LETTERS Repatriations responsibility
Sir: Since 1978 The Spectator has given more extensive coverage than any other journal to the long-running controversy over the repatriations from Austria in 1945. But I am afraid your readers were ill-served by the scrappy and wildly in- accurate piece by John Jolliffe (20 Octo- ber) on the two-volume report on these repatriations compiled by Brigadier Cow- gill, Lord Brimelow and myself.
It appears from his many errors that Jolliffe had not read what he was purport- ing to describe. There were four mistakes in his first two sentences alone including the basic dates of the repatriations. Other errors of detail ranged from a woeful misunderstanding of the role of General Murray (including a quotation which Jollif- fe appears to have made up) to fun- damental mistakes about the status of the Cossacks and Yugoslays under the Geneva Convention and about Tito's invasion of Austria.
More seriously, however, Jolliffe's fail- ure to give anything but the most cursory attention to the report results in him dismissing the reconstruction of events in the narrative section as impossible to understand and scarcely visible when this section, comprising more than 100,000 words, based on some 350 key documents of the time is, in fact, the very essence of the report. Jolliffe then claims that to check whether we had quoted documents `selectively or misleadingly' would take `almost as long to establish as the authors have spent on their enquiry'. In fact every document is reproduced in facsimile in the companion volume, set out in chronologic- al order. We know of no other historical work which makes it so easy and so quick to check a quotation against the full original text.
Jolliffe's casual approach has allowed him to mislead your readers in almost every respect. We did not set out to `exonerate' anyone. Our purpose was to reconstruct the tragic story of what hap- pened in Austria, as fully, honestly and lucidly as possible. The report tells the story, day by day, showing all the key orders, signals and events which led to the repatriations and giving a very detailed picture of the decision-making processes and the large number of people, at all levels, involved. Our purpose was simply to establish the facts of an episode which has hitherto been obscured by the count- less gaps in the documentation. It was only after our investigation had been proceed- ing for a considerable time, and a mass of missing evidence had come to light, that we began to see just how fundamentally Niko- lai Tolstoy had misrepresented what hap- pened, and had built up his elaborate 'conspiracy theory' on misconceived guess- work.
Perhaps the saddest omission from Jollif- fe's article is his failure to respond to the three chapters of our report demonstrating that Macmillan's role in the repatriations was absolutely marginal and why, in later years, Macmillan, without adequate docu- mentation, was unable to combat Tolstoy's charges. Jolliffe's failure to read these chapters led him to make the absurd claim that the damage suffered by Harold Mac- millan as a result of these vicious accusa- tions was entirely self-inflicted.
Finally, it was perhaps remiss of Jolliffe not to have told your readers that he is the organiser of the fund for the support of Tolstoy's family.
Christopher Booker
The Old Rectory, Litton, Bath
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