It
all makes me feel that much more secure.
From far away, in a German prison cell, I
fancy I hear Ernst Z. whispering, 'Not.'
|
March
9, 2005 (Wednesday)
Missouri -- Arkansas WAKENED at one a.m. in the morning by loud
thumping on the door. I ignore it, and the thumping
is repeated. I peer through the glass Judas hole --
it reveals what looks like a burly man in dungarees
outside. I put the chain-hook on the door and open it a
few inches. Two men in police uniforms, the White
one saying that the Michigan license tags on my red
Chevy Suburban are expired (his colleague is a
burly Black, in a woolly hat). At first I leave the
chain-hook on the door, and ask to see their Police
IDs; which they do not like -- but nor do they show
any ID other than their uniforms, which anybody can
buy on the Internet. "We ran the tags and they came up expired." I
tell them it is Avis's fault, it's a rental car.
"Is Key West your permanent address, Sir?" says the
White one. They have asked the front desk to show
them my registration form. I unchain the door, though it still seems a bit
odd to me. They peer past me into the darkened
room. "Would you just stand aside, Sir," says the
White one. "What is the nature of your business?"
They are civil enough. I say I am a writer, and
offer to produce my British passport. "What are you
doing here, Sir?" -- "I am a writer, driving 1,100
miles from Omaha to Baton Rouge. And very
tired." I still do not trust them. They might be
anybody, posing in uniform. The Black says, "Can I
see it," indicating the passport; after a moment,
he nods and hands it back. Eventually they leave.
Maybe a straightforward routine visit, late though
it is -- tightened security under the Patriot Act
and this country's self-inflicted "terrorism"
terror. Or it might be something more sinister. SEVERAL donations have reach the website since I
announced yesterday that we have had none for ten
days! Das haute hin, but we need funds to
survive. $600 in two days. The enemy is resorting
to increasingly dirty tricks, however. One email
correspondent writes: "Did you know that the
following message now appears under your webpage
link when I do a Google search on your name: Web
site of disgraced British Holocaust denier David
Irving. Contains latest news about himself, as well
as articles reproduced from the world media about
... This is different from what was there
before, and I was wondering if this has anything to
do with Google and its policy on free speech in
Germany." 
IN LONDON the legal battle is approaching its
climax. On March 14 the Court will have the final
all-afternoon hearing on my application that
Deborah Lipstadt be ordered to pay all the costs
for her misguided demand for all my assets -- an
application which she has now had to withdraw.
Loser pays all. What goes around comes around.
Bundles of documents are thumping on doormats, etc.
Her lawyers, Mishcon de Reya, weep in a new
affidavit that "Professor Lipstadt's costs in
defending Mr Irving's libel action amounted to
£1,360,551.98" -- roughly $2.5million. (Her
publishers ran up another three million pounds bill
in costs). Yeah, right: a humble Emory University religious
teacher can fork out that kind of money. In fact
she paid nothing; as she has often boasted, and in
great circumstantial detail. Her costs -- which
consisted largely of the lavish (quarter-million
dollar) fees paid to her expert witnesses to
purchase their opinions -- were met by a consortium
of the traditional enemies of free speech, and they
paid her a handsome retainer besides. As said, a
simpleton; what Lenin would have called "a
useful idiot." My counsel Adrian Davies, who will
represent me in Court on Tuesday, informs me: "No
further action is required on yr. part." I reply
that they seem to be throwing much good money after
bad: "I have read Lipstadt's
article in Nova Law Review, and I have changed
my view on her: a helpless simpleton at sea, on a
raft surrounded by the real sharks on right and
left."
A NEW YORK film company asks: "Would it be possible
to get full access to shoot your engagement in
Chicago as well as follow you around?" Before leaving Independence, Missouri, at
midday, to drive another four hundred mile stretch
toward Louisiana, I fill up at a gas station.
Forty-five dollars for a full tank -- still
dirt-cheap by English standards. I glance at the Suburban's license tags, front
and back. The expiration date on them is "December
2005" -- they have another nine months to run. So
the police story was phony. It is quite a
shock. As I puzzle over it, another point occurs to me:
the White officer said that the front desk had
shown him my registration card. The hotel did not
know which car was mine. How would he have known
which name to ask for? That Suburban with the
"expired" tags might have belonged to any one of a
hundred guests -- but they already knew my
name. So what was it all about? A robbery?
Reconnaissance? Or Homeland Security. It all makes
me feel that much more secure. From far away, in a
German prison cell, I fancy I hear Ernst Z.
whispering, "Not." [Previous
Radical's Diary] | 
David Irving