Irving v. Lipstadt

 1MR JUSTICE GRAY:    That is really why I have said what I have
 2just said. I do appreciate, Mr Irving, you do not accept
 3that it is an insignificant point because you say you are
 4accused of breaking an agreement.
 5MR IRVING:    Well...
 6MR JUSTICE GRAY:    It does not sound as if Mr Rampton is really
 7pursuing that at all.
 8MR RAMPTON:    Yes, but without permission.
 9MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Yes, but without permission does not mean
10breaking an agreement necessarily.
11MR RAMPTON:    That is a question of terminology really.
12MR JUSTICE GRAY:    I am in both your hands about that, but I
13personally do not think we should spend a lot of time.
14MR RAMPTON:    That is my present view, but I am not committing
15myself now. But I think your Lordship can reasonably
16expect that Moscow will not take up a lot of the court's
17time, as far as I am concerned.
18MR IRVING:    My Lord, if they were to put Moscow into section 5
19as well, I think that bucket is beginning to overflow.
20MR JUSTICE GRAY:    That is a very vivid way of putting it.
21MR IRVING:    We can put the whole of his Hizbollah and Farrakhan
22into section 5.
23MR RAMPTON:    That is not section 5. That is common sting which
24is different.
25MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Right, anyway, let us get on. That disposes
26of that. Yes, do please come back, Mr Irving.

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 1< MR DAVID IRVING, recalled.
 2< Cross-Examined by MR RAMPTON, QC, continued.
 3MR RAMPTON:    My Lord, there are three new bundles. They are
 4not new in any surprise sense. They are new in that we
 5have composed them for ease of reference for this part of
 6the case. There are two Auschwitz core bundles; the first
 7consisting of what one might call material arising out of
 8the Leuchter Report, and it has the Leuchter Report at the
 9beginning of it. The second Auschwitz core bundles are
10the original drawings and documents.
11MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Yes.
12MR RAMPTON:    The third new file, again composed from other
13sources, are statements by Mr Irving about Leuchter and
14the Leuchter report. That has been extracted from a range
15of the D files, D1 and 2 and 3.
16MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Many of which we have been through?
17MR RAMPTON:    Yes, exactly, but not the specific reference and
18I am hoping to cut that short this morning, if I possibly
19can.
20MR JUSTICE GRAY:    I am sorry to be tedious about it, but can we
21perhaps give these bundles a slightly more convenient
22means of identification?
23MR RAMPTON:    We started off by calling them "K".
24MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Well, why not?
25MR RAMPTON:    All right. K1, 2 and 3 then.
26MR JUSTICE GRAY:    It is just going to make life simpler later

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 1on.
 2MR RAMPTON:    Certainly, of course we will. The first fat one
 3is K1, the second one which has not got as much material
 4in it is K2, and the Claimant's statements are K3.
 5MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Yes.
 6MR RAMPTON (To the witness):    Mr Irving, could you turn open
 7the first tab in the first of those files? That should be
 8the Leuchter?
 9A. [Mr Irving]     It is, yes.
10Q. [Mr Rampton]     I would rather you use the one in the file because it has
11the appendices. Before I do that, I want to do something
12else. May I? I am sorry about that, my Lord, I had
13forgotten what I intended to do.
14MR JUSTICE GRAY:    That is all right.
15MR RAMPTON:    It is Monday morning. Could you, Mr Irving, turn
16up in the third file, K3, tab 4? This is a transcript of
17the press conference that you gave, introducing the
18Leuchter in your published edition on 23rd June 1989.
19Could you turn to page 21, please? I will start, if
20I may, at the bottom of page 20. You are being asked
21questions, Mr Irving, and somebody says at the bottom of
22page 20: "So they fabricated this evidence?" You say:
23 "Oh, we fabricated a lot of evidence at Nuremberg. I am
24very familiar with the private diaries", etc., "of Robert
25H Jackson and the American Judge Biddle."
26    Page 21 at the top: "They fabricated the

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 1evidence?" asked the questioner?
 2A. [Mr Irving]     "This evidence".
 3Q. [Mr Rampton]     I am sorry, "this evidence". You are quite right,
 4Mr Irving: "No, but I am familiar with how things like
 5the figure of 6 million were arrived at because that is
 6dealt with at great length in their private diaries."
 7Then you say this: "Judge Biddle, however, sitting in
 8judgment at Nuremberg, he looked at one Auschwitz survivor
 9all day, a Frenchman -- I am sure you know her name, she
10gave a heartbreaking testimony about what she had survived
11 -- and in his diary at the end of that day Judge Biddle
12privately wrote: 'I don't believe a word of what she is
13saying. I think she is a bloody liar'."
14     Mr Irving, he did not say that in his diary?
15A. [Mr Irving]     You are right. He did not write those words.
16Q. [Mr Rampton]     No. Those are your words, are they not?
17A. [Mr Irving]     This is my gloss on it, yes.
18Q. [Mr Rampton]     And he did not say it, did he, about the whole of her
19testimony?
20A. [Mr Irving]     I think he did. He sat there listening to the testimony
21and after a time when he could stand it no longer, he
22wrote in brackets in the middle of her testimony words
23which gave precisely this meaning to me as the reader.
24You must remember I have read the entire notes of Biddle
25in the archives in the United States.
26Q. [Mr Rampton]     I am going to show you the notes of Judge Biddle and what

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 1you wrote about them on your little index cards in a
 2moment. Can I just draw attention -- you do not need to
 3get it out -- the woman in question was a lady called
 4Marie-Claude Valliant-Courturier, was she not?
 5A. [Mr Irving]     A French Communist yes.
 6Q. [Mr Rampton]     A French Communist. As she said, a member of the
 7Resistance?
 8A. [Mr Irving]     Well, exactly, a member of the Resistance and a French
 9Communist.
10Q. [Mr Rampton]     Do you remember in your Nuremberg book -- if you would
11like to get it out, you shall -- you published a lot of
12pictures, quite a good selection of pictures really, after
13page 182?
14A. [Mr Irving]     Yes.
15Q. [Mr Rampton]     A caption to a picture of that lady, Madame
16Valliant-Couturier, reads as follows: "Credibility
17problems. As Madame Marie-Claude Valliant-Couturier below
18left testifies about her ordeal as a Communist interned at
19Auschwitz, Judge Francis Biddle notes that he does not
20believe her"?
21A. [Mr Irving]     Perhaps it would assist the court if you were to read out
22some of this lady's testimony to the Nuremberg court?
23Q. [Mr Rampton]     No, it would not in the very slightest, Mr Irving.
24A. [Mr Irving]     Well, it certainly would because you can see yourself how
25totally incredible her testimony was.
26Q. [Mr Rampton]     

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