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The foremost organization in the United States that advances the cause of Holocaust
denial is the Institute for Historical Review, a body founded in California in 1978 by Willis
Carto. Born in 1926, he is the leader of an ultra-right group called the Liberty Lobby, perhaps
the foremost anti-Semitic organization in the country. According to its statement of purpose, the
IHR would be a "voice for historical truth" and "champion of historical knowledge." It began
publishing what purported to be a scholarly periodical, the Journal of Historical Review, and in
1980 it even bought the mailing list of the prestigious Journal of American History and sent free
copies of the magazine to all its subscribers, an action which greatly embarrassed the journal's
sponsor, the Organization of American Historians which issued an apology and adopted a new
policy on the use of the membership list.
The IHR claimed to be a research institute with a broad historical agenda, and it even
published revisionist articles on topics that had no connection with World War II, such as the
American Revolution, Civil War, and World War I. However, a content analysis of the journal
in Shermer and Grobman, Denying History (pp. 76-80) shows that its primary focus was on
Jews, regardless of the historical time period involved, and the treatments were invariably
negative. The IHR writers called the Holocaust "the Greatest Lie" in all history, and labeled
those who believed in its truth as "exterminationists." It was the main rationale for "America's
dog-like devotion to the illegal state of Israel. One IHR figure, Tom Marcellus, said the
Holocaust Lie not only served as a "justification" for the commission of genocide by Israel but
also affected the rights of American citizens in their own country. Americans' constitutional
guarantee of freedom of speech was suppressed to protect the interests of "Israel-firsters."
The IHR received a great deal of notoriety when in 1980 it offered a $50,000 reward to
anyone who could conclusively prove that Jews had been gassed at Auschwitz. Mel
Mermelstein, a survivor living in Long Beach, California, took up the challenge and submitted
voluminous materials as well as his own eyewitness testimony. When the IHR rejected his
evidence, he sued. In the trial he used the same evidence that he provided to the IHR, and in
1985, after protracted litigation and an earlier preliminary ruling in his favor in 1981, a judge of
the Los Angeles Superior Court declared: Jews had been gassed to death in Auschwitz was not
"subject to dispute" but was "simply a fact." He ordered the IHR to pay the $50,000, plus
another $40,000 for pain and suffering. The defendant also had to sign a letter of apology to