The second edition of Neo-Fascism In Europe was published by Longman in 1995. Gable’s original contribution has been replaced by an essay which, although entirely different in content, contains both his major hallmarks: gross errors and even more gross lies. The new essay runs from pages 258-71; the 1970s nonsense about Column 88 has been replaced by Gable’s latest fantasy: the quasi-mythical Combat 18. I will spare the reader a detailed dissection and instead reprint here in full the letter I wrote to the publishers in January 1996. To date I have received no reply. One other thing I will add is that in 1995 a document came into my possession which indicates to me that Gable himself - or at least his organisation - may have been largely responsible for Column 88, or may even have engineered it lock, stock and barrel. I cannot comment on this document at the present time for legal reasons, but will add that I hope one day to write the full, definitive story of Column 88. This though is likely to be some time after I have flushed Gable himself down the toilet and into the sewers of history where he, and all his kind, belong.
Editor in Chief, 93c Venner Road,
Longman (non-fiction) Sydenham,
London SE26 5HU.
0181 659 7713
January 17, 1996
Dear Sir,
I am writing to you in connection with the second edition of Neo-Fascism In Europe which appeared last year under the title THE FAR RIGHT IN WESTERN AND EASTERN EUROPE. In the first edition of this book a certain Mr Gerry Gable contributed an error-prone essay called The Far Right In Contemporary Britain.
I say error-prone, for the record I have published an extensive analysis of this, which is available from me at the above address for £2.99. I do not propose to publish an analysis of Mr Gable’s contribution to the second edition because although this contains a number of wilful distortions and lies, I have already refuted these many times in print, and am astonished that even someone with Mr Gable’s chutzpah would have the effrontery to continue repeating them.
I will itemise these lies for you now, but if you want a fuller analysis you will find them in two pamphlets which are also available from me at the above address. They are called The Life And “Crimes” Of John Colin Campbell Jordan and A Revisionist History Of The 1960s Synagogue Arsons, and are priced £3.99 and £2.99 respectively.
Briefly, on page 259 of the latest edition of your book, Mr Gable claims that “a 19 year-old-student was killed and a second youth crippled while jumping from the flames.” And that the arsons trials resulted in 13 convictions. And of course, the police failed to catch the arsonists but “a team of investigative researchers working for Searchlight found one of the Nazis involved and persuaded him to give himself up to the police.”
As stated, this is a tissue of lies. There was indeed a series of arson attacks against Jewish premises in Greater London in 1965, but no one died in any of the fires, and “Searchlight investigators” played no part in bringing the perpetrators to justice. A total of eleven people were convicted of arson attacks in three trials: ten in two trials in 1966; and the eleventh, Mrs Jordan (who incited the fires), in 1968.
There were a number of other minor arson attacks, but these appear to have been copycat attacks, although a Jewish taxi driver also had some burning rags stuffed through his letter box. This latter appears to have been motivated less by anti-Semitism than by revenge, because the victim had assaulted Mrs Jordan when she tried to enter his taxi and was subsequently fined. Mrs Françoise Jordan (neé Dior), the wife of the British Nazi leader Colin Jordan, was a fanatical anti-Semite and Hitler worshipper.
The student who allegedly died as a result of one of these arson attacks was not 19 years old but 15. Wolf (or Woolf) Katz was a trainee rabbi; he was killed in an accidental fire at the Mesifta Talmudical College, Cazenove Road, in Stamford Hill in November 1964, a full four months before the arson campaign. The student who was allegedly crippled jumping from the fire now works as a shochet in Manchester; his name is (Robert) Judah Gottesman; I spoke to him a while ago, and he informed me that although his injury still gives him trouble thirty years on, especially in the winter, he is able-bodied in every sense.
There is no question that this fire was an accident; indeed the authorities went to considerable lengths to quash rumours of arson. Reports corroborating this can be found in the Hackney Gazette AND NORTH LONDON ADVERTISER for December 22 and the Jewish Chronicle for December 25, 1964. For the record, the staff of the Jewish Chronicle have long been aware of Gable’s lies about this campaign - he even lied about it to them - but continue to endorse him.
What Gable did subsequently was to tack on the accidental fire to his non-existent successful investigation. I am not saying that there was no such investigation, but documents passed on to me by Colin Jordan indicate that the actual role of Gable’s cronies, in particular a notorious thug (and later convicted pimp) Harry Bidney, was to attempt to frame Mr Jordan as the mastermind behind the fires. Gable’s story is also refuted by the investigating officer, Retd Commander Bert Wickstead.
Although Gable has claimed elsewhere that the Searchlight Organisation was formed as early as 1962 and that he played a leading role in it, its memorandum and articles of association tell a different story. I have obtained the relevant documentation from Companies House, and the name Gable is conspicuous by its absence. As far as I am able to ascertain, the sole activity of the Searchlight Association between 1965 and 1967 was to publish four issues of a broadsheet. The Searchlight Association Limited was incorporated as a “COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE AND NOT HAVING A SHARE CAPITAL”. Its “Memorandum of Association” (840295) is stamped “REGISTERED - MAR 1965”.
Incidentally, in 1975, * Colin Jordan brought criminal libel proceedings against Maurice Ludmer, the then editor of Searchlight, in connection with the April 1975 issue of the magazine and a pamphlet which Gable co-authored. The complete text of the stipendiary magistrate’s judgment is included in my biography of Colin Jordan. Last year, Gable was forced to issue a public apology to Mr Jordan - Britain’s most notorious Nazi, be it noted - by the Press Complaints Commission.
Returning to your book; on page 262, Gable claims of Redwatch that “in a sinister new departure it also printed the names, addresses and telephone numbers, sometimes ex-directory, of people from many walks of life whom they perceived as enemies.”
What he neglects to mention though is that this “sinister new departure” was pioneered in the 1970s by Searchlight and a shortlived and quite hysterical “anti-fascist” journal called Forewarned Against Fascism, whose editor works for Searchlight to this day. I won’t comment here on Gable’s current fantasies about Combat 18, or on his earlier fantasies about Column 88. Incidentally, over the years Gable’s magazine has both condoned and incited such harassment against members and former members of far right groups at their places of work. One such person it harassed so was Steve Brady, a long time nationalist who is also the former lover of Mr Gable’s wife Sonia - neé Hochfelder, who is herself a former member of the National Front, among other “Nazi” parties.
The figures of 135,000 “racial incidents” a year in Britain cited by Gable (and attributed to the Home Office) and an average of 12 “racially motivated murders” a year is yet more self-serving propaganda. The fact that the Home Office may endorse these figures is far less significant than the identities of the people who compiled them.
I have no doubt that if you show this letter to Mr Gable he will tell you all manner of wonderful things about me. My revelations though are documented from the public domain, and are irrefutable. I would respectfully suggest that if you continue to endorse Mr Gable’s fantasies, not only will you be wilfully misleading the public, and “academics”, but you may also be courting a substantial risk of expensive civil litigation against your company, as you will see from the enclosed court order. To date, inclusive of costs, I have extracted £18,585.34 and three public apologies from the other defendants in this action. What they have shelled out for their own costs I wouldn’t like to think.
Yours sincerely,
A Baron
* This is a typo; it should read 1976.
To Notes And References
Back To Appendix D: Searchlight Associates: The Official Company History
Back To Appendix C: Colin Jordan, Afterword
Back To Appendix B: A Selected, Dissenting Bibliography On “Searchlight”
Back To Appendix A: Two Views Of Column 88
Back To Gerry Gable’s Contribution To “Neo-Fascism In Europe”
Back To Gable’s Fables
Back To Acknowledgments
Back To Security Alert! and Author/Publisher Credits
Back To Front Cover And Credits
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