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 re-
searchers 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 investiga-
tors" 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 conti-
nue 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 investiga-
ting officer, Retd Commander Bert Wickstead.
Although Gable has claimed elsewhere that the Searchlight Organi-
sation 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 ab-
sence. 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 pro-
ceedings 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 sti-
pendiary 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 short-
lived and quite hysterical "anti-fascist" journal called Fore-
warned 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. Incident-
ally, 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 irrefut-
able. I would respectfully suggest that if you continue to en-
dorse Mr Gable's fantasies, not only will you be wilfully mis-
leading 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 should read “REGISTERED - 9 MAR 1965”.
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