SWEEPING DIRT UNDER THE RUG

I don't think that any of us expected Sam to be
as productive and disruptive an Executive Board member
as he has proved to be. He has produced document
after embarrassing document, and he has disrupted the
best efforts of the Old Boys to sweep dirt under the rug.

If anyone ever deserved to be reelected to the
Executive Board, it is Sam Sloan, a real ball-buster
and killer-diller.

But, realistically speaking, can Sam expect a
second term?

If Sam can scare up some money and run a
campaign, then he will quite likely win a second term,
which seemed a huge longshot six months back.
Otherwise, without some moolah, the race will be Sam's
successful and helpful nipping versus the Executive
Board money boys working at tucking him away with
several mass mailings. If such turns out to be the
respective orders of battle, then one can safely bet
against Sam winning reelection.

I have been told by a source that there will be a
mailing by a majority of the current Executive Board
to thousands of USCF members urging them to vote
against Sam. The mailing will be paid for by Joel
Channing and, possibly, Bill Goichberg.

A bit of good news is that Sam's candidate's
statement in Chess Life is fairly effective. One can
quibble with a couple of trivial matters, but in the
main, he evidenced considerable political savvy in
highlighting the two million dollars in losses. His
statement undoubtedly caught the eye of many USCF
members. They won't be able to ignore his expose, and
the board majority will have to respond.

All of us here have a fair idea about the nature
of the coming attacks against Sam. There will be no
mention of the rotten deals surrounding Crossville and
the insider looting of the USCF. Instead, the attack
will concentrate on Sam "kidnapping" his own daughter
in an affair of the heart. We will have the man depicted
as a dangerous criminal and the like, thereby confounding
violating a judicial order (over a matter that would never
have been in the courts two generations back) with criminality,
a noun that properly deals with normative, common law
understandings of attacks on property and persons.

The censored USCF Forum on the Internet is
already proving a weapon to be employed by the ruling
Executive Board majority -- as we all imagined it
would be. The majority found the right muchacho in
Mike Nolan, who is acting much as did Soviet censors
of old. Make no mistake: even those who are
benefitting from Nolanland censorship regard Mr. Nolan
as a malodorous functionary.

Sam will likely lose the battle for reelection
unless he also makes mailings, which require MONEY. I
have not discussed the matter with him, but the time
has clearly come to form a Reelect Sam Sloan Finance
Committee, if Sam approves of such a group.

I believe that a mass mailing dealing with the
worthless building and office in Cross-to-Bear to all
USCF affiliates and to members from selected states
would light a fire beneath the Board majority. That
alone might prove sufficient to reelect Sam.

My nominee for Finance Committee chairman would
be GM Larry Evans, if he is willing to serve. But I can't
imagine him dirtying his hands dealing with scoundrels.

Yours, Larry Parr