Up-front, my apologies for sending you three tardy, back-to-back Zgrams last weekend. There was a snafu with one of my volunteer assistants that caused me much distress because I try so hard to be reliable and punctual. But sometimes things simply slip out of control, especially when I am traveling or attending one of the lengthier patriotic functions - and so this snafu happened first during Memorial Weekend at the Institute for Historical Review Conference in Southern California, and then again a short week later. Worse yet, I promised you a summary of how this get-together went, hoping that one of my fellow cyber activists and/or Revisionist colleagues would send me some impressions to save me both typing and organization.
However, plans interfered, as they are wont to do, and I am writing this 2-part ZGram from a computer other than my own - and I am sure that they are sitting and waiting for me, beautiful but untouched, on my server. I will make time to place them on the Zundelsite as soon as possible - and my heartful thanks to you in advance.
Todayís and tomorrowís Zgrams will be a bit choppy. I am not at my usual keyboard, and I will be glad when these missives are out of the way. Please bear with me - again!
The meeting itself, scoring some major technical as well as intellectual breakthroughs, took place at a very attractive hotel in Southern California where the worldís most noted Revisionists met - right under the noses and much to the surprise of the Wiesenthalers, the ADLers and that perpetual sourpuss, Dr. Michael Berenbaum, formerly of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
I might mention here and now that, of late, Dr. Berenbaum has been reduced to lamenting and kwetching in some obscure Jewish paper in Los Angeles about upsetting things such as the Leuchter-Morris ìMr. Deathî film still getting more than its share of attention. A few weeks ago, he was busy attacking the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times for giving long overdue, reasonably balanced coverage of Revisionism and the David Irving trial before that trial got started. Berenbaum was livid - in fact, beside himself, way back in January already when that very fair, balanced First Page article about the pending Irving trial appeared. Now he was even more enraged and upset about a new article by Kim Murphy of the Los Angeles Times who had attended our conference incognito by request. Nobody except Mark Weber, Greg Raven and Ted OíKeefe knew that this Los Angeles Times reporter was present from start to finish during this important Revisionist conference. Let no one claim that we are still ignored!
The Murphy article about this Memorial Weekend IHR get-together appeared only 24 hours after the conference closed - and was again reasonably fair in tone. We all expected otherwise and thought she would have to ìredeemî herself for having been politically incorrect, but her rather lengthy write-up was remarkably restrained. Dr. Michael Berenbaum, folks from the Anti-Defamation League as well as spokespersons such as Rabbi Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center etc. seem to have been beside themselves that an important mainstream paper such as the Los Angeles Times appeared to be slipping out of their censorious control. I heard rumors about a very heated editorial meeting where the Murphy article was, in the end, approved, even by a Jewish editor.
Various follow-up articles in our opponentsí sundry publications all claimed that our opponents seem to have been taken by surprise by this very meeting on their doorsteps. Many of us find that hard to believe, and one can only speculate why there was no opposition whatsoever and no unsavory ARA-type people intimidating attendees.
Similarly, there were apparently no attempts to intimidate the hotel management or harass the meeting itself, as has been true in the past, by the Jewish Defense League thugs and others of their ilk. We all enjoyed a very low-key but elegant get-together and meeting old and new friends. We needed touching base. All too many of us are struggling all alone to get at the truth of what happened - and more importantly, what did not happen - during that horrible fratricidal war in Europe. To know that there are others thinking and feeling as we do was emotionally rewarding and uplifting.
As far as I know, only one of the speakers was harassed when entering the United States - none other than David Irving, the conventionís unannounced ìMystery Guest Speaker.î He told us that the self-appointed censors had played busybody one more time and had alerted the US Customs and Immigration authorities. How come? The airline with which Mr. Irving flew to the US had alerted US Immigration solicitously what famous guest they were carrying. Amazing the networking, no?
Irving recounted the disgusting and harrowing details of his trip with his usual aplomb and wittiness to the guests, old and young, who packed the conference room at the Atrium Hotel to hear the David Irving Trial Report and Appeal Update. There is no doubt that Irving was the star of the conference. He spoke to rounds and rounds of applause and laughter as he delivered broadsides after broadsides to an appreciative audience.
He had all of us riveted to the edges of our seats as he recounted in minute detail his rigorous and razor-sharp cross-examination of that self-proclaimed ìexpertî - the non-architect on the architecture of Auschwitz, Jan van Pelt. It was hilarious! The details can be found on Irvingís website and are definitely worth re-reading. (You can also find excerpts in the latest Journal for Historical Research in print and, I assume, on the IHR website. I leave you to your own devices on finding the relevant URLs - you can tell I am working on a computer with which I am not too familiar...!)
Consensus seems to be uniform: If Irving had achieved nothing else with that trial in London - and trust you me, he did achieve a lot! - this exposure of the fraud of van Pelt alone would have been worth the trial! Far more important - and, I feel, not yet fully appreciated even by seasoned cyber fighters - is the fact that he confronted the world with the given that there are very serious people looking at every aspect of the so-called Holocaust story with a very jaundiced eye and combing through the mess with a very fine comb. Already my mail tells me that these people find it short on fact and long in the tooth, full of false claims and fake science, rich in hyperbole and, above all, shrouded in unpleasantly shrill emotions backed by no more than hot air.
In summary, Irving delivered a speech which even the Los Angeles Times called ìrollicking.î He was in amazingly spirited form, upbeat, confident, and above all else, inspiring and certain that he can reverse his misfortunes and win the appeal.
I talked to some guests later. Some attendees were not so confident. They shook their heads at so much chutzpah in a goy! Yet it was obvious that everybody present felt sympathy and empathy for this enigmatic and often infuriatingly contradictory personality. I watched him sell and autograph his books on various occasions, and from all I could see, business appeared to be brisk. Well-wishers and customers clung to his heels. Without a doubt, David Irving was partly responsible for the upbeat mood and even the cheerfulness of most of the attendees of this conference.
The speech itself was detailed and rich in anecdotes. He told of the massive media echo his trial has had in the mainstream print and electronic media in England, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and America. Had he won, his victory would have been downplayed and reported in small print articles buried in the back pages among the grocery ads. Only in defeat could he get such massive, unheard of, first-page worldwide coverage.
Irving seems to think that he can virtually get the obscenely large payments canceled - payments which were made by the defense to their so-called experts like van Pelt. According to media reports, some of them were paid between $140,000 to over $200,000 which even Judge Gray is said to have found to be excessive.
(And to think that such an issue was made of the fact that Ernst Zundel paid Leuchter for his trailblazing report somewhere in the neighborhood of $60,000. At the 1988 Zundel trial, the prosecution implied that Mr. Zundel had ìboughtî himself the all-important Leuchter Report because he paid Fred Leuchterís professional fees! And remember the Nizkorite howls? It will be interesting to watch how all these issues are resolved.
Tomorrow: Part II