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No.14, July 20, 1998

RadiDi

FOR THIRTY-FIVE years author David Irving has kept a private diary. It has proven useful in countless actions. For the information of his many supporters he publishes an edited text in his irregular newsletter ACTION REPORT.

THE CURRENT TEXT IS POSTED HERE IN THREE PARTS FOR EASE OF DOWNLOADING.

 PART 1

  

lEAVING MIAMI at eight a.m., I drive down in stages to Key West, stopping at computer store in Coral Gables, Office Max, etc. At three p.m. I phone Pittsburgh -- James Rosenberg (ExpoMart's attorney), then Judge Friedman's office, then the prothonotary's office, then Friedman's office again, then Rosenberg again. He reluctantly says he'd take the Consent Order round this afternoon (but I don't think he will).

Awake during the night pondering the Pittsburgh bond problem; I suspect Rosenberg is in league with G., trying to drag out the settlement as long as possible until G. can lodge his phoney claim on it. I might have to drive up there just to see what I can do. Horrible thought. This letter will go to Judge Friedman in Pittsburgh, if Rosenberg has not acted by this evening.

I regret that I again have to occupy your attention with the release of the [$10,000 cash] bond posted on your Order on September 27 last year….

I wrote you on November 9 that attorney James Rosenberg of Marcus & Shapira counsel, for the Defendants, had just informed me that he had assembled all the releases necessary to end the above-captioned action, and had placed before you the appropriate Motion. It appears that this information was incorrect inasmuch as he had not placed the Motion before you.

I spoke with Mr. Rosenberg on Wednesday this week (November 19) and he informed me that he could not place the Motion before you as you were out of town. This information was again incorrect, as I spoke with your office a few minutes later at three p.m. and your staff, after discussion with Your Honour, informed me that you would make an Order as soon as Mr. Rosenberg brought the Motion in to you, which could be that same afternoon. I notified Mr. Rosenberg of this by telephone and fax; he agreed to act, but has again done nothing to expedite this matter.

It seems to me that since I signed the Release, many months ago, on the explicit understand-ing, stated in writing to me by Mr. Rosenberg, that he would at once make the said Motion ending the action, it behoves him as an officer of the Court (a) to keep his word; and (b) not to lie to me about the absence of Your Honour, for whatever motives.

This does the trick. At 5:30 Rosenberg's office faxes through a sheaf of documents which appear to indicate that he has now obtained the judge's signature. Now: the last lap, to get that bond back. Is it by chance that the fax comes after close of business for the week? Or have I just a suspicious nature?

Cycle over to the Rusty Anchor at 7, in pitch darkness; fish-and-chips there.

FedEx deliver the US version of System 8.0 for my Macintosh; to my rage, after spending two or three hours installing it, Quark XPress still won't run. So there. Then Microsoft Word turns out to be screwed up by the reloading, which keeps me busy until midnight looking for lost extensions.

Read Sunday papers at The Reach. Load OS.8 yet again, this time wiping out every trace of the old British OS.8; this time Quark XPress fires up without a murmur, so that was the problem. But yesterday and today I have done no constructive work at all -- just busy with software problems.

I phone the prothonotary's bookkeeping office in Pittsburgh; leave a message to call me, about getting the $10,000 bond back.

Supper at Rusty Anchor. Howling headwind on the way out, and I bowl back afterwards at about 50 mph! (Crash my bike into a tree on the darkened boulevard on the way out).

 

 

aBAD DREAM during the night. At 10 a.m. I phone the prothonotary's bookkeeping office; she phones back, discusses details of how to get the cheque she's "cutting" today over to me. I shall not believe it until I see it.

1:15 p.m. my German lawyer Dr Schütz phones from Duke Street, has the German court served any document on me? Nothing. Discussion of what this all means.

Hope to resume work on CHURCHILL'S WAR, vol. ii editing in the evening, finally; but the flesh gives out and I watch television instead.

Breakfast at Harpoon Harry's. Resumed work on CHURCHILL'S WAR, vol. ii, at last.

Bradley Smith (CODOH) returns my call. Reveals to me that D. is identical to "Richard Widmann", and that B. is "Samuel Crowell." I lament this tendency among revisionists to hide behind noms de plume. They should have the courage to put their name and face where their mouth is, I say.

Smith says, "But these are people who have careers."

"So had I," I point out.

This fax to Benté in London, so there's no misunderstanding:

A reminder: do not on any account sign for any registered etc. package that comes from an unidentified source, Scotland Yard, the German embassy, etc.

All day editing Churchill's War, vol. ii, another chapter done. A chapter a day. I print out on paper, edit in red ink, then transfer the corrections back to the disc. It is ten or even twenty years since I first drafted some of these chapters. They need attention. Simultaneously the printer churns out the addressed envelopes for the mail out of AR.13 which I expect back on Monday or Tuesday. Canada Post is on strike, which may cause problems.

The final mail-out tally is: Inner Circle donors, 92 Canadian, 417 US, and 130 from the rest of the world (not including the UK); other recipients, 202 from the main address lisst, then 44, 427, and 564 respectively (again not including the UK).

Up at eight a.m. This fax to Benté (reflecting what I have been brooding on for several hours during the night) (with her subsequent scribble replies): --

Has there been a reply yet to my letter to Ian Chapman, managing director of Macmillan Ltd., protesting about their order to destroy all remaining copies of my books? This is important. [She doesn't think so but it may be in mail she posted to me.]

sAM IS HERE and invites me to dinner alone at Bagatelle. Pleasant evening, much gossip about nefarious matters. We walk back in a steadily increasing downpour, which drenches me to the skin.

I send this fax to Fredrick Toben:

I have been in the United States for three weeks so I have not heard from you or from [Immigration Minister] Ruddock on my application for a visa to attend your hearing.

Good morning's work on CHURCHILL'S WAR, vol. ii. Continue editing work at The Reach, at a table next to a girl whose breasts would certainly have gone Bang if she left them in the microwave.

Toben has not replied, but there is a fax from Benté:

A gentleman from New Scotland Yard telephoned here this morning to inform you that the German government has asked them to serve some papers on you for the court case on December 11, 1997. I told him, that as far as I was aware, you wouldn't be returning to London before December 15.

Ho-ho, so the German government did it after all. But Benté acted quite rightly, and I (a) fax the above message to lawyer Schütz in Mainz, and (b) fax to Benté congratulating her. In the mail yesterday was a letter from the German Federal Archives in Freiburg, asking for help on their project locating records about Jews in Hitler's army. What chutzpah.

Cycle to Higgs Beach; my knees now hurt when cycling. Getting old.

6:30 P.M. fax from Australian immigration minister Ruddock, refusing me entry for the nth time, as I am of bad character (I had applied to go as a witness for the Fredrick Toben hearing). Quoi de neuf.

6:44 P.M. Toben phones from Adelaide, Australia. I authorise him to release everything including my proposed witness statement.

Disgusting wieners for supper.

A (less than diplomatic) press release by Toben, and a phone message from Ed Wall in Australia: "David, I've got some interesting news for you, will you give me a call urgently." But his number has changed: it must have a prefix he has forgotten to tell me of.

 

fAX TO BENTE in London:

Pouring with rain all night and day today, still doing so, but warm. Trapped indoors. Spent yesterday evening and this morning stuffing all the ACTION REPORTs, but can't bike to Post Office with them yet.

Ed Wall phoned during the night -- what else is new -- a message that "something interesting" has happened, and wants me to call. But the code for Perth (West Australia) has changed, there's a new prefix. Please get this from International Inquiries.

According to the television, four inches of rain fell on us today. After waiting in vain all day for the rain to abate, I put on minimal clothing and pedal through the downpour to the bank just before it closes. I empty the bank account here to pay postage for the ACTION REPORT: $350 is all I can draw. Coffee while I shelter from the downpour, at the Croissant Shop, then on to the post office, to buy hundreds of stamps. I find only one sodden $50 bill in my pocket. I am frantic. I phone the bank. Did they give me only $50, by mistake?

Later, the bank phones back. Cashing up, they have found no discrepancies today. The money is lost.

Next morning, at the Croissant Shop, I ask if anybody handed in any money. They say, how much, and I say: three hundred dollars. Yes, an English lady found the sodden bundle of $50 bills on the floor and handed it in, with her phone number.

She lives in Frances Street. It turns out to be the orientalia-crammed house which I inspected for a brief rental in 1995 but turned down because of the little swimming pool in the sitting room; that would have been the death of Jessica. She hands over the six $50 bills and refuses to accept any reward. I give her a copy of CHURCHILL'S WAR, vol. I.

I had mentally written off the money, imagining I had enriched some worthless teenage tourist, who had already passed it off in the bars of Duval Street. But the finder was English, and she handed it in. To the English, this whole scenario seems perfectly normal. Before I preen myself too much I remember however that Key West's new English-born mayor Mullins has announced she will set up a "tent city" to house, nay attract, homeless winter bums who descend on the island each winter. This act of charity does not delight the island's hardworking home-owners.

Long phone call back from Mark Weber, after I called him. He sounds very prickly on the Willis Carto affair. I try to teach value of conciliation. As for the March 27 meeting, I say why not invite John Sack. He says he's holding him for a big meeting. The IHR should survive that long!

Mail out rest of ACTION REPORT in two tranches.

During the morning, a message on phone: Jessica's voice. Later she phones again (twice) and I am in, a rambling talk ensues involving the use of the word "Barbie" once or twice. Jessica's holding a party for her little friends tomorrow, if I got the story right.

Editing CHURCHILL'S WAR, vol. ii most of the day. Good progress.

Up at seven a.m. To post office and post all mail, including a 52 lbs box of FP leaflets to IHR.

Fortunately the Pittsburgh cheque came; paid it in. Account otherwise empty. Paid all bills and left Key West at one for Miami airport. Usual hassle with overweight trunks.

6:55 p.m. British airways flight Miami to London.

 

sPEND MUCH of the night reading Barbara C.'s manuscript on her father, the Auschwitz commandant Arthur Liebehenschel. Plane lands around eight a.m. Struggle through Customs and airport with the 300 lbs of baggage; get to wrong bus terminal, appalling signposting, so stop a passing cab (illegal) and take it through jams to West End. £42 fare. At Duke Street around 10 a.m. I stay on my feet for a couple of hours dealing with things, then flop into bed until three p.m.

Supper at Spaghetti House. Jessica is in tears because nobody wanted to look at the two Barbie dolls she was carrying. It's tough being four.

Lawyer Schütz phones: confirms that the German action has stalled for many months. He has looked at the court file. Bonn admits the crime is of a political Delikt nature, and the British will therefore possibly refuse to cooperate. As Schütz points out, this is probably what lay behind the BND letter we have. The case went to the Bundesjustizministerium to decide whether there were Bedenken "politischer Art" against proceeding against me; the German embassy was consulted, then the Home Office where one Simon Watkin agreed they would serve the papers on me. I ask Schütz to obtain copies of all these documents for me -- all of use to decorate the coffin lid, as FM von Richthofen said of each new medal he was awarded.

Very soggy all day from jet lag. Slept about five hours on the sofa, etc. , gradually got up and running again. Jessica is very affectionate. Jumps around all over me; we spent much of the evening playing with the 101 Dalmatians CD-Rom.

In the evening after Lovell White Durrant phone that they're coming tomorrow 10 a.m. to commence inspecting my Discovery, I find huge gaps left by Benté and Alexis. About 100 items missing; I have to search for them -- usually they are clipped to other pages and thus misfiled in the rest of the Discovery. Work much of the night on this.

3.50 a.m. phone Ed Wall (whose dialling code in Perth has changed); he says that

  • he approached ten or twelve more lawyers in Victoria, all finally refused to touch the libel action against Howard; but
  • reading the newspaper accounts of what Howard said, it's plain we could get another judicial review, particularly since I have just again been refused entry to Australia. I authorise him to approach our barrister Peter Bates at once. That would be a solution.

Bed at four a.m., after working six hours solidly concluding the preparation of the Observer Discovery files for tomorrow (today). I intend to sleep until 10 a.m. but am wakened several times during the morning by phone calls: --

At 9:30 a.m. Lovell White lawyers phone to ask if they can come tomorrow instead.

Then two phone calls from Biddles printers: the date of delivery is now December 23. I mildly (wearily) point out that they have by their delay thus lost us the entire Christmas market, as the original delivery date was December 9 (bad enough).

N H phones, wants to invest in FP. Big Christmas box presumably of cakes (Lebkuchen), from Ruth Tz.

2:12 p.m. Biddle printers phone, offering now December 18. A Thursday. I point out this is little improvement. They have lost us our entire pre-Christmas sales.

 

aNOTHER horrible jet-lagged night. Awake at 1:20 a.m., potter around opening mail, back to bed, awake until seven a.m. Sleep heavily then, and awakened by Jessica jumping up and down on me for half an hour insisting that I get up and bath her.

1:02 a.m. I phone Ed Wall. He says the Government changed the law striking out the grounds of "natural justice." I say the courts don't like that sort of thing, the law is above us all, including governments. Peter Bates is looking up the case law at this moment. We have until the 28th to file the case, by affidavit etc as usual. I say that if Bates will submit an Opinion that we have a reasonable chance of winning, that should suffice with my fund raising circles.

Up at 8:30 a.m. Snowing. Today's The Times reports Alan Clark's testimony yesterday in the High Court in his "passing off" action against The Evening Standard. He is questioned about me.

Then an elderly Norwegian couple show up, unannounced, having thought this would be a bookstore, and delighted to find me in person at the address; stayed for an hour gossiping.

Lovell White write asking for hundreds of documents, photocopies of my entire Discovery, and setting impossible (but perfectly legal) deadlines.

Up at midnight and work for four hours, searching for the items Lovell White demand to see. Better luck than expected, but it will be a long job.

Back to sleep, feeling unwell, around 4:10 a.m.; up at 8:30, and back to bed until 10:30 a.m. Meanwhile Biddles had phoned, no delivery of books today, coming tomorrow.

The Times clipping, dated December 17, comes: a report of Alan Clark's sworn testimony to the High Court the day before.

"He agreed that he had seen some merit in a controversial account of the Second World War by David Irving, the extreme right-wing writer, but denied going to a book-launch party at his house."

The latter words are missing from a different clipping of the same newspaper, so their lawyer may have ordered them excised. Or they may have been added. Either way, a rather odd statement, but Alan may have been misreported.

A German whose name I did not catch visits unannounced around two p.m., stayed an hour talking, and generally wrecked my afternoon's work intentions.

At four p.m. a Fiona of Blakeway Productions calls for an hour's talk about sources on Ribbentrop, a film they're making for a BBC2 television series.

Breakfast at Ponti's with Jessica. Jessica proudly shows everybody her new black party shoes.

aT THREE p.m. finally the load of books arrives -- half the consignment only. I unload it into the apartment, then Jessica and I take two boxes of them to Foyle's bookshop, who seize them all greedily as a man thirsting for water in a desert.

In the evening I carry one of the pallets of books, a ton of paper, upstairs. Accordingly I sleep well afterwards.

In the morning I take sample books to Harrods with Jessica by bus -- Mr. Blackman wrings his hands, and says, "After Christmas" -- and then on to Hatchards, who ask for twenty at once.

Benté and Alexis working all day on invoicing and parcelling books. Sleep soundly for an hour on the sofa.

Then until one a.m. on CHURCHILL'S WAR, vol. ii. Toning down a few of my hypotheses on Pearl Harbor. To make them fit the evidence.

Alexis comes at 10 a.m. and works packaging books, and then five hours transcribing Sereny handwriting notes. Don Bustion phones, a new book on Speer mentions me a lot.

9:15 to 10:30 p.m. two long conversations with lawyer A., about ... and a possible action against Macmillan Ltd. He says if the Macmillan contract was with e.g. Hodder's rather than with me, it is much harder to make a claim: they have no statutory duty to protect the interests of a third party. A fiduciary duty to protect my interests is more difficult to claim against than, say, loss of earnings from the sale by me at 95% profit of the 3,000 copies of HITLER'S WAR which they destroyed. He says I must make all copies Lovell's ask for, their demand for everything is not unusual, indeed it is evidence they are frantically trawling for anything that might help them.

I work four hours until three a.m. transcribing Sereny's notes.

Up at 9:15 a.m. our artist Mark George phones; I say that I sent him a cheque two days ago.

Phone bookbinders; they expect to deliver tomorrow. That makes it pointless to rent the van today. A shambles, in short.

Carry remaining pallet of books upstairs in the afternoon.

11 p.m. draft a three page letter to Jack Straw, advising him not to let his Home Office serve the German government's documents on me.

Registered letter from Macmillan Ltd. They deny everything, but seem puzzled that their internal documents have got into the hands of third parties. I write this letter:

Thank you for your very full letter of December 22, which shows that you are taking this matter as seriously as I do. I do not accept your arguments, and you probably do not expect me to.

I am taking High Court action against two sets of defendants, as you may know (Penguin Books & Deborah Lipstadt; and The Observer & Gitta Sereny). In the course of these actions, which have both reached the stage of Discovery, and elsewhere, certain papers have come to light. In particular the lawyers acting for The Observer & Sereny have obtained copies of substantial numbers of original private letters passing between yourselves and myself, and of internal Macmillan memoranda.

Today's newspapers report the death at 86 of Professor R V Jones, chief of scientific Intelligence at M.I.6 during the war. Another old friend thus shuffles off this mortal coil -- in fact I assumed he had died a couple of years back, as he was very ailing when I last bumped into him. Mare's NestHe had dinner with us several times in Paddington after 1963, when I was writing THE MARE'S NEST, and came to Duke Street too. After I stumbled across the Ultra secret, and began asking him awkward questions, his anguish became quite evident, as to have talked about it was almost a hanging offence in those days.

I had asked him how he got the data to do his calculation of V-2 rocket (A4 Gerät) production figures from -- the pilot series rockets' serial numbers began, I recall, with No. 17,000. He gave me the standard answer, that British agents had captured copies of the railroad shipping papers relating to the test-rocket fragments being shipped back from Blizna (Heidelager), the proving ground in Poland, to Peenemünde. But the Peenemünde Abwehr-officer files which I had seen laid down that as a security measure, there were to be no railroad shipping papers accompanying the fragments whatever.

Jones turned a delicious pink when I confronted him with this inconsistency, and went even redder when I said that my own naive deduction was that we were deciphering the radio signals between Blizna and Peenemünde, and extracting the serial numbers from the intercepts. Bingo. But he never admitted it (at the time).

When my manuscript was ready in 1964, I had to submit it to the Cabinet office for clearance because of certain other papers I had used. The opening chapter, titled Enigma, revealed The Ultra Secret in all its extraordinary detail, including the use of electro-mechanical computers to break the codes. The authorities threw a fit, and my home and my publisher's office were simultaneously raided by gentlemen in belted raincoats who seized the incriminating paperwork. I was summoned before the Cabinet Office, and given a stern lecture by one Geoffrey Evans (who turned out to be chief security officer at GCHQ) on my duties as an English gentleman. Jones told me, twenty years later, that Whitehall was trembling, because I was one of the very people who had come across the truth who had never signed the Official Secrets Act. I kept mum, and The Ultra Secret remained that way until Wing Commander F W Winterbotham published his book of that title in 1974.

I did not go empty-handed, however. A year or two later, the Cabinet Office called me out of the blue -- they had learned that I was writing about Rommel, and had something to show me. In that now familiar suite of offices, I was shown a bulky package on the polished mahogany table, and invited to look inside. It was Rommel's entire German Army personnel file, in the original, from the very first letters written by his father to the Württemberg artillery, asking if they had a vacancy for his young son, to the final letters written by the field-marshal after the Bomb Plot on Hitler's life in 1944. British forces had seized the file from under the noses of their allies in the American Zone of Germany in 1945, and our government had quietly hung on to it ever since. I was being given the first privileged look into it.

I wondered why. Professor R V Jones disclosed to me, a year or two ago, that this was the government's way of saying thank you to me, for keeping my mouth shut.

These documents are, under the rules of the Supreme Court, still privileged until they introduced into court, at which time they come into the public domain. That being so, I would prefer to discuss my complaint personally, and I would suggest a meeting with yourself or your legal representative as soon as possible after your return on January 6, to which I will bring the papers to which I am referring. This will enable you to prosecute your own inquiries. Notwithstanding what you say about Macmillan's policy, prima facie it would appear that Roland Phillips or your predecessor Ms Rubinstein turned over copies from your firm's files to outsiders, with the intended consequence of damaging me; but I may be doing them a grave injustice by even suggesting this possibility.

Take Jessica out to buy Christmas presents for her mama.

Fax message to Ed Wall in Australia reminding him that our 28 days are rapidly expiring; hope he doesn't let me down again.

 

cHRISTMAS DAY: Wakened repeatedly by Jessica during the morning, eagerly asking if she can open the presents. Like old times! It must be burned into their microchip. Work most of the evening on Discovery, until 3:30 a.m. (around seven hours looking for the additional documents).

Don Bustion phones; a book on the Chinese atomic bomb has favourable references to my works. I ask for photocopies.

Jessica1Supper at Spaghetti House. Jessica calls out loudly to her mother, "Mummy, when are you going to get married." A real head-turner of a question.

12 midday second van-load of GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH, rest of the second print comes from Kings Lynn. Unload it with two drivers in record time.

Fax from Ed Wall in Australia: Peter Bates says nothing doing after all, on judicial appeal against ban.

Drive to Dartford at 9:30 a.m., Book Shippers Associates; their forklift driver was there, alone on duty for just one hour, when I get there. Loaded two pallets for Los Angeles and Illinois. Then drive to Brentwood, left books for South Africa. Then to Norwich, arrive three p.m., left books at the big UK distributors. Then to Sudbury, ditto. Drive back to London, arrive at Duke Street around 6:15 p.m. Sleep like a log on the sofa, worn out, for hour and a half.

New Year's Eve. Rise at 7:50 a.m.; set off in van with Jessica as "driver's mate" at 9:30 a.m. Call at Hatchard's, Foyle's, Blackwells, and Waterstones; deliver books to Dillons warehouse.

Get rid of van at 4:30 p.m.; Jessica exceptionally well behaved all day, religiously buckles herself in with the seat belt each time we start (but gets lost in Selfridges book department, after burying herself in Children's Books. She loves reading).

I sleep exhausted on sofa for an hour to 6:30 p.m., interrupted by a phone caller from Australia, somebody wanting information on Leon Degrelle. Supper at a restaurant with new FP author Mark Deavin who comes with girlfriend Ulrike, a pleasant Franconian girl of 27. When Jessica and Benté go downstairs for a few minutes with Ulrike, I remark: "Floods of tears, on and off all day, but that's the age when they behave like that." Punch-line: "And Jessica's a bit of a handful too."

Durrant's sends me a clipping: The Sunday Times humorously names me as Father of the Year, for having said to Jessica: No, you can't be photographed with your Teddy Bear, Teddy doesn't pay the school fees. Can't remember having said it -- it would have been to the photographer David Gamble anyway, not to Marianne Macdonald the journalist. But let's not spoil their fun; it's harmless enough.

This offer to Mishcon's:

I am as tired of this whole business as no doubt you and your clients the Board of Deputies of British Jews are. They will appreciate that by circulating that libellous document to the Canadians and others they inflicted very serious financial damage on me world-wide. The consequences for me were, as the judge remarked, incalculable. Your clients escaped the consequences only on a technicality, namely that I was out of time, and I have spent the last months amassing fresh data relative to their actions.

2. I am prepared in the interests of community relations to undertake to commence take no further litigation against your clients in relation to the libels that they published in that document (notwithstanding that they dispute that there were any libels.) The agreement could be drawn up in proper form between us.

3. The quid pro quo is that they should now drop their pursuit of their costs.

I don't think they'll go along with that.

 

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