History
1972–1976
The U.S. Labor Party was noted for its controversial campaign tactics, and its invective campaigns against other politicians. [6] Nelson Rockefeller, the former Governor of New York who was nominated to be vice president by Gerald Ford in 1974, was an early target of the USLP's attention. During the Senate's confirmation hearings, LaRouche appeared on behalf of the USLP as a witness against Rockefeller's nomination. He testified that a USLP survey showed 90 percent of U.S. workers and the unemployed hated Rockefeller. [7]
In 1974 the Wisconsin branch of the Labor Party took out a newspaper advertisement announcing that it had filed for an injunction to prevent the CIA, FBI, and the New York Police Department from arresting Lyndon LaRouche (then known as Lyn Marcus) or anyone involved in the movement's kidnapping of Christopher White, who had married LaRouche's former common-law wife. According to detailed descriptions by LaRouche, White had been brainwashed by the CIA and KGB to kill him. [8] The advertisement further reported that the movement had found a cure for psychosis and encouraged mental health professionals to contact them to develop this discovery. [9] USLP member Harley Schlanger, a candidate for the House of Representatives, sued the Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, ABC Board in August 1976, for prohibiting campaigning on their property, which he contended was public property. The North Carolina ACLU joined the suit. [10] The district court judge decided that the activity was protected free speech that could not be prohibited so long as activists did not block doorways. [11]
One of the U.S. Labor Party's strategies focused on disrupting other left-wing groups, with questionable success. William Chapman wrote in The Washington Post in September 1976 that several public figures on the left had reported threats and intimidation, and said those responsible had identified themselves as members of LaRouche's NCLC or U.S. Labor Party. The linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky was accused of working for the CIA and being a tool of the Rockefellers; meetings he addressed were disrupted, and threats were made. The philosopher Paul Kurtz, editor of The Humanist, was asked during his lectures at the State University of New York why he was practicing genocide. According to Chapman, sociologists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, specialists on urban poverty, were followed around the country having their speaking tours disrupted. Environmentalist Lester Brown was accused of genocide and told he would be hanged from a lamppost. LaRouche was asked how he expected a party with a five-year record of harassment and threats to win the election; he did not deny the incidents, but replied, "We are only engaged in an open political attack. We just want to challenge them in debate." He denied however that anyone had been threatened with physical harm: "Sure, we're going to get them – but politically." [6]
The U.S. Labor Party was well financed, operating from the top floor of a building in New York's garment district. A teletype network connected the New York office to branches in a further 13 U.S. cities, and also included a two-way, 24-hour link to Wiesbaden, Germany. Membership was small, ranging from 20 to 100 people per city, with a core of 1,000 to 1,800 members; according to LaRouche, these were complemented by another 13,000 part-time party organizers. LaRouche said the party was funded by members' dues, other small contributions, and the sale of publications like The Campaigner and New Solidarity – one a theoretical journal, the other a twice-weekly newspaper. The party fielded candidates in local and congressional elections, generally garnering only insignificant percentages of the popular vote; but there were exceptions – in Seattle, a Labor Party member running for the city council won 27 percent of the vote, with another candidate who ran for city treasurer garnering 20 percent. [6]
Presidential campaign
In an appearance on Meet the Press with other minor party candidates in October 1976, LaRouche predicted monetary collapse followed by thermonuclear war before summer if Jimmy Carter were elected. [12] LaRouche also described Carter as "a nitwit to begin with, an empty slop jar into which bad lemonade is being poured." [6] However, conservative Republicans like President Ford fared better, incongruously so, given the Labor Party's stated left-wing stance. "I call them honest Americans", LaRouche said. [6] He described Ford as "weak but well-meaning" [13] and "a known quantity we can live with". [6]
On November 1, the eve of the election, the USLP purchased a half-hour block of time on NBC, the first of many national broadcasts by LaRouche that would follow in election years to come. The time was purchased over the objection of the network which unsuccessfully appealed the last-minute purchase to the Federal Election Commission. During the broadcast, which ran opposite a similar advertisement from Carter on another network, LaRouche said that Carter would have the U.S "irreversibly committed to nuclear war by no later than the Summer of 1977" if elected. According to LaRouche's autobiography, he
...blew the policy of James R. Schlesinger, for an early nuclear confrontation with Moscow, and exposed the genocidal policies which key Carter backers, such as George Ball, had publicly demanded as measures for drastic population reduction of nations such as Mexico. More broadly, I presented a policy of international monetary reform, as alternative to a deepening crisis in the developing sector... [14]
NBC reported receiving hundreds of calls protesting the broadcast. [15]
LaRouche's name was on the ballot in 23 states plus the District of Columbia on November 2, 1976. He received 40,043 votes (0.05%). U.S. Labor Party candidates sometimes received unusually high vote totals in comparison with those garnered by other small ideologically-based parties. [16]
Following the election, the USLP brought lawsuits in three states challenging Carter's victory. The Republican Party joined the suits in Ohio and New York. Regional coordinator Paul Greenberg sought a recount in Milwaukee, saying "the election has actually been stolen — the actual winner was probably Jerry Ford." [17]
For more information on LaRouche's 1976 presidential campaign and the movement's legal disputes with the FEC, see Lyndon LaRouche U.S. Presidential campaigns.
1977–1982
In August 1977, the USLP said that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was intentionally harassing the group as a result of a determination that forgiven debts were the equivalent of campaign contributions. [18] The same month the USLP hired a former OSS and CIA operative, mercenary, firearms engineer and arms dealer, Colonel Mitch WerBell, to protect LaRouche. They said that LaRouche, then living in Wiesbaden, Germany, was being targeted for assassination by the "Baader-Meinhof Gang", allegedly on behalf of the Carter administration. Werbell in turn recruited the chief of police from his town, Powder Springs, Georgia, to set up the security. [19]
In 1978, LaRouche began a vigorous USLP campaign for the presidency in 1980, targeting farmers, small businessmen and Teamsters Union members in the Heartland states.
In May 1978, USLP Steering Committee member Elliott Eisenberg campaigned in a Chicago suburb, saying that "the reason we picked Schaumburg is because it's a relatively conservative area ... There's more of a tendency for people to support nuclear power." [20]
The USLP vice-presidential candidate, Khushro Ghandhi, campaigned in June 1979 and predicted victory based on support from the Teamsters (a faction of the union had ties to LaRouche). Running on a pro-nuclear power platform, Ghandhi said that the recent Three Mile Island accident was ordered by Energy Secretary James R. Schlesinger in order to create a false energy crisis. [21]
By late summer of 1979 the NCLC and LaRouche had decided to join the Democratic Party so that LaRouche could run for that party's presidential nomination, and the U.S. Labor Party was disbanded. In 1982 the USLP was sued for $1.5 million in damages by U.S. News & World Report when one of its employees allegedly impersonated a reporter. [22] The magazine won an injunction against the party publications. Lyndon LaRouche, when asked about the matter, said, "I don't know anything about it and I never looked into it, but I do know that the liberal press uses undercover press practices that are abhorrent and beneath description." [23]
The U.S. Labor Party had contacts with several notable figures on the extreme right wing of American politics. By the late 1970s, members were exchanging almost daily information with Roy Frankhouser, a government informant and infiltrator of both far right and far left groups who was involved with the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party. [24] [25] The LaRouche organization believed Frankhouser to be a federal agent who had been assigned to infiltrate right-wing and left-wing groups, and that he had evidence that these groups were actually being manipulated or controlled by the FBI and other agencies. [26] [27] LaRouche and his associates considered Frankhouser to be a valuable intelligence contact, and took his links to racist and anti-Semitic groups to be a cover for his intelligence work. [28] Frankhouser played into these expectations, misrepresenting himself as a conduit for communications to LaRouche from "Mr. Ed", an alleged CIA contact, who did not exist. [29] Frankhouser was convicted in 1975 of conspiring to sell half a ton of dynamite in connection with a school bus bombing that left one man dead, and had marched on Fifth Avenue in New York wearing a Gestapo uniform. LaRouche had organized his defense campaign regarding the dynamite charges. Frankhouser asserted he was working for the government and was sentenced to five years of probation instead of the decades in prison he could have received. [30]
Frankhouser warned LaRouche in 1977 that, according to his claimed CIA contact "Mr. Ed", he was being considered for assassination, and introduced him to Mitchell WerBell III, a noted Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative, mercenary, operator of a counterterrorism school, accused drug trafficker, firearms engineer, and arms dealer who said he had an ongoing connection to the CIA. [24] [31] LaRouche developed close ties with WerBell, hiring him as a security consultant for protection against the assumed assassination threat and to train his security staff. [32] [33] [34] It was WerBell who arranged for LaRouche movement members to undergo anti-terrorist training. John George and Laird Wilcox say WerBell learned that the way to keep "LaRouche on the hook was to feed his monstrous ego while jerking his paranoia chain". [35]
Frankhouser cultivated a contact with a media source in New York, enabling him to tip off LaRouche about upcoming stories before they became public. [24] In 1979, Frankhouser was also placed on the payroll as a security consultant, having convinced LaRouche that he was actively connected to U.S. intelligence agencies. A government official later said that Frankhouser was one of the few people who could call LaRouche directly. [36] Forrest Lee Fick, an associate of Frankhouser from the KKK, was added as a consultant in 1982. [36] Fick helped Frankhouser, who was not a competent writer, to compose the memos from "Mr. Ed"; they appeared so authentic that when news about them began to leak out via defectors from LaRouche's security organization, journalists began to speculate about the identity of "Mr. Ed". [24] Frankhouser and Fick later testified that, to justify their $700-per-week paychecks, they had invented their connections to the CIA, written memos purporting to be from CIA agents, and warned of imaginary assassination plots against the LaRouches. [37] George and Wilcox called Frankhouser's deception "one of the biggest hoaxes in the annals of political extremism", made possible by what they called LaRouche's "obsession with conspiracy theories" and intelligence gathering. [38]
The USLP also had brief contact with the Liberty Lobby led by Willis Carto. Carto had some exploratory talks with LaRouche about a joint strategy against the IRS, but the contact was marked by much mutual suspicion. Carto was troubled by the number of Jews in the U.S. Labor Party, and by their adherence to basic socialist positions, including their support for central banking, while Labor Party members considered people in the Liberty Lobby "red-necks" and "idiots". [39]
Criticism
In 1979, a two-part article by Howard Blum and Paul L. Montgomery appeared in the New York Times that accused LaRouche of running a cult. [40] Blum wrote that LaRouche had turned the U.S. Labor Party—with 1,000 members listed in 37 offices in North America, and 26 in Europe and Latin America—into an extreme-right, anti-Semitic organization, despite the presence of Jewish members. The Times alleged that members had taken courses in how to use knives and rifles, and had produced reports for South Africa on anti-apartheid groups in the United States. A farm in upstate New York was allegedly being used for guerrilla training, attended by LaRouche members from Germany and Mexico. Several members also underwent a six-day anti-terrorist training course, at a cost of $200 per person per day, at a camp in Powder Springs, Georgia, run by WerBell. [31]
The Times reported that U.S. Labor Party members were playing a dominant role in a number of companies in Manhattan: Computron Technologies Corporation, which included Mobil Oil and Citibank among its clients; World Composition Services, which the Times wrote had one of the most advanced typesetting complexes in the city and had the Ford Foundation among its clients; and PMR Associates, a printing shop that produced the party's publications and some high school newspapers (see below). [31]
Blum wrote that, from 1976 onwards, party members were transmitting intelligence reports on left-wing members to the FBI and local police. In 1977, he wrote, commercial reports on U.S. anti-apartheid groups were prepared by LaRouche members for the South African government, student dissidents were reported to the Shah of Iran's Savak secret police, and the anti-nuclear movement was investigated on behalf of power companies. He also wrote that LaRouche was telling his membership several times a year that he was being targeted for assassination, including by the Queen, "big-time Zionist mobsters," the Council on Foreign Relations, the Justice Department, and the Mossad. [31]
LaRouche denied the newspaper's charges, and said he had filed a $100 million libel suit. His press secretary said the series was intended "to set up a credible climate for an assassination hit". [41]
The USLP has also been called a "radical and cult-like group". [42] Milton Copulos of The Heritage Foundation described the USLP as "a virulently anti-Semitic outgrowth of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)" which used the Fusion Energy Foundation as a front to "win the confidence of unsuspecting businessmen". [43] Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote that the USLP began "on the political left but has since gone so far in the opposite direction that to call it politically right is to slander the entire conservative movement". [44] Labor-union journalist Victor Riesel, while writing of "anti-capitalistic movements, ranging all the way from the Communist Party U.S.A. to the Trotskyite Socialist Workers' Party", said in 1976 "the most extreme activists in this sprawling radicalism are the youthful U.S. Labor Party". [45] Civil Rights activist Julian Bond called the party "a group of leftwing fascists". [46]
LaRouche critic and biographer Dennis King says that when the USLP sponsored LaRouche's 1976 campaign, the NCLC was still in transition from a far-left to far-right ideology [16] but by 1977-1978 both organizations (which were really one and the same for all essential purposes) were advocating extreme-right positions. King described a typical post-transition USLP campaign in Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism (Doubleday, 1989):
In Baltimore, USLP candidate Debra Freeman appealed openly to racist and anti-Semitic sentiments in her 1978 campaign against incumbent Congressman Parren Mitchell, chairman of the Black Congressional Caucus. Freeman, who is white, described Mitchell as a 'house nigger' for Baltimore's 'Zionists' and an example of 'bestiality' in politics....She won more than 11 percent of the vote, doing especially well in several white precincts. [47]
The NCLC had used similar language as early as 1974, when an alderman in Madison, Wisconsin, was called a "house nigger" at a city-council meeting. [48] According to Dennis King, the USLP chairman advocated launching ABC (atomic, biological and chemical) warfare against the Soviet Union [49] as well as the military crushing of Britain (which his newspaper described as the headquarters of the "Zionist-British organism"). [47] [50]
