From: cberlet@igc.apc.org (NLG Civil Liberties Committee)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: Bellant: Old Nazi Networks in US
Date: 12 Dec 92 02:28:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1299600110:cdp:1299600136:000:10941
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!cberlet    Dec 11 18:28:00 1992


/* Written  9:11 pm  Dec  8, 1992 by cberlet in igc:publiceye */
/* Written  8:30 pm  Dec  6, 1992 by cberlet in igc:p.news */
/* Written  7:40 pm  Mar  7, 1990 by nlgclc in igc:publiceye */
Bellant: Old Nazis/Appendix 3
     
Chronology of 1988 Bush Campaign Controversy 
Coalition of American Nationalities
Republican and Bush Campaign responses to charges
(with selected other responses)
     
by Chip Berlet
     
{Adapted from an article in the <Boston Phoenix>}
	
      When the Bush campaign was revealed as having recruited an 
ethnic support coalition which included racists, fascists, 
anti-Semites, Nazi apologists and even aging Nazi collaborators, 
it responded with a number of conflicting statements. At various 
points during the controversy the Bush campaign announced: 
	
     *** It would investigate the charges. 
	
     *** It would not investigate the charges. 
	
     *** It was shocked by the charges. 
	
     *** It could not be held responsible for screening everyone. 
	
     *** It was unable to substantiate the charges. 
	
     *** The unsubstantiated charges were reckless political attacks.
	
     *** No one would resign until the charges were substantiated. 
	
     *** The persons resigning admitted no wrongdoing. 
	
     *** The anti-Semites had resigned from the campaign. 
	
     *** The issue was closed. 
	
      Clearly there are some mutually exclusive positions in the 
above list.
	
      The charges primarily came from three sources: a report by 
Detroit-based freelancer Russ Bellant (published by Political 
Research Associates in Cambridge); a series of articles by 
reporter Larry Cohler and Walter Ruby appearing in <Washington 
Jewish Week> and articles by David Lee Preston in the 
<Philadelphia Inquirer>. Both press sources focused on the Bush 
campaign's recruitment of Eastern European nationalists who had 
emigrated to the U.S. after World War II, having fled countries 
such as Latvia, Rumania, Bulgaria, and the Croation section 
of Yugoslavia. As the Bellant report revealed, these ethnic 
activists had gravitated towards the Republican Party due to a 
shared emphasis on rolling back communism and gaining 
independence for the nations near the Baltic coast and the 
Balkans which now are under Soviet domination. 
	
      Some of these ethnic emigres, who champion "liberation" for 
these "Captive Nations," had fled their homelands due to their 
allegiance to Nazi Germany. Their continued support for fascism 
and their anti-Semitic views were aspects of their political work 
kept hidden while toiling on behalf of George Bush and the 
Republican Party.  
	
      A chronological look at the controversy shows how artfully 
the Bush campaign sidestepped the charges while simultaneously 
placating its Jewish and emigre constituencies. 
	
      8/2/88--A Bush campaign news conference announces the 
formation of Coalition of American Nationalities to coordinate 
the campaign activities of various ethnic groups.
	
      9/01/88--Political Research Associates (PRA) mails galley 
copies of the report by Bellant to 20 reporters and news outlets. 
Press embargo is listed as 9/9/88 in the A.M.
	
      9/08/88--The story offically surfaces in the press when 
<Washington Jewish Week> charges several Bush ethnic advisory 
committee members are well-known anti-Semites and pro- fascists, 
including persons who opposed the Justice Department's Office of 
Special Investigation (OSI) and its probe into emigre Nazi 
collaborators in the U.S. The article focuses on Bush ethnic 
advisors Jerome Brentar and Ignatius Billinsky and includes 
material on the Republican Heritage Groups Council, Florian 
Galdau and Philip Guarino and Laszlo Pasztor from the Bellant 
report. [Bellant also "faxed" supporting documentation on Galdau 
to <Washington Jewish Week> prior to publication of the article. 
Bellant was not identified as the author of the PRA report until 
the third article in the <Washington Jewish Week> series.]
	
     *** Brentar has suggested the OSI search for Nazi war 
criminals is a communist plot, and worked with groups claiming 
the Holocaust is a Jewish hoax. 
	
     *** Billinsky, a long-time critic of OSI, is president of 
the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America which Bellant 
desribes as "heavily influenced but not totally controlled by" 
anti-Semites, collaborators with Hitler, and apologists for 
Nazism. 
	
     *** Galdau is described by Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal as 
the leader of the Romanian pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic movement in 
New York City. 
	
     *** Guarino is linked in published accounts to the fascist- 
oriented P-2 masonic lodge in Italy, and has made racist 
statements about non-white ethnic minorities. 
	
      Mark Goodin, spokesperson for Bush campaign, announces "The 
Reagan-Bush Administration supports OSI and George Bush will 
support OSI as president," and pledges the campaign will look 
into the allegations. "If there is anything to them, we'll take 
action," said Goodin. 
	
      James Baker, Bush campaign chairman, adds, "There is no 
place in this campaign for anti-Semitism, racism, bigotry or 
people who espouse those views. Any individuals who espouse those 
views will not be welcome in this campaign." 
	
      Response in the Jewish community is quick. Henry Siegman, 
executive director of the American Jewish Congress, says the 
charges are a shocking revelation:
	
     "It suggests a high degree of either insensitivity or 
incompetence on the part of George Bush's staff. I'm sure George 
Bush is personally unaware of the sordid personal history of 
these people. But now that he has been made aware of them we have 
every right to expect him not only to remove these people but to 
repudiate what they stand for."
	
      Albert Vorspan, senior vice president of the Union of 
American Hebrew Congregations calls the composition of the 
Coalition "outrageous and frightening. The inclusion of notorious 
extremists in a committee with such close ties to the vice 
president violates the principles that George Bush has publicly 
espoused." 
	
      Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation 
League, urges "an immediate investigation by the Bush campaign of 
the backgrounds of members of the Bush campaign ethnic coalition 
who are known anti-Semites and have been linked to Holocaust 
revisionist and anti-OSI (Office of Special Investiations) 
activities." Foxman adds, "There is no place in any political 
campaign for anti-Semites. The League urges that these persons be 
summarily removed." 
	
      9/9/88--Bush spokesperson Mark Goodin announces Jerome 
Brentar has resigned, saying Brentar's "association with 
[convicted Nazi war criminal] John Demjanjuk put him at odds with 
Vice President Bush." No mention is made of the more substantial 
charges regarding Brentar. 
	
      As for Galdau and Guarino, Goodin says, "We have absolutely 
no substantiation at this point of any of these charges." 
	
      Michael S. Miller, executive director of the Jewish 
Community Relations Council, however, says his group has 
information supporting the <Washington Jewish Week> descriptions 
of Jerome Brentar, Florian Galdau and Philip Guarino. "There's 
absolutely no doubt in my mind that these three individuals have 
expressed sympathies with Nazism, with fascism," Miller tells the 
<New York Times>. The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles is 
also cited by the <Times> as having corroborating background material.
	
      9/10/88--The <Philadelphia Inquirer> runs an article by 
David Lee Preston which corroborates much of the material in 
<Washington Jewish Week>. Preston cites the forthcoming Bellant report.
	
      9/11/88 The first section of the Bellant report is 
officially released to the press. The report describes how the 
Republican Party has been recruiting ethnic facists, racists and 
anti-Semites for over 20 years, through its Heritage Groups 
Council. 
	
      9/11/88--The <Washington Post> carries a story on  Bush 
advisor Fred Malek, who resigns from the Bush campaign almost 
immediately.  
	
     *** Malek, according to the <Post>, while serving as an aide 
to President Nixon, had compiled lists of employees with 
"Jewish-sounding" names--names of persons Nixon suspected were 
part of a "Jewish Cabal" at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
	
      9/11/88--The <Boston Globe> carries a summary of the 
charges made in the Bellant report concerning the Republican 
Heritage Groups Council.
	
      9/12/88--The Bush campaign announces five more resignations 
in addition to Brentar, in a stated effort to prevent Bush from 
being hurt by what are called "politically motivated attacks." 
	
      The statement of resignation issued on behalf of the five 
panel members says in part:
	
     "We have been attacked unfairly by George Bush's political 
opponents. These...attacks are aimed at neutralizing the 
support George Bush has and will continue to have in the ethnic 
community. "
	
      In addition to Brentar, who previously had resigned, the 
five new resignees include Galdau and Guarino as well as Ignatius 
Billinsky, Laszlo Pasztor, and Bohdan Fedorak.
	
     *** Pasztor, who recruited many of the ethnic leaders with 
questionable backgrounds for the Republican Heritage Groups 
Council, himself briefly served during World War II as an 
official in a Nazi-collaborationist Hungarian government 
controlled by an anti-Semitic organization, the Arrow Cross.
	
     *** Fedorak, also a leading critic of OSI, hosted the July 
1988 campaign appearance by George Bush co-sponsored by a 
pro-Nazi group. 
	
      Mark Goodin, spokesperson for Bush, dismisses these charges 
as "little more than politically-inspired garbage...the 
campaign looked into the allegations against these individuals 
and was unable to substantiate them." 
	
      Bush responds to reporters questions by saying: "Nobody's 
giving in. These people left of their own volition. We're not 
accusing anybody of anything... .We're getting into a very 
peculiar deal where some people are accusing people...I don't 
like it a bit." 
	
      A few days later, Radi Slavoff, national co-chairman of 
Bulgarians for Bush, becomes the seventh ethnic panel member to resign.
	
     ***  Slavoff is charged with working in a national front 
which was aligned with Nazis, and heading up the Heritage Groups 
Council which has become a safe harbor for anti-Semites and 
pro-Nazis emigres. 
	
      9/15/88--The entire Bellant report is officially released. 
The report includes a photo of George Bush on the campaign trail 
at a July 1988 event co-sponsored by a pro-Nazi group, the 
Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. Also reproduced is a 1984 
Republican ethnic pride calendar which urges the celebration of 
"Croation Independence Day." The Croation state was run by a 
Nazi-puppet government which oversaw the slaughter of over 
500,000 Serbians and Jews.