U.S. Labor Party - Criticism

Criticism

In 1979, a two-part article by Howard Blum and Paul L. Montgomery appeared in the New York Times that accused LaRouche of running a cult. Blum wrote that LaRouche had turned the U.S. Labor Party—with 1,000 members listed in 37 offices in North America, and 26 in Europe and Latin America—into an extreme-right, anti-Semitic organization, despite the presence of Jewish members. The Times alleged that members had taken courses in how to use knives and rifles, and had produced reports for South Africa on anti-apartheid groups in the United States. A farm in upstate New York was allegedly being used for guerrilla training, attended by LaRouche members from Germany and Mexico. Several members also underwent a six-day anti-terrorist training course, at a cost of $200 per person per day, at a camp in Powder Springs, Georgia, run by WerBell.

The Times reported that U.S. Labor Party members were playing a dominant role in a number of companies in Manhattan: Computron Technologies Corporation, which included Mobil Oil and Citibank among its clients; World Composition Services, which the Times wrote had one of the most advanced typesetting complexes in the city and had the Ford Foundation among its clients; and PMR Associates, a printing shop that produced the party's publications and some high school newspapers (see below).

Blum wrote that, from 1976 onwards, party members were transmitting intelligence reports on left-wing members to the FBI and local police. In 1977, he wrote, commercial reports on U.S. anti-apartheid groups were prepared by LaRouche members for the South African government, student dissidents were reported to the Shah of Iran's Savak secret police, and the anti-nuclear movement was investigated on behalf of power companies. He also wrote that LaRouche was telling his membership several times a year that he was being targeted for assassination, including by the Queen, "big-time Zionist mobsters," the Council on Foreign Relations, the Justice Department, and the Mossad.

LaRouche denied the newspaper's charges, and said he had filed a $100 million libel suit. His press secretary said the series was intended to "to set up a credible climate for an assassination hit".