An Open Letter to Malcolm Carnahan September 7, 1986 Dear Malcolm, Response to the statement I read Wednesday night makes it necessary that I explain the genesis of that statement. On Sunday, August 31st, after an LPS instructors’ meeting, Lee Gilbert stated that Richard had without doubt violated the sexual harassment regulations of the EEOC. When I challenged his statement, saying that thousands of women routinely dated their bosses, he said, “Hon, it would be just as if Rick, as your superior in LPS, had said, ‘You can teach this class, but I’ll expect you to come around to my house to give me certain favors. Wednesdays would be a good day.’” My brother, Jeff Bassett, and Rick Carter were both present. Neither of them challenged Lee’s statement and both acted as if it backed up everything they’d heard. I didn’t pursue the matter further because it backed up everything I’d heard too. It backed up public statements that you’d made, Malcolm, citing sexual harassment as a major factor, and Marge Haines told me you’d spoken of the concern about big lawsuits in a private discussion with her. It coincided with what Richard had said when I went to speak with him shortly after your first public statement. He seemed gravely concerned that a lawsuit could destroy the organization and cited legal precedent of multimillion dollar settlements which had been brought to his attention. I’d have continued assuming that Richard was liable except that Lee’s comments about Rick bothered me. Rick and I have been good friends since he came to Adelphi and we commonly greet each other with a big hug. Might that make Rick liable under the EEOC ruling? Just what was the ruling? After Labor Day, on Tuesday, I consulted a friend in the legal profession. This lead to my getting a second opinion and contacting the EEOC. It became absolutely clear that the situation under discussion was not covered by the EEOC ruling. I was astonished that the Trustees had not gotten correct information and felt obliged to bring the matter before the assembled group the next night. The response to my disclosure left me in a state of shock. Even though Lee, Jeff, and Rick had, just a few days before the meeting, left me with the impression that it was a group “given” that Richard was liable under the EEOC sexual harassment ruling and that that was the major charge against him, I heard at the meeting that, among other things: a. The Trustees had at some indeterminate point consulted a lawyer and been told that the EEOC ruling did not apply; b. The lawyer’s information was obtained after the initial agreements had been made; c. A charge of sexual harassment as defined under the EEOC ruling was a miniscule part of the proceedings; d. The sexual harassment charge had its validity under some other, undisclosed definition of sexual harassment; e. Richard had undoubtedly violated some Lemurian laws; f. The real issue of the proceedings was that certain individuals had come forward and stated that they had experienced trauma and hurt as a result of things Richard had said and done. I came to the meeting thinking that the Trustees, whom I respected and trusted, had made a simple and honest but extremely serious mistake which they needed to rectify. I left the meeting wondering: Who are all these people? What do they really want? What is really going on? I personally don’t want to hear, don’t feel it appropriate to air, the individual complaints against Richard in a public forum. Someone indicated that if I knew all the “facts” I would have understood. I assume they meant details of specific things Richard allegedly did. I have no need to know these things. I’m addressing not Richard’s behavior but the criterion and definitions by which it was evaluated. I’m not “pro-Richard” and “anti-Trustees.” I am pro-everybody. But I strongly question and challenge the proceedings and agreements as they have been depicted. Some questions: 1. When precisely in the proceedings did your lawyer notify you that the EEOC ruling did not after all apply? 2. When precisely did you notify Richard of the lawyer’s statement? 3. What was his response? Did he explicitly agree at that point to hold to the agreements made when it was believed by all parties that he and the group were liable under EEOC regulations? 4. How is it possible that people like Lee and Jeff and Rick didn’t know about the lawyer’s statement? The same day Lee told me about the seriousness of Richard’s EEOC liability, he said he had gone to Richard and urged him to go, to get away from the group and the area. This makes me wonder how many words and actions might have proceeded from misinformed individuals throughout the group. If you made statements to people like Marge indicating that Richard and the group were liable, did you correct and rectify these statements? From what I can determine, you did not. The statements made by Stelle Trustees at the meeting, both before and after I read my statement, leave me feeling more strongly than I did on Wednesday night that the initial agreement between the Trustees and Richard was not valid. Let me put it to you this way. Say that you bought a car from me. It was a make and model you had been looking for years. We agreed upon a price of $3000 based upon my statement that the car was in good running order. You subsequently gave your car to a friend and took out a loan for $3000 at a high interest rate, as well as purchasing $500 worth of paint and chrome strips to restore the car. Meanwhile I borrowed $5000 from a friend and bought another car, promising the friend I’d pay back $3000 of the loan as soon as I got my payment from you. You then came to give me the money and pick up the car. You brought a mechanic friend along just to give it once over and the mechanic, after checking out the car, said that while the car was driveable, he personally wouldn’t risk driving it across town unless it had new brakes, a new clutch, and a new engine installed, at an estimated cost of $2000. If I insisted that an agreement was an agreement and you had to honor it, would that seem just and fair and right to you? What would be the real crux of the validity or non-validity of our agreement? Would it be that we had both taken numerous irreversible steps based on the initial agreement? Would it be that we had different concepts of the precise meaning of the words “good running order”? Would it matter if I had acted in good faith? Would it be right to insist that you honor the agreement because I had been made to feel that the main reason you were buying the car was because of its make and model and that the price had been a small consideration? Wouldn’t it be true that you would have made the agreement based on misinformation and false assumptions about the mechanical condition of the car, that a car which cannot be safely driven across town is not in “good running order,” and that it would probably seem only fair to you that you be released from that agreement and given the opportunity to reevaluate the offer and renegotiate if you so chose? This little scenario is not intended as an analogy to your agreements with Richard, but it embodies the points I’m trying to make. I am not speaking on behalf of Richard and have had no communication with him in this regard. I am speaking solely for myself. All of the statements you and other Stelle trustees made Wednesday night backed up my original supposition that the initial agreements were based on false assumptions and misinformation. The agreements are therefore invalid, wrong, and unjust and I ask again that the Trustees voluntarily release Richard from these agreements. I was astounded to hear Richard characterized at the meeting as a sick man; a disease, a cancer on the group; a liar; a person so inseparable of telling the truth it was laughable; a breaker of agreements; a maker of wildass predictions. If so many people in the group are so certain that this man is so horrible, I don’t see how the group can possibly publish or sell books written by him or base it’s teachings or actions on anything he has written or said. How could such a person possibly be considered to be the source of “truth teachings” from an unseen or un-seeable source? I don’t see any way the group could justify selling or promoting the teachings In The Ultimate Frontier or claim a connection or association with so-called Brotherhoods or some Great Plan, as the only source of information on these subjects is a man who, I heard claimed Wednesday night, for decades has been a sick, hurtful liar. I don’t personally perceive Richard in this way. However, while attempting to name the other individuals who had stated that the EEOC regulation was a valid consideration, my voice was drowned out by group laughter at the possibility that Richard might have been capable of making a truthful statement, I was made to feel that I am a minority of one. If most of the people in the group feel that Richard is incapable of making a truthful statement, I would think the group would need to dissociate itself from The Ultimate Frontier and all teachings presented therein and redefine its purposes and need to exist. What information can be accepted as valid in making life decisions? For instance, many of us are trying to raise large sums of money to build homes on the Adelphi site. We were told by Richard that we need to be in a safe place for an impending economic collapse preceding a worldwide nuclear war and shifting of the earth’s tectonic plates. Are these wildass predictions or projected history? Since we cannot validate much of the pivotal information in The Ultimate Frontier, I don’t see any middle ground here. If Richard is characterized by the group as a liar, he cannot, by definition and common sense, be the source of something the group perceives as “truth” teaching. I don’t see any way this issue can be side-stepped or rationalized out of existence. In a sense, Richard’s character and good name are the only issues here because if he is a characterized as a liar, the information he has provided us with must be termed lies, the teachings of a liar, and we are then left to discover for ourselves, individually, our own truth, each for each. It is to such issues that I ask you and the Trustees to address yourselves now. Thank you for your time and consideration. Best wishes, Karen Robertson
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