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January 16, 1975 To Whom It May Concern, Last week I received a letter from Richard Kieninger in
which he took exception to several of the statements in my letter of December
1, 1975 concerning past events. Richard also voiced concern about my motive
for writing that letter and asked for a public apology, so I wish to express
my reasons for writing the letter and. eliminate any possible
misunderstanding as to its content. The purpose of my letter to Richard was
to comment on what seemed to me to be mistaken attitudes in his November 30th
letter to the membership of The Stelle Group. I thought that if I gave
specific examples to support the conclusions I had come to regarding Richard’s
credibility and his actions while president that such specifics might clarify
to Richard why he does not enjoy the total support of members of The Stelle
Group. I decided to post the letter publicly because I wanted to counter the
false impressions generated by Richard’s November 30th letter, which led
quite a few people to believe that the trustees had convinced Richard that a
majority of the membership of The Stelle Group had rejected him and his
teachings. I knew we had not discouraged Richard, quite the contrary in fact,
and I did not perceive that The Stelle Group could endure another session of
‘Oh No, Here We Go Again...The Trustees Are Picking On Richard and Deceiving
the Membership”; so I wanted to clarify the situation as I saw it. Unfortunately, in my mention of several
events from the past, Richard points out that the effect of my letter may
have been to distort his motives and intentions. While Richard and I do not
fully agree as to specifics of events past, I want to state very clearly that
I believe Richard operated at all times in accord with his view as to .what
was for the greatest good of all concerned. In no way did I mean to imply
that Richard intended to do harm; in fact his actions since I have been in
The Stelle Group seem to have been consistently aimed at furthering the Great
Plan of the Brotherhoods and Christ’s work. I owe him a great debt for the
assistance he has provided me personally, and I value our friendship. I also realize in re-reading my
December 1st letter that my attitude may have been too self-righteous,
especially with regard to saying Richard “probably did deserve such
treatment.” That phrase seemed to imply “It served him right?” or “Boy, I’m
glad he finally got his?”, especially when read in conjunction with other
rather critical parts of the letter. I really don’t feel that way, however,
nor do I view the motives and actions of those who expelled Richard as pure
and just. In fact I don’t believe that I, or most of the other persons who
became actively involved in the recent series of events, can claim a
lily-white record. I was mostly trying to point up cause and effect to
counter what seemed to be Richard’s “they did it to me” attitude. I guess Richard and I will have to
sort. out our views of the past, because they are certainly at variance. I
thought I had. picked examples for my December 1 st letter which were
generally acknowledged to be fact, but here again that doesn’t seem to be so.
Perhaps it’s not really worth the energy to rehash the whole thing; in any
case, if my view is mistaken as to the specific events mentioned. in my
letter, I sincerely apologize. Walter Cox |
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