Chaleff has misrepresented my conversation with him. My remarks were in no way an admission of bias in the original stories. The stories were accurate. They included all the most newsworthy material that we could go to press with. Again, I stand by them completely. Robert T. Garrett

In rereading my piece, "Blurred Distinctions," the strongest statements I can find are that the directors of the conference "did some things they shouldn't have," and "may have gotten something more out of it" than simply educational value. The piece was an expression of my own opinion on the matter, and those phrases hardly seem to me to constitute viciousness, or maliciousness, or ruining people's lives.

As to specifics: I never said that Jarius DeWalt lives in Mather House. I never said there was only one conference. I stand by the $5000 figure we used. As a writer I can and must choose phrases to quote, and I think I did so fairly. I think that being under investigation by faculty and administrators for possible mismanagement of funds constitutes being "in trouble."

I stated incorrectly that the dinner at Joseph's was on Thursday night; it was actually on a Friday night.

By calling people from big cities "slick" I did not intend to praise them.   Nicholas Lemann