THE ACADEMIC YEAR 1999-2000
SUNDAY 10 OCTOBER. The announcement, or advertisement, that we
are running in student newspapers this year is titled
HOLOCAUST STUDIES: Appointment
with Hate? The project is just getting off the ground with the
ad having appeared in the Main Campus, University of Maine-Orono (date?),
and in the Arbiter at Boise State U (6 Oct).
The purpose of the ad is to draw attention to the—I think I should
just say it—intellectually and morally corrupt nature of a good deal
of what is taught in Holocaust Studies. Not just in little ways, but
in the broadest meanings of those two words. The appointment-with-hate
line refers to an article by that name written by Nobel Laureate Elie
Wiesel and published in his book Legends of our Time. There he writes:
Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of
hate—healthy virile hate—for what the German personifies and for
what persists in the German.
In the ad I write: “Students understand the implications of this
statement when it’s brought to their attention, while their professors
appear not to. Perhaps if we change one word in Elie Wiesel’s sage advice,
it will focus their attention: “Every Palestinian, somewhere in his
being, should set apart a zone of hate—healthy virile hate—for what
the Jew personifies and for what persists in the Jew.”
Revisionists are in a curious corner with respect to this controversy.
The charge of “hate” is used with great energy to suppress Holocaust
revisionism. In Holocaust Studies itself, however, hate is all the rage.
It’s okay, good even, to hate Germans (note that EW does not write “Nazis,”
but to express doubt about any part of the orthodox H. story is branded
as hateful and condemned. It’s remarkable how thoroughly this concept
has soaked into the minds of otherwise normal, even brilliant professors.
I think that’s what informs the letter I received from the advertising
manager of the State News at Michigan State University-East Lansing.
September 17, 1999
Dear Bradley:
Upon review of your ad entitled “Holocaust Studies,” The State News
has decided to refuse your ad.
Our advertising acceptance policy states that, “The State News
will not intentionally publish ads attacking or criticizing directly
or by im-plication, any race, sex, creed, religion, organization,
institution, business or profession without firm justification and
foundation.”
The ad criticizes both specific people and those of a certain
region or creed.
Sincerely,
Christopher Kiggins
Advertising Manager
One wonders what “firm justification and foundation” could possibly
mean in this context. It is demonstrable that Elie Wiesel published
a notoriously famous anti-German racist exhortation, and it is demonstrable
that key eyewitnesses to “gas chambers” gave false testimony about them
in court and to the press. Are we to understand that because many of
these individuals are Jews that their racism and falsehoods are not
to be addressed? I think that is, indeed, what we are expected to understand.
Students are expected to follow the example set by their professors
in this matter and to not make waves.
FRIDAY 19 NOVEMBER. The
Hofstra University Chronicle agreed to run the first
issue of The Revisionist (TR)
as a preprinted insert in its issue of 28 October. I was very pleased.
I shipped 5,000 copies to their printer for insertion. This would be
the first distribution on campus of our new journal. I was very pleased
and interested to see how it would work out.
On the 27th I rang up the Chronicle to see how things
were going and listened to a recorded message which informed me that
the Chronicle had received so many telephone calls the
staff was “overloaded” and while every call would be answered, it might
take several days. On the 28th I called again and listened to the same
message. I faxed a note to the Chronicle editor, Shawna
VanNess, asking what the story was. The fax went through, but she did
not reply.
On the 30th, a Saturday, I checked the stats on our Website and found
nothing to indicate that 5,000 copies of a unique revisionist journal
had been distributed on the Hofstra campus. I began to prepare myself
for bad news. I’ve had a lot of bad news with this work, I can live
with it, but I’d rather have good news. I was starting to get ancy.
I faxed yet another appeal for someone to clarify the situation for
me. There was no response.
On the evening of the 31st, I received a note via email from a Hofstra
student informing me that TR was inserted in the Chronicle
on the evening of the 27th but that a student, identified as a member
of Hillel, was caught vandalizing the papers. He had removed about 1,000
copies of TR from the Chronicle to destroy them. He was
reported to the authorities, campus security took him into custody,
then released him.
I didn’t know if this report was true or not. The stats for the 30th
did not indicate that TR had been distributed. I had no way to know
if 1,000 or 4,500 copies of TR had been destroyed or vandalized. I was
unhappy. On Monday when I checked the stats there was still nothing
unusual about them. It occurred to me that maybe all the TRs were distributed
and it was found to be so boring that I never would see any change in
the stats. I was getting very restless. I faxed VanNess again.
SMITH WRITES TO SHAWNA VAN NESS (FAX)
1 November 1999
It does not feel quite right to me that the Chronicle
does not contact me and tell me what the story is. A young lady
went to the campus yesterday and said she found few Chronicles
and none with TR in them. Tomorrow a different person will be on
the campus to take another run at it.
We’re coming to the close of the fifth day that I have been trying
to find out what the story is. I understand something of the difficulty
of your situation, tho not much of course because you won’t tell
me. I can only wonder how you are being advised by the people in
Hofstra Journalism—the Greenes, Rubensteins, Knowltons and the rest
of them.
This is a straightforward free press issue. I don’t know what
you are being advised. Don’t let special interests on campus and
off complicate it for you. There are people at Hofstra who will
do anything to prevent an open debate about the H. controversy.
There are people there who will place their own special interests
before intellectual freedom—every time. Those will be the people
who will want to complicate for you what should remain simple, to
encourage you to find an excuse to stand aside from the ideal of
a free press.
Keep it simple. Clarify the situation for me.
--Bradley
On 2 November I still had not heard from the Chronicle.
The stats hadn’t changed. We are doing pretty well, with 10,000 to 15,000
hits a day, but on the Internet, that’s small potatoes. I’ve heard that
some of the porn sites get ten times, a hundred times that. I could
either do something, or I could let it slide. When I suspect professors
are involved with something bad, I’m not inclined to let it slide. Someone
should be telling me something what the hell was going on. I figured
Professor Robert Greene was the man. I wrote him and copied it to the
rest of his department.
SMITH WRITES TO PROFESSOR ROBERT W. GREENE (EMAIL)
(Greene is the Acting Chair of the Hofstra Department of Journalism
and Mass Media Studies)
Professor Robert Greene:Thursday last the Chronicle
was to distribute 5,000 copies of a publication of mine called
The Revisionist as a preprinted insert. It was not
distributed, and Shawna VanNess, the editor, will neither answer
my telephone calls nor reply to my faxed inquiries. This is the
sixth day now, and her unwillingness to communicate with me has
become inexcusable. While I understand VanNess has some sort of
problem, I can not imagine that she is being advised by her department
that she can avoid the responsibility of communicating with me.
We have a free press issue here. It’s not something else. While
there may be other things going on, and I suppose there are and
that one or more special interest groups are involved with it, I
would hope that Ms. Van-Ness is not being advised that what has
happened is something less than an affront to a free press and to
intellectual freedom itself—or that it is something more.
This is not complicated. It’s simple. The ideal of a free press
has been violated, and something is being covered up. I would hope
that she would be advised, by those responsible in some fashion
for advising her, that such is the case.
Bradley Smith
A couple hours later I was surprised to find that Professor Greene
allows no moss to grow on his computer.
PROFESSOR GREENE RESPONDS TO SMITH
Sir: Your facts are as warped as your sense of history and your
understanding of the First Amendment.
Your insert was widely delivered in The Chronicle.
I got a copy of it in my edition and so—to their dismay---did many
of my friends. The First Amendment does not require newspapers to
accept advertising they consider distasteful or offensive to the
majority of their readers or that they consider so patently misdleading
as to promulgate falsity as truth.
The Chronicle is a student newspaper entirely divorced
from the Hofstra University Department of Journalism and Mass Media
Studies. At the request of The Chronicle staff a faculty
member of this department serves a non-binding advisor to
The Chronicle. She was not, however, consulted on the inclusion
of your missive and was not even aware of it until after it had
been delivered throughout the campus.
Had our department had some control over what The Chronicle
prints and inserts, your message would most probably never
have been distributed for reasons of both taste and historical accuracy.
Yours truly
Robert. W. Greene, Acting Chairperson
I had to note that Acting Chair Greene did not refer to the alleged
vandalism of TR by a Hillel member. I still didn’t know if the report
were true. It embarrasses me to confess this, but it had already crossed
my mind that if a member of Hillel were involved in something so vulgar
as censoring a magazine by destroying it, that there would be a good
deal of effort made by the usual suspects to keep the incident out of
the press. Now that Acting Chair Greene had not mentioned the Hillel
incident, if there had indeed by a Hillel incident, I felt it important
to introduce the matter.
SMITH REPLIES TO ACTING CHAIR GREENE
Sir: Thank you very much for your manly reply.
Glad to know that part of the 5,000 copies of The Revisionist
was distributed. I was worried by a story I had, which may be untrue,
that the Hillel agent who was caught stealing and or destroying
TR the night it was distributed (a week ago this evening) might
have gotten them all, or most of them. But since you and some of
your friends got theirs, I understand why you would think it neurotic
of me to fret over the other, perhaps, 4 985 copies of TR.
When I first contacted you I had been unable to reach The
Chronicle by telephone for five days, I was pretty sure something
had gone wrong with the distribution of TR tho I didn’t know how
wrong, that perhaps the story was being covered up, and I was concerned
that Chronicle editor Shawna VanNess, who appears to be professional
and steadfast, might be getting bad advice from her faculty advisor.
My experience with faculty advisors and student journalists is that,
while the students typically want to go with the ideals of a free
press, their advisors don’t.
Meanwhile, I heard from Van Ness yesterday and she assures me
that TR was, indeed, widely distributed at Hofstra, and I have relaxed
considerably. I understand that I will learn something about how
many were not distributed via the Chronicle tomorrow.
I can wait. When you do journalism that is judged, by nearly all
the most sensitive people in the profession, to be in poor taste,
you learn to be very patient indeed.
That being the case, I will not bother to nit-pick over issues
of taste, or your view that my view of history is warped, or that
much of TR is patently misleading to the point of falsehood. I won’t
protest that the Chronicle does not have the right to reject whatever
ads it chooses, because I agree it does. I'm glad to discover that
the connection between your department and the Chronicle is tenuous.
As you note, if it were not, students at yet one more university
would have been denied access to revisionist theory and that would
have been ballyhooed as an accomplishment of the greatest sophistication
and tastefulness.
If there are any errors of fact in TR I will be glad to run a
correction in issue #2. I do not expect to hear from you. What would
you do with all the rest of the text in which, presumably, there
would be no errors of fact? That just isn’t how it works with the
professors, is it? They condemn revisionist texts but refuse to
address them. Best of all possible worlds. I have every expectation
that you will do the same. In the end, it really is a matter of
taste, isn’t it? One can either go for an open press, or one can
go for good taste.
If your typical professor were to have to choose between historical
truth—see our article on
Karski—and offending
an old fraud who has been held up as a role model to students for
30 or 40 years, she certainly would not choose to tell the truth,
would she? And then there is the question of how many other academics
would feel burdened by the shame of it all? One would have been
disloyal to her class--no?
Loyalty to the reigning orthodoxy, good taste, mannered evasions
of simple fraud and falsehood—that’s the ticket! Or, perhaps this
is all a mistake, and you really don’t know very much about what
is addressed in TR, and it is unfair of me to ask you to look at
what’s on the page—in front of your nose. If that’s so, I really
feel I should apologize, stand back, and let you have a chance to
show your stuff. After all—two Pulitzers?
By the way, I’m aware of the awful blooper with regard to Peter
Novick’s name on the cover and in the head on page 19—I certainly
hope somebody on the Hofstra faculty picks that one up and runs
with it. And uses it to dismiss the other 19,000 words.
--Bradley Smith
I threw the Hillel incident into the ring but Acting Chair Greene
chose not to pick it up. His call, but one wonders why. Two Pulitzers?
He could have assured me the rumor was false, that my source was spreading
an indefensible rumor. Makes a guy like me think that my source is pretty
well on the mark.
20 NOVEMBER 1999. On 2 November Samson Levine, a reporter
for the Chronicle, asked to interview me by telephone and
I explained my rule of thumb: While I give interviews to print journalists
via fax and email, I no longer do interviews with print journalists
by telephone. The reason I do not is that journalists do not yet understand
what the story is—as a profession. This rule of thumb has nothing to
do with Levine or any other individual reporter, but with the print
press generally.
CHRONICLE REPORTER INTERVIEWS SMITH
3 November 1999 (via fax)
SL: Do you believe that your ad had a Constitutional right
to be published in The Chronicle? I ask this because
most of the Hofstra community does not feel that running your ad
was a First Amendment issue.
BRS: I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer or an expert on Constitutional
law. I do know that an open debate on the Holocaust controversy
is taboo, and that taboos have no place in an open society, in the
university, or in the press. While I can not respond to the letter
of Constitutional law, I can observe that the spirit of the First
Amendment suggests that we should be free to reveal what we think
and feel, and that the press, as an instrument of community, should
encourage us to do that in an environment of openness and good will.
SL: How do you feel about you ad being vandalized by a
student on campus? Do you plan on doing anything about it? For your
information, The Chronicle has decided to press charges against
that student.
BRS: I’d like to talk to the student. He had his reasons.
When you are propagandized, as college students are with regard
to this controversy, that revisionist theory represents the work
of the Devil, and suddenly this devilish work appears on your very
campus and even in your own dorm, you really must take matters into
your own hands. The professoriat [in my view--Ed.] is at the bottom
of this foolishness.
Myself, I’m not interested in pressing charges against a student.
I don’t want to see people punished. I want to see students have
the freedom to debate openly any historical controversy they are
interested in, or any other matter. I have no opinion about the
Chronicle pressing charges. I do not know what happened, who the
perps were, and who if anyone encouraged them to do whatever they
did, precisely. I would like to know.
SL: What do you hope to accomplish by running your insert?
Would you classify yourself as an anti-Semite?
BRS: By placing a real revisionist text in the hands of
students, and referencing our Website (www.codoh.com), I hope to
demonstrate to students that, in spite of what they are consistently
told by their professors and the special interest organizations
on and off campus, that revisionist theory is grounded in fact,
and that it is relevant to topical issues that appear in the press
every day about the Holocaust story—fifty years after the end of
WWII. In the back of my mind, I have a dream (to coin a phrase):
that college students will begin the long struggle to encourage
their professors to encourage intellectual freedom with regard to
the Holocaust controversy, rather than continuing to suppress it
as they have for fifty years.
SL: The ADL has sent a letter to this publication condemning
us for running your ad. Do you get this response to your insert
often?
BRS: I haven’t seen the letter. The ADL condemns everything
I do. What was it this time? Anything specific? Usually not. If
we keep in mind that the Anti-Defamation League is a special-interest
Jewish (Zionist) organization—not a neutral “human rights” organization
as it has convinced so many professors and journalists it is—then
we will understand pretty well what goes down with those people.
The scandal is not that the ADL would condemn revisionist theory,
but that the professors would follow the ADL-line like puppies with
their tails between their legs.
SMITH FORGETS TO ANSWER ONE QUESTION
After I sent the above reply to Levine, I went out walking. When
you’re my age you had better walk all you can because there isn’t very
much else you can really do. After awhile, apropos of nothing, thought
recalled that I had failed to answer the second part of Levine’s final
question. When I got back to the house I faxed him a second reply.
SL: Would you classify yourself as an anti-Semite?
BRS: Nope (How about you?) This is one of the many false
and slanderous charges leveled against me with something resembling
obsession. It is always used to distract the student from taking
a real look at revisionist theory. Revisionist theory can and must
stand on its own. That’s the purpose of open debate in a free society—to
separate the wheat from the chaff. Those who are against that ideal
can only turn to slander, false accusation, suppression and censorship.
(This interview, and no part of it, was printed or quoted in
The Chronicle.)
PROFESSOR ELLEN T. FRISINA WRITES TO SMITH
(Ellen T. Frisina is Assistant Professor of Journalism and Mass Media
Studies, Faculty Advisor, The Chronicle, Hofstra University.)
5 November 1999 (via email)
Dear Mr. Smith: As the Hofstra Chronicle’s faculty
advisor, let me alert you to a mistruth you choose to spread via
an e-mail dated 11/4/99. You note that “...I was concerned that
Chronicle editor Shawna Van Ness might be getting bad
advice from her faculty advisor. My experience with faculty advisors
and student journalists is that, while the students typically want
to go with the ideals of a free press, their advisors don’t. “
Whether your stereotypes are based on past personal experiences
or what others may have persuaded you to be true, I respectfully
suggest that you take into consideration that in this particular
case you are not only wrong, but came to hasty judgment that was
not based on fact: it takes no more than a desire to ask questions
and an ability to hear objective responses to learn that at Hofstra
University, principles, students’ strength and the ethics of our
administration, faculty, student body and student press do not comply
with your personal stereotypical view of academia. I would hope
that you simply revise your opinion on this matter, based on facts.
Sincerely, Ellen T. Frisina, Assistant Professor of Journalism
and Mass Media Studies, Faculty Advisor, The Chronicle,
Hofstra University
SMITH TO PROFESSOR FRISINA
Ms. Frisina: Thanks for your note. With regard to the recent events
that I have expressed concern over, I may well have been wrong in
my suspicions with re to the advisor/student-editor relationship
at Hofstra, and I am perfectly pleased to say so.
Mistaken suspicions, however, grow with a peculiar luxuriousness
when one is kept in the dark. I’m still in the dark, eight days
after I was informed that one or more individuals were found stealing,
or vandalizing or both, The Revisionist. Eight days!
Being purposefully shut off from the “facts” of the story, I made
the best tentative judgement about what was happening that I could
make.
I must note that you, too (forgive me), do not think it necessary
to inform me of the facts of this story. My wanting to know is perfectly
natural, I might even say that I have a right to know, but I don’t
know because no one at Hofstra will come clean about it. This is
not a complicated scenario. It’s a simple one. Someone messed with
my magazine, and no one in journalism at Hofstra will tell me, after
eight days, who it was or what he or she did, and how it affected
the distribution of TR.
This is the kind of affair that could become annoying, and could
lead to (not-so) hasty judgements (eight days?), judgements that
in the long run could, however, prove to be wrong. Why am I not
told what happened with re to the distribution of TR? I have a natural
interest in the story. Is my imagination running away with me? How
do I know?
Frankly, this is not some great earth-shaking story. It’s a modest
story, but I have a special interest in it, and a special right
to it. What’s the story? Help me come in from the dark. Calm my
apprehensions. Give me the same journalistic treatment you would
give the corner grocer who found a brick thrown through his window.
Who, what, when, where, why? Remember?
Regards, Bradley Smith
I regret addressing Professor Frisina as “Ms.,” which I suppose is
an improper salutation. Maybe that’s why she did not respond to my inquiry.
Did a member of Hillel vandalize my magazine on the night of 27 October
or not? One would think this would be a story.
I can understand why Hillel would like to think of it as something
other than a story, if the perp actually was associated with Hillel.
Why the curious silence about this little affair? Isn’t this what we
in the press refer to as a cover-up? If the Hofstra Department of Journalism
and Mass Media Studies can not handle a small scandal such as this one—and
I understand it is a small scandal even though it appears I am the victim
of it—how are they to pass on to their students two of the great ideals
of Western culture--intellectual freedom and a free and independent
press?
I don’t think they can. And that is exactly why I am doing this work.
The professoriat finds it impossible to deal openly and honestly with
the H. controversy, and they find it impossible to deal openly and honestly
when any segment of the H. lobby that’s caught with its pants down.
That’s why some guy like me has to come in from the cold and do their
work for them. I wonder what the budget is for the Hofstra Department
of Journalism and Mass Media Studies? The university might do well to
get rid of the people who run the department and give the money over
to the kids who run the Chronicle.
21 NOVEMBER 1999. Suddenly, on 2 November, the hit count on
CODOHWeb jumped from 15,000 to 29,000. Something was happening. On 3
November it was 19,000 and on the 4th it went to 30,000. Almost certainly
The Revisionist was circulating
and a story building. While I was having my little back and forth with
professors Greene and Frisina, and with Chronicle reporter
Samson Levine, they all knew what was happening but I was still been
in the dark.
On 8 November, I received via email all the stories that the
Chronicle had published in its 5 November issue. It was
an almost classic standoff. On the one side there was the Chronicle
staff led by Editor-in-Chief Shawna VanNess with the backing
of one journalism professor; on the other most everybody else, including
the President of the University. The Chronicle lead story
describes a scene where the professionals, both on and off campus, are
making themselves crazy over the decision of students to run an advertisement
the professionals want to keep out of the hands of students. It’s a
wonderfully invigorating, even inspiriting sight.
THE HOFSTRA CHRONICLE
5 November 1999 (via email) (No headline provided.)
Last week’s edition of The Chronicle has made some
members of the University community angry, due to an inserted advertisement
that questioned whether or not the Holocaust actually happened as
history books claim. The ad, placed by Holocaust revisionist Bradley
Smith, was in the form of a magazine and was inserted into the middle
of the paper. Smith’s advertisement, called “The Revisionist: A
Journal of Independent Thought”, questioned widely held beliefs
regarding the Holocaust, including how many Jews died in concentration
camps and the existence of gas chambers.
A University student was issued an appearance summons for removing
the inserts from issues of The Chronicle shortly after
they were distributed last Thursday, according to Public Safety
Director Ed Bracht.
University President James Shuart said he felt the paper was
insensitive in running Smith’s advertising supplement. “It’s a matter
of judgement and of maturity and seasoning,” Shuart said. “I think
it’s wrong. A mature citizen has a responsibility to show restraint
and decorum.” Shuart also said that though he is not Jewish, he
has great sympathy for those who perished in the Holocaust. “I have
an obligation to say when something is in poor taste,” Shuart said.
“I think [the paper’s] sense of good taste is off the page.”
Rabbi Meir Mitelman, faculty advisor to Hillel and the University’s
Jewish chaplain, said he was extremely upset that the ad ran in
the paper. “[The Chronicle ] has no obligation to print
all the ads it receives,” Mitelman said. “I fervently hope that
the students who are making editorial decisions at The Chronicle
do some serious thinking about journalistic responsibility.”
University Relations Vice President Michael DeLuise echoed the
comments made by Mitelman. He added that it was not made clear enough
that the insert was an ad that was not necessarily the opinion of
the paper. “[The paper] didn’t explain it was an ad,” DeLuise said.
“[The ad] was helping to ignite hate. I was very disappointed in
[the paper’s] action.”
Journalism and Mass Media Studies Associate Professor Steven
R. Knowlton said that if he were an editor at the paper, he would
have run the ad as well. Knowlton, the author of several books on
journalism ethics, said he feels that a college campus is the right
place to have a discussion about the views of people like Smith.
“I have no quarrel with The Chronicle deciding to accept
this ad,” Knowlton said. “I believe truth is better served engaging
the Bradley Smith argument on a college campus where there is a
history department full of professionals who can dispute his argument.”
Knowlton also said that he realized how offensive the ad may have
been to the Jewish population on campus. “People like [Smith] are
not going to go away,” he said. “I don’t quarrel with [Mitelman
or Shuart], they have a good argument. However, eventually the weight
of the argument goes the other way.”
Acting Journalism and Mass Media Studies Department Chairperson
Bob Greene disagreed with Knowlton. “ I think [the paper] showed
incredibly bad taste,” Greene said. “This man paid to carry an anti-Semitic
message in the newspaper, and [The Chronicle ] did
it.”
Associate Journalism professor Ellen Frisina, the faculty advisor
to The Chronicle , said she supported the right of
the paper to take advertisement from whomever it wants. “I understand
it was a nearly unanimous decision of the Editorial Board to carry
the insert, which shows forethought on their part,” Frisina said.
“Though I am personally repulsed by the context of the insert, I
can support their decision to accept the advertisement.”
Chronicle Editor-in-Chief Shawna VanNess said that
the paper stands behind its decision. “Running Smith’s ad is by
no means endorsing his opinions,” VanNess said. “We chose to accept
Smith’s ad not because we’re in debt or in need of the money, but
because we would be hypocritical in denying him a place to voice
his opinion, when we ourselves fight so hard to ensure that our
rights as a student newspaper are never infringed upon by the University
or its administration.”
Senior broadcast journalism major Dory Brown, a Hillel member,
said he has no problem with the insert being put in the paper. “I
think his views are wrong, but he is entitled to express his views,”
Brown said. Freshman international business major Flora Sousa, said
she thought the ad would get people talking. “It will make students
think and it is better to get conversation going then to be silent,”
Sousa said.
Senior marketing major Ariel Wolkowscki thought it was insensitive
for The Chronicle to run the Smith ad. “I thought it
was rude for the paper to run it,” Wolkowscki said. “It was hateful,
and the paper didn’t really have to run it.”
VanNess went on to say that it was the hope of The Chronicle
Editorial Board that the advertisement would serve as a catalyst
to start intellectual discussion and debate about free speech and
Holocaust Revisionism on campus. “University officials can continue
to condemn us, and they are entitled to their opinion,” VanNess
said. “Regardless of who thinks we are morally wrong, we as a paper
know that our decision was right and necessary to protect the First
Amendment and free speech.”
The second paragraph of the story reports that a “University student”
had indeed been caught removing The Revisionist from the
Chronicle the night it was distributed. Hofstra Public
Safety Director Ed Bracht is reported saying that the student was issued
an “appearance summons” for his misdeed. There is no mention of the
Hillel connection, but here we do find that students are willing to
reveal what professors Greene and Frisina covered over, even though
I asked them about it and what I asked about was a criminal act perpetrated
against myself. Perhaps Professor Frisina should reevaluate her values,
to paraphrase a dead German professor who sometimes expressed disdain
regarding the dignity of his professorial colleagues.
University President James Shuart thinks the Chronicle
was “insensitive” to run The Revisionist. To whom?
He doesn’t say. We are all supposed to know to whom. We’ve been told
again and again whom we are supposed to be sensitive toward, no matter
how insensitive that might be toward others. Who are these favored ones?
President Shuart, not wanting to leave us in doubt of that about which
there is no doubt, tells the Chronicle that while “he is
not Jewish,” he has great sympathy for those who perished in the Holocaust.
Part of the work revisionism does is to try to extend the great sympathy
that university presidents feel for the innocent victims of the German
State during World War II, to those innocent victims who perished at
the hands of others during World War II. Revisionism asks, for example:
if Auschwitz is emblematic of National Socialist state policies, is
not Hamburg and Dresden, Nagasaki and Hiroshima and Tokyo emblematic
of Democratic and Republican state policies? If not why not? After all,
if the great crime of the National Socialists was the intentional killing
of civilians (putting aside for the moment the question of which weapon
was used), was it not a crime for Republicans and Democrats to intentionally
kill civilians?
Here, perhaps, we have one clue as to why so many American university
presidents, who are for the most part Republicans or Democrats, are
eager to go along with the special interests who, at bottom, want to
crimminalize a free press and ostracize students who believe in one.
Rabbi Meir Mitelman, faculty advisor to Hillel, tells us that he
thinks the paper’s “sense of good taste is off the page.” He’s extremely
upset. He says the Chronicle “has no obligation to print
all the ads it receives….” I agree. On the other hand, how many Hillel
ads has the Chronicle refused to run? None? Less than none?
Has any college newspaper, magazine, journal, newsletter or fish wrapper
anywhere in America ever refused to run one Hillel ad over the last
100 years? The last thousand years? That’s the difference, isn’t it?
Equal treatment always for Hillel, exceptional treatment always for
those who don’t see eye to eye with Hillel. This is what the Hillel
rabbis argue (they don’t believe it, they just argue it) is a level
playing field. And then there is the incident with the Hillel vandal.
I suppose the rabbi would like that incident to fall under the category
of bad taste—not to do it, but to mention it.
University Relations Vice President Michael DeLuise “echoed the comments
made by Mitelman.” I would expect him to. DeLuise is caught in a pincers
with his President holding one handle and the rabbi the other. He will
either echo them in the job he has or he will have to find some other
job in some very remote location where the echoing is easier or where
guys like Smith are unlikely to show up to maneuver him into another
unhappy squeeze play.
Now we come to a man’s man. Journalism and Mass Media Studies Associate
Professor Steven R. Knowlton. He says if he was editor of the
Chronicle he would have done what VanNess did—run the ad. He
makes Mitelman and DeLuise look like sissies. He’s an author of books
on journalism ethics. I’m going to buy them. Maybe he knows what he’s
talking about. He notes that at Hofstra there’s a history department
“full of professionals” who can dispute his [Smith’s] argument.” Remarkable!
Exactly what I’ve saying for years. One of us, Knowlton or me, is wise
beyond his years. Still, I’m uncertain about Knowlton at one place.
Maybe I’m reading him wrong, but I think he thinks I’m making an historical
argument. I’m not. I am publishing people who are making an historical
argument, but I don’t have one. I’m living in the moment. It doesn’t
matter what happened yesterday. No memory, no imagination. Intellectual
freedom now!
Acting Chair Robert W. Greene disagrees with Knowlton, as we already
know from his email communication above. He is quoted as saying: “I
think [the paper] showed incredibly bad taste. This man paid to carry
an anti-Semitic message in the newspaper, and [The Chronicle
] did it.” Here’s the old double whammy again. Green thinks it’s
Anti-Semitic to express doubt about what he believes. It’s axiomatic
that it is also bad taste to doubt what he believes. I’m rather set
back by what sensitive souls we have at Hofstra University. They are
sacrificing everything to a horror of bad taste. And then there is the
other thing, the journalism thing. If there were something in The Revisionist
that is anti-Jewish, it would only be right for Greene to point it out
to the benefit of his students. I don’t like to repeat myself, but I
told him something like that a couple weeks ago. And then there is the
business with the Hillel student vandalizing my property. It looks like
Acting Chair Greene still thinks it would be—well, bad taste—to mention
that. Journalism professors and Hillel rabbis standing tall, arm in
arm.
VanNess says it is the hope of The Chronicle Editorial
Board that The Revisionist will “serve as a catalyst to
start intellectual discussion and debate about free speech and Holocaust
Revisionism on campus.” That would seem to be what departments of journalism
and mass media studies would be interested in as well. Are they? At
Hofstra, it would not appear that they are. But then, it’s still early.
I have heard through the grapevine that VanNess is only a junior. This
could be very bad news for the paragons of good taste who apparently
have the run of the Hofstra campus.
Smith's interview with University of North Carolina
March 30, 2000
Smith is contacted by Alex Kaplun of the University of North Carolina
regarding the distribution of The Revisionist at Wake Forest
University. Kaplun would like an interview. Smith consents to an email
"interview" only.
To: kaplun
Subject: Re: Daily Tar Heel Questions
kaplun wrote:
As I told you my editor said they were somewhat opposed to the
idea of an e-mail interview. However, if you are strongly opposed
to doing a phone interview, I will accept your e-mail response.
If you change your mind my number is XXX-XXX-XXXX or you can e-mail
me back telling me to call you.
Also, if you do chose to do a phone interview, I would be very willing
to read back the statments that I quoted you on.
If not here are the questions:
1) What was the purpose of publishing "The Revisionist"? What
is its central claim(in other words, what is the best way to describe
what it is about in a sentence or 2)?
I am trying to find a way to convince professors that they
should encourage intellectual freedom re the Holocaust rather than
suppress it. They won't do it on their own, so I am going to the
students.
2) Why run a very large and probably expensive advertisment in
a student newspaper on the other side of the country?
One side of the country is just as important as the other
side. I have run advertisements encouraging an open debate on the
Holocaust at 300-plus universities and colleges from Washington
to Florida.
3) What are you ultimetaly trying to accomplish with "The Revisionist"?
Encourage an open debate on the Holocaust question. It's that
simple. Why should this be the only historical even of the twentieth
closed to open debate? At the same time, The Revisionist
is only one arm of the project. There is the Website, the other
advertisements, radio and so on.
4) Where did the data in "The Revisionist" come from, from what
I understand it is very contradictory to usual historical data?
Those stories that deal with historical fact, are referenced.
Those that are opinion, are opinion. The story on Jan Karski and
his fraudulent testimony about Belzec, for example, is thoroughly
referenced. It's an interesting story because he is one of the "eyewitnesses"
paraded about by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and appeared
in a starring cameo in the film Shoah.
5) Why did you chose a college paper, and specifically Wake Forest
University? Did it have any thing to do with the fact the religious
makeup of the university?
No. And I'm unaware (forgive me) of the religious makeup of
WFU. I send my stuff to a number of papers at one time and run where
I am accepted. Where I am not accepted, I try again.
6) Has the advertisment run in any other college newspapers?
Which ones? Have a lot of college papers turned down offers to run
"The Revisionist"? Is this the first time you have run this advertisment,
if not, then when(approximetally) and where on previous ocassions?
The Revisionist has run at Hofstra U, Boise State
U, Wake Forest U, and will run at Valdosta State U on the 16th,
as well as one other state university which I can not reveal at
present. While I have run ads in hundreds of colleges etc., running
a 28-page insert is a new project and it is just getting off the
ground.
7) What kind of responsed did you expect and what kind of response
have you received?
I thought the editorial staffs would be criticized for running
The Revisionist, and that has happened. I thought perhaps
the magazine would be criticized by faculty and special interest
groups as being "anti-Semitic," while at the same time no specific
text in the document would be specified. That is what happened.
I thought it might be charged that the text had errors of fact in
it but that no specific error of fact would be pointed out. That
is what happened. In short, the argument against The Revisionist,
and revisionists theory generally, is political in nature, and is
forwarded by those who do not want to see an open debate on the
Holocaust because they are afraid they have something to lose by
an open debate.
8) A lot of people find "The Revisionist" to be extremely offensive.
How do you respond to such accusations?
I always ask what, specifically, is offensive. Without knowing
what the other person is refering to, I have no way to respond.
I do understand that this is a controversial subject, yet oftentimes
such expressions as "offensive" are simply used as tools to aid
in the suppression of a viewpoint that the complainer does not want
to see forwarded.
I would also be really appreciative if you sent me a fax of "The
Revisionist." I trying getting it from other sources, but so far
my attempts have been unsuccesful.
A 28 page fax?
I did send a copy to the editor of the Tarheel when I first sent
it to Wake Forest U. It's probably gone now--but did you ask?
Also the story will run tomorrow, so I would really like your
response as soon as possible.
Well, here it is.
What I can do is send you some background relating to TR
as attachments.
One is the letter I included with my request to run the ad. The
second is a letter I send to those editors who have run the ad and
are hearing all kinds of things about me which they have no way
to know is true or not. And one is a piece that ran in TR
1 treating with the mindset of the ADL on this issue.
That's three pieces. Let's see if you get them.--Bradley
Thank You,
Alex Kaplun
to be continued...
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