In his 10 May letter to the Editor of the Irish Political Review Jeff Dudgeon finally admits that he cannot name a single independent witness for the Black Diaries in 1916. Instead he lists some 25 names, mostly Crown employees – cabinet ministers, police and intelligence officers and top legal officials. Two of these were not government staff – US Ambassador Page and Germain (W.P. not Edward). Another six (perhaps Foreign Office staff) are not mentioned in Jeff’s book so a link to the diaries is doubtful. In any case, Jeff then admits that he does not know what any of these 25 people knew in 1916; he says they “are recorded in different official documents as being privy to either, or both, the existence of manuscript diaries and the typing of full copies or extracts therefrom.” He does not claim they saw anything, merely that they were “privy to” something. In short, he says they were aware of private or secret matters which is much the same as being aware of overheard gossip which cannot be verified. Jeff cannot demonstrate that any of them saw manuscript diaries in 1916 because he cannot produce a statement from any of them to that effect. This is hopelessly vague and unconvincing.

 Likewise he tells us “John Harris, Henry Massingham and John Quinn are recorded as having seen diary manuscripts or photographs of pages thereof.” Once again Jeff cannot tell us which – diaries or photos of what? In fact, none of them are recorded as seeing diary manuscripts. Quinn was in NY and was shown photographs of unidentified handwriting. Harris saw typescripts only and there is no record of what Massingham saw. Both Gaunt in NY and Spring Rice in Washington saw only the same photos shown to Quinn which Thomson had sent to Gaunt.

But this misses the point. Jeff’s challenge was to produce independent witness names but after some thirty years intensive research, he cannot do so. Crown employees like Blackwell, Hall, Thomson et al were actively dedicated to the criminal defamation of a man accused of treason. Common sense dictates that this undisputed fact disqualifies them as witnesses.

Jeff tacitly recognizes the futility of his predicament by then resorting to familiar chicanery; he unashamedly claims the deletion of compromising words in a Cabinet memo merely “corrected” an earlier draft memo of 6 March 1959. But the draft memo is an exact copy of text prepared earlier by the Home Office Working Party and both documents contain the compromising words ‘from the typescripts’ enclosed in tell-tale handwritten square brackets which, by editorial convention, advise deletion. Confirming this advisory is the final memo dated 13 March without those words. Further confirmation of this manipulation is detected in the official signed record of destruction on 5 November 1993 of a Cabinet document dated 17 March, 1959 – the actual date of the official Cabinet meeting. That document was destroyed shortly before the 1994 release of a significant batch of Casement papers which fact indicates that its release would compromise related documents due for release. The document most at risk was the Cabinet memo of 17 March 1959 which concealed deletion of those words. That photos of typescripts not diaries were given to the US ambassador had to be concealed for obvious reasons. It follows that the destroyed document was a note or minute by the author of the memo explaining why he advised deletion.  

In April this year Jeff published a letter in the Irish Political Review confirming that he does not exclude forgery; when that confession is added now to his failure after decades to cite a single independent witness to the diaries in 1916, it is clear he has created sufficient and necessary conditions for the ‘critical mass’ which has caused his cognitive implosion. He has effectively decoded himself thereby providing a de facto proof of forgery.

Paul Hyde,
Jack Lane.