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8 - Suiiday, May 12, 1985 - North Shore News

get this straight

by Doug Collins

The dirt on Doug

is always in the wars. This is evident not only

I: spite of being sweet-natured, your man Doug

from the pages of this newspaper but from the
pages of other newspapers. Readers of the Van-
couver Sun frequently quarrel over my body, for

example.

On May 6, a fetter ap-
peared in the top spot of The
Sun’s letters page under the
headline: ‘‘A footnote in the
career of free-speech de-
fender.”” It was signed by
one Thurston Taylor, of
2180 Nelson, West Van-
couver, and the free-speech
defender to whom he was
referring was my humble
self.

It seems certain that Mr.
Taylor would not cross the
road to shake my hand, were
that opportunity to occur. In
fact, he has researched my
early career in Canada to
find what he confidently and
happily believes is some dirt.

He has consulted the orig-
inal edition of a book writ-
ten by Louis Nizer, one of
the biggest showboats on the
great American river of law,

-and has concluded, as did
‘ Nizer, that: Collins was (is?)
a journalistic thief who fail-

' ed to give credit where credit
was due in one of the big lit-
erary exposes of the century.

We: “80, back to the- year
1953,

The |: Man: : Who... Wouldn't
Talk.. The ‘man ‘in. question
was George. Dupre: of
‘ Calgary; who sucked
Reynolds in something awful

with ‘tales ‘of having - been. a.

“spy. during , ‘the’ war.’ Dupre

-¢laimed’to chave.been’.°
parachuted: into France, to’:
shave . been’ captured: by the.

Nazi: Gestapo ‘and. horribly
tortured, © but. to. have « re-
“mained - silent - and. come

‘through’ it: all with: a stiff.

“upper lip
it was: teat piece of Fic

- foighan

‘OPT ICAL BOUTIQUES

‘only = spoil

tion, and after weeks of
work | confronted Dupre
and got him to admit it was
fiction. My story in the
Calgary Herald of Friday,
Nov. 13, 1953, brought me a
National Newspaper Award,
plus an Honorable Mention
in the Heywood Broun
Newspaper Awards in the
U.S. It made the front page
of the New York Times, and
rated a whole page in Time
Magazine.

The following year there
was a libel case in New York
starring Reynolds, who was
the complainant, Westbrook
Pegler, the defendant, and
Nizer, representing
Reynolds. The case had
nothing to co with my story,
but Pegler asked me to ap-
pear for the defence,
Reynolds not having looked
too good with the phoney

’ RAFFLE TICKET. hawkers.

at. West’ Van. District’s an-

the festivities,

council. was told Monday.
West Van’s parks and rec-

reation director

Vancouver. Licns. Club's re-
quést ‘for permission to sel!

car raffle tickets because it’s

too “commercial”.

The club, however, argued

“that. a raffle for-a ‘classic
.. car’: would augment Com-
munity Day, 3 not

detract

Frank:
-Kurucz recommended _ that
council should refuse West

book. I did so, and: had a lot
of fun. Especially with
Nizer, who kept bobbing up
and down like a TV actor
and asking silly questions.

In 1961, littl old Louis
retaliated. He wrote a book
-- My Life In Court -- which
was all about his wonderful
career. The book included a
chapter on the Reynolds-
Pegler case (which Reynolds
won, and contained the
falsehood that young Mr.
Collins had claimed the
credit in the Dupre story for
himself, without
acknowledging sources. Ac-
cording to Louis, he obliged
me to confess this on the
stand, leaving me to sink
well into my seat, if you can
imagine such a thing. (Or, as
Taylor stated gleefully in his
letter, ‘‘Collins was
demolished.*’)

The Reader's Digest con-
densation of the book,
which was published in
Canada, contained this
passage:

“So Collins, who had
achieved fame for having

No raffles

“when? Quentin.
Reynolds. ‘the American -

author wrote’ a book. called -
: ~nual Community Day would

from the festivities.

‘Parks and recreation advi-

sory. commission members,
though, recapped the provi-
sions of Community Day.
_ “The PRAD reaffirms
their support of the terms of
reference for Community
Day, particularly in regard
to the clause which states
that the events not include
commercial, political, con-
troversial’ or fundraising
ventures.”” :

Council supported the
PRAD position. Community
Day is held annually on June
lL,

g. cull

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exposed one of the great lit-
erary hoaxes of all time,
stood exposed himself.”*
Collins the fraud promptly
launched: suit against
Reader's Digest (it being
more accessible to a person
of limited means than the
American publishers). Alex
MacDonald the NDP MLA
took the case for me, and we
collected an out-of-court set-
Uement of $3,250. Which
was not bad for those days.
Being full of honest rage,
{ was all for pressing the
issue to trial, but since I was
earning all of $250 a weck,
and the case would have had
to be heard in Montreal, |!
was hardly in a position to

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insist, Still, the settlement Gray-Eyes.)
was widely reported and | Mr. Taylor did a lot of
bought a new car with the research. But not quite

proceeds. 1 called it The enough. His letter is defam-
Nizer. (“Let's go out in The atory, and we shall-see what
Nizer,"" [| we shall see.

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