Letter in Spy magazine, November 1990, pp. 14, 16

Dear Editors:

In your July issue J. J. Hunsecker writes of a "possibly apocryphal" story about Iphigene Sulzberger's receiving a a $10,000 check from the estate of an unknown man by virtue of having signed the guest register while stopping in a mortuary to use the rest room [The Times]. Folklorist Jan Brunvand, in his 1989 book Curses! Broiled Again!, discusses this story, which he first heard sbout in 1986 from an unnamed Harvard physics professor. Brunvand also reports that the same story appeared in Cindy Adams' New York Post gossip column of January 28, 1987. The story as told by Brunvand has several variations, but none of them mention Sulzberger. It would seem reasonable to say that the story is probably apocryphal.

Jim Lippard
Tucson, Arizona