From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Subject: WARNING (II): Spotlight et al: Expose by Chip Berlet
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 21:21:06 GMT

[Via misc.activism.progressive from PeaceNet's gen.media] 
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Topic 137       "Radio Free America" = ???      Response  2 of  2 
cberlet 
media    8:52 pm  Aug 27, 1992 
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Radio Free America is a syndicated program of Liberty Lobby, 
a quasi-Nazi outfit that specializes in using  
radical-sounding "populist" rhetoric to attract an 
audience. They have managed to fool a lot of people by 
avoiding overtly racist language. They are quite skilled 
at this deception. 

According to an order list for audiotapes from Liberty Lobby's  
syndicated Radio Free America 2-hour daily radio talk-show, 
on September 5, the program was an interview with Fred  
Leuchter, who falsely claimed to be an engineer and  
published a pseudo-scientific study alleging that he had proved  
that there were no homicidal gas chambers at "Auschwitz, Mydanek  
and Birkenau." 

Along with interviews with Populist Party candidates and David  
Duke supporters, here are some other featured guests:  

On June 21, 1990 the guest was "Alyn Denham, former mercenary  
from Rhodesia, talks about the problems of South Africa." 

On July 26 1990 the guest was Samuel Blumenfeld, long an ally of  
the John Birch Society, talking on his "stand against socialistic  
control of education" by the National Education Association. 

On July 12, the issue was October Surprise with Barbara Honegger. 

June 14, Bo Gritz "continues his fight against narco-corruption  
in high places." 

May 22, 1990 "Liberty Lobby founder and treasurer Willis A.  
Carto." 

May 24, 1990 "Dr. Paul Cameron, director/founder of Family  
Research Institute of Washington, discusses dangers posed to  
society by militant homosexuality." 

February 21--"A self-confessed FBI hit man tells how he rubbed  
out one of the shooters in the JFK assassination." 

January 23, 1991 "Was Bush's War actually a "Secret Team"  
operation? Col. Fletcher Prouty, expert on this government within  
a government, argues that it has all the earmarks." 

August 29, 1990 the program was "Former Rep. David Bowen (D- 
Miss.), executive director of the Center for the National  
Interest, talks about the power of the Israel lobby and how it  
has to be curbed." 


David Duke has this to say: 

   " 'Spotlight' started Radio Free America...I think it's a  
fantastic project. It's one more chink in the armor of the enemy.  
I think it will enable us to penetrate and reach more and more  
people in this country. 
   "I must say this: there are Jews that I respect like Alfred  
Lilienthal who works against Zionism. But, I don't have respect  
for Zionism, and frankly, I do not have respect for Judaism.  
Because it is a very vile, anti-Christian faith." 


- Liberty Lobby - 

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> 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 relationship  
between Liberty Lobby and the Populist Party,  
although both groups still share many of the  
fundamental anti-Jewish and racist theories.)  

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 John 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. " 


 * * * 

For more information see the 
Peacenet Conference "Publiceye" 
Topic: Right Woos Left 

-Chip Berlet 
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive