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Acknowledgments
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xi Acknowledgments Honestly, I always figured I would write Roy Kepler’s story, or try to. It was a feeling I had, for many years. But it was only after talking with Clark Kepler in January 2005 that I truly engaged. Clark and his sister Dawn have been fantastically helpful, and they made this book possible. They opened their family records, shared their memories, and corrected the mistakes they saw. It can’t be easy to let a reporter rummage around the attic, and I am grateful for their assistance and their tolerance. Many people subjected themselves to interviews with me, and I appreciate every one. Some people, in particular, have gone above and beyond. Molly Black invited me to her home and has been kind throughout. Ira Sandperl is one of the world’s great conversationalists , with a reservoir of stories and insights like you wouldn’t believe. Historian Dennis McNally and Denise Kaufman put me in touch with assorted hip characters. Willy Legate and Alan Trist both wrote wonderfully detailed accounts of their Kepler’s experiences. The late Ralph Kohn and his wife, Irene, provided hospitality and endless answers as they endured hours’ worth of questions. My turning-point meeting with Clark in January 2005 occurred while I was participating in the William and Barbara Edwards Media Fellow program at Stanford’s Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. I especially thank executive assistant Mandy MacCalla for her help with this generous opportunity. Historian Scott Bennett generously critiqued an early draft of the manuscript, and provided both encouragement and concrete advice. Eagle-eyed copy editor Jill Root polished the work. xii Acknowledgments Librarians and archivists—they are the best. Wendy Chmielewski, curator of the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, and her staff maintain a world-class resource and make it easy to use. The staffs at the Stanford University Archives in Green Library and the University of Maryland’s Library of American Broadcasting were keenly professional. Annelise Finegan, Mary Selden Evans, and Jennika Baines at Syracuse University Press have encouraged and accommodated me; they have made for this manuscript a wonderful home. A project like this relies on good fortune, not all of which can be remembered. While working at the great Palo Alto Weekly in 1984, I drove to Grass Valley and interviewed Roy for several hours. Artist Ginny Mickelson carefully tended the tape recorder, which is something that wouldn’t have occurred to me. The resulting tapes, rediscovered two decades later, proved invaluable. Attorney Jim Wolpman provided both sage counsel and documents relating to the Free U and the attacks that occurred in the late 1960s. My employers at the McClatchy Company have been extremely helpful, more than they know, to tell the truth. Way, way back, the Weekly staff let me learn the journalism trade, in part by writing stories that decades later became the foundation for this book. My parents, Joy and Bill Doyle, brought me to Kepler’s the first time and then time and time again. They taught me to read, write, and question, lots and lots of questions. My wife, Beth—well, words can hardly say. Except: thanks. The errors, every single one of them, are my own. ...