Is history being used wisely?

I refer to Henry Frendo's letter The Exiling Of Maltese Nationals In 1942 (October 7).

I do not want to get involved in political current affairs for which I have no interest, and still less ambitions. I am a retired man and have always steered clear of what I consider the not-always -clean game of national politics. I just want to uphold my father's good and honourable name as a true gentleman and politician. He had been duly and democratically elected to the Council of Government during World War II against the might of Fascism/Nazism.

It should be made clear from the start that the responsibility of the Council of Government was solely confined to giving the Lieutenant General, as Supreme Commander, the advice necessary to discharge his responsibility for the security and defence of our island fortress. Malta was still a protectorate of the British Empire then and was never an occupied country.

I stand four-square with what I wrote in my letter Using History Wisely (September 30). Prof. Frendo should quote history seriously and in whole, without any political bias, if he is to be credible. I am afraid Prof. Frendo has avoided doing just that by trying to confuse the issue.

I maintain that Prof. Frendo should never have stooped so low as to even suggest or insinuate what could have been the cause of Sir Ugo Mifsud's heart attack that led to his death on February 13, 1942. To make such allegations more than 67 years after the event is shamefully misrepresenting facts.

Sir Ugo may have been interrupted during his unscheduled speech on February 9, 1942. Interventions of "Hear, hear", when approving with what the speaker is saying and "Ha, Ha, Ha" when disapproving is very normal and frequently made in any parliamentary debate, including in Malta to this day. However, as far as I am aware, nobody has ever "fallen ill" from such so-called "heckling" since this regrettable event.

It is most unfortunate that neither my father, nor any of the other members of the Council had any previous knowledge that Sir Ugo may have been suffering from medical conditions which could have induced his untimely death. Sir Ugo was an experienced and very capable politician and surely he must have been accustomed and immune to such interruptions.

At this assembly, Sir Ugo was desperately trying to defend a group of Maltese citizens, most of whom were his personal friends, from being deported to another British colony. Lt. Col. Strickland is on record as having stated that Sir Ugo had made "rather wild and rabid statements... whose passion was not sufficiently tempered with cool and clear judgment" (p. 527). Is it not more probable that it was Sir Ugo's emotions which overcame him?

Prof. Frendo took another unethical swipe at my father by misinterpreting him, in a most inhuman manner, as having said "because his time was up" (p. 534). When translated into Maltese, without spin, it just means "għax il ħin tiegħu skada".

My father did intervene with the quoted remarks at the end of the second reading of the Bill when George Borg Olivier was in possession of the floor much later towards the end of the debate. Dr Borg Olivier had just stated that he was also voting on behalf of Sir Ugo in his absence, as he had not finished his speech. Sir Ugo had earlier been taken out of the Chamber discreetly without any indication given to the Assembly as to his condition. My father's logical remark was, without a shadow of a doubt, referring to Sir Ugo's "speech time" during the debate on February 9 (p. 534).

Is Prof. Frendo insinuating that my father had a prophetic vision of Sir Ugo's untimely death that occurred five days later?

I end this fruitless correspondence by stating that I have not gone into the merits or demerits, or the legality or otherwise, of the events which precipitated this unedifying correspondence. I have no intention of doing so now or in the future. I am neither a politician, nor a lawyer, nor a historian, but common sense tells me to evaluate the whole sequence of the historical events before reaching an unbiased opinion.