Toronto, Ontario
‑‑- Upon resuming on Tuesday, December 8, 1998
at 10:00 a.m.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Good morning.
MR. ROSEN: I am ready to proceed with cross-examination, Mr. Chairman.
MR. CHRISTIE: I have a few more questions.
You asked me to clarify what the Court was going to do in Vancouver in Bersheid. My secretary finally got through to the Trial Court in Vancouver, and she advised that the Court had set June 14 to 30 and July 1 to 7 for Bersheid. That makes available April 6 to 9, 13 to 23, the whole month of May, June 1 to 4, June 10 to 11.
THE CHAIRPERSON: It makes available all the dates that we discussed yesterday with the exception of the ones that the Tribunal has a reservation of rights on. We will deal with that shortly.
Mr. Rosen, please.
MR. ROSEN: I just want to point out that April 9 and 10, I believe, are Passover, so the 9th is out. In addition to that, April 15 and 16 are, I believe, the last two days of Passover.
THE CHAIRPERSON: So what are we saying in terms of dates on which you suggest we can't sit, the 9th...?
MR. ROSEN: The 9th and 15th and 16th.
MEMBER DEVINS: Is it the 10th as well?
MR. ROSEN: The 10th, I think, is a Saturday.
THE CHAIRPERSON: The Tribunal will come up with a fresh schedule today and we will submit it to all.
MEMBER DEVINS: Thank you very much for getting those dates.
MR. CHRISTIE: I have obtained the transcript of Mr. Weber's qualification process in the District Court, and I have copies of that, together with the Ruling which I would like to introduce on the voir dire only as evidence of what took place in that proceeding and the ruling that was made.
THE CHAIRPERSON: I guess the question will be that, if we look at this, whether there are parallels to be followed in terms of the kind of evidence that was adduced in that hearing and what the implications of it are. Perhaps we can deal with that in argument and then, if we decide to look at that, we will do that.
RESUMED: MARK WEBER
EXAMINATION-IN-CHIEF, Continued
MR. CHRISTIE:
Q. Mr. Weber, when you testified 10 years ago in the Zundel trial, what was the subject matter that you were analyzing and upon which you were asked to express your opinion?
A. Primarily I did a line-by-line analysis of the booklet, "Did Six Million Really Die?"
Q. During the last 10 years have you been involved in carrying out any historical research or study in relation to the area of the Second World War and the Holocaust and the issues of the alleged extermination policy of the German government?
A. Yes, I have.
Q. How often and by what means?
A. On a regular basis during the past 10 years, especially in connection with my work at the Institute for Historical Review, I regularly carry out research and study on these questions.
Q. Are you a full-time employee at that institute?
A. Yes, I am.
Q. What is your position there?
A. I am Director of IHR and Editor of the Journal of Historical Review.
Q. How often is the Journal of Historical Review published?
A. Six times a year.
Q. What are the subjects that it publishes on?
A. The biggest concentration has to do with the Holocaust, Jewish-non-Jewish relations, Second World War, but the journal does deal with other issues, especially 20th century history in the United States and Europe.
Q. In these proceedings there is a pamphlet introduced called "Jewish Soap." Do you have any personal knowledge of that pamphlet?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. Why?
A. I am the author of it.
Q. You have listed in your CV articles that you have published in the Journal of Historical Review; is that correct?
A. That is correct.
Q. How often do you attend at the Institute for Historical Review and carry out research in the course of a normal month?
A. I go to the office five or six times a week. Even when I am not at the office I almost daily do reading and study on these historical questions.
Q. Have you taken part in any academic debates about the subject of the Holocaust?
A. Yes. The most significant one in this regard was in July 1995. I engaged in a two-hour debate with a professor at Occidental College in California on the Holocaust question. This was with Dr. Michael Shermer. He is a professor there of the History of Science and also editor of Skeptic Magazine which is a fairly well-read magazine in the United States.
MR. CHRISTIE: Those are my questions.
I was asked to specify the area of expertise in which I propose to call the witness. I am prepared to do that now.
Mark Weber is tendered as an expert on Holocaust history, Holocaust revisionism and the historical relations between Jews and non-Jews in modern times. He will be tendered to provide expert testimony on the social and historiographic context of Holocaust revisionism as identified ‑‑
THE CHAIRPERSON: Say that again, please.
MR. CHRISTIE: The social and historiographic context of Holocaust revisionism, including as expressed on what has been referred to here as the Zundelsite.
Mr. Weber will contest the opinions of Dr. Schweitzer about the allegedly hateful content of the Zundelsite, explaining its importance in the context of an ongoing historical debate.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Will you give me what you said again preceding the one about social and historiographic context?
MR. CHRISTIE: Mark Weber is an expert on Holocaust history, Holocaust revisionism and the relations between Jews and non-Jews in modern history and will provide expert testimony on the social and historiographic context of Holocaust revisionism, including as expressed on the Zundelsite.
Mr. Weber will contest opinions of Dr. Schweitzer about the allegedly hateful content of the Zundelsite, explaining its import in the context of an ongoing historical debate.
As an expert, Mr. Weber will testify that Zundelsite postings can and should be seen as part of a vital, global, historical debate on the nature and scope of the wartime fate of Europe's Jews. He will explain the revisionist side in this debate and indicate that it does not expose Jews to hatred or contempt but is, rather, a salutary correction of a dogmatically one-sided, anti-German, non-scholarly portrayal of the past.
He will allege the existence of a Holocaust industry which, in the context of this debate, is bad for Jews and causes hatred.
MR. KURZ: I don't think it is necessary for Mr. Christie to give us a précis of his anticipated evidence. When I stood up, I just wanted to know what he is being tendered as an expert in, not what he is going to testify on. I don't think it is necessary for Mr. Christie to read in the evidence.
THE CHAIRPERSON: You have covered the area in which his propositions will fall.
MR. CHRISTIE: I am anticipating the objections to be either in the realm of competence or in the realm of relevance. In order to deal in some practical way with any allegations about relevance, one has to identify what the areas of tendered evidence will be, and I intend to do that in order to show the relevance. If I cannot demonstrate or indicate what the intended evidence is, there is no way that I could address issues of relevance.
If you wish me to indicate that ‑‑
THE CHAIRPERSON: Do you have more to say in that area?
MR. CHRISTIE: Yes, I did, but I understand the objection.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Please proceed.
MR. CHRISTIE: Mr. Weber can testify as to the effect and historical validity of Zundelsite postings in the context of the ongoing historical debate.
Mr. Weber will testify that revisionism brings a humanizing and rational perspective to Holocaust history by offsetting the virtually religious dogmatism that now prevails. Revisionist scholarship helps the public to see Jews, as well as non-Jews, as human beings caught up in a tragic but explicable chapter of history.
He will suggest that some professional Holocaust dogmatics seek to stifle the debate by baseless allegations of hurt feelings such as antisemitism to prevent the discussion of this debate. He will identify that process in the nature of this complaint. I will repeat that.
He will suggest that some professional Holocaust dogmatics seek to stifle debate by baseless allegations of hurt feelings or antisemitism as is the nature of the complaint in this case.
That is the intended scope and purpose of the evidence of Mr. Weber.
I have the examination-in-chief and cross-examination on the qualifications of Mr. Weber which I have photocopied, along with the ruling of His Honour Judge Thomas as he then was. If it is not of any use at the moment, I am prepared to wait.
THE CHAIRPERSON: My colleague and I will decide whether we are going to look at that after full argument.
MR. CHRISTIE: Thank you.
MR. FREIMAN: In line with the Tribunal's direction to save time and to avoid repetition, Mr. Rosen will take the lead in cross-examination. Ms Zayid or I may have one or two questions at the end of the day.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. Rosen, please.
CROSS-EXAMINATION
MR. ROSEN:
Q. Mr. Weber, I understand, sir, that you were born in Portland, Oregon in October 1951. Is that correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. So that would make you, what, 47 years old?
A. Yes.
Q. Am I correct, sir, that you were raised in the Portland, Oregon area?
A. That's correct.
Q. You went to the Jesuit high school there?
A. That's correct.
Q. You graduated from high school, did you?
A. Yes.
Q. In 1969?
A. That's correct.
Q. That would make you about 17 or 18 years old?
A. I was 17.
Q. Then, I understand, sir, you travelled a bit. Is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. After travelling, you returned to the United States and went to university. Is that right?
A. That's correct.
Q. You studied for a year at the University of Illinois at Chicago?
A. That's correct.
Q. You then studied for a year at the University of Munich in Germany. Is that right?
A. That's correct.
Q. You called it two semesters. It would be the equivalent of an academic year?
A. Right.
Q. It may have taken you longer to do the two years because you were there for quite a while. Right?
A. I was there a year and a half altogether.
Q. That's right. Then you ultimately at some point in time returned to Portland State University where you got your Bachelor's Degree in history. Is that right?
A. To be more precise, I went to Portland State University and then the University of Illinois and then the University of Munich and then went back to Portland State.
Q. That is not clear in your CV. I take it that you were not at the University of Illinois on an exchange program with Portland.
A. No.
Q. And you were not at the University of Munich under the auspices of Portland State University, were you?
A. No.
Q. In fact, you did not complete your year at Portland State University in the first year before you went off to Illinois and Munich, did you?
A. The question is unclear. I completed a year at Portland.
Q. You spent the time there, but you didn't get full credit for a year of university, did you?
A. At Portland State University?
Q. That's right. You took less than a year's worth of credit, didn't you?
A. I think I did do a year's worth of credits, but I don't remember exactly.
Q. In any event, what year did you ultimately get your Bachelor's Degree in history?
A. I think it is on the CV.
Q. It isn't, actually.
A. I think it was 1976 or 1975.
Q. So, really, it took you from 1969 to 1975 or 1976 to complete four years of university.
A. No, that is not correct.
Q. To get a Bachelor's Degree.
A. No, that is not correct.
Q. You didn't get a degree before 1975 or 1976, did you?
A. No ‑‑ but that is misleading. I didn't start university in 1969 after I left high school.
Q. I understand. What I am saying, sir, is that from 1969 to 1975 or 1976 you did a number of things, going to these schools and travelling around. Right?
A. And working.
Q. And working, of course. Then at some point you spent about a year and a half getting a Master's Degree in European history in 1977 from Indiana University in Bloomington. Is that right?
A. That's correct.
Q. So that we are clear, sir, in your university years and your undergraduate years, you did not study Holocaust studies as part of your course work, did you?
A. I did some studies in graduate school, but not primarily.
Q. That was not my question. My question was: In undergraduate school you didn't do any, did you?
A. I don't believe so.
Q. Then in your Master of Arts Degree in European history the topic of your study or the main part of your study was on Hapsburg Europe, wasn't it?
A. That is correct, and 20th century Austro-Hungarian history, yes.
Q. Of course, the Hapsburgs went into the 20th century, up until World War I, didn't they?
A. Of course.
Q. And it was not a Master of Arts Degree in European history focused on a study of the Holocaust, was it?
A. No.
Q. Since you got your Master's Degree in European history in 1977, you have not gotten any other post-graduate degree, have you?
A. No.
Q. You say in your CV that you travelled widely in Europe and northwestern Africa. Right? That is what it says?
A. Yes.
Q. You lived and worked for two and a half years in Germany, Bonn and Munich. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. And for a time in Ghana in west Africa where you taught English, history and geography, you say, at a secondary school level. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. Was that just sort of on an ad hoc basis? You are saying "yes"?
A. I am waiting for the question.
Q. Was that teaching on an ad hoc basis or was that under the auspices of a particular program?
A. I don't know what you mean by "ad hoc" in this context. It wasn't as part of a program, no.
Q. You weren't with the Peace Corps.
A. No, I wasn't.
Q. And you weren't with any other government aid program, were you?
A. No.
Q. You were essentially either in school or travelling around for the period 1969 to 1977. Right ‑‑ about eight years?
A. I travelled. I lived in different countries. I went to school in different places, and I worked, yes.
Q. Through all that period of time you were able to avoid your conscription duty to the U.S. Services; isn't that right?
A. Are you implying that this was a way to avoid conscription or that I just wasn't conscripted?
Q. You didn't go, did you?
A. I was exempted because of a lottery.
Q. Because of what?
A. Because of a lottery. There was a lottery system at the time.
Q. You were exempted because of the lottery system, not because you were out of the country or not because you just made sure you were in one school or another to avoid your duty as an American citizen.
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. Of course, while you were doing this, you were gaining an insight into racism as a credo; isn't that right?
A. No, that is not right.
Q. White supremacy became your credo, didn't it?
A. No.
Q. You believe in the separation of the races, don't you?
A. I don't understand the question. Is this a question relating to then or now?
Q. You believe in the separation of the races, don't you?
A. I don't even know what the question means. Do I believe that the races are separated or should be separated?
Q. Mr. Weber, you know exactly what I mean. Let's not fool around. You personally believe that the white race should stay white, the black race should stay black, the yellow yellow, and so forth. Isn't that right?
A. I believe that each race should decide for itself what it wants to do.
Q. And you are a member of the white race, aren't you?
MR. CHRISTIE: Is that really relevant?
THE WITNESS: I think it is an insulting question. I am not a member of the white race; my race is white.
MR. ROSEN:
Q. And you consider yourself a member of the white race as opposed to some other race, don't you?
A. My race is white, yes.
Q. And you don't believe that you or any other person who is white should dilute that white race to something else, do you?
A. That's a ridiculous question.
Q. Is it?
A. Yes. It's an insulting question.
Q. Let's see what you did for the period that you were on the road from high school onward.
At some point in time after you did your travelling, you went to work and live in Washington, D.C. Is that right?
A. That is correct.
Q. While you were there, you went to work for a publication called the National Vanguard; is that right?
A. That is not quite correct. I was never employed by that publication. For about a year I was a member of the National Alliance which publishes a paper called the National Vanguard and I contributed to the paper.
Q. You told the Court in 1988, the Ontario District Court of Ontario as it was then, in the case of Her Majesty the Queen v. Ernst Zundel ‑‑ that is the one you testified at. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. You testified there in March 1988. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. You told the Court that you were the News Editor of the National Vanguard. Correct?
A. That's correct ‑‑ for a period of time.
Q. For a period of time, that's right. While you were the News Editor of the National Vanguard, there appeared a May 1978 edition of the Vanguard with a portion that you wrote. Isn't that correct?
A. Yes, I assume. I don't recall exactly, but I had articles in a number of issues about that time.
Q. You don't remember your discussion with Mr. John Pearson, the prosecutor at the time, that went on for 50 or 60 pages of transcript?
A. Oh, yes, I remember. I just don't remember specifically the date of the issue that you are referring to.
Q. Let me see if I can assist your memory.
Sir, I have produced for you part of your cross-examination in Volume XXV of the trial before Mr. Justice Thomas. Do you see that on the first page?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. At page 6524 Mr. Pearson asked you at about line 20:
"Q. You told us on Friday that you are or you were the news editor of the National Vanguard; is that right?
A. For ‑‑ well...
Q. Were you the news editor?
A. For a period of time. Eight years ago. More than eight years ago, I was affiliated with the paper.
Q. Right, and this is an article that appeared in the May 1978 edition of the National Vanguard, isn't it?"
He produces it for you, and on the next page you say:
"That's correct. I haven't seen this article in quite a few years."
Does that help you to refresh your memory, sir, that it was May 1978?
A. Yes.
Q. In May 1978 ‑‑ you told us that you got your Master's Degree in European history in December 1977. Correct?
A. I don't recall specifically, but I may have.
Q. And by May of 1978 here you are in Washington, D.C. the editor of the National Vanguard and writing almost one of your first articles for that publication. Right?
A. Well, it was almost one of my last, to be more accurate.
Q. The point is that you are writing about yourself.
A. It is the only article I wrote about myself, yes.
Q. The article that you wrote about yourself has a summary at the top of it in bold letters, which is set out at page 6526. Search as I did, I could not find a copy of the original, so we will go with the transcript:
"The best way to judge an organization or a movement is to look closely at the people who make it up. Decide whether or not they are people of character and intelligence who really understand the principles they are promoting and are deeply committed to them. Ask yourself whether they are the sort of people you want to become involved with; the sort of people in whom you can have confidence."
Do you see that? That little summary appeared at the top of the article before your words begin, didn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. Then it goes on with your little history of yourself. Is that right, Mr. Weber?
A. That is one way to put it.
Q. Let's see what your history was. Starting at about line 23 at page 6526:
"My first interest in politics..."
Then there is an objection by Mr. Christie, and we will start again. If you go to page 6528 ‑‑ by the way, so we are clear, you are the one who is reading this to the Court at that time, aren't you?
A. That's correct.
Q."My first interest in politics began during the Kennedy-Johnson years of unrestrained liberal optimism."
Are those your words?
A. As I recall, yes.
Q. Of course, "unrestrained liberal optimism" is your way of saying that those were the times that people got sucked into thinking the wrong way. Isn't that right?
A. No.
Q."Kennedy announced the Peace Corps and the alliance for Progress. Johnson proclaimed that his War on Poverty and other programs would begin a new age of abundance and equality for all."
Right? That is what you wrote?
A. I wrote that, yes.
Q. Then you have:
"'Freedom marches' and civil rights laws were dismantling the last barriers to 'racial equality', we were told."
Is that what you wrote?
A. Yes.
Q. The reason you put "Freedom marches" in quotes ‑‑ of course, you were referring to the marches of the sixties by black civil rights workers trying to break down the laws of discrimination and segregation in the south, weren't you?
A. As much as by others, yes.
Q."Films such as 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' suggested a happy mulatto future for America."
Is that what you wrote?
A. Yes.
Q. Of course, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" was the movie with Sidney Poitier who plays a black fiancé of a white girl?
A. That's correct.
Q. And is invited to meet her folks for the first time, and the reaction of the family to his arrival.
A. That's correct.
Q."I shared the national mood of childlike confidence."
Is that right?
A. That's correct.
Q. So you saw the national mood of the people of the United States at that time as not only one of confidence but of childlike confidence, being led down the garden path. Is that right, sir?
A. You are ascribing me words I didn't say.
Q. I know, but I am ascribing to you, sir, meanings. That is why you used the words "childlike confidence," isn't it?
A. You added more than just that.
Q. There was a reason for you to use "childlike", wasn't there?
A. Yes.
Q. Have you ever been to a church revival?
A. Yes.
Q. You know how somebody who has seen the light stands up in front of the congregation and begins by confessing their sins. Right?
A. I haven't seen that, but I have seen it on television.
Q. They confess their sins. Then, when they confess their sins, they tell their audience how they found the light to truth. Isn't that right?
A. I don't know. I have seen some movies and I have seen some television portrayals that portray something like that. I don't know quite what you are asking. Have I seen such a thing myself? No, I haven't.
Q. This is exactly what you are doing here in this little message, isn't it? You are confessing your sins, how you were led astray and down the garden path with the rest of America until you saw the light. Isn't that right, Mr. Weber?
A. Completely wrong.
Q. Let's see if I am wrong.
"I shared the national mood of childlike confidence. The President and the press claimed that the Great Society would usher in the liberal millennium."
Those are your words, aren't they?
A. That's correct.
Q."I took the politicians and the media masters at their word."
That is what you said?
A. Not exactly.
Q. Did you say:
"I took the politicians and the media masters at their word?"
A. Not exactly.
Q. You mean you misread that part of the pamphlet?
A. No, you misread what I wrote.
Q. Do you have the original?
A. No.
Q. Where have I ‑‑
A. You added the word "the", and it is not there.
Q. Oh, excuse me.
"I took the politicians and media masters at their word."
Is that right, sir?
A. That's correct.
Q. We want it right. Media masters ‑‑ that is the same media masters that manipulate the press today when it comes to the Holocaust. Is that right?
A. I don't know if I would use the word "manipulate," and they are not the same necessarily at all. The answer, I suppose, would be "no," but anyway ‑‑
Q. What were you going to say? Go ahead and finish your answer.
A. We are talking about a ‑‑ I don't understand your question.
Q. You seemed to because you were going to give me an answer and then you cut yourself off. Go ahead and finish your answer.
A. Would you repeat the question, please.
Q. Media masters, sir, that is what we are talking about. Those are the same media masters who manipulate and control the press when it comes to Holocaust revisionism; isn't that right?
A. Nowadays?
Q. And back then.
A. Well, no. I mean, at that time there wasn't anything like what we call a Holocaust campaign in the media then. There is now. The media masters, presumably, are different; the politicians are different. There is a period of about 20 or 30 years' difference.
Q. And in the 20 or 30 years what has happened, of course, is that the likes of you have come on the scene. Right?
A. That is a pretty insulting way to put things, sir.
Q. Sir, let's see what else you said:
"I earnestly believed in the social perfectibility of man, and in my all-White high school, I vigorously defended the notion that all races were created equal."
Is that what you wrote?
A. That's correct.
Q. You don't believe that today, though, do you?
A. It's a compound sentence. I could identify each part of it if you wish.
Q."I vigorously defended the notion that all races were created equal."
Do you see that part?
A. Yes.
Q."‑‑ the notion that all races were created equal."
Those are your words.
A. Correct.
Q. That all races were created equal is an idea that you are speaking of there, isn't it?
A. That is part of the sentence.
Q. Do you still believe today that all races were created equal?
A. I believe that races differ in many different ways.
Q. So that races are not created equal, just different. Is that right?
A. Correct, yes.
Q."During the summer, I volunteered time to help tutor young Blacks."
Is that one of the sins of your past?
A. No, it's not.
Q."There were no Negroes in the Portland, Oregon neighbourhood where I grew up. Race was never discussed at home, and my parents actively supported liberal Democrats at election time."
Have I read that correctly?
A. I think so.
Q. Was that true?
A. Is that statement true? Yes, it is.
Q."Like many Americans in the North during the 1960's, I uncritically accepted the notion that inferior Negro social performance was the result of White racism and an environment of deprivation."
Have I read that correctly?
A. I think so.
Q. That is what you wrote?
A. That's correct.
Q. When you were in high school, according to this, that is what you believed. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. Before you started your world travels. Is that correct, sir?
A. Yes.
Q."Like many Oregonians, I assumed that we would avoid racial problems by showing tolerance and understanding. We would be different from those racist Whites in the East and South, I thought."
Have I read that correctly?
A. I believe so.
Q. That is what you thought at the time?
A. That's correct.
Q. It turned out that you were wrong. Is that right? It turned out that those thoughts were wrong?
A. Well, I think that's ‑‑ you know.
Q."But if social and racial equality were realistic goals, why had they not been achieved long before?"
You ask; is that right?
A. That's correct.
Q. Is this a question you asked yourself in high school?
A. That's right.
Q. So away back in high school you were starting to dwell upon this concept of racial and social equality among the races. Is that right?
A. That is part of it. I was very, very interested in high school in this whole question of racial relations.
Q. You were?
A. Yes.
Q."‑‑ why had they not been achieved long before?"
Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. You go on to say:
"Dissatisfied with both liberal and conservative explanations, I turned to Marxism for answers."
That is what you wrote?
A. That's correct.
Q. Liberal explanations, of course, would include the notion that inferior Negro social performance was the result of White racism and an environment of deprivation. Right?
A. Yes.
Q. What would conservative explanations be?
A. For many conservatives the same thing, I suppose.
Q. You suppose.
A. Yes. There is some split among many conservatives on that very point.
What I was meaning here was with regard to specifically the question I had raised just before that, not the sentence several lines before.
Q. But we are talking about notions, and this is your dissatisfaction with both liberal explanations that your parents held ‑‑ right?
A. Yes.
Q. And conservative explanations which you have not set out in this.
Would you agree with me that liberal and conservative explanations represent the mainstream of societal thought?
A. Certainly.
Q. Marxism or communism is one fringe on the left on the political spectrum.
A. I suppose, yes. I won't argue with that.
Q. And White racism and extremism and Naziism or neo-Naziism is the fringe on the right, isn't it?
A. I wouldn't combine all those things like that at all.
Q. That is the political spectrum in the United States, isn't it?
A. No, I wouldn't put it that way. I don't agree with that characterization.
Q. There are Marxists on the left, liberals, conservatives and White supremacists right across the political spectrum.
A. No, I think that is a silly characterization. Some of what you call White supremacists may agree with Marxists in economic terms. You are combining or convoluting a schema that can apply in social and economic ways with views on race, which may not apply or may not be applicable.
Q. Let's stick to race: Marxism, liberalism, conservatism, White racism. That is the spectrum, isn't it?
A. No, I don't agree with that characterization.
Q. In any event, away back when in your early days, you chose to go to the left. According to you, "I turned to Marxism for answers." Is that right?
A. That is with regard to this specific question that I raised just before that: If social and racial equality were realistic goals, why had they not been achieved long before? I wrote: "Dissatisfied with liberal and conservative explanations ‑‑" that is, of that question ‑‑ "I turned to Marxism for answers."
Q. Yes, exactly. You went to the left first.
A. I turned to Marxism for answers.
Q. You go on:
"I attended meetings of various Marxist groups in Portland and was surprised by the reasonableness of their viewpoint."
A. Right, in that regard.
Q."Like millions of other young Americans, I became infatuated with the New Left. The Vietnam war starkly revealed to us the boundless hypocrisy of the system. Only a fool could believe a President who told the world that Americans were destroying Vietnam for the good of the Vietnamese themselves."
That is what you wrote?
A. Not exactly.
Q. Which word did I leave out this time?
A. You convoluted several words.
Q. Let's go back:
"Like millions of other young Americans, I became infatuated with the New Left."
Have I read that correctly, sir?
A. Yes, you have.
Q."The Vietnam war starkly revealed to us the boundless hypocrisy of the system."
Have I read that correctly, sir?
A. Yes.
Q."Only a fool could believe a President who told the world that Americans were destroying Vietnam for the good of the Vietnamese themselves."
Have I read that correctly, sir?
A. Yes.
Q."And widespread Black uprisings exposed the futility and bankruptcy of Great Society 'equality' schemes."
Have I read that correctly?
A. I believe so.
Q. So there you are with the New Left, and you have come to this realization as you have expressed it, at that time in your life. Right?
A. I said I was infatuated with the New Left.
Q. Yes.
A. Yes. You ‑‑
Q."I had already rejected ‑‑"
MR. CHRISTIE: If my learned friend would be so kind, I think it is appropriate not to cut the witness off.
MR. ROSEN: I haven't been cutting him off; he has been cutting himself off and then not giving me the answer.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Continue.
MR. ROSEN:
Q."I had already rejected rightwing conservatism as pathetically moribund and utterly without principle."
Is that what you wrote, sir?
A. That's correct.
Q."I had seen conservatives eventually give in to the liberals on every important issue."
Is that what you wrote, sir?
A. Yes.
Q. And those statements are true, as far as you know, in terms of what you saw and believed?
A. At that time, yes.
Q."The conservative position of the moment was the liberal position of ten years ago. The left, on the other hand, seemed dynamic, alive, progressive, and young."
Correct, in terms of how I have read it?
A. That's correct.
Q. And that is what you believed at the time?
A. Yes. That is how I saw things.
Q. Yes, initially, around the time you were leaving high school.
A. That is how I saw things at the time, yes.
Q."We were not really revolutionaries, we millions of young leftists who joined the demonstrations behind New Left banners."
Is that what you wrote, sir?
A. That's right.
Q. You didn't get to Chicago until 1973 or 1974?
A. That's correct. I wasn't there in 1968.
Q. You weren't there in 1968, no.
A. I wasn't there. I was in ‑‑
Q. You were still in high school.
A. That's right.
Q. You never literally joined the millions who demonstrated against the war in Vietnam, did you?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. You never joined the millions who went south in the United States in the Freedom Marches, who fought segregation, who worked for voter registration. You never did that, did you?
A. No.
Q."We demanded only the fulfillment of those liberal promises of world peace, racial equality, and economic redistribution which the politicians, the writers, and our teachers had made for many decades."
Have I read that correctly?
A. I believe so.
Q."We wanted action, not more high-sounding but empty rhetoric."
Have I read that correctly?
A. Yes.
Q."We demanded no new goals, but only the realization of those which we had been taught were desirable."
Have I read that correctly?
A. Yes.
Q. At the time you were leaving high school, that, according to you, is what you believed, isn't it?
A. Yes.
Q."In my last year of high school, 1969, and during the following summer, I worked in the campaign to raise money for starving, war-ravaged Biafrans, and I enthusiastically supported the Biafran struggle for independence from Nigeria. That war for 'national liberation' seemed infinitely more vital and noble than the wretched shop-politics of the West."
Have I read that correctly?
A. Yes.
Q. Of course, the war in Biafra was a small tribe of Ibos being persecuted by the larger population of Nigeria, and that is what led to the war. Right?
A. It's a little more complicated than that, but that is not an unfair characterization of the struggle.
Q. In fact, it was the beginning of one of the genocides in Africa, wasn't it?
A. It is probably correct to call it genocidal, yes.
Q. Of course, the reason you wrote this in 1978 was to show your readers of the National Alliance that you are just not such a bad guy after all. Right? You tried on that left hat and you worked for black people, you taught black kids and you got money for Biafrans, so you're not such a bad guy after all. Isn't that right, Mr. Weber?
A. That's a silly characterization.
Q. You go on to say:
"During the Biafra campaign I was both amazed and dismayed by the ignorance of the issues involved which was displayed by the wealthy liberals, church group representatives, politicians, and many ordinary White Americans who contributed money or time."
Have I read that correctly, sir?
A. I believe so.
Q."More disgusting yet were the expressions of guilt, opportunism, and inadequacy which characterized many of the most eager Biafra relief campaign supporters."
Have I read that correctly, sir?
A. Yes.
Q. What you are saying there is that the people that you worked with in Portland, Oregon to raise money for Biafra, among others, were the wealthy liberals, church group representatives, politicians, and many ordinary White Americans who contributed money and time. Right?
A. Well, not quite. I was involved in the Biafra campaign not just in Portland, Oregon but in other places as well. Part of this is based upon personal experience; part of it is based upon my reading and conversations with others about this whole phenomenon. I was deeply involved in the Biafra campaign, so your characterization is a bit inaccurate.
Q. What was concerning you was the ignorance of the issues displayed by wealthy liberals. Right?
A. Could you repeat the question.
Q. One of the things that was bothering you was the ignorance of the issues displayed by wealthy liberals.
A. That's correct.
Q. Is that a pseudonym for Jews?
A. No.
Q. It doesn't include Jews at all? Is that right? Does it?
A. It might.
Q. But you didn't have any Jewish experiences, did you?
A. What are Jewish experiences?
Q. You didn't have any experience with wealthy liberals who were Jews, did you?
A. I don't recall; I may have.
Q. You don't recall. Church group representatives, of course, would not include that. Politicians wouldn't include that, in your experience?
A. I don't recall any Jewish politicians.
Q. And "many ordinary White Americans" who contributed money or time ‑‑ you are not talking about Jewish Americans, are you?
A. Not particularly.
Q. Then you go on to say that the disgusting part was the expressions of guilt. What is this? Was this White people saying, "The reason we are chipping in here for the Biafrans is because we are White and we have to help these poor Black people?" Is that the expressions of guilt that you are referring to?
A. I was disgusted by what I felt were unfounded feelings of guilt by many White Americans at that time.
Q. Not only guilt, but expressions of guilt and expressions of opportunism. What do you mean by that, that White Americans felt badly that they had exploited the Blacks, so they were helping out here in the Biafra campaign?
A. I am not sure what I meant exactly.
Q. Something along those lines, though? Is that what you mean by "opportunism?"
A. I don't remember exactly.
Q. Certainly that is your word, "opportunism." Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. And inadequacy. That is White inadequacy. That is what you are referring to?
A. I am not sure if I meant just White inadequacy or inadequacy by many of the people who were involved in the campaign. I don't believe I was referring to race.
Q. You were talking about ordinary White Americans who contributed money and time. Right?
A. Among other people.
Q. Then you say:
"After the Biafra summer campaign, I flew to Europe. During a year spent working in Bonn, Germany, I first began to doubt many of my liberal ideas."
Have I read that correctly, sir?
A. That you read correctly.
Q. Up until this point, of course, we haven't mentioned anything about Jews, have we?
A. No, we haven't.
Q."In elementary and high school, I had been very interested in modern European history. I devoured many history books, especially ones dealing with the intriguing Hitler years, and now I hoped to find out more about that puzzling era."
Have I read that correctly?
A. Yes, you have.
Q. Modern European history. So you had devoured history books in high school. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. Especially the ones dealing with the "intriguing Hitler years." Is that right?
A. "Especially" may not be the best use of the word, but, yes, I read a lot on that subject.
Q. But that is what you wrote in 1978.
A. Yes.
Q. Just a shorter time after the period we are talking about than we are now, 20 years later.
A. That's right.
Q. The "intriguing Hitler years" ‑‑ it intrigued you, didn't it?
A. Yes, it did.
Q."‑‑ and now I hoped to find out more about that puzzling era."
Is that right?
A. That's correct.
Q. So you went over to Bonn, Germany for not just a little visit, but for an extended stay.
A. I was there for a year.
Q. And you wanted to find out what these intriguing Hitler years were really all about, didn't you?
A. That's not why I went to Bonn.
Q. How old were you when you went to Bonn?
A. Eighteen.
Q. Did you have family over there?
A. No.
Q. Did you have friends over there?
A. I knew people, friends or acquaintances, through the Biafra campaign.
Q. Had you met any neo-Nazis in Portland, Oregon up to that time?
A. No.
Q. White supremacists?
A. I don't believe so.
Q. People with connections to Germany?
A. People with connections to Germany?
Q. Yes.
A. Yes, I had met people with connections to Germany, I am sure.
Q. In fact, all through your high school years, in your White high school, race had been discussed by you and your friends. Isn't that right?
A. On occasion, yes.
Q. And it had intrigued you as much as the intriguing Hitler years, didn't it?
A. Questions of race intrigued me? Yes, that's correct.
Q. You go on and you say this:
"On the one hand, I had heard that Hitler and his small gang of henchmen had managed to deceptively take over and enslave the largest, most cultural and advanced nation in Europe and then madly tried to take over the world."
Have I read that correctly?
A. You read it correctly, but probably it is not correct. I probably meant "most cultured" rather than "most cultural."
Q. Most cultured or most cultural, but I read it correctly from the transcript?
A. I think so, yes.
Q. Not much turns on whether it is "cultured" or "cultural." We understand the meaning, don't we?
A. I think so.
Q. What you were summarizing was what you perceived to be sort of the standard history line that you learned in high school about that period of time. Right?
A. No. As the paragraph goes on, one heard different things, which the second part is also what I heard.
Q. First of all, one thing you were taught, or at least you say you were taught, was that Hitler and his small gang of henchmen had managed to deceptively take over and enslave, basically, the German nation.
A. Right.
Q. You go on:
"On the other hand, I was also taught that the German people were traditionally militaristic, chauvinistic, power-hungry fanatics who eagerly supported Hitler's evil policies and were, therefore, also collectively 'guilty' of 'crimes against humanity'."
Have I read that correctly?
A. I believe so.
Q. That is what you say you were taught. Is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Now we are going to have the epiphany in your visit to Germany. Right?
A. No.
Q. It is the beginning of the awakening of Mark Weber, high school student, about to find out the truth, isn't it?
A. No.
Q. Because that is what you wrote about, wasn't it?
A. No. I never wrote in that simplistic a way nor did things happen in that simplistic a way.
Q. Of course not.
A. You are giving a very simplistic and silly construction.
Q. Really?
A. Yes.
Q. You see, I wasn't there in 1978 at the National Vanguard penning these words, because they are your words, aren't they? Aren't they, Mr. Weber? They are your words.
A. These are my words, yes.
Q. You are the one who summarized and thought it out and word by word, line by line, indelibly marked this on paper for future generations to read. Isn't that right?
A. Future generations may read it. I didn't write it particularly with the idea that future generations were going to be reading it.
Q. Come on, Mr. Weber! You weren't just writing a letter to a friend; you were putting it in a publication that some organization was paying good money to disseminate to the world. Isn't that right?
A. I hoped that what I wrote at the time would be read by other people. I wasn't thinking of future generations.
Q. Other people at the time and thereafter. You know that it was there forever. Isn't that right, sir?
A. I didn't think at the time that this was going to be there forever. That wasn't in my mind at the time.
Q. Because you wish it wasn't today, don't you?
A. I don't know; not particularly.
Q. Let's see what you go on to say back in 1978 about your trip to Bonn.
"While living and working in Bonn, I found out from countless conversations with ordinary citizens that both notions were false. My whole view of modern history changed."
Did you write that, sir?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. And that was before you took one university course. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q."For the first time I learned that all but a small (and mostly conservative) minority of Germans had fervently supported Hitler until the bitter end."
Is that right? That was your research?
A. Well, that is what I wrote. It wasn't my research, no.
Q. But that is what you learned?
A. Yes, that is one of the things I learned.
Q. Yes, of course. So, when Danielle Goldhagen writes that the German nation as a whole is guilty as Hitler's ruling executioner, she is not far from what you found out in 1969 in going to Bonn. Isn't that right?
A. No, that is not right.
Q. Because "all but a small and mostly conservative minority of Germans fervently supported Hitler until the bitter end," you wrote.
A. No, there is a very important difference between that statement and what Goldhagen says. Goldhagen alleges that the Germans were characterized as what he calls an exclusionist murderism or murderist exclusion, or something, and he ‑‑
Q. A fatal antisemitism.
A. Excuse me, I didn't finish my answer.
Q. Go ahead.
A. Goldhagen contends that the German people willingly supported Hitler in evil, murderous policies. What I write here is that the German people supported Hitler. I believed, and I believe now, that the German people at that time did not enthusiastically support any murderous policies. That is a very big difference between what Goldhagen contends and what I wrote there at that time and what I believed.
Q. What you are writing here is that the majority of Germans supported Hitler to the bitter end. Right? Those are your words?
A. That's correct.
Q. And that it is for others to determine what Hitler and his government stood for, isn't it?
A. The import of your question is completely wrong. The German people didn't support Hitler to the bitter end because of his policies toward the Jews.
Q. I didn't say that.
A. They supported him for reasons which did not have to do with the Jewish policy.
Q."Older workers at the wallpaper factory where I worked spoke respectfully of Hitler and enthusiastically of what National Socialism had meant for the working man."
Did you write that?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Did that include what National Socialism had meant for the Jewish working man or just the German working man?
A. For the working man as the workers at the factory and others saw him.
Q. As they saw it in the factory even when their colleagues who were Jewish were expelled from their jobs. Right?
A. There weren't any Jews working at the factory where I worked.
Q. Were you there in the 1930s and 1940s?
A. No, obviously not.
Q. Or the Jewish workers who were professionals ‑‑ lawyers and doctors and scientists ‑‑ who were expelled from the universities and their professions because of their religion; did they speak respectfully of Hitler and enthusiastically of what National Socialism had meant for them? Did the workers talk about that?
A. No, they didn't talk about that.
Q. Did you make inquiries about that? You didn't, did you?
A. Did I make inquiries about what their attitude had been about exclusion of Jewish scientists in the 1930s? No, I didn't.
Q. Your whole view of modern history changed based on a bunch of people in a wallpaper factory speaking respectfully of Hitler and enthusiastically of National Socialism. Is that your testimony, sir?
A. No, that is a simplistic and inaccurate characterization. It was based not just on that but on much more than just that.
Q. These are your words, though, as you penned them. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q."Others talked of the hope, prosperity, order and progress which 'those years' had meant."
Have I read that correctly, sir?
A. I believe so.
Q."For the first time I learned about the forced mass expulsion and deaths of millions of Germans from Prussia, Sudetenland, Pomerania and Silesia in 1944-45."
That was the first time you had heard about that; is that right?
A. Essentially, yes.
Q. In 1944-45 the Nazi empire was crumbling, wasn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. It was assaulted on all sides by the Russians on the east and the Allied Forces on the west, the western Allied Forces. Isn't that right?
A. I would say the Western Allies.
Q. Western Allies, thank you.
A. The Soviets were part of the Allied coalition.
Q. Yes, of course. So the Soviets on one side and the Western Allied Forces on the other, and they were closing in on the Great Fatherland, weren't they?
A. I don't understand what you mean by the Great Fatherland. Is that your ‑‑
Q. That is what the Nazis called it, their Fatherland.
A. That is not what I call it and it is not what you call it.
Q. Germany. And the people fled before the advancing armies back into the heartland of Germany. That is what you heard. Right?
A. I don't know if I heard that, but I heard about the process of mass expulsion. The mass expulsion took place even after the war was over.
Q. And, of course, mass expulsion from areas that some people thought the Germans should not have been in in the first place. Right?
A. I don't know anyone who thought the Germans shouldn't have been there in the first place, but anyway...
Q. You go on to say:
"Many older Germans told me their horrifying recollections of the starvation, mass killings and terror which the victorious Allied armies had brought to Central Europe."
Have I read that correctly?
A. I believe so.
Q."One older woman recounted her family's trek through several hundred miles of death and destruction from Silesia to the Rhineland carrying all their belongings."
Have I read that correctly?
A. Yes. That was based on the recollection of a woman and her husband with whom I stayed. Many others had similar stories. I was astonished and amazed that this chapter of history was virtually unknown in America at the time, and still is virtually unknown.
Q. Of course, we will go on because it ultimately leads to a dichotomy that you have suddenly realized. It strikes you; isn't that right ‑‑ in this little pamphlet?
A. I was very, very struck at that time by the enormous disproportion or dichotomy as you put it between how these chapters of history are portrayed in the United States today and at that time.
Q. You go on to say:
"‑‑ workers told of the total expropriation of their towns and villages in the land and annexed by Poland and Russia after the war. Others described the horror of the Soviet occupation of the East and of the Morgenthau Plan [of] starvation and destruction under Allied occupation in the West until 1948."
That is substantially what you wrote?
A. That is substantially what I wrote but, as you can see, there is some grammatical mix-up. There is probably something apparently missing.
Q. But the substance and the tenor and the meaning is there.
A. That's correct.
Q."And then I would meet tourists who would ignorantly boast of the U.S. money having 'rebuilt' Europe."
That is what you wrote?
A. That's correct.
Q. You go on to say:
"All of this I had heard nothing in school back in Portland, and I felt betrayed."
Is that you wrote.
A. More or less, yes.
Q."Of all this I had heard nothing in school back in Portland, and I felt betrayed."
Have I read that correctly?
A. I believe so.
Q. So the fact that your teachers back in high school never mentioned the fact that Germans, as the war was reaching its end, suffered perhaps at the hands of the Allied Forces advancing on Germany was a betrayal of all that you knew and trusted growing up in America?
A. Two things. First of all, not merely from teachers but in books I hadn't read anything about this subject. Also not just during the war, this mass expulsion, the terrible treatment of the Germans was not something that took place just in the last years of the war but, as I mentioned earlier, in the years after the war had ended. I felt betrayed not about everything, but I felt betrayed about how I was taught about history.
Q. Mr. Weber, at this time that you are writing about this, you are just a high school graduate. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. You were working in a wallpaper factory and staying with people ‑‑
A. No, excuse me. At the time I wrote that, by that time I had a Master's Degree.
Q. In 1978 when you wrote it. I am talking about when you are speaking of your experience in Bonn and what you learned while you were there, as written here, you were just a high school student.
A. That's correct.
Q. Right, and instead of ‑‑
A. No, a high school graduate.
Q. A high school graduate. Instead of suddenly saying, "Here is a whole area of history that I never heard about and I think I might do some more reading and research," your reaction was that you were betrayed. Is that right, sir?
A. I said I felt betrayed, yes.
Q. Then, in juxtaposition you say:
"But I had heard plenty about the supposed six million Jewish victims of the 'holocaust'."
Is that what you wrote?
A. That's correct.
Q. When you were in Germany or anywhere else in the world, did you stay with a family of survivors and hear their stories?
A. No, I didn't.
Q. Did you work with survivors from the Holocaust who could relate their personal experiences of having to trek several hundred miles through death and destruction? Did you hear their personal stories?
A. Did I work with survivors? Is that your question?
Q. Yes.
A. No, I didn't.
Q. Did you speak in Bonn when you were there to survivors in the beer halls and in the cafes that you spent your free time in?
A. Did I speak with Holocaust survivors in Bonn in cafes and beer halls?
Q. Yes.
A. No, I didn't.
Q. Or at any time in Bonn about their personal experiences during the war years and before in Nazi Germany.
A. When I was in Bonn, I did not speak with any Jewish Holocaust survivors.
Q. Yet, you say that you had heard plenty about the supposed six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. I guess you heard plenty, but not from the people who suffered.
A. Obviously, I am referring to my time in the United States, not in Bonn.
Q. When you juxtaposed these two positions, as a young high school graduate, on the next page you say:
"I was impressed by the dignified and matter-of-fact way with which the German people accepted their legacy of defeat."
Have I read that correctly?
A. Yes.
Q. The very next sentence is:
"What a contrast to the endless wailings of the 'persecuted' Jews!"
Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. Endless wailings from people you never spoke to. Right?
A. At that time, no.
MR. ROSEN: Do you want to take a break, Mr. Chairman?
THE CHAIRPERSON: Very well. We will break now.
‑‑- Short Recess at 11:20 a.m.
‑‑- Upon resuming at 11:43 a.m.
MR. ROSEN:
Q. Mr. Weber, we were dealing with the time while you were living in Bonn as you have described in this 1978 pamphlet for the National Vanguard. Right? That is where we left off?
A. I believe so.
Q. At page 6532, if I can just go back, at about line 12 of the transcript you had noted:
"While living and working in Bonn, I found out from countless conversations with ordinary citizens that both notions were false. My whole view of modern history changed."
We have been over that. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. Countless conversations with ordinary citizens would mean the people you lived with in Bonn. Right?
A. Including the people I lived with, yes.
Q. People you worked with at the wallpaper factory?
A. That's correct.
Q. People who befriended you or you befriended them?
A. That's correct.
Q. Your social interaction with Germans living in Bonn at the time?
A. That's correct, yes.
Q. Indeed, did you go outside Bonn and make connection with people in other parts of Germany?
A. Not very much; not at that time, no.
Q. These countless conversations, of course, included the ones that we have been over, about how the older workers spoke respectively of Hitler and enthusiastically of National Socialism.
A. I think the word is "respectfully", not "respectively."
Q. I think I said "respectfully," but, if I didn't, I am sorry.
Spoke respectfully of Hitler and enthusiastically of National Socialism. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. Then, however, when you spoke to these older Germans, they were often reluctant to talk about certain aspects of the war years, weren't they?
A. Not to my memory, no.
Q. What you go on to say at 6534 is this:
"Older Germans were, indeed, often reluctant to talk about 'those years' because most had given up trying to compete with 30 years of lying propaganda."
Have I read that correctly, sir?
A. Yes. We are talking about two different categories or classes of older Germans. Before I was talking about Germans specifically in the wallpaper factory where I worked and others who were friends of mine. Those people spoke with me very candidly, very openly. Apart from that, there are still to this day many older Germans who are very reluctant to talk about that, and that was also part of my experience. We are not talking about the same group of people.
Q. You don't differentiate in your pamphlet, do you?
A. It is differentiated only to the extent that it is in a different paragraph and we are talking in a different time frame and context.
Q. Of course, it is also talking about how impressed you were by the dignified and matter-of-fact way with which the German people accepted their legacy of defeat. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. As opposed to the contrast, to the endless wailings of the 'persecuted' Jews. Correct?
A. In contrast. I didn't say "as opposed to", but in contrast.
Q. In contrast to the endless wailings.
A. That's right.
Q. The very next line is:
"Older Germans were, indeed, often reluctant to talk about 'those years' because most had given up trying to compete with 30 years of lying propaganda."
That's what you wrote, isn't it?
A. That's correct.
Q. And the lying propaganda that you are talking about is the lying propaganda about the Holocaust myth or legend or story. Isn't that right?
A. No, not in this context, no.
Q. Is the lying propaganda not about the persecution of the Jews?
A. No. That refers specifically to what I wrote earlier about these two versions of history that I had heard. On the one hand, we have been told in America, at least where I grew up, that the German people were seduced or enslaved by a small clique of essentially criminals. On the other hand, we are also told: No, the German people themselves are rather criminal and they enthusiastically supported Hitler. Both versions I regard as untrue, as lying propaganda. That is what I am referring to in that sentence there.
Q. In fact, at 6532, when you talk about the German people being traditionally militaristic, chauvinistic, power-hungry fanatics who eagerly supported Hitler's evil policies ‑‑
A. That is one of the examples of lying propaganda I am referring to.
Q. Hitler's evil policies include the persecution and destruction of European Jewry; isn't that right?
A. It begs the question ‑‑ your question implicitly makes a statement that I am not sure I agree with. Evil policies, I suppose, refers in part to that, yes.
Q. Yes.
A. And the Holocaust story is another way of putting it.
Q. Or, to put it this way: that National Socialism was founded, in part, upon a theory of antisemitism, a credo of antisemitism.
A. You are asking me as a historian whether the theory ‑‑
Q. No, I am asking you as a person. You understand that, at least when you grew up and went to high school, you were taught that Hitler's evil policies included a credo of antisemitism ‑‑
A. Among other things, yes.
Q. ‑‑ that, in turn, led essentially to the revocation of civil rights of Jews in Germany. Right?
A. Among other things.
Q. That eventually led to their internment in concentration camps, if not expulsion or ransom to leave the country. Right?
A. That is partly what is meant by these evil policies.
Q. These evil policies that eventually led to the round-up of Jews in occupied territories once the war began. Correct?
A. Correct.
Q. Among other things, they were deported to concentration camps where they were systematically abused, tortured and eventually destroyed by shooting, hanging, gas chambers and the like.
A. That is part of what is included by evil policies.
Q. And that is what the older Germans were reluctant to talk about in those years ‑‑
A. No.
Q. ‑‑ because most had given up trying to compete with 30 years of lying propaganda.
A. No.
Q. You go on to say:
"It was especially futile ‑‑"
MR. CHRISTIE: I don't understand whether my friend just wants to read the whole thing or let the witness answer questions.
MR. ROSEN: He answered. He said "no."
Q. You go on to say:
"It was especially futile trying to talk openly with American visitors who already 'knew' all about 'Nazism.'"
Is that what you wrote?
A. What page is that on, please?
Q. 6534.
A. That's correct.
Q. When we speak about American visitors who already 'knew' all about 'Nazism', what we are referring to, among other things is the propaganda of Hitler's evil policies that you referred to earlier at page 6532. Correct?
A. Among other things, yes.
Q. And the collective guilt of crimes against humanity that you refer to at page 6532. Correct?
A. Among other things, yes.
Q. Having spent a year in Bonn, you then decide that it is time to travel on and see part of the world. Is that right?
A. It's another kind of silly way to characterize things but, after I was in Bonn, I went other places, yes.
Q. You travelled for experience.
A. That's true.
Q. Personal expansion and so forth. Isn't that right?
A. Understanding, knowledge.
Q. Travel is supposed to be an educational, expanding adventure. Right?
A. Or experience, yes.
Q. Or experience. You go on to say at 6534:
"My stay in Germany, a brief stint selling magazines in Belgium and France, and then a journey through Spain convinced me that national character and culture were not merely superficial acquisitions which could readily be homogenized, as liberal and Marxist 'one worlders' claimed but were instead deep and venerable expressions of different folkish and racial nature."
Have I read that correctly, sir?
A. You have read that correctly.
Q. Let's see if I understand this.
In addition to feeling betrayed by what you learned in Germany about your view of European history, you went on to find out by travelling in Belgium, France and Spain that national character and culture are not merely superficial acquisitions which can be readily homogenized. Right?
A. Yes.
Q. That, instead, they are deep and venerable expressions of different folkish and racial nature.
A. Probably I wrote "natures" or something like that. This is probably an error.
Q. But we understand the meaning.
A. Right.
Q. Folkish ‑‑ my German is not that good but, if I remember, it went something like: One Führer, one Reich, one Folk.
A. What is your question?
Q. Wasn't that the Nazi credo? Isn't that what they said?
A. Is that what Nazis said?
Q. Yes.
A. Nazis said a lot of things.
Q. Yes, but they said that. Right?
A. They said "Good morning," too, sir.
Q. But they also said: Ein Führer; ein Reich; ein Volk." Isn't that right?
A. There was a slogan: One people; one nation; one leader.
Q. One people or "volk" in German.
A. No, the German word is "volk". "Folkish" is an English word. You might as well use it in English. I wrote it in English. I wasn't meaning to write it in German. If I had, I would have done it that way.
Q. "Folkish" actually has a German derivation, as a lot of English words do.
A. Yes, most English words, correct.
Q. And the concept of "folk" is a concept of race, isn't It?
A. That is a very good question. The concept of "folk" was laid out very well, I think, by Theodor Herzl in his pamphlet, "The Jewish State", in which he stressed very strongly that the Jews constitute a folk. He wrote it in German, as you might know. This idea that the Jews constitute a specific nation or a people or a folk ‑‑
Q. An identifiable group.
A. An identifiable ethnic, cultural, racial group; that is right.
Q. No, not racial. An identifiable group in a society like Canada. Isn't that right? An identifiable group in a society like Canada, for example.
A. I can't speak to Canada's experience, but "folk" is a racial, ethnic group.
Q. An identifiable group such as in the United States.
A. In the United States it is complicated. Jews often consider themselves a folk. Most Americans don't have much of a folkish sense in that same way or in the same way that Germans do.
Q. And racial nature; that is pure race, isn't. The term "racial nature" ‑‑
A. Is what, sir?
Q. You are talking about race differences, aren't you?
A. I was talking about racial and folkish nature or ethnic nature.
Q. "Deep and venerable expressions of different folkish and racial nature." Those are your words; is that right?
A. Probably I wrote "natures", but that is all right.
Q. Then you go on to say:
"My keen interest in Africa took me through Morocco and across the Sahara desert to West Africa. In Ghana I obtained a pleasant but unexciting position teaching secondary school to Ashanti teenagers in Kamasi."
Have I read that correctly?
A. You have read it correctly. It is not exactly the way I wrote it, but it's close.
Q. Do you have the original?
A. No, but I remember that the name of the city is Kumasi, not Kamasi.
Q. We are talking 1970 or so that you are on the road?
A. 1971-72, something like that.
Q. After about a year or so in Bonn.
A. That's correct.
Q. You spend some time teaching secondary school. How long were you in Ghana?
A. Just a few months.
Q. That few months is what we note on your CV as: "and for a time in Ghana, West Africa, where he taught English, history and geography at the secondary school level." Is that right?
A. That's correct.
Q. In other words, you were not hired to teach English, history or geography for the school year, were you?
A. I cut it short. I was hired for an indefinite period, and I cut it short.
Q. Because you only stayed a month or two.
A. Yes.
Q. While you were in Ghana and then later travelled, according to you, to Senegal, Mali, the Ivory Coast and so forth ‑‑ right?
A. I travelled to Senegal, Mali and the Ivory Coast before I was in Ghana.
Q. How long did you spend in Senegal, Mali and the Ivory Coast?
A. A month perhaps altogether, not very long; maybe six weeks.
Q. And you had also been through Morocco. Right?
A. And Mauritania, yes.
Q. So your time in Africa was what, three or four months in total?
A. Maybe half a year.
Q. Maybe six months. Of course, as you travelled from country to country, town to town, village to village, you met different people; is that right?
A. That's correct.
Q. You spoke to a variety of people. Correct?
A. Of course.
Q. You made your own personal observations as a high school graduate and traveller of the world.
A. As a high school graduate and many other things, yes.
Q. So, it was in that about-six-month trip that you then go on to describe what you learned in the next paragraph of your pamphlet. Isn't that right, sir?
A. I am describing here in this article things that I learned that were relevant for this article. I learned a lot of other things, too.
Q. Yes, I am sure. Let's focus in on the things that you thought were relevant.
"In Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, and Ghana, I learned that race was far more than just a question of skin color."
Is that what you wrote, sir?
A. That's correct.
Q. That is what you believe?
A. Is that what I believe now?
Q. You believed it then, didn't you?
A. I ask a question and you respond with a question.
Q. Yes, because I am only allowed to ask questions.
MR. CHRISTIE: The witness at least has the right to have it clarified, I hope.
MR. ROSEN:
Q. My question, sir, is ‑‑
A. Are you asking if I believe that now?
Q. Yes. Do you believe it now?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. Did you believe it then?
A. I did, yes.
Q."I was astonished by the striking similarities in the values and way of life between West Africans and American Blacks."
Is that what you wrote, sir?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. Striking similarities.
"Despite the superficial differences, Negroes on both continents shared very common attitudes toward work, family, music, sex, liquor and property."
Is that what you wrote, sir?
A. That's correct.
Q."And Blacks on both sides of the Atlantic exhibited a common deficiency in abstract reasoning ability."
Is that what you wrote, sir?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. You believed that then, didn't you?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. And you believe it today, don't you?
A. Probably, yes.
Q. When you say, "Despite superficial differences," what you are talking about is skin colour, language, living conditions and so forth?
A. Skin colour would not be one of the differences; that would be one of the similarities between Blacks on both sides of the Atlantic.
Q. They are not uniform. People don't have uniformly the same colour of black, do they?
A. Obviously, but that is not what I meant by some of the differences.
Q. You meant superficial differences such as language?
A. No, I meant superficial differences ‑‑ for example, on this side of the Atlantic Blacks own automobiles. They rarely own automobiles in West Africa; not many own automobiles. They live in different kinds of houses. They wear different kinds of clothing. They eat different kinds of food.
Those differences I refer to as superficial, in a sense. I think there are actually many similarities apart from these, you might say, culturally determined differences.
Q. They speak different languages?
A. Or speak different languages.
Q. They have different religions?
A. Exactly.
Q. They have different beliefs, some spiritual, some traditional religions, and so forth?
A. Right. There are also similarities in religious or mythic beliefs, you might say.
Q. But they also share very common attitudes toward work, which is lazy, shiftless, unreliable and so forth.
A. No, I wouldn't say that.
Q. What would you say?
A. I was struck by the similarity in attitude toward work, toward work ethic, toward punctuality by Blacks on both sides of the Atlantic as contrasted with what I think is a somewhat different work ethic among European Americans.
Q. You mean White Americans.
A. White Americans, yes.
Q. What about reliability?
A. That is a difference. I was very struck by how in West Africa, for example, Blacks talk about African time. African time means an hour or two or three later. You say, "We are going to meet at nine o'clock." In African time, that means they might show up at ten, eleven or whatever.
Q. Of course, Blacks in North America are the same, aren't they?
A. No, they are not "the same," but there are striking similarities.
Q. When they say, "We will show up at nine o'clock," they might not show up three hours later but they might show up half an hour later.
A. There are striking similarities; that is what I said, the basic point being that there is not as strong a sense of punctuality in Africa, I found, and I find generally among American Blacks.
Q. How about family?
A. There is a different attitude toward family.
Q. In other words, the White people have a strong sense of family values and the family unit. Right?
A. That characterization is itself Eurocentric. I mean, for example, that both in West Africa and in the United States the attitude toward fatherhood is not as pronounced as it is among White people in America or Europe.
Q. You mean Black people leave a trail of sperm wherever they go.
A. No, that is silly.
Q. And babies to follow.
A. That is a stupid characterization.
Q. But they are not as strong in terms of family support. Is that what you are saying?
A. I am not characterizing it even as wrong, and I am not putting it in a disparaging way.
Q. I didn't say it was wrong; I just said it is different.
A. No, you say "leave a trail of sperm" which I think is pejorative.
Q. Let's put it this way, Mr. Weber. The point is that you see, then and now, a difference in Black attitude, as you call it, toward work, family, music, sex, liquor and property that is different from White attitudes toward those same things. Is that right?
A. In general, yes. Much to my amazement later, upon studying this matter much more, any number of social scientists have reached very similar conclusions.
Q. And you base it on the fact that Blacks are Blacks and it's a racial thing.
A. I think it is in part due to race or to heredity.
Q. Of course, not necessarily at the root of it but one of the common deficiencies in Black people on both sides of the Atlantic that you observed is this deficiency in abstract reasoning ability. Is that right?
A. That's right.
Q. That is a racial characteristic, isn't it?
A. I think it is a racial trait, yes.
Q. On the other hand, you go on to say:
"In both Europe and Africa, I admired the sense of folkish identity and kinship which people valued and cultivated ‑‑"
Sorry, I have misled. Let me back up.
The pamphlet actually goes on ‑‑ after the note on the common deficiency in abstract reasoning ability at page 6535, the next paragraph says:
"What a contrast to Europe!"
Is that right? Is that how it begins?
A. Well ‑‑
Q. Is that right, sir?
A. The article begins. There is no pamphlet; this was not a pamphlet.
Q. The article. The article begins, right after you say that there is a common deficiency in abstract reasoning ability exhibited on both sides of the Atlantic by Blacks, your next line is:
"What a contrast to Europe!"
Correct?
A. I don't think that does follow, but I don't remember. As you said, you don't have the original article and I don't have the original article. I don't remember the original article. Based on the context, it probably doesn't continue, but I don't remember.
Q. Mr. Weber, let's be clear. Mr. Pearson, after asking you some questions about racism at line 12 on page 6536, says:
"If you read on, we'll find out what you mean."
Then you go on and say, "In both Europe and Africa" et cetera, and he says, "You skipped a paragraph." You said, "Excuse me," and you go back and begin, "What a contrast to Europe!" Right?
A. That is what the testimony says, yes.
Q. That refreshes your memory as to what happened; isn't that right?
A. Yes.
Q. The next part of the article goes on:
"What a contrast to Europe! In West Africa I came to acutely appreciate the common values and attitudes which men and women of my race had in common on both sides of the north Atlantic which differed so fundamentally from those of the Blacks around me."
Did you write that, sir?
A. More or less. You left out a word again.
Q. Which word did I leave out?
A. "And."
Q. Did you write that, including the word "and"?
A. Probably. It doesn't make much sense without the word "and."
Q. Let's read it again and see if these are your words. This is you reading this article to the Court back in 1988, isn't it?
A. Are you saying ‑‑
Q. I am saying the transcript. You didn't say, "You know, I never wrote this article; you're putting words in my mouth," did you?
A. No.
Q. What you say, as you read, is:
"What a contrast to Europe! In West Africa I came to acutely appreciate the common values and attitudes which men and women of my race had in common on both sides of the north Atlantic and which differed so fundamentally from those of the Blacks around me."
Correct?
A. Correct, in what way?
Q. I read it correctly.
A. I believe so.
Q. And you believed that then?
A. Yes, that is a reflection of my views at the time.
Q. In fact, you believe that today, don't you?
A. Yes.
Q. When you speak of "my race," you speak of the White race. Right?
A. Yes.
Q. You believe you belong to something called the White race, don't you?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. Do all White people belong to the White race?
A. I think, by self-definition, it is inherent in the statement, yes. White people are members of the White race; Black people are members of the Black race.
Q. Let's see. A White Protestant American would be a member of the White race; is that right?
A. That's correct.
Q. A White Catholic American would be a member of the White Race; is that right?
A. Well ‑‑
Q. Is that right, sir?
A. That is correct, not only by my definition; it is commonly used in the media; it is commonly used in newspapers. Yes, I accept that.
Q. A White Muslim American would be a member of the White race; is that correct?
A. Correct.
Q. A White Jewish American would be a member of the White race?
A. That's correct.
Q. Really?
A. Yes. That is the way the term is commonly used in our media, in our television, and so forth. People talk about Whites and, generally, when they talk about Whites, they include Jews, Muslims, Catholics, whatever, if they are members of the White race.
Q. So this whole concept of Jews and Judaism is a religious thing, not a racial thing. Right?
A. This whole concept? Whose whole concept? Mine or the one that is commonly accepted?
Q. Let's put it this way. The concept of Jews and Judaism is a religious concept. Is that right, sir?
A. According to whom?
Q. According to you.
A. No.
Q. You go on and say:
"In both Europe and Africa, I admired the sense of folkish identity and kinship which people valued and cultivated. As an American I felt somewhat at a loss coming from a young land with a less-developed cultural heritage and a less well-defined national identity and character. Like many Americans overseas, I became more aware of my cultural and national identity than ever before."
Have I read that correctly so far?
A. I believe so.
Q."Other White Americans and Europeans in Africa were similarly affected, and we stuck together, instinctively affirming a common racial and cultural unity."
Is that correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. So that Black Americans travelling in Africa and working in Africa didn't stick together with the White Americans even though they were all Americans. Is that your observation?
A. I didn't meet ‑‑ I met some Black Americans in Africa that were visiting to explore their own roots in Africa. My experience was that White Americans and Europeans tended to stick together.
Q. Because they tended to stick together, you thought that was an affirmation of common racial and cultural unity.
A. I felt it was a kind of instinctive affirmation of a common racial and cultural unity, yes.
Q. So it gave you that belief that as a young man with a high school education travelling the world for the first time, that there was some substance to believing in racial differences and racial separation. Right?
A. No. It's a compound question.
Q. No, it's simple.
A. Racial differences and ‑‑ repeat it, please.
Q. As a young man with a high school education travelling the world for the first time, you came to believe and understand that there was substance to the racial differences and racial separation of people. Isn't that right?
A. Again, I would say that my experiences confirmed that there is a racial distinctiveness and a racial commonality. I wouldn't say that at that time my experiences confirmed racial separation, at least not in the way that you seem to mean it.
Q. You go on to say, in your very own words:
"My stay in West Africa impressed upon me the futility and galling arrogance of White efforts to 'uplift' and 'enlighten' the non-White world through foreign-aid programs."
Do you see that?
A. Yes, I see that.
Q. Have I read it correctly?
A. I believe so.
Q. It impressed upon you the futility and the galling arrogance of not just anybody's efforts but White efforts to uplift and enlighten non-Whites. That is substantially what you said. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. You mean, no matter how much time and how much effort and how much money people spend to try to alleviate the poverty and the lack of education and the lack of civil rights and the lack of advantages that non-Whites might have in, say, America, it would be futile and gallingly arrogant.
A. No, that is not what I said and it is not what I wrote and not what I meant. You are putting words in my mouth.
Q. Your stay in West Africa impressed upon you the futility of White efforts to uplift and enlighten the non-White world.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Through foreign aid.
MR. ROSEN:
Q. Through foreign aid programs. Your stay in West Africa impressed upon you the galling arrogance of White efforts to uplift and enlighten the non-White world through foreign aid programs.
A. Right.
Q. Because Black people exhibit a common deficiency in abstract reasoning ability, among other things. Right?
A. No, that is not what I was saying.
Q. But that is something that you noted.
A. No, you are mixing together two different sentences. You are asking me ‑‑ if your question is: Why did I believe that there is a futility and a galling arrogance of White efforts to uplift and enlighten, I believe it is gallingly arrogant for many reasons, not just because of racial differences that might be due to heredity. I believe it is galling arrogance to uplift and to try to make any other people as one's own people is. It is not a ‑‑
Q. But that is not what foreign aid programs ‑‑
A. I didn't finish my statement. It is not a respect for the particular character and cultural integrity of other people.
Q. Mr. Weber, one of the reasons that it is galling and futile is because Blacks on both sides of the Atlantic exhibit a common deficiency in abstract reasoning ability. Isn't that right?
A. That is one of the reasons why such efforts might be futile. It is not a reason why it might be gallingly arrogant.
Q. Having then spent these six months in Africa, we are now at 1971, 1972, something like that?
A. 1971.
Q. You say:
"I returned to Oregon puzzled and without any clear principles."
MR. CHRISTIE: You missed a sentence.
MR. ROSEN: Sorry, you are right.
Q. You go on to say:
"Observing the comical and inept Peace Corps in operation did a lot to shake my liberal faith."
That is what you wrote?
A. That's not correct.
Q. Not just your faith, but your liberal faith.
A. That's correct.
Q. If you shake your liberal faith and in fact lose your liberal faith ‑‑ you did lose your liberal faith, didn't you?
A. Yes.
Q. You lost your Marxist leftist beliefs a long time ago when you went to Bonn. Right?
A. I didn't have a Marxist faith. I was infatuated and interested in Marxism. I was intrigued by the answers that Marxism offered on these kinds of questions.
Q. But you left that behind when you got to Bonn.
A. I still had an interest in Marxism even when I was in Africa. I was still confused at that time.
Q. You were confused and your whole experience on the road shook any faith that you had in Marxist leftist thinking.
A. Not any faith. It shook my faith. It did a lot to shake my faith. It didn't mean that I was completely bereft of liberal ideas or sensitivities.
Q. Of course, you had already written off conservative thought as moribund ‑‑ how did you put it? You had already rejected right-wing conservatism as pathetically moribund and utterly without principle. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. Let's see what happens when you return to Oregon.
"I returned to Oregon puzzled and without any clear principles. Eager to understand the social and racial dynamics of urban America, I moved to Chicago for a year."
Have I read that correctly so far?
A. I believe so.
Q. When you went back to Oregon, you didn't stay in Oregon to go to school, did you?
A. I did go to school and then I went to Chicago after that.
Q. You went to school and kind of dropped out?
A. No. I went to school in Oregon. I worked part-time, and then I transferred to University of Illinois.
Q. Of course, we have already been through that. You didn't take a full course load because you were working and so forth.
A. No, no, I took more than a full course load at the time I was working.
Q. I thought you told us that you probably didn't, that you spent more than a year doing a year's work.
A. No, I said that I didn't complete my degree at that time.
Q. But you went on to say that you moved to Chicago. Now we are at what, 1973 in Chicago?
A. That sounds about right.
Q."It was the hardest and most bitter year of my life, but there I deepened my awareness and understanding of social, political and racial realities."
Have I read that correctly, sir?
A. That's correct.
Q."And I first began to grasp the importance of the Jewish question."
Is that what you wrote, sir?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. You were eager to understand the social and racial dynamics of urban America. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. And part of the social and racial dynamics of urban America was the importance of the Jewish question. Is that right?
A. I wouldn't put it that way. I think the Jewish question was important, but it is not necessarily the same thing as or a part of racial and social dynamics of urban America.
Q. The Jewish question, of course, was the way in which Jews shamelessly swindle and bilk primitive Blacks out of their property, and so forth. Right?
A. No.
Q. And how wealthy Jews, liberal Jews, push for racial integration on the one hand, but on the other hand keep White neighbourhoods ‑‑ sorry. They push for the racial integration of White neighbourhoods in Chicago, but stay in their own isolated areas of Hyde Park and North Side enclaves. Right?
A. I don't understand. What is the question?
Q. That is part of the Jewish question.
A. No, that is not part of the Jewish question.
Q. You see, sir, after saying at page 6537 at the bottom:
"And I first began to grasp the importance of the Jewish question."
you continue reading your article at page 6539 with the following:
"Observing Jews as they shamelessly swindled and bilked the primitive Blacks began to open my eyes."
Is that right, sir? Is that what you wrote?
A. I wrote that, yes.
Q. And is that what you honestly and truly meant to convey about Jews living in Chicago, that they were swindlers and bilkers of Black people?
A. I mean what I say, and no more than that.
Q. Not only do they swindle and bilk, but that their target is not just Blacks but primitive Blacks. Those are your words; is that right, sir?
A. No, that is not my words. I didn't say "the Jews". I said I observed Jews, some Jews. I didn't say "the Jews."
Q. You say "the Jewish question." Right?
MR. CHRISTIE: You have taken it out of context. You left out two pages of text. He defines what he means by "the Jewish question" at page 6538 at line 5 when he is asked that specific question.
MR. ROSEN: I am not interested in what his explanation was on a previous occasion. I am interested in the context, Mr. Christie, of what he wrote back in 1978. What he wrote was "the Jewish question," and the very next line is "Observing Jews as they shamelessly swindled and bilked the primitive Blacks began to open my eyes," without a speech to Mr. Pearson and the jury intervening.
Does my friend understand that answer to his objection?
Could we have the witness excused, please.
‑‑- Witness Withdraws
THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. Christie, do you have an objection?
MR. CHRISTIE: I understood the cross-examiner to say: This is what you mean by "the Jewish question," and then he put to him the remarks, "Observing Jews as they shamelessly swindled and bilked the primitive Blacks ‑‑."
If he is reading from and referring to the text of what the witness was asked at the time, it would be misleading to say that, because that explicit question was asked and an explicit answer was given. In my submission, I thought it would be fair to put to him that which he said at the time.
As far as I have observed, we have gone word for word and line for line for the last 38 or more pages, so I took it that it was only appropriate to suggest that, if one is going to put it to the witness that he said thus and so about the Jewish question, then it should be used in the same way as the rest of the text.
THE CHAIRPERSON: We are dealing now with the text at page 6539 which, as I read it, says "Observing Jews ‑‑" et cetera. Perhaps we could start again on that section.
MR. ROSEN: Thank you.
‑‑- Witness returns to the stand
MR. ROSEN:
Q. Sir, we are continuing with the text of your article which continues after your reference to the Jewish question with the following words:
"Observing Jews as they shamelessly swindled and bilked the primitive Blacks began to open my eyes."
Is that what you wrote, sir?
A. That's correct.
Q."The wealthy, liberal Jews would push for racial integration in the ethnic White neighborhoods of Chicago, while the kosher crowd stayed isolated in their Hyde Park and North Side enclaves."
Is that what you wrote, sir?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. You accused me of being pejorative in my language, didn't you, when I referred to a trail of semen as part of the difficulty with Blacks that you believe in. Right?
A. I said that what you said was pejorative, yes.
Q. And referring to Jews as "the kosher crowd" is equally pejorative, isn't it?
A. No, I don't think so.
Q. Of course, you wouldn't think so because you are trying to maintain that academic, calm demeanour of a scholar rather than the true heart of the bigot you are. Isn't that right, sir?
A. No, that is not true.
Q. Let's see what you say about the Jews of Chicago, after observing them shamelessly swindling and bilking the primitive Blacks and how it opened your eyes. You go on to say:
"And how they hated Mayor Richard Daley!"
That is what you said?
A. That's correct.
Q. When you were referring to "the Jews" and how they hated Richard Daley, you are lumping a whole group of people together, aren't you?
MR. CHRISTIE: He doesn't say "the Jews" anywhere.
THE WITNESS: It doesn't say that. In fact, what it says is "the wealthy, liberal Jews."
MR. ROSEN:
Q. Oh, the wealthy, liberal Jews, sorry. The wealthy liberal Jews; let's see who that would include.
A. I accept your apology.
Q. That would include business people who happened to be Jewish. Right?
A. Perhaps.
Q. Lawyers, doctors, scholars, professors, anyone in the upper middle class of American society. Right?
A. No. I am referring to wealthy, liberal Jews in Chicago.
Q. In Chicago society.
A. I think the statement stands on its own. It's self-explanatory.
Q. Particularly those who live in Hyde Park and North Side enclaves of Chicago. Right?
A. That's true.
Q. What you observed, you say in this pamphlet, is that Daley was devoutly Catholic and instinctively loyal to his race. Right?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. Meaning the White race?
A. Yes.
Q."He skillfully and oftentimes ruthlessly balanced off the many racial and social factions of Chicago and kept his realm running more smoothly and successfully than any other large city in America."
That was the opinion you expressed in 1978?
A. That's correct.
Q. And the other opinion you expressed is as follows:
"The Jews couldn't understand his skill, and they envied his enormous popularity, even among Blacks."
Is that what you wrote?
A. That's what I wrote.
Q. Here you are, at the most, a second-year university student struggling in Chicago to pay your way through school. Right?
A. That's right.
Q. And making these observations about racial and cultural differences in the city of Chicago. Is that right?
A. That's right.
Q."But even Daley could not keep the lid on the racial volcano. During my Chicago year the old mayor began losing control of the city's Blacks, and he couldn't understand or control the furious and violent resistance of Chicago's Whites to further Black takeover."
Is that what you wrote, sir?
A. That's right.
Q. So, from your perspective back in 1973, as you wrote about it in 1978, what you see is basically the beginnings of a race war in Chicago. Right?
A. No.
Q. Well, there is the racial volcano that Mr. Daley was having a hard time keeping the lid on. Right?
A. Right what?
Q. Isn't that what you wrote about?
A. That's correct, yes.
Q. And at the same time there was the violent resistance of the Chicago Whites to stop what was perceived to be further Black takeover. Right?
A. Right, and ‑‑
Q. Isn't that what you are writing about?
A. Yes.
Q. So you have Blacks on the one hand in this volcano that is about to explode, and you have Whites on the other hand violently trying to resist further Black takeover.
A. In fact, there was violent resistance by Chicago's Whites at the time to what they perceived as Black encroachment.
Q. And there was also the American Nazi Party marching through Skokie, which was a Chicago suburb where Jews lived. Isn't that right?
A. I had nothing to do with that. I don't know; I don't remember. It wasn't at the time I was there.
Q. You observed that.
A. Observed what?
Q. Observed that very event happening in 1973 when you were there.
A. I observed what?
Q. The Nazis marching through Skokie ‑‑
A. No, I didn't.
Q. ‑‑ and provoking Holocaust survivors by their swastikas and their "Heil Hitler" salutes. Isn't that right, sir?
A. No, it's not right.
Q. But you go on and say:
"It was clear that once Daley passed on, Chicago would go the way of America's other large cities."
Is that what you wrote?
A. That's what I wrote.
Q."Chicago seemed to symbolize both the past and the future."
Have I read that correctly, sir?
A. Yes, I believe so.
Q."The old mayor personified a dying era."
That is what you wrote?
A. That's correct.
Q. In other words, the old era of passionate, White, Catholic mayor, strong-armed mayor, keeping everybody happy by juggling all the different racial and social groups to keep a peaceful city. Right?
A. What I was referring to at that time primarily was that Chicago was the last of the big city machines of political structure. Daley's machine still operated, although not as well as it used to, at the time that I was there. It was the last of the big city political machines.
Q. And operated to keep the races separate or at least in harmony where they weren't fighting with each other.
A. Among other things, that is one of the things that the machine did in Chicago; that's right.
Q. And that is the old era which you approved of, wasn't it?
A. I didn't necessarily approve of it. I was just noting that that was the way it operated.
Q. But at the same time, what you also noted and, I suggest, approved of was the fact that White youth violently protected their home turf from Black encroachment. Isn't that right?
A. I am ‑‑
Q. Is that right, sir?
A. I am reporting on what I observed, what I saw as a phenomenon.
Q. I didn't ask you what you wrote. I asked whether or not you personally, at the time in 1973 and then when you wrote in 1978, believed that White youth with violence ‑‑ you approved of their violence in keeping Blacks out of White neighbourhoods.
A. No, I didn't.
Q. And you called them the vanguard of America. Isn't that right?
A. No, I said they seemed to represent the vanguard of a new America.
Q. Let's see what your words are:
"And the passionate and sometimes violent youth of Marquette Park ‑‑"
Let me stop there. Marquette Park was an all-White neighbourhood in Chicago at the time?
A. At the time it was a predominantly Lithuanian area in South Chicago.
Q. Not only was it White; there were no Jews; there were no Hispanics; there were no Blacks in that neighbourhood. Right?
A. Essentially, yes. That is essentially true.
Q."And the passionate and sometimes violent youth of Marquette Park, who successfully halted the Black invasion of the neighborhood ‑‑"
And they did, didn't they?
A. For a time, yes.
Q. An invasion not only by moving into the neighbourhood and buying property and living like normal, ordinary citizens, but even just walking down the street without getting a beating. That is how they kept them out of Marquette Park, wasn't it?
A. No, I am referring to more than that.
Q. But that was part of it, wasn't it?
A. I don't know.
Q. Come on! You lived there. You know that Blacks couldn't even walk in Marquette Park without getting a baseball bat on the head.
A. I didn't live in Marquette Park.
Q. No, but you were there and you saw it and you reported on it in your pamphlet, didn't you?
A. I reported on the phenomenon in Marquette Park. I lived in Chicago; I didn't live in Marquette Park. I lived in the near west side. This was widely reported on in the media at the time.
Q. You called it the passionate and sometimes violent youth of Marquette Park who successfully halted the Black invasion of the neighbourhood. That is what you were reporting on.
A. That's right.
Q. And to you, Mr. Weber, it seemed to represent the vanguard of a new America. Is that right?
A. It seemed to at that time.
Q. A vanguard of a new America.
A. It seemed it could, yes.
Q. In other words, White youth violently and passionately holding back the Black invasion, the alien invasion of others into their territory. That's the new vanguard that you see?
A. That is not the new vanguard that I see.
Q. That you saw then?
A. I said it seemed to represent the vanguard of a new America.
Q. And one that you approved.
A. As it turned out, it wasn't, but anyway...
Q. But one that you certainly approved of, wasn't it?
A. No.
Q. You spoke of it in glowing terms. You didn't say "a new movement in America", did you?
A. I didn't speak of a new movement in America?
Q. That's right. You don't call it a new movement. You didn't call it a political phenomenon, did you?
A. No, I didn't.
Q. "A spontaneous reaction" were not your words, were they?
A. No.
Q. They were these youth who were passionate and sometimes violent who, to you, seemed to represent a vanguard or the vanguard ‑‑ "forerunner" is what you meant by "vanguard", isn't it?
A. Vanguard means what it ‑‑
Q. The shock troops.
A. In the forefront, whatever.
Q. In common army terms, you sent the vanguard in, the shock troops, to soften up the enemy before the rest of them come through. Isn't that what a vanguard is, sir?
A. I am not familiar with the military terminology. I will take your word for it.
Q. Well, you used the word "vanguard." Look at the word, vanguard. It's an advance guard ‑‑ not only an advance guard of a movement, but it seemed to you to represent the vanguard of a new America, not the old America. Right?
A. That's right. That is what it seemed like.
Q. A new America where Whites defended their turf and their race and their culture against everyone else. Isn't that right?
A. You are putting words in my mouth. I didn't quite think that, but I thought what I wrote.
Q. You thought something close to that, didn't you?
A. I thought what I wrote. It's self-explanatory.
Q. In other words, we can take from those words that the vanguard of the new America is as I characterized it; isn't that right?
A. No.
Q. Because you won't give us the meaning, would you? You won't give us the meaning.
A. No.
THE CHAIRPERSON: I am sorry to interrupt you now, but we are going to adjourn until 2:15. Can you give us some idea of how long you might still be?
MR. ROSEN: Unfortunately, it is a rather lengthy article. There are some rather significantly relevant parts to it.
THE CHAIRPERSON: I assume you will be selective in connection with those parts that you consider essential to your cross.
MR. ROSEN: Yes, sir.
‑‑- Luncheon Recess at 12:45 p.m.
‑‑- Upon resuming at 2:15 p.m.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. Rosen, would you take your seat for a moment. We are going to take this opportunity to discuss scheduling again.
MR. ROSEN: I had made a mistake, I should point out, when I looked at my calendar; I meant to correct it earlier.
THE CHAIRPERSON: I hope it is not a big one.
MEMBER DEVINS: The dates for Passover perhaps?
MR. ROSEN: That's right. It is the 1st and 2nd of April, I think. The last day is the 8th or 9th.
MEMBER DEVINS: Was it your request that we not sit on any of those days?
MR. ROSEN: Yes. I believe we are going to miss some of those days in any event because of the other holiday that intervenes. The 1st is the first day of Passover and the 2nd is Good Friday. Then the 8th and 9th we are asking that we not sit on both those days.
MEMBER DEVINS: Mr. Christie, you had said that April 6 to 9 you were available. That was not on your original list, but I believe you mentioned that this morning.
MR. CHRISTIE: Yes.
MEMBER DEVINS: That only leaves the 6th and 7th of that week.
THE CHAIRPERSON: I guess the question is whether we convene for two days.
Mr. Christie, you are the one who is most affected that.
MR. CHRISTIE: I believe I have to be here on the 12th for another matter. I believe that is a Monday. It really makes it very difficult to be here for just two days. I would rather not, if it is possible.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Let's deal with the rest of them. We are still holding March 3, 4, 5 and 8; April 19 to 22; May 3 to 6; May 10 to 13; May 17 to 20; May 25 to 28; May 31 to June 3; and June 7 to 10.
We will confirm the first days mention, March 3, 4, 5 and 8. We have not made those definite yet, but we hope to very shortly, one way or another.
MEMBER DEVINS: Mr. Christie, can you confirm for us that June 7 to 10 are days that you are available? Again, I think those were dates that I noted from this morning's discussion were not in your original letter. Those are dates that you are available?
MR. CHRISTIE: No, I didn't say that. June 1 to 4 I am available. Then I have a trial for three days. Then on June 10 and 11 I am available. That was all I had in June, but all those four weeks in May I am available.
MEMBER DEVINS: And you are available until June 3.
MR. CHRISTIE: Yes, actually probably June 4 as well.
THE CHAIRPERSON: We will add June 4 in there.
MEMBER DEVINS: But the 7 to 10 you are unavailable. The trial has been also been set in the other matter starting June 14.
MR. CHRISTIE: That's correct.
MEMBER DEVINS: Which makes losing the days in April more difficult.
MR. CHRISTIE: It looks like we have four weeks in May. I really don't think our case would last longer than that.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Hopefully, that is the case. We will go with those dates subject to our comments.
Mr. Rosen, please.
MR. ROSEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Q. Mr. Weber, we were dealing with your life in Chicago in the early 1970s. As I understand it, as you went on in your article in the National Vanguard at page 6442, you said:
"I lived in a mixed Italian-Mexican enclave wedged into the vast Black ghetto."
Is that what you wrote?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. Mr. Weber, aren't you like other people when it comes to geography as to where you are and where you live?
A. I don't understand your question.
Q. I mean, you live somewhere and you live in a house or an apartment or something like that, don't you? You live in a residence, don't you?
A. When I live somewhere, I live in a residence, yes.
Q. You have a roof over your head and warmth in the winter and cool in the summer, we hope. Right?
A. Yes.
Q. And that residence is usually on a street. Correct?
A. Usually I suppose, yes.
Q. And the street is usually part of a collection of streets named a subdivision. Right?
A. Yes.
Q. Or a block in a city. Right?
A. I suppose, yes.
Q. Near a certain intersection. Right? In a downtown area or an uptown area or a borough or a township or whatever the local people choose to call the geographic area where you live. Is that right?
A. I suppose, yes. I don't disagree.
Q. Yet, when you were describing your time in Chicago as to where you lived, you took pains to point out that you lived in a mixed Italian-Mexican enclave. Right?
A. That is what I wrote, yes.
Q. In other words, you see the world in terms of race and ethnic and national origin, don't you?
A. Mr. Rosen, you are being silly. I wrote this in the context of this article. The article is to help explain how I came to come to certain views. If I was describing for the Department of Motor Vehicles where I lived, I might think rather differently. Novelists sometimes write this way when they are describing where they live. It is not at all unusual to describe where I live in these kinds of terms in this kind of context. That should be obvious to anyone reading the article.
It would be silly in the context of an article like this to say, "I lived in a house on a street in the near west side of Chicago." It wouldn't make any sense in this context of this article.
Q. And in the context of how you arrived at your arguments in your article.
A. Exactly.
Q. So you lived in a mixed Italian-Mexican enclave wedged into the vast Black ghetto. Right?
A. That is what I wrote, yes.
Q."During the summer I sold peanuts and candy from a pedal cart in different ethnic neighborhoods."
Is that what you wrote?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. You are portraying yourself here as just a working college kid, going to school and living in a poor neighbourhood of Italians and Mexicans primarily, wedged into the vast Black ghetto of Chicago. That is the description.
A. Yes.
Q."Later, after morning college lectures, I took the subway downtown to work in a State Street office building."
Is that what you wrote?
A. That's right.
Q. Doing what?
A. I worked for a company that monitored international trade publications for American businesses that wanted to send news releases to trade periodicals that had to do with their particular area of trade.
Q. What was the name of the company?
A. I don't remember any more.
Q. Was it a paying job?
A. Yes.
Q. I take it it was a job that you had along with pushing a pedal cart to make some money to support yourself in college.
A. That's right.
Q. Then you say:
"I eagerly read every newspaper I could get my hands on."
Have I read that correctly?
A. That's right.
Q. Those were your activities in Chicago and, while you were doing that, there was one issue that sort of dominated your thought, wasn't there?
A. No.
Q. You certainly, in the context of this article for the National Vanguard, wrote:
"In Chicago I pondered long and hard over the race question."
Correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. The race question, of course, is the differences in races; that is one part of it?
A. That is one part of it, I suppose.
Q. The separation or the healthy separation of the races. Correct?
A. No, I wouldn't say that.
Q. The decadence of ‑‑
A. Healthy separation is a policy thing, I suppose. I wasn't concerned about that.
Q. The decadence that arises out of the mixing of races? Was that one of the things that you thought about, the decadence of what happens when races mix?
A. Not particularly.
Q. The problems that arise from mixed races?
A. I might have given it some thought; it was not a dominant thought.
Q. You pondered long and hard over "the race question." What was the race question you were pondering?
A. The race question is the relationship between various races and how best they can get along.
Q. Or not get along, obviously.
A. If they don't get along, that's a problem, and that is part of the question.
Q. You say in your article:
"If races were inherently and fundamentally different and unequal - as my observations were convincing me was the case - "
Let me stop there. Were those in fact your observations at the time?
A. They were, yes.
Q. Are they still your observations today?
A. I would say "yes."
Q."‑‑ then the principle of democracy which rested upon the idea of racial equality was false."
Is that what you wrote?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. In fact, you not only wrote that, but you believed it at the time that you wrote it, didn't you?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. And you still believe that today.
A. Essentially, yes.
Q. Then you went on to say:
"Furthermore, I became convinced that government attempts to create an artificial 'equality' between naturally unequal races would inevitably lead to disaster."
Is that what you wrote, sir?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. And that is what you believed at the time?
A. Yes.
Q. And you believe it today?
A. Essentially.
Q. Having had those thoughts and come to those beliefs, you at some point finish the school year or the course work for the school year at Chicago University of Illinois. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. You have now completed what is the equivalent of two years of undergraduate studies?
A. Something like that.
Q. And you are now approximately 22, 23 years old?
A. That's correct.
Q. So you decide that you are going to take some time off and go to Europe.
A. I am taking time to go to Europe.
Q. "In 1973 I returned to Europe," you write. Is that right?
A. That's correct.
Q."After a month travelling around Western Europe, I settled for a year and a half in Munich in order to study at Germany's largest university."
Correct?
A. That is what I wrote, yes.
Q. And that is the University of Munich?
A. That's right.
Q. Of course, one of the things you studied there was the German language.
A. I was already pretty familiar with the German language by that time. I studied it in the sense that I became more proficient in German.
Q. Did you take your classes in German?
A. Yes.
Q. You spent time as a student socializing and speaking in German?
A. Yes.
Q. In the context of this article that you write, you describe your life in Germany as follows:
"In the friendly Bavarian capital it was a joy living a student's life while supporting myself giving private English lessons."
Is that what you wrote?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. The Munich Olympics ‑‑
A. The Munich Olympics had already concluded.
Q. In the friendly Bavarian capital where the Israeli athletes were murdered. Correct?
A. A year before Israeli athletes had been killed at the Munich Olympics.
Q. Not killed; murdered.
A. Okay.
Q."My spare time was spent reading, talking for long hours in beer halls and restaurants, attending opera and symphony performances, and visiting political rallies and meetings."
Have I read that correctly?
A. Yes, you did.
Q. It sounds pretty idyllic, doesn't it?
A. It sounds pretty idyllic.
Q. Happy, friendly, Bavarian capital, a joy-ridden student's life just reading, talking, drinking beer and all these cultural activities. Right? That is what you did?
A. I did a lot of other things.
Q. Some of the other things you did, of course, was visiting political rallies and meetings.
A. That is true.
Q. The political rallies and meetings that you went to were political rallies and meetings of the neo-Nazis. Isn't that right?
A. I attended political meetings of every possible group.
Q. Including neo-Nazis. Right?
A. That is a matter of definition. I attended, I think, a meeting of the NPD. Some people call it neo-Nazi; some don't.
Q. In fact, you associated with and socialized with members of the NPD. Right?
A. No, not that I recall.
Q. Not that you recall?
A. No.
Q. Do you know how far Munich, that friendly Bavarian capital, is from a little town called Dachau?
A. Do I know how far away it is?
Q. Yes.
A. Not exactly. It's about 10 miles, I suppose.
Q. Right. Did you get on the train and take a trip out to Dachau to see the concentration camp?
A. I visited and inspected the concentration camp at Dachau, but not on this occasion. It was later.
Q. Not in your years in the friendly Bavarian capital.
A. No, not at that time.
Q. But you were visiting political rallies and meetings at that time?
A. That's true.
Q. As a result of this idyllic visit in the Bavarian capital, you go on to say:
"From Europe I gained a more detached and objective perspective on events back home. My studies and my overseas vantage point helped me to understand the direction in which our nation was heading."
Is that what you wrote?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. The direction in which our nation ‑‑
that is, the United States ‑‑ was heading was to decay and decline, wasn't it?
A. I thought there were, as I wrote, unmistakable symptoms of decay.
Q. But we are talking about the direction in which our nation was heading, to decay and decline.
A. Yes, there was a cultural decline.
Q. It wasn't just cultural; it was racial, too, wasn't it?
A. Yes, I would say so.
Q. You go on to say:
"But even in Europe the same unmistakable symptoms of decay were visible."
If I can put in parentheses: "as in the United States." Right?
A. When I say "the same," I mean with reference to the United States.
Q. Exactly.
"Large numbers of racial aliens were streaming northward and westward into the White heartland."
Were those your words, sir?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. So in Europe ‑‑ I guess you would call it the continent, part of the greater European continent ‑‑ maybe that this time there was a wall in Berlin, but there are no real walls and barriers except those put up by nationalities. Right?
A. There are restrictions on immigration.
Q. Of course. Racial aliens ‑‑ first of all, what is the White heartland?
A. Europe.
Q. Who gives that validity, that it is the White heartland?
A. Who gives it that validity?
Q. Yes. People like you?
A. I think Europeans do; I think the world does. The centre of the White race is Europe.
Q. The centre of the White race is Europe?
A. It's the heartland or the place of origin of the White race. I think you would agree with that, wouldn't you?
Q. No, actually I wouldn't. Would you say that the central heartland of Europe, being the White heartland, would exclude therefore people of the Mediterranean world?
A. Hardly.
Q. People of the eastern part of the heartland that carry the blood of the ‑‑
MR. CHRISTIE: The Mongols?
MR. ROSEN: Thank you.
Q. ‑‑ the Mongols that came through at some period of time. Is that right?
A. I have lost the question.
Q. People in Europe are of mixed race, aren't they?
A. I think any standard reference book or any student of the subject will confirm that in general Europeans are of the caucasian or White race.
Q. Assuming that there is such a thing as caucasian or White race.
A. That is what just about every encyclopedia that I have ever checked has to say on the subject. That is what newspapers and magazines refer to on a pretty daily basis here in Toronto. All over the world they do that.
Q. Of course, those are your authoritative sources for that sort of statement, aren't they ‑‑ encyclopedias, newspapers and magazines?
A. It is not for me to put questions, but I think this is just an obvious truism, just as Asia is the centre of the oriental race or the Mongolian race.
Q. The point is that this is your belief, that Europe is the White heartland of the world. Right?
A. Yes, that is my belief.
Q. So attacking that White heartland are streams coming northward and westward of racial aliens. Right?
A. That is a mischaracterization of what I said. I don't mean that; I didn't say that. I don't say they are attacking Europe. I say they are moving to Europe.
Q. Large numbers of racial aliens were streaming northward and westward into the White heartland.
A. That's right. I didn't say they were attacking the White heartland; I said they were streaming into the White heartland.
Q. But this is the visible sign of decay that you see in Europe, isn't it?
A. The visible sign of decay ‑‑ it's a symptom of decay. The decay is in the lack of cultural integrity or racial integrity. As the Simon Wiesenthal Center has made clear a number of times, it's an admirable trait when Jews display it about their people and their ethnicity such as in the State of Israel. Itzhak Rabin once stated that he ‑‑
Q. Mr. Weber, I am asking you ‑‑
MR. CHRISTIE: I think Mr. Weber should be allowed to expand on his answer.
MR. ROSEN: If he wants to make a speech, he can do it re-examination.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Let him finish his answer. He is making a comparison.
THE WITNESS: I just made a comparison that a notion of racial or cultural integrity is quite a natural thing. It has been expressed on numerous occasions by leaders in many countries over many periods of time, including in Israel today.
MR. ROSEN:
Q. Mr. Weber, we are here to talk about your beliefs and your understandings. Do you understand that?
A. Yes.
Q. And you understood and you thought and believed then and today that the unmistakable symptoms of decay include the large numbers of racial aliens streaming northward and westward into the White heartland ‑‑ that is to say, Europe.
A. I call that a symptom of decay.
Q. And you talk about growing swarms of dark East Indians and Africans in Britain. Correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. Arabs and Negroes in France? Correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. Orientals in Holland. Correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. And Turks in Germany ‑‑ and, if I could just add my own words, these are growing swarms of people that are streaming northward and westward into the White heartland. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. What is happening is that they are creating, to use your words, severe and almost insoluble problems. Is that right?
A. That is what I wrote, yes.
Q. And that is what you believed then and you believe today.
A. It is a pretty widely-held belief by a lot of people.
Q. But that is what you personally believe today and then.
A. Along with millions of other people.
Q. Did you ever think, sir, when you were writing this and thinking this, that the attraction of East Indians and Africans to Britain is the colonial period and their ties to Britain?
A. Certainly, that is part of it, yes.
Q. Did you ever think, sir, that the attraction of Arabs and Negroes to France was indicative of the fact that French-speaking Arabs, whether White or Black, felt comfortable enough to immigrate to France?
A. I am certainly conscious that that is an important factor, yes.
Q. And that the orientals in Holland that you are speaking of are the people from Southeast Asia who at one time or another came under the domination of the Dutch.
A. Among others, yes. Of course, that is a large factor in the reason for this immigration.
Q. Of course, the Turks, who were allies to the Germans during the First World War and between the wars were supported by them and had an association during the Second World War would also feel an affinity or a comfort factor to go to Germany as well.
A. They might feel more comfortable in Germany than some other people. There are definite reasons why people from some countries rather than others go to a particular country.
Q. And that some of those countries, if not all of them, view that as a very positive step in their development, to have a multiracial community.
A. The question again, please?
Q. These countries view that multiracialism is not a curse, not a symptom of decay, but in fact is a healthy sign. Wouldn't you agree?
A. Certainly in England and France and in Germany today there is overwhelmingly a recognition that the capacity of Europe to take people who are racially and culturally alien is not unlimited. That has been expressed by numerous political leaders in all of these countries.
Q. Besides the neo-Nazis, who else expresses that?
A. Wait a minute. The German Parliament, I think it was a year and a half ago, in a very bitter debate, did away with its liberal asylum policy, after a very strenuous debate, because German's asylum policy had been the most liberal in the world up until that time. The majority of the members of the German Bundestag settled that this policy had to be changed because the asylum policy was creating severe and almost insoluble problems. That is why also France ‑‑
Q. Economic problems, sir, not race.
A. Are you asking me to ‑‑ that is part of it, sure. The problems are social, economic, cultural, and they stem from the fact that these people are of different racial and cultural backgrounds.
Q. Sir, you are American, aren't you?
A. That's correct.
Q. You come from a multicultural society, don't you?
A. That's correct.
Q. It is a society that is a democracy, isn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. It is a democracy that rests upon the idea of racial equality, isn't it?
A. Officially it may now, but that wasn't the policy for most of America ‑‑
Q. But it does now and it did in 1978. Isn't that right?
A. The more or less official policy of the United States today and in 1978 is one of racial equality and to try to enforce that policy.
Q. And that principle of democracy that is based upon racial equality, in your opinion in 1978 and today, is false.
A. I believe that it is unworkable.
Q. You go on in this article and say this:
"The White birthrate had fallen drastically throughout northern Europe."
Is that what you wrote?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q."A lust for wealth and comfort ‑‑"
Let me stop there and ask you: Who is the lust for wealth and comfort by, the White Europeans?
A. A majority of people.
Q. White Europeans. Right?
A. Essentially.
Q."A lust for wealth and comfort and a deadening of any sense of responsibility to race and nation were the sad legacy of the European defeat of 1945."
Is that what you wrote?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. Let me see if I can understand this. The White people of Europe have a lust for wealth and comfort. That is one problem.
A. No, that is a mischaracterization. I don't say "the" White people have a lust. "Lust" is perhaps too strong a word, but a priority interest in comfort and wealth. It is a very widespread thing in Europe, and it is stronger today than it has been.
Q. And a deadening of any sense of responsibility to race ‑‑ that is what you wrote?
A. And nation.
Q. Race first and nation second.
A. Yes. I think there is no question that there has been a lessening or a deadening of a consciousness or a sense of responsibility for race and nation.
Q. Assuming, of course, that there should be some sense of responsibility to race.
A. I think one can characterize that whether one assumes there should be or not. It is just an observable fact.
Q. Of course, a sense of responsibility to nation, such as the formation of the European Union and the breaking down of national barriers in Europe and so forth ‑‑ that is a deadening of any sense of responsibility to nation.
A. Arguably. I don't know that I would put it that way but, if you want to make that characterization, I won't disagree with it.
Q. So the sad legacy of European defeat ‑‑ let me ask you this, sir. Britain didn't lose the war, did it?
A. There are a number of historians who say that, although it was on the winning side, it might as well have lost the war.
Q. But the point is that it didn't lose. France didn't lose either, did it? Holland didn't lose.
MR. CHRISTIE: How many questions is he supposed to address before he answers the first one? This becomes like a machine gun here. I object to the process.
MR. ROSEN: Let's start at the beginning.
Q. Britain didn't lose the war, did it?
A. As I said, Britain was on the winning side in the Second World War. As many historians and many Britons have said, the effect is almost as if they had lost the war. They lost their empire as a result of it. They were completely in hawk to the United States as a result. England's place in the world was a severely lesser one than it had been at the beginning of the war.
THE CHAIRPERSON: You have made your point there. Let's get on with it.
MR. ROSEN:
Q. France didn't lose the war.
A. It lost in 1940. It didn't exactly win the war. French troops were defeated in 1940.
Q. It was liberated. Right?
A. Against a government that was a legally constituted government of France.
Q. In southern France. So was the rest of Europe liberated, wasn't it?
A. I don't think people in Hungary or Romania thought they were being liberated in 1944 and 1945.
Q. How about the people in Belgium, in Holland and Denmark and Norway?
THE CHAIRPERSON: Do we have to go into the geo-politics this deeply?
MR. ROSEN:
Q. In any event, sir, what you go on to say is:
"In Munich, my disillusionment with the liberal democratic system grew along with my conviction that a fundamental change of social values was absolutely necessary."
Is that what you wrote?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. Then you say:
"I returned to America wanting to do more than observe."
Correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. You have this disillusionment and you have this growing conviction that a fundamental change of social values is absolutely necessary. Right?
A. I came to feel that that was important.
Q. And that, rather than just watch, you wanted to do something about it. Correct?
A. That is what I came to feel, yes.
Q. When you returned to the United States, you went to Washington where you met Dr. William Pierce for the first time in the summer of 1975. Is that right?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. You write:
"In Washington I met Dr. William Pierce for the first time in the summer of 1975, and I was greatly impressed by his deep understanding, profound intelligence, and courageous dedication."
Have I read that correctly?
A. Yes, you have.
Q. Dr. William Pierce. William L. Pierce is a holder of a Ph.D in physics and a former university professor. Correct?
A. That is what I understand, yes.
Q. He was also a member from 1966 until about 1967 of the American Nazi Party of Arlington, Virginia that was founded by Norman Lincoln Rockwell. Right?
MR. CHRISTIE: George Lincoln ‑‑
MR. ROSEN: I am sorry, I am not up on my Nazi ‑‑
MR. CHRISTIE: There is a good painter by that name, isn't there?
MR. ROSEN:
Q. Rockwell was the founder of the American Nazi Party.
A. That is what I understand.
Q. And Mr. Pierce was a member of the American Nazi Party until 1967 when Rockwell was assassinated.
A. Yes, that is what I understand.
Q. Subsequently, Mr. Pierce went on and became one of the leaders of the new party that was formed called the National Socialist White People's Party. Correct?
A. I am not sure by my own knowledge, but I don't dispute it.
Q. In fact, he served as an assistant executive officer and was an ideological leader of the party. Right?
A. I don't know that to be true. It could be true. I am not going to disagree.
Q. Certainly you knew him to be a leading member of the National Socialist White People's Party; isn't that correct?
A. I didn't know him to be that.
Q. You knew that he had been at some point.
A. I heard ‑‑ I didn't discuss that with him, but I heard that he had been a member.
Q. This is a man whom you describe as somebody who greatly impressed you with his deep understanding, profound intelligence and courageous dedication. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. So much so that you went to work for him.
A. I did volunteer work for about a year for the national office. Mr. Pierce was the head.
Q. Pierce left the National Socialist White People's Party sometime in the early 1970s and became affiliated with what was called the National Youth Alliance. Right?
A. Yes.
Q. Eventually, shortly after his arrival, it was renamed the National Alliance. Right?
A. Yes.
Q. The National Alliance had a organ or a publication, one of a few, that was its voice, if you will, didn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. The tabloid or publication of the National Alliance was originally called "Action", wasn't it?
A. I don't know if that is true; I am not sure.
Q. But it was changed, I suggest to you, to something that you are familiar with, and that is the National Vanguard in which this article that we have been reading appeared in May 1978.
A. That's correct.
Q. And of which you became the editor at some point in time.
A. I became the news editor.
Q. The National Vanguard is published under an inscription across its banner, isn't it?
A. I don't know if it still is, but it was.
Q. It was then.
A. Yes.
Q. The banner of the National Vanguard read: Toward a new consciousness, a new order, a new people. Is that right, sir?
A. I recall that that is correct, yes.
Q. The National Vanguard and its parent organization, the National Alliance, was as much a Nazi or neo-Nazi group as was the National Socialist White People's Party, wasn't it?
A. No, it wasn't.
Q. In fact, everything that it did and stood for was for a new consciousness, a new order, a new people, meaning the strengthening of the White race and a new America. Isn't that right, sir?
A. You would have to ask Pierce.
Q. You wrote for him.
A. That's right.
Q. In any event, back in 1975 ‑‑
THE CHAIRPERSON: Were you not close enough to him to know that?
THE WITNESS: That was the slogan of the National Alliance. I would say that that is correct. I wouldn't say, as he does, that that is the program; that is its slogan. In a sense, I am quibbling over his efforts to say that that slogan represents everything about it; that's all.
MR. ROSEN:
Q. I don't want to quibble. What I want to know, sir, is that a new consciousness, a new order and a new people meant a strengthening of the White race and a new America, didn't it?
A. Arguably. A new consciousness means a new sense, I suppose, of peoplehood, our heritage and a lot of other things.
Q. White people's heritage.
A. It is a paper directed toward White Americans, yes.
Q. And a new order is a new order of White people in charge of their own destiny ‑‑
A. What I think that refers to is a new order of political, social, cultural order in America.
Q. Based on the White race.
A. For White Americans, yes.
Q. And a new people is a pure White people.
A. That is not what my understanding was.
Q. What was your understanding?
A. A new people is a people who are more conscious and aware and more dedicated ‑‑ something like that.
Q. To having a White America. Right?
A. At least promoting White interests in America.
Q. And seeing the end of democracy which rests upon the idea of racial equality. Isn't that right?
A. It was opposed to liberal democracy as was the official policy of the United States government at that time.
Q. That's right, and still is the official policy in the United States government.
A. That's right.
Q. That is 1975 and, of course, that is when you go back to Portland, Oregon and complete your undergraduate studies. Is that right?
A. That's correct.
Q. And you get your B.A. in history around that time, in 1975?
A. That's correct.
Q. After graduating you then accept a Fellowship for study in history at Indiana University.
A. That's correct.
Q. You are sort of a little vague on this, and maybe it is my fault. When precisely did you start at Indiana University on your Master's program?
A. I think it was 1975.
Q. When in 1975?
A. I don't remember exactly.
Q. Summer, fall, winter, spring?
A. Probably in the fall.
Q. In the fall of 1975. So the school year would go from fall to spring?
A. Right.
Q. And then you had a break in 1976.
A. Yes, I think that is right.
Q. Then you go back in the fall of 1976 to the summer of 1977?
A. Right, something like that.
Q. Then in 1977 you had gotten your degree.
A. That's correct.
Q. The degree that you took involved primarily taking course work.
A. Primarily, yes.
Q. As we indicated before, with the main emphasis on Hapsburg history.
A. When I say Hapsburg, also East-Central Europe after the fall of the Hapsburg monarchy in the 20th century.
Q. Right, which came with the end of the First World War.
A. Right.
Q. There was one thing I forgot to mention. Do you know who Andrew Macdonald is?
A. It was a pen name for William Pierce.
Q. In 1978 Mr. Pierce, under the pen name Andrew Macdonald, wrote a book, didn't he?
A. Yes.
Q. The book he wrote is "The Turner Diaries."
A. That's right.
Q. It is a novel which calls for the violent overthrow of the federal government and the systematic killing of Jews and non-Whites in order to establish an Aryan society.
A. It doesn't call for that; it describes it.
Q. It describes it, yes. He also wrote shortly after that the sequel, "The Hunter", which basically carries on the same theme.
A. Yes.
Q. While you are doing your reading in university, did you ever read "Did Six Million Really Die?"
A. When I was a student? I did read it; I don't know what year I read it. It might have been while I was a student.
Q. "Did Six Million Really Die? Truth at Last- Exposed." Is that what it is called?
A. The "Truth at Last - Exposed" is a subtitle that Ernst Zundel put on the edition that he published.
Q. You may have read it while you were in school.
A. I don't remember; it might have been.
Q. It might have been. In fact, you have read that particular pamphlet several times, haven't you?
A. Probably; at least twice.
Q. In fact, you were so taken by the pamphlet and what it stood for and what it said that you were interested in meeting the author, weren't you?
A. I was interested in meeting the author because the booklet had made a lot of headlines and publicity. I agreed with a lot of it; I disagreed with parts of it. That was made clear in my testimony in 1988. There had been a tremendous controversy about the booklet. I asked people, when I was in England, if they knew anything more about it, and I met the author.
Q. Mr. Weber, just stick with one question at a time. You read the pamphlet and were interested in meeting the author, weren't you?
A. Yes.
Q. And you had a chance to meet the author in England, didn't you?
A. That's correct.
Q. The author was somebody named Richard Verral?
A. That's correct.
Q. I am a little confused, and pardon my ignorance. Is there really a person called Richard Verral or is that a pen name?
A. No, there is a real person named Richard Verral.
Q. And he really wrote "Did Six Million Really Die?"
A. That's right. That's my understanding.
Q. He wrote it for somebody named Harwood; is that right?
A. No, he just took the name Harwood. That is the pen name and that he adopted for this booklet.
Q. What is the full name?
A. Richard Harwood; Richard Verral is the real name of the author.
Q. When the pamphlet first came out in about 1975 or 1976 ‑‑ that is when it came out. Right?
A. I think so.
Q. It came out under the pen name Richard Harwood.
A. That's correct.
Q. In fact, you met Richard Verral, the real author, in England in 1977.
A. I don't remember the year, but it could have been 1977, yes.
Q. You don't remember the year?
A. No. It might have been 1976; it might have been 1978. If I said it was 1977 at some point, I won't dispute it.
Q. You said it under oath.
A. Then I will agree. I just don't remember right now offhand what year it was.
Q. Let me see if I can refresh your memory.
In Volume XXIII of your evidence in 1988 Mr. Christie was asking you questions, and he asked you at page 5725:
"Now, did you have occasion to meet Richard Verral?
A. Yes. I met Richard Verral, the author of "Did Six Million Really Die?" in 1977 in England. And I talked with him about his writing of the booklet.
Q. How long did you talk to him? Did you talk to him on more than one occasion?
A. No, one occasion about the booklet. I met him on a couple of occasions."
Were you asked those questions and did you give those answers under oath?
A. Yes, those were my answers, and I recall them as being correct.
Q. While you are studying or perhaps at the end of getting your Master's, you are off in England for a visit. Right?
A. Yes.
Q. And during the course of your studies you read this pamphlet; isn't that right, according to your answer?
A. I said I may have. I may have read it afterwards.
Q. According to your answer, you said, "I met Richard Verral, the author...And I talked to him about his writing of the booklet." It was something you were familiar with.
A. Right. I may have already graduated from graduate school by that time; I don't remember. I could have read it when I was still in graduate school or I could have read it afterward.
Q. Of course, you had already, away back when you were 17 or 18, according to your own article, determined that the Holocaust story was a big lie. Right?
A. No. Could you repeat the question, please.
Q. Away back when, when you were in Bonn, Germany for your little sabbatical ‑‑
A. First of all, I never characterized the Holocaust story as a big lie. I don't think I have ever done that. I don't now. My views on the Holocaust have changed over a period of time. They became more refined and more focused as time went on.
Q. You became more professional in your approach as a Holocaust denier; isn't that right?
A. No, that is wrong.
Q. But away back when, in 1970 or 1971, you had concluded that, whereas the German people accepted their legacy of defeat, that was a contrast to the "endless wailings of the persecuted Jews," at page 6534 of the transcript. Right? Away back, when you were just a high school student and living at home.
A. Mr. Rosen, that doesn't deal at all with my views on the Holocaust story at that time.
Q. You go on at the same part of that article talking about "older Germans were indeed often reluctant to talk about those years because most had given up trying to compete with 30 years of lying propaganda." Right?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. Lying propaganda, which is what you concluded the Holocaust was all about.
A. No, that is not what I am referring to at that point.
Q. Your evidence, as I understand it, sir, is that you first became interested in the Holocaust in 1978 when you went to Washington. Right?
A. That is true, yes.
Q. And that what sparked your interest was that you went off to the National Archives and came across aerial photos of Auschwitz. You were looking for crematoria and bodies, and you didn't see any. Suddenly, you had a revelation that maybe it didn't happen that way. Is that right?
A. I became seriously interested and skeptical of the Holocaust story first in 1978, and that was triggered by a publication in the Washington Post. I had then gotten Raul Hilberg's book, "The Destruction of European Jews", and I read that carefully. At that time I began a pretty systematic study of this question. That is when I began really being skeptical of the standard Holocaust story.
I had already read and was somewhat familiar with Richard Harwood's booklet, but I wasn't very persuaded by it at that time, as I testified in 1988.
Q. Let me see if I understand the chronology, then.
You come back from Europe the second time with all these ideas that we have gone over, and then you go back to school and get your B.A. Right?
A. An M.A.
Q. First your B.A.
A. That's right.
Q. Then you go and get your M.A. in 1975 to 1977. Correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. Then in the summer of 1977 you are over in England talking to Richard Harwood or Richard Verral about "Did Six Million Really Die?" Right?
A. I talked with him about the booklet, yes.
Q. When you come back from Europe after talking to him about his booklet and having read his booklet, you go to work for the National Vanguard from the National Alliance run by neo-Nazi William Pierce. Isn't that right?
A. That's a sensationalistic way to put things, but ‑‑
Q. But that's the chronology.
A. It's not cause-and-effect chronology. It's a chronology of events, but I didn't work for Pierce because I read Harwood's booklet. It is true that I did a lot of things, and the chronology is essentially true, but the cause and effect is not that.
Q. But the chronology is correct, isn't it? You finish your Master's, go to England, come back and work for the neo-Nazi and become the editor of the Nazi paper.
A. I didn't work for Pierce because he was a neo-Nazi.
Q. He didn't exactly report on the daily news, did he? His little pamphlet had nothing to do with mainstream America; all it had to do with was racism.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Excuse me, Mr. Rosen. Mr. Fromm, please.
MR. FROMM: Mr. Chairman, is this line of questioning at all fair? The witness has not agreed that William Pierce is a neo-Nazi.
MR. ROSEN: Mr. Fromm can argue this.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Continue.
MR. ROSEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Q. When you do go to work for him in 1978, by golly, according to your own resumé, you lived in Washington, D.C. from 1978 to 1983, five years. Right? Is that right, sir?
A. That's right.
Q. And you start off there working for this National Vanguard for the National Alliance. Right?
A. I actually started working in a job downtown, but I did volunteer work for Pierce.
Q. While you were working downtown until you could find a paying job, and then you went on the payroll.
A. No, I was never on the payroll of the National Alliance or Pierce.
Q. While you were doing all that and writing this little article about your years up to 1978, you were over at the National Archives doing supposedly research on the Holocaust issue. Is that right?
A. Mr. Rosen, your characterization is completely wrong. In fact, I had a big breaking-off with Pierce at that time, in part because of my interest in the Holocaust issue.
Q. Because Mr. Pierce, or Dr. Pierce as he likes to be known, was more interested in advancing the White man's cause than he was in denying the Holocaust and had no interest in publishing it. Isn't that right?
A. I don't think Pierce had any interest in denying the Holocaust or anything else.
Q. But you did.
A. No, I don't have any interest in denying anything.
Q. After you left the National Alliance and its National Vanguard, the next thing you did is you started to work for the Institute of Historical Research. Isn't that right?
A. No.
Q. You did freelance work for them, didn't you?
A. There is nothing called the Institute of Historical Research. I suppose you are talking about the Institute for Historical Review.
Q. IHR, the Institute for Historical Review, yes. You met them before going to Washington in 1978. Right?
A. No.
Q. The Institute for Historical Review was started by somebody by the name of Willis A. Carto?
A. Willis Carto was a co-founder of the IHR.
Q. And the other one was...?
A. The person who really had the idea was a man named David McCaulden born in Ireland.
Q. Born in Ireland and a member of the National Front in England which was a post-war Nazi organization, isn't it?
A. No.
Q. It is a racist, White supremist ‑‑
MR. FROMM: Mr. Chairman ‑‑
THE CHAIRPERSON: Excuse me, Mr. Rosen.
Mr. Fromm, this is a witness called by counsel for the Respondent and he is here to protect this witness. If there is objection, I am suggesting to you that it should come from him.
MR. ROSEN:
Q. The National Front is a white supremist organization in Britain, isn't it?
A. My understanding is that the National Front is a nationalist organization, a pro-White organization. I am not a member. What I understand about it is based on its understanding of itself.
Q. And, in fact, has been characterized by the British government as a neo-Nazi, White supremist organization. Isn't that right?
A. I don't know that to be true.
Q. When you were in England, didn't you make some inquiries of Mr. Verral about his association with the National Front?
A. Sure.
Q. And he was also a member or associated with the National Front.
A. He wasn't a neo-Nazi.
Q. He wasn't a neo-Nazi?
A. No.
Q. Let's see what Mr. Verral wrote. You read the introduction to "Six Million Really Die?"
A. Yes.
Q. I won't bore everybody with reading it, but it is at HR-2, tab 1. In his article, "Did Six Million Really Die?", he says:
"The ensuing pages will reveal this claim to be the most colossal piece of fiction and the most successful of deceptions, but here an attempt may be made to answer an important question: What has rendered the atrocity stories of the Second World War so uniquely different from those of the First? Why were the latter retracted, while the former are reiterated louder than ever? Is it possible that the story of the six million Jews is serving a political purpose, even that it is a form of political blackmail?"
That is what he wrote in his introduction, isn't it?
A. I don't recall that, but I will take your word for it.
Q. He goes on to say:
"In terms of political blackmail, however, the allegation that six million Jews died during the Second World War has much more far-reaching implications for the people of Britain and Europe than simply the advantage it has gained for the Jewish nation. Here one comes to the crux of the question: Why the big lie? What is its purpose? In the first place, it has been used quite unscrupulously to discourage any form of nationalism should the people of Britain or any other European country attempt to assert their patriotism and preserve their national integrity. In an age when the very existence of nation states is threatened they are immediately branded as neo-Nazis because, of course, Naziism was nationalism and we all know what happened then. Six million Jews were exterminated. So long as the myth is perpetuated peoples everywhere will remain in bondage to it. The need for international tolerance and understanding will be hammered home by the United Nations until nationhood itself, the very guarantee of freedom, is abolished."
That is out of the introduction. Right? Is that right, sir? Is that out of the introduction?
A. I don't have personal memory of that myself.
Q. Would you like me to show you the portion I read so that you can confirm it, or will you take my word for it?
A. I will take your word for it.
Q. Thank you.
So, sir, those are the sentiments of the National Front in Britain, aren't they, as represented by Mr. Verral?
A. It was Mr. Verral's pamphlet. It wasn't published by the National Front.
Q. And one of the founders of the Institute for Historical Review, Mr. McCaulden, a former member of the National Front, had similar or identical views, didn't he?
A. He had similar views.
Q. And the other person, of course, was Mr. Carto, Willis Carto. Right?
A. He was also a co-founder of the IHR.
Q. Willis Carto, as well, was an officer of the Comotheist Church.
A. Carto was an officer of the Comotheist Church? I don't think so.
Q. The Comotheist Church was founded by the National Alliance leader, William Pierce.
A. I would be pretty surprised. I doubt if that is true.
Q. Are you a member of the Comotheist Church?
A. No, I am not.
Q. In any event, sir, when we look at your credentials ‑‑ if I can just go back for a moment and see what your education consisted of ‑‑ you told us in-chief that at the previous trial of Mr. Zundel, which was a charge of spreading false messages, you were accepted as an expert. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. In fact, your expertise was significantly limited, wasn't it?
A. I think it was exactly what I was proffered as an expert on. It was accepted completely, as I recall.
Q. You were accepted, according to the Court ‑‑ and I quote:
"The witness will be permitted to give opinion evidence on the question of the Holocaust and the alleged extermination policy of the German government having regard to his studies in the field since 1979 and keeping in mind that he received an M.A. from Indiana University in modern European history in 1977 and has studied the subject since 1979, including reviewing many of the sources of information that the jury and myself have heard about from experts called by the prosecution."
Right?
A. That is what I recall, yes.
Q. Of course, at the time that that ruling was made you had not been cross-examined on this little pamphlet or article from the National Alliance.
MR. CHRISTIE: That is entirely misleading. I think it is improper to suggest that. My friend does have the transcript of the preceding pages, and the very subject that he just mentioned last follows page 6545. The judgment of the Court is on page ‑‑
MR. ROSEN: Sorry, you are wrong. The judgment of the Court, Mr. Christie ‑‑ and I will show it to you ‑‑ is on page 5684, and Mr. Weber's cross-examination does not begin on this pamphlet for another volume and a half, at page 6520.
MR. CHRISTIE: My friend is correct, and I am wrong.
MR. ROSEN: Thank you.
THE CHAIRPERSON: On that note, we will take our afternoon break.
‑‑- Short Recess at 3:29 p.m.
‑‑- Upon resuming at 3:50 p.m.
MR. ROSEN:
Q. Mr. Weber, dealing with that year and a half or two years that you were working on your Master's Degree, that wasn't a happy time for you, was it?
A. I wouldn't say that.
Q. It was a fairly frustrating time for you, wasn't it?
A. Not particularly. It was frustrating in some ways, but it was very fulfilling in others.
Q. Frustrating in the fact that you had to take this degree from a bunch of cynical, self-centred, bourgeois professors?
A. Some of my professors were cynical.
Q. The whole experience was a waste of time for you, wasn't it?
A. I certainly wouldn't say that.
Q. I suppose at the end of it you get those two magic letters M.A. to put behind your name. Right?
A. That's a pretty cynical characterization, Mr. Rosen.
Q. You never went on and got the other one, a Ph.D.
A. No, I didn't.
Q. In particular, in your article back in 1978 shortly after you got your M.A., you described your years at college in a very candid way, didn't you?
A. I like to think that I write candidly.
Q. At page 6545 of the transcript we have been referring to you continue, after referencing Dr. Pierce:
"After finishing college, I accepted a fellowship for graduate study in history at Indiana University. But during the year and a half I worked on my MA, I grew increasingly restless and fed up with the futility and meaninglessness of academic life."
Is that what you wrote?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q."My colleagues and professors resigned themselves to a cynical, self-centred, bourgeois future. What was the point?"
That is what you wrote?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. "What was the point?" you asked rhetorically.
"If things kept on going as they were, neither our race nor our nation would have a future, and whatever we did in our short lives would be pointless."
Did you write that, sir?
A. I did.
Q."In graduate school, I became ever more disgusted with the liberal effort to twist and distort history to make it conform to the naive, unrealistic, liberal view of life."
Did you write that, sir?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Of course, one of the things you were referring to as the liberal effort to twist and distort history was the distortion of the history of the Second World War and the period of the Nazi era in Germany. Right?
A. I don't think so. I don't recall that.
Q. You don't recall that. Certainly by that time you had already read, as we have established, "Did Six Million Really Die?" Right?
A. Yes, probably.
Q. You had had your experiences in Germany twice and had come to question the story as told to you in high school, as we have gone over. Right?
A. Yes.
Q. Of course, what was happening was that, while you were in university doing your M.A., you were confronting professors and colleagues alike with the fact that there was no positive proof of an order for the extermination of Jews. Isn't that right?
A. No, it is completely wrong.
Q. That is one of the things your professors remember the most about you, that you questioned and continuously hounded them for that. Isn't that right?
MR. CHRISTIE: I must object to that question. Unless Mr. Rosen is undertaking to call a professor, it is improper to put an allegation of a statement to a witness that is not either in the record or in any material that the witness has in his recollection.
MR. ROSEN: You know, Mr. Chair and Member, I wish sometimes Mr. Christie would get a book of evidence out and read the rules of evidence and rules of cross-examination. Counsel can put whatever they can to a witness. Whether they choose to call it later or not is another matter. Whether it is a collateral issue, whether it is proved by collateral evidence, whether the Panel allows it or not, is a different issue. It is cross-examination.
THE CHAIRPERSON: There may be some consequences in following that course, if it is not followed up. Proceed.
MR. ROSEN: It may be impractical to do that, as you can imagine.
Q. The point is, though, is that what you were still obsessed with, I suggest to you, was the issue of White racism versus the non-White races in America, weren't you?
A. No.
Q. What you say at page 6546 is:
"The lies and myth-making were especially frequent when dealing with the Negro in American history. Various obscure Blacks were elevated to undeserved prominence, while White college students learned virtually nothing of the heroic sacrifices at the Alamo and Valley Forge."
Is that what you wrote?
A. I wrote that.
Q."While Jews and Blacks blatantly promoted their own biased cultural and racial programs in special studies departments, anti-White and anti-Western professors taught White students to be ashamed of their racial-cultural heritage."
Did you write that?
A. Yes.
Q. Of course, the biased cultural and racial programs in special studies departments included special studies in the Holocaust, didn't they?
A. I wasn't aware of that at the time.
Q. You weren't aware of that at the time?
A. No, I don't think there were any Holocaust studies at the time.
Q. You didn't even search it out to find out if maybe it was being taught?
A. No, I didn't.
Q."Liberals ignored or obscured the fact that our forefathers consciously established America as a nation for White people."
Did you write that?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you believe that then?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you believe it today?
A. Yes.
Q."Professors were often far more interested in berating the White race for its past 'injustices' than in imparting an understanding of the dynamics of history."
Did you write that?
A. Yes, I did.
THE CHAIRPERSON: 'Injustices' is in quotes.
MR. ROSEN: Yes, 'injustices' is in quotes; thank you.
Q."And while they talked of democracy and the majority, liberal professors looked down with contempt upon the White taxpayers who paid their wages."
Did you write that, sir?
A. Yes.
Q. Is that what you perceived to be happening while you were doing your Master's Degree at Indiana State University at Bloomington?
A. It is one of the things I perceived was happening while I was there.
Q. Of course, being a member of the White race, you felt that these cultural, racial, biased programs were being given precedence over your interests. Right?
A. I take issue with your characterization, as I have before, that I characterize myself as a member of the White race. I think it is a silly designation. My own personal interests were not particularly hurt at all during the time I was there. If anything, they were quite well taken care of.
Q. You were able to kind of avoid all this stuff, just observe it from a distance. Is that right?
A. No. When I was in graduate school, my own personal life was a very good one. I was very well treated. I felt, as I write here, that there was a lot of hypocrisy and cynicism by many of the professors that I had. There was a great deal of cynicism and, I felt, distortion and misrepresentation of history as presented at Indiana University and at other schools I had attended.
Q. Particularly by the liberal professors who talked of democracy and the majority.
A. The vast majority of the professors were liberal.
Q. You go on to say:
"Of course, these academic bureaucrats had no real loyalty to America or to the White race."
Is that what you wrote?
A. I wrote that, yes.
Q. Do you believe that, then and now?
A. Overwhelmingly, yes.
Q."They were interested in job security and academic prestige, but not in the search for historical truth."
Is that right?
A. I believed that then, and I wrote that, yes.
Q. These are professors who have doctorate degrees. Right?
A. Certainly, yes.
Q. Tenured positions?
A. Many of them, yes.
Q. Indiana State University at Bloomington is a nationally recognized institution of higher learning?
A. No, it is not.
Q. It is not?
A. You got the name wrong. It is Indiana University. Indiana State University is in another city.
Q. But it is a place of higher learning where you chose to take your fellowship and do your Master's program?
A. It's a pretty well respected university in America.
Q."A study of history, I was convinced, demonstrated conclusively that race-mixing, a mania for equality, and a lack of idealism and heroism were all unmistakable signs of decadence."
Did you write that, sir?
A. Yes.
Q. You believed that then as you do now?
A. Yes.
Q. At page 6548:
"History clearly showed that the future belongs only to those people willing to sacrifice and fight for it."
Right?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. Sacrifice as in taking a job and doing the job without regard for money, for instance, as long as it is the right job. Right?
A. I am not sure about that.
Q. Fighting for it might mean anything from taking up arms at the right moment to writing the right articles in the right journal. Isn't that right, Mr. Weber?
A. I suppose that could be.
Q. Then you go on to say:
"Over the past several years, I had hitchhiked many times across and around the United States."
Is that true, that you hitchhiked across the United States?
A. Yes.
Q. In addition to travelling in Europe and North Africa and all that sort of thing? Is that right?
A. That's correct. I hitchhiked across Canada and Mexico and Europe as well.
Q. As well as doing six years, approximately, of school?
A. That's correct.
Q. So your education comes in that period of time from the travel that you have done and the people you have talked to. Is that right?
A. It comes from a lot of other things, Mr. Rosen.
Q. But it comes from that, too, doesn't it?
A. Of course.
Q."From hundreds of conversations with a wide variety of Americans, I came to feel that our people was caught in the grip of some terrible death-wish."
Is that what you wrote?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. Did you really believe that?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. And you still do?
A. I still do.
Q."Privately, White men and women across the country expressed to me their disgust, shame and anger at the way things were going."
Is that what you wrote?
A. I did write that. I would qualify one thing. I wrote this when I was younger and I was more idealistic. I now believe that a cynicism, a sort of lack of regard for larger issues, is pretty typical of the human condition, especially when people get older. Especially when people have families, their concern for their children and so forth becomes a primary focus in their lives. I now have children myself and I understand that a lot more.
I was more patient when I was younger, and I think that is pretty typical of how people mature.
Q. But the point is that your concern then for the White race and its destruction is the same today.
A. On the previous page that you quoted, I expressed the concern for historical truth. That is a concern that I had then and I have now, very ardently.
Q. Mr. Weber, the question I had for you, though, sir, was that what we are talking about here was this terrible death-wish that the White people of America seemed to be caught in the grip of, that you perceived. Right?
A. I perceived that Americans seemed to have a kind of fatalistic sense about their future.
Q."Privately, White men and women across the country expressed to me their disgust, shame and anger at the way things were going. But many older Americans had long ago given up hope that anything could be done, while others lacked the courage to do anything more than complain to friends."
Is that what you wrote.
A. I wrote that, yes.
Q."Hearing cowardly and defeatist whining about the futility of it all made me more angry than depressed. I became convinced that our White race was capable of accomplishing any goal which we set for ourselves."
Did you write that?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you believe that, as a race?
A. It's a bit rhetorical, not any goal obviously, but any realistic goal, any rational goal.
Q. Like changing history.
A. No one can change history.
Q. No?
A. No.
Q."What we absolutely needed was firm self-discipline, heroic confidence, and fanatic determination."
Is that what you wrote?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. And you believe that?
A. I believe that those traits are necessary for any kind of survival or success for any national undertaking. A good example of that is that all those traits were manifest by those who built the State of Israel, for example.
Q. As they were, I guess in your opinion, by those who built the Nazi State ‑‑ self-discipline, heroic confidence and fanatic determination.
A. I would say the National Socialist State or the Bolshevik State.
Q. The National Socialist State; let's call it that.
A. Or the Zionist State.
Q. In fact, those today who are part of that movement in America, such as yourself, to build the White racist state on self-discipline, heroic confidence and fanatic determination. Isn't that your credo, Mr. Weber?
A. I am not part of any such movement, and your characterization is wrong.
Q."Even if our race was fated for destruction, our duty must still be to make a stand to redeem our honor before history."
Is that what you wrote?
A. Yes.
Q. Honour, the honour of the White man. Is that right?
A. I think honour is a universal virtue.
Q. The honour of a race; not of a person, a nationality, a culture, but a race.
A. Racial-cultural honour, yes.
Q. You say:
"I drew great confidence from a faith in the ultimate victory of right. Our racial struggle was in harmony with the highest laws of Nature itself. I could not believe that our race had been created only to perish in suicidal race-mixing. Providence had destined our kind for much more than that."
Have I read that paragraph correctly?
A. I believe so.
Q. That, of course, was the tenor of the National Alliance, wasn't it?
A. It is not inconsistent with it.
Q. In fact, the article was designed to advance the interests of the National Alliance. Is that right?
A. The point of the article was to express my adherence to the National Alliance at that time and to encourage others to follow my example.
Q."As a liberal, I had taken my race, my nation and my cultural heritage for granted. Now I realized that only a conscious and dedicated commitment to our race could prevent our extinction."
Did you write that?
A. Yes.
Q. Then you go on to say:
"My 'conversion' over several years had resulted in a rejection of two basic liberal principles: inherent human equality; and human material comfort and happiness as the highest social good."
Is that right, sir?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. And that is what you believed.
A. That is what I believed.
Q. We started at the beginning of the article with the person who shared the national mood of childlike confidence in the Great Society, and so forth. Right?
A. That's right.
Q. Who helped young Blacks learn to read in the summer. Right?
A. That's right.
Q. Who helped Biafrans in their fight for national independence from the majority in war-ravaged Africa. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. Who looked to the left for some of the answers.
A. That's correct.
Q. Who rejected the moribund and utterly principleless right-wing conservatism. That is what you said?
A. I will take your word for it.
Q. And who had a journey through time and countries and some sort of education to come to a conversion that was the end product of several years.
A. The word 'conversion' is in quotation marks because it is a kind of metaphor.
Q. It's a concept, conversion. This is what I was; this is where I went; and this is what I became.
A. Something like that.
Q. What you became was a person who rejected the two basic liberal principles: inherent human equality; and human material comfort and happiness as the highest social good. Correct?
A. I came to reject those liberal principles, yes.
Q. But you also went on to dedicate yourself to other principles; is that right?
A. Repeat the question, please.
Q. You rejected those, but you are going to dedicate yourself now to other things.
A. Implied in that is that I had decided to dedicate myself to that, yes.
Q. What you were going to dedicate yourself to was the future of the White race and the American homeland as it was intended, as you say, by the founders of America.
A. No, that is mixing things; to our heritage, to our culture, to our race ‑‑ all those things.
Q. To a White America.
A. And to our heritage, our cultural heritage.
Q. But that is all encompassed in a White America, isn't it?
A. It's implied, yes.
Q. You go on at page 6551 to at least say the words:
"However, I continued to honor several of the older liberal values: devotion to truth, no matter where it may lead; social and individual justice within the context of the community; protection and encouragement of productive labor; rejection of uncontrolled and irresponsible capitalism."
Is that right?
A. That's right.
Q."I had no right to complain about the slow extinction of our race or the degenerate trend throughout the Western world unless I myself was willing to at least speak out. I came to feel that it was not enough to hold back and silently hope that others would do what I was afraid to do. I realized that I had no special right to sit on the sidelines as a cowardly spectator."
Did you write that, sir?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. You concluded in that portion:
"My responsibility for the future of our White race and American homeland was at least as great as any other man's."
Right?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. You say:
"Reading the National Alliance newspaper greatly helped to clarify my thinking. No other periodical I read addressed the fundamental issues of our time as truthfully and as lucidly."
Is that right?
A. I wrote those words.
Q. And you believed that at the time?
A. That's correct.
Q. When Dr. Pierce chose to continue with his mainline White racism and ignore the Holocaust myth, that is when you had your break-up with him, didn't you?
A. We had a break over a number of issues.
Q. That was the one, wasn't it?
A. One of them was that I became very interested in the Holocaust.
Q. And he wasn't interested ‑‑
A. He wasn't interested in that, no; not really.
Q. Or your writing about it in his journal, was he?
A. Yes, that is true.
Q. You say?
"Finishing my Master's degree in history in December of last year, I moved to the Washington, D.C. area at the beginning of this year to devote my talent and energy to what I firmly believe is the most vital and important work in America today."
Right?
A. That is what I wrote.
Q. The promotion of the White race and a White America.
A. For the future of our White race and American homeland.
Q. Within a short time of that ‑‑ this is May 1978. Within a few months of that you had your falling-out with Dr. Pierce and you go on to do other things.
A. That's correct.
Q. One of the things, you say, was this long-time research, five years of research, that ultimately led you to conclude that the Holocaust is a myth. Is that right, sir?
A. A couple of things. First, I concluded that the Holocaust extermination story, as we are told it, is essentially not true, even before the five-year period was over.
Q. In fact, it only took you six months.
A. I don't remember how many months, but anyway your characterization at first was not true. Also ‑‑ that's enough on that.
Q. Maybe I am wrong with six months; maybe it was a little more. The article that we have been discussing was written in May 1978. Right?
A. It was published in May.
Q. And you have your parting of the ways with Dr. Pierce around the fall of 1978. Right?
A. I don't recall exactly, but it was some months later.
Q. By 1979 you were writing for a publication called "Spotlight." Is that right?
A. I don't recall exactly, but I will take your word that that is true.
Q. You know what "Spotlight" is.
A. Yes.
Q. "Spotlight" is a tabloid published by the Liberty Lobby, as it is called. Right?
A. Right.
Q. Liberty Lobby is a Washington, D.C.-based organization founded by Willis A. Carto. Is that right?
A. That's correct.
Q. Willis A. Carto was the same Willis A. Carto who was one of the founders of the Institute for Historical Review. Correct?
A. Correct.
Q. He put out this publication, among other things, called "Spotlight" in which you contributed an article that was your opinion about the Holocaust. Isn't that right?
A. At least some aspects of it, I suppose, yes. I don't recall and I don't know what you are referring to specifically. Perhaps you could help refresh my memory.
Q. Yes. At page 6563 Mr. Pearson at the Zundel trial in 1988 produced to you an article that you wrote that was eventually published on December 24, 1979 in "Spotlight" magazine.
A. Okay.
Q."Q. Sir, I'm showing you an article that I suggest you wrote, that was published December 24th, 1979, in 'Spotlight' magazine.
A. U-hmm.
Q. Do you agree that that's an article you wrote?
A. Yes."
First of all, were you asked those questions and did you give those answers?
A. That is my recollection.
Q. And were the answers that you gave to those questions true, sir?
A. To the best of my recollection.
Q. Does that assist you today to refresh your memory about that article? Is that right, sir?
A. You have the advantage. If you are quoting correctly and accurately from the transcript, I don't disagree with it. It is probably accurate.
Q. You have it in front of you.
A. Yes, but I haven't had a chance to refer to it.
Q. Let me take your attention to page 6563, to the question at line 6. Do you see that?
A. I see that.
Q. Do you see question-answer, question-answer?
A. I do.
Q. You admit to writing the article of December 24, 1979, or at least it was published on that date.
A. I acknowledge writing the article.
Q. Of course. You in your CV say, "I spent five years in Washington going through the National Archives and other things, looking at Holocaust material and coming to my conclusion. Right?
A. I said I spent five years in Washington, D.C. studying this issue.
Q. Studying this issue and writing about it and writing your beliefs about it. Is that right?
A. My views, yes.
Q. In that article, as quoted at 6563, you say:
"Virtually the entire body of 'evidence' and 'documentation' offered today for the alleged extermination of six million Jews by the Germans was first presented to the world at a series of elaborately-staged trials in Germany in the aftermath of World War Two"?
A. U-hmm."
Do you see that? Are you with me?
A. Yes, I am.
Q. You were asked that question and you gave that answer?
A. Yes. He didn't ask me a question.
Q. Then he goes on to quote:
"The victorious Allies held thousands of German military and civilian leaders before the Show Trials on absurd and hypocritical charges of 'war crimes' and 'crimes against humanity'. It was these 'trials' which first gave the 'Holocaust' story legitimacy and worldwide publicity."
That was part of your answer. That was out of the article that you wrote?
A. To the best of my recollection, yes.
Q."A tremendous public relations campaign conducted ever since has engraved that story so deeply into the public consciousness that to challenge it is considered somewhat akin to claiming the earth is flat."
You wrote that?
A. To claiming that the earth is flat, yes.
Q."But a careful examination of the origins of the 'Holocaust' legend in the famous Nuremberg trials and other 'war crimes' trials reveals just how fraudulent the entire story really is."
That is what you wrote?
A. That is what I wrote, to the best of my recollection.
Q. In December of 1979 not only did you write it, but you wrote it as something that you personally believed, didn't you?
A. Yes.
Q. And your position has not changed at all since 1979, has it?
A. My position on what?
Q. On just how fraudulent the entire story really is.
A. As revealed in the Nuremberg trials, yes. I believe that probably more strongly now than I did than I did at the time I wrote it.
Q. In fact, you go on to say ‑‑ Mr. Pearson asked you:
"Q. And I suggest, sir, that that is a complete public denial of the Holocaust.:
Your answer on that occasion was:
"Well, that's not quite accurate. I'm ‑‑ as I say in the first part of the story, I talk about the alleged Holocaust story. I mean at that time I still believed perhaps there was some policy or programme to exterminate the Jews."
If I can interject, you are referring, of course, to 1979, saying that you still believed that there was a policy or program. Right?
A. That there may have been, yes.
Q."At that time, for example, I believed probably the figures in the Einsatzgruppen reports were accurate, but I came to already believe that many important aspects of the story were not true, and that's reflected in that article."
You were asked that question and you gave that answer?
A. To the best of my recollection, yes.
Q."Q. So you don't say 'important aspects'; you say 'reveals just how fraudulent the entire story really is'. That's what you said?
A. That's a little overstated. Look, Mr. Pearson, it's not really crucial or essential at what point I came to reject the entire Holocaust story. I said that it was about a year later, only to try and be as precise as I possibly can, and I came ‑‑ as I said, it was a continuing process, and during the time that I wrote that article, which was really focused on just one or a few aspects of the story, I didn't completely ‑‑ well, I had doubts about the entire story, but I didn't completely reject it at that time."
Were you asked that question and did you give that answer?
A. Right.
Q. What you are saying there and, I take it, in the rest of the transcript is that, although in 1979 you didn't reject the entire story, by 1980, a year later, you certainly did. Isn't that right?
A. I would say I rejected the essence of the Holocaust story.
Q. The Institute of Historical Review and its publication ‑‑ what do you call your publication?
A. The Institute publishes the Journal of Historical Review.
Q. The Journal of Historical Review, right. The Institute and its publication, the Journal, are dedicated to advancing that position that you expressed right there in that transcript. Isn't that right?
A. That is not a correct characterization. The Institute deals with many issues besides that. It has published a number of different views on this subject, and there are disagreements among some of the writers who have published in the Journal of Historical Review. It explores critically this particular issue in great detail, among others.
Q. And the issue that it explores is the validity of the Holocaust story. Isn't that right?
A. Not "the" issue. It is an important issue; it is one of a number of issues that are dealt with in the Journal.
Q. It's the ultimate issue, isn't it?
A. That is a subjective characterization. I wouldn't say so.
Q. The whole purpose of debating or raising issues or questions about the validity of the Holocaust itself has a more basic and fundamental purpose, doesn't it, Mr. Weber?
A. Yes, the search for historical truth.
Q. No, no. It's what your friend Richard Verral said in his "Did Six Million Really Die?"
A. That is not a question; it's a statement.
Q. Isn't it, sir? Isn't that really the whole point of the exercise, to show, as he says in his introduction, that the crux of the matter is why and the answer is that it is a form of political blackmail to advance the interests of Jews ‑‑ and I am paraphrasing.
A. What is your question again, please?
Q. The whole purpose of denying the Holocaust is to show that the real reason behind it is the advancement of Jewish interests at the expense of others. Isn't that right?
A. You have asked a very good question. It is a question that deserves a careful answer.
The Institute deals with the Holocaust question because this is, almost certainly without question, the major historical issue of our time. It is played up more in our media, in our books, in our motion pictures than any other chapter of history, and played up in a very polemical, dogmatic way. A number of writers have pointed out, and Jewish writers, that it is portrayed in a quasi-religious way, as a kind of Holocaust industry that stresses this thing so much so that those who disagree with the standard Holocaust story in a number of countries are threatened with jail or physical violence and are treated that way.
This particular chapter of history must be dealt with critically because of the tremendous role it plays in society socially, politically, culturally and so forth. That is why the Institute for Historical Review deals with this question.
Q. Mr. Weber, would you agree with me, sir, that the real reason behind the Holocaust denial is really just a blatant form of antisemitism?
A. Absolutely not.
Q. But, in any event, regardless of the legitimacy ‑‑ leaving aside the issue of legitimacy; I may get to that tomorrow ‑‑ the fact of the matter is that even you agree that there is no excuse for somebody engaged in this debate to subject an identifiable group to hatred. Isn't that correct?
A. Before ‑‑
Q. Is that right, sir?
A. I didn't finish my answer before you began ‑‑
Q. I thought clearly you had, and I would like an answer to my question. Would you agree with me, sir, that, leaving aside the legitimacy of this debate, you cannot have the debate in a way that would subject a group to hatred?
A. I would like first to finish my answer to your previous question, if I might.
He said: Is Holocaust denial, as he puts it, a form of antisemitism?
Q. And you said "no."
A. And I said "no", and I was going to explain that a number of Jewish scholars have made statements which have been characterized as Holocaust denial. The term "Holocaust denial" is a silly one, a ridiculous one.
Before the mid-1970s no one talked about the Holocaust. It didn't appear in encyclopedias; it didn't become a popular term until the late 1970s. If somebody in 1960 had stood up and accused somebody of Holocaust denial, they would have thought it an absurdity. Now people who are called Holocaust deniers are called antisemites, and they are put in jail in various places.
The IHR and what we do is supported by a number of Jewish writers. One of the things that I prepared for this article is a very fascinating article written by a Jewish professor in Oklahoma who has written for our Journal. We have even Jewish supporters in the IHR who have been beaten up and punished for their support for the IHR.
It is unfair to characterize it in that way. I think there is a tremendous danger in characterizing antisemitism or hatred according to someone else's definition. It has to be by some kind of standard that we can understand.
If Jews support the IHR and say, "This is what I believe on this subject," we have to make some assumption of goodwill on their part.
In any case, to go back to the second question, it is absolutely important, and we try very hard to deal with this question without resorting to and to avoid even the appearance of hatred or hostility to people because of their race or ethnic group. I myself believe that very strongly.
There is really a tremendous debate on this subject. One of the most important figures in the world, who is called a Holocaust denier, is a very noted French academic named Roger Garaudy. He was punished recently in France; he was fined. This man is a leftist, as are a number of Holocaust revisionists ‑‑ we prefer this term. "Denier" is a pejorative term. Roger Garaudy has received support from people all over the world, especially the Muslim world because he is a Muslim; he converted to Islam.
It is completely inaccurate to characterize Holocaust revisionism in a way that Mr. Rosen has attempted to do. Remember, organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center and so forth at one time considered anyone who supported the PLO to be an antisemite, to be beyond the pale, to be a hater. Today our view of the PLO is a very different one.
These things change over time, but it is important to at least understand what people really believe in their own terms before we start pointing fingers and characterizing people in that sort of way.
Q. Mr. Weber, answer my question. Would you agree with me that, regardless of the legitimacy of the debate, it is not open to anyone to use it as a means to subject a group to hatred?
A. I thought I implicitly answered.
Q. How about explicitly answering it.
A. I will expressly answer it. I do not believe in exposing people to hatred or vilification, as a group.
Q. Mr. Weber, the Institute of Historical Review is not a member of the American Historical Association, is it?
A. Groups are generally not members. I am a member of the American Historical Association. Groups don't apply for membership in the American Historical Association. I have been a member for some years.
Q. Then you must be familiar with their release of January 8, 1994 concerning the whole issue of Holocaust denial.
A. Yes. It has been some years since I have seen it, but I am familiar with it, yes.
Q. Let me show this to you.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Are you going to mark the curriculum vitae?
MR. ROSEN: Yes.
THE REGISTRAR: That was filed by Mr. Christie, and it will be marked as Respondent Exhibit R-39. That is minus the last two pages; am I correct?
THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes.
EXHIBIT NO. R-39: Curriculum vitae of Mark Weber
MR. ROSEN: In addition, could we mark the transcript that we have been referring to.
THE REGISTRAR: The transcript will be marked as SW-1.
EXHIBIT NO. SW-1: Transcript of proceedings in the District Court of Ontario dated March 1988, Volume XXV
MR. ROSEN:
Q. The American Historical Association dates to 1884. Right?
A. That is my understanding.
Q. It is a professional body of U.S. historians and is not a school and is not committed to any particular interpretation of history. Right?
A. That's correct.
Q. On December 30, 1991 the Council of the American Historical Association unanimously approved the following statement:
"The American Historical Association Council strongly deplores the publicly-reported attempts to deny the fact of the Holocaust. No serious historians question that the Holocaust took place."
Have I read that correctly, sir?
A. Yes, you have.
Q. Attached to that as well is their Press Release dated January 8, 1994:
"The American Historical Association has not provided, and will not provide, facilities for the Society for Historical Studies, the Joaquin Murietta Historical Society, or any other organization that denies the historical evidence of the Holocaust.
At its Friday meeting, the Association's governing Council reaffirmed its 1991 repudiation of such views, declaring that 'No serious historian denies the existence of the Holocaust.'
Contrary to misleading information printed in some of their literature, the Association was never requested to provide these organizations with space. Nevertheless, the Association will not provide a forum for views that are, at best, a form of academic fraud."
Then it goes on to explain what the Association is. Have I read that correctly, sir?
A. Yes.
Q. The Society for Historical Studies is much like the Institute for Historical Review.
A. I can't say that; I don't know.
Q. You don't have space or facilities, or whatever they refer to here, at the American Historical Association, do you?
A. No.
MR. ROSEN: Could that be the next exhibit, please.
THE WITNESS: May I respond to this?
MR. ROSEN: I am just asking whether this was read correctly. There is nothing to respond to.
THE CHAIRPERSON: These two form one exhibit?
MR. ROSEN: Yes.
THE REGISTRAR: The document will be marked as SW-2.
EXHIBIT NO. SW-2: Document headed "American Historical Association", Press Release dated January 4, 1994
THE CHAIRPERSON: I am sorry, what is SW-1?
MR. ROSEN: SW-1 is the transcript we have been referring to.
THE CHAIRPERSON: I wasn't aware that we were going to mark the transcript.
MR. ROSEN: It sets out at some length his article which I didn't have.
THE CHAIRPERSON: We have read it into the record. I am not sure it is necessary to mark it.
MR. ROSEN: Just to refer to it at a later date as a document. I don't know if Mr. Christie intends to refer to it.
MR. CHRISTIE: No, I don't. I will be using it in re-examination perhaps; it might be useful that way.
MR. ROSEN: With respect to SW-2, the American Historical Association confirms this, and I have asked that it be marked as an exhibit.
MR. CHRISTIE: May I just raise this objection?
The witness has not been asked a single question in relation to it other than whether it has been read correctly and whether he recognizes it as something that existed. The Rules of Evidence don't necessarily at this point entitle him to say whether he approves it or disapproves, but he has not been asked anything about it.
THE CHAIRPERSON: I didn't think there was any issue about it. In the opening remarks about this, I understood the question to be: You are familiar with the American Historical Association and words to the effect that they made a ruling on this.
He has not shown him the document. Perhaps he can show him the document ‑‑
MR. ROSEN: I have given it to him.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Can you identify this document?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE CHAIRPERSON: He does identify it.
MR. CHRISTIE: What troubles me is that this is hearsay unless it is either adopted or is accepted in some way as true.
THE CHAIRPERSON: You can pursue that further. I understood that he recognized that this resoluti(5764+* '3ssed by the American Historical Association.
All he is doing is acknowledging from his own knowledge that the Association passed this resolution. I think that is appropriate evidence. It will be marked SW-2.
MR. ROSEN:
Q. And it did pass the resolution, didn't it?
A. To the best of my recollection.
Q. And they did reaffirm it in the "immediate press release" issued on January 8, 1994?
A. As I recall.
Q. In addition to that, sir, there is another group that was once part of the American Historical Association, and that is the Organization of American Historians. Is that right?
A. My understanding is that it has always been a separate organization.
Q. But I think it is a splinter group that formed from the members who left the AHA at some time.
A. I don't think. The Organization of American Historians deals with American history. The AHA deals with history including American history.
Q. Would you agree with me that the Organization of American Historians is also no more receptive or hospitable to revisionism than the American Historical Association?
A. You have not established that the American Historical Association is inhospitable to revisionism.
Q. Let me put it this way. The American Historical Association passed a resolution that says, in part: No serious historians question that the Holocaust took place. Do you see that?
A. Yes.
Q. The Organization of American Historians basically has done exactly the same thing; isn't that right?
A. I don't know if they have done exactly the same thing. They passed a resolution or made some statement that was comparable.
Q. In fact, would you agree with me that the Organization of American Historians was founded in 1907, initially as the Mississippi Valley Historical Association?
A. That is my understanding.
Q. And that it has about 12,000 members and is the largest professional organization created and sustained for the investigation, study and teaching of American history?
A. Yes.
Q. That the membership includes college and university professors, high school teachers, students, archivists, public historians, institutional members such as libraries, museums and history-related organizations as well as 900 individuals and institutional members.
A. At one time I was a member of the OAH.
Q. You dissociated yourself from that organization in about 1991 or early 1992?
A. No.
Q. When the Executive Board passed a similar resolution concerning the Holocaust?
A. No, it was some time later. I just let my membership lapse.
Q. In particular, isn't it true, sir, that the Organization of American Historians refused to publish requests for contributions and so forth made by the Institute for Historical Review and Journal of Historical Review in its newsletter?
A. Your understanding is pretty convoluted. What happened was that the newsletter of the Organization of American Historians accepted an advertisement by the IHR calling for scholarly papers. They ran this, and there was a flurry of letters by members of the OAH protesting this. Then they passed a resolution saying, "We are not going to accept any more ads like this." That is what happened at the time. I forget how many years ago that was.
Q. That was in April 1992, at their convention. That is about right, isn't it? It was six or eight years ago?
A. Yes.
Q. And the reason that they wouldn't take it from the Institute for Historical Review is because that organization, as does the American Historical Association, takes the position that no serious historians question that the Holocaust took place. Isn't that right?
A. I want to stress that I might even agree with the American Historical Association ‑‑
Q. You might?
A. Yes, because I am not a Holocaust denier. No historian does deny the fact of the Holocaust.
The question really is: What is the Holocaust? There is an official U.S. government definition of the Holocaust, that the Holocaust is the systematic, bureaucratic extermination of six million Jews. If that is an official definition, there are many very respected historians who do not accept that definition. I suppose they can be called Holocaust deniers.
The Holocaust is itself such a vague, amorphous term, and it is used in just the way Mr. Rosen does. It is thrown around without really being very carefully defined.
I don't deny the Holocaust. I don't think anybody denies the Holocaust. In fact even phrasing things in that kind of language is pejorative and biased. There are a number of well-respected international scholars who deny the Holocaust insofar as they say that the Holocaust story as commonly presented is not true. Those include, for example, Princeton University Professor Arno Mayer, who got into a lot of trouble for declaring that evidence of gassing and gas chambers is rare and unreliable. There are many other examples of this, and there really is an international debate that is taking place on this issue.
I don't want to quibble, but much of the stance of the American Historical Association, much of the reason behind it, has to do with the tremendous emotional character of this entire discussion. This is the one issue that brings up this kind of emotion, so much so that powerful organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the American Jewish Committee, and so on target anyone who questions this particular aspect of history and no other. The Holocaust issue is treated in this very special way.
I made the point at the time that the newsletter of the Organization of American Historians accepts ads from the publishing arm of the U.S. Communist Party, International Publishers. I said, "Why is this standard not applied evenly?" It is very clear why. Because organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center with which you are familiar go to great lengths to silence anyone who is a so-called Holocaust denier, so much so that they support laws to silence such people and put them in jail.
In spite of that, there is a real international debate that is taking place on this issue, so much so that intellectuals and even governments in a number of countries openly support Holocaust revisionism and support the work of scholars associated with the Institute for Historical Review.
Q. Mr. Weber, I am just using your words to Mr. Pearson in 1988, never mind all these other publications, when you said:
"Look, Mr. Pearson, it's not really crucial or essential at what point I came to reject the entire Holocaust story. I said that it was about a year later ‑‑"
That is, in 1980.
"‑‑ only to try and be as precise as I possibly can ‑‑"
You rejected the entire Holocaust story.
A. The "entire Holocaust story" is not a correct characterization. It is better to say "the essence of the Holocaust extermination story."
THE CHAIRPERSON: Whatever that means.
THE WITNESS: Whatever that means.
THE CHAIRPERSON: They are your words. What do they mean?
THE WITNESS: It means that the Holocaust, as a systematic, bureaucratic extermination of six million Jews, I do not think is true, and there are many other historians who ‑‑
THE CHAIRPERSON: You are back to the definition.
THE WITNESS: Yes. In fact, that is one of the problems. Very often, when we are discussing this, we are not given a concrete definition.
THE CHAIRPERSON: When you use the term "the essence," you are referring to the American government's definition.
THE WITNESS: Yes, that is one way to put it.
MR. ROSEN:
Q. Mr. Weber, the truth of the matter is that the Institute for Historical Review and its Journal is, at least if we go to this curriculum vitae that you have produced, the only place that you publish.
A. No.
Q. Wait a minute. You produced this CV. This is your document, isn't it? Isn't this your document?
A. I ‑‑
Q. Didn't you make this document up?
A. Let me answer before ‑‑
Q. Did you did you not make up this CV, sir?
A. I provided the information for that document.
Q. Is this not your CV that we have marked as an exhibit, that you had this counsel identify as your CV?
A. That's correct.
Q. You prepared it. Somebody else may have typed it, but you prepared it, didn't you?
A. I helped prepare it.
Q. Yes, you helped prepare it.
A. Yes.
Q. And you knew that you prepared it because you were coming here yesterday and today to supposedly be an expert. Right?
A. Right.
Q. Supposedly.
A. Right.
Q. Yet, every single one of these documents is published in only one place, the Journal of Historical Review. Correct?
A. Right.
Q. And it has never been peer reviewed by anybody else, has it?
A. It is not a peer reviewed periodical.
Q. No, and none of your work has ever been peer reviewed, has it?
A. Well, none of my published work has appeared in peer reviewed periodicals; that is correct.
Q. And none of your published work has ever been recognized or accepted by a group of legitimate historians in any circumstance. Isn't that right?
A. That is not true.
Q. The only ones who ever accept your work are the same group of Holocaust deniers from Faurisson to ‑‑
A. Not true.
Q. Of course it is. If you look at the list, if you go to your web site, every single article, every single document, every single thing that you write in this Institute of Historical Review, in the Journal, is nothing more than a repetition of what is before, pooh-poohing all the details of the Holocaust and the Holocaust story itself.
A. Also untrue. First of all, if you read the listing of articles, they deal with many other subjects besides the Holocaust issue. I was asked to provide a listing of articles. We have on computer a list of articles that appeared in the Journal. I don't have a listing of all the articles I have written. You, yourself, have cited at least two articles I have written that did not appear in the Journal of Historical Review. I have written for other periodicals. I don't have ready access to them.
This is not even a complete listing of everything I have written for the Journal of Historical Review.
Q. Mr. Weber, the two articles I referred to ‑‑
A. You interrupted me.
MR. CHRISTIE: Is he allowed to finish his answer?
THE WITNESS: Articles by me have appeared in many other periodicals, including periodicals in Russia, in France, in Spain, in Greece ‑‑ numerous other countries.
MR. ROSEN:
Q. They have just been reprinted and republished in different languages, but they have never been validated by peer review by anybody who holds a better degree than you, sir. Isn't that right?
A. I have not made an attempt and I have not had articles published in peer reviewed periodicals.
Q. So you are a self-appointed critique of your own expertise. Isn't that right?
A. No, that is also not correct. My expertise in this subject has been recognized by others besides myself.
Q. The fact of the matter is, sir, that at the previous trial in 1988 the only reason you were allowed to testify was because the judge had ruled that you could not question the validity of the Holocaust, but that the defence could raise issues about the details, and that is what you spoke to. Isn't that right?
A. That is a legal question. I wasn't involved in that.
Q. That is what you were asked about, the details in "Did Six Million Die?" Right?
A. May I answer your question?
Q. Sure, go ahead.
A. As it happened, during the trial I was not only permitted but encouraged to give expert opinion testimony on an extensive range of questions involving Second World War history and Jewish history and Holocaust history. This was received without any objection by the judge and by the Court at that time.
Q. At the end of which Mr. Zundel was convicted.
A. And ultimately the law was thrown out as unconstitutional, as you know.
Q. Factually, he was convicted.
A. Yes.
MR. ROSEN: I wonder if we could continue this tomorrow. I am not going to be much longer, but I would like to opportunity to review some of the material I have.
THE CHAIRPERSON: We had set tomorrow morning as motions morning. I think we will go to the end of this section and complete the application for qualifying the witness as an expert, and then we will deal with motions after that.
We will resume tomorrow at 10:00 a.m.
‑‑- Whereupon the Hearing was adjourned at 4:57 p.m.
to resume on Wednesday, December 9, 1998 at
10:00 a.m.