Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day008.26 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 Q. --- it is the tables. This is the bit of the report which ---- A. The argument, I would say, rather than the actual bit of the report. When you come away, having looked at that, you say, well, if those are the figures, if that is the argument, I am wow'd by it, I am impressed, because, as I said in my introduction, that is an exact science we are . P-41 talking about. We do not have to read between the lines of German documents and try to look for euphemisms. MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, before we go back to the Leuchter report, just so there shall not be any doubt about what you have been saying since it came out, this is merely one example, there are about at least a dozen, maybe 20, if we turn to tab 20 of the third of these new files? A. I can quite simply right now my position has remained unchanged from that day to this on precisely these grounds. Q. Despite the fact that you have communicated reservations about this question, in particular, to your friends, Mr Zundel and Mr Weber, a consequence of having received critical reports from outside people? A. The critical reports, if my memory is correct, were relating to Mr Leuchter's other rather superfluous calculations, like how many people can fit into one square metre, and this kind of calculation which I thought detracted from the ---- Q. Mr Irving, be careful. A. Yes. Q. We are going to look at what Mr Beer, for example, wrote to you in January 1990 in a moment. A. Well, we are looking at a letter written 10 years ago. I am quite happy to be surprised by what I wrote then. Q. No, Mr Irving. In 1995 at Tampa, Florida, for example, . P-42 you were as categorical in your dependence on Mr Leuchter's findings as to the relative amounts of residues as you ever have been? A. And I still am. Q. Despite having known that they were rubbish? A. I still am. My position on the significance, the global significance, of those discrepancies between the residues is the same now as it was then and I will be justifying this when the time comes. Q. Can you please take the first of those files, Auschwitz files, and it is in the same file as the Leuchter report which we are going to come back to in a moment, and turn to tab 5? MR JUSTICE GRAY: We are leaving the Leuchter now? MR RAMPTON: No, this is all to do with the Leuchter. My Lord, what I am interested in is not the objective value of the Leuchter report, which I hope we need not go into in this court -- we may have to -- but Mr Irving's treatment of it in the light of the knowledge which he had and which is itself contained in the report to which I am coming back, but only for that purpose. MR JUSTICE GRAY: His position is really very simple, is it not? It is this particular aspect of the report which caused him to engage in what you have described as the volte-face, and he maintains that position. So, in a sense, his position could not be more sharply defined. . P-43 MR RAMPTON: He knows it is wrong. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is the point, obviously, that needs to be pursued. MR RAMPTON: He knows there is a whole lot else wrong with this report. He knows, for example, the densities in the gas chambers is wrong. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That may or not be an issue; I suspect not. A. The what in the gas chambers? MR RAMPTON: The density of people in the gas chambers. A. Oh, the density of people. Q. Leuchter's assumptions about that are complete rubbish, are they not? A. Well, of course, this is precisely one thing that I challenged in my correspondence behind the scenes with people saying, "He is wrong on this and we have got to watch that he does not" ---- Q. Have you ever made that statement publicly before today? A. No, because that was not the crucial element of the Leuchter on which I relied. The crucial element is the scientific findings. As I say, chemistry is an exact science; you cannot get round it. The courts are convicting people the whole time on the basis of chemistry. Q. Yes, Mr Irving. Sometimes they are. It is not quite as exact as you may think, I think. However, that s beside the point. Chemistry is an exact science. You get small . P-44 residues, or you call them insignificant, traces in the gas chambers remains and much bigger traces in the delousing remains. That is the position, is it not? A. That is the position. Q. You have known that all along? A. Yes, and it has been confirmed by subsequent tests, even by the Poles. Q. Mr Irving, I know that. They found that out and Professor Markievitch found it out in 1994. You know that? A. He did not actually carry out the tests himself. He had others carry out the tests. Q. Now please turn to ---- A. Tab 6 or tab 5 did you say? Q. I think it is tab 5. A. "Critique of forensic examinations". Q. This you received -- I am just checking the date of the letter you wrote to Mr Weber, 12th January 1990? A. Yes. Q. You write actually to Mr Beer, from Florida, and you say: "Dear Mr Beer, thank you so much for sending me that anonymous treatise on the Leuchter report"? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry, Mr Rampton, I was distracted. Where are you now? I thought you said you were tab 5. MR RAMPTON: I will try to do a little of bit of history first. If it is not the way round, then it makes sense, perhaps, to do it chronologically. In tab 8, my Lord, . P-45 there is a short bundle of correspondence, and I do not know if your Lordship's pages are paginated? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, they are. MR RAMPTON: Mine are not. Then it is a letter which has 12th January 1990 on it, page 12? A. Page 12, yes. My Lord, this, of course, is not an agreed bundle in any sense. We are just seeing the documents that the Defence ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: If there is any document in it that you for one reason or another challenge, then please say so. A. No, my Lord, but, of course, it is just a very loaded selection of documents. Of course, they have not put any documents that would support my case. Q. You have not seen this file until today? A. Not until this morning, but I am quite happy to rest on these letters. MR RAMPTON: "Dear Mr Beer", you write on 12th January 1990, "Thank you so much for sending me that anonymous treatise on the Leuchter report to which I wrote the introduction. Incidentally, that is all that I wrote. My involvement in the project is no larger than that" ---- A. So why did you suggest that I had written the rest of the report? Q. I did not. I wanted to know who had written the captions, Mr Irving? A. You wanted to know who wrote the report. . P-46 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I know it is very tempting, but if we chase every hare we are going to be here until ... MR RAMPTON: And then you say this, Mr Irving: "I agree" - - we will look at the criticisms in a moment -- "agree, in fact, with many of your friends' criticisms and ascribe most of the shortcomings to the fact that engineers, like trade unionists, do not share the facility of expressing themselves in English that writers and poets have. Having said that, let me make a few general and specific points". Then I need not read the first three sentences, I think. A. I would rather you do. Q. I will if you want: "In October 1989, a follow up mission went to Auschwitz and brought back their findings in video form and they will shortly be published as a video. Again I have provided a German spoken introduction. The quality is magnificent and enables the viewer to see where somebody, the Poles(?) has attempted to falsify cavities, openings, etc. in the 'gas chambers' to make them accord with eye witness testimony". Now this is the sentence that I am interested in: "I think your friends' strictures about the 3,200 parts per million argument are right, but cannot agree that you should automatically go right to the other end of the scale 100 parts per million". Mr Irving, that shows, does it not, that you . P-47 knew perfectly well that Fred Leuchter's assumption that the Nazis would have used a concentration of 3,200 parts per million to kill their victims was a nonsense? A. No, not a nonsense, but probably not justified on the figures. Q. Now ---- A. Not to go right to the other end of the scale. Q. It goes down to about 300, I agree. It does not go as far as 100. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do I not need to see what the strictures were? MR RAMPTON: Yes. I am just going to show your Lordship. The best way, my Lord, of doing this -- it is at tab 5, my Lord -- maybe the best way of dealing with this, because it is quite important, I would suggest ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I can understand it is. MR RAMPTON: --- that your Lordship reads the whole of it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The critique? MR RAMPTON: Yes. A. And this letter to Mr Beer, please. MR RAMPTON: And the whole of the letter to Mr Beer as well, I quite agree with that, because it will save time when I then come back because I can ask ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do you want me to do that now? MR RAMPTON: I think it would help before I start asking questions about it because your Lordship will only find . P-48 that I am jumping too far ahead. It will take quite a little bit of time. Whether your Lordship would like to leave court for five minutes? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I suspect that there would be some who would welcome that. Perhaps I shall. It should not take up more than five minutes. MR RAMPTON: It should not, but it is not something to skim, if I may say so? A. I agree. If your Lordship will also pay attention to the marginal notes in the left-hand margin of the critique? They are handwritten notes by me at the time. MR RAMPTON: Yes, that, certainly. Unfortunately, mine have been cut off. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think they have been cut off. A. I can just very rapidly say at the first page it says "totally untrue"; the second page it says "vernouwi effect" which is something in liquid dynamics; the third page says "this is a bit too pretty" -- these are my comments -- then "important" I have underlined and then "no", I cannot read the next one. MR JUSTICE GRAY: When did you put those comments on? A. The day I received it, my Lord. MR RAMPTON: Is there another "important" on the fifth page? A. Yes, I have no idea what they refer to. I just... Q. Against paragraph 7 in a bracket on page 5, I cannot make anything of that. Mine has a hole punched through it . P-49 apart from anything else. This small handwriting. A. Well, I very probably then quoted it in my letter to Mr Beer because that is what I appear to have done. Q. All I can see is an exclamation mark. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I will go and read it. It will probably take me between five and 10 minutes. MR RAMPTON: Shall we come back at 10 to 12? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I will let you know. (The court adjourned for a short time) MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have read the critique and the letter to Mr Beer. MR RAMPTON: My Lord, I am grateful. Then, Mr Irving, I need only ask this, I hope. That report sent to you by Mr Colin Beer, I think it was, at the beginning of January 1990 was, in fact, a demolition of the Leuchter report, was it not? A. He calls it a critique. It is not an extermination or even an annihilation. It is a critique. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Fundamentally flawed? A. Yes. MR RAMPTON: Yes, fundamentally flawed. I will read the last paragraph of his conclusions. "The evidence of the Leuchter report when taken in the context of the times and in full consideration of all other evidence is consistent with that other evidence and together strongly supports both the fact and scale of the massacres in the gas . P-50 chambers at Birkenhau, provided the assumption is made that the gas chambers operated at a relatively low toxic concentration." That is the key to it, is it not, Mr Irving? A. Yes. Q. If there is a low concentration used in the gas chambers, a number of consequences flow, do they not? First, the need for a ventilation system, if any, is much reduced? Yes? A. Well, the ventilation system in mortuaries as prescribed by the architectural handbook. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is not an answer to the question.
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