extension phone. I said I had not finished my proofs that had to go to India and asked him to excuse me if I did not come this night. He assented. I said further that I did not wish to see him before I could show him an outline of my work on pre-history. He replied that he would have no time to read it, for he was so behind in his reading. Sheva interrupted gracefully to say that it was short piece and I hastily agreed, saying that it was only a page or so. He said nothing then; I uttered a few additional inanities and hung up with the promise to see him soon. He sounded at a bit stronger of voice. V. then recovers: Deg's Journal, April 4, 1973 I phoned V. this morning and found him much improved since my last call before leaving the country. Three weeks in the hospital had somehow restored him. I said, "Life without a telephone to bother you was good for you." "No I had telephone. I took my calls." Anyway, he is better and will drive perhaps to Youngstown, Ohio, for a speech next week. He is working of Ramses II again. He is pleased that Carl Sagan is writing an article for Pensée on Venus. He agrees that I shouldn't bother with book reviews for Pensée but should present a significant paper. Maybe I shall get down to preparing one. He is hopeful. He speaks of Particular tasks. He has even begun rearranging some files. It is a great relief. Bill Mullen is getting ready to move from Princeton University to a new appointment at Boston University. He is glad to be away from V.'s moods. He writes to Deg: August 12, 1974 ... The summer has been curiously unproductive and jammed as far as Velikovsky is concerned. He has spent virtually all his hours talking about what he is not accomplishing and bewailing the magnitude of the battle against his enemies on all sides. I've contributed only bits of help here and there, otherwise being forced to concentrate on preparation of this fall's course. Eddie [Shorr] has been of tremendous help, spending day after day in the library going through The People of the Sea with a fine-tooth comb. But here too the result has not been of the kind to cheer Velikovsky up since Eddie has found many minor errors which need correction. Nothing that shakes the reconstruction, just a lot more nitpicking work that really has to be done if the book is to be spared the dismissals by Egyptologists on the grounds of inaccuracy which are feared. In short, be thankful for the serenity of Naxos. Al, since little would have been gained by being close to Princeton this particular summer (...) _________________________________________________________________ But V. reorganizes his forces and this time calls upon Irving Wolfe, who graciously responds by addressing Mullen, C. J. Ransom, Juergens, Rose, Steve Talbott and Milton: Dear Alfred, I visited Velikovsky last week, along with Lynn Rose and Earl Milton. We discussed several matters with him, among which were - the number of books he's working on at once - his archives and related issues - he wants people to submit and keep submitting articles on or arising from his work to scientific journals, whether they will be accepted or not -- setting up a Newsletter, about which several steps are being taken -- public recognition for advance claims and theories. You will be familiar with most of these matters already, but I've drawn your attention to them because I think we need to get a number of people thinking about them and coming up with solutions because Velikovsky can use help in all these areas. With regard to the last item above, here is an example -- the recent discovery of substantial quantities of argon and neon on Mars seem to puzzle scientists, as an article in Science, June 21, 1975 indicates. Yet Velikovsky predicted argon and neon on Mars as far back as 1946. Key scientists must be given the facts -- dates of original advance claims, letters, confirmations, etc. -- and urged to write the major scientific journals. Velikovsky feels he's too busy to do this himself each time, and so I've offered to handle it for him, telling him, telling him that, wherever a case like this arises, he's to send the relevant document to me and I'll compose a covering letter and send it all out to the right people. This is where I need your help -- I want to make up a master list of key people, perhaps divided into two or three categories, to whom such things can be sent as each occasion arises... Deg could imagine the huddle at 78 Hartley Avenue, planning the counterpropaganda campaign, the "truth squads" as the Republicans and Democrats had come to call their counterpropaganda teams. Next year, Wolfe was calling for an "alarm system" which he had worked out with Milton in Canada. It was to be a network, highly sophisticated, with members divided into generalists and specialists, with squad leaders who would call upon their assignees to respond to the alarm. Wolfe had been called by V. to activate the system, as he had promised the year before, and V. nominated as a test alarm the publication by Doubleday of Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered, which should exercise the network to produce reviews, letters, and public discussion. This meant helping the Talbotts who were otherwise blacklisted by V. and several of his circle. "Regardless of what any of us feel about the Talbotts," wrote Wolfe, "I agreed because Velikovsky asked." (Actually, I doubt that Wolfe ever felt antagonistic towards the Talbotts himself; the plea was for others.) "He (V.) may feel that he wants to aid the success of that book because it will affect his own case." So the Talbotts and the inner circle were momentarily in bed together again, an event that had not occurred since the Talbotts' Pensée had collapsed. The results were not remarkable, and after a time they got out of bed. There came a lull in attempts at general organization; V. continued to turn his attention and the minds of his several collaborating followers to the AAAS affair, a story to be told later. It is noteworthy how much time was taken up with all the maneuvering, research, writing, and wrangling connected with a single sitting of an AAAS panel in San Francisco, much of five years of V.'s time and of the time of several others, the time too of Elisheva, but who counted that? -- more hundreds of hours blanked out; there the tragedy is marked, for she was a sculptress and musician of consequence. She never complained, so I am reporting Deg's complaints on her behalf, unsolicited. Moses would have been pleased with her self-sacrifice; Deg was no Mosaist. When she lay dying after a long illness, and he had not seen her for months, he thought to write a poem for her. Then came the infatuation of V. with Christoph Marx, and following upon Marx' return to Switzerland, V. addressed Lynn Rose, who was perhaps feeling both grumpy about the affair and pleased that suddenly V.'s attention was turned elsewhere. However, V. was writing in a euphoric mood, and one could see the alarm bells ringing around the world. The letter to Lynn Rose is dated May 11, 1977, and I summarize it. Marx was to be "a central figure" on the European continent: Isenberg sends a paper he gave to a conference of science editors and V. urges him to send it to the major hostile magazines -- Nature, Science, New Scientist and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, "as coming from the convention" ... A letter from Langenbach, a supporting attorney working in the Harvard scene... A call to William Safire of the New York Times, a self-designated "great fan" to get advice... An announcement that Juergens has resigned his engineering job and would probably now work for him, V... A hope to teach a course in Egyptology at Princeton University... A report of Deg's taking issue with Lustig of the Encyclopedia Britanica Yearbook... Last minute changes to the English edition of Ramses II... A carpenter-mason is building a room for guests and Elisheva's music... A letter from the widow of maligned Harvard supporter, Professor Pfeiffer... Mainwaring will be sending a complete file of all C14 communications with the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania museum... A conversation with Holbrook, once more in Washington... A gift of Czech rights to Jan Sammer who helped so well with Ramses II... Some minor foreign rights also to his early copy editor Marion Kuhn, now ailing... Reporting plans to sponsor publication of Alice Miller's Index to his works... Detailing the distribution of 1000 free copies of Kronos to College libraries, financed by Jerry Rosenthal... Denouncing Steve Talbott for recommending in a pamphlet that all subscribe to The Zetetic Scholar which has recently defamed V's Urges that the five former associate editors of the now defunct Pensée "should make a common statement and try to teach the subscribers of Network (Talbott's serial pamphlet), deluded into believing that the Network is an organ to defend and protect my work... Dr. Gowans of the University of Victoria "comes back to the fold" after consorting with the likes of Dietrich Muller of Lethbridge... An exchange of letters with Jacques Barzun... Reports that Peoples of the Sea just released had already outsold Earth in Upheaval (11 printings since 1955) and Oedipus and Akhnaton (12 printings since 1960)... He resists Doubleday's efforts at putting Peoples into a book club as an alternate selection... Ramses II is to be delayed once more, this time by the publishers... He is happy that his British publishers, Sidgwick and Jackson, have given full prominence to his Peoples while somewhere in the nether pages "Patrick Moore is modestly displayed for his '1978 Yearbook of Astronomy, ' and has to take this pecking order, he being the author of 'Do you speak Venusian? ' presenting me as a King of Fools"... More letter exchanges... He doesn't want Rose to be distracted from their plan to write together "The Grand Ballroom" dealing with the AAAS affair which was already the subject of several books and many articles... ".... The hammer of the builder sounds like a song... do you know that my real vocation is in architecture, and the years that I visited the Library on 42nd street, I regularly visited also the room with architectural journals, watching for a chance to compete for a plan and construct a public building?"... "Keep well, act strong, Lynn." V. was obviously in fine fettle. The Mastermind was back. He had a great deal going for him on two continents now, it seemed. The euphoria subsided. The resistance to all of his ideas continued unabated. It seems that he could say nothing that would be right in the eyes of his opponents. His growing disenchantment with Christoph Marx was not compensated by new faces. (New ideas were out of the question; proofs were wanted, and defense.) He had now close to himself principally Greenberg and Sizemore; for them Kronos was not fun and games anymore. On June 3, 1979, Sizemore writes Deg, "This issue is going through hell -- trying to get V.'s approval on Lew's article about the latest probes." _________________________________________________________________ By now I believe that you and I Know enough of the principal characters here to venture a more fundamental answer to the question which I dealt with unsatisfactorily at the beginning of the chapter: why did Deg stick with V.? It appears that the two men were close to each other even when separated and out of touch. I conclude that there was a familial relationship being reenacted between V. and Deg. It was not father to son, but older to younger brother. In significant ways V. was of the character of Deg's older brother Sebastian, and Deg was relating to him as he had to his brother throughout life but especially from two years to twenty years of age. It was as Lasswell somehow discovered, a sibling rivalry between Deg and Sebastian, more intensely activating for the younger than the elder. No matter what Sebastian did, he couldn't put down his younger brother; and his younger brother, while trying to outdo him, was absolutely fond of him and set him up as a model for others, to be surpassed only by himself, and he was determined all the while that none was going to put down Sebastian so that there was a strong protective impulse going incongruously upwards -- material and demanding -- rather than downwards as one might expect. V. had two older brothers, neither of whom he saw after 1921 and with whom communication was rare, if only because the "Iron Curtain" barred East from West and he said once to Deg, speaking of his scientist brother, Alexander, I would not want to jeopardize his position over there by reintroducing myself into his life. And Sebastian and V. were of the same rawboned, tall and handsome physique, unlike Deg's more compacted from and features, both were umbrageous, too Both felt that Deg could do anything he set his hand to, but that he was always off on some wild goose chase when you needed him. There were of course differences. However the song goes: "I want a girl -- just like the girl -- who married dear old Dad," no girl is ever quite like mother: and so with siblings, no two sibling relationships are quite a like. The major differences were two: like Deg, V. was fantasmogenic: he day-dreamed much and often and duelled with the universe of nature and men in his mind. Sebastian was not a dreamer. And, further, V. was there, in place, at home; for seventeen years Deg knew where to find him at Hartley Street whose number he could never remember, and that he would be welcomed like a brother, which, no offense intended, he could not always count on from Sebastian. I think that the crux of the relationship, that which proved its psychogenesis, was the fact that Deg, unlike so many of the cosmic heretics, could be constantly critical of V. without risk to his affection for V. Then, too, while V. would never let Deg take away his toys, nor admit that he was equal, he would not stop him, short of outright usurpation of his position and place, which Deg in any event would never wish to do. Indeed, one of Deg's main virtues and weaknesses in human affairs, if it can be called that, was that he would often win a contest, but could never administer the coup de grace, Neither V. nor Sebastian lacked this capacity except in the case of their younger brother. Sebastian never became friendly with V. but supported him quietly, just as he never committed himself to Deg's efforts on behalf to V. nor to Deg's quantavolutionary ideas. He engaged himself mildly one time in their futile effort to obtain an honorary doctorate for V. at Rutgers University. Another time, when Deg was abroad, Sebastian perhaps prompted by his wife Lucia, thought of getting V. and Elisheva together with the Director of the Institute for Advanced Study, Carl Kaysen, Ambassador George Kennan, and their wives. Perhaps V. should be invited to join the Institute (which would in fact have been an ideal place for him and ideally in keeping, too, with the Institute's professed aims). Elisheva and Immanuel were irritatingly preoccupied with the menu for dinner, however, and settled finally for a visit during the cocktail hour, which went off nicely. _________________________________________________________________ Deg's communication lines generally thinned out in the years 1976 to 1983. Even his lateral communications in quantavolution dwindled as he pressed to break through with the several large studies underway. Here he is writing from Naxos to Professor Ernst Wreschner in Haifa on December 21, 1976: "I am returning from three weeks in Mexico as a guest of the government. I attended the inauguration of Jose Portillo as President, gave a paper at a special conference on the 400th anniversary of Jean Bodin's Six Books of the Republic (author of my least favorite doctrine -- absolute sovereignty), and visited a number of Olmec, Maya and Aztec ruins and sites. It has been a good trip and I found a considerable interest in translating my political works and even some surprised involvement in my questions about mythology and catastrophes. I did not find the lost tribes of Israel but perhaps learned something of pre-"Atlantean" survivals. I also had a car wreck (I was not driving), had my wallet stolen by a large fat Indian lady with an overpowering smell that put me to sleep on the bus alongside her, and then later on my little camera as well -- before I could turn around, the pickpocket had dived into the marketplace mass.) C'est la vie. With luck, by late spring I shall have a general manuscript ready on the holocene destructions and human development and will send you a copy. I hope that my present letter finds Ella and yourself very well and in good spirits. I have resigned all teaching at NYU and am now free to give my time to research and perhaps sometime to a visit to Israel, unless you meanwhile visit here. (...)" Deg showed his materials on Homo Schizo to Harold Lasswell who approved their significance. Deg wished he might get the famed polymath involved in seeking the origins of the human mind, even in contemplating quantavolution, for Lasswell was as much a fantasmogene as Deg. But not long afterwards, Harold Lasswell climbed into the bathtub of his apartment overlooking Lincoln Center, suffered a stroke, and spent two helpless days in the tub before his apartment was entered. His friends rallied around and attended the cheerful but addlepated great man until he died. Deg hoped he had not been unkindly critical when they had last been sitting at Lasswell's place, drinking whisky and looking down upon Manhattan, for he had been suddenly seized with impatience when Harold spoke of a great new understanding overcoming the medical profession owing (by inference ) partly to the introduction of techniques for better human relations in complex technical situations (in which he was playing a part, as always) inasmuch as Deg felt like raging -- not only against the system of medical care, but also against the world at large for its frightful bungling. When I went back in time for Lasswellian material related to quantavolution and the heretics, the latest was from November 4, 1972, when Deg's Journal reads: I met Harold Lasswell at the University Club 7 and after two Scotches and 'what have you been up to' and 'what are families and friends doing, ' we taxied to Washington Square, where Nina prepared dinner. She pulled out all the stops of her culinary organ and enthralled Harold with poached whitefish and freshly made mayonnaise, stewed hare, spinach and egg salad, Port-Salut, stewed pears in brandy, and a variety of wines and cognac. We talked until after midnight. He is looking as he has for thirty years. Still grey and pink, still ranging all over the world and talking upon every subject; the chasms of unintelligibility when he swings into Lasswellian sentences from time to time still enchant me. It was Nina's first exposure to them and she couldn't decode them. He described his unexpected walk many years ago up a set of 18-inch spikes hammered into the walls of Santa Sophia in Istanbul. He had a hangover from a night of drinking sweet Turkish liquor and could barely save himself from nausea, vertigo and panic. How I know the feeling. He talked too of a ride in a military plane from Paris to Vienna after World War II, where he sat on a metal bucket seat with two other men and watched a cargo of coffins creep through their bonds toward the freedom amidships. We talked of economists and he expressed his pleasure that the social sciences were being recognized for Nobel Prizes, particularly Ken Arrow and Samuelson, but his subtle manner of speaking, which one must watch carefully, indicated he was a little hurt that he who had achieved so much for the social sciences had not been recognized with such a prize. I agreed with him, without mentioning the matter; what a corrupting influence the Nobel Prizes are; they pretended to omniscience, in whose name, on what grounds; what presumptuousness. He is now working on a Policy Sciences Center, promotes a world university, heads a Rand Corporation Board, etc. He was delighted with my stories of the University in Switzerland and would have gone the whole evening on the subject. His mentioning Arrow and Samuelson came when I reflected upon the betrayal of human economics by the economists. I explained my struggle with Scott-Foresman over publishing a chapter on economic policy and especially on a guaranteed income. Harold says that A. & S. and others just published a statement indicating their adherence to such in principle. I should use it to back up my attack on the subject. I mentioned my advice to Velikovsky to publish now instead of awaiting the 'no mistake' nirvana; H. L., who feels a certain competition, insisted that I was right, that V. wanted to be God, that it was unscientific, that no man could expect his work to stand free of error indefinitely, that the courage to err was the glory of a true scientist. Lasswell spoke of a book called Chariots of the Gods by a Swiss, who apparently believed in the depositing of inventions upon Earth by superterrestrial beings. I thought this was a modern version of the gods of the Greeks descending at will upon earth bringing discoveries as well as evil. I added that I am pursuing a theory that the flowering of certain early metal ages came in consequence of the showering of metals upon earth from comets and meteorites. Probably I should add a chapter to my book on the descent of the Metals. If the metals are heavy, they should have sunk to the core of the Earth's molten mass, never to surface again. Why should in theory the earth's crust contain them? For none says that the turbulence of the crust descends to greater depth. Before our last cognacs had been finished, we spoke of the family system, Nina presenting the nostalgic view of the extended family, Harold asserting that the blood family has little to offer any longer, while admitting her argument. He described his early family -- he an only child, but with numerous relatives, now scattered from the Midwest to California and Florida, those graveyards of American families. I had been urging him earlier to write his Autobiography; he is silent about his past to an abnormal degree. He is noncommittal. Perhaps he prefers to remain a Great Man of Mysterious Origins. Very well, but a good autobiography is worth more than a large question mark. Washington, 1979 In Memoriam HAROLD D. LASSWELL (1902-1978) _________________________________________________________________ Harold! Greetings! Snifting bubbles, are you, this season, in the land of the tall drinks? Are they pouring you doubles? Come back to Chicago, Vienna, Nanking. Sounding like we know it all, in tones serene as your very own, We slump in low divans and hunch over brown tables Spilling smoothly the news about how you walked upon the Earth once. Welcome back to Washington, New York and New Haven; your train is set to run on time. You said straight what you saw Without hee-haws, oinks, or meows No winks, curtsies, or knotted fists No cow-eyes, or stony gaze. Viel Blitzen, kein Donor, No "Ho-ho-ho." Pleasant, agreeable Hero of our times, "if-then" propositions cornucopiously emitted. Two pounds of value-sharing for all men alive. Mix one pound of deference, a dash of income, well-being and safety added to taste, Be generous with enlightenment. Now that you're not in it. More Seasoning is needed. some of the gusto is gone. In-put, out-go. Hearing the world's secrets and ours nevermore, You heard them all, and those to come that we must explicate ourselves. Thanks for configurating the North pole under your gray hair, behind your glasses, in your midnight coat. You gloves are too thin. Come home again, if you get the chance The New Year is here. So long, Saturn! _________________________________________________________________ Deg's Journal, November 18, 1980 It's cold outside. I received a letter from Gilbert Davidowitz' sister telling me that my letter to him arrived but that he had died 'of a heart attack' last July. Poor lonely mad scholar. He was only fortyish. He must have committed suicide. Never an academic appointment. Nothing published. Brilliant worker in the origins of languages. I immediately wrote Charles Lee [Director of the State Archives of South Carolina, one time President of the American Society of Archivists] who will be startled to hear from me after 38 years, explaining my memorandum on the archives of the dying and their total loss to our culture. I feel extra sad about Gilbert, because he was so alone and so incapacitated for everything except the history of languages. But what a fine capacity. If he might only have known when dying how I like and admired him. He must have known. But he needed just then to be told so. References http://www.grazian-archive.com/index.htm