Smith’s Campus Brief: Catholic University & University of Chicago
November/December 1996
Holocaust Revisionism
Why the panic? Judge for yourself.
The evidence, the theory, the censorship.
http://www.codoh.com
Or: [old mailing address]
Doc. 1: Ad submitted to Catholic University of America
Holocaust Revisionism
Why are the Thought Police panicked?
Read the evidence. Judge for yourself.
http://www.codoh.com
[old mailing address]
Doc. 2: Ad submitted to Catholic University of America
Catholic University of America
Elizabeth White, Editor of the Catholic University of America Tower, telephoned to say that the Tower will not run the advertisement I submitted. The ad reads “Holocaust Revisionism. Why are the Thought Police panicked? Read the evidence. Judge for yourself.” I give the address for CODOHWeb, and my PO Box in Visalia.
I ask Ms. White why she will not run the ad and she says because its point of view is totally false. I ask if she has been to the site and she says no. I ask if she has read anything I have written and she says yes but when I ask what she cannot recall. I ask if she can not say what is totally false, or maybe a little false, in what I have written, and she has not been to our Web site, how does she know that the information posted on CODOHWeb is totally false? She answers that she has attended staff meetings where she was told that all revisionist writings are totally false and she believes it.
I try to suggest to Ms. White that it is not proper that a university journalist trust others to tell her what is totally false, or totally true for that matter, about any man's writing when the journalist hasn't read what the writer has written. She is adamant, however. She has been told that all revisionist writings are totally false, she believes it, and is going to act on her belief. She also says she does not have to discuss this matter with me, and she does not have to give any reason whatever for rejecting an advertisement.
One sees the “true believer” syndrome in action here. Perhaps not entirely surprising at a Catholic university. If there is not a single professor on this Catholic campus who is willing to state publicly that intellectual freedom is important and that it depends entirely on open debate about controversial issues, including the controversy surrounding the gas chamber stories, why should the editor of a student newspaper take such a risk?
University of Chicago
In its May '96 issue the University of Chicago Free Press runs a column written by Orloff Potemkin titled, “Censoring Irving Would Make the Nazis Proud.” The column refers to how St. Martin's Press, under pressure from extremist Zionists, reneged on its contract to publish David Irving's Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich. Potemkin writes of Irving: “Even a fascist should be able to speak his mind in a democratic society” and that “censoring ideas we don't agree with is a start on that road [to fascism] ….”
I am not made aware of Potemkin's column until September. The principled anti-censorship free press may be willing to run an advertisement for Irving's Goebbels. I work up an ad with a lead that includes the phrase “Censored In America” and submit it for publication:
JOSEPH GOEBBELS: Mastermind of the Third Reich
by David Irving
CENSORED IN AMERICA
“David Irving knows more than anyone alive about the German side of the Second World War. He discovers archives unknown to official historians and turns their contents into densely footnoted narratives that consistently provoke controversy.”—Professor John Keegan, The Daily Telegraph
“The fact is that [Irving] knows more about National Socialism than most professional scholars in his field, and students of the years 1933-1945 owe more than they are always willing to admit to his energy as a researcher and to the scope and vigor of his publications.”—Gordon A. Craig, The New York Review of Books
“Irving has an extraordinary talent for digging up otherwise obscure Nazi sources. He does have a real knack of penetrating the 'mind' of Nazism.”—Professor Norman Stone, The New Statesman
“David Irving, is a remarkable researcher, a brilliant discoverer of documents, and a skillful writer…”—Professor Hugh Trevor Roper, The Sunday Telegraph.
“David Irving is a patient researcher of unrivaled industry and success.”—Professor A. J. P. Taylor, The Observer
“Whatever [Goebbels] merits or faults, you have been deprived of the right to judge for yourself….It seems merely to be timidity.”—Richard Cohen , New York Post
YOU CAN'T BUY GOEBBELS: Mastermind of the Third Reich at your local bookstore.
You'll be told that Goebbels is not censored in America—you just can't buy it!
BUT
You can read the introduction to Goebbels FREE on the World Wide Web,
< http://www.codoh.com >
OR: If you want to own your own copy of Goebbels, you may order it from:
[outdated address omitted]
Ad submitted to University of Chicago
Rejection letter for ad submitted to University of Chicago:
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 15:15:36 -0500 (CDT)
From: john karl wilson [[email protected]]
Sender: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: advertisement
Dear Mr. Smith:
I regret to inform you that the University of Chicago free press has decided not to accept your ad.
However, we are doing a story on the matter and I have a few questions I wanted to ask you:
- Have you attempted to place the ad for the Irving book in any other campus newspapers? Do you plan to? We would be interested in knowing about their reactions.
- Why have you waited until now to place more ads after the controversial ads you wrote in 1991-93?
- Does Irving endorse your organization?
- How did you hear about the free press, and do you have any reaction to our decision?
Please feel free to email me any responses to these questions, and any other comments on the issue that you wish to make.
Thanks,
John Wilson
The ad is refused. I'm not told why. I suspect the anti-fascism ploy. I'm anti-fascist myself. The problem the anti-fascists and I have with one another is that I'm against intolerance.
John Karl Wilson, an editor at the Free Press, wants to interview me. He sends me his questions by e-mail [see the letter to the right; ed.]. I don't have much interest in giving an interview to the person I suppose shares responsibility for suppressing the Goebbels ad and offers no explanation. I pass. When I see the articles by Wilson that appear in the November issue of the free press, I understand I did the right thing.
One article is titled “David Irving: 'Historian' for Hitler.” No surprises. Negative from start to finish, a typical WWII, anti-Fascist polemic. He calls Irving's Action Report Newsletter “vile.” The couple I've read have been real classy. Wilson has a great deal of information about Irving in the article, some of which I have not read anywhere else (and find difficult to believe). He does not credit his sources for this information, pretending that he has done this research himself, which serves at the same time to hide the political bias of those sources. He ends by suggesting that the Jewish holocaust story may record “the most important event in history.” He doesn't mention why that would be.
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