David Irving’s Action Report On-line (11 October 1999)

B C Report British Columbvia, Canada, October 11, 1999 “Is Warren Kinsella a person or a computer virus?” -Kevin Michael Grace, B C Report, October 11, 1999 Letters Kinsella v. Grace by Kevin Michael Grace Warren Kinsella writes: Re: Eclectica [Sept. 13]. I doubt very much that this will ever make it into print. In my experience, your fondness for “free speech” extends only to speech by those your publication’s deep thinkers approve of — groups opposed to immigration, aboriginals and so on.

It does not extend to people like me. That said, I will raise my voice anyway and offer a few comments about Kevin Grace ‘s recent tribute to Paul Fromm and his anti-immigrant activities. It is outrageous and wrong, even for a polemicist like Mr. Grace and a rag like your magazine, to promote the activities of the notorious Paul Fromm and his Canada First Immigration Reform Committee (CFIRC). In his column, Ms. Francis [sic] disingenuously describes Mr.

Fromm’s CFIRC as a group deserving of praise for opposing non-white immigration. Mr. Grace holds Mr. Fromm up as a shining example of moderation — while ignoring Mr. Fromm’s many years of involvement with white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups. A few facts are in order. Mr. Fromm started his involvement with the far right in the 1960s, with the Toronto-based Edmund Burke Society, which opposed — sometimes violently — immigration, sex education and homosexuality.

Members of the group were variously convicted of making bomb threats, break-ins, thefts, arson, vandalism and many assaults. Later, in the 1970s, Mr. Fromm assisted in the formation of the more avowedly pro-Nazi Western Guard, joining a stage in May 1972 with a prominent U.S. Ku Klux Klan leader who would shortly go on to serve time in prison for bombing school buses in Michigan. In the 1980s and 1990s Mr. Fromm has attempted to cultivate a more genteel image.

He has led groups with civic-minded names like CFIRC, the Canadian Association for Free Expression (CAFE) and Canadians for Foreign Aid Reform (C-FAR), and he has developed a number of colourful websites (the address of which Ms. Francis [sic] blithely printed in her [sic] column, to assist schoolchildren in looking it up, one surmises). But, every so often, Mr.

Fromm’s true views about non-whites and Jews slip out, as they did at a December 1990 rally in Toronto to celebrate the achievements of a neo-Nazi terrorist group. As the audience gave fascist salutes and chanted “nigger out,” Mr. Fromm reminisced about his Edmund Burke days, and called for “unity” against “an army of occupation.” In November 1994 Mr. Fromm again appeared on a stage with a number of neo-Nazis, this time in the United States.

At a rally organized by the National Alliance — a group founded by the author of The Turner Diaries , the book that inspired the Oklahoma City bombing — Mr. Fromm’s speech called for those present “to be true to our Aryan spirit.” And what of Mr. Fromm’s websites, which Mr. Grace publicized in his column?

A cursory examination of the people who have signed the anti-immigration petitions there are revealing: Terry Long , the former leader of the Aryan Nations in Canada, Wolfgang Droege , leader of the neo-Nazi Heritage Front, Doug Collins , the anti-Semitic columnist, Heritage Front founder Gerry Lincoln and assorted others, such as B.C. resident Roger Rocan , who states that Canadians “have thrown our doors open…to the parasites of the world.”

For my part, I can think of one fellow who perhaps deserves to be removed from the country he clearly dislikes so much–and that person would be Mr. Grace himself. I doubt very much he’ll ever relieve the rest of us of his presence, however; there aren’t many other places where he can peddle his type of bilge and still get paid. Warren Kinsella, Toronto Mr. Grace replies: Is Warren Kinsella a person or a computer virus?

How else to explain this 600-word letter bomb aimed at me but manufactured to maim Diane Francis of the National Post? The appearance of my name in close proximity to Paul Fromm’s has launched Mr. Kinsella’s ever-vigilant e-mail program into action, but he has obviously not read the column that is the ostensible target of his salvo. Specifically: I did not “praise” Mr. Fromm for “opposing non-white immigration.” I expressed no opinion on legal immigration, white or non-white, only illegal.

I described the boat people as Chinese because they are, well, Chinese. I did not “hold Mr. Fromm up as a shining example of moderation.” On the contrary, I condemned explicitly the “Canadian disease” of not treating serious issues seriously. And a “cursory examination” of my column would have revealed I am fully aware of his risible argument that the support of Terry Long, Wolfgang Droege and Gerry Lincoln invalidates any position. Mr.

Kinsella, like so many zealots, has become the mirror image of his enemies. Just as some lunatics hallucinate a Jewish world conspiracy, he sees neo-Nazis under every bed — orchestrating the immigration reform movement, the opposition to the war against Serbia, even the defeat of the Charlottetown Accord. (For the latter, see Web of Hate , a book that led to some embarrassment for Mr. Kinsella — not least the five-figure sum his publisher was compelled to pay for his libel of Roger Rocan.)

But Mr. Kinsella is embarrassed rather often; perhaps this explains his spleen. Consider his co-chairmanship of Gordon Campbell’s disastrous 1996 B.C. election campaign. Or his thrashing at the hands of Ted White in the 1997 federal election — this despite his campaign’s attempt to smear the North Vancouver MP as someone who uses his elected office to provide a “soapbox for his racist friends.” The final paragraph of Mr.

Kinsella’s letter reveals an interesting development in Liberal thought. It reminds me of a famous scene in Alexander Solzhenitsyn ‘s The First Circle. When Stalin’s political prisoners learn of a punishment even more severe than forced labour — expulsion from the Soviet Union — hey fall about laughing. If ever I end up in the Gulag Warrenpelago, I too will regard deportation as liberation. Until then, I plan to stick around.