Trevor-Roper

But on the very eve of publication, Trevor-Roper, who had been ennobled as Baron Dacre, called to say he had changed his mind and now felt they were forgeries.

At first, Murdoch relied on the judgment of Hugh Trevor-Roper, a distinguished British historian specializing in the Nazi period, that the diaries were genuine.

In that year, of course, Trevor-Roper was duped a second time, by the so-called Hitler Diaries, obvious forgeries that he sensationally declared — at least at first — to be genuine.

He died, obscure and poor, in 2005, though Trevor-Roper had lost interest in him by 1983.

Over the years Trevor-Roper accumulated an entire dossier devoted to the case.