Smith: David Irving responds:AMERICAN author Don (D D ) Guttenplan described Penguin’s anxiety to withdraw, in his book on the trial, whose name I forget.

David Irving responds:

AMERICAN author Don (D D )
Guttenplan
described Penguin’s anxiety to withdraw, in his book on the trial, whose name I forget. There were however apparently arcane legal methods by which Mishcon de Reya (Deborah
Lipstadt’s solicitors) could then have proceeded against
Penguin, I was told.

I suspect that Penguin decided to fight on for P R reasons, or political; their managing director, whose evidence was put to the court but not used, was one
Andrew
Rosenheim. One may reasonably conclude that his interests and motives did not necessarily coincide with those of the shareholders.

If Penguin had accepted my first offer, dated Sept 11, 1998, in which as you rightly note Lipstadt was not included — as she was the most virulent libeller, and Penguin’s libels were purely accidental — I would have been in a losing situation either way: if I had won the action, I could not under US law (derived from New York Times vs. Sullivan; and the
First Amendment) have proceeded in the US courts to recover any damages or costs awarded against her.

So my offer was truly magnanimous.

You may believe “Skunky” Evans and his book if you wish; but which were the terms in my offer to Penguin than no publisher could accept? The payment of a trifling sum to a charity for the limbless? Surely not. The Lipstadt book was already dead, and copies were flooding back to the publishers, unsold, from bookstores around the country.

To which Barry Smith replies:

MOST informative. This was the first that I had seen that
Penguin wanted to settle, and that piqued my curiosity. It is also the first mention that I have seen of the obstacles put up that would have prevented you enforcing payment had you won – it was all one-way traffic.

I think that the first point that Richard Evans
made was that had Penguin settled that they would have been leaving their author high and dry. Secondly, he implied that settling would have been tantamount to agreeing not to criticise yourself or your work in the future, or indeed to say a cross word about any “Holocaust Denier” (in the sense of the word as defined in the Penguin trial).

The first point is simply good business — if you want to attract good authors then you have to be known to stand by those you publish.

If the second point is true then one could fairly say that they would also have grounds to defend the proceedings.

Richard Evans also pointed out that the second settlement offer was made after the defence had incurred considerable cost in preparing for trial, and implied that it was a PR stunt more than anything. (Having said this he did not mention the obstacles to enforcing payment against Professor
Lipstadt had you won – had he done so it may have left it to his readers to decide your motives for themselves).

I appreciate the time you took to reply — the points that you have made are not lost on me.