George asked if Timothy Leary was a funded cryonics organization member. The thread where he placed his question is now locked, so I will answer it here. I don't think this is sensitive or confidential information. Since the topic of celebrity cases is of interest, I'll go into some details. I am not really interested in debating the case, because those debates have already run at some length and are still searchable on CryoNet.
Timothy Leary joined Alcor Foundation at a time when the Alcor minimum was relatively low--$28,000 for a neuro, as I recall. I believe he had enough or almost enough insurance for that minimum. He then switched to CryoCare, which had a higher minimum. I think he was unwilling or unable to pay the difference and was therefore slightly underfunded.
After Leary decided not to be cryopreserved, I am almost certain that no cryonics-related organization received any of the insurance money. Thus the standby, which actually lasted almost 6 weeks (I stated 4 weeks previously in error), was unfunded, as things worked out. Of course this could have happened as a result of any terminal Alcor or CryoCare members changing their minds at that time. Alcor did not institute its monthly prepay surcharge for standby service until much later.
Fortunately Leary's convenient location in the greater LA area enabled standby personnel to stay within reach without paying motel bills, and so far as I know, everything was done on a volunteer basis, including medical evaluations by two friendly MDs and by a nurse affiliated with Biopreservation. I don't think CryoCare incurred any expenses. Biopreservation may have incurred some small expenses.
We believed at the time that the Leary case could provide some net benefit to cryonics, although the extent of this was debatable. On the down side, the media tended to mock anything that Leary advocated, because they perceived him as wacky. On the up side, Leary still had a lot of influence over many people who took him very seriously, and he had a huge amount of name recognition--almost certainly more than Ted Williams. I think the people who followed a counterculture guru would have been more likely to sign up than people who revered a baseball legend, but if only half-a-dozen of them had been encouraged to make arrangements, I wouldn't have been surprised.
The article that I contracted to write for Wired magazine would have served a dual purpose, promoting cryonics generally while also countering other media coverage that would have been much less sympathetic and more sensationalistic. CryoCare made an agreement with Leary to obtain exclusive photo coverage largely in the hope of preventing other people from publishing photographs that would have played up the lurid aspect of cryonics procedures. This was a real concern, since one person was already chronicling Leary's physical deterioration in a series of photos on a web site, and there was no way to exclude the many people who had taken up residence in the house, sleeping on couches or the floor. Leary liked to have them there, and it was his house, not ours.
As I have noted elsewhere, my personal conclusion was that Leary embraced the idea of cryonics but didn't really take his own death seriously, and thus the idea remained only an idea, like many of the ideas that he threw out to challenge people and get press coverage. A woman who was close to him for much of the end part of his life shared this opinion, and John Perry Barlow said much the same thing in a tribute that he wrote. Some cryonicists who knew Leary disagree with this evaluation, but I talked to him several times, and he made various remarks (some of them quoted by reporters) about not wanting to die or be revived with humorless technicians around him holding clipboards, and not wanting tubes inserted into his body, draining his blood. He was a vain man, still making an effort to pose for photographs even when he was in pain, very weak, and emaciated. Style was extremely important to him, and he supervised the ornamentation of the cryonics equipment in his home with mystical paraphernalia and iconography to conceal its serious purpose as much as possible. This alone was an indication of a kind of culture clash.
If some of us had been better able to emulate the lifestyle of his acolytes, conceivably we could have blended into the hippie-crash-pad perpetual-party-scene and would have been better situated to perpetuate his interest in cryopreservation. However I saw many obstacles to this. I participated in the parties a couple of times but I think anyone could sense that we were latecomers who were not quite in sympathy with the old turn-on, tune-in, drop-out ideology. Also there was a lot of jockeying for position around the man by people who revered him and wanted to be publicly associated with him, and several frequent visitors to the house (such as Barlow) had a lot of credibility with Leary because he had known them for years.
Leary participated in stunts such as being towed on a wheelchair, along with several other people on wheelchairs, behind a car cruising down Hollywood Boulevard--an unusual adventure for a man in the last stages of self-induced malnutrition and severe pain from metastatic prostate cancer. Some friends also took him to a party in Malibu which lasted overnight, and apparently they didn't bring his pain medication with them, causing him to go into opiate withdrawal, according to Dr. David Crippen, an expert in intensive care who was an admirer of Leary and visited the house. In a memorable turn of phrase, Crippen wrote in an email to me that "The political situation surrounding the Leary household is a saga of greed, corruption and failure that makes Nixon look like an amateur and Charles Manson a punk." Actually I think Leary enjoyed these adventures and wanted to party, party, party right till the end. But this kind of thing was not very compatible with serious preparations for cryonics procedures.
We did succeed in getting one of Leary's cryonics friends to stay at the house for a week, but she seemed unable to do any significant PR work for the concept of cryonics, and could not even persuade Leary to consume nutritious food, let alone bring the ice bath into his bedroom. After she left, the party crowd made it clear that cryonicists were not welcome. I concluded that while the concept of cryonics might fit with the Leary ideology, the practice of cryonics is incompatible. You can't run a cryonics stabilization procedure as if it's a free rock concert where the musicians are stoned and the music may start two hours late. It has to be a disciplined operation on an urgent timescale, and Leary was not friendly to the idea of discipline or urgency. He frequently missed his own doctor appointments, for instance.
It's easy for people who weren't there to think they could have pulled it off, and maybe if they could have displaced the 20-or-more lifelong friends and others who had established themselves close to him, they might have had a shot at it. But that wasn't going to happen.
He was friendly toward us all the way through, and praised the dedication and intelligence of our team leader many times, but in the end, as he said to me himself, he just didn't like the idea.
Based on my (limited) knowledge of the Tim Leary case there are a number of inaccuracies or mis-recollections in Charles Platt's account.
Tim had had intermittent contact with cryonics (and Alcor in particular) since the late 1970s (he spoke at one of the early Alcor conferences in the late 1970s). He was the keynote speaker at the opening of Alcor's first permanent (owned) facility in Riverside, CA in the mid-1980s and he had consistently been friendly to cryonics and both a public and private advocate. Tim knew a lot of influential people and he could (and did) occasionally facilitate contacts that were interesting if not invaluable.
Shortly after he spoke at the Alcor facility dedication Keith Henson and Arel Lucas approached the Alcor Board of Directors with a proposal to get Tim cryopreservation coverage. Tim was (technically) insolvent because he was paying off massive fines to the US Federal Government as a result of his convictions and/or plea bargains on a number of criminal charges; he had returned to the US in a negotiated deal after escaping prison and fleeing to Algeria. Keith and Arel had put together a group of people who had agreed to purchase a life insurance policy on Tim and to pay the premiums. The amount they had been able to secure commitments for was under the minimum then required. Alcor agreed to take Tim at marginal cost and Jerry Leaf agreed to waive his fee for cryoprotective perfusion and any standby that might be required (providing Tim arrested in the greater LA area). This was not done primarily because Tim was perceived as a good public spokesman for cryonics, but rather in spite of his activities in this regard. Tim could be charming and he was generally well liked by Alcor management and members. More to the point, for good or ill, Timothy Leary was a figure of critical historical importance; one of the few people who genuinely perturb and lastingly change the culture. While I disliked much of what Tim advocated I could not help but be impressed with his relentless and surprisingly effective challenge to the powers that be. He had done Alcor a number kindnesses and, given the contributions from Jerry Leaf and those who paid for Tim's insurance, I thought it reasonable to extend him coverage and what amounted to a modest discount. Further, the government levy on his income was something that I (and I believe most others on the Alcor Board at that time) felt was unjust.
Alcor did not require ownership of life insurance policies for cryonics funding then, but did require verification of funding in the form of double-billing (and this was done). Tim completed the required paperwork and was signed up.
I have no knowledge of the circumstances of Tim's switch to CryoCare (why or how he made this decision) and by that time my contact with him was sparse and unrelated to cryonics. Brenda Peters might know more about the mechanics of this change. Keith and Arel would likely know the details of how Tim was funded with the (donated) life insurance policy.
When Tim became ill I became fairly intimately involved with his medical care (or lack of same). Tim presented with the complaint that he had metastatic (terminal) prostate cancer. I could find no solid documentation of this. I arranged to have lab work done and his (prostate specific antigen) PSA was more consistent with benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH) than prostate cancer. His initial lab work also disclosed that he had active Hepatitis C along with hemochromatosis and severe iron overload; his plasma was a brilliant fluorescent yellow. Tim was incredibly non-compliant and repeatedly failed to show-up for imaging tests (MRI and CT with contrast) which I scheduled for him. Eventually (fast running out of imaging centers who would see him) I accompanied him to an imaging center and reviewed his films. Neither I nor the consulting radiologist could see any evidence of metastatic (or local) prostate cancer.
As an aside, it is my impression that Tim's medical care and "diagnosis" of cancer were, simply put, incompetent. As an example, his primary care physician had prescribed inhaled nitrous oxide for pain... A competent internist was brought in on the case and (since no discrete terminal pathology was identified) an attempt was made to address the life-threatening condition that was present; severe malnutrition with marasmus. A month's worth of daily dispensing boxes were loaded with vitamins and other supplements and supplies of a quality liquid nutritional supplement (with sufficient protein and calories to reverse his malnutrition) were purchased and placed in the home. This was done at BioPreservation's expense. Follow-up visits disclosed that none of these things were being consumed and the environment in the home was chaotic and not responsible. The one person who was genuinely caring and responsible, an assistant to Tim named "Sibboan" (pronounced She-ban) was shortly fired by Tim for trying to protect others in the household from infection with Hepatitis C (which has a ~50% mortality rate); Tim's exposed skin was covered with weeping, virus laden lesions as a result of sunlight-induced damage due to his extreme iron overload.
As Tim continued to deteriorate his chaotic home situation (irresponsible and often drug intoxicated people came and went from the home round-the-clock) put him at serious risk of injury or death from negligence (= autopsy). There was no attention to his personal hygiene and he was frequently dirty and sometimes left for hours in waste-soiled clothing. Tim refused to enter hospice care even when his serum albumin dropped below 2.5 g/dl and it was apparent he was actually dying of malnutrition. At that point I arranged for Dr. David Crippen (currently head of the neurovascular intensive care unit at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) to fly out and work with Tim. Dave had a long history of interest and involvement in the 1960s cultural movement that had, in many ways, been fomented by Tim, and it was my hope that he might be able to establish an influential bond with Tim. This was, in fact, the case and Dave mangled to get Tim into hospice and to put in place a reasonable program for terminal palliative care. Dave made himself available to Tim on a 24-hour basis by phone, and Tim often called him at all hours of the day and night. Dave was, in this way, able to manage and sometimes prevent assorted crises related to Tim's medical care.
I do not know much about the mechanics of Tim's relationship with CryoCare vis a vis finances or logistics. I was told by Tim, shortly before he died, that the insurance policy had been re-assigned to his son, Zach. At one time Zach indicated that the proceeds would be used to pay Celestis to put some of Tim's ashes in near earth orbit.
Not including Tim's medical management, lab fees, travel expenses, imaging costs, and the cost of supplements and liquid nourishment, BioPreservation incurred roughly $5,000 in marginal costs for Tim's standby. Tim declined to pay this. This money was eventually recouped (I believe from CryoCare) largely due to Brenda Peters' efforts.
A lot of us probably feel it is sad he did not get cryopreserved. Why do you think it is sad? Or have you quietly become a cryonics advocate?
FD
P.S. If it is that you think it is sad just because he died, well, that pretty much covers the sad fate of every living creature that I know of. That TW was exceptionally good at baseball or Leary at culture changing would not seem to be an argument, as millions of people over time have excelled in various pursuits. When you get right down to it, cryonics might indeed offer the only glimmer of hope for extended life for excellers who have been cryopreserved. Certainly no promises tho.
This message has been edited by Finance_Department on May 7, 2008 1:50 AM This message has been edited by Finance_Department on May 7, 2008 1:47 AM This message has been edited by Finance_Department on May 7, 2008 1:10 AM
I mention Alcor because I believe I once heard that they have had inquiries in the past from wealthy folks with criminal minds of the worst sorts. I believe they may have on occasion turned them down. Perhaps if Steve Bridge reads this he could comment.
I can tell you though, Melody, that the issue you raise has been the subject of lively discussion at cryonics parties over the years. Sometimes it boils down to the criminal mind being considered ill, and that if any such persons are cryopreserved, cures could be applied at reanimation time, for the mental illnesses, as easily as cures for any physical illnesses that they may have.
Back in 1980, there was word of an inquiry from someone interested in the cryonics option for the Nicaraguan dictator Somoza. It was also said that the idea was quickly dismissed by persons connected to what is now the ACS and/or Trans Time. In any case, it turned out that the subject under discussion was involuntarily incinerated by a bazooka shell in his car during an ambush in Paraguay. ~LLL
I have it on very good intel that back in 2003 murder Kenny Kimes wrote a rather lengthy letter to Alcor from prison requesting membership. The Alcor Board decided it would be PR suicide and rejected his request. Does anyone from Alcor care to comment, confirm or do your usual denial of this fact?
Alcor, even though you may deny this, you know this is fact. The above statement from me should also clue you in to the fact that I do have deep connections within your Board and that somebody there is talking.
For those who do not know who Kenny Kimes is, here is a bio. He is a con artist and a murderer. In fact, I think he would have made an excellent Board member for Alcor.
Okay, it has been two days since my post regarding the membership request of Kenny Kimes and no one from Alcor has disputed it. I will gladly assume that Alcor concedes on this one.
Alcor & Saul Kent Think They Don't Have to Answer Anybody
May 13 2008, 12:25 PM
As typical, with your situation, Alcor makes full use of its cozy setup whereby the members have no rights and the finger can be given to the public. They truly don't have to answer anything, and don't. They are clueless to the fact this gives them really bad PR impressions.
Same thing in the other thread "More Mediocrity..." where Alcor and Kent have both had the whole weekend and over one business day to reply to legitimate questions relative to their respective companies. Not a single word yet from either.
Oh wait I almost forgot: Kent represents BOTH companies. He has two seats on Alcor's self-re-electing board, a blatant conflict of interest with his own company Suspended Animation Inc. in that both they and Alcor are in the standby business. I wonder if Kent is the problem? Is he the reason both of these companies don't feel like they have to say squat to the public if they don't want to?
Maybe it is that cryonicists are always so hush hush about Kent because he's the money man. Maybe what people don't realize is that there is no such thing as a gift horse or a free lunch. Strings good and bad are attached to everything. A bad one I see clearly here is the negative impression given to the public caused by secrecy, coverups and exclusivity.
You have that right FD. I wish for once Alcor or one of their executives would have the balls (Perry excluded of course) to stand up and tell the truth. Maybe Tanya has a bigger set that any of them? Alcor might realize if they own up to some crap, maybe some people might have some respect for them, however their crap ass way of doing business further confirms my choice in cryonics companies. Will Alcor EVER get a clue???????
Oh, I almost forgot. I was told Charles Platt took part in that meeting about Kenny Kimes. Will Platt have the nads to tell it like it is and confirm or will he play the same old Alcor tune and simply state that he does not remember or will he simply ignore this request?
.. I'm probably going to be willing to take the chance it will work. Until there is the proof you demand, that's all it is - a chance, a possibility. If you fund with life insurance, it costs about the same as the money a lot of people put out playing the lotto games, so it isn't much, for most people. The one sure thing is that if you don't take the chance, your death is sealed.
