 David Irving[Photo by Michael Hentz, for The
New York Times]Letter to Francis Wheen, columnist, of
The
Guardian[He quoted extracts in his column] |
London, April 15, 1996 DEAR
FRANCIS,
You 'orrible little man. If you were in Waterstone's (George
Stern just sent me your Guardian diary item)
why didn't you say "Hello". I'm always glad to meet the
denizens of the lower reaches.
Seriously, let me pick you up on two points: (1) I have not
been "obliged to publish [Goebbels.
Mastermind of the Third Reich ] myself". This
is a libellous statement. In 1992, following the success of
our (FP) new Hitler's
War edition, I wrote on my own initiative to my
editor at Macmillan (UK) Ltd, who held the contract on the
Goebbels biography, asking them to revert all rights to me,
since I felt I could manufacture and market a better product
than they could, and we reached agreement on a suitable
financial basis. I still have the letters, if you don't
believe it. As for the puffing and sweating, I have been
suffering from a very serious pneumonia for three weeks now
(as you will have seen if you read other newspapers); my
doctor wanted me in hospital for three weeks, but I have
better things to do. I make a Bad patient.
Yours faithfully,
David Irving |
David Irving 1998