sl w-7/ Power Base for Hard Right : 's Unseen Boss

By Paul W. Valentine talgia for pre-French Revo- Washington Post Staff Writer Willis Allison Carto- lutionary times. veiled in a gossamer of anti- Carto is involved in the Zionism, racial philosophy publication of racist and and the vague imperatives anti-Zionist literature. He of "Western Civilization"— has maintained a personal stands today as one of the acquaintanceship with pres- most influential yet least ent or former leaders of the known figures of the Ameri- Patriotic Party (political can Hard Right. arm of the Minutemen), the 3 Founder and treasurer of anti-Semitic National States Liberty Lobby, a large, suc- Rights Party, the National cessful, conservative legisla- Socialist White Peoples tive pressure group working Party and its predecessor out of Washington, the trim- . ly-built 44-year-old Carto re- He also has been a work- mains elusively in the back- ing associate with such hard ground. right intellectuals as "west-Jr His name rarely appears ern culture" advocate Revilo in the Liberty Lobby news- WILLIS A. CARTO P. Oliver, German Nail apol- letter. He does not speak in ..,. an-unlisted number ogist Austin J. App and an public: He refuses to be in- admirer of Mussolini and re- terviewed. He shies away From this position of ob- tired Marine Lt. Gen. Pedro from cameras. He keeps an scurity, he leads a strange del Valle. unlisted telephone number. dual life: he manages the By contrast,. Liberty He shields his residence ad- operations of Liberty Lobby Lobby, the political organi- dress in suburban Los Ange- and its numerous affiliated, zation founded by Carto, is les from public scrutiny. organizations—all conserva- more conventionally con- He has few personal tive but avowedly constitu- servative. Its constituency friends. He writes under a tionalist and democratic in lies in Middle America— number of pseudonyms (in- purpose; at the same time, small businessmen, house- cluding several he shares wives, pensioners. It pub- he is a guiding star in the 1 with other right wing writ- more remote political twi- licly disavows the extra-con- ers), according to some of light of authoritarianism, ra- stitutional aims of either the those few friends who have cial elitism, aristocracy- far right or far left. been close to him. a over-mass and a kind of nos- See CARTO, A8, Col. 1 CARTO, From Al publishing nouse mien do most of the clerical and Its 25,000 pledge members, , which peri- bnokkeeping work of the af- bets, including Carte, must odically print articles on filiates, as they do for UCA. sign a loyalty oath swear- anti-Zionism, German Nazi All are housed in the Lib- ing they do not advocate the apologetics, authoritarian erty Lobby building on Cap- violent overthrow of the politics and scientific itol Hill at 3rd Street and In- government. (belief in the innate superi- dependence Avenue SE. "Willis has talked to me ority of Caucasians based on At the top of Carto's or- ganizational pyramid is a often about playing the role biological, anthropolgical of a respectable conserva- and other scientific re- corporation called Govern- tive when his true feelings search). ment Educational Founda- are those of a racial nation- tion, Inc. (GEF). alist," says Louis T. Byers, a Until March, 1969, Carto GEF is Liberty Lobby's one-time Carto intimate and was treasurer of the Legion landlord and a housekeep- hard right activist and theo- for the Survival of Freedom, ing corporation. It owns the retician here. "I was as close Inc., the parent corporation building in which the lobby to being a friend as anyone of American Mercury, Wash- Carto has known." ington Observer and Noon- tide Press. He resigned at "He is a very curious and that time, but several per- evasive person," says Revilo sons who have been close to is housed, a large, 30-room, Oliver, noted classics Carto say he still exercises scholar at the University of three-story Edwardian edi- editorial control over the fice on Capitol Hil at 132 3d Illinois. "He wants to stay in publications. the background. He thinks St. SE. GEF also owns all of- Carto also is a central or- he is more effective that fice machines, equipment ganizer and supporter of the and furniture in the build- way." His ultimate aim? Byers ing. (NYA), created to mobilize Just as he is treasurer of says Carte has told him it is young persons against cam- to use Liberty Lobby's fi- Liberty Lobby, Carte is pus radicals, black militants treasurer of GEF. nancial and membership po- and drug pushers. NYA cir- tential (25,000 premium Liberty Lobby general culates pictorial literature counsel Warren Richardson pledgers, 400,000 mailing list caricaturing and Ne- subscription names and up and other lobby executives groes and urging steriliza- minimize claims of business, to $800,000 in annual income tion of welfare mothers, and now), plus his own skills as promotional and financial relocation of American Ne- connections between the a writer and propagandist, groes to Africa. to form a new power base conservative Liberty Lobby T h e Anti - Defamation and Carto's more right wing when and if the nation involvements. should take a turn to the League of B'nai B'rith, the hard right. Institute for American De- Carto himself, however, acknowledged in a deposi- Carto denies this. In a mocracy, and Group Re- search, Inc. — the three tion made last Dec. 11 but Feb. 25, 1971, letter to this not yet filed in U.S. District reporter, he said Liberty principal right wing "watch- ers" and political research Court in connection with a Lobby "works within the civil suit here, that Liberty system for constitutional organizations in the United States — agree that Carto, Lobby and the American government and fights cen- Mercury/Washington Ob- tralized power and alien id- with his intricate network of committees, fronts, mailing server complex use each oth- eology on the left or the er's mailing lists. right.; He warned of a pos- lists and publication outlets, now is one of the most for- Liberty Lobby also sells sibly "uncontrollable reac- Noontide Press literature tion" by moderate Ameri- midable leaders of the American right, through its offices and occa- cans against the "excesses" The organizational struc- sionally advertises Noontide of leftwing radicalism, add- ture of Liberty Lobby and books in its newsletter. ing: its various appendages is Lobby employees have "If Liberth Lobby and the formidable and complex. given clerical assistance to other moderates who are trying to arrest the advance Officially registered as a the National Youth Alliance, political lobbying organiza- served as officers of the of the collectivists do not tion in Washington, Liberty NYA corporation and rented succeed, then there will be a Lobby also is a dominant it portions of the lobby mail- quite different sort of anti- constituent member of the ing lists. communism under way in United Congressional Ap- "I handled their (NYA's) this nation." peal (UCA), an election cam- mail in 1969," says former Both Byers and Oliver, paign fund-raising commit- lobby staff worker Mae who eve become disaffected tee here. Hall. "NYA postage was from Carto in recent inter In addition, there are sev- paid with Liberty Lobby nal right wing feuding, say eral affiliated or merged checks." they do not now believe groups, such as the Friends In addition, Carto set up a Carto is an"idealist" of the of Rhodesian Independence, paper organization called right but is seeking only National Taxaction, Inc., the Council. on Dangerous personal power. and Americans for National Drugs in 1969 to raise Besides his association Security, Inc., all woven into money primarily for NYA, with key right wing person- the Liberty Lobby infra- according to Rick Norton, alities, Carto maintains less structure to raise money and former West Coast repre- visible ties with the Ameri- disseminate information on sentative for Liberty Lobby. can Mercury magazine, the various conservative causes. Liberty Lobby mailing lists Washington Observer news- Liberty Lobby employees were used to solicite the letter and a Los Angeles • money, he said. AcCording to black nation- alist Col. Hassan Jeru- Ahmed, Carto attempted to launch a program of voun- tary repatriation of Ameri- can Negroes to Africa. But Jeru-Ahmed head of the Blackman's Development Center here, says he became disenchanted with Carto's "white., supremacist views" and the plan died aborning. An energetic and high- strung man often known to work 17 and 18 hours a day, Carto manages his multiple operations with a direct, personal and at times iron hand. Several former Liberty Lobby executives say, Carto FRANCIS P. YOCKEY REVILO P. OLIVER LOUIS T. BYERS makes all major decisions, ... author of "Imperium" ... former associate ... once close friend delegates little authority and trusts hardly anyone. After a recent rash of van- Curtis B. Dall twice by Cincinnati for Procter & dalism and thefts (including phone. Gamble Manufacturing Co., removal of copies of the lob- Little is known'of Carto's then moved to San Fran- by's mailing lists), most em- ' current, public or private cisco where he became a ployees are now subjected life outside his small circle collector for Household Fi- to lie detector tests adminis- of associates and friends. nance Corporation. tered periodically by a pri- Even less is known of his He married. Elisabeth Wal- vate polygraph firm. earlier ,years before he traud, a German citizen, Harold Shifflet. business founded Liberty Lobby in about 12 years ago. They manager from 1967 to Octo- 1957. have no children. ber, 1969, says, "I had the Associates say Carto Carlo has one brother, title of business manager— speaks little of his past. He David L., who still lives in but that's all. Carto ran the turned down a viritten re- Mansfield near his parents. place." quest for an interview by The Carlo family is of Hu- "It seemed to me there this reporter but in his two- guenot background, and the was no one around there page letter of Feb. 25, as- name was anglicized from with any real power except serted his "vigorous support Carteaux several genera- Carto," says Robert J. Jones, of the pro-American, Consti- tions ago, according to a executive director of the tutionalist position of Lib- Carto nephew, David S. Friends of Rhodesian Inde- erty Lobby." Carto of Columbus, Ohio. pendence (FRI) "desk" at Interviews with Carto as- Other members of the Carto Liberty Lobby from May, sociates and examination of family generally have re- 1969, to September, 1969. public records here and in fused to discuss Carto's "Although I was executive California, now Carto's background. director," he said, "I was home state, sketch this Carto first became active never brought in on the patchwork biography o/ the in rightwing politics on the inner planning." He said he man: West Coast during the early never handled incoming con- Born in Fort Wayne, Ind., 1950s. He traveled among a tributions and did not know on , 1926, he gradu- small circle of rightwing in- how they were handled. "I ated from Southside High tellectuals. really felt hamstrung," he School there during World One man who he had 'said. War II. never met up to that time Norton, the lobby's West He then entered the U.S. but admired from afar was Coast representative until Army, served with the , a last September, says. Carto American Division in the brilliant and embittered often made major financial and was American attorney who quit policy decisions whitout call- wounded twice, receiving his job at the Nuremberg ing a meeting of the 12- 'the Purple Heart, according war crime trials in 1946 be- member board of directors to a Washington Observer cause of dissatisfaction with or notifying them afterward. newsletter. the Allied prosecution. Martin A. Larson, one of After the war, he lived In 1948, Yockey wrote the present board members, briefly with his parents, Wil- "Imperium," a massive phil- says he never has been lis F. and Louise Carto, in osophical tome filled with called to a meeting in his Mansfield, Ohio. His higher Spenglerian - gloom about two years on the board but education is not clear, ex- the welfare of "western civi- has been polled twice by cept for a statement in a lization." The book warns mail on policy issues and court deposition that he at- against the "culture distort- spoken with board chariman tended a few courses at the ing" influences of Jews, Ne- University of Cincinnati groes and other minorities Law School. in northern Europe and He worked for a while in America and urges the maintenance of Aryan and Anglo-Saxon hegemony through immigration control and avoidance of imperialis- tic entanglements and the consequent acculturation of of all Jews and other parasi- "alien" influences abroad. tic aliens from the soil of Few copies of "Imperium" Europe." were published, and Yockey • Similar action to "drive dropped out of public sight the Jewish-American forces during the 1950s. In June, into the sea." 1960, he was arrested in • Abolition of "liberal de- Oakland, Calif., on a pass- m o c r a c y," parliamenta- port fraud charge. Eleven rianism, finance capitalism days later, while in jail, he and other elements of "19th committed suicide. century materialism and ra- Carto learned of Yockey's tionalism." Incarceration and visited • Replacement of these him at least once in San with "authority, faith, dis- Francisco County Jail and cipline, duty, order, hier- attended two of his court archy, fertility, will-to- hearings. power." Carto later wrote that he The origins of Carto's was "fascinated by this public shift from this hard man," and found him "pen- right position to the milder sive, sensitive, magnetic." "centrist" and "conserva- Once, he said, when Yockey tive" posture of Liberty turned toward him at a Lobby date sack to at least court hearing, their eyes 1956. h. met, and "in that instant, we At that time, he was living understood that I would not in the area. desert him." He was executive director of After Yockey's death, a right wing organization Carto arranged to have "Im- called Liberty & Property perium" republished and and was involved in publica- distributed through Noon- tion of a newsletter called tide Press and wrote a 40- "Right," which pushed anti- page introduction to it. Zionism, , Noontide also published a Nordic culture and a broad paperback edition In 1969. range of related subjects. The introduction provides A Liberty & Property some measure of Carto's year-end report published thinking. Jan. 18, 1956, announced With--a few specified ex- that the time had arrived ceptions, he praises the mes- for the American right wing sage of "Imperium" and has to go beyond its tradition- a number of judgments of ally narrow "anti-communist his own: and anti-internationalist atti- "Western civilization" is tude" and to promulgate a in a "position of unqualified "really common and positive superiority to every other issue," which must attract culture," he says. persons "who are normally "Negro equality or even outside the scope of the supremacy, for example. is right wing." The common easier to believe in if there issue was not specified. are no Negroes around to Nineteen months later, in destroy the concept," he the September, 1957, issue of adds. "Right" newsletter, carried an article by Carto anniunc- "The individual enjoyed . ing the creation of Liberty far more liberty in Europe under the monarchs than in Lobby in Washington. America today," he says. He explained: "Washing- Carto's introduction, writ- ton, D.C. is an occupied • ten in 1962, also refers to city," dominated by "eco- the formation of a European nomic, religious, racial and Liberation Front by Yockey foreign pressure groups," and some of his friends in all part of a system that England about 13 years ear- "needs to be thrown out." lier in 1949. Yockey's "brilli- "In the meantime, how ance shone through," said can we cope with these Carlo, in organizing this grasping pressure groups? "constructive movement" We must compete with Its manifesto, not included them. We must compete in "Imperium," is the Pre with them on their own clamation of London. terms until such a time as calls for: • "Immediate expulsion Its spokesmen constantly ' and black militancy and en- "He d o e s n 't drink stress the "centrist" and \7.deaVoied to raise money much," says Byers. "Maybe - "constitutionalist" stance of with the old Youth for Wal- one or two beers now and the organization, as distinct lace mailing list. then before dinner and occa- from any right wing authori- Byers says Carto promised sionally an Old Fitzgerald tarian views that Carto may to help underwrite the in- afterwards." Carto does not hold personally. fant organization but did smoke. "Liberty Lobby has no not do so. NYA ran into Several employees who re- philosophical connection debt. Last fall, Byers for- cently quit Loberty with 'Imperium,' " Lobb in said mally broke with Carto, in- disgruntlement describe Carto in his Feb. 25 letter to corporated a new NYA in - this reporter. Carto as tight-fisted, suspi- suburban Arlington and cious, moody and quick to Not so, says Louis Byers, joined forces with William anger. now president of the Arling- L. Pierce and Robert A. Others who are still there ton-based National Youth Lloyd III, both defectors say just the opposite. "He is Alliance, the overtly Yock- from the National Socialist a very fine person to work eyist organization developed White Peoples Party, ,for- in part by Carto in early for," says head bookkeeper ' merly the American Nazi- Clara Sandahl. "In m six 1969. Party. • years here, I've never had "When NYA was being In the meantime, a -com- any cross words from him." formed," Byers said, "Carto ,peting NYA groltp in subur- After a smooth upward ' told me Liberty Lobby was ban Detroit, Mich., an- course during the 1960s, Lib; a temporary institution flounced -its formation under erty Lobby suffered a de- which would eventually be the leadership of Patrick 'undercut' by NYA and fade crease in contributions in the entire pressure group Tifer, who had been ousted 1970. This coincided with out of existence. 'Undercut' system can be eliminated in the early tlays of the orig- the alleged theft of lobby and government re-estab- was the word he used." inal NYA, according to mailing lists and eruption of Several disillusioned Lib- Byers. Tifer now claims the several disputes and civil ' lished in consistency with erty Lobby employees have American traditions. allegiance of Carto. He pub- court actions between Lib- since quit, said Byers, "be- lished a letter of endorse- "Such a strategy requires erty Lobby and competing. cause through Carto's asso- ment from Carto in Febru- organizations and individu- the establishment of a ciation with me and NYA, beachhead on the battle- ary and described him as some of them Liberty . they saw their little consti- the "founder" of the "origi- Lobby defectors. ground of Washington; an tutionalist bubble beginning actual office must be set up. nal" NYA. Finally, the Internal Rev- to break." (Though Carto has access enue Service has now filed It will contact legislators Byers and Carto, for that on matters deemed vital to to large sums of money claims of tax deficiences matter, have split up, too. through his organizations, against Liberty Lobby total- America by speaking for the Their breakup comes at the citizen's whole and long- his personal life is one of ing $56,762 for 1966 and- end of the tangled if brief moderation. 1967. Lobby attorneys are range interest, rather than history of NYA. his limited and shortsighted He lives in a small unas- contesting the claims in - The organization was orig- suming apartment in Re- court. temporary interest. It will inally a mailing list spin-off be a lobby for liberty and dondo Beach, Calif., a sub- Though beseiged now by from the national Youth for urb of Los Angeles. When in the Establishment, Car to national sovereignty: a LIB- (George) Wallace committee ERTY LOBBY!" Washington, he stays in a says his organization still is after the 1968 presidential sparsely furnished apart- Thus Liberty Lobby began against both left 'wing radi- election. ment in the basement of the calism in the United States "AfSerations in late 1957 and Carto took over NYA and Liberty Building. has grown steadily since. It and a posible severe back- put Byers, then a close He wears inexpensive lash against it. now employs more than 40 friend, in charge, Byers said. suits ' and drives -a 1965 staff workers, maintains "I, who strive to prevent The organization pushed Dodge Dart. He often dines this eventuality," said Carto computerized mailing lists "Imperium" and other Yock- at the Mike Palm Restau- and has grossed close to $1 in his Feb. 25 letter, "should eyist literature, called for rant, an inexpensive eatery be the last person to be million annually in recent violence when necessary to on 'Pennsylvania Avenue years. blamed for the event, if i' wipe out campus radicalism near the Liberty Building. comes to pass."