At the end of May and into June I had the great pleasure of taking up an invitation to visit the United States to fulfil three speaking engagements, the first of which was to address the International European-American Unity and Leadership Conference in New Orleans. This gathering, at which about 300 were in attendance, was organised in part to welcome the well-known American patriotic leader David Duke back to freedom following a prison sentence for alleged tax irregularities, commonly believed to have been a politically motivated frame-up engineered by his enemies, who are many and powerful.

This was my third speaking visit to the USA but my first to New Orleans. The city is, of course, closely associated with jazz musicians - something which, as my friends will know, carried no interest whatever to me. It is nevertheless well worth visiting for some of the old-world sights, notably the French Quarter, which manages to reproduce a uniquely European flavour in the local architecture - rare in the country. The city also contains many magnificent old colonial-style houses, built mostly in the l9th century for those who grew rich on the cotton trade.

The conference was impressive and featured many fine and well-known speakers. A hotel close to the Airport had been virtually commandeered for the weekend, and people booking in there came from all over the United States, as well as Canada. The speakers, apart from David Duke himself, included the moderator of the world-famed Stormfront website Don Black; Sam Dickson, the Atlanta lawyer and an old friend from way back; Dr. Edward Fields, editor of the long-running The Truth at Last newspaper, also an old friend whom I was delighted to meet again with his wife Jane; Kevin Alfred Strom, the presenter of the radio programme American Dissident Voices; Germar Rudolf, the courageous German revisionist historian; Paul Fromm from Canada, a teacher who suffered greatly for his political views in what is today a country straight out of Orwell's 1984 in its intolerance of nationalist dissidents; David Pringle, membership co-ordinator of the National Alliance; and veteran publisher Willis Carto. These big names apart, I was delighted to meet many other fine patriots from all over the North American continent, and enjoy many conversations during breaks between the items on the programme. It was very pleasing to see Paul Fromm's Canadian party display the traditional Red Ensign flag of Canada behind their literature table, together with a banner referring to their country as the Dominion of Canada - a most welcome snub to political correctness!

The keynote speech of the weekend was given by David Duke at the end of an excellent dinner on Saturday evening. He began by speaking of the tragedy of the Iraq war and subsequent occupation, in which so many Americans had died, and went on the indict President Bush and his largely Zionist administration for their criminal folly in embroiling the United States in this region of the world in quarrels in which she (like Britain) had no interest. From this he went on to a very general coverage of the American political scene, which was powerfully delivered and received at the end with rapturous applause.

My own contribution to the proceedings was made in the early afternoon of Saturday, and the (slightly abridged) text of this appears in this month's magazine. I had a short time previously heard a superb presentation by Sam Dickson on the insanity of 'liberals', whom he accused of being afflicted by an inexplicable death-wish. His speech was spiced with much humour in its caricaturing of the liberal mind.

On the Monday following the conference I flew with Sam Dickson to Atlanta, Georgia, where I was his guest for two days, during which I addressed a small meeting of local friends of like mind at a nearby location, with about 25 people present. Here I was surprised, though greatly pleased, to encounter a few who had attended gatherings to which I had spoken in the same neighbourhood in 1979 and 1991. On this stage of my trip I also met a friend of Sam Dickson's, Josh Buckley, co-editor of the book Tyr, which deals with the folklore and religious customs of Northern Europe in pre-Christian times.

My final port of call was the Washington DC area - or, to be more specific, its Virginia suburbs. I stayed at the home of American Renaissance publisher and editor Jared Taylor and his wife Evelyn, to whom I am grateful for many kindnesses. Before that I was met at the airport and then taken to lunch by one of America's finest patriotic writers, Sam Francis, who was a mainstream professional journalist with the Washington Times before being fired for his outspoken views. Since then he has been an independent writer with the Citizens Informer and other publications. While at Jared Taylor's home I met two of his young colleagues Ian Jobling and Steve Webster, who assist him in the production and management of American Renaissance. Steve Webster kindly gave up part of his day on June 3rd to take me on a tour of the battlefield of Bull Run, which featured prominently in the American Civil War, or, as they prefer to call it there, the War Between the States.

Then in the evening I addressed a dinner gathering of about 40 people in a restaurant in nearby Arlington, which was chaired by Sam Francis. This was a very pleasant occasion, with some interesting questions following my speech. Throughout the United States there is a great interest in our movement here in Britain and the common problems with which patriots in both countries have to cope.

The following day I flew home - always a gruelling experience for me when travelling in a west-to-east direction, with the jetlag worse when going that way.