[Letter to Philip Hilts from Larry Kramer]

Larry Kramer
2 Fifth Avenue
New York, N. Y. 10011
212-477-934 JAN 79
4Jan 935 190 y
Mr. Philip J. Hilts
The New York Times
Washington Bureau
Dear Phil,
Your one-sided hatchet job on Dr. Robert Gallo was appalling.
This man knows more about the HIV viruses than any other single Individual in
the entire world. I don't care if he robbed Fort Knox. We can have the Nuremberg
trials later. After the cure is discovered. (I remind you that this is a country which
invited Werner von Braun, a Nazi, to get our men on the moon.)
It is almost as if a conspiracy is afoot, to see to it that absolutely everything
that could help end the AIDS plague is placed out of whack or commission. (Are you
on Dingel's payroll? Pat Buchanan's?)
You are the AIDS reporter in Washington for the most powerful newspaper in
the world. A new AIDS story breaks there at least once a week. But it never appears
in The Times. What kind of reporter are you? Obviously a very lazy one. You cover
none of the conferences, none of the hearings, none of the legislation, none of the
lobbying, none of the personalities. (The Fauci story you should have written five
years ago had to be assigned to Jeff Schmalz.) There is a plague going on, but not
in the Washington pages of The Times.
The Gallo story is a modern tragedy. I don't know if he did anything wrong (no
panel, commission, or Crewdson article has convinced me) but he has, to all intents
and purposes, been rendered useless. Why aren't you writing about tJj tragedy,
about the moral implications involved, about the sad plight in which it puts all of us,
including Gallo, when on instrument of possible salvation is cruelly cut down? Isn't
that what a REPORTER is supposed to do? Where I grew up (which was
Washington) it was.
I hear you are marrying Carissa Cunningham. She is a wonderful woman. You
don't deserve her and she must be very desperate. I hope she will teach you how to
to do your job with intelligence, constancy, and compassion.
You are a pinhead. 2
cc: (
Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.
Max Frankel
Joe Lelyveld
Phil Boffey
Jeff Schmalz
Nick Wade

Tim Westmoreland J
Rep. John Dingel
Carissa Cunningham
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