David Irving |
oouDocuments on the International Campaign for Real History
Posted Friday, August 7, 2009
© Focal Point 2009
I now feel very guilty, as I made light of her self-diagnoses this afternoon; I even recommended a dose of hypochondrodene.
July 20, 2009 (Monday)
Portland -- Grant's Pass (Oregon)A FRIEND belatedly informs me: "Just to let you know -- the Portland-area 'antifascist' wackos may be showing up at your speaking engagement."
I reply: "Yes, but that was yesterday, and they did. So did fifty cops, so the function went ahead undisturbed."
David M. writes:
It was really good to see you in Portland tonight. I'm so sorry about the protesters. Without freedom of speech, all the other freedoms soon disappear. ...Of the three meetings of yours that I've now attended, all in Portland, this one was by far the largest -- and the only one with protesters. It went well -- despite the harassment."
In the light of the threats, we now engage security for the California meetings. Their chief reports that rumors are already identifying our location in San Francisco.
That's unfortunate. Jae, increasingly unsettled by events, also insists we change the San Francisco location.
One of our number has applied to join the lefties. They have sent our agent this disingenuous reply:
We have a zine [of] which the new issue is just out with lots of info on ARA across the US and Canada. There's supposed to be an event in Sherman Oaks next week featuring a Nazi sympathizer named David Irving, who denies Hitler's genocide of European Jews and works with many open fascists contemporaneously.We do education, cultural work, coalition building against various forms of racism including immigrant bashing, we defend queer rights and women's rights. Right now we are trying to track down the David Irving events (one in Sherman Oaks, one in Costa Mesa) to work on counter-demonstrations and alert local residents of the threats these guys pose. Do you have a number where I could call you?--Michael, ARA-LA/People Against Racist Terror
WE drive over to the Avis rental lot at the Portland airport to get rid of our Ford Expedition, which the traditonal enemy has been tracking somehow. At first Avis suggests we take a Suburban: it seems clunky and unsuitable, as far as cargo room goes, and Jae points out to me that it is also gray -- and a "gray Suburban" is just the vehicle I have been feeding to the enemy in our disinformation campaign online.
We settle for another Expedition which has just come in, a midnight blue one with a larger cargo area and a longer wheelbase. That is a bit of good fortune. I hope the Avis customer who takes on our old vehicle is not dismayed by the unusual attention he may now receive.
Jae is now very unwell, but I don't at first suspect it. The stress has got to her. We arrive at Grants Pass after a 270-mile drive south, and I check into my usual motel. She has a high fever, and starts blubbering about feeling ill, etc. She vanishes upstairs into her own room, red-faced and in a huff. Meinetwegen.
K., a gourmet friend in London, advises: "When you get to SF maybe take Jae to the Mark Hopkins for cocktails -- tea time is best -- the bar is called The Top of The Mark. And to the Hyatt Regency at the Embarcadero -- a lovely hotel with a revolving restaurant -- worth the cost of dinner!"
To which I reply:
You have a vivid imagination about the spare time we have on this entire tour -- it is go, go, go, every day. Jae works 20 hours a day. Today she's in a poor way with some kind of bug, and has been the last few days; I have no sympathy unfortunately. I have always been ultra-healthy myself. Tomorrow we drive down the Redwood Highway to the coast; I just hope she's well enough to appreciate the 4,000-year old trees, etc.A helpful friend reports: "The best source for opposition research in Northern California is indybay.org/centralvalley. A brief scroll-down will show you what you would be looking for. As for Sacramento, it would be a good idea to have a fake location posted there. Even better would be several fake locations, posted at the 'last minute.'"
Great minds think alike. I reply: "Keep your eyes skinned on the Internet for trouble."
In the evening misfortune begins to crowd in. I spend two hours dealing with book orders, which have inevitably fallen far behind. I assume Jae has retired to bed in a huff. Later I find a string of text messages on my phone indicating that she has betaken herself to a doctor or hospital.
I send her several messages asking where on earth that is, so I can come straight over to see her. I now feel very guilty, as I made light of her self-diagnoses this afternoon; I even recommended a dose of "hypochondrodene". Oh gosh. I feel desperately bad about this.
July 21, 2009 (Tuesday)
Grant's Pass (Oregon) -- Weaverville (California)AT two-thirty a.m. I fetch her from the local hospital ER. I am up again by seven-thirty, as today I hope we drive down the Redwood Highway to the Pacific coast. From London, K. asks: "She will need to rest up for a while?" I reply: "She is upstairs asleep -- I gave her until ten-thirty then we hit the road." He says: "You are all heart! But in that case it can't be too bad?" "It IS bad but we have to see this thing through. We are eight thousand miles' drive from O'Hare where the car has to be returned."
We set out from Grant's Pass about one pm. The last ten miles into Crescent City and the Pacific Ocean, which Jae now sees for the first time, are of a breathtaking beauty.
Impervious to fire, lightning strikes, and insects, the gigantic pre-historic trees line the highway, standing shoulder to shoulder, all the way down into the city. Then onwards down the coast. We stop at a diner in Eureka, but I have no appetite for this American junk food. Even the coffee is for once undrinkable.
As dusk falls we head back inland to the Interstate. A cop stops me for speeding in Junction City after we head back from Eureka via 299 to Redding and Interstate-5. I blame their meticulously engineered highways, and speak in a deliberately cultured English voice. Thrilled to be meeting a real author, he asks what books I write. Jae tries to butt in with her shrill Minneapolis accent; this is less than helpful and I head her off in time. Oxford-English alone usually does the trick, and he lets me off with a warning
We stop at Weaverville in the mountains. Going online in her room upstairs, Jae tells me at nine-thirty pm that a hostile group has published on their hate-website a photo of our (old) Avis car and license plate; the one that we have already changed! Even nastier, they have also published several photos of her and of our guests at Portland and the guest list. They do not yet appear to have announced any of our California locations. It must have been the added stress which has triggered Jae's terrible illness. She has been in pain much of today.
We drive briefly out to find a restaurant at ten-thirty but all are closed for the night; I buy a pint of milk, as it is going to be a long night. At 11:17 p.m I reply to a friend: "We expect a hot week in California. The enemy are lurking everywhere ... Jae is sick with worry, literally."
July 22, 2009 (Wednesday)
Weaverville -- Sacramento (California)Up after six hours sleep at 7:45 a.m. and resume work. Friends in Oregon report angrily: "Looks like they somehow stole the registration list." I reply: "Yes the scum broke into our function room which the hotel had locked during the protest and stole a number of our items; the missing list baffled us. Fortunately it was an edited-down version, without our comments."
A friend reports from Sacramento:
So far, the enemies of free speech believe you will be speaking at the Sheraton Grand, on J Street, but there is suspicion that it might be a decoy.It is (planted by our own agents). I remind the agent concerned: "This will destroy your usefulness when they realise the information was false, of course."
He replies:
You don't have to register or anything to post a comment on those sites. They are so eager for a location so they can organise people to come out. Completely anonymous. If they take it and run with it, great. If not, no harm done.Photo below: David Irving
signs a book for a Sacramento guest
WE HAVE an excellent function, undisturbed, in Sacramento; Jess G. picks up the whole tab for the evening; I loudly sing his praises and everybody applauds. The enemy have gone chasing off elsewhere, first to the Sheraton two blocks away, then to an airport hotel.
A friend asks: "Is there a date when you can speak in Cleveland?" At midnight-thirty I reply: "Yes, I will include Cleveland in my Fall tour. Audiences are well up. Enemy could not find us in Sacramento; we used disinformation tactics."
July 23, 2009 (Thursday)
Sacramento -- San Francisco -- Mountain View (California)THE pace is a killing one. Jae has taken a sleeping potion of some kind; she is not well at all. She earns high praise from those who organised last night's Sacramento dinner: "Your assistant was fabulous!"
I agree. "Assistant Jae is still sleeping, but thank you so much for all the hard work you did to make the evening the success it was. Enemy must be quite displeased not to have found us."
During the morning, Mark Weber phones and is shocked to learn that we have not nailed down a San Francisco location for tonight's dinner yet.
Jae books one even as we drive down from the Golden Gate Bridge into the city, a wonderful if expensive restaurant. The dinner will set us back a hundred dollars a head. It is a good setting, elegantly equipped, with its long windows overlooking the Bay; its tables heavy with white linen, silver cutlery, and crystal glasses. The room is packed, and every seat is taken, which is fortunate, as that is the minimum this luxury restaurant say they can charge us for. God knows, as said, the dinners are not cheap.
There is no enemy showing at all this evening. A hostile website has today bragged that I will scarcely risk speaking in San Francisco itself, and they speculate that I have booked an Oakland airport hotel for the function. Where does story that come from? Jae pleads innocence. Whatever; despite much counter-organisation and huffing and puffing, the "antifa" movement has so far failed to lay a glove on me.
The evening is not a loss. I am dead tired from the last days' stress and speaking.
July 24, 2009 (Friday)
Mountain View -- Santa Barbara (California)I draft these jobs for Jae today:
- 1. arrange with Sisley's Italian Kitchen in Sherman Oaks: their glass-walled room;
- 2. nail down a location in Denver;
- 3. do "Magic" work on our Sherman Oaks list.
Sherman Oaks is, I am told, one of the most heavily Jewish areas of Los Angeles. We lunch at Scott's at the Town & Country Village in Stanford -- where I first went in 1976 with Carla Venchiarutti when researching Churchill at the Hoover. Hardly changed since then. We go to Palo Alto and I get a haircut at my usual student haircutter in California Avenue for fifteen bucks. When that finishes, we walk down the street to get a coffee, but her bubble of grief has burst: she declares that she has sorted things around while I was in the haircutter and wants to fly home to Indianapolis immediately.
That is lunatic. [. . .] I duly leave her at Mountain View at 2:44 pm, having warned her that if she phones two hours later and asks me to come back and get her, I will not: I have a strict timetable to keep to. There will be no U-turns. [. . .]
I email our security coordinator:
Many thanks, you and your team did well yesterday. Sherman Oaks Sunday at three pm may see trouble... Nobody knows the location yet, not even I.
FROM Highway 101 heading south, I phone a big restaurant in Sherman Oaks and book a function room; costly, $750 minimum, but given Jae's crash 'n' burn I have no alternative. Then, from Pismo Beach, I phone old friends and accept their invitation to stay the night in Santa Barbara, as they suggested a few weeks ago.
July 25, 2009 (Saturday)
Santa Barbara -- Orange County (California)LISA C. writes and offers to stand in as personal assistant, confessing: "Jae wrote and told me about current problems."
I reply: "Jae quit yesterday in a tantrum, hormone induced, leaving me to drive five thousand miles of the rest of the tour alone, etc., etc., etc."
She replies: "Yes, that is what Jae told me yesterday, I wasn't sure though. If you need help driving I am willing to help at least this last week of your tour."
I reply: "I think (i.e., I hope) that Jae will reverse her decision, but she is very stressed right now by the events in the Pacific north-west, and that is what really triggered her tantrum; I may even have been partly to blame, but she was very pig-headed for the last two hours or so."
Passing through Sherman Oaks, I stop at tomorrow's location and empty literally all of my cash onto their front desk to make the contract binding. It leaves me with five dollars in hand.
The function this evening in Orange County is packed, and Mark Weber (above) speaks well -- with all the coherence, eloquence, and grammatical correctness of President Barack Hussein Obama's speechwriters, as I tease him in my opening remarks. [Report]
July 26, 2009 (Sunday)
Orange County -- Sherman Oaks (California) -- Las Vegas (Nevada)I DRIVE north to Sherman Oaks around midday and find around forty friends have packed into the restaurant's expensive function room for our afternoon meeting, with just enough coffee and cookies to go round. Afterwards I drive on non-stop to Las Vegas, arriving in the city around midnight, and find a Motel 6 of the cheapest sort -- $35 for the room. If they expect me to visit their casinos, they are mistaken: never so much as one nickel have I ever wagered in my life.
Into this cheap motel long after midnight, and I read incoming emails until after one a.m; rather tired. Jae's unexpected defection has somewhat added to my daily workload.
One of today's guests Joe Szabo writes me:
Just wanted to say how nice it was to see you again and how much we enjoyed your presentation. Thanks for the many autographs and photos.It is obvious that the children were paying attention because they had so many questions as we drove home. Remember, you always have an open invitation and are always welcome to stay with us when in the Pasadena area and assist you in any way we can.00:48 a.m I reply: "You have a lovely family and I shall certainly take your invitation seriously."
K. has emailed from England. "I heard the news," he says. I groan silently. "What news? from where?" -- "It says on her FaceBook that she went home." Bloody FaceBook.
July 27, 2009 (Monday)
Las Vegas (Nevada) -- Beaver (Utah)UP before eight and ready for a full morning's work followed by a long day's drive east across the desert into Utah. Somebody else writes me his thanks and admiration for yesterday's presentation. Less helpfully he adds: "I am concerned at your appearance. You seem weary and dissipated by long hours and many miles."
That's a real encouragement. I observe tartly that we are all getting older.
Jae has emailed from Sacramento, where she is convalescing. I reply: "I am VERY worried about your health and stress. . . Very difficult for me to handle all this without you."
She offers: "I can help you in Chicago and Indianapolis. ... I literally get no signal out here in the country. It is kind of annoying, but it extremely peaceful out here and at night you can see every star. I have a lot of animals keeping me company -- dogs, cats, horses." I guess she is now regretting her costly tantrum: "I am lunching with Jim McC. at the Main Station casino, then heading off east again all day and evening. Just mailed 400 invitation cards for Indiana and Chicago."
This is all running really late now.
I thought you might like to see this, if you haven't already. It's some sort of open posting here in Denver called Colorado Indymedia. It seems that the last post was just a short bit ago regarding your talk here in Denver.5:21 p.m I accordingly instruct Jae: "Do your dirtiest with these people ...
Disinform! Mislead them please. Say you were there on one occasion three or four years ago when we held the meeting at the Marriott International airport hotel, and the protestors actually came but the hotel stood firm by our agreement not to reveal that we were meeting in that very building! No doubt we will use that hotel again...I drive on and check into Beaver, Utah, at ten-fifteen p.m. Unfortunately none of the hotels I try has a working Internet connection.
July 28, 2009 (Tuesday)
Beaver (Utah) -- Fruita (Colorado)At a McDonald's I go online with difficulty. British historian David Pounder writes:
I am in the home straight of a history MA at the University of Birmingham. I have just submitted a paper that is a proposal for the dissertation, the theme is the Peace that never was July 1940. I have to confess that it includes criticism of your Churchill's War.I reply: "I hope your criticism was beyond dutiful; but I am always keen to learn of my mistakes and would be glad to see what you have written."
I have sent Jae the Denver list to work her Magic on. She comments in her reply on the Stephen Lemons article: "He is scum. I don't understand why everyone is attacking me. I am sure they never attacked any of your non-White personal assistants for working for you -- that would be racist!"
Later she sends useful data on four of the unknown applicants for tomorrow's Denver meeting. I reassure her: "The item I have seen is not really an attack on you, it is envy; good work on the list, thanks. Denver is especially tricky for me."
At a town called Fruita, actually a halt in mid-desert, with 250 miles still to go to Denver, I find that Jae has emailed me again: "SAC cards need to be run. Will be about a half day's job." "Sacramento," I inquire facetiously, "or Strategic Air Command?" [for which I worked in 1960]
July 29, 2009 (Wednesday)
Fruita -- Denver (Colorado)I LEAVE Fruita in Colorado around eleven a.m. and drive all day to Denver at 70-80 mph, initially through magnificent canyons and mountain passes, and then over the Vail Pass at 10,600 feet, running into appalling snow and slush and fog and torrential rains on its far side, and passing several car wrecks which provide food for introspection and slow me somewhat, arriving at tonight's Denver location, a suburban restaurant, at five pm.
The room is large, the horseshoe table is set for thirty but more chairs are soon needed. A pleasant crowd, and no sign of hostiles; Jae reports they have "bought" our Marriott Airport decoy for a second time, according to indications on the Net. What fruit-and-nutcases they are.
I report eventually to Jae:
Ok, I stopped in Vail for a few minutes; cold here, only fifty. Don't mention locations in emails in case yours or mine are being hacked.All goes well. At 9:30 pm Jae reports: "The Jewish newspapers are anticipating your arrival in Omaha, it seems."
One of our suspected enemy moles has written a friendly message to me: "If I guess Denver West Marriott or thereabouts at rush hour that's a 45-minute or so excursion for me." "Not a bad guess," said I. He now laments: "Sorry I missed the event tonight. Here's why. I misinterpreted your 'not a bad guess' to mean "good guess" so was at the Denver West Marriott a little after six, and wasted time there finding out nothing was going on." He, and how many others? Ho ho.
July 30, 2009 (Thursday)
Denver (Colorado) -- Omaha (Nebraska) -- Atlantic (Iowa)Up at seven; the room is quite cold. To Diane M. in Omaha at 7:47 a.m: "Our numbers are falling for this evening, three cancellations this morning -- after I notified them of the location, which is vexing. I will drive straight on toward Chicago afterwards, as it is a tight journey otherwise; speaking there tomorrow night."
I set out at 8:31 am and arrive at Omaha at 6:30 pm. A Mr Eric Bronstein -- he yields his name only hesitantly -- asks by phone (from 402 968 5470) for details of tomorrow's Chicago dinner; I say register first, then phone me tomorrow evening. I do not hear from him again.
Jae has emailed that she will fly to Chicago to resume the tour; she's now feeling better. At midnight-thirty I reply: "I will collect you from O'Hare airport tomorrow afternoon -- that is 404 miles from my pillow here. Not too difficult. You will drive after I collect you. I must sleep."
Jae reports: "I just logged onto MySpace for the first time in a few days, expecting to find tons of hate mail, thanks to the antis publishing my music page. Not a single hate message and tons and tons of new messages and friend-requests from people saying they saw that disgusting article [by Lemons] and they like what I am doing and are totally supportive. I guess the antis weren't expecting that result. Every comment I have gotten so far on MySpace has been very positive and supportive, including a few invites to sing at events and such. That kind of brightened my day after dealing all afternoon with my 'friends' backstabbing me."
Why do I bother with Omaha, except for the friends? Hardly worth the eight hour drive from Denver. At 11:07 p.m I check into a cheap hotel in Atlantic, Iowa -- 00:07 local time, and set the GPS to Chicago. Bed after paperwork until after one a.m. Not good.
July 31, 2009 (Friday)
Atlantic (Iowa) -- Chicago (Illinois) -- Hammond (Indiana)Wakened at 6:55 am by a phone caller who hangs up, and then again five minutes later by an over-enthusiastic female, "Sharon" [Cheron], asking for Indy location details (which I don't have); I sleepily give her Jae's number. Turns out she was calling on behalf of an Indianapolis radio host, "Abdul" [Abdul Hakim-Shabazz of WXNT ], her husband, who has been salivating against me on his programme all morning.
I drive all day and do not get to O'Hare until four pm, and collect Jae from Terminal 3. We carry on straight into Chicago; the doorman at the Hilton lets us park all evening on the turning circle for a thirty dollar ("cash") payment, and that is most convenient.
At seven pm our superb dinner begins at the Chicago Hilton. My cell phone does not work inside this huge building, there is no signal at all. As I am speaking, after about an hour there is a brief incursion by a tall unwashed man, wearing a "Chicago Anarchists" T-shirt and shouting about "Nazis," "Holocaust deniers," and the like; possibly a friend or student of the scholar Deborah Lipstadt.
David Irving speaks on the Dresden death roll - how intercepted secret messages of Dresden's police chief confirmed his 1963 book claim that 135,000 had died in the firestorm.
Click image for a seventy-second movie extract from Irving's July 31, 2009 speech in Chicago (9MB download)
According to the Hilton's security cameras the thug is accompanied by two others. Before I can stop them, members of my audience pour out to chase them away, and hotel security does the rest; we have a quiet evening after that. It means however that the traditional enemies of free speech have after all belatedly learned the location from a member of my guest-list, no doubt somebody who has phoned and then not turned up.
August 1, 2009 (Saturday)
Hammond -- Indianapolis (Indiana)WE lost five or ten of our dinner guests last night apparently -- not that it reduced the bill for our Hilton dinner.
Peter B. reports:
I got into Chicago just after 6.15 pm, changed and rushed out of my apartment just off the Golden Mile to attend your dinner. I walked to the Hilton and got there at about 7.30 pm. No indication as to where you were meeting. I asked the Concierge ... The guy mentioned other individuals had enquired .... I was directed to the Front Desk. Again, they knew of no scheduled meeting in your name. I tried calling your phone. No response at which point and after a tiring day, I said "sod this" and returned home.I can only apologise: "I am devastated by that. The organiser had listed it under the name Friends of William Tiptree, and we told the hotel to change it to David Irving. . . I waited outside the hotel for fifteen minutes from 6:45 pm to ensure I got a good phone signal for people who phoned me."
I admonish my otherwise fine organiser: "Bill ... this must not happen a third time!" (It happened last August too -- assigning a code name to the function which he then forgets to give the guests).
From three pm to seven a cosy meeting with Jae and half a dozen of her friends in Indianapolis. Then dinner at her local Italian restaurant with her boyfriend and others. I am exhausted and not much fun, I think. Thus the tour of the western United States ends with something of a whimper.
August 3, 2009 (Monday)
Indianapolis (Indiana) - Illinois -- home
I work until 00:20 a.m. sending out thank-you letters to helpers and contributors. I end one with the words,
... No matter what misfortunes may befall me -- and they often seem to! -- I always feel better knowing that I have friends looking out for me. You have been of immense help all these years and I do hope you know just how much it is appreciated.I drive off to Illinois around eleven a.m. and shortly espy Jae in her dark red car a hundred yards ahead on the almost deserted Interstate 74. We get to Champaign around one-thirty, Central Time, and shift all the remaining boxes to her car and the warehouse. My plane back to England leaves tonight.
I then realise that my passport is missing. There is a last minute panic. Her trusty boyfriend tracks it down to the hotel in Hammond where we spent the night before last. I say a brief farewell to Jae, who has been truly wonderful these last six weeks, and dash off thither, Hammond, at once; I pick up the passport there at six pm and board the flight back to the UK at nine-thirty. All's well that ends well.
TO BE INFORMED OF DAVID IRVING'S FALL 2009 TOUR OF THE EASTERN USA, APPLY HERE
Kansas City Jewish Chronicle: Holocaust denier finds few fans here: The Chronicle has learned that Irving, or a representative, arranged for a meeting room at the hotel just minutes before the talk was to begin last Friday evening
NOW ON ONE ENJOYABLE EASY-FIND INDEX: DAVID IRVING: A RADICAL'S DIARY 2005 TO 2009
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