[This piece is based on an article posted by Annie Alpert,
anny@ix.netcom.com, on May 1st, 1996, in response to an article from
a “revisionist.”]
To reiterate our conversation so far, I posted an essay about Butz’s
use of a figure that obviously came from the pen of Ben Freedman,
self-proclaimed Honorary Aryan. In the scheme of things, this isn’t a
big issue, of course, but I think it’s noteworthy because it’s
indicative of the type of copycatism that passes for research in the
world of “Revisionism.”
[email protected] (Annie Alpert) wrote:
Despite Mr. Kominsky’s hyperbole, I still admire the piece of
work he did on Freedman. In my interest in brevity when writing
that essay, I left out the fact that the NY Times printed a
retraction for that 15-18 million figure the following week.
Since Mr. Butz didn’t know this and used the figure, citing the
NY Times directly, I am drawn to the conclusion that Mr. Butz got
the number from Freedman, not the NY Times. Lousy research
skills, in my opinion.
To which you replied:
Don’t be so sure that Butz didn’t know it; c1980 “Louis Brandon”
wrote an article in the Journal of Historical Review which gave
an entirely different account.
You then quoted:
THE BIG LIE TECHNIQUE IN THE SANDBOX, Spring 1981.
It took me a while to track down this article, but I finally got a
copy of it. After reading it, I find myself terribly disappointed with
you, Alexander. I thought you were more discriminating!
The author of the article, “Lewis Brandon”, of course, is David
McCalden, the rabid British revisionist who died of AIDS a few years
ago after denouncing his previous beliefs. Here is an example of HIS
research skills:
From The Big Lie Technique in the Sandbox, Spring 1981, Journal of
Historical Review, p 35-43:
Newspapers are also subject to Zionist “revisionism.” In the New
York Times of 22 February 1948 a feature on the Jewish putsch…
The article in question made no mention of a “putsch.” Hanson’s
02/22/48 article (NY Times, page 4) was entitled “Armies for
Palestine: Need for International Force of 70,000 Believed Indicated
as U. N. Faces Decision.” Buried in the text was this:
…The Jewish areas of Palestine are an enclave surrounded by
Arabs. There are 650,000 to 700,000 Jews in Palestine and about
1,250,000 Arabs. Another 500,000 Jews inhabit other Arab
countries in the Middle East. The Arab population these states,
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and
Trans-Jordan, is more than 30,000,000. In these countries, the
Jews are tied by bonds of religion to the rest of the fifteen to
eighteen million Jews of the world, and most of the Arabs share
their religion with the rest of the world’s 221,000,000
Moslems…
NOTE: in context, we see that while Baldwin provides literal numbers
for the various population figures (i.e. 1,250,000), he gives
figurative numbers (i.e. “fifteen to eighteen million”) for the
estimated population of Jews. It would seem he didn’t think it was
important to get the number exact for this article.
…in Palestine gave a population figure of 15 to 18 million Jews
in the world. This figure would, of course, make the “Six
Million” a demographic nonsense, as there were 15 million Jews in
the world in 1940…
NOTE: this figure is uncited, and presumably sprang from the head of
Mr. McCalden.
…Immediately, the Zionist Lobby “appealed to the reason”…
Huh? Who said this? Where? When?
…of the publishers, and four days later, the following codicil
was published:
“Last Sunday’s article incorrectly estimated the Jewish
population of the world at 15 to 18 million. No census has
been conducted since the war, and estimates are only
approximate, but most authorities agree that Hitler’s
wholesale massacres of Jews during the war reduced the
Jewish population to perhaps 12 million today.”
Sensing that something was rotten in the state of publishing, the
ardent anti-Zionist Jew Benjamin Freedman investigated the case
in 1959….
WRONG! By Mr. Freedman’s description he arrived at the offices of the
NY Times on the MONDAY after the article appeared in the Sunday NY
Times in 1948.
…In his newsletter Common Sense…
Wrong, “Common Sense (A Newspaper Upholding Christianity and
Patriotism)” was a newspaper published by Conde McGinley in Union, New
Jersey. Mr. Freedman was a frequent contributor.
…of 1 May 1959 he described how he had been allowed to visit
the Times offices “through the courtesy of Mr. Arthur Hays
Sulzberger” (at that time somewhat of an anti-Zionist Jew) in
order to examine the reference file of the original article. He
claimed to have met with the Military Edition, Hanson Baldwin,
who showed him the results of the(ir) searching
investigations.”…
To be precise, here is what Mr. Freedman wrote in Common Sense in
1959:
On February 22, 1948, the New York Times published figures taken
from their 1947 secret census indicating a minimum of 16,150,000
and a maximum of 19,200,000 so-called “Jews” in the world for
1947. Through the courtesy of Mr. Arthur Hays Sulzberger,
publisher of the NY Times this author conferred on February 23,
1948 with Commander Baldwin in his office where this author
examined documents fully supporting the figures published by the
NY Times on February 22, 1948. This author was allowed to
examine the file containing the results of the searching
investigations conducted by the NY Times through its own offices
throughout the world and with the collaboration of governments
and religious bodies in those foreign countries.
Continuing your “Big Lie Technique” article:
…Eight years later, a Zionist writer Morris Kominsky…
Obviously, here, the word “Zionist” is used as a code-word for the
more pedestrian word “Jew.”
…investigated Freedman’s investigation. Baldwin this time
claimed that he had never met Freedman, as far as he could
remember, and that the original figures were simply lifted from
the 1948 edition of the World Almanac. The affair is discussed
at length in Kominsky’s book “The Hoaxers” Brandon Press (no
relation!)…
Oh, ha ha — except it’s BRANDEN Press, not BRANDON.
…Boston 1970.
To be precise, here is Mr. Baldwin’s letter, reprinted from Mr.
Kominsky’s book:
Dear Mr. Kominsky,
Thank you for your letter of inquiry of January 6. The world
Jewish population figures printed in this story came from the
1948 edition of the World Almanac. Later we checked it with the
American Jewish Committee and other sources and said in the
correction, as I noted to you in my previous letter, that the
authorities agree that Hitler’s wholesale massacre of Jews during
the war reduced the Jewish population to perhaps 12 million today
(2/26/48).
If Mr. Freedman met with me I do not remember it. The problem is
of course, that you are talking about events that took place 19
years ago. I see hundreds of people per year, many of them only
for a few minutes so I could not swear that I did not see Mr.
Freedman but if I did it made no impression either upon me or
upon my assistant.
I do not know what Mr. Freedman means by examination of documents
but to my knowledge we had no particular documents bearing on the
issue in question.
I hope this answers your questions; if there is anything else you
wish to know please do not hesitate to write again.
Sincerely,
Hanson W. Baldwin (Military Editor)
WHY BOTHER WITH THIS?
In 1976, Arthur Butz wrote “The Hoax of the 20th Century. In a
discussion of pre- and post-war population figures (p 13), Butz
stated:
Hanson Baldwin, N.Y. Times Military expert, in an article written
in 1948 dealing with the then forthcoming Arab-Jewish war on the
basis of information available at the UN and other places, gave a
figure of 15 to 18 million world Jewish population, as well as
figures for such things as Jews in Palestine, Jews in the Middle
East, Arabs in Palestine, total Arabs, total Moslems, etc.
(footnote 6).
Footnote 6 cites the original NYT article. No mention of the
retraction printed the following week. Are we to believe Butz plucked
this factoid out of the 1948 NYT times himself. Give me a break!
Obviously, there was no “secret census”, no “file containing the
results of the searching investigations conducted by the NY Times
through its own offices throughout the world and with the
collaboration of governments and religious bodies in those foreign
countries”. Just a beleaguered ex-military man, appointed editor, who
looked up some numbers in an almanac to make a deadline.
Mr. Freedman, in his eagerness to prove a point, unwittingly caused a
chain reaction of errors that were perpetuated by people who didn’t
bother to check the facts. A lot of times, when I’m verifying claims
made by revisionists and racists, I find errors, quotes out of
context and selective presentation of data. This is just another
example of it. It’s hard to take the revisionist position seriously
when it’s this easy to debunk the basic tenets.
Emailed and posted
—
Annie Alpert
