Sir, - The article, "Perversion of history led to Casement's downfall" (Opinion, August 22nd) contains so many errors and misapprehensions that it really requires a lengthy volume to bring your readers back to reality. For the moment, though, perhaps you will allow me to draw attention to the more serious perversions of history that it contains.
The main problem is one of corrupt sources. It is alleged that the Black Diaries were forged by a Swiss forger named Zwingleman and that the source of this information is an interrogation of the Gestapo leader Heinrich Mⁿller. I have in my possession Mⁿller's dossier. No mention is made of Zwingleman or Roger Casement. But more importantly, the Barnes Review, which published what purported to be a transcript of Muller's interrogation, gave as its source a book by Gregory Douglas.
Enquiries addressed to Dr Klaus A. Lankheit, Kommissarischer Archivleiter, Institut fⁿr Zeitgeschichte, Mⁿnchen, brought forth this response: "We have in our possession a detailed and painstaking analysis by an expert, which shows that the supposed secret files are a very poor forgery. Among other things, the analysis proves that the American Gregory Douglas is in fact a German."
"Gregory" had alleged that Zwingleman was known to the Swiss police when he was a citizen of Chur during the second World War. The Swiss police checked their records for me: no Zwingleman had been living there, let alone committing offences: "As a matter of fact the name Zwingleman is totally unknown in our region and does not compare in the registers of Swiss family names." (Incidentally, the name Barnes Review is known to certain historians - those whose area of research is Holocaust denial).
An agreement between the Parry family and Prime Minister Baldwin led to the Black Diaries being kept secret until 1959 (source: Professor Gwynn). And they would probably still be secret if Singleton-Gates had not blown the whistle. Had they been forged, doubtless they would have been burned once Casement's character had been smeared, and doubtless their destruction would have pleased the Parrys.
The careful preservation of these documents has enabled historians and forensic experts to establish their genuineness.
The crime against Casement was to use these genuine diaries to prevent a reprieve and to poison his reputation. The individuals concerned succeeded in their first aim - but had only temporary success in the second. Everyone who believes in the genuineness of the Black Diaries continues to admire the great humanitarian.
Other points made in the article included a resurrection of the idea that Casement translated a diary of a Brazilian pervert. Because the pervert concerned was manifestly heterosexual in his sadistic practices, this outdated piece of propaganda was publicly abandoned by the "forgery theorists" at the RIA Casement Symposium last year.
Casement's homosexuality was widely known abroad, particularly after his liaison with Christensen had begun. Most of his diaries were hidden and then destroyed in Ireland. But, unfortunately for him, those which he used as aides-memoire for his reports were in London. Recent research by Jeff Dudgeon has revealed the extent of Casement's sexual activity in what was then a larger United Kingdom.
As all the villains are identified and dead, as everyone agrees that their villainy is difficult to forgive, and as everyone agrees that Roger Casement was a great anti-slaver, why doesn't all the animosity come to an end? Historians should be concentrating on the man's achievements. The Black Diaries show that he wasn't a paedophile, nor in any way predatory - so where's the problem? - Yours, etc.,
Roger Sawyer, Bembridge, Isle of Wight.