FIRING SALLY BURMESTER AT THE WGA IN 1995

William Richert



Monday, November 20 1995

MEMO TO: SALLY BURMESTER, WGA CREDIT COMMITTEE
FROM: WILLIAM RICHERT, MEMBER WGAw
RE: IMMEDIATE DISMISSAL OF CREDITS ADMINISTRATOR
"Even snakes lie together."
-- D. H. Lawrence


Sally, I want you to read this letter, give some thought to its contents, and then go to your desk, pack up your things and leave the WGA. You're dismissed. Fired. Finished. You have failed in your duties to the writer, you have obscured
and interfered with justice, you have ignored truth and common sense in serious matters of which you can only be partly aware, since you so flagrantly disregard the soul of your duties. Although the credit manual of the WGA is x times thicker than the U.S. Constitution, and therefore subject to interpretation, you have gone beyond honorable behavior.

Last night I got home from the set and found your month-late letter attempting to explain the preposterous decision made by the WGA in Richert vs Sorkin. Somehow something clicked in me about this whole rotten situation with credit dispute, especially your summary of the Policy Review Board's interpretation of the Special Review Board's decisions pursuant to the Screen Credits Manual, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. None of which has to do with writing.

I wrote a very excellent story which a couple of guys ripped off and made a movie out of without paying me or giving me
my credit. I understand their attraction to my work, I liked it also. Your job was to protect me from the likes of them.
I'm a screenwriter, plain and simple. I shouldn't require legal experts to extract help from the WGA, whose sole purpose is
to look out for my rights. Instead, under your guidance, mine were stripped away.

Twelve hours before the first hearing with your three "committees" you insisted I take out certain facts from my statement, including the fact that there were Disney agreements regarding my first outline which were not included in Guild papers, as well as an outline I presented and sold before I ever involved any other writer in the development of "The President Elopes," the first being Kyle Morris.

You told me including this early chronology would mean no arbitration at all, and would eliminate any kind of credit for me, because, you said, I sold it on a "pitch."

You said a three page outline was a "pitch" and I argued that it was certainly a story. I couldn't imagine just a short while ago that anyone employed by the WGA might engage in connivance. Now I wonder why you insisted I delete those facts just hours before the first "pre-arbitration". Were you lying to me? What other facts did you fabricate or omit? What did these pre-arbiters read? I know it wasn't the scripts. They weren't allowed to read those at all.

I have always tried to follow the line in union situations because of the Sally Fields movie, but I gotta say that I am going to make sure you personally experience growth from the challenges we mutually face because you poisoned this whole process by controlling the information. You told me all the participating writers were also demanding credit, when in fact you know they'd been paid and signed off. When I asked what evidence Mr. Sorkin could have possibly presented to substantiate his claims of authorship, you told me all evidence was confidential. Therefore my "peers" were only provided with that information which you yourself selected for them to see. And besides, writers don't have peers, they have equals, and these they choose with care.

You "advised" me that sanctions and expulsion from the guild could result if I revealed any of the "secret" statements I and others made to you. This was an obvious threat to my earning a living. But did you forget, I'm a writer? How can I not speak out? I intend to find all possible ways of breaking the union shield you hide behind, exposing all your machinations. Before there was a WGA Special Committee there was the USA First Amendment. And laws against plagiarism.
No thinking person can read Aaron Sorkin's re-write and not recognize it was based on early works of mine, in character and plot and events. You were told that by several writers, including Alice Arlen who took a risk when she wrote that "The American President' belongs to Richert the way DeGaulle belonged to France." That's a fellow writer speaking. Why were you deaf to hers and all the contrary evidence to your purpose?

Even when Sorkin and Reiner were caught by the press admitting they not only knew my story but had read versions of it before they ever started writing, totally contradicting tesimony before the guild, you still refuse to right the injustice. Even when Reiner and Sorkin clearly revealed, AFTER the arbitration, that there NEVER were "two stories developed independently of each other which merged at a later date," you continued to base your decision on the earlier lies, completely disregarding the facts. Are you in cahoots with someone, Sally? You can tell me. I trusted YOU, didn't I?

I cannot allow the reward for years of work in solitude and often in poverty to be snatched from me by any group or person, including you and your committees. We're dealing with issues far beyond your book of rules, issues of artfulness and stratagems of dreams not provided for on all your little forms. Lock up your desk and go home.

Tell the rest of your bums they're fired too.

Sincerely,
William Richert
FORMER Member, WGAw
cc All Concerned: Brian Walton, Cathy Reed, Ann Widdifield, John Wells, Carl Gottleib, Daniel Petrie Jr. , Lynn Roth, Peter Lefcourt, Richard Heller, Patricia Resnik;
for Alan Horn: Aaron Sorkin, Tom Pollock, Sally Burmester, Alex Ben Block, Rob Reiner, Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel, Leonard Klady, Robert Redford, Lisa Henson, Chris Barrett, Michael Ovitz, Ron Bass, Vincent Canby, David Evans Esq., Greg Paul, Jess Wittenberg, Richard Heller Esq.
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