Neil Clark

I have posted three comments on this site this year about the writer Neil Clark, who contributed a review of my book Anti-Totalitarianism to The Daily Telegraph. Mr Clark claims these posts are defamatory, and has written to me informing me that he will take legal action unless I remove them from this site and apologise to him. I am not willing to do either of these things, and am posting this comment to explain my position.

There are two issues involved. First, I was sceptical on reading Mr Clark’s review that he had read my book before reviewing it. I naturally cannot, and did not, claim to have observed Mr Clark directly in the act of not reading my book, but was drawing an inference from the content of his review. Secondly, I was concerned about the character of Mr Clark’s sources in certain claims he made about the wartime activities of the late Bosnian President Alia Izetbegovic (who was 19 at the end of WW2).

After my first post appeared Mr Clark wrote to me for the first time threatening legal action, and protested strongly that he had indeed read my book. I was, and am, prepared to take his word on this. I therefore, on receiving his letter, added an update to that effect underneath the post, though I was not willing to remove the post from this site as he requested.

Last month, having made inquiries of authorities in Balkan history about the provenance of Mr Clark’s historical claims, and also of The Daily Telegraph about the information Mr Clark gave the newspaper concerning his sources, I posted two further comments here on the Izetbegovic claims. I explained that my historical advisers had been unable to confirm Mr Clark’s account, and I also said that I had traced Mr Clark’s source with certainty to an organisation in the US called the International Strategic Studies Association. I further suggested that Mr Clark had not correctly identified this source before and after submitting his review, and had instead named his source as the “Institute of Strategic Studies Organisation”. I suggested that a reasonable person might easily interpret this to mean the well known International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), rather than Mr Clark’s actual source, which is a less well known and considerably more controversial body. These are not assertions that I am able to substantiate directly on this site, because to do so would require me to publish private correspondence from third parties. My assertions are, however, correct, and I consequently will not be removing them from this site.

Mr Clark alleges that I have insinuated that he deliberately misrepresented his sources to The Daily Telegraph. I have neither asserted nor implied that he was engaged in deliberate misinformation, only that his information was indeed inaccurate. I clearly suggested other explanations for his errors. I am happy to reassert that I do not believe Mr Clark deliberately misrepresented his sources. I do however believe that the accuracy of a writer’s stated sources on a matter of public interest is properly a subject for fair comment.

I hold no ill will for Mr Clark, but I will defend my right to fair comment within appropriate bounds. Those bounds are not in my opinion broken by what I have written about Mr Clark. If Mr Clark does proceed to legal action, I will defend myself to assert that principle.