| parrthenon@cs.com 2005-04-27, 12:35 am |
| RICHARD LAURIE REBUTS TAYLOR KINGSTON'S VERSION OF EVENTS
Just about the only thing Taylor Kingston got right is the date that
Richard Laurie's item in Chess Life, which was indeed March 2002.
Here's the last part of the item in question from Evans On Chess:
KERES & BOTVINNIK
Richard Laurie
Eric, Pennsylvania
Q. Finally, I don't know who Taylor Kingston is and I don't recall
much about his Chess Life article (in May 1998) except he denigrated
your ability to analyze five Keres-Botvinnik games to show that Keres
was coerced. I am always appalled by those who meet a solid argument
with a personal attack -- like Edward Winter (who called you
"shameless") and Kingston (who called you "dishonest"). Either Keres
threw the games or he did not. Nothing else matters. The 1919 Black Sox
Scandal in baseball was uncovered because experts like Christy
Mathewson circled suspicious plays. This is basically what you did in
"The Tragedy of Paul Keres" (October 1996) to reopen an old scandal.
A. EVANS: Despite a few vicious attacks I stand behind every word in my
original article, and most scholars now agree with me that Keres was
coerced. In A Further Survey Of The Evidence on the Internet last year,
Mr. Kingston finally conceded, "Not to grant provisional assent to the
hypothesis of coercion on Keres seems willfully obtuse. Conclusion: the
Commies did it."
Mr. Kingston's latest diatribe ignores the next portion of Laurie's
letter because Mr. Kingston surely did know of the dispute between
Winter and Evans:
"Finally, I am troubled by your bald assertion that you are not aware
of the battle between Evans and Winter. I am troubled because I have
known for months that Larry Evans contacted you in preparing his
rebuttal to Mr.Winter'sremarks as printed in Chess Life, October 2001.
Further, it is my understanding and has been for months, that you told
Evans you sided with Winter on the whole. Please clear up this seeming
contradiction." -- Richard Laurie
Finally, when contacted today, Mr. Laurie authorized me to issue this
statement on his behalf:
"Mr. Kingston's memory is extremely faulty. He contacted me on the Net,
then wanted to send me materials to try and win me over to his side of
the argument -- that Evans was wrong.. After that he said he would like
to keep our correspondence quiet, just between us. It sounded a little
shaky, but so far I saw nothing wrong.
"Then he said he contacted the editor and asked if it would be okay for
him to say I had changed my mind.. That's when I jumped on him in my
last letter, that I had not changed my mind and agreed to look at his
materials only to see what he had to offer.. I found nothing
substantial there andI told him that as far as secrecy went, he already
violated that by jumping the gun and contacting the editor.
"Mr. Kingston e-mailed me about half a dozen times. While I never
showed Evans any of his material, I told him I did feel perfectly free
to show Evans my own responses. All anyone has to do is read Kingston's
article in Chess Life to see that he denigrated Evans' ability to
analyze by saying Nunn was the better player.
"Kingston wanted me to retract my printed view of the situation as it
appeared in Evans On Chess. He wanted me to say that I was wrong and.
therefore, Evans was wrong ..I even wrote the editor saying I had not
changed my mind, and that ended the matter."
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