Dear HCN,
It is my policy not to
comment on news coverage of me, but in this case I have to correct
the record. A letter you mailed out to potential readers with the
lead article on The Wildlands Project seriously distorts history
(HCN, 4/26/88). I did not ever agree to not “speak out about monkey
wrenching” as part of any deal with the government, as you claim.
No one tells me what to say or what to think. Not the FBI. Not
anyone. (Well, actually, my wife sometimes does.) At the end of my
trial in 1991, I had long left Earth First! and John Davis and I
had already published two issues of Wild Earth. My arrest in 1989
and trial in 1991 did not cause my changed approach. I had already
made the change. By the way, the Department of Justice later moved
to dismiss all charges against me, showing that the FBI never had a
legitimate case.
As far as your article goes, you
might have let your readers know that the critics of The Wildlands
Project, whom you quote, are the John Birch Society. Remember them?
They claimed President Dwight Eisenhower was a conscious agent of
the International Communist Conspiracy. Now they claim that Newt
Gingrich and George Bush are in this plot with The Wildlands
Project to hand America over to the United Nations. Hardly credible
critics, I would say. In my sidebar interview, I did not say that
the modern Earth First! had been started by the monkey wrenching
types. I said “direct-action types.” There is a considerable
difference.
Dave
Foreman
Albuquerque, New Mexico
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline For the record – from Dave Foreman.
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