Special Report the Anti-semitism of the Uslp

The National Caucus of Labor Committees and the United States Labor Party (NCLC-USLP), described as “anti-Semitic” and “neo-Nazi,” ran their own guerrilla warfare training camp near Argyle in upstate New York in 1974. This fact has been documented by the FBI and former NCLC-USLP members and has been reported this year by The New York Times, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and Our Town.

“According to FBI documents, the NCLC operated its own training camp on a farm owned by a cult member” there and NCLC members and their West German counterparts reportedly “trained in explosives and demolitions, small arms, and small unit tactics, ” it was reported in a series of articles written by Dennis King that began Aug. 26 in Our Town, a Manhattan giveaway.

Times reporters Howard Blum and Paul L. Montgomery, writing on Oct.7, used as their source of information “former party members who say they participated in training.” The Times article mentions Mexican party members, as well as West Germans, training in Argyle.

INFORMATION OBTAINED BY THE JTA

Further information was obtained by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency from Sgt. Russ Guard, a New York State policeman who is stationed in South Glens Falls and lives in Argyle. According to his account, a homicide investigation that was unrelated to the USLP ultimately ended their upstate operation.

A young girl had been missing from the area and, in searching for a possible homicide victim, State Police discovered the training camp on an isolated back road. The camp “died out” after its discovery, he said.

As a resident of the area, Guard said he remembers seeing USLP members come to Argyle for their weekend drills. They came in “a caravan of two or three civilian jeeps painted in army colors, he recalls, wearing war surplus uniforms, and “sitting militarily straight, ” some with whips. At first they drilled with cutout plywood rifles and later with air rifles, he said. After the murder investigation, he believes the farm was vacant for several years and then sold.

ADVANCED MILITARY TRAINING

USLP has now “graduated” to more advanced military training. “Recently, at least eight members of the party have undergone intensive training in ‘anti-terrorist’ techniques at a camp in Powder Springs, Go, that is operated by Mitchell WerBell 3d, an international arms dealer who has served as

Interviewed by King for Our Town on Sept 14, WerBell admitted strong support for the ultra-right Liberty Lobby, and said he became a security consultant for NCLC in 1977. “We train them in martial arts, pistol shooting, paramedical skills, the use of shotguns, rifle counter sniper activity, counter-surveillance, and the control of 3-car caravans,” he told King.

WerBell also said that seven or eight NCLC members had so far taken his 10-day COBRAY program, at a cost of $2000 per trainee, and that his school mainly trains policemen and private protection agents. NCLC-USLP defectors told King that the number was much higher than WerBell’s figure.

Although WerBell told King, “My company is apolitical,” his own political affiliations imply that his relationship with NCLC may go beyond paramilitary training. His home, on the grounds of his training school, is reportedly a “frequent center for social gatherings of the Right.”

In addition to his membership in Liberty Lobby and close friendship with its leader, Willis Carto, WerBell has allowed his name to be used to promote an anti-Semitic NCLC book entitled, “DOPE, INC.” Liberty Lobby is selling DOPE, INC. on consignment and working with NCLC to build a “Committee to Dismantle the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith,” King reports.

“Violence by the cult has been confined to unarmed physical attacks on Jews by NCLC literature salesmen at airports and railroad stations, usually as a spontaneous result of ideological debate, “he added but he questions whether the COBRAY training of NCLC security guards is an indication that the LaRouche group is planning a “new-wave of violence” in the future.

A PUZZLING ASPECT

A puzzling aspect of the NCLC-USLP is that, despite their anti-Semitism, there are many Jewish members in the group. These include high-ranking members of the intelligence and security sections, according to The Times.

Analyzing the reasons for this phenomenon, Out Town says that Lyndon LaRouche, Jr., head of NCLC-USLP and their candidate for President of the U.S. in 1980, has been able to “win over hundreds of young Jewish intellectuals and use them as a Judenrat shock brigade….When they campaign for his anti-Semitic program, he is able to point to their Jewish names as ‘proof’ that his organization is not really anti-Semitic but only ‘anti-Zionist’…LaRouche promises them immunity from the coming NCLC-directed Holocaust if they thoroughly and completely repudiate their Jewishness.”

LaRouche is dangerous, Our Town says, because he is “an authentic if warped genius” who has taken American anti-Semitism out of its traditional Know-nothing illiteracy and rendered it theoretical.” Rather than the stereotyped uniformed neo-Nazis, his group is comprised of young intellectuals, some of them Jewish.

LaRouche’s economic plans are “brilliantly conceived” and have “genuine merit, ” while he is “skillful at enclosing his real political ideas within a protective covering of conspiracy theories, “Our Town adds. He has also allied him self with groups that are not now neo-Nazi, by working jointly with them on specific issues and thus gaining access to their memberships.

LaRouche is aiming at a coalition of “Midwest industrialists, managerial technocrats, ‘traditionalist’ labor leaders, Blacks disillusioned with liberalism, law enforcement officials, military officers and southern segregationist/ Liberty Lobby types… united by mutual hatred of a scapegoat; international Jewry…. LaRouche has cautioned his cadre not to expect to ‘dominate’ such a coalition, “but to “cooperate with other forces,” Our Town says.

This places NCLC “on a higher level of sophistication than virtually every other extremist sect In the U.S. today,” Our Town concludes, and warns that “given a major economic crisis and polarization of American society,” LaRouche’s “brilliant long-range strategy” could actually bring NCLC-USLP to power.