What a friend we have in Chomsky!
Guillaume next reiterates the steadfastness of Chomsky’s
support and even confesses that without it the intrepid
little original band of “revisionists” may never have grown
to its present strength. And all this is so remarkable,
according to Guillaume, since Chomsky is being victimized in
his own country, the United States, where the imperial
ideology of the West has somehow been able to raise its ugly
head once again. As a result, Chomsky, according to
Guillaume, has had his home audience greatly reduced and his
popularity endangered.
Guillaume is not insensitive to the problems posed by
ChomskyOs ritualistic affirmations that his, Chomsky’s,
views are “diametrically opposed to those of Faurisson.”
Yes, but Guillaume understands the difference between a
truth and a wink, n’est-ce pas (p. 163, my translation) :
Each time that Chomsky has said that his opinions
remain “diametrically opposed” to those of
Faurisson, he has done so in terms that are
absolutely incapable of hurting Faurisson; and he
has always indicated, by a word or a phrase, that
his “diametrically opposed” view was more a matter
of opinion than of scientific knowledge.
Guillaume replies here to criticism from one Chantal
Beauchamp, who, presuming to be more “revisionist” than he,
had objected to VT’s collaboration with what she apparently
regarded as an inadequately neo-Nazi Chomsky. Guillaume can
reassure her even further (pp. 167-8, my translation) :
Chomsky was involved in very taxing struggles
….. Dramatic events were taking place in the
Middle East. His own work — the exposure … of
American imperialism there, of the realities of
Zionism and of the state of Israel — took on an
immediate significance, something that could lead
to practical results. How is this work less
important than Faurisson’s … ?
The important work of Faurisson is the denial of the
Holocaust. The important work of Chomsky is the struggle
against Israel. And the common denominator of these, in the
eyes of Guillaume and his followers, can only be anti-
Semitism.
Now comes the most interesting part. Guillaume has told us
how close a political friend Chomsky has been, how he had
sacrificed self-interest to political principle by
publishing his book with VT rather than commercially, how
Chomsky’s “diametric opposition” to Faurisson did not really
mean what it said, how Chomsky’s work concerning Israel is
part of the same overall cause as FaurissonOs denial of the
Holocaust. And now, after all that, Guillaume says that he
submitted his report to Chomsky for possible corrections or
disagreements. So Chomsky was given the opportunity to tell
his story should it differ from that of Guillaume. And it
turns out that Chomsky indeed has a demurral that he needs
to press, and which Guillaume magnanimously publishes as a
sort of addendum to his own report. It seems that Guillaume
had gotten one very important point completely wrong. It is
not at all true, says Chomsky, that he is less popular now
in his own country than he had been in the days of Vietnam.
“I cannot accept even a fraction of the many speaking
invitations that I receive, and now it’s no longer, as it
was in the sixties, a matter of speaking to five people in
a church. Now there are real crowds at colleges and in the
community.” That is the sum total of Chomsky’s correction.
It confirms, in the most direct way possible, the close
political collaboration between Chomsky and the French
“revisionists.”
Not only did Chomsky publish his Political Economy of Human
Rights with Guillaume’s organization. He also prepared a
special booklet for Guillaume, not published anywhere else,
of some of his self-justifying correspondence concerning the
Faurisson affair. This publication, Reponses inedites,<37>
carries Chomsky’s name as author and Guillaume’s initials,
“P.G.,” as editor. Guillaume explains that Chomsky had
personally reviewed all translations from English to French.
For his part, Faurisson very frequently uses the Chomsky
connection in his ceaseless pursuit of some sort of
credibility. Bill Rubinstein of Australia reports that he
had originally learned of the Chomsky-Faurisson connection
only when an Australian Faurisson supporter flaunted
correspondence that showed Chomsky furnishing Faurisson with
information and advice.<38> It is just about impossible to
come across a French “revisionist” publication — be it by
Guillaume, Thion, or Faurisson himself — that omits the
obligatory reference to Chomsky’s patronage.<39>
What does Guillaume’s movement do to deserve such warm
friendship from the famous linguist of MIT ?
The tiny movement of _La Vieille Taupe_, though having a
history of quite different concerns that I will sketch
later, seems to be doing little but Jew-baiting these days.
Through a micro-empire of publishing enterprises, operating
under its own name and such others as _Spartacus, Editions
de la Difference_, etc., the movement brings out a flood
of “revisionist” and anti-Semitic propaganda. First and
foremost it publishes numerous writings by and about
Faurisson. It also features several titles by the late
Oleft-wingO anti-Semite Paul Rassinier and the notorious
OThe Myth of AuschwitzO by the German neo-Nazi Wilhelm
Staeglich.
Recently Guillaume and Ogmios have started to publish a very
pretentiously-presented quarterly journal Annales d’Histoire
Revisioniste. In appearance this magazine resembles a
scholarly publication but its function is to show that the
Holocaust never happened. The first two issues contain,
among other items, translations of articles that have
previously appeared in the California neo-Nazi journal
Journal of Historical Review.<40>
In the spring of 1985 the movie Shoah was showing in Paris
and VT’s leader Pierre Guillaume, obviously seeking more
notoriety, personally proceeded to hand out leaflets in
front of the theater. The leaflets denounced the “political-
financial” swindle by all those who claim that Jews were
killed by the Nazis. As Guillaume tells the story, the
incident became the basis of a defamation suit against him
brought by the International League Against Racism and Anti-
Semitism.<41>
VT’s anti-Semitism is not confined to Holocaust-denial. It
has discovered something it apparently thinks is a very
clever find. It so happens that the young Bernard Lazare,
later one of the founders of left-wing Zionism, wrote a
curious little book in the years before the Dreyfus affair
made him a partisan for Jewish rights. This self-hating
early book, Anti-Semitism, Its History and Causes, is
actually not at all a discovery of La Vieille Taupe. It has
been used by anti-Semites and anti-Semitic movements from
the days of Dreyfus to the days of Vichy. It is a curious
hodgepodge of accusation and self-accusation, particularly
bitter about the Talmud and its alleged influence on the
Jews. The book can tell us very little about its professed
subject but it has consistently been cited by anti-Semites
as confirmation and justification of their hatred. <42>
There is no possible reason for anyone but an anti-Semitic
organization to republish it now. VT has proceeded to issue
a new edition over the legal objections by members of the
Lazare family and the organization Friends of Bernard
Lazare.<43>
La Vieille Taupe is among the very smallest of the tiny
political sects of Paris yet it publishes as if it were a
major institution. The physical appearance of VT products
is very professional and certainly belies the very marginal
nature of the organization. I recently sent a one-paragraph
note to the group in which I requested a list of its
publications. By return air mail I received twelve books
and pamphlets. Eight of these were marked with list prices
that amounted to a total of 456 French francs. I estimate
the four other items to come to at least another fifty
francs, or a total of approximately 500 francs for the
material in the package. Since the postage cost a further
148.50 francs, the value of the gift that I received from_La
Vieille Taupe_ amounts to 648.50 francs, or about $117 in US
currency. I am obviously not the only person to enjoy this
kind of largesse. I know nobody in the group, as far as I
can tell nobody in it knows me, and I did no more than
express a simple request for a book catalog. Where does the
money for all this come from? Ogmios, a bookstore of the
extreme right wing which is associated with VT in various
enterprises, has been linked to the government of Iran (see
above). The source of Vieille Taupe’s own obviously
substantial finances has so far remained a mystery.
Chomsky has of course been criticized for his involvement
with Faurisson and the VT movement, not least within the
Left. Chomsky has sought to meet all such objections by
saying a) that he does not agree with Faurisson but is
merely defending freedom of speech; b) that Faurisson and
the VT are being maligned by opponents; and c) that the
whole affair is unimportant and should not be discussed. Of
these three arguments only the first — the civil rights
argument — needs detailed examination, which we shall give
it later. The other points can be dealt with more
summarily.
Chomsky has persistently misrepresented the politics of
Faurisson and VT. In his famous “Preface” he calls
Faurisson a liberal.<44> He has also seen fit to praise
Serge Thion, Faurisson’s associate, as a “libertarian
socialist scholar”<45> without mentioning that Thion has for
the last nine years or so written lengthy books and articles
to the effect that the Holocaust is a Jewish lie. Both Bill
Rubinstein of Australia and I have sent detailed proof of
Faurisson’s anti-Semitism to Chomsky. I have most recently
sent him Faurisson’s article which declares all witnesses to
the Holocaust at Auschwitz to be Jews and liars because they
are Jews,<46> but Chomsky has remained obdurate. To
Rubinstein he wrote the following:
I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of
the existence of gas chambers, or even denial of
the holocaust. Nor would there be anti-Semitic
implications, per se, in the claim that the
holocaust (whether one believes it took place or
not) is being exploited, viciously so, by
apologists for Israeli repression and violence. I
see no hint of anti-Semitic implications in
Faurisson’s work …
Rubinstein has published this excerpt from a letter that
Chomsky sent him.<47> As he does routinely, Chomsky
objected to the publication of his correspondence but he has
not denied either the authenticity or the accuracy of the
passage.
Chomsky and his friends ordinarily try to suppress all
information concerning his neo-Nazi connections. The best
publicized case of such suppression involves the British
linguist Geoffrey Sampson who wrote the biographical sketch
of Chomsky in the British publication Biographical Companion
to Modern Thought. Sampson wrote a laudatory description of
Chomsky’s linguistics but allowed himself the following few
words of reservation about his politics:
..he forfeited authority as a political
commentator by a series of actions widely regarded
as ill-judged (repeated polemics minimizing the
Khmer Rouge atrocities in Cambodia; endorsement
of a book — which Chomsky admitted he had not
read — that denied the historical reality of the
Jewish Holocaust).<48>
Sampson has now told the story of how Chomsky was able,
through his influence with American publishers, to ban
Sampson’s contribution from the American (Harpers) edition
of this reference work.<49>
A new book of almost 500 pages, The Chomsky Reader, has now
been published by Pantheon under the editorship of James
Peck.<50> It purports to “[bring] together for the first
time the political thought of America’s leading dissident
intellectual.” The work is well indexed. It contains no
reference to Faurisson, La Vieille Taupe, Guillaume,
“revisionism,” or to any other topic that might give the
reader an inkling of Chomsky’s neo-Nazi involvements. The
one mention of Thion suggests that this French neo-Nazi is
actually no more than a Marxist intellectual.
If Chomsky likes to bad-mouth the Communists from time to
time, they, on their part, know how to appreciate an ally
and are willing to lend a hand in the cover-up. The
Communist magazine Canadian Jewish Outlook (now known simply
as Outlook) ran an article in October of 1983<51> that
praised Chomsky’s attacks on Israel but completely
suppressed any mention of his role in the neo-Nazi
movement. Communists are usually sensitive to neo-Nazism
but in the case of Chomsky there are obviously other
considerations.<52>
I have spoken so far only of Chomsky’s connections with the
neo-Nazis of France, who seem to have been responsible for
his recruitment to the cause. But the “revisionist”
movement also has an American branch and Chomsky has become
embroiled on this side of the Atlantic as well.
ast-Modified: 1996/12/05
[Archived with author’s consent]
[Partners in Hate: Page 59]
