Archive/File: larouche larouche.012
Last-modified: 1993/05/06
XRef: index larouche, larouche larouche.ihr

   ...But what they lacked [fascist ideology] LaRouche attempted in the
   1980s to provide. He created in his voluminous writings an ideology
   that embodied the essence of fascism in an updated, Americanized
   form. He recruited a vanguard to organize around his program, while
   pioneering in slick new tactics to inject his ideas into strata of
   society that traditionally had shown themselves susceptible to
   paranoid populism. Many of his counterparts in the Ku Klux Klan and
   other traditional white supremacist circles had so little
   self-confidence that they rarely tried to organize outside of their
   own rural or blue-collar strata. But LaRouche reached out boldly to
   people of wealth and power, as well as to the forgotten and
   disinherited, striving to develop both a public and a private
   dialogue on any terms, no matter how opportunistic.

   The NCLC chairman also built an organizational structure of
   extraordinary complexity to support his multileveled political
   organizing. In its mid-1980s form, it was dominated by the NCLC
   National Executive Committee, a dozen stalwarts operating under
   LaRouche's daily instructions. The NCLC had regional or local units
   in over twenty cities, each with its own steering committee. It also
   had a national office staff in Leesburg, Virginia, divided into
   "sectors" - legal, finance, operations, intelligence, and security.
   This central bureaucracy ran the "entities" - a network of political
   action committees, publishing ventures, educational and fund-raising
   arms, and business fronts.

   The public directly enountered only the entities, not the shadowy
   NCLC. The National Democratic Policy Committee (NDPC) was the chief
   vehicle for LaRouchian electoral activity. The Fusion Energy
   Foundation (FEF) was its scientific think tank and an important
   lobbying tool. The NCLC also sponsored the Schiller Institute, an
   international propaganda arm headed by LaRouche's German wife, Helga
   Zepp-LaRouche.

   Much of the NCLC's financial resources were poured into a propaganda
   machine that disseminated anti-Semitic literature nationwide in
   artfully disguised forms. The most important publication was the
   NCLC's twice-weekly newspaper, 'New Solidarity' (called 'The New
   Federalist' after 1986). 'The Campaigner,' a monthly, was the
   theoretical journal. Persons who stopped at LaRouchian airport
   literature tables were most likely to see the weekly newsmagazine
   'Executive Intelligence Review (EIR),' as well as paperback books
   published by the New Benjamin Franklin Publishing House. The titles
   were catchy: "Dope, Inc.," "The Hitler Book," and "What Every
   Conservative Should Know about Communism."

   Although the untimate goals of the LaRouche network were political,
   the fund raising was an obsessive daily routine. Hundreds of LaRouche
   followers fanned out each morning to airports around the country or
   to the NCLC's telephone "boiler rooms" at shifting locations. While
   selling literature and cadging donations, their chief aim was to
   solicit loans (often from senior citizens), which were rarely repaid.
   Potential lenders were told they would be helping a patriotic or
   humanitarian cause (such as SDI or research to cure AIDS) while
   supposedly earning a high interest rate. The weekly 'EIR', high-priced
   special reports, videocassettes, the frequent television ads in which
   LaRouche addressed the nation in a "presidential" manner - all were
   used to gain the confidence of potential lenders. The income from
   loans and donations was shuttled from entity to entity in a
   never-ending shell game to avoid creditors and the IRS, and to
   guarantee that the maximum would always be available for LaRouche's
   pursuit of political influence and power.

   The NCLC National Executive Committee thus served not just as a
   general staff, but as a board of directors, with LaRouche as chairman
   of the board. His presidential campaigns provided a cover of
   constitutionally protected activity for what had become an
   increasingly predatory financial empire. When faced with criminal and
   civil proceedings, he claimed "political persecution" and often sued
   the investigating agency or creditor for violation of his civil
   rights. His intelligence-gathering and propaganda networks also
   helped protect the financial operation by investigating the
   investigators and launching smear campaigns against creditors. The
   system was not footproff: After 1986, dozens of LaRouche's followers
   were indicted for credit-card and loan fraud and other offenses. On
   October 1988, LaRouche himself was indicted on charges of defrauding
   lenders of over $30 million. But his fund raisers still continued to
   rake in large amounts each week. (LaRouche and six top aides were
   convicted on fraud and conspiracy charges in December 1988.)

      
                             Work Cited

King, Dennis. Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism. New York:
Doubleday, 1989

Home ·  Funding ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor