UPDATE: See note in comments below -- Dr. Kotz called me on July 17, 2014 -- I now think he did not libel John Doar.
University of Massachusetts at Amherst Economics Professor David Kotz published an article on the death of James Cheney, Mickie Schwerner and Andrew Goodman on Truthout yesterday.
The article unfairly impugned and libeled an American hero, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights John Doar, one of my legal heroes.
The article falsely stated that John Doar could somehow have prevented Messrs. Cheney, Schwerner and Goodman from being murdered if he had called the Neshoba County Jail between 4 and 10 PM on June 21, 1964.
It falsely stated that John Doar was called during this time by civil rights workers. There is no evidence to that effect in Dr. Kotz's letter or the legal and academic literature on the period. Thus, I asked Dr. Kotz for an explanation. He did not respond. In researching the issue, I find that the earliest John Doar was called by civil rights workers and knew that Messrs. Cheney, Schwerner and Goodman were missing was at 1:30 AM on June 22, 1964. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/trialheroes/doaressay.html
I found a memo from civil rights workers reporting that the opinion that Prof. Kotz recalled 50 years later came not from John Doar, but from an unnamed FBI agent and unnamed DOJ lawyer in Mississipi. http://www.crmvet.org/docs/csg_640622.pdf I wrote to Dr. Kotz and requested a retraction.
No response.
Dr. Kotz specializes in the economics of Communism and teaches at U. Mass. Amherst and in China.
Dr. Kotz has no expertise in civil rights history, other than working in Mississippi in 1964.
He is inattentive to detail, and in his article incorrectly reported that John Doar was counsel to the "Watergate COmmission," which did not exist.
The point of his article was to impugn the Justice Department as culpable in murder.
Dr. Kotz's cheap shot vastly overstates his case with inaccuracy, innuendo and unfairness.
Dr. Kotz did not respond to three (3) E-mails and one telephone message.
I conclude Dr. Kotz is a humbug, with no credibility, who libeled an American civil rights hero, who successfully prosecuted the murderers of Messrs. Cheney, Schwerer and Goodman and successfully led the investigation that led to voting of articles of impeachment by the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives against Richard Milhous Nixon.
To protect John Doar's reputation, I publish my correspondence below.
Until I receive a response, I will treat anything received from Truthout (or Dr. Kotz) with a gimlet eye.
I have been advised to consider reporting Dr. Kotz to the Chancellor of the University.
What do you reckon?
-----Original Message-----
From: easlavin
To: dmkotz
Sent: Thu, Jul 10, 2014 1:48 pm
Subject: Fwd: John Doar conversation re: Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman missing persons report
Dear Dr. Kotz:
Please respond by 5 PM today.
Do you have any documents from any source that support your statement about John Doar?
Thank you.
With kindest regards,
Ed
Ed Slavin
904-377-4998
-----Original Message-----
From: easlavin
To: dmkotz
Sent: Wed, Jul 9, 2014 9:10 pm
Subject: Fwd: John Doar conversation re: Cheney, Schwerner and Goodman missing persons report
Dear Dr. Kotz:
1. Does this COFO/CORE document refresh your recollection?
http://www.crmvet.org/docs/csg_640622.pdf ==
2. It appears to be a COFO/CORE June 22, 1964 memo -- please see the fifth paragraph, second sentence, quoting unnamed DOJ lawyer in Philadelphia MS and unnamed FBI agent in Jackson, MS as making the statements attributed to John Doar.
3. If you are mistaken, are you willing to correct the record re: John Doar?
Thank you.
With kindest regards,
Ed
Ed Slavin
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
904-377-4998
-----Original Message-----
From: easlavin
To: dmkotz
Sent: Wed, Jul 9, 2014 7:01 pm
Subject: John Doar conversation re: Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman missing persons report
Dear Dr. Kotz:
Thank you for your Truthout article about the murders of Messrs. Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman.
1. Are there are any FBI or DOJ Civil Rights Division documents on John Doar's refusal to call the Neshoba County, Mississippi County Sheriff?
2. Did you call John Doar for comment recently?
3. Did you speak to John Doar personally in 1964, or did someone else speak with him?
4. Are there any documents or citations that you would care to share?
5. Two of my mentors were Stetson Kennedy and St. John Barrett, and I am fascinated by this era. I was born in 1957, to two union organizers in Southern New Jersey. I have now lived in three civil rights battlegrounds -- Clinton, Tenn; Memphis, Tenn. and St. Augustine, Florida. I moved o both Clinton and St. Augustine without knowing their histories. When in law school in Memphis, I rode the 50 bus to my law clerkship, passing right by the Lorraine Motel (before one of my law professors, D'Army Bailey, raised the funds to make it a museum).
6. When you come to St. Augustine, please visit our two civil rights monuments in our Slave Market Square, one to Ambassador Andrew Young and one to the Civil Rights Foot Soldiers.
…..
Thank you!
With kindest regards,
Ed
Ed Slavin
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
www.staugustgreen.com
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
904-377-4998
Update: Dr. Kotz called me today. He said the University's E-mail malfunctioned and he did not receive my E-mails, and only received my telephone messages today.
ReplyDeleteWhile he has no documents, he recalled that he personally spoke to John Doar the day of the disappearance and that John Doar said he could not do anything for "48 hours."
Dr. Kotz had never written of his recollections before.
Meanwhile, I wrote and left a telephone message for John Doar last week and never heard back from John Doar, who is now 92.
This is an interesting area of inquiry for scholars. After their bodies were located and after one of the most massive FBI investigations in historyJohn Doar personally prosecuted the KKK members and law enforcement officers who killed the three civil rights workers.
While John Doar had never prosecuted a criminal case before, he won convictions of nine of the eighteen defendants in federal court. Prior to that, no white person was ever convicted of killing a black person in the entire history of the State of Mississippi. Thus, when future histories and biographies are written, and archives are examined:
Are there records of the call to John Doar? Wiretaps? Did the FBI know of the conversation? Did John Doar speak to Robert Kennedy and others at DOJ after the call with Dr. Kotz? What did they say? Did DOJ miss an opportunity, as Dr. Kotz is convinced, to save the three civil rights workers by calling the jail in Philadelphia, Mississippi? If the FBI or DOJ had called, would the three civil rights workers still have been killed that night? Did Doar ever confide to colleagues about how history would have been different if he had called the jail that night? Did that knowledge motivate him to move heaven and earth to win a conviction in a case in which there were three possibly preventable deaths?
Having investigated OSHA, OSHRC, FMSHRC, DOE, TVA and other federal agencies whose actions result in preventable deaths -- thousands of them -- I am intrigued.
I find Dr. Kotz to be a credible witness, notwithstanding the lack of supporting documents.
It is a conversation that a young civil rights worker would never forget.