It’s never been more apparent. Something very deep is shifting in the way campus newspapers are reacting to the Campus Project. In campus editorial rooms there remains much of the old public hostility and unwillingness to face revisionist theory generally. But behind the scenes, a sea change appears to be welling through the psyches, the understanding of campus journalists.

Campus newspapers are increasingly open to running the advertisements I submit to them. Five and six years ago I had to submit an ad to as many as 20 and more campus newspapers to get one published. Reporters were always asking me how many papers rejected the ads as opposed to how many accepted them, and I always felt a need to keep that information to myself. It was a much more difficult, time-consuming and disappointing proposition than I felt it necessary for the press to be aware of.

While I’ve been aware for some time that access was becoming easier—in the 1994-1995 academic year I was able to insert the 10-column-inch ad criticizing the U.S. Holocaust Museum in 35 college newspapers—I was not prepared for the ease of access I am facing now. Of course the ad is small, only two column inches, critical of nothing and no one. with not a single word in it that could be said to be controversial, and in fact carries no revisionist information at all—but then, that may be exactly what the doctor ordered. I don’t even have my post office address in the ad.

The ad simply references the revisionist “controversy,” which the overwhelming majority of students and faculty are now aware exists. Ten years ago, when I first got into this contest, neither students nor faculty understood that a controversy actually did exist. Now they know it exists. Now they are no longer able to pretend it does not.

Ignore the Thought Police: what college student, what professor, does not hold in contempt the idea that they need Thought Police to tell them what to read, what not toread, what to think and not think about, which ideas to accept and which to reject?

Read the evidence: this is too easy. Students, even faculty, understand that if you are going to make a judgement about an historical event you really must read the evidence addressing it. If the evidence is being criticized you understand you must read the criticism as well. You don’t have to read everything, but you really must read some of it. You must take a run at it.

Judge for yourself: the college freshman has spent 12 years or more learning to read and think and to judge texts for herself. This is right up her alley. This is what makes girls and boys into women and men. The kids understand this. Many will not act on it, but many will—particularly if they have access to the information they need.

WWW.CODOH.COM: students have that access now, the address that will take them to CODOHWeb. They’ve never had anything like it before. They gain access using the tools they most enjoy using—the computer, the modem, the Internet. We’ve put it in their laps. When they first see this ad they have no idea what’s waiting for them. No idea of the breadth of revisionist theory, the sheer bulk of the information available, no idea of its depth.

[email protected]: no post office address. No street address. No telephone number. No fax number. Only my email address. Untouched by human hands. Nothing to be afraid of. No way for her to compromise herself publicly. Elegant! Just elegant!

Ignore the Thought Police. Read the evidence. Judge for yourself. Three fundamental concepts in ten words. Electronic addresses for CODOHWeb and myself. Not one word that is confrontational or that could be judged to be in bad taste—yet perfectly clear. Brilliant (forgive me)!

It ran in The Signal at Georgia State (Atlanta, Georgia) for six weeks (one day a week, as all these ads will run). Now it’s going to run another six weeks in The Signal. Georgia Tech’s The Technique (Atlanta, Georgia) will begin running the ad on 4 February. The Red & Black at University of Georgia (Athens) has contracted to run it beginning 5 February. It’s like Sherman’s march to the sea, but this time as a force for the liberation of all. My buddy Debby Lipstadt teaches at Emory University in Atlanta. She must be gnashing her formidable teeth. This time she can’t get away with telling students that Smith and the revisionists have nothing to say. This time students can find out for themselves whether we have or not.

In the old days Lipstadt and her buddies could get away with saying anything they wanted. In the old days, four and five years ago, even two years ago, I ran ads that contained a lot of text and they created many wonderful scandals at many important campuses around the country. But it was difficult for students or faculty to follow up. They could write me for leaflets, and I would send the leaflets and the book catalog from IHR, but that part of the project did not work very well.

Now I’m running a small ad with almost no text but one that is backed up by a “library” that includes the texts of entire books, scores of articles, news items, references, sources and discussion (have library, will travel), much of it by the most important names in revisionism. This “library” does not have to be written away for, it doesn’t have to be paid for, and no student or professor has to give me his name or send me money to get access to it. It’s free, and he can download it in the privacy of his dorm, his computer cubicle, or his office. It’s majestic! It’s technology for the people!

And I’m moving on more than one front here. I have more than Georgia on my mind. Sometimes I can’t sit in a chair and scratch my ear at the same time but this isn’t one of those times. The ad is running in student papers at Hofstra University on Long Island (The Chronicle); Oklahoma State (Daily O’Collegian) at Stillwater; Iowa State (The Daily) in Ames; Florida State at Tallahassee (The Flambeau), and in al talib, the Muslem monthly at UCLA (the UCLA Bruin routinely rejects my ads—let’s see how al talib handles it).

The Lantern at Ohio State is thinking it over (40,000 students). The Texan at University of Texas (Dallas) has taken my money (50,000 students). The Northwestern Daily has not said no. The staff has been so browbeaten the Arthur Butz story over the years that it is unable to make a decision on its own, but will run it by the “board” on 24 February. If they choose to run the ad, rather than suppress if for political reasons, it will make a nice complement to the furor going on over Butz’s Website and will be one more demonstration that the good professor is not alone in the world. We’ll see.

One of the weaknesses in the Campus Project in the past has been that when I ran ads I didn't have time to follow up at the campuses where they'd run. But in the unpopular-opinion business follow-up is everything; ads fail to run after an arrangement has been made, or ads are dropped after one or two appearances, and you've got to find out why. I’ve made special efforts at certain campuses, but even handling those few took so much of my time I couldn't take care of other work that needed taking care of. I was a one-man band, doing everything myself. Now that I am looking after CODOHWeb as well, I have even less time than before.

In this latest thrust of the Campus Project, student papers at George Mason University (Fairfax, Virginia) and the University of Colorado (Boulder, Colorado), said they would run the ad, then changed their minds. They wouldn't say why, but they must feel they're acting wrongly, or in a way that would appear wrong to their campus peers.

Two other college papers, the Daily Reveille (Louisiana State, Baton Rouge) and The Tartan (Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh), each ran the ad once, then folded under pressure from—well, who? They wouldn't say, so I decided to find out, at one of the papers.

In mid-January I called The Tartan, with whose ad manager, Steve Shu, I'd dealt with cordially enough before the Winter break, to inquire why the ad wasn't going to run the four times we had agreed on. Shu told me there had been complaints to the paper after the ad had run in November; it would not run again, and my money would be refunded. He wouldn't tell me who had complained, or what was the nature of the complaint, or whether the complaint had originated on or off campus, or if there was pressure from within The Tartan staff to drop the ad. Nor would he tell me if any staffers had accessed CODOHWeb over the Internet to evaluate its revisionist material, nor would he even let me know the name of The Tartan's editor. It was as if he had been transformed from a personable, active student at a leading American technical university into a terrified, close-mouthed villager in some Grade-B horror film.

Imagine how much time I spent in trying to establish why The Tartan backed out of its agreement. Then you'll appreciate the relief I experienced when, within a few days of one another, two revisionist gentlemen, one from New York, one from California, volunteered to do follow-up work for me on a number of campuses. Each is experienced in dealing with media, and each is a knowledgeable historical revisionist. All of a sudden there were three of us working on the Campus Project rather than one.

As his first assignment, Albert Doyle, one of my new helpers, rang up The Tartan. Unlike me, he was able to uncover the mystery-shrouded name of the paper's editor—Shamila Vankatasubban, and even speak to her. She proved no more communicative than ad manager Shu—she refused to name the paper's faculty adviser or to give the name of a professor who had, it turned out, published an op ed piece in The Tartan decrying our ad.

The important thing, though, is that I wasn't talking to her. I was busy getting new campus ads placed, getting new revisionist material posted on CODOHWeb for student and faculty readers of the ads to access, working on this issue of Smith's Report, and the other things necessary to keep CODOH afloat, and at best steaming full speed ahead. Meanwhile, my two new associates were graciously handling the time-consuming and demanding follow-up work without which, sooner or later, every such media campaign runs out of steam.

This campaign is not about to run out of steam. We have an impeccable ad, and it advertises a World Wide Website loaded with important revisionist scholarship. The merely curious, as well as those truly hungry for truth on American campuses, will have near instant access to a repository of revisionist writings and graphics that, as recently as a year ago, they couldn't have located short of obtaining a (non-existent) catalogue and ordering hundreds of dollars worth of literature by mail. And the ad is running, for all the nervous tight-lippedness of the George Mason and Carnegie Mellon types, with less resistance than any of its Campus Project predecessors.

Is there a future for the sort of big broadside ads CODOH previously ran—the ads that set entire campuses on ear with their devastating, detailed refutations of Holocaust humbug, but that cost hundreds and even thousands of dollars to place? Under certain circumstances, we believe there is—and that in conjunction with many small, “access” ads, they will prove even more effective than before. We’ll see.