Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History among the professional organizations he belonged to, and he had cited several black men and women—Alex Haley, Shirley Chisholm, and Julian Bond—among the subjects he had interviewed, so I had assumed that he himself was black. But on the telephone I learned that Elliot was white and Jewish. He had got into the field of black studies by accident. An early teaching job had been at the University ofAlaska, where he had been hired to teach history; when he arrived, he was told that he would be teaching a course in black studies. “I had no formal preparation in black studies, and it came to me very quickly that the faculty and administration’s aim was to kill the black-studies program,” he told me. “When their intent became clear to me, I determined that I would teach the course anyway, and learn as I went along. And the more I taught it and studied it, the more interested I got in it. It became clear to me that there was a lack of books in the field, and since blacks weren’t writing them, I would. And when I talked to the publishers they would say, ‘Well, this is a good idea, but you should know that, one, blacks don’t buy books and don’t read them, and, two, there is no market for black-related subject matter.’ I viewed that as racist.”
Elliot, when he arrived at Shedlick’s office, proved to be a short, rotund man with thinning curly gray hair, a dark complexion, and thick glasses; he looked older than his age, which was forty. Although our telephone conversation had prepared me for his seriousness and earnestness, it had not prepared me for his austerity. It is rare to be in the presence of someone as grudging of himself as Elliot is; the ordinary small gestures of affability that we automatically extend to one another and automatically expect others to extend to us were not extended by Elliot. He stayed within himself, he would give no quarter, he refused every gambit of friendliness and playfulness. Shedlick and Elliot were well acquainted; Elliot’s research for his book on MacDonald had brought him to Shedlick, and Shedlick had said of him, “Dr. Elliot is not one you can buffalo. He’s very adroit, very probing, very factual. You can’t pull the wool over his eyes. We hit it right off.” After Elliot’s arrival Shedlick spoke very little and listened toElliot with the nonchalantly pleased air of a music teacher hearing a favorite pupil give a flawless performance of a difficult composition.
I asked Elliot how he had come to be writing a book about MacDonald. He said, “After watching a film version of
Fatal Vision
on television, I had an intuitive hunch that something was wrong, and as soon as the movie was over I went to my study and wrote to Dr. MacDonald, requesting an interview. Two weeks later, I received a letter from him saying that he’d been deluged with requests for interviews and that he wanted to do only one major one, and after reviewing my résumé and the clippings and books I had sent him he had decided to grant that interview to me. I then contacted
Playboy
and they ultimately approved the project. [Elliot’s interview with MacDonald appeared in the April 1986 issue.] I spent months preparing for the interview, and then spent about twenty-five hours with MacDonald in prison.”
“Do you believe he’s innocent?” I asked.
“My position is that, at the very least, he deserves a new trial,” Elliot said. “I would never say that I believe him to be innocent beyond a shadow of a doubt. But I would say that much of the evidence that has come out post-trial and much of the evidence that was suppressed at the time of the trial would cast a very different light on Dr. MacDonald’s case if presented in court, and that in all likelihood an impartial jury would reach a very different conclusion. There is no question in my mind but that his story is believable—far in excess of reasonable doubt. If I had to
Elliot, when he arrived at Shedlick’s office, proved to be a short, rotund man with thinning curly gray hair, a dark complexion, and thick glasses; he looked older than his age, which was forty. Although our telephone conversation had prepared me for his seriousness and earnestness, it had not prepared me for his austerity. It is rare to be in the presence of someone as grudging of himself as Elliot is; the ordinary small gestures of affability that we automatically extend to one another and automatically expect others to extend to us were not extended by Elliot. He stayed within himself, he would give no quarter, he refused every gambit of friendliness and playfulness. Shedlick and Elliot were well acquainted; Elliot’s research for his book on MacDonald had brought him to Shedlick, and Shedlick had said of him, “Dr. Elliot is not one you can buffalo. He’s very adroit, very probing, very factual. You can’t pull the wool over his eyes. We hit it right off.” After Elliot’s arrival Shedlick spoke very little and listened toElliot with the nonchalantly pleased air of a music teacher hearing a favorite pupil give a flawless performance of a difficult composition.
I asked Elliot how he had come to be writing a book about MacDonald. He said, “After watching a film version of
Fatal Vision
on television, I had an intuitive hunch that something was wrong, and as soon as the movie was over I went to my study and wrote to Dr. MacDonald, requesting an interview. Two weeks later, I received a letter from him saying that he’d been deluged with requests for interviews and that he wanted to do only one major one, and after reviewing my résumé and the clippings and books I had sent him he had decided to grant that interview to me. I then contacted
Playboy
and they ultimately approved the project. [Elliot’s interview with MacDonald appeared in the April 1986 issue.] I spent months preparing for the interview, and then spent about twenty-five hours with MacDonald in prison.”
“Do you believe he’s innocent?” I asked.
“My position is that, at the very least, he deserves a new trial,” Elliot said. “I would never say that I believe him to be innocent beyond a shadow of a doubt. But I would say that much of the evidence that has come out post-trial and much of the evidence that was suppressed at the time of the trial would cast a very different light on Dr. MacDonald’s case if presented in court, and that in all likelihood an impartial jury would reach a very different conclusion. There is no question in my mind but that his story is believable—far in excess of reasonable doubt. If I had to
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