The Trouble with Triples

Kevin Langdon
August 16, 1987

During the past sixteen months, approximately 400 pages of correspondence have been circulated to members of two TNS Executive Committees as a deeply divisive collision of opposing points of view has threatened the very existence of the Triple Nine Society. I served on last year's Committee and have read and carefully studied all of this material.

To date, members of the society have had only a partial view of the affairs which have prompted this explosion of rhetoric, beginning with Ron Hoeflin's report on "Executive Committee Problems" in Vidya #72 and continuing through Vidya ##75-81.

I have reread all the material which has been presented to the membership, trying to put myself in the place of a member unfamiliar with the issues involved, and have come to the conclusion that such a member could not, through reading what has been published so far, come to an accurate representation of the state of affairs as it is known to those who have been close to these affairs and have read the Executive Committee correspondence.

Therefore, with your indulgence, I intend to set forth here a rather more complete record of the issues at the root of the controversy of recent months.

These issues will, of necessity, be presented from my point of view. Up until recently, I have been one of the principal parties to the controversy referred to above, but I felt I had no choice but to defend the principles on which Richard Canty, Ron Hoeflin, Ron Penner, Ed Van Vleck, and I founded TNS eight years ago, and which have guided the society prior to the events of the past year and four months.

In the course of my discussion of the issues before the society, I will respond to charges made against me by Ron Hoeflin, Barry Kington, and Patrick Hill, in Vidya ##75, 76, 79, and 80, placing them in context of the events which have created the most serious crisis in the history of the Triple Nine Society.

The story begins with a letter I wrote to Barry Kington in July 1984, just prior to my taking office as a Member-at-Large of the Executive Committee and Barry's appointment as Membership Officer. This letter had to do with the use of the Bloom Analogies Test as a vehicle for testing applicants to TNS who did not have prior evidence of a 99.9th percentile test performance.

In this letter, I cautioned against use of Bloom's test, as data regarding the norming of the test was not received when re- quested by the Psychometrics Committee, of which I was a member. I pointed out in my letter that the LAIT could not be used at that time because scoring was not current. (LAIT scoring has now resumed. Anyone who has submitted an answer sheet and not received a score report should write to Polymath Systems, P.O. Box 795, Berkeley, CA 94701.) My letter is exhibited as Appendix A.

[Note: Official LAIT scoring was permanently ended on December 31, 1993.]

Barry replied in a letter dated July 9, 1984. I have reproduced the relevant passage below:

Your letter dealt with an interesting subject that I can concur with. Richard May sent me a list of qualifying scores on the assumption that I would get the job. This list I have assumed to be the minimum scores that would be acceptable for membership in TNS. If this is not the case then if I get the job I would like an 'Official List'. The TNS psychometrics committee should be the forum of deleting or adding certain test [sic] to the list of accepted test scores. Personally, the W87 and BAT test [sic] are very open to a person cheating on them. This is cause for concern because there are a few people that might take an unfair advantage but then there is always that factor in any test. A supervised test can be first taken at location A then thought about and retaken at location B. However, you expressed concern about the norming of test [sic], particularly Bloom's and Harding's (with an expression of equal concern for mailed test [sic]), to determine an appropriate cutoff point in your letter. I would leave that up to the committee.

In a letter dated October 15, 1984, Barry wrote, ". . . would you send me some copies of the LAIT so that I could send it out with some of the enquiries I have been receiving from the Mensa ad?" Barry later claimed that I demanded that he send out the LAIT to applicants. We did have telephone conversations regarding the use of the BAT and possible alternatives, but I at no time insisted that Kington use the LAIT. Kington used his version of this exchange to criticize my motives after I objected to his actions with regard to the membership status of Anne Paradise and her right to hold office in the society.

In a letter dated February 26, 1985, when TNS was faced with a crisis because Vidya was not being published, Ron Hoeflin offered to edit Vidya for $1 per member per issue, stipulating that he be allowed to keep any excess over his costs.

Although the TNS Constitution provided, in Article III, Section 2 (before it was amended to permit compensation of appointed officers in 1986), that "All officers and members of committees shall serve without compensation," we felt that we were facing a situation which would destroy the society if it continued much longer, so the Executive Committee reluctantly agreed to Hoeflin's proposal, with the understanding that it would be a temporary arrangement. I voted with the majority to hire Hoeflin.

From October 1985 through March 1986, complaints against Hoeflin's heavy-handed editing, long editorial comments on many contributions to Vidya, and use of his position to exercise undue influence over the affairs of TNS were directed to the Executive Committee by Jack Giles, Linton Herbert, Kevin Langdon, Roy Langston, Louis Mathe, and Ron Penner. Langston submitted a bid to Edit Vidya for 90c per member per issue. Kington defended Hoeflin and became quite incensed over what he saw as autocratic actions on Penner's part in seeking to replace the Editor.

The matter was voted on and Hoeflin was retained as Editor; I concurred in this decision because of Ron's contributions to TNS and the difficulty of finding a good Editor.

In a telephone conversation in the first quarter of 1986, Barry informed me that Anne Paradise had not been admitted properly to TNS and was not really a member. He suggested that she should be removed from the position of Ombudsman, to which she was elected in 1984 and had recently been reelected by a 2 to 1 vote of the membership. Barry said that Rita Beechey had brought the irregularity of Anne's membership to his attention. He felt that the Executive Committee should take action against Anne.

Anne was granted membership in TNS by Alice Grant, the Membership Officer at the time, in 1981, two years after the death of her husband, Hugh Paradise, a distinguished early member of the society; during those two years, Anne continued to contribute Hugh's writings for publication in Vidya. Kington and Hill have charged that Ron Penner was responsible for Anne's admission, which Ron denies, but Alice was Membership Officer and signed Anne's membership card; if anyone is responsible, it is Alice.

According to Patrick Hill's letter to the Executive Committee of July 21, 1986, Anne was listed as an honorary member in issues of Vidya from February 1980 to May 1981. Alice considered it undemocratic and untidy to have a single member in a special class and issued Anne a regular membership card dated May 1981.

There is no doubt that Alice's actions were irregular, but the TNS constitution had not been adopted at the time they were taken and officers exercised wide discretion in those early days.

Anne did nothing more than to graciously accept an honor conferred by the Membership Officer of the Triple Nine Society in appreciation of the contributions to the society of her late husband. I find it incomprehensible that anyone would accuse her of misconduct under those circumstances.

I had no knowledge of these facts at the time, only learning of them after this matter was raised in the Executive Committee. Therefore, I was quite surprised to hear about the irregularity of Anne's status when Barry called and spoke to me about it. I told him that the information he had unearthed could cause a scandal if it were widely known and suggested that he drop the matter right there.

I felt that it would not be right to deprive Anne of her membership at this late date and that she had every right to expect the society to honor the actions of a duly elected officer. I subsequently learned that she has not only a moral but also a legal right to this expectation.

Unfortunately, Barry did not heed my advice, but proceeded to bring up Anne's status in a letter to the Executive Committee dated March 31, 1986, enclosing letters from Michael Huston and Ron Penner which contained two views of the events leading to Anne's membership in TNS. Barry's letter contained no specific recommendation for action, but this was not to be the end of Barry's campaign against Anne.

A letter from Scott McFarland, dated May 3, contained the following statement:

I have received a preponderance of mail and communications over the last several months regarding Ann [sic] Paradise and her qualifications for the office of Ombudsman for the Society. I have been asked by the Executive Committee to respond to this issue, as an officer and member in the Society.

Scott McFarland was not only not requested to investigate this matter by the Executive Committee, the members of the Committee were not even consulted. Barry was behind the whole thing. Any doubt about this is dispelled by the following paragraph from Barry's letter to the Committee of June 29:

Kevin again stated wrongly that I had Scott research Anne's position. I did all of the research. I did all of the research. I did all of the research. Do you understand that Kevin.

Scott continued with an examination of the circumstances under which Anne became a member of TNS, concluding that the issuance of a membership card stating that Anne had attained an intelligence rating in the 99.9th percentile was "erroneous and fraudulent" and that Anne's membership should be revoked and she should be removed from the position of Ombudsman.

Not content with this, he accused Anne of dishonesty in the following words:

I find, though, that in this instance, you have failed to properly apply to this issue, the very ethics of the office you have held. You have violated the basic rules of the Society you have represented.

After speaking with Barry Kington, but without consulting with other members of the Executive Committee, Louis Mathe wrote to the Committee on May 21, stating that:

It is the majority decision of the Executive Committee to declare as void the nomination and subsequent voting in for Ombudsman of Anne Paradise and the nomination of Dale C. Adams [Anne's opponent in the 1986 election] for Ombudsman.

There had been no such decision because no vote on this matter had been taken and Barry did not have five votes in hand.

Michael Huston offered some useful historical background on the controversy regarding Anne Paradise's membership in a letter included with Anne's letter to the Executive Committee of May 21:

TNS was founded, I was told, by a group of dissidents from another Hi Q Society [ISPE] which had used its expulsion provision for political purposes, i.e., to use a term of Penner's that I like, to achieve some degree of "intellectual insularity." I have been told that the procedures were used very unfairly. Out of this background comes an especial sensitivity to expulsion provisions. This sensitivity was manifest at the Bullard (TX) meeting for constitutional deliberations. At that meeting several discussions took place concerning the qualifications process and criteria, the mechanics of granting membership and of maintaining membership and what, if any, expulsion procedure should be adopted. Nonetheless, we expressly agreed that membership should not be confined to ethical, law-abiding people. The deliberations revealed much more concern with how TNS could keep people on the membership rolls than how to get them off. Alice Grant (the Membership Officer) was also concerned with memberships granted by error. She was insistent that if the error was administrative, then the member's standing should be unaffected. She believed that it was (is) very important that the society not use its organization to hurt people, i.e., if there is to be an injury as a result of an administrative error, it should be an injury to the society, not one borne by individual members. Although I believe nothing of this appears in the constitution, it was the consensus of that group and it represented that group's advice to Alice on how to perform as Membership Officer.

Barry accused Penner of "giving" Anne membership in TNS and putting her up to running for Ombudsman in a letter dated May 26, descending to violent and abusive language:

The last two time [sic] I have talked to Penner (he called) on the phone he has been insulting, demeaning, and very abrasive. Then Scott told me that Penner had been very rough with his wife. Such conduct by a person is unforgivable. In east Kentucky a person like that is generally shot. In west Kentucky (where I live) a person like that gets their [sic] nose reconditioned. We may not be sophisticated but we do not have many Penners either.

I protested Barry's and Scott's unprovoked attacks on an elderly woman innocent of any wrongdoing who had served the society honorably as Ombudsman for two years, and called for the removal of Barry Kington from the position of Membership Officer and of Scott McFarland from the positions of Publicity Officer and Elections Officer, in a letter dated May 29. I also cited a number of other improprieties in Barry's conduct in office. I offer some quotations from this letter:

I object particularly to Scott's statement that "The issuance of a card with the [membership card] wording is erroneous and fraudulent in its statement." Fraud is intentional deception for gain. There is no evidence of any such thing with regard to this matter.

My ethical concern is that the society stand behind the decisions of its officers and not subject innocent parties to embarrassment and deprivation of their membership rights on the pretext of setting right actions years in the past. Anne was admitted to the society in May 1981 and the Constitution was not ratified until December of that year. To ask Anne to submit evidence of qualification for membership at this late date makes no more sense than to demand such evidence from the many members of TNS admitted on the basis of their ISPE membership when the society was founded. As one of the five founding members of the Triple Nine Society, I find such actions to be antithetical to our intention of establishing a society where the individual rights of members would be protected against the arbitrary actions of officers.

A further note: When I spoke to Louis Mathe, he informed me that Barry Kington had told him that he had the votes to remove Anne Paradise from the office of Ombudsman (which my own canvass of the Committee showed not to be the case) and had discussed the issue with him in a way which led Louis to call for formalization of the vote to remove Anne from office. In the course of our conversation, I supplied Louis with the gist of the line of reasoning reproduced above. He concluded that his action had been taken without full knowledge and said that he now intends to vote no on his own proposal.

Louis later claimed, in a letter of June 8, that Barry did not practice deception on him, taking the blame for "jumping the gun" himself, but it is clear to me that Louis would not have taken the action he did if he had not believed Barry when Barry said that he had the votes to remove Anne from office.

I summarized the charges against Barry and Scott in my letter to the Executive Committee of June 19. Page 3 of that letter is reproduced as Appendix B.

In a letter dated June 23, Norm Treloar wrote:

Removing Barry Kington may be too extreme. However, I am very disturbed that Barry, an appointive officer, in effect appears to have in turn appointed Scott McFarland to investigate Anne Paradise's status, and that he seems to have taken other unilateral actions.

IF BARRY WOULD ADMIT TO SOME DOUBTS ABOUT HIS PREVIOUS OPINIONS AND ACTIONS, perhaps in the light of the more recent information, I would be extremely happy to have him continue as Membership Officer.

In his letter to the Committee of June 29, mentioned above, Barry replied:

Norman's statement, in his letter dated 23 June, that if I admit doubts about previous opinions and actions he would be extremely happy for me to continue on as Membership Officer. Thanks but no thanks. . . . I have my principals [sic] and my opinions that are more important than this office or for that matter TNS and I shall not compromise them.

The legal considerations raised by the attempt of Kington and his allies to deprive Anne of her membership are outlined in my letter to the Committee of July 19:

We do not admit people to the TNS provisionally. Once you're in, you're in. When the officers certify someone as a member of the society, the member has every right to assume that that's the end of the matter. Reopening this matter five years down the road is a violation of Anne's membership rights. While it is true that, if a mistake has been made, it does not cease to be a mistake with the passage of time, there is a principle of law, which is firmly established as part of our legal tradition, that some mistakes must be allowed to stand--the more so when they are long in the past. I have spoken to my attorney about this matter and she has assured me that, if Anne were stripped of her TNS membership, she would have a strong cause of action and would probably be in a position to collect substantial damages from the society. Such an eventuality would almost certainly lead to the demise of the society.

In this same letter, I reported the results of my canvass of the Committee on the question of Anne's membership status:

For Anne's retaining her TNS membership: Hoeflin, Hoon, Langdon, Mathe, Paradise, Treloar (6) Against: Beechey, Hill, Kington (3) If anyone's vote has been misstated, that person may, of course, object to the above enumeration. Otherwise, the matter has been settled. I hope that those on the losing side will accept the result graciously and will not prolong this battle; it has not been easy on Anne nor good for the society.

In a letter dated July 28, Patrick Hill objected to my tabulation of the vote on Anne's membership status. He claimed that time had not been allowed for debate (though my canvass of the Committee was three and a half months after the issue was raised in Kington's letter of March 31), that I had influenced the vote when I spoke with members of the Committee, and that the issue wasn't Anne's membership but her election as Ombudsman.

When Norm Treloar (Chairman of the Executive Committee) reported the results of a written vote on Anne's status in his letter of September 26, no one claimed that his or her vote had been misrepresented.

I do not understand how one can be a member of TNS and not be entitled to run for office. It is also worth noting that the TNS constitution does not give the Executive Committee the power to revoke anyone's membership or to remove an elected officer.

In the March 31 letter to the Executive Committee referred to above, Barry Kington provided figures for producing and mailing Vidya which he had obtained from Patterson Printing, in Madisonville, Kentucky, and which compared favorably with the cost of our arrangement with Hoeflin. The proposal called for the use of third class mail, to save postage. Third class would also permit larger issues without increased postage cost. When the cost of third class postage was added to the quoted figures, there was a small saving over paying Hoeflin and using first class mail.

In a letter to Hoeflin dated May 8, I said that I intended to propose to the Committee that we make use of Kington's printer and call for volunteers to return the editorship of Vidya to non-paid status.

Without waiting for me to make a proposal to the Executive Committee, Hoeflin wrote a very strong protest, in a letter dated May 15, against this change, threatening to found his own society if we insisted.

My initial reaction to Kevin's letter was to offer to increase the size of Vidya to more legible dimensions and bear the extra cost of postage myself, provided my present arrangement with the Society were continued. But upon further reflection, I would prefer not to undertake this step unless this Committee gives me no choice, i.e., insists on a larger Vidya and refuses to pay any extra for postage. If the Committee not only exacts that price of me but adopts Kevin's entire proposal, including my replacement by an unpaid Editor, then I will probably attempt to set up a new society with the same IQ requirement as Triple Nine's so that I can continue to serve as Editor of a journal similar to Vidya.

In a letter dated May 22, Hoeflin proposed that the Executive Committee guarantee continuation of the arrangement giving him $1 per member per month until at least June 30, 1987, and providing for six months' notice of termination by either side, "provided that the Editor continues to perform his duties in a faithful manner." Hoeflin's proposal further provided that he not be forced to use second or third class mail.

I opposed this proposal in my letters to the Committee of June 19 and September 2, but accepted that it had the necessary votes for passage in my letter of November 11. Passage was formally announced by Norm Treloar in his letter of November 26. Voting for the proposal were Beechey, Hill, Hoeflin, Kington, and Mathe.

There was a parliamentary flaw in the adoption of this proposal, however. Apparently no one noticed that the Editor is prohibited by Article IV, Section 1 of the TNS constitution from participating in review of his own appointment and was also ineligible to vote under the statutes governing conflict of interest because he had a financial interest in the outcome. Thus the proposal failed, receiving only four votes of the necessary majority of five of eight eligible voters. It is also questionable whether the Committee had the authority to commit a future Executive Committee. Ron continued to function as Editor, but no contract with the society was created by this vote.

Kington suggested that the 1986 annual meeting be held at the Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport on the first weekend in October, in his letter to the Committee of May 26. I called for a host committee of local members to take responsibility for the meeting and objected to holding it at an airport in my letter of June 19.

This matter never came to a vote. Instead, Ron Hoeflin announced the annual meeting, coordinated by Barry Kington, in Vidya #70, postmarked July 25. The Executive Committee was bypassed. A decision regarding the annual meeting was made and announced to the membership by two appointive officers acting without the approval of the elected representatives of the membership.

According to his letter to the Committee dated Sept. 8, Kington also invited a reporter from U.S.A. Today to attend the meeting without consulting the Executive Committee or the Regent (the only officer authorized to speak for the society--TNS Constitution, Article II, Section 1).

Barry Kington, Patrick Hill, and Rita Beechey would not let the matter of Anne's membership drop after the vote was tallied, but continued to demand that she be removed from office. Barry and Patrick wrote a number of letters containing threats of violence and abusive characterizations of the motives and ethics of their opponents. I have reproduced some passages from these letters in my Annual Report as Member-at-Large of the Executive Committee printed in Vidya #75.

Barry and Patrick repeatedly brought pressure on Anne to achieve their ends. Patrick wrote in a letter dated July 21:

Anne, it is up to you to save the ExComm, and TNS, from a potentially destructive series of events. I personally appeal to you to either: a.) apply for membership in the Triple Nine Society in accordance with the guidelines set forth in the Constitution and in the the spirit set forth in nearly every issue of Vidya regarding the nature of membership in the society; or, b.) resign from the ExComm so that we may put this behind us and end this acrimonious business.

The following paragraphs are from a letter by Barry Kington dated August 20:

Ann [sic], I think you can see that the normal procedure, in a business environment or any position of responsibility, where a "High Ranking" officer has a shadow cast upon themselves [sic] [is] that that person resigns untill [sic] such time as the questions that brought the accusation forth have been disproved or affirmed. That is why Scott ask [sic] you to resign in his letter. Scott was thinking solely of the Excom. and TNS when he made the suggestion. As you can see there has been a great deal of heat exchanged between people over this matter. I assumed at the outset you would resign but apparently other people have talked you into staying on. Now I would like to ask you to resign from the Excom. and take back your status as an "Honorary Member" untill [sic] such time as you have a test score that is acceptable to TNS then I shall be the first to warmly welcome you back into TNS as a MEMBER.

These sugar-coated insinuations that the only honorable thing for Anne to do was to go along with Patrick's and Barry's demand for her resignation were most inflammatory and insulting to Anne. I was one of the "other people" who urged Anne not to give in to the demands of Barry, Patrick, and Rita for her resignation, despite the fact that I knew it would be difficult for her, because I felt that the society must not establish this dangerous precedent for prying into members' credentials long after their admission to TNS.

Anne made it clear, in a letter date October 18, that she felt an obligation to the members who elected her Ombudsman not to cave in to pressure by Kington, Hill, and their allies: "The easy course would have been to resign, but I felt a duty to the office. The office is unique, comparable to Judiciary. To function it must be objective--above personalities and impartial."

In a letter dated August 1, Norm Treloar, extremely frustrated with the continuing warfare in the Committee, issued a demand for peace between the warring factions, threatening to resign if everyone did not agree to a list of conditions including refraining from threats of lawsuits, personal attacks, and calls for the removal of officers.

I had some reservations about the conflict of some of Norm's conditions with the constitutional duty of the ExCom to evaluate appointive officers, but expressed agreement in principle, as did everyone else except Barry and Patrick, who demanded Norm's resignation in letters to the Executive Committee in September.

Kington was very aggressive regarding Norm's announced intention to resign if his conditions weren't met. At the annual meeting in October, he demanded an answer from Norm: "I want to know whether you're going to resign or you're going to renege" [Transcript of discussion at the annual meeting made and circulated by Patrick Hill]. Norm didn't want to be put on the spot, but Barry would not let his challenge drop, repeating it several times in the presence of the assembled members.

Norm was embarrassed, but did not resign. Other business was discussed. At the urging of some of those present that they resolve their differences, Norm and Barry shook hands.

From the beginning of the debate concerning Anne's membership status, Barry expressed the opinion that there was "something behind" my opposition to his crusade. At one point, in a telephone conversation in which I sharply opposed his views, he said, "I'm going to dig up dirt on you!"

The following quote from Norm Treloar's letter to the Committee of August 27 illustrates the lengths to which Barry was willing to go:

Barry rang up and said he was getting some info about Kevin's past from the US Postal Service and from Bill Bavin's lawyer, which he hoped to use against Kevin in court.

Barry and Patrick clearly shifted tactics, attempting to divert attention from the issues under debate to allegations regarding the motives of their critics.

In a letter dated Sept. 8, Patrick repeated a false and defamatory accusation made by Ron Hoeflin in the pages of Gift of Fire, the journal of the Prometheus Society, that Omni had "won a substantial judgement" against me for failing to score the LAIT. This accusation is totally unfounded, as shown in the records of the court, and this lawsuit has now been settled. I paid no damages to Omni, but I did agree to score all answer sheets on hand, something I felt a moral obligation to do in any case.

Barry attempted to link my opposition to his attempt to remove Anne from office and deprive her of her membership in TNS with two irrelevant matters in a letter of Sept. 18:

Kevin's venomous letters serve a very useful purpose of hanging himself when you take into consideration two elements that you my fellow Excom. members, may not be aware of at this point. A. Kevin wanted me to pass out his test (LAIT) but I declined because he was not grading his test in a timely manner. From that point on Kevin has been finding or creating faults in my actions. His fairness and honesty is quite apparent to me. B. Kevin is also a member of a club (Mega) but unlike Ann [sic], who became a member of TNS without a test score, he got in Mega with a questionable test score and a very questionable award, plus guess what office he held - you guessed it 'OMBUDSMAN'. Here again his fairness and honesty comes forth with resounding clarity.

I have discussed point A above. Point B refers to a miscommunication between the Guinness Book of World Records and Chris Harding regarding what he described as Binet-equivalent scores and they printed as Stanford-Binet I.Q.'s. My score was on a preliminary version of Cyril Edwards' Mobius Test, on which I made the highest score. [I subsequently collaborated with Cyril Edwards on a version of The Mobius Test published by Polymath Systems in 1993.] I wrote to Chris about the inaccuracy of the Guinness listing as soon as the 1982 edition containing the listing (of which I'd had no prior knowledge) appeared. I would not have given my permission for publication of the listing had I been asked, as the state of the art in psychometrics does not permit accurate discrimination anywhere near the level which would be required to make a "world's record" in this area meaningful.

In Vidya #72, postmarked October 2, in an article titled "Executive Committee Problems," Ron Hoeflin provided the membership with its first look at the controversy of the preceding few months. His account oversimplified and, in points 7 and 8, misstated the state of affairs with regard to various matters before the Committee. Norm and I did not "object to the holding of an Annual Meeting" as Hoeflin contended; we objected to the organizers not obtaining the approval of the Executive Committee for the annual meeting called for in the TNS constitution.

Hoeflin alleged, in his article, that Bill Hoon had predicted the imminent demise of TNS "in ISPE circles." No evidence for this allegation has ever been produced. Hoeflin continued: "I questioned the propriety of his discussing our problems with others while maintaining a total silence on these matters within the TNS Executive Committee. He then became noticably less co-operative about sending funds for Vidya."

In a letter to the Committee dated Oct. 31, Norm Treloar offered three options for placing the matters which had been the subject of debate within the Committee before the membership. Option 1 was publication of a statement from the Committee. This statement, in a revised form, was published in Vidya #76, postmarked February 27, 1987, though two signers had repudiated it (and Ron Penner said he never approved it) and it was no longer supported by a majority of the Executive Committee. Option 2 was for each member of the Committee to be given 1-1/2 pages in Vidya to express his or her point of view. Option 3 was publication of the full correspondence of the Executive Committee.

Norm also reported the defeat of my motion to remove Barry Kington from office. Hoon, Langdon, and Paradise voted for the motion; Beechey, Hill, Hoeflin, and Mathe voted against. (Scott McFarland had resigned on August 25, so the motion for his removal never came to a vote.)

I made a motion, in a letter to the Committee dated November 11, to circulate a transcript of the Executive Committee correspondence, from the March 31 letter in which Barry Kington first raised the question of Anne's membership, to the entire membership so that the members could judge for themselves the matters which had been the subject of controversy during 1986. Unfortunately, this was not done, though Patrick Hill retyped most of this correspondence (beginning from Scott McFarland's letter of May 3) and made it available to a number of members.

In my letter, I pointed out that Barry Kington's loan to Ron Hoeflin, made for the purpose of covering Ron's expenses of attending the annual meeting (which Barry admitted making in his letter of December 2), constituted a conflict of interest, as Ron is part of the Committee which is charged with evaluating Barry's performance. Subsequently, a motion for removal of Kington from office failed by just one vote, with Hoeflin voting for Kington.

In his letter of December 2, Barry responded to my charge of conflict of interest:

How sick can you get with such an evil mind. NO! NO! NO! I say to such remarks. There were no strings, not even a cobweb attached to that loan of $140.oo I make [sic] Ron so he could attend the Dallas meeting."

Ron Penner replied to Kington in a letter to the Committee of Feb. 21, 1987:

What is significant about that quotation and why was it included [in my Annual Report in Vidya #75]? To demonstrate the violence of language? Certainly not. That would be to trivialize our travail. Events often prompt strong language and sometimes it is justified. What is so sad, indeed pathetic about that statement is that it shows not the slightest understanding of what a conflict of interest is. Whether there were strings attached to the loan is quite irrelevant. A public standard that is to mean anything must apply irrespective of motivation or intent or subjective evaluation.

As an appendix to my November 11 letter, I exhibited several letters Barry had written to the postal inspectors, using TNS envelopes, repeating the false accusation that Omni obtained a judgement against me and accusing me of the crime of mail fraud.

Hoeflin's frustration mounted over what he felt to be excessive delays in receiving payments for Vidya, leading to many long-distance phone conversations. The text of his letter to the Committee dated November 18, 1986, appears in its entirety below:

Patrick Hill and Kevin Langdon have stated that the Executive Committee is unable to help me get prompter funds from the Treasurer, so I suppose I will have to take matters into my own hands, as the saying goes. My policy will be to proceed with the mailing of the October Vidya only when I have a check for the November Vidya in hand, to proceed with the mailing of the November Vidya only when I have a check for the December Vidya in hand, and so forth. As of today, November 18, I have received no check for the November Vidya, so I will hold onto the October Vidya until such time as I get that check.

After accepting money from the society to produce each issue of Vidya, Hoeflin was telling us that he would not release what that money had paid for until we paid him for the next issue. There is no legal justification for this position.

In a telephone conversation with me on December 1, Hoeflin said that he was unable to send out all the copies of the October issue because he'd spent the money. In a letter of the same date, he wrote, "I demand that Hoon's resignation be immediately accepted" [original emphasis]. Hoon had indicated that he would be willing to step down at the pleasure of the Committee.

Kington and Hill (later joined by Hoeflin) continued their campaign of personal attacks against their political opponents.

Kington wrote to the Executive Committee on December 2, devoting almost two pages to his complaints about me. He wrote, "I am trying to get the P.O. to do something about Kevin's business activities..." and repeated his allegation that Omni had obtained a judgement against me, even referring to the court records that show this to be untrue. He accused my associate, Virginia Vernon [now my wife], who had written to him for information about TNS and had not received a reply, of lying about his nonresponse.

In Patrick Hill's letter to the Committee of Dec. 5, he claimed that I approved the Guinness listing referred to above. I supplied textual evidence in my letter of December 30 that Chris Harding was the source of the listing. Chris had never mentioned the listing to me before it appeared.

In an official announcement of a meeting of the Houston area chapter of TNS, Patrick included the following paragraph:

Seriously, I would appreciate hearing from anybody who has ordered any materials (periodicals, books, games, software, tests, etc.) from Kevin Langdon or Polymath Systems, and has not received them, including score reports for the Langdon Adult Intelligence Test (LAIT), which appeared in OMNI Magazine several years ago. Unless specifically waived, names of respondents will be kept strictly confidential.

On December 15, Kington wrote to Anne Paradise suggesting that she attempt to persuade Ron Penner to obtain psychiatric help, asking that his name not be mentioned. Kington's letter is exhibited as Appendix C, with the permission of Ron Penner.

At the suggestion of Patrick Hill, I wrote to Barry on November 26, attempting to mend fences. I asked him to drop his crusade against Anne Paradise, agree to accept the direction of the Executive Committee in the performance of his duties as Membership Officer, and stop his retaliatory personal attacks.

Barry replied in a letter to the Committee dated Dec. 15:

I totally reject any offer that Kevin has made or will make. I flatly refuse to deal with someone such as he has proven himself to be. A person such as Kevin does not need to be associated with this or any other IQ club because he is a parasite on all these types of clubs. He is the worst type of parasite, like the "Dwarf Mistletoe" that kills its host, Kevin adversely effects [sic] everything he touches as well. In this light I believe Kevin should resign from the Excom. and even contemplate taking an inactive roll [sic] in all IQ clubs until such time as he has gotten Polymath straighten [sic] out by completing all of the obligations he has incurred. Thus I am requesting that you, Kevin, think about resigning and if you have not done such by the 10th of Jan. 1987 I will formally ask that you be removed from office.

Hill circulated the original complaint and other legal documents from Omni's lawsuit against me with a cover letter to the Committee, dated Dec. 30, in which he claimed that, if I were to be elected to TNS office the society could be held liable for any judgement obtained against me, a position totally incompatible with applicable law and legal precedent.

Kington wrote to the officers of the Prometheus Society on January 7, 1987, falsely claiming that "'OMNI' had received a 'Default Judgment' against Mr. Langdon and the Four Sigma Society." He claimed that Prometheus could be legally liable through my membership in the society and called for my expulsion.

Nine days later, on January 16, Kington wrote to the Executive Committee of the Triple Nine Society, making similar allegations and moving that I be expelled from TNS. An excerpt from this letter is exhibited as Appendix D.

I had a number of conversations with Tom Barnes in early January in which he expressed great concern over the continuing warfare in the Executive Committee and offered his services to attempt to cool things down. He indicated that he had been talking with Rita Beechey and that, if I wished, he would be willing to ask her to make a motion to table Kington's expulsion motion, which he believed she would do if he asked her to. I replied that I'd rather see the motion voted down and declined his offer.

I felt that it would set a dangerous precedent for such a motion merely to be tabled. The motion was out of order, as the Executive Committee has no power to expel members of TNS, and highly inappropriate, and I was confident that it had no chance of passage. It was never brought to a vote.

On January 17, Tom Barnes wrote a letter to the Committee in which he contended that I had chosen war over peace (possibly on the basis of my nonacceptance of his offer regarding tabling of the expulsion motion) and recommended my expulsion from the society. This letter was published by Ron Hoeflin in Vidya #76.

Hoeflin claimed in his Vidya #80 that he had Tom's permission to publish the letter, to which Tom had this to say in a letter to the Committee of July 27:

I object to being informed (page 14 [of Vidya #80]) that I "approved" Ron's publication of my private letter to ExComm. Norm Treloar asked me about it, and I told him NO and immediately telephoned Hoeflin. He told me it was gone to press, and in good grace I acquiesed. That is not an approval, folks.

After observing the course of events during the following months, Tom circulated a letter, dated July 23, 1987, making it clear that he believed he had been mistaken in his indictment in the January 17 letter. This letter is exhibited as Appendix E.

On January 21, Virginia Vernon wrote to the Committee to object to the campaign waged against me by Kington and Hill:

I am not, thank God, a member--honorary or otherwise--of the Triple Nine Society, nor would I ever wish to be. However, I seem to have been drawn into the current conflict, having had the dubious distinction of being called a liar by no less than Barry Kington, and so feel that I may be allowed to impose my comments upon your august body. It is very difficult for me to keep silent when a person I respect is subjected to a vicious attack . . .

Virginia wrote a personal plea to Kington and Hoeflin to stop their personal attacks on me, also dated January 21, exhibited as Appendix F.

In his letter to the Committee of February 1, Hill replied:

Believe me, I can understand your loyalty and devotion to your friend and associate Kevin Langdon, and can appreciate how deeply you must be hurt to see someone you admire so much surrounded by so many villains. It is unfortunate that one man with the admirable qualities you describe can be so viciously maligned and ill-treated by so many people. Of course, I am only the most recent of those he perceives as an enemy, so I am only aware of a few who have gone before me in causing him the kinds of problems that now occupy his attentions to the detriment of his accomplishing more worthy goals. But even this short list is remarkable: you say he was victimized by a shoddy manufacturer and incompetent repairman; Omni failed to support him and later sued him; C.R. Whiting and the Ethics Committee of the International Society for Philosophical Enquiry persecuted him and ejected him from that Society; Bill Bavin and his attorney made trouble for him--which was later taken up by Barry Kington; Scott McFarland, Ronald Hoeflin and myself have opposed him; and now Tom Barnes has asked for his ejection from the Triple Nine Society.

In referring to my dispute with C.R. Whiting and his colleagues in the ISPE, Hill is criticizing me for the very actions which led to the founding of TNS, summarized by Ron Hoeflin in "The Origins of the Triple Nine Society" (Vidya #10, pp. 3-7).

Hoeflin made the folowing remarks about Whiting's Ethics Committee at the annual meeting [Hill's annual meeting transcript, pp. 6-7]:

I was there, so I know exactly what happened. First of all, Triple Nine was set up, but only one person resigned from ISPE. The rest of us wanted to stay as members, but we still wanted to be Officers of Triple Nine, but we were kicked out nonetheless. We weren't told about it: it was done by a so-called secret Ethics Committee whose members were never named, except for C.R. Whiting himself, who presumably did the whole thing on his own, with consultation with one or two people.

Ron Hoeflin responded in a similar vein in his "Comments on the Langdon Report" (Vidya #75, p. 18):

I have known Kevin for nine years. In that time span he has been embroiled in an inordinate number of disputes involving not just TNS but at least three other high-IQ societies, not to mention the lawsuit against him by Omni magazine, which Barry apparently intends to make the focal point of his rebuttal. I sided with Kevin in his dispute with the ISPE that led to the establishment of TNS in 1979, but I have borne the brunt of many of Kevin's subsequent attacks, which has given me an enlightening shift in perspective. I simply ask that members bear in mind Kevin's chronic contentiousness when they weigh the merits of his position.

It is true that I have been involved in disputes in a number of high-IQ societies, including several with Ron Hoeflin. The reason is simple: I oppose tyranny wherever I find it. After his opposition to Whiting's autocratic behavior in the ISPE, Ron has attempted to put into effect very similar practices when he has exercised power as an officer of other organizations.

Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. And his fellow servant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done. Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormenters, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses. [Matt 18:23-35]

The Mega Society was founded in 1982, superseding the 606 Society, founded by Chris Harding. Hoeflin was designated "Founder" of Mega and also occupied the position of Administrator. The Mega Society accepted a number of tests for admission.

In Megarian #6 (Oct. 1982), Johannes Veldhuis, Mega's Recruitment Officer, proposed that three test scores, combined according to a certain formula, be required for admission in the future and that, as only five of Mega's 18 members at the time met this new criterion, the remainder of the membership be relegated to "honorary" status. The rationale for this proposal was the need to substantiate the claim of the Mega Society's one-in-a-million admission criterion for listings in the Guinness Book of World Records and the Book of Lists.

Ed Van Vleck and I opposed this proposal in "Screening Considerations for the Mega Society," published in Megarian #8.

Our arguments included the following:

The redefinition of membership standards, which adversely affects 3 out of 4 Mega members, is based on a misunderstanding of the statistical data....The members to be retained in the Society have a mean qualifying score of 5.09 sigma (IQ 181.44); those that it is proposed to expel have a mean qualifying score of 4.93 sigma (IQ 178.88), for a mean difference of 2.56 IQ points. This is a minuscule and statistically insignificant difference . . .

The tests upon which The Mega Society is based are too insensitive to support the proposed expulsion.

Ethical factors and the likelilhood of legal "exposure" must be sensitively and intelligently considered before acting.

Expelling 3/4 of an organization's members "to purify the blood" does not represent "intelligent" politics.

In Megarian #11, Hoeflin proposed a set of rules under which the Mega Test would be the only exception to the three-test rule and Hoeflin would have exclusive executive power in the society. Four of the six proposed rules are exhibited as appendix G.

I continued to oppose Veldhuis' and Hoeflin's autocratic proposals. In Megarian #14, I wrote:

While it is true that the officers of Mega did not propose the expulsion (directly so-named) of any present members, free men do not submit to relegation to inferior status based on scientifically indefensible criteria, established retroactively and without consultation with those affected, at the whim of unelected officers who have forgotten the source of the power they wield. Such actions are tantamount to expulsion for those with intact backbones. Officers have no special privilege to speak and act for the society. They are members who have volunteered to perform specific duties; for this, the society owes them gratitude but not obedience. Policy setting is the province of the membership of the society as a whole.

A vote of the Mega membership was taken. Marilyn vos Savant announced the results in Megarian #15. The members overwhelmingly supported an undifferentiated membership list. Acceptance of a set of bylaws establishing democratic procedures, written by Dave Garvey, was announced in Megarian #21, postmarked June 5, 1984. In this same issue, Hoeflin exhibited a form letter which he was using to respond to applicants for membership, containing the following statement contrary to the admission standards approved by the membership:

Admission to the Mega Society is solely on the basis of the Mega Test, although this may be supplemented by other tests in borderline cases.

Hoeflin proposed the adoption of this standard and also that "The founder of the Mega Society shall be granted sole discretion in all future admission decisions . . ." Hoeflin sent a referendum ballot to members of the society in October 1985 which called for setting aside the bylaws, demoting most of the members of the society to the "Savant Society" with a lower percentile cutoff, and creating open-ended terms of office for officers. He threatened to resign if his proposals were not adopted and did so when they were rejected by the membership.

More recently, in the journal of the Titan Society, Insight (#12, March 1987), Hoeflin wrote:

It seems to me, then, that it makes sense to raise our admission standard to 46 [on the Mega Test] rather than to merely 45 and to allow a maximum of, say, three attempts to attain that standard. Other members would be allowed to renew if they can attain a score of 46 by their third attempt, counting the attempts they have already made.

In a letter to the TNS Executive Committee dated February 2, 1987, Norm Treloar cited a number of instances of serious misconduct by Barry Kington, including the taping of phone conversations with members of the Committee without their knowledge (by Barry and Patrick Hill), and made a new motion for Barry's removal from office. This letter is exhibited as Appendix H.

Patrick Hill responded to Norm's charge regarding taping of conversations in a letter dated Feb. 7:

I will neither confirm nor deny that I have taped or will tape telephone conversations between myself and others on the ExComm. I told Mr. Treloar, in Dallas, that I taped (but not whom) for one purpose only: I would like officers to conduct themselves as if they were being taped, especially when representing details to the other officers regarding content.

Barry Kington was more direct in his letter of Feb. 14:

For years I have taped phone conversations in business. This is for my own edification and to make sure that I did not misunderstand things that were talked about over the phone. This practice was not used with members of the Excom. until it became apparent that certain members were saying one thing to me over the phone and reporting yet another as fact in future letters to the Excom. Norm, Kevin, and Penner are the ones that I record now out of the necessity of knowing what the truth really is.

In a letter to the Committee of Feb. 21, Ron Penner quoted a warning from the Seattle telephone directory:

When you hear a 'beep' tone at about 15-second intervals during a phone conversation, it indicates that the conversation is being recorded.

In the State of Washington it is illegal for any person to record any telephone conversation without first obtaining the consent of all parties engaged in the conversation.

In the telephone book for Marin County, Caifornia, where I live, there is a similar warning: "Under California State Law the consent of all the parties participating in the call must be obtained before any person may record a telephone conversation . . ."

Unfortunately, Federal law requires the consent of only one party for taping of conversations. However, while the practice of taping people without their knowledge is only illegal in some jurisdictions, it is unethical everywhere. It is unfortunate that members of the TNS Executive Committee have engaged in this practice.

Vidya #75, postmarked Feb. 5, 1987, contained my Annual Report as Member-at-Large, in which I briefly summarized the events recounted in more detail in this document. It also contained the draft of a new TNS constitution, intended to remedy some of the defects of the present constitution. In particular, this draft would prohibit revocation or compromising of any member's membership status in the absence of fraud in gaining admission, remove appointive officers from the Executive Committee, prohibit compensation of officers, and require a two-thirds vote of the membership for dues increases and expulsion of members.

I received only one completed petition to place this draft before the membership to be voted on; if the Elections Officer received any, he never informed me. Anyone who feels a need for reform of TNS' machinery of government may submit petitions to me (I will be happy to provide copies of the petition and my constitution draft to anyone requesting them) or propose other changes to the present constitution through the pages of Vidya.

Ron Hoeflin accused me of "inflammatory rhetoric" in his reply to my Annual Report, coming to the defence of Kington and Hill. He also criticized some of the provisions of my proposed constitution. One of his criticisms is that the Executive Officers would be "made impotent"; unilateral action by the Editor and the Membership Officer brought about the crisis which has threatened the Triple Nine Society for over a year.

As Vidya #75 was mailed out, Hoeflin was already preparing #76, which he intended to be the election issue. When I heard that this issue would contain a ballot and replies to my report in Vidya #75 by Kington and Hill, I at first intended to publish a booklet, similar to the present document, presenting the facts to the membership and including a number of letters.

I later decided that Hoeflin must not be allowed to commandeer the journal of the Triple Nine Society and sought to delay publication of an election issue, so this booklet was not published. One of the letters that were to be included was written by Richard Canty and signed by four of the five founders of the Triple Nine Society. This letter appears on the opposite page.

[Richard Canty letter]

I telephoned Ron Hoeflin on February 3. He admitted that he had provided Kington and Hill with advance copies of my remarks in Vidya #75. "Then you won't mind providing me with copies of their remarks," I replied. He agreed to have his printer send me an advance copy of Vidya #76, but I didn't receive that issue until the regular mailing to the membership, contrary to the claims of Patrick Hill in his letters of Feb. 7, Feb. 9, and [approximately] May 22 [no date appears on this letter] (to Gary Bryant). I did receive a copy of Patrick's remarks in that issue in advance of publication because Patrick circulated them with his letter to the Committee of Feb. 9, but, without a delay of the election itself, they were of no use to me; Kington and Hill, on the other hand, were able to misinterpret almost every point I made in Vidya #75 and direct attention away from their own serious misconduct.

Bill Hoon, Louis Mathe, Anne Paradise, Norm Treloar, and I conferred by phone and agreed to delay publication of the election issue to allow a fair start, permitting all parties to the controversy in the society to submit arguments for the election issue with no one permitted to see anyone else's comments and the Editor prohibited from commenting on any submissions pertaining to the election, so no one would have the last word.

In a telephone conversation with me on February 5, Louis Mathe said that he was disgusted with the fighting in the Executive Committee and announced his intention to stop participating in the political affairs of the society.

I told him that, in becoming an officer of the society, he had undertaken an obligation to fulfill the duties of his office, which include voting on matters before the Committee, and that he should either vote on the issues that come up or resign. He said that he'd think about what he wants to do.

I spoke with him about the problems with the election issue and he voted yes on the motion to delay the issue.

Louis announced his resignation from the office of Regent in a letter to the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Norm Treloar, dated Feb. 6 (the day after he had voted to delay the election issue), and wrote to Ron Hoeflin asking him to publish a notice of his resignation in Vidya. An official announcement of Louis' resignation appeared in Norm's letter to the Committee of February 13.

Norm's letter also contained the following paragraphs:

In his last act as Regent, Louis sent me his vote AGAINST removing Barry. With Louis now not on the ExComm, it has been suggested that there are enough votes to remove Barry if the current vote fails, by having yet another vote. Let me make my position perfectly plain. I have had my say, and I have expressed my opinions and my vote is obvious. I think it would be inappropriate to raise this issue one more time in the life of this ExComm. If another such vote were called for, I would abstain. I don't play those games.

Norm kept his word and did not vote on the third and final motion (by Langdon) to remove Barry Kington.

The vacancy created by Louis' resignation left eight members on the Executive Committee. A majority was still five votes, for most decisions, but as appointive officers are constitutionally prohibited from voting on their own tenure in office, the majority required for their removal from office became four out of seven eligible voters. Because of this, Louis' resignation became a significant factor in the events that followed.

Norm called Hoeflin and informed him of the Committee's decision to delay the election issue. I spoke with Norm later; he told me that Hoeflin was reluctant to comply with the decision.

The TNS constitution provides that "Each officer shall be responsible to the full Executive Committee for all the functions of his office" (Article III, Section 1).

In his letter to the Committee dated Feb. 6, Hoeflin wrote:

Norm insisted that this poll was a valid vote of the ExComm, and that I had no choice but to go along with it. Norm evidently does not believe in free will. When he sees the January issue, he will realize that I am not a puppet.

I spoke with Hoeflin on the evening of February 6 (a Friday). He repeated that he was going to go ahead and publish Vidya #76, including the election materials, despite the Committee's direction. I said, "If you do that, you will be sued." He said that he had reasons. When I told him I wasn't interested in his reasons for defying the Committee, he hung up on me.

I tried to reach Bill Hoon and spoke with his wife. She told me that the check for the election issue had already been mailed, but agreed to put a stop payment on the check Monday morning if it had not already cleared the bank. Unfortunately, the check had already cleared.

I spoke with Hoeflin's printer and told him that Hoeflin was taking action contrary to the direction of the Executive Committee of the Triple Nine Society. He was, understandably, very reluctant to get involved in our dispute, and told me that his only contact with TNS had been through Hoeflin. He said that he would need to hear from the President of TNS in order to take action. I told him that we don't have a President, but that Norm Treloar was Chairman of the Executive Committee and he would be hearing from Norm.

Norm and I both spoke with and wrote to Hoeflin's printer subsequently, and at one point he promised that he would not print the election issue without an O.K. from Norm.

I spoke with Grady Ward, who had been designated as Elections Officer by Hoeflin though he had not yet been appointed to that office by the Executive Committee, about the situation and the alternatives before the Committee regarding the election. He said he would await clarification from the Committee.

Hoeflin wrote to the Committee again on Feb. 7. His letter included the following statement:

Kevin himself sought to have the last word in his December attack on Pat and Barry prior to the election, so he can't reasonably begrudge them a reply prior to the election . . . there is always next time, just a few months off, when elections will be held again and Kevin can get his rebuttals in.

In a letter to the Committee dated March 13, Hill claimed:

He [Langdon] admits that he intended for it to be impossible for Mr. Kington and myself to reply to his charges in the December issue prior to the election.

Both of these statements are false. I hadn't the slightest idea that Ron would attempt to go forward with an election on such short notice--so short that all non-U.S. members were disenfranchised--when I submitted my statement. My reasons for doing so when I did were, first, that the membership needed to know the facts about the situation, which had not been revealed before, in order not only to vote intelligently but to take part in a debate before the society as a whole, and, second, that I hoped to have sufficient petititions in hand to place my constitution draft on the 1987 election ballot (before the passage of Hoeflin's amendment #4, constitutional amendments and initiatives could be voted on only in the society's yearly elections).

After he discovered that Norm and I had spoken with his printer and with Grady Ward, Hoeflin became somewhat more reasonable. In a letter to me dated Feb. 9, he wrote:

Norm Treloar has persuaded me to delay the election issue until March. If you want to get a final reply to Barry Kington and Pat Hill to me by the end of February, please do so.

In Norm's letter to the Executive Committee of Feb. 13 (mentioned above), he wrote:

A phone poll (Yes, I know . . .) was taken on these ideas, and it was agreed by Kevin, Anne, myself, Bill and Louis that there should be a delay in this 'ballot' issue. Rita seemed amenable to the suggestion, but wanted more details. Patrick did not vote explicitly, but his reaction was that the issue should be sent out as it stood. I did not contact Barry. Ron Hoeflin was initially against delay, but later agreed to abide by the wishes of the majority and substitute a different, already-prepared, double issue for the 'ballot' issue, to give some breathing room.

Hoeflin told me that he would print a double issue on theism and atheism and print a revised election issue in March; on that understanding, Bill Hoon transmitted to him an extra $600 in TNS funds. Hoeflin's printer told me that he had picked up the original election issue and substituted a new, 40-page issue, but the original issue was the one mailed two weeks later. Norm and I each sent Hoeflin a letter (mine was postmarked Feb. 13); both letters were returned unopened. In a letter from Hoeflin accompanying mine, dated Feb. 22, he wrote:

I decided to go ahead with the January election issue of Vidya in its original form rather than trying to include the new material from you and Norm. I have ballots from a majority of ExComm members mandating this action. Changing or postponing the issue would probably have made it impossible for the next ExComm to take office by April 1st due to the delay.

Concerned members of the Executive Committee again conferred by telephone. When I spoke with Norm on March 2, it was not clear to us whether the issue had actually been mailed or whether Ron actually had votes from a majority of the Committee.

Vidya #76, containing the 1987 election materials and setting a deadline for receipt of ballots by the Elections Officer of March 13, was postmarked February 27.

After speaking with other members of the Committee, it became clear to me that Hoeflin did not have five votes. Later, I discovered that Mathe had voted to go ahead with publication of the original election issue after he had resigned as Regent.

In Hoeflin's letter to the Committee of March 3, he said that "Louis Mathe would renege on his resignation" in order to try to prevent Hoeflin's removal and that of Barry Kington, and asked for a ruling from Anne Paradise, in her capacity as Ombudsman, on whether Mathe could revoke his resignation. In her letter to the Committee of March 18, Anne ruled that Louis' resignation was effective on February 13, the date it was announced by Treloar.

Louis admitted to me on March 2 that he had cast his vote to publish the election issue after his resignation as Regent and that it was therefore invalid. He became quite angry with himself when he had to admit it.

Barry Kington continued to attack the character of his opponents. In his letter to the Executive Committee of Feb. 14, Kington wrote:

Having received Norm's and Penner's letters, I must clarify my position to exclude a misinterpretation by anyone. My position is not a complex one. In fact, it is very simple. I hate dishonesty. I hate liars. I hate crooks. Now that is not to [sic] hard to understand is it? This whole conflict on the TNS board revolves around the dishonesties of a few and the acceptance of these dishonesties by a certain number of board members. I was not surprised by Penner's letter. After all he has supported these dishonesties as well as add his own dishonesties to the list. In fact, Penner is the one who started this mess. Norm's letter, dated 2 Feb. 1987, came as quite a surprise. I suppose you should be more careful in the future Norm because you have snagged your "sheep's clothing" off. Norm has opened yet a new door and a new low in these arguments - cursing. I was told that cursing is a sign of someone that is not very bright. Maybe we should reexamine your tests [sic] scores Norm.

Ron Penner responded in a letter to the Committee dated Feb. 21:

I have just received the Membership Officer's Valentine's Day Missive. I too dislike dishonesty. (Perhaps you should all take a vote on dishonesty and see where everyone stands.) But there is one thing I dislike far more than dishonesty and that is hypocrisy, dishonesty to one's self--the most corrosive form there is. I will give but one main example, for a slander which I have never addressed until now. (I think I have shown considerable restraint.) You will recall that late last Spring, the Membership Officer began making repeated charges that I had been extremely rude in telephone conversations to Mrs. Hill and Mrs. McFarlane [sic]. Then suddenly, mysteriously Mrs. Hill was dropped. Each time the charges were repeated by the Membership Officer they were worse and worse until it appeared as if I had said things which were utterly unspeakable and could not even be hinted at in mixed company. Quite puzzled by all of this, but not really surprised, I wrote to Patrick Hill and Scott McFarlane [sic] to try to get to the bottom of this, for I had no idea what the Membership Officer was carrying on about. I received no reply from either--and this did not really surprise me--but after about a month or six weeks I received a nice note from Mrs. McFralane [sic]. She said that she had read her husband's letter that I had written and felt she should answer it. Apparently the only complaint she had against me--and I still have the letter--is that I ended the conversation somewhat abruptly.

Everyone who has crossed the Membership Officer has been attacked in their private lives only a short time later: myself, Kevin Langdon, Norm Treloar, William Hoon, and in private correspondence Catherine Brueckel. As if this were not bad enough, he virtually never gets his facts straight. And now his latest victim is again Dr. Treloar. A more long-suffering, patient, tolerant, and reticent man would be hard to find. And he has agonized over trying to find ways to bring some peace and order to the Executive Committee. His actions have been almost heroic, but he doesn't want praise, merely peace, as we all do.

There were many worried conversations at this time regarding the turmoil in the society. Patrick Hill offered, in his reply to my remarks in Vidya #75, to withdraw his candidacy if I would do the same. I did not wish to withdraw as long as Barry Kington was still Membership Officer.

Norm Treloar, Ron Penner, and I were interested in reaching some sort of compromise and agreed on two possible "deals" with the "other side": withdrawal of Kington and Langdon or withdrawal of Kington, Hill, Langdon, and Penner from participation in TNS governance for the next Executive Committee term. These compromise proposals were put forth in Norm's letter to the Committee of Feb. 13.

On February 11, I telephoned Barry Kington and told him that I would agree to sit out the 1987-88 term if he would do the same. His exact words were, "I'll tell you what. I have nothing to say to you." His response to my offer is quoted on page 14. It was a total refusal to negotiate. No deal was struck.

A history of the failure of attempts at compromise is given in Norm Treloar's letter to the Executive Committee of March 25. The first three pages of this letter are exhibited as Appendix J.

The election issue itself was filled with distortions and untruths.

The "Executive Committee Statement" did not have the support of a majority of the Executive Committee; Ron Penner had never approved this statement. The second paragraph implied that the Committee has a right to reexamine the membership status of members in the absence of fraud in gaining admission. The last paragraph implied that the Committee had its problems under control when in fact the affairs of the society were in chaos.

Some candidates were allowed more than the constitutionally prescribed half page for candidates' statements; one endorsement of a candidate by a member of the Executive Committee was printed along with the candidates' statements.

Hoeflin stated on page 13 that "As Editor I have never denied space in Vidya to anyone who has had any recommendations to make concerning the operation of the Triple Nine Society," when, in fact, he had just returned letters to Norm and me, unopened, which he believed contained statements for publication in Vidya.

Patrick Hill, Barry Kington, and Ron Hoeflin attempted (apparently with great success) to influence voters in the election by making use of a lawsuit filed against me, which had never been heard in court and was subsequently settled amicably, and of difficulties in my business which have now been resolved.

Patrick and Barry repeated their unfounded speculations concerning my motives in opposing their attacks on Anne Paradise. Patrick stated that "The 'Anne Paradise' matter was resolved to the satisfaction of a majority of the ExComm (including Ms. Paradise and myself, excluding Mr. Langdon) as a result of discussions at the Annual Meeting in Dallas." Anne Paradise does not concur with this statement.

Patrick once again sought to impugn my motives regarding the proposal of my constitution draft. He labeled my behavior in opposing his aims "uncivilized" and called me a "menace" to TNS. He dismissed my concern with membership rights, attributing all my actions to resentment because Kington wouldn't use my test.

Barry repeated his accusation that Ron Penner was responsible for "giving" Anne membership in TNS and for admitting others who were not properly qualified.

Barry claimed that I said that someone "must give her [Anne] a test score"; what I actually suggested is that someone might administer a test.

He claimed that under the leadership of Penner and myself, the Triple Nine Society had declined from over 600 to just over 200 members. During the period when membership was declining I was not on the Executive Committee; when I joined the Committee, I made the resumption of advertising in the Mensa Bulletin my first priority.

Hoeflin printed Tom Barnes' letter calling for my expulsion from TNS without Tom's permission, and appended a note opposing my candidacy for Ombudsman.

Several important telephone conversations took place on March 2.

Hoon, Treloar, Paradise, and I agreed that the election issue was fatally flawed and that either a new election issue must be published or the whole election must be thrown out. We decided to give Hoeflin the opportunity to publish a revised election issue, and that, if he refused to do so, we would remove him from office.

I spoke with Grady Ward and he agreed to impound the ballots until he received further direction from the Executive Committee.

I called Hoeflin told him what the Committee had decided. When I said that we would remove him from office if he continued in his insubordination to the Executive Committee and that Grady Ward would impound the ballots, he hung up on me again.

Ron Penner and I each made a formal complaint to the Ombudsman; mine was dated March 9 and Ron's was dated March 10. Copies of these complaints were sent to Grady Ward. A portion of my complaint was reproduced in Hoeflin's Vidya #80 (Hoeflin did not bother to note that it was only an excerpt); the entire complaint is exhibited as Appendix K. My complaint contains an error in the date of Mathe's resignation letter, which was dated February 6, not February 2; a correction was sent on March 13. Page 2 of Penner's complaint is exhibited as Appendix L.

Michael Huston (March 20), Gary Bryant (March 21), and Hal Darancette (by telephone, later confirmed in a letter of April 10) also complained to the Ombudsman and the Elections Officer about the election, though Huston and Bryant had been elected as Members-at-Large.

Michael Huston's complaint pointed out that, while elections have been delayed in the past, there has never before been such a short deadline that members were unable to cast their ballots. Page 1 of his letter is exhibited as Appendix M.

Hal Darancette wrote:

I was one of the members that met at the home of Alice Grant, for the purpose of writing a constitution. This constitution was adoped [sic] by TNS. Provisions were made to allow for changes as needed. Although words may not always be clear, I think I can safely say that it was not our intent that a valid election could be held that could prevent a substantial number of members from voting.

I did not receive an election copy of Vidya, and did not have the opportunity of voting. I cannot help but wonder how many others had this problem.

Anne Paradise called me on March 14. She was very upset. She had just spoken with Patrick Hill, who had demanded that she not make her Ombudsman's report until he had a chance to reply to my complaint. He'd said he was going to be busy for the next week preparing Gift of Fire, the journal of the Prometheus Society, and insisted that she wait until after that was completed. She'd said she'd have to think about it and he'd hung up on her.

I told her she didn't have to let Hill upset her. In a conversation later that evening they agreed to a delay of one week.

Hill wrote to the Committee on March 16, claiming that a sinister conspiracy was involved in the vote to remove Hoeflin as Editor and anticipating several events which did not happen except in Hill's imagination: appointment of a new Regent, disqualification of Hill as a candidate for Member-at-Large, "[diversion] of TNS funds to finance a Vidya controlled by Mr. Langdon and his allies," and disenfranchisement of Hill and his allies on the Executive Committee.

Hill defended the setting of the election deadline, despite the fact that only two weeks were allowed between the mailing of Vidya and the date by which ballots were to be received by the Elections Officer, disenfranchising all non-U.S. members. He claimed that a written vote failed to stop distribution of the election issue, making use of the parliamentary ruse of making a motion for the delay of the election issue--the opposite of what he wanted--which had already been enacted by a vote of the Executive Committee, producing "a four-to-four tie," and then claiming that the motion had failed, permitting publication of the election issue. This is an incorrect interpretation of parliamentary rules. A majority is required to change the status of a motion passed by a parliamentary body; the motion in force had mandated delay of the election issue. It would have required a majority to order publication of the issue (if the Executive Committee had had the power to order an election to proceed which disenfranchised members of TNS--which it clearly did not have).

Hill's letter also included the following passage:

I expect Mr. Ward to advise the ExComm of the results of the election based on a March 31 tabulation of votes received to that date so the new ExComm can be notified to begin its term on April 1, as provided in the Constitution.

Grady Ward tallied the vote and released his election report (later published in Vidya #77) on March 13, despite the concern of many members of the Executive Committee, including Hill, for the disenfranchisement of members through insufficient time allowed for voting.

In his report, Ward wrote:

I ask some of you to be heroes now, though you are not promised recognition. You will appear to have lost an election you have challenged. And you have presented a strong case, maybe if pressed, a convincing one. But I ask you: please hold out your hand and grasp those open hands around you. The anger you now hold tightly will of itself fall to the ground with the other settling dust, and the rising cheer will toast your real victory over the thief of your energy and time.

Fine words, though condescending--but the real losers were the members of the Triple Nine Society, who were denied a fair election.

On March 16, Bill Hoon wrote to the Executive Committee, calling for the removal of Ron Hoeflin from the office of Editor and his replacement with M. Linton Herbert:

Mr. Hoeflin has, over the past year, chosen to execute the editorship of TNS in a manner which has frequently carried him beyond the bounds of his office. We found ourselves faced with the situation, at one point, of not having an issue of Vidya published until after the problem of the threatened extortion of additional funds was resolved over a period of weeks. I personally considered the Executive Committee remiss in not removing Mr. Hoeflin from office at that time. Recent events continue in the same vein. For example: (1) Mr. Hoeflin returned the letter to Norm Treloar unopened which contained the vote to delay the present election. (2) A private letter written by Mr. Thomas Barnes somehow was published in Vidya. These items are but a part of the litany of infractions which have occurred within the office of the editorship during the past year. I therefore make a motion to the committee to remove Mr. Hoeflin from office.

Norm Treloar announced passage of Hoon's motions in his letter to the Committee of March 25, mentioned above.

On the same day Hoon made the motion to remove him from office, Hoeflin circulated his petition, later printed in his Vidya #80, to validate the results of the election and overturn actions of the Executive Committee not yet taken--including the removal of Hoeflin and Kington from office.

Anne Paradise issued her report on the election on March 28. The final page of this report was printed in Vidya #80. As with my complaint, Hoeflin did not indicate that what he printed was an excerpt and not the entire document. Further excerpts from Anne's report are provided here:

Ron Hoeflin informed Treloar and Langdon that he would hold nominations open until 1/31/87, but took the election issue to his printer a few days earlier caus- ing 2 candidates for member-at-large (one of them Linton Herbert) to be left off the ballot. Ron Hoeflin set the deadline for filing, announced the appointment of an Election Officer who had not been appointed at the time, by the Ex Comm, assembled statements of candidacy and related election statements, and set a voting deadline without consulting the ExComm. Clear usurpation of powers of ExComm and elections officer.

Hoeflin promised to substitute an already pasted up double issue on Theism and Atheism as the Jan-Feb double issue. On this basis Bill Hoon transmitted to Ron Hoeflin [an] addittional [sic] $612.42 of TNS funds.

In violation of his promise and On the basis of a vote of 4 members of Ex Comm (Beechey, Hill, Hoeflin, Kington) and Louis Mathe (no longer a member) Hoeflin published the original election issue in late Feb.

By the lateest [sic] membership roster report in Vidya #68 April/May 86 the total membership was 645. The number of other country members was 75, so 11.6% [of] members were disenfranchised by the election.

The vote to suspend the publication of the January ballot issue was not a written vote - There was no time to take a written ballot. Hoeflin wnet [sic] ahead and published an issue that had not been authorized by the Ex Comm, The Ex Comm explicitly said not to publish.

My understanding also is that the Editor pledged to the Treasurer and to the full Ex Comm that the money he received would not be used for this issue, thus creating a serious breach of trust and fiduciary responsibility. [paragraph quoted from Penner's letter of 3/10/87]

Linton Herbert told me, in telephone conversations on March 22 and March 27, that Hill was pressuring him; he was apprehensive about what he was getting into but intended to go ahead.

At the end of March, I made three motions--removing Barry Kington from office, appointing Hal Darancette Membership Officer, and declaring the election to be null and avoid and ordering that a new election be held as soon as practicable. Norm Treloar announced the passage of all three motions in a letter to the Executive Committee dated March 31.

On April 2, Grady Ward wrote to "Members of the outgoing Executive Committee, TNS," directing Dr. William Hoon to "transmit the Account of the Triple Nine Society to Barry Zaslove immediately, or be held personally liable for its disposition," and cautioning members to treat communications from the "outgoing" Committee "as personal opinions only, and in no way reflecting the policy of our society, nor effecting any policy or obligation on the part of the Society."

In a letter dated April 2, Ron Hoeflin raised the question of whether Bill Hoon had paid his dues (and thus whether he was a member of TNS) when he cast his votes on the motions to replace Hoeflin and Kington. Richard Adams replied that failure to pay dues does not automatically terminate membership in unincorporated organizations, according to the laws governing such organizations, in a letter dated May 27 (exhibited as Appendix N).

Bill Hoon wrote to Hoeflin on April 2, seeking return of $612.42 transmitted on the basis of Hoeflin's promise to publish a double issue of Vidya in place of the election issue. Hoeflin did not return these funds, using them instead to publish his first unauthorized issue of Vidya (#77, postmarked April 29). This issue contained Grady Ward's report on the election and listed Hoeflin and Kington as Editor and Membership Officer, though they had been removed from office.

At this point, there were two schools of thought as to who were officers of TNS. Darancette, Herbert, Hoon, Langdon, Para- dise, and Treloar considered themselves to be part of an Executive Committee including Beechey and Hill and still in office because the election had been ruled invalid by the Ombudsman and the Executive Committee. Richard Adams, Audrey Guild, Hill, Hoeflin, Kington, Richard May, and Barry Zaslove considered themselves to be part of a newly-elected Executive Committee including Gary Bryant and Michael Huston.

The "Old Committee" had the treasury; the "New Committee" the records of the Editor and Membership Officer. The "Old Committee" deliberated on how to proceed with a new election.

Patrick Hill circulated a booklet to a number of members, containing the election results (which had not yet been announced in Vidya), a collection of letters from members of the "Old Committee" that he apparently felt would be perceived as incriminating (several of which are also reproduced in "The Trouble with Triples"), and a cover letter, which included the following paragraph:

It appears likely that you will soon recieve a journal from Mr. Herbert--bearing the name 'Vidya'-- that contains a new ballot. If so, regardless of its nature or legitimacy, we the undersigned ask you to please vote! We make no recommendations as to how you should vote; we believe that the results of the last election support our faith in the remarkable perception and (ahem) intelligence of our members, and they are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves how to regard the issues without any further prejudicial interpretations as guidance. Should such be subsequently offered, consider the source.

This letter was signed by Beechey, Guild, Hill, Hoeflin, Kington, Mathe, Ward, and Bayard Wynne.

In the interest of permitting the affairs of the society to proceed normally, compromise was necessary. A compromise was negotiated by Patrick Hill, Michael Huston, and Kevin Langdon; all approved the wording contained in a document circulated by Michael Huston on April 16:

Despite the fact that there have been some irregularities of recent months in the affairs of the Triple Nine Society, we, the undersigned, agree to accept the results, as published by Grady Ward, of the recent election and we agree that the replacement of Ronald Hoeflin and Barry Kington by Linton Herbert and Hal Darancette (as Editor and Membership Officer respectively) has been accomplished.

The compromise agreement was favorably received by almost everyone and eventually signed by everyone but Rita Beechey and Barry Kington, as reported by Richard Adams on May 13 and published in Vidya #78, edited by Linton Herbert and postmarked May 21 (Barry Zaslove signed after Adams had written his report). Linton published Vidya #78 using his own funds, not wishing to ask for reimbursement until the uncertainties regarding who were the legitimate officers of TNS were cleared up.

And then . . . nothing happened. Hoeflin and Kington did not turn over Vidya submissions and membership records to Herbert and Darancette and Hoon did not turn over the treasury to Barry Zaslove, although Hoeflin and Hoon had both signed the compromise.

I can't speak about Hoeflin's and Kington's reasons, but Bill Hoon had a very good reason for not simply turning over the funds to Barry Zaslove. At first, Barry was not a signatory to the compromise and later there was still reason to doubt whether he would abide by it.

Gary Bryant and Michael Huston told me that Hill tried to convince them to sign the compromise and then renege on it. In a letter to Patrick Hill dated May 27, Richard Adams wrote, "You are also deluding yourself if you believe you actually lobbied for the Michael Huston resolution. In fact you explicitly told me on two occasions that you felt no obligation to make good on your word on that resolution since you felt you had signed it under duress." Later, Zaslove funded Hoeflin's Vidya ##79-82 (the first two with dues renewals before he received any funds from Hoon). Herbert has never been paid for Vidya #78 and his #79, either by Hoon or by Zaslove. Zaslove's payments to Hoeflin were unauthorized expenditures of TNS funds.

Despite the fact that Hoeflin and Kington have refused to transmit TNS documents and records in their possession to their successors, and Zaslove's funding of Hoeflin, Bill Hoon has transferred all the society's liquid assets to Barry Zaslove and has made arrangements for the transfer of the investment account.

On May 5, Hoeflin wrote to what he considered to be the Executive Committee (the newly-elected officers, Hoeflin, and Kington), providing a ballot for the Committee to vote on whether he or Linton Herbert should be "temporary" Editor of Vidya.

In an editorial in his Vidya #79 (postmarked July 10), Hoeflin wrote:

I learned from Barry Kington that the vote was 4 to 1 in my favor, with 2 not voting. Voting for me were Patrick Hill, Audrey Guild, Richard May, and Barry Zaslove. Voting for Herbert was Gary Bryant. Not voting were Richard Adams and Michael Huston. Herbert and I were not counted in the vote, since we were the candidates for appointment. Hal Darancette and Barry Kington also were not counted in the vote since their appointments as Membership Officer are in doubt.

Richard Adams issued an opinion as Ombudsman on May 19 that Linton Herbert and Hal Darancette were duly appointed Editor and Membership Officer, respectively, and were thus entitled to vote on motions in the Executive Committee. Adams' letter is exhibited as Appendix O.

A majority of an eight-member Committee (the Editor is ineligible to vote on his own tenure) is five, not four (precedent requires a majority of eligible voters, not of votes cast, for passage of a motion). Furthermore, Hoeflin was not a member of the Executive Committee and thus could not make motions.

Hal Darancette's letter to the Committee of August 7 included the following paragraphs:

We have been told that a female claimant who came before King Solomon, apparently would have allowed a child to be cut into two pieces rather than relent from her position. Neither Linton Herbert or myself fall into this category. We are prepared to resign as a condition of any agreement that keeps TNS whole, healthy and happy. The offices of Membership Officer, and of Editor, were made appointive so they would be flexible and could be filled without needing to hold an election. It was not anticipated that some Membership Officers, or the some Editors, would want to be appointed for life.

Comes now Vidya 79 et al, which, in effect, proclaims that Herbert and Darancette are imposters. By the by, was anyone authorized to use TNS funds for this purpose? I ran for office because I had been advised that not enough had come foward [sic] to make an election possible. I accepted appointment as Membership Officer only to help TNS. My agenda runneth over. I do not need more things to do. I would be more than happy to resign as long as I can be made reasonably sure that I would be acting in the best interest of TNS. I am not a member of a faction. I could never be a member of a faction whose emotional need for revenge turns to thoughts of expulsion. There must be a better use for Vidya than striking out at enemies, real or imagined.

Hoeflin claimed in the same editorial that Norm Treloar talked Louis Mathe into resigning as Regent. Both Norman (in his letter of July 27) and Louis have vigorously denied this.

Gary Bryant wrote to the Executive Committee on April 22, announcing his intention to resign as Member-at-Large. Gary changed his mind and rescinded his resignation on April 27, giving rise, later, to yet another dispute regarding who are legitimately members of the Executive Committee.

As Gary resigned and rescinded his resignation before the compromise was ratified on May 13, Richard Adams has ruled that, according to the laws governing membership organizations, when a resignation is announced before the office the resignee is resigning from has been assumed, it is merely a statement of intent and therefore not binding. He has further ruled that, in any case, approval of the compromise supersedes Gary's resignation.

Patrick Hill proposed two motions ("resolutions") on Gary's status, the first that the Committee decide, by majority vote, whether Gary's resignation is valid, and the second that the Committee accepts the status of Gary Bryant as Member-at-Large.

According to Hill's letter of July 4, Richard May reported that the first of these motions was adopted (though it was out of order, according to Richard Adams' ruling as Ombudsman) and the second failed (with Hill voting against it). Michael Huston told me, on July 31, that Hill wants the Executive Committee to assume all the duties of Bryant's office as a body (in accordance with the options for filling a vacany contained in Article IV, Section 1 of the TNS constitution), reappoint Hoeflin and Kington, and then reappoint Bryant. Is it possible that Hill doesn't trust Bryant to go along with this replacement of appointive officers?

Hill argued, in an undated letter in late May to Gary Bryant (also sent to the Executive Committee) that the irregularities in the election were created by those who objected to them, that I "had the last word" because my defense against irrelevant attacks on my business was placed at the end of the election issue, that I was guilty of "election tampering," that I intended to rig a new election, that appointive officers' appointments expire at the end of the term of the Committee which appointed them (contrary to precedent, Article IV, Section 1 of the TNS constitution, and the intent of the framers of the constitution), and that the compromise as printed was not what was negotiated.

In his letter of June 22, Michael Huston wrote:

Hill said in his May 22 letter to Bryant that the "Huston resolution" "was not what was negotiated." I know that what I read to Hill on the telephone was identical with what I sent out to the Ex Comm the next day. I read the resolution to him off my computer and, when he said that he would sign it, I simply started printing. I asked Hill how the resolution as printed differed from what I had read to him. He said he didn't know.

Hill's letter also contained motions to declare that the appointments of Herbert and Darancette "expire with the appointment of new officers" and to appoint Hoeflin and Kington as Editor and Membership Officer, respectively. These motions failed. Hill made a new motion, in his letter of July 4 (referred to above), to replace Herbert with Hoeflin.

Hill continued his attack by supplying the collection of letters printed (without noting that most of them are excerpts) by Hoeflin in his Vidya #80 and drawing the cartoon printed on the back cover (which had previously been circulated anonymously to selected members).

Vidya #80 also contained Hoeflin's initiative to declare the election valid and overturn the actions of the former Executive Committee, including the removal of Hoeflin and Kington from office. The initiative is invalid on a number of grounds, and the election has been declared null and void by Richard Adams in his letter to the Committee of May 19 (Appendix O).

Signers were misled by Hoeflin's statement that he and Kington had been removed from office, when, at that time, they had not. In signing the petition, members were calling for the reversal of actions which had not yet taken place, and of which, therefore, they had no knowledge and thus no intent to overrule.

The petition was signed before the compromise agreement was signed and published; it is by no means certain that those who signed it would have wished to do so had they known that it would overturn an agreement which promised to put an end to the acrimony which had dominated the Executive Committee during the previous year. A number of signers expressly repudiated the initiative when they signed the compromise agreement.

The signatures were never verified by the Elections Officer, as required by Article IV, Section 4 of the constitution. The initiative was printed in an unauthorized publication mistitled Vidya. "Vidya #80" was postmarked July 25, announcing a voting deadline of September 1. No time was allowed for publication of arguments against the initiative before the start of balloting.

I urge all members of TNS to vote no, even though the election is invalid, to prevent any possible argument; if you wish to change your vote, send a corrected ballot to Grady Ward.

Hoeflin's Vidya #81 devotes eight pages to an appeal for funds for Madalyn Murray-O'Hair's American Atheist Center, paid for with TNS funds. This is an outrageous misuse of funds belonging to the membership of the Triple Nine Society.

Because of Ron Hoeflin's publication of an unauthorized Vidya using the society's funds, Hal Darancette made a motion, in his August 7 letter to the Committee, for an outside audit of TNS finances.

Barry Kington has continued his personal vendetta against me outside the society. He published an ad in the Mensa Bulletin in March, April, and May, asking people to write to him about any problems they've had with Polymath Systems. The form letter he sent to respondents to his ad, containing false allegations that Omni and Bill Bavin won legal judgements against me, is exhibited as Appendix P.

Ron Hoeflin has suggested that expulsions may be an appropriate response to our current difficulties. I do not favor such extreme measures. We are a society of friends, brothers and sisters, but Brother Hoeflin, Brother Kington, and Brother Hill need to be restrained. Please sign the petition printed on the back cover of this booklet to bring about a resolution of our disputes by the will of the membership.

[Appendices]

Initiative Petition

The following petition is the result of discussions among Fred Britton, Hal Darancette, Michael Huston, Kevin Langdon, Anne Paradise, Ron Penner, and Norm Treloar, and represents our attempt to resolve the difficult problems before the Triple Nine Society in a fair and equitable manner. Power in the society rightfully belongs to its members. It is our intention to allow the membership to make an informed decision on the direction they wish the society to take in the coming years.

Read Kevin Langdon's account of the events of recent months contained in this booklet and whatever else you need to make up your mind on these matters, then vote as you think best.

The undersigned petition for a vote of the membership on the following initiative:

The Triple Nine Society has become two societies. To those aware of the recent history of the society, this division implies far more than a question of who are the rightful Editor and Membership Officer, involving fundamentally differing percep- tions, perspectives and philosophies regarding due process, propriety, and basic issues of fairness, morality, and legality. Thus, inevitably, one society is the true Triple Nine Society, while the other is a schismatic society. The current Executive Committee is deeply divided; each side has its own perceptions of who are members of the Committee at this point. It is not proper that this controversy, which involves the future of the Triple Nine Society, be settled by the political machinations of a few members, nor is such a result, even if it were desirable, likely to be conclusive.

Both sides agree that Richard Adams, Audrey Guild, Patrick Hill, Michael Huston, Richard May, and Barry Zaslove are members of the Executive Committee. One faction contends that the membership of the Committee includes Ron Hoeflin and Barry Kington; the other that Gary Bryant, Hal Darancette and Linton Herbert are members of the Committee.

Accordingly, as a court of last resort, this initiative directs that a vote of the membership be taken to resolve the fundamental question of which society is legitimate and which is illegitimate and schismatic, through a vote for one of the above Committees or the other. No division of the treasury is contemplated; the full treasury will go the the society which is deemed to be legitimate.

__________________________________________ _________________
Name                                                                             Membership Number

__________________________________________ _________________
Signature                                                                        Date

Please send completed petitions to Linton Herbert, [exact address omitted], Largo, FL 33640