A Civil Action

Rating:
Summary: Unknown soldier
Review: Harr's book describes a battle between a handful of Woburn families and 2 companies: Beatrice Foods and W.R.Grace. At the time this book was being readied for release,' K', a Woburn area resident for years, worked as a safety & environmental professional for Grace.'K' did not know much about the Woburn case or the direct parties involved but was deeply affected by the results of the pollution on the townspeople and was very aggressive in seeing that the company strove for the highest compliance on these matters. This all changed when Harr introduced his book. Prior to the book, 'K' had been called in by a Grace manager and told to take a certain position within Grace " or your future is dead in the water at Grace or anywhere else".

Prior to this, K was one day told in order to keep his job he needed a security clearance. After numerous consultations with investigators, K was told his debt load was too high but that if he filed bankruptcy this might help him in the risk analysis. After filing bankruptcy, K was told he had to sign an affidavit promising not to file bankruptcy in the future in order to keep the job. Later K was briefed on a so-called classified project related to the company even though his position had no direct impact. The company sat beside a company which Anne Anderson had worked for.

After a number of years of 'dead ends', K was finally promoted in Grace to the position held when Harr's book was released. Upon release,K was called in by a high level manager and told he was being laid off "for cost reductions". The "layoff" consisted of one person only. K was told the decision came from corporate headquarters though the notification involved its construction division. A couple of weeks after the layoff,K picked up Harr's book and was shocked. The description of some of the children sounded exactly like him. K lived in the same area at the same time,was treated at the same hospitals at the same time, and even had specific medical apparatus mentioned in the book used on him. When the book was released K's medical records began disappearing or becoming unavailable and employees at the division he worked were told not to give K work references. Some high level managers gave bad references even though at the time of termination K was told " you did an excellent job".

K had been raised as an abandoned child with no family history. As the local tension rose over this book becoming a movie, K became wholly unemployable. An individual K had been introduced to as an abandoned child with ties to a key political supporter of Governor Paul Cellucci (unknown to K) and strong ties to employers in Massachusetts became increasingly agitated. When Cellucci inherited the post from Governor Weld, he appointed as commissioner of the state child care system a man with the same general looks and appearance as an executive with the division of Grace which had fired him. As Cellucci's campaign heated up, K began having unusual problems with his bank accounts with Fleet Bank.Fleet had been a corporate sponsor of Cellucci. Governor Weld had ties to the insurance industry as did Grace. Over the next 7 years there began an increase in motor vehicle-related stops and fines, all affecting K's ability to drive or have a road legal car and his insurance rates. In addition, guardians of K as a boy appeared to be garnering any harmful information possible in phone conversations by asking leading questions designed to elicit specific responses. It was as if K was in the middle of major battle between massive political forces.

At the same time all this was going on, the Whitey Bulger case, of which parties involved such as George Cashman linked to Weld/Cellucci, was rapidly heating up. Early on in the Bulger hearings, Robert Redford and Sylvester Stallone I believe were mentioned briefly in a Boston Herald article as being called in for unknown reasons to the Bulger hearings at a time when Redford was planning the film shoot of the book. Around this time a man belonging to the health club K attended approached K with a scenario out of the blue. The man wanted to know if K was charged with a crime and offered no time in return for maintaining a tapped phone line to help convict people or be given $10,000 and a good lawyer which would he choose. It was an unusual event made more unusual when that same man a year later appeared at the hotel he worked in as a friend of the manager. While working for the hotel,K had been told by several employees that they had links to the FBI while one was a Dominican national claiming FBI training. After this information was unsolicited and offered,K was promptly fired.

Rating:
Summary: Looking through a foggy window
Review: There may be strong links between this book and the Whitey Bulger case. Consider this and you decide:

In 1995, Whitey Bulger disappeared AND Harr's book comes out. Harr's book is about Jan Schlictmann representing a handful of Woburn families suffering losses from the water pollution. WR Grace is one of 2 primary companies listed. Grace's PAC supported republican political candidates, of which President Bush and now Ambassador Paul Cellucci are party members. Grace came under fire when this book and later the movie came out. Disney, a company founded by Walt Disney,a Republican supporter, produced the film while Robert Redford directed it. Boston Edison approved the land polluted for a NASA development site.Spec.Agent Connolly later became an executive with Edison where an associate of a significant political backer of Paul Cellucci had a family contact working. Woburn is situated in Middlesex County in Massachusetts, where at one time or another Agents Morris,Connolly,Rico,Mawn and probably numerous others once lived. Jan Schlictmann eventually went to work for Tom Kiley, who now represents Whitey Bulger's brother William. Paul Cellucci has been linked to former Governor Weld and to Teamsters boss George Cashman.Dennis Condon headed the Dept. of Public Safety under which Schneiderhan ultimately had duty.

Martorano,Salemme,Limone,Angiulo,Salvati,Mercurio and many others also hail from the general area of Middlesex county. In the early stages of the case I believe one of the 2 major local papers mentioned Robert Redford being called into the early stages of the Bulger hearings. While the Bulger case was fomenting, Redford was looking for areas to shoot the film (which ended up being shot in Governor Cellucci's hometown of Hudson,Mass.) and appearing in the early Bulger case hearings.

A third party in all this, a child when both the Woburn tragedy occurred AND Bulger signed on, was introduced to individuals who it was learned only when Cellucci ran for Governor that those individuals were linked to parties who supported Cellucci, had enormous clout with the many employment agencies and personnel departments in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.This same critical link had knowledge of the FBI and family links indirectly to John Connolly and to escort services and brothels in the area. The individual also knew numerous organized crime figures mentioned in the newspapers,none of which the child knew about and only learned as the case was revealed in the media. None of the parties involved in the book or movie would respond to this man's attempted contacts and the man became caught in a squeeze between the pro-Republican,pro-Grace forces and the pro-Environment,pro-Democrat forces. In essence, the man who was exposed to the terrible environmental and medical tragedy in Woburn as a child later as a man was put in a position to decide whether he would support the pro-Grace/Republican or pro-Environment/pro-Democrat sides. As the confused, tortured man tried to reach out to both in pursuit of the truth, he was despised,hated and humiliated by both.

It seems quite possible that the writing and release of Harr's book may have inflamed old wounds that manifested in the spontaneous outburst of the Bulger case. The original flame that sparked the whole 35 year Bulger saga can be found in the Mclean-Mclaughlin turf wars involving Middlesex and (Suffolk/Norfolk-Southie) counties of which Woburn sat on one side while 3,000 Middlesex county residents and employees of the Boston Navy Yard sat in the other county. Middlesex county in the 1960s was in the throe of an economic civil war between pro-space,pro-military forces fighting for their apportionment of federal dollars. JFK swung the balance by shifting more dollars to space. Whitey is said to have a girlfriend in Woburn also. Could Whitey have had a child in all this affected by the pollution but treated with government funds in return for his 'service'.Could the government have promised to care for the child,given Whitey updates regularly on the child's progress, and in the end Whitey learned the agreement had not been honored and realized that his pre-arranged "outing" from the program was probably not going to be honored either and decided to skip town? Could one child have been held responsible for his or her whole life for the economic,political and social tragedy of Middlesex county nearly 4 decades ago?

Rating:
Summary: Trodden down
Review: One question one might ask is does this case center essentially around the role of the U.S. government in assuring that the truth in this case is never fully revealed with Grace as a scapegoat because of linkage of its Officers to the government at the time the book was introduced and prior to it?

One man, ' E', worked for a defense contractor,a Grace-owned subsidiary and was told that in order to keep his job he needed a security clearance and that his debt status posed a security risk. After the suggestion that bankruptcy was an option, he was cleared. Once cleared and after the bankruptcy, a government worker informed him he had to sign an affidavit swearing he never intended to file bankruptcy again in order to keep the job.

'E' moved on to an environmental position and helped on a Grace-sponsored project to develop a chemical tracking program with Corbus software of Pennsylvania which may have later been transformed into a tracking program used by government contractors and beta-tested in major retail companies, and 2 Fortune 500 companies which both were listed as clients of a mysterious 'litigation preparation' firm known as Omnitech International.Omnitech sponsored a test study of a software program in the medical and construction industries.The companies 'E' worked for during this time both fell in those categories and the program sounded eerily like the one he worked on for chemical hygiene purposes. Around this time also, Fleet bank, a sponsor for Paul Cellucci's gubernatorial run, announced in a modest brochure at its counter that it was testing a financial software program that sounded in principle very much like the program E worked on for chemical tracking purposes only. Also at this time E had unexplained trouble at the bank.

When this book was released and Whitey Bulger disappeared coincincidentally,E was fired from Grace in his position as an environmental professional while his immediate superior defended his performance as excellent. E grew up in the polluted areas at the time the leukemia epidemic began and may have been a survivor of this tragedy without his knowledge only later to become a champion for the people of Woburn. Nearly 10 years later and homeless after becoming chronically unemployable, a landlord with alleged ties to his former superior at Grace suddenly announced his rent was doubling or tripling and he had less than 10 days to get out even though the property was almost completely vacant. More than decade after being manuevered into signing an affidavit not to file bankruptcy again or lose his then current job, E was now being forced into a similar situation in which he was being forced to act in a manner inconsistent with the affidavit.

The common points are that E lived in the polluted areas mentioned in this book at the time when the outbreak occurred, appeared in the same court to which Harr referred for source book material but was denied access to any files of cases he was involved in, and suddenly fired under curious circumstances involving one of the 2 main companies in the book.Also, E's medical records began vanishing and circumstances became such he has not had health coverage for nearly a decade.Was E a victim in the local tragedy, enrolled as a young child in a government-sponsored program to explore leukemia treatments, went to work for Grace with little knowledge of his family history then promptly fired when Grace learned there may be a link between him and the Woburn tragedy?

Rating:
Summary: Needed to be told
Review: If the family members of victims have suffered in this case, one man has also who has never been interviewed in this case.
The man lived many years in the Woburn area and eventually went to work for a local defense contractor then owned by WR Grace as a parent company. The man was later promoted to an environmental position within a construction division of Grace and was very aggressive and positively motivated to help the company responsibly handle chemical issues-largely inspired by locals affected by water pollution in Woburn. Unknown to himself, he may have been a survivor of the pollution he as an adult was now fighting so hard to prevent.
About a year or so before this book came out, a local newspaper in Massachusetts did a feature on his search for his father and the roadblocks he encountered. The man never had trouble with the law, was a long time volunteer and worked hard to support himself while attending college with no family.The man had been orphaned as a young child and was one of perhaps 1% of all children raised in state child care for sheer duration in the system. The child was bounced around among a variety of families and agency programs-- most of which hated the boy for reasons unknown to the boy himself and never had a mother or a father as a parent. As an adult the man worked sometimes up to 4 jobs simultaneously, 105 hours per week simply to survive. Around the time Whitey signed on to the program, the boy was introduced to a number of adults who played various roles in his life over the next 20 years.When Whitey disappeared these relationships evaporated and left the man dazed and confused. Many of these individuals who suddenly switched affections the boy/man had grown to love as a surrogate family to a man who didn't understand what a family is. Throughout the boy's life, he had been beaten, tortured, denigrated, humiliated,and abused in nearly every way-- all but starved.
When Whitey Bulger disappeared and this book appeared in the same year, the man became prone to IRS audits,telephone problems of every kind,mysterious break-ins to his apartments, threatening phone calls,car tampering,being followed, inexplicable banking problems, sudden unexplained job terminations (Grace fired him when this book was released), and the mercurial exodus of people he had called friends. All of this to a man whose family history had been kept from him , evidenced by sanitized records and constant moves, never finding a stable home while being placed in the hands of people who hated him.
The man suddenly became chronically unemployable despite a long history of stable employment. Eventually he ended up bankrupt and homeless,finally living in a motel it was later revealed was owned by a Grace executive family member from the same division he was fired from. After a stable period,that family member suddenly announced his rent was doubling and he had 10 days to leave- putting him back on the homeless list.
The man had a long history of responsible,stable behavior and mental health had not been an issue. Prior to the newspaper article, the man had written a book manuscript and movie adaptation to the book highlighting his experiences as an orphan recounting good experiences and bad and health problems while a handicapped child living in the polluted areas in Woburn and those whom had made a difference in his life. These written works were done as to inspire other kids in the same circumstances and as a way of saying thanks while offering commentary useful to future decisionmakers on public policy matters affecting disadvantaged youth. The manuscript and screenplay (which had been altered to protect identities of specific persons while relating the events) had been reviewed by friends and there was talk Hollywood was looking into it. When the courts ruled that expired copyrighted material falls into public domain, the man contacted the Copyright Office to renew and gave his address. Within 24 hours his landlord informed him his rent was doubling and he had to move out in 10 days.The address given to the Copyright Office was now no longer valid.

This man,Ken Grant, has been referred to in prior reviews.

Rating:
Summary: Where is the prequel?
Review: This book is about a small number of many families affected by water pollution and the search to find its ultimate source.It involves 2 major,very powerful companies who may simply be models representing each side of the case viewpoints.

Grace has been a historically very politically connected,Republican-oriented company. This is interesting,because it was under President Nixon that RCRA(Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) was formed of which EPA originated. On the board of Grace you had former NSA and CIA officials as well as one of the most top notch investment managers in the country. Investors in Grace include TIAA-CREF as well as Grace being a major investor in Insurance financial instruments. This book was transformed into a movie by Disney Corp.Walt Disney was a major Republican supporter.

This whole case might be placed into a broader context looking at the history immediately preceding the leukemia outbreak and the forces at work. One might also ask how many local residents contributed to the pollution, how many tried to stop it, and how many simply refused to get involved. Also, what legal methods were available at the time to stop it.

A further question is:did greed ultimately rule the day? Was the outbreak detected early on but because the timing was inauspicious it was kept from the public? Or was the outbreak kept quiet while forces worked quietly behind the scenes to a) treat victims,b) determine the cause and extent of the outbreak,c) cost to rectify the situation and broader economic impact, and d) political and legal fallout?

One might ask if the truth is so frightening to some that any means might be employed to conceal it.

Rating:
Summary: A Real Picture of the Courtroom
Review: For all of the Grisham and Turow fans (of which I'm one), this book gives a realistic image of a major lawsuit. The glamour and glitz is there, but so are the thousands of hours spent in the library or in depos. As they say, real life makes the best dramas, and this is one of the most engaging books I've read (I couldn't put it down until I finished, 4 a.m., and missed 1/2 day of work). The prose is intricate and picturesque, yet not a slow read at all. Like most good books, there is a hollowness in you when you finish, as if you've been taken out of one reality and placed back in your own. The relation to Capote in the cover is right on.

Rating:
Summary: Good but skims surface on lot of issues
Review: 1) How many individuals worked for Grace and other companies involved in this case who also lived in the community and were exposed themselves to the chemicals? What do these individuals know and did they have a duty to protect their fellow citizens if they know chemicals were being handled irresponsibly?

2) Did any of the childhood victims survive possibly through being enrolled in new medical treatments at the time,such as bone marrow transplants, which have been the subject of much consternation among insurance companies who say these transplants are experimental and unproven? If one or more of the children in this case received a bone marrow transplant and lived, could this signify a proven treatment and pave the way for a cure for AIDS and other diseases? If such a child or children lived, would this information be hidden? And if so, by whom?

3)Is there a link between the intrigue surrounding the beginning of the epidemic and fallout from the Whitey Bulger case, with many of the key players hailing from the region this all took place in?

Rating:
Summary: Connect-the-dots
Review: One thing missing in this book is the history immediately prior to the beginning onset of leukemia cases.

One man referred to in previous reviews may be a key in this tragedy. Here are the coincidences:

1) The boy lived in the same neighborhoods and streets as the polluted wells.

2) The boy was seen multiple times in nearly every hospital that saw the leukemia victims mentioned in the book.

3) The boy was the same age +\- 1-2 years as the first children diagnosed with leukemia symptoms.

4) The boy was involved in local court proceedings whose public record was denied him 25 years later without reason and which court served as a documentary reference for this book and Schlictmann's battle.

5)The boy was treated out of state in excess of 2 years without visitors and given a biopsy and tests that can be used to determine leukemia without explanation.The results of at least one test clearly indicating leukemia.

6) As a teen the boy began exhibiting some symptoms of a condition associated with leukemia and other things but a biopsy was refused by the legal guardian and the excuse given was Schaumberg's disease as the doctor took photos for a class. Later a specialist ruled this diagnosis out.

7) As a man the man had a paternity test done to determine if a man was his father or not. The test ruled that man out and experts asserted the only way to skew such a test would be a bone marrow transplant in which the graft would be done in such a way as to appear as a biopsy,which the child had done.Such transplants were rare but done and might have been done as a government experiment into viable leukemia treatments. Following the negative test results, it was later revealed PCR(Polymerase Chain Reaction) was probably used to exclude the alleged parent.1-2 years after the test, a large article about using PCR to determine leukemia patients by ascertaining minimal residual leukemia cells was published.

8) The man had a landlord who was well known to one of the principles in the investigation of the water pollution in Woburn unknown to him prior this book.

9)Many of the earliest victims were treated by the Dept. of Welfare,of which this child's mother received longtime benefits.

10)The boy was shuffled around among many families in the Woburn area at the time the earliest cases emerged.

11) Prior to, and after, this book came out the man was called for numerous interviews where the interviewer(s) made reference to Grace and taking an anti-Grace stand and to the generalities of this case.This apppeared to be a ploy to glean information from the man, as none of the interviews resulted in a job offer and the parties became difficult if not impossible to reach.Were the interviewers investigators? There has been some documentary evidence of lawyers and investigative firms being used to conduct mock job interviews as a way of garnering damaging information on the other party.

Rating:
Summary: Good but many victims not mentioned here
Review: This book details a set of families fighting to pursue justice but this was actually begun with a group of families led by attorney Michael Gatta in the 1960s in Woburn.

In addition there is a man name Ken Grant who was driven into banruptcy,homelessness and joblessness when this book came out. His bank accoutns were tampered with at Fleet bank while the IRS had accounts at that bank as well as IRS audits and levies without notice. Headhunters throughout Massachusetts and New Hampshire refused to get him jobs while references burned him. All this started when this book came out.Grant was out of work for a very long time. Prior to this book none of this happened.

Scores of Woburn townspeople experienced perceptual motor damage from the water. This is a good book but a host of others should follow.

Rating:
Summary: Superbest
Review: "A Civil Action" is on the very short list of the best books I've ever read--absolutely mesmerizing, never predictable, and featuring an ending rich (no pun intended) in the poetic irony that only real life provides (pun intended).