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Historian's recantation smacks of Trent Lott
Guilty-plea reminiscent of Galileo

VIENNA - David Irving, the British historian jailed for three years in Austria for "defaming the Jews," appears to have contracted the "political disease" popularized by Senator Trent Lott. Symptoms of Lottzeimer's resemble Alzheimer's, which robs the brain of its physical faculties, only Lottzeimer's saps the body of its moral and philosophical acuity. Lott, a staunch segregationist and Confederate-flag buff, abruptly denounced himself and his constituents, embracing Martin Luther King, who he had vehemently opposed, and demanding that the Confederate flag and Colonel Reb mascot at the University of Mississippi be removed. He lost on both counts. Lott, even, referred to his constituents as "criminals" for supporting the 1948 segregationist States Rights ticket.

Irving succumbed under similar pressure from the Israeli Lobby, pleading "guilty" to "defaming the Jews" akin to Lott's remorse over "defaming the Negro." Irving, 68, who had been seized while driving through Southern Austria, told a court that he had made a "mistake" seventeen years ago in criticizing the Jewish account of World War II and that he felt sorrow for the "innocent" Jews, who rightist historians blame for starting the war by besieging Germany. One of the chief complaints of Germans had been that Jews had monopolized the professions, business and government, forcing the general population into ruin, a charge echoed in modern-day America against the holdings of Jews in corporations, news-media and political-parties.

Attempts at repression in America fail

The Jewish Anti-Defamation League, which had authored the Austrian law making it a crime to criticize the Jews, rejoiced at Irving's conviction, but spokesman Ken Jacobson conceded that efforts to strap America with such measures have failed. Jacobson had succeeded in imposing a similar scheme upon York, Pennsylvania, which had adopted a York Unity ordinance, prohibiting segregationists from holding meetings on public property without paying millions of dollars. The Nationalist Movement obtained a federal-court injunction against the act, however, and the ADL-plan, said to be the only one in the country, was scrapped. Elan Steinberg of the World Jewish Congress said that the Irving conviction "sends an important signal" to critics of the Jews, but Richard Barrett disagreed.

According to Barrett, "The only thing I do now and encourage others to do is avoid travel to countries with such oppressive restrictions on free-speech and focus on scholarship and education emanating from the land of the free and the home of the brave." Barrett called the Austrian law "cowardly" for caving in to the whims of a minority pressure-group. "It's the same arrogance which caused that group to be kicked out of every country in the world," he observed. "People need to rise up, the way Americans did in 1776, if there is to be freedom anywhere else." Barrett called Irving's guilty-plea "degrading" and "bereft." "The cure for Lottzeimer's," he said, "is a massive inoculation of the truth." Barrett said that "quarantining" those whose "principles and morals have wasted away" would ensue.

Barrett called the Irving recantation, under pressure from the Israeli Lobby, tantamount to the recantation by Galileo, under pressure from the Inquisition. Internet-rumors had been circulating that Irving, himself, was Jewish. A website operated by Jared Taylor, who hosts conferences featuring Michael Levin, a New-York professor, called Irving a "victim." Irving had been hosted by Sam Dickson, a Taylor-associate, who had attempted to squelch organizing by Nationalists in Georgia. However, Barry Hackney criticized "cowards who are scared witless of being associated with Nationalists with guts." Hackney termed control by the Israeli-Lobby "illegitimate." Irving had acquired a reputation as a copious but irascible scholar. He once launched a pro se lawsuit against Deborah Lipstadt, but lost.