Talk:Alfred de Grazia/Archive 1

message: The reference is to a different T V Smith to the one linked to ! -- Beardo 06:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  T.V. Smith 

message: It seems like the article is giving two names for de Grazia's present wife. Which one should stay in the article? We should have one name throughout the article. Ami appears to be a nickname, so I'd like to suggest Anne Marie.--Sethacus 17:46, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: de Grazia seems to use both Anne Marie and Ami on his Web site. There is one comment on his web site where he refers to "my wife, Ami de Grazia, the French novelist (formerly Anne-Marie Hueber)" --Tsyko 10:10, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Anne Marie vs. Ami?

message: Note that de Grazia was one of the first to do computer-based social network analysis -- Facebook in 1953. "In 1953-4, Alfred de Grazia, who was then Executive Officer of the Committee for Research in Social Science and Associate Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, submitted a proposal to the Department of State to write a manual that would help train federal employees assigned to culturally diverse countries around the world..." See http://www.grazian-archive.com/governing/Elite/F_34.html
The American Behavioral Scientist, which De Grazia founded, was the first journal of Sage Publications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAGE_Publications.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jubois (talk • contribs) 17:19, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If it's dubious, and we have verification, then we say so. But since he published over a dozen "quantavolution" books on the subject, it was a significant part his life. His work seems to be well-cited in much catastrophist literature such as Kronos, and SIS Review. If we were discussing his scientific contributions elsewhere, then I would agree. --Tsyko 10:05, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To answer the second question, from de Grazia's own site: "These plays are published here for the first time. One of them represents an unpublished drama of fifty years ago, but fourteen were conceived and written during the past two years. The only people who have read them all are my author-wife, Anne-Marie, and my grandson and film-maker, Nick Vanderpool. Others have read one or several of them. If all goes well, they will constitute most of the repertoire for the 2002 season of a theatrical troupe touring America and Europe." So, no. There is an assertion that two were made into films in Italy, but the one site I found for one of them is "in costruzione" (under construction).--Sethacus 21:30, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Re: Literary works - My father was a massive intellect that was sometimes seen as over-reaching. Considering everything, I would like to offer the following explanation. The town of Licodia Eubea, called by some the family's town of origination, is perched on a steep hill overlooking the plain that extends to the sea where lies the port city of Syracuse. The Eubeans (pronounced Aye-you-BAY-uhns) settled the town in 700 B.C. and that in itself is significant, since it was they who taught the Romans to read and write, or gave them their written language, and thus were commonly taken as pedagogues by the Romans. So, you must look at the Roman style of learning and scholarship to judge his contributions through a truly appropriate lens. Now, in addition to the Eubean contribution, historians of the ancient world will tell you that a flotilla of Athenians; generals, hoplites and others, converged on Syracuse (an ally of the Spartans, but not Spartan, themselves) at the height of the Peloponnesian War. The Athenians were routed, and some were taken into slavery while others appear to have escaped to the hills. Licodia was a natural refuge for these escapees, and my father and grandfather's physical resemblances to the philosopher Socrates is arguable. At any rate, they appear more like Athenians of old than of any other type, as far as I have been able to detect. In fact, I told him to his face that he was a Sophist, and he did not deny it. Spiritually, I believe that he was an Athenian Sophist somehow transported in some way to the modern world. You need only read his works on practical democracy and government to see my point. At any rate, he was always proudly Greek, not unlike the Athenians of then and now.{{Jagtig (talk) 17:32, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  de Grazia's areas of notability 

message: Did they actually do any psychological operations in Germany? There must be umpteen accounts of the push through Germany and if de Grazia played this role a reference could be found. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:34, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Head of psyops for 7th Army? 

message: Michael Polanyi, "The growth of science in society", Minerva Volume 5, Number 4 / June, 1967 DOI 10.1007/BF01096782 Pages 533-545. I haven't got access to the full text at the moment, but it turned up when googling for de Grazia and American Behavioral Scientist. Polanyi was a very interesting philosopher of science. The article discusses the Velikovsky affair. I expect it argues that science needs to make its philosophical underpinning more explicit if it is to fight off pseudoscientific claims. Whatever, it may be a source for de Grazia's editorship of the journal, if nothing else. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:50, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good source 

message: Removing sentence in Quantavolution.  Per WP:BLP.  The one source here says
Thus, this one source is used as WP:SYNTH.  This is the only mention of the name Grazia in the document according to search. And, it doesn't say he was defending V's work, either.  Nor does it say that it was a version of V's ideas, but that it "differed markedly."  Anyway, it's contentious, so put it back in with correction, no SYNTH, and with sources for what is being said.  I removed the source itself, as it was merely used this way.
Now I am sure that Velikovskianism is bunk- I was sneering at it long before I came to WP.  But this is not kosher.  ——Martinphi    ☎ Ψ Φ—— 02:06, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed sentence

message: We, his children and wife, lived in Princeton near to the infamous Prospect Avenue eating clubs; in fact, our first house in Princeton had been the home of the Colonial Club, and the clubbies returned once to steal a Picasso painting off my parents' bedroom wall. Now, if you want to see what life is like at a latter-day university, read this report made for the benefit of a contact I have in the FBI. You will see that coke (cocaine) is a primary mover of all things, great and small, and that Tesla physics, just the kind of thing my father would have fostered, is the second most important thing in the world. Unfortunately, the high-voltage physics can be lethal and weaponized, and you will see from the reading that the results are tragic, beyond belief. http://www.princetonweb.org/fbi.pdf {{Jagtig (talk) 17:38, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: From the quote, I'd say the passage in the article is fairly heavy WP:Synthesis. It seems to have been a mixture of culture-clash and (perfectly justified) skepticism of the University's business practices rather than "uncomprehension". HrafnTalkStalk(P) 18:40, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As it turns out, the original text in the quote above was from the 1988 hardcover Henry Holt edition, which was changed for the 1990 Avon paperback as the result of a law suit by DeGrazia against Henry Holt & Co. and Ted Morgan, as reported by DeGrazia via email to me. In accordance with WP:LIBEL, this quote has been modified to conform to the 1990 version. The changes affect text in lines 24-27 and 35-35a-36 in the quote above from pp. 453-454 in Chap. 17: The London Years, whose source implicitly is Burroughs interview with author Morgan since the topics fore and aft, namely "Death of mother" and "Visit to Hollywood", are explicitly sourced to "BI", Burroughs interview, plus "Terry Southern to author" as a second source for the aft topic. Phaedrus7 (talk) 18:12, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Sounds like Princeton University, upon which the University of the New World was modeled.

message: Even more reviews of de Grazia's books (which were removed from his article):
*William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, Volume 3.8, Issue 3, p. 438  Alfred de Grazia. Public and Republic; Political Representation in America. Reviewed by Herbert N. Drennon
*Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Jun., 1951), p. 92  Alfred De Grazia. Public and Republic; Political Representation in America. Reviewed by S. H. Brockunier
*American Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring, 1954), pp. 88+90-91. The Elements of Political Science. by Alfred de Grazia. Review author: Steven Muller.
*Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1985), pp. 284–288. Cosmic Heretics. by Alfred de Grazia. Review author: Henry H. Bauer.
So which notability criteria are we going to claim he fails now? 67.202.96.13 (talk) 19:31, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: So include the references in the article linking to information about what the refs say. Simonm223 (talk) 19:39, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm perfectly willing to keep contributing to the article (while I'm actively editing WP) and adding sourced stuff. Right now we're discussing merger. If you check the history and the talk page above you will see that I worked on it this time last year. Of course when I first looked at the article I wondered whether the subject was notable. But when I saw it had already survived two AfDs I rolled my sleeves up and got to work, asking the well-known Velikovsky fan User:ScienceApologist to help out. You'll see that I've consistently pulled the article back towards what is notable and verifiable. Googling today I saw that de Grazia was mentioned by name in discussions about the status of science by both Michael Polanyi and Imre Lakatos. We have then 1) notability for the political science career alone (founding editorship of a quality academic journal swings WP:PROF) 2) notability for defence of Velikovsky, discussed by leading philosphers of science and 3) notability for some of the later stuff, if only through relationship to Burroughs. Obviously a proliferation of Velikovsky-related POV and vanity articles is a problem. Full marks to those who are cleaning it all up. But please, this particular one actually happens to be notable and has to stay and be improved and constantly policed. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:53, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand what you are saying but I think you may misunderstand me.  Improve the article rather than posting links into the discussion here and I will withdraw my support.  Because this merge discussion has gone on a while and not one of those supposedly notability confirming references has actually made it into the article.  Simonm223 (talk) 22:04, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd need to put a bit of thought, and get some consensus, as to how best to start working on the article again. I'd be very tempted to revert to the last version I edited, in 2008. Since then User:Amideg (Ami = Anne Marie de Grazia) has taken out a lot of the stuff that attests to notability and put in a lot of useless fancruft. But there might have also been some useful edits in the meantime, so it all needs unpacking. If I'm not simply adding to the article right now, that's why, plus I don't want to spend time on it again if it's for the chop. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:27, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

text: You're right, that wasn't a brilliant version at all. I've stubbed the current version down a bit to what I think is going to be verifiable. Can we allow a couple of weeks to pursue refs and then see what we have? Itsmejudith (talk) 13:48, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Material unrelated to the Morgan quote

message: Can't have it both ways. Either we first come to a consensus about whether the article goes or stays, and then work on it. Or we just work on it. 
Simon, could you say what you didn't like about my changes you reverted? They responded to comments made above here. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:30, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: For myself, I have every intention of 'having it both ways' -- developing the article, but still registering a 'merge' vote as long as the bulk of the article overlaps Velikovsky. I'll strike that vote if/when the article articulates (& sources) notability independent of Velikovsky. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 02:05, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  What are we doing, discussing a merger, or working together on the article? 

message: has recently made a whole bunch of edits.  Now some of these I think are harmful to the NPoV of the article.  Others may in fact point to notability of the subject.  Problem is that so much has been changed that going back and sorting out viable references, pov affecting changes, etc. will take some time.  Please slow your edits down a bit so that other editors can assess.  It would be a shame if somebody came along, saw mass changes and reverted everything if there is, in fact, valid references in that. Simonm223 (talk) 17:32, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Please note that I only started making edits in mainspace because I was challenged to. See posts above "how can you argue he is notable when you haven't added the points to the article?". Damned if you do and damned if you don't! And note that my change to the way the Morgan source was summarised was a response to a comment that the previous version was OS. Hrafn's wait-and-see position is sensible. In fact it was what I thought myself when I heard that the article was up for merger. Hrafn, would you like to have a look through the contents pages of ABI, on the Sage link I posted, and consider whether notability is established simply on the grounds of being founding editor of that journal. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:50, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slow Down Request 

message: De Grazia's interest in Velikovsky's ideas extends beyond the two books The Velikovsky Affair (1966) and Cosmic Heretics (1984).  In 1968, de Grazia founded and became the first president of an independent organization whose purpose was to research and promote Velikovsky's ideas. This organization was the Foundation for Studies in Modern Science whose history is recounted in Cosmic Heretics, pp. 213-229, in Chapter 12: "The Third World of Science". In addition to de Grazia, the Board of Trustees was comprised of Richard P. Kramer, Livio Stecchini, Ralph Juergens (co-author/editor, The Velikovsky Affair), Horace Kallen, Harry H. Hess, A. Bruce Mainwaring (presently a Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania), John Holbrook, Jr., Robert C. Stephanos (founded the Comyns Beaumont Society in 1975), and Warner Sizemore (co-founder of Kronos in 1974). The foundation was defunct by 1972, but not for a lack of trying and in part due to Velikovsky's behind the scenes meddling.  Contrary to my comment yesterday, content in Cosmic Heretics can be accessed via google.com searches using well-chosen key words/phrases. Phaedrus7 (talk) 18:34, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Foundation for Studies in Modern Science 

message: Do we have consensus that Henry H. Bauer, Beyond Velikovsky 1984 University of Illinois is an excellent source for this article (as long as it remains in existence) and indeed for all Velikovsky related articles? Itsmejudith (talk) 11:11, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bauer book 

message: As mentioned above, de Grazia's academic career is touched upon in Rebecca S. Lowen. Creating the Cold War University: The Transformation of Stanford. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997. 
I think we could usefully have something like the following: 
"In 1952 de Grazia was appointed director of the Committee for Research in the Social Sciences at Stanford University. The appointment was supported by a Ford Foundation grant. Lowen (1997) described him as "a political scientist deeply committed to scientizing his disciplin and promoting studies of political behavior". In 1955 he was turned down for tenure at Stanford. 
Please discuss. You can see the full text in google books - there's a link above here. The context for Lowen's mention of deG is that she argues that during the Cold War there was pressure in Stanford to curtail the activities even of dispassionate social scientists, if they were not actively promoting an anti-communist agenda. She casts deG as one of those social scientists, which is consistent with what we glean from other sources about his academic work in this period. Her book is an academic one but I haven't looked to see how it was received. 
If this article is to stay (how long will the merge discussion stay open?) then we need detail of the universities where he worked. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:58, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed addition from Lowen book 

message: Mark Solovey "Rethinking the Politics–Patronage–Social Science Nexus" Social Studies of Science 31/2(April 2001) 171–206 lists de Grazia as having been involved in the design of Project Camelot, but then becoming unhappy with it. 
In a footnote, he says:
Alfred de Grazia is quoted at length in Gideon Sjoberg, ‘Project Camelot: Selected Reactions and Personal Reflections’, in Sjoberg (ed.), Ethics, Politics, and Social Research (Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Co., 1967), 141–61, at 143–45.
I would think this is more material that should be reflected in the article. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:24, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Couple more articles  

message: Discussion on the Fringe Theories Noticeboard. You will see I don't have a hidden agenda to promote the guy's views - unless you think there is a very deep conspiracy indeed here. My memory was poor; I thought I alerted ScienceApologist but it was the other way round. Now I have read more, I think the subject does meet WP:PROF. Shows how a cursory glance can be wrong. Itsmejudith (talk)
:I don't think that you've got a "hidden agenda", just that de Grazia's pro-Velikovsky crankery has got longer legs to it than his more solid, but less remarkable, scholarship. And if the latter is what third parties remember, and comment upon, then we have little choice but to give this WP:DUE. You may well be right that there is material to demonstrate that he has a notability relevant to WP:PROF beyond his entanglement with Velikovsky -- but policy still requires us to come up with reliable independent sources to verify this. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 17:47, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added some more information about his academic career. None of it (yet) rises to the level of WP:PROF, but should help on WP:GNG. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 18:20, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

text: Thanks for this. BTW, I posted on the admin noticeboard to ask whether the merge discussion should be closed yet and if so that someone could do it for us. I'm not sure what the protocol is. If you don't agree it should be closed, please post here or there and I'm sure your view will be taken into account. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:13, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  By the way, this is how I first encountered this article 

message: See Talk item no. 3 above about de Grazia's wives.  His current wife, at least no. 3, is Ami de Grazia, the former Anne-Marie Hueber, a French novelist, and editor of early versions of this entry. Phaedrus7 (talk) 23:43, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  De Grazia's Wives 

message: We have a citation needed tag on the journal being renamed and acquired by Sage. Sage's own catalogue shows that it is published by them today; that's trivial. The contents pages (on Sage's website) show, in various article titles, that it was ABS in the early 1960s, and although the contents from the first edition are available they do not indicate the journal name. Can we find out from some RS or other when it was renamed and when acquired by Sage? Itsmejudith (talk) 10:00, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dates for ABS? 

message: Since the entry treats de Grazia's early 1970s experimental University of the New World in Switzerland, perhaps a fuller appreciation of the man might be gleaned from a knowledge of his February 20, 1980, proposal to the Open University at the University of Maryland for a two year pilot program in a new Institute of Quantavolution, which de Grazia presents in his The Burning of Troy, Chapter 29, "I.Q.: A University Program".  The proposal was turned down; but no one can justifiably dismiss de Grazia for being "half vast" and the proposal establishes his bona fides in writing grant proposals. Regrettably, there is no third-party source for this initiative. Phaedrus7 (talk) 18:06, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem with de Grazia doesn't appear to be that his proposals were "half vast" but that it appears that he lacked the intellectual insight to pick winning horses ("Quantavolution" always had the hallmarks of a lead balloon, as did his Palestine solution) and the organisational flair to create something self-sustaining ("University of the New World", the "Kalos movement") or even getting off the ground at all on occasion ("Institute of Quantavolution"). This all makes de Grazia seem more than a little quixotic. An academic interested in doing more than "tilting against windmills" would generally work on, and achieve reasonable success at, gaining legitimacy for a field before proposing that an "Institute" be set up to study it. Do we even know if this "proposal" was even formally presented to the University of Maryland for consideration, or if it is a mere 'pipe dream' of de Grazia's? HrafnTalkStalk(P) 03:57, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

text: A published, third-party source for all this would be preferable. And I would argue that "writing grant proposals" that were not accepted (and judging from the lack of acceptance of the underlying field of study, were highly unlikely to be accepted) does not "establish[] his bona fides". Also your degree of personal involvement with de Grazia indicates that you should take a good hard look at WP:COI. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 03:09, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: All this makes me think we should keep to a minimum all coverage of projects after his espousal of the Velikovsky cause. We have independent coverage of the University of the New World, so that can stay in. Even that should be brief, although I would like to squeeze in a mention of William Burroughs, since Burroughs' involvement is what swings that failed university project into notability. It would be good to include the date when his editorship of ABS ended. In principle, Cosmic Heretics is not a reliable source for this biography, but it may be acceptable for information that is unlikely to be contentious, including certain dates. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: If we want to "squeeze in a mention of William Burroughs" then we need to make the primary link to de Grazia, not Morgan. The issue we should be articulating is why Burroughs is noteworthy in context of the topic, not why de Grazia is noteworthy in the context of the source. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 03:20, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

text: Of course he was perfectly capable of writing a normal funding proposal, but not capable of writing one that would bring in funding for work on "Quantavolution". You could be the best bid-writer in the world and still not be able to swing that one! Itsmejudith (talk) 08:38, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

text: Re the Burroughs ref, it's not a big deal for me at all. The current wording looks good. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:39, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Institute of Quantavolution (I.Q.) 

message: I reverted these as they would discussion here. Amideg, you must remember that you have a conflict of interest. If you edit at all you must do so with the greatest caution and not promote your own/your husband's interests. Here are my thoughts:
*Background section. Irrelevant. Article is about the subject, not his family.
*WW2. Perhaps we could note the existence of the wartime correspondence if it is independently mentioned. Needs discussion. 
*Exact date of wedding. No. Clearly unencyclopedic.
*Delete "Alfred de Grazia" from the book titles. Yes, better, please go ahead. 
*Later books. Would prefer them not to be listed individually, instead a note "and X other books", but see Gary Null. 
*ELs. No more please, and perhaps take out those already there. 
Itsmejudith (talk) 09:46, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: And I see that Gary's Null's books have recently been culled from his article. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:49, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree on all points. It is unbalanced to have a list of works dominating the article. Also, AFAIK Gale does not include an end-date for his NYU professorship (so it should not be cited to that source). HrafnTalkStalk(P) 10:46, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

text: I have now consulted my copy of Cosmic Heretics and upon a closer reading see that I improperly assumed, in the absence of a definitive time line and/or dates for events in DeGrazia's narrative, that he met his third wife on Naxos while still married to his second wife. I accept Amideg's version of the dates and apologize for my mistake. However, DeGrazia implicitly admits to his "philandering" on p. 108, as quoted above, and any person with an appreciation for delicate innuendo in literature will understand from DeGrazia's accounts in Cosmic Heretics of his relationships with women in Naxos, Nevis, Saigon, and New York that DeGrazia fully enjoys the company of women. Contrary to Amideg's accusation, I had no malicious intent when I reported these aspects of DeGrazia's biography. I merely wanted to describe the audacious tenor of DeGrazia's narrative. Phaedrus7 (talk) 00:10, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Amideg's edits 

message: Here is Amideg. There have been questions about reviews of the books of Alfred de Grazia. I have added to the article EIGHT references of major reviews in major publications for his first book alone, Public and Republic, his PhD thesis published by Alfred Knopf in 1951. Here they are:
^ American Political Science Review 45:882 S 1951 650w review by M. J. Fisher 
^ Annals of the American Academy, 276:141 Jl 1951, 350w review by Frank Paddock 
^ Canadian History Review 32:170 Je 1951 350w review by R.A. Preston 
^ New York Herald Tribune Book Review p13 March 18, 1951 450w review by August Heckscher: "A sober scholarly volume, authoritative in its field." 
^ The New York Times, p.6 August 26, 1951, 350w by W.E. Binkley: “A thoroughgoing examination of the meaning of representation, the fundamental element in any definition of republic.” 
^ William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series 8, 1951, review by Herbert N. Drennon 
^ Booklist 47:232 March 1st, 1951 
^ U.S. Quarterly Book Review7:163 Je 1951, 210w 
^ Library Journal 76:408 March 1st, 1951 130w review by R. W. Henderson.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amideg (talk • contribs) 10:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Amideg: my recent edits 

message: In the section "Support for Velikovsky", Velikovsky's central claim is misrepresented and this obscuration should be clarified. Velikovsky's claim was not merely that Earth has suffered extra-terrestrially caused catastrophes in the past 15,000 years. Specifically, Velikovsky's central claim concerned Earth suffering cosmic catastrophes caused by planets Venus and Mars within the past 3,500 years. As described presently, Velikovsky's astronomically impossible planetary model is comparable to the astronomically feasible cometary model of Victor Clube and Bill Napier abetted by the parallel work of Mike Baillie. Phaedrus7 (talk) 16:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Velikovsky's Central Claim? 

message: I have made changes to the opening sentence to reflect more accurately the activities of Alfred de Grazia. I have moved a New York Times assessment of his first book "Public and Republic" to the text of the article. I have added a footnote about his book "Political Behavior" showing a recent (2007) assessment of this work: "A seminal treatment of the subject of charismatic leadership and political organizations," in Thomas H. Johnson, Chris Mason: "Understanding the Taliban and Insurgency in Afghanistan," 2007, attesting to the relevance of his work in present times. Amideg (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 17:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Amideg: more of my edits 

message: I have reinstated the paragraph on "Military Activity" which has been repeatedly erased, the last time after 17 minutes. One editor seems to doubt that there were psy ops in WWII. A 1958 biographical notice for Alfred de Grazia in JSTOR Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science states clearly: 
"Dr. de Grazia has taught Political Science at Minnesota, Brown, Columbia and Stanford Universities and has served as Captain engaged in psychological welfare in Africa and Europe during World War II." 
The archives of Georgetown University Library keep a copy of a study in Psychological Warfare that Alfred de Grazia and later US Ambassador Martin Herz produced for the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force 
The Ritchie Boys were mainly German speaking Jewish intellectuals and refugees who had fled Hitler's Germany and were trained at the "spy-camp" at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, in psychological warfare and propaganda. Alfred de Grazia was also a trainee there. He gave advice and contributed pictures for the making of the German-Canadian documentary by Christian Bauer, as can be seen in the credits. 
Alfred de Grazia has written extensively about his experiences in WWII in his book The Taste of War and according to Wikipedia regulations for biographical articles, writings by the subject of an article are valid references. Amideg (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 10:58, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Anything can go back in so long as it is reliably sourced. Of course there were psyops in WW2. The question is what we can say for sure about Alfred de Grazia's involvement with them. Please look again at WP:BLP. The book The Taste of War can only be used if it is "not unduly self-serving". We can discuss here if it should be regarded as self-serving. The film credits reference IMHO is far too thin. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:00, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

text: Sorry, Amideg, but this is why we don't encourage editing by people close to the article subject. AdG is notable as a political scientist who supported Velikovsky. End of. His later books can be listed (perhaps, not sure if everyone agrees), but they are not an important part of this biography. Not important enough for the lede. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:25, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Amideg: edit February 3, 2010 

message: Editors should be aware that de Grazia believes Velikovsky was NOT a catastrophist, but a Velikovskian and that his concept of Quantavolution was the true expression of recent, global catastrophism, of which Velikovsky's model was only one example. This is the sense intended to be conveyed by the edit done with respect to "Velikovsky's central claim" and "Quantavolution". Phaedrus7 (talk) 21:43, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The text has now been co-ordinated with what Henry Bauer actually wrote in his review of Cosmic Heretics, the point of reference for this passage.  The relevant sentences by Bauer are as follows:  "He in fact believes Velikovsky's most general claim [n.b., NOT "central" claim], that the earth and its inhabitants have been crucially influenced by recurring catastrophes of global extent, occasioned by extraterrestrial agents in very recent times (the past 15,000 years or so). That belief, or set of beliefs, de Grazia terms quantavolution. . . . And in places Deg [i.e., de Grazia] seems to reveal a touch of megalomania--implicitly when he presents himself as architect of the grand quantavolutionary synthesis, explicitly when he sees himself as superseding Velikovsky in that role."  By changing "most general claim" to "central claim" the emphasis was shifted from generic "extraterrestrial agents" to Velikovsky's specific agents, the planets Venus and Mars. It should also be noted that de Grazia in other publications, such as his Chaos and Creation, fancied that such critics of Velikovsky as Stephen Jay Gould and Carl Sagan were also "quantavolutionists" by virtue of their embracing global catastrophes occasioned by "extraterrestrial agents", i.e., ordinary comets and asteroids, NOT planets. Phaedrus7 (talk) 15:58, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quantavolution vis a vis Velikovsky 

message: I have established my case; the picture shown and the actual picture of my father that has been uploaded to Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/pin/347340189988471388/ are not the same person; anyone can see that. Why are you so insistent on putting a fake holocaust picture on the page? This is a very important matter. The German people must pay reparations for the crimes of the Nazis, and so every bit of evidence is extremely important. I'm not saying he wasn't in the camps at the end of the War, but that isn't him. You are flying in the face of reason and logic by allowing that picture to remain there. It will throw doubt on other evidence associated with his written records of an epoch. Jagtig (talk) 22:06, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  August 2015 

message: There may have been a second Alfred deGrazia with a parallel military record, now being confused with my father Alfred Joseph de Grazia. This Alfred deGrazia may have been associated with the so-called Ritchie boys whose job it was to disseminate propaganda of various sorts. I am sure my father was attached to the 3rd Army through the end of the war, and was one of those ordered into Buchenwald, not Auschwitz, at the end of the war when the territories surrounding those places were liberated by the American Army. There was a huge rush to move in before the Russians, and spare the Germans the decades of rape, robbery and iron rule that accompanied the Russian Occupation of Germany. The right wing is on the rise in Europe at the time this is being written as a result of the refugee crisis, and there will be great efforts made to discredit the Americans and all liberal influences in hopes of staunching the flow of refugees with definitive force. Again, the source of much of the rancor stems from the days of the Battle of the Bulge. It was then that the Americans were unable to fall back enough to avoid surrenders in some cases, and some of those who surrendered were massacred in an incident that is well-documented. This sort of thing did not happen in the Winter War before Rome, when there were also extensive American surrenders. Those who surrendered then spent the war in "Hogan's Heroes" POW camps. The result of the massacre referred to was reprisals, and the Americans began to open fire on child soldiers attempting to surrender. It might be mentioned that my father Alfred de Grazia was part of the heroic resistance that turned the tide at the Battle of the Bulge, and even once quoted Surrounded Commander Bethanne Kelly Patrick, who said "Nuts" when given the ultimatum to surrender. If he was actually inside Bastogne at the time of the encirclement, that would explain a lot, but even if he wasn't... https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/#sthash.3cLrpCsV.dpuf Try "In World War II, were there 2 Americans named Alfred DeGrazia?" in the search box.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jagtig (talk • contribs) 18:35, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: There may have been more than one Alfred deGrazia active in the military during WWII

message: One last item; although, Alfred de Grazia's page seems to be beyond deletion, and the opinions of a close relative will tend to be biased on the favorable side, I would like to add one more note of "grand explanation," that may strike a favorable note and ring true with the intellectuals to whom this article may remain of interest long after those seeking "true glory" have long departed the page.
When the Americans found themselves in Italy in 1942, they found themselves in an unfamiliar and often very hostile environment. Physically, the south of Italy is a couple of barren mountain chains, with almost no coastal plain and very limited negotiable terrain. It is not tank country, by a long shot.  Religiously and intellectually, Italy is Catholic, and the Catholic Church was supporting the Fascists (sorry, again; but, true). 
Now, my father, the grandson of Joseph di Grazia, one of Garibaldi's 500, was also the nephew and son of beloved Sicilian Catholic school teachers, Alfred di Grazia and Immaculate Sister di Grazia, and thus was well situated to  brave the storm of criticism that greeted the Americans that came from the Catholic Church and Italy's educated Catholic elite . 
These, the rulers and thinkers of Fascist Italy "had reason," as the Duce, Benito Mussolini, had done much to "knock out" the Mafia, that super-corrupt organization that had taken over power from the Feudal overlords who were toppled in the 19nth Century, in Sicily and Southern Italy. Unfortunately, in their effort to prevent anarchy and Communism from becoming the postwar order of the day in Southern Italy, as well as to find allies against the Facsists during and after the War, the Americans restored this criminal element to power, to some degree.
My father was also ready and able to participate in the leveling of force against "Priests carrying guns," the very thing his grandfather had been called on to do when Garibaldi took Rome (then the entire area of the ancient Roman province of Latium) and added it (less the Vatican) to the Italian state he created.
Okay, we're still not done. The Generals needed some sort of legitimacy; sure, the Bishop had given General Clark a precious jewel at Paestum, but they needed something more than baubles. My father, with his University of Chicago education, was able to connect them with and help explain Italy's remote and glorious past, and General Patton was pleased beyond belief. He came to think that he was Belisarius, sent to drive out the Ostrogoths, though the names wouldn't have rolled off his tongue. Allusions to the depredations the Vandals (Wends?), also found favorable audiences, though the vast majority of the Army was Protestant, and therefore might have identified with the Arian heresy that was the religion of that German tribe who had occupied the African province of Western Rome in the declining years of the Roman Empire. Perhaps, this is what is meant as psychological warfare; I don't know, really.
As stated at the outset, I'm trying to maintain a neutral POV, but doing so requires a distance that only time measured in decades or centuries will bring. As to my own defense contribution, I believe that you will find that I've been able to bring to the Americans and their allies vital information concerning futuristic weapons development, and this has been done at some considerable personal risk and cost. Should some sort of article on this matter appear in Wikipedia in the coming months or years; such as, concerning the development and use of this weapon, then it should link to Alfred de Grazia's page for background and "informational environment" reasons.
As to the use of the photo now circulating purported to be of him standing in front of a pile of severed limbs at a concentration camp; it is not the one I saw in his office at NYU, and I do not recognize the individual in the photograph. This picture is being used by Holocaust deniers and Arab sites, so it should be identified properly, and references to him deleted or separated from it, a difficult thing to do since it seems to have been labelled with his name. The picture I saw may yet appear on the web, as I didn't take any measures to hide or destroy it, despite its gruesome character, and may have even approved of its publication as a proof of the atrocities perpetrated in the Concentration Camps not knowing that Holocaust deniers, neo-Nazis and anti-Semitic and anti-American Arabs would use it for their own purposes. I suspect it went with the rest of the material in his office to the Library of Congress archives where it now resides. {{Jagtig (talk) 13:59, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Concerning the picture of "Alfred de Grazia" standing before a pile of severed limbs at Auschwitz - the last gasp of John deGrazia, son of Alfred de Grazia