E-MAIL TO PRESIDENT CLINTON
November 3, 1995
Dear President Clinton,
I recently attended a symposium sponsored by the MIT Media Lab, which included some of the most eminent and "wired" people in the world.
I think it was Marvin Minsky (the co-father of artificial intelligence) who asked the audience how many among them had ever sent an e-mail message to President Clinton and more than half the hands went up. He then asked how many had ever received a reply other than the form response "that all mail cannot be answered, etc.," and no hands went up. I have never heard of anyone who has received a response based on an e-mail message to you.
So this is a test whether you do read your e-mail or not and if the White House is capable of taking some emergency action based on an e-mail message.
A month ago I opened a Home Page on the Internet to collect emergency donations for the flood victims in North Korea. As a former Newsweek bureau chief in Japan I have been to North Korea three times (1979, 1990 and 1991). I have kept a close watch on con ditions there and been in frequent contact in the past month with the U.N. officials in Pyongyang who have verified the serious conditions, including malnutrition among children.
I therefore started this Internet campaign for donations, mainly for warm winter clothing, blankets and powdered milk, and the response has been good. The North Korean Flood Rehabilitation Committee has invited me to bring and observe the distribution of these donations in North Korea. Next week, on or about November 11, I will board a North Korean ship with my collected donations from Niigata (Japan) to Wonsan (North Korea) and apparently take the donations directly to the affected flood areas and help d istribute them. I have purchased powdered milk in Japan with funds collected here.
I tried yesterday to check into the bank account I opened in Washington for this purpose but found that the Treasury Dept. had blocked the account without even notifying me. I was impressed that Treasury had the manpower to discover this account and to bl ock it just before my trip so I would not be able to fully accomplish my purpose. At the same time I applied for a Treasury license about a month ago in a certified letter but have received no response.
I don't know how much, if anything, we received in donations to this account, but I am ashamed that my country's Treasury Department, under your administration for which I voted because of its humanitarian promise, would stifle a well-meaning non-politici zed citizen from bringing more powdered milk to the starving children in North Korea.
This is a message to determine if you read your mail and if your administration is capable of acting justly and humanely in this matter in time before my departure to North Korea on November 11.
Sincerely yours,
Bernard Krisher
The response I received from President Clinton
From autoresponder@WhiteHouse.media.mit.edu Thu Nov 2 19:32:08 1995
Thank you for writing to President Clinton via electronic mail. Since June 1993, whitehouse.gov has received over 685,000 messages from people all across the country and the world.
Because so many of you write, the President cannot personally review each message. The mail is first read by White House Correspondence staff. Your concerns, ideas, and suggestions are carefully recorded and communicated to the President weekly with a rep
resentative sampling of the mail.
All of us at the White House are excited about the progress of this historic project (be sure to check out the Web page as described below!), and we look forward to future developments (such as using email to respond to the content of your messages). Your
continued interest and participation are very important to us.
Sincerely,
Stephen K. Horn
P.S. Please read on - you may find the following information useful.
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**************************************************************** List of Clinton Administration Accomplishments (three documents compose the whole):
-- The White House Public Access Email FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) document is available at the following address. The FAQ, among other things, lists alternate sources of government information, i.e., the Congressional email projects. Send an email m
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Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 23:44:22 -0500
A sad, but true, commentary on the robotic state of affairs at the Maison
Blanche. Keep plugging Bernie.
Giles Richter
The Director of Presidential E-mail? Wow. I think it was very gracious.
I especially liked the kind offer of 3 documents detailing Clinton's
accomplishments. Oooooo -- what could be in them? I guess I'll never
know.
Thanks for sharing.
Chris Gant
FFrom:
Subject: Re: do you read your mail?
To: Bernie Krisher
Director, Presidential Email
The Office of Correspondence
Vice.President@whitehouse.gov
First.Lady@whitehouse.gov
-- On October 20, 1994, President Clinton and Vice President Gore opened a World Wide Web home page called "Welcome to the White House: An Interactive Citizens' Handbook" and it fast became one of the more popular spots on the Web. The White House hom
e page provides, among other things, a single point of access to all electronic government information on the Internet. "Welcome to the White House" can be accessed at:
To: publications@whitehouse.gov
Message body: send file 317571
send file 317573
send file 317575
****************************************************************
To: bernie@media.mit.edu (Bernie Krisher)
Re: President Clinton: do you read your mail?