Talk:William Northrop

Article is Not Truthful or Accurate?

Honestly, I'm shocked that this article doesn't mention the fact that Northrop's claims to military service are highly controversial, and have been discussed in numerous mainstream newspaper articles and such. I have provided a link to two newspaper articles below (there are several, just google "William Northrop") which charge that Northrop has faked much of his military service/combat claims. In addition, a book published about people faking/lying about wartime or combat service, Stolen Valor, includes an extensive discussion of Northrop's claims, and concludes that they are not true. I would think that an editor might want to include in the article at least some discussion of these very serious, and apparently credible, charges, especially since the article portrays Northrop in an overwhelmingly favorable light.

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch: http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/n-c-academy-ex-head-suspected-of-posing-as-vietnam/article_610e9d81-db95-5458-b3d6-2635bb81fc36.html?mode=jqm

From the Winston-Salem Journal: http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/former-oak-ridge-head-may-have-lied-about-military-service/article_568cd7ea-1aeb-58a5-8b81-e5b8a4dfaa62.html?mode=jqm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:691E:5A29:86F:CDDC:67A3:B0C5 (talk) 02:23, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Agreed- the edit history seems pretty clear somebody is trying hard to delete any information that looks negative, even if well cited and accurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.205.68.43 (talk) 21:10, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Bias

I came across this doing some research on this person for another project to be published soon, and yes this article was clearly biased, eliminating any of the claims of Northrops very disputed claims of service in Vietnam as well as making many uncited claims about him. The edit history appears to show that any time the controversy is mentioned it is removed, so we should be vigilant for vandalism and attempts to bias the article by removing mention of his controversial claims. The disputed Vietnam service is the most prevalent result on the web when one searches for him, so it is certainly relevant and well documented.

I have added what I was able to clearly cite and document a source for.

Milhisttx (talk) 13:16, 14 July 2014 (UTC)MilHistTXMilhisttx (talk) 13:16, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for adding the material! I have edited/clarified some of the sentences to make them compatible with Wiki standards. I strongly suspect that either Northrop himself, or someone he knows, is editing this article and deleting any negative information about him, which is a clear violation of Wiki standards and procedures. If your information is deleted, I would strongly suggest that you notify more experienced and senior Wiki editors to what is happening and suggest that something be done about it. The allegations against Northrop are indeed serious and credible, and it is simply dishonest and a violation of Wiki standards to allow the article to stand without any mention of the many criticisms that have been made about him.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:691e:5a29:79c7:9938:a406:6ee1 (talk) 16:26, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Citadel graduate status?

I am seeing accounts online that this person did not actually graduate from The Citadel, although he did attend. Can any find a verifiable source one way or the other? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.205.68.17 (talk) 14:16, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

The article that said Northrop didn't graduate from The Citadel (or, to be more precise, that The Citadel couldn't find any records that he had graduated) was the Associated Press article in 2011. If you can find that online it will provide a reference for this Wiki article. To be honest, I'm not sure this Northrop article even meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines, and it should probably be deleted. Even if he is telling the truth, his experiences are still little different from that of hundreds or thousands of other Vietnam/military vets who have no Wiki articles written about them. And, given the many serious and credible allegations that his claims to military service are false, it makes him even less notable. At any rate, the 2011 (2012?) AP news article should have the information you're looking for. Cheers! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:691E:5A29:76:F6BF:DC39:1FD8 (talk) 20:22, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Controversy

Too much bantering going on in this article. Too much has been repeated and beaten to death in this article. Brevity is key to a successful article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.54.64.200 (talk) 19:36, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

What, specifically, do you mean by "bantering"? I don't see much that's repeated in this article, as each section is largely self-contained and sticks to specific points - "Iran-Contra Affair", "Israel", "Military Service Controversy", etc. Furthermore, to delete information from the military service controversy section would be to skim over some very serious allegations, imo. I've read plenty of Wiki articles that are far longer than this one, in all honesty it seems to me to be fairly well-organized, especially the military service controversy section, and that section is also well-cited, often with multiple citations for the various points. As to whether Northrop is even notable enough to have his own article, well, that's a separate issue. 2602:304:691E:5A29:4879:BF20:4EBE:EA53 (talk) 21:44, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Unilateral removal of source-supported material with which one personally disagrees is not an acceptable approach to resolving controversy. Each article needs to fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. See WP:DUE (part of the WP:NPOV policy). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:15, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Request deletion

Hello my name is Albert Medders, I worked under Northrop at Oak Ridge Military Academy. He requested that I help him removed the wiki page about him due to people adding untrue information about him and spreading slander. please feel free to contact me at albmed7589@yahoo.com in regards to this case.

As I said on your talk page, the subject of an article does not get to decide if the article is deleted. Please read WP:AFD for the proper procedure. The article will not be deleted if the subject meets our notability guidelines so your best bet is to point out problematic content here. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:39, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

If Mr. Northrop believes what has been written about him in this article is "slander", then perhaps he should not have arranged to have this article about him created in the first place. Before the "Military Service Controversy" section was added, the article as written was extremely favorable towards Northrop and included numerous uncited or poorly-sourced claims and accomplishments. For example, one source used to describe a Northrop accomplishment is linked to the Oak Ridge Military Academy Archives and Museum, but upon inspection the source was written by none other than Northrop himself! Like it or not, the controversy regarding his claimed military service is a legitimate topic for inclusion in this article, and has been mentioned in mainstream newspaper accounts and other reliable sources, including the Associated Press, Washington Times, Winston-Salem Journal, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch. If Mr. Northrop wishes to have the military controversy section removed, then he should be required to refute the cited allegations with reliable, legitimate news sources and citations of his own. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and content that is critical of the subject of an article should not be removed simply because the subject of the article dislikes it. IMO, if the section about the military controversy is removed, then the entire article should be removed and not allowed to be reposted, as it will then return to being little more than a Northrop fluff piece, which is what I suspect was intended when the article was created. Just my two cents. 2602:304:691E:5A29:A916:B455:873D:CDD5 (talk) 22:13, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

NeilN is correct on this matter. Flyer22 (talk) 22:19, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

A "military historian?"

After reading this article it still seems to have some dubious claims regarding Northrop's achievements. One is the claim in the first sentence that he is a "military historian". The only evidence for this is an uncited claim later in the paragraph that he has written several "battle analyses" for a North Carolina magazine. Given that the claim is uncited, perhaps both the claim that he is a military historian and that he has written articles for this magazine should be deleted. Just a thought.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:691e:5a29:6d6a:ad3:6a31:5ac (talk) 18:03, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Claims of having contact with Casey

I have removed the following:

In 1988, after the death of William J. Casey, it was discovered that Northrop had an ongoing relationship with the Director of Central Intelligence when phone logs surfaced.

The motion on August 4, 1988 was made the day before the NYT article dated August 5, 1988. That article states that the defense lawyer asked the government to turn over records and that the prosecuting attorney said he made a preliminary inquiry and that the logs probably did not exist. The Jones/Israel book says "He [i.e. Northrop] was said to be a friend of Casey..." and Honeggar is not a reliable source. -Location (talk) 16:37, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Claims of having independent investigated the Oklahoma City bombing

I have removed the following:

Northrop retired to the United States in 1994, settling for a time in Oklahoma. While there, he independently investigated the Oklahoma City bombing.

The passage has gone uncited for a year and I can find no reliable sources that state he did any real investigating. Interestingly, the University of Texas does have a fax in their archives from Timothy McVeigh's attorney Stephen Jones

We have received reliable information that a former CIA employee now working for Channel 4 in Oklahoma City has information that Israel warned the United States in March of a terrorist attack on a federal building which purportedly referenced, among other cities, Oklahoma City. We have received journalist's partial confirmation through the Times of London through a reporter named Tim Kelsey. We should not do anything to disturb these two sources. The CIA's former employee's name is Bill Northrop.[1]

That might be the first I've heard of Northrop presenting himself to be a (former) CIA official. - Location (talk) 19:22, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Given that he has made false claims of having been a US Army Special Forces officer and decorated Vietnam vet, and a member of the Israel Defense Forces, I guess it makes perfect sense that he would also claim to have been in the CIA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:6080:C402:2A45:C904:CB4D:272C:FD8C (talk) 03:13, 30 December 2020 (UTC)