Now that's got em snookered.
Ian is that another way of saying you've got 'em by the spheroid obloids? Sorry - long diatribe follows.
This thread needs clarification regarding my involvement in the publication of Gordon Harper’s work.
Harper, a man I admired from his posts, regularly referred to a book he was going to publish based on his many years of research. He died in May 2009 without achieving that ambition. In July 2009 via the message boards, Tori Harper asked for help to get her Dad’s book published. My assumption was that there would be someone among the many American posters who professed to admire him who would step up to the plate. When she repeated her plea in August 2010 I e-mailed her with an offer to proof read her Dad’s work to get things moving but that I had no experience in getting anything published.
Are you saying that Monte Akers did not step up to the plate? Are you aware that Tori was told not to correspond with any other persons on the board regarding the book? Seems like you may not have been in that loop or you would not have made the statement. "My assumption was that there would be someone among the many American posters who professed to admire him who would step up to the plate."
Here is a post by Tori:
May 2010
Well, it has arrived at the publishers, and they have told me they will take a few days to read over it, and get back to me...eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!
That is before Tori realized how hard it would be in my opinion and she asked Diane Merkel for help. Diane promised she would get her help. Diane's word is golden as far as I am concerned. I could not find the July or August 2009 posts. Is it possible that Diane contacted you?
She posted a CD with all his computer files on it from which I quickly realised that the material was far from complete for publishing. There were 1,700 pages and over 2 million words to wade through, all in no particular order. By August 2011 I had most everything in order, corrected as to spelling, punctuation and grammar. At that point, Mont Akers, a published author who had corresponded with Gordie at times, offered to contact publishing houses with the entire work.
Several were tried but though there was some interest, all found the work too large to be economic in a specialist field. Following discussions with Tori and Monte, it was agreed that I would try to mould what Gordie called his “Chapters” and “Discussions” into a book, leaving his bulky information files to form an e-book in due course. As a consequence, I ended up writing a Foreword for Tori, (So the foreward by Tori Harper is a false representation and you wrote "I loved the author of this book, Gordon Clinton Harper;but then he was my dad and My father died quietly in his sleep on May 17, 2009; I know how much the book meant to him so I was determined to get it published as a fitting memorial to him and to all those years he spent patiently researching and putting all the information in writing. With the help of two good friends, Gordon Richard and Monte Akers, I have achieved that ambition.) the Prologue and the Epilogue, plus missing Chapter 6, also the links between each chapter. There were no notes either written or computer filed about Gordie’s north/south flow theory, so it was not possible to include a chapter on this important aspect of the Battle.
Monte tried Casemate publishers with what we had but they naturally insisted on a chapter about the fighting on Custer Field. From bits and pieces of the north/south theory I found on the message boards and in e-mails to me, Monte and a lady who posted as clw, we were able to put together a truncated version of the Harper theory. That was shown to the publishers who not surprisingly wanted a fuller version of the events on Custer Field. Tori and Monte wanted me to “ghost” that using the Harper theory but that was impossible as there was no source material from which to work. JSIT, Godfrey, and Henry Weibert It was therefore agreed that I would write the fuller version based on my own theories. It was now late 2012 to early 2013 and my chapter was completed by September of that year and submitted to the publishers who accepted it.
By early 2014 they wanted another chapter written about the fighting on Reno Hill June 25-26, which I wrote as Chapter 8 and which was accepted. Subsequently I found that no progress had been made with the proposed maps so I was obliged to deal with the cartographer in order to get them done and submitted in time for publication in April 2014.
Responding to some of the comments made on this thread.
AZ RANGER.
My personal feeling is that the book was good to go without the Gordon Richards chapter. The problem was he held up the publication to a point that it was choice of include it or don't publish the book. So the disclaimer was put in the book.
Not only completely inaccurate but actually a rather nasty slander.
I stick by my personal feeling and you have no way to know what I know nor do you have any right to determine what my personal feelings should be. If you want to PM me I would be glad to share it and how much more detail that I have.
I have no intent to slander you Hunk just a statement of facts as I perceived them. There is no suggestion of intent to force anything you wrote to be included in the book. It was a representation that Tori had to choose to publish or not without a choice to change anything. If she did not have the final say on whether the book would be published than I stand corrected. If she could stop the publication than my statement is accurate.
So what we don't know is what footnotes might Gordie had included if he completed the book with the publisher's restriction on pages. His daughter did a great job getting the book published.
Equally inaccurate.
Impossible to be an inaccurate statement. Since Gordie had passed there is no way to know what he would have included or cut. He may have said all or nothing. Unless you think that having you assist with all your efforts was not a great job leading to her goal of getting her Daddy's book published than it is an accurate statement. You dealt with the getting the material into a publishable format and I dealt with the person missing her father and the associated pain. You may have no clue on how hard it was just to handle her Dad's material. He lived in her house and his area represented him. That was a great effort on her part in my opinion.
Similar comments on the boards by the same author and others have been drawn to my attention and frankly I am fed up with the illusion. I am sorry that Tori has health problems, but it is a fact that I have had serious cancer problems since late 2003, was undergoing treatments and chemo whilst working on “Fights” and some of that treatment is on going. To set the record straight once and for all, throughout the work on “Fights,” up to and including publication, Tori not only did not help, but took ages to find any files etc., that were missing. But for Monte Akers and I the book would never have been published. I take no pleasure in this disclosure but it is beyond dispute as the hard copies of e-mail exchanges would verify.
I will stand by my statement that without Tori the book would not have been published. I think Beth expressed the sentiment that I relate to my opinion of Tori's efforts. If she allowed you to do it that was still her choice. I am proud of her effort. Tori had the most important role. She had the raw materials of Gordie's work and got them to you and Monte to do the actual work. No one has stated that you did not do a lot of work and Tori was grateful and stated it in the book and we all are grateful for your effort in order to get his work out to the public.
As far as your statement "To set the record straight once and for all, throughout the work on “Fights,” up to and including publication, Tori not only did not help, but took ages to find any files etc., that were missing. But for Monte Akers and I the book would never have been published. I take no pleasure in this disclosure but it is beyond dispute as the hard copies of e-mail exchanges would verify."
Are you saying she did not have anything to do with the title, the writing of the forward which praised your efforts, or the pictures included in the book. Did the publishers ask her to make such choices?
It seems obvious that Tori was asking for help in the beginning to convert her fathers work to a book. She knew she could not do it herself but would seek to find someone to accomplish her goal of having her father's book published. That she trusted you to facilitate her goal doesn't diminish that her goal was to get "Daddy's" book published.
In 2010 we were going to have an adventure with Gordie staying at the 7th Ranch. Gordie had more work to do in regards to using a GPS. We were also meeting with some Cheyennes. Gordie named the group ICE for independent company of explorers. There were five orginal members. Gordie passed away and Tori showed up in his place. We have had an ICEr meeting every year since then staying at the 7th Ranch. I have spent several hundred hours with Tori.
YANMACCA.
I think what was a surprise is the chapter written by Hunkpapa was not what was expected. It was anticipated to be the best shot at what Gordie would have written. Instead we see a chapter within a book that has its own conclusions different than the majority of the work done by the author.
Ian, the end of Chapter 9, the Harper theory, has a short sentence linking it to the following Chapter 10, which is my work. That sentence states, “Of course much more was happening at the same time and the timings are necessarily generalized, as explained in greater detail following.”
My Chapter 10 has a sub-heading “ANOTHER LOOK AT CUSTER’S FIGHT” which has an Endnote 1 against it. That Endnote reads as follows-
“Naturally, the conclusions drawn in this chapter are Gordon Richard’s, but they are drawn from mostly primary sources to which, in some cases, has been added reasonable possibility.”
There is more but the combination of the two quoted bits really should not present any reader with any confusion.
BETH.
I agree that Tory did a huge amount of work getting the book out and it could not have been an easy job. It had to be difficult to try to condense so much of her father's work between the covers of one book.
I assume that your response here is based on trust you have placed in the views of someone else. I hope my explanations will fully clarify the true picture for you.
Finally, I will try to make my future contributions less both in wording and contradiction. I much prefer discussion to confrontation.