1974 Interview with Rudy Maxa of the Washington Post

Interview Transcript - Part 2

QUIGLEY: “...telling everyone who wrote in that it is out of print.”

INTERVIEWER: “Now.”

QUIGLEY: “Which they denied to me.”

INTERVIEWER: “Now, when did you realize there was a pirate edition?
How did you find out?”

QUIGLEY: “I found out when somebody got a plain envelope with a slip of paper in it:
ʻAvailable again, in short supply,ʼ”

INTERVIEWER: “ʼTragedy and Hope.ʼʼ The whole book?”

QUIGLEY: “The whole book. And they...”

INTERVIEWER: “They came to you and said...?”

QUIGLEY: “No, they called me up and said, eh ʻDid you know that your book is re-printed?ʼ
I said ʻWhich book?ʼ (Because theyʼre both out of print, you see.)
And they said ʻTragedy and Hopeʼ. I said ʻNo, it isnʼt.ʼ”

INTERVIEWER: “You donʼt know who this person was?”

QUIGLEY: “No, no. Because itʼs exact copy. Exact.
The dust jacket, everything, the binding is the same.”

INTERVIEWER: “Did they, uh, did they re-set the type? Or is it photo-reproduced?”

QUIGLEY: “Photo-, photo-reproduction. Exactly the same. Now, I can tell instantly
that itʼs different. Because they didnʼt notice that the, uh, original had a gold,
had yellow top on the pages. Here....”

INTERVIEWER: “All right.”

QUIGLEY: “You see, the original. The new one is white.”

INTERVIEWER: “So you, I would imagine, would call Macmillan and say ʻHey, you must be upset
that theyʼre re-printed?ʼ That would be a logical reaction...”

QUIGLEY: “They didnʼt give a damn, and Iʼll tell you why.”

INTERVIEWER: “Well did you call...? How much is? Well, weʼll talk when when weʼre done with it.
And Iʼll ask you how much it is youʼre comfortable with, in light of your losses,
etc., etc.”

QUIGLEY: “Yeah. Well.”

INTERVIEWER: “O.K.?”

QUIGLEY: “I donʼt, I donʼt know.”

INTERVIEWER: “We can talk about that.”

QUIGLEY: “And I donʼt know why Macmillan acted like this. Now, immediately...”

INTERVIEWER: “But my logical reaction would be to call Macmillan and say, ʻGee, you must really
be upsetʼ?”

QUIGLEY: “No, I didnʼt. I, not right away, I didnʼt. Because they had lied to me so many times
on so many [occasions].”

INTERVIEWER: “You already knew...”

QUIGLEY: “That thereʼs something funny. They lied and lied and lied and lied to me,
you see. On, on everything. And, uh, I have letters to prove that, because
I had from, from Ritner letters apologizing for information previously given
to him. Because, they had lied to him when he called up to ask...”

INTERVIEWER: “Right.”

QUIGLEY: “...if theyʼre out of print or not, you see. And they said ʻnoʼ, and so forth.
Now, oh, oh, the big thing is. My contract, both, had in it that, if it went
out of print, I had the right to recover the plates.”

INTERVIEWER: “Right.”

QUIGLEY: “They never got in touch with me offering the plates. I learned in March of this
year that they destroyed the plates, of ʻTragedy and Hopeʼ. I learned in the
summer, 1971, because my wife got mad and called Macmillan on the ʻphone,
every week, while I was in England, and finally got from them a letter in which
they said the plates had been destroyed. They said ʻinadvertently destroyed.ʼ
The plates of the first book, ʻEvolution of Civilizations.ʼ You see?”

INTERVIEWER: “Umm, hmm. O.K. So you find, so a guy calls you, an anonymous caller...”

QUIGLEY: “Yeah, well, he identified himself, you know, to me, but he, he... No.
And he gave me his name and so forth. And he had got this, and, uh,...
Do you want to shut that off? One second?”

INTERVIEWER: “Sure.”

QUIGLEY: “And the way I found out was: I sent an order. I let somebody else send an order.
Now this was my assistant, who sent a check, uh, sent an order.
And nothing came. And then we discovered theyʼd only pay If you sent them
cash ahead of time, you see.”

INTERVIEWER: “A check wouldnʼt do?”

QUIGLEY: “Well, I guess I did sent a check.”

INTERVIEWER: “But not enough?”

QUIGLEY: “No, I sent the check. The whole thing.
But they, for example, will not send to book stores unless they send cash.
And theyʼre all suspicious. Because if you ordered ten copies
and that would be $120, because he was asking $12.
Uh, eh, you, he could vanish, because there was no way to find out who it is.”

INTERVIEWER: “Sure”

QUIGLEY: “You have no name. You have a box number, out in California, and so forth.
And anyway, I, uh, I couldnʼt find out anything.
I gave, got it back. And I was shocked, because it was identical, you see,
or almost identical. So then I got [word] other companies were offering it.”

INTERVIEWER: “When is this now?”

QUIGLEY: “This was in, uh, this year”

INTERVIEWER: “This year?”

QUIGLEY: “Yes, January.”

INTERVIEWER: “January this year?”

QUIGLEY: “in 1974. ”

INTERVIEWER: “O.K.”

QUIGLEY: “This year. By March somebody came to me and had one of the pirated copies.
I said ʻWhereʼd you get it?ʼ And then he said ʻSidney Kramer.ʼ
I said ʻDoes he have it?ʼ and he said ʻSure. He has four or five of them there.ʼ
So I called up Sidney Kramer and asked if he had it, and he said ʻYesʼ.
And I went down there. And, uh, ah, he is very hard to get information out of.
But finally I found out that he sent an order in and they, uh, sent back, uh,
ʻSend me a check and Iʼll send ʻem.ʼ You see?
And he sold them and repeated the order and repeated the order, and so forth.
So then I told our bookstore.”

INTERVIEWER: “Using the same address you have.”

QUIGLEY: “Uh, yes, he was using...”

INTERVIEWER: “You still do not know who that is. I mean, at that time, you did not know who it
is.”

QUIGLEY: I still am not certain...”

INTERVIEWER: “Really?”

QUIGLEY: “...who it is, and I will now, and Iʼll tell you why. Uh, one of the places that was offering
them for sale -- and there were, was, about five places that were offering it
for sale, and Iʼve got, since, a number of others. Uh, They come to me
from students or, fate. They donʼt come right to me directly, ever. -- now, no one
ever approached me. Oh, one reason I was suspicious of Macmillan was this:
The first, the fact that the radical right, the John Birch Society and so forth, was
getting all up over this book...”

INTERVIEWER: “Uh, huh.”

QUIGLEY: “...goes back to at least ʻ69. “

INTERVIEWER: “I was going to ask you about that. ”

QUIGLEY: “ʼ69. Yes. And, a book appeared called ʻThe Naked Capitalistʼ by Skousens.
Now, of that book, about a fifth of it is direct quote from my book.”

INTERVIEWER: “Uh, huh.”

QUIGLEY: “Now, he says itʼs from my book. Itʼs in quotation marks. But nevertheless itʼs
a violation of copyright.”

INTERVIEWER: “Uh, huh.”

QUIGLEY: “I got in touch with Macmillan. They would not do a thing. They said, I said
ʻArenʼt you going to defend my copyright?ʼ And they said ʻNo. If you want to do
something, we will support you (and, uh, you know) and be a witness, if you
wantʼ, and so forth. But I, uh, I wasnʼt going to sue this guy. Heʼs a professor of
religion at Brigham Young University, former police, police chief of Salt Lake City.
You know all about him?”

INTERVIEWER: “About him, yeah.”

QUIGLEY: “All right.

INTERVIEWER: “Heʼs run the gamut, I know.”

QUIGLEY: “So whether... He has - had been with the F.B.I. for years.”

INTERVIEWER: “Right.”

QUIGLEY: “So whether he would have any money...? It wouldnʼt be worth my while to sue
him, you see. Probably. And another state, and so forth. So I decided Iʼd
let that go. But then I discovered they [Macmillan] wouldnʼt do anything.”
And, then, Congressman Rarick, who was beaten in the primary just now, put that
[Skousen] book into, uh...”

INTERVIEWER: “The Congressional Record?”

QUIGLEY: “Yeah, into ʻThe Congressional Recordʼ. And a lot of things like this. Then this
[Allen] book was distributed to every registered voter in New Hampshire.”

INTERVIEWER: “And no point, they never called you and said, and I have no quotes. I mean.”

QUIGLEY: “No. Nobody ever.”

INTERVIEWER: “Itʼs like writing a story without ever talking with you.”

QUIGLEY: “Yeah. Nobody ever wrote to me.”

INTERVIEWER: “Do you...?

QUIGLEY: “Hmm?”

INTERVIEWER: “Do you know where they got the picture of you?
The p.r. office here [at Georgetown University]?”

QUIGLEY: “All right. I think. Let me see which picture it is.”

INTERVIEWER: “Itʼs up front there.”

QUIGLEY: “They tried to get pictures from the p.r. office. And I said ʻDonʼt give anybody a
picture if they wonʼt tell you why.ʼ”

INTERVIEWER: “Uh, Hmm.”

QUIGLEY: “Oh, they got this is from the p. r. office. Now Skousens couldnʼt get a picture of,
of me.”

INTERVIEWER: “Hmm.”

QUIGLEY: “You see, they could have gotten off the back of the, uh, thereʼs a full picture of
me on the back of the jacket of the first book. From Bachrach, here in town. But
you know, thatʼs the one they have in the public relations office here now, still.
Itʼs the only one there is. And thatʼs where they got that.“

INTERVIEWER: “Itʼs a good picture

QUIGLEY: “Well, all right. But then they put it on the same page with J. P. Morgan, you
know. Itʼs, itʼs nonsense. To me,”

INTERVIEWER: “Ha ha ha.”

QUIGLEY: “You laugh, right to laugh. Itʼs a joke. But Itʼs all so silly, linking me with Morgan,
or any of those people. But then they full of statement.”
Anyway, Rarick and other people, uh, filled The Congressional Record with this.
Then the John Birch Society started talking about it in their various publications
-- and then, of course, this [Allen] guy is a John Birch employee.”

INTERVIEWER: “Sure. Right.”

QUIGLEY: “And he published, even before this, did he?, the book, uh,
ʻNixon: The Man Behind The Maskʼ. Yeah, that, thatʼs in ʼ69.
And I knew nothing about that until two weeks ago.”

INTERVIEWER: “Really?”

QUIGLEY: “ʼNixon: The Man Behind the Maskʼ.
Yes, Thatʼs when one of the priests here met me and said
ʻIʼve been looking for you.ʼ I said ʻWell, look. Itʼs free. Go right [ahead]
and look all you want.ʼ And he said ʻNo, I want to ask you about, uh,
this Gary Allen who wrote a book about Nixon.ʼ And I said
ʻWell, I know Gary Allen, I didnʼt know he wrote a book about Nixon.ʼ
(Since I donʼt keep up with this stuff.) And he said ʻWell, I have it
and the whole third chapter is about you, and your book “Tragedy and Hope.”ʼ
I said ʻReally?” So, he let me have it. And I read it, and it was.
And, now thereʼs others.”

INTERVIEWER: “You donʼt know Gary Allen personally? Do you?”

QUIGLEY: “No. Now, hereʼs what happened. A crisis occurred at Brigham Young.
And I should not go in it in detail, because I donʼt know anything for sure.”

INTERVIEWER: “Yeah, I know something.”

QUIGLEY: “All right. A hell of a... The... The campus was blown apart by a fight between
the political science department and Skousens and in which they declared
that he was unworthy to be a Mormon professor. And should be fired.”

INTERVIEWER: “Right.”

QUIGLEY: “And he defended himself. And what happened I do not know. All I know is this.”

INTERVIEWER: “He lost it.ʼ

QUIGLEY: “Who?”

INTERVIEWER: “He lost it.”

QUIGLEY: “Oh, Did he?”

INTERVIEWER: “And he got ousted.”

QUIGLEY: “Oh, I didnʼt know that. You see, I never find out. Nobody ever tells me these
things.”

INTERVIEWER: “Iʼll check. [mumbles while going through his notes] I read...”

QUIGLEY: “So they did get out, uh, they did get rid of him, eh?”

INTERVIEWER: “He did. I think he lost that fight within the university. Iʼll check, I know more...”
QUIGLEY: “Well the reason... All I know about it is this: I gave three papers at this American
Association for the Advancement of Science. And I gonna give you one of them.”

INTERVIEWER: “Yep.”

QUIGLEY: “And because they liked it so much, they printed thousands of them.
Or, you know, processed thousands of them and distributed them
through all the press, in the press room.”

INTERVIEWER: “Right.”

QUIGLEY: “They liked this one. So, it wasnʼt the best of them:
ʻGeneral Crises in Civilization.ʼ You know, which, this is an attractive title.
Now, somebody called me up, and wanted to talk to me, at this.”

End of  Transcript - Part 2

Continue to Transcript - Part 3