steve248 wrote: ↑25 Sep 2021 17:25
I am not a fan of David Irving and not for a minute do I believe he ran rings around the defence experts. Those defence experts who dissected all of Irving's works and found in all his books he marginalized sources that did not fit with his story line, relied on tittle tattle for some sources, misquoted and short quoted others.
There are many, many authors much worse than Irving. Here's a prime example - AJ Cristol was the 2003 author of "The Liberty Incident: The 1967 Israeli Attack on the U.S. Navy Spy Ship"
US Veterans recognised and found the (by-then 35 year old) picture series that Cristol's sources (from a foreign military power) appear to have stolen and air-brushed to present as a "gun-camera" image. The image appears both on the front cover and inside as 4 consecutive images with the painted-on gun-sites moved around to make it appear they were successive frames from a film.
That is brazen falsification of history - which AJ Cristol turned into a second career, going round the world giving talks and handing out (signed) copies of his fraudulent book with the air-brushed photo right on the cover.
Who funded him to do that. His book and his subsequent conduct must surely be many, many times worse than anything Irving was ever guilty of. AJ Cristol is most notable for being state funded to carry out his deceit - but I can show you many other "historians" who are brazen propagandists for one side or another of history. Have a look for "McChrystal turns himself into an accidental whistleblower" and link him to Patreus and Austin.
steve248 wrote: ↑25 Sep 2021 17:25
His libel case was a major ill judgement on his part.
Was it? He'd been seriously successful as an author and claims to have been targeted to destroy his career. £millions and £millions were used against him twice - Phase I was to destroy his career as an author (I see no reason to doubt what Irving claimed in court):
Irving: The [Lipstadt] book ["Denying the Holocaust] which has been published by the First and Second Defendants has been not just sold through the normal outlets, it has been placed on the Internet on two different website locations ... that book will continue in perpetuity in cyber space. The book has been donated to very large numbers of university libraries around the world.
One of my correspondents at the University of Durham has found no fewer than three copies in Durham University library with library plate gummed into the front saying "donated by Friends of Durham University History Society". There is no such Society. So it has been actively propagated by who knows whom. The book is relied on as a source. It is an authoritative source by people who wish to attack me further. So it has an ongoing rolling effect far beyond the effect it has just on the one customer who picks it up at his local Barns & Noble or Waterstones bookshop, my Lord.
https://www.hdot.org/day02/
Phase II of this massive operation can't be costed or checked either but it looks credible enough:
In terms of manpower and financial resources, the Irving-Lipstadt clash was a David-Goliath battle. Whereas Irving acted as his own attorney, the Lipstadt-Penguin side employed some 20 courtroom lawyers and legal experts.
Irving's adversaries were also fabulously better funded. According to British press reports, generous financial aid for the Lipstadt-Penguin defense came from the American Jewish Committee, Edgar Bronfman, Sr. (co-chairman of the giant Seagram's company, and president of the World Jewish Congress), and Steven Spielberg (filmmaker and Jewish activist). "If that is not evidence of the global scale of the endeavor to destroy me," commented Irving wryly, "I do not know what is."
More than 543,000 pounds (about $841,650) was paid to defense experts and researchers for their testimony, reports and other help. Of this amount, Robert Jan Van Pelt received a staggering 109,244 pounds ($169,330), while Richard Evans, a Cambridge University historian, was paid 70,181 pounds ($109,482), and Peter Longerich received 76,195 pounds ($118,102). In addition, courtroom lawyer (barrister) fees totalled some 509,989 pounds ($790,482), of which Richard Rampton alone reportedly received half a million dollars.
Over a period of a few years he went from a good career to a busted flush.The author of his downfall couldn't justify the allegations she'd made - a fact apparently known to the defense, that they turned to their advantage in an extraordinary fashion. Having got an order against Lipstad he is forced to tell the court:
I was informed by the second Defendants' lawyers when your Lordship will have seen that I succeeded in obtaining an order that the Second Defendant should be required to swear a list on affidavit. When that occurs, as your Lordship is aware, I am not allowed to go behind the affidavit until the trial of the action. I was repeatedly reminded of this by the defendants' solicitors, who said you will be able to cross-examine Professor Lipstadt when the time comes, on her affidavit, and, of course, now we will not.
No expert in history has faced this level of confrontation in his life and in court and Irving's entire case was chopped out from under his feet by taking away the defendant at the last moment. Its hard to believe that any court could properly get to the truth in these circumstances.