The Holocaust: ISIS trips, stumbles, and falls . . .

[James H. Fetzer]

IMAGE OF ISIS

THE BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ASTRONOMERS, of course, is a collaborative academic publication from Springer, one of the world's leading publishers of technical and scientific journals and books, which has an enormous number of contributions from a very large number of contributors, where its Table of Contents is simply staggering http://www.springer.com/astronomy/astronomy,+observations+and+techniques/book/978-0-387-31022-0[/FONT] Swerdlow faults the volume for having a few entries of which he does not approve. But that appears to be highly selective on his part and a very cheap shot.

These are not issues about which the authors are remotely likely to be unqualified. Swerdlow's revieweven apart from his attack on Nickappears to be suspect on its face. And how could anyone in their right mind allow Swerdlow's suggestions that libraries not purchase the volume and that it ought to be pulped to stand without vigorous protest, even if one of the contributors has an interest in research on subjects that someperhaps even most!may disapprove? What kind of standard is that? How is that being fair to the contributors, the editors, or the publisher? That is a disgrace.

There are some 1,550 entries in the encyclopdia, which were authored by 430 scholars, of whom Nick Kollerstrom is only one, under the supervision of an Editor-in-Chief and a team of six associate editors. I would be willing to conjecture that a significant proportion of them may well have vices of their own, such as addictions to alcohol, pornography, adultery, S&M, or who-knows-what other practices of which public disapproval may be widespread. Should those authors be ferreted out and have their entries abolished, too? No, let's just pulp the whole book!

I am reminded here of the occasion on which I first became involved in serious research on the assassination of JFK. It was in mid-1993 and I was lying in bed, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the paper, when my wife came in and said, "You won't believe this!", while turning on the TV. The image appeared of a distinguished man in standing behind a lecture with the logo of the American Medical Association, who was denigrating every serious student of the assassination from Mark Lane and Robert Groden to David Lifton and Charles Crenshaw.

He was especially caustic in attacking Oliver Stone's "JFK", which offers the most comprehensive, accurate, and complete depiction of what actually happened in Dealey Plaza on 22 November 1963 ever presented to the American people through the mass media. The person turned out to be George Lundberg, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the AMA. I was stunned that someone of his stature would appear to be abusing the journal for political purposes and citing interviews with the autopsy pathologists as though they were science. That convinced me that perhaps some of us with special backgrounds and abilities should become involved.

Swerdlow's abuse of his position has similarly convinced me that, once again, if those in positions of authority are abusing them for political purposes, some of us who might not otherwise have become involved in questions of this kind also have an obligation to pursue them. The issues involved are as important as they could be for the defense of academic freedom and freedom of inquiry, especially about controversial historical events. If the Holocaust is a reality, as I believe, then responsible research should confirm it; and if it is not, we are all entitled to know.

Perhaps the ultimate irony concerns the ethics of Swerdlow's review. The essence of morality is treating other persons with respect. But by recommending that the other contributors, the editors, and the press should be punished for the perceived sins of one of the contributors, he is promoting the practice of collective punishment, contrary to the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions. It was even condemned by the Nuremberg Tribunal in the prosecution of Nazi war crimes. In his zeal to condemn Kollerstrom for pursuing research on the Holocaust, therefore, Swerdlow has gone off the deep end and committed an intellectual offense that is arguably even worse, which thereby exposes the immoral core of his own position.

The Egyptian goddess, Isis, after whom the journal is named, was long worshiped as the matron of nature and of magic. She has been described as the friend of slaves and sinners, by some accounts, which makes her name all the more appropriate here. In my opinion, Nicholas Kollerstrom was savaged by N. M. Swerdlow, not for offenses against the history of science, but for transgressing boundaries that are intended to protect sacred myths from refutation. In Swerdlow's view, Kollerstrom deserved to be pilloried, not for his entries in an encyclopedia about astronomers, but for doing something that is forbidden -- conducting scientific research on the Holocaust. And not even the Editor-in-Chief of ISIS has been willing to grant him a fair shake.