Madam, - The remark "that controversy is all in the past", quoted in your edition of October 30th and referring to the allegations against the Hunt family by Dr Samuels of the Wiesenthal Centre, is surely somewhat premature given that the latter body has never withdrawn its claims or apologised to the Hunt family.
Last January, in response to a strongly worded statement from President McAleese, Dr Samuels promised to publish a detailed report on his allegations by mid-April but failed to meet this deadline. In May he said he had finished the report, which ran to 150 pages, and which, after vetting by his lawyers, would be sent to the Minister for Arts imminently.
No such report has appeared - perhaps not surprisingly, since in the almost five years since Dr Samuels first wrote to President McAleese he has produced nothing to substantiate his claims nor dared to challenge the authoritative report by the expert on Nazi-looted art, Lynn Nicholas, who dismissed his efforts as "unprofessional in the extreme".
Could it be that there are only two conclusions one can draw from Dr Samuels's conduct? Either his claim to be preparing a report was merely a smokescreen to deflect the rebuke by President McAleese or else his lawyers have agreed with the president's view that his allegations were "a tissue of lies".
Dr Samuels's strategy at this stage is probably to lie low and hope to get away with it, in which case he will be comforted to read the remark quoted in your report. - Yours, etc,