John Martin

In considering the Black Diaries it can be useful to step back before delving into the details.  The first question that arises from even a cursory knowledge is why would Casement write the incriminating diaries in the first place?

As a public figure, why would he want to run the risk of the diaries getting into the wrong hands? He must have known that he had plenty of enemies who would have liked nothing better than to destroy his reputation.

While it is difficult to understand why Casement would write the diaries, it is very easy to understand why elements within the British State would want to forge the diaries.  As has been mentioned in a previous article, the British had an overwhelming motive to destroy his reputation.

The British Home Secretary, Herbert Samuel, admitted that:  “had Casement not been a man of atrocious moral character the decision to execute him would have been more difficult”.

And what better way to destroy a man’s reputation than to claim that the ‘evidence’ is straight from ‘the horse’s mouth’.

Of course, while on the face of it, it is implausible that Casement would have written the incriminating diaries, it is at least possible that he might have decided that the pleasure of writing the diaries was worth the risk to his reputation.

But there remains a significant obstacle to believing this, because the black diaries contain a large volume of innocuous material mixed in with the incriminating sexual material.  For example, Paul Hyde, in his book Anatomy of a Lie: Decoding Casement, says that less than 4% of the 1910 Diary contains incriminating sexual material.

Why would anyone mix such a small proportion of sexual material with an enormous amount of innocuous material?   Would the erotic experience not be diluted?!   And, if at some later stage he indulged himself by reading his outpourings, he would have to wade through 96% of boring stuff before he would experience the thrill of reading the 4% of naughty bits!

Again, while it is difficult to understand why Casement would write such stuff, it is quite easy to understand why a forger would want to include innocuous material.  As indicated in previous articles, the purpose of the innocuous material is to authenticate the sexual material.

Jeffrey Dudgeon, in his book Roger Casement: The Black Diaries With A Study Of His Background, Sexuality And Irish Political Life,  gives an example of how the innocuous material authenticated the sexual material.

He says that John Harris, a Baptist Missionary and friend of Casement, believed the Diaries because there was information in them that (Harris thought) only a small number of people could have known about.  This information (the authenticator) had led Harris to believe in the Diaries’ authenticity, even though it went against his own direct experience of Casement.  Harris knew Casement very well during a period of time he spent with him in the Congo.  As a result of this experience he was: 

“able to say without hesitation that at the time he (Casement – JM) was one of the purest of men at a time when opportunity of vice was not only easy but was commonly yielded to”.

But we are still left with the problem.  While the innocuous material or “authenticators” are a powerful tool for the forger, what possible reason could Casement have had for including this with the sexual material?

There is no doubt that some of the believers in the authenticity of the Black Diaries are aware of the problem, and Roger Sawyer in his book, Roger Casement’s Diaries:  the Black and The White, proposes an explanation.  Sawyer suggests that the Black Diaries were written before the White Diaries (see Paul Hyde’s article (https://www.decoding-casement.com/conclusive-proofs-of-forgery/#Fabricating).

So the theory is that, in the “Black Diaries”, Casement was writing feverishly in a stream of consciousness style.  He wrote about everything that happened to him unfiltered.  The “White Diaries”, on the other hand, were written after the Black Diaries and therefore Casement could edit out the incriminating material.

In my opinion that is the only possible rationalisation why Casement should have written a relatively small amount of sexual material along with a much greater amount of innocuous material in the 1910 Black Diary.

But, as Paul Hyde says in his article, there are at least two insurmountable problems with this theory.  The first is that the 1910 White Diary consists of more than ten times the number of words of the corresponding Black Diary.  So, we are asked to believe that the edited diary is far longer than unfiltered diary!

Secondly, the Black Diary refers to the White Diary.  Incredibly Roger Sawyer himself says:

“On three occasions in the Black Diary, the author seems to be alluding to the White Diary (4, 21, 29 October), and on the blotter facing 6-8 October he actually quotes from it.”

Obviously, it is not logically possible for the Black Diary to refer to the White Diary if the Black Diary was written before the White Diary.  The Black Diary would be referring to something that had not yet existed!

So, the 1910 Black Diary was not written in a spontaneous stream of consciousness.  It was written long after the White Diary.  In my opinion it could only have been written by a forger.  The sexual material was invented, and the innocuous material was culled from the 1910 White Diary, as well as from various notebooks which were subsequently destroyed. 

(In my opinion the forger or forgers would have destroyed the 1910 White Diary if it had not already been made available to Charles Roberts MP in early 1913.)

John Harris—who was convinced of the authenticity of the Black Diary in spite of the direct experience he had of Casement—may not have appreciated the sheer volume of information that would have been available to the forger from late 1914 until the typescripts were made available at the end of May 1916.

The Shakespearean phrase: “The Lady doth protest too much” comes to mind.

It is ironic that it is precisely the sheer volume of innocuous material or “authenticators”—which proved so convincing to many people in 1916—that now exposes the Black Diaries as forgeries.

To believe otherwise is to accept that Casement sat down to write incriminating sexual material along with a far greater amount of innocuous material which he had already written elsewhere!  To believe that is to travel far beyond the bounds of probability deep into a land of pure fantasy!