Dear Larry Kaufman,
Thanks anyway. I do not anticipate serious trouble and I believe I will have enough signatures by April Fools Day. I have 11 voting members who have either signed or have promised to sign. However, many are in far flung areas like California, so I need somebody around here.
However, I feel I should respond to your other statements.
You said, "I don't wish to be associated with the extreme vitriol you have used against your opponents in the past, even if it were justified."
I think if you will look at my history, you will see that I never attack anybody unless he attacks somebody first. I presume that you are talking about my 1996 campaign against Don Schultz. Mr. Schultz had a very long history of attacking people. You have probably forgotten or did not notice his articles in Inside Chess and Chess Life going back to the mid-1980s where he attacked lists of people including Kasparov, Calvo, Quinteros, Zsuzsa Polgar, Keene, Goodman and the list goes on and on.
His favorite target was Larry Evans, who he not only tried to have kicked out of Chess Life but he also tried to have him kicked out of his own local newspaper in Florida.
When Schultz was elected USCF President, these attacks continued. If you read carefully his first several president's letters, you will see that every one of them attacked his favorite enemies, Al Lawrence and Frank Camaratta. Of course, he did not name Lawrence and Camaratta by name. Usually in order to understand who he was attacking, you had to read between the lines. Generally his attacks were under the category of "problems inherited from previous governances", whereas in reality those were for the most part problems in which Schultz himself was involved in creating or in which he participated.
After the first year of his presidency, I have notice that Mr. Schultz has mellowed. I have not observed him attacking anyone lately. For that reason, I have not attacked Mr. Schultz lately.
Perhaps you are not talking about Mr. Schultz. It is possible for example that you are referring to my recent postings about Robert Hyatt and the 1986 World Computer Chess Championship.
The fact is that Robert Hyatt really did cheat in that event. Almost everyone who was present knows it. They simply do not want to say so publicly. However, the reason I kept quiet about this for 13 years and only said something recently is that I observed that Mr. Hyatt constantly attacks other people even by calling them four letter words and other explicitives. This has reached such a level that his personal attacks on others in the computer chess community were the subject of a recent article in the "Chronicle of Higher Education", an academic journal.
Since Mr. Hyatt was attacking just about everybody under the sun, and in his attacks on others he often mentioned that he won the 1986 World Computer Chess Championship, I felt that this was a good time to bring up the fact that he won that event by cheating.
Finally, moving to your cousin, Mr. Berkowitz:
As you are well aware, Mr. Berkowitz is a wealthy man, worth millions. We are not attacking him. He is attacking us.
Richard Bozulich established Ishi Press in 1968 in Berkeley and in 1969 in Japan and has spent the last 30 years in that company. Ishi Press and the books it has published are his life's work.
Enter Mr. Berkowitz in 1993-1994 who claims with absolutely no legal authority that Ishi Press belongs to him. How can he make such a claim, and on what basis?
I have appeared in court against Mr. Berkowitz several times. As you probably know, I have a $5,000 judgment for royalties on my book "Chinese Chess for Beginners". I was able to attach $125 (one hundred twenty five dollars) of that judgment. Mr. Berkowitz came down from San Francisco to the Los Gatos (San Jose) Small Claims Court twice to stop me from collecting the $125. "It is the principle of the thing", Mr. Berkowitz told Judge Heath. The judge replied, "It seems to me that you have got a lot of principle here. This case has been in Superior Court, Federal Court, the US Court of Appeals, back to federal court, back to Superior Court and now back to here, all over $125."
The judge awarded me the $125.
Still, Mr. Berkowitz continues and is continuing to this day.
Richard Bozulich had $300,000 of his money stolen. Of course, the money was not stolen by your cousin, Mr. Berkowitz. It was stolen by James W. Connelley, who purchased a mansion at 970 Plaza Drive, San Jose, with that stolen money. Mr. Bozulich had mortgaged his house in Chigasaki, Japan to borrow that money to finance the shipment of goods to Ishi Press (USA), a company controlled by Connelley. Because he was never paid any part of the $300,000, Mr. Bozulich lost his house in Japan and was evicted. His wife divorced him. He lost his family. He now lives in a small rented room in Japan.
If Mr. Berkowitz would just go away and let Mr. Bozulich resume publication of his books under the Ishi Press name, we would be willing to forget the misdeeds of the past and move on. But Mr. Berkowitz, who is a "in your face" sort of guy, will not do this. He recently set up an office in Menlo Park and is selling the same books, books which Richard Bozulich shipped and for which he was never paid a penny.
Why does Mr. Berkowitz do this? Mr. Berkowitz has millions of dollars. He does not need to steal money from Richard Bozulich. Since you have known me for more than 30 years since the mid-1960s and since I believe that you have known Richard Bozulich for almost a similar time, whereas Mr. Berkowitz just first knew Richard Bozulich in 1993 or 1994 and me in 1994, I feel that you should speak to your cousin, Mr. Berkowitz, to prevail on him to give us our company, Ishi Press, back, a company which Mr. Berkowitz does not need and which is doing him no good.
I close by providing excerpts of the testimony of Nathaniel Berkowitz, testimony where he said that I, Ismail Sloan, am "Ahab's Whale" and where he said, "I've never been frightened of anything in my life. And I've done hard merchant seaman's work; I've been over parts all over the world; thrown over the -- I've been thrown overboard, and I've never been as afraid as I am of Sam Sloan."
Thank you for reading this lengthy letter.
Your friend,
Sam Sloan
Testimony of Nathaniel Berkowitz on January 10, 1997
(posted at http://www.samsloan.com/berk-dep.htm )
MR. BERKOWITZ: I refuse to speak as long as Sam Sloan sits at the table and looks in as an observer, as I did on Wednesday. But this man has given me great troubles. I have been awakened in the middle of the night fearing that this man is like another great white whale in Moby Dick. He personifies evil. He has done terrible things and has caused me great, great amounts of mental disturbance. I feel very, very bad. My voice is very emotional now and I feel very, very upset to see this man in my presence. Let the record show this and ask him to be removed; otherwise, I don't talk. I would also like to take a picture of both Mr. Mar and Mr. Sloan at this time.
(Picture taken)
---------
MR. MAR: Okay. Mr. Berkowitz, where?
MR. BERKOWITZ: Where I sat, over there. I'm not -- I just don't want him at the table. This man is known for violence and I fear for my existence. I'm afraid to let him know where I live because for fear he'll come after me. He's come after some of the other plaintiffs, and this man is not to be one I want to be associated with. I told him that in October of 1993 when he barged into my office uninvited and threatened with lawsuits in '93. And for the record, this man is a provakator and I'm afraid he's got a bomb. I don't know what he's got.
MR. MAR: He's got?
MR. BERKOWITZ: A bomb, b-o-m-b. I don't know what he could do, but he scares me, and I've never been frightened of anything in my life. And I've done hard merchant seaman's work; I've been over parts all over the world; thrown over the -- I've been thrown overboard, and I've never been as afraid as I am of Sam Sloan because of his irrationality and being in close proximity to him. I believe the Biblical quote says, "Ishmael's hands will be against every man," and I feel that he is personally against me. This isn't a civil matter. At this time I have criminal fears for this man. He's desperate. He's bankrupt. There is no way in which I could feel at ease being around him. My recollection that Bozulich once told me that he only was using Sloan because he knew what a loose cannon he was.
Actually, I wasn't thinking of any one particular person, just your way of dealing with those people. There is nothing wrong with pointing out the misdeeds of others, but I think it is unwise and even counterproductive to engage in mudslinging, regardless of who started it. Soon people will lump you both in the same category of kooks, troublemakers, etc. You can point out what evil others have done in a way that lets other people judge for themselves what the character of the evil-doer must be. I am reminded of Marc Anthony's speech in "Julius Caesar" in which he kept saying that Brutus is an honorable man, yet he soon had the crowd angry enough to kill Brutus. Had he started out by just saying that Brutus is a bastard, he would have gotten nowhere.
>Finally, moving to your cousin, Mr. Berkowitz:
>
>As you are well aware, Mr. Berkowitz is a wealthy man, worth millions. We are not
>attacking him. He is attacking us.
I never said otherwise. He is actually rather similar to you, in that both of you are very stubborn, very strongly opinionated, and very unlikely to be persuaded to yield in a controversy such as the one you have. For me to get involved in this dispute in any way would accomplish nothing except to alienate a relative with whose family I and my family have always had excellent relations. I'm sure he would give a radically different version of events than you have, but unless I get appointed to be the judge in the court that hears this matter I have no desire or need to hear his side of the argument. I don't know Richard Bozulich personally (if I ever met him, I don't recall it, unless perhaps he was the interpreter at a GO event I attended in Japan). Regardless of who is right in this matter, I intend to remain on good terms with both parties.
Best wishes, Larry