Extreme right-wing, paranoid, economic snake-oil salesmen, racists, mad cultists, swindlers: these are just some of the epithets which have been (justifiably) used to describe the Citizens Electoral Council and its American backers, the LaRouche movement. This organisation has come to public attention yet again in the last two weeks with revelations by disgruntled former members Don Veitch and John Seale of the CEC's underhand activities since it set up its national headquarters in Coburg in 1992.Are CEC and LaRouche anti-semitic? The CEC do not engage in Christian theological anti-semitism, or blanket condemnations of the Jewish people.There is no evidence of their involvement in terrorism against Jewish targets,in sending offensive anti-semitic insults through the mails, in tombstone desecration, or in synagogue arson. Nevertheless, they are unquestionably anti-semitic. Their methods are more sophisticated than those of traditionalanti-semites: instead of attacking the entire Jewish community, they focus on prominent Jewish leaders (Edgar Bronfman in the US, the Leibler brothers (here) and Jewish organisations (the Anti-Defamation League, B'nai B'rith and its Anti-Defamation Commission). The technique is simple: circulate false and defamatory information in the hope that some of the mud will stick. Falsely accusing Jewish leaders of being involved in the drug trade or the distribution of pornography can be thought of as a modern version of the ancient libels that the Jews used Christian children's blood to make matzah or poisoned the village wells. And claiming that Jewish organisations are part of a massive international conspiracy involving government departments and intelligence agencies is a late 20th century version of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.

There is nothing new about this: individual anti-semites have been doing it for years. Every few weeks, members of the Jewish community pass on to the Anti-Defamation Commission some anonymous and semi-literate letter they've received which contains anti-semitic conspiracy theory themes. And there's also nothing new about organised hate groups circulating anti-semitic publications. What is different about the CEC and their LaRouchite backers is that there is big money behind them. Almost a million dollars has been raised in Australia, and many times that amount in the United States. And their method of circulation is not the semi-literate hand-written note: it is the glossy publication, the printed newspaper, written in literate English, distributed in tens of thousands of copies, to politicians, to the media, to entire streets in Caulfield. All this costs money, lots of money.

Where does the money come from? Much of it is lifted from the pockets of gullible people. In the United States, LaRouche has been released on parole after serving five years of a fifteen year sentence (and several of his associates are still in jail) for criminal offences related to the defrauding of banks and individuals of $30 million. A typical ploy is to set up fake front organisations (e.g. the "Anti-Drug Coalition") and then fleece innocent and impressionable members of the public. There is a thick file of cases of people being "encouraged" to hand over large parts of their life savings to help fight fake "worthy causes". In 1990, the Washington Post gave details of a typical case: Helen Overington, a wealthy, 83-year-old Baltimore widow, was defrauded of her life savings of $741,268 by the LaRouche organisation. Another form of fraud is carried out through illicit withdrawals from individual credit card accounts. The money goes straight into the coffers of the LaRouchites.

It's a thriving business and leads to a marvellous life-style (if you're not in jail). Lyndon LaRouche and his wife Helga own no property, have no personal bank accounts in the US, have no income, yet they live in a multi-million dollar mansion in Virginia and have access to a town house, property in Germany, limousines, armed bodyguards and unlimited cash for personal purchases. However surprise, surprise they pay no income tax.

No criminal charges have been laid as yet in Australia, but there is some evidence of attempts by locals to copy the LaRouchite methods. In 1994,NSW MLA the Reverend Fred Niles stated that CEC fundraisers had contacted supporters of his Call to Australia party and used Niles' name in an attempt to obtain Bankcard numbers.

The obvious question arises, how do they manage to attract people to work for such a sleazy organisation? To suggest that it is nothing other than plain criminal greed is too simple. The LaRouche movement has all the elements of a cult. New adherents are sometimes pressured, even brain-washed, and sometimes encouraged to break away from their families. Followers treat LaRouche as a guru, and praise his genius in the most extravagant terms: he is an "economic thinker", a "statesman." One feature of a cult is that its belief system is closed to any form of rational argument. Criticisms of LaRouche's economic theories as hogwash are easily dismissed: the critics obviously are not intelligent enough to appreciate the genius of the man. His convictions for major crime are dismissed, with wild claims that he is a political prisoner. Indeed, the fact that he has been jailed is used as "evidence" of the conspiracy against him. Needless to say, his supporters insist that all the charges against him are based on fabricated evidence, part of a gigantic conspiracy involving British Intelligence, the United States government and (of course!) the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

Who are the people involved in Australia?

A few of the key characters have remained the same during the past few years. Queensland farmer Maurice Hetherington, one of the founders, became infected with the LaRouche virus in 1989. In 1991, he defended LaRouche, arguing that he was "set up by Big Brother. There is a network of people trying to create a new world order, a one-world government... He wrote a book exposing the big guys in the international drug cartels. He named them all, and they had to get him." Hetherington has remained in the CEC organisation, although with the shift f its headquarters to Melbourne, he probably plays a smaller role these days. Craig Isherwood, the CEC's national secretary and standing as a candidate in Wills at next month's election, has been with the CEC since its move to Coburg in 1992. Numerous American LaRouche operatives have visited Australia in the hope of finding fresh pastures to graze upon. The most regular of these has been Al Douglas, who is in charge of the "Asia and Pacific desk" of Executive Intelligence Review, one of several regular LaRouche publications. Douglas sees conspiracies everywhere he looks. In 1988, he claimed that the New Zealand Labor Party and the (right-wing) NZ Business Roundtable were colluding with the Soviet KGB. The supposed purpose of this collusion was the systematic and deliberate destruction of New Zealand, with the Soviets gaining military advantage while the businessmen gained financially.

Others have come and gone. In its earliest days, the CEC was heavily infiltrated with people with League of Rights connections. Don Auchterlonie (the League's Gippsland regional chairman), Betty Luks (later to become its South Australian state director) and Reg Watson of the League-linked Anglo-Saxon-Keltic Society in Tasmania were all early supporters. The ideological positions were initially similar: conspiracy theory views of the world, social credit economics, citizens' initiated referenda, opposition to fluoridation, and so on. But eventually the two fringe groups began to part company. Given the League's avowed dedication to law-and-order and Christian decency, the then-national director Eric Butler undoubtedly wanted to distance himself from LaRouche after the latter's jail sentence for mail fraud. The love affair really broke down after the LaRouchites began spouting forth that Queen Elizabeth was in charge of the drug trade and responsible for organising international terrorism, and that Prince Philip was to blame for our introduction of land rights for aborigines. Some things are too strong for even the League of Rights to stomach.

Others to become disenchanted with the CEC included Trevor Perrott, John Koehler and (most recently) Don Veitch and John Seale. In 1987, Perrott was elected to a state seat in Queensland at a by-election following the retirement of Joh Bjelke-Petersen. He didn't stay in the CEC long, and a few months later rejoined the National Party. Koehler, on the other hand, stayed for years, attending LaRouche conferences, jointly authoring a book with CEC co-founder Hetherington, and on numerous occasions issuing LaRouche-inspired propaganda. But eventually he left, an apparent convert to the cause of truth, goodness and beauty.Veitch and Seale are more recent converts. All of a sudden, they are making statutory declarations and busily spilling the beans to the press about the evils of the organisation. It took them long enough. Veitch met with LaRouche personnel in Virginia in 1991 and joined the management committee of the CEC the next year. In August 1992, he wrote a 25-page tirade attacking the ABC for its treatment of the CEC and LaRouche. In this document, he parroted the line that in the US, "The ADL has connections to organised crime and the drug industry. LaRouche has exposed the links." Perhaps to demonstrate his even-handed dislike of both mainstream parties, he wrote an article for New Citizen later that year which compared Victorian workers under the Kennett government to the "maquiladoras" in the "slave labor camps on the US-Mexican border", and at the same time attacked Paul Keating for appearing as a champion of the workers when during the 1980s he "functioned as a champion of the bankers' interests".

In 1993, Seale came to Melbourne to work for the CEC, fresh from his stunning electoral success in Western Australia where he stood for the Senate and amassed about a hundred votes. In August, after the CEC had distributed a booklet attacking ADL and the Anti-Defamation Commission, he worked the telephones, endlessly and aggressively badgering state parliamentarians about whether they had received the CEC booklet, whether they agreed with it, and if they said no, whether they were in favour ofcrime. Now Seale, like Veitch, has at last seen the error of his ways. One wonders why it took them so long to recognise that their organisation was riddled with immorality. Perhaps it signifies that truth and goodness really do triumph in the end. Or that some people are slow learners. Or that they know when it's a good time to start covering their backsides.

How much political influence has the movement had in Australia?

Fortunately, very little. Former ACT Legislative Assembly politician Dennis Stevenson, who has offered willing support to half-a-dozen different fringe movements, has been a ready supporter, as has former Northern Territory MLA Denis Collins. More recently Victorian Liberal Rod Atkinson endorsed an advertisement supporting the exoneration of LaRouche. Ken Aldred, a Liberal disendorsed by his own party, created a furore last year with his baseless allegations against Mark Leibler and Michael Costello, made under he safety of parliamentary privilege. The accusations of their involvement in drug money laundering, based on fake letters supposedly emanating from Suriname, are thought to have been planted by LaRouche operatives working through the CEC. In a letter to The Age (8/2/96), Aldred denied this. Which raises the obvious question: who did feed him this scurrilous material? Perhaps this soon-to-be-ex-politician can enlighten the public with an answer? In the meantime, don't hold your breath.

But the vast majority of politicians in this country are too sane to be taken in by the LaRouche nonsense. Ms Franca Arena's words in the NSW state parliament last September reflect the voice of mainstream reason. The CEC, she said, was a "lunatic group... obviously anti-Jewish, anti-Aboriginal and anti-British. It spreads half-truths and outright lies, and rings prominent people asking for interviews for their magazine". She advised anyone receiving materials from the CEC to "throw them in the right place: the garbage bin". Actually, there is possibly another use for them: as evidence to be placed before a formal parliamentary enquiry into the operations of this paranoid and quite possibly criminal organisation. **************************************************************

16 February 1996
* Dr Gardner is the senior District Vice-President of B'nai B'rith District 21.