Chomsky and
the French neo-Nazis:
Some
documents
As I have shown in my Partners in Hate, the Chomsky-Nazi connection was documented by the ("left-wing") Nazis' leader, Pierre Guillaume, in a chapter entitled "Une Mise au Point," in a publication called Droit et Histoire (Paris, La Vieille Taupe, 1986). Until recently this text by Guillaume, which includes a comment from Chomsky, was difficult to obtain. Now an anti-Semitic organization has put it on the Internet, at least for the time being, so all those who can read French can see for themselves:
Document A:
Une Mise au Point by Pierre Guillaume
(English translation of the above)
This text bears careful, attentive reading. There are some difficulties: it is in French, and it makes reference to fairly obscure details in French fringe politics. For these reasons it requires some effort. But for anyone willing to put in this effort, the rewards are a striking, detailed understanding of Chomsky's politics. Nobody who has studied this text, IMHO, will ever again have any respect for NC.
After I publicized the existence of this document, Chomsky called me a "pathological liar" for my trouble. His own followers have now been incautious enough to put these comments by Chomsky on the web as well, at least for now. They are at least as interesting as Guillaume's original document, because, if read together with Guillaume's account, they give rare, direct evidence of Chomskyan veracity:
Document B:
http://www.chomsky.info/letters/19890601.htm
In this letter to the editor of a Communist Canadian Jewish publication ("Outlook"), Chomsky maintains that he has read the Guillaume piece and that this Guillaume piece contains nothing that concerns him. For example, says Chomsky, it contains "no hint of any collaboration" between Chomsky and Guillaume, as I had maintained. But if the reader will consult p. 170 of Guillaume (Document A), he will there find an explanation of how Guillaume had submitted an earlier version of his piece to Chomsky, who had made some corrections, and how Guillaume had corrected the piece in accordance with Chomsky's instructions. Moreover, Guillaume also reproduces a letter from Chomsky, in further comment. These items clearly show that Chomsky, to this anti-Semitic audience in France, vouches for Guillaume's accuracy. Of course when he writes to an audience of left-wing Jews in Canada (Document B), Chomsky denies all: no, Guillaume did not write what he did, no, Chomsky did not collaborate with Guillaume. Fortunately the reader can now check Guillaume in person (Document A).
Another incident, very important in the Guillaume essay, has to do with Chomsky's insistence that Guillaume and his Holocaust-denying organization "La Vieille Taupe" publish the French version of Chomsky's book "Political Economyh of Human Rights" (written with E. Herman). Here Chomsky plays dumb. He insists that it was a mainline French publisher, Hallier-Albin, not La Vieille Taupe, that was to publish the book. But Guillaume explains in detail (p. 154, Document A) that he, Guillaume, was the director of the collection in H-T that published the book, and that Chomsky insisted on giving this plumb to him out of a sense of solidarity with Guillaume's politics, that is to say with La Vieille Taupe.
Summary: In Document A, the French neo-Nazi Guillaume explains Chomsky's solidarity with the neo-Nazi movement, and, to document this thesis, he reproduces a letter that Chomsky has written to him. In document B, Chomsky says that he has examined Document A but finds that it "contains no hint of any collaboration" between himself and Guillaume. To put this matter very politely, Professor Chomsky is mistaken.
Werner Cohn
December 2001
News of Chomsky’s “official website,” and how the
records of the Bibliotheque Nationale show Chomsky’s collaboration with the
Holocaust deniers of Vieille Taupe.
He's eighty-two years old, and his
problems with veracity have remained as troubling as ever.
There is now an "official website" of Noam Chomsky's
which republishes many of his offenses against the truth over the years. Stuart
Easterling, according to the site, is the person in
charge of it.
The list of Chomsky's prevarications is
long and depressing, and it would be tedious to rehearse it here ("The top 200 Chomsky lies"
have been described by Paul Bogdanor). But I have had
a personal brush with Chomsky which, despite the years that have intervened, is
kept current by him and/or his supporters, and therefore worth describing now.
It began when I detailed, back in 1985,
Chomsky's active collaboration with the French Holcaust-denial
group La Vieille Taupe (VT) which
was then led by Pierre Guillaume, Robert Faurisson,
and Serge Thion.
After Chomsky and Edward Herman
published their "Political Economy of Human Rights" in 1979, the
problem came up of who would publish a French translation. Pierre Guillaume
wrote an account of his friendship with Chomsky (in an essay "Une mise au point" in a
volume "Droit et Histoire") that shows
Chomsky eager to help VT and Guillaume by allowing them to publish this
translation of the Chomsky-Herman volume. Guillaume relates that Chomsky could
have had a main-line publisher do this but refused, specifically to help
Guillaume and VT.
After I published my report of the
Guillaume essay, Chomsky -- in a letter to a Canadian Communist journal and
then in a personal letter to a correspondent -- says that he read the Guillaume
essay and that it contains nothing at all remotely relevant to the issue of his
book. Moreover, Chomsky maintains, Cohn is a "pathological liar."
These Chomsky letters are now part of Chomsky's "official website."
Chomsky also maintains that the French
version of his book was not at all published by VT, but rather by the
"mainline" publisher J-E Halier/Albin Michel. The truth of the matter, as explained by
Guillaume, is that he, Guillaume, directed this publication for Halier/Michel. Moreover, the catalog of the Bibliotheque National in Paris lists the book as published
by Hallier / Michel, in a collection Le Puits et le Pendule,
which, it explains, is directed by Pierre Guillaume at La Vieille
Taupe:
Type
: texte
imprimé, monographie
Auteur(s) : Chomsky, Noam (1928-....)
Herman, Edward S. (1925-....)
Titre(s) : Économie politique des droits de l'homme [Texte imprimé] / Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman
Traduction de : Political economy of human rights
Publication : Paris : J.-E. Hallier : A. Michel, 1981
Description matérielle : 23 cm
Collection : Le Puits et le pendule,
ISSN 0248-5478
Essai
Lien à la collection : Essai (Paris. 1978).
Le Puits et le pendule.
Sujet(s) : Droits de l'homme
Note(s) : Un ouvrage annoncé
comme faisant partie de la collection a paru dans une autre
collection
Collection dirigée par Pierre Guillaume
Certains volumes sont numérotés
Variante(s) de l'adresse :
Paris : Éd. de la Différence,
1982- ; Paris : la Vieille taupe, 1985- ; Beaune-la-Rolande : Éd. de la Vieille taupe, [2009]-
Périodicité : Collection
Autre(s) forme(s) du titre :
- Autre forme du titre : Collection Le Puits et le
pendule
So Cohn is a "pathological
liar." Guillaume did not say at all what in fact he did say. And the
catalog of the Bibliotheque National in Paris ? Also part of a Zionist conspiracy against Noam Chomsky ?
I have collected all the details here, including links to the
Guillaume essay in both French and English. (The catalog entries at the Bibliotheque Nationale, which I
have just now discovered, are new at the present blog posting). Of course this
dispute is more than twenty years old, and I could surely be excused for
dropping it -- if it weren't for the fact that Chomsky's "official
website" continues to call me a "pathological liar" and also
maintains that I have never "dared to respond" to Chomsky on this
(see here and here). So I wrote a
polite request to Mr. Stuart Easterling, the person
in charge of the "official website," requesting that he furnish his
readers with a link to my responses to Chomsky. And no, Mr. Easterling
has not deigned to reply.
Noam Chomsky's writings on Israel and Jews
Israel Shahak's writings on the Jews
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