“The Strange Story of Willis Carto – his fronts, his friends, his
philosophy, his ‘Lobby for Patriotism’
C.H. Simonds
1. Mr. W.A. Carto Visits the Sick and Imprisoned
Dimly, I could make out the form of this man – this strange and
lonely many – through the thick wire netting. Inwardly, I cursed
these heavy screens that prevented our confrontation. For even
though our mutual host was the San Francisco County Jail, and
even though the man upon whom I was calling was locked in
equality with petty thieves and criminals, I knew that I was in
the presence of a great force, and I could feel history standing
beside me.
History may well have wondered, that tenth day of June, 1960, why
she had been called to attend the meeting of a former
bill-collector turned proimoter of right-wing causes with a ‘great
force’ being held on passport violation charges. The great force
was Francis Parker Yockey, and he was down and almost out – he
would be dead in just a week, a suicide. The promoter, Willis A.
Carto, was on his way up; if History was on the ball that day, she
beat it back to the office and told the staff to keep an eye on
him.
Today, eleven years later, Carto presides over a business empire
with annual receipts of at least a million dollars. His operations
include publication of books, pamphlets and periodicals,
direct-mail solicitation, campaign financing, fund-raising, a
little travel agentry and data processing on the side. He is the
man behind such respectable-sounding organizations as Liberty
Lobby, United Congressional Appeal, Save Our Schools, Americans for
National Security, the ‘Washington Observer,’ the ‘American
Mercury.’ Notwithstanding that these organizations affect a concern
for American values and constitutionalism, Carto is driven by a
philosophy of pure power, a philosophy essentially alien and
fundamentally hostile to the American tradition, the philosophy of
Yockey.
Like Yockey at their meeting, Carto is a shadow – a furtive man of
middle height and middle build who shuns reporters, hates to have
his picture taken, prefers to control his empire from behind the
scenes while others front for him. His friendships are few and
brief, degenerating usually usually into acrimony. He favors
75-cent haircuts and $40 suits, and once raged at an employee for
buying a gross of paperclips. He delights in secrecy, conspiracy,
and power. He is every bit as ‘strange and lonely’ a man as his
hero.
Carto was born July 19, 1926 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and grew up in
Mansfield, Ohio. He served in the Army, probably on occupation
duty in Japan (he is said to possess two Japanese rifles that he
refers to as ‘war souvenirs”). He attended college, but his mother
will not say where ‘because the newspapers can twist things.’ In
1952 he appeared in San Francisco, where he worked for the Anglo
Bank, and for the Household Finance Corporation as an account
collector. After 1954, he appears to have devoted himself
full-time to political activity as a director of the Congress of
Freedom and executive secretary of another right-wing group,
Liberty and Property. In 1957, he was identified as a ‘regional
vice president’ of We, the People. In 1958 or 1959 he married
Elisabeth Waltrud, a German National.
At this stage, Carto appears – from the public record, at least –
as a conservative of the free-enterprise, libertarian variety. The
Congress of Freedom was the child of an ardent libertarian, Robert
LeFevre, and the two other groups Carto was associated with were at
least ostensably libertarian-oriented – although Liberty and
Property has been characterized by the Anti-Defamation League of
B’nai B’rith (which is occasionally accurate) as ‘an outlet for
anti-Semitic propaganda and a clearing house of information about
the activities of Anti-Semites and Anti-Semitic organizations.’
But Carto desired more, and in 1959 went to Belmont, Massachusetts
to work for the John Birch Society. He stayed a little less than a
year, leaving after a dispute (nature unknown) with Robert Welch.
While there, he contributed two short articles to the Society’s
magazine, ‘American Opinion.’ In ‘The Hundred-Year Hoax,’ a
critique of marx’s labor-capital division from the viewpoint of
classical economics, Carto is still very much the libertarian. But
in ‘What’s _Right_ in America,’ a descriptive listing of six types
of opponents of ‘Marxist equalism,’ there is a new, racist
emphasis, centered on the ‘Eugenic’ opponents of such equalism.
Carto expressed his views on racial purity more frankly in private
correspondence. In 1960 he wrote to Frank Hanigan, the founder of
‘Human Events,’ objecting to the paper’s publication of articles by
Phillippa Schuyler, the journalist and concert pianist (and
daughter of George Schuyler, with Carto an occasional contributor
to ‘American Opinion’), whom he described as ‘the hybrid offspring
of George Schuyler and his White wife…[who] eschew the Supreme
Court as the ‘solution’ for segregation… [and are] avid
crusaders and practitioners of a far speedier road towards racial
mongrelization – the road leading through the boudoir.’
The danger of ‘racial mongrelization’ was not a new preoccupation
for Carto. All through the years with Liberty and Property, he
corresponded tirelessly with segregationist leaders. In 1956, in a
letter to Judge Tom P. Brady of the Mississippi Supreme Court, an
originator of the White Citizens’ Council, Carto proclaimed (in
capitals): ‘THE ISSUE IS NOT IDEOLOGICAL, THE ISSUE IS
ETHNOLOGICAL.’
‘The revolutionists have seen to it,’ Carto wrote the racist author
Earnest Sevier Cox in 1955, ‘that only a few Americans are
concerned about the inevitable niggerfication of America.’ But
Carto had a plan, for a ‘flank attack.’ He established, and
promoted secretly, the Joint Council for Repatriation – a
send-’em-back-to-Africa movement with an added benefit: ‘… such
a movement would be the strongest blow against the power of
organized Jewry that can be imagined.’
Carto always had his eye on Jewry. From a letter to one Norris Holt:
There are 600 million Chinese and about 200 million Russians.
All united in a determinmation to destroy the West. And we have
been so misled that we live in a dream world – far away from
reality. Hitler’s defeat was the defeat of Europe. And
America. How could we have been so blind? The blame, it seems,
must be laid at the door of the international Jews. It was
their propaganda, lies and demands which blinded the West to
what Germany was doing.
Carto put it all more succinctly in a memo to himself:
Who is using who? Who is calling the shots? History supplies
the answer to this. History tells us plainly who our Enemy is.
our Enemy today is the same Enemy of 50 years ago and before –
and that was before Communism. The Communists are ‘using’ the
Jews we are told. …who was ‘using’ the Jews fifty years ago –
one hundred or one thousand years ago. History supplies the
answer. The Jews came first and remain. Public Enemy No. 1.
The indefatigable Willis Carto had yet another project cooking in
the late Fifties. In January 1957 he wrote to Judge Brady:
Now Judge, I do not think that I have ever mentioned to you that
for over a year I have been working on something tentatively
called the LIBERTY LOBBY. Briefly, this involves the
establishment of an office in Washington to lobby for
patriotism… you can readily see the tremendous importance to
the Repatriation scheme if this LOBBY ever gest [sic] set up.
on the other hand, you can see that there must never be an
obvious connection between the two, for if there is, either
would kill the other off, or at least harm it very gravely.
Therefore, I have had to make a decision and it is that the
logical thing to do is to become publically [sic] identified
with the LOBBY only….
In a mailing to seven hundred conservatives, Carto outlined his
plan for a ‘pressure group for patriotism,’ and sought to raise
$75,000. By January 1958 only $15,000 had been raised; however,
Liberty Lobby set up a ‘research department’ July 4, in the offices
of the American Council of Christian Laymen.
The previous summer, Carto had announced a sixteen-man ‘Advisory
Board’ for his new operation. Later to be renamed the ‘Board of
Policy,’ it included Judge Brady, General Pedro Del Valle, and W.L.
Foster of Tulsa, Oklahoma, active in We, the People and Congress of
Freedom, and a financial supporter of veteran antisemite Gerald
L.K. Smith.
Later in 1958, Colonel Eugene C. Pomeroy became Liberty Lobby’s
‘Washington Secretary,’ operating out of the offices of his own
organization, Defenders of the American Constitution (later taken
over by General Del Valle). A second fund-raising campaign, for
$44,500, ended July 4, 1959, far short of its goal. But Carto had
established a presence in Washington. His lobby, meant from its
very inception to serve as a front for less savory enterprises, was
under way.
2. A philosopher Who Had Too Many Passports
The man Willis Carto visited in jail had been arrested after a
piece of his luggage that had strayed to the wrong airport was
opened, and three passports discovered, made out in three different
names. When picked up by FBI agents in Oakland, Yockey was
carrying German press credentials bearing yet another name.
Brought before U.S. Commissioner Joseph Karesh on June 8, 1960, he
was charged with making a flase statement in an application for
[text illegible. knm]
Over the weekend, the San Francisco papers published interesting
information about the ‘mystery man,’ Yockey. He had been medically
discharged from the Army in 1943, suffering from ‘dementia praecox,
paranoid type.’ In 1954 he had been identified as a U.S. agent for
Rudolf Aschenauer, a neo-Nazi of Frankfurt, Germany.
Yockey’s lawyers fought to get his bail reduced. The U.S.
Attorney urged that it be kept at $50,000 because of ‘an extreme
risk of flight – a grave risk of injury to himslef and others.’ On
June 15, the judge ordered a psychiatric examination, after which
the bail hearing was to resume July 11. Sometime during the night
of June 16-17, Yockey swallowed potassium cyanide. He was found
dead in the morning.
Yockey was born September 18, 1917, in Michigan, grew up in
Chicago, graduated from high school with honors, attended five
colleges and graduated cum laude from Notre Dame Law School in
1941. Late in 1945, he took a job preparing trial briefs and
background reports for the War Crimes Tribunal in Wiesbaden,
Germany. After eleven months he quit, because of differences with
his superiors over what he felt was unfair treatment of Nazi
military and political leaders. He returned briefly to the United
States; then went to Brittas Bay, Ireland, a remote settlement on
the Irish Sea, where – in six months – he composed his personal
Summa: ‘Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics.’
‘Imperium’ is most celebrated for its dedication: ‘To the hero of
the second world war’ – a veiled reference, it becomes clear on
reading the book, to Adolf Hitler.
Yockey traces the growth of the ‘High Culture,’ culminating in
crisis: the Age of Nationalism, ‘when the parts of the Culture [the
nation-state] tear one another to bits, even as outer dangers loom
threateningly….’ Always, this crisis is resolved ‘by the
resurgence of the old forces of Religion and Authority, their
victory over Rationalism and Money, and the final union of the
nations into an Imperium.’ And in that final stage is accomplished
‘the enormous final life-task of the Culture, namely the subjection
of the known world to its domination.’
As the external expresison of Imperium is absolute imperialism, so
its internal expression is ‘absolute politics’ – the total state:
‘Public power can no longer be held by individuals; public
enterprises pass under public control and ownership; the
money-monopoly of the few individuals is transferred to the State.
*** With the coming of the Age of Absolute Politics, the necessity
for pretexts falls away. Plebiscites and elections become
old-fashioned, and finally cease altogether.’
The Western ‘High Culture’ and the idea of Absolute Politics,
Yockey makes clear, are fulfilled in National Socialist Germany;
what he calls ‘the German revolution of 1933’ represents the
beginning of the resurgence of ‘the old forces of Religion and
Authority.’
If the Imperium of Germany/Europe was the organic destiny of
Western Culture, then clearly something went terribly wrong.
According to Yockey, ‘outer forces’ intervened – forces located in
Washington and Moscow. America and Russia are in the hands of the
‘culture distorter’ – ‘the rear-guard in the West of the fulfilled
Arabian Culture, the Church-State-Nation Pseudo-Race of the Jew.’
The Jew is [illegible] destroy [illegible] massacres, robbery,
cheating, burning, insults, mistreatments, expulsions, exploitation
– these were the gifts of the West to the Jew. They not only
strengthened him, made him race-hard, but gave him a mission, the
mission of revenge and destruction.’
Carto’s hero had scant use for his native land. The forces of
tradition, he said, disappeared in America with the election of
Andrew Jackson in 1828, at which point money took over. Later the
Jew took over Money, and therefore America. ‘The population of
America only consists now of a bare majority that is indisputably
American racially, spiritually, nationally. The other half
consists of Negroes, Jews, unassimilated South-eastern Europeans,
Mexicans, Chinese, Siamese, Levantines, Slavs and indians.’ But
there is a flicker of hope: ‘The latent heroism of the American
People will again be summoned forth by the stern creativeness of
the Age of Absolute Politics. *** In 1915 began the nationalist
reaction to the invasion of Culturally alien elements, with the
founding of the second Ku Klux Klan. This year will be marked in
retrospect as the beginning of the second phase of the American
Revolution. *** When the American National Revolution takes
political form, its inspiration will come from the same ultimate
source as the European Revolution of 1933.’
Shortly after Yockey’s death, one of his sistems told an
interviewer: ‘He wasn’t antisemitic. He was anti-Zionist. No, he
wasn’t pro-Nazi. he never idolized Hitler. In fact, he though
Hitler made one mistake after another.’ Why all the passports?
‘Maybe he thought three passports were better than one.’
Willis Carto was also interviewed: ‘Although I do not agree with
all his ideas, I feel he was an authentic creative genius. i feel
that those individuals who are responsible for driving him to his
death should feel a great sense of guilt. The world has lost a
great man whose ideas will be remembered until Western Civilization
is exterminated.’
The final macabre touch to the Yockey story is afforded by the
tug-of-war that broke out over the dead man’s best blue suit. The
authorities wanted to keep it as material evidence; Yockey’s
sisters wanted to bury him in. The authorities kept the suit, and
also Yockey’s last words to the world:
I shall write no messages which I know will never be delivered –
only this, which will be: You will never discover who helped me,
for even he is to be found in your own multitudinous ranks, at
least outwardly.
3. Carto Picks up the Torch and Tries to Set the World on Fire
Almost before Yockey was underground, Willis Carto was busy
establishing himself as Keeper of the Legend. In the August 1960
issue of Liberty and Preoperty’s newsletter ‘Right,’ he told his
version of the Yockey story with emphasis on his ‘persecution’ by
the ADL, the FBI, the government.
Turning to the arrest and subsequent proceedings, Carto volunteers
the information that the U.S. Commissioner, Joseph Karesh, was ‘an
ordained Rabbi,’ and compares the high bail in Yockey’s case with
the high bail set for the accused bombers of an Atlanta synagogue
that (according to Carto) was ‘actually bombed by an agent of the
ADL.’
Carto set out to make ‘imperium’ available to the American public,
or at least Yockey’s ‘bare majority that is indisputably American,
racially, spiritually, nationally.’ he approached Professor Revilo
Pendleton Oliver of the university of illinois, the brilliant,
eccentric classicist who was dropped from the John Birch Society
after an ambiguous reference to Jews which affronted Robert Welch
and others.
At Carto’s request, Dr. Oliver prepared a critique of ‘Imperium,’
armed with which Carto beat the bushes for funds. The book came
out in 1962 in a handsome edition, published under the imprint of
‘Truthseeker,’ a crazy-right magazine. The second and subsequent
printings list the Noontide Press as publisher and holder of the
copyright. The sole owner and proprietor of Noontide is Willis
Carto.
This American edition of ‘Imperium’ includes a 35-page Introduction
by Carto, who has said a number of times that he stands by what he
wrote there in 1962.
Carto makes it clear that he goes along with yockey, but not all
the way. he buys the Yockey line on the Jews, and peppers his
Introduction with dark references to the ‘aliens,’ the ‘inner
enemy,’ the ‘Culture-Distorter.’ He calls Yockey’s European
Liberation Front, whose ‘Proclamation of london’ urged the
expulsion of jews and the establishement of national socialism ‘a
constructive movement.’
But he parts company with Yockey on the question of race. For
Yockey, race is a matter of soul, not color, physical features or
cephalic index. For Carto, ‘the genetic interpretation of race is
a necessary, useful and valid one if we are to see all of our
problems clearly and accurately.’
We must have faith, says Carto, ‘in our superiority and survival.’
That faith will ‘spark the single-minded and intolerant power which
can clean and redeem our fast-decaying, rotting milieu.’ We cannot
clean and redeem without _power_: ‘Political power is the essential
criterion… and to the goal of political power all else must be
temporarily sacrificed.’ Only those who hew to the Yockey line, as
interpreted by Carto, can save the West. All others – which is to
say, the conservative movement – are ‘dainty combatants’ who would
fight the Enemy with ‘measured, `moderate` words and avoidance of
`extremists`.’ Anyone who is not wholly with him must be against
him. He warns of a crafty tactic of the Enemy: ‘Infiltration into
the movement and/or the building up of false leadership in order to
sabotage the movement at the optimum time, meanwhile diverting
patriot energies into harmless or controlled activities.’ Carto is
ready to consign other conservatives to outer darkness. They are
‘Quislings,’ ‘ADL agents’ – traitors.
Carto has expounded his peculiar version of yockeyism ever since,
through a number of books and periodicals, and even (carefully and
quite subtly) through apparently quite orthodox conservative
organizations under his control or influence. He has even acted as
a man-to-man evangelist, promoting the gospel among influential
acquaintances. One such acquaintance, an official of a leading
conservative organization, was surprised not long ago to receive a
telephone call from Carto, who wanted a favor. When the man
balked, Carto removed the gloves: ‘Well, you should remember that I
still have those letters from you, and orders for _Imperium_. It
might be very embarrassing for you if I circulated those letters to
certain people…’
In June 1964 the first issue of a new, thoroughly Yockeyite monthly
magazine appeared – _Western Destiny_. The masthead listed the
business office as Box 713, Sausalito, California – the same
address as Noontide Press. The lead editorial, entitled ‘A Word
from the Publisher’ (no publisher is listed on the masthead), is
full of ‘inner enemies’ and the ‘Spirit of the Age’; it refers to
Carto’s ‘brilliant Introduction to _Imperium_.’ Judging by the
content and the distinctively shrill, rambling style, the author of
this anonymous editorial, the unlisted publisher of _Western
Destiny_, is most likely – Willis Carto. On the facing page
appears a congratulatory letter, emphasizing that subscriptions are
‘only $4 per year,’ from – W.A. Carto. The three other
congratulatory letters are signed by Tyler Kent, Kenneth Goff and
Verne P. Kaub, all then listed as members of Liberty Lobby’s Board
of Policy.
Dr. Oliver has named Carto as the ‘founder’ of _Western Destiny_.
The connection with Noontide Press is suggestive, as is the
presence of ‘E.L. Anderson, Ph. D.’ on the masthead. According
to the lead editorial, ‘Dr. Anderson was the guiding spirit of
_Right_ for the five years of its existence…’ According to former
associates, ‘E.L. Anderson, Ph. D.’ is Carto himself.
4. A Trial Balloon, Filled with Hot Air, Ascends
Carto’s Liberty Lobby, meanwhile, was picking up steam. In January
1961 the first issue of _Liberty Letter_ was published. Later that
year, Carto found the perfect front-man for his Washington
operations in Curtis B. Dall, a retired Air Force Reserve Colonel,
former stockbroker and ex-son-in-law of Franklin D. Roosevelt. A
handsome, vigorous man then in his early sixties, Dall was the
epitome of seeming respectability – and he shared with his employer
Carto belief in the Enemy. In testifying for Liberty Lobby on the
Trade Expansion Bill of 1962, Dall finished his prepared remarks
and then shared with the Senate Finance Committee some of his own
views: ‘In this case, the real center and heart of this
international cabal shows its hand; namely the political Zionist
planners for absolute rule via One World government.’ He wondered
publicly whether President Kennedy had ‘somehow become a working
`pawn` in their game.’
In 1963 two new fronts were established. Americans for National
Security, evidently meant to be Liberty Lobby’s contact-point among
the military, boasted a ‘Board of Endorsers’ composed of thirteen
retired officers plus Dr. Oliver. It operated out of the Liberty
lobby offices under the nominal direction of Stanley M. Andrews,
fundamentalist preacher, former aide to Ohio Senator Frank Lausche,
and a member of the Board of Policy. In fact he was then, as he is
today, its sole owner and proprietor. According to a 1964
statement, “Liberty Lobby cannot act on any issue without prior
approval of the Board.’ In fact, the Board of Policy never met – as
its Chairman, Col. Dall, admitted under oath late in 1963. At
that time, Col. Dall identified Carto as ‘chief executive officer
of Liberty Lobby and the main motivating individual in it.’ John W.
Wood, the Lobby’s General Counsel, called Carto the ‘operating
head’ of the organization, and noted that Carto had full custody of
its funds.
Early in 1964, Liberty Lobby’s Board of Policy was expanded from
thirty members to forty-five. Among the newcomers were some
strange figures: rev. James F. Dees, wwho once called Gerald L.K.
Smith ‘the greatest patriot in this country today’; Ed Delany, an
American who broadcast over Berlin Radio until America’s entry into
World War II; Kenneth Goff, a former associate of Smith; Joseph P.
Kamp, who served a term in priosn for contempt of Congress; Tyler
Kent, convicted in 1940 by a British court of divulging secrets to
the Axis while working in the American Embassy, and whom Ambassador
Joseph Kennedy branded as an antisemite; Robert Kuttner, associated
with _Right_ from 1958 to 1960, and with _Western Destiny_ (where
he would soon write: ‘Evolutionary ethics defends the duty of the
state to control the biological composition of its future
population.’); W. Henry McFarland, another former Smith associate
and operator of the Nationalist Action League, listed as ‘fascist’
by the Attorney General; Ned Touchstone, contributing editor of
_Western Destiny_ and editor of _The Councilor_, journal of the
White Citizens’ Councils; Major Arch Roberts, author of the
Birchite ‘Pro-Blue’ program that got General Edwin A. Walker into
trouble.
The Presidential campaign of 1964 sparked Liberty Lobby’s Great
Leap Forward. That campaign evoked a torrent of books and
pamphlets. Liberty Lobby cashed in on the phenomenon with a
tabloid-size publication, ‘LBJ: A Political Biography.’ Owing
almost entirely to the tabloid, Liberty Lobby’s income jumped
six-fold, to $346,000 in 1964, of which $280,000 came from the
sales of printed matter. Expendatures rose comparably, to $374,000
($281,000 for printing and mailing). A subscription blank was
included in the tabloid, of which the Lobby claims to have
circulated over ten million copies. This, it was later claimed,
brought in fifty thousand new subscriptions to _Liberty Letter_.
By September 1965, Liberty Lobby claimed a paid circulation of
150,000.
Much of the credit for the rapid growth of Liberty Lobby in 1964,
and for its continued prosperity in the years that followed,
belongs to W.B. Hicks, who was brought in (taken in?) as Executive
Secretary early that year after working five years as Business
Manager and Assistant Publisher of _Human Events_. An amiable
live-wire of anarchist disposition, Hicks oversaw all phases of
Liberty Lobby’s business, wrote for its newsletter, and testified
before congressional committees. Except for brief forays into
Washington, Carto stayed on the West Coast, devoting his time and
energy to collateral operations. But he kept firm control of
Liberty Lobby.
Early in 1965 Liberty Lobby issued a 23-page memorandum on the 1964
election, entitled ‘Conservative Victory Plan.’ It concluded with
these words:
…it is through the political means and onlyu the political
means that power can be captured and America saved; …all
efforts must be directed toward the goal of capturing political
power… those who offer other avenues of activity for
Conservatives may be retarding the fight and confusing the
issue.
‘Those who offer other avenues’ sound like the ‘dainty combatants’
mentioned in Carto’s Introduction to _Imperium_ – or are they the
agents of the Enemy, ‘diverting patriot energies into harmless or
controlled activities’? Later in 1965 the ‘Conservative Victory
Plan,’ appeared in finished form under the title ‘Looking Forward.’
There are certain revisions. For instance, in ‘Looking Forward,’
politics is defined as ‘activity in relation to power’ – a direct
quotation from Yockey’s _Imperium_.
Political power is to be seized through the ‘party-within-a-party’
technique that enabled the conservative majority in the GOP to
nominate Goldwater. The ‘party-within-a-party’ approach was to be
tried ‘through the congressional elections of 1966 at which time a
decision can be made whether or not the efforts had been successful
enough to warrant further such activity or whether the time had
come to make a clean break and form a new party aimed toward
electing a Conservative Presisent in 1968.’ Should this approach
fail, Liberty Lobby early made its choice for the leader of that
third-party 1968 ticket: Late in 1965 it kpublished a new tablooid,
_Stand Up for America_, an adulatory biography of George C.
Wallace.
Perhaps the 45-man Board of Policy proved embarrassing; perhaps
Carto saw a new way to raise money. Whatever the reason, in
January 1966 the Board of Policy was thrown open to all comers –
all, that is, who were willing to pledge at least a dollar amonth
to Liberty Lobby and sign a ‘loyalty oath’ affirming loyalty to the
Constitution and the Republic. In a letter to ‘Dear Alerted
American,’ Col. Dall announced that ‘LIBERTY LOBBY is now being
turned over to your control.’
The bait in this exercise in participatory democracy – besides the
sense of belonging, the chance ‘to share the thrill of victory for
good government’ – was, and remains; a ‘lifetime’ subscription to
_Liberty Letter_, one to _Liberty Lowdown_, a ‘Confidential Report
on Washington and world events,’ placement of one’s name on ‘a
special PRIORITY mailing list of Activists that entitles you to
receive Emergency Bulletins by _Air Mail_,’ and a nifty
red-white-and-blue membership card. Within a year, twleve thousand
people had signed up. Today the figure claimed varies; most often,
it’s 23,000 or 25,000.
Liberty Lobby strives to maintain the illusion of participation for
Board members. ‘Board of Policy National Conventions’ are held
from time to time, at which speakers from Liberty Lobby’s stable
are featured and at which occasional votes are taken. But the
member doesn’t lose his vote if he stays home – ballots are
forever arriving in the mail, and forever being faithfully mailed
back to the Liberty Building, where they are never counted. The
air-mailed ‘Emergency Bulletins’ are pitches for money, over and
above the member’s pledged $12 per year. The ‘lifetime
subscription’ to _Liberty Letter_, it turns out, goes into effect
only _after_ the pledger has given Liberty Lobby the price of a
lifetime subscription – at this writing, $50.
Board of Policy members also receive mailings directed to the
_Liberty Letter_ subscription list, offering for sale things which
board members are, in fact, entitled to receive free. In 1969, for
instance, _Letter_ subscribers _and_ board members were sent a
special half-price lifetime subscription offer. Only a few members
complained that by virtue of their pledges, they were already
lifetime subscribers; thousands sent in their $25. If an innocent
joins the Board of Policy and pledges in advance to donate $100 a
year, money he sends Liberty Lobby is credited to his pledge
account only if he so specifies. PPlkedge accounts have been known
to be doctored: Pledgers who have paid in advance are billed
anyway; those who pledge to pay quarterly are billed monthly – all
on the assumption that most will go ahead and pay anyway. The few
who complain are sent letters of apology for the ‘clerical error.’
Through all this energetic self-promotion and all this dabbling in
Republican politics, Liberty Lobby was also busy on Capitol Hill.
Its principal function was to stimulate pressure on legislators
from the folks back home; its actual ‘lobbying’ amounted to very
little. Liberty Lobby itself admits in its reports to the Clerk of
the House that only 10 per cent of its income is devoted to
lobbying.
By 1965, the format of _Liberty Letter_ had jelled. The first page
of each issue features a scare headline and scare copy about some
impending wickedness that only the reader can avert. The issues
trumpeted on Page One are always guaranteed to appeal to good
conservatives. The more emotional the issue, the better: ‘CONSULAR
TREATY TO ALLOW SOVIET AGENTS IN YOUR CITY… the Johnson
Administration plan to allow Soviet spy nests in American cities is
with us again after being repulsed by horrified public outcry in
1965…’ (Notice the imputation of _deliberate intent_: Foreign
spies will come into the country not as a consequence of an unwise
treaty, but as part of a _plan_.)
Inside _Liberty Letter_, things get spicier – and a whole lot more
conspiratorial. An editorial in the April 1967 issue blamed
passage of the Consular Treaty on the ‘Invisible Government,’ on
‘the billionaires and their Communist allies.’ In another issue Ray
Bliss, then GOP National Chairman, is dismissed as ‘merely a puppet
for the INTERCOMMS (billionaire internationalists and communists).’
The Export-Import Bank is ‘an instrument of the Administration’s
pro-Communist foreign policy’ – again, possible effect becomes
deliberate intent.
Aside from the calls to action on Page One and the somewhat
eccentric editorial theorizings on Page Two, _Liberty Letter_
consists mostly of plugs – for the Lobby’s pet congressmen; for
books it sells (_The Drew Pearson Story_, a McNamara attack, the
Wallace tabloid, a whitewash of Tyler Kent, politely racist books
like Carleton Putnam’s _Race and Reason_ and not-so-polite ones
like Earnest Cox’ _White America_, published by Noontide Press);
for expensive group tours arrange by Liberty Lobby’s front, Friends
of Rhodesian Independence (FRI); for a bewildering variety of
‘special projects.’
_Liberty Lowdown_, the ‘Confidential Report’ for pledgers, turned
out to be more explicitly conspiratorial. The defeat in 1967 of
Mrs. Phyllis Schlafly for the presidency of the National
Federation of Republican Women, for instance, is laid to the Enemy:
‘… the `Invisibile Government,’ (whether you call it
`Inter-Comms,’ Council on Foreign Relations or Wall Street), which
has so much at stake in the continued dominance of the Left over
America.’ Mrs. Schafly was done in, says _Liberty Lowdown_, by the
GOP National Committee, through General Lucius D. Clay, who is
‘front man’ for Sydney J. Weinberg of Goldman, Sachs & Co. ‘Since
the death of Bernard Baruch, many sophisticated observers have
considered the enigmatic Sidney Weinberg to be the most powerful
man in America.’ Allusions to the ‘Invisible Government’ and such,
in Liberty Lobby publications and elsewhere, almost always bring in
a Jewish name or two.
All in all, things were going nicely at the end of 1968. Income
that year was $850,000; distribution of _Liberty Letter_ was
pushing 200,000. Hicks took excellent care of the day-to-day
business of Liberty Lobby; Carto spent most of his time in
California, frying other fish. Then, early in 1969, Hicks asked
for a leave of absence to write a book. Carto agreed reluctantly,
and Hicks and his father-in-law set out February 8 to sail Hicks’
schooner, _Dreamer_, down the Intercoastal Waterway to Fort
Lauderdale, to meet Mrs. Hicks and their young son. The next day,
in the mouth of the Potomac, _Dreamer_ capsized in a windstorm.
Both men were lost.
With Hicks gone, Carto had to take a more active role in running
Liberty Lobby. The moment he did, things began to come unglued.
As one former associate of the two men recalls: ‘When W.B. and I
were there, it was possible for us to exercise a certain degree of
influence on Carto, to keep him from going off the deep end. I
realized when W.B. was killed that I couldn’t restrain Willis
alone, to keep him from injecting his philosophy into the
organization.’ According to the same man, Hicks ‘never meant to
come back from the cruise,’ he had wanted to leave Liberty Lobby
for several months and had mused in November: `I wonder…What if I
told Willis I was dying of cancer?`’
5. The Carto Cartel Expands
Carto had taken over the venerable _American Mercury_ in 1966, via
the Legion for the Survival of Freedom, a Texas corporation of
which he became an officer sometime after February 1965. In June
1966 he signed, as Vice President of the Legion, articles of merger
with the Committee for Religious Development, a District of
Columbia corporation and evidently a Carto front. (As listed in
the merger papers, assets of CRD included 1,600 copies of
_Imperium_, back issues of _Western Destiny_ and rights to
exclusive use of the names Noontide Press and _Western Destiny_.)
Seven of the Contributing Editors to the new _Mercury_, including
‘E.L. Anderson, Ph.D.,’ had been editors of _Western Destiny_
(which was discontinued when Carto gained control of _Mercury_).
Fourteen more were on the 1965 Liberty Lobby Board of Policy, or
have been closely associated with the Lobby – among them Col.
Dall, Stanley M. Andrews, Taylor Caldwell, Maj. Roberts and Ned
Touchstone. Bruce Holman, associated with Carto on _Right_ from
1955 to 1960, is listed as Chairman of the Board. The Managing
Editor is La Vonne D. Furr, an officer of the Legion for the
Survival of Freedom.
Staples of _American Mercury_ since 1966 have been:
–_Revisionist history_, usually with a pronounced pro-German,
anti-Jewish slant. ‘`This Judeo-Christian Heritage` Hoax’ by
Joseph P. Camp, for instance, exposes a ‘malicious myth’ promoted
by ‘the ADL and the AJC (American Jewish Committee) and their
associated groups, stooges and sycophants.’
–_Yockeyism_. Whole sections of _Imperium_ have been reprinted in
_Mercury_; the magazine celebrated the first moon landing by
quoting Carto’s meditations on outer space from the Introduction to
Yockey’s book.
—_Antisemitism_. Whatever the issue, the Jew almost always lurks
nearby. Often the message is put across merely by the gratuitous
inclusion of his name. Col. S.S. McClure, for instance, calls
the Department of Defense Office of Civil Rights a ‘group of
political commissars header by Jack Moskowitz.’ On the same
subject, ‘E.L. Anderson, Ph.D.’ declares: ‘The Communist-devised
system of `integration` in an army will ruin it. Nationalists have
known this for years, and most of them protested when Anna
Rosenberg, the Communist Assistant Secretary of Defense, under
Truman, forcibly integrated Negro and White units, during the
Korean War.’ Sometimes it becomes absurd – as when _Mercury_ writer
John Mitchell Henshaw insists on renaming the Kerner Commission
after its Executive Director, David Ginsberg.
—_Conspiracy theories_. Here again, _cherchez le Juif_. In a
typical article, ‘Who Makes Our Anti-American Foreign policy?’
Henshaw pulls out all the stops. For fifty years, he says, the
‘high elite’ in the Council of Foreign Relations has controlled
U.S. foreign policy. The CFR, he informs us, was founded in 1919
by a flock of International Bankers with Jewish names (he lists
them). Then he shifts gears: ‘The genesis of conspiratorial
underground to establish a one-world government occurred May 1,
177655 when Adam Weishaupt founded the Order of Illuminati…’
Then, abruptly, back to the CFR: ‘Scholars… trace the lineage of
the CFR back to Cecil Rhodes, who was bankrolled by the Rothschilds
in the exploitation of the diamond and gold resources of Southern
Africa.’ Rhodes established the Rhodes Scholarships. ‘Virtually
all of the Rhodes Scholars in the United States are members of the
CFR.’ Then, back to the International Bankers: ‘It is highly
significant that some of the founders of CFR are also founders of
the American Jewish Committee.’ _Then_: ‘The Jews in New York…
did not want the Eastern European Jews as competitors in business,
so Jacob Schiff and his partners in Kuhn, Loeb & Co. conceived the
idea of bankrolling Leon Trotsky and his cohorts in overthrowing
the Czarist regime in Russia….’ Henshaw goes on and on and on,
circling back every so often to the CFR, throwing in another
handful of Jewish names, never tying it all together. One pictures
the bewhildered reader flipping over to one of the _Mercury’s_
occasional noncontroversial articles, such as ‘Remember Penny
Candy?’ or ‘That Pain Could Be Bursitus.’
Simultaneously with the strange, new-look _American Mercury_ came
another publication, the newsletter _Washington Observer_. The two
publications may be subscribed to only in tandem, at a combined
price of $10 per year for the semi-monthly _Observer_ and the
quarterly _Mercury_. The editor of _Observer_, according to its
masthead, is ‘Lee Roberts’ who, the ADL gravely reports, is ‘as
elusive as Carto himself’ – hardly surprising, because Roberts does
not exist. The bulk of the writing is done by that student of
conspiracies, John Mitchell Henshaw.
[Photograph of four distinctly different signatures by “Lee
Roberts, Editor”, along with the comment “Signatures of ‘Washington
Observer’ editor, from promotion letters. The real Roberts can’t
possibly stand up.”]
_Observer_ imitates _Mercury’s_ insistent dropping of Jewish names:
‘… the Kennedy-Yarmolinsky-Rostow Administration’ … ‘New
Assistant Secretary of the Navy James D. Hittel is a ‘soul
brother’ of Max M. Kampelman, Hubert Humphrey’s bagman and master
fixer.’ … ‘[Presidential Assistant Peter] Flanigan is a
fair-haired boy of the old Wall Street buccaneer Clarence Dillon,
whose real name is Lapowski.’ The reader is never permitted to
forget who’s Jewish. Take three associates of President Nixon:
‘Arthur F. Burns (real name: Bernstein)’ … ‘an Austrian Jew’
… ‘succeeding Leon Keyserling, a German Jew.’ Leonard Garment is
invariably referred to as ‘Nixon’s Jewish law partner.’ But
_Observer’s_ favorite is Henry Kissenger – ‘This 46-year old
German-born Jew’ …’alien-born’ … ‘Henry Kissinger, alien-born
Jew’ … ‘His father was Rabbi Louis K. Kissenger, a prominent
Zionist leader in Germany’…
In 1969 Carto moved to conceal his connection with
_Mercury/Observer_ by ‘resigning’ from their parent corporation,
the Legion for the Survival of Freedom. Even if Carto were to
swear on a stack of _Imperiums_ that he and _Mercury/Observer_ had
nothing to do with each other, he should get the horselaugh. The
most casual observer soon detects a tight relationship between the
various components of Carto’s empire. The same names keep popping
up on this letterhead, that masthead or board; it’s a closed group,
and only very rarely will the name of an ‘outside’ appear. The
various enterprises plug one another assiduously, often effusively:
_Observer_ and _Mercury_ take due notice of FRI’s latest African
tour, Liberty Lobby fund pitches include off-prints of ‘uncorrected
galley proofs’ of articles from _Mercury_, of _Observer_ clippings
‘from LL files.’
_Liberty Letter_, _Mercury_, and _Observer_ hardly ever mention
(except in the most negative terms) ‘outside’ conservative
organizations or efforts; they boost only FRI, Americans for
National Security, Government Educational Foundation, Noontide
Press and _Mercury/Observer_; and, more recently, Youth for
Wallace, National Youth Alkliance, Save Our Schools.
But there is more than just surface evidence to connect Carto’s
various operations. Many operate out of the Liberty Building –
e.g., Friends of Rhodesian Independence; the campaign-fund raising
United Congressional Appeal. A former employee of Liberty Lobby
remembers designing the format of _Washington Observer_ (the logo
of which is set in the same typeface as that of _Liberty Letter_);
another recalls shuttling back and forth with _Observer_ copy and
proofs between the Liberty building and the Gray Printing Company.
C. William Gray of that firm describes Carto as ‘the main man in
the whole thing.’ Carto is said sometimes to prepare _Mercury_
areticles for the printer himself; a copy of one manuscript exists
with emendations in his handwriting.
6. Carto Undertakes to Make the Word Flesh
As the 1968 Presidential campaign neared, Liberty Lobby was well
established and prosperous, but the ultimate goal, political power,
seemed as far away as ever. The ‘party-within-a-party’ approach
had failed; Carto moved to set up a national Youth for Wallace
organization. Youth for Wallace was financed by Carto via the
front Action Associates. In all, $40,000 to $50,000 went to Youth
for Wallace. The group used Liberty Lobby’s mailing list, sold the
Lobby’s Wallace tabloid, and was given the services of Doug Clee, a
Lobby employee, for clerical and administrative work.
National Chairman of Youth for Wallace was John Acord, and
independent operator who had bought the Friends of Rhodesian
Independence mailing list and set up the American-Southern Africa
Council. About seventeen thousand members were recruited. Acord’s
understanding from the first was that regardless of the outcome of
the election, Youth for Wallace would continue after November under
some other name. On November 15, at a meeting at the Army-Navb
Club, Youth for Wallace was renamed the National Youth Alliance.
Acord was made National Chairman and Dennis McMahon, National Vice
Chairman. A four-point program was adopted, opposing drugs, Black
Power, the SDS, and American involvement in foreign wars. Acord
later said that copies of _Imperium_ were passed around at the
meeting, which was chaired by Carto and attended by Col. Dall and
others.
In January and February, organizational meetings were held on
campuses in Atlanta, New Orleans, Washington, Chicago, Pittsburgh,
and in Utah and California, to bring members of Youth for Wallace
into the new operation. Carto was on hand, peddling Noontide Press
books. In Chicago, Col. Dall gave a speech in which he went on
about the ‘international bankers.’ And in Pittsburgh —
In Pittsburgh, something went wrong – just what isn’t clear and
probably never will be. As Acord tells it, he and McMahon were
invited to a partyu in Carto’s honor, to be held after the NYA
session at the Conley Motel in nearby Monroeville. The party was
thrown by something called the ‘Francis Parker Yockey Movement.’
The host was Louis T. Byers, a leader of the Wallace campaign in
Western Pennsylvania. At a cocktail party attended by Carto and
Col. Dall, guests allegedly wore Nazi insignia and the hi-fi
blasted Nazi war songs. After a buffet supper, a formal meeting
was held. It began, according to Acord, with the singing of the
‘Host Wessel Lied.’ Speeches on ‘Plato athe Fascist’ and ‘Negrified
and Judaized America’ foillowed. Byers gave a rundown on recent
books of interest, paying special attention to a forthcoming
Noontide Press book, ‘The Myth of the Six Million.’ Then Carto took
the rostrum:
He spoke of his meetings with Yockey and how the movement was
growing throughout the nation. He expressed his belief that
political power, like that he was building in Liberty Lobby,
would soon bring the ‘Imperium’ of which all Yockeyites
dream…. In the meantime, it was necessary for Yockeyites to
collect as much political power as possible within all existing
political institutions and to capture the leadership of as many
conservative elements as possible as the nation swings to the
right. In this manner, said Carto, the FPYM members will
capture the nation.
Next to Jews, the most despised of all are the leaders of the
legitimate Right like such as Bill Buckley Jr., John Ashbrook,
Fulton Lewis III, ad infinitum [sic]. They, said Carto, are the
real enemies of the Yockeyites. They are the principal
obstacles to be overcome.
In an affidavit of his own, McMahon confirms the essence of Acord’s
story, and says that afdter the meeting the group adjourned in
small groups to a room where Robert Johnson, operator of the Sabre
and Sword Curio Shop in Buffalo, N.Y., had for sale swastika
banners, recordings of German war songs, genuine and fake Nazi war
relics, and even (for $150) an SS uniform.
Acord says he confronted Carto March 2 and told him that ‘we would
no longer have his influencing the future course of the NYA.’ Carto
then ordered the NYA telephone rerouted and its address changed
and, according to Acord, broke into the office at 200 Third Street
S.E. and took the NYA files. Acord resigned from NYA March 24,
taking with him McMahon, who just a month before had written a
bloodthirsty article bragging on “NYA terror squads,’ that Carto
had tidied up somewhat for publication in the Spring 1969 _American
Mercury_. By early April new letterheads had been printed, showing
the NYA address as 1340 Third Street S.E., the Liberty Building.
Clearly, the Acord-McMahon story of the events of January 25 is the
work of men who feel considerable bitterness over their ouster from
NYA. But it is significant that the story falls into two parts,
lurid stories of Nazi talk and Nazi trappings, and an account –
calmer in comparison – of Carto’s speech. It is significant, too,
that the speech as paraphrased by Acord is exactly in line with the
power-oriented political philosophy that Carto has expounded,
publicly, for years (cf. his Introduction to _Imperium_).
With Acord out of the way, Carto was ready for the next NYA meeting
– another session in Pittsburgh March 29-30, at which national
officers were to be elected. The featurered speaker was Dr.
Oliver, who had consented to support NYA on the conditions that
Carto eliminate his ‘unsavory and scabrous playmates, particularly
Acord’ and guarantee NYA a subsidy of at least $50,000 per year for
two years. After the evening meeting on the twenty-ninth, a party
took place on the tenth floor of the Pick-Roosevelt Hotel.
According to Thomas J. Pallone Jr., then Connecticut NYA Chairman,
‘…many people [were] singing German songs (one of which was the
Nazi national anthem). One member boasted about having his own SS
uniform. There were toasts to Adolf Hitler and Nazi armbands
displayed.’ James Sullivan, and NYA member from New York, described
the party in these words: ‘There were Nazi and only Nazi banners on
the walls, Nazi songs were sung and lewd anti-Christian and Jewish
remarks were made, there was a vast arrary of people wearing Nazi
WWII medals… Mr. Louis Byers… was proudly flaunting his new
custom made swastika cufflinks. Almost everyone present … had
on Nazi medals, or paraphernalia.’
Probably the most disinterested account of the party comes from
John C. Watley, head of Georgia NYA, who disassociated his group
from both the NYA factions that subsequently arose. In one
affidavit, Watley says the party was attended by ‘associate
members’ (under NYA rules, persons over thirty years of age) who
‘sang decidedly racist songs with denigrating lyrics, supported
[sported?] American Nazi cufflinks, and in general showed their
intentions to be somewhat less that the original four-point purpose
of the NYA.’
In another, he says:
At no time did I see anywhere any Nazi emblems, swastikas or
armbands, except on one rather drunk person who had on some
‘genuine’ German Nazi buttons made into cufflinks. The German
songs I heard were sung in general beer-drinking songs with
‘Deutschland, Deutschland, u”ber Alles’ the only one that could
have been called a Nazi song. A tape recorder was turned on
which had a song called ‘The Cajun Ku Klux Klan’ on it. It was
played twice. I then left, all the scotch being gone. Out in
the hallway I ran into Willis Carto. …I remarked to him then
that some people might get the wrong idea about what was going
on inside. He told me they were just drunk, and ‘blowing off
steam.’
The next day an election of officers took place, in which an
‘anti-Nazi’ slate header by Patrick Tifer, a pale, wispy boy from
Michigan, won. During the voting, according to Sullivan, Carto
delivered an impassioned plea for ‘unity’; when the voting
continued to go against him, he threw a collosal tantrum. Sullivan
says the meeting ended with the Tiferites believing they were now
in control of NYA; as Pallone tells it, the Cartoites ignored the
election results, ‘proposed that _Imperium_, a book which no one
had read, be the guiding light of the NYA and broke up the
meeting.’ Certainly, the voting was a mere formality: Almost a
month before, on March 5, Carto had had three Liberty Lobby
employees, Gerald and Carol Dunn and Anne Dabney, incorporate NYA
in the District of Columbia. Its announced purpose was
‘distribution of material to young people advocating good
citizenship.’
Carto placed Byers in charge of his NYA. Byers’ first official act
was to sign a note for $50,000 owed to Action Associates. NYA
offices were moved to a room on the eighth floor of the Dupont
Circle Building. A slogan – ‘Free Men Are Not Equal … Equal Men
Are Not Free’ – and a symbol – the mathematical sign denoting
inequality – were adopted. Noontide Press reprinted _Imperium_ in
a paperback, primarily for sale by the NYA. In an early
promotional letter, Byers wrote: ‘NYA has a purpose, a cohesion,
and a dynamic all its own. Our approach is _unique_: It is based
on the philosophy of Yockey’s monumental _Imperium_…’
In June, 1969, Carto published in _Liberty Letter_ a notice to the
effect that the Lobby’s mailing list was not available to other
groups. That included NYA, he informed Byers. Carto provided
other lists, including the _Mercury/Observer_ list, that didn’t
pull well. By the end of the summer, NYA was in a tightening bind.
Says Byers: ‘Carto kept telling me that money was ‘just around the
corner,’ and encouraged me to keep operating on credit, running up
bills. He selected the mailing lists, he approved the pitch
letters – and every time I sent out a mailing, it lost money. At
that time, however, I still trusted Carto. In fact, I thought he
was Francis Parker Yockey reincarnated.’
[photo of John Acord, Carto, and Hicks. ‘In happier days: John
Acord, sometime head of NYA; Willis Carto; the late W.B. Hicks’]
7. Things Do Not Go Nicely
‘Willis can’t stand for anyone to leave him,’ a long-time associate
says. One is not supposed to quit; one is expected to stay at
Liberty Lobby forever, or until fired. Now, shortly after Hicks’
death, Carto lost two key employees: Leo Donald Phillips, Managing
Editor of _Liberty Letter_ and the man on whom Carto depended to
keep the office running smoothly, and Michael D. Jaffe, Liberty
Lobby’s General Counsel and chief contact-man on the Hill.
In July 1969, Phillips took over the American-Southern Africa
Council from the departed Acord – whereupon Carto attacked,
re-establishing his old Friends of Rhodesian Independence with
Taylor Caldwell fronting. The Council was attacked in _Washington
Observer_ and an obscure, viciously antisemitic paper called
_Statecraft_. Carto is believe to have sent copies of the attacks
to the entire A-SAC mailing list.
Meanwhile, Carto and his lobby were coming under heavy attack,
mostly from sources which rejoice at any evidence that the right
wing in America is latently racist and fascist. Here the evidence
was pretty nearly undeniable. Acord and McMahon took their
affidavits relating the events at the first meeting in Pittsburgh
to Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson. The story came out in a series
of columns in April and May 1969. Late in May, conservative
columnist James Jackson Kilpatrick picked up the story. His colum,
based on the Acord-McMahon account, concluded: ‘Never let it be
said that conservatives don’t have embarrassments also.’ The reply
was a smear in _Statecraft_ by Editor C.R. Baker, duly reprinted
in the Fall 1969 _American Mercury_, about ‘James J. Kilpatrick –
Conservative Quisling.’ Kilpatrick’s ultimate treachery was not
being Jewish.
In October 1969 Carto learned of the plans of his former associate
Phillips to set up his own lobby. The _Observer_ promptly broke
the story of ‘a fake conservative lobby to enlist support for the
Nixon Administration by siphoning off funds and support from
reputable pro-American institutions.’ The Anti-Defamation League,
the _Observer_ suggested, was the secret backer of the new lobby.
A little later Phillips was extensively smeared in _Statecraft_,
which was luanched early in 1969 by C.R. Baker and Danial Paulson
– two more of the ‘unsavory and scabrous playmates’ that Dr.
Olivere says he compelled Carto to exclude from NYA. The paper is
explicitly, super-obnoxiously racist and antisemitic, whose
cartoons depict apelike, thick-lipped Negros, and mincing,
hook-nosed Jews. Baker had been seen often in the Liberty
Building. There is testimony to direct support for _Statecraft_
from Carto: a check from Liberty Lobby for $1,500. It was not
cashed by _Statecraft_, for reasons unknown.
To underwrite all these ventures, Carto had to keep the money
coming. He proved himself capable of coming up with emergency
needs.
A letter went out from Col. Dall March 11, 1969, announcing that a
$55,000 loan on the Liberty Building had been called, that ‘if we
are unable to come up with $55,000 by midnight of March 25, we will
be EVICTED.’ The money rolled in – more than $100,000, according to
one estimate. Interestingly, the name ‘Liberty Lobby’ appears on
none of the instruments connected with the purchase of the Liberty
Building. The purchaser in 1965 and sole owner since 1969 is – the
‘Government Educational Foundation.’ On the original papers, Carto
signed as Chairman of the Board of GEF; as recently as a year ago
he signed, as President of the Foundation, an agreement with the
District of Columbia relating to the construction of an underground
vault on the property – to contain what, one certainly wonders.
Carto worked a similar game toward the end of 1969. That fall
Liberty Lobby acquired a computer. The Capitol Hill Data
Processing Company was set up to bring in outside work to cover
leasing costs. From the beginning there were foul-ups of
subscriber and pledger records stored in the computer. The best
guess is that the problems were caused by incompetent, underpaid,
untrained help. On December 11, a ‘Confidential Memorandum’ went
out from Col. Dall to the Board of Policy, announcing that
‘LIBERTY LOBBY has been sabotaged in its computer department.’ He
explained: ‘…the forces of the enemy do not play games…The
prize is sole money and political control of the world. The
international one-world money merchants are steadily closing their
grip on what is left of our uninformed society…’ Following the
‘sabotage’ of the computer, Carto tightened security. Employees
were not permitted to be away from their desks without permission;
anyone caught wandering was interrogated. Mike Russell, an NYA
field worker, was brought in to babysit the computer and otherwise
guard against the Enemy. In May 1970 all employees were ordered to
take lie detector tests. They were asked if they had stolen money
or lists, or had been in contact with the FBI or ADL.
The first outward evidence of Carto’s new, more active role in
Liberty Lobby was an enthusiastic review of _Imperium_ in the May
1969 _Liberty Letter_. Omitting to mention the racist theme of the
book, Managing Editor Doug Clee (later to flunk his polygraph test)
praised it as ‘a major work of philosophy.’ By July 1970, Page One
of _Liberty Letter_ raved openly about the ‘aggressive minority
which tightly controls the `free press`,’ an ‘alien-minded and
America-last group,’ ‘the militant and ruthless Zionist pressure
machine.’ And by September, an Emergency _Liberty Letter_ shrilled
of ‘thousands of undercover Zionist `fixers,` lobbyists and
Leftists – including Golda Meir, socialist premier of Israel – who
prowl the corridors of Congress and converge on the White House.’
Quite clearly, Liberty Lobby has accepted the _Washington
Observer’s_ explaination of Zionism: ‘Most people think the purpose
of the so-called Zionist movement is to establish a homeland for
refuge Jews in Palestine – not at all. The real purpose of
Zionism is to establish totalitarian global control via a world
supergovernment.’
The preoccupation appears very nearly total. Carto wrote to Byers
in 1969, concerning a projected tabloid:
I think this tab will have a hell of an impact, mostly on the
Kosher Kons[ervatives]… Elisabeth [Mrs. Carto] feels that
there is danger of some effectiveness being lost because of
aappearing too antijew. I think she’s right… She suggests
that the character be changed from a typical speciment [sic] of
a pawnbroker to General Dyan [sic]! This will get away from
making the tab appear too antijew, or ridiculing the poor dears,
and also points it up more directly. I think this is a great
idea, and will make the whole thing better. In other words,
Dyan with the eye patch pointing his finger at viewer and saying
‘I NEED YOU… TO FIGHT FOR ISRAEL.’ …Also, as a general
criticism, I think there should be more stuff in it about the
Wall Street jew… Remember that we are trying to reach the
Leftist goyim…Also, do you have that picture of 4 or 5 Jews
that appeared in _Time_ about three years ago which showed the
publishers of various ‘underground papers.’ Each of them was a
particular type of Jew. …There is always the tendency to lose
effectiveness in this type of thing by overdoing it from the
taste of the ‘average Goy.’ So let’s be very careful about
ridiculing them…. Best, Willis.
8. Farewell
And so Liberty Lobby, its mastermind and all the satellite
enterprises lumber on. Will he succeed – ever – in profiteering
from America’s confusion, instituting his ‘single minded and
intolerant power which can clean and redeem’?
By the figures, the future looks uncertain for the Carto complex.
Liberty Lobby’s revenues are down sharply: Only $310,000 (so far as
one can ascertain) was raised in the fist six months of 1970,
doubling that figure gives only $620,000 for the year, well down
from the 1969 total of $850,000. A publisher’s sworn statement
lists the average paid circulation of _Liberty Letter_ (October
1969 to October 1970) at 240,000, but circulation for September
1970 was only 178,000. A report filed with the Clerk of the House
last June claimed total distribution of 150,000 copies of _Liberty
Letter_ – well below Col. Dall’s ambitious claim of ‘half a
million readers.’ Last fall, United Congressional Appeal, Liberty
Lobby’s campaign fund-raising arm, distributed only $63,000 to
candidates (the goal was $250,000), compared with $93,000 two years
before.
The attacks on conservatives grow ever sillier. The latest is a
suit against the American Conservative Union, for allegedly
stealing Liberty Lobby’s mailing list. The real motivation behind
this inexplicable lawsuit emerged in the _Washington Observer_
(September 15, 1970). The ADL is still trying to ‘neutralize’ the
conservative movement, the Liberty folk inform us, using that agent
Murray Chotiner (Nixon aide), but –
Since the first exposure of this plan.. it has been modified –
the ‘American Lobby’ [Phillips’ organization] appeared, but
stillborn and without backing. Instead, the emphasis was
changed to buttressing an older group established in late 1964
by master promoter, Marvin Liebman – the American Conservative
Union. ACU has broadened the scope of its alleged activities to
compete with the well-established Liberty Lobby, as well as the
nonpartisan political campaign organization, the United
Congressional Appeal.
The cast of characters playing roles in Chotiner’s Coalition
would not want to be seen on the street together. They include
Charles McManus of the Americans for Constitutional Action, Rep.
John Ashbrook and his executive administrator Robert Bauman of
the American Conservative Union and Conservative Victory Fund,
William F. Buckley of _National Review_ and Tom Winter, editor
of _Human Events_. Not to mention Henry Kissenger, who needs no
introduction to readers of WO.
Although there is a seeming ideological disparity to the above
persons, all are subject to Zionist control; some because they
have personal (if secret) investments in Israel, some because of
political reasons and others because of dependence upon
contributions from Jewish fat cats.
Carto’s friends are dropping away one by one. Richard Cotten, once
a great crowd-pleaser at Liberty Lobby meetings, has broken with
him. Dr. Oliver describes Carto as ‘a species that I do not have
the stomach to contemplate without nausea’ – in a confidential
letter to Col. Dall, made public, says Dr. Oliver, at Dall’s
request. Lou Byers, cast adrift by Carto after NYA proved
unsuccessful, and now being sud for, yes, stealing the mailing list
that is the keystone of Carto’s ediface, now says: ‘He’s a complete
opportunist. He _says_ he’s a National Socialist, but he isn’t –
he’s a French peasant turned Jewish capitalist.’
And still Carto plugs away, pounding his typewriter sixteen hours a
day, living like a recluse in the basement of the Liberty Building
while his wife stays with her sister in Maryland. _Liberty Letter_
keeps urging conservatives to unite, implying, as it has all along,
that money spent elsewhere is money wasted. Col. Dall still signs
the desperate fund appeals; the newest peril is a ‘MASSIVE ATTACK
AGAINST LIBERTY LOBBY.’ The pitch letter reads: ‘Will Government
Succeed in Wiping Out Voice of `Silent Majority` in Washington?
only LIBERTY LOBBY stands for the traditional American policy of
NEUTRALITY in the Mideast! Is this why the `Establishment` is now
determined to destroy our movement?… Your dollars NOW will allow
us to COUNTERATTACK effectively!’ What it means is that the
Internal Revenue Service has asked Liberty Lobby to pay an income
tax deficiency of $56,762.21.
While the althiest Carto labors in his basement, a Mrs. Carol Dunn
cranks out chatty letters to ‘Dear V.I.P. (Very Important
Patriot),’ warning of new ADL-Zionist plots, reminding pledgers to
get those payments in, and concluding with such paragraphs as:
‘About one out of five letters assure me `I am praying for LIBERTY
LOBBY.` Well, I want you to know that I also pray daily for you…
that God will increase your faith, strength, efficiency [!], and
multiply your efforts to preserve America. God bless you richly!
II Cor. 13:14.’ Stanley Andrews – _Pastor_ Andrews, now – heads a
new project, Save Our Schools (from drugs, sex education,
`interracial dating`); kept at Liberty Lobby who knows how (he
tried to quit in 1965 because, he said in a job application, he
didn’t feel `recent events relating to the policies and fiscal
status of the organization as controlled by Mr. Willis Carto
auguered well for the future of AFNS.`).
No, nothing has changed. A recent issue of _Statecraft_ featured
an elaborite smear of Byers, and a boost for a new NYA being
operated out of Michigan by little Patrick Tifer, who told a
reporter recently that his operation has Willis Carto’s ‘moral
support.’ In the fine old spirit of sauve qui peut, Liberty Lobby
has billed Byers $40,000 for the list he allegedly stole, plus
$2,867 for ‘computer time.’ Last month, Byers caught Baker and a
_Statecraft_ employee trying to break into his house. ‘An ADL
trap,’ says Baker.
Which is just about where we came in.” (Simonds, C.H. “The
Strange Story of Willis Carto,” National Review, September 10,
1971. 978-989)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Holocaust Almanac – Carto, the Early Years (LONG)
Summary:
Reply-To: [email protected]
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Organization: The Old Frog’s Almanac, Vancouver Island, CANADA
Keywords: carto,liberty lobby,yockey
Lines: 1214
Last-Modified: 1994/05/19
