Smith’s Report, no. 7, October 1991

Greetings:

Here's news about the new and potentially very important Video Project; an update on the affair at TALKERS: The National Newspaper of Talk Media; more on how Revisionism is entering the counter culture through “alternative” publishing; the National Association of Campus Activities; mail from readers; the issue of thought police in Revisionist circles; publishing projects and so on.

A New Line of Revisionist Videos

On 10 September I will have video-taped a Revisionist Round-table at Radio Free Venice, the pirate radio station in Venice Ca founded by Tom Reville. Some of you may be following Reveille's wrestling match with the FCC in Spotlight.

When Reveille first called and offered to interview me in-studio we talked only of doing what I do on commercial radio. The on-air interview, the call-ins and so on. I was already setting up a video production team and it occurred to us that we could tape the interview with Reveille. Then Reveille suggested we do a round-table on the air and tape that, proving once again that two or three heads are better than one.

Radio Free Venice serves the Venice and other (very) nearby communities. Our audience will be tiny in comparison to those I speak to on commercial radio. The importance of the interview lies in it being the first of a series of projected video-tapings of Revisionist events that will have production qualities that no Revisionist tapes have had so far. Unlike the video tapes of my appearances on the Jerry Williams or Morton Downey TV shows, for example, these will be edited, there will be a story line, will have voice-over observations and be part of a series. A professional video cameraman and editor will be part of the production team. He has offered his services free against a percentage of sales.

My aim with this Project is to produce a number of videos, not just one. A series of “mini-series,” if you will. Two years ago when I was renting rooms on college campuses to speak, I backed off because I couldn't see how I could make anything come of speaking to small groups of students when the campus papers refused to cover the event because it was not sponsored by a campus organization. That situation is reversed dramatically.

Now I can make informative, controversial, theatrical and maybe amusing videos as an on-going project that has a beginning, middle and while maybe not and end then certainly a goal. There is the story of how we book an event, what the lay of the land is as we arrive, the event itself including audience reaction to it, the question and answer period and the often interesting events that follow but which are known to only the handful of people who might have participated in them. Everything. And if there is good theater like the demonstrations when I spoke at Ohio State, or the police searches when I was at USC, that's all part of the story too and will be in the film.

Part of the dramatic concept of these videos is to get into the life of one or more Revisionists, under pressure and under close observation. We have got nothing against the static taping of a lecture, or making a straight documentary. But my background is in literary writing and theater. I see this work as primarily theater. Theater about profound cultural-

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political issues. I have some talent for theater. I like theater. I like what the form offers. I like how it speaks to people and I like how it encourages you to say everything you want to say.

This isn't something that's going to happen some time far in the future. We will be on the road to the first taping before you get this issue of Smith's in your hands. A week later we will have a master tape available for production. I'm not going off here on some exotic new Revisionist scheme. Video is one more tool to employ in conjunction with the work on media and campus that I am already doing. It will become an integral part of CODOH projects already underway, a tool to broadcast the Good News of the Revisionist message to new audiences — and that includes Public Access TV.

Talkers: The Newspaper of Talk Radio

Talkers is the trade journal that goes to the talk “industry” throughout radio and TV. Talkers sold some 400 column inches to The American Jewish Committee and published it in its 5 May issue as an 8-page advertising supplement under the heading of “Hate On Talk Radio.” Holocaust Revisionism generally and myself specifically were given a not-very-lightly once over.

After some soul-searching I decided to not attack the AJC, accept the hits I had taken, and simply run my own 5-column inch ad in Talkers offering my services to talk media as a spokesman for the Institute for Historical Review. Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers, refused my ad. I rang him up and we had a number of conversations over the next ten days or so.

Harrison says his refusal to run my ad is not censorship, that only the State can “censor” anything, and that he is simply making a business decision. He believes that the received version of the Holocaust story is true, and without saying so directly, gives every sign that he believes that anyone who expresses doubt about it is a hate-monger, racist, neo-Nazi and all the rest of it. Harrison is simply a True Believer who is acting out of the vicious self-righteousness that so many of that ilk do.

Harrison claims that he is not participating in a campaign to black-list me from the airwaves, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, has nothing to say about selling space to the AJC to slander me, and really nothing to say about not selling me space to offer access to Revisionist scholarship on the air. After a great deal of talking he offered to publish a letter to the editor from me where I could tell my side of the story. When I refused that, he offered me a full column. I accepted, wrote a 400-word column on how the AJC had used the trade journal for talk media, Talkers, to slander me personally, urge talk media to ban me from the airwaves and, literally, to demonize me. The column began:

“Gentle Talker: My name is Bradley R. Smith, and I work for the Devil. My job on the Surface is to use the airwaves to spread Satan's message of lies, extremism, organized hate-mongering and Holocaust Revisionism to the American public….”

I went on to charge the AJC with revealing how thought police in the pay of rich Jewish organizations operate in American media. I faxed the column to Harrison and the next day he rang me up to say that he'd had no idea I would write anything like I had. He'd expected some kind of tirade against himself, not against the American Jewish Committee. Harrison seems genuinely hurt by my opinion of the AJC. He swears they aren't that kind of people.

We had a couple more conversations. Harrison didn't say he would or would not run the column. It appeared that now it was his time to do some soul-searching. Then he didn't return a call, didn't call back when his secretary said he would….and then we both let it slide. Or so Harrison thought. I didn't quite let it slide. I incorporated the Talkers column into a media solicitation and sent it to 950 radio and TV talk shows. When the next issue of Talkers appeared it did not have the column, as by then I had supposed it wouldn't. But I have gotten six radio interviews from the mailing so far — KOA Denver, WPOP Hartford, WALE Providence, WJNO West Palm Beach, KING Seattle, and WFLA Tampa. And everybody in the talk media business has discovered that someone is finally going to address the issue of Jewish thought police in American media — on American media. I always took this thought police business as a given in this business and was never particularly concerned with it, thinking it would all come out in the wash. But the affair with Michael Harrison at Talkers, for some reason I can't even put my finger on, was the last straw. I think maybe it was Harrison's psychological inability to admit that he was willing to sell space to a rich Jewish pressure group to smear me and my friends without asking for any demonstration whatever that the charges are true.

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I'm not going to let Talkers off the hook on this one. I'm going to pursue every angle I can to inform talk media professionals how their own trade journal is being used by Jewish organizations to police the air waves.

National Association of Radio Talk Show Hosts (NARTSH)

While Talkers was still trying to make up its mind whether it was going to be a Free Press organization or something less, I decided that Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust should apply for membership in the National Association of Radio Talk Show Hosts (NARTSH) as an “allied” member. NARTSH was founded by Jerry Williams three years ago. It was Williams who interviewed Fred Leuchter and myself on Boston television for an hour (a video of the interview is available). Half the people on the NARTSH board have interviewed me at one time or another, some of them twice, so I figured I would be a shoo-in. Last week NARTSH returned my check, together with a letter from Doug Stephan, Chairman of the Membership Committee, explaining that CODOH is denied membership “based on the professional interest of the organization at large.”

NARTSH has recently given CNN'S Peter Arnett its first “Freedom of Speech Award” for embodying “the spirit and the tenets of the First Amendment of the Constitution.” Jack Anderson is quoted as saying that NARTSH is “well positioned now to serve as a catalyst for constructive dialogue on key issues of the day.” NARTSH writes that the “sole criterion for membership is the honest desire of a working professional to advance free speech and the flow of ideas among all people.”

I'm now trying to find out on what grounds CODOH was really denied membership to NARTSH. I've called their office in Boston to ask what written criteria NARTSH has for membership as an “allied” member but haven't heard back yet. Maybe I'll discover that the “sole criterion” for membership in NARTSH is, in fact, something other than an honest desire to advance free speech among all people. Now that men like Jack Anderson and Peter Arnett are involved with NARTSH, I plan to take this affair beyond the talk industry itself.

Meanwhile, from Washington state I've received a 7-page clipping from the September 1991 Penthouse magazine titled “Voices of America: Talk Radio Has Become Big-Time Politics.” It's written by Lisa Collier Cool, a left-wing, free-press advocate and member of the National Writer's Union who would not give Michael Hoffman and me the time of day when we attended one of their get-togethers a couple years ago to urge the NWU to sponsor a policy for open debate on the Holocaust controversy. No mention of Revisionism in the article (and no dirty pictures), but a good overview of the growing political influence of talk media. If you want to read it I'll send it along.

National Association of College Activities (NACA)

I have four solicitations planned for the 1,000+ member colleges belonging to NACA, the first one to kick off the middle of September. The promo package will include the new text for the CODOH leaflet I call “THE HOLOCAUST CONTROVERSY: The Case for Open Debate.” It's based on the full-page ad we ran in The Daily Northwestern last spring that created such a storm of controversy. It is largely rewritten to “pre-empt” the dishonest and evasive attacks on Revisionism that are sponsored by Jewish organizations such as Hillel, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and the American Jewish Committee.

We're informing students and faculty alike what it is that the Thought Police on their campus are going to say about Revisionism before they say it, and showing why it doesn't wash. We've included a copy of the leaflet with this issue of Smith's. If you think this new text works well, maybe you would like to distribute it yourself.

The Alternative Press

TWISTED IMAGE. Ace Backwords, Editor. 8-page monthly. (1630 University Ave. #26, Berkeley CA 94703). August 91 issue records Ace's continued wrestling with the devil of Holocaust Revisionism. It's made up largely of letters to the editor, most of which do not treat him kindly. There is a lot of private correspondence going on now between Twisted Image and others in the comix field, but it's not yet for publication. Ace wants to back out of this issue for awhile and get his bearings. I can photocopy the August 91 issue of TI if you'd like to follow up.

DHARMA COMBAT. Jim Keith, Editor. 64-page qrtly. (POB 20593, Sun Valley NV 89443.)

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Keith has published an excerpt, “When Cows Bark,” from one of the books I'm working on titled A Personal History of Moral Decay.” The excerpt is about how I talk about Holocaust Revisionism to a teenage girl the afternoon we take her doggie to the pound. Jim Keith produced an illustration as a lead-in to the story that when I first saw it kind of took my breath away. It's a paste up of an old RKO movie poster showing a SS man with a whip standing over a prostrate woman with my title, “When Cows Bark,” slapped across the middle of it. It's strangely funny and worth a look-see and a read. This is the first time any magazine, no matter how small its circulation, has published any literary writing of mine dealing with the Holocaust story. (About 11 pages, with illustration.)

LOOMPANICS. Mike Hoy, Publisher. (POB 1197, Port Townsend WA 98368) It was the interview with me published in Loompanics's Greatest Hits that started the ball rolling for Revisionism in the alternative press. Last month I called Mike Hoy and asked if he would like a little something more from me on the same subject and he said not a chance. He didn't have to agonize over his decision either. This is a house that publishes stuff on the techniques of torture but he's gotten more heat over the interview with me than anything else he's published. So he's had enough, but he's done his part. A photocopy of the interview is available if you haven't seen it. It's quite good, if I do say so myself. (For Loompanics' catalog send $3 to them.)

THE SUBVERSIVE. John Bryant, Editor. A new irregular quarterly. (POB 66683, St. Petersburg Beach FL 33736-6683.) Bryant will publish his first issue toward the end of the year. He's asked permission to reprint my Open Letter to Nat Hentoff, our (sometimes) First Amendment champion who writes for the New York Village Voice Voice and is oftentimes published in the prestige press.

REMARKS. Jack Wikoff, Editor. 16-page newsletter, six times a year. (PO Box 234, Aurora NY 13026.) REMARKS will reprint the entire text of “Rub-A-Dub-Dub,” chapter three of the Second (Enlarged) Edition of Confessions.

STEAMSHOVEL PRESS. Kenn Thomas, Editor. Quarterly, I think. (5927 Kingsbury, St. Louis MO 63112.) Thomas has written asking me to submit an article for publication. Issue number three of this little quarterly has an interview with Imamu Amiri (Leroi Jones) Baraka, the Black radical writer of the 1960s and now professor.

The Charles Provan Affair

Charles Provan is the very interesting, energetic, intense and very charming Christian researcher who wrote many articles for The Christian News defending the appearance of Revisionist information there against the slanderous attacks of Christian intellectual bigots, among them a number of pastors. I considered this devout Christian researcher to be a fine addition to friends of Revisionist activism. Then something unusual happened.

Provan discovered what seemed to him to be holes in Revisionist scholarship, particularly in the Revisionist position that holds that the exhaust of diesel motors can not be used effectively for mass murder, and also a number of questions about the “statement” of SS officer Kurt Gerstein about gas chambers and “gassings,” particularly at Belzec. After he had worked on these questions for some time Provan came to the conclusion that Revisionist theory, on balance, is wrong and that the orthodox view of the Holocaust story is largely right. I confess to feeling a little nervous about this.

Now Provan finds himself being attacked personally by some Revisionists for his views, his motives called into question and so on. This is unattractive and reveals the political nature of the interest that some Revisionists have in Holocaust scholarship. It is my view that it is infantile to believe that there are no holes in Revisionist scholarship, particularly since it has never been critiqued in a scholarly manner by those trained to do that work.

There is no excuse for Revisionists behaving toward Charles Provan the way establishment bigots behave toward Revisionists. There are enough thought police in the world as it stands now. Those who want to know more about what information caused this honest man to back off, at least temporarily, from Revisionism, and the considerable correspondence the controversy has already generated among Revisionists, can write to Charles Provan, 410 W. Main St. Monongahela PA 15063.

Science Fiction as a Forerunner for the “Gas Chamber” Invention?

Carlos Porter has sent the following passages from H.G. Well's 1897 The War of the Worlds, edited for brevity: “The Martians were able to discharge enormous clouds of black and poisonous

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vapour… the touch of that vapour, the inhaling of its pungent wisps, was death to all that breathes. It was heavy, this vapour, heavier than the densest smoke… up in the air… there was a chance of escaping its poison altogether…. The Martian work parties… cleared the air of it by wading into it and directing a jet of steam upon it…. and then the extinction… six million people, unarmed… the massacre of mankind.”

Six million, eh?

The second passage is from Raul Hilberg's “revised, definitive edition” of The Destruction of the European Jews (pp. 975-76). “… to escape the rising gas, the stronger knocked down the weaker, stepping on the prostrate victims in order to prolong their own lives by reaching gas-free layers of air… the Jewish work parties… hosed down the dead, at the same time soaking the pockets of poison gas… the earth's crust broke open… the graves heaved in the heat….”

I leave it to you.

The Mail

Last issue I reported here that I'd received a list of 60 INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE COLLEGE STUDENT NEWSPAPERS and that I'd send it along to you if you were interested. Then I misfiled the list and couldn't recall the name of the man who sent it. If you're that person, and you read this, please send me another copy of the 60 papers. A number of readers have asked for it, I want to send it to them and I want to use it myself. And my apologies and my thanks — again.

Carlos Porter writes from Belgium about the controversy over whether Rudolf Hoess did or did not claim that Kapos entered the gas chambers shortly after the alleged gassings without gas masks, as Robert Faurisson claims he did. Porter says that Faurisson has produced a reference documenting that Hoess did indeed claim that, and that the issue appears to be settled in Faurisson's favor.

From Boston I've received copies of three pages from Chutzpah written by the notorious Harvard lawyer Alan Dershowitz and attacking Faurisson, particularly Faurisson's interpretation of the 18 October 1942 entry in Johann-Paul Kremer's diary where he reports a “special action” at Auschwitz against some Dutch women. (Available)

An Oregon man has sent me a photocopy of an unusually stupid and vulgar course outline on the Holocaust sponsored by the National Conference of Christians & Jews. I'm told the document was used over the summer to help some 1,500 educators gathered at Sonoma State University in Northern California learn how to teach the subject. (Available. 23pp, illustrations, “strategy,” etc.)

A telephone call from Los Angeles informs me that CODOH's article “The Holocaust Controversy” is being printed on computer bulletin boards, the latest being USENET. If you have a modem and want to access USENET you can call Ralph Winston at (503) 232 6566 and get the relevant technical information to hook up with it. USENET has also printed an interesting article on how the Anti-Defamation League is working to black-list computer bulletin boards that print Revisionist materials.

Business

MEDIA INTERVIEWS. A Florida man, Don Hirsch, has volunteered to help me book extra radio and television interviews over the next three months. While I use the mails to solicit media interviews on behalf of IHR every 60 days, I don't have time to follow up by telephone, which is one of the keys to being taken seriously by producers. Hirsch is an interesting guy. He's in his forties, a Jew who has become a Christian. He's working, as he puts it, on his “third unpublished novel,” and while he makes no claim to being a Holocaust scholar he is a committed Revisionist and free-press advocate.

We've corresponded for three or four years now. It's pretty certain that Don will be able to increase the number of media interviews I'll be able to give, though in this business there are no guarantees. There is also the problem of how effective the attempt will be by the American Jewish Committee to black-list me from the airwaves.

THE FAX MACHINE that you helped me get a couple months ago is proving to be a tremendous help, often in ways that I had not predicted. Developing the new text for “The Holocaust Controversy” article, which I am going to use in conjunction with several important projects, is a case in point. Those I am consulting with on the new text live all around the country. Sometimes we pass drafts of passages from the text back and forth two or three times in one day. It's like having specialized, expert editors and writers in the offices next to my own. Without the faxing capability the new text, in its present state, simply would not have been ready for use this month.

When you look over “The Holocaust Controversy,” you might be surprised to find that the

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article is not documented. We have decided to do one leaflet for distribution that deals with the political attacks that are made against Revisionism and Revisionists. We have plenty of other information, fully sourced, for those who are interested in examining the historical record rather than denouncing those who have and have become Revisionists as a result of examining it.

THE PHOTOCOPIER. I announced a couple issues back that I had received more money than I needed for the fax machine and that I had put aside $500 for a photocopier. The next thing I knew there was the AJC-slander affair at Talkers and I used a lot of time trying to put it right. One result was that I failed to send out that month's mail solicitation for media interviews and lost that part of one month's income. I used the $500 I'd set aside for the copier to help pay operating expenses. So I still don't have a photocopier for the office. The cost for an appropriate copier for this office is about $900.

When I do large printing jobs, like this newsletter, say, I send it out to a printer and there's no problem. With the smaller jobs however I have to use the local copy shop that charges four and five times and even more than what it would cost me to copy the same materials in-house. The costs really add up.

NEW SUPPORTERS. It's important that new people are found to help support Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust. We want new faces, which offer the hope of new support. Not tourists who simply want to amuse themselves with “radical” materials, but individuals who will want to contribute something significant. It isn't always money that's significant, but continued financial help is absolutely imperative. At this time I have only two sources of income. I bill IHR for each radio interview I do, and I ask your help through this newsletter. All other work I do, everything you read about here, is work I contribute to the cause without receiving any income in return.

RUB-A-DUB-DUB: Notes on the Jewish Soap Scam. This is printed (again — after two pages were dropped from the first printing and the booklets had to be destroyed) and this printing includes four extra pages with the Open Letter to First-Amendment writer Nat Hentoff that was circulated to the print press in New York. I've reduced the weight by substituting the heavier card stockcover with a paper self-cover, so it can still be distributed as a self-mailer for 29 cents. Cost to print: about 65 cents each. 20 pp, PB, self-cover with illustration, lots of info on CODOH and Smith's so that new people can get in touch with us.

Magaly is working on a complete listing of all the cassette recordings we have in stock. Ask for it. She says she is all caught up with orders and so on. Do we owe you anything?

CONFESSIONS OF A HOLOCAUST REVISIONIST: Excerpts from the Second (Enlarged) Edition. I did get funding for this and it's in the works. This printing will now have four chapters rather than the three I wrote about in Smith's # 6. The text is proofed and formatted. The designated printer is in Maine, chosen because of his very low, non-profit price on producing short-run printings of perfect-bound books.

What Now?

On Monday, 9 September, Magaly and I will drive to Los Angeles, drop this newsletter off at the printers, then start to work preparing the video taping at Radio Free Venice that will take place the following evening, Tuesday the 10th. Meanwhile, Tuesday morning the lawyers for Mermelstein and IHR will have begun arguing their various pre-trial motions before a new judge, a self-avowed homosexual with a reputation for straight-shooting.

All my attention is on the video-taping at Radio Free Venice. We're inviting the rabbi and his minions from a nearby temple to participate. A representative for KCET, Los Angeles public radio, says the station might cover the event. Flyers are posted all over Venice with our call-in phone number and the street address of the studio.

My hopes are high. I feel a little like a Don Quixote, starting out on my travels with an honorable ideal in mind but with foolishly few resources and maybe an unclear understanding about what it is I'm really tilting at. I'm going to be very disappointed if this venture doesn't work out. It's not a feeling I like to have, but there it is. This may be a critical juncture. Your support is appreciated very much.