Bob Bray’s Response to Stephen Oates
Oates's assertion-
Instead of sending me their allegations and asking for a response, my original challengers, literary critic Robert Bray and historian Cullom Davis, presented their allegations at a symposium of the Illinois State Historical Society, which had elected not to forewarn me about the nature of the complaint (I learned about it later, from a reporter).
My response-
'. . . on the afternoon of the 6th, in between answering the phone, I called the Historic Preservation Agency in Springfield. I wanted to know for sure that Oates had been informed of the"Malice Aforethought" session. I spoke with Carl Oblinger, the chief administrator of the Illinois History Symposium and the person ultimately responsible for the choice of papers on the program. Because the press was calling him too, he knew of Oates's"not informed" complaint and assured me that the Agency, as agreed, had sent Oates a letter of notification concerning the session back in October. As a matter of fact, Oates had responded with a note of his own, declining to attend. What is more, someone from the Agency (Oblinger said"we") had told a visiting colleague of Oates's (also unidentified) that my paper would analyze textual parallels between the two biographies, though this was a verbal exchange and not documented. Relieved, I asked for copies of the correspondence and Oblinger said he would oblige. I received them a few days later, but the substance of the letters is relevant here. The Agency's letter, dated October 4, 1990 and over the signature of Noreen O'Brien Davis (the"detail-person" for the Symposium), was business-like but sadly inexplicit:
Dear Dr. Oates:
I am writing to make you aware of one session being presented
at the Eleventh Annual Illinois History Symposium that you might have
an interest in. I refer to the enclosed symposium program; please take
note of Friday, November 30, 1990, at 1:15 p.m.
I have enclosed a couple of extra programs for your use. If I may
be of further assistance, please let me know.
Apparently, the Historic Preservation Agency left it to Oates to look at the indicated program session and make the right inferences:"With Malice Aforethought,""Reading Between the Texts: Stephen Oates's With Malice Toward None and Benjamin Thomas's Abraham Lincoln." It is easy to see how he might not have detected a theme of plagiary from this letter and the accompanying program, but his handwritten reply shows that Oates did detect something:
Dear Ms. O'Brien Davis,
I appreciate your thoughtfulness in sending me copies of the
program for the upcoming Illinois History Symposium. I wish I
could attend the session"With Malice Aforethought." Maybe I'll
send a spy out there to attend for me!
Best regards,
Stephen
The bit about sending"a spy" reads playfully, but Michael J. Devine, head of the Historic Preservation Agency took Oates at his word:"In my view, Professor Oates was clearly informed of the fact that papers critical of his work were to be presented at the Symposium. He had, in my view, every opportunity to ask for further information from the staff or the panel participants. In fact, he may have sent a 'spy.'"
Oates-
At the same time, disregarding the AHA rules about confidentiality in plagiarism cases, Davis and Bray gave interviews to newspapers, and all five accusers circulated their charges to scholars and writers across the country. The AHA officials made no attempt to restrain them.
My response-
Throughout this controversy, I tried to respond to all journalists who asked to talk with me, but I never once initiated an interview. And since I did not submit a charge of plagiarism against Oates to the AHA, I was under no obligation not to speak to journalists.
Oates-
The AHA professional division and council, after dragging the case out for a year and a half, handed down a verdict absolving me of the charge of plagiarism, but rebuking me for not having enough references to Benjamin Thomas's biography. I and other Lincoln scholars disputed that point, since Thomas's scholarship is cited repeatedly in my references and since Thomas's own biography has no references at all--only a general discussion of sources at the back.
My response-
'He [Oates] asserts that in citing Thomas"seven times, [his italics] for facts or quotations derived from his work," he has sufficiently attributed his debt to Thomas, ignoring the dozens of other passages that show borrowings without citations.'
'Seven citations' might seem plenty for Oates, but in fact every instance of borrowing from Thomas that I analyzed in my original essay lacks such a citation or any other form of attribution. Whatever one may think of the American Historical Association's distinction between plagiarism and misuse (and I think it cowardly and intellectually dishonest), even this 'lesser' verdict carried some authority: indeed, Oates and his publisher, Harper Collins, demonstrated a sensitivity to this judgment in the form of a prefatory note to a subsequent paperback printing of With Malice Toward None-wherein Oates admits that the work owes a greater debt to Benjamin Thomas than he, as its author, had theretofore acknowledged.
I invite readers to judge of Oates's plagiarism themselves. For those who might be interested, my case was published in the Journal of Information Ethics, 3: 1 (Spring, 1994), pp 8-24.