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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, June 6, 1980
Page 9
New York Times. They haven't called me in over a year and a half. So
they want t0 do a big story. They had a small story that came out of
Washington today which was fairly accurate, but they want to do a bigger
story. So we will get some more attention."
It is hoped that more publications will begin to deal with our case below
the surface. "What we need are some more articles from other newspapers
and magazines dealing with the issue not in headlines and lead paragraphs
and rehashing old things, but in depth," Mr. Rader said.
New Book Offers a Close Look At the Case
At the forum Mr. Rader showed the audience an advance copy of a book he
recently authored. Against the Gates of Hell is the title, and the cover
caption on the jacket reads as follows:
"The shattering story of an
assault mounted by a big state against a small church, and how its members
fought back to protect the vital liberties of all of us."
The book is designed to help educate the general public and should be very
useful to members who would like to have on hand a complete and accurate
account of the lawsuit of the century. While the book is around 450 pages
in length, 300 pages are devoted to "telling everybody about us and our
fight without offering much of a defense, actually. It isn't an effort
to defend ourselves; it's an effort to explain what happened and what is
happening and to make it of interest to everybody,'' said Mr. Rader. Some
30 pages of pictures and a rather extensive appendix are also included.
It will be made available to members at the feast, if not before!
Top Constitutional Lawyer On Our Team
Even as we are hoping and looking for more really good coverage which will
set a lead for other publications, Harpers magazine has asked one of our
most prominent attorneys to write an article about the case. He is now
working on it and Mr. Rader was happy to announce it will be appearing
soon.
Telling us a little more about this man, Mr. Rader said it was very
significant that Professor Laurence Tribe took our case. "He is not just
a lawyer in practice. A lawyer in practice takes all kinds of cases. [Such
a lawyer may] take all kinds of cases where people are guilty as well as
innocent because everybody is entitled to defense.
"But [Mr. Tribe] is not only from Harvard but he is not in private prac
tice. But he is allowed, on a selected basis, to take cases of paramount
importance. And once he convinced himself of our integrity and the nature
of this case, he has been an absolute dedicated servant...he is the out
standing constitutional lawyer in the United States today. He is working
around the clock to try to vindicate us.
"I just wanted you to know that, not that the other lawyers don't believe
in our cause as well. I'm only pointing out that he's got a lot at stake
reputationwise, and Harvard would look down on him if he got involved in
the wrong case at the wrong time because it's just too much of an educa
tional institution to have their leading law professor in that field run
ning around after bad causes."
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