The Upshot
ON WISCONSIN
The Curious Case of Milwaukee’s Suburban Voters
MAY 6, 2014
“The most polarized part of a polarized state in a polarized nation” — that’s how Craig Gilbert of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel describes the Milwaukee metropolitan area in the masterful first article of a four-part series on the region’s politics. The region is just as polarized as Mr. Gilbert suggests.
Milwaukee is not the only metropolitan area divided between a heavily Democratic, nonwhite urban core and overwhelmingly white suburbs. But the Milwaukee suburbs are still unusual. They haven’t moved at all toward the left, unlike other Republican-leaning Northern suburbs.
Wisconsin, which was traditionally a left-of-center, reformist state with a history of German social democrat politics (as Alice Cooper points out in Wayne's World above, Milwaukee elected three Socialist Party mayors) has tried many reforms over the years to improve the lives and behavior of its black residents.
Unfortunately, among African-Americans, Wisconsin's blacks continue to rank very near the bottom of all 50 states on most metrics. For example, the biggest white-black gaps in any county in America are found in Wisconsin's Dane County, whose county seat is Madison.
The problem seems to be that Wisconsin's generous welfare benefits of the 1960s and 1970s attracted the laziest Southern blacks, and white Wisconsinites haven't figured out much to do about it since, other than to listen a little more to Republicans.
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106 comments:
"...attracted the laziest Southern blacks..." As Wayne would say, "No Waaay!"
Documentation?
Creative Class should be called
Creass.
What does it mean to turn 'left' these days?
Support 'gay marriage'?
When Chicago demolished several huge housing projects about 20 years and gave the former residents use-anywhere Section 8 vouchers, more than a few made the short trip north of Wisconsin, where welfare benefits generally were higher than in Illinois.
Peter
Just because a county is "white" doesn't mean it's white. Some "white" counties are filling up with non-white immigrants, and some of them are only "white" in Census Bureau terms.
As far as I can tell, Waukesha County, Wisconsin has very few non-white or "white" immigrants.
Some inner suburbs are turning Democrat because they're turning black. They're the new dumping ground for the black undertow as whites try to gentrify cities.
Couldn't you go against grain and employ a euphemism here and there, such as say "least economically dynamic" in place of "laziest"?
We know what it means, but why make it easy for the monitors?
"southern" blacks? you mean from down south in Chicago?
I always wondered how blacks can tolerate the cold Milwaukee (& Chicago) winters. Also, it seems like the Catholic and Lutheran non-profit charitable "fronts" dump a lot of African refugees in Milwaukee.
...other than to listen a little more to Republicans.
A lot of good that's going to do.
Sending blacks from Milwaukee to Dubuque is not official FedGov policy. Oddly advocating Milwaukee is civil rights, but advocating Africa is extremist racist.
Dubuque agrees to correct discriminatory housing policies
First of all, Dubuque has had a preference system in place, giving extra points to people currently living in the Dubuque area. HUD said that discriminates against black people moving from places such as Chicago or Milwaukee.
http://www.kwwl.com/story/25257161/2014/04/15/dubuque-agrees-to-correct-discriminatory-housing-policies
They're heading north from Chicago's torn down projects. They being mostly ghetto blacks. The math is easy from there.
"Documentation?"
Read Jason DeParle's book on the American dream.
Just have Mexicans invade a state and the black population drops, in 2040 Texas will be down to 9 percent and California down to 4 percent. I think most of the southwest will come more like Anaheim, 55 percent Hispanic, 25 percent white, 15 percent Asian and 2 percent black.
Wisconsin is the state that holds a national White privilege seminar every year.
For this reason I will not feel sorry for Wisconsin at all once it turns into Mogadishu, after all they continue to vote for politicians who are extremely left wing on the issue of immigration.
Wisconsin is more blue than Paul Newman's eyes, they are hardcore politically blue.
Wisconsin is one of the few states where Barack Obama won the White vote by a clear landslide in 2012.
Even California Whites did not vote for Obama at the same high percentage that Wisconsin Whites did.
Back in 1997, the FirStar Centrer (the only semi-skyscraper in Milwaukee) had a lobby display commemorating the race riots in 1967.
They had a population timeline showing the steady increase of the white population right up to the riots in 1967 and the slow steady decline every year after that.
@Jefferson
Romney won white voters by 3% in Wisconsin...
Whether leftist or rightist, Germans are 'clean' and like to do things right. Thus, they are less likely to be tolerant of negro dysfunction--whereas an Irishman may find some way to make a deal--, and Negroes are more likely to feel that they're being judged and 'dissed' since German-Americans like to do things right.
You need to parse this even finer, I think you are describing ethnic Prussians and Hessians. A lot of Germans from Baden, Bavaria, Alsace, Wuerttemberg, etc. ended up in places like Cincinnati, Louisville and St. Louis. They were more direct in dealing with blacks, even if that meant cracking them in the head with a baseball bat to get their point across.
"Romney won white voters by 3% in Wisconsin..."
It's time for patriotic socialism.
"Wisconsin is more blue than Paul Newman's eyes, they are hardcore politically blue."
Funnishly enough, Wisc has had a nationally prominent Republican governor who's proved to be rather popular given the circumstances.
Also, Wisc led the nation in welfare reform.
But really...
GOP is really screwed because it lost both business and government.
If you don't got the business, then you must control the government. Irish understood this, which is why they got local government control as muscle against Anglo capital and business.
Or, if you don't got the government, you gotta control the business.
But super rich are now made up of Democratic Jews and Lib wasps. Look at NY, SF, LA, and etc. Even Dallas and Houston, though in a GOP-run state, are 'blue' Democratic cities. Most rich cities are totally 'blue'.
Given 'blue' control of big business, GOP should gain control of government as countermeasure. But the retardo libertarian crap made GOP anti-government.
So, GOP aint got business, it aint got government.
It's just a shitty whore looking anywhere for handouts.
Dems got NY, LA, SF, Chicago, and DC. They got business and government.
TIME FOR PATRIOTIC SOCIALISM.
Why should cons look to socialism(social-democratic fascism) and government than to business?
Cuz you gotta be really smart like Larry Brin and Sergei whoozits to become super-rich. You gotta be like Gates, Ellison, Milken, and etc.
Well, most cons aint that got that kind of smarts.
But even above average people can study and work for government. If the drunken Irish can do it, we can.
Be like the Irish. But we need to run clean government unlike the Irish with their blimey ways.
I'll relate my experience in Madison in the 1980's again.
Apparently there were black people in my high school, since West High's territory includes the South Side. However if you walked through the halls where classes were held for white kids, you never saw them. In 4 years at West, I had one class (German) with a single black kid. You didn't even see them in gym class.
It turned out they were all hidden away in the basement in what was essentially their own separate educational program focusing on mechanics and typing and actually made up 10% or more of the school. We had a class picture taken, and my mother was shocked to see a sprinkling of black faces in the sea of blonde. She had literally never seen a black family or black student at any school function.
Everyone was literally above average around you, because those who are below average were kept out by tracking, even when they were in, and they were often out at the reform school for fighting, drugs, and pregnancy.
One thing shell shocked whites can learn from such a thing is how blissful is the experience of a town or school or neighborhood where everyone is NOT a NAM. No filth, no crime, no strife, social harmony prevailing.
They actually discuss this a little in the original Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article that the NYT guy linked to.
They even got a quote from a guy who sounds like Tom Wolfe named him.
Journal-Sentinel: Dividing Lines
"Some of those movers brought with them negative perceptions of the city and its dominant political party. In metro areas with concentrated urban poverty and crime, racial polarization is high. "The white voters that surround those areas are incredibly radicalized," says GOP pollster Gene Ulm, who is based in northern Virginia but has polled in Wisconsin for many years.
"There is a huge correlation there," says Mandela Barnes, a first-term Democratic state lawmaker whose district includes half of Glendale and a set of mostly African-American neighborhoods in Milwaukee. Barnes says that concentration of poverty in Milwaukee feeds "this perception (outside Milwaukee) that there's a 'culture of takers.' And that can become political fodder."
In Europe they have a saying when referring to the German Socialist Party. "German socialists are more German than they are socialists". What does that mean? A strong work ethic and hard money policies trump socialist ideals. When Gerhardt Schroeder, leader of the Socialist Democrat Party, was Chancellor, the "Socialists", understanding basic mathematics, realized the German welfare system was not sustainable. They implemented a drastic reform making it sustainable again. US and Greece approach? Lets deny it and bury our heads in the sand or up our ____.
It's sad what's happened to Milwaukee. As recently as thirty years ago it was a nice working class mostly Polish city. Today it's a de-industrialized decaying sack of concrete filled with blacks and Puerto Ricans. Thank God it only has one House seat now.
Maybe the problem with Milwaukee is it didn't have enough padding-populations.
It actually had a large “padding” population in the form of Polish-Americans, as well as smaller numbers of Italian- and Greek-Americans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee#History
What it did not have was size: In relatively small (<750,000 people) and compact cities such as Milwaukee, it was much easier for the WASP- and Jewish- dominated federal bureaucracy and judiciary to impose forced busing, diversity, urban renewal, and 1960s-era “modernity” (e.g., Brutalist architecture and interstate highways through communities). The size and complexity of the federally mandated programs was smaller, there were fewer ways for local officials to slow-walk compliance with federal mandates, and the city's compact geography and irregular borders made it easier for residents to simply move a few blocks to the next community than it was to stay and fight.
When Milwaukee tried to “recapture” fleeing Whites by forcibly annexing adjoining streets, White families moved a few more blocks (or miles) away so that their children would not be subjected to federally-imposed forced busing. Unlike larger cities such as New York or Chicago, residents could easily leave the city while keeping the friends, their church, and their jobs; many former residents could even see their old homes or neighborhoods.
While the federal judiciary was willing to help Milwaukee (and other cities, such as Denver, CO) expand indefinitely through forcible annexations, the rapidly declining city no longer had the money to pursue annexations opposed by state and suburban officials. In the end, the White population was allowed to “escape” into suburbia, leaving behind some rapidly decaying industries and fading Polish- and German-American neighborhoods.
Most of the blacks in the Midwestern cities like Detroit, Chicago, etc. . are descended from blacks that came from Deep South states like Louisiana and Mississippi. During the latter days of slavery, the practice was becoming less economically viable in Atlantic-bordering slave states like Maryland and Virginia, so my guess is that a lot of the worst slaves from those regions were sold "down the river" to the Deep South. Fast-forward to the Great Migration in the early 21st century. The result is that the Midwestern cities were populated by a worse breed of black than those that went to Northeastern cities. Of course, that doesn't explain places like Baltimore and Camden. Although Baltimore - similar in size and ethnic makeup to Detroit - isn't the burnt out shell of a city that Detroit is.
I'm not sure what characterizations can be drawn of the blacks that remained in the South, compared to those that migrated. I will say this though - I've noticed that instances of the "knockout game" appear to be far fewer and in-between in the South than in other places. Although that may be because they are more instinctively likely to fear retribution from whites than they are in other regions.
"When Chicago demolished several huge housing projects about 20 years and gave the former residents"
How'd they get away with that?
In NYC, demolishing the projects would be unthinkable. They are sacrosanct, even as African-American political power has diminished.
Large sections of one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in the world is consigned to sheer worthlessness. Harlem is slowly being colonized by non-African-Americans (among them, real Africans, but you can't blame them for that, blame our crazy laws), This would happen overnight were it not for the projects. As it is, the process continues at a glacial pace.
These places are terra incognegro. Young men saunter through the projects during daylight hours with pit bulls straining at the leash. Some lunatic even kept a declawed tiger in his 6 room government supplied apartment.
So how'd Chicago do it?
"Lots of white ethnic groups, from successful to not so successful."
This person clearly does not know NYC. There are NO unsuccessful ethnic groups in NYC. Even the guidos are prosperous.
"One thing shell shocked whites can learn from such a thing is how blissful is the experience of a town or school or neighborhood where everyone is NOT a NAM. No filth, no crime, no strife, social harmony prevailing."
Ain't that the case. I just spent the weekend in Somerville, Mass. Clean, beautiful, dense. Just don't ask about the rent.
"t's sad what's happened to Milwaukee.... Today it's a de-industrialized decaying sack of concrete filled with blacks and Puerto Ricans."
Urbanism is coming back; in 15 years it'll be yuppified.
"I always wondered how blacks can tolerate the cold Milwaukee (& Chicago) winters. Also, it seems like the Catholic and Lutheran non-profit charitable "fronts" dump a lot of African refugees in Milwaukee." - Indoor heating. Prior to that blacks that tried to move north tended to suffer from respiratory illnesses and other issues.
@anon530AM: The knockout game in the South is comparatively fewer because the White guys there aren't dominated by Matt Yglesias types.
Those good ole boys can give as good as they get the local Blacks know this and act accordingly.
At any rate here's an old Atlantic article that supports your overall theme, the Midwest got the worst Blacks from the Deep South.
http://m.theatlantic.com/past/politics/poverty/origin1.htm
Harlem is already majority Hispanic. Old man Rangel is on track to have his long House career come to a bitter end.
@Bert: Old man Rangel is on track to have his long House career come to a bitter end.
And he still hasn't paid his taxes.
One thing shell shocked whites can learn from such a thing is how blissful is the experience of a town or school or neighborhood where everyone is NOT a NAM. No filth, no crime, no strife, social harmony prevailing.
I am still shell-shocked from all my time in all-white schools and their spoiled rich white kids, jocks and bullies. Are NAMs all that worse? Or do white trogs suddenly turn into civilized human beings when NAMs out-trog them?
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/may/06/mizoguchi-beauty-sacrifice/?insrc=wbll
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/may/22/smooth-path-pearl-harbor/?insrc=toc
Geesen? Yech!
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/may/22/songs-sergei-dovlatov/?insrc=toc
South Milwaukee is where everybody non Black or White lives. Basically all Mexican, Serbian, Vietnamese, and other.
Well it actually got worse because it simply replaced a dense vertical ghetto with a horizontal sprawl ghetto ala SC LA. OFC while not as glamorous, Milwaukee's North side sprawl ghetto has been competing with SC LA and Houston's 5th Ward for decades on sheer violence and poverty. As the old Milwaukee joke goes, the reason you only hear about East and West coast rappers is those in the middle are to busy actually living it.
It actually had a large “padding” population in the form of Polish-Americans, as well as smaller numbers of Italian- and Greek-Americans.
The hero of HAPPY DAYS happened to be a Milwaukee Italian.
It is interesting to contemplate the relevance of the lush benefits for the poor in Milwaukee during the 60's and 70's to the Milwaukee Project of the late Rick Heber ("Miracle in Milwaukee" ), brought to fruition under difficult circumstances by Prof. Howard Garber. As nearly as anyone can determine, no effort (beyond the requirements of the Project ) was ever made to follow up the roughly 35 young adults as of 1988 who had been either part of the control group or the experimental group that were evolved over several months in 1965-66. They were yet living (reportedly) in the inner city when the Report of the Milwaukee Projct--much delayed, it seems--was finally published in 1988, shortly aftr the mysterious death of Rick Heber and 11 other Americans in a plane wreck in Rwanda (on a video safari that appears to have been a research project out of an academic setting in NW Texas devoted ostensibly to the study of the locomotion of the mountain gorilla but which, I suspect, was in reality devoted to racial differences among humans in the acquisition of childhood locomotion?) In a 1983 article in the Milwaukee Sentinel writer Susan Trebach quoted Garber to the effect that the Report had been finished and sent to the publisher and would be available early in 1984. This news items also quotes an academic in California who declared that the really interesting outcome of the Milwaukee Project would be to follow up the children (then high school students or drop outs ) into early adulthood to see if the children getting environmental intercession were doing notably better in occupations, social adjustment, post-high school training, etc, than those of the control group.
Given the massive controversy over the Milwuakee Project, it is odd that in view of the population stability (lush welfare benefits ? of the children involved that no recorded/ publicly accessible/ contact was ever made with them after the report was finally issued in early 1988. One academic critic of the Milwaukee Project, asserted it was questionable whether a genuine Project ever existed. A core issue here is the tendency of academic researchers to focus merely on data, charts, graphs, and the published research, without also giving regard to anecdotal evidence, social context, etc. Given the degree of low income people in the inner city and the mental retarded status of the mothers of the children focused upon, it is odd indeed that no record of follow up interviews, etc, exists. The University of Wisconsin at Madison, that was the academic base of Heber's operations,appears to have had an odd Ostrich posture all along about the Project.
Further to the demographics and politics of Milwaukee vis a vis
Rick Heber's Milwaukee Project.
If the area was, in inception, as politically divided between inner city left and outlying right---it may help explain (?) Heber's desire to levitate into place in 1971 an article claiming the Project to be a "Miracle in Milwaukee" in boosting IQ. Heber's notion for the research design came from his doctoral work, a portion under a distinguished teacher of operant conditioning. This was back in the time frame of 1956-57. The aim of the Project was not to "boost" IQ but simply to offset and prevent the developmental neglect-damage that retarded mothers could not help inflicting upon babies, toddlers, and very young children. A very extreme form of such neglect would be the few known instances of feral children. Thus, preventing early deficits that could "snowball" into lifelong handicaps is not the same as trying to make normal kids into super Mensa stars. The Project was based on elaborate population surveys of the Milwaukee inner city made possible by a 1962 grant that Heber got. No one assumes that Heber had any clairvoyance in 1975 and in 1962 of the Jensenism firestorm that raged after Jensen's 1969 HER paper. In this context, then, it is most likely that Heber covertly got the article "Miracle in Milwaukee" published in 1971 as a "firewall" to protect the Project from any left wing fears that it might vindicate Jensenism? The Madison campus by 1969-70 was the most militantly leftist campus in America. Heber and the University at Madison had an evolved (if unwritten) contractual understanding that he had to spend little time on campus. He was a legendary figure in his capacity to get grants and was known by grantors in the federal government to have a vast knowledge of law and finance relevant to grantsmanship. Heber appears mainly to have been a brilliant con$ultant for setting up and superintending programs in mental retardation. He had a virtual archipelago of grant sites around North American and reaching into many foreign governments. Clearly ' THE CURIOUS CASE" of the demographics and politics in the Madison-Milwaukee area circa
1961-79 appears to be directly relevant to the Project and to Heber's demise (conviction in federal court of misuse of funds).
Yet little is known about the inner workings at the U. of Wisconsin Madison that permitted so much latitude and that places the University into a persistent Ostrich pose.
A specific demographic issue is
relevant to the question (raised by at least one academic critic ) as to whether the Project as described ever existed. The Report finally issued in 1988--long delayed for reasons that remain misty, as noted--notes that 35 of the 40 children involved in the study remained as of 1987 in the inner city of Milwaukee. These children, as infants, came on board in 1965-66 (the experimental group lapped over from 1965 to 1066 in its
selection ). Now, what would the population geographic stability for the inner city indicate as to the likelihood that 3 5 out of 40 would remain over more than 20 years? And exactly why is there no record of anyone interviewing any of the children, identified as such, who were in the experimental group--if, upon attaining majority age, 16 years or less after the active enrichment phase of the Project, they were yet living in the area? Why no follow up to see how the control children/adults compared to the experimental (enrichment) children/adults in terms of young adult occupational adjustment, social-emotional adjustment, post high school education/training?? The biggest question mark about the demography of the Milwaukee region (reaching over to Madison) is what kind of citizenry permits the U. of Wisconsin at Madison to keep Heber's activities and the Project in the shadows from 1962 to the present? If there ever was anything that deserved a full fledged retrospective, it is this matter of Heber's career relevant biography ("the Howard Hughes of academia" or "the agent 007 of
academia???" ) and the events shaping the Project. The University is , in this matter, a desecration of discovery and learning.
With regard to Milwaukee/ its populace/ and the late Rick Heber and his (?) 14 million dollar Milwaukee Project that seems to have just filtered into the mist in terms of significance and scientific contributions: It is
amazing how cloistered Heber's life appears to have been. As noted, for years and years, he spent very little time on campus and apparently did not in any practical way even reside in the State of Wisconsin (other than in an arid "legal" sense), as his effective residence became Monument Colorado and surroundings sometime by the mid or early 70's. This highlights the "publish or perish" obsession merely with the Project, because it is odd to complain about lack of disclosure re the Project when the whole of Heber's career at U. Wisconsin Madison seems to have been buried in mystery--"the Howard Hughes of academic research" was a whispered characterization. After he got out of minimal "detention" (country club prison) after his sentencing in federal court in October 1981, he was using the name variant "Franz Heber" to present as a "tour guide" for a
"photo safari" out of Amarillo, Texas, in late Nov. 1987. But the local newspaper reports that arose after the plane crash in Rwanda that killed Heber and 11 other Americans---suggest he was
again likely functioning as a research consultant to his former student and assistant , Prof. Mary Slater, then of Texas Tech U. Health Science Ctr. in Amarillo, and the "photo safari" quite possibly was a kind of decoy for what was more saliently a research project re the evolution and developmental stages of human infant/toddler locomotion. It remains thus far unclear whether federal authorities alerted Texas Tech U. to Heber's past (At his sentencing, the federal trial Judge Barbara Crabb characterized his in obiter dicta as a criminal psychopath.) It seems to be the obsession with mere research/publication and research/publication that accounts for the lack of big heavy question marks about the whole 20 year relationship he presumably had with U of Wisconsin at Madison--Howard Hughes???
The starkest question to emerge from all the amazing "cloud cover" that surrounds Heber's career is whether perhaps the Milwaukee Project was basically inspired at the level of national security and merely implemented by Heber? There really is not basically much indication of Heber being at all left wing in his personal beliefs. While he had to "talk a ball game" politically to protect the Project vis a vis the rampant militant Marxism on the UW Madison campus, the full range of facts that can be extracted do not lend easy support to Heber having any left wing agenda at all. The whispered regard of possible linkages of race, genes, and IQ reached back to at least the mid 50's research of Prof. Audrey Shuey (and her advisor, Prof. Henry Garrett) resulting in the (delayed and "depublished") book THE TESTING OF NEGRO INTELLIGENCE, self published initially in 1958. While Eysenck and Jensen seemed to sidestep the question as something that had not yet arrived upon the scientific table, Ruggles Gates, along with Garrett, was one academic asserting its importance early on. When the surrounding information re the Milwaukee Project is examined, there is nothing that disallows the possibility that the Project arose from deep national security interests in affording a "lightning rod" against the possible links of race, IQ, and genes. If so, it was a great success in that for almost a quarter of a century it was cited and cited and cited as a refutation for what in 1969 became known as "Jensenism".
When details relevant to Heber's career are gathered together, there is nothing that seems to disallow the conjecture that the Milwaukee Project was basically formulated within the national security apparatus as a lightning rod against what by 1969 had become known as "Jensenism" but that was very much "in the atmosphere" with the 1958 publication of Audrey Shuey's THE TESTING OF NEGRO INTELLIGENCE
When details relevant to Heber's career are gathered together, there is nothing that seems to disallow the conjecture that the Milwaukee Project was basically formulated within the national security apparatus as a lightning rod against what by 1969 had become known as "Jensenism" but that was very much "in the atmosphere" with the 1958 publication of Audrey Shuey's THE TESTING OF NEGRO INTELLIGENCE
Well, it certainly is true that Heber's career was widely and favorably regarded up until the investigations of 1980 and the rapidly following indictments and conviction at the end of July 1981 in federal court on 13 counts of mishandling funds. His amazing brilliance and feats in
"how to" get things done---grants approved; obsstacles removed, etc. were legendary in Washington,D.C. "Heber stories" abounded. Yet now online there is really nothing. None of his contemporaries have been interviewed, even anonymously, in anything online I have found. The very interesting and troubling details about the mysterious plane wreck that killed him (and a coterie of academics from Texas Tech. U. ) are accessible only from local
news coverage in Amarillo at the time and in some regional coverage that reflected the use of telephone inquires of the U.S. State Department, etc. It becomes quixotic to criticize the Milwaukee Project for withholding information and cultivating nearly NSA levels of secrecy when, in fact, almost everthing Heber did was enveloped in elaborate cloud cover. If more were known about Heber's career-relevant biography, the questions surrounding the Project would long ago have surrounded the University at Madison---Why on earth would a "Howard Hughes" "Agent 007" type person be allowed to be in charge of such a Project? Did the University, in reality, have any genuine control over the Project? Itg is very unclear why tidbits / anecdotes / particular pieces of primary source information (e.g., trial transcript, BoP appraisal, the Amarillo coverage of the plane wreck that killed Heber and his former student, Mary slater ) have never surfaced online. From what can be unearthed about Heber's career relevant biography, his involvement with the University of Wisconsin appears to have been more that of a very powerful and prestigious
mystery man using the University as a base of operations, than that of a full professor and program administrator. The distinguished psychiatrist, Bertram Brown, has implicated the "diagnosis" and operant conditioning of Rose Mary Kennedy as a massive hoax. Heber was very deeply involved with her, but the details were merely matters of rumor and conjecture on the Madison campus. Brown and Heber were bitter enemies. Brown appears to be yet living and active in his early 80's. Yet to my awareness he is but one of dozens of people having had contact with Heber who have never been even anonymously interviewed.
National Security Apparatus?
Some information surfacing now about Mary Slater's research into human infant, toddler locomotion
seems relevant to the notion of a photo safari to Rwanda/Kenya / aimed at mountain gorillas. The covert reality is that the small tribe of Tsa lived at that time,
1987, with mountain gorillas in dense forested areas. The Tsa were pygmies that had odd evolutionary vestiges in their ankle and foot capacities. It is highly likely that the photo safari of mountain gorillas was a cover for photographing and studying the racially specific characteristics of Tsa pygmy locomotion. Heber had been her mentor and inspiration at the UW Madison before he got sent to
"country club" prison (Bastrop , Tx) for playing loose with grant monies.
Increasing indication suggests Texas Tech University refuses to comment on records of the 1986 and then the fatal 1987 photo safari under "tour guide" Rick Franz Heber and his former student, then Assoc. Prof. at Texas Tech, Mary Slater. It seems increasingly that a covert focus may have been (?) a study of the racially specific unique ankle/foot flexion of the Tsa pygmy tribe then living amidst the mountain gorillas. It would be "vintage Heber" to have some covert activity under the table while a prosaic overt activity served as decoy. But consider the Milwaukee Project. In late Dec. 1983, then reporter Susan Trebach (Milwaukee Sentinel) reported that the 1,500 page Report on the Milwaukee Project had gone to the publisher and would be in print in the spring.
Didn't happen. After Heber's death, a Report was published in 1988. No one (other than Project insiders? ) ever seemed to have much secure awareness of the details of the Project. The "Curious Case" re Milwaukee and the region seems to extent not just to voters but to the whole climate of "see nothing wrong, hear nothing wrong, think nothing wrong." Utopia? Federal
Judge Barbara Crabb at the end of October 1981 in her obiter dicta at Heber's sentencing, said the whole University (Madison) was essentially "on trial" in its lack of interest in whether Heber was on campus or gone, in what he was or was not doing, etc. Yet,
to date, there is not even a faint effort to do a Retrospective on the Heber Affair (incorporating anything in the Texas Tech situation that might be relevant ). Archives at UW Madison has almost nothing re the Heber Affair. The University made extensive notes on each day of the nine day trial. Yet nothing is on file in Archives.
Orwellian.
It was only with the expose articles leading up to the indictment in April 1981 that it
was laid out how secretive Heber was and how "hands off" the University had been for years and years. It was reported that Heber refused to allow himself to be photographed; that he used many name variants; that he had numerous corporate shells under which he carried out fee earning consultation; that he seemed to reside in Colorado rather than in Wisconsin; the he had numerous unlisted phone lines coming into his residence; that he and his wife refused to register to vote because of not wishing to divulge any information about themselves; that he was massively involved in real estate transactions and in the importation, breeding, showing of fine Arabian horses, etc. and that he was on campus in Madison so rarely that he was known as "the Howard Hughes of academia" This may or may not be congruent with involvements within the national security apparatus. It sure is not par for the course on most campuses.
You have some comments here about
studies re "foot flexion" and so on re the Twa pygmies of central Africa. Texas Tech University had studies going on (whether or not involving travel to Africa?)
in the 1980's re child growth stages among these pygmies. Who knows whether supposed "photo safaris" were mostly covert research? Smells like the same Rick Heber who worked "miracles" between Milwaukee and Madison before ending up in the federal country club prison 1982-1984.
The two pygmies were in 1987 yet living in their evolved cohabitation with mountain gorillas. Soon after 1987, volcanic political events drove them away from the forests and many were the victims of genocide.
The raw fact is that eyeball social appraisals of them by adjacent Negro inhabitants had created an African view of the pygmies as subhuman. In fact, intelligence measurements suggest an average twa pygmy IQ of below 60!! It is not clear that the following "dots connect" and to avoid "conspiracy theorist" and
"tabloid" vulgarities, the proximity of dots can be noted but there is nothing to be said in the absence of evidence not yet at hand. One does not impart significance from rumination and "iffy" conjectures. That understood, the Heber / Slater
"photo safari" in fact brought two researchers into mental retardation (the Milwaukee Project) into direct contact with a very distinct human population bearing many MR characteristics and at a time when the nature/nurture issue re pygmies was ripening. Cavalli-Sforza's
1986 book on pygmies was a product of two decades of academic
"reworking" / review / of folk judgements. Having a "photo safari" cover for such research would be "vintage Heber" But that is not evidence. We might know more if questions had arisen a quarter of a century ago. Heber's life, viewed broadly, is one of extreme cultivatiojn of secrecy within a kind of "Agent 007" shadowland.
As for "ankle/foot" study of the Twa pygmies---a salient characteristic of the Twa in the eyes of their longstanding African neighboring peoples is their observed mental limitations. The work of Richard Lynn suggests test indications of an overall IQ level less than 60. Thus, the Milwaukee Project focus of Slater and Heber would reach much beyond mere foot/ankle flexion. It would be vintage Heber for the "photo safari" of mountain gorillas to have been covertly and mainly a camcorder video research gathering of overall adaptive behaviors and of developmental stages.?? The adult citizenry in Milwaukee-Madison might ponder just how this "Howard Hughes of Academe"
fed for 21 years off the taxpayers via UW Madison.
Both Rick Heber and his former
close associate/ student/ Mary A. Slater, were killed in an odd plane wreck in December 1987 while on some sort of photo tour or research probe in Rwanda. If this was covertly or overtly a study of the pygmy tribe, it would be a shadow of the Milwaukee Project, headed by Heber and much studied by Slater.
But voters or no voters a lot about the Milwaukee Project was never found out. The trip re the
pygmy people might have been a research to see how their behaviors might be shaped so that they could fit in better if relocated out of the forests into farming villages and the like. Heber was an expert in behavior shaping and adaptation. So was Slater. Doesn't mean it happened. But there sure was no clear barrier to it. More Heber mystery. He had two full time positions at the U. of Wisconsin at Madison when he got into legal hot water in 1980-81 and ended up for a short time in "country club' fed prison. Then he gets out and is supervising an academic tour out of Amarillo/ Texas Tech in 1986 and again in
1987. Hmmmm.
Rick ("Franz") Heber was released early from parole sometime in the fall of 1985 to take a Director of Research position within an
International Institute based upon the campus of Gothenburg University in Sweden. It has previously been supposed he held no academic positions after his
"country club" detention (prison) time. Part of his duties entailed a lot of travel (otherwise unspecified) into Africa. The Institute was devoted to international educational research. The Research Director position was for research into environmental
contributions/ causes/ of some
types of mental retardation in children.
Smells a little bit like something that could have been
underwritten by national security
elements???
An informative commentary (given
in a semi-private memorium?) re
this matter appears under the heading MARY SLATER in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD--SENATE
of Dec. 11, 1987, pg 35285-86,
placed therein by North Dakota
Senator Burdick. Mary Alice Slater was from Minot, N.D., before coming to Wisconsin in 1968. The commentary appears to affirm that the "photo safaris"
of 1986 and 1987 were, in fact,
excursions regarding research in human behaviors.
Re Heber and the Milwaukee Project
***When Heber was killed in early December 1987 in a yet mysterious wreck of a small plane in Rwanda, among those perishing and linked to academic research was a female academic who had been a graduate student under Heber at UW Madison
in the 1970's and a chief aide to him at the time of his demise there. In a tribute to her in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD--SENATE
on Dec. 11, 1987 (page 35285) there is affirmation that the overtly described "photo safari" to video tape mountain gorillas was most saliently a research trip,for which the gorillas were sidebar. Of many matters of depending interest re Heber, one is why all news accounts of the plane wreck of Dec. 03, 1987 (Rwanda time) referred only to a "photo safari" while in-house remarks about the tragedy revealed it to be research project about which, as far as I can find out, no public information has ever yet been released??
It is astounding how Heber was able to function prominently in American academia for 21 years as
"the Howard Hughes of Academe" in that almost no one knew at any given time where he was or what he was doing. His absences from
UW Madison were just carte blanche, but he brought grant money and prestige to the campus year after year, in train loads.
When she was killed in the creepy plane wreck (about which not much detailed information has ever surfaced ) with Rick Heber, Mary Slater had four research papers almost each ready for publication. Her associates had resolved to give them the finishing touches and get them published in all their names. Didn't happen, as far as anyone can tell. It is not clear what the specific topics were , but it appears not unlikely the papers were based on some aspect of whatever human research might have been underway in Central Africa in the 1985-87 time span??
A look back at Heber and his career ought to reveal how big
all the "sidebar" can loom over time when exclusive focus is given only to publication of research and data. Heber very directly approached the issue of nature/nurture in a paper delivered in 1967 in Oregon, back when the Milwaukee Project was early on. He never was even remotely a John B. Watson whole hog environmentalist. His focus was on the sort of cumulative deficit that can arise from the neo natal stage on through early childhood if a child is yoked to a mentally retarded mother but has himself/herself received a genetic dice throw that otherwise would enable to child to be within a broad normal range. The issue was how to prevent the big suppressive effect upon normal nature/nurture dynamics that a mentally retarded mother would impose. It is not so much boosting IQ as liberating it.
The lack of regard to context in the career of the late Rick Heber is a retrospective lesson on crackpot practicality. In his (required/imposed) archival interview at UW Madison in May 1979--a two hour interview re his career--Heber notes the stark threat upon the Milwaukee Project that the rapid change of political atmosphere caused circa 1968 ff. At one point, the radical leftist priest Fr. James Groppi threatened to march on the Milwaukee Project as a result of a complaint lodged with him by a disgruntled former employee at the Project whom Heber had to dismiss. A big razz jazz article "Miracle in Milwaukee" in this context is likely to have been just a tough minded survival strategy to keep the lefties from pouncing?? When the Jensen 1969 HER bombshell article appeared, a Project involving inner city Black children and IQ is not one that was otherwise than in the target hairs.
The reference to Mary Slater and the Congressional Record here is interesting on another issue. The eulogy carried in the Record (along with her hometown obit ) notes that at the time of this yet mysterious Rwandan plane wreck, Mary Alice Slater had four research papers ready or almost ready for submitting for publication. There was a resolve by her associates to finish these out and have them published. It is unclear whether they focused on poritons of whatever was going on in the "photo safari" trips?? But it appears they were never published and might have been withdrawn from any submission that might have been made??
It now seems likely Heber from at least the mid-60's had entertained an interest in how mental retardation was perceived and dealt with in undeveloped societies, such as, say, the Central African pygmies. He gave a paper at a conference in Oregon in July 1967 re the environmental and hereditary components of mental retardation. He was no Blank Slate loony. He gave a good bit of regard to the zone of limitation hereditary provided. The Milwuakee Project was aimed at releasing the underlying nature/nurture dynamic from the suppressive impacts of mentally retarded mothers. Obviously, the suppression is significant in instances in which the genetic dice throw has given a newborn a chance to function within at least the low normal range absent suprressive influences. The Milwaukee Project was no effort to demonstrate Blank Slate magic.
It is amazing how little academic critics of Heber's Milwaukee Project actually knew about his acts and omissions. He had hardly been hired (out of a PhD program ) for a year, when he was sought by the Kennedy family to head JFK's Research Panel on Mental Retardation Policy. He was in D.C. for about a year. Court filings he had to make attendant to being released early from parole, revealed that not long after being with the Kennedys in D.C., Heber spent about a year at the U. of Gothenburg in Sweden. Many newly hired PhD's spend about six steady years before getting their first sabbatical. It is by no means clear what accounts for all the oddities in Heber's career.
Field psychological observations and studies of the Central African pygmies--including very much, the Batwa pygmies--began by psychologists in the late 60's and steadily beyond. Among key figures in close observations of the pygmies were Herman Witkin and John Berry, Barry Hewlett.
By 1986, camcorder technology had made it possible to amass a huge amount of "observation" within a short amount of time---the video footage, of course, to be intensely viewed and reviewed and analyzed within psychology departments. Almost certainly, members of the fatal 1987 research trip re the human pygmy population (under the cover of an also "photo safari" of mountain gorillas ) that had been in-house trained specially were the Amarillo owner of a photo studio,
Ernie Farino and the young wildlife photographer, Donald Wilberforce. It is likely Heber's close friend and business associate, Thomas Askelson of Syracuse, Illinois, was also into the applications of emergent camcorder technology. Why it has been necessary for over a quarter of a century to "cover" all this as a mere "photo safari" of mountain gorillas is yet another aspect of how Heber's life was so much that of a "Howard Hughes of Academe". Hmmmmm.
The whole show re Heber leads into C. P. Snow's delineation of two cultures. The egoistic scientific pre-determination of what is relevant and the campus
"publish or perish / my data/your data/ my publications/ my faculty eval/ my CV...my data/your data..." renders as sidebar a lot of stuff that in Heber's career has accumulated to vastly overshadow topical obsessions. It is astounding that in the U.S. someone could have a career for 21 years at one of the most prestigious state universities and yet write his own ticket to the extent (until he came under
investigation about 1979 ) he was known at the time of his April 1981 indictment as "the Howard Hughes of Academe". Then, he was cryptically early released from parole to go back into a shadowy life along the same lines, just this time anchored to the U. of Gothenburg in Sweden. Major spy fiction could be overlaid upon his biography with an amazing amount of concordance This falls far short of suggesting the Langley was ushering his career. But, as far as known details go, it sure does not foreclose such a possibility. The rather adroitly
designed confusions basic to the research design of the Milwaukee Project are consistent with--but certainly not necessarily indicate of--such a possibility. That the Project was repeatedly mentioned in textbooks and media for a quarter of a century as a refutation of Jensenism sure is not a matter of reassurance as regards such a Langley possibility. That he seems to have been directing a covert research project at the time of his death is hardly a matter of reassurance. Focus upon "my research data, your data, my publication, my faculty eval...has given rise to a lot of larger darkness.
The Wikipedia entry for the Milwaukee Project is much in want.
It is not basically true that two associates were convicted of crime. One was "exonerated sentenced" to one hour of drinking coffee in the Court Clerk's lounge by the federal judge, whose obiter dicta in this instance clearly exonerated the person (who two and a half years earlier had presented to Heber the final Report of the Project in order that it could be approved and forwarded for publication (It finally was published in 1988 ).
Heber and his co-defendant Patrick J. Flanigan were not prosecuted for any of the funds coming into the Milwaukee Project.
There is not direct relevance at all between the prosecution and the Project.
The Project has an adroit con-fusion inherent in its design. It is not directly at all a study of "nature/nurture" and IQ. It is, rather, a study of what Arthur Jensen by 1977 had found to be the genuinely IQ lowering effects of severe environmental
suppression---"cumulative deficit"
It was not, then, a study of the wide range of "nurture" as it interacts with "nature". The Project was, instead, a study of the suppressive effects from birth of a mentally retarded mother upon her child in terms of truncated verbal interactions, visual-motor tracking, responsiveness to general stimuli, etc. The Project amounted not so much to boosting IQ as to liberating it from levels of atypical suppression and neglect.
By the time the group of 20 target (treatment) children had reached age 21, there were 17 of them yet in the inner city of Milwaukee. Yet, oddly, attempts of researchers (independently of the Project) to contact them seem to have been repeatedly in vain. An important follow up on the Project would be comparisons of the control and the target group in terms of early adulthood training success, job success, social-sexual adjustment, etc.
In an archival interview of two hours Heber was forced to undergo (as per his teaching contract at UW Madison) in May 1979, reveals that the Project suffered a lot from racial tensions that had mounted in the inner city by 1968 but that had not been part of the picture when the Project began. The rise of "Jensenism" also added to this atmosphere. It is not unlikely that the glizt article "the Miracle in Milwaukee" was an effort at political insulation rather than academic deception?
It is nonetheless true that "the Miracle in Milwaukee" was cited over and over in textbooks, media, and in campus "lectures" in second and third tier universities for a quarter of a century---effectively creating a propaganda lightning rod vis a vis the work of Arthur Jensen.
Just template viewed as a matter advised and aided out of Langley, it is blood chilling to note the extent to which such a conjecture reconciles all sorts of exceptional features of the Project, which, under such a contemplative template becomes a truly brilliant black art work within science---a kind of Sysphean means of keeping the truth alive but not letting it thrive. ???
(1) Heber's inner circle at Madison never understood why he so often and mysteriously flew into Central Africa and back--this from at least the mid 60's
(2) Heber had a deep personal interest in the anthropological viewpoint about mental retardation. He was particularly interested in how the condition was dealt with among primitive peoples.
The comments here regarding Rick Heber do note that what was mentioned as a "photo safari" regarding the small plane wreck that killed him and his research associate, Mary Alice Slater, was more basically a research excursion. It would be "vintage Heber" to decoy and conceal research by emphasis upon a very real but sidebar "photo safari" (of mountain gorillas ). It would also be "vintage Heber" to conduct research on , say, Batwa pygmy very low IQ (average estimated 54 ) via massive camcorder footage. It's just a huge amount of "photo safari" until we get it back to U. of Gothenburg to make research material out of frame by frame analysis of camcorder video tape.
The big thing to note here is that in the same region, under the inspiration of Sforza-Cavailli and Herman Witkin, a group of researchers not connected to Heber and Slater at all had juggled around in the late 70's to evade "g" measures (short "g" measures were modified in order to study "cognitive style") and to disparage "g" in the summary report of the work,
and to use pre camcorder videos to assist. That video technology caused problem. By 1986, when Slater took the first known "safari" to the region, camcorder technology had made reliance on video film practical.
By 1986, the whole areas was pretty much unchartered territory for meritorious research.
Heber's long underling, Mary Alice Slater, at the time of the fatal plane crash had four academic papers almost ready for publication. Her immediate supervisor, in a eulogy to her, pledged to complete them and get them published. But it appears they were seized or otherwise prevented from publication? In 1981, the FBI interview of Heber's co defendant Patrick Flanigan (devoted largely to Heber, who refused to be interviewed or to take the stand in the trial ) appears to have vanished from the Case File. A Summary of it , as Exhibit 76 in Docket Entry 58, can not now be located by the federal custodians of the Case. Heber ends up in federal (coat and tie) prison for operating over two decades in the shadows and mists. By 1985 he is released early from parole to reenter a world of vague definition, in a role of international research in mental retardation, linked to a major University in Sweden, but often himself flying in and out of Africa. It appears naïve to believe the Department of Justice might make an internal study of how badly it failed to reform him. But that hardly seems to have happened. Hmmmm.
See CONGRESSIONAL RECORD--SENATE Dec. 11, 1987, at page 35285 for the obit of
Mary Alice Slater, Heber's long close associate and one of the victims of this
Dec. 03, 1987, crash. The inserts make clear that research was a salient part of
this trip, although all wire service reports noted it only as a "photo safari". All research done by Heber and Slater in the past had dealt with human children and
with the amelioration or prevention of mental retardation. (See Wikipedia for
"The Milwaukee Project" The Case File referred to above is the federal prosecution of Heber (and a co-defendant) in 1981 in the W. District of Wisconsin (Madison) in Case No. 81-CR-20. The case file has a record of a hearing on Sept. 30, 1985, for early release of Heber from parole (granted). In it an Exhibit letter
was filed by his counsel from the University of Gothenburg (bearing letterhead
"Department of Special Education/ University of Gothenburg, SWEDEN") over the signature of prestigious Swedish intellectual and semi-retired politico, Gunnar Hedlund. The letter offers Heber a position as Research Director in an international research effort re mental retardation, with much work in Africa, as well as in Europe. The file is now held at NARA OGIS in Chicago. It is not an unreasonable investigative hypothesis that at the time of his death , Heber was functioning in this role. Sooo, why for 27 years all the cloud cover about what was going on , thus far decoyed as "photo safari" (of mountain gorillas)???
For nearly a year, U.S. Department of Justice Director of Information Policy,
Melanie Ann Putsay, has been content to see total exclusions and exemptions placed
on FOIA Requests that seek at least a slight degree of Information releases about
any otherwise cryptic "research"--e.g., was it with human subjects (as the background of Heber and Slater would suggest)? With Central African questions of
low IQ (again as their backgrounds would suggest)? But for now nearly six months
the DoJ Bureau of Prisons has refused to release any information about Heber while
he was in prison (Bastrop, Texas )--e.g., occupational re-orientation. Requests elsewhere within the DoJ regarding this specific tragic so-called "photo safari" appear to have invoked total exclusion and total exemption to any information that would provide any indication about this 27 years old shrouded "research". Putsay
appears to have been under orders to seal it up. ? Why?
As noted in previous entries, the letter over Hedlund's signature and bearing a variety of University of Gothenburg letter head, which letter was dated March 01, 1985, and appeared as a legal Exhibit in the federal court hearing (re Heber's
prosecution ) of September 30, 1985---clearly noted that one of the corporations
donating money to fund the international research in mental retardation ( that Hedlund was proposing to establish Rick Heber was "Research Director" of !! ) was
the Volvo Corporation. It is perhaps high time for the Volvo Corporation to encourage both the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and the Texas Tech University in Texas, to "turn the lights on" re what was or wasn't going on and particularly why Hedlund, and both Universities appeared to be either ignorant of Heber's past or somehow indifferent to it ???? Sometimes it smells a little like Langley ???
The University of Gothenburg had close involvements with Heber going back to about 1965, when he spent portions of his sabbatical (from U. Wisconsin, Madison) there.
A letter written under U. of Gothenburg letterhead, dated August 18, 1981, was written by he vice president of the mental retardation entity (IDRERI) in behalf of Heber's getting a lenient sentence. Neither this letter nor the one of March 01, 1985, expressed any reservations about Heber or any knowledge of , or concern about, the conviction of Heber (July 30, 1981) on 13 felony counts in federal court.
The praise of him, explicit and implicit, in each letter is superlative. His close personal associate and research associate, Mary Alice Slater, did consultation service at Gothenburg at least after going to Texas Tech University in about June 1984.
One of the victims of the Dec. 03, 1987, plane crash in Rwanda, was Tom Askelson.
Askelson had been in contact by at least 1982 with the Waisman Center at the U. of
Wisconsin and thus, no doubt, with Mary Alice Slater. He was into designing intellectually stimulating carpeting for children. He wrote Heber while Heber
was in prison in Texas offering Heber upon parole a position as salesperson/
consultant in this enterprise. When Heber accepted the position of Research Director at IDRERI upon his early release from parole in October 1985, he formally had it as a half time position; the other half of his employment time was with
Askelson (Askelson Associates ) presumably within Europe and parts of Africa.
Askelson and Slater, then, were thoroughly in the know about Heber's prison time,etc. I is not clear that anyone else on the fatal 1987 safari had any awareness of Heber's shady background. It is odd indeed that the FBI would not have seen appropriate local entities in Amarillo (and Lubbock?) informed of Heber's
relevant past before he got involved as a "tour guide" from that location involving
several persons directly or indirectly linked to Texas Tech University Health Science Center, where Slater had been into research since leaving U. Wisconsin Madison in 1984. The convergence of information and professional background, etc,
clearly demanded--yet demand--some revelations about what research was underway--this in dedication for the need of safeguards. Why has it never been forthcoming
from TTU HSC, University of Gothenburg, or private corporate donors to IDRERI. like
the Volvo Corporation???
Heber had not long been in prison after arriving in Texas, when rather abruptly
a visit over three days (probably limited to two hours each day ) took place
among Heber, Mary Alice Slater, and "an official of the Swedish Ministry of Education. There is every suggestion that as soon as the verdict was handed down in his case (July 30, 1981) Heber had assurance of being able to set up shop
at Gothenburg, Sweden---at IDRERI of the University of Gothenburg--as soon as he was released from parole. There seems to be no awareness of--or at least no concern about--the severe criticisms of Heber's character by trial judge Barbara
Crabb--both at Heber's sentencing and at the Dec. 22, 1982, exoneration "sentencing" of Heber underling, Prof. Howard Garber. The obiter dicta
re Heber on Dec. 22, 1982 is much more severe and specific than what emerged at his own sentencing on October 30, 1981.
Documents released by BoP DoJ under the Freedom of Information Act, clearly
reveal aspects of Heber's pre-sentence evaluation that would be extremely disquieting to any prospective employer. Heber "failed" to recall in his
being interviewed re pre-sentence evaluation that he had been previously married
and had sired four children in that marriage (taking place in September 1953 in
Arkansas). He had refused to have any personal contact with the children after he
and his first wife ceased to live together (about 1961). Heber is revealed to be
a heartless person , if with a mask of charm. He continually dissembles and evades, in very artful fashion. Heber is revealed to be a sort of textbook psychopath. He was seen to have rather wrecked the life of his venal underling,
Patrick J. Flannigan ( a co-defendant in the trial that sent Heber into BoP free room and board ). It is truly amazing that the University of Gothenburg had
no concern whatsoever about any of this.
It is odd indeed that about the only reference to the Milwaukee Project in BoP
files (thus far released) are all favorable allusions to it. Two letters written
by academics in August 1981 in the interest of Heber getting a lenient sentence,
refer positively to the Project. There is no cognizance manifested of the meticulously researched reservations and questioning of the Project by Professor
Ellis Page , beginning in 1972, in the wake of the media slick article (manipulated into place by Heber ) "Miracle in Milwaukee". And when by standard procedure
the newspaper articles by Rob Fixmer that exposed Heber's acts and omissions
were sent to BoP in Texas, they appear to have been removed from the mail. They
never arrived. The extent to which Fixmer's articles and those of Susan Trebach
were "bottled up" and mostly known only within the Madison/Milwaukee region is
something worthy of the former USSR.
The obiter dicta of trial judge Barbara Crabb re Heber in the December 22, 1982
"sentencing" of Prof. Howard Garber ("to spend one hour drinking coffee in the presence of a U.S. Marshall" !!) re Heber is sobering indeed. She noted that the amount of money he had improperly handled would probably never be known. He was
indicted on pin-point items from a very large investigation. He was not charged at all with the full range of what investigations revealed as likely crimes. This leaves open the question of whether monies in the $14 million dollar Milwaukee Project may have been "fiddled with". The Project data were never known to be
investigated or subject to suspicion. The issue seems to be that Heber simply did
not wish to divulge information that had a "downer" effect upon consultation based on "can do" assumptions about preventing cultural familial retardation. ?? Heber
had all along failed to divulge to U. of Wisconsin Madison his consultation income.
It is indeed fascinating that a Swedish academic program would have open arms to Heber, an ex-con, to manage research funded by such corporations as Volvo. What could an able stand up comedian do with this sort of material???
The astounding issue in terms of Heber's research focus, his position with IIDRERI of the University of Gothenburg as an ex-con, from October 1985 until his death and that of 13 others in a small plane crash in Rwanda on the afternoon of Dec. 03, 1987, is that there has thus far been no manifest "affirmative action" regarding
releasing some small degree of information about what was, or was not. going on
re research concerning mental retardation in Africa involving in any way, directly or indirectly, Heber, Mary Alice Slater, and Thomas Askelson. There are observed
"safeguard" standards about preventing covert research of this sort. The FBI has
thus far been unable to determine that it has any information at all that can be
released. And the Office of Information Policy at DoJ seems to be out of reach to the issue. Hmmmm.
Support for Heber from the University of Gothenburg's international research
entity (Europe and Central Africa, mainly) for mental retardation IDRERI came
in a letter with that letterhead dated August 18, 1981, aimed at getting leniency
in sentencing. After Heber entered prison (mostly coat and tie "country club" detention), in 1982 he had conjoint visits from his former administrative assistant
at UW Madison--Dr. Mary Alice Slater--and a person from the Ministry of Education in Sweden. Both supportive letters--the one of 1981 especially--were superlative in their positive regard for Heber. Clearly, the University of Gothenburg and IDRERI manifested in these documents absolutely no regard for charges brought against Heber.
The offers (March 01, 1985) of a position as Research Director of IDRERI at the
University of Gothenburg simply seem to disregard any negative data about Heber's
conduct at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The presentence investigations
of Heber reveal that he failed to mention at all that previous to his then current marriage, he had been married in 1953 in Arkansas and had four children from this marriage. In filling out a questionnaire while in prison, he indicated he had never had treatment for mental disorder. But in the documents relevant to his trial,
he noted that on or about July 02, 1981, he entered in patient treatment for mental disorder and according asked for a postponement of his trial. It was denied.
He dissembles about dates and events. Heber comes off in detailed scrutiny as a
textbook psychopath--an adept social mask covering a totally selfish core.
The severely critical sentencing obiter dicta of trial judge Barbara Crabb re
Heber is heavily redacted in some released (FOIA ) documents. But both at his
sentencing on October 30, 1981, and at the "sentencing" (exoneration) of Heber's
assistant, Dr. Howard Garber, on Dec. 22, 1982--her summative comments about Heber
were stringent. But the facts to be unearthed in the pre-sentence hearing, the
investigative journalistic expose articles of award winning reporter, Rob Fixmer,
etc., all give witness to Heber's deep down indifference to the fate of those around him and to the risks he led his loyal underlings into. But Fixmer's articles--of interest in a general sense in any university "gown town" were hardly
ever published, even in extract, outside of the Madison area. When copies of them
were sent by parole authorities to the Texas facilities housing prisoner Heber,
they were somehow removed from the mail and never arrived. Pre sentence interviewing revealed that when Heber's first wife left Madison to return separate
from him about 1961, Heber refused to have any more personal contact with the children. The oldest, then about age 8, later on in his teen years was in Wisconsin
for some event and looked up Heber. Heber sent him away. Heber seemed to have no
personal feeling for the children. He did "ceremonial" things like occasionally
sending gifts or greeting cards, etc. He comes off under detailed scrutiny as a
textbook psychopath. It is indeed interesting that none of this seemed of interest
or awareness even to the Swedes who extended a prominent positon to him, etc. Yet
no one seems aware of what he did as Research Director from October 11,1985 until
he was killed in the small plane crash in Rwanda on Dec. 03, 1987, taking the lives
of Associate Professor (Texas Tech U. ) Mary Alice Slater and 12 others. Research
enjoying a "don't ask; don't tell" status. Texas Tech U. and the U. of Gothenburg
in Sweden having a precautionary standard for revealing research on human subjets
of "out of sight/ out of mind".
AS noted, the letter dated March 01, 1985 under the letter head of IDRERI/ University of Gothenburg (Sweden) explicitly noted that IDRERI was financed by
private corporate donors and noted VOLVO as an example. Taken as oblique sense that
Heber got in trouble by having to move money via government "red tape" this perhaps
can be conjectured as a Swedish view of his problems and his motives. Heber seems
reflexively and cleverly to infuse ambiguity and uncertainty into the records of BoP. As noted, he flat denies having a mental history (resorted to psychiatric
counseling and eventually on July 01, 1981, to psychiatric in hospital patient status vis a vis his forthcoming trial in federal court ) on most quesitonnaires and
often gives his birthdate as "12-01-32" in European fashion when it was , in fact,
January 12, 1932. Etc. Etc.
In his 1989 definitive review of Heber's Milwaukee Project, Arthur Jensen gives
forth some information about Heber's "downfall". In no fair sense is it erroneous, although in retrospect it has turned out to be. Heber was so devoted to
omission and misinformation and other adroit means of preserving privacy, that only an adept private investigation firm for several thousand dollars could have gotten in all straight at the time. Jensen's mention of the amount of money Heber
was convicted of mishandling (over $161,000 ) does perhaps want for focus upon
MOTIVE. The 13 counts brought against Heber were pin-point indictments--not a comprehensive sense of investigators of the likely reach of Heber's (pervasive )
liberties with money. But Heber's core concern was making money--academic entrepreneurial activity--a high paid consultant/engineer in applying his scientific knowledge. There is very little hint that Heber would ever--had ever--
misrepresented anything to his client's (that for mental retardation programs included the governments of Egypt and Tunisia, for example ). Thus, it is highly
unlikely he ever fudged Milwaukee Project scientific data---whatever might have been done with the lush $14 million put into the Project by various federal government grants. But Heber's pre-sentence report, for example, highlights that he
refrained from making disclosures about his con$ultation effort$ to the U. of Wisconsin at Madison. Heber gives a rationale for this, but what he does not note is that those few people (if to a much lesser con$ultation status ) at the University similarly situated to him DID make reports/admissions/ to the University.
It would be a motivational conjecture that he would not mind concealing scientific
results that were worthless to his consultation biz (e.g.,the influences of nature
as distinct from the lesser (if potentially useful) influences of nurture. In the one interview he was forced (by U. Wisconsin Madison ) to make (as a condition of his faculty contract ) for ostensibly archival purposes (probably was inspired by the then covert investigation of him? ) on May 14, 1979, did bring forth the plausible basis for his being 'too little, too late" re data on the Milwaukee Project. The firestorm over Jensenism, he had not anticipated and this created a
nightmare circumstance for a businessman-consultant-engineer like himself. This was compounded apparently sometime later in 1970 or so by the demagogic priest Fr. James Groppi, who started asking why the IQs of Black children were being examined and indicating they were being used as "guinea pigs". Heber's covert solicitation of the Strickland journalistic "Miracle in Milwaukee" was probably inspired in a very amoral and Machiavellian way (?) on Heber's part (?). If so, it was damn
effective to the aim of protecting the Project from leftist objections by simply
a phony assurance that it would tell them ultimately what they wanted to hear.
There was nothing fakey about the data reports, but Heber knew very well that the
test of time was yet to come. By 1973, the sense of "wash out" was already evident.
Heber's May 1979 archival interview, reveals plausibly that it Professor Gordon Cantor at George Peabody/Vanderbilt circa 1956 that interested Heber in very early
behavioral enrichment in the interest of preventing what became known as "cumulative deficit". By the mid 70's Jensen had come to discover that in matters of severe environmental deprivation suffered within low functioning groups,
"cumulative deficit' , if evaded, might result in IQ gains that could be noteworthy and practically useful, but not "Miracle" dramatic. Such would be not so much a
matter of "boosting" IQ but of liberating the nature/nurture individual's equation from the eroding effects of a severely deprived environment.
All of Mary Alice Slater's research had been directed at the prevention of
mental retardation ( alleviation of "cumulative deficit" ), She had been a star
student under Heber. Heber's focus was on this same issue. She had been traveling to Sweden a good bit after leaving Madison (U of Wisconsin) to come to the Health Sciences Center (Amarillo ) of Texas Tech U. in 1984 (the year Heber entered parole ) Thus, for the 26 months they both had left to live from the time Heber
was released early from parole (October 1985), it would be fatuous to assume otherwise than that research was heavily infused with whatever else they were in any way jointly involved in. The lack of any degree of public knowledge about the
activities of Heber (and linked to Slater)from October 1985 through their deaths on
Dec. 03, 1987, is certainly no safeguard against abuse potential in such research. Clerly, there should have been some public sense, long ago, whether research on human subjects (especially in Central Africa) took place, whether informed consent was obtained, if it did take place; what public monies may have indirectly been
involved, etc.
Heber had been closely involved with the University of Gothenburg in Sweden since
at least the mid 60's, when Heber spent a good portion of a sabbatical year there.
The letter sent from there (IDRERI / University of Gothenburg ) dated August 18, 1981, in the interest of asking for sentencing leniency for Heber, was signed by the
IDRERI vice-president. The letter under the same letter head of IDRERI/University of Gothenburg, dated March 01, 1985, was effusive also in its praise of Heber and
was written to offer him the position of IDRERI Research Director if he could get
early release from parole to come to Sweden to assume the position., It involved
research as to how to mitigate and prevent low IQ (mental retardation) and had a specific focus, if not an exclusive focus, on portions of sub-Sahara Africa. Both
letters reflected no reservations about Heber vis a vis his being indicted and convicted of 13 felony charges in late July 1980. Mary Alice Slater, in the
company of an official of the Swedish Educational Ministry, visited Heber for three
consecutive days (no more than one hour each day ) during his imprisonment in Texas
back in September 1982. The eulogy given her upon the deaths of her, Heber and 12
others (several linked directly or indirectly to Texas Tech U. Health Science Center) on Dec. 03, 1987, noted that she had visited Sweden---most likely directly
to the IDRERI of the University of Gothenburg?--a good bit after her employment
at TTU in about June 1984. The August 1981 letter notes Heber as a hugely important person in the early support (design?) of IDRERI, clearly indicating he
had an extensive and enduring involvement with the University of IDRERI much before
1981. At no time during his prison period (Feb. 1982 through March 09, 1984) did Heber indicate he was going to leave academe or get away from work / research /in
the domain of mental retardation. His letter obliquely in response to the March
01, 1985, letter from Gunnar Hedlund of IDRERI, which Heber letter was infelicitously dated April 01, 1985, noted his anticipated IDRERI role in terms of
"a research project". Heber had been known to his closest associates as someone making frequently but not explained trips into and out of Kenya for years, reaching back into Heber's early 1960 years at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. A program heavily influenced by Heber and largely a tribute to him, presented at the University of Oregon, at Eugene, in the summer of 1967, gave witness to Heber's extensive interest in cross cultural study of mental retardation, with due regard to Africa. That nothing is known overtly thus far--30 years later--of what went on
re research by/linked to/ Heber and Slater from October 1985 until Dec. 03, 1987, is
amazing. This sort of research focus is not supposed to take place "out of sight/
out of mind"--doors shut/ lights turned off. ????
Documents released recently by BoP DoJ regarding Heber's prison time, reveal the
pervasive and seemingly reflexive ways in which Heber created "misinformation" and
small "deceptions". When the format would tolerate it, he would enter his birthdate
(Jan 12, 1932, at Winnipeg, Manitoba) as 12-01-32. In 1983, he had a Colorado driver's license listing his name as Franz Richard Heber. But in formal federal
court charges, the generic name "Richard" is not used. He is "Rick F. Heber" a/k/a
"Franz R. Heber". His 1953 (U. of Arkansas , Fayetteville, B. A. degree diploma was
awarded in his Canadian birth name of Richard Frank Heber. But his 1955 M.S. diploma (Michigan State College ) was to Richard Franz Heber. And so, on and on.
The pre-sentencing report that he necessarily had to cooperate with to have done,
gave forth in his own words that after his "difficulties" (banned from UW Madison
campus on Dec. 05, 1980 / indicted in April 1981 / he was under psychiatric out
patient treatment at a Madison clinic. On July 02, 1981, he became a psychiatric inpatient. But on many forms during his prison time (mostly in Texas ), he denied
any mental illness history. Yet, by all indications, he was strictly accurate
and honest in his entrepreneurial dealings--largely as a consultant re any aspect of
mental retardation. He seems also to have been strictly honest and above board in
his extensive dealings with Arabian horses and American Arabian horse fanciers. There is little suggestion in his biography of any degree of tolerance at all for
"doctoring" research data. He viewed himself as a consultant-engineer/ not basically as a mere scientist. It is not at all difficult to ascribe his delays and
evasions re the Milwaukee Project to a fervent intent not to let "Jensenism"
controversies mess up his hugely successful (international, BTW) consultation biz.
He knew the initial mental testing data re the Project would be high--as there was no way to avoid a good degree of "teaching to the mental test" in the enriched dyads perfected to uplift the relationship between mentally retarded mothers and their children from birth through entering school, and yet not affect mental test
behaviors. The outcome of the Project would be, not the first grade mental ability
testing, but the extent to which by , say, grade three the "treatment" group of N20 compared with the control group of N20. But that time , the "wash out" effects of
the early enrichment were conspicuous--but not to the extent that some gains were not made. Yet in overall school achievement indicators, there was really not difference between the groups by, say, grade five or so. Before Heber covertly got
Strickland to write the extraordinarily regarded journalistic bit "Miracle of Milwaukee" the Jensenism firestorm had enlisted critical questioning in the inner
city of Milwaukee about the Project---especially exacerbated when the leftist priest Fr. James Groppi asserted Heber was making "guinea pigs" out of the Black
treatment group. Since the Madison campus was the most militantly leftist campus in
the U.S. at that time, the Strickland "Miracle in Milwaukee" defused lefty concerns by suggesting the Project was going to reveal what they wished to hear. It was,
in that fashion, a ruthlessly amoral political success for Heber. But surrounding
his care about data and about his hugely successful consultation biz ( including
large successful consultation to the governments of Egypt and Tunisia--among others) Heber cultivated massive privacy and compartmentalization of information via deceptions, misinformation, etc.
It is not merely that four almost completed research papers (what? representing research done from ....what?...1985-87? )done by Mary Slater were (a) objects of a commemoration pledge to see them finished up and published but (b) never were published. During the time June 1985 through the time of death on Dec. 03, 1987, Mary Slater had done extensive world wide "consultation" from her NW Texas campus setting. But her disclosures to her then University ought to have made clear whether Heber was backstopping this--consulting to the consultant. No Texas sunshine illuminating any of this (at least y-e-t ).
Heber's unvoiced interest in mental retardation and Central Africa is suggested by his influence upon the content of a symposium in the summer of 1967 held in the American Northwest. Presentations were included about Africa. Heber also was known in Madison to often fly into and out of Kenya (the hub for most travel into the Congo and certainly into the Virguna rain forest area.
Heber left the Madison campus in late October 1961 to become Research Director for the JFK Panel on Mental Retardation Policy. He ended up staying in D.C. for several months longer than had been anticipated. Before his stay in D.C., Heber had been a registered voter in Dane County Wisconsin (Madison) but soon after arriving in D.C. , he ceased to be a registered voter. Reportedly, he did not want the meagre amount of personal data on his voter registration to be publicly accessible. In October 1961, before leaving for D.C., he had his photo taken along with a child working on cognitive stimulating exercises. This appeared in the leading Madison newspaper. However, before returning to Madison from his prolonged stay in D.C., he had developed a firm policy of never being photographed. While all the key players on the JFK Panel gave interviews for archival purposes after the Panel's work had been completed, Heber refused to do so. He was forced by the UW Madison to undergo an archival interview for UW Archives on May 14, 1979--this in compliance with his faculty contract. Heber had several unlisted phone numbers, one for each of major aspects of his life---horses, consultation, faculty matters, his ranch, etc. By the late 1970's, he was known (in whispers ) on campus as "the Howard Hughes of Academe" as for the most part no one knew when he might show up on campus or where he was and what he was doing during the prolonged absences from campus. For those who had worked with him closely since he arrived in Madison in 1959, his behaviors by the early 70's had markedly changed in other ways. He conspicuously spent a lot of money on clothes, cars, etc. and gave an impression of great power and prestige wherever he showed up. His manifestation of personal wealth was out of all proportion to his two salaries (tenured faculty and Director of the Waisman Center ). Heber cultivated privacy and was masterful in manipulations that created overt indications of what he was doing that served to conceal the salient aspects of his activities. Even if he was not linked to the CIA, Langley would have been remiss not to have monitored his acts and omissions in order to determine if he was linked to a counterpart agency serving another nation.
A issue not yet illuminated is the connection between prisoner Heber and ex-con
Heber, on the one hand, and Assoc. Professor Mary Alice Slater's extensive international consultation re mental retardation after she left UW Madison
and moved to a NW Texas academic setting in June 1984. He had entered parole (to his home in Colorado Springs ) in early March 1984. The eulogy to her (see CONGRESSIONAL RECORD--SENATE Dec. 11, 1987, about pg. 35285 or so ) was profuse about her ("her"?) consultation. There is nothing wrong with Heber having advised or backstopped her work (Did he?), but it is all the more reason that her supervisors from March 1984 up to her death would have had information re the relationship between her and Heber that reached back to her M.A. thesis in 1974 at
Madison, under his tutelage. By the time she finished her PhD dissertation (1980) she was his administrative assistant and reportedly nearly constant companion in social activities around Madison when he was in Wisconsin (not that often!). Universities whether in Texas or Wisconsin that have been part of "know nothing" stance about Heber (and Slater) may end up not looking so good IF IF a lot of yet concealed information about Heber's odd career ("the Howard Hughes of Academe" ) starts spilling forth.
There are a bunch of comments here regarding Rick Heber and the Milwaukee Project.
A husband of a girl I'm related to, seems to have gotten a lot of documents and stuff from the government about this. It was through the Freedom for Information Act. He told some of us that as far as he could find out, no one during Heber's prison time even questioned him about all the mysteries involved with the Milwaukee Project. But he seems to have been let out of prison to take a research job in Norway or somewhere in Northern Europe. A few months later on , he and a former graduate student of his were among people killed in the plane wreck that is mentioned. There seems no indication the government during his correction time ever mentioned the Milwaukee Project to him or tried to get any explanations from him. This wouldn't be so odd if he had left prison to work as a writer or actor or real estate salesman. But he went back to academic research. Seems a little like the feds had for him as a prisoner some sort of "don't ask; don't tell" stance.
Our tax money at work, I guess??
During his BoP time, it appears from FBI documents released that those seeking to look into the contributing factors of Heber's offenses--into his background to get a full sense of motive--were not able to find out anything via Canada about his life there before he left Winnipeg to come to the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in Jan. 1950 (at age 18) on a track scholarship. But his first wife,
Mary Ellen Scarborough, whom he married in December 1953 in Fayetteville, claimed he was a straight arrow re money and other matters all during their active marriage time (the marriage lost its pulse beat about late 1961 and finally ended in divorce in 1964-5). Also, he seems always to have been a straight arrow in his dealings with Arabian horse fanciers, in his extensive national and international consultation work about implementing AR policies, research designs, etc., and in his extensive investment dealings in real estate and to some extent in oil exploration. When the Brits started looking earnestly at the questions of Motive in the Cyril Burt case the initial general consensus that he was guilty started dissolving into a belated thorough consideration, rsulting in a general consensus of "not proven". Americans have had 35 years to get a thorough sense of Motive regarding Heber. Hasn't begun. Yet.
Among documents laid hold of via FOIA, a good example of how much excavation is required to know much about Heber is the dainty fact that even on one FBI document his actual birthdate of Jan. 12, 1932 is rendered as Dec. 01, 1932. Heber began doing all sorts of "Agent 007" antics during the several months he was in D.C. as
Research Director for the JFK Panel on Mental Retardation Policy (from about October 1961 through most of 1962), before returning to UW Madison. One was morphing his actual birthdate. It is not clear the FBI ever released to other government agencies (e.g., BoP, Parole section of DoJ, etc.) the various name morphs Heber got into: Richard, Rick. Frank, Franz, Franz R., Rick F., etc. His
1980 Colorado DL listed his DoB as Dec. 01,1932, and his name as Richard Franz Heber. Heber had about five addresses in the immediate Colorado Springs area that he variously listed as his residence. Unless Heber was anchored to the intelligence community of the U.S. government, it would seem that the national security system in the US would have taken a keen interest in documenting all his morphings. He traveled internationally very much, including trips in and out of Kenya that no one close to him could guess the academic relevance of. He had a massive and lucrative (and brilliantly efficacious ) international consultation business (under more than one shell name ), including services to the governments of Tunisia and Egypt, among others. He spent 21 years at UW Madison with a power and money-grant magnetism that was of amazing extent. He spent two years in prison and 18 months in parole and then was back into Shadow Land on a major Swedish campus. Hmmm.
A glaring issue is whether when "Franz Heber" appeared as a "tour guide" for what was presented (overtly) to be a "photo safari" in late 1987, any federal agency notified Texas Tech University or any of the local law enforcement entities in and around Amarillo as to Heber's prison time, including the severe characterizations of him by federal trial judge Barbara Crabb, both at Heber's sentencing on October 30, 1981, and attendant to the rather "pardon" extended Howard Garber in his "sentencing" on Dec. 22, 1982, when most of what she said pertained directly to Heber by way of exonerating Garber. It would be an act of gross moral dereliction by Texas Tech University not to have notified those in Amarillo directly employed by its affiliates there or closely linked to them (e.g. Ernie Farino re applications of photography--camcorders?-- to field research ) about Heber's prison sentence, etc. It is interesting to note that little or no local publicity seems to have been given to civil suits involving the fatal plane crash (December 1987) that were still pending (in Fulton County Court in Atlanta ) in July 1998.
"Interesting to note...." If Langley (CIA) was not linked to Heber's mystery world (maintained during 21 years at U. of Wisconsin, Madison ...seemingly unexamined during more than 40 months within the Bureau of Prisons and/or the DoJ Parole and Pardon Circus..and resumed by early release from parole on September 30, 1985, in the federal court in Madison to be another academic mystery world based at the U. of Gotnenburg in Sweden...apparently linked to Assoc. Prof. Mary Slater , at Texas Tech U? )
If Langley (CIA) was not linked to all this MistLand, Langley sure ought to have monitored it as a precaution to U.S. national security. This is not to imply that IF Langley was involved, the whole show was in our national security. That would be a deeper question suitable for Congressional Oversight Committees.
Heber was tried on 12 pin point charges of money juggling. The extensive investigations likely revealed gross improprieties and suspected crimes of a much, much wider extent. The challenge of the "correctional" world is not preventing someone from being charged with crime (the Mafia knows a lot about how to do that) but rather how to observe conventional social and business expectations that if observed prevent the possibility of slippage into crime, The first big and persistent question marks to hang over Heber's head came from his own solicitation of a gross glitzy misinformation article published ( during the Jenenism firestorm) in July 1971 in a U.S. Office of Education monthly--"Miracle in Milwaukee" within which what Heber then knew to be pump priming "results" were passed off as preliminary results likely to be projected on into a massive breakthrough.
At the point Heber abandoned his appeal and entered federal prison (late Feb. 1982), he had gotten in touch with a public interest lawyer specializing very ably
in the rights of federal prisoners and parolees. Knowing how the BoP worked and knowing the facts of his situation, this lawyer worked out an offer from a university in the Dallas area to have "coat and tie" federal prisoner Heber teach on campus during the day ( and design and supervise research ?) while returning to "country club" prison confinement each evening and, of course, every weekend.
Apparently , the university was quite eager to get this "bargain" deal. BUT any university so situated would have to have insisted on an "in house" interview with Heber not so much about money juggling as about the persistent question marks his reticence and misinformation had placed over the Milwaukee Project. Well, it turns out that for unclear reasons, this arrangement was nixed. Heber was improperly kept in a security confinement and sent to the Bastrop, Texs, BoP on May 19, 1982. Very soon it was obvious to staff there, that he needed to be in a placement agreeable to his academic potential and "white collar" non violent status. But normally the Milwaukee Project would have confronted BoP by way of newspaper clippings routinely gathered for any prisoner such as Heber having a "Broad Publicity" designation, as he did. However, such information was removed from the mail or otherwise lost. Thus no newspaper mention of the Milwaukee Project question marks was encountered within BoP. And while at Bastrop, a professor of
educational psychology had arranged with Heber ( and, of course, with BoP Bastrop approval) to interview Heber, largely about such question marks. But possibly when the newspaper clippings disappeared , etc., this interview got nixed inasmuch as when the professor showed up, the professor was told Heber was no longer here (Had been sent, in fact, to Big Spring, Texas, BoP).
So Heber is sent early from parole to take a Research Director position at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) in late 1985.. re mental retardation research....and yet the question marks hanging over the Milwaukee Project had been apparently totally sidestepped during Heber's "correctional" experience.
Smells a little like Langley.
It is amazing how much eyeball (brain?)evasion re Heber that took place during the 25 months he was in federal prison ( the last 20 of them in "country club" confinement ) and during the 18 months he was being "shepherded" in parole. Many questionnaires permit Heber to list his birthday as "Dec. 01, 1932" when it was, in fact, "January 12, 1932". He has name variants, also. The record (case file) of his trial that sent him to BoP custody clearly reveals that on July 10, 1981, a hearing was held at the initiative of Heber's attorney to make known that since July 02, Heber had to be placed as a psychiatric inpatient in a Madison facility.
His main psychiatrist testified in the interest of getting the trial postponed. Heber had the in patient status throughout the trial period and perhaps beyond.
But in document after document during his BoP "correction", he notes he has never suffered from mental disorder. It gives the impression that to the maximum extent "information" about Heber was a telephone phenomenon--ears only-- subjected to the "what you say you said is not what I heard" wiggle room.
Speaking of wiggle room---while an inpatient, Heber soon got daytime passes, it seems. On the second day of the trial testimony of his co-defendant Patrick Flannigan, the brilliant U.S. prosecutor (U Wisconsin law professor Frank Turekheimer, spotted Heber in the spectator section of the court room and also
his attorney ( separately seated from Heber but nonetheless present ) He asked the judge to note this and asked as a safeguard to justice for Heber's attorney to be invited to cross examine Flannigan. Thus, it was noted that "in patient" Heber could not appear at the trial as a defendant but could appear as a spectator! None of this ever seemed to meet a staff eyeball within BoP of Pardon and Parole.
Well, well.....how wonderful D I V E R S I T Y can become. The SSN death
notice (as close an "approximation" as we can expect in anything involving
Rick Heber ...Franz....Richard...F. R ....R. F...) for "F. R. Heber" contains his birth date accurately as 01/12/1932 but gets "flexible" regarding the date of death
(listed as 12/01/ 1987. Smells more and more like Langley.
And then at the Amarillo main Public Library where the archives are held for the Amarillo Globe News...we find from the attempts at augmenting wire service feeds on Dec. 04, 1987 ff. ...that somehow no one at the U.S. Embassy in Rwanda or the "parent" U.S. Embassy in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo ) seemed to remember how to return American bodies to the U.S. The inevitable question is whether routine Embassy staff were, in this "photo safari" matter, displaced by the multitudes of CIA operatives that were then in the troubled nations of Rwanda and Zaire.?? Even members of the Texas congressional delegation phoning the U.S. State Department could not quite awaken anyone to a secure knowledge of how these 13 bodies could be returned to the U.S. Pry out the Amarillo Globe News coverage.
Smells more and more and more like Langley.. (.with AWOL gaps of a major federal field office in Dallas???)
Federal reports such as a pre-sentence report done re Heber in September 1981-frequently note that no revealing Motive was ever laid hold to explain why Heber for maybe 15 years was "moving money" . This was done with federal funds and amounted mostly to moving small amounts, but on a continual basis. Over time, the amount of money "moved about" seemed to be huge. This was noted by a federal judge on Dec. 22, 1982, in the sentencing of a Heber aide. About all the investigations for what became a federal trial was done by Wisconsin law enforcement agencies, much of it by the U. of Wisconsin--Madison security services. Federal agencies seemed to want to stand back?? Some speculation is that the money was being moved into covert national security studies of race in Africa. If so, it would be necessary for some of it to go into Heber's pocket---to seem like merely a personal filching rather than a covert activity that had to be protected by the appearance of a personal crime of filching. More and more interest is being put upon this matter. Many Heber acquaintances outside of the Madison campus found it very unlikely he would do anything criminal. The federal charges against Heber were based on only a few carefully selected offenses that over about six years or so amounted to only a total of about $165,000. A lot of investigation apparently revealed what looked like many, many filchings reaching back in the mid 60's.
None of this has ever been released to the public.
Documents released by federal agencies re the Heber show that he always practiced
"wiggle room" about personal information, He very often listed his Canadian birthdate of Jan. 12, 1932 as "12-01-1932". His birth name of Richard Frank Heber was listed most often as "Rick" of "Franz" and with variations of Richard F. or Franz R. etc. His local residence usually was rendered in four different locations--such as, say, his horse ranch, a relative's farm, his campus office street address, etc. A lot of these "wiggle room" practices about facts resemble stuff that the CIA teaches its operatives. Maybe not relevant. Maybe relevant.
About 90% of what was "known" about the fellow is misinformation and "re-created" weavings of facts that he himself set forth. The actual underlying facts of his life were so much concealed that he was known as "the Howard Hughes of Academe".
Some of his games were not wiggle room treatment of facts but simply lies created.
He noted at one time that he had not employment until he finished his PhD and came to Ohio and then Wisconsin. In fact, as soon as he got his B.A. degree (U of Arkansas, Fayetteville, on a track scholarship) in 1953, he took a job for the better part of a year (reaching into 1954) at a provincial facility in Manitoba
Canada, near his hometown of Winnipeg.
It would be a reasonable ( perhaps unavoidable?) investigative hypothesis that
Heber had moved money into his own use on to a limited extent in order to "mask" the possible underlying reality that about all other money---a very great amount over a period from about 1965 onward--was used for covert national security activity re research / investigation of "race, IQ, nature/nurture" ?? It is a question of Motive. Of documents (not many thus far ) laid hold of by way of the Freedom of Information Act, there is very solid indication that federal authorities looking at the charges against Heber ( 12 counts of filching $165,000 over an 11 year period ) could find no convincing Motive for Heber running any risk for such a small amount of money. His own resources were quite large.
Heber was into a constant "misinfo game" in questionaires, etc. He various listed his date of birth as the actual one (Jan. 12, 1932----01-12-1932--and Dec. 01, 1932..12-01-1932. He used about five or more name morphs: Richard/ Rick / Franz/ Franz R. / Richard F./ etc. In any given location, he would scramble about four addresses--only one of which was where he was bathing and shaving and sleeping. He had all unlisted phones and had a separate unlisted phone for each of his major activities--one for his academic work at Madison; one for his personal matters--relatives and personal friends; yet another for his academic consultation work; and yet another for his Arabian horse dealings, real estate investmenting, etc.
Much of this mysterious "Howard Hughes of Academe" lifestyle emerged during the 10 months or so he was in D.C. as the Research Director for the JFK Panel on Mental Retardation Policy--October 1961 through about August 1962 or so. During that time, he ceased to allow himself to be photographed ( He did pose, in the back of the small group, for a ceremonial photo in the Oval Office in October 1963 for the signing of legislation resulting from the Panel's work ).
Career relevant biographical facts of life about Heber are strongly suggestive of, but not necessarily indicative of, a basic anchoring for Heber in U.S. intelligence and national security activities. He frequent unexplained trips into and out of Kenya from the mid-60's onward would be suggestive of the possibility that a good bit of any such covert work involved explorations of the American black/white IQ gap vis a vis nature/nurture issues.
At Madison, there was constant reminder of what deep background and mysterious power Heber possessed--e.g., in getting massive federal grant money; in being permitted to be absent from campus very often and for long periods; etc. Heber
insisted on very tight information compartmentalization at the Waisman Center that he headed at Madison at the U. of Wisconsin.
His first wife--Mary Ellen Scarbrough of Fayetteville, AR--whom he married in Sept. 1953 and separated from in August 1962---always insisted he would never break the law. People doing business with him in the high dollar world of Arabian horses also trusted him very much.
Very lttle has been excavated re the actual facts underlying Heber's mysterious academic career.
Heber , at least from late 1961 onward, was fanatically secretive about many aspects of his life and professional activities. Some of this arose conspicuously in the view of his associates during the time he spent on special leave as Research Director for the JFK Panel on Mental Retardation Policy--from October 1961 through most of 1962 (long than anticipated merely for the performance of duties as Research Director, btw ). He withdrew his voter registration in Wisconsin, not wishing to make publicly accessible the meagre amount of personal information required for voter registration. He began insisting that he not be photographed.
There were other manifestations. One appears to be the "morphing" of his Canadian
(Winnipeg, Manitoba ) birthdate of Jan. 12, 1932 into "Dec. 12, 1932"---that is,
01-12-1932" morphed often into "12-01-1932" And Rick morphed back into "Richard"
or into "Franz" (apparently the middle name of his American citizenship?--his
Candian birth name having been Richard Frank Heber ) and then Franz R. / or R. Franz
etc.
Documents released (after much much resistance and delay ) re Heber under the Freedom of Information Act are very illuminating. Heber cooperated eagerl in the pre-sentence investigations done in August/September 1981 in the hope he might thereby evade prison time and enter probation directly. The 23 page pre-sentence report developed by a branch of DoJ notes repeatedly puzzlement about his underlying Motive for the juggling of money (the total amount involved in his prosecution was about $165,000 ) in that what he seemed to gain personally was not
commensurate with downside risks. But, more importantly, the various Wisconsin investigations indicated a vast amount of money reaching back into the 1960's that was far larger than the pin point charges brought against him (involving grants for professional workshops, etc. ). Almost none of the investigations was carried out by federal agencies. His co-defendant was questioned by the FBI. A likely reason may be if the co-defendant's counsel would agree only to having his client questioned if the questioning was done by the FBI (involving federal grant monies ). Scrutiny of released documents presents a picture suggestive of FBI
extreme reluctance to be involved in the investigation of Heber and in his prosecution. Most of the investigation supporting the federal charges was done by the U. of Wisconsin Madison security services, with some supplementation from two other state agencies---not from the DoJ (??) In sentencing comments made Dec. 22, 1982, regarding an aide to Heber, federal Judge Barbara Crabb noted that the amount of money juggled by Heber was so great and reached so far back that it would probably never be exactly known! But the odd fact of life seems to be there is little evidence this money came into Heber's life and use. To this extent, what
emerges from the facts is the question--an investigative hypothesis--of whether Heber's money juggling was devoted mainly to the support of covert national security/ intelligence/ undertakings within the domain of researching the American Black/White IQ gap. No Motive has ever been established to account for the what and why of Heber's juggling money in small amounts on and on over a period of 15 or more years---adding up to a very large amount. An investigative hypothesis is not
an assertion or a "conspiracy theory" and it might well be discarded by emergent evidence indicating it is highly unlikely to be an explanation. But thus far nothing has been done...after 40 years! The U. f Wisconsin at Madison is in this
matter thus far a Memory Hole.
As noted, the only overt indication of FBI involvement in the federal prosecution
of Heber was the questioning by one Agent Lewis (Milwaukee Field Office) of co-defendant Patrick J. Flanigan. This likely arose from perhaps Flanigan's counsel agreeing only to have his client questioned if the questioning was done by the FBI??
At any rate, no FBI REport of the questioning was made and the questioning (audio tape? audio-video tape?) was turned over to the University of Wisconsin Madison security services, from whom the Report Summary was filed into the federal case record. But...somehow?...that Report Summary has vanished from the Case file (
Case 81-CR-20 in the W. District of Wisconsin/ USA v Heber/ Flanigan ). Hmmmm.
But the FBI seems squeamish and skittish in other ways regarding Heber. It appears from what was forwarded to the BoP of DoJ that the FBI never sought to coordinate
the information it had within its files regarding Heber. It is inevitable that it had a lot of information inasmuch as Heber was regarded as a person of significance.
He had been the Research Director for the JFK Panel on Mental Retardation Policy. Earlier, he is reliably reported to have been the person at the behest of the Kennedy family (Eunice Kennedy Shriver, in particular ) to have conducted behavioral modification of Rose Mary Kennedy so she no longer publicly drooled , or cried out, etc. and was able in a quite wallflower way to be present suitably at Hyannis Port receptions circa 1959 in the germination of the JFK Presidential candidacy. Rose Mary since 1949 had been luxuriantly sequestered at the Coletto School--a Catholic private institution serving the handicapped--in Wisconsin.
And Heber early on became perhaps the most sought after international consultant regarding aspects of mental retardation. (In 1971 or so, he designed a national program for the Egyptian government and had extensive consultation over many years with officials in Egypt, Libyia, and Tunisia , among other nations. It is absurd to assume the FBI did not have information regarding Heber. Yet the documents released suggest that Heber's ID "morphing" games ( having two DoB's; using several variations of his U.S. citizenship name; having various "residences" within locales where he lived; etc. etc. were never counteracted by the FBI. Thus, vis a vis the
FOIA, the Bureau can always claim it can't find any documents (as each one relevant has "something" about it that is inconsistent with the real Heber ). Hmmmm.
Heber juggling of federal funds/ grants/ etc. reached back into the mid 60's, at least. Yet the FBI never caught a whif of anything??? Hmmm. To an FOIA Request
submitted in late 2013, the FBI FOIA DoJ Unit--one David Hardy--claimed there was just nothing anywhere within the FBI that was subject to release about Richard Frank Heber. But..Richard Frank Heber was not a name used by Heber after about 1954--at least within the U.S. Hmmmm.
There may be many investigative hypotheses that would be consistent with these facts and with the lack of any really convicing Motive regarding Heber was a crook.
One such hypothesis ought to be that Heber's money juggling was known within the Bureau and within other national security elements as being the movement of federal monies into concealed financial support of covert U.S .national security/ intelligence functions re research/investigation/ of the U.S. Black / White IQ gap.
??
Released documents re Rick Heber, reveal that the FBI appears never to have made an interface with Canadian authorities to obtain information for the August/September
pre-sentencing investigation of Heber. Heber lived in Winnipeg all his life until coming to the U. of Arkansas Fayetteville in Jan. 1949 on a track scholarship.
One matter that evaded BoP awareness is that Heber's first professional employment after getting his B.A. at UA Fayetteville (1953) was at the Manitoba Provincial center for the care and training of the mentally retarded. He was there with his newly married first wife only for several consecutive months until he entered Michigan State College (later University ) in the fall of 1954. BoP is given the impression that Heber's mother and father had no relatives in Canada. His father did not, having come into Canada about 1917 from a German speaking section of Austria. HIs mother did. At her funeral (cancer death) in July 1955, she had in attendance her four brothers and a sister---all of whom, like her, had been born in Saskatchewan. The FBI was of no assistance in providing such information to the BoP.
Heber's first wife (separataed from him in August 1962, divorcing him in April 1964)
declared to BoP (once they discovered she was in existence ) that she could never believe Heber would do illegal things. And somehow there was a "failure" to provide the BoP with the fact that Heber became an in-hospital psychiatric patient in Madison, Wisconsin, on July 02, 1981, and remained so (with apparently generous
off hospital day time passes ) through at least July 30, 1982. Heber declared on
all BoP forms that he, Heber, had no history of treatment for mental disorders. There is a very heavy penality within BoP for prisoners who lies to BoP. Heber had
been "covered" apparently somehow. ???
Documents re Heber released via FOIA by the Bureau of Prisons sometime in either late 2014 or early 2015 are revealing in underscoring how specific factual information tends of undercut what has too easily been absorbed from printed "serving plates", as it were. Knowing about "the Howard Hughes of Academe" (as he was characterized by Rob Fixmer ) is pick and shovel work---the conventional academic dining room is a prostituted relationship to the truth of the matter.
Heber had a "intelligence officer" penchant for protective misinformation. He had "morphed" his actual Canadian birthdate of Jan. 12, 1932 into "12-01-1932"
He had evolved about five variants of his name---Richard / Rick /Frank/ Franz/ etc.
For any locale in which he resided, he evolved about three of four street address indications of residence.
Heber was "Howard Hughes" in that no one seemed to know much about where he was or what he was doing. It is estimated that by 1979, he was spending no more than 15% of his time visibly on campus re irregular "sightings". The BoP documents clearly
indicate that federal officials never could arrive at any understanding of what the underlying Motive was for Heber's acts and omissions of investigative interest to them.
Heber's first wife from a marriage that lasted 12 years and was viable for about nine years--she declared she found the notion that he would do something illegal absolutely incredible. Heber's reputation among Arabian horse fanciers (he was
a prominent one ) seems to have been one of trust and respect. The view of
Heber by close associates at the U. of Gothenburg (Sweden) appears to have been one of complete trust and confidence. Two letters under the letterhead of that University--one dated August 18, 1981; the other, March 01, 1985; are superlative in their praise of Heber and reflect no reservations about the charges brought against him and his conviction on them (13 felony counts).
What emerges from facts from primary source information is simply the investigative hypothesis that Heber was anchored early on in his career to the American national security/intelligence apparatus and was moving money to support covert research in that domain. Able handlers of an investigative hypothesis are eager to find enough facts to discredit it that they can pitch it into the trash can. The wee problem
in this instance is that the facts tend to be in harmony with the hypothesis, the
more the facts are encountered.
The University of Wisconsin Madison, in particular, and the U.S. academic community in general (with some notable exceptions) have relegated the Heber matter to the Memory Hole about 40 years ago. The FBI seems to have back away from most investigation of Heber, allowing Wisconsin state agencies (mainly the UW Madison
security services) to compile the facts undergirding the federal prosecution of Heber. For 40 years now, the three pronged investigations have not been redacted and maded even partly publicly accessible. Hmmmmm.
Via an FOIA Request, the DoJ Bureau of Prisons released either in late 2014 or sometime early in 2015 a lot of documents re Rick Heber's prison time. It is true,
as noted in some of these comments here, that he made a pervasive practice of sewing disinformation and confusion when he completed questionnaires or checklists, etc. Most of the time he listed his DoB as "12-01-1932" when it was "01-12-1932"
and he had several variants of his name--ranging from "Richard F." to "Franz R." to
"Rick F" etc. Even one FBI document included among the BoP releases, had his DoB as
"12-01-32". What seems clear is that within DoJ there has been no attempt at all to collate this information and to counteract Heber's sewing of misinformation.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA ) was passed into law about three years after Heber spent about 12 months in D.C. on leave from the U. of Wisconsin, Madison. During that time he was Research Director for the JFK Panel on Mental Retardation Policy. But his first wife (married in September 1953) noted how he became secretive during this time. He removed their voter registration and would no longer allow himself to be socially photographed. etc. The federal government has been oddly indulgent of Heber's misinformation games.
An FOIA Request regarding Heber's research , if any, from October 1985 until his
death in a yet mysterious Rwandan plane crash on Dec. 03, 1987--this FOIA Request has languished for a year and a half at Langley without thus far any final response stating whether or not any information has been found and whether or not any of it is deemed free of exemptions and thus publicly accessible. The Request centers around the plane wreck and the purposes of the travel within the context of research.
An aspect of relevance in any FOIA Request for information involving Heber--
especially involving the Dec. 1987 plane crash that killed him and 11 other members
of what was listed as a "photo safari"--is how international conventions and "common law" tempers the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in that research
involving human subjects is always supposed to be to some extent publicly accessible--at least as concerns the overall design, whether the human subjects gave
any degree of informed consent, etc.
Heber was released early (half way through) parole in a hearing in his federal case
held on September 30,1985. Letters filed as exhibits into the Case for that hearing by Heber's counsel include one dated March 01, 1985, under the letterhead of
IDRERI of the University of Gothenburg (Sweden)and over the signature of then semi-retired famous Swedish politico Gunnar Hedlund. Hedlund's letter reflects no concern at all about the charges brought against Heber and Heber's resulting prison time. It is generally superlative in its praise and regard toward Heber. The letter notes that IDRERI is a corporate funded (not a tax funded ) research entity supported by such sources as (explicitly named) the Volvo Corporation. Heber is offered in the March 01, 1985, letter the position of Research Director of IDRERI.
IDRERI, according to Hedlund's letter, was a research entity devoted to international research regarding the cultural-familial basis of mental retardation.
Heber's letter of oblique response (dated, BTW, April 01, 1985) was in exhibit also and was written to his parole officer in request for early release to take the position Hedlund had offered. Heber's letter does serve to suggest that possibly at that particular time the IDRERI may have been centrally concerned with a project (unspecified) in Central Africa---but that is somewhat speculative from the content of the letter. There is no real indication that either the University of Gothenburg or the Volvo Corporation (and Volvo Foundation) had any awareness that Heber had served prison time, was being released from parole, had been the object of a lot of academic criticism for the lack of adequate and timely disclosures concerning his Milwaukee Project. One would hope the University and the Volvo
Corporation (internationally headquartered in Gothenburg ) would at least conduct
an historical retrospective about all this--the moreso that the yield seemed to be a covert research project, overtly described as a "photo safari", in late 1987 that
resulted in 14 deaths and now 30 years of lack of information and explanation.
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