David Irving

[Photo by Michael Hentz, for The New York Times]

Letter to Francis Wheen, columnist, of
The Guardian

[He quoted extracts in his column]

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London, April 15, 1996

DEAR FRANCIS,

You 'orrible little man. If you were in Waterstone's (George Stern just sent me your Guardian diary item) why didn't you say "Hello". I'm always glad to meet the denizens of the lower reaches.

Seriously, let me pick you up on two points: (1) I have not been "obliged to publish [Goebbels. Mastermind of the Third Reich ] myself". This is a libellous statement. In 1992, following the success of our (FP) new Hitler's War edition, I wrote on my own initiative to my editor at Macmillan (UK) Ltd, who held the contract on the Goebbels biography, asking them to revert all rights to me, since I felt I could manufacture and market a better product than they could, and we reached agreement on a suitable financial basis. I still have the letters, if you don't believe it. As for the puffing and sweating, I have been suffering from a very serious pneumonia for three weeks now (as you will have seen if you read other newspapers); my doctor wanted me in hospital for three weeks, but I have better things to do. I make a Bad patient.

Yours faithfully,
David Irving

© Focal Point David Irving 1998