Dear Sirs,

I am writing to appeal to you to tidy up a minor matter which has caused me a little annoyance. I hasten to add in advance that in this connection I have no intention whatsoever pursuing any legal action against your newspaper group, this is purely what might be called an administrative matter.

In May 1959 your newspaper published, no doubt in good faith, the enclosed story about me. When it was repeated four years later by the Daily Sketch my lawyers wrote drawing your company’s attention to the fact that it contained many errors and was defamatory.

In February 1970 one of your reporters mentioned to me during the P0 17 libel action brought against me that — evidently as a consequence of our representations to the Daily Sketch — the file copy of the enclosed story in the Daily Mail Library was marked to the fact that it was not to be used. (I believe that your reporter told me that it had a rubber stamp endorsement to that effect.)

During the course of a legal action that I recently brought against West German television (Westdeutscher Rundfunk) in Cologne, the defendants produced a photocopy of the item in question which had been supplied, they said, by your Library. Obviously I was rather concerned about this and the purpose of this letter is to request you courteously to take what steps are necessary to prevent this defamatory and untrue item from being published by your group in this way again. I would be most grateful for due acknowledgement.

Yours faithfully,

(David Irving)

Associated Newspapers Group Limited
Registered Office, Carmelite House, London, EC4Y O1A Phone: 01-353 6000

Legal Department

13th March, 1979

Dear Sir,

We have duly received your letter of the 2nd March addressed to the Daily Mail Legal Department, and accordingly are looking into and making enquiries with regard to the matter about which you write.

Yours faithfully,

Manager,
Legal Department

David Irving, Esq.,
81 Duke Street,
LONDON, W. 1