January 14, 1996


Dear Margaret,

I've been thinking about how to write this letter since our phone
call in November. I'm not sure I've found the right words, but
I'm going to try anyway.

I've spoken with two people in the department about your current
work. Neither of them asked me to write to you, and I want to
be clear about that. This is coming from me, out of concern for
you specifically, not out of any institutional pressure. I hope
you'll read it that way.

You're pulling on a thread that leads somewhere. I think you know
that. What I'm not sure you've thought through is that threads
of this kind don't always unravel in just one direction.

I know you believe in what you're researching. I've read your
paper. The science is real — whatever else is going on, the
phenotype you've described is real, and your methodology is sound.
But the questions in your FOIA requests — specifically the Fort
Garland questions — those aren't genetics questions anymore.
That's not a criticism. I'm telling you what it looks like from
the outside, because I don't think you can see it right now.

You told me you filed a third request. Margaret. A third request,
fourteen months after the first one, asking for the same category
of documents, after two partial responses and one outright denial.
I'm not going to tell you you're wrong to do it. I'm going to
tell you that someone is paying attention to you now, and that
is a different situation than the one you were in a year ago.

I was asked, about eight months ago, whether I thought you were
stable. I told them yes. I said you were rigorous and that your
conclusions, while unconventional, were defensible from the data.
I said that. I said it because it was true and because I thought
it would help you.

I'd like to be able to keep saying it.

Please call me before you file anything else. I'm not asking you
to stop. I'm asking you to let someone else look at what you have
before you send it to people who are already watching you.

I've enclosed my home number. Please use it. Not the office.

Your friend,

— R.

P.S. Burn this letter. I mean that literally.