Emmanuelle LeBoutillier writes from Paris, Saturday, August 2, 2003 about the pictures of the 1946 Nuremberg hangings

Kimber, Byng, and des autres

THIS doesn’t matter a damn, but one might as well . . . etc. “Pour encourager les autres” [Radical’s Diary, July 31, 2003] is actually a phrase from Voltaire’s “Candide” – “Dans ce pay-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres.” It was, of course, in reference to the recently-liquidated Admiral Byng.

I was simultaneously shocked and not-at-all surprised by your staggering anecdote about “Peter” Kimber‘s filthy little trick over your “corrections” (for God’s sake . . .) to the Keitel memoirs.

He was no more generous with his authors when I was dealing with him in the latish 1980’s; when he told me of the proposed advance on my first book, I actually thought he was joking. By then his office staff consisted of a truly amazing bunch of near-Dickensian stereotypes. There was Cliff, the lisping Uriah Heep of an assistant; the alcoholic vamp receptionist who picked biscuit crumbs off ones trousers extremely slowly; the editor who discussed ones MS with a teddy bear propped up on her desk.

Present-day publishers are all bastards, of course, but few of them are actually insane. Or maybe not.

Bill Scanlan Murphy

 David Irving: “Nuremberg, the Last Battle” (free download)

 David Irving: biography of Field Marshal Milch (free download)

David Irving replies:

YES, but William Kimber — who was always refererd to by others as “Peter”, heaven knows why — did provide a niche in which a large number of minor authors like myself first found our feet. I remember that his titles were hardly inspiring however. One book of admiral’s memoirs was given the title Sailor at Sea. I still recall fondly the chats I had with him; a father figure, very kind and well meaning and often turning out to be infuriatingly right.