Talk:William Timmons (lobbyist)

Proposal to merge here from Timmons & Company

I added merge tags to represent the idea we had discussed before. Since there are scattered snippets of info on both the guy and his company, and since some editors are suggesting removing stuff here on the basis of the company article existing, we need to decide which way to go. Merge or not? Please add a Support or Oppose bullet and some discussion. I haven't committed to merge yet, but am leaning that way, so I'll wait and see. Dicklyon (talk) 16:27, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support. csloat (talk) 21:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC) Comment -- the company seems notable only because Mr. Timmons is notable, and a lot of what he is notable for in recent years seems to be the actions of his company. Timmons was not just an employee; he is the founder and chairman. csloat (talk) 16:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose Not related directly to a biography. And a merge is an election article related edit IMHO. If the article on the firm is simply unable to be supported on its own as notable and being sourced, adding it here will not improve it, and would be deleterious to this article. Collect (talk) 09:59, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, do you then support deleting the T+C article completely, and not merging the content? Also, what does the election have to do anything? That accounts for some of the notability, for sure, but why is that a problem? Cheers, csloat (talk) 16:18, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support He started the company, he runs the company, would seem like a big part of his life to me, therefore relevant to a biographical survey of his life. Measles (talk) 17:01, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose We cited a source detailing all the people on the company that had "revolving-door" connections. Clearly it is not a one-man show. Other individuals within the company have made news, e.g. [1]. Jayen466 17:06, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

This may be a quibble, but your source shows that Tarplin made news only for leaving T+C and striking out on his own, which suggests that the notability of T+C per se is still very much tied to Timmons. csloat (talk) 17:54, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually you give a strong argument against merger. Thank you most kindly. Collect (talk) 19:04, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

More news about the company: [2] Much of that is not about Timmons. The president and CEO is Harlow. Jayen466 19:49, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• Weak Oppose per Csloat: Timmins doesn't appear to be that active at his namesake firm now, and isn't getting younger. --Pete Tillman (talk) 19:33, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, there's clearly enough oppostion that we shouldn't try to do this; I withdraw my proposal. Then should we instead make the "lobbying" section here shorter, with a "main" link to the company article, and move most of the contents there? Dicklyon (talk) 20:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that would make sense. Things like the Time article that refer specifically to Timmons as an individual should stay here; company activities should move over there. Jayen466 20:47, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

disagree, he's a lobbyist, primarily what he's known for, he founded the company, the most notable thing about him is his lobbying, reducing this section makes no sense. Measles (talk) 21:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

We can leave a few balanced things about his lobbying, but keep the section short, compatible with a "main" link; for things like the F-18 mention where he is not specifically pointed out as the guy doing it, that might go best in the company article, and then we'd have less to fight about here. Dicklyon (talk) 02:11, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I have this odd opinion -- that biographies ought to deal with the person and his acts, not with the acts of others. Collect (talk) 02:14, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

How odd. I never would have guessed you had that opinion. Dicklyon (talk) 06:25, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Alright, I moved some stuff, put a main link, took out the merge tags, etc. Please comment. Dicklyon (talk) 04:41, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. I think the Timmons biography and the Timmons and Company site should not be merged. (1) They are two separate entries, one a person and the other is a corporation. (2) Timmons is a 78-year old “Emeritus” and probably has little to do currently with the firm. Another person is president and another one chairman of the board of directors. (3) Timmons & Company has a different history from the subject. Corporate officers have had backgrounds working for Democratic and Republican Members of Congress and Administrations. Worth noting is that one officer left to become President Reagan’s chief of staff, a former chairman left to become a principal member of President Clinton’s White House, another former chairman was confirmed as a U.S. Ambassador, and three alumni are now serving in senior capacities in President Obama’s White House. Others have become vice presidents of major corporations. In summary, the company is bigger than one person. Rtally3 (talk) 23:52, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Good, I already retracted that proposal and split up the material into the most relevant locations. Please do add all that other stuff, assuming you have sources. Dicklyon (talk) 06:25, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your effort and attention to detail on this. Both articles are shaping up nicely.

A minor point: in this sentence (Lobbying section):

"In 1979, Chrysler Corporation hired lobbyist Tommy Boggs to influence Democrats, and Timmons, "a man skilled in gaining Republican sympathy for corporate causes," in their work to secure government assistance in the form of loan guarantees."

-- the Boggs bit struck me as superfluous. I started to edit it out, but perhaps he fits into the story?? In which case a bit more explication is needed. Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:36, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

If a cite is used, it should not be cherry picked. The cite an editor added had that material about Boggs in it, and since the big issue is politics, it would appear that it was germane. The part I demurred on was calling the loan guarantees a "bailout" as that has a distincet connotation right now which is not accurate. Collect (talk) 19:44, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

The Boggs thing shows that how bipartisan lobbying works, with Timmons on the R side. The "bailout" terminology is what over 600 books call it. Dicklyon (talk) 07:09, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

coming in a little late here, it seems clear that the role of Timmons as an individual prior to founding the company was of similar importance to the later role in the company, so I agree with the apparent decision not to merge. DGG (talk) 03:19, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Printed Comments II

More printed comments from RS's that might have a place in this bio.

William Timmons, who had been in charge of House lobbying was promoted on February 4, 1970, to head the whole Hill Staff.

— Rowland Evans, Jr. and Robert D. Novak, Nixon in the White House (New York: Random House, 1971), pp. 116,117.

Bernstein had been told by a Democratic Party investigator that Baldwin had named two persons he thought had received them [wiretap memos]…and William E. Timmons, Assistant to the President for congressional relations and chief White House liaison to CRP for the Republican national convention…But the report was incorrect, and the decision to rush it into print was a mistake…Three men had been wronged. They had been unfairly accused on the front page of the Washington Post, the hometown newspaper of their families, neighbors, and friends…Timmons was dejected about the Post allegations, and his wife had wanted him to quit his job on the White House staff. Only after a long conversation with the President had he decided to stay on.

— Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, All the President’s Men (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974), pp. 110,111.

Timmons and Burch felt that this morning’s Court ruling had been decisive; it was time for the President to pack it in….Now, argued Timmons, a moment of principle had come that would let the President resign with honor-this decision would undermine all future Presidents’ authority and thus, in defense of future Presidents, Richard Nixon should, at this moment, resign. (After lunch, Timmons would speak to General Haig in San Clemente and ask that this advice be brought, in his name, immediately to the President.)

— Theodore H. White, Breach of Faith – The Fall of Richard Nixon (New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1975, pp. 6,7.

At this juncture, Burch and Timmons were firm that, if not they, at least Buchanan be allowed to read the transcripts that were going to Judge Sirica. It was their right, they had an obligation to the President’s supporters on the Judiciary Committee and to the entire minority who intended to join in the defense. The President could not sabotage his supporters with any more nasty surprises.

— Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, The Final Days (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976), p. 327.

Even before Morton formally took the title of campaign manager, he received an unexpected and very private feeler from the Reagan camp. With former Nixon White House aide William Timmons acting as intermediary, Morton met at Timmons’ downtown Washington office with John Sears on March 20, four days before the North Carolina primary.

— Jules Witcover, Marathon-The Pursuit of the Presidency 1972-1976 (New York: Viking Press, 1977), P. 413.

On October 3 the Post reported an allegation by ‘sources’ that Bill Timmons had been named as one of the people who had received reports from the Watergate wiretaps. The allegation was false, and Timmons denied it. It was still false when the Post repeated it three days later, this time on the front page under a big headline.

— Richard Nixon, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), p. 708.

William Timmons, assistant to the President for Congressional relations… All three were accused in a Washington Post article in October 1972 of having regularly received reports on wiretapped conversations in the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate office, thus charging them directly of complicity in the breakin plot…It was totally incorrect, and the reporters who wrote it, Woodward and Bernstein, eventually conceded in their book that the men named had never seen any papers having to do with the wiretapping…Not a word of sincere apology, even then.

— Maurice H. Stans, The Terrors of Justice-The Untold Side of Watergate (New York: Everest House, 1978), pp. 64, 65.

Most of the people involved resigned voluntarily. Actually, the Nixon-appointed men and women who left the West Wing to return to private life were, with a few exceptions, people of high quality and personal integrity who had had nothing to do with Watergate…So were legislative liaison man Bill Timmons,…I was sorry to see them go because I knew they would be hard to replace.

— Gerald R. Ford, A Time To Heal-The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 234.

Bill Timmons, as Assistant to the President, would stay on as long as he liked, with all his gang...I would take over retiring Bill Timmons’s suite, the second most spacious (after the President’s) in the West Wing..

— p. 281. Robert T. Hartman, Palace Politics-An Inside Account of the Ford Years (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980).

In fact, the Reagan Convention operation is being run by the same man who ran Ford’s four years ago-William Timmons. Timmons, who is forty-nine, worked for Goldwater’s nomination and then for Nixon’s, handled congressional relations for the Nixon White House during Watergate, managed the alarmingly precise 1972 Republican Convention, and now has his own Washington lobbying firm.

— Elizabeth Drew, Portrait of an Election-The 1980 Presidential Campaign (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981), p. 195.

...and Timmons, with his solid organization that he believed Carter could not match in place across the country was willing to ride with it. ‘The risks were so great,’ he said later, ‘because we were going to win [the election anyway].’ Timmons made a lengthy argument to Reagan and the inner circle. ‘I wanted to make sure the governor knew what was out there politically. The things I talked about were direct mail, saving our media money [$5 million for the last days], we had a lot of [radio and television tapes] in the can.’ Timmons reviewed the whole volunteer and field operation, which included distribution of five million pieces of literature and hundreds of thousands of yard signs, a ‘fantastic’ door-to-door canvass operation, and the placing of literally millions of phone calls to most Republican precincts in the country and some Democratic.

— Jack W. Germond and Jules Witcover, Blue Smoke & Mirrors-How Reagan Won & Why Carter Lost the Election of 1980 (New York: Viking Press, 1981), pp. 270, 271.

The first briefing group was headed by William Timmons, an old political pro, with long experience in the campaigns and administrations of Nixon and Ford. Separate teams were established for each major government department and agency. Most of the people on the teams, besides being smart and tough-minded, had a lot of government experience. They knew how Washington worked.

— Martin Anderson, Revolution (San Diego & New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988), pp. 198,199.

Timmons was an old Young Republican leader whom I had known from my days as a reporter. He had worked on the Hill as well as in politics and campaigns. He was one of the class acts in the Nixon White House.

— Lyn Nofziger, NOFZIGER (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1992), p. 100.

Timmons had been one of the young recruits who worked with me on the Goldwater campaign, and he already signed up to work for Reagan as political director. I had a great deal of respect for him because he had beaten me in 1968 when I backed Reagan and he was Nixon’s floor manager. Timmons showed me what he was capable of doing that year, and I regarded him as one of the best convention men in the country.

— F. Clifton White with Jerome Tuccille, Politics as a Noble Calling – The Memoirs of F. Clifton White (Ottawa, IL: Jameson Books, 1994), p. 5.

Cooler heads in the Ford White House – like Cheney and Bill Timmons, Ford’s talented political aide – did not agree with the others around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue about Reagan’s interest in running or his intelligence or his appeal.

— Craig Shirley, Reagan’s Revolution (Nashville, TN: Nelson Current, 2005), pp. 47, 48.

Rtally3 (talk) 20:10, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Relevance tags

User:Collect has restored 3 "irrel" tags. This would be a good place to discuss them individually. Each has something to do with Timmons or the historical context of stuff about Timmons, and it's not clear why he is questioning the relevance, except presumably to suggest removing the statements. Collect, please say here what each tag is about. Dicklyon (talk) 06:35, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

• First -- the insertion of the 1972 election wrt the Lennon memo. Discussion above had others agreeing that it was simply not relevant to this BLP.

• Second - the bit about the ACLU and FOIA which has absolutely no relevance to the BLP of Mr. Timmons.

• Third - the bit which basically says "an article accused him of being involved in Watergate. The article was wrong" In sum -- the damage is done by the accusation, and so the accusation is not healed by saying it was false. In a BLP, an accusation which has already been proven false does not belong. Consider a BLP of John Doe with a section "John Doe was accused of murder by the Washington Post. Later it turned out he did not commit the murder." Is that a fair sort of section in a BLP? I would trust not.

In each case, by the way, I have made the reasoning clear before. Collect (talk) 17:10, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarifications, Collect. I sort of agree on the third; that one was added by your buddy Rtally3 on Feb. 1, and you tagged it in this diff though your edit summary didn't say that's what it was about. Anyway, it's pretty clearly relevant, but there are reasons to leave it out anyway, so I'll let you work that out with Rtally3.

On the other two, it's about connecting Timmons's actions in receiving and sending these famous memos to what the memos were about and how they came to be known. The sentence in question has two tags for some reason:

• The Nixon administration's attempt to deport Lennon before the U.S. presidential election, 1972,[13][relevance?] was documented after these memos were discovered, after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took on the Wiener v FBI "Lennon files" case to challenge the problems in the implemenation of the Freedom of Information Act.[14][relevance?]

It's very clearly relevant that the memos were about "The Nixon administration's attempt to deport Lennon before the U.S. presidential election, 1972." Did you look at the source (or maybe watch the movie, even)? And it's clearly relevant how these memos came to light, in a precedent-setting lawsuit about the FOIA. Is one sentence too much to situate Timmon's involvement in this history?

If you'd like to assert that others support your position that these are irrelevant could you cite a diff, or at least a username that I can search for? Dicklyon (talk) 06:51, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

The deportation memo was almost a year before the election -- clearly the odds of a memo being within a year before or after an election are quite high, and the cite does NOT connect the election campaign to Thurmond's memo. Hence - irrelevant. And movies are NOT RS for WP purposes. The ACLU case was not about Timmons at all, hence is not relevant n a BLP about Timmons. It might be relevant in a separate article about the Lennon memos, but putting it in the BLP is COATRACK at best. And since I state the case, the tags should remain. Thanks! Collect (talk) 11:57, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Are you disputing the analysis of historians who said the deportation attempt was about Nixon's reelection efforts? Sounds like WP:OR on your part. Both of the cited sources talk about Lennon and his plans and the deportation attempt with respect to the upcoming 1972 election; apparently, the Nixonians didn't start soon enough to work on the problem... Obviously, the movie is not cited as a source, but maybe if you saw it you'd have a better working knowledge of the times. Dicklyon (talk) 23:13, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I take it that you have failed to find anyone supporting your position on this, so I'll take these distracting old tags out until you do. Dicklyon (talk) 23:14, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Conversely - only you have removed tags for which a reasoning has been given. I note that you are the only person who argues that the election was relevant in the first place --- whle outside editors found it irrelevant. Thanks for abiding by WP guidelines in the tag retention. Collect (talk) 00:28, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Since only the two of us have commented directly on this issue of relevance of the memos and the election, a third opinion has been requested. 01:38, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I haven't been active on this page lately but I will add to the discussion to say I can't understand Collect's argument that the election isn't relevant; it's pretty clearly one of the big things that got the subject a mention in reliable sources. Vague disputes of established historians by wikipedia editors don't cut it -- see WP:OR. csloat (talk) 02:49, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi captain -- this is not a dispute about a source, it is about the RELEVANCE of the election to the Thurmond memo and Timmons. Collect (talk) 11:16, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

It is also now about abuse of cite -- the cite given shows the memo, and makes NONE of the other claims cited for it connecting anything with Timmons at all. Hence it is COATRACK, SYN and worse. Thanks for making me look at the cite given! Collect (talk) 11:52, 25 February 2009 (UTC).

I'm sorry you weren't able to find the relevant text in the cited source; I added the page numbers to help you. Dicklyon (talk) 15:33, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

The book says nothing about Timmons -- which means citing it for unrelated material is still using the cite for irrelevant information. Sort of like citing Encarta -- on the basis that if it has an article on Timmons that therefore every article it has on everyoine is citable <g>. Collect (talk) 22:33, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand what you're saying; both books clearly identify Timmons as receiver and sender of the subject memos. It's all their in black and white; the sentence you don't like just says what the memos were part of why they are historically important. Dicklyon (talk) 04:03, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

NONE of the cites links Timmons to attempting to deport Lennon -- they show him ANSWERING a memo. None make any allegations at all about Timmons in the matter. None connect the ACLU bit to Timmons at all, nor do any say the ACLU was specifically interested in the Timmons and Thurmons memos. In short - none of the cites adds an iota of evidence connecting Timmons to any political effort to deport Lennon at all. You are headed to WP:OR on this one for sure! Collect (talk) 12:18, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Third opinion

I notice that the third sentence being discussed seems to be deleted, therefore I'm assuming it needs no comment. As for the first two irrelevance tags, if there is no evidence Timmons was actively involved in the Lennon deportation case (as opposed to just reading a memo, as mentioned in the preceding sentence), then that part doesn't really belong in this BLP as it's just unneccesary detail. Bettia (bring on the trumpets!) 14:35, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

It's unclear what you mean by "unnecessary detail", or what policy or guideline motivates the comment. How can the memos be understood without the sentence The Nixon administration's failed attempt to deport Lennon before the U.S. presidential election, 1972, campaign season was documented when these memos were discovered, after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took on the Wiener v FBI "Lennon files" case to challenge the problems in the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act. to situate them with respect to the Nixon white house, which is the topic of that section? Dicklyon (talk) 16:09, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I sort of agree with Bettia -- unless sources say that Timmons played an active role, say: pushing for Lennon's deportation, it is not worth mentioning here, if the memo was simply one of thousands of documents that passed through his office. Jayen466 17:28, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

As there is absolutely zero evidence connecting Timmons with the Lennon case other than the single memo cited, I consider your opinion valid. I would then also consider the fact that the memo was gotten by the ACLU is also "not worth mentioning" as well? Collect (talk) 17:32, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Based on what I've seen, yes. Not worth mentioning. If any RS make the point that Timmons played an active, noteworthy role in the Lennon deportation attempt, let editors present them now; otherwise I suggest we remove the para and be done with this issue. Jayen466 17:46, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Of course, the material in "Gimme some truth" (p. 2–5) might well be relevant and useful in our articles on the Nixon administration, but not here in this BLP. Jayen466 17:49, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I have added quotes to the refs since Collect can't read. They make it very clear what was going on; I have not attributed anything to Timmons that's not supported in the refs; I haven't even asserted what some refs assert, that he was "central to" the effort to deport Lennon. Note that some refs don't bother to mention him by name, but talk of the White House and the administration when referring to these memos; since he was the adminstration/White House representative to whom Thurmond's memo was addressed, and the memo is shown in the same refs, the connection is plenty explicit there. Dicklyon (talk) 16:27, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Please refactor the PA. The cites state that he received a memo, and that he answered the memo sent to him. They show nothing else. Period. And so far you have not given any cites whatever that actually say more than that. The bit about the campaign and the ACLU is (as you state on my Talk page) "reading between the lines." WP does not use that as a rationale for edits. Collect (talk) 17:26, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Please don't invert my meaning by quoting me out of context; here is what I said. Dicklyon (talk) 04:13, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, the article in The Nation does at least tie Timmons to the deportation attempt in a non-tangential and notable way. It appears to have been written by a Professor of History, so I'd say that makes it a RS. I think pretty much all the other sources cited in connection with the case at present are illegitimate, since they don't really mention Timmons, but the Nation article and the Gimme Some Truth book (because it is explicitly referred to in the article) are citable here. I would suggest we use this material with attribution, and use it in the Reception section rather than the bio section. Jayen466 21:09, 27 February 2009 (UTC) The little para cited to "The Swarming Lobbyists" could go to form a reception section as well. A Reception section could perhaps contain more from Wiener, with attribution, but it should also contain the voices that profoundly disagree with Wiener -- e.g. "Timmons was a loyalist who did all an honest man could for Nixon…. Timmons is one of those who have given lobbying an honorable name." (see above). Jayen466 21:14, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Wiener does not make any connection between Timmons and the election, nor between Timmons and the ACLU suit. And the article is clearly an opinion piece, thus any statements should be noted as his opinion. Collect (talk) 23:43, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I guess you didn't read the quotes I added to the refs, then? Anyway, I took your suggestion and added an attributed quote that sets up the topic of the paragraph and makes the relevance more explicit from the start. Dicklyon (talk) 02:55, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what Jayen is getting at when he says "I think pretty much all the other sources cited in connection with the case at present are illegitimate, since they don't really mention Timmons." Which ones don't mention Timmons? I found them all by searching for Timmons, and the searches are apparent in the book hits, where his name is highlighted. There are other sources than mention various combinations of Thurmond, Nixon, memo, 1972 election, and Lennon, but I didn't cite any unless they mentioned Timmons. Dicklyon (talk) 04:18, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

One of the faults of "sources by Google" is that one really also needs to search again within the book. Where the entire reference is the memo, and the books says nothing of substance about Timmons, the book is a poor reference (we already have references for the memo, after all). Collect (talk) 14:21, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

These are just books; the Google book search link is just given as a convenience for you to be able to check what they say. Which ones are you saying don't say anything about Timmons? (I asked Jayen a similar question, but no answer so far). I believe I've provided quotes from all of them about what they are cited for. Dicklyon (talk) 22:11, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

In comments on the article page I specified which ones had no substantive amount of material on Timmons. Cites which are not actually in any sense about the person for which they are used as reliable sources are as weak as imaginable. Try counting the number of times "search within book" shows any actual text on Timmons. Collect (talk) 22:16, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I've been removing comments that don't belong in the article. Can you say specifically which book or two you don't think should be cited or does not support what it's cited for? The number of times they use his name is not a useful statistic, unless it's zero. I have in fact looked at every use of his name in all those references, but I don't see what your issue is. Dicklyon (talk) 22:41, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I checked each and every cite you gave. Start there. Collect (talk) 23:12, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

You're not being constructive. Each cite mentions Timmons. Can you point out one at least that we can start a discussion on? Dicklyon (talk) 23:42, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I just found and fixed one error: the sentence According to historian Jon Wiener, Timmons "played a central role in the Nixon Administration's campaign to deport John Lennon in 1972." was linked to the wrong Wiener ref. You've taken that sentence out several times, without mentioning why, as part of your edits to insert irrelevant tags. Do you object to it? Dicklyon (talk) 23:46, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Collect that if the cited source does not mention Timmons' name in direct relation to the Lennon case, then it is not a source we should use in that section. You helpfully added verbatim source quotes to the refs; a number of these don't mention Timmons' name. If the cited source does mention Timmons' name, then it would be better to quote the part that does. If the reference to Timmons' name is in a different context, somewhere else in the book, then we shouldn't use that book for detail on the Lennon case in this article. We should only use those parts here where a RS establishes a direct relationship between Timmons and the Lennon case. That is not so hard to understand, is it? Jayen466 23:50, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The other editor has officially given me a 3RR warning for keeping the relevancy tags in the article. I submit that the relevancy is being discussed. I would ask the courtesy of keeping them in place until the issue is actually decided. Thanks! Collect (talk) 23:57, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

You should look at your edits; instead of restoring tags as your edit summary said, you were in fact reverting additional material, undoing my attempts to move the article forward by attributing the things you've been questioning, etc. For example, this edit of yours removed sourced material that I had restored and re-inserts your unfounded opinions into the quotes. Your last 4 edits are simple unconstructive reverts; not all of me, and not all alike, but all simple reverts. Dicklyon (talk) 00:06, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Jayen, which source are you referring to? Just because his name isn't in the quote I used doesn't mean it's not in the book. For example, Kane refers to him in the quoted sentence as "The assistant to the President". Dicklyon (talk) 00:06, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Fourth opinion

The above discussion is WP:TLDR. Collect, can you tell me how you would like the paragraph to read? The Wiener quote is certainly well sourced that begins the paragraph--are you objecting to that? The remaining material seems extraneous COATRACK detail that is WP:UNDUE, whether or not it is WP:SYN: it adds nothing that isn't stated by the first sentence, and belongs in John Lennon, not here, but I can be persuaded otherwise; Dicklyon, what's the argument for including it? And one paragraph from each of you, please, I don't go by WP:LASTWORD. THF (talk) 01:33, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

"In 1980 Timmons was the national political director for the Reagan–Bush campaign"

This is dubious. Charles Black was the national political director for the Reagan-Bush campaign. See, e.g., [3] [4] THF (talk) 01:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Tags

There are many many unreferenced claims in this article. The very first one I checked out turned out to be false. I thus have absolutely no confidence in any of the other unreferenced claims in this article. I am therefore adding the {disputed} and {originalresearch} tags. THF (talk) 05:23, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a refimprove tag would be more appropriate to your complaint, unless you're going to tell us what points you dispute, and what points you consider to be original research. Dicklyon (talk) 05:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Continued disruption of article

I've asked User:Collect to use the talk page to air his problems, but he keeps putting comments inside the article, even inside quotes in the article, instead. For example, in

• "Early in 1972 he sent a secret memo to John Mitchell and the White House reporting on Lennon's plans and suggesting that deportation 'would be a strategy counter-measure'. (Timmons not mentioned in quote)"

he doesn't realize that this memo "to the White House" is the one we are discussing that is addressed to Timmons. And that in

• "The assistant to the President wrote back in March and assured Senator Thurmond that the government had issued direct orders to rescind John's visa. The Justice Department and the Senate subcommittee feared that John and his friends would disrupt the Republican National Convention in Miami, and other events leading up to the 1972 presidential election. (quote does not mention Timmons in regard to the campaign at all)",

the assistant to the President is referring to Timmons, as is clear on the book page cited. And again in

• "Senator Strom Thurmond sent a memo to the White House and Attorney General John Mitchell informing them that John Lennon and so-called radical friends were planning a national concert tour to coincide with the 1972 election campaign. ... The John Lennon files constitute a small but significant chapter in the history of the sixties, and of the Watergate era, and also in the history of bureaucratic secrecy and government abuse of power. (this quote does not mention Timmons at all)"

the memo to the White House is this same memo which is shown addressed to Timmons. And what's with

• "A memo dated February 4, 1972, was forwarded to former Attorney General John Mitchell and Bill Timmons of the White House by Sen. Strom Thurmond, (portion not relating to Timmons is not relevant)"?

What portion is not relating to Timmons?

Anyway, I'm getting fed up with Collect's refusal to allow sourced material about Timmons into the article. He argued strenuously that

• "clearly the odds of a memo being within a year before or after an election are quite high, and the cite does NOT connect the election campaign to Thurmond's memo,"

and

• "Wiener does not make any connection between Timmons and the election, nor between Timmons and the ACLU suit,"

and

• "NONE of the cites links Timmons to attempting to deport Lennon -- they show him ANSWERING a memo. None make any allegations at all about Timmons in the matter. None connect the ACLU bit to Timmons at all, nor do any say the ACLU was specifically interested in the Timmons and Thurmons memos. In short - none of the cites adds an iota of evidence connecting Timmons to any political effort to deport Lennon at all."

which are obviously false. I added the quotes to clarify that the sources do indeed make these connections, since he doesn't seem to be able to follow links and page numbers. And I added the attributed statement of historial Jon Wiener that Timmons was "central to" these proceedings; that much is not stated as fact but as his opinion, as it's obviously a matter of interpretation, but there's no doubt that he was CONNECTED to these efforts, and there's a lot of ink on that connection.

Can we put an end to this nonsense please? Dicklyon (talk) 05:14, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

(1) What's the evidence of connection between Timmons and the ACLU suit?

Do you mean what's the evidence, or what's the connection? The connection is that the memo was found via the ACLU suit; the evidence is cited (The Secreet Histories). Maybe should also cite p.1 of Gimme some truth. Actually, now that I review these, there's some ambiguity as to whether these memos came out in the original FOIA request or in the later ACLU suit; given that ambiguity, I wont' object is someone wants to take out that ACLU mention and just say them came out in the FOIA request--unless I find something more clear on it. Dicklyon (talk) 06:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

What relevance is the FOIA request? Is there any evidence that Timmons intervened in the litigation? Functionaries at Timmons's level (and higher even) don't have any say how the Department of Justice responds to a FOiA request or lawsuit, or any authority to release (or prevent release of) memos on their own--much to their chagrin, as I can tell you first-hand from seeing government officials near tears realizing that I was going to have my grubby hands on their emails and the press would have them a week later after I was done looking at them. If Timmons wasn't a party to the suit, it seems as much a collateral detail as what songs Lennon working on that year, i.e., nothing to do with Timmons. The FOIA litigation may be relevant to the John Lennon article or a fork from that article, but it doesn't really belong in this guy's biography. Unless he was a party, or unless he actively denied a role and the FOIA request showed otherwise. The memo exists, and no one currently denies that it exists: what is the relevance to this article how it was disclosed or what typewriter was used to create it? THF (talk) 06:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

No, nobody has suggested that Timmons intervened; just what it says in the article. What it has to do with Timmons is that he received and wrote these famous secret memos that were discovered via an FOIA request. That's all. Every book that mentions the memos mentions that they were obtained via an FOIA request, so it seems to be a relevant fact about these memos to and from Timmons, worth mentioning; it only takes a few words. Dicklyon (talk) 06:59, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

(2) Why isn't simply the Wiener comment plus a cite to the book sufficient to make the case? (Or is Collect objecting to the Wiener comment, too? That's well-sourced, though the fact that it was in op-ed in The Nation should be in the main text.)

The shorter text and more concise cites of a few weeks ago should have been plenty (though I'm not sure what you mean by "to make the case", as no case is being proposed or made here, just a simple report of what's found in books). I added more sources and the quotes because Collect kept arguing that the cited sources did not say what they said. Dicklyon (talk) 06:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Funny how the WP:LUC works. I think we can return to the more concise text; the Wiener summary in The Nation states the POV plainly. I'll take a closer look at the other cites. THF (talk) 06:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

(3) WP:WEIGHT comes into play: this is a single memo in the man's life, and I don't see why it merits more than a sentence or two.

Can you respond briefly please? I'm new to this page, and lengthy rehashes of debates that have already happened are not helpful -- the page is such a mess that you did not even notice that I've already posted a comment trying to figure out what's going on. THF (talk) 05:21, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow, this sounds like the exact same behavior which is going on right now on several pages, including Business Plot, Skull and Bones, Union Banking Corporation, Prescott Bush, has Collect deleted over 1,100 referenced words, with no conversation before? That is what Collect did on the Business Plot article a couple of weeks ago, and THF deleted 1,368 words in 1 hour 14 minutes, with no prior talk page discussion. Joe the Plumber has been protected off and on for months because of Collect, and Business Plot was protected too. Business Plot now is a shell of its former self, thanks to Collect and THF's tag teaming there. THF and Collect have worked together for some time now, as far back as BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant, but lately the tag teaming and edit warring has become even more disruptive. Ikip (talk) 05:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Funny, because it seems like I'm going to end up disagreeing with Collect here. And you and Collect ganged up against me on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Morton Brilliant (2nd nomination). And I've never edited Union Banking Corporation. A weird conspiracy you've got there. But your perfect record for harassment and disruption with personal attacks is intact. Are you really sure you want to follow me around to page after page you were previously uninvolved in when you were just blocked for harassing me? THF (talk) 05:34, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

This "single memo in a man's life" got him more ink than anything else in the article. Just reporting what's out there. It was just 2 sentences five days ago, but I kept trying to make the relevance connections more explicit to address Collect's objections, which made it expand to the currenet 6 short sentences. Dicklyon (talk) 06:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's not true -- I see dozens of quotes above here, and it's just one author who made a big deal about Timmons and Lennon. THF (talk) 06:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that only Wiener "makes a big deal about Timmons and Lennon," but lots of authors see fit to mention it. Here are three more. Dicklyon (talk) 07:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know who's following whom here, but I'd appreciate it if either or both of you would look at the issues instead of just quibbling with each other. Dicklyon (talk) 06:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll try not to respond to my harasser. Sorry. THF (talk) 06:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Suggested compromise

According to an op-ed in The Nation by historian Jon Wiener, Timmons "played a central role in the Nixon Administration's campaign to deport John Lennon in 1972."[12] Timmons, responding to a 1972 memo to him from Senator Strom Thurmond suggesting the deportation because of Lennon's support of the New Left,[13] wrote Thurmond a month later that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had served a deportation notice on Lennon,[14] though Lennon successfully avoided deportation.[15][16][17]

...

==See also==

• Wiener v. FBI

(where 12 through 17 correspond to the footnotes in this version, though perhaps without the block quotes, and certainly without Collect's editorial comments about the footnotes)

Simply put, the FOIA litigation to retrieve the memo is not relevant to Timmons; it's just a coincidence that this was the issue the ACLU decided to litigate over, and not some other FOIA request. Explaining the history of the retrieval of the memo clutters the biography: it doesn't belong in the paragraph because it doesn't support the topic sentence, and it's jarring and UNDUE as a separate paragraph. (And the details are too complex and unwieldy to simply make it a subordinate clause--I tried.) The fact that that litigation was notable, well, that's exactly what the wikilinks in WP:SEEALSO are for. (Except on preview, I see that it's a red-link and that the current article pipes it to a redundant Jon Wiener link--all of which argues further against inclusion. Not that someone shouldn't fill in that red-link if the litigation is notable.)

I can understand Collect's objection: it seems to me from the primary documents that Wiener has overstated the case for Timmons's involvement. But Wiener's statement is V/RS, and the Wikipedia standard is verifiability, not truth; I'd like it if there was balance from another independent RS, but it's just such a trivial fact that that is not likely, though if we find it, it should go in. Because we have credited it to Wiener, there's not a BLP issue, and we've given sufficient context that intelligent readers can see through his overstatement. THF (talk) 08:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I endorse the above version by User:THF and propose that we implement it. Jayen466 12:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable enough. Collect (talk) 12:21, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a bit incomplete if it doesn't say why they wanted to deport him, which was to prevent him messing up the Nixon re-election try. Many sources make this connection explicit. Dicklyon (talk) 15:29, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't object to a sourced sentence saying "Some historians believe the motivation for the attempted deportation was to assist the Nixon re-election campaign." While that is a colorable interpretation of events, I don't think the Thurmond memo or Timmons memo are explicit enough to state that reasoning as NPOV. Thurmond was 70 years old, and it could have simply been good-faith fear of rock and roll and anti-war demonstrators during a tumultuous time when riots were not uncommon--the letter explicitly mentions the 1968 Chicago disruptions and support for jailed radicals. A mixed motivation is also possible. And if other historians have other interpretations, that's worth mentioning, too. But it's okay to mention a verifiable POV on the issue, so long as we don't start loading down the paragraph making it UNDUE. THF (talk) 15:39, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think coloring it as a belief of some makes sense, when it's reported as fact in multiple relevant sources, has not been challenged, and is pretty explicit in the primary documents as quotes in the article now demonstrate. Also, the see-also to Wiener v FBI disconnects that very relevant case from where it matters. Dicklyon (talk) 15:57, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

• "has not been challenged" -- I'm challenging it. It's not a NPOV unless the participants have admitted that was their motivation, and there were other plausible motivations, including the ones explicitly stated in the memo. In addition, Kane's version of events is closer to my hypothesis than yours. This is a BLP, so we source controversial claims.

I meant challenged in sources; that is, are there alternative POVs on this that we can cite, or is it unanimously understood to be about the election? Dicklyon (talk) 16:20, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I think your version misreads what Kane said about the motivation: "The Justice Department and the Senate subcommittee feared that John and his friends would disrupt the Republican National Convention"; that isn't about the election (other than temporally), that's about the very real fear of repeat of 1968 Chicago in an age of Weathermen and Kent State. Given the different interpretations, I think it better to just go with the cites (or just keep the footnoted block quotes to avoid cluttering the text) rather than trying to characterize what each of them says; if there's a Attempted deportation of John Lennon article, that would be the place to discuss the various interpretations. Indeed, since, according to Kane, the motivation was that of DOJ and the Senate, rather than Timmons, I begin to doubt whether it should be in the main text at all, though I don't object to block-quotes in the footnotes since each of these sources only discusses the memo for a few sentences. THF (talk) 16:31, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

• If Wiener v. FBI "matters," write the article about that case. Right now, it's a red-link, suggesting that a Wikipedia editor has never thought it mattered until now. In any event, it has nothing to do with Timmons and doesn't belong. We're not mentioning United States v. Nixon, either, which matters much more, but has nothing to do with Timmons, either. THF (talk) 16:13, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I made a redirect to the right place so we don't have to explicitly pipe it (is the dot in v. needed? I used Wiener v FBI as it says in the Timmons article); but maybe it does need to be worked on. Dicklyon (talk) 16:20, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

US cases have a dot; UK cases don't. At the moment, the section about the case in Jon Wiener isn't really about the case, it's about WP:PUFF for Jon Wiener and how notable he is. THF (talk) 16:31, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Odd article -- appears to be clear COI (editor is "jonwiener" and is a teensy bit PUFF). Collect (talk) 16:34, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

FOI mention

I feel the reintroduced mention of the FOI in the Lennon section is WP:UNDUE. What do other editors feel? Jayen466 10:36, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I strongly agree. The FOI bit has absolutely nothing to do with Timmons, and has, in fact, no relationship to why he wrote any memo. To connect him with it is applying "propter hoc ergo post hoc" reasoning. Collect (talk) 11:15, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Jayen. Timmons was not a participant in the suit, and it's far from clear that the suit is even independently notable. THF (talk) 16:07, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. These secret memos and their discovery via FOIA are discussed in numerous books; they're probably the single biggest thing that Timmons is known for in the Nixon administration. One brief mention that they came out via an FOIA request is hardly undue weight. Dicklyon (talk) 15:55, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Might you restore the apparently accidentally removed tags? Thanks! Collect (talk) 22:58, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

And that should be mentioned -- under John Lennon. Else every person in the White House could have exactly the same mention. The only thing Timmons did about Lennon was -- write one memo. He also was chief liaison at one point to Congress, IIRC -- which was certainly a far bigger role than the memo is. Would you put the FOIA bit in every Nixon administration aide's bio? Thurmond's bio? Numerous books? "Your search - "john lennon" timmons memo FOIA - did not match any documents. " Nor any variants. So much for them being discussed "in numerous books." Collect (talk) 16:06, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Should be mentioned here, too. The memo is what's known; it's not know if this is all he did. I added some more sources about FOIA and the "secret" nature of the memos and patched up the funny "though" bit that THF had inserted as he gutted the paragraph. Dicklyon (talk) 16:10, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

A BLP is not a place for speculation "it's not known" is not a reason for including this -- there has been absolutely zero presented to show he did anything other than send a memo -- I doubt he even typed it himself. And assume AGF about edits. Collect (talk) 16:18, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think I "gutted" the paragraph. Every footnote from the original paragraph remains, and I gave extensive reasoning on the talk-page for what I included and excluded, and obtained consensus before I added the paragraph to the page. THF (talk) 16:30, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

• Agree with Collect and THF. Dicklyon, please consider accepting the consensus. Jayen466 23:36, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we can reach an actual consensus via some actual compromise that involves both sides in this dispute. See if you like the new short paragraph I just re-arranged. Dicklyon (talk) 06:35, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

There was compromise. Collect very plausibly wanted the whole thing out, and conceded on that once he realized other editors disagreed with him. THF (talk) 12:44, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The parenthetical mention is still quite irrelevant. And characterizing the memos as "secret" is misleading -- all internal government memos, including Obama's breakfast choices, are "secret" if you wish to use that term. It is, however, quite POVish to insist on calling them "secret." Collect (talk) 11:23, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

"Secret" is also not true: it has a specific legal meaning regarding security classification, and, after all, the memo was released. "Internal" is the NPOV adjective, but redundantly obvious. Moreover the paragraph is appallingly written in an attempt to continue to include the COATRACK material. In an op-ed in The Nation, historian Jon Wiener, who discovered these memos about the failed deportation attempt via a Freedom of Information Act request, said that Timmons "played a central role in the Nixon Administration's campaign to deport John Lennon." ? Every single other editor agrees the FOI lawsuit has nothing to do with Timmons, you have presented no evidence that the lawsuit has anything to do with Timmons, yet you have edit-warred to add that material four times in 36 hours. WP:TEDIOUS starts to come into play. THF (talk) 12:44, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I was using secret in the normal sense that it's used in the sources, not in the sense of classfiication; changing that would be fine. As for WP:COATRACK, I looked it up, and you're not making sense. Can you explain what YOU mean by that? As for it being badly written, I think maybe we should request a comment to compare it to your version, which didn't read like a sensible paragraph at all. The quote from Wiener makes little sense if you don't identify his relationship to the memos. Dicklyon (talk) 16:04, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Wiener's comment doesn't make sense because it isn't consistent with the verifiable facts, not because of anything I did--you'll note that his smear piece didn't bother to support that sentence with any facts. What Wiener said is V and RS, so it goes in, but we're not going to make up or puff the facts so that Wiener's comment makes more sense. The way to achieve neutrality is to straightforwardly report what actually happened. Multiple people have already explained to you why the FOIA litigation is irrelevant to a biography of Timmons, and it's not productive to repeat arguments when you're not providing any new reasons to include the material. You can have the WP:LASTWORD unless you're going to say something new. THF (talk) 18:17, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

This is the first you've mentioned about Wiener's comment, as far as I can tell. Obviously, it's the opinion of a historian who studied the primary sources, and should be reported only as such. I was just trying to clarify where he got the sources he's commenting on. If you want to exclude his statement, that's a different issue, but quoting it free-floating before a couple of sentences that don't connect to it seems silly. Dicklyon (talk) 18:21, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

And you still haven't explained what you mean by COATRACK. Dicklyon (talk) 18:45, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Request for Comment on Lennon deportation memos paragraph

Several editors have been unable to agree on a good version of the paragraph on the Timmons memos about the attempted deportation of John Lennon. Help us choose one or construct a better one.

I don't believe this is a fair characterization of the dispute. One editor disagrees with three editors who believe that the current version accurately summarizes the issue without including information irrelevant to Timmons. Earlier discussion is at Talk:William_Timmons#Suggested_compromise and Talk:William_Timmons#FOI_mention. THF (talk) 05:18, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

These two recent versions:

Version A:

In an op-ed in The Nation historian Jon Wiener said that Timmons "played a central role in the Nixon Administration's campaign to deport John Lennon in 1972." Timmons, responding to a 1972 memo to him from Senator Strom Thurmond suggesting the deportation because of Lennon's support of the New Left, wrote Thurmond a month later that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had served a deportation notice on Lennon. Lennon successfully avoided deportation.

Version B:

In 1972, Senator Strom Thurmond sent Timmons a secret memo suggesting that John Lennon be deported, because of his support of the New Left, and fears that he and his friends would disrupt the upcoming Republican National Convention and Nixon re-election campaign. Timmons responded a month later, informing Thurmond that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had served a deportation notice on Lennon. In an op-ed in The Nation, historian Jon Wiener, who discovered these memos about the failed deportation attempt via a Freedom of Information Act request, said that Timmons "played a central role in the Nixon Administration's campaign to deport John Lennon."

And these older versions:

Version C:

According to historian Jon Wiener (in an op-ed in The Nation), Timmons "played a central role in the Nixon Administration's campaign to deport John Lennon in 1972." The Strom Thurmond memo of February 7, 1972, recommending deportation of John Lennon, was addressed to Timmons in his role as assistant to President Nixon. The attached file from the Senate Internal Securit Subcommitte associated Lennon with the Chicago Seven and noted that "This group has been strong advocates of the program to 'dump Nixon'." Thurmond told Timmons that "many headaches would be avoided if appropriate action were taken." Timmons responded to Thurmond on March 6, 1972, indicating that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had served a deportation notice on Lennon. The Nixon administration's failed attempt to deport Lennon before the U.S. presidential election, 1972, campaign season was documented when these memos were discovered, after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took on the Wiener v FBI "Lennon files" case to challenge the problems in the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act.

Version D:

The Strom Thurmond memo of February 7, 1972, recommending deportation of John Lennon, was addressed to Timmons in his role as assistant to President Nixon. The attached file from the Senate Internal Securit Subcommitte associated Lennon with the Chicago Seven and noted that "This group has been strong advocates of the program to 'dump Nixon'." Thurmond told Timmons that "many headaches would be avoided if appropriate action were taken." Timmons responded to Thurmond on March 6, 1972, indicating that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had served a deportation notice on Lennon. The Nixon administration's failed attempt to deport Lennon before the U.S. presidential election, 1972, campaign season was documented when these memos were discovered, after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took on the Wiener v FBI "Lennon files" case to challenge the problems in the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act.

Version E:

The Strom Thurmond memo of Feb. 7, 1972, recommending deportation of John Lennon, was addressed to Timmons in his role as assistant to President Nixon, and Timmons responded to Thurmond on March 6, 1972, indicating that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had served a deportation notice on Lennon. The Nixon administration's attempt to deport Lennon before the U.S. presidential election, 1972 failed.

And this newly-added version:

Version F:

In 1972, Senator Strom Thurmond sent Timmons and attorney general John Mitchell an internal memo suggesting that John Lennon be deported, because of his support of the New Left, and fears that he and his friends would disrupt the upcoming Republican National Convention and Nixon re-election campaign. Timmons responded a month later, informing Thurmond that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had served a deportation notice on Lennon. These memos first came to light when they were published in Rolling Stone magazine in 1975; Lennon had received a copy of the memo and used it in his lawsuit against the INS for trying to deport him for political reasons. In an op-ed in The Nation, historian Jon Wiener, who spent many years researching the "Lennon papers" that included these memos about the failed deportation attempt, said that Timmons "played a central role in the Nixon Administration's campaign to deport John Lennon."

Please comment here on how to choose a version, or propose a new one.

Involved editors

• Version A as the version that already has a consensus, does not violate WP:WEIGHT (since we are talking about exactly one memo written by Timmons that merely relayed a decision made by others in the administration at the suggestion of a senator), reflects all of the critical sourced detail without including any original research or misrepresentations of the cited sources, and omits the WP:COATRACK violation of including discussion of a FOIA lawsuit that did not remotely involve the subject of the article. See the now-WP:TEDIOUS discussion at Talk:William_Timmons#Suggested_compromise and Talk:William_Timmons#FOI_mention, and request that an editor drop the WP:STICK. THF (talk) 05:40, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Version B is particularly bad: "secret memo" is both inaccurate and POV, and the last sentence (1) is ridiculously awkwardly phrased and (2) COATRACK's the irrelevant FOIA lawsuit. THF (talk) 19:18, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

This is the version you wrote; we get that. The RfC was intended to get outside comments; feel free to remove this section if you'd like those comments to be less biased. Dicklyon (talk) 05:48, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

• Consensus version A Succinct and accurate. What WP articles all too often forget to be. Collect (talk) 19:20, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
• Version A. The sources only say that Timmons received a memo from Thurmond recommending deportation of Lennon and wrote back to him a month later to inform him of actions taken by the INS. We cannot speculate on what happened between these two events. As for the FOIA, the Nation article clearly says that "The Thurmond-Timmons documents were first published in Rolling Stone, July 31, 1975." The memo is among the documents displayed in the Nation article. According to our article on Jon Wiener, his FOIA request took place almost a decade later. Hence I see no basis for stating that the Thurmond/Timmons communication was part of the documents released under the FOIA. Jayen466 21:01, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a new objection, not previously raised as far as I can recall. If the text is wrong, or not verifiable, that should be fixed. But it has only been removed so far for "relevance" issues. The sources give the definite impression that Timmons got there as part of his FOIA request; it's also possible that they came out before as well; in any case, he's the historian who investigated the whole incident and got the "Lennon papers" via FOIA request and subsequent long lawsuit, and studied them, and wrote a book, and that's why he's the guy who opinion about Timmons's role is worth quoting; we should mention the connection. Sounds like a way forward, anyway, as now THF has an objection that's not so hard to address. Dicklyon (talk) 17:02, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

This isn't relevant. I don't think Jayen's claim is correct, but Timmons was not part of the FOIA lawsuit, whether or not the two memos in question were retrieved as part of that lawsuit. THF (talk) 17:04, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

• Version A is broken: The version being supported by THF, Collect, and Jayen is motivated by trying to minimize the content about things that are negative in Timmons's past; Collect has a very long history here of doing that, and the others recently joined him. This version (A) doesn't even identify who the guy is who is having his opinion quoted, or why he might be expected to know anything about it. The other versions (or some at least) identify him as the historian who obtained these secret memos via a FOIA request, spent 16 years getting the rest of the Lennon papers, and wrote a book about it. Dicklyon (talk) 04:20, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Please redact your personal comments about me. It is not helpful to getting the article improved, and very much goes against AGF. And agasin it is clear the memos were not "Secret" as your usage impkies -- they were internak government memos and as "secret" as Obama's breakfast menu. Thanks! Collect (talk) 12:03, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Further note one editor redacted coments by me without notify me of the redaction. Use History to find out what my poists were. Thanks! Collect (talk) 12:06, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

My comments were not about you personally, but about your account's edit history on this article. It's easy to check. Dicklyon (talk) 16:57, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

• Version F added: To address the substantive error that THF pointed out, I've added a new version above. Dicklyon (talk) 20:27, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Version F has weight and SYN problems, as it is about Lennon, not about Timmons. None of the added language between A and F is about Timmons, which shows the SYN/COATRACK problem. Timmons wasn't a defendant in Lennon's lawsuit; he wasn't even deposed. So what relevance is the lawsuit (which is arguably not notable)? Put it in the red-linked Lennon v. Marks. THF (talk) 21:21, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The last sentence -- In an op-ed in The Nation, historian Jon Wiener, who spent many years researching the "Lennon papers" that included these memos about the failed deportation attempt, said that Timmons "played a central role in the Nixon Administration's campaign to deport John Lennon." -- is clearly about Timmons; the material that was added to it -- who spent many years researching the "Lennon papers" that included these memos about the failed deportation attempt -- is needed to say why Wiener is a relevant person to quote the opinion of. The other added sentence -- These memos first came to light when they were published in Rolling Stone magazine in 1975; Lennon had received a copy of the memo and used it in his lawsuit against the INS for trying to deport him for political reasons. -- is to point out a bit about how these memos we're discussing connect, per the article that first revealed them to the general public. I'm not sure what you mean by "SYN/COATRACK" here, or why you think this sentence adds too much weight. Can you explain? Dicklyon (talk) 22:50, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Outside editors

• Not really much difference between these versions, when you come right down to it...I'm having trouble understanding exactly why you think this is worth arguing about. I suggest you all take a voluntary one month break from editing the article. In other words, chill. Dlabtot (talk) 21:47, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
• I agree with Dlabtot - not much difference. I edge towards version B as the best. Jezhotwells (talk) 19:00, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I have been asked by THF to comment specifically on whether the mention of the freedom of information request violates WP:NOR. On checking the references it appeasr possible that it might. Weiner does not specifically name his sources - but he does state taht the letters and documenst were originally piblished in Rolling Stone in 1975. He also cites a (presumably) TV documentary and a 2006 book. THese are stated to be his sources, not FOIA requests, although such requests may have sourced the documentary and book. That would have to be established. Jezhotwells (talk) 19:38, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

The Lennon memos

As it turns out, the situation is not as simple as either THF or I stated above. Subsections below are all started by me (Dicklyon (talk) 04:23, 13 March 2009 (UTC))

The FOIA Thurmond–Timmons memos

It appears that I was right, in saying what many of the sources say and/or imply, which is that the two memos between Thurmond and Timmons about the Lennon deportation move were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, in the 1980s.

The memo from Thurmond to Timmons, reproduced in several of the cited sources, does not indicate that another copy was being sent to attorney general John Mitchell. It is not marked confidential or anything like that.

The memo as written might very well refer to the memo in hand -- there is no requirement that we posit a "missing memo" for sure. And internal memos are not routinely classified on an individual basis. The classification is based on it being an internal memo, hence covered under Executive Privilege and other standards. Collect (talk) 10:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

There is no "missing memo". Both memos are published in facsimile. One in 1975, the other after it was found by FOIA request. Dicklyon (talk) 15:39, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The Thurmond–Mitchell memo

As shown in the July 31, 1975, Rolling Stone article "Lennon's Lawsuit: Memo from Thurmond", there was another memo from Thurmond, with the same Feb. 4 date and same content paragraphs, addressed to Mitchell and marked "PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL", which included the hand-written ps "I also sent Bill Timmons a copy of the memorandums [sic]".

The book Gimme some truth by Jon Wiener says under the memo "Fig. 1. The Thurmond memo. Another copy was sent to Attorney General John Mitchell. Originally published in Rolling Store, July 31, 1975." It's too bad he didn't punctuate it to be less ambiguous; it's now clear that the "originally published" referred to the "another copy", not to the one he was publishing in Fig. 1.

Relevance and what should we say

Since Wiener obtained all the Lennon papers through a lenghty FOIA fight, and concluded that Timmons was at the center of the Nixon attempt to deport Lennon, based on this exchange with Thurmond, the attached memo that they refer to, and maybe other papers about the context, we need to find a good concise way to say what these memos are and why Wiener is the relevant person to express on opinion.

Since my version F above was based on THF's erroneous interpretation of what it was that was orignally publisihed in the Rolling Stone in 1975, the closest we've come so far is the version B above. Modified thus to take out "secret":

In 1972, Senator Strom Thurmond sent Timmons an official memo suggesting that John Lennon be deported, because of his support of the New Left, and fears that he and his friends would disrupt the upcoming Republican National Convention and Nixon re-election campaign. Timmons responded a month later, informing Thurmond that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had served a deportation notice on Lennon. In an op-ed in The Nation, historian Jon Wiener, who discovered these memos about the failed deportation attempt via a Freedom of Information Act request, said that Timmons "played a central role in the Nixon Administration's campaign to deport John Lennon."

Nope. Your assertion is still errant. You are pushing material into this BLP which, at best, would be relevant in the Lennon article. Collect (talk) 10:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Can you be more specific about what assertion is errant? Or what material is less than relevant to the topic? Dicklyon (talk) 15:37, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Who likes what

While THF and Collect fight all changes that add anything unflattering about Timmons, we have managed to get few outside voices to help clarify how to move forward. We did get one comment that "I edge towards version B as the best" from Jezhotwells before THF prompted him to object, based on what's now been shown to be a misinterpretation of the sources.

THF keeps mentioning COATRACK with respect to this paragraph. But WP:COATRACK says A coatrack article is a Wikipedia article that ostensibly discusses the nominal subject, but in reality is a cover for a tangentially related bias subject. The nominal subject is used as an empty coatrack, which ends up being mostly obscured by the "coats". But he hasn't said what "bias subject" he has in mind, or how he thinks this paragraph obscures the nominal subject, William Timmons. The most relevant section I an see there is Wikipedia:COATRACK#What_is_not_a_coatrack.

First AGF. Making charges about me and THF will not advance this article one whit. And I do not have any dog in the race, so I try to be as neutral as possible about BLP subjects, no matter their political hue. FOIA is not directly related to the BLP, hence is a clear COATRACK ab initio. Other material which was attempted before tried to connect Timmons with Saddam Hussein, and a raft of other nonsense. Remember? Collect (talk) 10:48, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

No dog in the race? That's fine, but you do have a very strong political slant in your editing. And THF, who works for a conservative think tank and took time off to work on the McCain campaign, is another staunch defender of conservative POV. Both of you seem to prefer a disjointed paragraph to one that that explains what the topic connects to logically and historically. Statements like "FOIA is not directly related to the BLP" are just silly, when the FOIA directly connects the opinion of Wiener about Timmons to the Timmons memos. Dicklyon (talk) 15:36, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I have endeavored to have no political slant at all -- and I have edited out attacks on Democrats as well as Republicans, on total horrid flakes, and on regular people. My position is simple -- material which I feel violates BLP I would like to have removed. I have not been involved in any campaign in any capacity for years now, and to suggest otherwise is a PA on me. Meanwhile, can you make as blanket a statement as I do about not being involved in any way with any campaign for quite a few years? Seems that would be fair. And you should note that THF and I have had a number of fairly strong disagreements in articles. Thanks! Collect (talk) 12:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

My expressed opinion of "a very strong political slant in your editing" is based on what I see; I've also gotten quite a few private communications from people who agree with this observation but don't want to get involved in another fight with you. I don't deny that you may have sometimes removed BLP material from bios; that's good, and I do the same when I encounter it. So tell me, does anything in this article violate BLP? Please be detailed so we can understand your feelings, as the edit history suggests quite a different picture. Dicklyon (talk) 15:26, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Seems odd to have all those "private communications" for sure -- especially since I have had no political involvement for over a decade, my uncle was a close friend of the Kennedys as is my cousin, etc. So where is the bias? I do tend to dislike all material in any BLP which is not directly pertinent and accurate -- so that means conpiracy theories do not meet my criteria. I aslo prefer short article to overlong ones, ones which avoid trivia to ones full of marginal material, and ones which directly and nutrally present facts instead of ones filled with opinions of all ilks. I suggest you read my user essays (link from my user page) and tell me how biassed they are. Thanks! Collect (talk) 22:24, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

It seems odd to me, too. I don't generally get much in the way of wikipedia emails, but I've gotten quite a lot about you and THF. Weird. You've made a lot of enemies, which seems odd for someone without a political agenda. And your comments here have always seemed very disingenuous and biased, with claims like that the Lennon deportation attempt wasn't connected to the 1972 Nixon re-election campaign, even while all the cited sources clearly say it was. What's up with that? Dicklyon (talk) 23:36, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

So, how to move forward

I'm going to put the updated version B back for now. Please provide comments on how to improve it, or let me know if there's any question about any part of it being unclear in light of the sources, or question of relevance to the subject Bill Timmons. Dicklyon (talk) 04:23, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

You are not with consensus on this, as you surely know. Collect (talk) 10:49, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I am very aware that there is no consensus here. Dicklyon (talk) 15:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Dicklyon's latest fantasy about consensus on the Lennon memo.

Needless to say, I object. We seem to need a topic ban, since two blocks for his misbehavior isn't sufficient. THF (talk) 12:57, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The only one that claims consensus is you, T. I realize there's an open disagreement here. However, the new information that I detailed above made your latest complaint mute, so I went back to a version that was correct, changed "secret" that had been objected to, and put back the info that connects the stated opinion of Jon Wiener to the topic. You can call it COATRACK and SYN and "chutzpah" all you want, but if you won't present any specific problems with it, how can I improve it? Your latest edit summary on reverting me says "That is sure chutzpah to immediately revert after coming off your second block for edit-warring against consensus." THF, you are the main reverter here, there is no consensus, and I did plenty of other work including a big talk-page explanation and request for ideas above before editing the article. Yet you've got an admin taking your side in the edit dispute and blocking me but not you. This is really messed up. If there's misbehavior here, at least half of it is yours. Dicklyon (talk) 15:30, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

You realize that the words you have expended on this are longer than the memo in question, right? Drop the WP:STICK, please. It's you against the rest of the world, and you need to accept that you are not correct about this. THF (talk) 15:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I realize that our arguments are ridiculously protracted, way beyond the importance of anything other than wikipedia principles. But this debate will not be at a "natural end" until the version we arrive at makes sense and someone other than you right-wing operatives gets to have some influence on it. Dicklyon (talk) 15:53, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Marvelous. You now wish to violate WP:AGF, WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL, in addition to WP:EW, WP:TEDIOUS, and WP:CONSENSUS? That will be productive. THF (talk) 15:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

further outside editror comment on Lennon case

I really think that this is getting out oh hand. Tke a break and maybe see some other form of arbitation. Is it really worth this angst? I think that versions B or F are OK Jezhotwells (talk) 22:36, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I concur. Dlabtot (talk) 23:21, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Dicklyon asked me to comment also. I agree with Jezhotwells and Dlabtot. Let the current version stand. (I did some copyedits to avoid strings of names, but if anyone prefers them as before, change as desired). I doubt that it will ever be clear to what extent Timmons was in reality a major player or a messenger, and, based on the usual disputes in historical matters of this sort, it is probably that the different people involved had quite different views about his actual role, and furthermore might not have been quite candid about it. Thus all historical interpretations of something like this will be interpretations, as is most of history once it gets down to human interrelationships. Unless we are proposing to write a monograph about him, the current version seems to say things clearly enough. If anything about motivations of the people involved is clear, it is that Nixon & his advisors all saw everything in his first administration in terms of getting re-elected. The details are for academics to discuss forever. The only thing I'd change is a little later, to add something to clarify the context of Timmons last memo to Nixon about the impeachment, to explain what he meant by a chance to escape with honor without hampering future presidents. DGG (talk) 03:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd be much more impressed with these admittedly illegitimately WP:CANVASSed comments if any of them rationalized the WP:SYN violation that occurs by coatracking the FOIA lawsuit that has nothing to do with Timmons. Since not a single one of these comments addresses the fundamental problem, I am reverting, as everyone who has addressed the SYN issue acknowledges the SYN violation except for Dicklyon. THF (talk) 06:47, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

"admittedly illegitimately canvassed" means what? I asked DGG for advice and help with the admin who interfered with the process here; he took it on himself to get involved in the content issue. Dicklyon (talk) 07:19, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

What the FOIA has to do with Timmons is it's how these memos were found. It's also the connection to Jon Wiener, whose opinion about Timmons is quoted. Why don't you acknowledge those connections and then say why you have a problem with it? Dicklyon (talk) 07:22, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

There is no 'fundamental problem', rather there is a LAME dispute over nothing. Dlabtot (talk) 07:24, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

People who ask me for advice comment get my advice or comments, usually in public. that does not mean they get the advice or comments they hope to get--in fact, check my talk archives will find they very often do not. Dicklyon knows this very well, for he has asked me for comments before, and some of them have been directly opposed to positions he has taken. Anyone who wishes to challenge my objectivity in responding should go look at the record--the archives are rather long, though, because many people have asked. I strongly resent the insinuations here. THF should know better--I have sometimes responded to requests from him also, and I doubt he has always liked what I had to say. In a content dispute, I usually make a point of trying to ignore who has said what when I read the history--obviously that;'s not literally possible, but I do try. People who have strong positions often come to me, and I usually suggest some sort of compromise.

Given that I did read all this, I might as well say what I think on the issue.

Thurmond was a major power, who must either be accommodated or evaded. One function of the President's top staff is to accomplish this--officially, either one, depending upon what the President decides, but in practice, if they have sufficient power, whichever one they think politic. Their ability to function depends on telling everyone some approximation to what they want to hear, so even more than people in politics generally, no public or private statement is to be taken at face value. A perpetually debated qy about the Nixon and other presidencies is how much power individual staff members had relative to the president. Nixon in particular routinely sought to evade public responsibility for possibly unpleasant things, but to some extent all presidents do that. I expect this to be a major theme is all books treating the period indefinitely--people are still arguing this with respect to Queen Elizabeth I. The relative power of the formal and kitchen cabinets is a similar topic. My guess is that at that point Mitchell was dominant over Timmons, but that Nixon made the decision, or at least knowingly permitted it to be made. All 3 of them wanted to be in a position to take the credit if it succeeded and was acclaimed, and to avoid the blame otherwise. I would guess that Timmons was even at that part of his career not really experienced enough, that Mitchell was sufficiently stupid, and Nixon sufficiently foolish. A historian who has read much more than a citizen onlooker can make a much more informed guess than either you or me, but different well informed historians still say different things, and if the matter is important enough to be worth saying anything, they always will. The internal motives of individuals are know to nobody.

I do agree with Dicklyon there the attempt to represent everything in Timmons' career in a positive light here does see like an inappropriate attempt to push a POV. It would be better to state the different opinions of the sources. DGG (talk) 00:28, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

DGG, thanks for your comments, but I think you're making this too complicated. I don't know anything about Nixon stuff, just want to report what I find in sources, about Timmons, since the article was a mess when I first found it. I don't think we've said anything about motivations, or who decided what, or why. Just some bare facts and the opinion of one guy who has commented on it, and a few bits to say how he connects to the memos. If there are other sources with something to add, then by all means let's do add more. So far, I've seen nothing to suggest that John Mitchell had any involvement at all, other than receiving a memo, though it's quite possible, as you note; Timmons, on the other hand, obviously talked with people about it, as knew what was up and he sent a memo back about it; I'm not saying he made anything happen, but Jon Wiener seems to say he probably did, and he's the guy who studied all the primary docs, so I think that's an opinion worth reporting; but if we don't say Wiener's the guy who got the docs, it's pretty silly to have his opinion floating out there the way THF put it, as if the topic of the paragraph is Wiener's opinion, as opposed to Timmons's memos; that's the bias. And of course, we know, since he posted a link to it on wikipedia, that THF is an attornery for a big right-wing political organization, and that he took time off his day job, as he put it, to work on the McCain campaign; such a political operative needs to temper his POV when editing content that interacts with it. Dicklyon (talk) 00:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

"obviously talked with people about it"? All we know is that he was told a deportation proceeding was happening. Nothing more, nor does the memo support the keap you make. "knew what was up"? All we know is that he asked if anything was happening, and interpolating anything else is OR and SYN. As for making charges that an editor works for a "big right wing organization" that is totally irrelevant -- did you say if you had been involved in any poilitical campaigns in recent years? Donated to one? Those who make such carges should be prepared to answer the exact same questions. What do you do instead? "Weird. You've made a lot of enemies, which seems odd for someone without a political agenda. And your comments here have always seemed very disingenuous and biased, with claims like that the Lennon deportation attempt wasn't connected to the 1972 Nixon re-election campaign, even while all the cited sources clearly say it was. What's up with that" Note that I said there was no evidence Timmons' memo had anything to do with the reelection campaign. So what do you do? You make assertions contrary to fact about me, and avoid answering any questions about yourself at all. Collect (talk) 12:15, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

My point is simply that he couldn't have written back to say what was happening if he wasn't "in the loop" on that in some sense. I agree that in theory it could be as simple as "he was told" (or he overheard in the bathroom) and then recalled that memo and took it on himself to respond, so we don't want to say something that cuts off that possbility. But we do have the historian's opinion that it was more than that; as DGG said, if there are other opinions we can put in there, let's do that, too. Dicklyon (talk) 15:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

If it's not CANVAS, it's certainly WP:FORUM, as Lyon failed to get the results he wanted through an RFC or an appeal to a different administrator. There's a WEIGHT issue: this was a single memo that Timmons wrote as part of his role in legislative relations (there's no evidence of a memo between Timmons and Mitchell), and only a single historian who has written about has said that Timmons played any major role, and the only place he said that was in an op-ed in a partisan magazine trying to slime John McCain years after he wrote his book about the subject. The FOIA mention, as several editors agree is SYN trying to slime Timmons further, despite the fact that "where Wiener got the memos" is utterly irrelevant trivia. I've made this position clear several times; I'm saying nothing here that I haven't said on the talk page repeatedly; not once has anyone addressed these simple facts and policy interpretations. There is not consensus to add the material that violates the policies, and that is where the burden of proof lies. That I refuse to play Argument Clinic and repeat myself over this WP:LAME debate over and over does not mean that Dicklyon gets to revert the minute I fail to respond to him within twelve hours. I hope some editor gets around to warning Lyon for his WP:NPA violation. THF (talk) 16:26, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

You're all three attacking each other, and you should all three just stop editing this article, stop arguing with each other, and move on to some other article where you can productively edit. Dlabtot (talk) 16:29, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll agree to leave this article if the Timmons partisans (THF, Collect, and the returned Rtall3) will. Dicklyon (talk) 16:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

As for the "FORUM", I don't see the issue. It's true that the RfC didn't bring as much input as I hoped for, but the one guy it did bring preferred my version until THF poked him to look again and find a problem with it. It turns out that "problem" was wrong after checking more sources, and I asked the guy to have another look, and he supported me again. And I didn't ask DGG to look at the content dispute, just at the issue with admin Ruslik. It was a bit of a crap-shoot, as he's known to be very independent and I've been on his wrong side before, but I figured he'd be unbiased so I asked for his advice. THF is trying to make something that's not here. Dicklyon (talk) 16:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

THF is accusing me of personal attacks (at User talk:Ruslik0, but hasn't pointed out what he considers to be an attack. I'll retract any that he points out, and be more careful of such in the future. Dicklyon (talk) 16:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

As for "utterly irrelevant trivia", that's an issue we can discuss; some of think it's relevant and useful to show connections between the items in a paragraph. The "weight" thing is clearly contradicted by the amount of coverage in reliable sources, as I've pointed out repeatedly; these memos get more ink on Timmons than anything else he has done. Dicklyon (talk) 16:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Source for Lennon Comments

This is an op-ed source, which, by definition is an opinion piece that ignores facts. Moreover, it is published by a self proclaimed flagship of liberalism -- not exactly a neutral source (as evidenced by the erroneous assertion that Timmons was a member of the McCain team. This was just another attempt to use Timmons as a vehicle to damage the McCain campaign). Dicklyon explained that the writers assertion that Timmons was involved in the deportation efforts was based on the memo to Thurmond, but the letter to Thurmond indicates no such thing. This letter is completely uneventful in the life of Timmons, and the current version of this article has BLP and RS concerns. There simply is no good evidence to suggest Timmons played in a role in the INS deportation proceedings with Lennon, and writing as much is not editing in a conservative manner, which is required in a BLP. All we know is that Timmons signed a response to Thurmond informing him of the INS actions -- one of tens of thousands of letters signed by Timmons.I propose the Lennon connection be removed altogether, as done previously. Rtally3 (talk) 09:33, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree, and also relying on the outside editors' comments that it is of extraordinarily marginal relevance at all to Timmons. Collect (talk) 12:17, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I must have missed that one. Who are the editors who said this and where can I read their comments? Dlabtot (talk) 15:40, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

WP:SPA Rtally3 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), what are you doing back? What do you mean by "by definition is an opinion piece that ignores facts", and why is Collect agreeing? This is a piece by the historian who obtained the documents, studied them, and wrote the book on them. Is it defined that historians "ignore the facts" when expressing an opinion related to their decades of study? Dicklyon (talk) 15:39, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe he means that WP states that op-ed pieces are usable only for opinions properly cited as opinions. Collect (talk) 16:51, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Collect is correct. Dicklyon said himself that this is an op-ed article. The Nation article, cite #11, is what I am referring to. This particular article simply isn't reliable enough to use for such a controversial claim. Many users have expressed concerns in claiming that Timmons was involved in the Lennon deportation attempt, and BLP guidelines state that any questionable claim be removed without waiting for discussion. For these reasons I believe it is most prudent to remove the section for now, and continue to discuss here if appropriate. Rtally3 (talk) 17:36, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

The article in question, Nixon Dirty Trickster on McCain Team is not an opinion piece, or an 'op-ed' and it is not presented as such in The Nation. It is presented as a piece of straight reportage. Dlabtot (talk) 17:40, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

You're not serious, are you? With lines like "McCain's selection of Timmons ties the candidate to Nixon's dirty tricks and enemies list" the motivation of the smear is evident: it's clearly an opinion piece, published in a partisan magazine. THF (talk) 17:49, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

My first instinct was that the whole thing should be removed, also. I was hoping the compromise I proposed, which simply recited indisputable facts neutrally, thus making it clear to a neutral reader that Wiener's claims were exaggerated, would resolve the issue. But given that Dicklyon refuses to compromise one iota from making this single memo the centerpiece of the article, and adding synthesis that falsely implies Timmons had a role larger than he had (up to and including litigating the release of the memos, which Timmons had nothing to do with), then I should return to my original position of removing the whole paragraph--I don't want to be in a position where I'm offering half the cookie and Lyon is insisting on the entire cookie, and third-parties come in and give him 90% of the cookie. The paragraph should be cut, since it reflects solely the factually inaccurate opinion of a single partisan historian. THF (talk) 17:49, 15 March 2009 (UTC)