Publishing in the Western world is an enterprise whose success depends on freedom of expression enjoyed in Western countries. Reputable publishers know this, and do not lightly accept restraints on that freedom. Eminent historians have a duty to their subject; they do not readily collaborate with attempts to conceal historical truth, particularly when the truth in question relates to episodes having the gravest possible implications for current political life. These points are axiomatic.
Or so I supposed until very recently. In the last few months I have had an experience which calls them into question. The experience has staggered me. It may be that I am naive, and that such incidents are commonplace; but I do not think so. The reader must judge for himself.
In January, 1982,1 was asked to contribute an entry to a dictionary of twentieth-century thinkers which was to be published in Britain by Fontana/Collins under the title Biographical Companion to Modern Thought, and in America by Harper & Row as Twentieth-Century Culture. The book promised to be a respectable, indeed distinguished, publication. It was edited by Alan Bullock (Lord Bullock), one of the most eminent figures in the British academic world: author of the standard biography of Adolf Hitler, Founding Master of St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1969 to 1973, chairman of a galaxy of committees concerned with educational issues, and loaded with honors among which a Life Barony and a Fellowship of
