Uncensored
Sir: Bruce Anderson, reviewing David Irv- ing's Goebbels (Books, 27 April), asserts that the publication of this book has been `prohibited' in the USA and that this tan disfigures the intellectual life of the United States'.
No such thing has happened. No such thing could happen. Americans take their liberties seriously, and there is no power in this country that could 'prohibit' the pub- lishing of any book. Nor are American pub- lishers restrained, as are their English coun- terparts, by absurd and capricious libel laws.
Mr Irving's book was taken up by St Mar- tin's Press. Then, after protest from Jews both inside and outside that firm, it was dropped. It will certainly find another pub- lisher, though probably not such a respectable one. As one American friend remarked to me, 'If people want pornogra- phy I think they should be able to have it; but not, please, in the New York Times.' It is preposterous to call this 'censorship', as Mr Anderson does, or to describe the employees of St Martin's as 'spiritual descendants' of the `inadequates' who worked for Goebbels. These remarks are of a piece with others I have read in your mag- azine about the hysteria and influence of the USA Jewish lobby. What these various commentators do not take into account is the stunning level of public anti-Semitism on display here in the US. Just six years ago in this city a young scholar was hacked to death by a mob of black men screaming `Kill the Jew!' In the same pogrom, an elderly Italian man was shot dead in his car while waiting at a traffic light because he looked Jewish. Nobody has yet served a day in jail for these crimes. In the current cli- mate here, probably nobody could. A youth who confessed to the first murder after being found covered with the victim's blood was acquitted by a black jury, who after- wards threw a noisy party to celebrate their act of 'justice'.
The spiritual descendants of Joe Goebbels are indeed alive and well in the United States, but they are not in the offices of St Martin's Press.
John Derbyshire
15 Chestnut Street, Huntington, USA
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