Arsonists Devastate Revisionist Publisher

The Institute for Historical Review, [once, editor] the leading American publisher of books and other materials questioning the Holocaust extermination story, was devastated by an arson attack on its offices and warehouses on July 4. Damage in the attack, carried out in the early morning hours of the fourth, was estimated at $400,000.

IHR Director Thomas Marcellus summed up the situation,

“As a physical entity, the Institute for Historical Review has virtually ceased to exist. Ninety percent of our book and tape inventory- the largest collection of revisionist historical literature to be found anywhere- had been wiped out. Every last piece of office equipment and machinery- including desks, chairs, files and shelves- lay in charred heaps of useless, twisted scrap. Manuscripts, documents, artwork, galleys and film negatives – products of more than six long years of a tough, dedicated to effort to bring suppressed historical data to people the world over – no longer exist. Tens of thousands of books…estimated at over $300,000 in value, are gone…More than 2,500 square feet of space that was once the world's most controversial publisher lies blackened in chaos and total ruin.”

Two days later, Jewish Defense League (JDL) leader Irv Rubin showed up at the site of the gutted IHR offices to publicly praise the arson attack. The JDL, he declared, “whole-heartedly applauds the recent devastation of the offices of the Institute for Historical Review.” Denying any personal responsibility himself, Rubin said that the criminal attack had been carried out by a former JDL activist named Larry Winston (Joel Cohen). “I believe, with all my heart, that he [Winston/Cohen] had something to do with this” arson, Rubin declared.

A few prominent voices courageously spoke out against the attack. American historian John Toland – who received the Pulitzer prize for general non-fiction in 1971 for his book The Rising Sun – wrote to the IHR:

“When I learned of the torching of the office-warehouse of the Institute for Historical Review, I was shocked. And when I heard no condemnation of this act of terrorism on television and read no protests in the editorial pages of our leading newspapers or from the halls of Academe, I was dismayed and incensed… I call on all true believers in democracy to join me in public denunciation of the recent burning of books in Torrance, California.”

British historian David Irving, author of numerous acclaimed, best-selling works of history, declared:

“I was deeply shocked to hear of the fire-bomb attack on your premises.”

Adapted from: IHR Newsletter (August and October 1984) PO Box 2739, Newport Beach, CA 92659.