66 Leuchter's "credibility," or rather, his lack of same. (Holocaust: Leuchter)
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This article is from the Holocaust FAQ, by Ken McVay kmcvay@nizkor.org with numerous contributions by others.
66 Leuchter's "credibility," or rather, his lack of same. (Holocaust: Leuchter)
3.10 Leuchter's claims during his Zundel testimony, and the reality
of his perjury, Leuchter's admission that he is not an engineer
(in American court), court order to quit publishing "reports"
which claim engineering expertise.. (For an extensive examination
of Leuchter's reception as an "expert witness" in a Canadian
court, get pub/people/l/lipstadt.deborah/lipstadt.005. For the
Washington Post article discussing the Leuchter Consent Decree,
in which he admitted that he was not an engineer, and agreed to stop
disseminating 'reports' which identified him as such, get
pub/people/l/leuchter.fred/washington-post.0691.)
In his article of January 11, (Spotlight, "Major Historical Fact
Uncovered," January 11, 1993), Foner discusses the Canadian trial of
Ernst Zundel, and tells us...
Zundel went looking for an expert on executions, particularly
gassings. He found Leuchter, who specializes in the design and
fabrication of execution hardware used in prisons throughout the
United States. (Foner, 3)
Although Leuchter is touted by Neo-Nazi publications and Holocaust
deniers as an "expert," Mr. Leuchter's own testimony at the Zundel
trial made it clear that he was neither an expert nor a credible
witness.
The following is taken from Leuchter's testimony at the Zundel trial
(Douglas Christie, Zundel's attorney is the questioner) - following
the testimony are verbatim quotes from two American prison officials,
which were obtained after Leuchter's testimony at the trial. We
believe you will have no difficulty in determining the value of Mr.
Leuchter's credentials after considering both:
Q: And what is your relationship with the operation of those
facilities [i.e. gas chambers] in those two States [California
and North Carolina]?
A: We consulted with both States, California primarily on a heart
monitoring system to replace the older type mechanical diagraph
stethoscope that's presently in use. We will be shipping to them
shortly and installing a new heart monitor for both chairs in
their gas chamber.
Q: You are consulted by the State, I understand?
A: Yes, Juan Vasquez.
Q: I see. And in North Carolina?
A: North Carolina. My discussions and work was with one Nathan
Reise, and he had some work done by their maintenance personnel on
their gas chamber two years ago, and they had a problem with the
gasket on a door leaking. At which point, we discussed it with
him and recommended remedial procedures to change the gas chamber.
Q: And he consults you in regard to those matters?
A: He does.
What do those two facilities have to say about the matter? First,
the warden at San Quentin (California) responds:
"I can inform you, however, that San Quentin has not contracted
with Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. for the installation of a heart
monitoring system or for any other work." Signed: DANIEL B.
Vasquez, Warden (California)
Next, we offer the comments from North Carolina prison officials:
"I discussed your request with Mr. Nathan A. RICE, Former
Warden, and he stated that he vaguely recalled a telephone
conversation between him and a gentleman professing to be an
expert on execution chambers. Mr. Rice further states that the
gentleman called him for the purpose of selling a lethal injection
machine...
Also, our records do not support that Mr. Leuchter performed
either consulting or any service...I can attest that the planning
and work was performed by the Department of Correction Engineering
Section and our institution maintenance department." Signed: Gary
T. Dixon, Warden (North Carolina)
We discover, then, that neither California nor North Carolina have
consulted with Leuchter regarding their gas chambers. Leuchter was
incapable of even getting the names of the wardens right, and clearly
lying about his "professional" relationships with them.
The only other state with which Leuchter has alleged consulted
regarding gas chambers is Missouri. Yet, even thought Leuchter has
allegedly "designed" a gas chamber for the state, we have to take his
word for it since that gas chamber was never built nor installed and,
in fact, Missouri does not have an operational gas chamber to this
day even though Leuchter had allegedly designed one for them over 4
years ago. We would like to hear from anyone who has contacted
authorities in the State of Missouri regarding this matter.
An article in the Washington Post sheds additional light upon
Leuchter's legal problems, and his status as an engineer:
BOSTON, June 17 - Fred A. Leuchter Jr., a self-styled expert in
the machinery of death who parlayed his reputation as a builder
of killing equipment into a second career as a proponent of
"Holocaust revisionism," has admitted that he is not an
engineer.
Made in a consent decree filed with a Massachusetts court last
week, his admission should deal a blow to the movement holding
that the Nazi extermination of 6 million Jews and others during
World War II was a hoax or an exaggeration, according to experts
in the field.
Leuchter, 48, of suburban Malden, was to face trial later this
month on charges of practicing engineering without a license, a
violation of Massachusetts law. But on June 11, he signed a
consent agreement with the board that licenses engineers.
In it, Leuchter acknowledged that, "I am not and have never been
registered as a professional engineer" and that he nevertheless
had represented himself as an engineer in dealings with various
states that use the death penalty and to which he supplied
equipment or advice.
The agreement also requires Leuchter to stop disseminating
reports in which he purports to be an engineer, most
significantly a document known as the "Leuchter Report."
That report, widely circulated by revisionists, asserts that gas
chambers at Nazi concentration camps in Auschwitz, Birkenau and
Majdanek could not have been used for mass killings because they
were not big enough nor well ventilated or sealed. The
assertion is based largely on chemical analysis of materials
scraped surreptitiously from walls of those chambers by Leuchter
during a visit to Poland in February 1988.
Sally Greenberg, an attorney with the Anti-Defamation League of
B'nai B'rith in Boston, which was instrumental in bringing
Leuchter to the attention of Massachusetts authorities, welcomed
the settlement.
"It's a blow to Holocaust revisionism because he has been the
guru of the revisionists," she said. "Now, he has as much as
admitted that he is not qualified as an engineer to comment on
the 'myth' of the Holocaust. It's essentially an admission that
he's the charlatan and phony that we always knew he was."
("Holocaust Revisionist Admits He Is Not Engineer." The
Washington Post. Get pub/people/l/leuchter.fred/leuchter.02 for
the complete text.)
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