25
Elgin Mansions,
London W9 |
CUNningham 8426 | 16 April 1968 |
Dear Mr McLachlan,
Thank you for your letter of the 14th. I was very
sorry indeed to hear that your wife's health is giving
you cause for anxiety, and troubles in the region of the
neck should always be taken most seriously of all, I
fear. It all depends on starting a cure early enough, I
believe.
It now looks as though [your] "Room 39" will
beat "The Destruction of Convoy PQ.
17" by several weeks. It was to have been published
on 8 April, but there are now three writs outstanding
against it (none of them, I hasten to add, yet served)
and in this uncertain climate even the brave Cassell
& Co are proceeding cautiously, with my fullest
blessing.
The picture that has been gleaned for us by our
lawyers is that Mr Godfrey Winn, who was a guest
in HMS Pozarica for the convoy's duration, is proceeding
with one writ -- because of my book's slur on his
captain, Captain Lawford, and because Cassell's
described the book as the "first true account" of the
convoy, implying the Winn's book was not true; Winn
informed Cassell's directors in a personal interview that
he could never forgive Cassell's "as Churchill's
publishers, of all people" for publishing such a book,
and that while he might have allowed Sir Newman
Flower to get away with it, since Sir Newman was the
first to give Godfrey encouragement as a writer, he will
never allow Sir Desmond Flower to get away with
it. He intends "to break Cassell's and to break
Irving" for this, even if he loses and even if it
costs him his entire life's savings.
I have pointed out that breaking me is no problem, but
breaking the publishers seems quite a different one.
Oddly enough, Godfrey Winn somehow got hold of a copy of
the confidential report written by Captain Roskill
on the first version of the manuscript, for Kimber's;
Captain Roskill, to whom I wrote, says that he did not
let Winn have it and he will ask him not to use it. (It
does not refer to the book Cassell's are publishing).
Winn then approached his captain, and persuaded
Captain Lawford to issue a writ as well (although all the
material I have used comes securely from either officers'
diaries, or the British and American records). I am sorry
about that, since Lawford is not mentioned by name, and I
understand that he is not in good health; some reproach
is due to Godfrey Winn for dragging Lawford into this.
Then, to complete the trio, Captain Broome is also
in action, guns blazing, and quite ignoring the fact that
he wrote to me at the beginning of this year that the new
version (i.e. the one Cassell's also sent to you) is a
vast improvement on the old, and making no further
comment.
As for the Sunday Express item on Lord Justice
Winn, I agree: the telephone conversation in which he
was so rude to me, and after which I took the only
counteraction open to me, was in April 1963! How's that
for hot news! I have also written to the Express bitterly
complaining to the journalist concerned that whereas I
specifically stated to him that I had "reconstructed" the
entire conversation down to the last Um and Ah, he stated
in his story that "I tape recorded the conversation". As
I told him, he has now properly put the cat among the
pigeons.
Captain
J E Broome, DSO, RN, the
escort commander in this 1942 North Russian convoy
disaster, sued David Irving in libel after the
publication by Cassell and Co. Ltd. of this book in
October 1968. The case came to trial in February
1970; after seventeen days the Jury awarded Broome
what was then one of the largest sums of damages,
including punitive damages, in history.
RIGHT:
Hitler's War was first published 1977
write
to David Irving