Sen. Theo Walker Mitchell

Click here for Full Issue of EIR Volume 23, Number 6, February 2, 1996 Interview: Sen. Theo Walker Mitchell The malthusicill syndrome has caused a world of pain' Former state Sen. Theo Walker Mitchell was born and reared Senator Mitchell was interviewed on Jan. 18 by Marian in Greenville, South Carolina. He came through the state's na Wertz. educational system under the "separate but equal" doctrine. Mitchell holds a bachelor's degree from Fisk University in EIR: At the 19th Annual Legislative Conference of the biology and chemistry, graduate study credit from Howard National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL), at University in cytology, and ajuris doctor degree from How Birmingham, Alabama last December, you motivated an ard University Law School (1969). He is married and has investigation of misconduct by the U.S. Department of Jus three daughters and four grandchildren. tice by that body. Can you tell us about that? After law school, Mitchell went to work for Legal Ser Mitchell: I was one of the founding members of the NBCSL vices for Greenville County for two years, before going and had attended all of its annual meetings. In fact, I served into private practice. He has practiced law on behalf of the as chairman of Region V, North and South Carolina, from underdog throughout his life, cooperating with the American its inception. I was on the NBCSL Executive Committee Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to represent people of diverse for many years and participated openly and actively with it. backgrounds, even including members of the Ku Klux Klan. I was invited down by my colleague, chairman of the Task Mitchell first ran for the South Carolina House of Repre Force on Ethics, Sen. McKinley Washington of Charleston, sentatives in 1972, and won the Democratic nomination but who in concert with Senator Harper from Tennessee co lost the general election. He ran again and won in 1974, chaired the workshop on ethics. They felt that I would be serving ten years before being elected in 1984 to the South able to speak to the problem befalling the African-American Carolina Senate, where he also served ten years. He ran for through singling out, without probable cause, of African governor in 1989-90, becoming the first black person to American politicos who are on the move, or endeavor to be win a statewide election, the Democratic primary. He was on the move. I accepted the speaking engagement and, along chairman of the Senate Committee on Corrections and Penol with others, participated in that forum. That is when I had the ogy and the first African-American to serve as chairman of occasion to give out the information that I had on Operation a Senate committee since 1870. There hasn't been another Fruehmenschen [German for "primitive man," the FBI's since. ongoing targetting of African-American'elected officials). Mitchell was expelled from the Senate on Jan. 17, 1995, The inquiry was into what we can do, how can we go after a brutal witchhunt, intended to stop his political career, about assisting? I helped get the mode in place to have a resulted in his incarceration for 90 days in federal prison. resolution drawn and passed, calling on people in responsible Mitchell was blackmailed into pleading guilty to the misde positions-certainly the Congress of the United States, meanor of failing to file IRS Form 8300, for not reporting which has oversight of this area and others; members of monies expended by a client in excess of $10,000, under the Congressional Black Caucus. I brought them back to threat of federal prosecution for at least 14 felony counts. [California Democrat] Congressman Merv Dymally's pre Mitchell testified about his case before an independent body sentation on the House floor in 1988, where all the informa of elected officials investigating corruption in the Depart tion, including affidavits of FBI agents on Operation Frueh ment of Justice, which conducted hearings over Aug. 31- menschen, was read into the Congressional Record, but Sept. 1, 1995. (His testimony was reported in EIR, Oct. 6, nothing was ever done. 1995. Videotapes of the proceedings, including a summary As you can imagine, there have been many more African of the hearings, testimony on the LaRouche case, the FBI American casualties, people who have suffered because the targetting African-American elected officials,the Demjanjuk Congress has failed to do anything with the FBI and Opera case, and the Waldheim case, all referred to below, are tion Fruehmenschen, and also with the Justice Department's available from the Schiller Institute.) Office of Special Investigations [OSI], which has certainly, 74 National EIR February 2, 1996 © 1996 EIR News Service Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited. in bad faith, in corrupt and mean-spirited bigotry and racism has been held in modem times. There were people from 36 and classism, destroyed whatever concepts the Constitution nations, including members of parliament. In fact, after I of the United States holds so dear. spoke, members of parliament of Russia and Ukraine wanted pictures with me. Presenters included the former vice-pre EIR: The final NBCSL resolution also discusses the case mier of the former Czechoslovakia, Dr. [Josef] Miklosko. of Lyndon LaRouche, citing his railroad trial and conviction Also Judge Carlo Palermo of Milan, Italy, who had pulled as "the largest-scale single case, involving the same corrupt the door closed on the mafiosi. There were people from Department of Justice apparatus that operated in the OSI Bosnia-Hercegovina, from Hungary. They had translations and 'Operation Fruehmenschen' cases." You were among into four languages: German, Italian, Spanish, and French. the first in the nation to call attention to the injustice in I believe a lot of world leadership will emerge from many LaRouche's case. of those people. I think it was one of the greatest things the Mitchell: I am very proud to have been the first person institute has done. holding public office to step up and step out on behalf of This is the second time I've had the pleasure of address Mr. LaRouche. Others had endorsed his concepts and called ing a human rights conference of the European community, for exoneration. We called for his release; I go back quite and this one, at a time that is so critical in the development a ways with trying to get attention for Lyndon LaRouche. of what I call the Western world, gave the exposure to If ever there has been a man who has been, what I call what should be overtures for peace through the economic run over by a Sherman tank, Lyndon LaRouche has. But programs that Lyndon LaRouche has projected. [See EIR, this man is a stalwart. He is a guiding light to those of us Jan. 1, 1996, for the text of LaRouche's address to the con who know that you can't get anywhere without suffering ference.] pain. So, early on I leamed more about Lyndon LaRouche But there are people of the oligarchy that do not want what he stands for and what he suffered and how he has it, will not accept it, and will resist it till hell freezes over. suffered, and the denial of his wife and those who love him, And that is what is so bad, including the Windsor family, and about his organization, the publications; about how he as we know. kept his head high for five years in prison, how he's keeping The humaneness issue is something that we continue to it high now, still speaking out, speaking the truth; how he's look at, but the malthusian principles-I call it the malthu bringing knowledge to people who had no knowledge. sian syndrome-is still pervasive, unfortunately, in the I think it was one of the most effective things that has Anglo-American connection; where the colored peoples and ever happened. They don't realize what they did, because underdeveloped nations will continue suffering dispropor Lyndon LaRouche now is much more notorious-and I say tionately, and losing millions of their population, especially this positively-than he was when he was out, before he of their children, from diseases that I believe have been went to prison. manufactured, many of them, by the West, by England and the United States, by starvation, by the cutoff of foodstuffs, EIR: He's almost a folk hero now. by the denial of medical attention and facilities that can help Mitchell: That's right. He's a hero. Like he told me, when alleviate many of these conditions, including smallpox and I had lunch with him, before I went to prison: I had been things that we take for granted: unfair and unrealistic condi one of the members of the independent panel that examined tions, contaminated water, not providing enough heat, delib information in regards to his case, along with Ramsey Clark, erately trying to control the number of births of the peoples former Congressman Jim Mann, and others, and I had not of color. The malthusian principle is alive and well, not just even been sentenced. I had already entered a plea, under in England, but the Anglo-American connection: Certainly plea-bargaining: I should have gotten probation, but I went the Kissinger doctrine, NSSM-200, that memorandum has back and got sentenced; I got 90 days active time. I remember certainly caused a world of pain and suffering. And there him looking at me and saying, "What is it that you think is is indifference from the people in power, especially in the going to come out of your sentence?" I said, "Possibly International Monetary Fund and World Bank, keeping these probation, but I might even have to go to prison." He looked nations of Asia, South America, Ibero-America, and Africa at me, and he said, "If you can stay out of prison, don't go." in abject poverty and confusion and strife and civil war, I'll never forget it.

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