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Advertising Copy… Considerations

By Bradley R. Smith ∙ February 28, 1993

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Professor Faurisson's letter caused me to reflect again on how advertising, or any other piece of writing, is read from many different perspectives and understood in many different ways. And not only among revisionists either.

The original advertising for our videotape, which we sent exclusively to people in the revisionist community, ballyhooed the video in the time-honored marketing tradition of calling attention strictly to itself. It was a sales letter. I was happy with it.

Faurisson brings to my attention that others found our advertising insensitive and self-centered, that it ignores all the pioneering work done by men such as Butz, Felderer, Faurisson and others—without which it would not even have occurred to us to go to Auschwitz. I suppose we must have thought that everyone would understand that, but we were wrong.

Our point of view was very simple. David Cole had gotten Dr. Franciszek Piper to say on the record what he had said to others only off the record. This video has many valuable qualities, but that's the one that puts it on the map. Dr. Piper said it on the record.

Spotlight, The Institute for Historical Review, and Ernst Zuendel's newsletter Power have all run ads for the Cole/Piper tape, so all the Big Guys fronting for the Holocaust Lobby certainly have the tape in their possession, and it's my guess they're not very happy with it. I can imagine some of the dialogue that must pass between them as they watch David in action. I'd like to reproduce something here of how I think it goes, but I don't believe I should in a family-oriented publication like this one.

It would seem that Dr. Piper is a nice guy. Too bad it had to be him. Nevertheless, he said what he said. He said a lot more than what's on this first video. He's going to have to eat it. That's how the Holocaust game is played. You make a mistake, you say something honest at the wrong time, and someone is going to make you eat it. This time it's Dr. Piper's turn to belly up to the snack bar.

Franciszek Piper Cartoon

DUKE UNIVERSITY. The headline for the “Human Soap” ad originally read:

Falsus in Uno
Falsus in Omnibus
The “Human Soap” Holocaust Myth

That is, false in one thing, false in everything. A reporter for the Duke Chronicle, Michael Saul, got me on the horn and explained how deeply Jews resented the headline. It implied that because we have evidence that the headline was being read in a way I did not mean for it to be read, so I changed it to read:

The Human Soap Holocaust Myth

We aim to please. It's easy. Will it help us next time we submit the ad? I won't bet the farm on it, but it's one more reminder that, when you work with ideas, any “advertising” you do is going to be examined very critically and often times from one or more conflicting perspectives.

ADL ON THE FRONTLINE, OCTOBER 1992
ACROSS THE COUNTRY • ACROSS THE COUNTRY • ACROSS THE COUNTRY

ADL Keeps One Step Ahead of Holocaust Deniers

Surprise! Surprise! Holocaust denier Bradley Smith tells reporters he is preparing a “surprise” initiative aimed at the nation's college campuses. But it's no surprise to ADL that he plans to clean-up his “Jewish Soap” advertisement, which was universally rejected by campus publications last spring. The ad was a reprint of an article of the same name published in the summer 1991 issue of Liberty Lobby's The Journal of Historical Review. The ad was written by Smith and Mark Weber, a man with documented Nazi ties.

Jeffrey A. Ross, ADL director of Campus Affairs, reports that the ADL/Hillel Campus Task Force has a few surprises of its own in store for Smith.

Last year, when Smith's first Holocaust-denying advertisement appeared in campus publications, ADL, through the Campus Affairs Department and our network of 30 regional offices, provided background materials exposing Smith and his organization. An ADL counteraction ad was published widely. (ADL on the FRONTLINE February 1992.)

The surprise for Smith? This time he won't be able to manipulate uninformed student editors, because they will be armed with the truth. ADL and Hillel professionals, through their Campus Task Force, maintain regular contact with the editors and are sensitizing them to the issues involved.

Take a hike. Bradley.

Jeffrey thought he had a handle an what the Campus Project was up to. He didn't have a clue. Jeffrey was thinking soap, while we were thinking VIDEO! Maybe if Jeff were to take a little hike himself, it would help clear his head. I wonder what he thinks about the Daily Texan? Surprise! Surprise!

ADL Keeps One Step Ahead of Holocaust Deniers
  • Bradley R. Smith

    Bradley R. Smith was born in Los Angeles on February 18, 1930. At 18 he joined the army and in 1951 served with the infantry in Korea where he was twice wounded. After three decades of a variety of professional activities, it suddenly hit him: In 1979 he read a leaflet by Professor Robert Faurisson, "The Problem of the Gas Chambers." Then, Arthur Butz’s The Hoax of the Twentieth Century did it for him. He understood from the beginning that he would address the censorship, the suppression of independent thought, the taboo against publishing and debating revisionist arguments—not the arguments themselves. That has remained his position. In 1989, Smith founded Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH) dedicated to defending free speech and free inquiry into the Holocaust question. He handed over CODOH's helm in late 2014. He passed away on his 86th birthday, February 18, 2016. Read a series of obituaries here.

Bibliographic information about this document: Smith's Report, no. 13, January/February 1993, pp. 6f.
Other contributors to this document: n/a
Editor’s comments: n/a

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