Math of Insects

And this n of 1 is played out across 10,000 bills in the Cooper case. Every person at every stage of every one of those 10,000 bills would have to have ignored or missed the numbers. It's possible, of course, but the math changes significantly across that number of opportunities. The other variable is that the Alaska guy was caught—meaning, there’s no telling how many of the other bills might eventually have been discovered if he’d gone on spending them.

Oh well. I tried a search for "red yellow gunther" (no quotes) and found a single post from 2009, though it doesn't go into anything, just mentions the existence of that bit. I tried "hyphens" (with and without "Gunther" as a limiter) and only got your post from just above. In fact the three people I'd be most curious to get perspective on this from are present and responsive, and kindly weighing in (you are one), so I'm not that worried about it. I just figured I'd save you old-timers the slog of rehashing anything I could look at myself. Thanks again.

Right, the red wonder. OK, thank you.

I don't know what you mean. I searched for "Gunther letter Cooper," but the results were almost entirely Jo (I believe?) arguing with others, or others arguing with one another. The general tendency toward argument here actually kept me from posting at all until Arguer 0 stopped posting last year. It's too much static and I'd like to focus on the information itself if possible. I know and believe there must be more sober discussion about that letter. Do you remember about when it was occurring and how I might search for it?

One element that stands out to me in Gunther’s work is that he’s clearly an opportunist. He owns it and even wrote his next book—after the Cooper piece—about luck/opportunism. I read (briefly) that last one and was struck by his non-mention of the fact that of all the people in the world, the most famous fugitive of our age had contacted him. Perhaps a tacit acknowledgment that none of it was Cooper (and/or his true love Clara)? I mean, that would seem to be a lightning bolt for most journalists, particularly in the post-Watergate climate of veneration of the craft.

I did a targeted search, but the old posts seem largely to be people arguing. I prefer to stay in the "data" realm if I can. Are there particular posts from the past that deconstruct the content of the Cooper letter to Gunther?

If I really try, I can perhaps make it seem like it says "The Pearl... [of Great Price]." But...

While I find that very unlikely, the fact that it would even need to be considered is telling. The fact is that something is odd there. The goal would be to find the explanation that makes the fact be the least odd. The one that makes the most sense in this case, with the least contrivances, is the least popular one. I'll search for the previous discussion. Thanks for the tip.

While at Princeton, Gunther worked on The Tiger and the Daily Princetonian, and wrote scripts for WPRU. I wonder if they keep those originals somewhere... He retired from writing after Dottie died and focused on, among other things, poker and the stock market. He was not risk-averse, it seems. He also played "jazz mandolin." For that alone, he should be considered highly suspicious.

Ohhh....It's possible that rather than those letters being a hoax or a con, it was a prank. Someone who knew Gunther, from within the industry or magazine, punking him. That answers every question, including that weird paragraph that fluffs him and correctly reproduces the title of his 10-year-old article, among other things. Hmmmm. Ok, NOW I will leave the horse alone.

It's possible that you and I differ on what we perceive the benefit might be for the reporter that landed DB Cooper. BUT...in fact I'm not even sure I'm completely behind that being an "o." An argument in favor is that there is another partial "o" that is half-spaced just above, so that could explain this one being partial too. But I also wouldn't be surprised if it were just junk on the X, and it looks more defined than it otherwise would because of the reproduction. I'm agnostic on this. If you ask me gut-feeling, I'd say the initial letters were an outside hoax and the book was a sly novel written by an author with a fascination for the topic. I do know that means being involved in sending a letter to the FBI in Clara's name later on, but I think 10 years later Gunther would not have had the same fear of recrimination, as compared to the benefit of getting the book published. Because I have assumed the letters were real, I wanted to see if there could be a case made for the opposite position. I did not expect to find one. But there are some anomalies I am now having trouble getting past. They don't have to mean Gunther wrote them--not in the least. But I do think they actually might give a clue into the origin, in one way or another. In the interest of full disclosure, my first career before my current one was as an editor and writer in the publishing industry in New York. I did not overlap with the publication of this book, but missed it only by a couple of years. As a result, I have a fairly intimate knowledge of the kinds of things that were so "inside baseball" as to only be expected to be seen among others in the field--customs we had to be taught as editors, that you might not even expect the best of writers to get right, since in fact they're a bit arbitrary. One is how few people know how to punctuate titles in quotes. The instinct is to put the sentence punctuation on the outside, since it's not part of the title. This makes more sense than the actual (American) custom, and the only reason that even seasoned writers end up getting this right is as a result of having it corrected over and over. If you don't write for a living, you'd never have that error corrected, and (IMO) it's very unlikely that the same person who can't spell "marriage" could get this nuance correct by mistake. That stands out. Some guy filling out supply requisitions would never have had this arise, since no one along the way would ever have corrected it, or cared. I've already mentioned some of the typewriter and usage factors. Do I really think Dottie wrote them, or that it's *more* likely that Gunther did, than an outside hoaxer? I don't. I think it was more likely a con from the outside. But I now consider it an open door that I'd need to see closed, in order to rule it out. (For example, just for myself, I tracked down Dottie's birthday...which is not March 2.) I think it's in the realm. Flip side, as hard as I try, I just can't find a way to make the book seem legit, on balance. Because of my current career, I can't help but stumble on certain elements that raise insurmountable questions. I land out thinking it's a novel, very well constructed and pretty cool, but ultimately a well-informed product of the author's mind. I don't think this delegitimizes Gunther in the least. I have admiration for the endeavor. More power to him. But I can't find non-contrived-enough explanations for the certain elements there, that would allow them to be real. I think he researched the Cooper case, possibly spurred by that previous contact, and then decided to tell "Clara's" story. FWIW, a fair number of elements of that story overlap with Gunther's own, including where he ended up living with Dottie. If you read the novel portion through the lens of Gunther's life, it reads differently. It's also worth mentioning that Gunther and Dottie both grew up within a couple of miles of WJSmith's neighborhood, and were the same age (by a year), so any coincidence of the names (which Gunther purports to have made up for the book) could be as strongly connected to Gunther's own background or memory, as the friend-of-a-friend-of-the-letter-writer's. I’ll lay off this dead horse now, and update if I find anything worth sharing. I don’t want to end up as Slim King lite! Thanks for engaging on it.

Dottie Gunther worked as an executive paralegal. It would be interesting to find any of the documents she might have typed at the time as well.

Yes, I'm not at all convinced it was a Freudian slip. Why send it if it was? I was just addressing the "Dolores" suggestion. If it's anything typed by mistake, "Dorothy" is a lot closer to home. I agree, these could be just the people he knew about. But the others would have known about themselves, yes? DB Cooper? Hot off his escapade? The premiere headline mystery of the day? That would be the "get" of the decade. They'd be clamoring for the story. But there's no clamor. That's notable. There are other elements in the letters worth just bringing up: Cooper knew the standard 5-space indent at the beginning of paragraphs. (In those days, particularly for a typewriter of that apparent age, you just pressed "space" five times; later you could set tabs.) Interesting to me. Boys didn't take typing in school, which is where you learned this. So how did he come to know that little bit of inside knowledge? (That's a bigger anomaly than it feels like in an age where everyone types all day.) However, for narrow sheets of paper, as Clara's letter to Himmelsbach was on, you used three. They got that right both times. I'd expect her to know it, but again, I have no idea why an industrial salesman would. Or rather, he flat-out would not. These are little things, but also not really. My comment about the typewriter is not so much that of course he examined them, but that twice he characterizes the difference as "newer." Really, it's just different. You'd expect it to be, right? It's two different people, 10 years apart. It's just another little thing that feels odd to mention. All of it may be nothing, but for better or worse, spotting plagiarism has become a bit of a professional hazard at this point. There's always some phrase or bit of information that jumps out, and then the rest starts to wobble. You don't WANT to find it; it's soul-sapping when you do. But you also have to follow it when you do.

Well, I'm saying that if it's anyone's Freudian slip (which of course it might not be), it's more likely to Gunther's than someone referring to the first wife of the friend of the guy who worked in the same place as the guy who looks like the picture, or whatever the leap is. Any argument in favor of Dolores would be an even stronger argument in favor of Dorothy ("Dottie") Gunther. Another element for the mix, which you hint at: Where did Cooper type his letters? The industrial sales person had a typewriter at home--an old one so used as to have damaged letters and other idiosyncracies? He carted a typewriter around with him over the years? That seems like a long-shot. There is a sort-of answer to this, which is that Clara was a secretary, so maybe, just maybe she had a second typewriter at home. (Not as common as we think, given the ubiquity of computers today.) But you know who else typed things for a living, and DEFINITELY had a typewriter at home....? Also, it's notable to me that Gunther mentions, at least twice, the difference in typewriter from 10 years earlier to the Clara letter. Sure, it could just be an observation, but the odd part to me is that no one was suggesting she typed the first ones, so why wouldn't it be different? It should be, right? It's only worth noting the difference if you, the observer, know it was the same person typing both... A couple of other items to throw out there: while another letter was sent out, guess who it went to? Gunther's editor-in-chief at True. All the newspapers and magazines in NYC, including the very one Cooper wanted an ad placed in, and the only two letters Cooper sent were to Gunther and-coincidentally--someone Gunther knew and had access to? And the letter to Gunther's editor went to the magazine, where Gunther's could have, but Gunther's went to a home address? The only additional press contact was with someone else Gunther knew, and facilitated contact with (editor of Playboy Press). When it came time for Clara to call someone, even though Cooper had also talked to Ed Kuhn (Playboy) and even though Mark Penzer (editor) had also placed an ad, just like Gunther, she only called Gunther. Who is the common denominator in all this?

Would anyone like to hazard a guess at what Max Gunther's wife's name was? Dorothy. Do_____. Curiouser and curiouser.

The other odd element is that NYT Neediest Cases Fund request. I understand that in the end it was just bluster, but even today, if you stopped 50 NYers in the street and asked each one to name five charities, I'd put money on none of the 250 options being the NYT NCF. (I am from NY.) Maybe it's just Hans Gruber in Die Hard tossing out some official-sounding request to send people off on a goose chase, but that's still a very insidery option to have chosen. Putting that together with the well-edited letter with skilled typing and punctuation, plus the NY postmark, it feels far more "publishing company" than "machine-shop."

I agree, that's a possibility. Though if you were the real Cooper, all you'd need to be is the real Cooper, to be a catch for any writer. There are workable possibilities, for sure. They just occupy more and more distant concentric circles away from the simplest one.

I believe and know they are legit. I don't believe some guy remembered the exact date and idiosyncratic spelling of that article 10 years later, and that same guy happened to pick up Ladies Home Journal at the dentist 10 years later and stumble across another article by the same author. Or rather, I can believe it, but don't find it to be the least contrived among all possible explanations.

In that very long middle paragraph--the one that gushes over Gunther and speaks informedly about his work, including correctly identifying the date and exact title and punctuation of a 9-year-old magazine article, down to correctly placing the comma within in the quotation marks. But he can't spell "extraordinary" correctly? Can anyone on this board correctly relay the title, year, and author of a magazine article they read a decade ago, without Googling? I am finding this far-fetched.

I agree that's possible. However, viewed solely through the lens of finding the simplest possible explanation, that one involves some contrivances (1971 working man decides to read "Ladies Home Journal" of all things while at the dentist, article about women who run away changes the course of his life forever and turns him into an acolyte of the author, he decides to hijack an airplane to make his plight heard, later writes to the author to let the author know how influential and inspirational he is). There are workable explanations that allow all the facts to be as they are purported; you make some of these arguments very compellingly. (I greatly appreciate your informed, no-BS take on this case.) But for each of these explanations, there remain anomalies that need to be explained. There is one explanation that does not involve multiple contrivances, though. That's the one I'm now coming to think has to be true. The "lying to the FBI" angle holds some weight, but I don't find it inconsistent at all with someone committing a hoax. Someone is lying to someone, and knows it, and knows there could be consequences. At every stage it's a calculated risk. There are little things that stick out in that letter. I'm happy to have them explained in a way that lets the letter be real, because I, personally, want it to be Cooper who contacted Gunther, so there are bread crumbs to follow. But as I follow those crumbs, they lead me somewhere else. Because of certain elements in that letter, I can't imagine a non-writer or non-editor producing it. Certainly not a trainyard manager...

Wait a minute. Why would Cooper have read a woman's magazine, or know the first thing about an article, let alone the author of it, that appeared in one? Pre-internet age that would seem unheard of. Also, it seems odd that the charity he chose was publishing-related. That's pretty inside-baseball for most people. March of Dimes or the Jerry Lewis one or the Fresh Air Fund would seem far, far better known even to the best informed folks. Reading that letter again, with its paragraph-long fluffing of Gunther, sophisticated punctuation, and various other oddities--including the NY postmark--I don't even have confidence now that that first one was real. It feels more likely that Gunther, someone he knew, or someone in the same industry, wrote it. I understand there are some good arguments against this. But I can't make that letter seem plausibly from "Cooper"--even an outside hoaxer pretending to be him--anymore.

A couple of thoughts about the typewriter and letter. First, whoever typed the letter knows about the type-writer's half-space function, since he or she uses it to insert the letter "s" in the word "di[s]apearing" [sic] in the third line of that middle paragraph. If that tail after the "x" is from a letter, it appears the typist intentionally half-spaced there--maybe trying to correct a mistake and then bailing and X'ing it out and trying again? Either way, I don't expect just anyone to know about half-spacing. Second, there are some idiosyncracies with that typewriter--some dirt on some letters, some worn-down parts of others, and it wouldn't surprise me too much if all that was just dirt on the X for the first strike, and then he went back to darken the X with a second strike, and as a result it just ended up looking like there was a letter (yes, an "o" if anything) underneath it. Third: this letter is a weird mix of relatively sophisticated grammar and punctuation, and some comically bad spelling. It's hard to imagine someone knowing about parenthetical comma clauses, how to correctly punctuate titles within quotes, how and where to hyphenate words that break onto another line, and the like, who also wouldn't know how about the double letters in "apear" or "mariage" or "principaly," particularly when he gets those double letters correct in harder words ("sufficient," "successfully"). The spelling of the word "extrordinary" seems especially far-fetched for someone who (for example) knows that punctuation goes inside quotes, not outside. So I think whoever wrote it is messing with the reader a bit, and that cross-out at the end--a letter, a half-space with another letter, X'd out for maximum intrigue--could just be a troll. Fourth, while plenty of men typed for various necessary purposes--filling out forms on the job, for example--it was not that common for men to type narrative letters like this. It was mostly "women's" work at the time. The exception would be certain professions like journalism. I'm not saying Gunther typed it, just it might give some clue into the person who sent it. I can't help but notice, though, how much of the letter is spent elevating Gunther and getting his articles and book titles correctly spelled and described. And a NY postmark. Anyway.. Finally: Assuming Cooper typed and sent this, and was familiar enough with typewriters to know about half-spacing, and accustomed enough to typing to type a long narrative letter like this...and assuming the tie was Cooper's and the elemental profile can be trusted...it would be interesting to test and see what fragments might get sprayed off when the metal keys strike the inked ribbon of a typewriter. It would be an easy and unexpected way to explain the particles on the tie, and maybe even lock Cooper down to a particular industry or profession we hadn't considered before.

Sure thing, probably smart. Best to you.

Well, personally I'd love the book to be what Gunther says it is, because in that case it would contain actionable information. I just don't think wanting it to be real is sufficient to proceed as if it is. So far I find it quite easy to explain away most of the Easter eggs in completely mundane ways. To clarify (or Clara-fy): One of the "coincidence" items is that LeClair's second wife shared a birthday with the "Clara." But that means the "D" (if that's what it is) is meaningless, yes?--unless he was having someone wish happy birthday to his first wife, on a day that was not her birthday, but would be the actual birthday of his second wife. And how would anyone seeing that "D" know it was going to say "Delores" instead of "Denmark" or "Donuts" or "Dogs"? That feels very, very flimsy. That letter can be real without it containing any evidence at all that Cooper lived and wrote it.

So he was going to have Gunther wish Delores a happy birthday on the actual birthday of his second wife? That feels far-fetched.