DAVID IRVING 27 January 1970
Note for Counsel on Daily
Mail article,
May 1959.
1. This article contains an impressive number of minor
and major errors. At the time I did not bother with them,
as a "builder's labourer" puts up with more insults than
here, without squirming. Indeed, I welcomed having a
powerful newspaper apparently on my side in a bitter
College dispute.
2. I was 21, not 24 (born in 1938); I earned about
£8, not £15 per week.
3. The magazine was not a "propaganda plea for
Fascism", it was a typical student satire magazine,
rather cleaner than most, with cunning articles like
"Christopher Robin -- the Facts," and others.
4. There was no "bitter attack on America". There was
no cartoon deriding Negroes in the University, rather
there was a cartoon underlining the double-standards of
the whites in their attitude towards the Commonwealth
immigrants.
5. The words attributed to Richard Garnett ("He
is not a student" etc.) are impossible. Garnett had full
reason to know that I was a registered, fee-paying
physics student, attending lectures for vital
examinations in June 1959.
6. "I told Irving he was sacked" is wrong. When the
University intimated that my decision on the magazine's
content was not final, I tendered my resignation.
7. I belonged to the Young Conservatives at Imperial
College, I have never called myself a "mild Fascist" (or
mild anything else for that matter).
8. I returned from Madrid direct through France, at
the end of January 1959. I have only visited
Berchtesgaden once in my life, and like any other tourist
I visited the Berghof bunker ruins. If Berchtesgaden is
my shrine, I must be a poor pilgrim.
9. "I edited..." This paragraph is a reasonable
summary of my statements to the reporter.
10. "Extracts. . . etc." These are clearly extracted
from the magazine's satirical articles, which the
journalist has taken seriously.
11. Should any great debate on the magazine start in
the Court proceedings ("Broome Case") it will be easiest
if the magazine itself is produced in Court.
David Irving.
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.
write
to David Irving