Leonard C. Lewin (2 October 1916 – 28 January 1999) was an American writer, best known as the author of the bestseller '' The Report from Iron Mountain'' (1967). He also wrote ''Triage'' (1972), a novel about a covert group dedicated to killing people it considers to be not worth having around.

Personal life

Lewin graduated from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. Before becoming a writer, he worked as a labor organizer in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

and in his father's sugar refinery in

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mari ...

. He was twice married: first to Iris Zinn Lewin and later to poet, playwright and children's book author

Eve Merriam Eve Merriam (July 19, 1916 – April 11, 1992) was an American poet and writer. Writing career Merriam's first book was the 1946 ''Family Circle'', which won the Yale Younger Poets Prize. Her book, ''The Inner City Mother Goose'', was described ...

. Both marriages ended in divorce. Later, his "longtime companion" was Lorraine Davis. He is survived by his two children, Julie and Michael Lewin, the latter of whom continues his legacy as an author, residing in the UK.

''The Report from Iron Mountain''

In the original 1967 publication of ''The Report From Iron Mountain'', written at the suggestion of Victor Navasky, Lewin was credited only as the author of the introduction to a purported government report that concluded that if a lasting peace "could be achieved, it would almost certainly not be in the best interests of society to achieve it." Some conspiracy theorists continue to believe that the book is an actual, top-secret government document, rather than a

hoax A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into pu ...

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...

, despite Lewin's claims to the contrary. Lewin successfully sued to establish his copyright over the work in a case brought when the ''Report'' was published without the consent of Lewin or the original publisher,

Dial Press The Dial Press was a publishing house founded in 1923 by Lincoln MacVeagh. The Dial Press shared a building with ''The Dial'' and Scofield Thayer worked with both. The first imprint was issued in 1924. Authors included Elizabeth Bowen, W. R. Bu ...

. The prospective publisher, the Liberty Lobby, had argued that as an ''authentic'' U.S. government document, the report was in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...

. The parties settled out of court with Liberty Lobby agreeing to pay Lewin an undisclosed sum and return over a thousand unsold copies. Lewin first claimed that the report was a hoax in 1972, writing that the '' Pentagon Papers'' were "as outrageous, morally and intellectually" as his own satiric creation: "The charade is over. Some of the documents read like parodies of Iron Mountain, rather than the reverse."

References

* Mark Fenster, ''Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture'', Revised and Updated Edition, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2008, pp. 115–117. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lewin, Leonard C. Harvard University alumni 1916 births 1999 deaths 20th-century American writers 20th-century American male writers