First the German publisher wanted an expanded biography; next they wanted photographs of me and full co-operation on publicity matters. Now they require more proof.
It seems that whilst my English publisher is happy to accept that the Cosa Nostra were involved in US electoral fraud and the CIA backed General Noriega, the Germans require a much higher level of proof than that already in the public domain. They also insist that Bugsy Siegel never met Hermann Göring and Joseph Goebbels. I feel several arguments and an approaching author headache.
Still, any document that starts: ‘Für Stephen Grasso, einen der besten Komplize, die man sich wünschen kann, und einen echten sizilianischen Ehrenmann’ cannot be totally bad. At least I can report back to the German lawyers that one of their worries is unfounded. Mr. Grasso has no problems with being described as 'Sicilian'.
5 comments:
Germans denying elements of Nazi history? Now there is a shock...
if they have such problems with the book, why are they even agreeing to publish it in germany?
this sounds more like either 1) censorship or 2) paranoia about your proving every little fact beyond the shadow of a doubt (perhaps for fear of lawsuits?).
what a pain in the rear.
I suspect the Siegel stuff is a form of content control/‘censorship’, the rest is probably from a fear of lawsuits.
I have explained to publishers and their lawyers on many occasions that a) the dead cannot sue and b) when the CIA want to take action against you, they do not do it through the courts. When the CIA threatened me over ‘Secrets & Lies’ they did not try to bully by warning me that they would take me to court, they used the much more worrying phrase: “If you proceed, we will seek alternative redress.”
Man, that sort of stuff can cost you a LOT of money in lost earnings time.
You're not obliged to do any further work on a book Carlton have accepted just to please a publisher they want to sell it on to. They 'just' want loads of extra research? What if Carlton sold the book to a firm who 'just' wanted another 300 pages of content? Further work has to mean further money.
I'd totally tell them you're happy to do as much further research as they want, your rate is £25 an hour, and you'll get on it as soon as you have the authorised contract or commission.
Seriously, almost any author would do the same.
Tim, as ever you are right.
However, I have settled for the diplomatic approach and sent an email that points out:
i) On the issue of electoral fraud, I covered the same allegations in an earlier book for Carlton without any action. Not only are the protagonists involved dead and therefore the claim is not actionable, but research from noted academics – including political scientists such as Edmund Kallina confirms the pattern of fraud. Numerous respected US journalists have written articles for national newspapers, magazines and international magazines detailing all the elements and nature of the fraud I mention without any action. Several noted books have repeated the allegations ranging from Kallina’s academic ‘Courthouse Over White House: Chicago and the Presidential Election of 1960’ to books such as Earl Mazo and Stephen Hess’s Richard Nixon: A Personal and Political Portrait to Seymour Hersh’s The Dark Side of Camelot.
Given the love of JFK and the historical impact on America, it is an issue that is widely debated by political historians, but no legal action is ever going to emerge from my discussion of the issue.
ii) As for concrete evidence of the collaboration between the CIA and Noriega, you can not get much better than former CIA director Admiral Stansfield Turner’s confirmation of the CIA paying him $320,000 for his collaboration with the Agency and arranging his path to power or the findings of 1988 Senate sub-committee report I refer to in the book which are not challenged by the CIA.
iii) The assertion that Siegel met Göring and Goebbels and wanted to kill them comes from numerous sources and is not contested by any serious expert or biographer of Siegel. They met in 1939 in Italy through Siegel’s lover Countess Dorothy diFrasso. Get over it.
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