Oklahoma City Bomb: and the Cruellest Smear

IN THE most cynical smear to be perpetrated against writer David Irving so far, early in 1996 international Jewish organisations decided to link him with what was possibly the worst crime inflicted on the American people this century -- the truck-bombing of the Alfred P Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 in which 169 people including nineteen infants died.

In 1997 Timothy McVeigh, 28, and Terry Nichols, 41, went on trial in Denver for this crime. McVeigh was sentenced to death, Michols to life imprisonment.

See too David Irving letters to Daily Telegraph journalist Nick Farrell, London, February 16, 1996 and to the FBI attache at the US embassy, London, November 11, 1995.

Jewish Agencies generate Lying Allegations that David Irving "supplied trigger for the Oklahoma City bombing"

[Adapted from Action Report]

Murrah building on fire February 10, 1996 Basing its story on an Associated Press report, Sacramento's main newspaper The Bee reports in a story which would have been actionable if published in Britain that McVeigh's defence attorney Steven Jones has asked for subpoenas to be served on Mr Irving. The story wrongly identifies the writer as a "neo Nazi journalist" and member of the extreme right-wing British National Party (BNP). Jones has told KJRH--TV in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that he wants to know if three British nationals identified as Irving, John Tyndall -- leader of the BNP -- and Charles Sergeant supplied American right-winger Dennis Mahon with a detonator "possibly used in the bombing." The report continues, "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." It comments, "Although Irving is free to travel in and out of the U.S., he is not allowed to enter Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Canada."

Mr Irving is working at his base in Key West, Florida, when a phone call from Paul O'Donnell of the New York office of international news magazine Newsweek breaks news of this revolting twist in the campaign to him. McVeigh's lawyers, says O'Donnell, have asked for the author to be subpoenaed to answer questions about his links with "American neo-Nazis", identified as Mahon and young attorney Kirk Lyons.

Lawyer Steven Jones Professing himself shocked and embarrassed, Mr Irving says he has never even heard of Mahon; as for his attitude to the bombing, he reveals that when he spotted Terry Nichols' sister on a list furnished to him some months earlier he had at once notified the FBI in London. David Irving writes in his diary:

Looks to me like a major Dirty Trick against me is building. British newspapers, I predict, will report briefly: "Newsweek magazine this weeks links the name of David Irving with Oklahama City bomber Timothy McVeigh. . ."; in which case, John Lewis & Rubber Improvement Ltd v. Daily Telegraph, 1963, provides suitable legal precedent, I think.

The resulting Newsweek story is grim but responsibly written. After mentioning that lawyer Steven Jones is indeed applying to have Mr Irving sub-poenaed, the magazine concludes that the law firm is merely putting up a smokescreen. Inevitably, other major newspapers including USA Today and The New York Times carry the same story, as do newspapers in Britain and around the world. It seems that the traditional enemies of Real History are pulling out all the stops to smear the Englishman.

[Above: McVeigh defence attorney Steven Jones

Mr Irving informs the London law firm acting for Steven Jones:

"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 sub poena."

February 11, 1996 In London The Sunday Times publishes the story under a headline dictated as much by caution as by their legal department: "OKLAHOMA TO HEAR IRVING'S EVIDENCE." The newspaper has good reason to avoid libelling the writer now.

The subpoenas, which were filed on Friday, require Irving, John Tyndall, leader of the extreme right-wing British National party, and Charles Sergeant, a member of the skinhead neo-Nazi organisation Combat 18, to describe conversations and meetings they may have had with two leading American extremists.

The latter are not identified in the report. There are squeals of glee from the traditional enemies of the truth. Mr Irving demands that The Sunday Times publish a reader's letter:

Your headline . . . with all its innuendos, 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 at first refuses to print even this brief denial. Mr Irving writes threatening libel action, concluding: "It may well be that your newspaper is seeking some way of completing the task it attempted in attributing to me Adolf Hitler's remarks on the Final Solution. By gratuitously attempting to link me in a headline with Oklahoma City you are skating on very thin ice indeed."

The newspaper prints his letter unamended on February 25.

February 16, 1996 Belatedly, Mr Irving receives the clipping of the Sacramento Bee story accusing him of "possibly" supplying the detonator. "What a smear, what tripe," notes Irving, and sends to Associated Press, to whom the story is credited, this immediate fax:

So far as it concerns my person [the AP story] is actionable, and if . . . circulated within the jurisdiction of the English courts I shall have no hesitation whatever in taking libel action.
1. I complain about the phrase "neo-Nazi journalist David Irving". You are aware that I am a well-known historian, and that my thirty books are published by the world's leading publishers including Macmillan, The Viking Press, Ullstein, Mondadori, etc.
2. I complain that you report that attorney Steven Jones told a Tulsa TV station he wants to know if "the three British nationals" -- of whom I am identified as one -- "supplied Mahon with a detonator possibly used in the bombing" of the Oklahoma building. I have never met or heard of Mahon. The rest of the statement is totally untrue, and is of course not protected by any kind of privilege.
3. I complain about the words: "Irving's pro-Nazi writings, speeches and involvement with the BNP and other radical right-wing groups have resulted in several investigations into his ties to suspected terrorist groups." This is totally untrue. I have no ties whatever to the BNP or any of the other groups your story lists. As for the temporary bans on my entry to the countries concerned, they were procured as the result of a defamatory 50 pp report on me authored by a certain British Jewish body whose lawyers have now, under legal pressure, agreed to take steps -- in agreement with me -- to withdraw that report and all the libellous implications it conveys.[*]
Please be so good as to confirm by fax to me in Florida that you have received this message and are investigating. Please also confirm that no part of the above story went out to newspapers within the jurisdiction of the English courts; on the other hand, if a similar or related story did emanate from AP, please be so good as to fax copies to me. I am sure that your lawyers will have recognized the gravity of the defamations it contains in its present form, and would not have circulated it without first contacting me.

An hour later he receives a fax from William E Ahearn, chief editor of Associated Press in New York: they are in the clear -- most of their wire bulletin was unexceptionable; the Sacramento Bee story evidently picked up the lies locally. Its editor Peter Schrag, a Holocaust survivor, will have seen as little reason to double-check as will his Washington Bureau chief Leo Rennert.

"I am impressed by AP's speed and courtesy in replying," notes Mr Irving privately.

From what poisoned spring did this venomous story first spew forth? He asks colleagues to check computer sources for all other news reports linking him to the bombing. "Let's see if a pattern emerges so we can trace who started the smear."

It has all the hallmarks of the Board of Deputies and the New York based Anti-Defamation League. Cui bono? Who else would benefit? As if he doesn't know.

There is a clue in one Californian Jewish newspaper, which it turns out has published a bold story (headline: "DID NEO-NAZIS HAVE A ROLE IN OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING?") by Deborah Leipziger of the Jewish Telegraph Agency embellished with pictures of Mr Irving and McVeigh.

The Jewish Telegraph Agency suggests The Times of London has stated that British and German neo-Nazis are believed to have played a role in the bombing to avenge the execution of Richard Snell, an American neo-Nazi put to death on the very day of the bombing for murdering a Jewish businessman. (In fact The London Sunday Times, has reported on February 4 only that the FBI is investigating "allegations that European neo-Nazis were involved in a conspiracy with McVeigh" to bomb the building.) Also quoted by this agency as a primary source is Anthony Lerman of the London-based Institute of Jewish Affairs.

[The Jewish Bulletin of Northern California prints this lying article on March 8, 1996, and it is still on their Website to this day (1998)].

[*Although this was true at the time when written, the body referred to subsequently abandoned
the negotiations to withdraw the libellous report, having waited for the statue of limitations to run out first.]

Sickened by these fresh lies, Mr Irving fires off this warning letter to Lerman, also identified by the agency despatch as an official of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research:

The statements made in the enclosed article are defamatory and untrue, in so far as they refer to me, and this letter gives due warning that any repetition of them within the jurisdiction of the British courts will be met with an immediate suit by me.
In particular: I have not been subpoenaed to provide information on any link to the Oklahoma tragedy, nor does the defence attorney for the accused McVeigh have any intention of doing so.

Febuary 22, 1996 Mr Irving informs McVeigh's London lawyers that he is willing to depose to these facts:--

I am not and never have been a member of the British National Party (BNP) or any other political organisation; nor do I have any links with it whatever. Their bookshop is one of 980 who are customers for my books, and that is all.
I have never met or had any dealings directly or indirectly with Mr Jones' client McVeigh.
I have never heard of, met, or had any dealings whatever with the man known as Dennis Mahon.

That is the last Mr Irving ever hears of it. No subpoena is ever issued against him. Months later, on October 7, 1996, he will receive a guilty, fawning letter from McVeigh's lawyer Steven Jones.

"I must admit that I was not aware that you are the author of three books that I very much admire. I was in London recently and was at Foyles [booksellers] and found a copy of the book UPRISING, and noticed that you are also the same author of ACCIDENT -- THE DEATH OF GENERAL SIKORSKI, and TRAIL OF THE FOX, the life of Field Marshal Rommel."

Jones admits that he already has both the latter books: "I very much admire the scholarship reflected," he adds. Making belated amends, he invites the writer to lunch the next time he's in London -- "no doubt at US taxpayer expense," observes the writer in his diary.