Talk:Michel Thomas/Archive 3

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If you add comments to this talk page, type ~ after them to sign your name. Discussions are much more confusing without and idea of who said what and when. Antonrojo 16:51, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Why the fuss over a dead man's WWII service?
Readers who bother to wade through the more than two years of tit-for-tat quibbling buried in the archives of this article's endless edits -- and the discussion counterpart -- may legitimately ask why on earth anyone outside of Michel Thomas and his close friends and family would care about such details as whether this decorated WWII vet was really a CIC Agent, or was present at the liberation of Dachau, etc.

The answer is that Mr. Thomas's case is an unusually stark example of media arrogance and a failure of the courts and the press to impose any significant accountability on a major newspaper's callous destruction of a man's reputation.

In a nutshell, Thomas sued the Los Angeles Times and reporter Roy Rivenburg for defamation in 2001, after the Times published a profile of him that portrayed him as a fraud and a charlatan who had lied about his WWII experiences in Germany and France.

Three years later, after a federal judge and an appellate court ruled that his case could not proceed to a jury, and forced him to pay the Times' legal fees, I assembled some of the research I had done in my role as the investigator for Thomas and his legal team to prepare his case and submitted it to Senator John McCain and Carolyn Maloney, the Democratic Congresswoman in Mr. Thomas's New York City district. The research included sworn statements from every surviving WWII comrade who actually knew Thomas and fought with him during the war -- all of whom were unanimously supportive of Thomas and backed up his 'claims' about his WWII experiences.

The research was forwarded to the US Army, which did its own research and in 2004 awarded Thomas the Silver Star for his bravery fighting with US troops in France in 1944. Upon hearing of this remarkable story, former Senator Bob Dole volunteered to preside over the medal ceremony. He invited fellow WWII veteran Senator John Warner, and the two pinned the medal on Thomas at the WWII Memorial during the week of its dedication, as several of Thomas's WWII comrades stood by, along with the Ambassador of France and the head of the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, Eli Rosenbaum.

It was a very moving ceremony, and garnered international press coverage and a five-minute segment on Wolf Blitzer's CNN program.

It was not, however, covered at all by the Los Angeles Times, even though that paper had seen fit to publish a long profile of Thomas three years before, then spared no expense fighting his efforts to get the paper to correct the highly misleading implications of the article -- expenses which Thomas was then forced to pay, because of the twisted application of California's so-called anti-SLAPP statute, originally enacted to level the playing field in David & Goliath power confrontations by inhibiting large corporations and wealthy developers from filing frivolous lawsuits against poorly-funded political activists.

John Carroll was at that time the paper's editor -- and a man whose public positions on the corrosion of American journalistic standards I supported wholeheartedly. Three months before Mr. Thomas was awarded the Silver Star, Mr. Carroll appeared for an onstage interview at UC Berkeley before a friendly crowd. When I asked him during the ensuing Q & A session why neither he nor anyone else at the paper had responded to the nearly 400 letters they had been sent protesting the article, he responded defiantly that he was "very proud" of the article, which "had a little fun at the expense of" Michel Thomas, at that time a 90 year-old man, whose family of Polish Jews had been murdered at Auschwitz, but who had managed to avoid that fate and fight in the French Resistance, and then serve with distinction fighting with US infantry and using his fluency in several languages as an Agent in the US Army's Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC).

I was, and remain, astonished at this response from this titan of American journalism, a former member of the Pulitzer committee, who has declined to respond to several respectful letters of entreaty that I and others, including Michel Thomas's biographer Christopher Robbins, sent him before and after this public confrontation. He has never given any indication that he reviewed the detailed parade of rebuttal evidence to his paper's portrayal of Mr. Thomas, and he did not respond when I notified him by voice mail and email in April 2004 that Mr. Thomas had been awarded the Silver Star, and that he might want to have a reporter cover the impending ceremony in Washington.

As for former L.A. Times reporter Roy Rivenburg, one needs only to read his many edits to this Wikipedia article, and his commentaries on the discussion page, to draw conclusions about whether his motives were disinterested when he profiled Mr. Thomas in 2001. Readers should also note that shortly after Mr. Thomas died in January 2005, Mr. Rivenburg posted an article entitled "The Myth of Michel Thomas" on his personal web site, which includes links to friendly bloggers with titles such as "That Lying Old Fraud Michel Thomas Has Died."

Fortunately the powers-that-be of Wikipedia were less obtuse than Mr. Rivenburg's editors at the Times, and several months ago he was banned and blocked from making edits to this article about Mr. Thomas.

Alex Kline (talk) 23:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC) San Francisco, California May 2008

Reply to 'Why the Fuss'
If there were an ounce of truth to Michel Thomas' claims, other journalists would have jumped all over the Los Angeles Times -- the same way they did when Times reporter Eric Slater was accused of fabricating a source. In an era when even the slightest whiff of journalistic screw-up (Jayson Blair, Jack Kelley, Rick Bragg, etc) gets raked over the coals by media watchdogs, Thomas' claims have been rejected by mainstream reporters. No journalist who has seen the evidence that the L.A. Times gathered about Michel Thomas has done a story about his case or believed his accusations.

Thomas' Silver Star award in no way negates what the L.A. Times (and several other newspapers) reported, namely that Thomas falsely claimed he was a U.S. Army officer instead of a civilian employee (National Archives documents that Thomas signed prove he was a civilian employee), that Gestapo chieftain Klaus Barbie's prosecutor told jurors at Barbie's 1987 trial to disregard Thomas' testimony because it wasn't made "in good faith," and that Thomas' version of other wartime feats is irrefutably contradicted by 1945 press reports, military records, and eyewitness accounts. Thomas did some heroic things during the war, but he exaggerated and made up other accomplishments, as documented by such sources as Le Monde, the Chicago Tribune, Newsday, the New York Times and the Oscar-winning documentary "Hotel Terminus."

Rivenburg (talk) 07:12, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

A few days ago 32.159.52.188 inserted rebuttals to Rivenburg's post above, which Rivenburg removed. Below is a separate post that includes the deleted rebuttals, in brackets:

''If there were an ounce of truth to Michel Thomas' claims, other journalists would have jumped all over the Los Angeles Times -- the same way they did when Times reporter Eric Slater was accused of fabricating a source. In an era when even the slightest whiff of journalistic screw-up (Jayson Blair, Jack Kelley, Rick Bragg, etc) gets raked over the coals by media watchdogs, Thomas' claims have been rejected by mainstream reporters. No journalist who has seen the evidence that the L.A. Times gathered about Michel Thomas has done a story about his case or believed his accusations.' [This is simply false, as a simple Google search will demonstrate. Numerous major media have implicitly rejected Rivenburg's mendacious assertions, for years. From CNN to the Guardian UK to the Associated Press to Ha'aretz to the Defense Department's "DefendAmerica.com" web site.]''' Thomas' Silver Star award in no way negates what the L.A. Times (and several other newspapers) reported, namely that Thomas falsely claimed he was a U.S. Army officer instead of a civilian employee, [Wrong: see the affidavits of all of the surviving Agents from his CIC unit, at www.michelthomas.org] that Gestapo chieftain Klaus Barbie's prosecutor told jurors at Barbie's 1987 trial to disregard Thomas' testimony because it wasn't made "in good faith," [misleading: French prosecutor Pierre Truche never said this] and that Thomas' version of other wartime feats is irrefutably contradicted by 1945 press reports, military records, and eyewitness accounts. '''["Irrefutably"? -- only according to Rivenburg's twisted interpretation] Thomas did some heroic things during the war, but he exaggerated and made up other accomplishments. [False: everything Thomas "claimed" is backed by extensive documentation and witness testimony that has been acknowledged and publicly recognized by official bodies from the French and American governments, supported by unanimous affidavits and other public statements by every surviving WWII comrade who knew him during the war.]'''

Facts@mt.org (talk) 21:11, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I removed the anonymous "rebuttals" because they were inserted into my post. Creating a separate post, as has now been done, is fine. A couple of points in response:

-- Regarding the list of "major media" that "implicitly rejected" the L.A. Times article: Not one of these sources followed the cardinal rule of journalism, which is to get both sides of the story. It bears repeating that NO journalist who has seen the evidence gathered by the L.A. Times has accepted Thomas' claims. In fact, over the past several decades, multiple media outlets (including Newsday, Le Monde and the NY Times) have questioned and contradicted Thomas' claims.

-- Regarding prosecutor Pierre Truche's statement that Thomas didn't testify "in good faith" at Klaus Barbie's trial: The quote comes from trial coverage in the Chicago Tribune. Truche also criticized Thomas' credibility in the documentary film "Hotel Terminus."

-- Regarding Thomas' denial that he was a civilian employee of the U.S. Army: Here's a link to military documents he signed as a "civilian assistant." http://michelthomasfacts.blogspot.com/2007/08/false-claims_9205.html

Rivenburg (talk) 00:02, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Thomas bio isn't reliable
The NPOV neutrality tag should be restored because the article isn't neutral and doesn't conform with Wikipedia policies on fairly representing "significant viewpoints" from reliable published sources. For example:


 * 1) The article says Thomas testified at Klaus Barbie's trial, but leaves out the well-publicized fact that Barbie's prosecutor, Pierre Truche, asked jurors to disregard Thomas' testimony, saying, "With the exception of Mr. Thomas, all the witnesses are of good faith."


 * 2) The article states as fact that Thomas "played a part in the recovery of a cache of Nazi documents." This assertion is in dispute and evidence to the contrary (military records and 1945 newspaper articles that credit Hans Huber and/or Francesco Quaranta with the rescue) have never been refuted by any reliable, mainstream published source. Thomas' biography purports to rebut some (but not all) of those sources, but Thomas shared in the book's royalties, so the book's objectivity is questionable when compared against the New York Times, L.A. Times and other sources that contradict Thomas' version of events.


 * 3) Under "External Links," the description for "The Myth of Michel Thomas" is hardly neutral. For starters, it says the website writer was sued for libel by Thomas, but leaves out the fact that Thomas lost the case. Compare that with the description of michelthomas.org, which doesn't mention that Thomas' libel lawsuit was thrown out of court, or that much of the "detailed information" on his site is "commentary," not fact.

In general, the article unfairly leaves out any mention that reliable sources, ranging from a top U.S. Justice Department official in 1983 to the Washington Post in 2005, have raised questions about Thomas' wartime stories. The "evidence" presented by Thomas in response to these questions has been rejected by four federal judges and by the mainstream journalism community. Therefore, there is no sound reason to exclude this material from Wikipedia.

User Liquidfinale's (Steve) Nov. 30, 2007, edit of the Thomas bio is far more neutral than the current version and should be restored.

Rivenburg (talk) 01:36, 10 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm going to stick a little bit of the Barbie trial stuff back in later today. Steve  T • C 11:38, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the adjustments. But two points on Barbie: First, the cite is wrong. The UPI article isn't about Thomas' testimony being excluded. That came later, from the Chicago Tribune (Chicago Tribune, "Barbie Prosecutor Demands Life Term," by Julian Nundy, July 1, 1987). Second, saying that his testimony was "ultimately excluded" sounds more like there was some procedural glitch. It would be more accurate to say his testimony was "later excluded by the prosecutor" or, better yet, actually quote what the prosecutor said, as did the Washington Post in its obituary of Thomas. It's quite a telling statement and very much in line with what the Justice Dept official said and the Barbie documentary covered. Thanks for considering. Rivenburg (talk) 20:51, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Liquidfinale (Steve), I understand that Rivenburg was blocked because of his constant editing. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Rivenburg#Arbitration_Committee) "We've decided to unblock him, with a caveat. He may not edit the Michel Thomas article. He's free to use the talk page to make suggestions and whatnot, but he shouldn't be editing the article himself due to his personal involvement with the subject."

This is not the talk page, it is the discussion page. Furthermore, it gives the appearence that you are doing the editing for him, and that he is guiding you step by step. Sorry to put it this way, but that is what appears to be happening. 75.33.233.58 (talk) 23:53, 10 January 2008 (UTC)


 * No, no need to apologise. I'll merely say that he made a good point insofar as the citation used for the Barbie note being the wrong one, and I have not followed his every suggestion. For instance, quoting the prosecutor and whatnot. Steve  T • C 00:07, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Liquidfinale (Steve).

Nico de Koenigsberg Cruz del sur (talk) 00:19, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Rivenburg Is NOT A Reliable Source
In the short time that I became aware of Rivenburg’s article, I have found several problems with his research. These are not hard to find issues, since they are ready available in the Internet. What they show is that Rivenburg did not do a thorough research. I have already argued that there are still millions of documents that the intelligence agencies have not declassified, although Congress has ordered to do so. Those documents specifically deal with Nazi war crimes and war criminals, a task that Michel Thomas was entrusted to do as a Counter Intelligence Corp member. Rivenburg relied on documents which have been declassified and which are in the National Archives. The few documents that are there, were declassified to present a positive view of the Counter Intelligence Corp soon after it was made public that Barbie had worked for the CIC. I know this to be true, since I have done two searches in the National Archives one through regular channels and the other one I contacted Mr. Taylor,(http://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2007/nr07-12.html) “a leading authority on covert military operations during World War II”. Now, my father, according to a document that I have, (http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b273/cruzdelsur/?action=view&current=letter___6_Mar_1946_re_VdK1.jpg) was performing a “special investigation of extreme importance to the Armed Forces” and remained in the European Theatre of Operations “because of the extreme importance of his mission”. Yet, the National Archives could not find anything related to my father. It would be interesting to see if Rivenburg even bothered to use FOIA to obtain the information form the Intelligence Agencies and DoD that he needed to have an accurate picture of Thomas’ service. Did he ask for the after actions reports from the 307th CIC? I doubt it since so far he has only said that he has used the National Archives. Rivenburg has also maintained that Thomas was only a civilian assistant and translator. This seems unlikely, since I can’t imagine that neither a civilian assistant nor a translator could be responsible of arresting Emil Mahl or Gustav Knittel, responsible of the Malmedy Massacre. Facts, as far as I know, would be out of the scope of a civilian assistant or a translator. And, as I believe, Rivenburg has not contested. Another problem that I have found with Rivenburg’s research are also seen in the discussion here (http://307thcic.wordpress.com/2007/03/21/michel-thomas/). I must add that Rivenburg's quote I took it from Wikipedia, but it has been edited and removed. "Mr Rivenburg, I have a problem with what you wrote:(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_thomas) The report said American intelligence officials hired Barbie in 1947 because they didn’t know about his Gestapo past. Thomas criticized the department’s report on Barbie’s role as a post-war spy for the U.S. Thomas said that statement was false because he had written a memo in 1945, while working with the Counter Intelligence Corps, identifying Barbie as a former Gestapo

I took this from NARA (http://www.archives.gov/iwg/research-papers/barbie-irr-file.html) : This HICOG [U.S. High Commission for Germany] Barbie five-folder file contains copies with translations of the contemporaneous and postwar French reports of atrocities committed by Barbie, and of numerous signed originals of the futile French applications for his extradition, as well as the background correspondence and draft copies of evasive HICOG replies…. …This includes his arrest at Gross Gerau by American forces at the turn of the year 1945, and his release in January. Early in 1946, he was a paid informant for the CIC detachment operating in the Kassel-Marburg-Fulda area. In November 1946, he was the object of futile solicitation and consequent arrest by British intelligence in Hamburg Or this (http://www.paperless archives.com/barbie.html) : A CIC memo contains details of Barbie’s 1946 escape from custody. A memo describes Barbie’s alleged activities in the 1946-47 period, including his travels in Germany, his contacts with various Germans and his alleged involvement in a jewel theft and the black market. A copy of an Allied Control Authority Central Registry of War Criminal and Security Suspects want list naming Klaus Barbie as wanted by France for murder. Information from the French Embassy and the Department of State, showing that the French persisted in their attempts to secure Barbie’s surrender.

All this information was ready available on the Internet. Another case in which he showed a lack of basic research was with my name, Nico. Just because he knew that one female singer (Nico and the Velvet Underground), he assumed (either that or he was being mean-spirited ) that it was a female’s name, and ignoring the fact that Nico is a male’s name and that millions of men use it, and it can be seen in the same discussion above.

In short, Rivenburg is an unreliable source, never did a thorough research, and is constantly assuming facts. That is why I request the editors and administrators to take this into consideration. It’s been three years since Thomas passed away. It is time to allow this great warrior to rest in peace.

Nico de Koenigsberg Cruz del sur (talk) 20:16, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Larger than Life
Pessimistic as I am that this will result in agreement between the editors warring over the External Links section, I'm creating this section in order for you to discuss this civilly instead of disrupting the article with your edit war. For other editors stumbling across this, the issue is over the inclusion of The Myth of Michel Thomas in the section, previously described as "critical commentary by Roy Rivenburg", who is the writer of an LA Times article that portrayed Thomas as an exaggerator of historical fact. For the record, I have no opinion either way on the link right now. I'd only urge the warring editors not to let this degenerate into the usual back and forth over the merits or otherwise of the original article. Have fun. Steve T • C 23:34, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

The "casp.net" link to the federal court case is a dead link and should be removed from the External links. 32.158.237.75 (talk) 03:30, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Here's the correct casp.net link: http://www.casp.net/cases/Thomas%20v.%20Los%20Angeles%20Times.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.5.2.124 (talk) 06:28, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

The "Myth" link, which cites mainstream media articles and military records, is as valid as the michelthomas.org link (the latter posted by the losing side of Thomas' libel lawsuit against the L.A. Times). Both links have passed muster with numerous neutral Wiki editors over a period of years. They should be left intact, so readers can decide for themselves. Rivenburg (talk) 01:24, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Rivenburg has made 270 edits over three years to this article -- more than three times as many as any other editor. He is now pushing for a link to his personal web site "article" about Michel Thomas, which includes an unflattering photo of his subject, taken at roughly age 90, along with links to sympathetic bloggers with headings like "That Lying Old Fraud Michel Thomas Is Dead."

Other editors want the link removed, and argue that Rivenburg has been banned and blocked from editing the article. Rivenburg argues for its inclusion "so readers can decide for themselves."

One counter-argument worth considering, which ironically supports inclusion of the link, is that the link itself is powerful evidence that Thomas was denied justice in his defamation suit: had his case been allowed to go to a jury, his lawyer would have had to persuade them that Rivenburg acted with "actual malice" when he deliberately omitted so much important evidence concerning Thomas's WWII experiences from his profile.

Rivenburg's actions since Thomas's death leave no doubt about his motives. For that reason I argue that the link to his personal web site should be included here: it is the final nail in the evidenciary coffin that Thomas should have prevailed in his defamation case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 32.153.25.207 (talk) 17:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Stricter interpretation of WP:NOTAFORUM and WP:SOAPBOX
I have archived every discussion on this page. The majority were old, but the most recent were not helpful. The time has come to end this petty back and forth, so let us be clear: anyone who posts here without the express purpose of improving this article will find their edits removed. This includes arguing over Thomas' war record when not strictly and directly relevant to a specific portion of the article. Anyone who claims to be Thomas' friend, enemy, former private investigator or otherwise may find their comments removed as being a conflict of interest. If you post here, you must ensure that your comments are not a continuation of the inappropriate arguments in the four archive pages listed above. In addition, any attempts to claim personal knowledge for information is a violation of our policy against original research and outside the purpose of this talk page. Happy editing, Steve  T • C 00:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Article does not objectively examine Thomas' life
I have read various media accounts of Michel Thomas' life. The wiki bio is not as balanced as other sources, such as The Washington Post obituary of Thomas, which can be found here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64492-2005Jan10.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.163.10.81 (talk) 01:53, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The Post obituary is provided as an external link, but is not used to cite information in the article itself. The doubts it references over Thomas' war record stem from a Los Angeles Times piece titled "Larger than Life", which has been the basis of an edit war at this article for some time now. Both supporters of Thomas and those who would see these claims widely publicised have argued for years over the piece's claims, and at some point this Wikipedia article became the focal point for the debate. This resulted in an article that would change from one day to the next; from overwhelmingly negative to borderline deification. This went on for about three years, as did the back-and-forth on this talk page with both camps' offering arguments, counterarguments and counter-counterarguments. The article became useless and unreliable as a result, so at some point last year we stripped out most of the debatable information (negative and positive) in favour of something much shorter that presented a straightforward, if not 100% complete, account. In short, we forced the war away from these pages and we now have an article that is as stable as it has ever been, and maybe the best it can ever be while those behind the argument continue to rail against each other both on- and off-Wiki. All the best, Steve  T • C 20:39, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Carl Dundas Contributions
Carl Dundas is a language teacher who has an opinion on Michel Thomas. In that respect he is no different from many other people who view this page. Sadly, he is desperately trying to make a name for himself here by linking it to a world-ranking linguist by claiming to be his "associate critic", despite the fact that he has never worked for Hodder or any publishing house or newspaper. The only person to make reference to him in connection with Michel Thomas is, of course, Carl Dundas himself. This he has done through You Tube videos and his own website. If anyone doubts this, please provide evidence to the contrary. His contribution is unsuitable for inclusion in this article, as its purpose is the self-promotion of himself and his products. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sjf2008 (talk • contribs)


 * I agree that there appears to be no reliable source that provides enough information to warrant Carl Dundas' inclusion in this article. Even should such a source present itself in the future, it would be more suitable for inclusion in the Michel Thomas Method article, and not in Thomas' biography. However, much as I might agree with this, I do urge that you attempt to refrain from the borderline personal attacks against Dundas himself that typified the previous version of the above statement. It's not helpful and makes the discussion more combative than it needs to be, putting off potential contributors from giving their opinions. All the best, Steve  T • C 10:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)