10. Averting a Split Agreement Between the American and the IPA, December 1986

In the wake of the counterproposal of September 22, 1986, that Kaplan had drafted, it became clear that the defendant groups were not united in wholehearted support of this offer to settle. Some thought that we were offering too much in this early hard negotiating stage, and there was talk of another meeting of all the defendant parties and their attorneys to review matters, again in New York, on October 12, 1986, this time in Lew Kaplan's office. On October 3, 1986, after consulting with Weinshel and Dorkey, I wrote to Helen Fischer questioning the need for the October 12 meeting. I quoted Dorkey's advice, which I endorsed: “We agreed at our September 19 meeting on a proposal that we do not want to change and we cannot allow to be made any weaker since then the plaintiffs will no longer think that we are serious about negotiating a settlement. His feeling is to go ahead and if Columbia won't sign to go ahead without them.” Dorkey was intending to call Kaplan to discuss this matter; but I added that if there was to be a meeting, Weinshel and I would fly to New York for it. On the same date, however, Fischer sent a memo to all the invited participants confirming the daylong Sunday, October 12 meeting at Lew Kaplan's office. And on October 6, 1986, Austin Silber, as Secretary of the American, sent a notice to the entire Executive Council (more than 40 people) calling an “extraordinary meeting” a week after the October 12 meeting, on October 19, also in New York, “to discuss the legal action against the Association,” to which I and the other principal officers of the IPA were invited as guests (as the officers of the parent organization, and as partners in co-defending the lawsuit). For Weinshel and me it would be two successive weekend trips to New York from San Francisco.

Again, no formal minutes were kept of the October 12 meeting of the representatives of the four defendant groups and their attorneys, but I