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The Geis Letter

"Thought Crime, Dogmacide & Intellectual Heresy"

published by Richard E. Geis

The content of the following two sections below were lifted verbatim from The Geis Letter No. 46, received 3/26/98.

Subscriptions

USA: $1. per issue, subscribe to as many as you wish.
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Contact Info

Richard E. Geis:
100313.3440@compuserve.com
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Post Office Mail:
Richard E. Geis
P O Box 11408
Portland, OR 97211-0408
USA

Andy Watson's Opinion re The Geis Letter

Even though REG did not like Ciphers, his problems with the book reflect his taste more than an objective assessment in a literary or contemporary-literature context. His reaction to the book is probably representative of a significant number of potential readers of the novel who probably also find the work of Thomas Pynchon unreadable. Oddly, I would have thought that the conspiracy theories woven through Ciphers would have held special appeal for REG.

On the whole, I quite enjoy receiving The Geis Letter for its sincerity, well-crafted expresions of iconoclastic opinions, and the simply fascinating insights and observations he offers in support of compelling conspiracy theories that just might not be paranoid ravings at all.

Two recent faves:

  • The FBI cover-up of the TWA Flight 800 accidental (or intentional?) downing by a U.S. Navy surface-to-air missile.
    About Flight 800, REG quotes from Aviation Week:

On July 21, 1996, the report states, Assistant U.S. Attorney Valerie Caproni informed Magladry and Norm Weimeyer, head of the Flight 800 probe's operations group, "that no interviews were to be conducted by the NTSB." Safety Board investigators could review FBI-supplied documents on the witnesses, "provided no notes were taken and no copies were made."
 
The next day, FBI and NTSB officials reached an agreement that safety board officials could conduct interviews "under the direction and in the company of the FBI, and all information would be kept private with no notes taken.
 
The report said that there were 458 witness interviews provided by the FBI. Of those 183 reported seeing a streak of light and 102 provided information on the origin of the streak. The report stated that six witnesses said the streak originated in the sky and 96 said it rose from the surface.
 
It is not clear whether the accounts of the 96 witnesses were included in the 244 analyzed by the CIA for the FBI. Tha analysts concluded that the witnesses did not see a missile strike Flight 800.
  • The FBI's grandstanding (with Media cooperation) in cases like their wrongful arrest of Larry Wayne Harris and William Leavitt for possession of alleged military-grade anthrax germs.
    About the FBI, REG wrote:

    "... this whole scare 'terrorist story' was contrived by the FBI psychological media operation to further condition the American people to accept drastic future limits on their freedoms and to justify future drastic federal actions in 'law enforcement.'"

Great stuff!

I can't help thinking that REG might have liked Ciphers had he read more than the first chapter. I always advise people to read through the third chapter (actually numbered Chapter "00000010", octal notation for decimal "2", with the first chapter being numbered zero) before deciding to give up on it. By then, if they still don't like it, they might as well stop, but most people seem to have gotten into the novel's idiosyncratic groove by then.