The same old political destruction game

[The following item appeared in the USCF Delegates Newsletter, an independent publication of the Friends of the USCF (Volume 2, number 1, May-June 1993.]

GOICHBERG DEFENDS PERSONAL JUDGMENT -
- PROMISES MORE OF SAME NEW WINDSOR, N.Y., APRIL. 12--In a telephone interview of April 11, 1993

USCF presidential candidate William Goichberg denied using poor judgment when pressuring the USCF Policy Board to allocate up to $1,000 to investigate five-time U.S. chess champion Larry Evans. If elected, Mr. Goichberg pledged to employ the same standards of judgment on other questions.

"The only thing that I would do differently," said Goichberg, "is to investigate suspects at private expense, since we felt obliged to reimburse the USCF for the Pinkerton bills after the findings disproved my theory about Evans."

Questions about Goichberg's judgment have arisen after a USCF-funded Pinkerton investigation concluded that mailing labels on an anti-Semitic hit letter from the Eddis-Schultz campaign were NOT photocopies of labels used by Grandmaster Evans in a mailing of his own.

"What set the whole thing off," said Vice President Frank Camaratta, chairman of the committee that investigated GM Evans, "was Bill Goichberg insisting these were copies.

The way he presented it, it was difficult to turn your back on that."

Poor Judgment?

GM Evans and others have criticized Goichberg's judgment in light not only of Evans' exoneration but also of Goichberg's methodology. States Evans, "I also received a hit letter from San Luis Obispo and simply took the envelope to a photocopy store and asked a clerk if the label was an original or a copy. The clerk answered in about five seconds -- it was an original.

Then, I contacted an eminent police documents examiner and received his opinion that it was an original. The cost was only $50 -- not the $670 billed to the USCF!"

Goichberg critics argue that before pressuring the Policy Board to undertake what turned out to be a baseless and, they say, embarrassing investigation, he ought to have done his homework like Evans did. Says Goichberg in reply, "I acted on the basis of a reasonable theory.

The theory was obviously mistaken, but there was no attempt to manufacture evidence."

One Goichberg supporter says, "Look, Bill got caught up in Jerry Hanken's witch-hunt hysteria. McCarthyism has no place in chess. I know that. But Goichberg is an institution, and he shouldn't be judged by this single lapse any more than we should condemn Denis Barry for once opposing no-smoking rules in tournaments."

-- Larry Parr