[UseNet header trimmed]

From: yawen@enter.net (Yale F. Edeiken)
Date: December 1, 1997

Those whose screens are not clouded by coffee spray after reading Bellinger's various distortions have noticed that he is frequently, *ah*, coy about giving references for his various claims. Most of the time he just claims that they will be forthcoming at some unidentified time in the future which, like Godot, never seems to arrive. On the rare occasions when he doesn't stammer out that he read it "somewhere," his checkable references invariably fail to back out his contentions. Such a case is now before us.

Apparently tired of trying to find ever more ludicrous excuses for the murderers he seems to worship, he decided to use one of the red herrings of which he so fond. Bellinger has claimed that Eisenhower was planning to "murder" (Bellinger's words) the German High Command. Then he made his classic mistake. As proof of that assertion he claimed that the proof can be found in Telford Taylor's book "The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials" (1992; ISBN 0-316-83400-9) and presented some artfully snipped words taken completely out of context. The proof? Here are the quotations unaltered:

• "Subsequently Eisenhower put in writing his personal views, which he 'placed before the President and the Secretary of State when they came to Potsdam in July, 1945.' They included the following recommendations . . . . . (3) the German General Staff should be 'utterly eliminated,' all its records destroyed, its members 'scattered and rendered powerless to operate as a body,' and in 'proper cases' they should be 'more specifically punished.'" page 108

There was, of course, no mention of "murder" or any proposal to do so.

"On June 5, 1945, Einsenhower cabled the War Department that the policy his headquarters was carrying out was that 'members of the German General Staff Corps and equivalent Naval and Air Officers . . . should be arrested and segregated in separate detention camps pending . . . [Allied] decision as to their disposal." pages 109-110.

Again no mention or recommendation of "murder."

On June 18, 1945, Einsenhower made the following statement:

"The General Staff must be utterly destroyed. These wars of Germany's have been, from the standpoint of the General Staff, merely campaigns -- merely incidents. . . . Now, how are you going to destroy the German General Staff is something else again, because many of them have the excuse they did their duty as honorable soldiers. But my own opinion is that it should be made utterly impossible for them ever to function again . . . ."

"To my mind you not only have to get them and eliminate all their archives, but you have to get every man, certainly, that is a trained general staff officer, and I see no way of doing it except segregation in some way, where he simply can't get back to his job." --page 110

Again, not only no advocacy of "murder."

The final recommendations were formulated by Major General Ray W. Barker of Einsenhower's staff about which Taylor wrote:

"Three courses of action, Barker wrote, had been proposed for 'disposal' of these officers: (1) Banishment or exile of the 'St. Helena nature,' (2) 'Disposal, individually, or in small groups, throughout the world to places under control of the Allied governmens,' (3) 'Detention in Germany under severe restrictive measures prescribed by the Control Council.' The first two of these Barker very sensibily rejected . . . ." -- pages 111-112.

In short the sources which Bellinger cites as authority, say nothing whatsoever about the "murder" of the German General Staff. The "evidence" Bellinger cited was nothing more than transparently dishonest misquotation.

If you can't trust the messenger, Bellinger, how can you trust the message?