May 3, 1999
To Whom It May Concern:
You are one of those persons who may have received a strange and uninvited
packet in the mail, purporting to deal with me and my history.
Documentation is contained in the packet that seems to indicate a
disgraceful series of events, a police record, arrests, and immoral,
illegal, behavior on my part. It claims that a recording contained in the
packet is of an officially-placed wiretap that was in operation on my phone
years ago, and that proves shameful actions that I performed at that time.
Taken as presented, this material might well have caused you to doubt my
character and validity. If this possibility has not occurred to you, I
apologize. The attached document is being sent to you and to a number of
others who have in some way participated with me and/or have supported me
or the James Randi Educational Foundation. The senders pf these packets
have been involved in a concerted effort to undermine our work, and rather
than attacking us directly, have chosen to stab us in the back.
I regret having to send you this material, but I think you'll understand
that there is no other way that I may hope to neutralize the damage this
campaign may have done to me and my cause. Any feedback you may wish to
provide to me would be welcome. I want you to be completely informed on
this matter, and I will do all I can to help you understand. I'm sure you
will relate to my dismay and concern, and I again express my regrets at
having to involve you in any way.
If you did indeed receive this material, I ask you to observe the request
at the bottom of the last page of the attached document. The Postal
Inspector involved needs as much material as can be assembled, and your
help is welcome. If you have not -- yet -- received the packet, I ask you
to be on the lookout for it. It is usually mailed from a location in the
USA, in a brown kraft-paper envelope measuring 4" by 6" and bearing a
paste-on label. The packet should be handled as little as possible and sent
as directed in the document. Thank you for any help you may offer in this
respect.
Sincerely,
James Randi
And here's the full document.....
A STATEMENT - CONCERNING THE ACTIONS OF
CERTAIN PERSONS DESIGNED TO DEFAME AND DISCREDIT THE NAME OF JAMES RANDI
April, 1999.
To Whom It May Concern:
In any battle, the character of the enemy is something that should always
be determined and evaluated. One can only hope to be facing an opponent who
at least respects the basic rules of human behavior. After reading this
account, I believe that you will have a better understanding of the quality
of my enemies. I believe that the old saw still holds: Truth will out. In
these few pages, you will learn to what lengths certain people have gone,
and to what depths they will sink in their desperation.
It is no secret that the undersigned has for many years been very actively
involved in investigations of paranormal claims. Some persons have believed
that I consider the parapsychologists and the "psychics"
to be my enemies; that is far from true. My real enemies are those who
would try to prevent a proper and complete investigation from taking place,
and would try to prevent the results from becoming known. Their motives for
such actions are varied. Many self-proclaimed "experts"
resent the fact that I have exposed their fumbling and their mendacity. The
performers of psychic trickery have feared that responsible persons would
awaken to recognize how they have been deceived. Both groups, cherishing
their small fantasies, would do much to see me silenced. This statement
will, I believe, expose the extent to which a certain group of my enemies
have gone to discredit me. It should shock and repulse responsible and
decent members of the media, the public and the academic world. I ask you
to note that I am preparing this statement as an independent individual,
and not on behalf of any organization or colleague with whom I am
affiliated. It is an action that I take with full knowledge of my liability
under the law and my personal responsibility for having absolute proof of
everything I state in this document. This statement is not made lightly,
nor will I retreat from one word of it. I have a certain reputation for
being able to support any statement I have ever made. Some have chosen to
doubt that fact, and have subsequently regretted that decision.
x x x x x x x x x x
It began when in February of 1983, NBC-TV broadcast a "special" about my
battle against the "psychics." Prominently featured in that program was Uri
Geller, a showman from Israel who claimed psychic powers and who was at one
time believed by some scientists to really have paranormal ability. Several
of his fans and supporters were also represented on that program, rather
unfavorably.
In July, an anonymous blackmail campaign was started against me. Packets of
defamatory material -- consisting of newspaper clippings, a fake "rap
sheet" and a cassette recording -- were mailed out to (initially) at least
30 members of the media, my neighbors, and my colleagues. The way it was
presented, and on first perusal, the material appeared to establish that I
was a person of very low character, and, in fact, a criminal. It was of
such a nature that it most certainly could damage my career and reputation,
regardless of the fact that the information contained in the packets
actually was either total fiction, carefully edited, and/or easily
explained. All that will be discussed in the following account. I have no
idea of how many packets were mailed out altogether, nor can I determine
just how effective this smear campaign was. Many persons I contacted denied
that they had ever received the blackmail material, though I know they did
receive it. More importantly, one letter addressed to me arrived from
Sweden -- at a time when the prime suspect was in Europe -- stating that
unless I ceased my investigative work, this material would continue to be
circulated. This letter brings the entire matter into the legal area of
blackmail. (More recently, the threat has been issued that unless the James
Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) pays out the million-dollar prize
before July 4, 1999, the writer will distribute the blackmail packet to
"thousands" of persons. This is a threat that I cannot afford to ignore.)
At the very onset of these events, I contacted the FBI office in New
Jersey, who turned the case over to the Postal Service Investigation
Department in Newark, New Jersey. Postal Inspector Ray Mack began work on
it which continues to this day. He presently has a mass of evidence on hand
that demonstrates the depth of this extensive effort to nullify my
effectiveness. Those newspaper clippings, far from being something I would
be ashamed of -- had they been available to the reader in unedited form --
detailed my battle against the police force of Middletown, NJ. A police
officer, Steven Xanthos, had illegally searched and physically assaulted
friends of mine, and I had brought the matter to the attention of the
public via meetings and press releases. (More about the eventual fate of
Xanthos, later in this document.) As a result, I was harassed almost every
time I drove through Middletown, was falsely arrested for fictitious
traffic offenses and equally false minor infractions of the law, until the
police there were satisfied that I was silenced. I paid many thousands of
dollars in legal costs to defend myself against these charges. But I was
not silenced. The tape cassette which formed part of the blackmail package,
rather than being the product of a "tap" on my phone, as the blackmail
package claimed, was a copy of a tape that I was specifically asked to make
back in 1968, by the police chief -- Zerr -- of Rumson, New Jersey, where I
lived at that time. That request was because of obscene phone calls I'd
been receiving at home, at all hours of the day and night. The object of my
conversations on that tape had been to keep the callers on the line and
thereby trace and identify the persons responsible. Zerr informed me that
though a recording could probably not be admitted into evidence, it would
be a powerful tool to possess. (At that time, to establish a trace, it was
necessary to keep a caller on the line a minimum of four minutes.) That
investigation resulted in a minor in a neighboring town being identified
and charged with the crime. At that time, the minor's lawyer was informed
by the local police that I possessed a recording of the phone calls. The
very next night, my home was broken into, and only my small reel-to-reel
tape recorder that had been connected to the telephone, was taken; no other
valuables were touched.
Police subsequently found the minor in possession of the recorder and its
tape reel, and he was then also charged with the break-in. The tape
recorder held the very tape that was subsequently given to officer Steven
Xanthos by the local Rumson police who investigated the break-in for me, in
an apparent show of police solidarity with the Middletown force.
(Subsequent to that event, in 1984, I was again similarly plagued by
similar calls, and the calls were traced, almost instantaneously this time
due to improved technology, to a teen-age girl who admitted the fact, but
that case did not go to court.) The young man who did go to court and was
convicted of both crimes, tried to later avenge himself on me by claiming
that my house was full of pornography -- a dreaded crime in those days. He
said he knew that because when he had broken into my house and stolen the
tape recorder from my office, he had observed an article on pornography in
my typewriter. That was true. That article was being prepared by me for
editor John Durniak of Popular Photography magazine, and it was a
lighthearted spoof on what different cultures -- and eras -- have believed
to be pornographic photography.
Steven Xanthos, then a senior police officer on the Middletown force
notorious for conducting illegal searches without "probable cause," set out
to do all he could to damage me. Thus, in March of 1983, when three men
showed up at the Middletown police department pretending to be conducting
an investigation for the Department of the Navy in Washington, DC, the
Middletown police chief, Joseph McCarthy, fell for the ruse and happily
turned them over to Xanthos, who was only too anxious to help them. They
said they were officially investigating James Randi. They were told
fanciful tales about orgies that I had conducted at my home with children,
shown pornographic photos that Xanthos said were of myself and a Haitian
friend (Martial Roumaine, of New York City, one of my friends who had been
harassed by Xanthos) and there was all sorts of information given them on
criminal activities that Xanthos said I'd been involved in. It was all
fiction.
Not long after this, passing through Middletown late at night on my way
back from New York City, I saw a car pulled over to the side of the highway
by officer Steven Xanthos. It was a "hippie" van, exactly the kind of
vehicle that Xanthos specialized in. He was inside, searching the van by
slashing up the seats and throwing everything out the door onto the road. I
approached the two terrified kids who were standing outside, and advised
them that they had rights, and that Xanthos would have to prove "probable
cause" elements other than their long hair and painted van, to be properly
stopping and searching them. Xanthos emerged from the van, flustered, and
yelled at me that I was "interfering with a police officer in the
performance of his duty." I left the scene after giving my phone number to
one of the kids.
Years later, I learned from that same kid that Xanthos had confiscated my
number from him. The next night, I was arrested by the Middletown police,
spent the rest of the night in a cell, and was released the following day.
I was then charged with "interfering with a police officer in the
performance of his duty,"
and was fined $100.
x x x x x x x x x x x x
Within a month, the blackmail campaign was started. Editors of newspapers
received packets. My neighbors began bringing them to me. I was called from
all over the country and told that this material was being sent everywhere.
By conservative estimate, hundreds of such packets were sent out, from
various postal districts around the USA, to domestic and foreign addresses.
Postal Inspector Ray Mack, as part of his investigation on my behalf,
visited the Middletown police department giving as his premise that he was
investigating me. That made them very co-operative.
Inspector Mack spoke with Chief McCarthy and with Officer Xanthos and was
given the whole pack of lies. He took with him two or more of the
pornographic photos, the source of which has never been established. But it
was established beyond question by Inspector Mack that those persons in the
photographs were neither James Randi nor Martial Roumaine, and in any case,
the photos were circa 1930. Of course, it was incredibly inept of the
Middletown police to allow themselves to be taken in by three characters
who claimed they were with the US government. But those police have never
been known as intellectual giants. Two of the men who carried out this
subterfuge were actually persons who were used as part of the NBC-TV
"special" program previously referred to. Since they had not come out too
well on that program, they had chosen this means of taking their revenge
and trying to neutralize me.
Unable to fight me with the facts, they had resorted to a method that has
been used before by desperate persons facing exposure as frauds,
incompetents or simple liars. The three men who showed up at the Middletown
police department to ask for "dirt" on James Randi were persons well-known
to those who follow the "occult" world. One is a performer, the other two
are merely followers. The first is former "psychic" star Uri Geller, and
the others are Eldon Byrd, a would-be parapsychologist who has contributed
much nonsense to the literature of pseudoscience, and Robert Warth,
publisher of a minor UFO newsletter. Byrd had used identification documents
he carried from a project he was then doing for the US Navy, to pose as an
investigator for that service.
The Middletown police accepted this ID as legitimate. Byrd was soon after
fired from that position when he was arrested, and he can never again hold
a federal job. (A few years ago, in California, I confronted a UFO fanatic
who had come into possession of the blackmail material. He'd written a
letter to the FBI and to a group of scientists in Los Angeles, repeating
the scandalous drivel he'd chosen to believe. In front of an audience
assembled to hear my lecture, I had the great pleasure of punching him out
-- to a standing ovation. But it's little satisfaction, considering the
damage that he and others like him, along with the principals, Geller,
Warth and Byrd, have done to me.) Blackmail -- defined as the actual
distribution of defamatory material accompanied by a threat of some sort of
physical, professional or financial damage -- is one of the most despicable
acts of mankind. And it is a crime. It tries to be an assassination of
reputation and character. It seeks to silence victims by frightening them
into submission. It is done in the dark, from the protection of anonymity.
It is a cowardly, detestable, malicious performance. I hope that you will
recall this account when next you consider those who have chosen me as a
target. And I hope that when critics of my work make comments on it, they
will remember this document. Further information on the matter is available
to responsible persons who ask. Those who have distributed the blackmail
packets have characterized the audio recording as a "tap" made on my
telephone by the police.
The fact that all the calls on that tape are calls made to me and not by
me, shows the true nature of the tape. The tape was made by me, at the
instruction of the Chief of Police of Rumson, New Jersey, for the purpose
of obtaining evidence on the night callers. A careful listening to the tape
establishes this beyond doubt. The distributors cite references that are
simply not on the tape, and they fail to mention its provenance.
The fake arrest record that is part of the packet, is ludicrous. I am shown
with a huge grin, holding a number on a piece of cardboard. That photo
resulted from an event in about the year 1963, when I had been taken "into
custody" by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (I&NS), on a
technicality whereby I was required to physically leave the USA and was
then free to re-enter after 24 hours. This arose because I had "worked" for
an employer that was not listed on my work visa at that time. That was a
technical error, not on my part, but on the part of the I&NS, since I'd not
been paid, and was thus not actually employed. However, the I&NS officers
suggested that since I was scheduled to return to Canada anyway, and
already had my air ticket, it would be simpler to just go along with the
system and all would be resolved. I agreed. I was not incarcerated, I was
not accompanied to the airport, and I never heard anything more about the
matter. But the blackmailers dug up this dreadful "arrest record," and are
now holding it up as evidence of my perfidy and criminal history. It would
be well to relate another aspect of this matter that is powerful evidence
against the detractors. While I lived in New Jersey, I applied for American
citizenship. When the time came for my examination before the I&NS officer,
in which I knew I would be asked the usual questions about U.S. government
and history, I was hit with the question, "Have you ever been arrested?"
With some trepidation, I told the officer about both cases. He seemed
unmoved by both accounts, and said to me, "Mr. Randi, I lived in
Middletown, and your arrest there I consider to be a definite plus toward
your being granted citizenship." I was relieved. The officer continued.
"Now I have to ask you questions about the U.S. Constitution and system of
government." He paused, then looked up at me. "Mr. Randi, who was the first
president of the United States?" I rather saw the direction he was going,
and went along with it. "Richard Nixon?" I asked. "Ummm, no. But that's
close enough." He stood up, reached across his desk, and shook my hand with
a big smile. "Welcome to the United States of America, Mr. Randi."
Shortly thereafter, I was sworn in as a U.S. citizen in a hall in Newark,
New Jersey. I relate this event to show that my whole record was and is
known to the U.S. government, yet I was granted citizenship. Had there been
any truth to the horrendous canards that are presently being circulated,
that would not have happened. Furthermore, when the would-be
parapsychologist Eldon Byrd sued me in Baltimore a few years ago, his
lawyer brought up the famous tape recording as evidence against my
character. My own lawyer, at my insistence, asked that the entire tape be
played for the courtroom and jury, so that the true nature of the record
would be understood, instead of being misrepresented as it usually was. It
was played, and Postal Inspector Ray Mack, who followed this matter from
its inception, was a witness we brought in to validate the true nature of
the recording. His evidence was accepted by the jury, who then gave Eldon
Byrd zero of the four penalties he was demanding of me, totaling thirteen
million dollars. My detractors claim that at that trial, I was established
to be "a malicious liar," and that I was found guilty. The truth is that
(a) the term "malicious liar" was invented by Byrd's lawyer, and was not
any part of the jury's decision, and (b) I entered that courtroom having
already admitted that I did indeed make the statement about Eldon Byrd for
which he sued me, but that I did it based upon evidence supplied to me. I
was notconvicted of having made that statement; it was already part of the
record. I had said that Byrd was "a convicted child molester," while I
should have said that he was "an admitted child molester," a fact that was
developed during that trial -- though I was the defendant in the case! Byrd
had plea-bargained himself out of the original charge, settling for a
lesser charge and a summary judgement. This was unknown to me. In any case,
I certainly won that case, since I was represented pro bono most
efficiently, and paid Byrd not a nickel.
x x x x x x x x x x x
Now you know the actual facts behind the accusations. I cannot hope that
this document will receive the attention or the circulation given to the
scandalous fantasies that have been giggled over by so many for the last
sixteen years. Those who really know me simply refuse to believe what was
contained in the blackmail package, and also know that I would never, under
any circumstances, yield to such pressures. They also know that there is
nothing -- absolutely nothing -- in my life that cannot be known to anyone,
that can cause me to back away from my chosen work. I am my own person, and
always will be. The blackmailers cannot recognize that fact. I have felt it
necessary to issue this statement so that those who may have believed any
or all of the scurrilous attack that was committed against me, can have the
facts to consider, rather than the invented ravings that have heretofore
been circulated. I have no intention of softening my attacks on nonsense.
In a battle that I suspect I cannot win, I continue to fight. Perhaps -- is
it a futile hope? -- there will come a day when superstition, fear and
scientific illiteracy will no longer rule our minds. Then, perhaps I will
be vindicated. Until that time, I can only hope that those with whom I
disagree will at least agree to pursue their ends as responsible, honorable
persons. It is not too much to ask.
