David McCalden
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William David McCalden (September 20, 1951 – October 15, 1990) was a figure in the British far right who went on to become a leading international Holocaust denier.
McCalden was born in Belfast, but left in 1972 to study at Goldsmiths College in London, where he was widely known as "Fascist Dave" despite his long hair and readiness to debate with left-wing fellow students. He first became involved in politics as a member of the National Front, where he became editor of the party newspaper Nationalist News. A leading supporter of John Kingsley Read, McCalden transferred his allegiance to the neo-Imperialist National Party soon after Read and other anti-fascist NF members founded the party in 1976 and became a leading contributor to the party journal Britain First. He also became involved in setting up organisations for hunt saboteurs and produced a journal on the subject, Howl. His other works at this time included Beacon, another journal, and (allegedly) the book Nuremberg & Other War Crimes Trials (1978) (although this was initially written under the pseudonym Richard Harwood, one shared with fellow Holocaust denier Richard Verrall).
McCalden emigrated to the United States and arrived in California in 1978. Here he met up with veteran American neo-Nazi Willis Carto and set up the Institute for Historical Review, of which McCalden was appointed Director and Editor-in-Chief (although he generally operated under the name Lewis Brandon in these roles). McCalden soon garnered a reputation as a tireless advocate of Holocaust denial and became the leading organisational figure within the IHR.
Despite this relations between McCalden and Carto were not good and in 1981 after a falling out he left the IHR and set up his own group Truth Mission. Under this imprint he published a number of journals including Revisionist Reprints, Holocaust News and David McCalden's Revisionist Newsletter and books including The Amazing, Rapidly Shrinking "Holocaust" (1987). McCalden's extremist stance made him a target for many opponents and on 7th June 1989 he was attacked and badly beaten at a meeting in Los Angeles in an incident he blamed on Irv Rubin and the Jewish Defense League.
McCalden eventually came to reject denial of the Holocaust[citation needed], and although it was claimed that he died at the age of 39 in El Segundo, California from pneumonia and complications from AIDS, the rumour persists that he faked his own death in order to start a new life free from his controversial past[citation needed]. This rumour is given credibility by the fact that his wife and daughter completely disappeared within a year of his death.
