I did not write that letter to The New York Times

I've written a lot of letters to the editors of a lot of newspapers through the years. But, to date, I have not submitted a letter to The New York Times since November of 2005. (I keep meticulous records of all submissions.)

But today, apparently, somebody submitted one for me.

Imagine my surprise when I received the standard form e-mail from The Times saying:

Thank you for your letter to The New York Times.

If your letter is selected for publication, we will contact you within a week. We regret that because of the volume of letters received, we are not able to respond to all submissions, other than by this automated reply.

Et cetera.

In some e-mail software, it's easy enough to change the "From" address so that the e-mail will appear to have originated from a different address. And someone apparently rigged a letter to look like it was coming from me.

I responded to The Times to let them know that it was a fraudulent submission, along with a request that they forward to me the letter that was submitted, with full headers, so that I can trace its real origin. But I suspect that their letters editor might be to busy to read every reply to their routine form letter.

So I hereby go on record to state that I did not write that letter to The Times, whatever it might say.

And hopefully the real sender didn't rig the contact information to allow him/her to verify authorship on my behalf, should The Times choose to print it. I really don't have time to take that person to court.