Scandal in the archives: the forging of history

I don’t know whether US readers have been following this, but there’s been an ongoing scandal at Britain’s National Archives.

To sum things up as briefly as possible, author Martin Allen and his wife were frequent visitors to the National Archives. Mr. Allen published a book, citing ‘evidence’ he’d ‘found’ in the Archives.

In 2004 a German historian questioned some of Mr. Allen’s sources, as listed in his book. After an exhaustive investigation (details may be found at the National Archives Web site), it’s been found that a fairly large number of documents, used by Mr. Allen as sources, were forgeries. They appear to have been inserted into the national historical archives of Britain as a deliberate attempt to falsify history, thereby giving Mr. Allen’s book the appearance of ‘breaking the news’ about the matter.

To my astonishment, the Archives and the British authorities have declined to prosecute anyone for this. In a statement, the Archives said:

In July 2005, it was discovered that a number of files held at The National Archives contained forged documents. These files related to the Second World War. This resulted in a thorough internal investigation, the findings of which are being released today.

A police investigation followed, with the full cooperation of The National Archives. Forensic examination confirmed that the suspected documents were recent forgeries and had been introduced to the files from 2000 onwards. The investigation identified 29 individual forgeries from 12 separate files.

The Metropolitan Police submitted a case file to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in October 2006. The CPS decided that it was not in the public interest to prosecute, and the police investigation is now closed.

David Thomas, Director of Technology & Chief Information Officer, said: “The National Archives views anything that compromises the integrity of historical information very seriously. We take pride in the quality of material held here and the level of access given to original documents. For this reason, a thorough investigation was conducted and new security measures implemented, the findings of which are now available for all to see.”

I’m sorry, but that’s just not good enough. We’re talking about one of the major sources of historical reference in the world! It’s just not acceptable for someone to try to falsify history, something that could mislead every succeeding generation, and get away without so much as a slap on the wrist.

I think that anyone involved in this affair should be prosecuted and punished to the fullest extent of the law. That’s the only way to deter some other author or wannabe historian from trying to do the same thing in future. As a long-time reader and aficionado of history, this limp-wristed response makes me very angry.

And, no, I won’t be buying or recommending any of Mr. Allen’s books, thank you very much.

Peter