Letters

Defining Moment

Just a note to express appreciation for the improved quality of the Journal. At first I did not like the shift from an academic to a magazine format, and I think I detected some grinding of gears in the change-over. But the July/August issue is a real success. I enjoyed the tantalizing selection of well-chosen and brilliantly written items covering timely, appropriate matters.

The lead article on “The Fateful Year 1898” is an excellent starting point for the new revisionist to begin the process of historical rethinking. Here is where an understanding of what has happened to our country must begin. In the shift from the America of our founders to the new world empire we lost our way, and perhaps our soul. The transition to imperialism was such a defining moment in our history that it should be dealt with more fully.

I.H.
Falls Church, Va.

Hess, Churchill, Irving

Belated congratulations on the “new” Journal. I was particularly interested in the material in the first two issues of 1993.

I am old enough to remember how startled we all were at the news of Rudolf Hess' flight [to England in May 1941]. Wolf Hess' presentation is an eye-opener to those for whom Rudolf Hess now is but a name. It should also touch the heart of anyone genuinely concerned with human rights.

The article about Winston Churchill in the March-April issue, sub-titled “A Slaughterhouse for Sacred Cows,” is particularly well put together. The most telling summation of Churchill is your quotation from young Peter Millar, writing in The European.

As your report in the May-June issue indicates, there was indeed a media outcry here over the bar against Irving entering the country. As you point out, the discussion revolved around the all-important question of freedom of speech. Enclosed are cuttings from our local paper about the ban.

S. A.
Caloundra, Queensland,
Australia

New Historians Association Needed?

Now retired, I obtained an A.B. degree in history many years ago from Indiana University. After reading your report [in the July/August issue] of censure by the Organization of American Historians, I wrote to give them a piece of my mind.

Knowing the agenda of the OAR, I am not interested in its version of “history.” Sounds like you and like-minded colleagues should consider forming your own national organization.

W.R.
Phoenix, Ariz.

Good Diversity

Your feature article on the Spanish-American war era in the July/August issue is very well done. It is indeed wise to deal with revisionist issues in general rather than hammer away only on World War II, the Nazi regime, and the “Holocaust.” Further revisionist examination of the Middle East would be in order, for example.

The new Journal format is excellent, and I'm very glad to see your use of photographs.

T.K.
Hornell, N.Y

Plans Put on Hold

I was somewhat taken aback by the vehement response of E. S. of Underwood, Australia [in the July-August issue], to my critique [in the Winter 1992-93 issue] of Leon Degrelle's uncritical admiration of Hitler. I simply expressed my unhappiness at the failure of Hitler to accomplish the most important goal he set out to achieve: the destruction of Communism. Had “Operation Barbarossa” been successful, there would have been no Korean or Vietnam wars, no nuclear arms race, no super-power brinkmanship threatening the world. In the final analysis, we must acknowledge the failure of National Socialism.

Whenever I open my mailbox to find the latest issue of The Journal of Historical Review, I put my plans for the rest of the day on hold. By the time I read through to the last page, I have become a different person. Keep up your indispensable work.

H. P.
Norwalk, Calif

Barbarian Western Notion

I am a Mexican citizen currently doing graduate studies in the United States. As you say, new historical research and insights normally upset entrenched interests. However, there is no single historical truth. History is relative to our social and individual context and interests.

There is something wrong with the Western concept of history, notably the belief that the truth can be found and uncovered. Pre-Columbian Americans had no notion of Absolute Truth. In the ancient Toltec society, it was the task of judges to determine which interpretation of events was more harmful, and which was more useful, for the community.

Concern with numbers of dead or killed is a barbarian Western notion. The Holocaust lobby counts, the Nazis counted, and the IHR counts. Each unnecessary death is a crime.

Regardless of whether or not there were gas chambers in this or that wartime concentration camp, or whether six million Jews were killed, there remains the fact of deliberate persecution of Jews, Gypsies and Communists, and so forth. Their suffering is enough reason to condemn this persecution.

F. A.-G.
Washington, DC

Good Ammunition

One advantage of the new Journal format is that the pages can be photocopied much more easily. Because of your use of photographs and “eye-pleasing” graphic elements, they also have a more professional look.

I am making many copies of your article [in the May-June issue] about the “Liberators” fraud. Producer Nina Rosenblum will be giving a lecture soon at a nearby campus. Thanks to the JHR, I now have good ammunition to distribute, not to mention some uncomfortable questions for Nina herself.

L. C.
Atlanta, Ga.

Takes Issue

As a charter Journal subscriber, I appreciate Bradley Smith's many positive accomplishments on behalf of revisionism. Nevertheless, I must take issue with his letter in the Winter 1992-93 issue, in which he criticizes Samuel Taylor's excellent essay “The Challenge of 'Multiculturalism'.”

Smith sneers at the concept of white professors teaching white history to white students. Yet, as any black, Jewish or Japanese nationalist can tell you, a people that lacks pride in its own race, history and culture is on the fast track to oblivion.

Contrary to what Smith claims, nowhere does Taylor write that scholarship should serve the interests of the “state.” Smith goes on to claim that “multicultural history – unlike the history of Western historians – asks “What really happened?” In fact, the last thing “multicultural” types desire to know is what actually happened. Or has Smith never encountered the rampant minority racism and “political correctness” mania that infects the campuses of our colleges and universities?

Finally, Smith is wrong to regard the “gas chamber” myth as part of the “white history” that he was taught as a youngster in school. Apparently he cannot distinguish between white history and alien propaganda peddled by the spineless, intimidated minions of modern academia.

M.B.
Los Angeles

Patriarchal Distortion

Thank you for sending information about The Journal of Historical Review. However, I do not get the point, or understand to what ends these “new” discoveries have to bear on the question of”morality” in war… The demise of even one human or animal, the wasting of war, cannot be tolerated or reasoned out by misguided individuals such as you.

I note also that all the members of the [Journal] Editorial Advisory Committee are males… The distortion of facts by patriarchal oppressors is nothing new under the sun. Feminists have recently unearthed some 5,000 years of patriarchal distortion of Women's herstory, including the usurpation of all knowledge, wisdom, contributions, etc. We view male revisionism with a jaundiced eye.

Ms. G. Artemis
Femina Society,
New York Chapter
Brooklyn, N.Y.

We welcome appropriate articles and reviews from female (and male) writers.

-The Editor

Splendid Speech

David Cole's speech at the IHR Conference [in the March-April issue] was splendid. He says two years yet. I think he's right. It was also wonderful to read the exposé of Churchill by other British historians.

The Journal's new format is indeed worthy of much praise. Enclosed is a small donation. I am 80 years old.

M.Z.
Buffalo, N. Y.

Little Hope

After years of involvement and observation, I now have little hope that the truth about the Holocaust story will be generally accepted anytime soon. I had long assumed that, when presented with the facts, people would respond rationally. What I didn't realize is that this society and its intellectual classes do not care for the truth at all. Indeed, a lie of this magnitude could only have flourished in a society where deceit in the interests of political expediency is generally accepted.

P.B.
Toronto, Canada

Devotion Appreciated

Congratulations! You're doing a great job. Your devotion to the cause is sincerely appreciated. Keep up the good work.

W.P.
Alexandria, Va.

ADL On the Defensive

Isn't it nice to see these guys [the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith] on the defensive for a change.

Thanks to you, I knew the score years before the rest of the press figured out what was going on.

As you continue to be proven right about so much of this stuff, people might even begin to take a closer look at you “crackpots.”

Keep up the good work.

Ace Backwords
Berkeley, Calif.

Genocide Against Indians

I was very interested to read Theodore O'Keefe's review of David Stannard's American Holocaust in the May-June Journal.

Those who talk about a Holocaust of the Indians generally begin by asserting that there were 15 million Indians in North America. However, almost any encyclopedia confirms that, when the Europeans first arrived, there were about one million Indians in all of North America (although substantially more in South and Central America). [The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1957 edition, Vol. 12, p. 203, reports that the total “Aboriginal Indian Population, North of Mexico” when coming into contact with Europeans was 1,153,000. – The Editor.]

North America was almost entirely empty when the Europeans arrived. The area of modern-day Ohio, for example, contained only a few Indian villages in the southern part of the state. The area of today's West Virginia was entirely empty, except for a few hunting trails. The only area that was full of Indians when the whites came was California, where 75,000 of them were killed by miners. The Indians of North America have disappeared largely through race-mixing.

The principal source for the accounts of Spanish atrocities in South America is Historia de las Indias of Bartolome de Las Casas (1474-1566). Although I have never read anything to indicate that Historia is not authentic, it does seem odd that it was not published until 1875-86, three centuries after the author's death. In some cases, the Spanish appear to have exaggerated their own atrocities. Hernando Cortes claimed to have destroyed, with a handful of soldiers, the buildings of a city of 200,000 people and 60,000 houses (without iron tools or explosives). This can only have been true if he forced the Indians to tear down their own mud huts.

The Spanish are said to have killed one million Indians in Haiti alone; this would be equivalent to the total original population of Indians in all of North America.

Generally, the Spanish attacked decaying empires built on conquest. In Yucatan, they found huge cities that were totally deserted as a result of soil exhaustion, drought or pestilence.

It is often simply assumed that the native Indians were exterminated by the Spanish alone. Pizarro attacked the Empire of Peru with 187 followers, mostly adventurers and criminals. His success was possible only by exploiting the rivalries of subject tribes (who were enslaved, of course). One might almost consider the Spanish to have “liberated” these subject tribes.

The Peruvians have forgotten their own role in the enslavement of Chinese contract laborers who had been brought over to exploit the guano deposits on the Chinchas Islands in the 1870s, after the abolition of Negro slavery. Of 4,000 Chinese forced to work under the lash, not one survived, and most committed suicide by jumping off sheer cliffs. (The wealth produced in this operation led to a wave of financial speculation in Lima followed by a panic and crash.) I do not hear the Peruvians offering to pay reparations to the Chinese.

C.P.
Sart-Les-Spa, Belgium

Time Has Come

I agree! Historical Revisionism is a movement whose time has come. Please enter my subscription.

B. D.
Sylacauga, Alabama

A Salute

To offset the gaseous billowing of political correctness that infects even the conservative Christian school that our children attend, I plan to have them read the Journal and other IHR materials. I salute your courage.

S.A.
Los Angeles, Calif

Prefers Old Format

Although I recognize that the new Journal format makes it more accessible, even more readable, I prefer the old format. It appeared more scholarly, and thus, I think, was better able to reach opinion makers. What has not changed is the quality, which remains consistently high.

B.D.
Wendell, N.C.

Origins of Christianity

Please do not give further support to Dr. Larson's wrong-headed opinions about the Dead Sea Scrolls. (“The Essene Origins of Jesus' Teachings,” March-April 1993.) Dr. Surburg and Rev. Otten have already discredited Larson's arguments. [See Rev. Otten's letter in the Journal, Fall 1991, pp. 378-79]. Unless you drop this, you will lose Christian supporters.

Moreover, your comparison of Mithraism and Christianity is superficial and mistaken. Mithraism was a cult of secrets. Christianity was, and is, open and public. Mithraists practiced animal sacrifices, but Christians banned it.

M.C.
Pittsburgh, Pa.

With regard to the article by Martin Larson – whose book Religion of the Occident I read when it first appeared in 1959: Then as now, my only disagreement with the Essene thesis is the claim that Jesus is a historical character. Except for the gospels, which were written long after the events they supposedly depict, history is strangely silent about Jesus.

J.E.
Hot Springs, Mont.

We welcome letters from readers. We reserve the right to edit for style and space.