From the preface: This report was first issued on December 20, 1990 as a three page memo for antiwar activists titled "Right Woos Left Over Gulf War Issue: Confronting Rightist Ideologies & Anti-Jewish Bigotry is Crucial to Full Debate Over Principled Tactics." The memo briefly described attempts by members of the LaRouche movement to involve themselves in antiwar organizing, and discussed the growing network of persons willing to appear at functions of the quasi-Nazi Liberty Lobby, including Fletcher Prouty, "Bo" Gritz, Mark Lane, and to a lesser extent, Dick Gregory.
Jerusalem One
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Preface & Acknowledgements
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
"Fascism and Reaction inevitably attack. They have won against
disunion. They will fail if we unite."
(George Seldes)
(You Can't Do That, 1938)
This report was first issued on December 20, 1990 as a three page memo
for antiwar activists titled "Right Woos Left Over Gulf War Issue:
Confronting Rightist Ideologies & Anti-Jewish Bigotry is Crucial to
Full Debate Over Principled Tactics." The memo briefly described
attempts by members of the LaRouche movement to involve themselves in
antiwar organizing, and discussed the growing network of persons
willing to appear at functions of the quasi-Nazi Liberty Lobby,
including Fletcher Prouty, "Bo" Gritz, Mark Lane, and to a lesser
extent, Dick Gregory.
The original memo was issued after Political Research Associates
received numerous phone inquiries regarding the background of the
LaRouchian and Liberty Lobby networks, and was preceded by a
discussion paper circulated to a handful of researchers who, for over
a year, had been informally discussing the dilemmas posed by the
transfusion of right-wing theories and research into progressive
circles. I would like to thank these persons (whom I dubbed in my
correspondence the "Thorns of the White Rose" as a historical salute
to the German anti-Fascist movement), including Russ Bellant, Johan
Carlisle, Sara Diamond, Brian Glick, Jean Hardisty, Jane Hunter,
Sheila O'Donnell, the late Margaret Quigley, Diana Reynolds, Whitney
Rugosa, and Holly Sklar. They will be the first to tell you that
their contributions to the debate do not necessarily imply agreement
with my thesis.
Several journalists and activists were forthcoming in sharing their
information or making suggestions and deserve special mention. They
are Dan Junas, Howard Goldenthal, Alice Senturia, Dennis King, Barry
Mehler, and Richard Hatch. The research by Sara Diamond and Richard
Hatch into radio personality Craig Hulet was particularly thorough and
useful. The Center for Democratic Renewal, especially Leonard
Zeskind, provided documents and other pertinent information. Fairness
and Accuracy in Media also provided assistance and encouragement,
especially Marty Lee.
Matthew Nemiroff Lyons wrote a thoughtful critique of an earlier
version of this paper titled "Right Woos Left Revisited: Tracing the
Roots of Conspiracy Thinking." His suggestions have influenced
subsequent revisions and we are now working together to write a
lengthy study of the roots and current variants of fascism in the
U.S., tentatively titled "Fascism's Franchises".
The United Front Against Fascism and its allies in the Seattle and
Portland areas gave me encouragement and assistance, and sponsored a
public forum in Seattle where I shared the podium with anti-fascist
organizer Spencer Hamm of Spokane's Citizens for Nonviolent Action
Against Racism. Jonathan Mozzochi and the Coalition for Human Dignity
in Portland shared their work and publicized the issue, and were
denounced by neo-Nazis for their efforts.
The Disciples Foundation at the University of Illinois and the
Champaign-Urbana chapter of New Jewish Agenda sponsored a research and
speaking engagement in 1993 where I developed an analysis of the
relationship between various forms of populism and fascism and the
relevance of these movements to the candidacies of Buchanan, Perot &
Le Pen.
Columnist Joel Bleifus of "In These Times" put into print discussions
of these issues based on his own research at a time when no
progressive publisher was willing to run the articles I had submitted.
He showed uncommon courtesy in asking me if I would be offended by
this turn of events, and then bore the brunt of some heated and unfair
criticisms that otherwise would have been directed at me. He has both
my thanks and my respect.
People Against Racist Terror in California deserves credit for early
attempts to convince the Christic Institute to distance itself
publicly from "Bo" Gritz and his allies in the Populist Party.
Journalist Paul Rauber went out on a limb to confront Mark Lane's
"apologia" for the Fascist and anti-Jewish Carto network. Several
journalists in the alternative media put up with some withering
criticisms for confronting paranoid conspiracism, especially Michael
Albert and David Barsamian. Doug Henwood and Irwin Knoll were among
the first journalists willing to use the word Fascism to describe the
phenomenon.
Despite some fundamental disagreements with my point of view, Ramsey
Clark, Gavrielle Gemma, Carl Oglesby, Jonathan Marshall, Peter Dale
Scott, and James Ridgeway were gracious in consenting to interviews.
John Stockwell gave an interview even though he felt my "Guardian"
article on Craig Hulet implied Stockwell was an ally of "Bo" Gritz.
That was not my intent, and I regret any misunderstanding and
appreciate Mr. Stockwell's patience. Dan Brandt, whose Namebase
research database software remains very useful, originally attempted
to keep my criticisms of his defense of Fletcher Prouty in
perspective. He later began openly praising "Spotlight," claiming he
could find no anti-Jewish bias in its pages, and denouncing me as part
of an alleged PC thought police movement on the left.
Craig Hulet called to complain and stayed on the line for an
interview, which, if nothing else, shows he has a sense of humor.
Barbara Honegger hung up when the interview turned to the LaRouchians.
When I called back, she insisted the earlier interview was off the
record. However, since I had identified myself as a journalist
working on an article at the outset of our conversation, I feel it is
fair to quote her here. Both Fletcher Prouty and Sherman Skolnick
agreed to interviews but dodged many questions. Prouty hung up with
the interview in progress, but his subsequent letters have shown
considerable wit. Victor Marchetti sent me some free samples of his
newsletter.
A number of persons sent me information and comments through the
Peacenet computer network. My information about cities in which
LaRouchians were active came primarily through this medium. Many
other people provided information through the mail and by telephone
and I wish to thank them for their efforts without which this paper
would not be so detailed.
I wish to acknowledge several staff members of the Christic Institute,
and the Institute's client and named plaintiff, Tony Avirgan, who
attempted to spark an internal discussion of these issues. I regret
that this effort failed.
Finally, I do not think for a moment that this paper represents the
last word on the subject, but I do believe the only thing more painful
and disruptive than provoking this discussion would have been silence.
-Chip Berlet
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Introduction
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Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
"...fascism is not confined to any specific era, culture or countries.
Far from being a phenomenon limited to the European states which have
experienced fascist regimes, movements of this type are to be found in
practically every western country, and indeed are growing more
strident in the leading democratic societies which have never
experienced fascist rule--Britain and America."
(Paul Wilkinson)
(The New Fascists, 1981)
Fascist political movements are experiencing a resurgence around the
world. In the United States, the 1992 presidential campaigns of David
Duke, Patrick Buchanan, and H. Ross Perot echoed different elements
of historic fascism. Duke's neo-Nazi past resonates, in a consciously
sanitized form, in his current formulations of white supremacist and
anti-Jewish political theories. Duke has embraced key elements of the
neo-Nazi Christian Identity religion. Buchanan's theories of
isolationist nationalism and xenophobia hearken back to the
proto-fascist ideas of the 1930's "America First" movement and its
well-known promoters, Charles Lindbergh and Father Charles Coughlin.
In his Republican convention speech, Buchanan eerily invoked Nazi
symbols of blood, soil and honor. Perot's candidacy provided us with
a contemporary model of the fascist concept of the organic leader, the
"Man on a White Horse" whose strong egocentric commands are seen as
reflecting the will of the people. These three candidacies were
played out as the Bush Administration pursued its agenda of a managed
corporate economy, a repressive national security state, and an
aggressive foreign policy based on military threat, all of which
borrows heavily from the theories of corporatism, militarism, and
authoritarianism adopted by Italian fascism.
Duke, Buchanan, and Perot all fed on the politics of resentment,
alienation, frustration, anger and fear. Their supporters tended to
blame our vexing societal problems on handy scapegoats and they sought
salvation from a strong charismatic leader. Most progressives
vigorously rejected these candidacies and were not reluctant to point
out the fascist strains. But there are other strains of fascism
active today, and the siren calls of those movements may mesmerize
progressives whose anti-government fervor blinds them to historical
lessons. [f-1]
1. See the prescient article on "The Politics of Frustration"
by conservative Republican analyst Kevin Phillips in
"The New York Times Magazine," April 12, 1992, pp. 38-42.
While much attention has been paid to the more extreme
biological-determinist neo-Nazi groups such as racist skinheads, there
has also been steady growth in other forms of Fascism. Corporatism
(sometimes called corporativism) and the economic nationalist branch
of fascism are being revived. In Eastern Europe, racial nationalism,
a key component of fascism, has surfaced in many new political
parties, and is a driving force behind the tragic bloodletting and
drive for "ethnic cleansing" in the former nation of Yugoslavia.
Other pillars of fascism such as racism, xenophobia, anti-Jewish
theories and anti-immigrant scapegoating provide a sinister backdrop
for increasing physical assaults on people of color and lesbians and
gay men.
Further complicating matters is the reemergence in Europe of fascist
ideologies that promote concepts of racial nationalism: a national
socialist strain of fascist ideology called the Third Position or
Third Way, and its more intellectual aristocratic ally called the
European New Right (" Nouvelle Droit"). [f-2] Intellectual leaders of
the European New Right, such as Alain de Benoist, are hailed as
profound thinkers in U.S. reactionary publications such as the
Rockford Institute's "Chronicles". The more overtly neo-Nazi segment
of the Third Position has intellectual links to the Strasserite wing
of German national socialism, and is critical of Hitler's brand of
Nazism for having betrayed the working class. [f-3] Third Position
groups believe in a racially-homogeneous decentralized tribal form of
nationalism, and claim to have evolved an ideology "beyond communism
and capitalism."
2. For a brilliant short essay on the rise of the "Nouvelle Droit"
see "Pograms Begin in the Mind" by Wolfgang Haug, a
transcribed lecture with a challenging introduction
by Janet Biehl. "Green Perspectives," May 1992, (P.O.
Box 111, Burlington, Vermont 05402).
3. See magazines such as "Scorpion" or "Third Way"
published in England.
Third Position adherents actively seek to recruit from the left. One
such group is the American Front in Portland, Oregon, which runs a
phone hotline that in late November, 1991 featured an attack on
critics of left/right coalitions. White supremacist leader Tom
Metzger promotes Third Position politics in his newspaper "WAR" which
stands for White Aryan Resistance. In Europe, the Third Position
defines its racial-nationalist theories in publications such as "Third
Way" and "The Scorpion" . Some Third Position themes have surfaced in
the ecology movement and other movements championed by progressives.
The growth of fascist and proto-fascist ideology has created a dynamic
where persons from far-right and fascist political groups in the
United States are attempting to convince progressive activists to join
forces to oppose certain government policies where there is a shared
critique. The fascist right has wooed the progressive left primarily
around opposition to such issues as the use of U.S. troops in foreign
military interventions, support for Israel, the problems of CIA
misconduct and covert action, domestic government repression, privacy
rights, and civil liberties.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with building coalitions with
conservatives or libertarians around issues of common concern, but a
problem does arise when the persons seeking to join a coalition have
racist, anti-Jewish or anti-democratic agendas. Besides being morally
offensive, these persons often peddle scapegoating theories that can
divide existing coalitions.
In fact, as the far right made overtures to the left in the early
1980's, some of the classic scapegoating conspiracy theories of the
far right began to seep into progressive, and even mainstream,
analyses of foreign policy and domestic repression. [f-4]
4. For a lengthy discussion of scapegoating and witch hunts,
see the September/October 1992 issue of "The Humanist"
with a special section on "Credulity, Superstition, and
Fanaticism," which includes the author's article on the
far right's scapegoating of secular humanism.
The promotion of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories by the Christic
Institute, the Pacifica Radio network, and scores of alternative radio
stations, has created a large audience, especially on the West Coast,
that gullibly accepts undocumented anti-government assertions
alongside scrupulous documented research, with little ability to tell
the two apart. The audience was expanded through public speaking,
radio interviews, sales of audiotapes and videotapes, and published
articles. Elevated to leadership roles were those persons who were
willing to make the boldest and most critical (albeit unsubstantiated)
pronouncements about the U.S. government and U.S. society. This
phenomenon has undermined serious institutional and economic analysis,
replacing it with a diverting soap opera of individual conspiracies,
and inadvertently creating an audience ripe for harvesting by fascist
demagoguery.
While they are prodigious researchers, many of the theories and
conclusions offered by John Judge, Mark Lane, Daniel Sheehan, Dave
Emory, Barbara Honegger, Dennis Bernstein, and the late Mae Brussell
are seriously flawed, frequently fail to meet minimal standards of
logic, and on balance are unreliable. [f-5] The views of these
conspiracy peddlers are frequently promoted on alternative radio
programs, and they have created a progressive constituency that
confuses demagoguery with leadership, and undocumented conspiracism
with serious research. Many of their followers seem unable to
determine when an analysis supports or undermines the progressive
goals of peace, social justice and economic fairness. This is
primarily a problem within the white left, but in some Black
nationalist constituencies the same dynamic has also popularized
conspiracy theories which in some cases reflect anti-Jewish themes
long circulated by the far right.
5. Many of these conspiracy peddlers are promoted in the
catalog from the California-based Prevailing Winds,
and a spokesperson for Prevailing Winds complained in
a letter to "The Progressive" that I had attacked
John Judge as right wing. While I have criticized
John Judge's lunatic and undocumented conspiracy
theories as "sincerely motivated but misguided," and am
deeply troubled by Judge's promotion of Fletcher Prouty,
I have never called Prevailing Winds nor John Judge
right-wing; nor did Toronto's "NOW Magazine" in their
accurate and devastating article on Judge that quoted
Jane Hunter and me as critics.
Conspiracism and demagoguery feature simplistic answers to complex
problems. During periods of economic or social crisis, people may
seek to alleviate anxiety by embracing simple solutions, often
including scapegoating. This often manifests itself in virulent
attacks on persons of different races and cultures who are painted as
alien conspiratorial forces undermining the coherent national will.
Conspiracism, scapegoating, and demagoguery are prime ingredients of
fascist ideology. Certainly progressives who supported the meteoric
presidential candidacy of H. Ross Perot reflected a myopic
misunderstanding of the role demagoguery and anti-regime rhetoric play
in building a mass-base for fascism. Perot himself was not a fascist,
but the political base he was forging could easily have been shaped
into a fascist movement given the necessary economic and political
conditions. Historically, demagogues project an image of strength and
confidence which some persons in a society facing social and economic
upheaval can find attractive. [f-6]
6. See generally Arendt, Hannah. "The Origins of
Totalitarianism," New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1973 (original edition 1951); Chorover,
Stephen L. "From Genesis to Genocide," Cambridge, MA:
The MIT Press, 1980; Hofstadter, Richard. "Anti-
Intellectualism in American Life," New York:
Knopf, 1963; Askenasy, Hans. "Are We All Nazis?"
Secaucus, N.J.: Lyle Stuart, 1978.
The phenomenon of the right wooing the left became highly visible
during the 1990 military buildup preceding the Gulf War. Followers of
Lyndon LaRouche attended antiwar meetings and rallies in some thirty
cities, and other right-wing organizers from groups such as the John
Birch Society and the Populist Party passed out flyers at antiwar
demonstrations across the country. While these right-wing groups
undeniably opposed war with Iraq, they also promoted ideas that peace
and social justice activists have historically found objectionable.
Many people seeking to forge alliances with the left around
anti-government and anti-interventionist policies also promote
Eurocentric, anti-pluralist, patriarchal, or homophobic views. Some
are profoundly anti-democratic; others support the idea that the U.S.
is a Christian republic. A few openly promote white supremacist,
anti-Jewish, or neo-Nazi theories.
While there is inevitable overlap at the edges of political movements,
the far-right and fascist sectors being discussed in this study are
separate and distinct from traditional conservatism, the right wing of
the Republican Party, libertarianism, anarchism, and other political
movements sometimes characterized as right wing. The John Birch
Society, for instance, is a far-right reactionary political movement,
but it attempts to distance itself from racialist and anti-Jewish
theories. Other groups analyzed in this paper, such as the Populist
Party, Liberty Lobby, and the LaRouchians, on the other hand,
represent a continuation of the racialist, anti-democratic theories of
fascism.
It is important to differentiate between the fascist right and persons
on the left who in a variety of ways have been lured by the overtures
of the fascist right and its conspiracist theories, or who have ended
up wittingly or unwittingly in coalitions with spokespersons for the
fascist right, or who have contact with the fascist right as part of
serious and legitimate research into political issues.
In some cases progressive groups have begun to address the problems
created by this courtship by the right. Radio station WBAI aired
several hours of programming within a week of discovering that their
broadcasts had included interviews with persons whose right-wing
affiliations were not disclosed to the listeners. "The Progressive,"
"The Guardian," "Z Magazine" and "In These Times" have run articles
and commentaries on the situation, as have the alternative newspapers
"Portland Alliance," "East Bay Express" and "San Francisco Weekly" .
Pacifica radio stations KPFK and KPFA in California, however, waited
months before their listeners even learned there was a debate over
these issues, and as of the publication date of this revised report,
continue to air persons linked to racist, anti-Jewish, and homophobic
movements without proper identification.
The Christic Institute has been especially reluctant to renounce
publicly attempts by the fascist right to imply an alliance with their
organization. Rightists such as Bo Gritz and Craig Hulet continue to
imply that they work closely with Daniel Sheehan and Father Bill Davis
of the Christic Institute, while the response from the Christic
Institute has been tardy and equivocal.
In part, the fascist right has been able to forge ties to the left due
to a serious lack of knowledge on the left regarding the complex
history, different forms, and multiple tactics of fascism. Among
those tactics are the use of scapegoating, reductionist and simplistic
solutions, demagoguery, and a conspiracy theory of history. [f-7]
Fascists have historically used radical-sounding or populist appeals
and adopted themes opportunistically from socialism and the labor
movement, and then mixed those themes with theories of nationalism and
racial pride. Nazi, after all, is an abbreviated acronym of the
National "Socialist" German Workers Party.
7. For a deeper understanding of fascism and its use of
scapegoating, see: A. J. Nichols, "Weimar and the
Rise of Hitler" (New York: St. Martin's Press,
1979), Daniel Guerin, "Fascism and Big
Business" (New York: Monad Press/Pathfinder, 1973),
James Joes, "Fascism in the Contemporary World: Ideology,
Evolution, Resurgence" (Boulder: Westview, 1978).
In addition, there are a variety of forms of populism, some
progressive, some regressive and dictatorial. Margaret Canovan in her
study of populism describes two main branches of populism and seven
sub-variants. Peter Fritzsche in "Rehearsals for Fascism: Populism
and Political Mobilization in Weimar Germany" shows that middle-class
populists in Weimar launched bitter attacks against both the
government and big business. This populist surge was later harvested
by the Nazis which parasitized the forms and themes of the reactionary
populists and moved their constituencies far to the right through
demagoguery and scapegoating.
Theories of racialist nationalism and national socialism are not
widely known in the United States. If they were, it is unlikely that
any serious progressive would be seduced by the right's idea of an
alliance to smash the powerful corrupt center, based on a shared
agenda critical of government policies. This concept has an unsavory
historical track record. The European fascist movements in the 1930's
flourished in a period of economic collapse, political turmoil, and
social crisis. The German Nazi party, during its early national
socialist phase, openly enlisted progressive support to smash the
corrupt and elitist Weimar government.
When the government began to collapse, however, powerful industrial
and banking interests recruited Hitler to take control the government
in order to prevent economic chaos, which would have displaced them as
power brokers and brought in socialism. In return for state control,
Hitler quickly liquidated the leadership of his national socialist
allies in a murderous spree called the "Night of the Long Knives."
Once state power had been consolidated, the Nazis went on to liquidate
the left before lining up Jews, labor leaders, intellectuals,
dissidents, homosexuals, Poles, Gypsies (the Romani), dark-skinned
immigrants, the infirm, and others deemed undesirable.
While conditions in the United States may only faintly echo the
financial and social turmoil of the Weimar regime, the similarities
cannot be dismissed lightly, nor should the catastrophic power of
state fascism and the repression of an authoritarian government be
confused.
In some cases, people who believe themselves to be progressive
activists see no moral problem with alliances with the fascist right,
so long as the shared enemy is the Bush Administration. Some people
who consider themselves progressive even argue that a fascist
government could not be any worse than the Reagan and Bush
Administrations, with their devastating effects on the poor and
persons of color. Because they feel current policies are nearly
genocidal, they say they will work with any ally to smash the status
quo. This view dangerously underestimates the murderous quality of
fascism. Similarly, other progressives argued in favor of supporting
Duke or Buchanan for President in order to draw votes away from Bush
and thus elect the Democratic candidate. While Duke and Buchanan had
little chance of election, any progressive support for their
candidacies minimized the dangers involved in supporting a national
political movement which uses fascist themes. [f-8]
8. The author heard these arguments raised by audience
members during speaking engagements in late 1991.
This study seeks to sharpen the debate over how to handle the
phenomenon of the right wooing the left, and is not meant to divide or
attack the left, which is being victimized by these approaches. As
anti-fascist author George Seldes pointed out over fifty years ago,
"The enemy is always the Right. Fascism and Reaction inevitably
attack. They have won against disunion. They will fail if we unite."
There are four separate but related dilemmas posed by the phenomenon
of the fascist right wooing the left:
1) How to educate progressive forces about the history of fascism, so
the left is not lured into a repetition of past mistakes, and can more
readily identify anti-democratic theories.
2) How to reject unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, demagoguery and
scapegoating (from the right or the left), while at the same time
promoting a vigorous critique of government repression, covert action,
and social injustice.
3) How progressive journalists and researchers should handle contacts
with the political far right, and how rightists should be identified
by journalists when they are used as sources.
4) How progressive political coalitions should handle overtures by the
political right which suggest tactical or strategic alliances around
issues of common concern, and to what extent it is necessary for
groups and individuals to distance themselves publicly from fascists
who imply an alliance when one does not exist.
This study begins with a brief overview of several paranoid conspiracy
theories prevalent in contemporary right-wing circles. It then
examines the right wing's anti-government critique and rightist
influences on Christic Institute's theories of Iran-Contragate.
There is a large section on the Gulf War period, including an
extensive examination of the LaRouchians' attempts to penetrate the
progressive antiwar movement, as well as a brief look at the
activities of other far-right groups (both pro-war and
anti-interventionist) during the Gulf War. This section includes a
discussion of the surprising involvement of some formerly prominent
civil rights leaders with LaRouchian and other neo-fascist groups.
A discussion of left/right coalition building focuses on the appeal of
radio personality Craig Hulet. The next section examines the
emergence of anti-Jewish bigotry within Black nationalist movements.
In a section on Fascists as information sources, there is a
preliminary attempt to establish some criteria for discussion of the
complex issues involved. There is a section on logical fallacies,
propaganda, demagoguery and the pitfalls of unsubstantiated
conspiracism. Finally, there is a brief discussion of the overall
dilemma and a suggestion that further study and open discussion are
needed to sort out the complex and confusing issues raised by but,
alas, not answered by this report.
=====================================================================
Part 1: Paranoid Conspiracism and the Right
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
After the Alaska Green Party held its convention in March 1992 in
Fairbanks, the newly-elected chair, Ronnie Rosenberg, began to poke
around. She wanted to figure out what was behind several convention
resolutions with unusually idiosyncratic themes and why individuals
who clearly had their own peculiar agendas were showing up at Green
Party meetings. She discovered the Greens had attracted a new
constituency. "These people were clearly not from the progressive
movement, and some didn't even know what was in our party platform,"
says Rosenberg. "They were against big government and distrustful of
bureaucracy and authority, and they clearly wanted to build alliances
with us."
What most concerned Rosenberg was that some of the would-be Greens who
seemed wound up in their own conspiracy theories might be involved
with Far Right groups.
"We want to give people a fair hearing and we don't want to close
ourselves off from sincere new members since we do want to build
coalitions, "says Rosenberg," but we don't want to be used as a
vehicle for some hidden right-wing agenda." Rosenberg, active with the
Tanana-Yukon Greens, wants to be sure that sincere people don't get
co-opted." I guess we just have to keep our eyes open," she says.
There are many individuals around the country promoting
unsubstantiated and often paranoid conspiracy theories in
publications, lectures and radio talk show interviews. While some of
these conspiracy theories are very attractive on the surface, and are
undeniably entertaining, they ultimately serve to distract people from
serious analysis and crowd out serious discussion of government
misconduct, covert action, foreign policy, and civil liberties. It
doesn't matter if the source is sincere, psychotic, sensationalist, or
sent with disinformation by sinister souls to sink the story, the
result is that careful and arduous investigations into a story are
undermined as each element of an elaborate conspiracy theory is
disproven.
There certainly are real conspiracies in history, and the U.S.
political scene has been littered during the past thirty years with
examples of illegal political and government operations ranging from
Watergate to Iran Contragate, and from the FBI's Counterintelligence
Program (COINTELPRO) to the systematic looting of the savings and loan
industry. Separating real conspiracies from the fictional,
non-rational, lunatic, or deliberately fabricated variety is the
problem faced by serious researchers, activists, and journalists. In
this paper the term conspiracy theorist refers to someone whose
analysis of documents, statements, and other evidence has become
uncoupled from a logical train of thought.
Unsubstantiated conspiracy theories peddled by questionable sources
have infected some major stories, and can be found to varying degrees
in the story of an alleged "October Surprise", the Christic
Institute's "Secret Team" theory, the late writer Danny Casolaro's
"Octopus" theory, some versions of the Iran-Contra scandal, the
savings and loan debacle, BCCI, the search for POWs and MIAs, the Drug
War, AIDS, the apparent theft of Promis software, covert action, and
CIA secret machinations. Dubious conspiracism has become widely
accepted on the left, with large audiences mesmerized by endless tales
of intrigue broadcast on progressive and alternative radio stations.
Stations on the Pacifica radio network, especially FM stations KPFA,
KPFK and WBAI, are major sources of conspiratorial analysis.
A surprising number of conspiracy mongers, whether or not they
self-identify as right wing, are peddling variations on long-standing
paranoid right-wing conspiracy theories in which sinister global
elites secretly manipulate world events. While some information
circulated by the far right may be factual, other material can be
unsubstantiated rumors or lunatic conspiracy theories. Some material
is bigoted and embodies racist or anti-Jewish theories. Paranoid
conspiracy theories of secret control have been promulgated for
decades by the far right in the U.S., and were analyzed by historian
Richard Hofstadter in his book "The Paranoid Style in American
Politics." [f-9] "The central preconception of the paranoid style,"
wrote Hofstadter, is the belief in "the existence of a vast,
insidious, preternaturally effective international conspiratorial
network designed to perpetrate acts of the most fiendish character."
9. The most useful general sources of information on U.S.
right-wing conspiracy theories and the basis for
understanding the role of reductionism and scapegoating
in these movements are: Richard Hofstadter, "The
Paranoid Style in American Politics" (New York:
Knopf, 1965); George Johnson, "Architects of Fear:
Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia in American
Politics" (Los Angeles: Tarcher/Houghton Mifflin,
1983); and Frank P. Mintz, "The Liberty Lobby and
the American Right: Race, Conspiracy, and Culture"
(Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1985).
Political movements with paranoid conspiracist theories have garnished
the American political scene since the Salem Witch Trials and the
anti-Masonic hysteria in the 1700's. Adherents of these conspiracy
theories remain a small isolated minority except during times of
economic or social stress when a mass following develops to blame
selected scapegoats for the problems besetting the society.
Groups at various times scapegoated as the engines behind the global
conspiracy include: Jews, bankers, Catholics, communists, Black
militants, civil rights activists, anarchists, the Bavarian Illuminati
society, Jesuits, the Rockefellers, the Council on Foreign Relations,
Israeli secret police, Trilateralists, [f-10] the Bilderberger banking
group, and Soviet KGB agents.
10. Holly Sklar's books and articles on Trilateralism
avoids the conspiracism that infects much
writing about this group.
In paranoid political philosophies, the world is divided into us and
them. Evil conspirators control world events. A special few have
been given the knowledge of this massive conspiracy and it is their
solemn duty to spread the alarm across the land.
Conspiracism and scapegoating go hand-in-hand, and both are key
ingredients of the fascist phenomenon. Fascism is difficult to define
succinctly. As Roger Scruton observes in "A Dictionary of Political
Tought," fascism is "An amalgam of disparate conceptions." [f-11]
11. Scruton, Roger. "A Dictionary of Political Tought,"
London: The Macmillan Press, 1982, p. 169.
"[Fascism is] more notable as a political phenomenon on which diverse
intellectual influences converge than as a distinct idea; as political
phenomenon, one of its most remarkable features has been the ability
to win massive popular support for ideas that are expressly
anti-egalitarian."
"Fascism is characterised by the following features (not all of which
need be present in any of its recognized instances): nationalism;
hostility to democracy, to egalitarianism, and to the values of the
enlightenment; the cult of the leader, and admiration for his special
qualities; a respect for collective organization, and a love of the
symbols associated with it, such as uniforms, parades and army
discipline."
"The ultimate doctrine contains little that is specific, beyond an
appeal to energy, and action."
Another way to look at fascism is as a movement of extreme racial or
cultural nationalism, combined with economic corporatism and
authoritarian autocracy; masked during its rise to state power by
pseudo-radical populist appeals to overthrow a conspiratorial elitist
regime; spurred by a strong charismatic leader whose reactionary ideas
are said to organically express the will of the masses who are urged
to engage in a heroic collective effort to attain a metaphysical goal
against the machinations of a scapegoated demonized adversary.
In any case, in most definitions of fascism the themes of conspiracism
and a needed scapegoat emerge.
In recent years the four main centers of paranoid conspiracism and
scapegoating on the right have been the John Birch Society, the
Liberty Lobby, the LaRouchians, and the movement known as the New
Right.
=====================================================================
Part 2: The New Right & The Secular Humanism Conspiracy
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
The reactionary New Right, a movement which emerged to help
orchestrate the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980,
contains an implicit conspiracy theory regarding subversion by secular
humanism that is drawn from earlier right-wing political movements.
Reactionary conservative opposition to racial equality, economic
justice, and social change has long been the breeding ground for
racial and cultural bigotry in America.
In the 1956 book "Cross-Currents" (sponsored by the Anti-Defamation
League of B'nai B'rith before its conversion to neo-conservative
analysis) authors Arnold Forster and Benjamin R. Epstein examined
this phenomenon:
"Three overlapping forces seem to be coalescing as we begin the
presidential election year 1956--the hate groups, welded to one
another by the anti-Semitism they all exploit; latter-day
know-nothings who in their fear of communism oppose civil liberties as
a weakness in our ramparts; extreme political reactionaries who are
unable or unwilling to recognize the bigots among those joining their
movement."
"The three forces are unified on many issues, including opposition to
the present programs and leadership of the Republican and Democratic
parties, to the United Nations and its UNESCO, to modern education as
we know it in the United States, and to the socio-economic changes
that have come on the domestic scene over the last two decades."
"...we have examined (those) in the field of professional bigotry, the
mechanics of their operations, and the ugly substance of their
propaganda. We have seen the panic created by the know-nothings and
how they have hurt people. To complete the picture, we should direct
our attention to the activities of the reactionary movement, probing
for a moment its motivations, the character of its contribution to
current events, and its impact on our nation."
The idea of a conscious and powerful secular humanist movement is
surprisingly widespread on the political right. "How well can you
answer the secular humanists?" asks a direct mail advertisement from
the Conservative Book Club offering as selections "Major treatments of
two modern scourges: atheism and feminism." While there are variations
and debates, the central theme is promoted by groups such as the
Heritage Foundation, Free Congress Foundation, Phyllis Schlafly's
Eagle Forum, Concerned Women for America, Conservative Caucus, John
Birch Society, Summit Ministries, Christian Anti-Communism Crusade,
and the televangelist ministries of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.
Author Sara Diamond in her book "Spiritual Warfare: the Politics of
the Christian Right" calls Secular Humanism the "Boogey-Man" of
right-wing fundamentalism. According to Diamond, "Among Christian
Right leaders, the primary advocate of war on secular humanism has
been Tim LaHaye, one of the founders of the Moral Majority and head of
the American Coalition for Traditional Values." Diamond says that in
the 1970's LaHaye developed "an elaborate theory on the humanist
conspiracy, linking the ACLU, the NAACP, the National Organization for
Women, Hollywood movie producers and even Unitarianism to the
impending downfall of modern civilization. The solution, LaHaye
argues, is for Christian moralists to seize control of political and
ideological institutions."
Another early example of this thesis was the 1976 Heritage Foundation
tract titled "Secular Humanism and the Schools: The Issue Whose Time
Has Come," Author Onalee McGraw argues that advocates of humanist
education such as John Dewey, Jean Piaget, and Abraham Maslow "have
made `socialization' of the child the main purpose of American
education." Humanistic education does not focus on "the traditional
and generally accepted virtues" stressed by the "Judeo-Christian
principles taught by most families at home," says McGraw, but on
theories of "moral relativism and situation ethics" which are "based
on predominantly materialistic values found only in man's nature
itself" and "without regard for the Judeo-Christian moral order, which
is based on the existence and fatherhood of a personal God."
According to McGraw, humanistic education has lead to the "precipitous
deterioration of learning achievement in our schools" evidenced by
declining SAT scores. Her solution was to advocate federal and state
legislation barring role-playing, sensitivity training, values
clarification, moral education, or the teaching of situation ethics.
The tract included the text of the Secular Humanism Amendment
submitted to Congress in 1976 which sought to ban federal funding of
educational programs" involving any aspect of the religion of Secular
Humanism."
Academics trace the roots of the secular humanist conspiracy phobia to
a turn of the century movement called Nativism which fought the growth
of labor unions and the arrival of ethnically-diverse immigrants. The
movement coalesced during the turmoil of the Bolshevik revolution and
World War I, and soon popularized the fear of the Red Menace and the
idea that America was being destroyed from within by subversives.
Author Frank Donner's 500-page book "The Age of Surveillance" is
considered the definitive study of the theories underlying the fear of
the "Red Menace" by the subversive-hunting nativists.
According to Donner:
"The root anti-subversive impulse was fed by the Menace. Its power
strengthened with the passage of time, by the late twenties its
influence had become more pervasive and folkish. Bolshevism came to
be identified over wide areas of the country by God-fearing Americans
as the Antichrist come to do eschatological battle with the children
of light. A slightly secularized version, widely-shared in rural and
small-town America, postulated a doomsday conflict between decent
upright folk and radicalism--alien, satanic, immorality incarnate."
Professor Richard Hofstadter laid out the three basic elements of
contemporary right-wing thought shared by many paranoid nativists and
reactionaries:
"First, there has been the now familiar sustained conspiracy, running
over more than a generation, and reaching its climax in Roosevelt's
New Deal, to undermine free capitalism, to bring the economy under the
direction of the federal government, and to pave the way for socialism
or communism...."
"The second contention is that top government officialdom has been so
infiltrated by Communists that American policy, at least since the
days leading up to Pearl Harbor, has been dominated by sinister men
who were shrewdly and consistently selling out American national
interests."
"The final contention is that the country is infused with a network of
communist agents. . .so that the whole apparatus of education,
religion, the press, and the mass media are engaged in a common effort
to paralyze the resistance of loyal Americans."
For many years the decline of the west caused by liberalism as an ally
of communism was a mainstay theory of the Old Right. It fed the Cold
War and the witch-hunts of the McCarthy period. In the late 1950's
and early 1960's a network of nativist anti-communists spread the
gospel of the Red Menace through books, magazine articles and
workshops. Perhaps the most influential leaders of this movement was
Dr. Fred Schwartz and his California-based Christian Anti-communism
Crusade. A tireless lecturer, Schwartz in 1960 authored "You Can
Trust the Communists (to be Communists)" which sold over one million
copies. It soon became the secular Bible of the nativists.
Schwartz's newsletter once suggested that communists promote abortion,
pornography, homosexuality, venereal disease and mass murder (his
list) as a way to weaken the moral fiber of America and pave the way
for a communist takeover.
The views on intractable godless communism expressed by Schwartz were
central themes in three other widely distributed books which were used
to mobilize support for the 1964 Goldwater campaign. The best known
was Phyllis Schlafly's "A Choice, Not an Echo" which suggested a
conspiracy theory in which the Republican Party was secretly
controlled by elitist intellectuals dominated by members of the
Bilderberger group, whose policies would usher in global communist
conquest. Schlafly's husband Fred had been a lecturer at Schwartz's
local Christian Anti-communism Crusade conferences.
Schlafly elaborate on the theme of the global communist conspiracy and
its witting and unwitting domestic allies in a book on military
preparedness tailored to and published in support of the Goldwater
campaign, "The Gravediggers," co-authored with retired Rear Admiral
Chester Ward. Ward, a member of the National Strategy Committee of
the American Security Council was also a lecturer at the Foreign
Policy Research Institute which formulated many benchmark Cold War
anti-communist strategies. "The Gravediggers," showed how U.S.
military strategy and tactics was actually designed to pave the way
for global communist conquest.
Often overlooked because of the publicity surrounding "A Choice, Not
an Echo" (the title became one of Goldwater's campaign slogans), was
Stormer's, "None Dare Call it Treason," which outlined how the
equivocation of Washington insiders would pave the way for global
communist conquest. "None Dare Call it Treason" sold over seven
million copies, making it one of the largest-selling paperback books
of the day. The back cover summarizes the text as detailing "the
communist-socialist conspiracy to enslave America" and documenting
"the concurrent decay in America's schools, churches, and press which
has conditioned the American people to accept 20 years of retreat in
the face of the communist enemy." Stormer recently updated his text to
expand on his theory of how secular humanism played a key role in
undermining America.
All of the above-mentioned books were primarily self-published and
circulated through word of mouth. Their effect on the U.S. political
scene, coupled with an aggressive grassroots organizing campaign, was
virtually invisible until the 1964 Republican convention where
delegates such as Schlafly and Stormer rallied the Goldwater
supporters they had helped organize precinct by precinct. The
Goldwater nomination was the high point for the resurgent nativists in
the 1960's, but mainstream Republicans were not ready for the nativist
political agenda, nor was the American electorate.
The overwhelming defeat of Goldwater in the general election was a
disappointment to the nativists, but it was seen as a temporary
setback. Starting with Goldwater contributor lists, a new generation
of ultra-conservatives set out to build what became known as the New
Right. Not all persons affiliated with the Old Right and New Right
shared a high level of paranoid thinking--Goldwater himself rejected
the more extreme views--yet paranoid conspiracy theories, much of it
transplanted from the John Birch Society, infused much New Right
thinking. With the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the New
Right has shifted its focus from anti-communism to the perceived
domestic brand of subversion by collectivist secularist elites with
their calls for internationalist or globalist cooperation and their
disdain for "traditional" family values.
=====================================================================
Part 3: John Birch Society
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
For the John Birch Society and similar groups, the phrase "New World
Order" used by the Bush Administration is proof of their assertion
that a long-standing conspiracy promoting "One World Government" and
collectivist society controls all major world governments. They point
to the Masonic emblems and slogans on the back of the U.S. one dollar
bill as evidence.
The Birch Society is highly critical of mass democratic movements for
social change, including those that seek equality for women, gay men
and lesbians, Blacks, Hispanics, and recent immigrants from Asia and
Central America. The Birchers believe most world governments are
controlled by a handful of conspirators they dub "The Insiders."
The JBS has in recent years tried to avoid anti-Jewish or racist
rhetoric, instead basing its theories on the belief that all major
world powers, including the U.S. and the Soviet Union, are controlled
by a covert group of "Insiders," such as members of the Trilateral
Commission, the Bilderberg banking conference, or the Council on
Foreign Relations.
The "Blue Book" of the John Birch Society has been given to each new
member since Belmont, Massachusetts candy maker Robert Welch founded
the group at an Indianapolis meeting of twelve "patriotic and
public-spirited" men in 1958. According to the "Blue Book," both the
U.S. and Soviet governments are controlled by the same conspiratorial
international cabal of bankers, corrupt politicians and other
evil-doers. In recent years the Society has dubbed them the
"Insiders." In Birch theory, communism is merely one scam used by the
Insiders to control the world.
=====================================================================
Part 4: Liberty Lobby
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
Among the most influential ultra-right groups in the U.S. is the
virulently anti-Jewish Liberty Lobby. With its newspaper "Spotlight,"
Liberty Lobby spreads racialism across the U.S., and serves as a
bridge to the paramilitary and neo-Nazi right. The "Washington Post"
has described "Spotlight" as a "newspaper containing orthodox
conservative political articles interspersed with anti-Zionist tracts
and classified advertisements for Ku Klux Klan T-shirts,
swastika-marked German coins and cassette tapes of Nazi marching
songs." That description is actually mild.
"Spotlight," with a readership of some 200,000, claims it is neither
anti-Jewish nor pro-Nazi, but one article referred to the Waffen SS,
the elite corps of ideological Nazis, as a "multinational
anti-communist mass movement, which was, in fact, the largest
all-volunteer army in history." The "Spotlight" also celebrates
neo-Nazi skinheads and the apartheid government of South Africa.
Liberty Lobby, "Spotlight," the International Revisionist Conference,
the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), Noontide Press, and IHR's
"Journal of Historical Review" are all projects of Willis Carto, one
of America's most influential racial theorists. Carto is described by
the London-based anti-fascist magazine "Searchlight" as the "leading
U.S. publisher of anti-semitic, racist and pro-Nazi material."
Carto and Liberty Lobby were influential in creating the racialist
Populist Party and were primarily responsible for elevating David Duke
to national attention as an electoral candidate. In the spring of
1985 the Populist Party held a major meeting in Chicago where the
armed and confrontational activities of racist and anti-Jewish groups
in rural America were saluted as "heroic," according to persons who
attended the meeting. One group of rural farm activists from the
Midwest left the meeting after complaining that too many of the
attendees were obsessed with Jews. (A series of political and
financial schisms has ended the direct relationship between Liberty
Lobby and the Populist Party, although both groups still share many of
the fundamental anti-Jewish and racist theories.) The forces around
the Populist Party believe a conspiracy of rich and powerful Jews and
their allies control banking, foreign policy, the CIA and the media in
the United States. Like Duke, they also believe in an America
controlled by white Christians of exclusively European heritage.
The pseudo-scholarly Institute for Historical Review is a
"revisionist" research center and publishing house that popularizes
the calumny that the historical account of the Nazi Holocaust is a
Jewish hoax, an idea central to Carto's worldview. According to
researcher Russ Bellant, early in his career Willis Carto produced the
magazine "Western Destiny," which grew out of the Nordicist "Northern
World" and a vociferously anti-Jewish magazine called "Right." "Right"
recommended support for the American Nazi Party and was edited by E.
L. Anderson who was associate editor of "Western Destiny" . Critics
and co-workers of Carto claim E. L. Anderson was a pseudonym for
Willis Carto.
Liberty Lobby staff and supporters helped stage the 1978 meeting of
the World Anti-Communist League, a group that networks fascist
movements around the globe. According to the "Washington Post,"
Liberty Lobby workers distributed publications including "Spotlight"
at the WACL meeting. A few years later, after a change of leadership
and some mostly-cosmetic housecleaning to oust a few ardent Nazi
groups, WACL came under the leadership of retired General John "Jack"
Singlaub. Singlaub used WACL to raise money and support for the
Contras, and Singlaub and WACL were implicated in the Iran-Contra
hearings for having served as a cover and money laundry for the
activities of Oliver North.
While the John Birch Society trumpets jingoistic patriotism laced with
conspiracy theories, according to scholar Frank P. Mintz, the Liberty
Lobby voices "racist and anti-Semitic beliefs in addition to
conspiracism." Mintz explains:
"Structurally, the Lobby was a most unusual umbrella organization
catering to constituencies spanning the fringes of Neo-Nazism to the
John Birch Society and the radical right. It was not truly
paramilitary, in the manner of the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis, but was
more accurately an intermediary between racist paramilitary factions
and the recent right."
Former staffers at both the Liberty Lobby and LaRouche's group claim
both outfits have cooperated closely on several projects. In the
March 2, 1981 issue of its newspaper "Spotlight," Liberty Lobby
cynically defended the relationship this way:
"It is mystifying why so many anti-communists and `conservatives'
oppose the USLP [U.S. Labor Party--LaRouche's original electoral arm,
ed.]. No group has done so much to confuse, disorient, and disunify
the Left as they have...the USLP should be encouraged, as should all
similar breakaway groups from the Left, for this is the only way that
the Left can be weakened and broken."
More recently, "Spotlight" has distanced itself and Liberty Lobby from
the LaRouchians over the issue of the LaRouchians' questionable and
illegal fundraising activities.
=====================================================================
Part 5: The LaRouchians
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
The LaRouchians believe the world is controlled by a sinister global
conspiracy of evil-doers. LaRouche traces this conspiracy back to the
Babylonian goddess society, and says the historical battle between
good and evil is exemplified in the philosophical division between
Platonic order and Aristotelian chaos. The Aristotelian conspirators
are diverse: the Queen of England ("a dope pusher"), George Bernard
Shaw, Jimmy Carter ("a hundred times worse than Hitler"), Playboy
magazine, Milton Friedman, Fidel Castro, Jesuits, Masons and the
AFL-CIO. A remarkable number of the sinister conspirators turn out to
be Jewish.
The LaRouchians have supported foreign dictatorships such as the
Marcos regime in the Philippines and the Noriega regime in Panama.
LaRouche has written that history would not judge harshly those who
beat homosexuals to death with baseball bats to stop the spread of
AIDS.
In the early 1970's, Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. took his followers from
the political left and guided them into fascist politics. LaRouche's
cadre roamed the streets of New York, Philadelphia, and other cities
with clubs and chains beating up trade union leaders, activists,
socialists, and communists. At the time they still proclaimed
themselves leftists, but the mainstream left shunned the LaRouchians.
Then LaRouche began to adopt some of the economic theories of early
national socialism. He thought that to make the revolution, there had
to be a strong working class, and a strong working class, he figured,
required full-employment. Full employment, he reasoned, would best be
accomplished by developing a strong, modernized industrial base in the
United States. LaRouche then concluded that development of a strong
industrial sector was being hampered by the high interest rates
demanded by the main sectors of finance capital in the U.S. and
overseas.
LaRouche launched an unsuccessful 1976 Presidential bid when he paid
cash for an hour of network television air time to warn the nation of
a Soviet/Rockefeller/British plot to destroy the world using Jimmy
Carter as a puppet. LaRouche's attack on the centers of finance
capital during his presidential campaign drew applause from parts of
the American political far right, including those forces that equated
finance capital with Jewish banking families.
LaRouche's shift toward a Jewish conspiracy theory of history came
shortly after the ultra-right Liberty Lobby began praising a 1976 USLP
pamphlet titled "Carter and the International Party of Terrorism." The
pamphlet outlined the "Rockefeller-CIA-Carter axis," which was
supposedly trying to "deindustrialize" the U.S. and provoke a war
with the Soviet Union by 1978. (At this point LaRouche had not yet
discarded his support for the Soviet Union, nor announced his support
for "Star Wars" defense against his perceived threat of imminent
Soviet attack.)
In an overall favorable review of the USLP treatise on the
Rockefeller-led global conspiracy, Liberty Lobby's newspaper,
"Spotlight," complained that the report failed to mention any of the
"major Zionist groups such as the notorious Anti-Defamation League" in
its extensive list of government agencies, research groups,
organizations and individuals controlled by the
"Rockefeller-Carter-CIA" terrorism apparatus. LaRouche never was one
to miss a cue, and soon his newspaper "New Solidarity" was running
articles with bigoted views of Jews and Jewish institutions. The
shift regarding who controlled the worldwide conspiracy came at an
opportune time, since Nelson Rockefeller's untimely death had left a
major hole in LaRouche's theoretical bulwark.
While often hidden or coded, sometimes the anti-Jewish rhetoric of the
LaRouchians stands out clearly. In the December 12, 1990 issue of
"New Solidarity," a letter to the editor asks why the newspaper
"scarcely mention[s] the Warburg and Rothschild families, the most
important International Bankers. Is it because they are of Jewish
ancestry?" Editor Nancy Spannaus responds:
"We do attack the Warburgs and the Rothschilds for the evil they do
and did. But they are not the highest level of the international
financial oligarchy. That requires looking at the Thurn und Taxis
family, the British Royal Family, and so forth. These guys love to
use the so-called Jews as their front men."
According to LaRouche, one and a half million Jews, not many millions,
perished during the Holocaust, and they died from overwork, disease,
and starvation in work camps rather than from a planned program of
extermination. This denial of the Holocaust is coupled with
pronouncements in LaRouchian publications such as these:
"The first, and most important fact to be recognized concerning the
Hitler regime, is that Adolph Hitler was put into power in Germany on
orders from London. The documentation of this matter is abundant and
conclusive." (1978)
"America must be cleansed for its righteous war by the immediate
elimination of the Nazi Jewish Lobby and other British agents from the
councils of government, industry and labor." (1978)
"We shall end the rule of irrationalist episodic majorities, of
British liberal notions of `democracy.'" (c. 1980)
"Zionism is the state of collective psychosis through which London
manipulates most of international Jewry." (1978)
"Judaism is the religion of a caste of subjects of Christianity,
entirely molded by ingenious rabbis to fit into the ideological and
secular life of Christianity. in short, a self- sustaining Judaism
never existed and never could exist. As for Jewish culture otherwise,
it is merely the residue left to the Jewish home after everything
saleable has been marketed to the Goyim." (1973)
Sexism and homophobia are central themes of the organization's
conspiracy theories. LaRouche announced that women's feelings of
degradation in modern society could be traced to the physical
placement of sexual organs near the anus which caused them to confuse
sex with excretion. A September 1973 editorial in the NCLC
ideological journal "Campaigner" charged that "Concretely, all across
the U.S.A., there are workers who are prepared to fight. They are
held back, most immediately, by pressure from their wives...."
LaRouche has propounded ideas which represent outright racism.
LaRouche, for instance, targeted the Hispanic community in a November
1973 essay (published in both English and Spanish) titled "The Male
Impotence of the Puerto-Rican Socialist Party." An internal memo by
LaRouche asked "Can we imagine anything more viciously sadistic than
the Black Ghetto mother?" He described the majority of the Chinese
people as "approximating the lower animal species" by manifesting a
"paranoid personality....a parallel general form of fundamental
distinction from actual human personalities."
=====================================================================
Part 6: The White Supremacist Movement
=====================================================================
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
The most significant branch of the radical white supremacist movement
in the 1980's and 1990's is Christian Identity. "Identity is based on
the premise that the Jews are literally Children of Satan--the seed of
Cain, that people of color are `pre-Adamic' mud people--God's failures
before perfecting Adam, and that white Christian Aryans are the `Lost
Sheep of the House of Israel'-- chosen people, and therefore America
is the biblical promised land," explains Lenny Zeskind, research
director of the Center for Democratic Renewal.
"Some Identity members collect weapons and ammunition in expectation
that the Biblical `End-Times' are near," says Zeskind who wrote a
monograph on Christian Identity for the Division of Church and Society
of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. "Identity
theology binds together a number of previously isolated
groups...Important sections of the Ku Klux Klan, the neo-Nazi
movement, the Posse Comitatus, the Aryan Nations, and other groups
have adopted Identity theology," Zeskind reports.
Identity is based primarily on an earlier religious concept called
"British Israelism." The group most responsible for spreading
Christian Identity in the 1980's was the Posse Comitatus, a
loosely-knit survivalist movement which grew out of the Christian
Identity teachings of Col. William Potter Gale in California.
Survivalists believe the collapse of society is imminent, and thus
they collect weapons and conduct field exercises in armed self-defense
and reconnaissance. Some survivalists store large quantities of
grains, dried foods, canned goods, water and vitamins in anticipation
of long-projected economic or political collapse and racial rioting.
Many have moved to isolated rural areas. Not all survivalists are
part of the white supremacist movement, but many are.
The Posse Comitatus, Latin for "power of the county" but more
accurately transliterated as "to empower the citizenry," is the legal
concept used by sheriffs in Hollywood westerns to round up a posse and
chase the varmints. In modern legal terms it means the right to
deputize citizens to carry out law enforcement functions, and it also
is the basis of a federal law preventing the use of federal troops in
civilian law enforcement without the express consent of the President.
Members of the Posse Comitatus, however, promote an unsubstantiated
belief that the Constitution does not authorize any law enforcement
powers above the level of county sheriff, and that state and federal
officials above the county level are part of a gigantic conspiracy to
deny average citizens their rights.
Many Posse and Identity adherents believe Jews, Blacks, Communists,
homosexuals and race-traitors have seized control of the United
States. They refer to Washington, D.C. as the Zionist Occupational
Government (ZOG). They read the novel "The Turner Diaries" in which
an underground white army leads a revolution against ZOG.
In 1969 H. L. "Mike" Beach in Portland, Oregon began issuing
"Sheriff's Posse Comitatus" charters and handbooks. Soon Gale began
issuing his own charters and a handbook called the "Guide for
Volunteer Christian Posses." Early factionalism gave way to an
informal political and religious movement which began to grow. In the
early 1970's a Posse manifesto was issued in booklet form. In late
1974 a national Posse convention was held in Wisconsin with 200-300
attending.
The most visible and active branch of the Posse for many years was in
Wisconsin. The press gave much attention to Wisconsin Posse leader
James Wickstrom, although his claims to hold some vague national
leadership post was flatly contradicted by the autonomous and
anarchistic nature of the Posse itself.
States where Posse activity was reported in the 1980's included:
California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota,
Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South
Dakota, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
The most violent Posse confrontation involved the mishandled attempt
to serve legal papers on Posse activist Gordon Kahl. Two federal
agents from the Justice Department's U.S. Marshals Service were
killed, and several persons wounded. Kahl fled underground and was
later killed in another mishandled attempt to flush him from a
fortified bunker. Kahl and other white supremacists killed or jailed
by the government have become martyrs to Posse adherents and other
racists. After the Gordon Kahl incident, many Posse and Christian
Identity members decided to carry out activities in secret or through
front groups.
While the Posse was growing in the Midwest and west, members of Ku
Klux Klan and Nazi groups joined together for a deadly assault on an
anti-Klan rally in Greensboro, North Carolina on November 3, 1979.
Five members and supporters of the Communist Workers Party were killed
in the shootout. Following the Greensboro shootings and the death of
Gordon Kahl, a number of previously-antagonistic racist groups in
America began to make contact with each other, and began to establish
informal means of communication and information sharing. Christian
Identity was the glue than held the groups together.
Not all Klan groups accepted the new Identity-based coalition, but
those that did began to call themselves the Fifth Era Klan to demark
what they hoped would be the fifth period of growth by the Klan since
its inception. The Fifth Era Klan adherents sought to forge ties with
other racist groups across the nation. One concept hotly debated was
the idea of a mass movement of white supremacists to the pacific
northwest where there were relatively few minorities and a low
population density. Racist groups began to stage joint activities,
sometimes built around survivalist encampments. As this cooperation
became more formalized, what emerged was, in effect, a white racist
alliance which shared a belief in Identity. One of the leaders of the
movement in the northwest was Identity Pastor Richard Butler of the
Church of Jesus Christ--Christian which operated out of a compound
called Aryan Nations in Hayden Lake, Idaho.
The members of the group variously called The Order, White American
Bastion, or The Silent Brotherhood, who were convicted in Seattle for
staging armed robberies and murdering Denver talk show host Alan Berg,
were predominantly adherents of Identity organized out of the national
meetings held at Butler's Aryan Nations. According to the "Klanwatch
Intelligence Report" of the Southern Poverty Law Center:
"A look at the backgrounds of some of the 23 Order members prosecuted
in Seattle illustrates the cooperation between radicals that now
permeates the extremist right: Five had Klan ties, one had been a Nazi
party member, a half-dozen were Aryan Nations, one was a veteran tax
protester, four CSA's [Covenant, Sword and Arm of the Lord] five
National Alliance members...."
"Many of the 23 were united by Identity...."
"Aryan" or "White" as used by Identity ostensibly refers to persons of
Nordic, Anglo-Saxon or Germanic stock, or at the very least, persons
stemming from Northern or Middle European ancestors. The Identity
definition of "Aryan" is more closely related to mythological or
operatic reality rather than any scientific or anthropological
definition of Indo-European peoples. Aryan actually is a term used by
linguists to trace the common roots of the Indo-European languages.
Christian Identity borrows paranoid conspiratorial beliefs from
reactionary groups such as the John Birch Society with their claim
that secret cabals run most world governments under orders from
wealthy elites such as the Rockefeller family acting through groups
such as the Trilateralist Commission, the Bilderberger banking
conference, the Council on Foreign Relations, and officials of the
Federal Reserve Bank.
From ultra-right Christian fundamentalists comes the idea of a secular
humanist conspiracy involving liberal elites such as radical
academics, teachers union leaders, journalists and network television
programmers and gay men and lesbians who pave the way for leftists,
socialists and communists. These are the core beliefs of persons such
as Reed Irvine of Accuracy in Academia and Accuracy in Media, and
Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum. Pat Robertson, leader of the
Christian Coalition, recently wrote a book attacking president Bush's
New World Order and echoing many paranoid conspiratorial charges of
the reactionary and fascist right. Robertson also throws in a
discussion of sinister networks of Masonic lodges and the shadowy
Illuminati group. It is these reactionary forces that made TV
appearances during the Republican convention in 1992.
White supremacists add to the bizarre brew a list of racial enemies
such as Jews, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Indians, indeed all non-Aryans.
The Posse Comitatus also sees as agents of the conspiracy all state
and national elected politicians, and all law enforcement officials
above level of county sheriff such as game wardens, Internal Revenue
Service agents, federal Marshals, and the FBI.
Christian Identity wraps all the conspiracy theories together and adds
the myth that white Christian Americans are God's Chosen People
fighting a religious war against satanic forces. Identity combines
the worst aspects of Hitlerian racial theories, the Spanish
Inquisition, and the Crusades.
Persons who believe in Christian Identity generally:
Support white power & Aryan supremacy;
Believe in Black genetic inferiority;
Possess romanticized notions of Aryan culture;
Are virulently anti-Communist, anti-liberal and anti-modernist;
Manifest a jingoistic patriotism a la "Rambo;"
Mistrust government & law enforcement agencies;
Fear Black power & Black pride;
See any positive media coverage of non-Aryans as a Jewish-Communist
Plot;
Resent Black job gains in the working class & professions;
Think Black politicians are pawns of Jews;
Believe Black activism is directed from Moscow or Tel Aviv;
Practice armed survivalism as a defensive necessity.
The fascist right has targeted for recruitment members of tax protest
groups, farm and ranch organizations, former or current members of the
Ku Klux Klan and various Nazi groups, supporters of Lyndon LaRouche,
persons organizing against government repression or covert action,
alternative health care advocates, antiwar organizers, and persons
concerned about peace in the Middle East.
In the past the KKK and other racist and fascist groups in the U.S.
intertwined with the political and law enforcement power structure of
the communities in which they operated, especially in the rural South.
The new racist Identity movement, however, is openly hostile toward
most law enforcement officers because they are seen as collaborating
with the Zionist Occupational Government. Thus Identity's critique of
government misconduct is central to their ideology, and has resulted
in repeated armed conflicts with government agencies which in turn
have used questionable tactics to target this sector of the racist
right.
Cooperation among racist groups was enhanced in the 1980's by the
establishment of several racist computerized bulletin board systems
and the distribution of a cable TV program "Race and Reason" hosted by
California's Tom Metzger, head of White Aryan Resistance. Here is an
example:
EXCERPT FROM RACIST COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEM (BBS)
ARYAN NATIONS BBS--HAYDEN LAKE, IDAHO
Posted circa 1985
MESSAGE #2: CABLE TV/THE NEW HOPE
"Cable TV--public access--and you"
"The passage of the "Cable Franchise Policy and Communications Act of
1984" (Public Law 98-934) has insured that any Aryan patriot in
America who so desires may have local access to cable TV for the
airing of any program that he may care to produce or replay.
"Equipment, facilities, and channels are available for use from the
local cable company, the only qualification being that one is a
resident or working within the viewing range of the cable company.
"On Tuesday, Nov. 20, 1984, History was made for the movement. At
12:00 noon on channel 9, cable TV, the following was seen by some
69,000 subscribers to Qube Cable TV: interviews of--Glen Miller, Grand
Dragon of the North Carolina Ku Klux Klan; Virgil Griffen, hero of the
Greensborough, NC shoot-out; Thom Robb, Chaplain, Knights of the KKK;
Pastor Robert Miles of the Mountain Church--two hours of
uninterrupted, uncensored racialist christian programming.
"There can be little doubt that more new people were reached, more
effectively, during the course of this two-hour broadcast than in the
combined total of all other efforts for the year. There are 850
public access cable stations in the U.S. No other method, activity,
or campaign of any nature can match this avenue of propagation. None!
"This being the case, it now becomes the duty of each and every Aryan
leader and member to determine if there is a public access station in
his area and, if so, to ask for time on that station for one of the
pre-recorded programs....
"Already the blacks, mexicans, orientals and queers are claiming air
time. what possible excuse could be given by an Aryan nationalist for
not going "on the air" if there is a cable network in his area? Too
difficult, perhaps? Tell that to the blacks and mexicans who are
producing their own shows....
"Hail his victory!"
=====================================================================
Part 7: The Outer Limits of Hate - Eustance Mullins
=====================================================================
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
One of the most loathsome denizens of the racist far right is a
lecturer who deserves special mention--Eustace Mullins. Mullins'
tours are promoted in ads placed in the "Spotlight" . In his pamphlet
"The Secret Holocaust," Mullins asserts:
"The record shows that only Christians have been victims of the
historic massacres. The Jews, when they did not do the killings
themselves, as they always prefer to do, were always in the background
as the only instigators of these crimes against humanity. We can and
we must protect ourselves against the bloodthirsty bestiality of the
Jew by every possible means, and we must be aware that the Christian
creed of love and mercy can be overshadowed by the Jewish obsession
that all non Jews are animals to be killed." [f-12]
12. Eustace Mullins, "The Secret Holocaust" (Word
of Christ Mission).
Mullins is best known as a critic of the Federal Reserve system, and
in public appearances he avoids anti-Jewish rhetoric. He appears
regularly on Chuck Harder's "For the People" radio talk show program,
which leans toward right-wing themes, along with a wide range of
guests including consumer advocate Ralph Nader.
=====================================================================
Part 8: Right-Wing Critics of U.S. Intelligence Agencies and
Foreign Policy
=====================================================================
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
It was the casualties of the Vietnam war that crystallized a
right-wing critique of U.S. foreign policy that denounced U.S.
reliance on covert action, counterinsurgency and political deals as
tactical alternatives to military confrontation to achieve
geo-political goals. The right-wing analysis raised questions that
many citizens were asking. If we didn't want to fight a war to win in
the traditional sense, then why did all those soldiers have to die?
What was the purpose? Where was the benefit to the U.S.? Who gained
from this process? These questions were not asked only by persons on
the right, but the answers and theories the right developed were far
different than those proposed by the left.
The public debate over this issue expanded in 1973 with publication of
the book "The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control of the
United States and the World" by retired Air Force Colonel and
intelligence community critic L. Fletcher Prouty. While in the
military, Prouty was assigned to provide Air Force support for
clandestine activities of the CIA. During the last nine years of
military service, Prouty was the Pentagon Focal Point Officer through
which CIA requests for military assistance were channeled, first for
the Air Force, and eventually for the entire Department of Defense.
In his book, Prouty criticized the CIA's penchant for
counterinsurgency and clandestine operations, which he argued
prolonged the war in Vietnam and resulted in the unnecessary deaths of
many U.S. soldiers. Given his experience and knowledge of CIA
activity, Prouty has become an influential critic of the agency, and
has gained an audience across the political spectrum. [f-13]
13. One highly-condensed version of this paper, circulated
briefly only on the Peacenet computer network,
misidentified Fletcher Prouty as a CIA agent. The
error was immediately corrected and in all other
versions Mr. Prouty has been correctly identified as
an Air Force officer tasked with assisting the CIA.
The error resulted when I inadvertently sent an incorrect
computer file to Peacenet. I apologize for the error.
Mr. Prouty has cited this matter as proof that my
research is unreliable. I disagree.
The Liberty Lobby's "Spotlight" newspaper took Prouty's original
thesis and overlaid it with a conspiracy theory regarding Jewish
influence in U.S. foreign policy. The "Secret Team" apparently
became the "Secret Jewish Team" in their eyes. Sometime in the
1980's, a number of right-wing critics of U.S. intelligence
operations, including Prouty, began to drift towards the "Spotlight"
analysis. They began to feed information from their sources inside
the government to publications and groups that circulate conspiracy
theories alleging Jewish influence and control over world events.
Prouty's "The Secret Team" was recently republished by the Institute
for Historical Review (IHR). IHR promotes the theory that the
accepted history of the Holocaust is essentially a hoax perpetrated by
Jews to benefit the state of Israel. Noontide Press, in essence the
book and pamphlet distribution arm of the Institute for Historical
Review, is the largest distributor of pro-Nazi, anti-Jewish, white
supremacist literature in the United States. Noontide Press also
distributes such titles as "Auschwitz: Truth or Lie--An Eyewitness
Report," "Hitler At My Side," and "For Fear of the Jews."
=====================================================================
Part 9: Populist Party/Liberty Lobby Recruitment of Anti-CIA Critics
=====================================================================
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
In 1974, Marchetti, a former executive assistant to the deputy
director of the CIA, co-authored "The CIA and the Cult of
Intelligence," a well-received best-seller and the first book the CIA
tried to suppress through court action. By 1989, however, Marchetti
had been recruited into a close alliance with Carto's Liberty Lobby
network. In 1989, Marchetti presented a paper at the Ninth
International Revisionist Conference held by the Institute for
Historical Review. The title of Marchetti's paper, published in IHR's
"Journal of Historical Review," was "Propaganda and Disinformation:
How the CIA Manufactures History." Marchetti edits the "New American
View" newsletter, which as one promotional flyer explained, was
designed to "document for patriotic Americans like yourself the excess
of pro-Israelism, which warps the news we see and hear from our media,
cows our Congress into submission, and has already cost us hundreds of
innocent, young Americans in Lebanon and elsewhere."
Marchetti describes himself as a person whose "intelligence expertise
and well-placed contacts have provided me with a unique insight into
the subversion of our democratic process and foreign policy by those
who would put the interests of Israel "above" those of America and
Americans." Marchetti is also the publisher of a Japanese-language
book "ADL and Zionism," written by LaRouche followers Paul Goldstein
and Jeffrey Steinberg.
Marchetti was co-publisher of the "Zionist Watch" newsletter when it
was endorsed in direct mail appeals on Liberty Lobby stationery by the
now deceased Lois Petersen, who for many years was the influential
secretary of the Liberty Lobby board of directors. The October 5,
1987 "Spotlight" reported that Mark Lane had been named associate
editor of "Zionist Watch," which at the time was housed in the same
small converted Capitol Hill townhouse as Liberty Lobby/" Spotlight."
"Zionist Watch" featured a conspiracist critique which saw Israel
controlling U.S. foreign policy.
Mark Lane is the legal representative of Liberty Lobby and other Carto
enterprises, which in itself is not indicative of any political
affiliation. But Lane is also an active apologist for the Institute
for Historical Review and Willis Carto. Writing in his book
"Plausible Denial," Lane contends that "I have never heard an
anti-Semitic expression" from Carto. [f-14] Lane uses his Jewish
background and past leftist credentials to divert attention from
Carto's role as the leading purveyor of racist, anti-Jewish and
pro-Nazi literature in the U.S. Lane describes in "Plausible Denial"
how he was recruited into the Carto network through the late Haviv
Schieber, who Lane describes in glowing terms as a Jewish activist
fighting for peace in the Middle East.
14. Lane, Mark. "Plausible Denial," New York: Thunder's
Mouth Press, 1991. p. 124.
Schieber is more accurately described as an early supporter of the
ultra-right Jabotinsky Zionist movement. Schieber broke with Zionism
and the state of Israel when he came to believe it had been seized by
the socialist and communist forces he despised. Schieber's diatribes
claiming Zionist control of Congress were regularly reported in
Carto's "Spotlight" newspaper, which referred to Schieber as "an
outspoken anti-communist and critic of Israel." [f-15]
15. "Spotlight," January 25, 1988, p. 9.
Schieber's views were also promoted by Andrew I. Killgore, publisher
of "Washington Report on Middle East Affairs." Lane, Schieber, Jewish
anti-Zionist Dr. Alfred Lilienthal, Killgore, and right-wing
Christian radio broadcaster Dale Crowley, Jr., became the leading
exponents of a right-wing anti-Zionist critique in Washington, D.C.
in the mid-1980's. It was Schieber who, over breakfast in 1980,
convinced Lane to contact Carto, as modestly described by Lane in
"Plausible Denial" :
"I discovered before breakfast was concluded, however, that E. Howard
Hunt, the convicted Watergate burglar and official of the Central
Intelligence Agency, had filed a lawsuit against Victor Marchetti, a
former high-ranking officer with the CIA and against Liberty Lobby,
Inc., publisher of "Spotlight," for an article Marchetti had written
and "Spotlight" had published about the assassination of President
Kennedy....Haviv had a new...mission. I would represent the
defendants, Marchetti and the newspaper; we would win, thus
establishing the truth about the death of President Kennedy; and a
national newspaper that published a dissenting view of Middle Eastern
affairs would survive." [f-16]
16. "Plausible Denial," p. 119
"Spotlight" used the opportunity of the release of Oliver Stone's film
"JFK" to promote Fletcher Prouty, Mark Lane, and Victor Marchetti.
Prouty was an advisor on the film and was the model for the film's
character "Mr. X." Prouty and Lane went on book promotion tours in
tandem with the film. "Spotlight" wove its coverage of the film "JFK"
around its theories about Jewish "dual loyalist" control of the U.S.
government and the claim that the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad,
controls CIA covert operations.
While concern over Reagan Administration participation in joint
intelligence operations with Mossad is legitimate, the use of
anti-Zionism as a cover for conspiracist anti-Jewish bigotry can be
seen in an article in the August 24, 1981 issue of "Spotlight" :
"A brazen attempt by influential "Israel-firsters" in the policy
echelons of the Reagan administration to extend their control to the
day-to-day espionage and covert-action operations of the CIA was the
hidden source of the controversy and scandals that shook the U.S.
intelligence establishment this summer."
"The dual loyalists, whose domination over the federal executive's
high planning and strategy-making resources is now just about total,
have long wanted to grab a hand in the on-the-spot "field control" of
the CIA's worldwide clandestine services. They want this control, not
just for themselves, but on behalf of the Mossad, Israel's terrorist
secret police."
"Spotlight" not only rails against "dual-loyalist" Jews in government,
but also has praised the Nazi skinhead movement and reported favorably
on the "spirit" of the Nazi Waffen SS during World War II.
Prouty is quoted in the October 8, 1990 edition of "Spotlight" as
saying the enemy of the American people is the CIA along with "usury,
the political parties, the media and our textbooks." The issue of
usury (high interest rates) is often coupled with a bigoted critique
of Jewish financial influence and power, and whether or not that was
the way Prouty meant it to be taken, in the context of a Liberty Lobby
conference, the anti-Jewish inference would be drawn by many in the
audience.
Prouty also was quoted in the "Spotlight" as saying that "If anybody
really wants to know what's going on in the world today he should be
reading "The Spotlight." Prouty refused to confirm or deny the
accuracy of the quote in an interview with the author. [f-17]
17. Telephone interview with Fletcher Prouty, February 1992.
=====================================================================
Part 10: The Liberty Lobby Populist Action Committee
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
In 1991 Liberty Lobby announced the creation of the advisory board of
the Populist Action Committee. The "Spotlight" ran a major feature on
the formation of the advisory board with photographs of the persons
announced as appointed to launch the Committee. Both Bo Gritz and
Fletcher Prouty were named to the advisory panel.
According to the "Spotlight," the other persons named to the advisory
board were:
Abe Austin, described as an Illinois businessman and expert on money;
Mike Blair, "Spotlight" writer whose articles on government repression
were highlighted by Project Censored;
Ken Bohnsack, an Illinois resident called the founder of the
Sovereignty movement;
Howard Carson, a "Spotlight" distributor;
William Gill, president of the protectionist American Coalition for
Competitive Trade;
Boyd Godlove Jr., chairman of the Populist Party of Maryland;
Martin Larson, a contributor to "The Journal of Historical Review"
which maintains the Holocaust was a Jewish hoax;
Roger Lourie, president of Devin-Adair Publishing;
Pauline Mackey, national treasurer for the 1988 David Duke Populist
Party Presidential campaign;
Tom McIntyre, national chairman of the Populist Party from 1987-1990;
John Nugent, who ran for Congress from Tennessee as a Republican in
1990;
Lawrence Patterson, publisher of the far-right ultra- conspiratorial
"Criminal Politics" newsletter;
Jerry Pope, chair of the Kentucky Populist Party;
John Rakus, president of the National Justice Foundation;
Hon. John R. Rarick, former Democratic House member now in
Louisiana;
Sherman Skolnick, a Chicagoan who has peddled bizarre conspiracy
theories for over a decade;
Major James H. Townsend, editor of the "National Educator" from
California;
Jim Tucker, "Spotlight" contributor who specializes on covering the
Bilderberger banking group;
Tom Valentine, Midwest bureau chief for "Spotlight" and host of
Liberty Lobby's Radio Free America;
Raymond Walk, an Illinois critic of free trade;
Robert H. Weems, founding national chairman of the Populist Party.
Prouty has been appearing at conferences and on radio programs
sponsored by the Liberty Lobby, but claims "there was never a
handshake" concerning his official appointment to the Populist Action
Committee. [f-18] Prouty nonetheless admits that he is aware his name
is being publicized in that capacity and refuses to ask his name be
dropped from the list.
18. Telephone interview with Prouty.
Skolnick also says he was never "officially" asked to be on the
advisory board, but although he is aware he was named to the panel, he
refuses to distance himself from the board or Liberty Lobby. [f-19]
19. Telephone interview with Skolnick.
=====================================================================
Part 11: The LaRouchian Critique
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
While Carto's Liberty Lobby network was recruiting Fletcher Prouty, Bo
Gritz, longtime CIA critic Victor Marchetti, and assassination
conspiracy researchers Mark Lane and Dick Gregory, the LaRouchians
were probing government misconduct and linking U.S. political elites
to their global conspiracy theory.
In the LaRouchian worldview, the oligarchic families of Great Britain
are the font of all world evil. Over the years LaRouchian literature
has maintained that political leadership in Great Britain is really
controlled by Jewish banking families such as the Rothschilds, a
standard anti-Jewish theory that influenced such bigots as Henry Ford
and Adolph Hitler. [f-20]
20. The idea of a conspiracy of "Jewish international
finance" was a pet theme of Hitler, and can be studied
in Hitler's "Mein Kampf" simply by scanning the
index of any edition. Arendt discusses the myth of
the conspiratorial role of the Rothschild family
as central to fascist theory in her work "The
Origins of Totalitarianism," again there
are numerous index entries.
In their book "Dope, Inc: Britain's Opium War against the U.S.," first
published in 1978, the LaRouchians assert that the oligarchy in Great
Britain is in league with Jewish bankers to control the smuggling of
drugs into the United States. Arch-rightist and former U.S.
intelligence operative, the late Mitchell WerBell said the book was of
"outstanding importance," because it told "the history of a political
strike against the United States in an undeclared war being waged by
Great Britain."
LaRouche's periodicals mix anti-Israel views with anti-Jewish
conspiracy theories, but were among the first periodicals to run
articles exposing aspects of the arms-for-hostages deals and the
covert Contra aid network, well before a fateful plane crash first
tipped off the mainstream press to the full extent of the story.
Many reporters in the mid 1980's were contacted by LaRouchians who
offered assistance and documents to help research the Iran-Contra
story. This assistance was accompanied by their relentless peddling
of typical LaRouchian distortions regarding vast conspiracies, yet
many of the individual documents and sources provided by the
LaRouchians checked out as factual. Some reporters decided it was
proper to glean what facts they could from the LaRouche material,
assuming they could successfully exclude the lunatic analysis. This
process is neither new nor remarkable, reporters deal with
questionable sources constantly. Furthermore, right-wing coverage of
government intelligence abuse is not unique to the LaRouchians. Other
far-right groups such as Liberty Lobby and its "Spotlight" newspaper
have also circulated similar information. In fact, persons formerly
affiliated with the Liberty Lobby and the LaRouchians independently
confirm that there was a back-door information exchange between the
research staffs of both groups in the late 1970's and early 1980's.
The LaRouchians, as well as Liberty Lobby, were among the
beneficiaries of the information flow from right-wing anti-CIA circles
during the early 1980's. Herb Quinde, an intelligence policy analyst
for the LaRouchians, says that in the 1980's the LaRouchians were
contacted by a group of disaffected former and current intelligence
specialists who Quinde referred to as "the Arabists." Both government
and private sector analysts confirm that there are persons critical of
current U.S. foreign policy reliance on Israel whose ideas are
discussed in policy meetings. These persons are sometimes referred to
as "Arabists." They represent a minority viewpoint in government
circles that needs to be factored into political equations. Most of
these persons are geo-political pragmatists who think that oil is the
key to the Middle East and so support for Israel is misguided since
Israel doesn't have oil. Others simply support a more even-handed
policy in the Middle East, especially concerning Palestinian rights.
The so-called "Arabists" are more accurately seen as a diffuse and
broad theoretical tendency rather than an ethnic group, pro-Arab
faction, or specific political organization.
Some of these persons, however, have fierce anti-Jewish views and have
sought alliances with overt bigots and persons who circulate paranoid
conspiracy theories in which Jews are believed to control the world.
Their theory at its most paranoid believes Great Britain's
intelligence services have influenced U.S. intelligence agencies
since the inception of the Office of Strategic Services, precursor to
the CIA. Great Britain's intelligence empire is seen as predominantly
Jewish, riddled with communists and homosexuals, and with an open line
to Moscow. Mossad is believed to manipulate U.S. foreign policy and
direct much of U.S. intelligence activity. The CIA is believed to be
full of moles, probably inserted by a Anglophile/Jewish/Communist
network. True patriots are urged to try to expose this "dual
loyalist" reality and push the U.S. to ally with its real friends in
the Middle East, the Arab monarchies and familial oligarchies.
These theories have little to do with democracy, social justice or
peace in the Middle East, and they use legitimate criticisms of
Israeli policies and U.S. pro-Israel policies as a screen to cover
prejudice against Jews.
Many reporters were contacted by the LaRouchians offering assistance
and documents to help research the Iran-Contra story. LaRouche's
"Executive Intelligence Review" even gets a passing nod from author
Ben Bradlee, Jr. in his "Guts and Glory: The Rise and Fall of Oliver
North." Bradlee acknowledges the help of "EIR" in decoding the
shorthand used by North in his notebooks.
Peter Dale Scott, Jonathan Marshall and other authors who researched
the Iran-Contra story say that in the mid to late 1980's, LaRouchians
such as Herb Quinde, who had researched the Oliver North network, were
involved in the traditional game of the Capitol press
corps--circulating documents and trading theories.
=====================================================================
Part 12: The LaRouchians as Anti-Interventionists
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
During the late 1980's the LaRouchians covertly sought to expand their
contacts with the left and attempted to link up with progressive
groups over issues such as anti-interventionism, covert action,
government domestic repression, civil liberties and Third World debt.
Many progressive researchers report that during this period they began
to receive telephone calls from LaRouchian operatives suggesting joint
work or offering documents or story ideas.
Progressive activists also were targeted. For instance, LaRouche
organizers involved themselves in an international
anti-interventionist conference held in Panama, and have worked behind
the scenes around the issue of U.S. involvement in Panamanian affairs
ever since. Although conference organizers say they tried to isolate
the LaRouchians at the conference, there is little doubt that the
LaRouchians managed to leave the impression with some activists that
they were a key component in the alliance against U.S. intervention
in Panama.
Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark has become a vocal opponent
of U.S. intervention and was a major critic of the U.S. invasion of
Panama. Clark has regularly worked in the same anti-intervention
projects as the LaRouchians, where their presence would have been
difficult not to notice. While there is no evidence (or even a
reasonable suspicion) that Clark willingly works with the LaRouchians
or shares any of their bigoted views, it is clear the LaRouchians
delight in implying that just such a relationship exists between
themselves and Clark, especially since Clark agreed to represent the
LaRouchians in filing legal appeals flowing out of a series of federal
criminal convictions of LaRouchian fundraisers and LaRouche himself.
The ability of the LaRouchians to inject themselves into mainstream
debate around the issue of Panama is astonishing. For instance, at
the April, 1991 conference of the Latin American Studies Association
in Washington, D.C., a panel on Panama included LaRouchian expert
Carlos Wesley. Wesley was not the first choice. Two panelists from
Panama who were originally scheduled to appear did not receive funding
to attend the conference, so panel co-coordinator Donald Bray from
California State University in Los Angeles then called a person he
respected as an expert on Panama for advice on a last minute
replacement. "I called Carlos Russell, a Panamanian who now teaches
in the U.S., and who was a former Ambassador to the OAS for a former
Panamanian government," explains Bray. "He said `you are not going to
believe this, but I am going to recommend a LaRouchite, Carlos
Wesley.'" A slightly bemused Bray says he knew Wesley from long ago
and knew he was a reporter for LaRouche's "Executive Intelligence
Review" . Still, this was a recommendation from a credible Panamanian
source so with some misgivings Bray scheduled Wesley as a panelist.
Wesley was identified as a correspondent for "Executive Intelligence
Review" (EIR) but, according to author Holly Sklar, who attended the
session, many in the audience were not aware that "EIR" was a LaRouche
publication. "Of course if we had identified him as a LaRouchian,
nobody would have paid any attention to what he said," explained Bray.
The ties between LaRouche and Panama go back several years to when
LaRouche intelligence collectors began trading tidbits of information
with Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega. Following Noriega's indictment
for conspiracy in drug deals, journalist William Branigin, writing in
the "Washington Post" of June 18, 1988, noted that among Noriega's few
supporters in the United States was "political extremist Lyndon H.
LaRouche Jr., who has praised the general as a leader in the war on
drugs."
According to a January, 1990 "Associated Press" report, LaRouche sent
Noriega a cable after his indictment, telling the dictator "I extend
to you my apologies for what the government of the United States is
doing to the Republic of Panama." LaRouche told Noriega "I reiterate
to you what I have stated publicly. That the Reagan administration
current policies towards Panama are absolutely an offense to your
nation and all of Latin America." This type of rhetoric shows how the
LaRouchians can adopt a critique of U.S. foreign policy ostensibly
similar to that of the left, while weaving in an "apologia" converting
a drug-running dictator into a drug-fighting humanitarian. LaRouche
also has high praise for other dictators, including the late Ferdinand
Marcos. The LaRouchians claim Marcos actually won his last election.
Another example of ideological cross-fertilization involves Cecilio
Simon, a Panamanian who is an administrator at the University of
Panama. Simon spoke along with Ramsey Clark and others at the April
6, 1990 "Voices from Panama" forum held at New York City's Town Hall
auditorium. Simon later spoke at the LaRouchian "Fifth International
Martin Luther King Tribunal of the Schiller Institute," on June 2,
1990 in Silver Spring, Maryland. These incidents demonstrate how the
LaRouchians continue to insert themselves into anti-interventionist
work and gain credibility on the left.
=====================================================================
Part 13: Rightist Influences on the Christic Institute Theories
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
The problem of conflating documentable facts with analysis and
conclusions and then merging them with unsubstantiated conspiracy
theories popular on the far right has plagued progressive foreign
policy critiques for several years. The Christic Institute's "Secret
Team" theory is perhaps the most widespread example of the phenomenon.
While many of the charges raised by Christic regarding the La Penca
bombing and the private pro-Contra network are documented, some of
their assertions regarding the nature and operations of a
long-standing conspiracy of high-level CIA, military, and foreign
policy advisors inside the executive branch remain undocumented, and
in a few instances, are factually inaccurate.
There are two related questions in this matter. One is whether or not
the case was handled properly with regard to the actual clients,
Martha Honey and Tony Avirgan. The other is how much unsubstantiated
conspiracism was made part of the case and its surrounding publicity.
This paper will focus on the issue of the undocumented conspiracy
theories.
Some critics of the Christic Institute say undocumented conspiracy
theories, perhaps first circulated by the LaRouchians and the
"Spotlight" , were inadvertently drawn into Christic's lawsuit against
key figures in the Iran-Contra Scandal. The Christic Institute no
longer uses the "Secret Team" slogan, which it employed for the first
few years of its Iran-Contra lawsuit, "Avirgan v. Hull" . The suit,
filed in 1986, is also called the La Penca case, after the Nicaraguan
town where a 1984 bombing killed three journalists and at least one
Contra and wounded dozens, including television camera operator
Avirgan and the intended target, Contra leader Eden Pastora.
It is arguable that while Christic pursued the broad conspiracy of the
"Secret Team", the bedrock portions of the case involving the actual
La Penca incidents took a back seat. A few weeks before the case was
slated for trial, the Christic Institute still had not diagramed the
elements of proof, a legal procedure where the text of the complaint
is broken down into a list of single elements that have to be proven
with either valid documentation, a sworn affidavit, or a live witness.
This had created problems for researchers and lawyers who had no
master list of what needed to be proven when devising questions for
depositions and witnesses.
When a special meeting was convened shortly before trial, it turned
out that for some of allegations concerning the alleged broad "Secret
Team" conspiracy, the only evidence in possession of the Christic
Institute was newspaper clippings and excerpts from books--and in a
few instances there was no evidence other than uncorroborated
assertions collected by researchers.
Raised at the meeting was the issue of whether or not the case had
unwittingly incorporated unsubstantiated conspiracy theories from
right-wing groups such as the LaRouchians. The staff was warned that
some defendants would likely prevail at trial due to lack of
court-quality evidence and would then likely pursue financial
penalties (called Rule 11 sanctions). [f-21]
21. The author attended the meeting and has corroborated
these assertions with other persons attending the
meeting. The author also is aware that ethical
problems are created by reporting even in broad
summary the contents of a meeting of a legal team working
on a lawsuit. This decision was made only after much
thought, discussion, and a failed attempt to carry out
private discussions to resolve some of these matters.
These matters were first raised by the author internally
to Christic staff and leadership in the summer of 1988.
Other attempts were made by the author and other
persons to have these criticisms dealt with between 1988
and 1990. A final private discussion in the summer of
1991 originally involved the author, Christic client
Tony Avirgan, and Christic leadership. It was the
Christic Institute's unilateral decision to discontinue
that attempt to resolve as many issues as possible privately
before the criticisms were made public. The issue is also
timely because if Christic refuses to deal with
criticism of some of its work in the case, and succeeds
in placing the issue of the dismissal before the Supreme
Court, the almost-inevitable refusal to reverse the
trial judge's decision would take a bad ruling and certify
it as the law of the land.
These matters are important because Christic press statements have
fueled the idea, and many Christic Institute supporters believe, that
the dismissal of the case was just another example of a massive
government conspiracy and cover-up. It is undeniable that the
presiding judge was hostile to Christic and stretched judicial
discretion to the breaking point in dismissing the case. The
dismissal was unfair. However, according to a statement issued by
Christic client Tony Avirgan, the Institute must share at least
"partial responsibility for the dismissal of the La Penca law suit."
Avirgan:
"It's sad that these issues have to be raised by `outsiders' such as
Berlet. But the truth is that criticism-self criticism, an essential
tool in any social movement, has never been tolerated by the leaders
of the Christic Institute. Those who criticized the legal work of
Sheehan were labeled as enemies and ignored."
"There were, indeed, numerous undocumented allegations in the suit,
particularly in Sheehan's Affidavit of Fact. As plaintiffs in the
suit, Martha Honey and I struggled for years to try to bring the case
down to earth, to bringing it away from Sheehan's wild allegations.
Over the years, numerous staff lawyers quit over their inability to
control Sheehan. We stuck with it--and continued to struggle--because
we felt that the issues being raised were important. But this was a
law suit, not a political rally, and the hostile judges latched on to
the lack of proof and the sloppy legal work."
"The case, before it was inflated by Sheehan, was supposed to center
on the La Penca bombing. On this, there is a strong body of evidence
here in Costa Rica. It is enough evidence to get a reluctant Costa
Rican judiciary to indict two CIA operatives, John Hull and Felipe
Vidal, for murder and drug trafficking. Unfortunately, little of this
evidence was successfully transformed into evidence acceptable to U.S.
courts. It was either never submitted or was poorly prepared. In
large part, this was because Sheehan was concentrating on his broad,
30-year conspiracy."
"The exercise Berlet suggested--breaking each allegation down and
compiling evidentiary proof for it--was indeed undertaken by competent
lawyers on the Christic Institute staff. But it was an exercise begun
too late. The case had already been spiked by Sheehan's Affidavit."
"We feel that it is important to openly discuss these things so that
similar mistakes are avoided in the future."
Jane Hunter of "Israeli Foreign Affairs" agrees that some of the
Christic research is problematic. "As a researcher I have over the
years found nothing in the Christic case worth citing," says Hunter.
Hunter worries about the rise of conspiracism on the left, including
some of the allegations made in the Christic lawsuit. "If you keep
looking for all the connections, all you are going to see is something
so powerful that there is no way to fight it. We have to look at the
system that produces these covert and illegal operations, not who knew
so and so three years ago."
A number of other researchers and journalists have raised similarly
harsh criticisms of some of the allegations made in the Christic case.
David Corn, for instance, wrote a stinging assessment of the Secret
Team theory for the "Nation" . Other criticisms were aired in "Mother
Jones."
Dr. Diana Reynolds is one of the many critics of portions of the
Christic thesis. Reynolds, an assistant professor of politics at
Bradford College in Massachusetts, thinks undocumented conspiracy
theories hurt the Christic case. She believes there is much solid
evidence concerning the actual La Penca bombing and aftermath, and
some specific Iran-Contra material, but she thinks "it is fair to say
that some right-wing conspiracy theories were woven into the theory
behind the Christic case." Reynolds read thousands of pages of
depositions taken by the Christic Institute while she was researching
a story on federal emergency planning, later published in "Covert
Action Information Bulletin."
According to Reynolds:
"It is clear to me from the depositions of Ed Wilson and Gene Wheaton
that the notion of a broad conspiracy conducted by the so-called
Enterprise, beyond the La Penca bombing and the specific Iran-Contra
scandal, has many holes. I am thoroughly convinced that those two
depositions contain the nub of the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory,
and I have said this for a very long time. When we get into the
Christic allegations regarding the Middle East and Asia and the Camp
David accords and forty years of conspiracy, their thesis falls apart.
Reynolds suggests it is fair to ask whether or not Christic was
manipulated by right-wing persons associated with factions in the
intelligence community. "It is curious that Wilson is a former
intelligence operative, and that Wheaton, at the same time he was
working for Christic, was also alleged by Mr. Owen in his Christic
deposition to be passing information to Neil Livingston at the
National Security Council to protect some of the people who were
implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal," says Reynolds. At least two
former Christic investigators say they warned Sheehan not to rely on
conspiratorial analysis and to be suspicious of material from
right-wing sources. Nevertheless, Sheehan was rebuked by his own
staff and others in Christic leadership for repeatedly lapsing into an
overly conspiratorial analysis in public appearances, and for making
claims that the Christic staff could not document or otherwise support
when responding to follow-up inquiries by reporters. [f-22]
22. Interview with two former Christic staff who were
eyewitnesses to several of these incidents.
While the allegation that right-wing conspiracy theories were woven
into the case is hotly denied by Christic, the contacts by the
LaRouchians during the mid and late 1980's are not disputed.
According to a Christic spokesperson:
"In conducting investigations historically we have sometimes had to
get information from persons with whom one would not normally
associate. People like drug dealers, mercenaries and intelligence
agents. During our investigation, there were some meetings with
LaRouche staffers conducted by Lanny Sinkin and David MacMichael. The
information was always viewed very skeptically and none of it found
its way into our casework or courtroom materials. All those contacts
were stopped by 1989. We take seriously the view that the LaRouche
organization is an organization with whom progressives should be very
wary."
David MacMichael and Lanny Sinkin are no longer affiliated with the
Christic Institute. Sinkin says his contact with the LaRouchians
while at Christic was limited to a few brief conversations.
MacMichael, a former CIA analyst turned agency critic who now writes
and lectures on covert action, has had a more extensive relationship
to the LaRouchians. MacMichael and Sinkin, however, were not the only
Christic investigators who received information from the LaRouchians.
Christic investigator Bill McCoy also received information from the
LaRouchians as did at least one other Christic researcher, according
to former staffers.
Sheehan was warned by his own staff in 1988 that contacts with the
research circles around LaRouche and Liberty Lobby were a problem on
both factual and moral grounds. Later Danny Sheehan appeared on the
"Undercurrents" program broadcast on WBAI-FM and other Pacifica and
progressive radio stations. Christic told the radio audience that it
was untrue that LaRouchians had supplied information to the Christic
Institute, and blasted a passing reference to this matter in Dennis
King's book, "Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism" . Shortly
after Sheehan's statements, an offer to promote King's book as a
premium gift during an annual fundraising drive for the radio station
was withdrawn. King believes Sheehan's unequivocal denial undercut
the credibility of his book and was responsible for WBAI withdrawing
the original offer.
=====================================================================
Part 14: The Right-Wing Roots of Sheehan's "Secret Team" Theory
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
Christic no longer uses the "Secret Team" slogan, but for the first
several years of the case, the Christic Institute used the term
"Secret Team" to describe the legal conspiracy they alleged in court
(a copy of the Prouty book sat in Sheehan's personal bookshelf in his
Christic office). There is no dispute that the "Secret Team" theory
came from the political right. The "Affidavit of Daniel P. Sheehan"
filed on December 12, 1986 and revised on January 31, 1987, refers
frequently to the "Secret Team," and states explicitly that the term
came from right-wing sources.
"...I was contacted by Source #47, a right-wing para-military
specialist, former U.S. Army pilot in Vietnam and military reform
specialist in January of 1986."
"Source #47, the Specialist, who was unaware of my investigation,
informed me that he had met--at a right-wing function--a former U.S.
military intelligence officer, Source #48...this source began to
discuss with Source #47 the existence of a "Secret Team" of former
high-ranking American CIA officials, former high-ranking U.S.
military officials and Middle Eastern arms merchants--who also
specialized in the performance of covert political assassinations of
communists and "enemies" of this "Secret Team" which carried on its
own independent, American foreign policy--regardless of the will of
Congress, the will of the President, or even the will of the American
Central Intelligence Agency."
Critics of the Christic thesis say the "Secret Team" was not a cabal
operating against the will of the president or the CIA, but was an
illegal, secret government-sponsored operation established by CIA
director William Casey and coordinated by White House aide Oliver
North, with assistance from a network of ultra-right groups who were
determined to circumvent the will of Congress. This "Enterprise" at
times worked closely with the Mossad and carried out clandestine
counterinsurgency missions. Some of these counterinsurgency missions
were based on the same model of pacification used by U.S. Special
Forces and clandestine CIA operations in Vietnam. It is just this
emphasis on counterinsurgency and clandestine operations rather than
direct military battles that forms the basis of criticism in Fletcher
Prouty's book "Secret Team." Prouty criticized the CIA for promoting
covert action techniques which he traced to the influence of the
British intelligence service MI5 on the Office of Strategic Services
(OSS), precursor to the CIA. Prouty said such meddling and convoluted
efforts at fighting communism resulted in the needless deaths of
American servicemen. There is no evidence of any obvious anti-Jewish
conspiracy theories in the original Prouty book.
Some of the undocumented conspiracy theories regarding the CIA and
U.S. foreign policy that were widely circulated in progressive
circles before the Iran-Contragate scandal hit the headlines seem to
have appeared first in the LaRouchian's "Executive Intelligence
Review" or "New Solidarity" (later "New Federalist"), or in the pages
of Liberty Lobby's "Spotlight" newspaper.
The "Spotlight" for instance carried the first exclusive story on "Rex
84" by writer James Harrer. "Rex 84" was one of a long series of
readiness exercises for government military, security and police
forces. "Rex 84"--Readiness Exercise, 1984--was a drill which
postulated a scenario of massive civil unrest and the need to round up
and detain large numbers of demonstrators and dissidents. While
creating scenarios and carrying out mock exercises is common, the
potential for Constitutional abuses under the contingency plans drawn
up for "Rex 84" was, and is, very real. The legislative authorization
and Executive agency capacity for such a round-up of dissidents
remains operational.
The April 23, 1984 "Spotlight" article ran with a banner headline
"Reagan Orders Concentration Camps." The article, true to form, took a
problematic swipe at the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith along
with reporting the facts of the story. The Harrer article was based
primarily on two unnamed government sources, and follow-up
confirmations. Mainstream reporters pursued the allegations through
interviews and Freedom of Information Act requests, and ultimately the
Harrer "Spotlight" article proved to be a substantially accurate
account of the readiness exercise, although "Spotlight" did underplay
the fact that this was a scenario and drill, not an actual order to
round up dissidents.
Many people believe that Christic was the first group to reveal the
"Rex 84" story. According to the 1986 Sheehan "Affidavit" revised in
1987:
"During the second week of April of 1984, I was informed by Source #4
that President Ronald Reagan had, on April 6, 1984, issued National
Security Decision Directive #52 authorizing the Federal Emergency
Management Agency director Louis O. Giuffrida and his Deputy Frank
Salcedo to undertake a secret nation-wide, `readiness exercise'
code-named `Rex 84....'"
The impression left is that a Christic source exclusively developed
this information and quietly handed it over to Sheehan. In fact, the
second week of April 1984, the "Rex 84" story was bannered on the
front page of the "Spotlight" and available in coin-boxes all over
Capitol Hill. "Spotlight" had previously reported extensively on the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other government
initiatives that threatened civil liberties.
Sheehan has told reporters that the "Rex 84" story did not come from
"Spotlight," but would not respond to questions as to whether or not
Source #4 could document where the information came from. This is
important because in at least one other instance, previously published
research was attributed by Sheehan to Source #4. According to the
1986 Sheehan "Affidavit" revised in 1987:
"In early May of 1984, I was supplied by Source #4 with a number of
documents describing, in some detail, a project supervised by then
Special Assistant California State Attorney General Edwin Meese
code-named "Project Cable Splicer"...part of a larger program,
code-named "Project Garden Plot"--which was a nation-wide war games
scenario...to establish a nation-wide state of martial law if Richard
Nixon's "political enemies" required him to declare a State of
National Emergency."
While the descriptions of Cable Splicer and Garden Plot are accurate,
the source is deceptively obscured. The original story of Cable
Splicer and Garden Plot broke in the alternative press in 1975 in an
article by Ron Ridenhour with Arthur Lublow published in Arizona's
"New Times."
Garden Plot was also the cover story for the Winter 1976 issue of
"CounterSpy" magazine. Dozens of pages of the unedited official
documents from Garden Plot and Cable Splicer were reprinted in the
magazine. Copies of the official documents were made available to
trial teams in several cities litigating against illegal government
intelligence abuse.
Several former Christic staffers, who asked to remain nameless,
suggest that, at the very least, a critical reevaluation of some
allegations made in the Christic case would be beneficial in light of
the possibility that material from far-right, conspiracist or
anti-Jewish sources was uncritically woven into the original "Secret
Team" Christic thesis. They say that the Christic theories need to be
reassessed with the ulterior motives and credibility of those sources
in mind.
The Christic Institute was supplied with the text of the criticisms
raised in this section of the report, as well as an extensive list of
written questions. With the exception of the quote regarding the
LaRouchians, they chose not to respond.
=====================================================================
Part 15: Barbara Honegger, The October Surprise & The LaRouchians
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
In many way the LaRouche organization, with its slickly repackaged
conspiracy theories, serves as a nexus for a number of tendencies on
the political right, ranging from ultra- conservatives to outright
fascists and white supremacists. LaRouchian material on AIDS, for
instance, is cited by homophobic organizations such as the
fundamentalist Christian group Summit Ministries. It seems clear that
the LaRouche network reaches out to many constituencies, including
some that seem improbable on the surface, including some on the left.
Over the past few years the LaRouchians have solicited contacts with a
number of critics of U.S. foreign policy and intelligence agency
practices, sometimes with surprising success. In many cases, it is
the LaRouchian intelligence network that serves as a broker for
information flowing between left-wing and right-wing groups.
LaRouchians appear to have first penetrated the left in recent years
when they began to trade information on covert action and CIA
misconduct. The LaRouchians were early critics of the Oliver North
network. In the early 1980's, LaRouche intelligence operatives such
as Jeffrey Steinberg maintained close ties to a faction in the
National Security Council which opposed Oliver North's activities. At
the same time the LaRouchians quietly began providing information to
mainstream and progressive reporters and researchers.
The Christic Institute and the Empowerment Project which distributes
the film "CoverUp: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair" are major promoters
of Barbara Honegger's theories regarding an alleged "October
Surprise." The October Surprise was the term used among Reagan
campaign aides to describe the possibility that the Iranian government
might arrange for the release of U.S. hostages prior to the election
which pitted incumbent Jimmy Carter against challenger Ronald Reagan.
Honegger, a former White House aide, alleges in her book "October
Surprise" that officials connected to the Reagan Presidential campaign
plotted with Iranian officials to delay the release of hostages in the
Middle East until after the election. Substantial circumstantial
evidence exists to suggest such a charge might be true, but there is
little incontrovertible proof.
Honegger's research and analysis are questionable. In the 1989
edition of her book "October Surprise," Honegger cites frequently to
LaRouchian publications. While some LaRouchian material is factual,
other material presented as fact is unsubstantiated rumor or lunatic
conspiracy theories. Some anti-fascist researchers also assume that
information in EIR occasionally represents calculated leaks by current
and former government intelligence agents and right-wing activists to
achieve a desired political goal. This practice is a common tactic in
power struggles and faction fights over policy.
While Honegger sometimes cites to progressive periodicals such as "In
These Times" and "The Nation,," more than six percent (49 out of a
total 771) of the footnotes in Honegger's book cite LaRouchian
publications such as "EIR, New Solidarity, and New Federalist" . In
one chapter on "Project Diplomacy," Honegger LaRouchian cites account
for over 22 percent of the total number of footnotes.
Honegger also makes assertions that strain credulity. She quotes
without comment the claim of Eugene Wheaton that the CIA is actually
secretly controlled by a group of retired members of the OSS.
In the July/August 1991 issue of "The Humanist," both David MacMichael
and Barbara Trent of the Empowerment project defend Honegger and
suggest PBS refused to show "Coverup" because it contained serious
charges against the U.S. government. As Trent put it:
"It was no big surprise that there was a problem getting `Coverup' on
PBS. Programs that address U.S. foreign policy in particular and are
not in agreement with the policies of the sitting president rarely get
much of a chance on TV."
In fact, PBS has aired on the "Frontline" series programs about the
October Surprise and CIA involvement in drug trafficking. PBS has
also aired two Bill Moyers specials on Iran-Contragate that concluded
that Reagan lied repeatedly and may have committed impeachable
offenses, and that evidence exists to suggest that Bush's role in the
Contra resupply operation was far more direct than he has admitted.
The primary difference between the shows broadcast by PBS and
"Coverup" is the reliance in "Coverup" on Barbara Honegger and Danny
Sheehan and their unsubstantiated and undocumented charges. It would
have been difficult for PBS to justify running Honegger's assertions
given her reliance on material supplied by neo-Nazis with a history of
circulating unreliable information.
"Coverup" also promotes the Christic theme that Iran-Contragate was
caused by a long-standing conspiracy of individual agents. In
contrast to this individualistic formulation, the Moyers programs
stress a systemic failure: that the lack of congressional oversight
over foreign policy and covert action has created a Constitutional
crisis where the balance of powers between branches of government has
been skewed toward the executive branch.
=====================================================================
Part 16: The Gulf War
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
The right's attempt to influence and recruit the left became highly
visible during the Gulf War crisis in late 1990 and early 1991. As
the movement against the war in the Middle East began to build, a
handful of far-right and anti-Jewish groups began to seek alliances
with liberal, progressive, and left antiwar coalitions. It is
important to recognize that as a whole the antiwar movement
overwhelmingly rejected these overtures by the political right, while
recognizing that the attempt reflected a larger ongoing problem. It
certainly was a problem for individuals like Wisconsin antiwar
activist Alan Ruff who appeared on a panel discussing the pros and
cons of the Gulf War in the town of Verona. Also on the panel in the
antiwar camp was another local activist Emmanuel Branch. "Suddenly I
heard Branch saying the war the result of a Zionist banking
conspiracy," explains Ruff. "I found myself squeezed between pro-war
hawks and this anti-Jewish nut, it destroyed the ability of those of
us who opposed the war to make our point." A number of persons report
that during Gulf War protests, they heard persons attempting to turn
legitimate criticism of U.S. intervention in Iraq, or objections to
pressure for invasion by some pro-Israel lobbies, into a blanket
indictment of all Jews, which is a classic form of bigotry.
=====================================================================
Part 17: Sowing Confusion
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
Rightist efforts to recruit from or join the antiwar movement caused
problems across the country, especially attempts by followers of
neo-fascist Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. to forge ties with liberal and
left antiwar coalitions. Other fascist groups organizing against the
war included the Populist Party, Liberty Lobby, and some elements of
the white supremacist movement. Other far-right and
ultra-conservative groups opposing the war included some factions in
the Libertarian movement, the John Birch Society, and groups purveying
general rightist conspiracy theories.
Most persons in the antiwar movement seemed unaware of the backgrounds
and ideology of the several rightist groups that sought alliances
during the Gulf War period, and merely were hoping to build a
broad-based alliance. Still, some activists fear that in the future,
fragile coalitions around peace and social justice issues could be
seriously damaged by the presence of bigoted ultra-right forces, and
argue that on moral grounds alone, coalitions with fascist, racist,
and anti-Jewish groups are not acceptable.
Some of the rightist and anti-Jewish groups that opposed the Gulf War
also have a racialist white supremacist ideology that not only
considers persons of Jewish and Arab heritage to be inferior, but
believes no person of color has a legitimate claim to citizenship in
the United States. Within weeks of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, there
were reports of physical attacks on and threats against both Arab and
Jewish institutions and persons of Arab and Jewish descent. Left
groups which tolerate or apologize for persons who have allied
themselves with the racialist ultra-right send a message that such
views, which motivate acts of discrimination and assault, are an
acceptable part of political debate in our society.
Most conservatives and rightists supported the U.S. involvement in
the Gulf War. The actual attempts by the sectors of the political
right who opposed the war were varied by both locale and method.
The antiwar rightist groups generally did not seek actual coalitions
with the left, but instead passed out handbills at large antiwar
demonstrations as a recruitment mechanism. For example, the
ultra-conservative and conspiracist John Birch Society distributed
antiwar flyers at Merrimack College in Massachusetts, and at a
downtown Boston antiwar rally.
For many on the left, this was their first experience with a courtship
by the ultra-right. Author Sara Diamond urges left activists to be
suspicious of the motives of the opportunistic right which approached
the left during the Gulf War. Diamond, whose book "Spiritual Warfare"
chronicled the religious right in America, warned, "one can only
speculate that they wanted to recruit people into their own
organizations and then leave the left discredited." She added that no
matter what the motivation, however, the proposed alliance was a bad
idea.
One danger posed by the right wing's recruitment attempts is that the
widespread conspiracism in some sectors of the far right has found
fertile ground among naive or uncritical forces on the left. The
problem is exacerbated when rightists put forward their paranoid and
sometimes anti-Jewish theories in progressive circles where
conspiracist or prejudiced sentiments have been tolerated rather than
routinely confronted. Within the U.S. progressive movement, the
issue of an undercurrent of anti-Jewish bigotry among some
pro-Palestinian, Black nationalist, and left groups has been under
discussion for several years.
What the left faces is the task of carefully drawing distinctions
between views that are solely anti-Zionist or critical of the state of
Israel's policies, and views that reflect bigoted conspiracy theories
about persons of Jewish heritage. If peace and social justice forces
do not publicly reject anti-Jewish bigots, this task becomes
impossible, and the charge of anti-Semitism will taint the entire
progressive movement.
The utilization of scapegoating conspiracies is by no means limited to
the fascist right, but during the Gulf War some antiwar activists
became attracted to scurrilous conspiratorial theories of elite
control circulated by right-wing researchers. One conspiracy theorist
who gained high visibility during the Gulf War was Craig Hulet.
Another conspiracy theorist, Antony Sutton, avoids explicit
anti-Jewish rhetoric, but pursues a line promoting arcane banking
conspiracies (often involving Jewish banking families traditionally
scapegoated by bigots). Sutton also has supported racial separatism
between Blacks and whites in South Africa. Another theorist, Eustace
Mullins, is a notorious anti-Jewish bigot who focuses on anti-Jewish
conspiracy theories in which the Rothschilds and other Jews control
the world economy. Mullins' work is promoted by U.S. white
supremacist and neo-Nazi circles. Persons supporting the neo-fascist
Populist Party used Hulet's radio appearances on progressive Pacifica
network radio station KPFA in San Francisco to organize study groups
where the theories of Mullins and Sutton were promoted.
=====================================================================
Part 18: The LaRouchians and the Gulf War
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
The most disruptive rightist penetration of antiwar groups was by the
LaRouchians. The LaRouchians generally operate under front groups
such as Food for Peace, Schiller Institute, and "Executive
Intelligence Review" . Some local antiwar groups have worked with the
LaRouchians, while others have not. While often described merely as
conservative or extremist, the LaRouche organization and its various
front groups are a fascist political movement with echoes of neo-Nazi
ideology. The group's ultimate leader, Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., is
currently in jail because his fundraisers sold unsecured securities to
the elderly and because LaRouche paid no taxes while living in a
Virginia mansion. LaRouche was sentenced in January, 1989 to fifteen
years in prison after a federal court found LaRouche and six
codefendants guilty of a mail fraud conspiracy related to fundraising.
LaRouche was also convicted of tax evasion. On appeal, the U.S.
Supreme Court let the convictions stand without comment.
LaRouche's lawyers have repeatedly sued activist critics who describe
him as a fascist, racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Jewish bigot,
lunatic cult leader, neo-Nazi racial theorist, crook, and demagogue.
LaRouche has lost every case. One jury in Virginia found that calling
LaRouche a "small-time Hitler" was not defamatory and then awarded
damages to the news organization sued by LaRouche.
During the Gulf War the LaRouchians appeared at antiwar rallies and
meetings in thirty cities, including New York, Boston, Washington,
D.C., Richmond, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Ann Arbor, St.
Louis, Omaha, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
At the University of Ottawa in Canada, LaRouche's Schiller Institute
co-sponsored an antiwar event with an organization of Middle Eastern
students. At an October 20, 1990 antiwar demonstration in New York
City, the Schiller Institute had four people carrying a large banner
and a small group of supporters organized in a contingent. The
LaRouchians have passed out petitions at antiwar rallies, and then
called the persons who signed the petitions to solicit money for the
LaRouche organization. Other fundraising pitches are made at antiwar
rallies.
In a flyer announcing a December 15, 1990 rally, a group called simply
the "LaRouche Organization" was originally listed as a coalition
member. The presence of the LaRouchians, as well as other anti-Jewish
bigots, in the St. Louis antiwar coalition originally caused
consternation, especially among members of New Jewish Agenda, a group
which supports a democratic Israel, Palestinian rights, and a
Palestinian homeland. When coalition leaders were provided with
documentation of LaRouchian attacks on Jews, Blacks and other
minorities, including LaRouchian support for the apartheid government
of South Africa, the LaRouche supporters were booted out of the
coalition.
In Los Angeles, several LaRouchians were dismayed when the local
antiwar coalition pointed to its principles of unity, which included a
call for a sensible non-nuclear energy policy. The LaRouchians are
vocal supporters of nuclear power. In Richmond, Virginia, local
antiwar organizers simply kept shouting at the LaRouchians to "shut
up" when they began their bizarre spiels and for a time the
LaRouchians stopped coming to meetings. The LaRouchians soon
returned, but attempted to keep a low profile while persistently
circulating their literature.
During December, LaRouche's followers held vigils on a number of
campuses to build support for a touted "National Teach-In to Stop the
War" held December 15-16 in Chicago. The Chicago conference, titled
"Development is the New Name for Peace," turned out to be the annual
LaRouche-sponsored Food for Peace Conference, repackaged to attract
antiwar activists. The conference drew over 350 attendees. Several
persons active with the St. Louis African-American Anti-War/Peace
Coalition who attended the conference were later asked to leave the
Coalition for being disruptive and spreading anti-Jewish conspiracy
theories, according to several St. Louis activists who spoke on
condition of anonymity.
Only three dozen students were sprinkled among the crowd which drew
persons from California, Oregon, North and South Dakota, Maryland, New
Jersey, Virginia, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nebraska, and the Canadian
province of Quebec. Many in the audience were farmers. Close to
one-third of the conference attendees were African-Americans.
While the number of students was small, the emphasis on the situation
in the Middle East was not neglected. LaRouche regulars Mel Klenetsky
and Nancy Spannaus moderated the program which included a videotaped
message and live phone patch from the cultural attache for the Iraqi
embassy, Dr. Mayser Al Mallah. The LaRouche organization has
maintained ties with the Iraqi Ba'ath Party for many years, according
to several former LaRouchian intelligence gatherers who have left the
group.
Other panelists at the LaRouchian conference included the Rev. James
Bevel, an early civil rights leader now active in several LaRouchian
front groups; a representative from Minister Louis Farrakhan's Nation
of Islam, Dr. Abdul Alim Muhammad, editor of the "Final Call" ; and
Gene Wheaton, a private investigator who works with both left-wing and
right-wing critics of U.S. clandestine operations.
=====================================================================
Part 19: How The LaRouchians Exploited Antiwar Organizers
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
A long-time political activist who marched with the Cleveland
contingent in the January 19th antiwar demonstration in Washington,
D.C. was more than a little surprised when he noticed that people in
the contingent next to him were passing out literature from Lyndon
LaRouche's political front groups. "They were beating a drum and
chanting `George Bush, You Can't Hide, the New World Order is
Genocide,'" he reports. "There were about 100 people, many elderly,
some Black," he says, and one flyer they handed out carried a headline
scolding, "U.S. Citizens Must Recognize Their Past Mistakes and
Support LaRouche." There was a large banner and some people carried
signs that said "Free LaRouche, Jail the ADL." At the march the
LaRouchians passed out their "New Federalist" newspaper. "A lot of
people who remember "New Solidarity" don't realize its new name is
"New Federalist," " said the Cleveland activist.
According to Gavrielle Gemma, coordinator of the National Coalition to
Stop U.S. Intervention in the Middle East (the group that sponsored
the January 19th antiwar demonstration in Washington, D.C.), the
official policy of the Coalition is to reject any work with the
LaRouchians. Although the LaRouchians and their supporters involved
themselves in Coalition activities during the Gulf War, these
incidents did not reflect the official policy of the Coalition,
according to several Coalition spokespersons, but were attempts
(sometimes successful) by the LaRouchians and their allies to portray
themselves as part of the Coalition.
Specifically, in interviews with several Coalition spokespersons the
following picture of how the LaRouchians manipulated and exploited the
Coalition emerged:
The Rev. James Bevel had not been invited to the January 4th
Coalition press conference featuring former U.S. Attorney General
Ramsey Clark which was aired on the C-SPAN cable channel. Bevel
arrived with an invited speaker, a Black serviceman resisting
assignment to the Gulf. Although Bevel had worked with the
LaRouchians for many months prior to the press conference, it was not
until weeks after the press conference that Coalition leadership
became aware that Bevel had ties to the LaRouche organization.
People affiliated with the Coalition, who defended the appearance of
Bevel, were reacting to Bevel's past history as a respected civil
rights leader, and were not aware, or found it impossible to accept,
that Bevel had now aligned himself with far-right groups.
A contingent of LaRouchians who marched in the Coalition's January
19th demonstration in Washington, D.C. did so against the expressed
wishes of Coalition leadership.
A security marshal who told demonstrators on January 19th not to
continue a chant critical of the LaRouchians was unaware of who the
LaRouchians were, and was merely trying to enforce the policy of
ensuring peaceful relations among contingents.
Although Ramsey Clark has chosen not to say anything critical of the
LaRouchians due to his representation of them in legal matters, the
Coalition does not hesitate to criticize roundly the LaRouchians as
fascists and anti-Semites.
The apparent reluctance among some persons affiliated with the
Coalition to discuss charges of LaRouchian involvement with reporters
did not reflect the views of the leadership of the Coalition, and in
some cases appears to reflect a disbelief among these persons that the
LaRouchians had managed successfully to portray themselves as part of
the Coalition.
December, 1990 and January, 1991 were chaotic and confusing months and
the official position of the Coalition regarding a refusal to work
with the LaRouchians was perhaps not made clear to all persons
actively organizing Coalition events around the country.
While the LaRouchians appear to abuse their legal relationship to
attorney Clark by using his name in their publicity and implying his
political support, it is the firm belief of the Coalition that Clark's
refusal to comment on this circumstance reflects a personal ethical
position, and in no way implies any connection between Clark and the
political work of the LaRouchians.
Leaders of the National Coalition to Stop U.S. Intervention in the
Middle East are aware that the LaRouchians continue to attempt to
penetrate their organization, and urge persons who find LaRouchians
portraying themselves as official members of the Coalition to
challenge that claim. Anyone who continues to claim the Coalition
tolerates the presence of the LaRouchians should be referred to the
national office of the Coalition for a short and clear rejection of
that contention.
"We do not work with fascists or anti-Semites," said Coalition
coordinator Gavrielle Gemma, "and that includes the LaRouchites."
Gemma says this is not only the Coalition attitude, but her own as
well, noting that she once personally threw some LaRouchians off a
picket line during the Greyhound strike.
Apparently the position of the Coalition leadership against working
with the LaRouchians, now clearly unequivocal, was slow to reach all
organizers during the chaotic months of December, 1990 and January,
1991. This lack of clarity among rank-and-file organizers, some of
whom were inexperienced, coupled with the LaRouchians' manipulative
opportunism, the Coalition's uncertainty over Bevel's tie to the
LaRouchians, and Ramsey Clark's silence on the LaRouchians' use of his
name, created enough confusion so that some organizers for the
Coalition at first defended Bevel's appearance at the January 4th
press conference, and defended the participation of various LaRouchian
front groups in Coalition events. It also turns out that a report
issued by the LaRouchian Schiller Institute, and cited at the January
4th press conference was in fact introduced by a LaRouchian attending
the press conference as a reporter.
Chicago antiwar organizer Alynne Romo reports the local Emergency
Coalition for Peace in the Middle East has "asked the LaRouchians not
to participate when they have appeared at our demonstrations."
According to Romo, "The LaRouche people called us several times. They
told us Margaret Thatcher was behind the situation in Iraq and that
she put George Bush up to it." Romo adds that "they also said they
were working with Ramsey Clark as a way to get us to cooperate."
Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark is the lead legal counsel
for an appeal filed by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. and six followers
convicted of loan fraud. On October 6, 1989, Clark appeared and gave
oral arguments in the case before a three judge panel of the Fourth
Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia to argue for the
reversal of the convictions.
The right of Mr. Clark to represent the LaRouche organization is not
disputed, but when the LaRouchians use his name in a political rather
than legal context, problems arise. Based on several dozen interviews
with antiwar activists in twenty cities, it appears that sometimes
LaRouchians fundraisers and organizers mention they work with Ramsey
Clark, while other times they do not. The use by the LaRouchians of
Clark's name has been very effective at college student government
meetings where many students have never heard of LaRouche, and tend to
be sympathetic to his claims of government harassment. After gaining
an audience, the LaRouchians encourage the student leaders to join
their "coalition" and to authorize college funding.
Sam Schwartz, a faculty member at Bronx Community College in New York,
received a phone call from a LaRouche attorney threatening to sue
Schwartz penniless unless he stopped telling students that LaRouche
was an anti-Semite and fascist. Several African-Americans active in
St. Louis who objected to the presence of the LaRouchians in a local
antiwar coalition were also threatened with lawsuits for their
critical characterization of the LaRouche movement. Clark has not
been involved in these threats of lawsuits.
Since Clark took on the LaRouche appeal, the LaRouchians have blazoned
Clark's name across a substantial amount of propaganda used both in
fundraising and in coaxing persons into consideration of the political
message of the organization. Sometimes the LaRouchian references to
Clark simply cause confusion. One antiwar activist who was handed a
LaRouchian pamphlet mentioning Clark was at first convinced the
LaRouchians were cleverly trying to smear Clark by using his name.
The LaRouchians frequently attempt to build coalitions in a sly
manner. For instance activist Lanny Sinkin, a former attorney for the
Christic Institute, appeared at a March, 1991 post-war panel sponsored
by a Washington, D.C. group called The Time is Now. Also on the
panel were two key LaRouche operatives and a leader of The Time is
Now. According to a staff member of the Washington Peace Center,
members of The Time is Now worked closely with the LaRouchians and
thoroughly disrupted the political work of the Washington Area
Coalition to Stop U.S. Intervention in the Middle East during January
and February, 1991. When members of The Time is Now passed out
LaRouche's "Executive Intelligence Review" at a February meeting, they
were asked to leave the coalition. When criticized by the Peace
Center staffer, Sinkin defended his appearance at the conference as
legitimate outreach, according to the staffer.
Sinkin says he was unaware when invited that LaRouchians would also be
on the panel, and he vigorously denies that he has ever had any
ongoing relationship with the LaRouchians or that his actions were
improper. Sinkin says that his appearance reflected his commitment to
speaking to broad audiences. Organizers at the Washington Peace
Center counter that Sinkin's presence at the meeting lent credibility
to two groups that were disrupting their work.
The issue here is not one of implying any type of ongoing relationship
between Sinkin and the LaRouchians. No such relationship exists. But
for the Washington Peace Center, Sinkin's appearance on the same
platform with the LaRouchians served as an implicit endorsement,
suggesting by example that joint work with the LaRouchians was
acceptable at the same time that the Peace Center was telling members
of the local antiwar coalition that joint work with the LaRouchians
was unacceptable.
A number of experienced antiwar activists warn that working with the
LaRouchians and other far-right and bigoted forces will only discredit
serious work towards peace in the Middle East. Jon Hillson is a
seasoned political organizer and peace activist based in Ohio who
already knew the history of the LaRouchians. Hillson reported
LaRouche organizers at events sponsored by the Cleveland Committee
Against War in the Persian Gulf. At one meeting, "Two people went
through the crowd handing out LaRouche's "New Federalist" ," says
Hillson. "I was shocked, but then I realized most students had never
heard of LaRouche," says Hillson. "I would urge people to disavow any
collaboration with them because of their past ties to government
agencies...and their homophobic, racist, sexist, and anti-Semitic
agenda." Hillson notes that it will take patience to explain to new
activists why a broad-based coalition should exclude anyone, but that
the task of educating people that coalitions with fascists should be
rejected is not one to be ignored.
=====================================================================
Part 20: How the LaRouchians Exploit Ramsey Clark
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
An "Associated Press (AP)" account of Clark's Fourth Circuit oral
arguments noted that "former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, chief
attorney for LaRouche's appeal, argued that U.S. District Judge
Albert V. Bryan Jr. of Alexandria allowed only thirty-four days from
arraignment to trial and failed to adequately question jurors on how
much they knew about the defendant."
The Fourth Circuit ruled against LaRouche, saying LaRouche's original
attorneys had waited eighteen days before asking for a continuance.
An "AP" story about the decision reported that the appeals panel "also
said LaRouche's attorneys made no attempt to press potential jurors to
determine `individually anyone who had ever heard of LaRouche,'
although certain jurors who said they were familiar with the case or
who had worked in law enforcement or had accounting or tax backgrounds
were questioned individually."
On further appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court let the convictions stand
without a hearing or comment.
In fact, more than a few civil libertarians agree there was evidence
of misconduct in the government's investigation of LaRouche, and the
closing of LaRouche's newspaper "New Solidarity" in a federal
bankruptcy proceeding raised serious constitutional issues. Still,
there is no clear evidence that the alleged government misconduct had
a direct bearing on the criminal prosecution of LaRouche and his
aides.
When Clark has spoken at LaRouchian-sponsored press conferences
concerning the case, there has been extensive coverage in the
LaRouchian press. One such story featuring Clark appeared in
LaRouche's "New Federalist" on October 13, 1989. Clark was quoted as
saying that even though he had once been a political opponent of
LaRouche, he had now come to his defense because of constitutional
abuses such as a fast jury selection process, massive prejudicial
pretrial publicity, and a jury pool which contained numerous
government employees, including law enforcement agents from agencies
that had allegedly targeted LaRouche.
Ramsey Clark has steadfastly refused to disassociate his legal work
for the LaRouchians from the political work of the LaRouchians,
despite the fact that the LaRouchians imply Clark's support in
numerous newspaper and magazine articles. Most critics of Clark's
silence regarding the LaRouchians say they understand he has a duty as
an attorney to represent the LaRouchians fully and vigorously, but
feel he has not been sensitive to the ways in which the LaRouchians
are using his name in the political arena. These critics point out
that the ethical imperatives for an attorney are different than the
moral obligations of a leader of an antiwar movement. They say Clark
has a political responsibility to distance himself from the LaRouche
organization, which is separate from his role as their attorney.
Sometimes it appears that Clark's support of the LaRouche cause has
moved beyond mere legal representation. According to the July 6, 1990
"New Federalist," on June 19, 1990, Clark spoke at a private meeting
coordinated with the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
(CSCE), a multi-governmental association and human rights forum that
solicits input from non-governmental groups. The "New Federalist"
reported that "Clark's trip was sponsored by the Schiller Institute's
Commission to Investigate Human Rights Violations, a non-governmental
organization which is urging the CSCE to take up the case of Lyndon
LaRouche, the U.S. economist and statesman who is now America's most
prominent political prisoner." The Schiller Institute is a LaRouchian
front group which once published a book claiming British Jews helped
put Hitler into power.
In his CSCE speech, Clark is reported to have said he had reviewed a
random selection of sixty-five published articles on LaRouche
appearing in the several years prior to LaRouche's prosecution. Clark
reportedly said "here you see that he's called every bad thing you can
imagine--Nazi, anti-Semitic, violence-prone, thief--over and over
again. Vilification...it was absolutely astounding."
The "New Federalist" article reported that Clark said that LaRouche
was prosecuted on "economic crimes that didn't exist, because this was
a political movement, it was not a for-profit activity and wasn't
intended to be a for-profit activity, it was a political movement.
You make three sentences for five years each to impose a fifteen-year
sentence on a man who's sixty-six years old. To destroy a political
movement. Obviously....Unless you can wrench [the political process]
free from [the] plutocracy that absolutely controls with an iron hand
that essentially one-party system, you won't have that change. And
that's what the Lyndon LaRouche case is about: you."
At a February 28, 1991 international conference in Algeria to oppose
U.S. intervention in the Gulf, Clark shared the podium with long-time
LaRouche associate Jacques Cheminade, president of the Schiller
Institute in France.
=====================================================================
Part 21: Ramsey Clark Responds
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
Clark confirmed in an interview that he had spoken about the LaRouche
case in Europe at the CSCE conference, but said he had not seen the
transcript of his speech that appeared in LaRouche's "New Federalist,"
and said his speech was not written in advance so he had no copy. If
the report of Clark's comments in "New Federalist" are accurate--and
to a large degree they reflect wording in the appeals brief he
signed--then there are serious questions as to what he thinks of the
LaRouchians. Clark seems to discount as propaganda the charges that
the LaRouchians are fascists, anti-Semites, or neo-Nazis. Other
critics question Mr. Clark's decision to appear at the CSCE-related
meeting at all, pointing out that such appearances go beyond legal
representation.
Clark said he had not seen any materials suggesting the LaRouche
people were using his name to organize students and others into their
antiwar work but he would like to see that material or any other
related information. But Clark seemed relatively unconcerned that the
LaRouchians might be using or abusing his name in their political
work. "That's a risk you always have," as a defense counsel, said
Clark.
Clark said that the somewhat glowing description of the LaRouche
political movement in the appeals brief he signed reflected the right
of any defendant to portray itself in a positive light.
According to Clark, the prosecution of LaRouche in Virginia was a
travesty of procedure and a clear violation of the Constitutional
right to a fair trial. Clark said the issue was not whether or not
the LaRouche people were guilty of crimes, but whether or not they had
received a fair trial. On the question of representation of
controversial clients on legal appeals,
Clark said:
"It's a question of rights, not a question of facts. I remain focused
on the legal rights and not the nature of the person involved. I
oppose the death penalty on principle, I assume many of the people who
I represent on death penalty appeals are in fact guilty, but that is
not the point. If you have to apologize first you have a done a
disservice to the case. I resist government abuses of people's
rights. The government demonizes people...once you have conceded the
demon you have lost the principle involved in the defense. By
prefacing a defense by first saying `of course, he is a terrible
person' it disables people from considering the matter fairly."
Clark said the government had demonized people like Saddam Hussein and
Lyndon LaRouche and that he felt it was not appropriate to give in to
the pejorative labeling of such persons when discussing their
activities. This is the same rationale used by Clark in 1986 when he
was criticized for not distancing himself from his client Karl Linnas,
a Nazi collaborator who was eventually deported because he had lied
about his past to gain entrance to the U.S. after World War II.
Clark represented Linnas in an appeal which objected to the procedures
followed in the deportation. Critics of Clark, including Daniel
Levitas of the Center for Democratic Renewal, said Clark was
insensitive to the fact that anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi groups were
using Clark's appeal to buttress their claims that Linnas was innocent
or that the Holocaust was a hoax. [f-23]
23. A strident attack on Clark written by John Judis which
appeared in the neo-conservative magazine "New Republic,"
conflated Clark's work with the LaRouchians and his
support for a variety of liberal and progressive issues.
Rather than raising a principled criticism of Clark, the
article was a vehicle for a denunciation of the left
in general and its views on the Gulf War in particular.
=====================================================================
Part 22: Rev. James Bevel
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
The Rev. James Bevel is an African-American minister from Chicago
with a long history of civil rights work but a recent reputation as an
opportunist who has swung far to the right. Rev. Bevel now works
closely with groups controlled by two neo-fascists, the Rev. Sun
Myung Moon and Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. The Moon network supported
the war effort, while the LaRouchians did not. Bevel focused his
energy in opposing the Gulf War, primarily through an alliance with
the LaRouchians. Bevel's ties to the LaRouchians go back several
years. Bevel not only appeared as a panelist at the LaRouchian
antiwar conference in Chicago, but he also has endorsed LaRouche's
congressional candidacy, and speaks regularly at LaRouchian forums.
Bevel has served on committees created by several LaRouchian front
groups, and writes a column for the LaRouchian newspaper "New
Federalist" . Bevel has been an effective organizer for the
LaRouchians, and took a high profile in their antiwar organizing.
Dr. Manning Marable, in a 1986 column, listed Bevel among a small
group of "prominent civil rights spokesmen [who] have gone so far as
to form alliances with ultra-right groups, which might give lip
service to blacks' traditional interests." The LaRouchians have sought
coalitions with local African-American community activists for many
years, often working through religious leaders. A recent example was
the LaRouchian support for then Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry.
During Barry's trial on drug charges, the LaRouchians and the Nation
of Islam helped organize protests on behalf of Barry. The LaRouchian
representative during these protests was Bevel.
When Bevel endorsed Lyndon LaRouche's congressional candidacy (in
Virginia's 10th Congressional District), he signed a statement which
included the claim, "Lyndon LaRouche is known and respected in every
nation of the Third World as the primary opponent of the genocide
policies of the IMF and as the architect and principal spokesman for a
new and more just world economic order that guarantees the inalienable
rights of all people." The statement speaks glowingly of LaRouche's
early theorizing about the AIDS virus and his recommendations for
fighting the spread of the virus. In fact, as mentioned before,
LaRouche has written that history would not judge harshly those
persons who took to the streets and beat homosexuals to death with
baseball bats to stop the spread of AIDS.
Bevel represented the LaRouchian Schiller Institute in Omaha,
Nebraska. The "Omaha World-Herald" reported on January 6, 1991:
"Bevel was one of 10 people who came to Nebraska in October as members
of a group calling itself the Citizens Fact-Finding Commission to
Investigate Human rights Violations of Children in Nebraska. That
group was organized by the Schiller Institute of Washington, D.C., and
Wiesbaden, Germany. The institute was founded in 1984 by Helga
Zepp-LaRouche. She is the wife of Lyndon LaRouche, who is serving a
15-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion....The Schiller group's
printed statement disputed the findings of two grand juries in the
Franklin case. A check by the "World-Herald" of some of the `facts'
in the statement turned up several apparent errors."
While Rev. Bevel's historic role as a valued civil rights leader is
unquestioned, he has in recent years lost his constituency and his
political moorings. Dr. Manning Marable noted in 1986 that Bevel,
had become "a Republican party leader in Chicago's Black community,
and soon earned the reputation as an extremist of the right."
Some time after the LaRouche conviction in January 1989, Bevel began
to appear as a featured speaker at LaRouchian conferences, and began
to write a column in the LaRouchian "New Federalist." As Marable noted
in 1986:
"The right-wing sect of Lyndon LaRouche has also initiated a campaign
to recruit black supporters. As in the case of the Unification
Church, the LaRouchians work primarily through several fronts, the
Schiller Institute and the National Democratic Policy Committee.
Again, the LaRouchians have been linked to a number of racist and
extremist groups, including the Liberty Lobby, the Klan and neo-Nazis.
Currently, the LaRouchians are vigorously opposing sanctions against
South African apartheid."
While in Chicago, Bevel regularly broke ranks with the
African-American-led coalition behind the late Mayor Harold
Washington. At the same time, Bevel was working with Moon's front
group CAUSA. In an interview with Bevel at an Illinois CAUSA meeting,
I asked him why he would ally himself with a religious/political
movement such as that run by Rev. Moon. Bevel replied that it was a
tactical coalition based on agreement that the main danger in the
world was communism. Bevel argued that communism was a godless
philosophy, and that as a Christian, it was his obligation to fight
godlessness.
Bevel's CAUSA ties garnered him some unflattering publicity.
According to the December 12, 1987 "Chicago Sun-Times," Bevel was one
of four persons belonging to "groups created by the Rev. Sun Myung
Moon's Unification Church" who erected a creche and nativity scene at
Chicago's Daley Center Plaza. The "Chicago Sun-Times" reported that
"William J. Grutzmacher, who obtained the permit and paid $2000 for
the creche, gave a speech in October to a business group in
Merrillville, Ind., apparently so anti-Semitic that a local newspaper
ran an editorial denouncing him." The head of the Rotary Club that had
co-sponsored Grutzmacher's speech told the reporter, "He made
charges...that the Communist Party is headed by Jews, and that the
Jews were responsible for every negative thing that has happened since
World War II."
Bevel has also worked with other Moon fronts. In the October, 1990
issue of "American Freedom Journal," Bevel is listed as serving on the
National Policy Board of the American Freedom Coalition, chaired by
the ultra-conservative Hon. Richard Ichord. The American Freedom
Coalition (AFC) is a joint project of Rev. Moon and the Rev. Robert
G. Grant of the ultra-right Christian fundamentalist group Christian
Voice. AFC fundraised for Oliver North, and Bevel sits on the AFC
National Policy Board with Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub, implicated
in the Iran-Contragate scandal; Lt. Gen. Daniel Graham of High
Frontier, the pro-Star Wars lobby; and rightist historian Dr. Cleon
Skousen. The late Dr. Ralph David Abernathy was a long-time member
of the AFC Board of Directors along with pro-interventionist
Ambassador Phillip Sanchez. On the AFC National Advisory Board sit
rightist fundraising guru Richard Viguerie, and Slava Stetsko,
president of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN). ABN is
notorious because it is the descendant and spiritual heir of the
Committee of Subjugated Nations, formed in 1943 by Hitler's allies.
According to author Russ Bellant, "The ABN brought together fascist
forces from Hungary, Bulgaria, Rumania, the Ukraine, the Baltic
States, Slovenia and other nations." Slava Stetsko is the widow of
Yaroslav Stetsko, leader of the Nazi puppet government in the Ukraine
during World War II. She once wrote a glowing introduction to a book
that defined anti-Semitism as a "smear word used by Communists against
those who effectively oppose and expose them."
These are the fascist forces with which Bevel has allied himself, and
is a striking example of the opportunistic flexibility of fascism as a
political ideology, able not only to embrace Nazi-collaborators but
also to entice Black civil rights activists. Bevel's ties to the
fascist Moon circles are through a shared loathing of communism as a
godless ideology, an issue which resonates with many Black
church-based constituencies. Another congruent theme that fascism can
employ to seek alliances with African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans
is the opportunistic manipulation of the issues of nationalism and
self determination.
Other Black leaders such as Roy Innis and the late Ralph David
Abernathy have forged alliances with the fascist right. Innis has
worked in alliance with the LaRouchians. Abernathy worked with Moon's
Unification movement until his death.
=====================================================================
Part 23: Other Right-Wing Groups and the Gulf War
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
Conservative groups overwhelmingly supported sending U.S. troops to
the Gulf. Right-wing forces aligned with Rev. Sun Myung Moon and
those supportive of the Israeli political right forged a pro-war
coalition that placed ads in newspapers and purchased television
commercials.
Other rightists, primarily those who have politics that are more
accurately termed reactionary than conservative, staked out an
isolationist or "America First" position, and opposed sending U.S.
troops to fight the Gulf War. The LaRouchian antiwar theories
parallel many of the themes promoted by the Liberty Lobby, and the
John Birch Society. According to one flyer issued by the LaRouchians,
"If war is to come, it will be the result of deliberate `geopolitical'
plotting by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Lord Carrington,
and other London friends of Henry Kissinger."
At the 35th Anniversary Liberty Lobby convention held in September,
1990 there was considerable antiwar sentiment expressed by speakers
who tied the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia to pressure from Israel
and its intelligence agency, Mossad. No matter what actual political
involvement, if any, forces that support Israel may have had in
shaping the events that led to the Gulf War, the themes discussed at
the Liberty Lobby conference tilted toward undocumented anti-Jewish
propaganda rather than principled factual criticisms.
Prouty's topic at the opening session of the 1990 Liberty Lobby
Convention was "The Secret Team." The new Institute for Historical
Review's Noontide Press edition of Prouty's book "The Secret Team" was
released at the Liberty Lobby conference. Prouty assured the audience
it was an "enormous privilege" to have his book republished by the
Institute for Historical Review, a group, Prouty claimed, that keeps
people "from revising history." Prouty thanked Willis Carto and Tom
Marcellus of IHR for the "guts and good sense" to republish his book.
[f-24] Following Prouty to the Podium was Eustace Mullins, who spoke
on "Secrets of the Federal Reserve."
24. Questioned about the obviously bigoted material
circulated by his current publisher, Prouty
refused to comment.
Prouty has been a guest at least nine times on Paul Valentine's Radio
Free America program--syndicated by Liberty Lobby. An ad in
"Spotlight" for a tape of Prouty's January 23, 1991 interview reads:
"Was Bush's War [against Iraq] actually a "Secret Team" operation?
Col. Fletcher Prouty, expert on this government within a government,
argues that it has all the earmarks."
Prouty also moderated a panel where Bo Gritz wove a conspiracy theory
which explained the U.S. confrontation with Iraq as a product of the
same "Secret Team" outlined by Prouty. Spotlight's coverage of the
Gritz presentation featured a headline proclaiming "Gritz Warns...Get
Ready to Fight or Lose Freedom: Links Drugs, CIA, Mossad; Slams U.S.
Foreign Policy; Alerts Patriots to Martial Law Threat."
Other conference speakers and moderators at the September 1990 Liberty
Lobby convention included attorney Mark Lane, who has drifted into
alliances with Liberty Lobby that far transcend his role as the
group's lawyer, and comedian and activist Dick Gregory, whose
anti-government rhetoric finds fertile soil on the far right. Dick
Gregory also spoke in 1991 at the January 19th antiwar rally in
Washington, D.C. Organizers of the antiwar event say they were
unaware of Gregory's previous appearance at the Liberty Lobby meeting.
Mark Lane and Dick Gregory co-authored a 1977 book on the
assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and both have
circulated complex conspiracy theories about other world events which
could account in part for their drift towards the conspiratorial
Liberty Lobby network.
People associated with Liberty Lobby or the Populist Party circulated
antiwar and pro-isolationist literature, including Liberty Lobby's
weekly newspaper "Spotlight," at several antiwar rallies, including
demonstrations in Boston, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and West Palm
Beach, Florida.
According to the Center for Democratic Renewal:
"The Florida Populist Party attended [the Florida] anti-war
rally...handing out a leaflet that read in part: `The most conspicuous
foes of war have been on the left, and we in the Populist Party
support their efforts.' Don Black, a former Klan leader, had a taped
message on the Party's phone line: `Make no mistake, this is Israel's
war, and American sons and daughters are fighting it for them.'"
In its January 7-14, 1991 edition, "Spotlight" carried an article
titled "Volunteers Flock to Iraq To Help Fight U.S., Israel." This
phenomenon was favorably compared to "the building of the Waffen SS
legions in Europe during World War II, when almost 1 million men from
all over Europe and as far away as India voluntarily enlisted to fight
communism under the leadership of the German high command. That
development was also suppressed and never mentioned by the
Anglo-American press. Allied commanders, however, knew the Waffen SS
as an extremely effective fighting force."
An advertisement in the same issue of "Spotlight" touted a book
"Israel: Our Duty...Our Dilemma" under the headline "How Will You
Respond To The Next Mid-East War?" While "Spotlight" itself usually
avoids the loaded language of this ad, the pages of "Spotlight" are
frequently used by racist, anti-Jewish, and pro-Nazi groups to call
attention to their products, publications, events, and views. The ad
copy is also significant because it encapsulates many of the themes
used by anti-Jewish bigots in criticizing Israel and Jews:
"If you are like most Americans you will react as the pro-Zionist
media has you to react."
"But if you have read "Israel: Our Duty...Our Dilemma" you will see
the picture--how Israel's ruling elite are using terrorism,
Holocaust sympathy, twisted Bible verses--toward one objective:
Power."
"Power in America. Power in the Middle East. Power in the world."
"Distilling 14 years' research in semi-secret Jewish sources,
evangelical writer Theodore Winston Pike demonstrates that through
Kabbalistic occultism, international banking, communism, liberalism,
and media control, Israel is doing exactly what the Bible prophesies:
establishing a power base in the Middle East upon which her false
messiah, AntiChrist, will someday rule."
=====================================================================
Part 24: The Racist Right and the Gulf War
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
Some white supremacists outlined a frank racist agenda in their Gulf
War publications. The Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,
in the January/February, 1991 issue of "The Klansman," ran a banner
headline "War in the Middle East? Another Blood Sacrifice on the
Altar of International Jewry. Integrated Effeminate U.S. Military
Will Not Win!" "On Target," published by Northpoint Tactical Teams in
North Carolina, released a forty-page special edition, "Desert Shield
and the New World Order," which ascribes the conflict to a
Jewish-Communist conspiracy involving Henry Kissinger, David
Rockefeller, George Bush, and Mikhail Gorbachev.
=====================================================================
Part 25: The Buchanan Controversy
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
The attempts by some of the rightist groups who opposed the war to
penetrate the progressive antiwar movement came during a period of
significant realignment among U.S. right-wing and conservative
political groups. In some rightist groups, long hidden racialist
theories are being dusted off and recirculated, which has caused
further splits. One of the most significant historical divisions on
the American political right is between those groups that espouse
racialist (race-based) theories--generally anti-Jewish and white
supremacist--and those that do not.
The issue of anti-Jewish rhetoric over the Gulf crisis first surfaced
in September, 1990 as part of this long simmering feud within the
political right in the United States. Reactionary columnist Pat
Buchanan fired the first salvo to reach the mainstream media when he
declared on the McLaughlin Group roundtable television program that
the two groups most favoring war in the Middle East were "the Israeli
Defense Ministry and its amen chorus in the United States." "New York
Times" columnist A.M. Rosenthal charged that Buchanan's comments
reflected anti-Semitism, to which Buchanan retorted that Rosenthal had
made a "contract hit" on him in collusion with the Anti-Defamation
League of B'nai B'rith (ADL).
=====================================================================
Part 26: The NeoCon Perspective
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
To unravel the background of the dispute takes a political scorecard.
Buchanan is allied with reactionary and hard-line rightist forces in
the U.S. The more moderate of these hard-right forces sometimes are
called paleo-conservatives or "Paleocons" due to their ties to the
"Old Right" in the United States. The farthest fringe of this circle
is populated by persons who reflect a neo-fascist viewpoint. Buchanan
networks across the spectrum of the hard-right, from Paleocon to
neo-Fascist. Racism and anti-Jewish bigotry were common themes in
some (although not all) Old Right groups.
The Anti-Defamation League is a Jewish human rights group often allied
with the "Neocons," the neo-conservative movement in the United
States. ADL leaders frequently are ardent and uncritical supporters
of hardline Israeli government policies, as are many Neocons. ADL has
produced some excellent material on bigotry and prejudice, but its
leaders have labeled as anti-Semitic statements which are solely
political criticisms of Israel or Zionism. Since there are some
high-profile Jews in the intellectual leadership of the
neo-conservative movement, some persons have concluded that
neo-conservatism is a Jewish ideology. This is as prejudiced an
assertion as the claim that communism is a Jewish ideology because of
the role played in it by some Jewish intellectuals.
Buchanan's statement in and of itself was not necessarily anti-Jewish,
but in the context of Buchanan's long record of insensitivity when
writing about Jews, the contention that Buchanan is an anti-Semite is
not without foundation. Buchanan has not only defended those who say
the Holocaust was a hoax, but implied their views have some merit.
Buchanan endorsed the work of the Rockford Institute after other
conservatives criticized it for its tolerance of apparently
anti-Jewish sentiments. In his January 25, 1990 newsletter, Buchanan
penned what was in essence an ode to fascism which celebrated the
efficiency of autocracy, and concluded with the line, "If the people
are corrupt, the more democracy, the worse the government." The column
also echoed historically racialist themes.
Actually, the Neocons for ten years quietly have tolerated more than a
little anti-democratic authoritarianism, anti-Jewish bigotry, and
racism from their tactical allies on the Paleocon right. Their
alliance was based on shared support for militant anti-communism,
celebration of unfettered free enterprise, calls for high levels of
U.S. spending on the U.S. military, and support for a militarily
strong Israel dominated by hard-line ultra-conservative political
parties that would stand as a bulwark against communism in the Middle
East.
Author Sara Diamond (who covered the Buchanan/Rosenthal feud in "Z
Magazine") notes "the Buchanan forces explicitly rejected coalition
with the left on the issue of opposing intervention in the Gulf."
=====================================================================
Part 27: Craig Hulet's Reductionist Gulf War Critiques
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
"Reactionary concepts plus revolutionary emotion result in Fascist
mentality."
(Wilhelm Reich)
One critic of government policies who draws from both left and right
sources and perspectives is Seattle-based analyst Craig B. Hulet.
During the past year, progressive radio stations including KPFA in San
Francisco and KPFK in Los Angeles aired compelling condemnations of
the Gulf War produced by Hulet, also known as K.C. DePass. A number
of study groups were formed in California following Hulet's radio and
personal appearances. Hulet claimed in an interview that his theories
have no relation to conspiracist theories such as those circulated by
the John Birch Society, and he is quick to distance himself from the
racialist and anti-Jewish theories of far-right groups such as Liberty
Lobby. Still, Hulet's analysis, which exaggerates the role of the Al
Sabah family in world affairs, has many of the hallmarks of other
oversimplified conspiracist theories which reduce complex issues to
simple equations; and it seems to scapegoat one family of Arabs,
albeit one with powerful financial holdings, in a way that would be
equally unacceptable if their name was Rothschild rather than Al
Sabah. No matter what his actual affiliations, Hulet essentially
employs a variation on the elite financial insider conspiracy of the
John Birch Society.
Hulet has a smooth style and self-confident tone, but in essence,
Hulet's analysis reflects a cynical right-wing libertarian perspective
laced with conspiratorial theories. The basic theme of his Gulf War
analysis boils down to an assertion that Kuwait's ruling Al Sabah
family dictated U.S. policy in the Gulf War in concert with ruling
financial elites in the United States. According to Hulet, the Al
Sabah family could do this because they controlled vast financial
holdings in the U.S. and they threatened to withdraw those holdings
and collapse the U.S. economy unless the U.S. pushed Iraq out of
Kuwait. Hulet also maintains that the investments of George Bush and
his father Prescott make George Bush vulnerable to manipulation by the
Al Sabah family.
Hulet's assertions in "The Secret U.S. Agenda in the Gulf War,"
published during the Gulf War period as part of the Open Magazine
Pamphlet Series, show his proclivity for unjustified conclusory
statements:
"Sabah is the key to making this whole thing unfold and work so well
in fine mesh. The financial holdings of the Al Sabah family in this
country alone in our Western banks, our six largest banks offshore, is
$300 billion dollars. They own $52 billion in U.S. T-bills and
bonds. The Citicorp portfolio alone is $10 billion in assets held by
the Sabah family. No more than 5% of GE, McDonald Douglas,
Westinghouse, Dow Chemical, Atlantic Richfield, Texaco, you name it.
The multinational corporations. Six of the ones I just named are our
largest listed defense contractors....There's no question that the
international community has guaranteed that they would back the use of
force and come to the aid of the Al Sabah family, even if it means
100,000 Americans die, because he could cause financial chaos." [f-25]
25. Hulet, Craig. "The Secret U.S. Agenda in the Gulf War."
New Jersey: Open Magazine Pamphlet Series, 1991. pp. 8-10.
A Hulet promotional brochure reveals a pattern of similar reductionist
statements and unsubstantiated conspiratorial claims. According to
the brochure:
"Hulet outlines the actual political objectives of the Bush
administration regarding the Middle East...why we gave Hussein the
green light to invade Kuwait and why Bush will disallow any legitimate
cease fire overture by Hussein....volatile...material concerning
George Bush's connections as well as those of his father, Prescott
Bush...Middle East and the New World Order discussed in detail..."
The brochure claims that the Hulet report "Overview of Government
Corruption and Manipulation" provides "an excellent understanding
identifying the elite and how and why they control society". In a
similar vein, the brochure claims the Hulet report "The Gnomes of
Zurich" provides, "...an overview identifying the elites who manage
this country and how and why they control it's aim...."
The text of "The Gnomes of Zurich" shows a more detailed yet
consistent reliance on conspiratorial assertions:
"Keeping the left wing grass roots at the throat of the right wing
grass roots, serves the purpose, the means, and ultimately..., the
END, of these quite powerful elitists. As each side at the basic root
level; the grass roots level if you will, are both being used, duped,
and manipulated by the Elite...They are quite simply, these sincere
yet almost silly at times local people, unwittingly part of an
ingenious plan to create a "synthesis...ingenious because of its
simplicity...For you see the Elite in the Kremlin," and the "Elite in
Washington" quite agree on the end at which they both aim (the
synthesis). "A Global Regime." "
These are just a few examples of Hulet's conspiracist style. Most of
Hulet's work concerns conspiracies of the "elites." Actually, much of
Hulet's thesis is an echo of the book "Call it Conspiracy" by Larry
Abraham, which is itself a rewrite and expansion of the book "None
Dare Call it Conspiracy" by Gary Allen and Larry Abraham. Allen's
writings were widely popularized by the John Birch Society. Hulet's
intellectual tradition can clearly be shown to be congruent with that
of the John Birch Society.
In at least one case, Hulet moves beyond conspiracism into elevating a
satire to documentary status. Hulet labels as fact material from the
book "Report from Iron Mountain." Hulet refers to the work as if it
were a secret government document. Actually, "Report from Iron
Mountain" is an allegorical critique of the pro-militarist lobby and a
well-known example of political satire. [f-26]
26. "Report from Iron Mountain" is to a large degree a veiled
attack on Herman Kahn and the school of geo-political
strategy that developed around him at the Hudson
Institute, an ultra-conservative think tank. Several of
the footnotes refer to Kahn and Hudson Institute
studies i.e. Kahn: Section 1, footnote 4 (p. 103),
Section 5, footnote 10 (p. 105), Section 8,
footnote 1, (p. 108); and Hudson Institute: Section 8,
footnote 3, (p. 109). Moreover, the overall philosophy
adopted in the book is consistent with Hudson
Institute study papers and Kahn's writings. (See Kahn's
"On Escalation" and "Thinking About the Unthinkable."
Also of interest is the book by two former Hudson Institute
analysts, Edmund Stillman and William Pfaff who later
rejected that school of thought and wrote "The
Politics of Hysteria."
While an excellent philosophical discussion of the errors of the Cold
War, it should be noted that it was produced by Leonard C. Lewin,
described on the book jacket as a "critic and satirist" who was editor
of "A Treasury of American Political Humor." Apparently Hulet didn't
get the joke. Even the Institute for Historical Review, which sells
"Report from Iron Mountain," says in its current "Noontide Press"
catalog: "was it the actual text of a secret report...or a brilliant
satire? Judge for yourself."
Hulet also plows the ground of left/right coalition. Hulet says that
he works closely with former Christic Institute attorney Lanny Sinkin
to buttress his credibility on the left. On one radio interview,
Hulet responded to a question regarding third parties in the U.S. by
saying:
"The problem with those third parties is that they are such a tiny,
tiny minority of the intelligentsia. Many of them like the
Libertarian Party is splintered between factions. They are fighting
amongst themselves. They still see it as a left-wing right-wing
dialectic that they must oppose. And all I'm trying to make very
clear to the American people, including the ones that read all the
right books, is that the enemy is our government. The enemy is not
part of our society. It has always historically been them versus us.
The government versus the people. And the American people have to
stop fighting amongst themselves."
Pacifica radio network stations KPFK in Los Angeles and KPFA in San
Francisco aired long programs with Hulet, and audiotapes of his radio
interviews quickly became some of the Pacifica Archives' best-selling
tapes. According to the program manager of KPFA, Hulet was one of the
most requested radio personalities during and after the Gulf War.
Hulet recommends the research on Trilateralism of Antony C. Sutton, a
far-right theorist who publishes the "Phoenix Letter: A Report on the
Abuse of Power," and "Future Technology Intelligence Report" . The
latter carried Sutton's sentiment that "without political intervention
cancer would have been cured decades ago." Citing Sutton in any
context is problematic given Sutton's exotic views. Sutton, for
instance, asserts that various government and political operatives,
controlled by international bankers, have suppressed the technology to
control the weather, produce free energy, and achieve "Acoustical
Levitation." Sutton also reports on "possible advanced alien
technology" including anti-gravity devices recovered from UFOs by the
U.S. government. Sutton's book "Wall Street and the Bolshevik
Revolution" is listed in the definitive work "Antisemitic Propaganda:
An Annotated Bibliography and Research Guide" with the annotation:
"The Jewish-Conspiracy Theory of the Bolshevik Revolution...pp.
185-89." [f-27]
27. Singerman, Robert. "Antisemitic Propaganda: An Annotated
Bibliography and Research Guide." New York:
Garland, 1982. p. 338.
When Hulet was asked why he would put forward Sutton as someone to
prove his thesis, he replied that it was a choice between Sutton and
Holly Sklar, and he considered Sklar a Marxist. This says much about
the political milieu from which Hulet is emerging. Sklar, who has
written progressive critiques of the Trilateralists, warns antiwar
activists that "there is a big difference between understanding the
influence of the Trilateral Commission on world affairs and the
paranoid right-wing fantasy that the Trilateralists and their allies
are an omnipotent cabal controlling the world. It's important for
people to base their political decisions on facts, not lazy catch-all
conspiracy theories."
Journalist David Barsamian interviewed Hulet for his Alternative Radio
tape series which is aired on numerous local radio stations nationwide
and often sold in the form of audio cassettes and printed transcripts.
The "Open Magazine" pamphlet series reproduced Barsamian's interview
with Hulet, and sold them alongside interviews with researchers who
have a more substantial and serious track record, including Noam
Chomsky, Helen Caldicott, and John Stockwell. According to co-owner
Stuart Sahulka, the Hulet pamphlet was published because there was
"such an overpressing need for information about the war," and that
except for exaggerating the amount of Kuwaiti investment in the U.S.,
it seemed accurate. After selling one thousand copies of the
pamphlet--far less than the others, "Open Magazine" did not reprint
the pamphlet and it went out of print, according to Sahulka.
Barsamian suggested to Open Road that it would be appropriate not to
reprint the Hulet pamphlet given the revelations emerging about Hulet.
Barsamian was troubled by some of Hulet's assertions regarding the
genesis of the Gulf War, and Hulet's apparent claim that the Kuwaiti
royal families control of $300 billion in U.S. investments was the
key issue in prompting the war. (Most newspapers and financial
reporting services place the Kuwaiti/U.S. investment figure in the
range of 30-50 billion dollars, with a low of 15 and a high of 80 in
current documented mainstream and alternative press accounts.)
Barsamian and other progressive researchers and journalists have been
unable to document some of Hulet's claims, which may represent
legitimate suppositions, but were presented by Hulet in numerous radio
interviews as facts. Hulet argues that the integrity of his research
should not be judged on the basis of radio interviews where
discussions are often hectic and condensed. On the other hand, Hulet
gained his influence as a Gulf War critic and his largest audience
through radio talk shows.
Barsamian warns progressives of falling for the type of "left guruism"
where sensational anti-government theories are accepted without any
independent critical analysis. He notes that during the Gulf crisis
Craig Hulet was elevated to expert status by progressives who accepted
his pronouncements as fact without seriously examining his
credentials, which he sometimes inflates.
For instance, one Hulet brochure describes him as a "Published
columnist and political cartoonist. Articles frequently appear in
national publications: "Financial Security Digest, International
Combat Arms, Seattle Times, LA Weekly, SF Examiner, Oakland Tribune"
and more." In fact, while the phrasing strongly suggests Hulet has
written for the latter four publications, Hulet admits those cites
actually refer to instances when he was quoted or his research used in
preparing the article. Most journalists and academics would consider
that a misrepresentation. In the long run, whether or not Hulet's
analysis stands up to intellectual criticism will be determined by his
ability to defend his thesis--a defense that can only take place if
his views are vigorously debated, not uncritically accepted as gospel.
That is the same critical standard to which all researchers should be
held.
An especially useful book in understanding how Hulet's conspiracy
theories of oligarchic manipulation, anti-government demagoguery, and
appeal to individualism fits into the fascist tradition is "The
Fascist Ego" by William R. Tucker. [f-28] The book is a study of the
French intellectual fascist, Robert Brasillach, whose egocentric
flirtation with fascism ended with his execution as a collaborator at
the end of WWII.
28. William R. Tucker, "The Fascist Ego" (Univ. of Calif.
Press, Berkeley, 1975)
Author Tucker, as the jacket blurb explains:
"...sees in Brasillach's involvement in fascism a form of anarchic
individualism or `right-wing anarchism.' He suggests that, far from
being a form of social or moral conservatism, Brasillach's fascism was
inspired by an anti-modernism that placed the creative individuals
sensibilities and his ego at the center of things. Brasillach's fear
that the individualist prerogatives of the creative elite would be
submerged in the industrialized and rationalized society that loomed
on the horizon was important as a basis for his thoughts and actions."
To understand Brasillach and his soul-mates is to understand Craig
Hulet, and his followers.
=====================================================================
Part 28: How the Populist Party Uses Hulet
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
While Craig Hulet, featured on the California Pacifica radio stations,
is careful to distance himself from views that are racist or
anti-Jewish, not everyone who champions Hulet as an commentator on the
Gulf War or Bush's New World Order makes those distinctions. Some
persons, wittingly or not, use Hulet's theories to introduce others to
the more bigoted theorists. Hulet helped spark a political movement
in California following the Gulf War that, according to persons
attending the meetings, fed scores, perhaps hundreds, of political
activists into a far-right, racist, and anti-Jewish political
organizing drive supporting the Presidential candidacy of Col. James
"Bo" Gritz of the Populist Party.
The story of one person living in the Bay Area, called here Dana
Pierce, illustrates the study group phenomenon sparked by Hulet's
presentations. The story shows an organizing dynamic in action, and
is not meant to imply that Hulet is a party to the dynamic, merely
that others opportunistically use Hulet as bait.
Dana Pierce had become critical of domestic U.S. financial policies,
and attended a meeting of others who shared that view. Pierce was
invited by the leader of the group, an older man with "a pro-democracy
demeanor," to a meeting in the San Rafael area to meet someone who
might assist with a particular financial problem.
At that second meeting, the facilitator announced the group was trying
to understand George Bush and the New World Order. They were studying
history and political science, and were reading material by Noam
Chomsky. It was explained that the group had formed after several
core persons, who opposed sending U.S. troops to the Gulf, had heard
Craig Hulet's speeches in the Bay Area, primarily on radio station
KPFA, both in live interviews and on tape. Some people had seen Hulet
on videotape. They had responded to Hulet's call for people to
educate themselves by forming the group.
The group consisted of at least thirty people and had met about four
times when Pierce attended the meeting. For the main program of the
meeting, the group watched a videotape of Eustace Mullins talking
about the sinister aspects of the Federal Reserve syste Jerusalem One
=====================================================================
Part 29: Left/Right Critiques and Coalitions
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
It would be grossly unfair to suggest that all information from the
political right is inaccurate conspiracism. Right-wing groups are
quite capable of producing factual investigative material and
persuasive journalistic stories. For instance, every year "Project
Censored" runs a contest to pick the ten top stories not adequately
covered by the mainstream press. On a 1991 PBS television program
reviewing the 1990 Project Censored stories, commentator Bill Moyers
held up a copy of the "Spotlight" as an example of two such
stories--one on aspects of U.S. foreign policy in the early days of
the Gulf crisis, another highlighting repressive features of an
anti-crime bill. Not all stories surfaced by the far right are
accurate, however, and many feature convoluted and undocumented
conspiracy theories featuring a paranoid analysis.
At the same time the right has been wooing the left, right-wing groups
have been promoting a number of left resources such as books and
videos that criticize certain aspects of government policy or ruling
elites. For instance, Noam Chomsky's critiques of U.S. foreign
policy, Holly Sklar's studies of the Trilateral Commission, and Brian
Glick's manual on domestic repression are praised and distributed by
right-wing book peddlers.
These cross-ideological pollinations do not imply any ideological
connection between the left researchers and the right--any group can
distribute a book--but demonstrates that the political right sees
points of alliance with the left, especially around issues relating to
government abuses of power.
Government repression and intelligence abuse are not the only areas of
research on the left where convoluted theories are circulated.
Unsubstantiated conspiracist theories, claiming secret circles of
corporate influence in the United States, also flow between left and
right pro-environmentalists. One Massachusetts environmental activist
researches alternative energy sources, circulates materials on elite
control of energy policy, and refers interested environmentalists to
the work of Eustace Mullins who writes about the so-called Jewish
international banking conspiracy. In his worldview, Mullins' research
unraveling powerful industrial and banking conspiracies can help
explain government antagonism toward environmental reform. [f-29]
Mullins is a regular guest on Chuck Harder's For the People radio
program, which also has featured progressive consumer advocate Ralph
Nader.
29. Background interview with activist in January, 1991
"Revisionist Letters," a periodical promoting the idea that the
historical account of the Holocaust is a hoax, carried an article
urging recruitment from "a powerful potential source of
supporters--the radical Left! Leftist disillusionment with Israel and
Zionism is growing rapidly."
Several far-right commentators with ties to Liberty Lobby and its
"Spotlight" newspaper were interviewed on radio stations affiliated
with the progressive Pacifica network. The most troublesome and
widespread aspects of this phenomenon have occurred in California
where some radio hosts have promoted Sheehan and Davis of Christic
along with right-wing persons in Liberty Lobby and the conspiratorial
right as jointly working together to expose the government's corrupt
maneuverings. Radio personality Craig Hulet has encouraged this
belief in interviews by warning of attempts to criticize those who are
"kicking George Bush." Hulet, in fact, specifically named Sheehan,
Davis, Marchetti, Prouty, Gritz, and himself as researchers who needed
to be defended against those who criticized coalitions between the
left and the right.
On one forum for activists on a national electronic computer based
network, excerpts from LaRouchian and Liberty Lobby publications have
been uncritically posted by persons who primarily circulate
information from left and progressive sources. This builds the
credibility of the LaRouchians and Liberty Lobby circles and implies
that they are natural allies. The circulation of messages promoting
racist and anti-Jewish ideas and praising the theories of Liberty
Lobby and the LaRouchians has become widespread on the USENET computer
telecommunications system that links many universities.
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Part 30: The JFK Conspiracy
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Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
The Oliver Stone film "JFK" stimulated nationwide interest in
conspiracies. Some right-wing paranoid theories are woven into the
film, not surprising since Fletcher Prouty was an advisor to Stone,
and the film's character "Mr. X" was primarily based on Prouty.
Several of the film's themes echo conspiracist claims appearing in a
John Birch Society magazine article on the JFK assassination by
Medford Evans. The article was first published in September 1967 and
was reprinted in April 1992 in the Birch magazine "The New American"
to catch the wave of publicity around the Stone film. In the article,
Evans discusses rumors that Lyndon Johnson may have engineered the
Kennedy assassination, considers the assassination a "coup d'etat" .
and suggest the American Establishment had JFK killed. The publisher
complains, however, that "if Oliver Stone is seriously trying to
indict the CIA, defense contractors, Big Oil, Big Business, the news
media, and a host of others, he errs in suggesting that the whole
business was a right-wing plot. These are not individuals of the
Right."
As the film "JFK" was making headlines, Prouty was promoting the new
IHR edition of his book on the CIA, "The Secret Team" and Lane was
promoting his new book on the Kennedy Assassination, "Plausible
Denial," in tandem with the film. Prouty wrote the introduction to
Lane's book. Stone highlighted the research of Prouty in a December,
1991 "Op-Ed" article in the "New York Times" . Prouty was widely
discussed as a model for the "Mr. X" character featured in the Stone
film, and Prouty served as an advisor to the film. Both Prouty and
Lane have been featured on nominally progressive radio stations
discussing the JFK assassination. There has been a reluctance to
discuss some of these issues among some progressives, for instance a
new film by respected documentarians Daniel Schechter and Barbara
Kopple, "Beyond 'JFK': The Question of Conspiracy," features Lane and
Prouty but makes no mention of the controversy surrounding their
affiliations.
Another example of a left/right information alliance involves Dan
Brandt, creator of the Namebase software program, an immensely useful
computer tool which searches a huge index of CIA-related publications
and documents. Brandt has created a non-profit group with a board of
advisors composed of both left and right critics of U.S. intelligence
agencies, including LaRouche-defender Fletcher Prouty who is listed as
being on the advisory board of Liberty Lobby's Populist Action
Committee. [f-30] On the other hand, Brandt is highly critical of the
LaRouchians.
30. Prouty says he was never asked to be on the board of
advisers but refuses to ask that his name be removed
from the published list.
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Part 31: True Gritz
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Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
One of the most visible attempts by rightists to recruit from the left
involves the presidential candidacy of Bo Gritz. Gritz is running for
president through a variety of local parties and groups, but his
earliest candidacy this electoral round was under the banner of the
fascist Populist Party. "Readers Digest" has called the Populist
party a haven for neo-Nazis and ex-klansmen. The Populist Party was
founded by Hitler apologist Willis Carto.
Bo Gritz is the point man in an effort to build a coalition of white
supremacists, anti-Jewish bigots, neo-fascists, and paranoid gun nuts.
Gritz has attracted a large audience of progressives with his
anti-administration appeals.
Gritz promotes the ideas of the Christian Identity movement, although
he claims he is not a follower of Identity. In a speech at Identity
pastor Pete Peter's Colorado headquarters, Gritz acknowledged that
Peters had helped publish and distribute his book "Called to Serve,"
which is used to promote the Gritz presidential campaign.
Christian Identity is a religion that sees Jews as agents of Satan and
considers African-Americans to be sub-human. Identity claims the
United States is the real promised land and white Christians are the
real children of Israel. Many proponents of Christian Identity seek
to overthrow the "Zionist Occupational Government" in Washington, D.C.
and establish an exclusively white Christian nation, or at least seize
the states of the pacific northwest.
Gritz primarily seeks to build networks of support in reactionary and
far-right circles. He made a presentation on "MIA/POW & Government
Drug Dealers" at the Third Christian Heritage National Conference held
in November of 1990 in Florida. Among other featured speakers were
Bob Weems, Pete Peters, Col. Jack Mohr and other persons who promote
Christian Identity. Also speaking were Eustace Mullins, who provided
the "Total Conspiracy Update," and A.J. Barker, national chairman of
the Populist Party.
The Populist Party ran former neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan leader David
Duke for President in 1988 with Gritz as the original
vice-presidential nominee. Gritz later dropped off the ticket to run
for local office, and now makes excuses for his earlier affiliation
with Duke.
Gritz claims he opposes racism and is trying to clean up the Populist
Party. But Gritz continuously misrepresents the nature of the
Populist Party and its ongoing leadership. An article in the
September 1992 Soldier of Fortune magazine notes:
"Gritz also said he does not know Jerry Pope, chairman of Kentucky's
Populist Party. Pope was once a prominent figure in the National
States Rights Party founded by racist J.B. Stoner, who was imprisoned
for the deaths of black children in the bombing of a Sunday school
class in Birmingham, Alabama." Pope and Gritz are both listed as being
on the Board of Advisers to the Populist Action Committee run by
Liberty Lobby.
The Populist Party began promoting Gritz for President in the summer
of 1991. The banner headline in the June, 1991 issue of "The Populist
Observer: Voice of the Populist Party" was "Groundswell Building For
Gritz Presidential Run." Gritz had addressed the Populist Party
national convention in May 1991. The following month, "The Populist
Observer" ran another banner headline proclaiming: "Gritz Populist
Party Candidacy for President Official!"
In a memo sent to Populist Party regulars by Chair Don Wassall, and
signed by 11 Populist Party Executive Committee members, Wassall wrote
that "We are reaching out to new people, and we have a tremendous
presidential candidate in Bo Gritz." Campaign flyers mailed from the
Populist Party headquarters are headlined "Bo Gritz for
President...Vote Populist Party." In the June, 1991 issue of "The
Populist Observer," Gritz wrote, "I call upon you as Republican,
Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, right, left, conservative,
liberal, et.al., to UNITE AS POPULISTS [emphasis in original] until we
have our nation firmly back on her feet." Gritz told the audience at a
July, 1991 meeting in Palo Alto, California that they should reach out
and attempt to recruit persons from the left.
While Willis Carto was one of the key founders of the Populist Party,
the Party is now under the control of Don Wassall who is feuding with
Willis Carto and the Liberty Lobby over control of the movement.
According to the May 1992 issue of "The Monitor," "Wassall's Populist
Party has been forced to take a back seat as Gritz has cobbled
together his own organization, the America First! Coalition."
But as the Monitor explains, "Gritz's standard stump speech is an
amalgam of themes popular among white supremacists and others on the
far right: the Federal Reserve System is unconstitutional and should
be abolished and a vast conspiracy of "internationalists" are taking
over the world. In his book "Called to Serve," Gritz writes that
"Eight jewish (sic) families virtually control the FED," (the Federal
Reserve System.)
Gritz was heavily promoted by the Carto forces as early as the summer
of 1987 when Gritz was holding press conferences charging that key
U.S. government officials were the "biggest customers" of the world's
leading "drug lord," Gen. Khun Sa of Burma. [f-31]
31. Valentine, Paul, "Media Blacks Out Drug Story: `Bo'
Gritz Charges Conspiracy", "The Spotlight,"
July 13, 1987, p. 1.
In a January 3, 1992 letter to Willis Carto, Gritz urged the warring
factions in the Populist Party to cease their bickering, and told
Carto he was "seeking cooperation between you and your former allies."
He also wrote "During my first meeting with Don and Phil as a Populist
candidate, I expressed utmost concern over accountability of funds,"
thus clearly acknowledging that he considers himself the Populist
Party candidate.
Gritz's call for the left/right coalition apparently first surfaced
publicly at his Freedom Call '90 conference held in July, 1990 in Las
Vegas. Speakers at that conference included Gritz and anti-Semite
Eustace Mullins, as well as Father Bill Davis of the Christic
Institute, ex-CIA official (now critic) John Stockwell, and author
Barbara Honegger. This fact of attendance is not meant to imply that
all these persons share the same views. It is meant to demonstrate
that Gritz is attempting to draw a broad range of government critics
into a coalition. Stockwell, Honegger, and Davis have all said their
appearance at the conference should not be interpreted as an
endorsement of Gritz's research or political views. Gritz's Center
for Action still sells a set of tapes from the conference, including
speeches by Gritz and Mullins, along with Father Davis, Barbara
Honegger, and John Stockwell.
This set of tapes is advertised in the Prevailing Winds catalog which
mixes material from mainstream, progressive, and far-right sources.
Prevailing Winds promotes the Christic Institute and dozens of other
left and liberal organizations and writers (including this author), as
well as featuring a full page ad for Gritz's Center for Action. A
West Coast affiliate of the Christic Institute sells "The Guns and
Drugs Reader," edited by Prevailing Winds. Prominently featured in
the publication is material by fascist standard-bearer Bo Gritz.
Prevailing Winds "recommends" tapes Gritz and the vicious Jew-basher
Eustace Mullins as "important exposes."
John Stockwell has expressed concern over the way Prevailing Winds has
lumped his research together with research he finds problematic. In
the past, Stockwell has been highly critical of Honegger as a reliable
source of information, and has had criticisms of some aspects of
Christic research as well. Stockwell says he "met Gritz there on
stage" at the 1990 conference and "came away greatly unimpressed," and
he was quick to distance himself from the Populist Party.
After the controversy broke in the left press, a spokesperson at
Prevailing Winds (who asked to be identified simply as Patrick) said
they were now considering at least including a warning in their
catalog about Bo Gritz's ties to the Populist Party and other rightist
and anti-Jewish groups and individuals. Patrick said their catalog
came out before Gritz accepted the Populist Party presidential
nomination, but defended the inclusion of the Gritz material, saying
that "middle America needs this kind of information" because "Bush is
basically a dope-peddling Nazi."
Patrick said the appropriateness of carrying Gritz's material, given
his ties to the anti-Jewish far right, has been discussed by the
Prevailing Winds staff, and also discussed with Bo Gritz and with
Father Davis of Christic.
According to the Prevailing Winds representative:
"Its an argument we've gone back and forth on, it's a tough question,
whether or not to make it available and to preserve it for research.
We are interested in getting the information to the people. The good
thing about it is no one else is trying to build these bridges between
groups. We need to reach a rainbow of people."
Christic's Father Bill Davis walked out of the 1990 Gritz conference
when Mullins gave his speech. Yet over a year after the event,
Christic still had made no public statement distancing itself from
Gritz or Mullins. In the meantime, Gritz was touring the country
promoting Christic's Iran-Contra research and implying a friendly
working relationship between himself and key Christic figures,
especially Danny Sheehan. Sheehan is featured in a
privately-distributed videotape program focusing on Gritz's research
which takes a critical look at the Reagan and Bush Administrations'
intelligence and drug policies. That videotape, circulated by Gritz
and his allies, also uncritically shows a headline from the LaRouchian
newspaper "New Federalist" to illustrate a point.
Christic's national director, Sara Nelson, told "In These Times" that
Christic apologizes for the appearance of Davis at the conference with
Mullins, and no one is suggesting that Christic harbors any racist,
anti-Jewish or fascist views. But Christic has not issued a clear and
widely disseminated public statement alerting people who may have seen
the Prevailing Winds catalog or the Gritz material and who now seem
confused over who supports whom. This is not meant to be interpreted
as a blanket criticism of the Christic Institute. Many Christic
projects have been valuable. They circulated a tremendous amount of
useful information about the issue of covert action and the
Iran-Contra scandal. Especially notable in other areas are the work
of Lewis Pitts at Christic South and the project by Andy Lang to
illustrate problems with forging democracy in eastern Europe. Yet
Christic's Sheehan, Davis, and Nelson have not taken seriously the
problem of right-wing groups and individuals linking themselves to the
Christic case and recruiting Christic supporters in a way that implies
a shared agenda. While this is not just a problem with Christic, the
role that Christic could, and should, be playing in providing
leadership on this question would be extremely useful.
"Front Man for Fascism: Bo Gritz and the Racist Populist Party," a
report by the California anti-fascist group People Against Racist
Terror describes how Gritz has promoted himself on the left. The
report urges Christic to be more vocal:
"Christic should join the campaign to expose Bo's campaign for the
fascist vehicle it is. Christic should take the lead in condemning
the Gritz campaign, rather than demanding retractions from those who
have raised criticisms and concerns. It should share frankly and
self-critically with its followers the process of deception and
rationalization by which it was hoodwinked, so that others can escape
the same fate." [f-32]
32. "Front Man for Fascism: Bo Gritz and the Racist Populist
Party: A Background Research Report." People Against
Racist Terror, (P.O. Box 1990, Burbank, CA 91507), no
date, (c. Nov. 1991).
=====================================================================
Part 32: Confusion Reigns as Courage Falters
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Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
It is the failure of alternative and left critics of government policy
to take responsibility for clarifying the confusion being
intentionally sown by the far right that is the key issue. If the
problem is turned on its head, it is easier to understand why the
issue of public statements by groups such as Christic is so important.
In the course of preparing this study scores of persons were
interviewed in a dozen cities. Here is a summary of some of the
questions raised by persons who reject the criticism.
On the LaRouchians:
Were they not victims of government repression and FBI harassment just
like CISPES? Wasn't that what James Ridgeway said in the "Village
Voice" ? Didn't their views get reported by David MacMichael in the
newsletter of the former intelligence officers turned critics? Isn't
Ramsey Clark their attorney? Isn't it true that they were reporting
on the Iran-Contra affair before the mainstream media and Congress
publicized the matter? Don't several former Christic investigators
recommend their work?
Are they not our natural allies?
On the Liberty Lobby/Populist network:
Didn't "Spotlight" get mentioned by Bill Moyers on the PBS program on
the Most Censored Stories awards as an excellent source of
information? Doesn't Bill Davis appear with Bo Gritz at conferences?
Doesn't Danny Sheehan appear on the Bo Gritz videotape? Can't we buy
Gritz' writings by sending a check to the Christic Institute's West
Coast office? Wasn't that Danny Sheehan on the cover of the
Prevailing Winds catalog with Christic material along with material
from Gritz and Prouty?
Are they not our natural allies?
On Craig Hulet:
Isn't he on KPFA and KPFK? Can't we order Hulet tapes from the
Pacifica Archive? Doesn't he say he works with Lanny Sinkin who was
an attorney at Christic? Doesn't he say he isn't a right-winger?
Didn't the San Francisco Mime Troupe thank Hulet for his research?
Is he not our natural ally?
This raises a question for every progressive political leader,
journalist and attorney whose name has been used by the fascist right
to build their movement. If hundreds (perhaps thousands) of people
now believe there is a coalition that involves the left and fascist
right, is there not an obligation to speak out publicly to deny what
the right is suggesting publicly?
In fact, some of the above questions clearly represent
misunderstandings and erroneous assumptions. But when the right is
making the assertion, silence implies consent, or as the button says:
"Silence is the voice of complicity."
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Part 33: The Fascist Response
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Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
Telephone call to 503-796-2124, November 20, 1991, 10:00 PM. [Man's
voice:]
"Greetings, you have reached the American Front Ministry of
Information hot line. COINTELPRO, the counter-intelligence agency of
the Jew S. of A., or ZOG [Zionist Occupational Government], is a
group of well financed government agents who have not only infiltrated
but absolutely control a great portion of the so-called left wing in
America. Their purpose is to make sure that these self-styled
progressive organizations don't actually take any action against the
true enemy of the people, the U.S. government."
"They have been doing a very good job at keeping radical elements of
the supposed left and right fighting each other, thereby nullifying a
great deal of revolutionary activity, and keeping the fat-cat
warmonger capitalists who run this government safe from the bloody
tide of reprisal they so richly deserve. No matter where you stand on
the political spectrum this abhorrent undertaking affects you. ZOG is
bound and determined to make sure the trend of increasing
anti-government unity of radical factions in Europe doesn't take
effect here."
"For local evidence of this lefty alliance with Big Brother, you need
go no further than Jonathan Mozzochi of the Coalition for Human
Dignity. He's an avid follower of renowned COINTELPRO guru Chip
Berlet. Mozzochi has even been known to plagiarize the writings of
Mr. Berlet, and as is very evident by the CHD's activity, Mozzochi
has completely dedicated himself to the government program of keeping
the radicals fighting each other instead of Big Brother. Just because
he serves you cappuccino at La Patisserie and pretends to be a
so-called progressive, the fact remains that he is nothing but the CIA
in alternative geek clothing. This further illustrates the fact that
the anti-racist movement as a whole is nothing but a tool of the
capitalist regime, designed to destroy the self-determination of all
races and keep ZOG as the ruler of all."
"For more information, contact American Front at P.O. Box 68333,
Portland, Oregon, 97268. White Victory."
[Woman's voice:]
"You may start your message now."
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Part 34: Anti-Jewish Scapegoating & Black Nationalism
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
Unraveling the overlapping tendencies of reactionary politics,
conspiracism, scapegoating, opportunism, demagoguery, nationalism,
racism, anti-Jewish theories, and fascism is a difficult but necessary
task. This section will discuss several situations and trends where
these issues are involved, focusing on the rise of right-wing
anti-Jewish theories in some nationalist sectors of the
African-American community.
Any serious discussion of these issues needs first to be grounded on
at least a working knowledge of the theories of racialism and
nationalism, as well as familiarity with the characteristics of mass
fascist political movements prior to their ascendancy to state power.
Especially useful is a study of the nationalist movements of Europe at
the beginning of this century. The nationalism of pre-World War II
Europe included movements based on racialist theories. This racial
nationalism took several forms, including the heroic mythical racial
nationalism of Italy and Spain which glorified the organic leadership
of autocratic father-figures, the ego-centric anti-modernist
intellectual fascism of France, the religious/racial clerical fascist
movements of Croatia and Rumania, and the scapegoating demagogic
movement of German Nazism with its anti-Jewish conspiracy theories.
Nazism was a fascist movement, but not all mid-century European
fascist movements employed a master race theory. Nevertheless,
fascism as a political form is premised on racial or cultural
nationalism.
As scholar Barry Mehler, a leading researcher on the history of racial
eugenics, points out:
"Classical eugenic theories of the nineteen-twenties and thirties
emphasized that nations were biological entities and that political
ideologies emerge from racial characteristics which in turn have
developed out of evolutionary changes in racial groups. The classic
expression of these theories can be found in Madison Grant's "The
Passing of the Great Race" . This was, of course, the foundation of
both Nazi racism and American white supremacism. It is not
surprising, therefore, that white supremacist organizations continue
to reprint and sell these expressions of American racism."
In fact, the white supremacist movement is the largest and most
significant purveyor of theories of racial nationalism in the U.S.,
and its threat to democracy and pluralism far outweighs that posed by
the misguided participants in the tragic and counterproductive current
dispute between Blacks and Jews. Further, the single greatest
impediment to racial justice in the U.S. is not the policies and
practices of any one political group or individual, but the
institutional racism in the government and business sectors that is
still so widespread yet so invisible in our society, and which has
deeply undermined the ability of African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians,
North-American Indians, and other racial groups in this country to
share in the bounty and freedoms described in school textbooks as a
birthright in our country. It is within that framework that the
following discussion must be set.
=====================================================================
Part 35: Anti-Jewish Conspiracism in the Black Community
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
Some members of Black nationalist groups in the U.S. circulate
conspiracist theories about Black oppression where discredited
ultra-right theories of exaggerated Jewish power and manipulation have
found new life and a new audience. While in the past some
pro-Palestinian and even anti-Israel sentiments made by
African-Americans have been mislabeled as anti-Semitism by groups
promoting pro-Israel policies, there is still plenty of evidence that
anti-Jewish conspiracy theories are discussed openly in some segments
of the Black community
For example, in Chicago, during the late 1980's, Black activist Steve
Cokely taught classes at a Nation of Islam center where he alleged
that Jewish doctors were injecting Black children with the AIDS virus.
When Cokely was exposed, NOI leader Louis Farrakhan, rather than
rejecting Cokely's assertions as bigoted lunacy, issued a statement
saying that if Cokely could document his charges, the Nation of Islam
would provide a public forum for the discussion.
At a February 28, 1991 anti-abortion lecture by Barbara Bell, founder
of Massachusetts Blacks for Life, Bell asserted that "it is the Jewish
doctors that are the ones that are the ones trying to wipe out the
black society." The statement came in the context of an assertion that
Planned Parenthood wanted to wipe out all minority populations.
The Detroit magazine "Alkebulanian" says it is dedicated to providing
the reader with "the power of African pride and dignity" and seeks to
"speak the truth and expose the falsehoods that have weakened a
precious people through the course of history." But according to
anti-eugenics scholar Barry Mehler, the magazine carries articles that
assert "the Jewish Talmud was written by `racist dogs,' that Jews have
manipulated the world into grieving over the Holocaust as a way to
make `black people forget that the it was same handful who
participated in the African Holocaust.'"
At a July 7, 1990 meeting in Cairo, Illinois, several Black
nationalist groups under the leadership of the All African Peoples
Revolutionary Party (AAPRP) confirmed the formation of an "Afrikan
Anti-Zionist Front," first announced on June 11, 1990 at an initial
meeting held in Tripoli, Libya. Other groups listed as founders
included the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika, the
New Afrikan People's Organization, the United Front (based in Cairo,
Illinois), The Black Panther Party (reconstituted), The December 12th
Coalition, the Black Men's Movement Against Crack, and the Harriet
Tubman-Fannie Lou Hamer Collective.
Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael) of AAPRP was elected
chairperson of the front, and Ture cosigned the initial statement
along with Imari Abubakari Obadele. PhD., acting chairperson,
Nationalist Front of Afrikans in America, and president of the
Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika. The statement
issued by the Front at the planning meeting held in Tripoli, Libya
included the disclaimer that, "The founders of the Front state that
the struggle against Zionism is not a struggle against Jews or Judaism
but rather a struggle against Zionism as a racist and imperialist
ideology and movement."
Although extreme, and implying objection to the state of Israel
itself, this statement is not fairly characterized as necessarily
anti-Jewish. However, the careful distinctions in this statement are
contradicted by several other clauses, including one that asserts:
"Zionism uses its influence and money to control and subvert many of
the so-called Afrikan mayors, Congresspersons and other politicians in
the United States and uses its influence and power to subvert Black
organizations and the agendas of the African nation in the United
States."
An educational brochure circulated by the All African Peoples
Revolutionary Party goes even further into conspiratorial bigotry.
The brochure starts out criticizing Zionism and Israeli politics but
soon descends into rampant anti-Jewish conspiracism. "ZIONISM is a
well organized and financed, international conspiracy which controls
the economic and political life of the United States and Europe," says
the brochure. Although accurately noting, "All Jews are not
Zionists," the brochure goes on to claim, "The international Zionist
movement exerts an almost total strangle-hold over the economic,
political, social and cultural life of the African community." It also
claims that Zionism, "controls...all of the banks, businesses and
financial institutions in our community," as well as the mass media
and the entertainment industry. According to the brochure, the
international Zionist movement controls:
"The political, social, cultural, educational and legal institutions,
agencies and organizations in the African community. Almost all of
the civil rights and political groups in our community are controlled
by zionists and Jews. They use their money, their power, the FBI,
CIA, IRS, the courts and prisons; and many other ways to control and
destroy our movements, leaders and people."
Many of these sentiments regarding Jews are virtually identical to
charges in white supremacist publications which claim that Jews play a
similar role in oppressing white Christians. One mail order videotape
lecture by a leading Christian Identity pastor is a lengthy exposition
of his bigoted theory that slavery was the result of the usury
employed by Jewish bankers in Britain when financing colonial
enterprises.
=====================================================================
Part 36: Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
Although the Rev. Louis Farrakhan denies he is a bigot, and some of
his critics have themselves used racist appeals, Farrakhan has in fact
made a number of statements concerning Jews over the past few years
that reflect disdain and prejudice.
When the Nation of Islam published the book "The Secret Relationship
Between Blacks and Jews: Volume One" it help clarify any lingering
confusion concerning Farrakhan's reliance on historic conspiracy
theories concerning Jewish power and control. The book is a lengthy
pseudo-academic treatise that reaches the false conclusion that Jews
controlled the slave trade. The text strongly implies that Jewish
ownership of and attitudes towards slaves was somehow distinct from
and more venal than ownership of and attitudes towards slaves by
non-Jews. Left unexamined are the readily-available statistics
showing that the vast majority of slave-owners were not Jewish. The
book is sold through ads in the Nation of Islam's newspaper "Final
Call," [f-33] and is promoted as being "Recommended Reading by
Minister Farrakhan!"
33. "Final Call," June 29, 1992
Also listed as "Recommended Reading by Minister Farrakhan!" is the
book "Behold a Pale Horse," by Milton William Cooper, who is described
by "UFO Magazine" as a "notorious UFO charlatan." [f-34] UFO Magazine"
also denounced "Behold a Pale Horse" as bigoted fascist propaganda,
and noted that "One of the book's most glaring passages is a complete
copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a flamingly anti-Semitic
tract first published in Czarist Russia...long ago exposed as a
forgery."
34. "UFO Magazine," Vol.7, No.4,
(Summer) 1992, p. 27
Yet the most troubling aspect of Farrakhan is not his demagogic
bigotry. Writing in the January 28, 1991 issue of "The Nation,"
professor Adolph Reed, Jr. cautions that "demonizing" Farrakhan, or
focusing merely on his prejudice, misses the main point, which is the
troubling nature of Farrakhan's reactionary political views and
anti-democratic "racial organicism." As Reed explains, Farrakhan's use
of racial organicism is found in the belief that Black leaders "emerge
organically from the population and that the objectives and interests
of those organic leaders are identical with those of the general
racial constituency." Reed notes that this theory has been used by
white majoritarian leadership to justify and manage racial
subordination by "allowing white elites to pick and choose among
pretenders to race leadership."
Equally dangerous, however, are the themes of authoritarianism and
racial nationalism which underlie racial organicism. Reed warns that
"because of his organization and ideology, however, Farrakhan more
than his predecessors throws into relief the dangerous, fascistic
presumptions inscribed at the foundation of that model."
In July, 1990 Farrakhan granted an extensive exclusive interview to
"Spotlight" where his views of separate development for the Black and
white communities was stressed. The interview was presented in an
overwhelmingly sympathetic and supportive fashion, with an
introduction by the editors where Farrakhan's movement was described
as "based on the cultivation of spiritual, education, and family
values, as well as racial separation."
The idea of racial or national organicism, that leaders emerged from
homogeneous national groupings and metaphysically expressed the
collective will of the people, was a basic tenet of fascism,
especially the form of fascism called national socialism. In the 1988
report of the small American Nazi Party in Chicago, the term national
socialism was defined as "the organized will of the race, in its quest
for racial survival, and physical, mental, and spiritual self
betterment." One modern offshoot of national socialism, called the
"Third Position," has adherents in both Europe and the United States,
and is known for its attempts to build bridges to the left, especially
around the issues of protecting the environment and support for the
working class.
Racialist nationalism, anti-Jewish bigotry, and fascist principles
have provided a basis in the past for white supremacists and
anti-Jewish bigots such as Tom Metzger to voice support for Farrakhan.
The October 12, 1985 "New York Times" reported on a Michigan meeting
of white supremacists where Metzger told his audience of neo-Nazis and
Klan members, "America is like a rotting carcass. The Jews are living
off the carcass like the parasites they are. Farrakhan understands
this." That meeting was attended by Political Research Associates
author and freelance journalist Russ Bellant who reported the Metzger
quote and incidentally disclosed the attendance of another white
supremacist, Roy Frankhouser, a former Ku Klux Klan leader from
Pennsylvania who was for many years a top security consultant to
Lyndon LaRouche.
The beginning of the 1990's saw increasing joint political work
between various LaRouchian front groups and Rev. Farrakhan's Black
nationalist Nation of Islam (NOI). For instance, the NOI's newspaper
"Final Call" ran an article by Carlos Wesley on Panama in its issue of
May 31, 1990, which was credited as a reprint from the LaRouchian
magazine "Executive Intelligence Review" . The LaRouchian "New
Federalist" has run several articles praising the political work of
Dr. Abdul Alim Muhammad, editor of NOI's "Final Call" .
Another group allied with Farrakhan that promotes the idea of racial
or national organicism is the political organization run by Dr. Fred
Newman, a former protege of LaRouche. Persons who extol Newman's
idiosyncratic form of "social therapy" control a variety of political
organizations under Newman's influence, including the New Alliance
Party (NAP), Rainbow Lobby, New York's Castillo Cultural Center, and
various Centers for Short-Term Therapy. NAP promotes the political
theories of Farrakhan, the Rev. Al Sharpton, and Dr. Lenora Fulani,
presidential candidate of the New Alliance Party. The Rainbow Lobby
has forged a working coalition with both the Libertarian Party and the
racialist and neo-fascist Populist Party to challenge state laws
limiting ballot access. At the same time NAP's Lenora Fulani stood
side-by-side with Al Sharpton and other Black nationalists in the
summer of 1991 as they inflamed an already tense and tragic situation
in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, which has seen a
long-simmering dispute between Blacks and a sect of Orthodox Jews.
It is of interest that the Afrikan Anti-Zionist Front was first
announced in Tripoli, Libya and that Muammar Qaddafi is praised as a
"premier fighter for justice." Qaddafi has sponsored several
international conferences promoting racial nationalism and cultivating
ideas congruent with Third Position ideology. There are hints of
Third Position themes in the rhetoric of the Afrikan Anti-Zionist
Front, Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, and the New Alliance Party's
Lenora Fulani and Fred Newman. Journalist Howard Goldenthal of
Toronto has explored this situation, but much more research is needed
to understand this complex turn of events.
=====================================================================
Part 37: Fascists as Information Sources
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
We are all aware that there are shifting factions in political groups,
government bureaucracies, and intelligence agencies. Even though
there is an historic overlap of government repression and reactionary
politics, at the same time, factions of the right have from time to
time made a tactical decision to expose government wrongdoing to smash
an opposing faction on the right or derail a bothersome government
project.
Around the world the right has adopted a strategy of tension to smash
the center, and one part of that strategy is to seek temporary
tactical alliances with left groups in attacking government policies.
The left/right alliance seeks to displace the center, but historically
the right always triumphs and then smashes the left. This is
certainly one lesson of Italian fascism and German national socialism.
Do we really think a corrupt wealthy anti-labor repressive centrist
power is worse than fascist power? As the health of the American
economy declines, it will generate a move towards alternative
political viewpoints and either new political parties or realignment
of current parties. A left/right alliance under such circumstances
would be precarious and dangerous.
Serious anti-repression researchers frequently find themselves in
contact with elements of the ruling center, opposition centrist
parties, and far right in the normal course of their research. The
mere contact between left and right is not the issue, but when left
researchers become "de facto" conduits for the right's information,
and do so uncritically and without revealing their sources at least by
general description, serious ethical and pragmatic problems arise.
=====================================================================
Part 38: Progressive Researchers & Fascist Sources
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
There is little agreement among progressive researchers and
journalists on how material from far-right sources should be handled.
Some progressive researchers are suspicious that government
intelligence agents and rightist researchers may leak information to
progressive journalists to achieve a right-wing political goal,
perhaps as part of a faction fight over government foreign policy
strategies.
Herb Quinde is one of the main LaRouchian intelligence contacts for
reporters in the Washington, D.C. area. Quinde boasts that the
LaRouchians maintain ties with a network of current and former
intelligence agents and military specialists who oppose current U.S.
foreign policy and its reliance on covert action over direct military
engagement.
Quinde confirms that he and his fellow LaRouchian investigators are in
constant touch with journalists and researchers across the political
spectrum. In several interviews in 1990 and 1991 Quinde refused to go
on the record with the names of any of his regular contacts among left
political groups and critics of government repression, although he
bragged that such contacts are a regular part of his work.
While Christic now says they no longer have any contact with the
LaRouchians, some former Christic staff seem willing to keep some
doors open. Investigators formerly connected to Christic have
maintained information ties to the LaRouchians, and advised
progressive researchers to rely on the LaRouchians as experts in the
area of government intelligence abuse. These referrals have over a
period of several years helped forge an information exchange network
that has drawn some left researchers, journalists and radio talk show
hosts further into unsubstantiated conspiracy theories and into
ongoing relationships with fascist and anti-Jewish groups and
individuals.
David MacMichael still maintains close ties to Herb Quinde, meets with
him personally, and advises researchers probing government
intelligence abuse to contact Quinde for help. MacMichael defends his
association with Quinde as legitimate, albeit sometimes embarrassing.
Russ Bellant is the author of "Old Nazis, The New Right and the
Republican Party" and has extensively studied Nazi-linked emigre
intelligence and political networks. In the course of his research,
he has found several authors in this field who have developed a
working relationship with LaRouchians. Bellant says he raised the
ethical problems of working with the LaRouchians with these authors,
generally to no avail.
To be sure, there is no consensus among reporters, mainstream or
progressive, on what is an ethical way to deal with information from
groups such as the LaRouchians.
According to Peter Dale Scott, "My own ground rules are that until
something happens where I feel someone is manipulating me or they have
"personally" done something horrible that I feel is objectionable, I
feel it is a matter of intellectual freedom to keep the lines of
communication open. As long as they deal with me as a human being I
will treat them as such." Scott, however, balked at signing a petition
about LaRouche being a victim of human rights abuse because he felt
there was "enough evidence to show the LaRouche people were probably
guilty of some criminal conduct."
Author Jonathan Marshall, now with the "San Francisco Chronicle," says
the LaRouchians "have given me information, but given their history, I
never take it at face value." Marshall says "sometimes they are a
source of good leads, their work on Panama has been of particular
use." Marshall does not accept the LaRouchian premise that Noriega was
a humanitarian, but neither does he accept the idea that opposition to
Noriega was pure. "Here you have a case of evil versus evil, and the
enemies of someone are often a good place to go for information."
According to Marshall, he will sometimes pursue LaRouchian leads, "and
then do my own independent research." If something turns up, he
considers it his own effort, and does not credit the LaRouchians, in
part, he admits, because it would lessen his credibility as a
journalist.
"If you look across the board at cultish groups that do `research' you
find sometimes that they have found amazing documents that do in fact
check out," says Marshall. But he hastens to add that "documents are
one thing, but accepting their analysis is simply not responsible."
In the late 1980's author Carl Oglesby considered working with
LaRouchian Herb Quinde to unravel the story of the recruitment of the
Gehlen Nazi spy apparatus into U.S. intelligence.
Oglesby comments:
"If Quinde had been able to provide even a single scrap of useful
information I would have turned a cartwheel in excitement, but he
never did. Everything he sent me was bullshit. He was trying to
convince me to depend on the LaRouche information network. He was
always boasting about the documents he could send me, but he never
gave me a useful thing about Gehlen or anything else about the
Nazification of U.S. intelligence."
During the Gulf War, Quinde asked Oglesby to speak at a LaRouchian
antiwar conference, but Oglesby declined, "because whatever Herb's
essential charm and persuasion, I would never publicly associate
myself with them, primarily because my friends warn me it would damage
my credibility. In fact, I've never initiated a contact with them."
Putting up with an occasional phone call from Quinde is one thing,
said Oglesby, but appearing at a conference is another. Still,
Oglesby isn't convinced that they are really a neo-Nazi outfit. "My
advice is not to make such a big deal about this guy. I think that he
is basically comic relief." Oglesby, however, is suspicious of the
actual purpose of the LaRouchians:
"I think it's an intelligence operation, and the only question is
what's animating it. I don't think it is, strictly speaking, an
organization representing one individual--LaRouche. I believe it has
access to sources of information that reflect official circuits, most
likely European, but I don't think he's officially CIA or FBI. I
think U.S. intelligence is a little baffled by them too, although in
the first few years of the Reagan Administration they clearly allowed
them privileged access."
Journalists James Ridgeway and David MacMichael have defended their
contacts with the LaRouchian network as part of the standard
journalistic practice of cultivating a wide range of sources of
information. They and other journalists argue that taking information
from someone in no way implies any agreement whatsoever with the
information provider. In fact, reporters at a number of mainstream
daily newspapers admit off-the-record that they frequently receive
material from the LaRouchians, and in some cases develop stories from
the documents supplied by the LaRouchians. Ridgeway, however,
acknowledges that the LaRouchians are a "neo-Nazi or fascist
movement." and warns that journalists need to exercise extreme caution
when contacting them for information.
This is a real issue since a score of progressive researchers and
journalists report that in the past two years, operatives from the
LaRouchians and the far-right have stepped up their attempts to forge
working relationships with them over the basis of shared criticism of
the government.
A West Coast journalist, Ed Connolly, recalls an incident in the fall
of 1990:
"I was tracking a story on Air Force Intelligence and I called
everyone I could think of. Two weeks later Gene Wheaton called me,
which was odd because I hadn't called him. Wheaton tells me, "You
know the people who have very good intelligence on these things are
the LaRouche people, you should call the people that put out
"Executive Intelligence Review," call Herb Quinde." So I did, but they
wanted more information than they were willing to give out and I was
immediately skeptical. I never talked to them again."
Eugene Wheaton, an early adviser to the Christic Institute, accepted
an invitation to speak at the December, 1990 LaRouche antiwar
conference in Chicago.
Journalist Jim Naurekas of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
bemoans the fact that LaRouchian Herb Quinde has followed him through
three jobs trying to pester him with tidbits of information. One
academic who wrote a 1990 article on government civil liberties
infringements in a left journal says she was quickly contacted by
several persons who recommended she share her material with
"Spotlight" and other far-right anti-Jewish publications.
Russ Bellant is highly critical of those who tolerate or apologize for
people who work with the LaRouchians, the Populist Party or the
Liberty Lobby network. "I think you discredit yourself when you work
with these bigoted forces," says Bellant, "and mere association tends
to lend credence to these rightist groups because people assume the
group can't be that bad if a respected person on the left is
associated with them."
Bellant warns that some of the LaRouchian documents may be forged.
"They did create a passable bogus copy of a section of the "New York
Times" blasting their enemies," he points out. Bellant thinks the
LaRouchians "don't give you anything that you can rely on," and that
by talking with them about research issues, "you allow them to track
what you are up to which lets them go back to their Nazi friends and
report on you to them."
Bellant and others say they are not troubled by intellectual curiosity
and open-mindedness that bridge ideological lines, but they do have
concerns when left and right groups and individuals forge covert
relationships.
There is a big difference between reading books by or interviewing
members of far-right and racialist groups, and working in what amounts
to an ad-hoc investigative coalition with members of these groups.
There is a serious difference of opinion among progressive researchers
as to the propriety of working with the LaRouchians or other
ultra-right groups, especially those that preach bigotry. Some say
they cannot, in good conscience, even accept unsolicited information
from such groups, while others argue they need to interview members of
these groups for their research.
Journalist Jane Hunter says she has consistently rejected overtures
from the anti-Jewish far right. Hunter is highly critical of anyone
who would covertly or overtly work with racists, anti-Jewish bigots,
or neo-Nazis. She notes that even on a pragmatic level, "Any
information that these people have is bound to show up someplace, free
for the taking, for what it's worth. Our energies need to be spent in
reaching out to people who are victims of the system--the people with
whom we share a common interest in changing it."
Hunter and some two-dozen other progressive researchers (including the
author) have been discussing these issues for several years. The one
point of agreement is that this is a problem long overdue for debate.
As Hunter explains, "In my speaking engagements I have found in
audience questions an alarming increase in conspiracy theories and
anti-Semitism." She also is worried that as conditions for
African-Americans in the U.S. have continued to deteriorate, there
has been an increase in the scapegoating of Jews by African-Americans.
While scapegoating and turning to conspiracy theories is a common
phenomenon in communities experiencing financial or social stress, it
should never be tolerated.
Not all the rightist groups seeking an alliance or information
exchange with the left are bigoted or fascist. Some are principled
conservatives or libertarians seeking an open debate. However, some
of the groups seeking to link up with the left have openly neo-fascist
or neo-Nazi agendas, including some that call themselves conservative
or libertarian. The ethical parameters on these questions for
journalists and researchers need further debate.
It is important to recognize that the moral issues for persons
building coalitions in the movement for peace and social justice are
different than those for lawyers, academics, and reporters. For
organizers the principles of unity seldom (if ever) are such that
working with fascist, racist and anti-Jewish groups is appropriate.
Most people agree that uncritical reliance on either right-wing or
left-wing material can lead to the recirculation of misinformation or
disinformation. When working with the political right, there is the
additional possibility that the left could unintentionally end up
letting the right set its agenda. Some progressive researchers also
argue that it is unethical for progressive groups to take information
covertly from the political right and repackage and recirculate it
without disclosing the source. That issue, however, remains
unsettled, and needs to be debated openly.
A good illustration of the problem came up in an October 15, 1991
"Village Voice" article on the mysterious death of writer Danny
Casolaro by authors James Ridgeway and Doug Vaughan. Casolaro at the
time of his death was researching the legal case filed by the Inslaw
corporation alleging theft and illegal sale of its software program,
Promis. Promis is a program used to track complex litigation, but it
can also be used to track dissidents and criminal conspiracies.
Persons involved in several federal agencies are alleged to have
participated in the illegal use and distribution of Promis. Casolaro
had nicknamed the government and private conspiracies he perceived to
be surrounding the Inslaw case "The Octopus," and had circulated a
book proposal.
Ridgeway and Vaughan do report that Casolaro, in the course of his
research, would "head into Washington for a congressional hearing or a
meeting with, for example, Danny Sheehan of the Christic
Institute--whose `Secret Team' could just as easily have been called
the Octopus." They also mention that Casolaro was working with the
LaRouchians in gathering information.
Not mentioned in the article is that the LaRouchians funneled
information to the Christic Institute, Barbara Honegger, and the
"Spotlight" /Liberty Lobby crowd; or that another named source,
investigator Bill McCoy, also worked with Christic and supplied
information from the LaRouchians; or that co-author Vaughan works at
the Christic Institute.
Ridgeway and Vaughan do mention LaRouche's criminal conviction and the
LaRouchian obsession with conspiracy theories and report, "The
LaRouchies had ties to the Reagan White House and have long run a
surprisingly elaborate intelligence-gathering operation of their own."
They do not, however, characterize the LaRouchians as fascists or
anti-Semites.
In the course of the article a LaRouchian intelligence operative is
cited along with other sources. Should LaRouchian sources be treated
differently than any other journalistic source? Again, there is no
agreement even among alternative journalists. "I have great respect for
Jim Ridgeway, but to put any credence in anything a LaRouchite has to
say is a leap into faith that I can't make," says "Voice" columnist Nat
Hentoff. Another "Voice" writer, Robert I. Friedman says, "The
LaRouchians are an anti-Semitic conspiracy organization. It's a mistake
for a journalist to use LaRouchians as a source without describing the
kind of organization it is." Ridgeway responds that he has characterized
the LaRouchians as conspiracists, fascists, and neo-Nazis in other
settings, and he thinks most people who read his column already know who
the LaRouchians are.
=====================================================================
Part 39: LaRouche: Victim or Villain?
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
Lyndon LaRouche has picked up support for his campaign to get released
from prison from a number of right-wing extremists, including retired
Air Force Colonel and intelligence specialist Fletcher Prouty, a leading
light among ultra-right researchers, who also works with the quasi-Nazi
Liberty Lobby. Prouty has issued a statement declaring that
"instrumentalities of the government have hounded" LaRouche and "created
wrongs where none existed before." The LaRouchians, however, have picked
up support for their theory of a government conspiracy against LaRouche
from a broader spectrum than the political right.
Both James Ridgeway and David MacMichael have reported the allegations
of the LaRouchians that they are not guilty of financial crimes, but the
victims of a massive government conspiracy aimed at crushing them
politically.
Ridgeway, in the preface to his book on the U.S. white supremacist
movement, "Blood in the Face," omits LaRouche from a discussion of the
"racist far right." Instead, Ridgeway refers to LaRouche in the context
of discussing how the collapsed rural economy in the 1980's distorted
the politics of the farm belt and "the whacko candidates of Lyndon
LaRouche's party were serious contenders." This passing reference to
LaRouche (there is one other bland paragraph in the book) places
LaRouche in a discussion mentioning serious politicians such as Jesse
Jackson, George McGovern, and James Hightower. This seems to
characterize LaRouche as merely a strange and comical player in the
electoral arena. Ridgeway says that this was not meant to imply
LaRouche was not a force in farm belt fascism, but that his publisher
felt that adding the LaRouchians into the book would have confused the
issues.
Critics of Ridgeway's view of the LaRouchians, including this author,
argue that LaRouche is in fact a neo-Nazi ideologue who should be
discussed along with the Ku Klux Klan and the other white racist groups
with whom the LaRouchians have associated for years. No one is
suggesting that Ridgeway, who has a prodigious track record of sound
investigative reporting, shares any of the LaRouchian viewpoints. But
it is legitimate to ask whether or not Ridgeway's analysis and treatment
of the LaRouchians has perhaps unconsciously been influenced by their
value to him as a journalistic source of information on government
misconduct and other issues. Ridgeway, like other reporters who cover
government repression, received packets of information from the
LaRouchians for many years and sometimes relied on the material to
develop a story. [f-35] This in itself is hardly unique and not
necessarily questionable--other reporters do likewise.
35. This information is from three former associates of Ridgeway
who asked not to be identified.
In one case, however, Ridgeway appears to have relied on LaRouche
material without independently verifying the accuracy of the material.
On May 17, 1988 James Ridgeway penned a lengthy article in the "Village
Voice" titled "Dueling Spymasters: How the Government Bungled the Case
Against Lyndon LaRouche."
Even a careful reading of the Ridgeway article leaves the impression
that when a federal judge declared a mistrial in the Boston fraud case
against LaRouche and several colleagues, it was caused by government
misconduct. This is what the LaRouchians contend--but not what the
judge said. Lyndon LaRouche and his associates were on trial in Boston
for an alleged credit card scam. The mistrial declared by U.S. Federal
District Court Judge Robert E. Keeton came after complaints of hardship
were voiced by more than one third of the jurors who had been told the
trial would end in early summer, and then learned it could stretch
through the end of the year. The judge declared the mistrial because he
feared a continuation of the trial would be a waste of time and money
due to the real possibility that the number of jurors would fall below
the legal limit before the trial ended.
While there was substantial evidence that the Justice Department may
have improperly withheld documents relating to LaRouche in pre-trial
discovery, a lengthy hearing resulted in a ruling that the documents had
no bearing on the criminal charges. According to Ridgeway, "the
proceedings had revealed...FBI agents planting obstruction of justice
evidence on LaRouche." This is what the LaRouche attorneys sought to
prove--and given the history of the FBI, Justice Department and other
government bureaucracies, such an allegation was not far-fetched--but no
hard evidence to prove that claim had been introduced in court at the
time of the mistrial. In fact, the prosecution was still presenting its
case. Further, the delay of the trial which caused the juror hardship
was caused not only by lengthy side hearings into the document and
informant questions, but by numerous challenges and extended cross
examinations by the phalanx of defense attorneys representing LaRouche,
his associates and their organizations.
Legal actions by both federal and local agencies against LaRouche for
questionable fundraising and financial practices commenced years before
the flap over Iran-Contragate and the well-publicized airport assault
involving LaRouche partisans and Henry Kissinger, who was traveling with
his wife. Furthermore, there is a virtual army of persons who claim to
have been swindled and victimized by LaRouche-related organizations.
Ridgeway offers no evidence the Boston criminal case was a result of the
government being out to get LaRouche any more than it is out to get any
person accused of being a common crook.
The "seeds of the government's investigation" were not planted by a
petulant Henry Kissinger, as Ridgeway asserts, but by hundreds of
persons who claimed to have found unauthorized credit card charges on
their monthly statements at a time in 1984 when LaRouche was buying
half-hour presidential campaign spots on network television. The grand
jury which indicted LaRouche heard evidence from angry credit card
holders, not Henry Kissinger.
Yet Ridgeway is correct is asserting that there was government
misconduct against the LaRouchians which surfaced as part of the case.
That the government shut down the LaRouchian publications as part of its
probe into loan fraud and tax evasion was a civil liberties outrage, and
the action was later rightfully declared unconstitutional. This abuse
of government power, however, had no bearing on the evidence which
convicted LaRouche and his followers of the charges in the Virginia
indictments.
There is no debate that LaRouche was a little fish in the cloudy waters
trolled by U.S. intelligence agencies. But when LaRouche hired
informants and self-styled intelligence operatives such as Ryan Quade
Emerson, Mitchell WerBell, and Roy Frankhouser, he was aware he was
opening a Pandora's box filled with smoke and mirrors, double-dealing,
and betrayal. WerBell, for instance, was a former OSS officer and
international arms merchant. Frankhouser was a well-known government
informant and Ku Klux Klan organizer. While LaRouche may have been
belatedly frozen out of an active role in Reagan Administration
intelligence functions, to conclude that his former allies turned up as
government witnesses through a conspiracy to isolate LaRouche the
"Spymaster" was a fanciful but unsubstantiated charge. A more likely
explanation is that they turned up as witnesses against LaRouche in an
attempt to keep themselves out of jail.
Ridgeway also describes LaRouche without mentioning LaRouche's notorious
anti-Jewish sentiments. LaRouche, for instance, has claimed there is no
such thing as Jewish culture, and that "only" a million and a half Jews
perished at the hands of the Nazis, and then primarily due to illness
and overwork.
A letter criticizing Ridgeway for publishing LaRouchian assertions as
fact was published in the May 31, 1988 issue of the "Voice" over the
signatures of this author and journalists Russ Bellant, Joel Bellman,
Bryan Chitwood, Dennis King, Ed Kayatt, and Kalev Pehme.
David MacMichael is the editor of "Unclassified," the newsletter of the
Association of National Security Alumni (ANSA). In the Feb.-March, 1991
edition of "Unclassified," MacMichael casually cites unnamed LaRouche
sources in an article about a dismissed case involving Iran-Contragate
figures Oliver North and Joseph Fernandez, "LaRouche sources point out
that Prosecutor William Burch was not particularly diligent in arguing
his case. They note that Burch has been active in the LaRouche
prosecutions."
In the October-November 1990 issue of "Unclassified," MacMichael
presents the same story of intrigue previously reported by Ridgeway.
MacMichael also mentions the LaRouchian competition with the
"North-Secord enterprise for donations from wealthy individuals,"
implying it was connected to the LaRouche criminal prosecutions.
It is true that the Oliver North network targeted the LaRouchians for
investigation, when LaRouche fundraising, especially to rich older
conservatives, was found to be hampering private fundraising efforts for
the Contras. There is, however, no conclusive evidence that the
North/Secord political investigation of LaRouche influenced the Boston
or Virginia criminal investigations or indictments.
Numerous criminal and civil actions against illegal LaRouche financial
activities were launched as early as the late 1970's. One such probe
was initiated by the Illinois State Attorney General on the basis of an
article by this author charging irregularities in LaRouchian financial
activities. The article was based on several boxes of original office
and bank records. [f-36] In 1979 and 1980, Dennis King published
documented charges of widespread LaRouchian financial misconduct in a
series of articles in New York's "Our Town," a neighborhood newspaper.
Several articles were based on secret internal LaRouche memos and
financial records obtained by King from sources close to the LaRouche
operation.
36. The boxes were purchased as scrap from a janitor by the
author posing as a paper recycler after the LaRouchians
were locked out of their Chicago office for
non-payment of rent.
On December 16, 1981, Dennis King, Russ Bellant, and this author held a
press conference in Washington, D.C. charging the LaRouchians with "a
wide variety of potentially illegal activities," including: carrying out
intelligence tasks for several foreign governments, including Iraq and
South Africa; conducting a pattern of "illegal, deceitful and fraudulent
activities by non-profit corporations, foundations and fundraising front
groups controlled by Lyndon LaRouche."
The Boston grand jury was already investigating illegal LaRouchian
fundraising practices well before conservatives and neo-conservatives
forced the Reagan Administration to stop access by LaRouchians to the
staff at the National Security Council and CIA. It is not likely that
LaRouche was the victim of a conspiracy to indict him falsely for
crimes. What is more likely is that after LaRouche was forced out as a
marginal player in Reagan intelligence circles, his immense criminal
fundraising schemes could no longer be ignored, and some of the numerous
probes into his many frauds finally were allowed to proceed to court.
Certainly both MacMichael and Ridgeway have a right to report what they
wish, and draw any conclusions they feel are warranted by the facts.
But to report the LaRouche side of the story of the government's
criminal indictments without historical context is to give an imprimatur
to the unsubstantiated--and widely disputed--LaRouchian allegations
claiming that LaRouche's conviction was the result of a government
conspiracy to deny him his political rights. This in turn is used by
the LaRouchians to gain sympathy and worm their way into left political
circles, especially among students, where the LaRouchians' long history
of fascist attacks on left groups is unknown.
=====================================================================
Part 40: Some Criteria for Discussion
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
Circulating information from (and in essence for) the political right
without an accompanying notation as to source, appropriate principled
criticism, and analysis of intent can have many negative outcomes. It:
Launders the original source of the information which often makes
independent verification more difficult;
Builds the left group's reputation as an independent and resourceful
information gatherer when in essence the information has been
plagiarized;
Gives the information an unwarranted "imprimaturs" since the information
is assumed to be coming from a left rather than the right source;
Advances often unstated and implicit rightist agendas;
Protects the rightist group from punitive attack by the right or the
government since the information is perceived as coming from left;
Results in a conscious or unconscious reluctance by the left group to
criticize the right group for fear of having information flow cut off.
It is important both journalistically and politically to know the source
of information in order to consider the ulterior motives and possible
implications of the information being circulated.
We certainly shouldn't let the right set our research agenda through
leaks but contact with the right seems inevitable and often proper and
useful. Since persons on the left have contacts with the right for
varied and complex reasons, one blanket criticism is neither sufficient,
nor helpful. We do need to think through policies. What then are the
principled conditions for contact with the right? Keep in mind that we
all need to work in coalitions while maintaining independent political
analysis and ability to criticize freely.
Some suggested points of principle might include:
Do not trade potentially harmful information on left groups with the
right. Only trade information on government abuses and on other right
groups;
Double check and double source all stories;
Name the group or political sector supplying the information and provide
an honest thumbnail political sketch;
Consider why information is being passed by the group and make that part
of the analysis or story;
Condemn flaws in all groups concerned, left or right;
Do not refer people to rightist networks without warning them of the
nature of the source, and allowing them to make a principled moral
decision whether or not to seek the information through that group.
=====================================================================
Part 41: Propaganda, Deception & Demagoguery
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
Investigative reporting and progressive research took a detour during
the probe of the Iran-Contra affair. Because the executive branch was
engaged in a coverup, and Congress refused to demand a full accounting,
speculation about conspiracies blossomed. There certainly are
conspiracies afoot in the halls of government and private industry.
Documenting illegal conspiracies is routinely accomplished by
prosecutors who present their evidence to a judge or jury. The burden
of proof can be high, as it should be in a democracy. Journalists
frequently document conspiracies, and their published or broadcast
charges can be tested against standards of journalistic ethics and
sometimes in court in cases of alleged libel and slander.
Coverage of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories in recent years,
however, routinely violated common journalistic practices regarding
second sourcing. A theory that cannot be documented, or for which there
is only one source of questionable credibility, is a rumor...not
investigative journalism.
With so much political and journalistic confusion it is useful to
remember that academia has produced a long list of useful tools and
techniques to evaluate the logical and conceptual validity of any
argument regardless of political content or viewpoint. [f-37]
37. Persons who already are aware of the rules of logic and
the fallacies of debate should feel free to skip this
discussion, however many activists have indicated that
they found it useful. It is not meant to be patronizing
and is included because many of the issues discussed
here come up in a later critique of specific
propaganda techniques.
Useful rational standards by which to judge the merits of any statement
or theory are easily found in textbooks on debate, rhetoric, argument,
and logic. These books discuss which techniques of argumentation are
not valid because they fail to follow the rules of logic. There are
many common fallacious techniques or inadequate proofs:
Raising the volume, increasing the stridency, or stressing the
emotionalism of an argument does not improve its validity. This is
called argument by exhortation. It is often a form of demagoguery,
bullying or emotional manipulation.
Sequence does not imply causation. If Joan is elected to the board of
directors of a bank on May 1, and Raul gets a loan on July 26, further
evidence is needed to prove a direct or causal connection. Sequence can
be a piece of a puzzle, but other causal links need to be further
investigated.
Congruence in one or more elements does not establish congruence in all
elements. Gloria Steinem and Jeane J. Kirkpatrick are both
intelligent, assertive women accomplished in political activism and
persuasive rhetoric. To assume they therefore also agree politically
would be ludicrous. If milk is white and powdered chalk is white, would
you drink a glass of powdered chalk?
Association does not imply agreement, hence the phrase "guilt by
association" has a pejorative meaning. Association proves association;
it suggests further questions are appropriate, and demonstrates the
parameters of networks, coalitions, and personal moral distinctions,
nothing more. Tracking association can lead to further investigation
that produces useful evidence, but a database is not an analysis and a
spiderweb chart is not an argument. The connections may be meaningful,
random, or related to an activity unrelated to the one being probed.
Participation in an activity, or presence at an event, does not imply
control.
Similarity in activity does not imply joint activity and joint activity
does not imply congruent motivation. When a person serves in an
official advisory role or acts in a position of responsibility within a
group, however, the burden of proof shifts to favor a presumption that
such a person is not a mere member or associate, but probably embraces a
considerable portion of the sentiments expressed by the group. Still,
even members of boards of directors will distance themselves from a
particular stance adopted by a group they oversee, and therefore it is
not legitimate to assume automatically that they personally hold a view
expressed by the group or other board members. It is legitimate to
assert that they need to distance themselves publicly from a particular
organizational position if they wish to disassociate themselves from it.
Anecdotes alone are not conclusive evidence. Anecdotes are used to
illustrate a thesis, not to prove it. A good story-teller can be
mesmerizing, consider Ronald Reagan, but if skill in story-telling is
the criteria for political leadership, Ossie Davis would be president.
Lack of evidence is not proof, nor even a suggestion, of a possible
conspiracy. Just because an incident lacks an apparently obvious
explanation, or a person fails to do something that seems obviously
required or effective, it doesn't imply a sinister motive or plot. Why
didn't Oswald shoot Kennedy when he had a clear shot before the
limousine turned the corner? Maybe he sneezed. Maybe a fly landed on
his nose. We don't know. What we don't know has no meaning in
investigative research or analysis other than there needs to be more
research and analysis.
=====================================================================
Part 42: Techniques of the Propagandist
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
In 1923 Edward L. Bernays wrote the book "Crystallizing Public Opinion"
and later, in 1928, the text "Propaganda," considered seminal works in
the field. "There is propaganda and what I call impropaganda," says the
98-year-old Bernays impishly. [f-38] Propaganda originally meant
promoting any idea or item, but took on its current pejorative sense
following the extensive use of sinister propaganda for malicious goals
during World War I and World War II. While all persuasion uses the
techniques of traditional propaganda, what Bernays calls "impropaganda"
is "using propaganda techniques not in accordance with good sense, good
faith, or good morals...methods not consistent with the American pattern
of behavior based on Judeo-Christian ethics." Bernays, who is called the
"father of public relations," is worried about the increased use of
"impropaganda" in political campaigns and has spoken out against it.
"Politicians who use techniques like these lose the faith of the
people," says Bernays.
38. Telephone interview with Bernays.
In 1936 Boston merchant Edward Filene helped establish the short- lived
Institute for Propaganda Analysis which sought to educate Americans to
recognize propaganda techniques. Alfred McClung Lee, Institute director
from 1940-42, and his wife Elizabeth Briant Lee, co-authors of "The Fine
Art of Propaganda, Social Problems in America," recently wrote an
article in the periodical "Propaganda Review" in which they suggested
educating the public about propaganda techniques was an urgent priority.
The Lees also discussed the Institute's symbols for the seven hallmark
tricks of the manipulative propagandist:
Name Calling: hanging a bad label on an idea, symbolized by a hand
turning thumbs down;
Card Stacking: selective use of facts or outright falsehoods, symbolized
by an ace of spades, a card signifying treachery;
Band Wagon: a claim that everyone like "us" thinks this way, symbolized
by a marching bandleader's hat and baton;
Testimonial: the association of a respected or hated person with an
idea, symbolized by a seal and ribbon stamp of approval;
Plain Folks: a technique whereby the idea and its proponents are linked
to "people just like you and me," symbolized by an old shoe;
Transfer: an assertion of a connection between something valued or hated
and the idea or commodity being discussed, symbolized by a smiling Greek
theater mask; and
Glittering Generality: an association of something with a "virtue word"
to gain approval without examining the evidence; symbolized by a
sparkling gem.
The Institute's last newsletter reflected that "in modern society an
element of propaganda is present in a large portion of human
affairs...people need to be able to recognize this element even when it
is serving `good' ends."
=====================================================================
Part 43: Some Examples
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
Here are two examples of how the fallacies of debate and errors of logic
are employed regarding General John Singlaub, a man whose roles in
Iran-Contragate and world fascist movements are already well documented,
and need no discussion here.
General John Singlaub was involved in promoting the yellow ribbon
campaign during the Gulf War. He was one of dozens of influential
people who formed the Coalition for America at Risk. That Coalition was
one of at least ten other major national groups promoting the yellow
ribbon campaign, including veterans groups with tens of thousands of
members nationwide. Families of service personnel have been tying
yellow ribbons on trees in anticipation of the safe return of their
active duty relatives ever since this military tradition which dates to
the Civil War was revived during the Vietnam War, in part due to a
popular song. To suggest, as some do, that Singlaub created the yellow
ribbon campaign as a continuation of his nefarious role in Contra
fundraising is to stretch credulity beyond the breaking point.
Another case involving Singlaub shows how a series of individual facts
from underlying footnotes can be strung together so that the conclusions
are not accurate because they fail the tests of deductive logic. "The
Iran Contra Connection: Secret Teams and Covert Operations in the Reagan
Era," combines into one book chapters written by Jonathan Marshall,
Peter Dale Scott and Jane Hunter. On page 67 in a chapter written by
Peter Dale Scott it is asserted that the LaRouche organization
"previously posed as left-wing but in fact harassed anti-nuclear and
other left-wing demonstrations with the help of the right-wing domestic
intelligence group known since 1979 as Western Goals."
It is documented that the LaRouchians spied on and harassed the left,
and it is documented that Western Goals spied on and harassed the left,
but it does not automatically follow that they worked together to spy on
and harass the left.
The evidence linking the two groups is this: General Singlaub, at the
time on the board of Western Goals, once lectured to a group that
included some LaRouchians at a training center run by Mitch WerBell.
Singlaub met LaRouchians from time to time when he visited WerBell, who
served as an intelligence adviser to LaRouche. The LaRouchians in 1977
gave the New Hampshire State Police background material on anti-nuclear
activists including several pages from a private Rees newsletter. At
the time, Rees was not connected to Western Goals. In fact, Western
Goals had not as yet been founded.
That both the LaRouchians and Rees have spied on the left is both
documented and a matter of some bragging by both parties. That the
LaRouchians spied on and harassed the left with help from Western Goals
is unsubstantiated, and faces conflicting evidence. In fact, Rees and
the LaRouchians have despised each other for years, and denounce each
other regularly in print, gleefully sending nasty information about each
other to reporters, including this author.
It is common for Singlaub and other figures criticized by the left to
point to the inaccurate and unsubstantiated charges leveled against them
by their critics as a means to deflect the charges that are well
documented. The use of fallacious arguments and the circulation of
unsubstantiated conclusory charges in an area of research such as
government repression or intelligence abuse undermines the credibility
of the whole area of research. It makes the job all the harder for
cautious progressive researchers, whose work becomes suspect in the eyes
of mainstream reporters and broad audiences.
=====================================================================
Part 44: Harry Martin and Propaganda Techniques
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
Harry V. Martin is the editor of the "Napa Sentinel" . His articles on
government corruption have gained popularity on the left. An analysis
of the content and style of the Martin articles raises questions about
his credibility as a reporter. Martin uses classic leaps of logic and
propaganda techniques in his reporting. This section will look at
several articles which Martin has written concerning the pending Inslaw
court case.
Inslaw, a small computer company, developed a very sensitive computer
program, Promis, which Inslaw alleges was appropriated without
authorization by the U.S. Justice Department and other government
agencies. Promis software was an early contender in case management
software, but by no means unique. Several vendors at the time Promis
was being offered also offered similar case tracking software. It can
be argued that at the time Promis was indeed ahead of its competitors in
many key features, but today Lotus Agenda with its case tracking overlay
is just as powerful. [f-39]
39. The author wrote a column on computer technology
for the legal community for almost six years
(first in the "Chicago Lawyer" and later "Illinois
Legal Times") and is familiar with case tracking
software, both early versions and current versions.
I base my opinion on representations made in court
documents and newspaper accounts regarding Promis.
I have tested Lotus Agenda based on copies given me
by Lotus for review.
Martin's Inslaw stories use the classical propaganda technique of
stringing together chronological events and implying that one causes the
other. One story, for example, which looks at the role governmental
retribution may have played in the failure to re-appoint to the bench
one judge, George Bason, whose rulings has supported Inslaw's position.
Martin's article assumes allegations it needs to establish. He says:
"As a result of the Inslaw cases, many heads in the Justice Department
were lopped off. When Judge George Bason, a bankruptcy court judge,
refused to liquidate Inslaw, ruling instead that the Department of
Justice used deceit, trickery and fraud, he was only one of four who
were not re-appointed to their jobs. A total of 132 were re-appointed.
But to show the collusion of the Justice Department, when it removed
Judge Bason from the bench after his ruling against them and for Inslaw,
they had S. Martin Teel appointed to the bench to replace Bason. Who
was Teel? He was a Department of Justice attorney who unsuccessfully
argued the Inslaw case before Judge Bason."
Certainly the failure of Judge Bason to be re-appointed after ruling in
favor of Inslaw is curious. A good reporter would seek evidence to show
that there was a connection between the Inslaw case and the failure to
re-appoint Judge Bason. That one event followed the other is not this
proof. The same situation applies to Teel. The sequence is curious,
even suspicious in light of Bason, but the cause and effect relationship
remains unproven.
Martin also makes extensive use of arguments by exhortation, which are
arguments based more on emotion that on reason. For example, he claims:
"An official of the Israeli government claims [a person] sold the Promis
program to Iraqi military intelligence at a meeting in Santiago, Chile.
The software could have been used in the recent Persian Gulf War to
track U.S. and allied troop movements. Ari Ben-Menashe, a 12 year
veteran of Israeli intelligence, made the statement in a sworn affidavit
to the court."
When Martin claims the software could have been used against the U.S.
during the Gulf War, he is using jingoistic appeals to emotion rather
than reason to garner support for his position. He is deliberately
painting a picture of the possible deaths of U.S. soldiers as a direct
result of the purported theft of the Promis software program by U.S.
government agencies. That software also could have been used to track
hamburger shipments by McDonalds, or alternatively, troop movements
could have been tracked by Lotus AGENDA rather than Promis. It is hype,
and misleading, to single out the one possibility that suits his
political ends.
There are other misleading statement in the paragraph quoted above. For
example, Ari Ben-Menashe was hardly "an official of the Israeli
government." He was at best an Israeli intelligence staffer who became a
player in the international arms trade, and even that has been
contested. Martin's inflation of Ben-Menashe's status serves to condemn
the entire Israeli government in a way that a discussion based on
Ben-Menashe's actual status would not have done. Another example is
Martin's emphasis on the fact that Ari Ben-Menashe "made the statement
in a sworn affidavit to the court." As anyone who has worked on legal
cases can attest, sworn statements carry no guarantee that they are
truthful or factual. Absent documentation or corroborating testimony,
they stand as allegations, not facts.
In the same article, Martin goes on to claim that Promis is now being
used by the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence
Agency, and the U.S. Department of Justice. In fact, these are
unproven allegations that are being presented as though they were facts.
They may indeed be proven at some point, but have not yet been proven.
The technique of first presenting allegations, then later referring to
them as facts, is a classic propaganda technique. A closer examination
of Martin's presentation reveals that the claimed use of the software by
these U.S. government agencies is actually an allegation from
Ben-Menashe's affidavit, in which Ben-Menashe claims he was told by a
third party that this was true. Legally, this is hearsay, which is
typically inadmissible in court as evidence. Nevertheless, Martin
converts this hearsay allegation into a statement of fact. But Martin
is not through with his daisy chain of proof.
Still utilizing unproven assertions, Martin goes on to expand the cast
of villains from a few corrupt officials of the Justice Department to
the entire U.S. government. He writes:
"[The] Judiciary Committee is conducting its own investigation in what
has been described as the U.S. Department of Justice's "trickery,
deceit and theft" of the software. The U.S. Government has been
connected with the illegal sale of the sensitive software to South
Korea, Libya, Iraq, Israel and Canada, as well as being pirated by a
number of U.S. agencies, including the CIA, National Security Agency
and other military units. The software is also in use by the FBI. Only
the U.S. Justice Department was licensed to use the software..."
From a proposition of criminal or unethical conduct by individuals
within the Justice Department, a proposition itself unproven, Martin
moves on to argue the existence of an international conspiracy, led by
the U.S. government to steal and distribute Promis software. While
such a claim could later be proven, Martin here merely presents the
allegation as though it were true, a technique known as a "conclusory"
or "Kierkegaardian" leap.
One final example of Martin's tendency to confuse unproven allegations
with established matters of fact can be found in Martin's treatment of
Riconoscuito, a computer software technician who has submitted a sworn
affidavit in the Inslaw case. Riconoscuito has claimed that he was
threatened by a former staff member of the Justice Department with
criminal prosecution on an unrelated charge and with an unfavorable
result in a pending child custody dispute if he testified on the Inslaw
case. Riconoscuito has also claimed that he made a tape recording of
the telephoned threat, two copies of which were confiscated when he was
arrested. Although he has not produced it, he claims a third copy
exists, which is being held in a safe location. When Martin discusses
Riconoscuito, he begins with what appears to be a statement of
uncontested fact, "In February, Riconoscuito was called by a former
Justice Department official and warned against cooperating with an
investigation into the case by the House Judiciary Committee." In fact,
while some of what Riconoscuito has alleged can be verified, much
cannot. Despite the plethora of details Martin presents, the entire
content of Martin's story on Riconoscuito is composed of Riconoscuito's
own unverified assertions or other unproven allegations made in the
early stages of a lawsuit.
Riconoscuito has also been championed as a source by the LaRouchians who
say they introduced Riconoscuito to Danny Casolaro, according to the
"Village Voice" article by Ridgeway and Vaughan. Anyone reading that
article carefully will get the idea that authors Ridgeway and Vaughan
think that some of the Riconoscuito/Casolaro allegations are
unsubstantiated and reflect undocumented conspiracy theories.
These few examples buttress the assertion that Martin is not a reliable
source of information. A careful reading of all the Martin Inslaw
articles reveals many other instances of fallacious argument and
propaganda technique. Questions regarding Harry Martin's judgment and
political orientation are also raised by the fact that he has allowed
his articles to appear regularly in the "Spotlight" [f-40]
40. The following partial list was compiled by Margaret
Quigley of Political Research Associates: "Bush Linked
to Hostage Deal: Secret Meeting In Paris," "Spotlight,"
May 20, 1991, p. 1. (Copyright "Napa Sentinel," 1991,
Exclusive to the Napa Sentinel, by Harry V. Martin.);
"October Surprise Cover-Up Congress Doesn't Look Very
Hard," "Spotlight," June 17, 1991, p. 1. (Copyright
"Napa Sentinel," 1991, (Edited by Spotlight), by Harry
V. Martin; "`October Surprise' Figure Has Intelligence
Background," "Spotlight," July 8, 1991, p. 10. [Box]
{Following is another installment in the saga of Gunther
Rusbacher (Spotlight, May 20, and subsequently), the man
who connects the Reagan-Bush team to the delayed release
of the American hostages in Iran in 1980. The Russbacher
story is an exclusive of the Napa, California Sentinel.}
Copyright Napa Sentinel, 1991, (Edited by "Spotlight"),
by Harry V. Martin; "Spotlight" July 23, 1991, p. 10
"Reagan-Era Inslaw Scandal Refuses to Go Away. "
Copyright "Napa Sentinel," 1991, (Edited by "Spotlight"),
by Harry V. Martin; "Spotlight" July 29, 1991, p. 10.
"California Investigation Exposes Inslaw Scandal. " Copyright
"Napa Sentinel," 1991, (Edited by "Spotlight"), by Harry
V. Martin. [Editors Note] {Napa Sentinel editor Harry V.
Martin, who broke the story that has come to be known as
the October Surprise, examines yet another Reagan/Bush
scandal known as the Inslaw case, which focuses on
corruption within bankruptcy courts and the Justice
Department.}; "Spotlight" September 10, 1991, p. 7.
"Inslaw Claims Another Victim. " Copyright "Napa Sentinel,"
1991, (Edited by "Spotlight"), by Harry V. Martin.
=====================================================================
Part 45: Conclusions
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
"When we destroy international Fascism we must at the same time destroy
national Fascism, we must replace the reactionary forces at home with
truly democratic forces which will represent all of us. "
(George Seldes)
(Facts and Fascism, 1943)
We suffer in the U. S. from an unfortunate reluctance to recognize and
name the resurgence of fascist ideology around the world. In part this
is because we are not taught in our schools what fascism was or is. We
hold ourselves up as a model of democracy while half the eligible
citizens rarely feel motivated to vote, and we are bombarded with
advertising that tells us that freedom is the ability to purchase four
different varieties of Coca-Cola at 7-11.
Some have argued that the main potential threat of fascism comes from a
bipartisan government increasingly willing to employ repressive and
authoritarian solutions to societal problems during a time of economic
decline. Political analyst William Pfaff is one of the few mainstream
analysts who warns that an unconscious strain of American fascism is
influencing national affairs. Writing in the "Chicago Tribune" with a
Paris dateline of March, 1987, Pfaff concluded that the actions of the
Reagan Administration during the Iran-Contra scandal revealed "a pattern
of conduct and a state of mind among important people in this
administration which must be described as an American style of fascism.
I would prefer to avoid that term, but it is the only one in the modern
political vocabulary that adequately describes" the situation.
Given the upsurge of nationalism, jingoistic patriotism, militarism,
scapegoating, and race-baiting practiced by both the Reagan and Bush
Administrations, a discussion of the proto-fascist elements in U. S.
domestic and foreign policy is not unwarranted. At the same time, it is
hyperbole to describe the current political climate in the U. S. as
fascist. Yet it clearly is an error to assume that anyone who opposes
repressive aspects of U. S. policy is an anti-fascist, or upholds
democratic principles.
=====================================================================
Part 46: A Painful Task
=====================================================================
Copyright 1993, Political Research Associates
by Chip Berlet [cberlet@igc.apc.org]
In the debate over conspiracy theories passions can run high. Radio
station WBAI scheduled a debate on the journalistic issues raised by
broadcasting conspiracy theorists and right-wing experts. One guest
connected by phone to the New York studio was KPFA-radio host Dennis
Bernstein, dubbed that station's "conspiracy czar" by one local
alternative newspaper. During the live program Bernstein began alluding
to conspiracies to smear and silence him and his guests, then angrily
slammed down the phone.
Why have some on the left fallen for the psuedo-radical siren song of
the fascist right? Sara Diamond thinks that "after 12 years of living
as an anti-administration anti-establishment subculture, many in the
progressive movement know what they are against, but have lost sight of
what they stand for. According to Diamond, this leaves persons
susceptible to allying with anyone else that attacks the government.
"In part its desperation," says Diamond. "We have, in fact, lost
influence and become marginal. " And, Diamond adds, this happened
"against a backdrop of political illiteracy. "
This political myopia has been shaped in part by a reliance on the
electronic media for news routinely presented in ahistorical, sound-bite
packages that fail to make connections or references to even recent
history, much less events earlier in this century. Sadly, many
Americans developed their understanding of fascism by watching the show
"Hogan's Heros" on television. The age of television has promoted style
over substance. Demagoguery of all political stripes flourishes in this
environment.
Interviewer David Barsamian who produces the syndicated Alternative
Radio series from Boulder, Colorado warns that radio personalities who
harp on conspiracies are providing entertaining confusion rather than
helping listeners focus clearly on complex issues. He says progressives
should not fall for "left guruism" where sensational anti-government
theories are accepted without any independent critical analysis.
Barsamian feels some on the left have been "mesmerized by the flawless
dramatic presentation by Sheehan of the Christic claims" which
distracted attention from the "substance of the allegations which don't
all check out. " This created a climate--even a demand--for elaborate
conspiracy theories to flourish. Barsamian acknowledges "we all are
longing for simple comforting explanations, but by focusing on The
Secret Team, or the Medellin Cartel, we ignore the institutions that
keep producing the problems. "
Doug Henwood, editor of "Left Business Observer "in New York,
editorialized in April about the resurgence of fascist ideas around the
world. Henwood cited a 50-year-old book by Karl Polanyi, "The Great
Transformation," which listed symptoms for a country infected with
fascism, including "the spread of irrationalist philosophies, racialist
esthetics, anticapitalist demagogy, heterodox currency views, criticism
of the party system, widespread disparagement of the 'regime,' or
whatever was the name given to the existing democratic set-up. "
Henwood writes that "the list is a good description of the political
scene in much of the world today--the denunciation of Coca-Cola
capitalism by German skinheads, chanted between attacks on Turks and
Mozambicans; the racist welfare-baiting of our own demagogues; and
ubiquitous, vague, and nihilistic denunciations of 'the system' that
offer little hope for transformation. " Henwood is not surprised to see
such symptoms appearing in the U. S. , but is dismayed that so many on
the left are unaware of the lessons already learned this century.
While conditions in the United States may only faintly echo the
financial and social turmoil of the corrupt 1920's German Weimar regime,
collapsed by attacks from the left and right, the similarities cannot be
dismissed lightly, nor should the catastrophic power of state fascism be
confused with the repression of an authoritarian government. Repression
can be deadly, but Fascism's terror and mass murder is worse.
The popularity of the film "JFK" proves that now is an appropriate time
to take a calm look at some hard questions involving the Warren
Commission report, the Kennedy Administration, the Vietnam war, U. S.
foreign policy, our burgeoning national security apparatus, and economic
justice. But surely we can have this discussion without uncritically
circulating the conspiratorial scapegoating fantasies of the far right.
Monique Doryland of the Bay Area Pledge of Resistance has seen the
group's office on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland vandalized this year by
graffiti spray painted across their walls. Their answering machine has
been tampered with. The messages included homophobic, racist,
anti-Jewish, and anti-communist epithets. Members of a visible neo-Nazi
movement in the Bay Area are the prime suspects. Doryland was
"appalled" when she heard persons suggesting "making common cause with
the far right as a technique to bring down the conservative center and
George Bush. It seems so ridiculous to seriously suggest working with
fascists," says Doryland. " That's not how you build an authentic
response to either right-wing or mainstream Republican deprivation of
social programs. We have to be clear as progressive people that
fascists, no matter what their camouflage, are not our friends. "
The dilemma for left activists is to sort out the various strains of
fascist ideology circulating in the United States and the world. It is
a dangerous folly to ignore the threat to democracy posed by critics of
the current administration who also promote fascism.
Author George Seldes reached his 100th birthday in 1990 as the early
editions of this report were first being researched and written. More
than half a century earlier, in 1938, Seldes wrote "You Can't Do That,"
a book with a prophetic warning about how fascism comes to power as the
result of a pincer movement between authoritarian state repression
supported by corporate elites and mass movements sparked by
ultra-rightist demagogues. Seldes wrote:
"We must guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism,
especially that patriotism which is the last refuge of scoundrels and
which is so prevalent, so professional and so well paid nowadays.
Eternal vigilance must become more than the slogan for small
associations desperately fighting almost overwhelming cases of
infringements on individual liberties.
"We must realize that those who use red-baiting to attack every liberal
and democratic movement today, are the armed cutthroats of reactionary
Fascism tomorrow.
"Two facts emerge from any study of European turmoil and the new class
alignment in our own land. The enemy is always the Right.
Fascism and Reaction inevitably attack. They have won against
disunion. They will fail if we unite."
While revealing our government's policies as corrupt, we must not concede
the debate over foreign policy and domestic social justice to the demagogues
on either the left or the right. If these people monopolize the debate, then
political discourse in the U.S. will soon echo the themes of the fascist era
in Europe where hysteria and holocaust, blood and bounty, blind patriotism
and deaf obedience became synonymous with the national spirit.
While the concept of broad-based peace and social justice coalitions remains
desirable, activists and their coalitions should be very careful to examine
the backgrounds and ideologies of those groups with which we seek to build
coalitions.