IIRC Gaikowski himself stated that he went to Europe in September of 1968?

Can anyone post the full article referenced above?

At one time long ago I remember reading parts of the article. IIRC, Gaikowski describes personally attending marches and demonstrations in the Fall and Winter of 1968 in Ireland (also with pictures?). That led to my statement that for RG to be a viable Z suspect, he would have to have flown back to California in December, committed the first Z crime on 12/20/68, then flown back to Ireland in January. Possible he could do that, I suppose. But to me, for reasons of money, practicality and inclination, that seems highly unlikely.

If you are contending RG never went to Ireland in Fall of 1968, do you contend that he faked all those articles of being at the Fall – Winter 1968 marches? And since the dispatches would have come from California, not Ireland, the newspaper was part of this fraud perpetuated on its readers? Why would RG do that and risk ruining his journalism career and being arrested for fraud? More importantly, why in the world would the newspaper go along with it, when exposure would mean scandal, total loss of credibility with readers and possible fraud charges? Why would they take that risk, when for the cost of a plane ticket, they could have RG, or another reporter, actually cover the story?

CIVIL RIGHTS, SECTARIANISM, ROCK NORTH IRELAND
Albany Knickerbocker News — February 1, 1969
by Richard Gaikowski

The writer of this dispatch below is a former reporter of the Knickerbocker News who set out some months ago to find out if far fields are really greener. In Europe his reportorial instinct led him to Northern Ireland where he witnessed the clashes between Protestants and Catholics battling over civil rights.

Belfast, Northern Ireland — Ask the average man in the average pop in Northern Ireland and he will claim that just by looking at a person he can tell that the individual is a "Teaude" or a "Prod."

"Teaude" is local slang for Catholic and "Prod" for Protestant. I tested several who claim to have a special talent and even though I couldn’t detect one clue which would reveal a man’s religion to me, these men, both Protestants and Catholics didn’t miss once. Asked how they do it, they shrugged their shoulders and answered in melodic Irish brogue: "I dunno, I just can."

Northern Ireland’s population is roughly divided into one third Catholic and two thirds Protestant and just about every aspect of life, from education to politics to sports, tends to divide along Protestant and Catholic lines.

A young Protestant printer in Belfast told me: "As a wee boy I would sometimes get caught by a band of Catholic boys and they would force me to say the ‘Hail Mary’ before they would let me go. When we caught one of them alone we would make them sing ‘God save the Queen.’"

Sharp Division

The line between Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods in the cities, towns, and villages is as sharp as the border which divides the six counties of Ulster from the 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland.

This deep sectarian division is the main cause for the violence which has rocked ulster over the past four months even though civil rights leaders have tried desperately to steer clear of the religious issue in their campaign for social justice and change.

Ivan Cooper, a Protestant businessman and civil rights leader in Londonderry, said "the poor Protestant needs civil rights as much as the poor Catholic." Ownership of property determines the rights of vote in local elections. If a man owns 20 houses he has 20 votes in elections of local councils even if the owner lives in London, Dublin or New York. Thus Protestants who do not own property are denied the right to vote in local elections the same as the poor Catholic. But the vast majority of Northern Ireland’s poor are Catholic.

Universal Suffrage

There is universal suffrage in elections for members of both of the provincial and British parliaments but one Catholic politician explained "if they (the ruling Unionist party) ever thought we had a chance of winning control of Ulster’s parliament, they would figure a way to keep us from voting their too."

But reform of the local election laws is only one of the goals of civil rights reformers. Unemployment in Northern Ireland is high with an overall average of 8%. John Hume, a Catholic civil rights leader, said "Catholics are the last ones hired in the first ones fired, but what we need is a change where a government will be interested in the welfare of all the people and not in just keeping itself in power. There are unemployed Protestants too."

In Londonderry, called Derry by most Irishmen, the unemployment rate is 15%. Derry Catholics outnumber Protestants by nearly 2 to one,yet the Protestants controlled the local governing council.

After police and protesters clashed in Derry in January barricades were erected around the Catholic section and a free Derry proclaimed. Armed vigilantes defended the area, keeping out both police and hostile Protestants. A clandestine radio station started broadcasting. For six days the barricades were manned before moderate civil rights leaders were able to convince the residents that it would be safe to take them down.

Siege Bitterness

One young Protestant who was ready to charge the barricades told me: "If they get control of the city they will kill us in front of the walls, as they did during the siege." The siege he referred to occurred in 1688 and this is how far back the bitterness goes. Derry then was a Protestant city under siege by the Catholic armies of King James II, who was trying to regain the English throne.

Before William of Orange came to the rescue James II’s generals tried to break the morale of the city by rounding up Protestant prisoners and leaving them to die in front of the wall. What is forgotten, at least by Protestants, is that this caused such revulsion in James II’s army, largely comprised of Irish Catholics, that the troops freed the prisoners. The 1688 siege of Derry is still being fought and refought.

When defeatist elements within Derry were about to throw open the gates, apprentice boys rushed to close them. Today there is still a flourishing body called the apprentice boys of Derry. Members can only be initiated within Derry’s crumbling walls. The provincial prime minister, Capt. Terrance O’Neill, and most of his ministers are a member of the semi secret society.

In those distant and perilous days of the siege Governor Lundy counseled surrender. To this day those who suggest moderation or compromise are scathingly called Lundys.

Ancient Wounds

Because of these ancient wounds, the average poor Protestant is more likely to be a follower of the thundering Rev. Dr. Ian Paisley, leader of the free Presbyterian assembly, then of the civil rights movement.

The support the movement receives from non-Catholics comes largely from the liberal spectrum of middle-class Protestants. These moderates try to downplay Mr. Paisley’s influence. But Mr. Paisley, Ulster’s arch foe of Romanism, popery and civil rights, is able to mobilize crowds of from 2,000 to 5,000 to oppose civil rights demonstrations.

Mr. Paisley, a graduate of Bob Jones University, Greenville, S.C., preaches a type of 17th-century Protestantism which has little in common with most Protestant churches today. A favorite phrase of his, always sure to draw a large chorus of "amens" from his followers, is to refer to the Vatican as "that Scarlett whore on the banks of the Tiber."

Club swinging crowds of Paisleyites have repeatedly clashed with civil rights marchers. Catholic response to Mr. Paisley has not always been exactly charitable either. Protestors often follow the singing of "We Shall Overcome" with a chant "what shall we do with the Reverend Paisley?" To which the answer always comes loud and clear: "String the bastard up and burn him."

Mr. Paisley was released from jail on bail Thursday and vowed to participate in a weekend protest march against alleged police brutality.

Convicted of unlawful assembly during a violent anti-civil rights demonstration last November, he said that after the 14 days of freedom allowed by the bail he would return to jail and finish serving the three month sentence he began Wednesday.

The civil rights movement itself is a conglomeration of elements without a real unified organization leadership.

The leading Catholic leader is Mr. Hume who favors a "go slow" approach to the problem and is generally opposed to the use of civil disobedience tactics. One of his strongest supporters in opposing radicals in the movement has been Miss Mary Sinclair, a spinster from an old-line Protestant family who organized the first civil rights committee two years ago. Miss Sinclair proudly acknowledges that she has been a member of Northern Ireland’s tiny Communist Party for the past 36 years.

"We must keep the civil rights movement non-violent," said Mr. Hume who clearly believes, as do many others, that the situation is such that civil war could break out. He said: "there are no victors in a civil war. The whole community is the loser. The prospect of a religious war is even more horrifying." But not everyone in the movement shares Mr. Hume’s moderate views.

Happiest Day

"The happiest day of my life will be when City Hall is in flames and the people are attacking Stormount ( the parliament building)," one activist, a schoolteacher, told me in Belfast. At Queens University members of the radical student organization called People’s Democracy openly discuss occupying public buildings.

And then there is the Irish Republican Army (IRA) which police charge is trying to infiltrate and take over the civil rights movement. In Belfast I was introduced to an IRA veteran who had lost one eye in his many battles with the police. He said the IRA had only about 300 members left and that most of these were located around Dublin.

The information the IRA man gave me, however, is suspect since I learned later that he thought I was a CIA agent because I took notes in longhand instead of shorthand.

Special Powers Act

It is difficult not to become paranoid in northern Ireland because the police have wide powers under the special powers act. Under this act police may arrest anyone without a warrant: hold an individual without charge or trial: deny recourse to habeas corpus: search without a warrant: prohibit meetings and assemblies: permit punishment by flogging: prohibit the calling of an inquest to determine cause of death of any person found dead: prohibit circulation of any newspaper: prohibit possession of any gramophone records: and arrest anyone alleged to have spread false reports.

The gramophone records which are currently illegal to possess are recordings of songs extolling the exploits of the IRA. In December the radical newspaper, the United Irishman, was outlawed. Catholics charge the act is used strictly against them and note that the Paisleyite newspaper has not been banned.

The Special Powers Act was originally enacted to deal with such groups as the IRA who advocated the reunification of Ireland through force. But in the civil rights movement and among rank-and-file Catholics there appears to be little support today for ending Ulster’s union with Britain. At least little open support.

Family Allowances

"If we joined the Republic we would have to give up our health service and family allowances," said a Catholic taxi driver in Derry referring to British welfare schemes.

The beleaguered Catholics of Derry called on the British Army for help not the Irish Army even though the Republic’s border is only 5 miles from Derry. But the partition question is a highly emotional one and if Catholics thought there was any real chance for reunification, they might be tempted to exchange the health card for Irish citizenship.

In the Republic there have been cries of "send the army north" but Dublin has been beset by a wave of social unrest and protest also. But if civil war did break out in the North it is difficult to imagine any government in Dublin staying in power which did not try to come to the aid of Ulster Catholics.

In all of this Prime Minister O’Neill has tried to steer a middle course by proposing several mild reforms, although thus far he has not given any ground on the emotional "one man one vote" issue.

But in Ulster there is little middle ground. He has been tagged "Tightrope Terrance" by civil rights supporters and Mr. Paisley rants as vigorously against O’Neillism as he does against Romanism. The deputy premier, Brian Faulkner, and several ministers have resigned over the issue and most observers doubt Captain O’Neill will be in power when spring arrives.

IIRC Gaikowski himself stated that he went to Europe in September of 1968?

Not really. In his written piece about his stint working in Albany, NY, he ended the story with the info that he quit his job at the newspaper in September 1968 and went to Europe "to lick my wounds." Some want to believe that meant he immediately left for Europe upon quitting. That is farfetched for a number of reasons. Nonetheless, there is no evidence he set foot in Europe until 1969.

Can anyone post the full article referenced above?

Full paper containing the "Special report from Belfast" note

Gaikowski’s Feb 1, 1969 article

Transcription of the Feb 1, 1969 article

Thanks to Drew and Doranchak for posting those items. Do either of you, or anyone else, have RG’s article that Tom mentioned, written in September 1968, in which I guess at the end of the article he announces he is quitting his job at the paper and going to Europe? Could someone post it, or at least the last paragraph?

IIRC Gaikowski himself stated that he went to Europe in September of 1968?

Not really. In his written piece about his stint working in Albany, NY, he ended the story with the info that he quit his job at the newspaper in September 1968 and went to Europe "to lick my wounds." Some want to believe that meant he immediately left for Europe upon quitting. That is farfetched for a number of reasons. Nonetheless, there is no evidence he set foot in Europe until 1969.

Well I would disagree with the claim that "there is no evidence he (RG) set foot in Europe until 1969".

First, RG’s own statement that he was leaving his job and going to Europe to lick his wounds implies that he is leaving sooner rather than later IMO. You are saying he quits his job in September of 1968 but doesn’t leave for Europe until four months later, in January of 1969. He doesn’t say he is quitting, will lick his wounds for four months, then go to Europe. He says he is quitting now and will go to Europe and lick his wounds. That sounds like he is planning to leave as soon as one or two weeks (September or October) or maybe one or two months (October or November).

(Drew or anyone, if you have this article’s last paragraph could you post it? Maybe the whole statement and the context might give us more info).

Second, the article references not just events in January but earlier events as well. It mentions events that started in October and ran through November and December of 1968. It specifically mentions an event that occurred in December 1968.

Third, and most importantly, the newspaper announces to its readers, on February 1st, 1969, that RG left for Europe "some months ago".

Had RG left for Europe in January, they would have said left for Europe "last month". By stating he left "some months ago", on February 1st, 1969, that places RG leaving for Europe much closer to the time he left the paper and announced he was going to Europe. It puts it maybe in the far side meaning of "some months ago" at a range of 4 – 5 months ago, in September/October 1968. Or considering the closer side meaning of "some months ago" could put it at 3 months ago, in November 1968.

Either way it creates a significant problem for RG’s viability as a Zodiac suspect. IMO the available evidence, from RG’s own statement, the time period and events covered in the article, and most of all the newspaper’s statement, indicates RG likely left for Europe sometime in the Fall or Winter of 1968, Sept., Oct. or Nov. of 1968, and knowing he is in Ireland in January 1969, it would require him to leave Ireland and fly to California to be there for December 20, 1968, then fly back to Ireland to be there by the first week of 1969.

This is all old stuff from a decade ago.

What Gaikowski claimed in a memoir from 2003 isn’t evidence of anything.

Also, his ex-employer would have had no way of knowing when he departed for Europe; so again that’s a claim from Gaikowski and not proof.

Obviously upon quitting his newspaper job, a lot must have been done by way of arrangements before Gaikowski could have left the country, especially for several months. None of that made it into the memoirs. What else was left out?

According to Bob Loomis, Gaikowski’s best friend at the time, he didn’t receive a post-Albany letter until Feb. 16, 1969, postmarked Notting Hill, England. I highly doubt Gaikowski, an avid writer of letters, would wait five months to write his best friend after going to Europe.

Well I never read RG’s memoir, so nothing I stated above is based on anything from that memoir.

What I stated above is just based upon RG’s own statement made in September 1968 about going to Europe, the reading of the article he wrote in which he describes events from December of 1968, and most importantly of all, the February 1969 statement by the newspaper, that RG "some months ago" set out for Europe where he "witnessed" these events in Ireland firsthand.

I assume the newspaper got communication from RG when he was in Ireland, be it by telephone, telefax and/or mail, so that they could confidently assert as a fact to their readers In February 1969 that RG set out some months ago for Europe and ended up in Ireland.

Based on those three things, and mainly the third item, and considering Drew mentioned a letter from RG sent from Albany on November 13th, 1968, mentioning snowfall there, IMO it seems most likely RG left for Europe sometime in late November or December 1968.

But given the limited information, I guess we can’t say absolutely for sure either way.

Back in 2014 Morf contacted Tom and informed him that I would consider doing a FOIA request for the FBI file of RG, if Tom agreed to pay expenses and costs if they went over $50. Tom did in fact agree to that and Morf posted to that effect. I got involved with other research I considered more important and some life events intervened, and I put that on the back burner.

Of course anyone could have done a FOIA request for RG’s FBI file at any time, prior to 2014 or after, but I guess nobody did. Why nobody has done so, including those who are far more interested in RG than I am, is unknown to me.

I’m glad to say I did finally complete the request and have submitted it to the FBI. I’m waiting to hear back and as soon as I obtain the file, if there was one, if it is small to medium length I will post the entire thing here. If it is very large I’ll post relevant parts here, and I will make sure the entire file gets to Tom, Drew, Doranchak and anybody else who contacts me here publicly or privately and would like to get a copy.

The FBI file may or may not provide a more definitive answer to the Ireland question, and it may or may not be Illuminating as to other activities of RG as they relate to his activities in general and to the Zodiac investigation specifically.

I’m also preparing a FOIA request of the State Department to address the Ireland and passport issues specifically, although I am less familiar with their rules and I do not know if they will grant my request even for a deceased individual.

I am more familiar with the FBI rules, have had success with prior FOIA requests to the FBI, and with thanks to help from Drew, Norse, Theforeigner and some others, I supplied the FBI with RG’s social security number, birthdate, proof of death, associations, accusation of being the Zodiac Killer, etc. So if an FBI file exists, I should receive it.

My Albany Sojourn
By Richard Gaikowski

February 10, 2004

It was nearly midnight when I arrived in Albany on a cold January night in 1966. I had spent four days driving across country from California, stopping briefly in South Dakota to visit my parents on the farm that I was born and raised on. I had never been to the Northeast before. That was one reason I had accepted the job at The Knickerbocker News. I had worked in California for four years and now I wanted to see the East Coast.

Driving into Albany the first thing I noticed was the potholed streets. The city seemed gray and drab. “The potholes keep people from speeding,” I was later told. I learned that the condition of the streets was in keeping with the frugal level of services provided by the city. Keeping taxes low appeared to be the main goal of the O’Connell machine. In 1966, California still hadn’t experienced the Reagan Revolution. Local governments provided what now seems like lavish social welfare, medical and educational services. Streets, roads and highways were well maintained. I had never driven on a Toll Road before the New York State Thruway.

For a journalist the best thing about California had been the Brown Act which required all meetings of public bodies be “open and public” except for issues dealing with individual persons. Then adequate notice had to be given and no other business conducted. That’s not saying informal casual meetings between several councilmen and county supervisors did not go on. But if word got out that a quorum of a particular body did meet at some bar, home or café, it would be cause for a big expose. As a newsman, I was only barred from one meeting. A senior vice president of Southern Pacific Railroad brought a luxury private rail car with personal chef to Martinez where the mayor and city council were wined and dined. It made a great story, but the power of SP had been crushed long ago and was more like a garden snake instead of the all powerful corrupting octopus that Frank Norris had exposed in his novel.

The small daily paper that I edited existed mainly on legal advertisements of Contra Costa Court and the city of Martinez. The publisher liked my crusading style until I exposed the payoff of a city building inspector and exposed substandard construction of a development calling the houses, “cracker boxes.” The newspaper and I were each sued for millions of dollars. The publisher forced me to publish a front page retraction taking back the “cracker box” description. He didn’t want to spend a dime on lawyers and the lawsuit was dropped even though the charge of payoff to the city building inspector wasn’t retracted. My crusading spirit was wilted and I was ready to leave Martinez.

Arriving in Albany I soon discovered that New York had no Brown Act. The public business in Albany was mainly conducted behind closed doors. I remembered that Arthur Schlessinger Jr. wrote in his book, The Age of Roosevelt, that the O’Connell Machine ought to be preserved and placed in the Smithsonian Institute so that future generations would know what a real political machine looked like.
Richard Gaikowski at work in the newsroom of The Knickerbocker News

While Albany might not have seemed that impressive to me at first, I found The Knickerbocker News an exciting and stimulating place to work. The O’Connell Machine had taken away legal advertising from the Knick News and the Times Union for publishing articles critical to the organization. At the same time, the 1960s civil rights movement had mobilized blacks to take civil and political actions. As the blacks in Albany struggled against the machine, those who had been a clog in the machine made big headlines.

As I got to know Albany, I learned to appreciate it. Coming from South Dakota, where my grandfather had a homestead, then living in California, where everything was new, Albany seemed ancient to me. While small, it was a real city. I especially liked exploring the black neighborhoods and culture.

Troy, not Albany, was the location of my first story on racial tension. After some minor shuffle arose over the arrest of a teenager by police, some windows got broken and fires started. There was tension in Albany, too. To keep the peace on the streets of Albany, Jackie Robinson made two visits. Another visiting star was Mohammad Ali. In the morning at a press conference, sports reporters attempted to skew him with questions about changing his name from Cassius Clay and resisting the Vietnam era military draft. Undaunted, he replied, “I ain’t got no quarrel with the Viet Cong.”

In the afternoon I followed Ali on a walking tour of the South End as he greeted people in barber shops and cafes urging them to keep cool. In the evening he spoke to the local Black Muslim temple. As a white man, I was not allowed inside the temple, but Ali sat by a cracked door so I could hear his speech which was one of peace and reconciliation.

On October 22, 1966, my first story on The Brothers was published. This was the era when scary headlines about Black Panthers and Black Muslims were common. News reports were trumpeting that blacks were abandoning Martin Luther King’s non violence tactics for the more militant Black Power ideology. In this atmosphere, a story announcing a secret organization of militant young black men in Albany’s South End would have been easy to sensationalize. But that was not what The Brothers were about. Their meetings were closed, but so were those of the O’Connell Machine.

The first major public theatre organized by The Brothers was a gutsy election day protest where pickets demonstrated outside of polling places carrying signs saying, “Don’t sell your vote for $5.00.” It was alleged that the O’Connell Machine gave $5.00 to black voters for showing up at the polls and voting. Police arrested 21 protestors charging that the demonstration was frightening voters and keeping them from voting. The voter obstruction charges were dropped that night with a lecture from the police court justice and all were released without going to jail. Albany was no Birmingham, Alabama. But the whole affair made great TV news although it seemed impossible to embarrass the political machine. The vote buying charges were being investigated by an Albany County Grand Jury. Leon Van Dyke, who emerged as the Brothers spokesperson, admitted accepting $5.00 for his vote in a previous election. He and five other Brothers volunteered to testify even though the district attorney said he would persecute both “giver and taker.” However, as expected, the following spring, the grand jury ended the investigation without an indictment.

During these turbulent times I felt that Van Dyke was a very skillful organizer, one of the reasons no civil disorder erupted in Albany. I also give some credit to Albany Police Chief John P. Tuffey, who once asked me if I was the Brothers “public relations man.” I don’t remember answering him, but nodding my head from side to side. On April 16, 1967, the chief came by himself to The Brothers headquarters to meet for three hours with 15 members to discuss ways to improve community relations. Both Chief Tuffey and Van Dyke described the meeting as “very fruitful” but I feel the picture taken by photographer, Bob Paley, of Chief Tuffey leaving the meeting, spoke volumes. It showed the white community that the Brothers were not a dangerous group.

During the nearly three years I spent in Albany, I felt very comfortable in black neighborhoods, day or night. It wasn’t until the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King that I first felt fear. I worked nights while most of the news staff worked days. April 5, 1968 started off as a quiet night. I wasn’t working on any hard stories and planned a quiet evening. Shortly after 8 p.m., the teletype machine bells started ringing which only rang for major stories. Dr. King had been killed. Soon, my editor, Robert Fichenberg, came into the newsroom. He and his wife had been to a movie. When told the news, he said that I should go into the South End neighborhood and write a reaction story.

I went to Dorsey’s Restaurant on Broadway. I had no problem as I talked to people about the King assassination that night. The anger and grief was subdued that night. It wasn’t until two days later as I sat at the Brothers headquarters, that a couple of members started expressing their grief and anger. As the only representative of the white race present, the anger started to be directed to me. I soon left, not saying a word. I felt hurt. Did these brothers realize that I was on their side?

The Bobby Kennedy assassination followed in June, 1968. 1968 was turning out to be a very bad year. I don’t remember exact dates and didn’t save any of these clippings. But about this time the Brothers and other civil rights groups realized that the O’Connell Machine wasn’t their only impediment to equality. They realized that the Albany economic structure also discriminated against them and started planning a boycott of the major department stores. But my reports were no longer getting prominent positions in the newspaper like the stories fighting the O’Connell Machine had received. None of my editors said a word to me about it. I realized that the problem was the new target of the Albany Civil Rights Movement. The department stores were major advertisers in the newspapers and they were not going to support any actions that might hurt them. Also realized that if the O’Connell Machine ever returned the legal advertisements, the newspapers would probably no longer oppose it’s power. What really pained me, however, was when I realized my own naivety. Publishers have to be concerned with their economic base, a fact of life I was just learning to accept. I felt burned out and left The Knickerbocker News at the end of September and headed for Europe to lick my wounds.

A relevant section of Mary Paley’s foreword…

1968 was a pivotal year. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and the Democratic Convention, led Dick to question his relevance. He quit the paper and left for Europe. Not much later, he found himself in Northern Ireland where he witnessed a brutal attack on Queen’s University students who marched from Belfast to Derry with the People’s Democracy movement. He quickly penned an article for The Knickerbocker News about Ireland’s impending sectarian violence.

Do either of you, or anyone else, have RG’s article that Tom mentioned, written in September 1968, in which I guess at the end of the article he announces he is quitting his job at the paper and going to Europe? Could someone post it, or at least the last paragraph?

Here’s the Sep. 28, 1968 article:

I didn’t see the part about him quitting and going to Europe.

I have shown Richard’s Ireland article to two European journalists, and neither one thinks it is a legitimate article. The also both strongly denounced the plagiarism, with one describing it as "blatant." I also fact-checked the "Electric Anarchy" article with one of the individuals who helped set up "Radio Free Derry" in January, 1969. He cast doubt on several items in the article and also said no Americans broadcast on the radio, as "Orkney" (Gyke) claimed. Furthermore, there were two imaginary newspaper headlines mentioned in the piece.

For the reasons above, as well as Wood’s passport research on Richard, I don’t think we can take Gaikowski at his word that he was in Europe in 1968 or 1969. And even if he was, why would he only have produced TWO articles total from his trip? It seems such a journey would be a goldmine for stories considering all that was happening in Ireland at the time.

Doranchak, "My Albany Sojourn" is the essay by Richard in which he mentions quitting the Knickerbocker News and "heading for Europe." Check the very last paragraph — I posted the entire essay before your comment.

Thanks for posting that drew. The relevant part reads:

Publishers have to be concerned with their economic base, a fact of life I was just learning to accept. I felt burned out and left The Knickerbocker News at the end of September and headed for Europe to lick my wounds.

Well, IMO, it reads most naturally that he says he left his job "at the end of September and headed for Europe". There is no mention of a four month wait. He seems to imply he left the job and then went to Europe. To me that would be more consistent with him leaving for Europe in October or November 1968, rather than January 1969.

Drew you are saying he never set foot in Ireland and Wood you are saying he never even had a passport and thus also never set foot in Ireland. Did RG hoodwink the newspaper or were they in on this fraud too? The article has interviews RG did and descriptions of events he witnessed. It is hard for me to believe the newspaper would go along with this fraud, when exposure would mean scandal, loss of credibility, loss of readership and possible criminal charges. Why would they do that? To avoid paying the expense of a ticket for RG or another reporter to go there? And why would RG risk his career, credibility and possible fraud charges?

This reminds me that it is generally a futile exercise to debate POI’s with people who are passionate about a suspect. Facts and evidence, and common sense, do not seem to matter. So I will tap out of this discussion, unless anyone has specific questions or comments for me.

The good news is I did finally submit a FOIA request for RG’s FBI file. And I submitted a FOIA request to the US State Dept for RG’s file. Their rules state that applications for a passport are public records subject to FOIA. So I should at least get that, if and when he applied for a passport and if and when it was granted. I also requested other info, including countries visited, dates of departure and return, etc. But it is not clear if that info is subject to the FOIA.

As soon as I get the FBI and/or State files, I will post them, if not too large, and will get full copies to Drew, Tom, Doranchak and anyone else who requests them from me.

Well, IMO, it reads most naturally that he says he left his job "at the end of September and headed for Europe". There is no mention of a four month wait. He seems to imply he left the job and then went to Europe. To me that would be more consistent with him leaving for Europe in October or November 1968, rather than January 1969.

So after quitting his job, he could have waited two months to leave for Europe, but waiting four months is not likely? You do realize that is a completely arbitrary conclusion, correct ???

This reminds me that it is generally a futile exercise to debate POI’s with people who are passionate about a suspect. Facts and evidence, and common sense, do not seem to matter.

Facts and evidence don’t place Gaikowski in Europe until 1969, therefore common sense doesn’t, either.