Another voice

Joke of the decade

Auberon Waugh

Ihave often observed that those who live in the country can become obsessed by conspiracy theories. Few people in Somerset seem to doubt that Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone are in the pay of the Russians. So, of course, are most jour- nalists and all current affairs editors on television. When I expressed my reserva- tions about any of these theories, I found myself receiving rather odd glances, so now I tend to endorse them enthusiastically, pointing out how I have frequently exposed Harold Wilson as a Soviet agent and how — even more sinister — nobody has ever paid the slightest bit of attention to my ex- posures.

But one must be careful not to be taken in by these rural conventions oneself. In pointing out what I believe to be the result of the new down-market Times — that many people are dying of boredom as they try to read the leading articles — I did not suppose for a moment that this was the in- tention behind them, or that Mr Douglas- Home was engaged in some obscure right- wing stratagem to polish off the intelligent- sia. On the contrary, I assumed that he gen- uinely and sincerely believed we might be interested in what he thought about things.

Similarly, when he started publishing Barry Fantoni's unbelievably funny car- toons last week, I did not seriously suppose he intended to polish off the rest of Bri- tain's dwindling band of Top People by the painful means of making them laugh themselves to death. On Friday we saw two men walking past a newspaper poster which announces 'THATCHER VISITS MARKS AND SPENCER'. One is saying to the other: hope that means that if we don't like her election manifesto we'll be able to take it back and change it'.

Ha! ha! ha! Oh dear, I haven't laughed so much in ages. Earlier, we saw someone holding a newspaper which reads 'LONDON MARATHON RESULTS.' She is saying: 'Nigel had hoped to sponsor TV-am, but apparently it's not a registered charity'. Hool hoo! hoo! Oh my God, stop it, Charlie! You're killing me. Then on Saturday we saw a car- toon with no caption at all — just a bearded man, begging and holding a placard which reads: 'WIFE 2 KIDS AND DEMO TO SUPPORT.' Aaaargh!

But, as I say even to those who have lost their nearest and dearest in this painful manner, I never seriously supposed there was any genocidal intention behind it. Peo- ple have died laughing at the Goodies on television, after all. Mr Douglas-Home is honestly and sincerely trying to keep us all amused.

Then I glanced at the front page of Satur-

day's newspaper and my confidence ebbed. We are quite used to the Sunday Times's habit of printing completely bogus 'scoops' on its front page. In 1967 it cliamed to have bought the secret diaries of Mussolini, later acknowledged as a fake. More recently we have had exclusive stories about an epidemic of alcoholism sweeping Britain, about SAS prisoners being held in Argen- tina — although, in the newer tradition of gritty journalism, there has been no retrac- tion on any of these. But for the Times to devote the remaining authority of its front page to endorsing what must surely be the most preposterous cock-and-bull story to be foisted on the British public since Titus Oates seems to indicate a higher level of dedication than I had previously suspected. We must suppose that it is all intended as a joke, but what sort of effect might a joke of this magnitude have on a readership already weakened to the point of prostration by laughing at Barry Fantoni's unbelievably droll cartoons?

`Hitler's diaries are being serialised in The Sunday Times beginning in tomorrow's issue', we read in Saturday's Times. Unfor- tunately for those of us who immediately arranged to borrow a copy of this unfor- tunate newspaper from their nearest fishmonger or abortionist, the Sunday Times did not begin serialising anything at all. Instead we had another huge front-page announcement (unsigned) bragging about what Professor Trevor-Roper (`Lord Dacre') has described as 'the most signifi- cant historical event of the decade'. Inside, three further pages gave us the 'back- ground' to the imposture, but scarcely a sign of the Diaries themselves. Instead we were told vaguely that The Sunday Times is preparing the first major extracts from the Diaries ... for publication next month'.

On 8 May, a special pull-out section of the magazine will set the scene for this 'ma- jor publishing event'. It will take the form of diagrams and graphics showing Hitler's rise to power and his fall — 'an invaluable visual aid to all students of modern history'.

What flair! But can the Editor of the Sunday Times honestly imagine that any impartial person above the mental age of 14 supposes the 'Diaries' to be anything but a palpable forgery? In the Times on Saturday we were told that the documents had been `painstakingly tested and analysed by ex- perts for the past two and a half years'. Lord Dacre, we were told immediately afterwards, 'is among those who are con- vinced that the diaries are genuine'.

The obvious inference was that Lord Dacre was among the experts who had painstakingly tested and analysed the documents for two and a half years. He himself wrote in the main feature page arti- cle about how his scepticism dissolved as he turned its pages. But we had to wait for Phillip Knightley's article next day to learn that he had only been able to spend one afternoon with the archives. Yet Dacre, ac- cording to Knightley, has staked his academic reputation as a leading British historian on his conclusion: 'I am satisfied that the diaries are authentic'.

Well, I stake my journalistic reputation as a leading British cynic on my conclusion that they are fake. It is true that I am not, like Lord Dacre, a director of Times News- papers Limited. People might reasonably ask what sort of reputation I have to lose. Well, it is a poor virgin, Sir, an ill-favour'd thing, but mine own. After exposing Mr Trevor-Roper (as he then was) in some historical error or other, my father once ad- vised him to change his name and go to Cambridge. Trevor-Roper wisely took this advice, but now he has made an ass of himself again. Even before the accumulation of evidence from German sources — that Hitler could scarcely write, hated it, never made notes by hand and almost never used a pen; that leaves from this archive had been touted around German buyers mouths before they allegedly came to light in East Germany; that there is a factory in East Germany busily turning out Hitler relics for the hard currency market — there was arn- ple reason to believe that the 'diaries' were, a fake. Every corroborative detail, intended to give artistic versimilitude, only made them more suspect. Why should anyone, writing an aide-memoire for his own use, bother to sign it on nearly every page? Why on earth should he go to the trouble of seal- ing the volumes with his own special seal? How can Stern know that 300 pictures were burned in the air crash if they never saw them?

The whole story stinks from beginning to end. Why did the Editors of the Times and Sunday Times touch this rubbish, let alone Lord Dacre? Presumably the Editor of the Sunday Times hopes to add to his miserable_ readership of half-wits and illiterates. Lord Dacre, who as well as being a former Regius Professor and current head of a Cambridge college, is also an employee of Rupert Mur- doch, advances a theory to explain Hess s silence in face of the fact that he was de" pounced as a lunatic by Hitler before at

s:

could deliver Hitler's own peace term tha! Hess has spent the last 40 years as 'a perfect boy scout, Fuh t,feirgenr,ing madness rather thad betray ay his I have no intention of attributing ae similar — or indeed any — motive to the Master of Peterhouse or the Editor of the Times. But where Lord Dacre is concerned_ I might recommend a change of sex and spell at the University of Essex. I am just off to Lourdes to pray for his soul.