Notebook

When I decided, when I was forced to admit, that I could not continue to meet my expenses living a rather normal life in Visalia, and continue to do revisionism too, and that if I were going to continue with revisionism the one choice I had, in the context of my life, was to move to Mexico, I was confronted fay the possibility that many of you, if not most, would think that once in Mexico my effectiveness as revisionist activist would be so compromised that it would not be worth it for you to continue to support this endeavor any further. I went ahead and did what I had to do, but I felt some anxiety on that account I needn’t have.

It gives me great pleasure, as the formality has it, to report that your level of support has not fallen off at all, that I have been able to get half way, more than half way, settled in here, and those who worked with me in the U.S. are all working with me now. I’m grateful to all of you, and I believe we are among those who are making a difference and who are going to make an increasingly important difference as the months roll on into 1998.

Do you recall the $50,000 Offer that I wrote about in SR43 (May 97, p. 3)?. I noted that a CODOH benefactor was willing to offer $50,000 to “one individual who performs a certain valuable achievement to promote CODOH and revisionism in the national media.” While our benefactor had a specific project in mind, at that time I was not yet in a position to make the offer public.

I included a sample of the proposed Offer and mailed it with that issue of SR, asking readers for feedback While there were some who thought it not a good idea because of possible legal entanglements that might occur, a large majority of those who responded thought it a worthwhile effort. We received some helpful suggestions regarding the text itself.

The $50,000 Offer (see page 4) is a very simple concept. The text of the ad offers $50,000 to “the one individual instrumental in arranging a 90-minute presentation on National Network Television, in prime time, of the ‘Video of the Century,’ our documentary on Auschwitz, David Cole Interviews Dr. Franciszek Piper.” We then note that the documentary, “not a Hollywood movie,” will be introduced and followed with a presentation by Bradley R. Smith, director of CODOH.” We know it’s a long shot, but we’re very serious about helping make it happen.

The second week in October we mailed the advertisement to 400 student newspapers at universities and colleges in the U.S. and Canada with a cover letter asking if they would run it and how much it would cost. It was very different text from the other large ads we have run, which were really revisionist essays published as advertisements. I didn’t know what to expect.

The response has overwhelmed me. More than 100 student newspapers have offered to run the $50,000 Offer. At this time (the end of the week of November 3) it has already run at the Daily Nebraskan (U Nebraska, Omaha—17,000+ circ.); The Cauldron (Cleveland State U—11,000+ circ.); the MSU Advocate (Moorhead State U, MN–5,500 circ.); the Colgate Maroon (Colgate U, Hamilton NY-circ. 3,500); and the Royal Purple (U Wisconsin, Whitewater—circ. 7,000+).

One simple, even obvious observation in the ad may ring a very loud bell for students and student editors on our campuses: “Every historical controversy can be discussed and debated on national television—except one—the Jewish holocaust story!” It’s a truism, and it must be glaringly obvious to every student and every student editor who sees it that it is one of those truisms that is never spoken of in public. I think it will be a lightning bolt for some. Not for its insight—a truism is hardly a mere insight—but because this obvious statement of feet will be made directly and openly to tens of thousands of students who will recognize the feet that only CODOH is saying it publicly on their campus, confirming for them what they already know. It may prove to be a tremendous release for many.

It’s too soon to have feedback from those ads that have run, though we know there have been protests at Cleveland State. In arty event, this ad is already scheduled to run at many other campuses, some of which will surprise you when you read about them in the next issue of SR.

It would be natural to wonder how the devil I can make a $50,000 offer when I operate on a minuscule budget and have recently barely escaped from personal financial catastrophe. As I wrote above, the offer is backed by a single benefactor who has guaranteed it In addition, she is funding all the expenses of placing the ad itself. We have worked together on other projects, and as they say, her word is her bond.

The Cole/Piper video will not be new to historians at the campuses where the $50,000 offer is running. The benefactor who is funding the ad has, for three years, purchased the video 500 and 1,000 at a time and had them mailed to the history faculties at college and university campuses all over America. Her plan is to see that every academic historian in America receives the video. All this work means that there is an underground swell of familiarity with the video which, on some campuses, might influence how the ad is perceived where it is run.

I reported in SR 47 that in a last-minute e-mail message I had learned that our opinion piece based on Porter’s “War Crimes Trials” article has run in the Lantern at Ohio State University. The report was wrong. It appears the piece was going to be run, it caught the eye of the wrong person, protests were made, and the piece was dropped.

In October as I was preparing to submit the advertisement challenging the replica of the Majdanek “gas chamber” door on exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, circumstances made it necessary to move with the $50,000 Offer, and I laid aside the smaller Museum ad. The result is that the Museum Door ad is running in only one paper, the Daily Aztec at San Diego State University (SDSU). So far all is well.

Magaly, our 25-year-old who has attended SDSU the last couple years, is down here in Baja for the weekend. I wanted to know who she understands, from her own experience, have computers at her campus. Re the professors, it was easy. They all have computers. And the students? She thought about this one carefully, and said probably 75% of all students have their own computer, and the rest have access to them in half a dozen “computer rooms” scattered around the campus. I then wanted to know, of all those at SDSU who have computers, what percentage of them might be Online. Most who live off campus are Online, but all those who live on campus are Online. The Internet is free to residents.

The circulation of the Daily Aztec is 15,000+. Every professor and every student SDSU either has a computer or access to one. Everyone on campus is either Online himself or knows someone who is. This ad, every ad we run, features the Internet address of CODOHWeb-. That’s all there is to it. You type in those eleven letters and you have before you access to the largest library of revisionist and revisionist-related materials available on the planet.

Pretty cool, eh?

Richard Widmann has pointed out that on p. 7 of SR47 I refer to “Thomas” Crowell and his opinion piece on the replica of the Majdanek door. It isn’t Thomas—it’s “Samuel” Crowell.

Thanks, Richard.

Sorry, Sam