Holdwater: The mysterious name behind the “premier” anti-Armenian website

Posted on June 6th, 2007 by Blogian.

By Taner Akçam

This article by Taner Akçam reveals who "Holdwater" the pseudonym for the webmaster of "Tall Armenian Tale" is. It is a shame to see how a person with such a vindictive nature towards Armenians can be accepted and quoted by many. He compares Armenians to rodents. His true name is Murad Gümen. He "is best known for his animation work. After making his own animated short 'Erased Off', he went on to work as an in-between on 'Raggedy Ann and Andy' in 1977. He wrote, directed, and produced the comedy-fantasy feature film, 'Wonderguy'. He has also worked as a writer, artist and illustrator. His work appeared in Crazy (Marvel), Ghostly Haunts (Charlton) and Cracked, as well as Playboy and Heavy Metal. He worked as a staff artist at the New York office of the Walt Disney Company in the 1980s" Here.

On July 27, 2005, the Yeni Şafak newspaper published an interview, “The Mysterious American Who Drives the Armenians Mad,” about an “interesting and unique” person who writes under the pseudonym Holdwater. “This mysterious American has been financing, for many years, a highly effective, U.S.-based Internet site,” Yeni Şafak reports. “The principal aim of Tall Armenian Tale: The Other Side of the Falsified Genocide is to provide substantial responses to the Armenian Diaspora’s claims of genocide.”

According to the newspaper, Holdwater, a New York native, was born in the 1950s to Turkish parents who had migrated to America in the 1940s and raised their son without teaching him a single word of Turkish. He champions the Turkish theses [denial of the Armenian Genocide] on his website at www.tallarmeniantale.com.

Holdwater says he uses a pseudonym because he is the target of threats and sabotage on a daily basis. “If I tell you my real name and you publish it in your newspaper,” he told Yeni Şafak, “trust me, within a few days neither my family harmony nor my good business nor my Internet site will still be in existence.”

While afraid to disclose his own name because his peace will be disturbed, Holdwater does not hold back from publishing the photographs of intellectuals such as Halil Berktay and Müge Göçek [of the Workshop for Armenian-Turkish Scholarship], and parading them as targets in his articles full of animosity and hatred. It is quite difficult to understand how someone who is afraid of being attacked can organize such ruthless campaigns of belligerence against others.

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Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.