We are writing out of concern about Ira Einhorn's claims to have been one of the founding members of this event -- claims that are totally untrue.

Philadelphia's Earth Week in 1970 was widely viewed as having been the most successful such event in the country, having involved world-famous scientists, educators, business people, political leaders, and most important, thousands and thousands of ordinary people.

Much to our dismay, we now find that Einhorn, the self-styled hippie guru and alleged murderer of Holly Maddux, has been taking credit for initiating or organizing Earth Day. He is not telling the truth. A group of very dedicated young people worked very hard to organize Earth Day, but Einhorn was not one of them. In fact, Einhorn was asked to leave several meetings of the organizing committee that he attempted to disrupt. He was not welcome there, nor did he contribute in any material way to the committee's activities.

Einhorn, given a small role on the stage at Earth Day, grabbed the microphone and refused to give up the podium for 30 minutes, thinking he would get some free television publicity. We just waited until he had completed his "act" and then got on to the serious business at hand: the keynote speech of U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie, author of the landmark Clean Air Act of 1970.

Einhorn is a fraud. His lies do a real disservice to those of us who were and are deeply concerned about our planet's environmental problems and have worked very hard to solve them.