Madam, - Holocaust denial is too grave a topic to serve as a distraction in squabbles about forensic tests. Seán Murphy (September 10th) objects to being classified as a Casement vindicator with tendencies comparable to clerical child abuse, prime ministerial corruption and paramilitary terror not to mention "Holocaust denial".
I never stigmatised him in this way, using the Casement Vindicator simply for the authors of The Vindication of Roger Casement (1995), a particularly inaccurate pamphlet. I did place the extended palaver of those who bare-facedly deny Casement's authorship of the diaries in the context of other national acts of self-deception. Mr Murphy describes himself as a sceptic, a more cautious position.
Holocaust Denial arises because W.J. Maloney (author of The Forged Casement Diaries, 1936) expected the Italian consul in Dublin to organise publication of a French edition in Paris and a German edition in Vienna. The propagandist motive is starkly indicated by the search for a readership in countries as yet unabsorbed by the expanding fascist realm. Indeed, the appearance of Maloney's book in Dublin rather than London or New York underlines the same motive.
Some of Maloney's backers and enforcers - notably Seán Russell and Joseph McGarrity - were enthusiastic admirers of the Third Reich. Anti-Semitism featured prominently in the views of Maud Gonne, another patron of Maloney's baloney. Casement was extensively exploited in Berlin during the Nazi years through at least four books. Silent denial of these associations by latter-day deniers or sceptics on the forensic issue does little to persuade us of their good faith.
Mr Murphy's complaint that the Giles report on the Diaries did not involve examination of papers as such blatantly ignores the fact (stated in the letter to which he replied) that exactly such an examination was carried out by Peter Bower. - Yours, etc.,
W.J. McCORMACK, Dublin 2.