No. AR9j, March 5, 1996

Traditional Enemy's Ugly Hint to Media:

"David Irving Supplied Oklahoma Detonator!"

 

TULSA--In the ugliest attempt yet to blacken the name of historian David Irving, newspapers in the USA and Britain are reporting that the defence attorney (right) for Timothy McVeigh, accused of bombing the Alfred P Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City on Apr. 19 last year [1995], has asked for subpoenas to be served on Mr Irving and two other British citizens in connection with the bombing.

The Oklahoma outrage shocked the world and cost the lives of 168 men, women, and children and injured five hundred others. It is believed that a huge ammonium-nitrate bomb stacked in a Ryder rental truck parked outside the building caused the blast. McVeigh, 27, and an associate, Terry Nichols, 40, have been indicted in the bombing and are to stand trial in Denver, Colorado, later this year.

Reached by Newsweek magazine at his Key West winter writing headquarters, Mr Irving said he was "shocked and embarrassed" at being gratuitously drawn into the tragedy.

In a three-page article published two days later, the news magazine made plain that it regards the allegations as totally unfounded and as a smoke screen devised by defence attorney Stephen Jones and unnamed third parties to distract attention from the true culprits.

The mischief-making subpoena is said to demand that Irving provide information on "his contacts with American neo-Nazis."

"I can write all that information on the back of a postage stamp," says Mr Irving, "and still have room for the envelope. There are no such contacts."

He has never been in Oklahoma, and has never had any dealings with either of the accused. His first reaction on hearing of the alleged right-wing associations of McVeigh and Nichols, was probably the same as any other person in the same position -- to check his files for any data which he could place at the disposal of the authorities.

When Nichols' wife Brigite turned up mysteriously on a list of names submitted to ACTION REPORT in November [1995], Mr Irving turned it over within minutes to the FBI attaché in the American embassy in London as being of likely interest to the authorities investigating the outrage.

The Newsweek report was duplicated and echoed in USA Today, the New York Times, and other newspapers across the nation. As anticipated, it was immediately picked up in Britain. Although the libel laws in Britain are much stricter than in the United States, London editors gleefully seized on the fact that Newsweek magazine had published a major story linking Mr Irving with the Oklahoma bombings.

The mass-circulation Sunday Times, still smarting from wounds inflicted on it by the historian in September, headlined its story OKLAHOMA TO HEAR IRVING'S EVIDENCE, but was careful to add that there was "no suggestion" that Mr Irving was "in any way involved in the bombing."

The Guardian and other newspapers followed suit.

Forced to contemplate fresh libel action against the Sunday Times, Mr Irving at once sent them a letter in which, while avoiding getting dragged down into details, he made his beliefs quite clear:

Your headline OKLAHOMA TO HEAR IRVING'S EVIDENCE, with all its innuendoes, will have lit a little candle in the hearts of the people who put Timothy McVeigh's attorney up to it. They are floating their fund-raising campaigns in the United States on the tears of a tragedy which tore at the hearts of everybody.

The newspaper refused to publish the letter. The words "lit a little candle" might have upset its bankers -- this was the famous phrase used by a senior politician when the Daily Express published a horrifying photograph of a British army sergeant being lynched by Stern Gang terrorists in Palestine in 1948: he said he "lit a little candle in his heart" each time a British soldier was killed in Palestine.

The reference to fund-raising in America was because the scandal-plagued Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles has started figuring Mr Irving as its most dangerous enemy in fund-raising appeals.

One week previously the Sunday Times had reported theories that the Oklahoma bombing was intended to avenge the execution of a leading American neo-Nazi, Richard Snell, and that key components for the bombing might have been obtained in Britain.

Twelve hours after the Oklahoma bombing, says the Sunday Times, Snell was executed in Arkansas for the murder of a black trooper and a Jewish businessman. In that article too, the newspaper dragged in Mr Irving's name.

Reckless Damage

After Mr Irving threatened further action against the Sunday newspaper, in the light of its refusal to correct the reckless damage it has inflicted on his name, they agreed to publish the letter in its edition of Feb. 25.

In the United States the First Amendment protects libellers from risk of legal action. After visiting London in mid January to investigate British far-right activists -- says the Sunday Times -- Stephen Jones, speaking on KJRH-TV in Tulsa, said that he "wants to know" if Mr Irving and two other Englishmen supplied the detonator used in the bombing.

At US taxpayer expense, Jones has hired London's most expensive law firm Kingsley Napley to pursue these leads suggesting "international connections in the bombing."

Learning this, Mr Irving at once informed the law firm: "I have not the faintest idea how I could help, but let me assure you that I shall do so freely and there is no need to issue a subpoena."

"Who is behind the story?" asks Mr Irving. His investigators have now run computer searches of every newspaper in the United States and Britain that carried the story. The Associated Press chief editor, exculpating his agency in a letter faxed to Key West, washed his hands off the story as printed in several newspapers, stating that although the by-line was AP, his agency had not supplied the extra embellishments which contained the smears.

One clue to the originators appeared in the main story published by the Sacramento daily newspaper, the Bee.

Listing the countries from which "the neo-Nazi journalist" Mr Irving is currently banned at the behest of the international Jewish community, the newspaper correctly omitted South Africa (Nelson Mandela has ordered that ban on the historian lifted, as it was imposed by the discredited outgoing apartheid regime).

So whoever fed that story to the Bee was up-to-date with the most recent developments, of which only a few people, including those whose names are on the mailing list of Mr Irving's Fighting Fund, are aware.

The Bee also described Mr Irving as a member of the British National Party, an extreme right-wing organisation: this is another favourite falsehood used by the international Jewish community. "Irving's pro-Nazi writings, speeches, involvement with the BNP and other radical right-wing groups have resulted in several investigations into his ties to suspected terrorist groups," continued the Bee.

Lies like these are protected under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, says Mr Irving.

Related items:

David Irving's Radical's Diary, February 1996
Jewish Telegraph Agency
David Irving's letter to FBI, November 1995
David Irving's warning to Institute of Jewish Affairs March 1996