Subject: Attack by Ellison et al. Date: Sun, 8 Jan 1995 16:39:21 -0800 (168 lines) From: philjohn@uclink.berkeley.edu (Phillip E Johnson) Message-Id: <199501090039.QAA15759@uclink.berkeley.edu> To: rethinkaids@uclink.berkeley.edu January 8, 1995 Response to Attack by Bryan Ellison et al. by Phillip Johnson A paper titled "Phillip Johnson on Trial: The Attempt to Censor the Ellison/Duesberg Book," by Joel A. Schwartz and Bryan J. Ellison, was published in a newsletter and circulated on the internet. Persons familiar with the facts are not taking this personal attack seriously. For persons who are not informed about what actually happened, an explanation is necessary to prevent confusion. There are basically two separate conflicts that have become entwined. 1. The so-called Ellison/Duesberg book, titled "Why We Will Never Win the War On AIDS." Bryan Ellison was a graduate student under Harry Rubin in molecular biology at Berkeley, who adopted the Duesberg cause and helped Peter with articles. Eventually, he became Duesberg's graduate assistant, and took up the writing of what was to be their joint book on the Duesberg theory of the HIV/AIDS controversy. I knew hardly anything about the book until they got into a fight with the first publisher (Addison Wesley), at which time they asked me for advice about the publisher's demand that they return the advance. I gave them some suggestions that they both seemed to think helpful, and tried to help them find another publisher. I recommended the book to Regnery, which wanted to publish it, but meanwhile their literary agent had found St. Martin's Press, a more prestigious publisher which Duesberg and the agent preferred. Ellison went along with Duesberg's preference for St. Martin's, but he told me that he really preferred Regnery, because the editor at St. Martin's was gay and Ellison suspected he would try to undermine the manuscript in the editorial process. Subsequently, Ellison treated this editor and others who tried to make helpful suggestions with extreme suspicion, evidently because he assumed that all such efforts were motivated by a desire to weaken or kill the book. I have no direct knowledge of the dealings between Ellison and the editor at St. Martin's, but I recently received a report from a professional writer who compared the manuscript as edited by St. Martin's with the book Ellison eventually published. He reported: "The St. Martin's suggested excisions were not only wholly reasonable, I thought, and would have improved the book in every instance; they were if anything, too moderate, too gingerly. Rarely can a novice author have been treated so kindly by New York editors." A crisis blew up when the editor passed the manuscript up to the President of St. Martin's, Thomas McCormack. McCormack wrote a long and thoughtful letter to Duesberg and Ellison saying that he thought the book was generally excellent but that it needed certain revisions to be satisfactory to St. Martin's. Some of these had to do with clarity and support for basic arguments, and others had to do with potentially libelous personal attacks that made the authors look spiteful. Ellison sent a defiant response to this letter without consulting Duesberg. Duesberg had gone very far (in retrospect, too far) in going along with Ellison in arguments with the publisher in order to keep peace with Ellison. Ellison's response to McCormack was of a nature that it seemed likely to kill the whole project, and Duesberg sought me out to help him try to save the situation. I read McCormack's letter at that time. I am an author myself, and have done battle with meddlesome editors, so I am instinctively on the side of the author in such a conflict. McCormack's letter was fundamentally supportive, and any author - - especially a relative novice like Ellison -- ought to have been encouraged to get that much personal attention from a man with such authority and prestige in the publishing world. McCormack's concern was clearly to come out with a persuasive book that would appeal to readers who are not predisposed to accept a radical critique of the scientific orthodoxy about AIDS. A book that St. Martin's Press was not just willing to publish but was actually enthusiastic about would have a tremendous impact. Of course, the publisher was taking a risk in backing this kind of project, and so was entitled to expect the authors to cooperate in making the book as solid as possible. Ellison's insolent response to McCormack's letter was incomprehensible, especially since he sent it without consulting his senior co-author. At Duesberg's request I wrote to McCormack to urge him not to drop the book, telling him that I supported his basic position but was hopeful that his concerns could be met. There was worse to come. Ellison went into seclusion and refused to return phone calls or appear at Duesberg's lab, where he was supposed to be employed. Without notice to Duesberg, Ellison self-published the manuscript -- making copious use of Duesberg's name in the advertising -- without any indication that he was acting without authorization from Duesberg. This action effectively prevented publication by St. Martin's or any other reputable press unless Duesberg could stop Ellison's independent publication. Duesberg therefore took legal action, while making efforts to arrange proper publication. I had no part in this legal action. Duesberg also dropped Ellison as his graduate assistant for persistent absence; the department graduate advisor called me to confirm that Ellison was indeed out of touch and even refusing to return phone calls. 2. The "Rethinking" newsletter and James Trabulse. To make a long story as short as possible, Trabulse is a businessman with no academic or scientific standing who volunteered his services to help with the original "Rethinking AIDS" newsletter. Because most of us who are primarily involved in arguing the substantive issues had no time to edit the newsletter, Trabulse ended up as acting editor for a time, and somehow formed the idea that the newsletter was his own personal property to use as he wished. Those of us on the editorial board were increasingly embarrassed by complaints about the uneven quality of the newsletter, and were looking everywhere for a new editor as an alternative to resigning en masse. Trabulse refused to communicate with any of us or to account for money received on the Group's behalf, all the while selling items by other persons (Duesberg articles, recorded interviews, etc.) and refusing to account for the proceeds! Eventually all the scientific and academic people found the situation intolerable, and we reorganized with a new newsletter under the title "Reappraising AIDS." Trabulse has refused our repeated requests to account for funds he received from unsuspecting donors and purchasers of papers, and he has also refused to turn over the mailing list -- which we had to do our best to reconstruct. Trabulse and Ellison now seem to have formed a sort of alliance. The Schwartz and Ellison paper was published in "Rethinking AIDS," the newsletter Trabulse is trying to maintain as his own property. Everyone should be aware that this newsletter has no connection with the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS hypothesis, or any of its well-known members. Trabulse has no authority to sell materials by any of us. That is the factual background. The more general items in the personal attack on me are absurd on their face. I seem to have committed the heinous crimes of keeping an open mind on the cause of AIDS and attempting to start dialogues with scientists on the other side of the issue. Like HIV itself, I must have supernatural powers and cunning. My sole motivation is supposedly to keep information about the HIV controversy from reaching the public, which is why I publish articles on the subject and give lectures criticizing the journalists for ignoring the story. See my talk opening the 1994 AAAS meeting, recently republished in Reappraising AIDS. I recently circulated a draft of an article about how my views have developed over time. This article will be published in the Genetica volume and probably elsewhere. Then there is the Thomas, Mullis and Johnson article In REASON, followed by the lengthy response to letters about that article. All this publication occurred just during the preceding year. Some conspiracy of silence. Come to think of it, even my founding of an email news service is presumably a fiendishly subtle plot to keep the world from learning the truth. All this is perfectly silly, of course, but the reason I have the honor of being Ellison's target is obvious. Ellison's real quarrel is with Duesberg, the mentor whose trust he abused, but he can't afford to attack Duesberg without completely undermining his own position, since the main selling point for his book is that Duesberg's name is attached to it. Phillip Johnson