 David Irving[Photoby Michael Hentz, for
The New York Times]
Letter to John Tusa
Head of the
BBC
[April 1997]
JOHN TUSA was
the Czech-born former newscaster, producer, and ultimately
director-general of the BBC, and a writer in his own right.
Mr Irving had helped him on occasions with documents and
advice from own his researches. Tusa's wife Ann wrote the
first (and premature) review of Mr Irving's book
Nuremberg,
the Last Battle
in The Daily Telegraph. She published this several
weeks before the embargo-release date, possibly in the hope
of killing its chances elsewhere. In this she failed, as the
book was widely praised. John and Ann Tusa had published
their own potboiler history of the Nuremberg Trial several
years before.
Mr John Tusa
21 Christchurch Hill
London NW3 1JY |
| London, April 1997 Dear John,[1]
David Irving: Nuremberg,
the Last Battle SEEMS
LIKE only yesterday I bumped into you at the PRO when you
were working on Nuremberg. I was just screening
through old files for two libel
actions I am bringing (Discovery), and came across our
brief correspondence in 1983 when you were working on the
book.Last November -- so I am
told -- Ann lacerated
my own on the subject, claiming it yielded nothing new. (I
took a peep at your reprint a few days ago at Selfridges',
and while I see it lists R H Jackson's papers at the
National Archives, it doesn't appear to use his private
papers including his diaries and letters from Nuremberg,
which were at Chicago when I used them, and are now in the
Library of Congress; nor the private papers of Andrus, the
Nuremberg commandant, nor . . . uh, etc., etc.)People tell me Ann also
called me sloppy for not using the Blue Volumes; if she had
really read the book, she would have seen I explained
why.[2] Anyway, here with my compliments
is a copy of the book as published, to replace the heap of
Xeroxes (presumably) read when writing her review. If she
did read it, that will be more than Norman Stone did, who I
suspect merely read the review written by, Guess Whom?,
before writing his own in The Sunday Times.If there are any major
wartime projects you're working on, don't hesitate to call
upon my resources; I do know quite a bit about that time,
you know. Yours faithfully,
David Irving
|
David Irving 1998