April 16, 1979

Dear Velikovsky,

I certainly owe you a letter after so many months without contact, especially since you’ve never seen any return on the $500 you sent me. I wrote you a pretty lengthy letter after your last call, be decided not to send it. That call, like most of your more recent pieces of communication, especially oral ones, really upset me. You presumably have the tape of it on hand. It was in itself like a tape recording of other soliloquies wherein you list the sacrifices and selfless efforts that you imagine that you’ve made solely for my benefit, and you list the cases of my ingratitude, judgmental errors, and misdeed that you imagine I’ve shown. I emphasize the three words “that you imagine” in both instances, since our perceptions of both categories are not at all similar. More often than not our perceptions are diametrically opposed on most items in both lists. Anyway, it was something I’ve heard before repeatedly, do not care to hear again, and did not appreciate then, but enough on that matter.My final remark on it is that to a very large degree, my declining to come to Princeton to work for you was based on the feelings you expressed in that and similar conversations.

On other matters, I’ve considered returning your $500, and thereby feeling less guilty about not sending you anything on Mycenae. The months I spent on the paper were worth a lot more than that, but you were paying for the finished product, which you have yet to receive, rather than for my time. I decided not to limit the piece to a few pages or even to a somewhat expanded paper, but to treat it as a book-length topic, using Mycenae as its main subject and also using it as a point of departure to bring in relevant material from across the Aegean and Levant, which had an effect on or was affected by the material and the problems at Mycenae. So it grew and grew. The time spent on research also grew considerably, as did that for writing and documentation. I am nearing the completion of the first of two major component parts, and shall send it to you when I have finished it—the second part to follow at a later date. I exapnded on much that was in the Pensée piece and added several new sections, all pointing to the same conclusion, viz., that the discoveries at Mycenae, dated by Egypt, have 500-year - 700-year problems in every aspect of culture and material remains. The results should please you, thoughthey will be far longer than the short piece that we both at first envisioned. If it is not too late for the publication of your volume, you may excerpt from the piece. I plan to submit the completed product to my advisor for his consideration as a doctral dissertation. He has so far opposed it, and may finally reject it, but I plan not merely to send him a few pages but a massive case, which he cannot simply brush aside. I hope that your offer to have someone type it still stands. I’d like not only for him to see it, but others of my professors at Cincinnati and other people as well, such as Prof. Thompson in Princeton. They will all see ho compelling the case is for your revised chronology on the basis of plenty of examples from their own disciplines, which they tend to disregard singly, but which form a cohesive and all-encompassing whole when put together and examined under the standard reckoning, which leas only to perplexity, and then explained under a redating.

The piece will take a while longer, though the first section is, as I said, close to completion. I worked on it to the exclusion of everything else of conseqeunce until a couple of weeks ago. I turn 30 very soon, and while that probably seems pretty insignificant to you at your age, it seems pretty formidable to me. For a long time now I’ve had no real source of income and have watched money go out without any substantial sums coming in. Additionally, no longer being a full-time grad student, yet simultaneously not being employed, has left me feeling pretty uneasy. It’s had it effect in all areas of my life, to the point where I feel almost ashamed to talk to old friends, and find it difficult to meet new people. A large sense of my personal identity is in what I do, and right now I am an unemployed guy, nearly 30, still single, still living with his parents, with little money to spend, and no sense of where I’m going in life. So, I’m no actively hunting for a job here in Houston. I’m not sure what will turn up, but each day I go to a few more interviews, and hope that something will turn up soon. I plan to keep working on archaeology as an avocation, but it will not be my vocation. My plan is to get a job with good pay, security and benefits, and then work on other matters in my spare time. This seems the only realistic way to keep doing what I was doing and to have real employment. I don’t say this to prompt any special response from you, and not to hear any counterproposal, or remakrs on my lack of dedication or my greed. I’m simply informing you of how matters stand. To the extent that I’m able I’ll still be carrying out the work I’ve done on your behalf for the past 10 years—I’m not abandoning it or you, but I shall be doing other things which will take up the lion’s share of my time, and which should do more for me than archaeology has so far, particularly since it is dead end in so far as employment goes.

That in brief is how matters stand. I’ll send you what I have on Mycenae (section 1) when I’ve finished it, and section 2 sometime later. I still hope to get a Ph.D on the basis of that writing, but prospects of that are not bright. Whether I get it or not, I shall not seek a full-time career in archaeology, but will instead seek other employment; and whether I get the degree or not, I intend to keep studying and writing in the field in the time I’ll have free to do so. Such is my decision. I really don’t care to hear anything negative you may feel on that decision. As the the $500, you’ll get much more than you originally requested, but it will take some time. I think that covers fairly succinctly everything I wanted to say. I’m sorry that a lot of things have turned out as they have—the long time to write the paper, the need to change careers, our not being as close as we once were, etc.—but so it is, and I do owe you an explanation, particularly since I still have your $500 and you’ve seen no return on your money.

I do wish you well in your work, which I still support, as you’ll see when I send the vast material I’ve chronicled on Mycenae, and wish you and Mrs. Velikovsky well personally. I look forward to seeing new publications, especially the final volumes of Ages, when they appear, and wish you both continued good health, strength and contentment.

Sincerely, Eddie

P.S. I was sent a copy of SIS Review containing James’s criticism of Ramses II. Some points struck me as wrong or weak, but others are troubling. They concern matters beyond my specialization and knowledge, so I can’t rebut them, but I’d be most interested in any response that you or any of your other supporters who are familair with the material have to those objections. Unanswered they do look pretty problematical, so I hope that you or someone else competent do do so, answers them.

P.P.S. Considering past calls, however well-intentioned, I really don’t want another lecture on how you imagine I’ve failed you and myself, which I’m sure I’ll get if you decide to call. If Jan is there, I suggest that if you have any message, you relay it through him. Direct contact has dome more to separate than to unite us.