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The Herman Branover affair

 

This is perhaps one fo the most egregious episodes in our search for serious sponsors of our work. When we visited New hampshire in June of 2003, we had extensive conversations about using some of the work we had done in nuclear physics. Gene was familiar with much of this, and had always wanted us to exploit it. We had always resisted it, because of its obvious military applications. In fact, we had scrupulously kept silent about it. By 2003 it had become obvious that we had no real or effective sponsor for our work and its varied technologies, so Gene thought that we should use one more ace card - our work in nuclear fusion. We gave him a limited mandate to do this at first. He was determined that Israel could only benefit from these technologies and that an approach had to be made to a suitable party. Several were then under way, some with Israeli parties.

Then ICCF-10 happened. Gene experienced intense ostracism for presenting our work in the booth that he rented, but he kept his head vertical. he was impressed with the work presented by El-Boher, From Energetics Technologies and correctly concluded that the work was promising but was stuck in the usual rut of unrepeatability. So he approached I. Dardik (on Aug. 27, 2003, the day before Gene's poster presentation at ICCF-10) - and they had a long meeting in Gene's hotel room, where he presented segments of our "Pulsed Plasma/Aether Motor" DVD, and alluded to a possibly beneficial collaboration between the two teams. That night near 11 pm, Gene phoned us quite excited to report on the meeting. Next day, Aug. 28th, he again phoned to report that he had another extended talk with Dardik, that this was positive and there could be another fit that related to our biophysical and serum-free medium technologies. On September 2, Gene again met with El-Boher, and out of his own pocket gave him a copy of the DVD.

On September 8, Gene wrote to Dardik.

New Energy Foundation, Inc. • Infinite Energy Magazine
P.O. Box 2816 • Concord, NH 03302-2816
Tel. 603-485-4700 • Fax 603-485-4710 • http://www.infinite-energy.com • editor@infinite-energy.com

September 8, 2003

Irving Dardik, MD
7 Fieldview Lane
Califon, NJ 07830     PH: 908-439-9500

Dear Irving,

It was very good hearing from you just now - and I am glad that I now have your cell phone number , 908-625-5157. Though you are clearly a very busy man, I hope that you will be able to spend some time soon to consider the enclosed material in this Express Mail package. If you have questions about it, please contact me - or perhaps call Dr. Correa and Alexandra Correa directly at 905-660-1040 (Toronto, Canada).

You can't imagine how happy I was to learn at ICCF10 that you and your colleagues are supporting an energetic commercial initiative in Israel in the area of cold fusion/LENR! I was also happy to have been able to send you that video tape of Dr. El-Boher's presentation, shortly before my wife Joanne and I left for our annual Anniversary trip to Bethlehem, NH. As you know, I have dedicated myself to the area of CF/LENR - among other frontier scientific subjects - over the past 15 years. Our non-profit New Energy Foundation struggles to be of assistance to researchers world-wide. (At some future time I would like to discuss with you how we could involve more members of the Jewish community in supporting our work.)

I was also delighted to meet you at ICCF10, and to briefly show you the DVD prepared by the Correas, myself, and Dr. Harold Aspden concerning the Correa PAGDTM and Aether Motor work, which has proceeded so far on a completely self-financed basis in the Toronto area. I gave a copy of that DVD to Dr. El-Boher. We can discuss this scientific and technological work in New Energy at greater length, if you so desire, but for now I wish to present you with another matter of great importance for medicine and biology. Perhaps it could be a means for you to open up a more immediate new revenue stream which could help support what you and your colleagues are and will be doing in the new energy arena?

Enclosed in this package are three items:

1. The first is an e-mail to me from Dr. Paulo Correa (8/27/03) outlining the immediate commercial benefits of the "Serum Free" medium biomedical initiative that they wish to pursue - if and when requisite funding can be found. This illuminating, concise memo was sent to me while I was at ICCF10, but I did not realize that I would not have the opportunity to discuss it with you - since you had left the conference early. It is an initiative that, if taken up, would be of surpassing importance. And, it would be a way for you and your investment-minded colleagues to begin to work with the Correas, who are in my view among the most brilliant researchers in this world.

2. The next item is a draft of an "Executive Summary: The Correa Project" - prepared by Mr. Uri Soudak (former CTO of Israel Aircraft Industries in early 2002 - in consultation with the Correas and myself. Uri is now in the United States. He is in Wisconsin working as a consultant in the area of medical imaging technologies, but his driving passion is to pursue the technological and scientific program associated with the Correa work. That is my passion as well. This overview includes the Serum Free medium work as a subset.

3. A package of technical materials - papers, the patent, and plans - relating to the Serum Free medium initiative. This was sent to me by Dr. Correa, as you can see from his cover letter, in April 2002 (when we were at our former location in Bow, NH)

After you have had a chance to consider these items, I would appreciate receiving feedback from you as soon as possible. The Correa work is of extraordinary importance to what we have separately done in our lives - the areas of frontier medicine and frontier energy. I know that you understand that these two areas are intimately related. I hope that you will be able to help me find a way to bring research support to the Correas, who have worked so tirelessly to bring astonishing new dimensions of understanding to science.

All good wishes,

Dr. Eugene F. Mallove
Editor-in-Chief, Infinite Energy Magazine
President, New Energy Foundation, Inc.
Director, New Energy Research Laboratory

On Sep. 10, he contacts El-Boher, offering to help them and hoping that his wish could come true:

Dear Dr. El-Boher,

I was delighted to meet you and your colleagues at ICCF10! And I was glad that I could get that VHS video of your presentation sent to New Jersey on short notice. I hope it was of use for the investment meeting. And, I do hope that the DVD on the Correas work will be of great interest [to] your group. I reviewed it's highlights with Dr. Irv Dardik one evening at ICCF10.

Please keep me informed of your progress -- on matters that are not confidential, of course. If you or other members of your staff would be interested in having papers or other news published Infinite Energy, I would be happy to receive them for review. I already have made prominent mention of Energetics Technologies Ltd. Work in my editorial in Infinite Energy #51, which has gone to press already -- hard copies will be available in a week or so. (See text below)

Despite repeated queries by Gene - a long silence now follows. We were abroad throughout October-November 2003, and then again between the end of January and March of 2004. Gene knew that we were very much at the end of our rope, ready to move now that we had closed the Labofex and Biogrowth laboratories. We might never again have the resources to engage with sponsors and give demos, and even the future of Akronos Publishing was in doubt. Since Gene had our complete confidence, he decided to re-open the approach. Instead of making it to Energetics Technologies, he sought to make it to Prof. H. Branover who, at the time, was rather concerned about the inability of Energetics Technologies to replicate their early success. Feeling responsible for the future of many of the scientific personel at ET Ltd, Branover was looking for a solution.

Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 15:33:46 -0500
Subject: A letter following our NYC meeting
From: Eugene F. Mallove
To: Dr. Herman Branover

Dear Herman,

Your fax number on your card was not working, so I am sending you this by e-mail.

Sincerely,
Dr. Eugene F. Mallove

----------------------------------------
January 30, 2004
Dr. Herman Branover
Energetics Technologies Ltd.
189 W. 89th Street
New York, NY 10024

Dear Herman,

What a great pleasure and a joy it was to meet you for the first time and to have such an extended conversation with you! I thank you so very much for your kind hospitality at The Box Tree, which was such a warm place with very excellent food. I do hope that you managed to be able to bring all those Infinite Energy magazines and books back with you. (...)

We really needed much more time to discuss the many other things about the Correa work on PAGD reactors, and their plans for the closely related (cold) fusion reactors that they have in mind which would generate electricity, helium, and heat simultaneously. May I suggest that if you have some time in the next two weeks that I come to New York again, but this time bringing with me Uri Soudak? The three of us could discuss the possibilities for getting funding support in a parallel cooperative effort with the one now going on at Energetics Technologies.

Please let me know your thoughts about this. My great fear is that the existing program in Israel, as excellent as it is in what it has already achieved, may not succeed to the fullest extent that it needs to. In fact, it may well fail to reach the stage of a prototype that could be commercialized. This has been the history, so far, of all attempts to do the work empirically without understanding the basic mechanisms. I think there is a very good chance that the Correas fully understand the best way to move forward. I want to give you and the investor whoever this "Mr. X" is the best possible chance to succeed. I do think that that is possible, even after these many years of frustration which I, Uri Soudak, and the Correas have experienced.

I also stand ready to introduce you, as I said I would, to Dr. Mitchell Swartz's cold fusion work in Massachusetts, which is not far from where we live.

In my view, at this critical time in history (scientific and political) we need to apply every possible effort to bring about a great change for the benefit of the entire world, but especially for the long-suffering Israel and the Jewish people. And, I think our souls are aligned so that we can bring that about. Let us hope for a good future.

Finally, let me say that I very much enjoyed reading parts of your biography, the journals, and other book that you gave me, while traveling back to New London on the train last night. Thank you! I have much more reading to do.

All good wishes,

Dr. Eugene F. Mallove

President, New Energy Foundation, Inc.
Editor-in-Chief, Infinite Energy Magazine

Branover responds on that same day, promising to call Gene on the next evening, and Gene forwards us his email with the comment:

Dear Alex and Paulo and Uri,

As you see, Herman Branover will be speaking with me tomorrow evening regarding the plan to get together again.

Three days later (Feb 2, 2004), Gene lets us know that a meeting with himself, Branover and uri is in the works:

I will be speaking again with Branover tonight to set up a meeting date for next week in NYC with Uri and me.

Some days later, Uri wondered whether there was a point to such a meeting without the sponsor being present. All of us have had many calls like this, and spent too much in travel, to have pleasant chats with potentially interested parties. We had then drawn the rule that these expenses only made sense if one could talk to those who could make actual decisions, not just their intermediaries. Gene responded to this:

Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 11:16:32 -0500
Subject: Re: A letter following our NYC meeting
From: "Eugene F. Mallove"
To: Uri Soudak, Paulo Correa
CC: Malgosia Askanas

Dear Uri,

> Dear Gene,
Is there a meeting planned in NY?
I have spent about 5 hours on the telephone this past week informing and teaching Branover about many things in new energy that he did not know about. I have told him that I think it would be very useful for us to meet in NYC with you, Uri, so that you can give him your personal experiences and assessment of the Correa work, its importance, how it could add to the current program at Omer, Israel, etc. He has agreed to participate in such a meeting and give us a full day -- if we need it.

My assumption is that the investor, who is not trained at all in science but who takes Branover's assessments as valid, would not be there at this meeting. I am assuming that Branover, if he was attracted to the technology and science, would then consider proposing something to the investor.
(...)

At this point, I cannot make the statement that I think Branover will buy our story about the value of moving forward with PAGD and also adding onto that program the electricity-producing fusion reactor concept that Paulo and Alex have come up with in recent years. The two factors that argue for this being a good prospect are: 1. The Soudak-Israel connection already -- the IAI experience and the years that followed and 2. The fact that the investor is apparently guided by Branover's assessments and has already committed money to one large new energy program that is already employing 15 people. Furthermore, I have politely told Branover that I believe that the current program -- as it is now -- will likely fail to achieve a commercial device, and that many tens of $millions of dollars have already been spent on cold fusion/LENR without a near term prospect.


Over the next day (Feb. 8, 2004), Uri and Gene debate the best strategy to pursue the Branover channel. Gene is aware of the difficulties of ET Ltd (they have "positive but not highly reproducible results") and hopes that the sponsor at the end of the line will be able to make up his mind objectively. A conference call is arranged with Branover for that same evening:

Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 20:21:26 -0500
Subject: Gene and Uri's teleconference with Herman Branover
From: Eugene F. Mallove
To: Malgosia Askanas, Uri Soudak, Paulo Correa

Dear All,

I have just briefly spoken with Malgosia to give her my oral impressions of the excellent almost 2-hour telephone conference call that Uri and I held with Dr. Branover, who was in NYC. I placed the call from my office.

We have agreed to have a three person face-to-face meeting in NYC on Monday, Feb 16h. Uri and I will probably arrive in NYC the night before so we will have the entire next day with Branover.

These are the essential conclusions and findings:

1. The still unidentified investor in the Israel CF program is a BILLIONAIRE, not merely a millionaire -- this was found in response to a direct question by me.

2. His interest in funding the development of radical forms of energy such as CF have nothing to do with his desire to increase his wealth. He just would like to do this as "something that should be done." Perhaps he believes this should be his legacy.
(...)

4. Branover seems increasingly convinced that what I and Uri have been telling him about PAGD and Aetherometry -- its experimental basis above all -- is fully legitimate. He has asked all the right questions, so far.

5. Branover likes the idea of a PARALLEL program to the CF one, which would not necessarily have to be done in Israel, of course. He thinks the investor might welcome a second program that would come out of the starting gate with something that is already robust.

6. There might be some small opposition or resentment by the involved scientists in Israel about the investor taking on another program that would be in competition with the CF one. However, Branover does not see this as a major difficulty. There might be some jealously or resentment by Dr. Dardik in NJ, who initiated the program, but this too would not stop Branover.

7. Branover understands the range of price tags and overall plans for Aethera, ABRI, PAGD, Aitheron, etc. These sums of money, he seemed to suggest, would be "no problem" for the investor.

8. Hagelstein and McKubre are top, paid advisors, to the Israel CF program. I told Branover they would not be thrilled to hear about our initiative, but I do not believe that they could make any intelligent statements about why it should not be done. Besides, I have already provided Branover with powerful evidence that the present CF program in Israel is likely doomed to fail. Finally, I have already spilled the beans to Branover that McKubre and Hagelstein have taken a fancy to the Papp engine...

9. Uri and I brought up the possible Correa fusion reactor that is aimed to produce electricity, helium, and heat as a "bridge technology" between the two programs that should be attempted too. (Any further secure, general descriptive words about this from Alex and Paulo would be appreciated prior to next week's meeting.)

Uri and I had a very, very positive reaction to this telephone call. We will speak with Branover again prior to the NYC meeting.

Having relayed this communication to us, Malgosia on the next day relayed back to Gene and Uri our feedback:

Alex and Paulo asked me to let you know know that they have seen all the communications from you - though they have had little opportunity to write - and very much agree with the way you are proceeding. They will try to answer Gene's question: "9. Uri and I brought up the possible Correa fusion reactor that is aimed to produce electricity, helium, and heat as a "bridge technology" between the two programs that should be attempted too. (Any further secure, general descriptive words about this from Alex and Paulo would be appreciated prior to next week's meeting.)"

Though we were abroad and quite occupied, we wrote back on Feb. 12, enclosing the description of the aetherometric table-top fusion reactor that we publicly released in December 2004:

Dear Gene & Uri,

We hope the note we sent will suffice for the present purpose. If more is required for your meeting, let us know. We think it wise, however, to keep the proposal in somewhat generic terms for the time being, especially if there is such a fixation with CF on the part of the investor.

We very much appreciate the very excellent job you have been doing with this so far and will await with interest the next stage of your encounter.

We did note that the investor, like so many we have met, seems to expect endless results and historic fame ... within six months. This does bother us. These people all seem to have been dreadfully trained with the dot com frenzy to expect every technology to move at the speed and cost of slap-dash software programing. This is obviously not a realistic expectation - and we will all be disappointed if this remains his position. We must tred carefully with these 'secret' machinations which can just as easily work for our interests as against them.

In any case, let's see where this goes from here.

Again many, many thanks for your valiant efforts,

Paulo & Alex

We also commented, in a separate message, on Gene's perception of the greatest obstacles:

Dear Gene,

You wrote -

"You are correct about that. The greatest obstacle will be the CF 'advisors' that are aboard now -- Hagelstein, McKubre, and Dardik."
We should make clear that this proposal/information has not been provided as food for these advisors. Branover should be made to understand that this is a confidential proposal, quite separate from the CF work currently in play - including the associated advisors, WHO are effectively our COMPETITORS. He should also be made to understand that we are not one wee bit interested in just pursuing this matter without the rest of our energy technology being funded.

Agreed?

So far, though Branover had agreed to confidentiality, no formal NDAs had been executed. This was quite a departure from our usual method to any such approaches. Following the meeting in NY between Gene, Uri and Branover, Malgosia reported:

From: Malgosia Askanas
To: Eugene Mallove, Uri Soudak, P&A Correa
Subject: Gene's report on the meeting with B in NY
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 01:36:56 -0500

-- PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL --

Dear All,

Gene called from the road about 2 hours ago to give me his impressions from his and Uri's meeting with B. I will write them up as best I can, and Gene and Uri can comment, correct, supplement, etc.

It was, overall, a very good day. Uri summarized it thusly: "We do have many difficulties ahead of us, and some of them could prove terminal. But this is the best circumstance we've ever had. Still, I would estimate our chances to be 50-50."

The meeting lasted all day; there were many discussions, and many diagrams were drawn. Most conversations took place in a rooftop enclosed conference room on the 20th floor of the (...) apartment building (...) where B lives. Lunch was at a superb kosher Italian restaurant (yes!). It was $160, and B paid for it (yes!). B is a very pleasant man to be with and deal with.

B told a bit more about the Investor, though definitely not his name. Gene, however, thinks that perhaps these identifying characteristics will be sufficient to glean his name. He is one of the top 400 richest men in the US. He is 75 years old, Jewish, got married only 2 years ago. He has no children and gives to charity. His wife is about 20 years younger than he is, and not a natural born Jew. B tells that some time after the marriage took place she suddenly disappeared for a whole day. When she came back, she announced: "I've taken care of it. I am Jewish now."

The Investor has never been to Israel. He has recently bought a large boat (of the ocean-crossing type), and used it a bit, but B thinks that he's now grown tired of it. He has living quarters in several locations,including in the New York City area.

Now back to the meeting. It was notable that through the entire day the unspoken assumption was that the meeting was about how to present the Correa Syndrome to the Investor, and not about why B should believe in it. Never once was any doubt raised about the credibility of what Gene and Uri were testifying to.

Althoug he is retired from Ben Gurion Univerity, B is still in charge of two labs there: a Magnetohydrodynamics labs, and a Russian-Israeli energy lab. The latter occasionally does contract work for our Investor's company, Energetics Technologies Ltd.

The history of Energetics Technologies Ltd (ETL), in a nutshell, is this. A few years ago the Investor was gravely ill. Dardik, who was originally a cardiovascular surgeon, treated him by a method involving "superwaves" and cured him, earning his great admiration and gratitude. The Dardik Superwaves Institute in New Jersey, which is also Dardik's residence, is funded by the Investor.

I guess (Gene will correct me) that in the wake of this encounter Dardik conceived of the idea of having the Investor fund a project dealing with the application of superwaves to CF. Dardik sent out various emissaries to sound out B about his thoughts concerning the scientific merits of such an attempt. B assigned Ehud Greenspan, a professor at UC Berkeley, to find out about CF. They came to a positive conclusion about it, and about Dardik's idea, and as a result ETL was born. (Greenspan is now on the project as well). Dardik and his wife own half of the company. The shell company is in the US, and the work is done in Israel (even though the Investor would have preferred it elsewere, for security reasons), since this is where the core workers (B and his students) were located. In Gene's estimate, the company consumes about $2-3 million a year.

Part of the meeting involved viewing parts of the DVD. B was a bit nervous about using the word "Aether", but agreed that it was too late to think about changing it (although everbody agreed that it would not be too late to change the name Aetheiron, if necessary). It looked like introducing the gravitational technologies would be a bit too much, so Uri and Gene limited the conversation to the energy technologies, and in particular to:

1. PAGD
2. The Aether Motor
3. The Fusion Reactor

B was told that (1) and (2) were 100% certain to succeed, since there were already working prototypes. He was also told that the chances of success for (3) were 95-98%, and that, as one of its outputs, it would directly produce electricity, without a thermodynamic stage.

B understands that there has to be an ABRI, and understands the Correas' position in it. Uri quoted him the following preliminary financial requirements::

PAGD - $15 mil over several years
Aether Motor and Fusion reactor - $7 mil over several years
ABRI - $10 mil / year

These were crude estimates, to give B a rough idea. B was a bit concerned with the idea that the Investor would be expected to finance ABRI indefinitely. He was told that the money invested in ABRI would start coming back within a few years, after which it would basically be self-funded.

Never during the meeting was the idea voiced that the Correa technology should be developed inside ETL. Rather, it was taken for granted that it must be developed separately, with perhaps (and preferably) some cooperation between the two. B was finding some points of commonality between superwave theory and AToS.

The participants left the meeting with idea that B will do further studies. He seems committed to doing so, and to thinking about the next step. Gene would be surprised if B did not come back with some strategy for introducing the Correa Syndrome to the Investor.

B has two concerns that guide him:

1) The reaction of the Investor. In this connection, Uri and Gene pronounced the prediction that 6 months after everything is signed and sealed, and work on the Correa technologies has begun, a PAGD unit producing a 1 KW electric output could be demo'd. It seemed important to give B this ammunition because the Investor is old, wants things to happen while he's still alive, wants to see somethinmg encouraging. Such a demo would also remove any possibility of a negative comparison with ETL.

2) B does not want the people currently working in Israel to suffer, and to lose their employment. Uri calmed him by saying that we will need a lot of smart, open-minded people. Uri and Gene both assured B that they themselves, if the project got funded, would work on it as their primary involvement.

A part of the meeting was spent discussing what the problems are with CF. Lack of 100% reproducibility loomed large. Even though a given setup may consistently produce the same results, an exact copy of the same setup will behave differently. B is experiencing this too, and knows that what he has is not good. The Investor, however, is unaware of these problems, and Dardik thinks that superwaves will cure everything. And apparently indeed, bringing superwaves to CF has resulted in some benefits.

The bottom line is that B will be the one to bring all this to the Investor's attention. He is still in the mode of considering how and when (but much less _whether_) to do so. The Investor doesn't like wasting money. He has sometimes quibbled over requests for needed pieces of equipment, in fear that his money was being squandered.

The ball is now in B's court. He will have to make an assessment, and get back to Gene and Uri. Gene gave him copies of all the papers that are referenced in P&A's patents, to help him boost his case with the Investor by establishing precursors to this technology, and showing that it did not spring out of nowhere.

Asked what he thought had been achieved in this meeting, Gene said that the main (and tremendous) piece of progress was that B has now been exposed to Uri, and got to hear about the Correa technology from an independent source. Although Gene had built a convincing case, Uri's input and confirmation considerably deepened the trust. B knows that there is something powerful that these two Jewish boys have brought to his attention, and he trusts it.

It turns out, BTW, that B and Uri sat together on an Israeli special committee for helping Eastern-block Jewish immigrants find technical employment

Malgosia

After Gene responded to the questions that Prof. Branover had posed him, Branover and his wife came for a 2-day long visit our lab, where they witnessed, under our NDA - together with Gene and Uri - operation of several PAGD working prototypes for the converter and inverter systems, attended a 3 hr seminar on Aetherometry and what it has to contribute to so-called "Cold Fusion", and discussed how to move forward with the approach to S. Kimmel and a proposal to structure a new business and research institute.

Since Gene was unable to get a response, positive or negative, from Kimmel via Branover, he wrote to Sragovicz:

May 13, 2004
Leon Sragovicz
166 Bal Bay Dr.
Bal Harbour, FL 33154

Dear Mr. Sragovicz,

I hope that this letter finds you in good health and good spirits. It was a pleasure to have spoken with you last month about the Correa Project, which was prompted by the connection set up by Herman Branover. I will never forget the many intimate conversations, fine dining, and warm spirits that Herman Branover and I had in the past few months as we discussed the critical need for New Energy. The triumphant highlight was his visit to Toronto to view some of the actual technology. I am so very, very sorry that for whatever reasons we were not able to persuade you to become involved. Still, I want to thank you for having given us the opportunity to present the case for the Correa work to you and to your attorney, Mr. Epstein.

Sincerely,

Dr. Eugene F. Mallove
President, New Energy Foundation, Inc.
Editor-in-Chief, Infinite Energy Magazine

Following these events, and as per a prior agreement between Uri and Branover, Uri asked the latter for a letter of support for the work of the Correas. Subsequently, in conversation with Dr. Correa in the presence of a third-party, Branover revealed the situation with Kimmel - as follows:

P:  Uri told me that you are now thinking of going back on the promise you made to us, Gene and Uri, to write a letter of support for us. I would like to understand what prompted this.

B:  The person who supports the company, and who I am dependent on -

P:  Kimmel?

B:  Yes. He is the person who originally sent me to visit you. When I came back, he didn't want me to come and tell him about my trip, and when I reminded him about it later he said "Forget about it".

P:  Yes, I understand he wouldn't pay you back for your trip, your food, taxis, or the hotel. Is that true?

B:  Yes.

P:  But this was a long time ago, long before you told Uri that you would sign and send back the letter of support for us. What happened that is causing you to go back on your word? Uri said that you told him about an article you read about us.

B:  Yes, somebody sent me a page from the Internet. The author claimed that he had visited you, and that after the visit you had made public something which by mutual agreement was not supposed to be made public. It was the kind of thing that is written from ulterior motives, and it was so disgusting I didn't even read it. (I just read a bit.)

I don't remember the name of the writer, who he was, or where he was from. It was not a journal article, but a page from the Internet.

I will look for it in the next couple of days and let you know who the writer was. But you have to understand that there are piles of papers all around here and it is not easy to find anything.

[Later, Branover added: I am pretty sure I didn't keep the article, I destroyed it. I will ask the fellow who sent it to me to give me the information. The fellow you sent me the article may not have read it himself.]

P:  Was the author's James DeMeo?

B:  No, definitely not.

P:  Did the author claim that I was a fraud?

B:  No, no, he didn't claim that. He claimed that he went to your lab, but you didn't show him the insides of all the boxes.

P:  Well, that's ridiculous. Even if there had been such a fellow who had visited my lab (which is not the case), why would I have shown him everything? I have no obligation to do so, and, as you surely know, nobody who actually has anything and wants minimum protection would do so.

B:  Yes.

P:  But what is the relevance of what this fellow wrote to the issue of the letter you promised us?

B:  One of the team members talked about this article in front of other team members.

P:  Was it Dardik?

B:  Well, you know... he wouldn't want his identity revealed.

P:  But still, I don't understand how that affects your promise to write a letter of support for us.

B:  If I wrote a letter of support, it would mean war. I don't have the stregth to fight a war.

P:  What do you mean, war? There is nothing war-like in the letter you were going to send.

B:  Well, the fellow who wrote the article attacking you would respond to my letter, and I would have to respond to him, and it would be war.

P:  I don't see any reason why this fellow would have any interest in responding to your letter. But also, why does it matter? Why do you have to pay attention to him, whoever he is?

B:  It matters because the people on my team have been made aware of this article, and if I came out in your support it would be war. I am quite ill (as you know, I have Parkinson's) and I don't feel I have the strength to fight a war, the way I would if I was younger.

P:  A war between whom and whom?

B:  Between me and the people on the other side, the other members of my team.

P:  You mean an internal war within Energetics Tech?

B:  Yes.

P:  This still does not explain to me why an ethical man like you would go back on his promise. Unless you are afraid of Dardik - I would understand that, that's all you have to tell me.

B:  Look, when I was younger, I was not afraid - I demonstrated this many times, I even went up against the KGB. But it is different now. However, since you are urging me to rethink, I will rethink my decision. And I will try to find out the author of the article. I should look at this article more closely and try to find inconsistencies in it; if it is false and written with ill intent, there are bound to be inconsistencies in it.

P:  But why does this matter? Your letter would speak the truth, and that is the most important thing.

B:  Well, you know, there are [people to whom the truth is not important. And who are willing to - he used some some funny phrase about lives, that might have referred to killing, but was unclear.]

P:  [asks for an explanation]

B:  [explains that Dardik would go to war irrespective of the truth.] (p) P:  But I am still not clear on this: you have known for a long time what kind of a man Dardik was, and you were concerned that he would find out about your visit to us. Your wife - and you - even told us that he was dangerous. Yet, you told Uri as recently as January or February of this year you would send us the letter of support. What has changed recently? (p) B:  Dardik told me to not be associated with you.

Unexpectedly, however, seeing that Dardik had succeeded in blocking access to Kimmel, Branover did send us a letter of support.

The whole affair with Dardik was one more repetition of the same envious malevolence and violent interference we had encountered countless times before. And it is worse, still, when the competition has nothing - as indeed nothing was brought to fruition at Energetics Technologies before it was wrapped up. What a miserable fate our socialistic-capitalistic society has assigned to research in basic physics: to have to compete with the false science of the likes of Dardik! At the mercy of senile billionaires or twisted, ignorant "peers"...