October 4, 2002

Peppercorn Letters

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An abuse kept well below decks, is the fraudulent, extortionary demand upon Queen Mary authors to pay royalties to Prevratil. C.W.R. Winter, Queen Mary electrical engineer from 1936-1939, was threatened repeatedly for not paying royalties on his Queen Mary anthology, a term never discussed or included in the contract.

Correspondence between the 85-year old Briton and Prevratil are known collectively as the "Peppercorn Letters", so named because Prevratil referred to his royalty demand as a "mere peppercorn". In fact, the menacing letters induced such distress, Winter eventually suffered a stroke.

The Turbine Tribune editor drew up the contract, witnessed Prevratil's signature and was granted power of attorney for Winter's American account. Ron Winter's charge for the Queen Mary books scarcely covered the printing, bindery and shipping charges. These hardbound books were a sequel to his popular seagoing memoirs The Queen Mary, Her Early Years Recalled, and were intended as his gift to Long Beach and promotional for the city's icon.

The actual reason for Prevratil's harassment of Winter was not, in fact, about royalties. Winter strongly endorsed the Queen Mary Foundation's work, freely expressed his opinions and even wrote to the Press-Telegram. This was viewed as insubordination by Prevratil as his many letters indicate.

Selected Peppercorn Letters will demonstrate why Long Beach business executives and administrators are shredding files and the Turbine Tribune is copying files.

Diane Rush