Terry Goldman

Fellow, American Physical Society

Nuclear Physics

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos, New Mexico

10 September 2001

Marc H. Brodsky (via e-mail)

CEO and Executive Director

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse

College Park, Maryland 20740

SUBJECT: Jeff Schmidt

Marc,

I know that guys like this can be a royal pain; I've seen whistle-blowers here and know how wrong they can be. However, by relieving yourself in this unacceptable manner, you bring great discredit to AIP, to Physics Today (which we cannot even unsubscribe to in protest!), and undermine the work of the APS in helping oppressed physicists in the rest of the world. I am sure that Sakharov was viewed with the same distaste that you have for Schmidt, but the orders of magnitude difference in the cause is irrelevant to the principle. You may take Scharansky as a closer example but there are also many more, on a lesser scale, as you know.

Also, in practical terms, you are costing us all a lot of money that could be better spent on things accepted as goals for physics and physicists by APS members and AIP supporters. These lawyers are going to eat us up, simply to reduce your aggravation and ulcers. That's not what I'm paying for with my dues.

Save us all a lot of trouble and embarrassment — hang your head, admit you were wrong to employ trumped up totalitarian-style charges, and offer Schmidt his job back or, if he refuses, a quick settlement.

Terry