Footnotes
16 Morris, Stephen, “Chomsky on U. S. Foreign Policy,”
Harvard International Review, Dec.-January 1981, pp. 3-5, 26-
31. Responses by readers and rebuttal in issue of April-
May, 1981, pp. 22-26. The article is a review of Chomsky,
Noam, and Edward S. Herman, 1979, The Political Economy of
Human Rights, 2 volumes, Montreal, Black Rose Books.
17 What the French neo-Nazis have to say about themselves
may be gleaned from the writings by Faurisson, Guillaume,
and Thion which are mentioned in these notes. But there are
also three excellent major studies of these people, and I am
happy to acknowledge my great debt to the following: 1)
Finkielkraut, Alain, 1982, L’avenir d’une negation, Paris,
Seuil; 2) Fresco, Nadine, “Les redresseurs de Morts,” Les
Temps Modernes, no. 407, June 1980, pp. 2150-2211;
3) Vidal-Naquet, Pierre, 1987, Les Assassins de la memoire,
Paris, Seuil. As far as I know, only the latter two items
have appeared in English translation, but these seem to be
of excerpts only. There is a version of Fresco’s piece in
Dissent for Fall 1981 and of Vidal-Naquet’s book in
Democracy for April 1981, pp. 67-95. I have not seen these
translations and do not know how adequate they may be.
There is an excellent article about the American wing of
this “revisionist” movement: Dawidowicz, Lucy S., 1980,
“Lies About the Holocaust,” Commentary, vol. 70, No. 6,
December, pp. 31-37. We also have a good report by the Anti-
Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, 1980, “Holocaust
`Revisionism’: A Denial of History,” Facts, vol. 26, no. 2,
June. Credit for the first treatment of the relationship
between Chomsky and the neo-Nazis, written at a time when
many of the materials that we have now were still
unavailable, must go to W. D. Rubinstein, “Chomsky and the
Neo-Nazis,” Quadrant (Australia), October 1981, pp. 8-14. A
reply by Chomsky and a rebuttal by Rubinstein are published
in the April 1982 issue of the same journal.
18 L’Express, September 4, 1987, pp. 30-1.
19 Faurisson, Robert, 1985, “Revisionism on Trial:
Developments in France, 1979-1983,” Journal of Historical
Review, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 133-182. This credal
affirmation, comprising sixty words in its original French,
is frequently cited and recited verbatim by Faurisson and
his followers. For the French version and its ritualistic
use, see the pamphlet by Faurisson’s chief follower Pierre
Guillaume, 1986, Droit et Histoire, Paris, La Vieille
Taupe, pp. 18-19, 92.
20 Faurisson, Robert, 1986-7,”How the British Obtained the
Confessions of Rudolf Hoess,” The Journal of Historical
Review, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 389-403.
21 Faurisson, Robert, n.d., L’affaire Faurisson. Interview
de Robert Faurisson à Storia illustrata, aoet 1979.
Introduction by Faurisson and notice that this text was
revised for the purpose of the pamphlet. There is no date,
but the appended book list has items dated as late as 1986.
22 Op. Cit.
23 Allen, Robert, 1983, Voice of Britain. The Inside Story
of the Daily Express, Cambridge, Patrick Stephens; Taylor,
A.J.P., 1972, Beaverbrook, London, Hamish Hamilton.
24 Taylor, op. cit. p. 387.
25 There is a picture of this front page in Allen, op.
cit., p. 66.
26 I am translating from a French-language 2-page leaflet,
a catechism, entitled 66 Questions & Reponses sur
l’holocauste, n.d., Institute for Historical Research.
27 Cf. Faurisson’s 1985 article, cited above.
28 Chomsky, Noam, 1981, “The Faurisson Affair, His Right to
Say It,” The Nation, February 28, pp. 231-4.
29 The name means “The Old Mole,” an allusion to Marx who
borrowed the image from Shakespeare in order to rejoice in
what he thought was an underground presence of the
revolution.
30 Guillaume, Pierre, 1986, Droit et Histoire, Paris, La
Vieille Taupe. The two documents are published together
under the title “Une Mise au Point,” “A Clarification,” on
pp. 152-72.
31 Thion, Serge, 1980, Verite Historique ou Verite
Politique?, Paris, La Vieille Taupe, p. 163
32 In the Nation article cited above. He also takes up the
point in his famous Preface, cited as Faurisson, 1980,
below.
33 Nadine Fresco’ excellent article, cited above, discusses
Faurisson’s ludicrous claims to expertise in this field.
34 Faurisson 1985, pp. 180-1.
35 Because of his “revisionist” propaganda, Weber became
an embarrassment to the University of Tulsa, where he was
teaching German, and had his tenure terminated by a cash
settlement. See Hill, L. E., n.d., A 1985 Trial of an Anti-
Semite and Holocaust-Denier in Canada: Ernst Zundel, ms.
in preparation. I am greatly indebted to my colleague
Professor Hill for access to a first draft of this important
study of the first Zundel trial. Weber, like Faurisson and
other “revisionist” luminaries, was a defense witness at
this trial and his background became part of the trial
record.
36 As far as I know this text has never appeared in
English, but the content is very similar to Chomsky’s Nation
article cited above. The French text forms the preface to
Faurisson, Robert, 1980, Memoire en Defense, Paris, La
Vieille Taupe.
37 Chomsky, Noam, 1984, Réponses inedites, Paris,
Spartacus.
38 See the Rubinstein article cited above, as well as the
subsequent letters to the editor, cited in the same
footnote. Chomsky never challenged the authenticity of the
document or the information it contained. The same document
was published as Faurisson, Robert, 1980, “Letter to the
`New Statesman,'” Journal of Historical Review, vol. 1, no.
2, pp. 157-161.
39 See, for example, Faurisson, n.d., p. 24; Faurisson
1985, p. 181; Faurisson 1986, p. 69; Thion 1980, p. 163.
40 Faurisson’s previously-cited article on Hsss (1986-7)
appeared in a French version in the first issue of the
Annales, but there is a very curious bowdlerization. In the
American version Faurisson accuses the Auschwitz witnesses
of being liars because they are Jews, but this French
version makes no such claim. Could it be that there are
some kinds of anti-Semitism that are too blatant even for
Monsieur Guillaume ? See Faurisson, Robert, 1987, “Comment
les Britanniques ont obtenu les aveux de Rudolf Hsss,
commandant d’Auschwitz,” Annales d’Histoire Revisionniste,
no. 1, Printemps, pp. 137-152.
41 Guillaume, 1986, pp. 9, ff.
42 Wilson, Nelly, 1978, Bernard-Lazare, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press. See pages 90-1 and passim.
43 Lazare, Bernard, 1985, (Original edition 1984,)
L’Antisemitisme, Son Histoire et ses Causes. Paris, La
Vieille Taupe.
44 “Pour autant que je puisse en juger, Faurisson est une
sorte de liberal relativement apolitique.” Chomsky in
Faurisson 1980, pp. XIV-XV.
45 Chomsky, 1981, p. 231; see also Chomsky, Noam, 1987,
The Chomsky Reader, James Peck, editor, New York, Pantheon,
p. 294
46 Cohn to Chomsky, November 18, 1987. I sent him a copy
of Faurisson, 1986-7.
47 Rubinstein, 1981, p. 12
48 Cited in Sampson, Geoffrey, 1984, “Censoring `20th
Century Culture’: the Case of Noam Chomsky,” New Criterion,
vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 7-16. Chomsky’s vituperative reply, with
a rejoinder from Sampson, appeared in the January 1985 issue
of the same journal.
49 Ibid.
50 Chomsky 1987.
51 Epstein, Norman, 1983, “Chomsky, Israel and Nuclear
War,” Canadian Jewish Outlook, vol. 21, no. 9, Oct., pp. 17-
8.
52 The Communist press in Canada regularly advertises
Chomsky’s books and the Communist book store features them
together with the works of Gorbachev.
53 Stein, Howard F., 1980, “The Holocaust, and the Myth of
the Past as History,” Journal of Historical Review, vol. 1,
no. 4, Winter, pp. 309-322.
54 Stein, Howard F., 1980, “The Holocaust, and the Myth
of the Past as History,” Journal of Historical Review, vol.
1, no. 4, Winter, pp. 309-322.
55 Stein, Howard F., “L’Holocauste et le mythe du passe
comme histoire,” Annales d’Histoire Revisionniste, no. 2,
Ete, pp. 11-26.
56 Chomsky, Noam, 1986, “All Denials of Free Speech
Undercut a Democratic Society,” Journal of Historical
Review, vol. 7, no. 1, Spring, pp. 123-127.
57 See, for example, Chomsky 1981, p. 232
58 The late Norman Thomas, one of the founding members of
the American Civil Liberties Union, was often called on to
defend freedom of speech for the Communists. When invited
to a dinner in honor of the Communist leader William Z.
Foster, he replied indignantly: “… I certainly don’t want
him in jail but neither do I want to sponsor any dinner in
his honor. You surely know my position which is that I am
supporting your case because of my general views on civil
liberties and not because of my sympathy with Communism. I
will be honest with you and tell you that I would be a
Christian of a rather unusual type if I should be on
[Foster’s] committee …” See Swanberg, W. A., Norman
Thomas, New York, Scribner’s, p. 384.
59 Chomsky 1981, p. 231.
60 Chomsky 1987, p. 294.
61 See previous reference to Sampson’s article. This
passage comes from Chomsky’s reply, published in The New
Criterion of January 1985, pp. 81-4.
62 Cohn to Chomsky, November 2, 1985
63 See, for example, Chomsky 1984, p. 41.
64 Le Monde, June 18, 1987. The Bibliotheque Nationale in
Paris has several editions of Peres but I was unable to
borrow a copy on this side of the Atlantic. The booklet,
Comme quoi Napoleon n’a jamais existe, was republished
several times until what appears to be its last edition of
1909. But with all that — and perhaps this should be a
warning to Faurisson — Peres is not even a footnote in any
of the books on Napoleon that I have been able to consult.
65 Chomsky, 1987, pp. 3-55
66 An old record album Ballads for Sectarians by Billy
Friedland and Joe Glazer, circa 1951, has devoted a satiric
ballad to Spiro, whom they call Bill Bailey. Some of the
lyrics, reproduced here with permission of Professor William
H. Friedland, went as follows:
Bill Bailey belonged to every radical party that ever came
to be,/Till he finally decided to start his own party so he
wouldn’t diasgree/He got himself an office with a sign
outside the door, with “Marxist League” in letters red/ …
/ For seventeen years, Bill Bailey kept his office with the
sign outside the door./ But he never, ever, got a new
member; everybody made him sore./ …/
And so on that day, Bill Bailey passed away, and his soul to
Red Heaven flew/He was met at the gate by Old Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels, too./They said. “welcome comrade” as they
opened the gate to let Bill come inside,/As he slammed the
door back in old Karl’s face, these were the words he
cried:/”Oh you may be a friend of Karl Kautsky, and a pal of
Ferd Lassalle/You may get along with Wilhelm Liebknecht and
the First Internationale,/Yes, you may have inspired every
radical party from the Hudson to the Rhine,/Oh, you may be a
comrade of all of these folks, but you ain’t no comrade of
mine.”
67 Spiro, George, 1951, Marxism and the Bolshevik State.
Workers Democratic World Government Versus National-
Burocratic [sic] “Soviet” and Capitalist Regimes. New
York, Red Star Press.
68 Chomsky, 1987, pp. 7, 22-3, 29.
69 There is a succinct sketch of Council Communism in
Biard, Roland, 1978, Dictionnaire de l’extreme-gauche de
1945 à nos jours, Paris, Pierre Belfond, pp. 115-9. Among
the works available in English are the following: Kellner,
Douglas, ed., 1977, Karl Korsch: Revolutionary Theory,
Austin, Univ. of Texas Press; Mattick, Paul, 1978, Anti
Bolshevik Communism, White Plains, N.Y., M. E. Sharpe
70 Vidal-Naquet pp. 155, ff.; Finkielkraut pp. 40, ff.
There is also a very lengthy but quite interesting insider’s
description that comes to us from one of the tiny splinters
that left VT over Faurisson and other matters: (Anon.),
1983, “Le roman de nos origines,” La Banquise, No. 2, pp. 3-
60.
71 On this group, see the recapitulation by Paul Mattick,
Jr. (son of one of the founders of Council Communism), 1985,
“Socialisme ou Barbarie,” in Robert A. Gorman, ed.,
Biographical Dictionary of Neo-Marxism, Greenwood Press,
Westport, Ct.
72 Lessing, Theodor, 1930, Der jYdische Selbsthass,
JYdischer Verlag, Berlin. See also a new biography of its
author: Marwedel, Rainer, 1987, Theodor Lessing 1872-1933:
Eine Biographie. Darmstadt, Luchterhand.
73 Chomsky here echoes the position of the Communist
International at the time, which, on orders from the Soviet
government, gave its support to the Arab rioters in 1929.
Many Jewish Communists were outraged and left the Party over
this issue. See Melech Epstein, n.d., The Jew and
Communism, New York, Trade Union Sponsoring Comm., pp. 223,
ff. It is also of some interest here that Albert Einstein,
until this point an honorary officer of the Communist-
controlled Anti-Imperialist League, resigned in protest over
this matter in a letter dated September 6, 1929 (Document 47
458, Einstein Archive, cited by permission of the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, Israel).
74 I have relied on the apparently identical British
edition In Search of History.
75 Nicosia, Francis R., 1985, The Third Reich and the
Palestine Question, Austin, Tex., pp. 85-6.
76 How the Mufti is treated may well be used as a quick
test of veracity for any book that professes to discuss Arab-
Jewish relations. (Another test is is the treatment of Deir
Yassin, see my text below). Here is a report on some of the
books that Chomsky cites as his sources: Sykes mentions
the pro-German activities of the Mufti very briefly, but he
tells the reader what he needs to know. Porath’s volume
only deals with the period to 1929, but the reader is fully
informed about the Mufti’s anti-Jewish activities until then
and his share in responsibility for the 1929 violence (see
p. 270 and passim.). Flapan, though often cited by Arabs
because of his extreme views on certain issues, gives the
essential facts as well. The 1983 volume by Lenni Brenner,
a self-professed Jewish anti-Zionist with Trotskyist views,
acknowledges the facts but blames the Zionists: “The Mufti
was an incompetent reactionary who was driven into his anti-
Semitism by the Zionists” (p. 102). (Brenner and his work
are described in Walter Laqueur, 1987, “The Anti-Semitism
of Fools,” New Republic, November 2, pp. 33-39.) The
suppression of fact begins with the Khalidi volume, which,
as we have seen, makes no pretense at impartial scholarship.
It mentions the Mufti as a pre-war leader of Arabs but gives
no hint about the anti-Semitism or the Nazi connections.
But at least he still exists. For the Mufti’s complete
excision from history we have to wait until we come to the
work of Noam Chomsky himself. Perhaps it is apt that
Chomsky published his book just one year shy of Nineteen
Eighty-Four.
77 See the appropriate articles as listed in the index to
the Encyclopaedia Judaica, and the very helpful Myths and
Facts, issued every three years by Near East Report.
78 Chomsky, 1983, p. 449.
79 Ibid., p. 444
80 Ibid., p. 467
81 Epstein, Norman op. cit.
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