Sir, - Can somebody please explain why Francis Stuart's defenders so doggedly persist in their moral and intellectual blindness when discussing his pro-German sympathies during the second World War? And why have they so uncritically accepted Stuart's utter disengenuousness about his stance?
James Evans's letter (October 24th) is yet another example of the muddled thinking that seems to possess so many commentators on this issue. Mr Evans refers to Brendan Barrington's essay and Fintan O'Toole's review of The Wartime Broadcasts of Francis Stuart. He might find it instructive to actually examine Stuart's own words. In an interview with Jason Cowley (The Observer, May 28th, 1995), Stuart admitted to having seen Hitler as a "contemporary Samson", further observing: "I hated the whole political and social set-up in England and Ireland, and I thought he was in a position to tear it all down. Of course, as soon as I went to Germany I saw that I was wrong." Yet on his arrival in Berlin in 1939, Stuart wrote a letter to Iseult Gonne referring to the "appalling" activities of Jews "in co-operation with the communists". In a 1942 broadcast he confessed to being `completely fired by enthusiasm' for `Hitler and the new Germany'. In 1944 Stuart was still broadcasting on behalf of Nazi Germany. Hardly the sudden volte-face implied by Stuart!
James Evans finds it "extraordinary" that anyone should continue "demonising Francis Stuart with labels of pro-Nazi and anti-Semite after conclusive proof to the contrary before his death". What conclusive proof? Evans does not tell us. Neither does Anthony Cronin, who suggests that "it took a good deal of special pleading for O'Toole to arrive at the conclusions he did from the broadcasts" (October 21st).
Can either of them explain why on February 6th 1943, Stuart would praise the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad and declare himself to be "glad to be here in a country that can produce such men, men who can still overcome all human limitations", if his heartfelt wish was not for a Nazi victory? Surely it is time for Stuart's defenders to realise the simple truth that if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it must be a duck. - Yours, etc.,
Liam Carson, Haroldville Avenue, Rialto, Dublin 8.