David Irving | ||||||
Documents on the International Campaign for Real History
Posted Saturday, August 23, 2008
© Focal Point 2008
I may even find time to write a fourth -- on one of the events of September 11, 2001, whose anniversary is just approaching again
Above: David Irving speaks after dinner in Atlanta, USA, on August 8, 2008 | download high resolution image (2 MB)
August 17, 2008 (Sunday)
Key West (Florida)BREAKFAST at the Banana Café as always on Sundays; but the usual gang is not there. My spectacle-lens remains firmly lost, and with a hurricane coming this way the banks and stores in Key West will probably be closed for two or three days. E-mails probably shut down, and no postal mail-out possible. Thank you, God.
At 1:38 pm I tell a friend: "I shall hang around unless it gets dire. The forecasts say there will be no storm surge, which is the thing to fear most."
I have yesterday evening told G. that I shall not be employing her cousin, The Lump, for the rest of my tour. She is too lethargic, and her driving scares me.
8:20 pm To make my cup of happiness run over, a drainy-voiced gentleman identifying himself only as Gabriel, of all things (he declines to provide any surname ) of PayPal Executive Escalation Department or some such weird title, phones my landline telephone number to assure me they have reviewed our account and stand by their autocratic decision to "sever all further contacts" with us; I ask what will happen to the funds PayPal they are sitting on and he retorts that they are not showing such funds. There are, I assure him. I repeat that I doubt whether he is genuinely a PayPal officer, given his illiterate and rude manner. He says they do not wish to have dealings with my books or my speeches: Welcome to Censorship America, or at least to Some-Exclusions-Apply America!
I ask whether it is normal to make such communications verbally, by phone; he says it is a courtesy. I indicate that the books offered by my bookstore are all published by the world's leading publishers; he ignores the remark. He says defensively that it will be pointless to complain higher up the executive chain at PayPal, as all complaints will merely be referred back to his department.
Gabriela [right, my personal assistant until now] has returned today to Miami, en route to her university in Peru. At nine pm her cellphone (the one I loaned her) displays this message from a Peruvian number, which I at first think is for me: "Solo te pido te pongas en mi lugar, nada mas, no jueges con fuego. No me preocupo por el huracan???" It seems to be from her enamorado Lalo. She told me she'd had a fight with him because he seemed unconcerned about the approaching hurricane. The playing-with-fire remark can be read several ways. Tomorrow Hurricane Fay hits the Keys -- I don't think I could have handled Hurricane Gabriela at the same time.
August 18, 2008 (Monday)
Key West (Florida)THIS message comes from England:
A parcel arrived last week from "Lesen & Schenken". It's about 2ft x 2ft x 2ft and heavy - could it be books?
I reply:
They [Arndt Verlag, i.e. Dieter Munier] are belatedly sending author's copies of books -- but they are not currently paying me any royalties. [Against my wishes, they have published several of my books, having obtained a signature by paying us a cheque on which they immediately stopped payment]. Crooks!I decide it is time to see if we can reach an out of court settlement with the Trustees appointed against me by the British Government. I lodged a High Court claim about everything they wrongfully -- as they have secretly admitted -- seized while I was in Oregon in 2002. I am interrupted at 2:20 pm by a radio warning of a violent waterspout and tornado off Key West. Don't have these problems back home, in Windsor.
Jessica phones from London around three pm: I ask how Mummy is. In the evening, after a quiet day, I begin organizing next week's three locations in Louisiana, late as usual: But it turns out that my local organiser in New Orleans has given me an email address in May which is already dud. Really! Until 2002 I had the same phone number for 48 years, and I have had the same email addresses for ten.
WHERE IS DAVID IRVING SPEAKING IN THE USA? Rights of admission strictly reserved. Phone us at 305 923 6779. Apply for details. Register at the door, or cheaper online [link]. A FINAL LIST OF CITIES IS NOW POSTED.
August 19, 2008 (Tuesday)
Key West (Florida)SUPPER at the Rusty Anchor. The restaurant is deserted except for me after the tropical storm.
August 20, 2008 (Wednesday)
Key West (Florida)BREAKFAST at Harpoon Harry's. I send B. the usual daily news update. She has not responded for many days, which is depressing. Peter Laskey's solicitors are mounting an aggressive defence of my negligence claim.
I reply:
I have read your submissions, and shall reply before the hearing of October 30 after taking advice.2. Please be so good as to supply photocopies of all the handwritten letters which I sent to your clients in this action while I was held as a political prisoner in Vienna, namely between November 11, 2005 and December 21, 2006, and copies of any and all replies made to same. ...
SOMEBODY writes me from Florida: "Dear Mr. Irving, Just wanted to say thank you very much for thinking of me and sending me your invitation for the Clearwater meeting. I have always promoted both yourself and your books to all my friends in the bay area and beyond and have attended all of your seminars in the Tampa area. I was not going to email you about my feelings but it's only fair to you that I should. The last seminar I attended was the time before last that you were in Tampa. I always made it a point to bring new people with me so they could meet you in person and learn the truth in history. I had with me a retired U.S. Army Green Beret captain who would have been a financial asset for your cause, but he was very disturbed by your rude demeanor in addressing both of us. You very rudely snapped at us to "take your conversation away from my table!" and made gestures as if shooing children away! I told my friend that you are not normally that grumpy and possibly haven't had restful sleep in all the traveling you do. But the damage was done as my friend exclaimed to me; "Joe, I don't allow anyone to talk to me in that manner!" So you lost what would have been a substantial supporter due to an irritable attitude. I felt that you let me down and decided not to allow you to ever embarrass me like that again. I try to understand what it must be like to be in your shoes as I know you are a fighter and have been put through the wringer by the establishments in power. But please be aware that your supporters believe in you and want to help you to the best of their abilities and it is a slap in the face when you treat them rudely. I'm only writing this because I care enough for you and your important cause to make you aware of a problem that is to your detriment. As always you are in my prayers! God Speed, J."
I reply: "I have no memory of that and find it very hard to believe. I wonder if he misheard what I said? The English accent is sometimes difficult for southerners to understand. If you bring him on Friday I will of course go out of my way to apologise for any misunderstanding."
August 21, 2008 (Thursday)
Key West -- Clearwater (Florida)I SHALL set out for Clearwater in Central Florida at midday; an eight-hour drive, I have done it many times. Tomorrow I speak. I think I have lost Baton Rouge, can't fix a location in time. I'm planning to hold the Kansas City talk just in my hotel suite, as there'll only be a few; but Denver including two university talks will as usual be much bigger. I have written a testimonial for G. in case she needs it.
It is three pm before I set out, going first to the Post Office, and then leaving Key West at four for the 400-mile drive. Around seven pm a traffic cop in an unmarked police car stops me on Krome Avenue, for using a left turn lane and speeding to overtake a lumbering water-truck hemmed in by double yellow lines.
It all ends well. When he realizes who I am he salutes, turns friendly and chats for half an hour about life, and history, and writing; we shake hands before I continue on my way, menaced now by thunderstorms all round. He is the first cop to stop me on this 30,000 mile tour -- so far.
August 22, 2008 (Friday)
Clearwater (Florida)WHILE I take breakfast, Jessica phones from London. The cash I sent arrived today, but the US credit card will not let her order things for a UK address. Okay, I will send more cash -- she has to buy shoes for school. She got her GCSE exam result for the one subject, ICT, which she has taken two years early: she got an A grade. I suspect that if there was one higher, she would have got that too. I am that proud of all five daughters.
I phone W. He says he has in Virginia and DC paper prints of the Moscow KGB stuff on Himmler, and his friend has only the microfilms, but once again he did not specify the man's name or location -- which I had taken to be down here somewhere. He bought the man a film reader printer, he says. I don't know if W. is deliberately obfuscating. Is this the Peter Stahl microfilms story of 1976 all over again? He says I am welcome to come and see the paper, but there are thousands and thousands of positive print pages.
Above: David Irving speaks in Clearwater, Florida, on August 22, 2008
At five pm I begin setting up. It is a good, airy room. The audience that comes includes a lot of people I would describe as normal, which is pleasant. Bobby, my local organiser, is there and we are not sure whether they are my friends or his. Eventually the room is so full that extra chairs have to be brought in. There is a lot of friendly laughter as I speak. Book sales would have been better if G. was here, but she is now heading onward from Lima to Buenos Aires, I believe. Tough on Lalo, but I won't say my heart bleeds for him.
August 23, 2008 (Saturday)
Clearwater (Florida)MY BONES are aching all over. I see that my next location is in two days' time, at Tallahassee. I shall resume writing, I think, but still have some organising to do for Kansas City and Denver.
A presumably British fan R., unknown to me, writes words of great cheer to me:
. . . A brief synaptic Google reveals you as one our few living heroes - whether you like it or not - and I would appreciate it if you could let me how you are getting on?As a boy I read Hitler's War and was awed by the effort and time expended in producing such a masterwork. I do not wish to sound sycophantic but I sincerely appreciate what you have done and can only hope that your work is approached with a significantly more level-headed and academic approach in the future.
You will, I am certain, be thought of as a great historian and eventually be accounted as one of the most memorable scholars that have ever dared to accurately recount events in these troubled times.
Well, that's nice. A truly unsolicited testimonial. I have received half a dozen letters from strangers like this over the last months, and it begins to worry me. Do they know something that I don't? I can only reply: "Dear R.,
I TAKE it from your email address that you are an Englishman, and offer my sincerest thanks for your kind words. Like me, you have therefore seen the destruction of our fine country by shallow-minded and self-centered politicians, pandering to those I call the "recent Brits" -- whichever immigrant minority will add a few votes to bolster their own miserable huckstering careers.You ask how I am getting on? Those 400 days locked down in Austrian solitary confinement have sapped my bones and muscle, literally, but my spirit has emerged with renewed strength.
A WRITER lives in a long tunnel, and when he is writing a manuscript like Hitler's War that tunnel can be thirty or forty years long; he seldom hears words of encouragement even from family and friends, and he will need many locomotives to pull his train out into the sunlight at the far end.
Some haul too long a load. Some, like William Manchester, a fine writer, never quite make it to the clear skies again.
I hope I have paced my life just right, and that I still have enough steam up, and enough years left, to complete my final projects: the third volume of my Churchill trilogy, Churchill's War, vol. iii: "The Sundered Dream"; my Heinrich Himmler biography; and my memoirs, which contain ugly revelations for not a few of those waiting on the final railroad platform to greet me in their own unkind and alien way. I may even find time to write a fourth -- on one of the events of September 11, 2001, whose anniversary is just approaching again.
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