To the Editor:

We were baffled to read in your editorial in praise of Winston Churchill's opposition to high taxation that you chose to cite David Irving -- a maverick historian who characterized Churchill's tax-minimization efforts as "unsavory" ("Taxing Winston" Jan. 8.)  Irving is a Holocaust denier,a racist and an anti-Semite, whose opinions on Churchill are thoroughly informed by his high regard for Hitler.  Mainstream publishers have long since ceased publishing Irving's books.

It is unfortunate that the Wall Street Journal should grant him a place, however limited, in its editorial, when the works of Churchill's official biographer, Sir Martin Gilbert, and other noted historians, are so readily available.