This morning I received an odd phone call from a stranger
who identified himself as “Ed Victor from London.”
He said he was an editor at the British publisher Jonathan
Cape. He said that he had gotten my number from Emile
De Antonio, a documentary film director. He explained
that De Antonio had told him that I was writing a book
on the Kennedy assassination based on FBI reports.
I had discussed my research with De Antonio, whom I
had met that summer when he was shooting a film about
New York City politics. So I confirmed to the caller
that my thesis was indeed based on original documents,
including FBI reports, I had obtained from Warren Commission
lawyers. He then said he would like to obtain the British
rights and could immediately pay me $500 for a first-refusal
option. I was duly impressed by his bold decisiveness,
and I certainly could use the $500 to help pay the next
term’s tuition.
Could he come see me?, he asked. To my surprise, he
said he happened to be in Ithaca, and was staying at
the Ithaca Hotel. He said he was driving the next day
to Toronto (which is 250 miles from Ithaca) to see one
of his authors. He than arranged to come to my apartment
at 3 PM to read the thesis, and, if it was appropriate
for publication, to give me a check for $500.
As I had never before dealt with a publisher, I was
not sure how I should present my thesis, but I excitedly
awaited his arrival. At 3 PM, I placed its 80 typed
pages on the coffee table and put on a jacket. I waited
an hour and then called the Ithaca Hotel. The desk clerk
told me that no one by the name of Ed Victor was registered
at the hotel, or had been that morning. I sadly concluded
the phone call was a practical joke by one of my fellow
students.
Andrew Hacker, my thesis advisor, had invited me that
evening to celebrate the completion of my thesis at
Berry’s, a fancy seafood restaurant in Oswego,
New York, which was about an hour from Ithaca. He and
his wife, Lois, showed great interest in discussing
the gaps I had found in the Warren Commission’s
report. Because of a heavy snowstorm, I did not get
back to my apartment until after midnight.
Around 2 AM, there was a loud, unrelenting knocking
at the front door. When I opened it, I saw a short man
in his early thirties standing there covered in snow.
Shaking the snow off himself like a shaggy dog, he introduced
himself as Ed Victor. He profusely apologized for missing
our early appointment, saying that his car had skidded
into a snow bank. I offered him tea, which he refused,
explaining that he was in a hurry to leave for Toronto.
Even though his excuse seemed lame, his clothes were
disheveled, and his accent was unmistakably acquired
in Brooklyn, I accepted him as the British publisher
he claimed to be.
We sat at the coffee table as he leafed through the
pages of my thesis. “This is definitely publishable,”
he said, tossing the pages back on the table, “but
I also need to see the FBI reports you mentioned.”
I went to the breakfast nook, which served as my office,
and brought back a blue, bound 87-page FBI summary report
entitled, “Investigation of Assassination of President
John F. Kennedy, November 22, 1963.” It was the
book Wesley Liebeler had given me. When I handed him
the report, his eyes widened. The expression of glee
on his face was so clear that he could have been someone
who had just drawn the winning numbers in a lottery.
Plainly, he had found what he was after. I suddenly
realized that it was not my book that had brought him
to Ithaca but the FBI reports. I assumed the reason
he was not registered in the hotel, and why it took
him 11 hours to get to my apartment, was that he had
decided to drive to Ithaca only after I had confirmed
I had FBI documents in my possession. The reason I swallowed
his unlikely story was that I wanted to believe my thesis
was of interest to a British publisher. Simply put,
I had deceived myself.
To remedy my mistake, I pulled the FBI report out of
his hands. I then told him I would send him a copy in
London so he could read it at his leisure. “Could
I have your business card?,” I asked. Claiming
he had left it back at his hotel, he began writing out
his address in block letters on a piece of paper.
As he was doing this, I took the FBI report back to
the breakfast nook and sought a place to conceal it.
Because he was short, I put it on top of a tall breakfront.
The address, 3 Shavers Place, Haymarket, London, on
the piece of paper he handed me further persuaded me
he was an imposter. It was the same address that appeared
on a letter I had received from Mark Lane, who I knew
was himself working on a book on the assassination.
It was a letter I did not answer.
Voicing my suspicion, I told him, “Your address
is identical to Mark Lane’s address.” The
implication was clear.
He bolted from his chair and rushed into the breakfast
nook. I could see him wildly rooting through my papers,
presumably intending to grab the FBI report. When I
threatened to call the police (which was not a realistic
option, since I did not want to have to explain to them
how I came to possess highly sensitive FBI reports),
he left, saying on his way out the door, “I have
never been so insulted in my life. The hell with your
book.”
The following morning I made several calls. It turned
out that, yes, there was an editor at Jonathan Cape
named Ed Victor, but he was in London, and his description
in no way matched the appearance of the night visitor.
Emile de Antonio told me that he had given my phone
number just that Friday to someone called Ralph Schoenman,
who said he urgently needed to talk to me. Schoenman
was a 30-year-old Brooklyn-born political activist,
and had lived in London, where, according to an article
in The New York Times, he headed Bertrand Russell’s
Peace Foundation, which was located at 3 Shavers Place,
Haymarket I then learned he was also “volunteer
head” of Mark Lane’s Citizens’ Committee
of Enquiry in London, and the person in the picture
accompanying the article looked very much like my visitor.
Since Mark Lane was apparently staying at, or receiving
mail at, Schoenman’s residence, I thought it likely
that Lane had dispatched my visitor to get the FBI reports
for his book.
I then called Arnold Krakower, the New York lawyer who
had helped me before on my movie project. I knew Krakower
loved a mystery (he had been married to the novelist
Kathleen Winsor). When I told him about the incident,
he said he was going to “read the riot act to
Lane’s publisher.”
Krakower called me two days later to report that Lane’s
manuscript, entitled “Rush to Judgment,”
was at the Viking Press, to whose owner and publisher,
Tom Guinzburg, he had spoken. He said that Guinzburg
no longer wanted to publish Lane’s book but would
be interested in my thesis. The editor there whom I
was to contact was Clay Felker.
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