Heidegger Aff air to the de Man Aff air 1987–1988 391
later at the University of Alabama, in Tuscaloosa, to discuss the
matter with the speakers, who would include several former stu-
dents and colleagues of Paul de Man. Derrida was really shaken by
this discovery. At the conference, he mournfully handed out copies
of a certain number of the articles published in Le Soir, including
one called ‘The Jews in contemporary literature’. On 10 October,
the participants held a ‘discussion that lasted more than three hours
and touched on both the substance of things and the decisions to be
made’.^26 Many were shocked and did not know how to react. But
Derrida was categorical: the material should be published in full,
and they, who had been close to de Man, were the ones who should
publish it.^27 Richard Rand, the organizer of the conference, shared
his view, and insisted that they act as quickly as possible:
As a former journalist, I sensed straightaway that the aff air
was going to blow up. I thought the main documents should
be published quickly in the Oxford Literary Review, as proof
of our good faith. But this strategy was undermined by other
people who were not present at the Alabama meeting. They
thought that we should act more cautiously, and not rush into
things. Unfortunately, Derrida allowed himself to be con-
vinced. For me, this remains a missed opportunity, and I think
it was very prejudicial.^28Rumours soon started to circulate and the ‘aff air’ broke out
in the worst possible way. On 1 December 1987, the New York
Times announced on its front page: ‘Yale scholar’s articles found
in pro-Nazi paper’. The unsigned article was full of mistakes and
half-truths about Paul de Man and the political situation in Belgium
during the Occupation. The aff air assumed considerable propor-
tions throughout the United States, then in countries where the de
Man’s name had hitherto been known only to a handful of special-
ists. The German press was particularly virulent, while in Sweden
de Man was labelled ‘the Waldheim of postmodernism’.* But the
controversial texts remained inaccessible: they were published only
in the autumn of 1988.^29
One of the keys to the de Man aff air and the absurd proportions it
would assume lay in the watertight separation between two worlds:
on the one hand, Belgium, where as a young man de Man had
- The Waldheim aff air broke out in 1986. After a period as Secretary General of the
United Nations from 1972 to 1981, Kurt Waldheim (1918–2007) was then standing
in the elections for President of the Republic of Austria. The revelation of his service
in the Wehrmacht during the Second World War meant that he was ostracized by
several heads of state throughout his period of offi ce, from 1986 to 1992.