Gritz, Grodin, and Garbage
by Chip Berlet
Political Research Associates
On the Charles Grodin CNBC program of Wednesday, May 29,
Grodin announced that Bo Gritz had told him that he had never
“even temporarily” run for office on the presidential ticket of
David Duke and the Populist Party. This is garbage.
Gritz agreed to run as the 1988 vice presidential candidate
of the Populist Party on the ticket with presidential candidate David Duke.
Duke’s past affiliations with the Ku Klux Klan and neonazi movement
are still reflected in Duke’s political ideology. Even Readers Digest
called the Populist Party a haven for neo-Nazis and ex-Klansmen.
The Populist Party was originally founded by notorious anti-Semite
and Hitler apologist Willis Carto who founded the Liberty Lobby.
A photograph of Gritz shaking hands with David Duke at the
nominating convention was published in Liberty Lobby’s
Spotlight newspaper. (To obtain a photocopy of this photograph
for educational documentation purposes send a self-addressed
stamped envelope to Political Research Associates, 120 Beacon
Street, Suite 202, Somerville, MA 02143.)
Gritz indeed later dropped off the ticket to run for local office. But then
Gritz accepted the 1992 nomination for president on the Populist
Party ticket, although he also ran on other tickets as well
in the 1992 election.
Bo Gritz is the point man in an effort to build a coalition of
white supremacists, anti-Jewish bigots, neo-fascists, and
gun activists, and others in the patriot movement. Gritz has
attracted a large audience of with his anti-administration appeals.
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, a white supremacist
conspiracy theory that targets Jews as agents of
Satan. Also speaking were Eustace Mullins, who
provided the “Total Conspiracy Update,” and A.J.
Barker, national chairman of the Populist Party
which 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 according to the Monitor newsletter from the
Center for Democratic Renewal, “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.)
Pastor Pete Peters is a leading proponent of
the Christian Identity religion. In a speech at
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 defends author Eustace Mullins and
distributes his book on the Federal
Reserve. According to Gritz, Mullins is
not anti-Jewish.
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.” (Eustace Mullins, The
Secret Holocaust, Word of Christ Mission, no date.)
Mullins’ speaking tours are promoted in
ads placed in Liberty Lobby’s Spotlight
newspaper, a publication that has praised
the spirit of the Waffen SS and promotes the
view that the accepted history of the Nazi
Holocaust is a Jewish hoax.
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 leading fascist organizer 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.”
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.
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 continuously
misrepresents the nature of the Populist Party.
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.”
Gritz and the Liberty Lobby Convention
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.
At the Liberty Loby conference Fletcher Prouty
released the new Institute for Historical
Review’s Noontide Press edition of his book on
CIA intrigue, The Secret Team. 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.”
The Liberty Lobby Populist Action Comittee
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, formerly active in J.B. Stoner’s
segregationist National States Rights 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, and former state leader of
the Mississippi Ku Klux Klan.
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. 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.
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.
For more information, contact:
Political Research Associates,
120 Beacon Street, Suite 202,
Somerville, MA 02143
visit us on the web:
http://www.publiceye.org/pra/
From [email protected] Thu May 30 14:19:40 PDT 1996
Article: 20433 of misc.activism.militia
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From: Chip Berlet
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