University of California Denies Its Facilities to Rightwing Group

The decision by the University of California to withdraw its per-

mission to the Institute for Historical Review to use its at Lake Arrowhead for a convention next November, was hailed today by the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies as a move to “safeguard the pursuit of historical truth and accuracy.”

The Institute for Historical Review, in nearby Torrance, disseminates material purporting to show that the Holocaust was a hoax. It is associated with the far rightwing Washington-based Liberty Lobby, headed by Willis Carto, a publisher of anti-Semitic books and pamphlets.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, assistant dean of the Wiesenthal Center, said, in a telegram to David Saxon, president of the University of California statewide system, that “While all Americans should be concerned for the safeguarding of freedom of speech, many of us have felt that the academic community, while publicly speaking out on this issue, has not to date actually taken up the fight to safeguard one of the fundamentals of the world of academia, namely, making sure that academicians and the institutions where they teach devote their energies to the pursuit of historical truth and accuracy.”

The telegram also noted: “What the Institute for Historical Review sought and what other denouncers and haters seek and will continue to seek is to utilize their academic and intellectual positions to deny the truth and to seek to sow the seeds of hatred and misunderstanding. We hope that this laudatory but overdue action will serve as a watershed and a turning point in encouraging educators in this country and throughout the world to rededicate themselves to this ideal.”