Today, I want to discuss lies, a topic on which I’ve become somewhat of an expert. It’s not that I myself do much lying, other than the usual stuff everyone lies about. You know, like when you say that you like someone’s haircut when you really don’t or when you tell someone that you’re too busy to attend some function, when you’re not. We’re not talking about those kinds of lies. We’re also not talking about the little half-truths that people tell online. You know, like when a commenter on a blog post isn’t on the up and up about who they are. Truth be told, even the pretenders have asked some great questions or made some valid points. Whether you’re real or fake, you’ve probably contributed to the greater good in some way, so no harm, no foul.
No, we’re talking about the bigger lies. Like when someone who knows something useful about Ron Tammen’s case tells you something that’s 100 percent not true. Or when someone chooses not to tell you something that they know is pertinent to the question at hand. Or when someone says or does something to purposely steer you in the wrong direction or to stop you cold from whatever you’re currently investigating.
Before I get into the most recent example in which I’ve been intentionally deceived during this investigation, I need to tell you about a lie I once told. I do this out of a great deal of shame and embarrassment, but, as you’ll soon see, I’m telling this story because it illustrates an important point. I’ve kept this lie to myself since I was in the sixth grade. Only one person has heard this story, and that’s my running partner, and I only told her just recently. My sister and brother have never heard this story before, and neither has my husband—current or ex. Thank God, both of my parents are gone, so they’ll never have to know.
My lie has to do with the science fair. As I said, I was in the sixth grade, and, for my project that year, I was growing plants under fluorescent lights. As much as I like and respect science now, I didn’t really understand it then. I didn’t “get” the whole scientific method, and how you first need to come up with a question and then figure out how you can answer that question by designing an experiment. I was just growing plants under lights, and the only reason I chose that project was it also happened to be my dad’s hobby at the time. (My dad always played a major role in helping us choose our science fair project.) I titled my project “Moon Farming,” and I felt that it demonstrated how society could exist on the moon through artificial lighting. I did all the work and wrote up a report, and I felt pretty well prepared on the big day when I’d soon be standing in front of my project and explaining it to a judge.
Before I left for school, my sister, who is four years older, wished me luck, and then she passed along some sisterly intel: the judges don’t like it if you spend a lot of money on a project. She wasn’t telling me to lie, just to tread carefully around the money issue. Besides, I had no idea if my fluorescent lights cost a lot—my father had paid for them. But good to know. I thanked her and went on my way.
Sure enough, as I was explaining my project to the judge, she asked me about the cost of the lights. “Oh, there was no cost,” I lied to the judge. “No?” she asked. “We already had those lights,” I lied again, as if we had a stockpile of fluorescent lights in some corner of the house, waiting to be put to use. She gave me a “good” on my project, which I think was one notch up from “fair” which was another notch up from “poor.” Her stated reason: “It doesn’t seem possible.”
The next day, my teacher, a male who was in serious need of some sensitivity training, was leading the class in a debriefing over how everything had transpired with our science projects. When I remarked that I felt the judge’s reason for my “good” seemed a little unfair, my teacher told me—in front of the whole class—that the reason for my mediocre evaluation was because I’d lied about the lights. He said that I’d told the judge that we’d already had the lights when, on Day 1 in my report, I’d described removing the lights from the box they came in to set up my moon farm. I was mortified and embarrassed and probably a little miffed at myself for incorporating that level of detail into my report. (Judging by the wordcount of some of my blogposts, my love for detail hasn’t waned.) To save face, I had to lie again—because that’s what lies demand that we do—repeating that our family already had the lights in our possession when I began my project. It was a horrible, shameful moment in my young life, but perhaps it was also the turning point in which I became the avid truthteller who stands before you today.
It also illustrates why I love archival documents so much. That first entry in my report—one that I’d probably written months before and then forgotten about—told the truth about the fluorescent lights, not the 11-year-old girl who’d done all the watering and measuring but who, in her mind, had a motive to deceive. If a human being and a document are at odds about something that happened, I’ll side with the document pretty much every time.
In the university’s case, I’m still trying to get to the bottom of their recent actions concerning the interview someone conducted with Carl Knox’s secretary. Do I feel in my gut that I’m being misled? I do. But I’m not ready to say outright that a cover-up that started in 1953 is ongoing. I’m still trying to find documents that might lead us to the answer, either way. Nevertheless, I’ve also decided to do most of my musing offline from here on out. When I finally track down the person who conducted the interview—and, trust me, I’m giving it all I’ve got—I’ll need to be able to promise anonymity to him or her should they request it. If I were to continue writing about every new development in real time, that promise would be harder to keep as the list of possible candidates would shrink. Therefore, mum’s going to be the word for now.
Instead, I want to talk about our friends at the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the lengths to which they’ve gone to twist the truth about what they have on Tammen. Because when you think about it, the university may have any number of possible explanations for its behavior, not the least of which is that they may honestly have no idea where that piece of paper in the Ghosts and Legends folder came from. The CIA, if given its druthers, would never disclose anything to the public, as evidenced by the praline recipe that was classified for 50 years. It’s the FBI’s actions over everyone else’s that have brought me to the point where I think the Ronald Tammen story is a lot bigger than Ronald Tammen.
My saga begins with my most recent FOIA requests to the FBI. Lately, I’ve been requesting copies of various people’s Additional Record Sheets, the jotted-down records explaining actions taken on someone’s criminal fingerprints when the FBI’s Identification Division was still using its manual system. The most relevant of these FOIA requests concerns Richard Colvin Cox. In 1950, Cox, a sophomore cadet from Mansfield, Ohio, disappeared from the United States Military Academy at West Point in a similar fashion to Tammen. As readers of this blog know, the two cases possess several interesting parallels, and I’ve wondered if they might be related. (For the fun of it, I’m also seeking the Additional Record Sheets for Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray, and Charles Manson, who have also been potentially tied to the CIA and/or MKULTRA. I mean, how cool would it be if we could put to rest all the lingering questions pertaining to those cases as we await the final word on Tammen’s psychology professor? We’re multi-taskers, y’all!)
On April 14, I submitted my FOIA request on Cox, and on April 21, I received the FBI’s response. It was eerily familiar-sounding—only a slight variation to the response I’d received when I submitted my request for Ronald Tammen’s Additional Record Sheets: Sorry, per your settlement agreement, you can’t ask us about Richard Colvin Cox ever again.
“Ummm…I beg your pardon?” thought I.
To refresh your memories, in 2011, I’d submitted a separate FOIA request with the FBI seeking everything they had on Richard Cox’s case. At first, they sent me 24 pages, and I accepted them with gratitude and waltzed away. (I know. I should have appealed. I was new at this, you guys!) Two years later, after reading the book Oblivion and a series on Cox written by Mansfield News Journal reporter Jim Underwood, I discovered that I’d been shorted that first time by at least 1200 pages. I submitted a new request, asking for the documents that they’d received. Soon thereafter, I received three CDs with, by my count, over 1600 pages on them. (Always appeal.)
But make no mistake: I’d never requested any documents on Richard Cox for my lawsuit, and I hadn’t requested them for my settlement either. Why was the FBI tying the two cases together?
I consulted my old lawsuit emails, the bone-dry exchanges between my lawyer and the DOJ attorney as they discussed the terms of my lawsuit and a possible settlement. The moment in question happened during the month of March in 2013. We hadn’t even decided to settle at that point—we were just entertaining the possibility.
Here’s the setting: two Washington, D.C., lawyers are in discussions regarding the FBI’s recent discovery of a new Tammen-related report (the name of which I’m not permitted to say out loud) that no one other than law enforcement generally has access to. The DOJ attorney has suggested that, if I choose to settle, I might be able to get my hands on a portion of that report.
In another corner of the city, on a Sunday afternoon, I electronically submit my totally unrelated and completely separate FOIA request on Richard Cox to the FBI. The day is March 3rd, overcast with a high of 43 degrees. There’s no sign of precipitation, unless we’re talking about how my right to submit a FOIA request soon precipitated the DOJ to put the screws to yours truly.
As you may know, I love a good timeline, and this one doesn’t disappoint:
Sunday, March 3, 2013: I submit my second FOIA request on Richard Cox.
Saturday, March 23, 2013: I hadn’t received an acknowledgement from the FBI regarding my new FOIA request, which I generally receive within a day or two. I send them a friendly email reminder.
March 27, 2013—the following Wednesday: Three working days after I’d sent that nudgy email to the FBI’s FOIA office, it’s now in the hands of the DOJ’s attorney. I mean, what could be the downside of having your name so well-known around the FBI’s FOIA office that they immediately fast track your separate, unrelated FOIA request to their parent agency’s lawyers?
12:41 p.m.: In advance of a pending deadline in which the DOJ attorney needs to submit a status report on my Tammen lawsuit to the judge, she writes to my attorney. In the first line of her email she says this:
“Re the status report – To this point, 3000 pages have been found on Cox and rolling releases are commencing, with the 1st release to go out on 3/28/13 (about 500 pages with some 6 and 7(c) redactions). I will put this information in a status report and file it on Monday, if it’s ok with you.”
The DOJ attorney raises the issue of Richard Cox with my lawyer: A) as if my lawyer had any clue regarding what in the blue blazes she was talking about, and B) as if Cox is some household name—no need to even say which Cox. You know, good ol’ Cox, that ol’ hellraiser rapscallion Cox with the 3000 pages. She then informs my lawyer that she’s going to be wallpapering my home with those 3000 pages in rolling releases. Lastly, and ever so surreptitiously, she says that she plans to talk about the 3000 pages in the status report to the judge, which she’ll file Monday “if it’s ok with you.”
At 12:45 p.m., my attorney forwards her email to me and asks me to think about it. He also lets me know that he’ll be out of the office Thursday and Friday due to a death in his family.
At 7:41 p.m., I respond to my attorney. I was still working full-time then, and as a personal rule, I attended to lawsuit-related matters during my off hours. I responded with a short list of comments and questions, including this: “The Richard Cox request is totally unrelated to the Tammen request…is it strange that my request went straight to the lawyer, or is that how they usually handle these matters?”
At 8:25 p.m., my lawyer tells me that he’ll give me an analysis of my questions next week.
OK by me. Honestly, I didn’t know what the DOJ attorney was up to. I was happy to be getting the Cox documents in an expedited manner, albeit two years late. But I felt uncomfortable with the sudden flurry of activity on Cox, when I wanted my lawsuit to be focused on Tammen. Still, we had until Monday to figure things out before the DOJ attorney submitted her status update to the judge on my Tammen lawsuit. Or so I thought from her email.
But no, we didn’t. Turns out, she’d already filed her update to the judge at 5:30 p.m. the same day. I didn’t even have time to make my commute home when she’d already sent the update to the judge. If it wasn’t due till Monday, what was her hurry?
Here’s what she wrote in her status update:
“Defendant reports on behalf of the parties that approximately 3000 pages of documents have been located in connection with one aspect of the case and a rolling release of approximately 500 pages, with redactions, will commence on March 28, 2013.” (She accidentally left out the part about the pages being responsive to another FOIA request I’d submitted in 2011. Also, it was more like 1600 pages by my count, but why split hairs.)
Let’s look at it another way: The previous weekend, I’d nudged the FBI to send me an acknowledgement of my FOIA request for some documents I should have received in 2011, and three working days later, a judge is being told of their existence and how I will be receiving them in rolling releases. Talk about customer service!
The following week, I sent my lawyer a detailed email letting him know that I was concerned about her actions and the motives behind them. I wrote:
“Is XXXX trying to make the FBI look super responsive to my Tammen request by handing over 3000 pages on a different case that I just requested last month? And how does she know that it’s related? What if I happen to be writing two books? I just don’t want the judge to rule in favor of her because of this potentially unrelated case.”
“I reread the complaint and you are right,” he said. He also said that he’d get back to me, though I have no record of whether he did or not. I also don’t know if he’d given her the OK to submit that status update. It wasn’t like him to do so without my OK, and I certainly didn’t approve it.
If you’re thinking that she outwitted me, and I should give up, don’t be sure. Why not? Documents.
In her March 27 email to my lawyer, the first paragraph led with the phrase “Re the status report,” at which point she discussed the 3000 Cox pages. But status reports aren’t settlements, as she makes clear in her second paragraph. That paragraph led with this phrase: “Re possible settlement, not to be included in the status report” (bolded type hers). She then proceeded to negotiate with my lawyer by offering me a portion of the report not to be named—the narrative—“if you are willing to dismiss the action.” Again, surreptitiously, she added this sentence: “Of course, if we agree to settle the case, the rolling releases on Cox will continue until concluded.”
Look, it’s obvious what the DOJ’s lawyer was up to. She was trying her mightiest to link the 3000 pages on Richard Cox to the settlement agreement. But she can’t. Why?
There were only two things that my lawyer and I had requested through our settlement: a written declaration that spelled out their search for Tammen-related records as well as the narrative from the report that shall not be named. Unless I signed the settlement agreement, I wouldn’t be getting diddly squat from them. On January 29, 2014, I signed the settlement agreement, and on February 7, 2014, I received the declaration and the narrative.
Meanwhile, the FOIA office was busily sending me their rolling releases of Richard Cox documents, beginning March 28, 2013, and, cleverly enough, ending January 29, 2014, the same date on which I signed the settlement.
You have to wonder why a DOJ lawyer would be so deceptive in her dealings with a nobody like me. Why the rush to add the “3000 pages” verbiage to her status update to a sitting judge? I’d grown used to seeing their previous status updates which did little more than request an extension. Also, why did she feel the need to preemptively strike against both the Tammen and Cox cases at one time? I never mentioned Ronald Tammen in any of my FOIA requests on Richard Cox. Do they indeed know of a connection “with one aspect of the case” as she’d informed the judge?
I’ve appealed the FBI’s decision on my recent FOIA request. Here’s a taste of the mood I was in:
“To play these games makes a sham of the FOIA process, and showcases how derisively the FBI treats ordinary taxpaying citizens who are trying to seek the truth. It certainly makes this ordinary taxpaying citizen wonder what it is the FBI doesn’t want me to see.”
I’ll keep you posted.
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Have you been living with a lie since grade school that you need to get off your chest? How about a science fair project story that’s hilarious? We want to hear from you!
You have inspired me to share my favorite childhood lie and the painful lesson I learned on why not to do it. The church we went to was very small–like when our family of 5 arrived we were 20%ish of the attendance. And the “children (my brother, sister, me and maybe one more)” were supposed to stand and recite The Lord’s Prayer at one point in the service. I was probably in Junior High and just did not want to do it any more, so once I just stayed seated and said nothing. Because it was a small, intimate congregation, the minister actually asked me at the end if I was ok (I did not want to be seen to start with, so this was not what I was looking for) and I quickly blurted out that I had a sore throat (not true) and heard a small giggle from my mom. Because my mom knew that any Unity congregation worth its salt would immediately say an affirmative prayer for Debbie and her sore throat. OMG!! I try to remember that when the expedient lie temps me!!!
Lol! Good one, Deb! Thanks for sharing it.
I get excited every time I see a new post arrive in my inbox. You even make FOIA seem interesting. I can’t wait until you crack this whole case wide open!
Oh good! Thank you so much! Sometimes I feel like I’m boring everyone to death with all my FOIA talk…😜😆
Hilarious!
My science fair “lie”is even worse. And Dad was the master of the deception.
My project was to show the effect of pollution on plants. I was supposed to pollute one plant by raising it in a cylinder that had incense smoking it over a long period of time. That was to be contrasted with a plant that had normal care.
Because I’m the biggest procrastinator in the world, I told Dad about the project the night before the fair. I hadn’t done anything with the plants.
Dad created this very scientific looking project with cylinders and tubes and incense, against a beautiful backdrop. Because the plants looked absolutely similar the night before the fair, Dad took the “polluted“ plant and placed it under the oven’s broiler for a few seconds to achieve the perfect brownish singe. I got a “superior ribbon”. Going to hell , I guess.
😆