“Sincerely yours”

Kaczynski on writing letters and his daily routine.

---

1. Exctract of a letter from Ted to an unknown person — 7/8/09

... that need to be corrected.

You ask me three questions.

1. Are there any books you can send me? At the moment, no, but I may ask you to send me a book at some time in the future.

2. What is my daily routine? I don’t really have a daily routine, but I do keep pretty busy. How much time do I spend reading and responding to letters? Reading letters doesn’t take much time. Answering letters is always hard work for me and takes a lot of my time, because I think it’s important to compose letters carefully. Even as it is I sometimes regret things I’ve written, and that would happen more often if I didn’t compose my letters carefully. I can’t give an estimate of the number of hours I spend writing letters, because it varies too much from one day to another.

3. What is the most dangerous consequence of modern technological society? I can’t identify any one consequence as most dangerous. Some of the things I consider particularly dangerous are mentioned in The Road to Revolution.

2. Extract of a letter from Ted to an unknown person

the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Adam Parfrey in his letter of 6/2/10 asked me to write a statement for him about the oil spill. I’ve done so, and I’m sending you a copy of it herewith. As you will see, it is based on what I wrote toward the end of my letter to you at 6/7/10.

As for the Facebook idea, I can’t give a definite answer because I know so little about Facebook. But my initial reaction is strongly negative because the little that I do know suggests that Facebook is mainly a place where adolescents (of any age) post narcissistic self-advertisements in an attempt to make friends via the Internet.

Let’s remember that what is important is not Ted Kaczynski. The thing that really matters is what the technological system is doing to the world. That is the subject …

3. From Ted to [REDACTED] — March 4, 1999

Dear Mr. [REDACTED]:

It was a bitter, bitter pill for me to swallow, but I felt obliged to give your physics teacher a Bon that probability problem. His paper is enclosed.

This evening I think I have time to answer a few more of the numerous questions that you asked in your letter of January 23, 1999.

You asked what was the strangest thing I was ever “sent, asked to discuss, and read.” It’s difficult to say, because I’ve been sent a great many kooky things, and since I usually don’t read them. I can’t say which is the kookiest. A good candidate, though, might be a letter that I received from a guy in (I think) Florida, who accused me of being an agent of space aliens who were trying to take over the Earth; or maybe he accused me of being a space alien myself. I’m not sure, because I didn’t read the letter carefully.

A somewhat kooky guy named [REDACTED] sent me a collection of Internet postings related to my case. He was trying to get it published as a book, and he invited me to comment on it and even to write a foreword for it. (I declined.) Some of the posting were strange enough.

And then there’s an extremely good-looking young woman who sends me detailed accounts of the sex fantasies she has about me. Her imagination is unusually fertile.

Have any notable people written to me? (Observe correct spelling of “notable”.) That depends on what you mean by notable. I receive letters from a former movie actor, but I don’t think he was ever a star of the first magnitude. I also correspond with a writer who is known nationally, but he’s certainly not one of America’s most famous writers. I’ve received quite a few letters from nationally-known media people (e.g., Bradley Davis of NBC News) who want me to give them interviews or information. (Thus far I’ve given no interviews and only a limited amount of carefully-selected information.) The foregoing are all of the notables who’ve written to me that I can think of offhand.

Do “they” keep a record of the people I receive mail from and forward it to the FBI? I imagine it’s quite possible that the prison authorities may record the names of people who write to high-profile prisoners like me. They may even keep photocopies of the letters. But I don’t think it’s very likely that they routinely forward this information to the FBI. However, it’s possible they may do so. And they probably would give this information to the FBI if the latter needed it in connection with some case or investigation.

So one of these days if you see a goofy-looking bozo following you on your way to school with a deerstalker cap on his head and a magnifying glass in his hand, he’s probably an FBI agent. But if you’re peddling a few joints around school or something like that, you don’t have to worry too much about the FBI. They are incompetent, not to mention dishonest. If you don’t believe me, look up all the court documents pertaining to the search-warrant issue in my case — I think most if not all of them are accessible to the public — and give them a careful reading.

When I was at the Sacramento County Jail I became friendly with an intelligent and experienced officer of the Sacramento Coutny Sheriff’s Department. On various occasions he had worked in cooperation with the FBI, and his contempt for them was unbounded. He explained one of the ways in which the FBI has built its reputation: The FBI and the local police both work on a case. THe local police crack the case and notify the FBI. The FBI gets in on the arrest and then immediately calls up the media and brags about how they solved the case — admitting, as an afterthought, that they did have some help from the local police.

James Early Ray, the alleged assassin of Martin Luther King, once said, “When the FBI runs out of informers they run out of ideas.” He was probably right.

In my next letter I’ll get to the problem about the polynomials. Meanwhile, here’s a question for you, if you care to answer it. (If you don’t care to answer it you need not do so.) Do you have any interests outside of academic work? Any hobbies, activities, etc.?

4. From Ted to [REDACTED] — February 20, 2001

Dear [REDACTED]

Today I received your letter of February 13.

I apologize for having addressed you as [REDACTED]. It seems that nowadays there are many names that are indeterminate as to sex, so perhaps people should start using a form of address that would be appropriate to either sex. Maybe just “M.” instead of “Mr.” or “Ms.”?

Anyway, to answer your questions, I don’t especially hope hope that scholars will learn anything from me. My main reason for donating my papers to the University of Michigan is a personal one. I am not at all happy about the bull manure that the media have propagated about me, and I want the truth to be on record. The truth, or the principal part of it, is contained in the documents, most of which (or photocopies thereof) are currently stored at the Federal Defenders Office in Sacramento. But eventually the documents will need a more permanent home, which I hope can be provided by the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan. However, it is not yet certain that I will donate all of my papers to the Labadie Collection.

Since you appear to assume that I wrote the so-called “Manifesto,” I have to remind you that people sometimes plead guilty without being so simply because that may represent their least undesirable alternative in a given legal situation. On the advice of attorneys, I will refrain from commenting further on this subject, since my legal case may not yet be finished.

My ideas do of course evolve over time, but they have been doing so only slowly; except maybe in regard to some very personal matters that I don’t care to discuss here.