Reece Halsey Agency: The agency is still in business on Sunset Boulevard, opposite Le Dome restaurant, and continues to represent the estates of Huxley and Miller. Dorris attends the office every day and can be found at lunchtime at her reserved table in Le Dome. Interview with the author, 3 March 1999, Le Dome, Los Angeles.
Henry Miller: Later, in 1978, Miller put pressure on his powerful literary friends to lobby the Swedish Academy on his behalf suggesting he be given the Nobel Prize. It was an outrageous suggestion and certainly had no effect on the deliberations of that august body, which gave the prize to Isaac Bashevis Singer. The new Nobel laureate penned a generous note declaring that he felt Miller should have won. Miller replied that he wasn’t interested in the literary glory, only the money. Singer sent him a cheque for $5,000, whether as a generous hand-out or a calculated insult is unsure. Miller cashed it. ‘That story, from lobbying the Nobel Committee to cashing Singer’s cheque, described Henry’s personality exactly,’ Michel says.
Use Koch: In an effort to save face, the US Army handed Use Koch over to the Germans for trial. She died in a mental asylum. Bower, Blind Eye to Murder, p 285.
Senator’s letter: Bower, Blind Eye to Murder, p 291.
LA Herald Express report: The headline of the story ran: THRILLING TRAP OF NAZI WHO ORDERED DOOM OF YANKS. Los Angeles Evening Herald Express, 23 November 1949.
Stars & Stripes report: The headline of the story ran: EX-AGENT TELLS HOW HE CAUGHT MALMÉDY CHIEF. Stars & Stripes, 17 December 1949.
Peiper’s diploma: See Reynolds, Devil’s Adjutant, p 259.
Mahl’s letter: The letter, which is in the possession of Michel Thomas, was sent from Landsberg Fortress on 26 December 1949.
Knittel’s letter: The letter was sent from War Criminals prison No. 1, Landsberg/Lech, 5 January 1950. National Archives, Record Group 338, Entry 147, Box 57.
Biscari massacre: The massacre has received scant attention over the years. Even in the detailed, and excellent, history of the 45th Division - Rock of Anzio - it receives only two paragraphs, and is described as ‘two unfortunate incidents that reflected negatively on the Thunderbirds’. Whitlock, Rock of Anzio, p 50. For a full account of the trial, see Weingartner, ‘Massacre at Biscari: Patton and an American War Crime’, The Historian, November 1989.
Red-jacket team: Condemned men at Landsberg were obliged to wear regulation red jackets.
Knittel’s release: According to Hans Joohs, Rnittel returned to Ulm and worked for a company that manufactured trucks. He died in 1976.
Peiper’s release: Peiper died in a fire-bomb attack on his home in Traves, in the Hautes Saone, in 1976. For an account of his life and his murder, see Reynolds, The Devil’s Adjutant, pp 259-69.
Tecate experiment: Laura Huxley, interview with the author, 5 May 1999.
MCA stock: MCA went through corporate reorganisation on 1 September 1959 when all of its subsidiaries were merged into MCA Inc. The original Nine Old Men, who owned twelve hundred shares in the old corporations, now owned 170,400 each. The new stock’s par value was seventeen cents. When the company was formally listed for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange three months later it began trading at $17.50 a share. Within a year the stock hit $38 a share. When Jules Stein died in 1981 he left in excess of two hundred million dollars - from an original investment of five thousand dollars. McDougal, The Last Mogul, pp 254,423.
Hutchins’s letter: The letter was sent from the Fund for the Republic, New York, to Michel on 4 February 1959. Isidor Rabi was an Austrian-born US physicist who developed a highly accurate technique for measuring the nuclear magnetic movements of atoms; Niels Bohr was a Danish physicist whose work formed the basis for modern atomic theory; Werner Heisenberg was a German physicist who was one of the principal architects of quantum mechanics; Paul Tillich was an American Lutheran minister, theologian and academic whose work related Christianity to contemporary life; J. Robert Oppenheimer was the American physicist in charge of the US atomic bomb programme, who later opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb; and Jacques Maritain was a French Roman Catholic theologian interested in applying the methods of St Thomas Aquinas to contemporary social problems.
Architectural plans: The firm of architects was Victor Gruen Associates, a company based in Los Angeles with offices all over America.
Prince Rainier’s reply: The letter, from the Palais de Monaco, is dated 6 February 1959.
Rainier’s real estate deal: See Parsons, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, 26 April 1963.
Barry’s death: Michel was reluctant to have the story of Barry’s death included in the book. ‘It seems so unbelievable. I don’t expect people to believe it, but that is what happened.’
Marvin Adelson: Interview with the author, 19 March 1999.
Pittsburgh University: Letter from chancellor, Wesley Posvar, to Herman Rahn of the Hudson Institute, January 1981.
CIA rejects method: Charles Morin, interview with the author, 20 May 1999.
Letter from principal: Dr Andréw Anderson, principal of the George Washington Carver Junior High School, to Edward Mead of the Ford Foundation, 16 May 1969.
School experiment: The week of French instruction at the George Washington Carver Junior High School was used as a case study in a paper by Dr Garth Sorenson, chairman of Educational Counselling at the Graduate School of Education at the University of California Los Angeles. Sorenson, previously a self-confessed defeatist in learning French before contact with Michel, wrote a paper on schools of thought on the improvement of public education. See, ‘On the Use of the Case Study in Developing Better Instructional Procedures’.
Professor’s report: The report was written by J. Michael Fay, instructional co-ordinator at the George Washington Carver Junior High School, April 1969.
L’Enfant Sauvage: For Truffaut’s interest in educational experiments in teaching difficult children, and the evolution of the film, see Baecque & Toubiana, Truffaut, pp 260-5.
Truffaut letter: Letter to Helen Scott, 9 July 1973. See Truffaut, Correspondence 1945-1984, pp 595-6.
Selznick’s Memo: Selznick, Memo from David O. Selznick, Viking, 1972.
Signed Truffaut photo: The photo hangs in the offices of Michel Thomas Language Systems in Beverly Hills, California.
Marriage: Rabbi Dr Charles Steckel was the rabbi at the ceremony. He had been a friend of the family in Breslau and had stimulated Michel’s interest in archaeology as a teenager. The rabbi had left Germany for Zagreb, in Yugoslavia, and escaped to Istanbul during the war. He moved to Budapest in 1942 posing as a German Lutheran priest and worked with Baoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved the lives of many Jews by issuing travel documents. Steckel moved to America after the war and settled in Pasadena, California. Michel found him through a chance item published in the newspaper. ‘It was meaningful to me to be married by him. There was a connection to the family and the old world in Breslau.’
Alice Burns: Interview with the author, Los Angeles, 8 May 1999.
Birth of children: Gurion was born on 28 November 1978; a daughter, Micheline Freidessa - a name created by combining the first names of Michel’s mother and aunt - was born on 16 February 1980.
Barbie hearing: Michel Thomas gave preliminary evidence to the juge d’instruction in Lyon in April 1984.
Confrontation with Barbie: ‘Barbie Confronted’, Le Matin, 21 December 1983; Michel’s quotation on Barbie from the New York Times, 24 May 1987.
Barbie recruitment: US Nazi hunter Allan Ryan prepared a two-hundred-page study on Barbie for the Justice Department. Its findings were first made public in a press conference at the US Department of Justice, Washington DC, on 16 August 1983. Ryan, Klaus Barbie and the United States Government.
Barbie’s past: Agent’s monthly report, 15 September 1948. Quoted in Simpson, Blowback, p 189.
CIC rationalisation: Ryan, Klaus Barbie, p 69.
Barbie’s CIC activities: Top-secret report by Lt Col Ellington Golden, commanding officer of HO
970th CIC Detachment, 11 December 1947. Quoted in Simpson, Blowback, p 185.
‘Case closed’: The report is quoted in Ryan, Quiet Neighbors, p 307.
Barbie in South America: See Ryan, Quiet Neighbors, pp 275-9; Bower, Klaus Barbie, pp 205-24.
Bolivia’s internment camps: See ‘Nazi Impenitent, Agent Americain, Homme D’Affaires Bolivien’, Jean-Marc Theolleyre, Le Monde, 16 May 1987.
Manhunt in Nice: See Zuccotti, The Italians and the Holocaust, p 89.
Beate Klarsfeld: Her words are quoted by Paris, Unhealed Wounds, p188.
‘I did my duty’: The quotation appeared in the New York Times, 14 February 1983.
‘They said nothing’: See Linklater et al, Nazi Legacy, p 113.
Eyewitness account of raid: The farmhand was Julien Favet, then aged twenty-four.
Barbie telex: The telex survived, and was marked Lyon, 8.10 p.m., 6 April 1944.
Vergès’s wife: The lawyer’s bigamous marriage was to Djamala Bouhirid, an Algerian Communist sentenced to death for terror bombings. She was spared execution and eventually released after a campaign by André Froissard - who happened to be one of the résistants tortured by Barbie in 1943.
Jacques Vergès: For a detailed account of Vergès’s life and an analysis of his politics, see Paris, Unhealed Wounds, passim.
‘Paltry underling’: See Finkielkraut, Remembering In Vain, p 3.
‘Everyone would have laughed’: Finkielkraut appeared in the documentary on Barbie by Marcel Ophuls, interviewed on the court house steps in Lyon while awaiting the verdict on 14 July 1987. Ophuls, Hotel Terminus.
Barbie’s fate: Klaus Barbie died of leukaemia in September 1991.
Herbert Morris: Interview with the author, Los Angeles, 23 February 1999.
UCLA summer course: The flier for the summer experiment, which was part of UCLA’s extension programme, went out in April 1990, and the courses were scheduled for 20 August through September.
Experiment cancelled: Letter to Michel from Gary Penders, director of the Summer Sessions, UCLA, 10 August 1990.
Impregnable educational establishment: The British remain similarly impermeable. A letter from an enthusiastic publisher extolling the virtues of Michel’s system sent to David Blunkett, Secretary of Education, received a stock reply from a civil servant. ‘Whilst the Department sets the framework for teaching in school through the National Curriculum, it is for schools and teachers to determine how to deliver it... We will keep your letter on our files.’ Janet Haworth, Curriculum & Assessment Division, Department of Education and Employment, 18 March 1998.
Gold medal: The medal was presented to Michel on behalf of the society by M. Raoul Aglion, Ministre Plenipotentiaire, on 16 January 1982.
Emma Thompson: Interview with the author, London, 23 November 1998.
BBC documentary: The Language Master, first shown on BBC2 on 23 March 1997.
Michel Thomas’s biography was published in the United States as Test of Courage, by The Free Press, 1999.
Fragments, by Binjamin Wilkomirski, Schocken Books, New York, 1996.
Deliver us From the Devil: Exorcism and Deliverance in America, by Roy Rivenburg, Class of 1985, Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism.
Mission statement of World Journalism Institute and history of God’s World Publications, www.worldji.com
Email from author to Bret Israel, Editor of Southern California Living, Los Angeles Times, 26 March 2001.
Sworn Declaration from Theodore C. Kraus, Ph.D., Cheshire, Connecticut, 14 December 2001.
Sworn Declaration from Herbert Morris, Emeritus Professor of Law & Philosophy at the University of California, LA, UCLA; Former Dean of the Division of Humanities and Interim Provost of the College of Letters and Science at UCLA, Los Angeles, California, 16 November, 2001.
Email from author to Roy Rivenburg, reporter for Los Angeles Times, 26 March 2001.
Bill introduced to Congress by Senator Helen Gehagan Douglas, HR 5255, 80th Congress, 2nd Session.
Email from author to Roy Rivenburg, 28 March 2001.
Email from author to Roy Rivenburg, 4 April 2001.
Larger than Life by Roy Rivenburg, Los Angeles Times, 15 April 2001. Copyright prevents the reproduction of the article in full.
Response to Story on Michel Thomas: six letters were published in the Southern California Living section of the Los Angeles Times, 1 May 2001. They were all heavily edited by the editors of that section, rather than the editor in charge of Letters to the Editor.
Sworn Declaration from Conrad R. McCormick, Sierra Vista, Arizona, 8 January 2002.
Letter from Karlene Goller, attorney for the Los Angeles Times, to Anthony Glassman, May 3 2001.
Book review, Los Angeles Times, December 18 2000.
The lawsuit between Michel Thomas, plaintiff, and the Los Angeles Times Communications LLC, Roy Rivenburg, and Tribune Company, defendants, was filed on 9 October 2001.
Sworn Declaration from Michel Thomas, New York, 10 January 2002.
Sworn Declaration from Professor Robin T. Lakoff, Berkeley, California, 16 December 2001.
Sworn Declaration from Professor Sherrie Mazingo, Roseville, Minnesota, 9 January 2002.
Articles challenging the claims of Paul Parks appeared in the Boston Globe, 12 October 2000, 13 October 2000, 23 October 2000.
Paul Parks has continued to stick to his story, although he has been unable to produce supporting evidence. And despite the controversy B’nai B’rith went ahead and gave him the Wallenberg award and has never revoked it. Interview by the author with Thomas Farragher, Boston Globe, 23 April 2002.
Phone Interview with Alex Kline, March 2002.
CIC order from General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Forces, issued from HQ, US Army, signed by Lt. Col. Richard P. Fisk, Assistant Adjutant General, and by Capt. Rupert W. Guenthner, Commander 45th CIC Detachment, HQ, US Army 2 December 1944.
Email from Ian Sayer to Roy Rivenburg, 7 April 2001. The reference to Thomas appears on page 2862, Volume XX, of the unpublished History of the Counter Intelligence Corps. The thirty-volume history was com-piled between 1950 and 1959 at the Army Intelligence School in Fort Holabird, Maryland.
Email to Roy Rivenburg from Hugh F. Foster III, 1 March 2001.
Emil Mahl was arrested on 1 May 1945 in Irschenhausen, near Munich. Letter from Mahl, Landsberg Prison, to The Modification Board, Heidelberg, 30 December 1951.
Letter from Lt. Col. Hugh F. Foster III stating his conviction of Thomas’s presence at Dachau on day of liberation, May 2002.
Handwriting expert Dr Timothy Armistead gave his opinion in March 2002.
Expert opinion on Dachau photos given by Peter Mustardo, March 2002.
Letter from Barbara Distel, Curator of the Dachau Memorial Museum, 18 April 2002.
Sworn Declaration from Walter Wimer - CIC agent 1944-1945, 8 January 2002.
Sworn Declaration from Doris White - widow of CIC Special Agent Frederick White, Worcester, Massachusetts, March 2002.
Videotaped Thunderbird Reunion, Oklahoma City, August 2002.
Stefan Heym wrote two accounts of the announcement of the discovery of documents from the Nazi Party master file. One is fictional and is contained in his book of short stories, Die Kannibalen und andere Erzhälungen, Paul List Verlag, Leipzig, 1953. The unpublished non-fiction manuscript is lodged with the author’s papers at Cambridge University. Heym gave credit to Hans Huber, the mill owner, for the discovery. Huber, of course, had received the documents directly from the SS.
Discovery of Party Documents in the Josef Wirth paper mill in Freimann by 45th CIC Detachment, 20 May 1945. The report is headed Weekly Counterintelligence Report #16, and the discovery comes under the sub-heading Special Cases of CIC Interest. It was quite an interesting week - other cases of interest include documents from Germany’s top commando Otto Skorzeny reporting on the attack on Hitler’s life, the freeing of Mussolini, and the diary written by Mussolini while imprisoned. Seventh Army, Weste
rn Military District, Annex No 2, Part 4 of 8, CIC Reports/Reporting Section G-2, period 20 May-20 June 1945. Now lodged in the National Archives.
The quote from Hans Huber about the discovery of the documents by ‘an American GI’ appeared in an article headed ‘Berlin Document Centre Aids Nazi Hunters’, Los Angeles Times, 11 March 1979.
Open letter from Robert Wolfe, To Whom It May Concern, 13 June 2002.
Mistranslation of phrase from article on Klaus Barbie trial, he Monde, 23 May 1987.
Letter from Historical Department, Société des Bains de Mer, Monaco, 5 July 2001. The agreement between the casino’s Director General of the time and Monsieur M. Dufour, engineer, is dated 7 April 1941.
See Top 15 Language Audio Titles, The Bookseller, September 2001.
Tentative Ruling by Judge Audrey B. Collins, granting Special Motion to Strike the Complaint pursuant to California Code of Civil Procedure, 4 February 2002.
Defendants’ Motion for Attorneys’ Fees, Michel Thomas v Los Angeles Times Communications LLC, et al, US District Court, Central District of California, 2 April 2002.
Letter to the author, 18 June 2002.
Documents and details of the preparation for the disallowed defamation trial can be viewed on http://www.michelthomas.org/
Bibliography
Ambrose, Stephen E. Citizen Soldiers: The US Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944 - May 7, 1945. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1997.
Anthology. Reporting World War II: American Journalism 1938-1944. Two vols. New York, Library of America, 1995.
Amouroux, Henri. La Grande Histoire des Francais sous L’Occupation. Ten vols. Paris, Robert Laffont, 1976-93.
Aron, Robert. The Vichy Regime, 1940-44. Boston, Beacon, 1969.
The Test of Courage: (A Biography of) Michel Thomas Page 49