David
McCalden
Writer and Editor,
* September 20, 1951, in Belfast, †
October 15,
1990
McC. was born into a working-class family of Northern Ireland. He attended the University of London, Goldsmiths College, graduating in 1974 with a Certificate in Education
(Sociology). He helped organize Hunt Saboteurs, an anti-fox hunting group, and edited its journal. During the mid-1970s he was active in the
'National Front', a British nationalist group. For a time he was editor of 'Nationalist
News', and was a regular contributor to 'Britain First' newspaper. McC. was an ardent defender of the rights and interests of northern Ireland's Protestant population.
In October 1978 he moved from England to southern California to work for 'Noontide
Press' and gave up active politics. At a small meeting in December 1978 in Torrance, California,
McC. laid out a proposal for an 'Institute for Historical Review', which was accepted by the others present, including Willis Carto, LaVonne Furr and Tom Marcellus.
For two and a half years, and working under the pen name "Lewis Brandon,"
McC. served as the IHR's first director. He organized the first "International Revisionist Conference," the IHR's premier public meeting, which was held in September 1979 at Northrop University, near Los Angeles. He supervised the production of revisionist books, tapes and flyers, and made appearances on radio talk shows. In 1980 and early 1981, he edited the IHR's
'Journal of Historical Review'.
In 1979 McC. announced an IHR reward offer of $50,000 to anyone who could provide proof of homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz. Mel Mermelstein, a European-born southern California businessman, who had been deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944, claimed the reward, but without offering any real proof. He then brought a lawsuit, which set off a protracted legal battle that generated great media attention, including a made-for-television movie, "Never Forget," that featured Leonard Nimoy as
Mermelstein. At the IHR's Second International Revisionist Conference, Ontario,
California, McCalden announced two new contests -- each for $25,000 -- to anyone who can either prove the diary of Anne Frank is genuine or that the Nazis ever made soap from the bodies of
Jews. Although there were some who announced they could claim one or more these prizes but did not come forward (such as Simon Wiesenthal), and others who did come forward but had no proof (such as Mel
Mermelstein), no one was able to claim any of them, despite the fact that each contest dealt with key claims made about what has been called
"the best documented event in human history."
McCalden left the IHR in 1981 to become a freelance
writer, interesting himself in modern history, politics, ecology, and
atheism, and founded "Truth Mission." He published a variety of publications under this
imprint, including ' Nuremberg and Other War Crimes Trials', which appeared in 1978 under the pen name of "Richard
Harwood" ,'Holocaust News', 'David McCalden's Revisionist Newsletter', and the booklets
'Exiles From History' and 'The Amazing, Rapidly Shrinking Holocaust' (1987).
McC. travelled to eastern Poland to visit the 'extermination camps'. Utilizing newly-found wartime aerial
photographs, he compared Holocaust claims with the real evidence on the
ground. He also produced a video based on his visits to Auschwitz and the sites of other wartime German camps, and his skeptical examination of the
'gas chambers' there.
In 1984
McC. sued the California Library Association (CLA) after it had cancelled contracts authorizing him to present an exhibit and program on his revisionist views at the CLA's 86th Annual Conference in Los Angeles. In his lawsuit,
McC. charged that the CLA had conspired illegally with the City of Los Angeles, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the American Jewish Committee, and others, to deprive him of his
'First Amendment' free speech rights through extortionate threats." The suit eventually wound up in the Supreme Court, which decided to let stand a lower-court ruling in McCalden's
favor. The latter was carried on after his death by his widow, and eventually ended in an out-of-court settlement.
McC. was a militant atheist. At a public meeting in Los Angeles on June 7, 1989,
McC. was attacked by Irv Rubin and other thugs of the "Jewish Defense League." They beat McCalden badly, inflicting bloody facial
injuries. McC. died, at the age of 39, in El Segundo, California, on October 15,
1990 from complications due to pneumonia, after an illness of several months.
He was survived by his second wife, Viviana, and their daughter.
Letzte Änderung / Last update: 20.09.2011
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