Created: 03 August 2009
Last Updated: 03 August 2009
It appears this blog’s treatment of the Hofmann episode has gained the attention of Mormanity in the form of an update to this page. In it Mormanity suggests that some demonstration of “strenuous efforts to suppress” the Salamander Letter is what is required to successfully ground any assessment of suppression. He argues that the fact that Hinckley did not purchase the Salamander Letter proves just the opposite of supression.
The non-purchase of the Salamander Letter is what I call the fallacy of a viable option. For whatever reason (negotiations perhaps), Hofmann sent the flamboyant Lyn Jacobs to sell the Salamander Letter to Hinckley. The story goes that while Jacobs kept negotiating price, Hinckley kept inquiring how it is that Jacobs knew Hofmann. Hofmann the cynic took this to mean that Hinckley now felt that plausible deniability was impossible with Jacobs in the mix. That is, with Jacobs in the mix, a secret purchase ala Stowell Forgery was no longer possible. On the flip side, I imagine the faithful assume that Hinckley must have suddenly grown suspicious of documents and their authenticity.
The false suggestion that a conspiracy or “strenuous efforts” is what necessitates suppression is what I am calling the fallacy of necessity. However, “to withhold from disclosure” is the very definition of the word. The smoking gun is not Cahill’s denial, but the secret purchase itself. No one in Hinckley’s inner circle is known to have been aware of the purchase, until after Hofmann began leaking its existence. Cahill’s ignorance is merely an indicator at how secret the purchase was. A simple press release regarding the document purchase and the length of time it might take experts to examine it would have been sufficient. However, the option to secretly purchase just seemed so viable…..
I like the phrasing "intellectual integrity" at the top of your blog. It seems to me the stuff I read at FARMS is often quite lacking in it.
ReplyDeleteIt should be pointed out that Mormanity does not explain how the Stowell Forgery was being examined for authenticity while locked away in the First Presendency vault, the name of a single person charged with authenticating it, why it takes so long to authenticate it, or why if Hinckley felt Hamilton's original authentication was insufficient he paid $15,000 up front without holding money in escrow until further authentication. It is becoming apparent that Mormanity is just not behaving very honestly.
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