Eventually, researchers began to find that some of the therapy sessions designed to uncover memories of abuse were actually creating them. As quickly as recovered memory therapy came on the scene, it nearly vanished. Though many experts argue that we've swung too far in our disavowal of it, fathers' rights groups largely hail the collapse of recovered memory as a colossal victory, and its failure continues to be used as ammunition in their fight.

Psychiatrist Richard Gardner's "Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited," published in 1990, became a seminal text for the false-accusation community, laying the groundwork for an argument that widespread panic about molestation had veered into actual mass hysteria. While acknowledging that many, if not most, abuse allegations are based in fact, Gardner says this hysteria has damaged our ability to accurately evaluate abuse claims. The book is a mix of impressive scholarship and disturbing theories -- at one point, Gardner suggests that molestation trials might be unduly shaped by judges who "have repressed pedophilic impulses over which there is suppression, repression, and guilt. Inquiry into the details of the case provides voyeuristic and vicarious gratifications." Lines like that earn Gardner prime real estate on a good number of false-abuse Web sites.

Another weapon in this fight is a statistic from the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information: Between 1986 and 1993, the estimated number of sexually abused children increased 125 percent, from about 133,600 children to 300,200. To Tong and his colleagues, statistics like this demonstrate not that we're finally tackling a problem, but that we've become too attentive to it.

What's more, they say, the system provides built-in motivation to prosecute excessively. "It's a very lucrative issue -- every time a child is taken from a family, the cash register starts ringing," Tong says. "Child Protective Services gets state and federal grant money once a child is taken. There is incentive to legally kidnap a child in America today."

As for accusations coming from children themselves, Tong describes a norm of coercion, distortion and questionable extraction procedures. "The boy that accused Michael Jackson was given sodium amytal, which is known to create false memories," he says at one point, referring to a 1993 GQ magazine article claiming Jackson's accuser made his allegations after being administered the so-called truth serum drug. That the boy's therapist actually gave him sodium amytal has never been verified.

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Some of those most concerned about false accusations of abuse have a way of letting it slip that they, too, have been falsely accused. Before getting into the case studies, data and advice that comprise "Elusive Innocence," Tong devotes the first 15 pages to the sad, odd train wreck of his own family. As he tells it, the wife went crazy, the divorce was ugly and her anger materialized in bogus charges of Tong molesting his 3 1/2-year-old daughter.

Diane, the daughter, had allegedly complained to her mother that "she hurt down there." This was in 1985, and the rest of the personal section of the book is devoted to a subsequent decade of hell for Tong. We follow him from accusation to denial to follow-up accusation, through suits and appeals and motions and depositions, into thousands of dollars in legal fees. In the course of his saga, Tong sees Carla get full custody of Diane, finds himself strapped in for a penile plethysmography test and even spends a week in jail ("I hadn't even made it to my bunk when a black man growled in my face, 'Baby Raper,'").

The strategic pointers that make up the bulk of the book are revealing enough -- "Shift the court's focus from the alleged conduct of the accused (you) to the psychological functioning of the accuser" -- but it's the end of Tong's own chapter that says the most: Nothing happens. Tong would seem to have beaten the rap, but as we learn, there are a number of raps in molestation cases, and a legally "innocent" man can still fail to regain custody. There's never a McMartin-like victory, and ultimately we never really know what to make of Diane's accusations -- and actual vaginal lacerations. The abrupt ending, and the lingering unease, service Tong's point, if only accidentally: At best, the misery of the falsely accused simply fades.

Still, it's the process, not the conclusion, that is the main concern of "Elusive Innocence." The details of Tong's own story are excruciating, in a Spy vs. Spy way, and they're presented as a study in strategy. At one point, he recalls a "major mistake" he made after an argument in his estranged wife's house:

"A short distance from the house I realized I had left my jacket. Returning to the house, I found the front door ajar, the master bedroom door closed, and the children left unsupervised in their respective bedrooms. Taking advantage of what I thought to be the perfect opportunity to remove my children from a negative environment, I hid in my son's bedroom. At 3:00 a.m., I packed up the children and drove north to my parents' home."

That Tong can be deeply unlikable shouldn't dilute his larger message: America needs to pay attention to the problem of falsely accused child molesters. But the extent of this problem is infinitely debatable -- to know who is right requires knowing the hearts of accusers, not to mention a precise definition of abuse and at least some agreement over statistical discrepancies. Still, Tong correctly argues that one innocent man in jail is too many, if it's avoidable.

Ironically, one of Tong's most important arguments verges on backfiring: In his efforts to expose America's tendency to condemn as-yet unconvicted abuse suspects -- "There's always that segment of America that doesn't see the word 'alleged,'" he tells me -- he never seems completely beyond condemnation himself. While he complains about a legal system in which a woman's word can convict a man, he expects us to accept that a man's word (printed, in this case) is enough to exonerate one.

Indeed, a strange convention of the allegedly falsely accused is the assumption that we'll believe them. Beneath the surface of many online rants about society automatically believing the accuser is the faith that the best of us will automatically believe the accused. Tong does cite evidence of his innocence -- normal responses to a psychosexual disorder questionnaire, for example -- but never with enough detail to squelch all doubt. The outsider's position, then, is a squirmy one: If Tong is blameless, our hesitation makes us part of the problem he writes about. If he's guilty, we're reading a pretty disturbing book.

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