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this website http://www.newsday.com/ap/international/ap900.htm Lawyer
Warned of Holocaust Revision by PAULINE JELINEK
Associated Press
Writer [David
Irving's reply]WASHINGTON (AP) -- A
former Nuremberg prosecutor warned the FBI
in 1969 that he feared Holocaust
revisionist author David Irving
planned to tamper with transcripts or
tapes of the Nazi war crimes trial in U.S.
archives. The British historian visited the
National Archives numerous times. The
agency's retired expert on World War II
records said Tuesday he knows of no
evidence that Irving mishandled records he
examined. A letter that the late Robert
M.W. Kempner, who prosecuted Nazi
war crimes suspects in the postwar
Nuremberg trials, wrote to then-FBI
Director J. Edgar Hoover was among
documents released by the FBI and the
National Archives and Records
Administration. Irving, who
has outraged death camp survivors and
most historians by questioning the
scope of the Holocaust, lost a British
libel suit in April. The judge branded
him "an active Holocaust denier" and
"anti-Semitic and racist." Irving's office in England said Tuesday
he was traveling in the United States and
does not return phone calls. He also did
not immediately answer an e-mail seeking
comment.[*]  In
the March 1969 letter, released in a
wide-ranging government declassification
program, Kempner
(right, in US Army
uniform, at Nuremberg trial) wrote
that Irving had told him he planned to
visit the Washington archives to research
his contention that the official record of
the Nuremberg trials was falsified.
Kempner said he was suspicious because
of that accusation and others Irving made
during a conversation they had. "I am sure if he shows up at the
National Archives (probably a Mr. Wolfe is
in charge of the division concerned)
someone will be able (to) watch in the
proper way what this 'scholar' is doing,"
Kempner wrote Hoover. "Maybe this research is only a pretext
for some other activities," he wrote. "Mr. Wolfe" is Robert Wolfe, for
decades the archives expert on World War
II records. The now-retired Wolfe told The
Associated Press on Tuesday that he does
not recall that the letter resulted in
special security for Irving visits. "They may have contacted us to alert
us, but I knew who he was anyway," said
Wolfe. "And we watch everybody." Wolfe said Irving visited the
archives many times, adding that "he's
a good researcher -- his bias is what
throws him off." He said Irving usually
was treated as other researchers were;
that is, he was given access to public
materials. "But Irving's reputation went with him
-- though I've seen worse deniers than
him," said Wolfe. "He was treated with the
same regime as others, perhaps a touch
more alertness." Irving, who has written some 30 books,
disputes that millions of Jews were
systematically slaughtered in gas chambers
at Nazi concentration camps. He argues
that it would have been logistically
impossible and claims more people died in
Allied bombing raids than in concentration
camps. He also has tried to cast doubt on
other pieces of evidence from the
Holocaust, including the diary of
Anne
Frank, and contends that Adolf
Hitler knew nothing about the plan
to eliminate the Jews until
1943. ©
Copyright 2000 The Associated
PressOn the Net:
National Archives and Record
Administration: http://www.nara.gov
AP-NY-11-14-00
1655EST
Related items on this
website:
US National Archives, Records
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation:
RG 65: Case Files (1917-1986) : File
62-76878: "Also included are
. . . , a 1965 report of a
sighting of missing Nazi leader Martin
Bormann, a 1969 reference to historian
David Irving, ... (Boxes 1-5 Location:
230/81/47/02).-
Correspondence
(1972) between Kempner and Dr Elke
Fröhlich about the missing
Schlegelberger document
-
Where
are the Robert M W Kempner
papers?
-
Professor
Irving Hexham of Calgary, Canada asks
Where are Alfred Rosenberg's
Papers?
* Mr Irving's
comment was emailed to Associated
Press at 5 p.m. EST 14.11.00 | 
write
to David Irving