Notebook

You never know when you will suffer a small epiphany. I was telling Bill Jefferson, one of my more critical volunteer advisors, about how the Georgia State Signal has been a rock over the past few years, steadfastly publishing CODOH advertisements and bearing up under criticism from the Georgia press and the Lobby again and again. Jefferson asked me what I had done for the editors in return.

For a moment I didn't know what to say.

“You didn't do anything for them. Right? You let them go out on a limb for you and you left them hanging there. Right? Did you thank them for running the ad? Did you tell them you’d back them up if they needed help? You didn't do anything, right? You know what? You make me think of Bill Clinton and that little Jewish broad. You use people, then you throw ‘em away.”

I thought that was a little harsh, but I thought about it. When I first started doing the Campus Project I discovered that editors simply did not want to talk to me. They were under tremendous pressure from the Lobby and their professors to not give the appearance of consorting, however professionally, with a revisionist. I understood very quickly that every time I approached an editor I ran the risk of compromising her. I learned that the best thing I could do for an editor, even those willing to run my ads or publish an opinion piece, was to keep my distance. If I didn't, the editor could be charged with treating a “Jew-hater” in a civilized manner.

Jefferson caused me to realize that after mining this particular vein of difficult work for eight years, the situation really is changing. There are editors and journalists at campuses across the country who are willing to communicate with me without looking over their shoulder, as if I were a normal person. I see now that it has been changing for some time. I was a little slow to catch on. The kids were ahead of me. It's not so much that they have become revisionists as that an increasing number of students are willing to accept the fact that The controversy is an historical controversy, not a religious heresy. I suppose I can say that I have played a role in this subtle turn of events.

Here I am, then, alone in my office at night with an interesting idea. Interesting ideas are good company. I have connected myself to volunteers all across America and Europe via the Internet, the fax, the telephone, even the USPO and my Mexican mail drop. Now I will make a connection among those campus editors around the States who show an interest in the Project. This is such a simple idea you may wonder why I bother to mention it. The idea, in the first instance, is not to keep these free-press journalists informed of what I'm doing, but to keep them informed of what they are doing with respect what I am doing. To put them in touch with each other!

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but that's only one example of how a dog differs from a man. Every year I get older than I was the year before, yet I'm still able to learn a new trick here, a new trick there. Three years ago I learned something about the Internet and the World Wide Web. This year I've learned something about how students are leading a cultural shift toward open debate on the Holocaust controversy. You put the two together, you bite your tongue when your volunteer advisors compare your behavior to that of your president, and you’ve turned another corner with the Campus Project.

When it was brought to my attention that an uproar had ensued following the printing of our ad in the Advance-Titan at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, I faxed the editor a list of the six other campus newspapers around the country that had run the ad during the previous ten days. I included the name of each editor and her telephone number. A simple gesture, but one I had never made before. Now the A-T editor could ring up the editors of six other papers that had run the ad and ask how they had handled the situation at their campuses. With the list I included a thank-you note for helping to promote the ideal of a free press, along with instructions on how to reach the Campus Project on the CODOH Website, where the A-T story would be placed in context with other Campus Project stories.

Then I sent the list of papers that had run the ad to the editors of the other seven papers, including that of the Advance-Titan. Now there was a little “fax-web” of campus editors, each of which had published our new ad, each of which now knew about the others and could get in touch with them for advice and—I suppose—support. In addition to introducing these editors to each other, I also informed them how best to reach the relevant pages dealing with the Campus Project on CODOHWeb. As the ad is run in each new paper I will fax the updated list of the “fifteen,” “twenty,” “thirty” papers to each of the participants. Each time there is a bit of substantial news, I will fax it to each of the papers in the “fax-web.”

By the middle of October the several dozen papers that will have gone with the ad will be connected, their editors communicating comfortably with each other about a unique experience that only they share. And so on.

Who knows where this simple idea may lead?

The first city paper to run the ad is the Marysville (CA) Appeal-Democrat. The ad ran in the Appeal-Democrat on September 16, 17 and 18. This was facilitated by Harvey Taylor, who is a regular supporter of CODOH, as well as the Institute of Historical Review. Marysville is a short drive north of Sacramento, the state capital. Taylor not only facilitated the ad, he paid for it (that’s what I call real facilitating). The best ADL and its fellow watchdogs can do with this one is not do anything. If they make a fuss, it could stir up a hornet's nest, with possible ramifications in Sacramento. On the other hand, if they don’t make a fuss…. We'll have to wait and see. I have put the editor of the Appeal-Democrat, Julia Shirley, into the “fax-web” along with those campus editors who have run the ad.

The “fax-web” may sound like it will make a lot of busy work, but that doesn't take into account our new “fax-by-email” system. I send one fax only, to my server, and he broadcasts it to my list of campus editors. And that's that. The first thing to have grown out of the new Campus Project then is the beginning of the CODOH fax-web that will tie together campus papers, city papers, and the journalists who work for both into a nationwide web where each will be kept up to date on what the others in the group are doing with respect to the Jewish holocaust controversy. Not a bad idea.

Every so often I'm asked how I can afford to offer a $250,000 reward when I don't have money to buy new tires for my car. It's suggested something's not right with the Offer. Where's the money? If my patron can afford to give a stranger $250K for getting us on network TV for 90 minutes, why can't she just give the money to CODOH so we can publish the books we have on line and get someone to help me in the office, which I badly need?

With regard to whether the money is there—it's there. The lady who backs the reward offer has worked with me for eight years. Her word has been her bond all this time. She has never faltered once. On the one hand she wants the debate to happen; on the other she doubts it will. The ADL can’t afford to go on national television and support the gas-chamber theory or the proposition that no key “eyewitnesses” ever lied about having seen gas chambers, or any of the other listed “issues” in the ad.

About the suggestion that she simply give a quarter million dollars to CODOH, she doesn't expect to have to give a quarter million to anyone. She is not rich. She has a large family to support—and hasn't adopted me. This is the way she wants to use the leverage she has established on her property—to use it without having to lose it It sounds like good thinking to me. Use the leverage to fund a campaign, and when the campaign is over you still have the leverage.

That's how the big boys use leverage. Why not us? We have given the ADL an offer it dares not accept. No one deserves it more.