The declaration named twenty prominent figures from the 19th and 20th centuries who the coalition claim were doubters: •
Walt Whitman (1819–1892): "Conceived out of the fullest heat and pulse of European feudalism—only one of the 'wolfish earls' so plenteous in the plays themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem to be the true author of those amazing works". •
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939): "I no longer believe that ... the actor from Stratford was the author of the works that have been ascribed to him." •
Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001), chairman of the board of editors of the
Encyclopædia Britannica: "Just a mere glance at [his] pathetic efforts to sign his name (illiterate scrawls) should forever eliminate Shakspere from further consideration in this question – he could not write." "Academics err in failing to acknowledge the mystery surrounding 'Shake-speare's' identity ... They would do both liberal education and the works of 'Shake-speare' a distinguished service by opening the question to the judgment of their students, and others outside the academic realm." •
Paul Nitze (1907–2004), High-ranking U.S. government official; co-founder of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Among his positions were
Director of Policy Planning for the State Department, Secretary of the Navy, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Member of U.S. delegation to
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, Assistant Secretary of Defense for international affairs, Special Adviser to the President and Secretary of State on Arms Control: "I believe the considerations favoring the Oxfordian hypothesis ... are overwhelming" •
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865), an
Anglo-Irish nobleman who was a British statesman and who twice served as
Prime Minister: "Viscount Palmerston, the great British statesman, used to say that he rejoiced to have lived to see three things—the re-integration of Italy, the unveiling of the mystery of China and Japan, and the explosion of the Shakespeare illusions." – Diary of the Right Hon. Mount-Stewart E. Grant. In 2015, a caveat was added to his name on the list. •
Orson Welles (1915–1985) is included on the list on the basis of a comment taken from a collection of
Kenneth Tynan interviews: "I think Oxford wrote Shakespeare. If you don't agree, there are some awfully funny coincidences to explain away". In other interviews conducted in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Welles expressed the orthodox opinion that Shakespeare wrote the plays: "He was a country boy, the son of a butcher, who'd made it into court. He spent years getting himself a coat of arms. He wrote mostly about kings." In the 1980s he said "The mystery surrounding Shakespeare is greatly exaggerated. We know a lot about his financial dealings, for example. He was brilliant in arranging his finances, you see. He died very rich from real-estate investments. The son of a bitch did everything! And finally he got what his father had always wanted—a coat of arms. His father was a butcher. And a mayor of Stratford." His listing has since been amended to acknowledge that Welles was not an anti-Stratfordian for most of his life. ==2015 changes==