Clemson University -- response to a confused and slanderous letter from History News Network

Editor of the Clemson University Tiger:

Gord McFee of the Holocaust History Project finds it necessary to begin his comments on my “Eisenhower” ad by slandering me personally. I have “duped” the Tiger staff into running the ad. My goal is one of “deception, dishonest [sic] and duplicity.” My wish is that readers will “ask themselves the wrong question [who decides what the right question is—Gord McFee?].” My question is “dishonest” and I am “dishonest” and a “hypocrite” to boot.

Once Mr. McFee has purged himself, for the moment, of his personal animosity, he asks a perfectly reasonable question:

“Why would one expect Eisenhower to have discussed the gas chambers or the Holocaust? [the ad does not mention “Holocaust”]." Here I will suggest why I think he would have.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was Supreme Commander of Allied forces on the Western front. By 1943 it was getting about that the Germans had weapons of mass destruction (gas chambers) in which they were murdering perhaps millions of civilians with a particularly lethal gas.

Would the Commander in Chief of one army, faced with an enemy army in possession of weapons of mass destruction, have no professional interest in the matter? Does that make sense to you? If it does, I believe you have every right to say so and to say it in print and I will not slander you but will respond in a reasonable manner.

I do not believe it likely that the commander of one army, hearing that the commander of his opposing army has weapons of mass destruction and is using them at that moment to murder millions(?) of civilians, would not express some interest in the matter. Could the “gas” be delivered against his own troops in the field? How would he know if he did not look into the matter? Could the gas be delivered over the great populations centers in Central Europe? Would he have no interest in the possibility of such a scenario?

I believe the question is a reasonable one to ask in a university setting. And I find it interesting, though not surprising, that not one academic has chosen to reply to the question in the pages of the Tiger.

Bradley R. Smith

Clemson University Tiger publishes proscribed revisionist ad

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Bradley R. Smith, Founder
Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust
PO Box 439016
San Ysidro, California 92143

Desk: 209 682 5327
Email: bradley1930@yahoo.com
Web: www.codoh.com


13 November 2009


The Clemson University Tiger published an ad this date asking why Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his book Crusade in Europe published in 1948, did not mention German weapons of mass destruction (gas chambers).

Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH) has run similar ads asking brief questions about World War II in student newspapers at some 30 colleges during 2009. Reaction to the ads has oftentimes caused some controversy, but nowhere has any academic attempted to answer the “Eisenhower” question.

In September, when this question was asked in the Harvard Crimson, special-interests put so much pressure on the Crimson that its president, and then the entire Crimson staff, apologized. They used a language that shamed them as men and women, and humiliated them as journalists. The Crimson staff actually wrote, under pressure, that such a question as the one I ask about Dwight D. Eisenhower should never again be asked in the pages of any student newspaper in America.

CODOH congratulates the Clemson Tiger in standing with the ideal of intellectual freedom in running this ad. Our ad “denies” nothing. Our ad makes no “accusation” against anyone. Our ad proposes no “conspiracy theory.” Our ad asks a question. Let’s see how many academics, let’s see if one academic, at Clemson University will try to answer the question in the pages of the Tiger.

CODOH is willing to be surprised.

CODOH would hope that special-interest groups would not try to publicly humiliate the editor and staff of the Tiger with the intention to institutionally “censor” this ad as they did the staff of the Harvard Crimson. For student journalists to refuse to break under special-interest attack by influential and highly connected individuals and groups takes a special self confidence, and an especial respect for the ideal of a free exchange of ideas.

It’s what is known as “journalistic integrity.” If that is not what it is known as, we are here to be corrected.


The President of the Harvard Crimson apologies
http://holocaustquestion.blogspot.com/2009/09/harvard-crimson-censors-codoh-ad-after.html

The Crimson Staff: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Journalism
http://holocaustquestion.blogspot.com/2009/09/harvard-crimson-dont-ask-dont-tell.html