Shadowing Practice: Christopher Hitchens interview (1996) - Learn English Speaking with Video

Last month, the publishing world was engaged in much hand-wringing and soul-searching.

The issue, the prospect of a mainstream literary house,

St. Martin's Press, publishing controversial historian David Irvin's biography of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

The argument then was that St. Martin's should not lend a respectable imprimatur to what was considered a Nazi revisionist tract.

Now, Christopher Hitchens, writing in this month's Vanity Fair, says that St. Martin's was wrong.

He joins us evening from Washington to talk about his reasons.

And with me in New York, Eric Brandel of the New York Post, who's also written a column on the same subject.

Christopher, you said, quote, after an uproar in the media, St. Martin's press canceled David Irving's biography, and they did the wrong thing.

Why did they do the wrong thing?

Well, David Irving, who's a rather intriguing individual, is probably one of the three or four necessary historians of the Third Reich and of the Nazi period.

His book, which is now freely available in England, he's published it himself, actually, has been reviewed there by Hugh Trevor Roper,

by Norman Stone, by Donald Cameron Watt, by all the major historians of the period, with great gravity and respect.

Because Irving knows the documents, he knows German, he knows the subject, he's, as I risk repeating myself by saying,

one of the leading contributors to the field.

The fact is that he has what I later go on to describe as depraved opinions.

I'm being partly ironic by saying that.

He's what they call a revisionist about the fascist period.

He's doubted certain things that some people take as read,

and therefore he's thought of as someone who needs to be handled with very great care as a sort of toxic substance.

What I'm really arguing in the piece is America is a sufficiently grown up and mature

and courageous culture to take the risk of admitting this historian to the canon of those who we can read

and review and discuss for ourselves as well.

Let me hear from Eric.

Yes, sir.

Christopher argues that David Irving is one of the necessary, three or four necessary, historians of the Third Reich.

Let's understand who we're talking about here popular historian, familiar with documents, who's unearthed new documents every time he's done a research project,

who contends, among other things, that the notion of a coherent scheme to annihilate European Jewry is a myth,

that Hitler didn't know about the Holocaust, that Anne Frank's diary was a hoax, that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz,

that the Holocaust itself as a phenomenon, the decision to murder European Jewry en masse, is open to doubt.

Christopher in his article makes something of a deal about the fact that Irving never said the Holocaust was a hoax.

That's true.

He said it was open to doubt.

I wonder what you're saying when you say this is one of the necessary historians of the period.

The fact that he unearths interesting documents.

Eric, if I may call you that, why can't we make this simple and easy?

Simply say that what you and I have read should be available to any other Americans read.

It should be available and it will be available.

The question is does a publishing house have any kind of moral obligation to lend its imprimatur to a book

that in fact the chairman of St. Martin's called effectively anti-semitic?

Why did he call it effectively anti-semitic?

Because he said in summary, and I think though it took a long time to get him to read the book and then to say this,

I think Mr. McCormick was right when he said the essence of this book is that the Jews asked for it.

You've read the book apparently.

If you've read the book, you would probably agree with Mr. McCormick.

That is a central theme of Irving's book.

In fact, he says the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, quote, goaded Joseph Goebbels.

How did he goad him?

He called for a boycott of German goods in 1939, by the way, six years after the Nazi seizure of power.

This, in other words, is the book that St. Martin's should lend its moral authority to.

I mean, there's no issue of censorship.

The Institute for Historical Review can publish David Irving.

Barricade books can publish David Irving.

My question is why does Vanity Fair, which published your article, accept everything that comes in across the transom?

Look, I may be obtuse here.

I don't really see, I didn't know that St. Martin's Press had any moral authority.

I don't know of any particular publisher that does.

I think the way that you do lose moral authority...

They have a reputation and I think they'd like to preserve it.

I'm at a slight disadvantage that I can't see you and I'm hearing you rather vaguely down the line, but I don't think I've interrupted you yet.

Let me just state what seems to me to be obvious.

Moral authority, I think, can be lost by a publisher who undertook to publish a book, read it in this case perhaps a dozen times,

read it for publication, submitted it for prizes and awards, put it out to its sales representatives, and appeared to cave in for reasons

that were certainly given to me by one of its senior executives as merely a matter of prudence.

They didn't want to stand up to the sort of row they thought they might get for printing it.

Now, I think that does involve a loss of moral authority.

So you can see the publishing houses have moral authority and if they can if they have moral authority

Let's not interrupt each other since you spoke I'm not even gonna get into it

if I have to I will but let me

if you finish Christopher now come back Because I want to go back

and Christopher is at a disadvantage because he can't see us Because we don't have one way video.

I can hear you properly now though.

Okay, go ahead Eric in a publishing house I think you might concede

if it lends its imprimatur to a book is is extending a piece of its reputation to that book.

That's why publishing houses reject some books and accept others.

I would contend that in the Irving case, I have a different reading of it than you.

I think the financial motive was dominant here.

They paid a very small advance, and they paid a small advance for a reason, Christopher.

The book wasn't able to secure a publisher in England.

In the United States, it was rejected by most publishers.

Why?

Because, as the chairman of St. Martin's eventually said, It is effectively anti-Semitic.

They decided to publish it.

They sent it out to the History Book Club and immediately recouped their advance.

A wise financial decision, a prudent decision, not in terms of what they were going to do to their reputation.

No censorship issue, no civil liberties issue.

We're not, by the sound of it, not much of a moral issue either from what you've just been saying.

Am I a moralist?

No, he said that was not much of a moral issue by...

From St. Martin's standpoint?

I'm now seriously confused as to whether you're saying that they were being financially prudent or morally in point of rectitude.

I don't think this was a moral issue on either side.

I would like to take you up on what you began by saying, our restless search for common ground, Mr. Brandal.

When you say that you think that like everyone else, or rather like us, everyone else should be able to read it.

No, but now you're saying only if they buy it what from some

Off-off Broadway Nazi bookstore now you say you've read it did you buy it from an off-off Broadway Nazi bookstore?

No, I got it sent by the publisher as I get

most of my books you got it sent by the publisher

I'm in a privileged position as a regular book review I

get most of my books for free by st. Martin's

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because st. Martin sent out very few band gal I got

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it sent I thought you said it was sent by it sent by David Oh the publisher David Irving well, why doesn't David Irving then publish it here?

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Well, that's conceivably what you have to do.

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It will be available, so we have no problem.

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Let me jump in, Christopher.

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Here's one thing I don't understand and I want to make sure that I do understand it.

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If St. Martin's had rejected the book in the beginning, never having thought about marketing plans,

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never having agreed to do it, would you have quarreled with that decision if they said, said, we don't want to publish this book because we think your views are obscene.

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No, I don't think one could have been able to quarrel with that in the same way as what did happen, which is that they accepted the book, they read it several times,

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they promoted it all the reasons I gave you.

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So your argument is that...

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And then they didn't even tell the author they weren't going to publish it.

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He heard that from the press.

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So your debate is about...

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And I have it on the word of one of the senior executives there

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that they did this in order to avoid trouble in the marketplace and trouble from people in the past.

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So people, agents who represent authors or authors who may still be publishing under there with St. Martins would,

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because of a decision or if they had continued the publication of this book, that they may have lost favor with some authors

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or they may have lost favor with some agents who might turn other potential authors their way.

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Well, I think they were afraid of a certain element in the press and in public opinion as well probably, yes.

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But the point is it was a funk.

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Charlie, that- I quote one of their editors in my article saying, if you want a title for your piece, why don't you call it Profiles in Prudence?

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Now, all of us on this show

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and everyone in publishing make their living basically by the idea of free expression

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and free trade and ideas and free exchange and everything that's under the rubric of the First Amendment.

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I'm in favor of extending this especially to people whose opinions may be repulsive or unpopular.

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That seems to me elementary.

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It seems to me that what you are objecting to, Christopher, because you come along in this piece that's interesting

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and worth reading in Vanity Fair and say the problem here is

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that they caved in to protest and because they feared the consequences of continuing,

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Not because they found it offensive to them in the beginning.

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No, that's absolutely...what Eric said about that is completely wrong.

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They didn't suddenly find it was anti-Jewish or anything of the sort.

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They'd had the book for a long time.

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They'd reviewed it repeatedly.

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They'd send it out to readers.

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They discussed it a lot.

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So you're calling...

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They panicked because of what they feared was going to be some sort of backlash, which I believe actually would not have occurred had it been printed.

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After all, the British reading public is not less sensitive on the matter of Nazism than the American one.

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while in Britain has been soberly reading reviews from senior scholars and academics on this subject for the last three weeks.

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I would argue that publishing a book that's effectively anti-Semitic, and by the way, if you want to call Tom McCormack, the chairman of St. Martin's, a liar who said that he first read it

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when the controversy was in full steam and at that point concluded that the book was effectively anti-Semitic, then you can do so.

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In fact, 400 St. Martin's employees staged a protest at the building itself

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and asked that the publishing house reconsider its decision to publish the book.

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Also a factor, a factor you haven't mentioned.

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This wasn't outside pressure from elements in the press.

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You're referring in a vague sort of way, but I suspect you have some sort of specific cadre in mind.

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These are just people who are working at St. Martin's who didn't want to be associated with an effectively anti-Semitic book.

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Is that something they shouldn't have done?

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There are many people at the publishing house who also said they should stand up to that understand by their contract.

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The fact is publishers do not exist to reflect

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public opinion or indeed stampeded opinion once it's been ignited by public opinion within their publishing house.

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They exist to make sure the widest range of ideas are available to readers.

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And on that implicit contract, as well as the explicit one with the author, St. Martin's defaulted, and I don't know Mr. McCormick,

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but I don't like the sound of him if he only reads a book when it's got to that stage, But I do quote other senior people at the publishing house who said to me clearly

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that it was for them a matter of saving their hide and covering their derriere.

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Well, your representation of Irving as a reputable historian who people in England are studying with great effect,

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I think ignores this entire history that we've been discussing.

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This is a man who said Anne Frank's diary was a hoax.

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This is a man who says the Holocaust as an event is open to doubt.

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And this is a man in this book, this Goebbels biography, based on new archival sources, says that effectively the Jews brought it on themselves,

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they goaded Goebbels, Weizmann, the leader of the Zionist movement, goaded Goebbels into severe measures against the Jews.

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And by the way, repeats the Hitler apology that defines Irving's argument throughout his work.

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In that context, Christopher asked this question, if in fact those things are true, that he did say those things,

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does he still, in your judgment, can he be characterized as a reputable historian if he holds those views?

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I don't have to defend his opinions.

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I have to only defend his right to hold them.

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But you can make a judgment about his reputation as a historian based on what he says and the judgments he's reached.

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I could make the judgment

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that he is a very major historian of fascism without taking any view on what he has said about it.

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Well, this is true.

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You can say Forrest saw in France, who says, after all, there were no concentration camps and no death camps, has the right to hold those views.

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And I wouldn't dispute that.

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But the question is, would you advocate that a major publishing house lend its imprimatur to Forrest-Saw's publications?

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I will say this much in the matter of Irving.

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In his biography of Churchill, which I have read, has changed the way almost all historians view Churchill, especially his relationship to Roosevelt.

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His study of the bombing of Dresden, though it's very controversial, is a necessary book if you want to argue about the bombing of Dresden.

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And his book, Hitler's War, is considered absolutely mad in that it searches based on the presumption

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that there's a document in which Hitler would have authorized the Holocaust.

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His book on Hitler's War is thought by many people to be extremely eccentric, and he once lost, though he lost narrowly,

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but he lost a bad libel suit in the book about a convoy called PQ-17.

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Nonetheless, in my opinion, and I say it boldly and clearly in my piece, if you are interested in the argument about the history of Nazism and the Third Reich,

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David Irving is one of the people you really owe it to yourself to read.

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And this is an uncontroversial point in my country because he has unearthed a very great deal of new information.

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His own spin on it is quite secondary to me.

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Most of what I know, I don't know about you, I've learned from arguing with people with whom I disagree, often very violently.

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Well, this is true, but they're levels of the game.

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I mean, I assume that they're serious scholars

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or people you would find serious in the sense that they unearth new information who publish in, for example, the Journal of the Institute for Historical Review,

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which dedicates itself primarily to proving, for example, that there were no gas chambers at Nazi death camps.

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There has been scholarship, Christopher, in those journals.

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Let there be no doubt about it.

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They have uncovered train records that many of us who study this field didn't know existed.

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They go to the actual archives.

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Irving is not alone in finding real sources and torturing them for his own use.

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What you're doing, in a sense, by arguing that because he does this, he merits the imprimatur of a major house,

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is ignoring the implications of the book itself.

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And from that standpoint, you might as well say

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that a historian who marches in with a book that says slavery never took place in America,

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and here are various sources that demonstrate various things that are true about pre-Civil War American history, ought to be published by Doubleday.

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If such a publishing event was to occur, I would expect the reviewers and the readers to be the ones to take care of it, yes.

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I mean, it would not be for a publisher at the threshold of publication to suddenly think, oh dear, this row would not be worth the trouble.

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Surely I've made myself plain on this point.

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I also quote Raoul Hilberg, who, as you I know know, is one of the senior historians of the Holocaust story,

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in many ways the original historian of it his book in 1961, The Destruction of European Jewry, is considered to be standard.

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He said to me, look, David Irving has made me go back and look at things again.

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David Irving has made me re-examine things I thought I knew for sure.

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David Irving has made me go over some ground, ask me how I know things, and I welcome this kind of challenge.

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Then let me ask you this.

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It seems to me a perfectly simple, I don't want to cloak myself in the mantle of Voltaire, but a perfectly simple point that it is not incumbent upon me to defend anything

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Irving says or hypothesizes in order for me to defend not his right to say it

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so much as my right to read it, which is the right that you are not taking into account.

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No, neither of which have been called into question.

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Let me conclude this with these two points, Christopher.

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One is that you believe for all the reasons you've stated

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that any major American publishing house should have published this book for all the reasons you've stated.

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Yes?

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Yes, certainly.

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Okay, secondly, in your reading of David Irving, has he changed, and his historical discoveries,

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has he changed your mind at all on any fact or understanding you had about the Nazi period?

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Not about the Nazi period, no. About the Churchill-Roosevelt relationship.

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That's different, though.

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That's a different book and a different issue.

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Yeah, no, he hasn't.

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But I think he has every right to try.

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Eric Rindell with the New York Post writes a column as an editor there.

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Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair magazine his story, which we've been talking about, is in the June 1996 issue of Vanity Fair.

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Christopher, thank you for joining us.

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Eric, thank you.

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Thank you for joining us.

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We'll see you tomorrow night.

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Shadowing Practice: Christopher Hitchens interview (1996) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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