A copy of this letter recently came into our possession. At this time its provenance is unknown but it appears to be a piece of correspondence from one journalist (“Russ Brines”) to another (Richard ?). If authentic, it contains the first contemporaneous reference we’ve seen to Noonan being a heavy drinker and also provides some interesting insights into the attitude of at least some members of the press toward Earhart’s flight and disappearance.

The letter is reproduced in two ways. The graphics below are scans of each of the three pages of the document in our file drawer, complete with stray marks and irregular scratchings-out. Click on each one to open a full sized version in a new window.

You may also view each page in facsimile as a PDF file. (This requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, version 3.0 or higher, which can be downloaded free from the Adobe site. You will find the links for the PDF files and the Adobe site at the bottom of this page.) Each page was reproduced at high resolution for greater readability and clarity and rendered as a PDF. You may find these easier to read.