Theo Slade
The Limited Edition Run of ‘Truth Versus Lies’
Introduction
Here’s a quick summary on how the book came about and why it was never published:
April 3rd, 1996: Ted Kaczynski was arrested.
November 13rd, 1997: Ted Kaczynski’s’ multiple murder trial began.
He started writing to collect his thoughts about what he would like his defence team and the media to know during his court case, to counter both the prosecution’s leaking of unflattering journal entries, as well as the general media atmosphere connected to the case:[1]
Mr. Kaczynski was able to outline other conflicts he had with his attorneys, including the issue of publicity. He had been interested in writing letters to counter the image being presented by his family of him in the media. He discussed this with his attorneys and although he felt some pressure to conform, he had agreed with them not to write letters to the media and draw additional public attention to him at this point in the trial process. Nonetheless he spent approximately four months preparing a rebuttal to all he perceived as inaccurate in the public portrayal of him, and focused extensively on portraying his brother David in a negative light in these writings.
January 22nd, 1998: Ted Kaczynski plead guilty to three counts of murder and ten federal counts related to transporting and using bombs. His main motivation for pleading guilty was to avoid his lawyers presenting him as mentally ill. He wanted to avoid the possibility of being committed to a mental asylum for any period of time, and having his manifesto portrayed as the ravings of a mad man. Importantly, he also did so due to the assurance that he had a good chance of arguing for a retrial, in that he could argue he was coerced into giving a false guilty plea in a challenge to the courts, because he wasn’t allowed to represent himself and was being represented in a way he didn’t approve of. I believe he held out hope that he could get a retrial and be set free all the way up to around 2004. As a result, in all his writing before 2004 he never comments on any of the many crimes he committed.
Therefore, sadly, we don’t get a comprehensive autobiographical account of what were the key events that foreshadowed his desire to wage his terror bombing campaign. The sole aim for Kaczynski then in writing his book Truth versus Lies, was to disprove stories told by lawyers and the media which Kaczynski thought were false.
May 5th, 1998: Ted Kaczynskis’ sentencing trial ended and he was sent to a supermax prison with no possibility of parole.
June 24, 1998: The New York Post ran an item about how Ted Kaczynski was shopping around a book manuscript from the Federal Prison in Florence, Colorado. A representative from Simon and Schuster was quoted, “Do you think the world wants Theodore Kaczynski’s point of view on Theodore Kaczynski?” The manuscript was rejected sight unseen.
March, 1999: Excerpts of the book are published by The New York Times.
May 10th, 1999: A proof copy is finished and sent to Kaczynski with annotations by Beau Freidlander on corrections he’d like to make in order to be able to publish.
1999: He discusses corrections for the 2nd draft of the book in his 71st & 72nd letters sent to Friedlander which are archived in the University of Michigan library.
November 5th, 1999: He gives a Deed of Gift agreement to Context Books, who almost print an edited version, but Ted bitterly resents the edits they’ve gone ahead with. I think the publisher was worried about libel e.g., Ted calling his brother, David, “a Judas Iscariot [who] … doesn’t even have enough courage to go hang himself.” As well as copyright e.g., quoting some sources in their entirety:[2]
“Toward the end, it wasn’t a pleasant exchange at all,” said Context Books publisher Beau Friedlander, who spiked Kaczynski’s 548-page “Truth Versus Lies.”
A flurry of letters between the publisher and Kaczynski led to Thursday’s announcement that the book deal — first revealed in February — was off. Kaczynski had tried to terminate the deal several days before Context reached the same conclusion, Friedlander said.
“Kaczynski was uncooperative and expressed himself in ways that made it impossible for the book to be published by Context, or by anyone else,” Friedlander said in a statement Thursday.
The book already was at the printer when Context opted to yank it on Wednesday, Friedlander said.
“It would be irresponsible and unethical to force the author’s hand by publishing the work against his will,” said Friedlander, adding that he had specific legal concerns about the book that Kaczynski refused to address.
February 2nd, 2000: He asks the owner of Green Anarchy magazine to black out sections from the 1st draft copy that he has, out of privacy concerns for a family member. So, he knew photocopies of his book were being distributed on a small scale.
June 7th, 2002: He donates a 2nd & 3rd draft copy which are both edited versions, to the University of Michigan.
July 9th, 2002: He donates a 1st draft copy of the book which Context Books made, to the University of Michigan, along with a great many journals, letters and other material which the book references. His donation was on the condition that they don’t publish it or give anyone else the right to publish it.
May 16th, 2007: Kaczynski includes a foreword expressing how he wishes he hadn’t included so many quotes from investigators he views as untrustworthy, and that he wishes he had the time to re-edit it, but other projects are taking priority.
He was working on his book, Technological Slavery released in 2010 and went on to release his book Anti-Tech Revolution: How & Why in 2015.
March 8th, 2018: The University staff happily let people scan and take photographs of all the documents, so a version of Truth versus Lies appears online on archive.org.
November 9th, 2021: A call out for volunteers was made to re-type up the book, so that it could be more easily read and quoted without all Beau’s annotations.
The various editions
The original draft missed out appendices and updates Ted wrote later:
The context books copy included some updates and appendices Ted wanted. But lawyers toned down some of the language due to libel fears and deleted other parts out of copyright fears. The book was stopped mid-printing and the publisher went out of business not long after:
A volunteers draft was then created using the original draft as a basis. It included some updates and appendices we know Ted wanted from his correspondence with the publisher.
Abbreviated names were replaced with real names based on Envelope X, since it’s often over 50 years since many of the events transpired.
Plus, secondary footnotes were added for clarity and to mark where various people’s names were first mentioned:
Limited 300 Copies Announcement
Author: karmabookstore
Date: 24 September 2020
Source: <https://www.instagram.com/p/CFiOK2ZFAbd/>
In October of 1999, Ted Kaczynski received one bound proof of his “autobiography” Truth Versus Lies from Context Books. It was sent to him by Beau Friedlander who had edited the final draft. When Kaczynski opened the package he freaked out. (It was a digital printout and the only copy in existence). Kaczynski went mental at the sigh of the facsimile, and found himself balanced on the razor edge of reality and unreality: he refused to have the book published. In 2014 Fulton Ryder acquired Kaczynski’s proof. The one and only. Since closing down in 2015, Fulton Ryder has been criss-crossing America, looking for morning light and giant crystal ships. After an initial “dead drop” on a park bench by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fulton Ryder announces the release of it’s only “bound copy” in an edition of 300 copies of its flash bulb opera at Karma Bookstore in New York.
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All sales to benefit Books Through Bars.
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Available in-person only at 136 East 3rd.
Indy News Story
Title: Wet Paint: Richard Prince to Reopen His Secret Gallery, the Shocking Story Behind the Odeon’s Missing French Fries, & More Juicy Art-World Gossip
Subtitle: Which hot new artist did Anderson Cooper visit in the studio? Which Hamptons gallery is opening a space in Chelsea? Read on for answers.
Author: Nate Freeman
Date: Oct 16, 2020
Every week, Artnet News brings you Wet Paint, a gossip column of original scoops reported and written by Nate Freeman. If you have a tip, email Nate at nfreeman@artnet.com.
SLIGHT REBELLION OFF MADISON
In 2014, Richard Prince closed Fulton Ryder, the mysterious bookstore-slash-gallery that he clandestinely ran out of a space at a never-repeated address—though, reader, if you can keep a secret, it was on East 78 Street between Park and Madison. Fulton Ryder (which is a name that Richard Prince has used as a pseudonym) had a pretty solid two-year run, selling the now-infamous edition of J.D. Salinger‘s The Catcher in the Rye that read, on the cover, “a novel by Richard Prince.” It also hosted the debut solo show of current market star Genieve Figgis, whom Prince discovered on Instagram, and published books by artists such as Dan Colen, Marilyn Minter, John Dogg, and Howard Johnson (the latter two names are, again, pseudonyms of Richard Prince).
And so it was a bit of a surprise to see Prince, the great American artist, getting back into the book publishing business this year. In May, during the peak of lockdown, Prince sat down on a bench near Central Park—the same bench, in fact, where he first sold copies of his cover-sleeve remix of the Salinger classic—and offered his edition of Truth Vs. Lies, a book penned by the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. Turns out Prince purchased the one and only proof of the math-professor-turned-domestic-terrorist’s manuscript in 2014.
Collector’s Instagram Post
Author: sanctuary_books_and_ephemera
Date: 14 March 2026
Richard Prince
Ted Kaczynski: Truth Versus Lies
First edition, 2020
348 pages
Published by Fulton Ryder
I haven’t read this and the only time it’s been taken out of plastic is to post it on here. On the last 2 slides I added the TOPPS 1990’s trading card or Ted K. Topps released a series of era cards of important events that took place or pop culture icons and Ted made the cut for the 90’s.
Memoir by Ted Kaczynki, aka “The Unibomber,” acquired and published by Richard Prince. Prince’s iteration of the memoir could only be acquired by donating money to advance prison reform. “During the media frenzy that came to be known as ‘Club Ted,’ a report surfaced that the accused Unabomber was writing a second manifesto. He was in fact at work on this compelling book that deftly treads the line between eloquent memoir and uncompromising defense. This intriguing artifact is Ted Kaczynski’s attempt to tell the other side of the tale spun by his family, who told the world he was insane to save him from the death penalty. It is also an outspoken rebuttal of the lies told by the many-media-charmed acquaintances and opportunistic strangers who surfaced to offer their stories in exchange for fifteen minutes of fame.”
A Bemused Bystander’s Reddit Post
Title: On a walk today I saw a stack of memoirs by the Unabomber (99th and 5th). Anyone know anything about this?
Source: <www.reddit.com>
[1] Sally Johnson. Psychiatric competency report of Dr. Sally C. Johnson [Court Document]. Court TV. Sept, 1998. Original link. Archived link.
[2] Larry McShane. Publisher Yanks Unabomber Book Deal [Essay]. AP News. November 5, 1999. Original link. Archived link.