Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day029.06
Last-Modified: 2000/07/25

   Q.   Yes, of course, it is like the Women's Institute!  Drop
        down to the bottom of the page:  "Mr Irving's lecture was
        received enthusiastically by the audience and he was able
        to autograph and sell a substantial number of his own
        books during the meeting.  The Cleveland unit's next
        public activity will be a white power rock concert on New
        Year's Eve"?
   A.   "White power rock concert".
   Q.   Yes.  Now please turn over the page to page 4.
   A.   Are you going to ask a question about that?  Have I ever
        seen that before?  The answer is no.

.          P-46



   Q.   No, this is just part of the narrative, Mr Irving.  My
        question may sometimes come after several documents.  You
        have to be patient.
   A.   Well, sometimes I will give an immediate response.
   Q.   Page 4, your diary, October 1st 1995:  "Pittsburg,
        Pennsylvania to Cleveland, Ohio.  Rose at 7.30 a.m..
        Packed.  Left for Cleveland around 3 p.m.  Arrived at
        meeting place 6.00 p.m.  Fine meeting, around 150 people,
        many ethnic Germans.  Gate of $500 was agreed plus œ1700
        book sales.  What a relief.  Sat up to 2 a.m. with my
        hosts after supper chatting".  October 2nd:  "Rose 9.50
        a.m.  breakfast with my hosts, plural, lawyer etc." Do
        you still maintain that you do not know who these people were?
   A.   Yes.  The host was Mark Wavra who is a well-known
        Cleveland lawyer who had nothing to do with the Alliance.
        Is that the question you are asking?
   Q.   They were your hosts for this meeting, Mr Irving.
   A.   The hosts are the people I am actually staying with.  If
        you saw the previous letter, the first letter, that they
        have arranged for me to be accommodated in this lawyer's
        home, I have nothing against lawyers.
   Q.   Is that Mark Wavra the -- I can never remember what "IHR"
        stands for and I do not much care. IHR is historian?
   A.   Sorry, it is not.  It is Wavra, W-A-V-R-A.
   Q.   Yes, it is mishearing?

.          P-47



   A.   I point out, of course, there is not the slightest
        reference either in that diary entry or in any other diary
        entry to the NA or the National Alliance or to any other
        body which confirms what I said about having had no
        knowledge of them.
   Q.   Well, I asked you to be patient.  You have jumped in as
        you so often do ----
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   ---- and I turn now, please, to page 5?
   A.   Page?
   Q.   5, your diary again?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   October 6th 1995, same year?
   A.   Oh, yes.
   Q.   Five days later:  "Savanna, Georgia to Tampa, Florida.
        7.45 a.m. radio show from Tampa.  Did a 20 minute
        interview and they announced the location.  Not amused by
        that.  Drove all day to Tampa, phoned Key West, etc.  etc.
        etc.  Arrived at the Hotel Best Western at 4.00 p.m.
        Sinister gent with pony tail was the organizer.  Turned
        out the meeting here is also organized by the National
        Alliance and National Vanguard Bookshop.  Well
        attended".  Now, Mr Irving, do you want to revise the
        answers you have just been giving me?
   A.   It just goes to show how bad my memory is, yes, but it
        always illustrates, does it not, the fact that I am

.          P-48



        learning as I go along, and that I had not the slightest
        notion who these people are.  Would that be a proper
        interpretation to put on that entry?
   Q.   No, Mr Irving, it would not.  Turn now to the meeting
        here, Tampa, is also organized by the ----
   A.   The same entry.
   Q.   --- National Alliance.  In other words, you knew that both
        the meetings were organized by the National Alliance?
   A.   Obviously, I had subsequently learned that the previous
        one was also organized by this body which I had never heard of.
   Q.   We have seen that speech in Tampa in full in this court
        some weeks ago.  On this occasion the host, let me call
        him this, whose name I am afraid I do not know, but I
        suppose it might have been this chap Gliber, I do not
        know, although he seems to be in Cleveland and not Tampa,
        he opened the proceedings with you on the platform and the
        banner nearby: "Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the
        National Alliance and National Vanguard Books, I would
        like to proudly welcome Mr David Irving."  Do you want to
        revise your evidence, Mr Irving?
   A.   Well, obviously he put in a plug, what on TV would be
        called a plug for his own particular passion.
   Q.   "On behalf of the National Alliance and National Vanguard
        Books", remember your diary entry ----
   A.   Yes.

.          P-49



   Q.   --- organized by the National Alliance and National
        Vanguard Bookshop, "On behalf of the National Alliance and
        National Vanguard Books, I would like proudly", "I would
        like to proudly", he is an American, "I would like to
        proudly welcome Mr David Irving"?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Well, Mr Irving.
   A.   Well, as I say, he has taken the advantage that he is
        making the opening speech to put in a plug for his own
        friends.  That is all I can say, and it does not contrast
        with what I said in paragraph 25, that I have been invited
        by an individual and that the audience is almost entirely
        made up from my own list and that is why he is putting in
        his plug and why he is welcoming the outsiders.
   Q.   "I have no association with a body known to the Defendants
        as the National Alliance as such or whatsoever.  I do not
        agree that I have spoken at any National Alliance
        meetings".  Two statements which are both completely
        false, am I right?
   A.   No.  I stand entirely with what I said in paragraph 25,
        and it is quite evident from my diary entries that I am
        learning as I literally drive around the United States
        that I speak at these functions and afterwards I have
        found out, "Oh, that one was organized by this person too
        or by that body too", and I find out subsequently.  Once
        again, I have to say that I have not the faintest notion

.          P-50



        who they are or who they were.  I spoke in the United
        States sometimes 100 times in one year, always to
        different bodies, and I am not going to make any
        particular note of which these bodies or these functions
        or universities or groups or whatever.
   Q.   I take leave, if I may, Mr Irving to inform you that
        I reject every word of that answer.  I will not take it
        any further in that direction, but I do ask you, have you
        familiarised yourself with the National Alliance literature?
   A.   No, I am not the least bit interested in it.
   Q.   I thought you said you had looked at it since this case began?
   A.   I fluttered through the things that were put into your
        bundles.  That is when I have been mystified as to the
        relevance of them, frankly, catalogues of books and
        things.  I thought, what on earth has that got to do with me?
   Q.   Because this poisonous material is on sale at the meetings
        which you have allowed yourself to be exploited at, if
        I may put it like that, held and organized with your
        knowledge by the National Alliance?
   A.   I understand that Karl Marx's "Das Kapital" and Adolf
        Hitler's "Mein Kampf" is on sale at Harrods, but that does
        not mean to say that people who go and shop in the
        crockery department are in some way poisoned, does it, or

.          P-51



        in some way associated with those poisonous gentlemen?
   MR RAMPTON:  My Lord, I foresee there is not going to be much
        point in my asking Mr Irving to look at the material at
        this stage.  However, in the light of this passage in the
        evidence, I will invite your Lordship to look at it along
        down the line because it will form part of my closing submissions.
   MR IRVING:  Perhaps you should put them to me seriatim if you
        intend that his Lordship rely on them and I can say point
        by point have I seen it before, answer no.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Not seriatim, but what I think would be
        helpful and I think would be right, if I may say so, would
        be for you to put maybe a couple of them by way of
        representative samples.
   MR RAMPTON:  I will simply put their ideology.  One need not go
        any further than that.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Where, as a matter of record, would I find
        National Alliance?
   MR RAMPTON:  You would find the literature behind Rebecca
        Gutman's statement which is in file ----
   A.   That is right.  That is where I saw it too.
   Q.   --- C1, tab 2.
   A.   That is where I saw it for the first time and, frankly,
        I thought what on earth has it got to do with me, which is
        precisely why these witnesses should have been called so
        they could have been cross-examined, in my view.

.          P-52



   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You are now going to have the opportunity  ----
   A.   It is not quite the same thing.
   Q.   --- to comment on the literature.
   A.   It is not quite the same thing, though, is it?
   MR RAMPTON:  My Lord, the document I wish to refer to is the
        second document of the appendix to Rebecca Gutman's
        statement.  The front page says:  "What is the National
        Alliance?" Ideology and programme of the National
        Alliance.  Copyright 1993".
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Has Mr Irving got a copy of this?
   MR RAMPTON:  I am hoping he will be given one.
   A.   Can I draw your attention to page 1 which is one of the
        leaflets for one of the meetings that is relied on,
        apparently, and there is not any reference whatsoever to
        the National Alliance.  That is the Tampa function, is it not?
   MR RAMPTON:  True, but that was, as you acknowledge in your
        diary, a National Alliance event?
   A.   I say it subsequently turned out that the organizer was
        National Alliance.
   Q.   No, this is 1998, Mr Irving, not 1995.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Do I already have this file that has just
        been handed in?
   MR RAMPTON:  I am afraid mine is anonymous.  You have got your
        own C1 bundle, my Lord, I think.

.          P-53



   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It seems to be differently made up.
   A.   Can we, first of all, ask what paragraph of Gutman's
        report relies on this document so we can fit it into the
        constellation of evidence, so to speak?
   MR RAMPTON:  14, I think, I am told.  This is another National
        Alliance meeting at which you spoke, you see, Mr Irving,
        in 1998.  It might be worth looking at some of this.  Does
        your Lordship have it there?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I am just puzzled.  I do not think
        I have ever had this file.  I may be wrong about that, anyway.
   MR RAMPTON:  My Lord, may I first draw attention to parts of
        the Rebecca Gutman's statement?  This is the Civil
        Evidence Act evidence, paragraph 10 on the fifth page, the
        eligibility requirements of the National Alliance
        are:  "Any White person (a non-Jewish person of wholly
        European ancestry) of good character and at least 18 years
        of age who accepts as his own the goals of the National
        Alliance and who is willing to support the programme
        described herein".  It continues:  "No homosexual or
        bisexual person ... no person with a non-White spouse or a
        non-White dependant ... may be a member".  Notice,
        Mr Irving, the "white" wherever it appears has a capital
        W.  Now paragraph 14 ----
   A.   Can I draw your attention to paragraph 3 first?
   Q.   By all means.

.          P-54



   A.   The flyer made no mention of the National Alliance.  She
        points out that the function had no National Alliance
        presence apart from these leaflets that were, apparently,
        offered on some table somewhere else in the building.
   Q.   But for somebody, Mr Irving, like you who already knew
        that it was the National Alliance who was organizing the
        meeting, that really does not matter, does it?
   A.   Are you going to lead evidence that I knew in advance it
        was the National Alliance organizing the meeting?
   Q.   I am suggesting to you it must have been perfectly obvious.
   A.   That is something different, is it not?
   Q.   This is an old friendship, Mr Irving.
   A.   Is this the consensus of opinion again or is it something
        for which you have evidence?
   Q.   Mr Irving, please.  You have seen the evidence in your own
        diary.  You know the National Alliance, do you not?
   A.   Will you take me to the evidence in the diary?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We have just been through it, Mr Irving.  I
        do not think we need to go through it again.
   A.   This is a different meeting, my Lord.
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes, different meetings, three years later?
   A.   It is conflating different meetings, if I can use that
        word.  If he relies on this document, then, of course, we
        have to look at the actual meeting where the witness
        obtained this document which was, apparently, not a

.          P-55



        National Alliance meeting.
   Q.   We will just have a look at paragraph 14, if we may?
         "Inside the room there was a table set up with
        Mr Irving's books and copies of this latest newsletter.
        Across the room there was" ----
   A.   "Across the room".
   Q.   What?
   A.  "Across the room", in other words, nowhere near me.
   Q.   How big was the room, Mr Irving?
   A.   About twice as big as this.

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