Talk:Michel Thomas
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December 2006 - Ocotber 2007
Ocotber 2007 - January 2008
Contents |
[edit] Sign your name
If you add comments to this talk page, type ~~~~ after them to sign your name. Discussions are much more confusing without and idea of who said what and when. Antonrojo 16:51, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Why the fuss over a dead man's WWII service?
Readers who bother to wade through the more than two years of tit-for-tat quibbling buried in the archives of this article's endless edits -- and the discussion counterpart -- may legitimately ask why on earth anyone outside of Michel Thomas and his close friends and family would care about such details as whether this decorated WWII vet was really a CIC Agent, or was present at the liberation of Dachau, etc.
The answer is that Mr. Thomas's case is an unusually stark example of media arrogance and a failure of the courts and the press to impose any significant accountability on a major newspaper's callous destruction of a man's reputation.
In a nutshell, Thomas sued the Los Angeles Times and reporter Roy Rivenburg for defamation in 2001, after the Times published a profile of him that portrayed him as a fraud and a charlatan who had lied about his WWII experiences in Germany and France.
Three years later, after a federal judge and an appellate court ruled that his case could not proceed to a jury, and forced him to pay the Times' legal fees, I assembled some of the research I had done in my role as the investigator for Thomas and his legal team to prepare his case and submitted it to Senator John McCain and Carolyn Maloney, the Democratic Congresswoman in Mr. Thomas's New York City district. The research included sworn statements from every surviving WWII comrade who actually knew Thomas and fought with him during the war -- all of whom were unanimously supportive of Thomas and backed up his 'claims' about his WWII experiences.
The research was forwarded to the US Army, which did its own research and in 2004 awarded Thomas the Silver Star for his bravery fighting with US troops in France in 1944. Upon hearing of this remarkable story, former Senator Bob Dole volunteered to preside over the medal ceremony. He invited fellow WWII veteran Senator John Warner, and the two pinned the medal on Thomas at the WWII Memorial during the week of its dedication, as several of Thomas's WWII comrades stood by, along with the Ambassador of France and the head of the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, Eli Rosenbaum.
It was a very moving ceremony, and garnered international press coverage and a five-minute segment on Wolf Blitzer's CNN program.
It was not, however, covered at all by the Los Angeles Times, even though that paper had seen fit to publish a long profile of Thomas three years before, then spared no expense fighting his efforts to get the paper to correct the highly misleading implications of the article -- expenses which Thomas was then forced to pay, because of the twisted application of California's so-called anti-SLAPP statute, originally enacted to level the playing field in David & Goliath power confrontations by inhibiting large corporations and wealthy developers from filing frivolous lawsuits against poorly-funded political activists.
John Carroll was at that time the paper's editor -- and a man whose public positions on the corrosion of American journalistic standards I supported wholeheartedly. Three months before Mr. Thomas was awarded the Silver Star, Mr. Carroll appeared for an onstage interview at UC Berkeley before a friendly crowd. When I asked him during the ensuing Q & A session why neither he nor anyone else at the paper had responded to the nearly 400 letters they had been sent protesting the article, he responded defiantly that he was "very proud" of the article, which "had a little fun at the expense of" Michel Thomas, at that time a 90 year-old man, whose family of Polish Jews had been murdered at Auschwitz, but who had managed to avoid that fate and fight in the French Resistance, and then serve with distinction fighting with US infantry and using his fluency in several languages as an Agent in the US Army's Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC).
I was, and remain, astonished at this response from this titan of American journalism, a former member of the Pulitzer committee, who has declined to respond to several respectful letters of entreaty that I and others, including Michel Thomas's biographer Christopher Robbins, sent him before and after this public confrontation. He has never given any indication that he reviewed the detailed parade of rebuttal evidence to his paper's portrayal of Mr. Thomas, and he did not respond when I notified him by voice mail and email in April 2004 that Mr. Thomas had been awarded the Silver Star, and that he might want to have a reporter cover the impending ceremony in Washington.
As for former L.A. Times reporter Roy Rivenburg, one needs only to read his many edits to this Wikipedia article, and his commentaries on the discussion page, to draw conclusions about whether his motives were disinterested when he profiled Mr. Thomas in 2001. Readers should also note that shortly after Mr. Thomas died in January 2005, Mr. Rivenburg posted an article entitled "The Myth of Michel Thomas" on his personal web site, which includes links to friendly bloggers with titles such as "That Lying Old Fraud Michel Thomas Has Died."
Fortunately the powers-that-be of Wikipedia were less obtuse than Mr. Rivenburg's editors at the Times, and several months ago he was banned and blocked from making edits to this article about Mr. Thomas.
Alex Kline (talk) 23:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC) San Francisco, California May 2008
[edit] Reply to 'Why the Fuss'
If there were an ounce of truth to Michel Thomas' claims, other journalists would have jumped all over the Los Angeles Times -- the same way they did when Times reporter Eric Slater was accused of fabricating a source. In an era when even the slightest whiff of journalistic screw-up (Jayson Blair, Jack Kelley, Rick Bragg, etc) gets raked over the coals by media watchdogs, Thomas' claims have been rejected by mainstream reporters. No journalist who has seen the evidence that the L.A. Times gathered about Michel Thomas has done a story about his case or believed his accusations.
Thomas' Silver Star award in no way negates what the L.A. Times (and several other newspapers) reported, namely that Thomas falsely claimed he was a U.S. Army officer instead of a civilian employee, that Gestapo chieftain Klaus Barbie's prosecutor told jurors at Barbie's 1987 trial to disregard Thomas' testimony because it wasn't made "in good faith," and that Thomas' version of other wartime feats is irrefutably contradicted by 1945 press reports, military records, and eyewitness accounts. Thomas did some heroic things during the war, but he exaggerated and made up other accomplishments.
Rivenburg (talk) 07:12, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Wikipedia's Thomas bio isn't reliable
The NPOV neutrality tag should be restored because the article isn't neutral and doesn't conform with Wikipedia policies on fairly representing "significant viewpoints" from reliable published sources. For example:
- 1) The article says Thomas testified at Klaus Barbie's trial, but leaves out the well-publicized fact that Barbie's prosecutor, Pierre Truche, asked jurors to disregard Thomas' testimony, saying, "With the exception of Mr. Thomas, all the witnesses are of good faith."
- 2) The article states as fact that Thomas "played a part in the recovery of a cache of Nazi documents." This assertion is in dispute and evidence to the contrary (military records and 1945 newspaper articles that credit Hans Huber and/or Francesco Quaranta with the rescue) have never been refuted by any reliable, mainstream published source. Thomas' biography purports to rebut some (but not all) of those sources, but Thomas shared in the book's royalties, so the book's objectivity is questionable when compared against the New York Times, L.A. Times and other sources that contradict Thomas' version of events.
- 3) Under "External Links," the description for "The Myth of Michel Thomas" is hardly neutral. For starters, it says the website writer was sued for libel by Thomas, but leaves out the fact that Thomas lost the case. Compare that with the description of michelthomas.org, which doesn't mention that Thomas' libel lawsuit was thrown out of court, or that much of the "detailed information" on his site is "commentary," not fact.
In general, the article unfairly leaves out any mention that reliable sources, ranging from a top U.S. Justice Department official in 1983 to the Washington Post in 2005, have raised questions about Thomas' wartime stories. The "evidence" presented by Thomas in response to these questions has been rejected by four federal judges and by the mainstream journalism community. Therefore, there is no sound reason to exclude this material from Wikipedia.
User Liquidfinale's (Steve) Nov. 30, 2007, edit of the Thomas bio is far more neutral than the current version and should be restored.
Rivenburg (talk) 01:36, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
- I'm going to stick a little bit of the Barbie trial stuff back in later today. Steve T • C 11:38, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the adjustments. But two points on Barbie: First, the cite is wrong. The UPI article isn't about Thomas' testimony being excluded. That came later, from the Chicago Tribune (Chicago Tribune, "Barbie Prosecutor Demands Life Term," by Julian Nundy, July 1, 1987). Second, saying that his testimony was "ultimately excluded" sounds more like there was some procedural glitch. It would be more accurate to say his testimony was "later excluded by the prosecutor" or, better yet, actually quote what the prosecutor said, as did the Washington Post in its obituary of Thomas. It's quite a telling statement and very much in line with what the Justice Dept official said and the Barbie documentary covered. Thanks for considering. Rivenburg (talk) 20:51, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Liquidfinale (Steve), I understand that Rivenburg was blocked because of his constant editing. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Rivenburg#Arbitration_Committee) "We've decided to unblock him, with a caveat. He may not edit the Michel Thomas article. He's free to use the talk page to make suggestions and whatnot, but he shouldn't be editing the article himself due to his personal involvement with the subject."
This is not the talk page, it is the discussion page. Furthermore, it gives the appearence that you are doing the editing for him, and that he is guiding you step by step. Sorry to put it this way, but that is what appears to be happening. 75.33.233.58 (talk) 23:53, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
- No, no need to apologise. I'll merely say that he made a good point insofar as the citation used for the Barbie note being the wrong one, and I have not followed his every suggestion. For instance, quoting the prosecutor and whatnot. Steve T • C 00:07, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Thank you Liquidfinale (Steve).
Nico de Koenigsberg
Cruz del sur (talk) 00:19, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Rivenburg Is NOT A Reliable Source
In the short time that I became aware of Rivenburg’s article, I have found several problems with his research. These are not hard to find issues, since they are ready available in the Internet. What they show is that Rivenburg did not do a thorough research.
I have already argued that there are still millions of documents that the intelligence agencies have not declassified, although Congress has ordered to do so. Those documents specifically deal with Nazi war crimes and war criminals, a task that Michel Thomas was entrusted to do as a Counter Intelligence Corp member. Rivenburg relied on documents which have been declassified and which are in the National Archives. The few documents that are there, were declassified to present a positive view of the Counter Intelligence Corp soon after it was made public that Barbie had worked for the CIC. I know this to be true, since I have done two searches in the National Archives one through regular channels and the other one I contacted Mr. Taylor,(http://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2007/nr07-12.html) “a leading authority on covert military operations during World War II”. Now, my father, according to a document that I have, (http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b273/cruzdelsur/?action=view¤t=letter___6_Mar_1946_re_VdK1.jpg) was performing a “special investigation of extreme importance to the Armed Forces” and remained in the European Theatre of Operations “because of the extreme importance of his mission”. Yet, the National Archives could not find anything related to my father. It would be interesting to see if Rivenburg even bothered to use FOIA to obtain the information form the Intelligence Agencies and DoD that he needed to have an accurate picture of Thomas’ service. Did he ask for the after actions reports from the 307th CIC? I doubt it since so far he has only said that he has used the National Archives.
Rivenburg has also maintained that Thomas was only a civilian assistant and translator. This seems unlikely, since I can’t imagine that neither a civilian assistant nor a translator could be responsible of arresting Emil Mahl or Gustav Knittel, responsible of the Malmedy Massacre. Facts, as far as I know, would be out of the scope of a civilian assistant or a translator. And, as I believe, Rivenburg has not contested.
Another problem that I have found with Rivenburg’s research are also seen in the discussion here (http://307thcic.wordpress.com/2007/03/21/michel-thomas/). I must add that Rivenburg's quote I took it from Wikipedia, but it has been edited and removed.
"Mr Rivenburg, I have a problem with what you wrote:(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_thomas) The report said American intelligence officials hired Barbie in 1947 because they didn’t know about his Gestapo past. Thomas criticized the department’s report on Barbie’s role as a post-war spy for the U.S. Thomas said that statement was false because he had written a memo in 1945, while working with the Counter Intelligence Corps, identifying Barbie as a former Gestapo
I took this from NARA (http://www.archives.gov/iwg/research-papers/barbie-irr-file.html) : This HICOG [U.S. High Commission for Germany] Barbie five-folder file contains copies with translations of the contemporaneous and postwar French reports of atrocities committed by Barbie, and of numerous signed originals of the futile French applications for his extradition, as well as the background correspondence and draft copies of evasive HICOG replies…. …This includes his arrest at Gross Gerau by American forces at the turn of the year 1945, and his release in January. Early in 1946, he was a paid informant for the CIC detachment operating in the Kassel-Marburg-Fulda area. In November 1946, he was the object of futile solicitation and consequent arrest by British intelligence in Hamburg
Or this (http://www.paperless archives.com/barbie.html) : A CIC memo contains details of Barbie’s 1946 escape from custody. A memo describes Barbie’s alleged activities in the 1946-47 period, including his travels in Germany, his contacts with various Germans and his alleged involvement in a jewel theft and the black market. A copy of an Allied Control Authority Central Registry of War Criminal and Security Suspects want list naming Klaus Barbie as wanted by France for murder. Information from the French Embassy and the Department of State, showing that the French persisted in their attempts to secure Barbie’s surrender.
All this information was ready available on the Internet. Another case in which he showed a lack of basic research was with my name, Nico. Just because he knew that one female singer (Nico and the Velvet Underground), he assumed (either that or he was being mean-spirited ) that it was a female’s name, and ignoring the fact that Nico is a male’s name and that millions of men use it, and it can be seen in the same discussion above.
In short, Rivenburg is an unreliable source, never did a thorough research, and is constantly assuming facts. That is why I request the editors and administrators to take this into consideration. It’s been three years since Thomas passed away. It is time to allow this great warrior to rest in peace.
Nico de Koenigsberg
Cruz del sur (talk) 20:16, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
