Responding to the speculation about Lew Rockwell writing the Ron Paul newsletters, Jamie Kirchick writes that he interviewed Rockwell for the story and he denied it:
He said that he was “involved in the promotion” of the newsletters, as well as, “writing the subscription letters” (maybe he wrote this ditty [PDF]?) and “writing mailing lists.” Rockwell told me that there were “seven or eight freelancers involved at various stages” of the newsletter’s history.
When I asked him who was in charge of the editing and publishing of the newsletters, Rockwell got cryptic. “The person who was in charge is now long gone … He left in unfortunate circumstances.” Ultimately, however, Rockwell says his role was “just to bring the money in.”
Related: Timothy Virkkala wrote the other day:
Oh, so who wrote Ron Paul’s newsletter? I have only hearsay and memory to go on. But really, most of us in the libertarian “industry” just “knew” who. I have four names in mind, I think all contributed at one point or another. But maybe it was only a subset of those names, maybe it was just one or two. One of the names is pretty damn obvious. And one of the names is not obvious at all; the style was abandoned for better things, later on.
I’m guessing Rockwell’s name is the “pretty damn obvious” one, seeing as I was able to come up with it. And now I’m wondering if the “not obvious at all” name belongs to the “now long gone” person that Rockwell mentions. I do have a thought, but I’ll keep it to myself; I don’t think it would be appropriate to accuse a dead man of slinging bigotry based on pure speculation. (Speaking of dead men, Virkkala suggests in a footnote that Bill Bradford would happily clear this all up if he were still alive. One more reason to miss him.)