Why Iseman is Suing the New York Times

Lobbyist Vicki Iseman is suing the New York Times for $27 million seeking damages after a highly controversial article published in February suggested she had an affair with John McCain during the 1990s.

Back in February, I reported on the internal newsroom struggle at the Times that proceeded the article’s publication. From my piece in the New Republic:

What happened? The publication of the article capped three months of intense internal deliberations at the Times over whether to publish the negative piece and its most explosive charge about the affair. It pitted the reporters investigating the story, who believed they had nailed it, against executive editor Bill Keller, who believed they hadn’t. It likely cost the paper one investigative reporter, who decided to leave in frustration. And the Times ended up publishing a piece in which the institutional tensions about just what the story should be are palpable.

Read the full version HERE

Publisher Cancels Herman’s Kids Book

Lerner Books announced today that they are pulling the children’s book version of Herman Rosenblat’s story, called Angel Girl. As I reported at TNR.com:

The publisher of Herman Rosenblat’s children’s book, Angel Girl, has now pulled the book from stores and is offering refunds for people who had bought it. In September, Minneapolis-based Lerner Books released Angel Girl, a kids’ book written by popular author Laurie Friedman. The book was based on the story of Roma throwing young Herman apples over the fence of a concentration camp. Friedman told Publishers Weekly:

“I, like many others, am disappointed and upset to now learn of Herman’s fabrications.” Adam Lerner, president and publisher of Lerner Publishing Group, said, “We have been misled by the Rosenblats, who gave us and our author what we believed to be an authentic and moving account of their lives.”

–Gabriel Sherman

NPR Alert: More on the Oprah-Endorsed Fake Memoir

I was on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” this afternoon speaking about my recent New Republic pieces on the now debunked memoir, Angel at the Fence. You can listen to the interview here.

They’re All Talking Now

Tonight Herman Rosenblat’s agent Andrea Hurst and Harris Salomon, the movie producer working on the film adaptation of Herman’s story, released statements acknowledging the love story that forms the central premise of his memoir is a fake. Both claim they didn’t know Herman had invented his love story until I reported revelations that exposed it as a fabricated memoir. Salomon says the movie project will continue, though he may rewrite script to include material that explains why Herman invented his love story in the first place.

To see the statements, click HERE and HERE

Berkley Books Cancels Memoir Oprah Hailed as “Greatest Love Story”

Berkley Books, an imprint of Penguin Group, announced tonight that it was canceling Herman Rosenblat’s Holocaust memoir, Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love That Survived, which was set to be published on February 3. In a statement, Berkley’s director of publicity, Craig Burke, said: “Berkley Books is cancelling publication of Angel at the Fence after receiving new information from Herman Rosenblat’s agent, Andrea Hurst. Berkley will demand that the author and the agent return all money that they have received for this work.” Just yesterday, Berkley released a statement defending the author and his memoir.

Berkley canceled the book after two of my previous pieces exposed serious flaws in Herman’s story, and reported first-hand accounts that its central premise was fabricated.

Read the orignal pieces HERE and HERE)

Wartime Lies

I have a follow up piece in the New Republic investigating the Oprah-endorsed story that forms the central premise of Herman Rosenblat’s Holocaust memoir, Angel at the Fence.

Herman’s sister-in-law and a fellow Holocaust survivor speak in public for the first time that Herman’s story is fabricated. Jutta Rosenblat, the wife of Herman’s late-brother Sam, told me that Herman and Roma did not meet outside the fence of the Schlieben concentration camp, and that the couple did not reunite on a blind date in New York City in 1957. This miraculous love story forms the foundation of Herman’s memoir. Herman’s brother was so mad at Herman for inventing the story, that they stopped speaking. When Herman went to visit Sam on his deathbed, Sam wouldn’t talk to him. “Laying in bed, he was looking away from him,” Jutta said. “He didn’t want to have nothing to do with him. Herman never apologized. He felt that this is the right thing to do … They wanted a good book.”

“There was no story. The story came after they married,” Jutta added. “Someone or something pushed him to make up a story. … Now the book is coming out. What can you do about it? What can you do about it?”

Sidney Finkel, a 77-year-old survivor who was liberated with Herman, told me that he had dinner the night before the couple was to appear on the “Oprah Winfrey Show” for the first time, in February 1996. At the Omni Hotel in downtown Chicago, Roma told Finkel that she was not hiding in Schlieben as Herman tells in his story, and was in fact hiding in another part of Poland. “It’s made up,” Finkel said in an exclusive interview. “He likes to makes thing up. He’s very good at it.”

In a statement released to the Associated Press, Berkley Books defended the memoir. “The events that are its background are part of history; the book, however, reflects my memories of how the events affected my life. I was a young child at the time my family was caught up in the Holocaust, and I saw things through a young child’s eyes. But I know and remember what I saw,” Herman says.

But three other survivors, including the famous British Jewish leader Ben Helfgott all are quoted in my New Republic piece saying that Herman’s story is fabricated. “I speak up with great sorrow,” Helfgott said. “I don’t like it. He is my friend, and he will always be my friend. He got intoxicated with it. And so he wants to carry on.”

For more on the controversy swirling around Rosenblat’s memoir, including comments from his two children, read the full piece HERE

And click HERE for TNR’s earlier coverage of the Angel at the Fence.

The Next James Frey?

Today, I have a New Republic piece out on the controversial new Holocaust memoir, Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love That Survived. The piece looks into whether the author, Herman Rosenblat, a retired electrician from Miami, may have embellished or fabricated the book’s central premise. Herman’s tale is widely known. In the winter of 1945, Herman says that he met a girl outside the fence of a sub-camp of the infamous Buchenwald concentration camp. She threw him apples. Then, in 1957, Herman reunited with her on a blind date at Coney Island. Months later, they married. Oprah hailed Herman’s story. There’s currently a feature film in production and in September, a children’s book, titled Angel Girl, was released.

There’s now a growing concern among Holocaust scholars I spoke with that Herman’s story, at least the version he’s been telling, isn’t true. Historical documents from the Red Cross archives contradict his chronology. His late older brother said he was “ashamed” Herman was telling his tale. And according to Kenneth Waltzer, a Harvard PhD historian who heads the Jewish Studies Department at Michigan State University, it would be impossible for Herman or Roma to approach the barbed-wire fence at the camp. The only place where a prisoner or a civilian could get near the fence was right next to the SS barracks.

The book is slated for release on February 3. Herman’s agent and publisher, Berkley Books, refused to talk to me about the book, and whether the memoir was fact checked. After numerous emails and phone messages to the publisher went unanswered, I called the book’s editor, Natalee Rosenstein to inquire about the book. After picking up, she screamed into the phone: “How dare you call me at home!” before promptly slamming the phone down.

Read the full piece HERE

Jim Chanos: The Catastrophe Capitalist

I have a piece this week in New York Magazine that profiles renowned short-seller Jim Chanos. In the rarefied world of global finance, candid opinion is a rare commodity, discretion is prized—ask a question about Goldman, and you’ll be greeted with a silence bordering on omerta. But Chanos, whether responding to petty zoning disputes or exposing market bubbles, does not subscribe to this code. Ever since Bear Stearns blew up last March, Wall Street’s beleaguered CEOs have accused shorts like Chanos of manipulating the media, leaking damaging rumors to journalists and profiting off their banks’ demise. Chanos, in addition to posting returns of 50 percent, has been waging a public battle to clear short-sellers’ name, and prove that inept Wall Street CEOs are the ones we should be taking down.

From the piece:

As a short-seller, Chanos earns a living by borrowing and then selling shares of a company he thinks will experience trouble. When the stock tumbles, he buys back the depressed shares and returns them to the lender, pocketing the difference. In other words, Chanos is a financial undertaker. He makes a profit when companies die. And when there’s an epidemic, he gets richer still.

Read the full story HERE: