Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day014.14
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20

   Q.   You were the ham in the sandwich between that man
        introducing you proudly on behalf of the National Alliance
        and another man after you spoke, who also spoke out on
        behalf of the National Alliance, Mr Irving.
   A.   That may well be, but I repeat what I say.  99 per cent of
        the English public, of which I am a member, has not the
        slightest idea what the National Alliance is in the United
        States, and that is the position I am in, and what I am

.          P-120

        still in.  This is no doubt the reason why your expert was
        unable to find the slightest reference to this
        organisation in my private diaries.
   Q.   Do you remember speaking at the Best Western Hotel in
        Tampa on July 25th 1998?
   A.   I remember speaking at the Best Western Hotel in Tampa,
        yes, but I do not know what the date was.
   Q.   I am just going to hold it up.  This is a flier, poster or
        leaflet for your talk.  Do you recognize it?
   A.   No.  I have not seen that.  It would not have been sent to
        me for obvious reasons.
   Q.   It says: "Banned.  World famous British historian banned
        for publishing politically incorrect views about the Holocaust".
   A.   Can you tell me where I find it in the bundle, please?
   Q.   It is one of these files, trial bundle C, tab 2, page 78.
        Mr Irving, there is a witness statement in tab 2 which is
        that of the Defendants' witness Rebecca Gutman.
   A.   Who we are not going to be able to cross-examine, I take it?
   Q.   No, you are certainly not.  I am only interested in
        pictures of you, Mr Irving, and the stuff that you know about?
   A.   I am talking about my coming back.  If this witness is not
        presenting herself for cross-examination, then the court
        is entitled to take what view of her evidence it wishes.

.          P-121

   Q.   Of course we know that, Mr Irving. Not only that, you
        should know that you are entitled to introduce by the same
        method material which might be apt to discredit her testimony.
   A.   I am not the one who is defending this case.  You are the
        one defending this case.  I remind you that I am the
        Claimant in this action and you are the Defendants, not
        other way round.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  On we go.
   MR RAMPTON:  Thank you, Mr Irving.  I think his Lordship
        probably knows that.  You can be sure that I do.
        Mr Irving, will you look at that poster?
   A.   Tab 2.
   Q.   Page 78 on the right-hand side of the page in the stamp.
   A.   C2.
   Q.   Mine has just got C on it.
   A.   This appears to be a leaflet handed out in the University
        of Southern Florida, University of Tampa.
   Q.   Best Western Hotel, 820 East Bush Boulevard, Tampa.  That
        is a regular venue for your attendances at the National
        Alliances meetings, is it not, Mr Irving?
   A.   I do not think I have ever spoken there again.  I may be wrong.
   Q.   This is 1998.
   A.   There is no year on this document.
   Q.   No, no, but there is in Miss Gutman's statement.  This is

.          P-122

        where she picked it up, and when she picked it up she
        reads in paragraph 3 as follows: "On or around mid July
        1998 the AJC (whatever that is) South West Florida
        Chapter, received a flier ... advertising a lecture to be
        given by Mr Irving on 25th July 1998 at the Best Western
        Hotel (address), this flier is attached".
   A.   The AJC is the American Jewish Committee, is that correct?
   Q.   I hope so, yes. Anyhow, it turns out it is another
        National Alliance meeting.
   A.   She says, "Although the flier made no mention of the
        National Alliance, the contact telephone number given was
        the number listed for the national office and the National
        Alliance", and I of course would have known that, would I?
   Q.   You would, Mr Irving, would you not, if you were pictured
        on the rostrum, podium or platform with a National
        Alliance banner beside you?
   A.   How on earth I would not what National Alliance banner looks like.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Let us have a look at it.  Tell us where it is.
   A.   Does it say National Alliance or something?
   MR RAMPTON:  As far as I am told.  I have never seen it.  Let
        us look at it.

                  (Video was played)?

   A.   It has also got David Irving posters behind.

.          P-123

   Q.   Yes.
   A.   So what is the significance of the CND banner?
   Q.   CND?  I thought you said National Alliance.

                  (Video played)?

   A.   It looked like the CND emblem to me.
   Q.   No, they are not?
   A.   Is that not the CND emblem?
   Q.   Mr Irving, if you would stop speaking for a moment,
        I could try and watch the picture.
   Q.   I see.  That is what Mr Irving calls a CND banner.
   A.   If I could see it from where I was standing, which is
        highly unlikely, if you look at the way the hall is laid
        out, I would have seen it sideways and I would have
        thought either that is a tree or a CND banner or
        something, but certainly the words and the banner would
        have meant nothing whatsoever to me.  There is no reason
        why they should have.
   Q.   This is the eighth of eight meetings of this body that you
        had been to.
   A.   What is the evidence for that.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Is it true?
   A.   What?
   Q.   Have you been to eight meetings of the National Alliance?
   A.   No, my Lord.  Of the National Alliance, not.  I have
        spoken across the United States possibly 50 or 60 times a year.

.          P-124

   MR RAMPTON:  That is one of them, is it not?
   A.   Well, you have yet to produce any evidence that I have
        known that I am speaking in a National Alliance meeting
        and, if it is not in my private diary, which is the
        obvious place to look for that evidence, at a time when no
        legal action was contemplated, then quite clearly I had
        not the slightest notion what the National Alliance was.
   Q.   Mr Irving, in 1995 the man introduces you proudly on
        behalf of the National Alliance and National Vanguard Books.
   A.   Why should that have stuck in my memory, do you think?
   Q.   Because you are tailed by another man who speaks about the
        National Alliance.  You go back again at least in 1998.
   A.   Excuse me.
   Q.   You go back again in 1998 and you speak from a rostrum
        with a prominent National Alliance banner beside you.
   A.   If you could see where this prominent banner is, it is
        either on a back wall or on a side wall where no doubt
        I cannot see it.
   Q.   How did you get into the room, Mr Irving?  Did somebody
        let you in?
   A.   So you imagine I go into a room as the speaker and I say,
        before I just go up to the rostrum I am just going to have
        a look around all the walls to see what is on display here
        and oh, by the way, what is that banner over there?
   Q.   Who put up the pictures of you behind you?

.          P-125

   A.   No doubt the organizers did.
   Q.   Yes, the organizers, Mr Irving.  Really!
   A.   The people who had invited me there.
   Q.   Yes, the National Alliance.
   A.   This is what you say but, unfortunately, you are
        introducing no evidence and your witness you are
        frightened to put on the cross-examination stand.
   Q.   We have seen the evidence on two tapes, Mr Irving.
   A.   I am sorry, that is not sufficient.  You have somebody, a
        member of the American Jewish Committee, who makes a
        written statement, who is not prepared to subject herself
        to cross-examination.  I am prepared to subject myself to
        cross-examination week after week after week by you and
        none of your witnesses are prepared.
   Q.   Very kind of you considering that you brought this action,
        Mr Irving.  We are all very grateful to you.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Rampton, if I may say so, that sort of
        comment is going to prolong matters.
   MR RAMPTON:  I pass on to the actual text.
   A.   I think it is a very fair statement to make, to draw
        attention to the fact that they are not presenting their
        witnesses for cross-examination.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is a perfectly fair point to make and
        I will bear it in mind with all the witnesses who are not
        actually going into the witness box to be cross-examined,
        I can assure you.

.          P-126

   A.   In the circumstances I think Mr Rampton's sarcasm is not
        called for.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Let us stop the comments and get on with the
        questions and answers.
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes.  I quite agree.  I am sorry about that.  Will
        you turn, please, to the text of what we have just seen?
        I have only a couple of questions about this.  It has to
        do with some of the things that you have said.
   A.   I draw attention first of all to the fact that there were
        familiar faces there, in other words people off my own
        mailing list are there.  That is what the nature of the
        audience is.
   Q.   There was a lot of laughter, was there not, at your
        tasteless jokes?
   A.   My what?
   Q.   A lot of laughter at your tasteless jokes, Mr Irving.
   A.   I flatter myself that I am an accomplished speaker.
   Q.   I will not say what I was going to say.  It would have
        been too obvious and rather cheap.  Now, would you like to
        use the full text?
   A.   You mean there was laughter at the point where I said, "if
        it does not fit you must acquit"?
   Q.   No.  There was laughter ----
   A.   I am drawing attention to where the laughter comes and of
        course the reference there is to the O J Simpson case.
   Q.   No, no, Mr Irving----

.          P-127

   Q.   You are interrupting me.  The reference was to the O J
        Simpson case which had just ended two days earlier where
        Johnny Cochrand had won the case by saying, "If it does
        not fit, you must acquit."
   Q.   There was the first laughter.  There was laughter all the
        way through and I am going to draw attention to some of
        the laughter.  Some of it is noted not in that transcript,
        in my transcript.  I made some notes as I was going
        through it.  In particular, when you are dealing with the
        plan from Colindale, I think your page number is probably 18.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   And over the page please.
   A.   These opponents had tried the usual tactic of taking over
        half the audience and then rioting throughout my entire lecture.
   Q.   Please be patient.  In the top half of page 19, the man
        from Colindale -- I do not know how you knew he came from
        Colindale, I am bound to say.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Let us leave that on one side.
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes.  You said to your affable audience in Tampa,
        "And he went berserk".  Yes?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   He said: "Are you trying to say that we are responsible
        for Auschwitz ourselves"?
   A.   Yes.

.          P-128

   Q.   And I said: "Well, the short answer is yes", and at that
        point I made a note on my transcript that there was really
        quite loud laughter.
   A.   Well, it is funny that it is not on the transcript in
        front of us when all the other laughter has been noted.
   Q.   We can go back to it, Mr Irving.  I assure you it is right.
   A.   I do not see quite what the point is that you are trying
        to make.
   Q.   What is funny about ----
   A.   I am repeating an actual exchange that happened in
        Shrieveport, Louisiana, between these hecklers who had
        decided to disrupt a lecture which I was delivering and
        then the heckling subsided and their ring leader stood up
        and I engaged him in this debate.  He said precisely the
        words that I quoted there, and I could have dodged the
        issue and said I do not want to get into that, but instead
        I met it head on and I said, "Well, the short answer would
        be yes, but there is a long answer.  The short answer
        misses out everything between the alpha and the omega, all
        the intervening stages".  It may be that it is an
        uncomfortable answer, it may be that it was not the answer
        they wanted to hear, but it is a question I had been
        wrestling with ever since I first became engaged with the
        Holocaust, how do crimes like this happen, and why do they happen.

.          P-129

   Q.   I am asking you a completely different question,
        Mr Irving.  You know that I was.  Again you dodge because
        you do not like it.  I asked you ----
   A.   I am sorry, you did not get to the question then.
   Q.   What was funny about what you said?
   A.   I disagree.  I did not hear any laughter and, if there had
        been laughter ----

Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor