Velikovsky Replies to Shapley

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

A copy of the Registration number of your publication came into my hands. It contains the following statement by Professor Shapley: "The claim that Dr. Velikovsky's book is being suppressed is nothing but a publicity promotion stunt. Like having a book banned in Boston, it improves the sales. Several attempts have been made to link such a move to stop the book's publication to some organization or to the Harvard Observatory. This idea is absolutely false."

I wonder how this statement can square with the fact that Professor Shapley was the first to write to Macmillan Company asking them not to proceed with the publication of the book. He wrote on January 18 and January 25, long before the book was published in full these two very vehement letters, copies of which are in my possession, as well as his very unusual correspondence with Ted O. Thackrey, of the "Daily Compass," in which Thackrey accuses him of voting criminally. How, further, can his statement that nobody of the Harvard Observatory made any effort to harm or impress the publication of "Worlds in Collision" be squared with the letter of his assistant. Professor Fred I. Whipple, to the Blakiston Company. Philadelphia, a subsidiary of Doubleday in which he gave the ultimation that Doubleday, who took over the book from Macmillan, should stop its publication under the threat that no new edition of his work be published by Blakiston and that he would also refuse any further royalties for his "Earth, Moon and Planets." How, furthermore, can the statement of Professor Shapley be squared with the fact that, at his initiative, Mrs. Cecllia Payne-Gaposchkin, another assistant of his," wrote "Nonsense, Dr. Velikovsky" for the "Reporter," and before its publication circulated her article from the Harvard Observatory in mimeographed form among many scientific reviewers of daily and weekly publications in this country at a time when "World in Collision" was not yet published? Mrs. Payne-Gaposchkin admitted in a letter to the "Reporter" on April 11, which was in answer to a letter from Eric Larrabee of "Harper's," that she had not read the book when she wrote and published and circulated her article in the "Reporter" of March 14.

These three facts must be denied and proved to be fiction before the statements of Professor Shapely in the Harvard CRIMSON, in which he denies having caused me any moral or material harm, and also previously in "Newsweek of July 3 (". . . Dr. Shapley last week denied heatedly that he conducted 'any campaigns against the book.' . . . 'I didn't make any threats and I don't know anyone who did.'") can be regarded as truthful statements. Immanuel Velikovsky