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Parr on the OCTC again
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| Taylor Kingston 2005-09-08, 8:34 pm |
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parrthenon@cs.com wrote:
quote:
> ANOTHER PALPABLE LIE
>
ler. Words fail me.> Taylor Kingston[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> I am being accused of writing what I have not written. Never did
> I accuse Hooper and Whyld of being "in the service of the Soviet
> Union." That is a palpable lie.
Larry as usual shies away from the main point. I quote from his post
of 8 August 2005: "Secondly, I think that Hooper and Whyld undoubtedly
lied deliberately in the questionable Soviet entries in order to get
other materials from then Soviet sources. I have no other explanation
for the strange nature of those entries."
So Larry, if I understand you correctly, you claim that:
1) David Hooper and Ken Whyld, in writing "The Oxford Companion to
Chess," included erroneous information about Soviet chess personages.
2) This false material came from Soviet sources.
3) H&W knew it to be false, but included it anyway.
4) Their reason for doing so was that then their Soviet sources would
give them more material.
Having speculated thus far, Larry, perhaps you will speculate
further, and try to explain the Soviet sources' motive(s) for giving
H&W false info? It seems unlikely to me they would do it unless they
felt it served Soviet interests, and I cannot imagine H&W being unaware
of this, if they knew the information was false. Thus it seemed clear
to me that you are claiming that H&W were, in effect, "liars in the
service of the Soviet Union." If my inference is wrong, please clarify
so as to remove any doubt or ambiguity.
quote:
> Nor was this practice unusual during the Soviet period. Both the
> Britannica and the National Geographic were notorious for being willing
> to print evil nonsense about the USSR to retain access.
> In the case of the National Geographic, the most infamous, indeed
> evil, instance was its December 1944 issue when the death camps of the
> Kolyma and Magadan
> were portrayed as little short of health resorts.
Making them, in effect, liars serving Soviet interests. Or at best,
utter dupes. But how can someone who knows what he's doing, as you
claim H&W did, be a dupe?
Seriously, Larry, you need to clarify this. Your accusations bear
heavily on the reputations of two fine historians who, alas, are no
longer with us and can't speak for themselves.
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| parrthenon@cs.com 2005-09-08, 8:34 pm |
| SCARLET THREAD
quote:
> And now, after he has had the gall to accuse the eminent and highly competent historians Ken Whyld and David Hooper of being liars in the service of the Soviet Union, Parr contrives to find excuses for the absurd hype given to the "work" of Eric Schille
r. Words fail me.> Taylor Kingston
<I am being accused of writing what I have not written. Never did I
accuse Hooper and Whyld of being "in the service of the Soviet Union."
That is a palpable lie.>
I thank Louis Blair for reprinting my comments. There is one
thought missing from what I posted that was included in my original
review of The Oxford Companion To Chess.
I noted that the "conventional wisdom" was that the Companion
"supersedes" all earlier efforts at chess encyclopedia writing. I
mentioned the Sunnucks and Golombek volumes, then added that for once
conventional wisdom was right.
In the pecking order of intellectual praise, there is little
higher than stating that a particular volume has superseded all
previous work on a given subject.
GM Larry Evans told me when he returned from London that Ken
Whyld was utterly flummoxed by my Chess Life review. Mr. Whyld said he
had seldom been lifted higher by such formidably phrased praise and
never slammed down harder by such muscular condemnation. He said he
liked the first half of the review while intensely disliking the second
half. He was stung by my charge that there was any scarlet thread in
his work.
Mine was a short, though nuanced review, that said more of
value about the Companion, placing it in context, than Edward Winter
did in a couple of long,
bloviating, bo-o-o-ring pages.
En passant, one nit that sent Mr. Winter into a snit was the fact
that GM Evans once mistakenly referred to this encyclopedia as The
Oxford Companion OF Chess.
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| Chess One 2005-09-08, 8:34 pm |
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"Taylor Kingston" <tkingston@chittenden.com> wrote in message
news:1126184832.167606.194260@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
quote:
>
> parrthenon@cs.com wrote:
>
> Larry as usual shies away from the main point.
What nonsense! While it is clear that Larry Parr indicates that H&W allowed
lies on Soviet entries, he is quite clearly stating that they did so in
their OWN interest, "in order to get other materials from then Soviet
sources".
There is no direct or indirect intimation that this is "in the service of
the Soviet Union."
It might be true to say that "Larry shies away from the main point" but only
in the context of Taylor Kingston's understanding of that point, which does
not appear to have any objective basis! One wonders what basis is /does/
have? ;)
Phil Innes
quote:
>I quote from his post
> of 8 August 2005: "Secondly, I think that Hooper and Whyld undoubtedly
> lied deliberately in the questionable Soviet entries in order to get
> other materials from then Soviet sources. I have no other explanation
> for the strange nature of those entries."
>
> So Larry, if I understand you correctly, you claim that:
> 1) David Hooper and Ken Whyld, in writing "The Oxford Companion to
> Chess," included erroneous information about Soviet chess personages.
> 2) This false material came from Soviet sources.
> 3) H&W knew it to be false, but included it anyway.
> 4) Their reason for doing so was that then their Soviet sources would
> give them more material.
>
> Having speculated thus far, Larry, perhaps you will speculate
> further, and try to explain the Soviet sources' motive(s) for giving
> H&W false info? It seems unlikely to me they would do it unless they
> felt it served Soviet interests, and I cannot imagine H&W being unaware
> of this, if they knew the information was false. Thus it seemed clear
> to me that you are claiming that H&W were, in effect, "liars in the
> service of the Soviet Union." If my inference is wrong, please clarify
> so as to remove any doubt or ambiguity.
>
>
> Making them, in effect, liars serving Soviet interests. Or at best,
> utter dupes. But how can someone who knows what he's doing, as you
> claim H&W did, be a dupe?
> Seriously, Larry, you need to clarify this. Your accusations bear
> heavily on the reputations of two fine historians who, alas, are no
> longer with us and can't speak for themselves.
>
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| *What nonsense! While it is clear that Larry Parr indicates that H&W
allowed lies on Soviet entries, he is quite clearly stating that they
did so in their OWN interest, "in order to get other materials from
then Soviet sources".There is no direct or indirect intimation that
this is "in the service of the Soviet Union."* Phil Innes
It's quite clear Parr never said that Hooper and Whyld were in the
service of the Soviet Union. Kingston was mistaken but I wouldn't call
it a blatant lie -- unless he persists in his usual practice of
posturing about a desire to seek more clarification. He just wants to
pick a fight and confuse the issue.
This character is simply incapable of admitting he was wrong!
| |
| Mike Murray 2005-09-08, 8:34 pm |
| On 8 Sep 2005 07:43:56 -0700, "Taylor Kingston"
<tkingston@chittenden.com> wrote:
quote:
> Having speculated thus far, Larry, perhaps you will speculate
>further, and try to explain the Soviet sources' motive(s) for giving
>H&W false info? It seems unlikely to me they would do it unless they
>felt it served Soviet interests,
Not necessarily. It might have served individual interests and
careers within the Soviet chess bureaucracy or sport bureaucracy, or
some other subset of people within the USSR at the time.
quote:
> and I cannot imagine H&W being unaware
>of this, if they knew the information was false. Thus it seemed clear
>to me that you are claiming that H&W were, in effect, "liars in the
>service of the Soviet Union," as I put it. If my inference is wrong,
>please clarify so as to remove any doubt or ambiguity.
Those choosing not to antagonize a fruitful information source are not
necessarily in the service of that source, but are rather serving
themselves, or what they believe to be a greater good resulting from
access to that source. For example, the journalistic toadies around
the Shrub may not be deliberately serving the Republican Party.
Many people in the West knowingly chose to not discuss problems in the
USSR, not always specifically to help the Soviets, but in what they
believed was the more general cause of socialism.
| |
| Louis Blair 2005-09-08, 8:34 pm |
| cynic wrote (8 Sep 2005 08:51:21 -0700):
quote:
> It's quite clear Parr never said that Hooper and Whyld were
> in the service of the Soviet Union.
_
"Larry ... has had the gall to accuse the eminent and
highly competent historians Ken Whyld and David
Hooper of being LIARS in the service of the Soviet
Union" - Taylor Kingston (7 Sep 2005 18:26:32 -0700)
(Emphasis added.)
_
"I think that Hooper and Whyld undoubtedly lied
deliberately in the questionable Soviet entries in
order to get other materials from then Soviet sources."
- Larry Parr (7 Aug 2005 22:18:30 -0700)
| |
| Louis Blair 2005-09-08, 8:34 pm |
| Taylor Kingston wrote (8 Sep 2005 06:07:12 -0700):
quote:
> Having speculated thus far, Larry, perhaps you will speculate
> further, and try to explain the Soviet sources' motive(s) for
> giving H&W false info? It seems unlikely to me they would
> do it unless they felt it served Soviet interests,
_
Mike Murray wrote (Thu, 08 Sep 2005 09:13:06 -0700):
quote:
> Not necessarily. It might have served individual interests
> and careers within the Soviet chess bureaucracy or sport
> bureaucracy, or some other subset of people within the
> USSR at the time.
_
It must be remembered that Larry Parr originally accused
Hooper and Whyld of including in their book a:
_
"politically scarlet thread which runs through most
of the entries on subjects Soviet."
_
However, suppose we grant Mike Murray's point. Does
that mean that it would be correct to say that Larry Parr
accused Hooper and Whyld of being liars in the service
of individual interests and careers within the Soviet
chess bureaucracy or sport bureaucracy, or some
other subset of people within the USSR?
| |
| Mike Murray 2005-09-08, 8:34 pm |
| On 8 Sep 2005 12:44:29 -0700, "Louis Blair" <lblai@blackburn.edu>
wrote:
quote:
>Taylor Kingston wrote (8 Sep 2005 06:07:12 -0700):
>_
>Mike Murray wrote (Thu, 08 Sep 2005 09:13:06 -0700):
>_
>It must be remembered that Larry Parr originally accused
>Hooper and Whyld of including in their book a:
>_
> "politically scarlet thread which runs through most
> of the entries on subjects Soviet."
>_
>However, suppose we grant Mike Murray's point. Does
>that mean that it would be correct to say that Larry Parr
>accused Hooper and Whyld of being liars in the service
>of individual interests and careers within the Soviet
>chess bureaucracy or sport bureaucracy, or some
>other subset of people within the USSR?
No.
My comment was related to speculation about the Soviet sources'
possible motives for misrepresenting things. These sources may have
had reasons more personal than Soviet interests in general.
As for Hooper and Whyld, assuming for the sake of argument that they
knowingly passed on this false or misleading information, their
motives could have included grooming sources for future use, or their
own ideological blinders.
The phrase "in the service of" implies to me a deliberate act -- not
an act of incidental use to some other party.
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| Taylor Kingston 2005-09-08, 8:34 pm |
|
Mike Murray wrote:
quote:
> The phrase "in the service of" implies to me a deliberate act -- not
> an act of incidental use to some other party.
Mike's comment is reasonable. We will have to wait and see if Mr.
Parr clarifies what he actually meant. If my inference was incorrect, I
will retract it.
However, I will assert that my inference had much more justification
than either: (A) implausible, fallacious inferences Parr has made from
mine and others' writings, or (B) Parr's completely baseless,
speculative and defamatory claim that Hooper and Whyld deliberately
lied in the OCTC, a claim that is directly contradicted by an associate
who knew them well.
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| parrthenon@cs.com 2005-09-09, 12:31 am |
| THEY SERVED THEMSELVES
quote:
>Seriously, Larry, you need to clarify this. Your accusations bear heavily on the reputations of two fine historians who, alas, are no longer with us and can't speak for themselves. Making them, in effect, liars serving Soviet interests. Or at best,
utter dupes. But how can someone who knows what he's doing, as you
claim H&W did, be a dupe?> Taylor Kingston
<This character is simply incapable of admitting he was wrong!> Cynic
NM Taylor Kingston, the self-proclaimed 2300+
ELO monster from the black lagooon, wrote a palpable
lie. His excuse is another lie in itself.
Period.
I never claimed that either Hooper or Whyld were
in the service of the Soviet Union and all that the
phrase "in the service of" implies in a historical
context. I have no evidence and no reason to believe
either man was ever under Party discipline or was
a serious fellow-traveller (such as, say, Nancy and
Arthur Croom in Lionel Trilling's Middle of the
Journey; or, in real life, Michael Straight of the New
Republic, who coined the term "Commies under the bed"
and turned out to be, well, a Commie under the bed) who
carried out Party missions.
Let's get another thing straight here: I
attacked the Hooper and Whyld volume in the particular
instance of entries on issues Soviet when the two men
were ALIVE. This is not a case of Larry Parr going
after two dead men, while leaving them alone when they
were alive. They had plenty of time to answer. Mr.
Kingston's sly implication to the contrary below is another lie.
As is his wont, NM Taylor Kingston, the
self-proclaimed 2300+ ELO steam cooker, snipped
the very answer that he seeks from me.
Whyld, Hooper, the editors at NG and Britannica
and many other individuals and organizations printed
what they knew to be hogwash IN SERVICE OF themselves.
They were not Communists any more than Armand Hammer
and Cyrus Eaton, the pinko billionaires, were Commies.
There was either business to be done or business that
might yet get done.
That is my speculation about motives. And note
that I label it SPECULATION. But if I am right
about Whyld and Hooper's motives, it would be nothing
new or even rare.
One scenario: they wrote to Yuri Averbakh or
some other Soviet source (credit is explicitly given
to Isaak Romanov in Moscow, to Novosti Press Agency
and to the notorious Society for Cultural Relations
with USSR) for materials on Petrov, Urusov and many
others. They received the materials, and among other
things, they were not going to smack their sources in
the face by so much as mentioning Boris Gulko's
well-publicized status as a refusenik or Lev Alburt's
status as a defector or give what was by then the
common understanding about who murdered Vladimir
Petrov and so on. Levenfish's sad fate is not even
mentioned in passing.
NM Kingston tried a mendacious debater's ploy:
he wonders why anyone would lie in order to receive
material that was filled with lies. Where is the benefit?
Nonsense. The lies are not in birth and death
dates or in the dates of matches or in confirming
biographical details or in providing photographs --
all of which are necessary for any encyclopedic
endeavor. To the extent that Hooper and Whyld
required such Soviet and Eastern European materials
from behind the Iron Curtain, they were served well by
their sources. The lies are in shaping or omitting
the most important public facts about given personalities.
So, then, once again, I give my SPECULATION
about their motives in the expectation it will be
snipped by NM Kingston who will then announce that I
have not answered his question.
CONCLUSION: They were serving themselves, not Party residenturas.
(See my next post.)
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| parrthenon@cs.com 2005-09-09, 12:31 am |
| KINGSTON SNIPS AGAIN
<What nonsense! While it is clear that Larry Parr indicates that H&W
allowed lies on Soviet entries, he is quite clearly stating that they
did so in their OWN interest, "in order to get other materials from
then Soviet sources". There is no direct or indirect intimation that
this is "in the service of the Soviet Union."> Phil Innes
Thanks to Phil Innes for making the point.
NM Taylor Kingston, the self-proclaimed ELO human
generator, snipped the very answer that I provided
him, charging I did not give the answer.
Astonishing even by Mr. Kingston's standards.
One further point: there is no ambiguity
whatsoever. I did not charge that Hooper and Whyld
were "in the service of the Soviet Union." NM
Kingston lied through his teeth forthrightly, if you
will. To be in the service of the USSR meant to be
under Party discipline or, at least, to be a
fellow-traveller carrying out Party assignments --
examples of which I gave in my previous posting.
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| Taylor Kingston 2005-09-09, 12:31 am |
|
parrthenon@cs.com wrote:
quote:
> THEY SERVED THEMSELVES
> That is my speculation about motives. And note
> that I label it SPECULATION. But if I am right
> about Whyld and Hooper's motives, it would be nothing
> new or even rare.
Glad to see you admit you have no evidence for once, Larry. On the
other hand, my contact in England, a well-known expert on Soviet chess
history and a close associate of Hooper & Whyld, comments "The alleged
'deal' is, to my mind, simply a figment of Parr's imagination."
I am inclined to believe him rather than Larry.
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| parrthenon@cs.com 2005-09-09, 3:32 am |
| SPECULATION
<Glad to see you admit you have no evidence for once, Larry. On the
other hand, my contact in England, a well-known expert on Soviet chess
history and a close associate of Hooper & Whyld, comments "The alleged
'deal' is, to my mind, simply a figment of Parr's imagination." I am
inclined to believe him rather than Larry.> Taylor Kingston
NM Taylor Kingston, the self-proclaimed 2300+ Elo monument,
imagines that speculation about motives and the existence of evidence
are mutually exclusive. Speculation opposes proof, not evidence.
There is plenty of evidence in the Oxford Companion that
buttresses my speculation, but it remains the latter because there is
no proof of motivation.
NM Kingston wrote a palpable lie, which he has begun to snip as
per his habit. He claimed I wrote that Hooper and Whyld served the
interests of the Soviet
Union. That was baseless; and it was a lie.
Our slippery snipper has shifted ground and now tries to change
the subject.
His characteristic snipping has begun and it will continue as
long as this oxymoronic thread of snips continues.
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| Chess One 2005-09-09, 8:33 pm |
|
<parrthenon@cs.com> wrote in message
news:1126227286.718006.321750@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
quote:
> KINGSTON SNIPS AGAIN
>
> <What nonsense! While it is clear that Larry Parr indicates that H&W
> allowed lies on Soviet entries, he is quite clearly stating that they
> did so in their OWN interest, "in order to get other materials from
> then Soviet sources". There is no direct or indirect intimation that
> this is "in the service of the Soviet Union."> Phil Innes
>
> Thanks to Phil Innes for making the point.
>
> NM Taylor Kingston, the self-proclaimed ELO human
> generator, snipped the very answer that I provided
> him, charging I did not give the answer.
No kidding!
quote:
> Astonishing even by Mr. Kingston's standards.
Well...
I see that someone else thinks this is a quibble. Its not a lie, its a
mistake. I would have to agree that without understanding Mr. Kingston's
motives, then I could not call it a lie, unless he intended to represent his
falsehood as the truth.
Of course, there is no winning against the argument which goes "you should
not criticise the communists because you play into the hands of the
fascists" or vice versa! But I don't think we are dealing with that here.
H&W bought themselves a continued and expanded sourcing by soft-soaping
certain factors....
quote:
> One further point: there is no ambiguity
> whatsoever. I did not charge that Hooper and Whyld
> were "in the service of the Soviet Union." NM
> Kingston lied through his teeth forthrightly, if you
> will. To be in the service of the USSR meant to be
> under Party discipline or, at least, to be a
> fellow-traveller carrying out Party assignments --
> examples of which I gave in my previous posting.
I have a 35 page typed record from Boris Gulko on much of the above, but
don't know if it is public knowledge, and hesistate to print it here because
of its length and for potential copyright incursion.
Phil Innes
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| Taylor Kingston 2005-09-09, 8:33 pm |
|
parrthenon@cs.com wrote:
quote:
> NM Kingston wrote a palpable lie, which he has begun to snip as
> per his habit. He claimed I wrote that Hooper and Whyld served the
> interests of the Soviet
> Union. That was baseless; and it was a lie.
No, Larry, it was simply an inference, one that seemed quite
reasonable to me -- far more reasonable than the innuendos and
fabrications you produce routinely. However, I said if it was
incorrect, I would retract it -- which I hereby do.
When may we expect similar retractions from you? You owe quite a few.
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