TISHMANS NOT "MYSTERY BACKERS"

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I have just received a copy of the March 28 issue of the Harvard CRIMSON, in which there appeared on the front page an article about my Company, my brother and me.

I am shocked at the irresponsibility of the CRIMSON in permitting such an unfounded, scurrilous article to appear. The entire report is conjecture and has no basis in fact.

You have not taken the trouble to ascertain that my brother, Paul Tishman '21 is in no way connected with Tishman Realty & Construction Co., Inc., of which I am Chairman of the Board. He has his own offices and operates independently under the name of Paul Tishman Company, Inc., of which he is President.

Neither I nor anyone in my Company has ever heard of Samuel P. Coffman. Any representations he may have made and by reason of which you have inferred that we are his "mysterious backers," are entirely false. Evidently this Mr. Coffman has no desire to disabuse your erroneous conjectures for reasons best known only to himself.

I have discussed this matter with my brother Paul and he was just as incensed about it as 1 am. As a matter of fact, he advised me that one of the writers of this article, called him at his home in New York at 9 p.m. on Friday, March 22, to verify the facts recited in his article. My brother told the writer emphatically that there wasn't one element of truth in the statements and that he knew nothing whatsoever about this matter. In spite of the fact that my brother vigorously denied any knowledge of or connection with the matter, Mr. Paisner and Mr. Kann had the temerity to infer in their article, published a week after this conversation, that Mr. Tishman was one of Coffman's "mystery backers."

Not satisfied with reporting incorrectly the facts given by Paul Tishman, they included in their article additional false conjectures notwithstanding that Kann also communicated with Robert Tishman, president of Tishman Realty, who denied any knowledge of the Cambridge project.

The statement that the Tishman interests offered to develop buildings for Harvard and were rejected is completely false. At no one time has Tishman Realty ever discussed with anyone the possibility of building for Harvard, and therefore their offer could not have been rejected as no offer was ever made.

The statement that Tishman has been very active in Caribbean real estate development is again without basis. We only now, for the first time, are about to build our first building in Puerto Rico. We have never contemplated building in St. Johns or anywhere else in the West Indies.

The statement that the Tishman empire is believed to be worth several hundred million dollars is but an another example of the irresponsibility of this article. Any mature person would know enough to refer to the last printed annual report of a public corporation listed on the New York Stock Exchange in order to ascertain its worth.

I now want to state categorically that neither Tishman Realty nor I as an officer have at this time or have at any time in the past any negotiations for property in Cambridge. Certainly I as an alumnus would never consider doing anything that might interfere or obstruct the development plans of Harvard.

I am deeply concerned not only for myself but for my Company about the implications and innuendos in this article. Norman Tishman '23

The CRIMSON obtained the information for the Tishman story from the most reliable sources. The sources were wrong, and the CRIMSON regrets all indication that Paul A. Tishman, Norman Tishman, or their companies are the "mystery backers" behind Samuel P. Coffman's bid for the Bennett St. MTA Yards. The CRIMSON apologizes for the inaccuracy of the story.   The Editors