The “Problems”: IHR Staff / The Cartos

Again, as already mentioned in SR #17, we know that we should let sleeping dogs lie and not open up old wounds. If I had a chance, I wouldn't publish the following article. But we are in the business of posting the contents of all issues of Smith's Report for historical and archival reasons—all of its contents. So we won't hide this opinion piece either. –Webmaster, Sept. 8, 2015

The Problems resulting from the Staff at IHR divorcing its founder, Willis Carto, continue, to the detriment of all, which has always been a concern for all. It's not possible for me to stand aside from the fallout entirely, and not right that I try. I have a responsibility toward those of you who support my work to report honestly how I view the on-going debate. At the same time, I don't want to get lost in the sea of innuendo, rumor, slurs and slander and all the rest of it. I'll do what I can with the space and time I have.

In the Fall 94 issue of this Report I expressed my dismay and annoyance that Willis Carto would accuse Andrew Allen of being an agent for the Anti­Defamation League of B'nai B'rith who has a goal of destroying the IHR from within. If Catro had even attempted to provide us with proof that the charge is true, that would have been one thing. But he didn't.

He did what slanderers do. They throw their unproven and unprovable charges out where they will cause the most confusion, the most dissension, and just let them lay.

I didn't try to convince you that Allen is not an agent for the ADL (now The Spotlight is publishing charges that Allen is a “Mossad” agent), or that he is not working to destroy the Institute from the inside. I can't prove those kinds of negatives. I simply asked that Willis put what proof he has for his charges against Allen on the table where we can all have a look at them. He's put no proof on the table. That fact alone suggests to me he has none. In any event, why should anyone at all believe the charges if they can not he demonstrated to he true?

Elisabeth Carto.

I've known Elisabeth about as long as I've known Willis; but haven't known her even as well as I've known Willis, which was that we were acquainted and crosscd paths on average perhaps once a year. While I knew she had long been dissatisfied with my work for the Institute, she was nevertheless always friendly and decent toward me personally.

Oftentimes when I was hanging out with staff in IHR offices or we were having lunch or a beer someplace and someone was complaining about Willis doing everything wrong here or everything wrong there, I'd throw in something about how seeing that he'd been married to the same intelligent beautiful woman for 30 years he must be doing something right.

A couple weeks after I mailed out Smith's Report #17, I received a response from Elizabeth Carto in the form of a one­page typed letter. I'm not sure what the line across the top signifies, “A personal letter from Elisabeth Carto to Bradley Smith, June 22nd 1994,” but her letter is her response to my article in SR #17, there is no privileged information about either herself or her husband in it, and because its tone demonstrates a certain something about both, and because it addresses a number of issues that stand between the two sides in The Problems, and because it covers a lot of ground in a few words, and because I suppose it is precisely the “information” and the slurs that she and her husband repeat to others, I'm reproducing it for your information. The letter is signed Elisabeth Carto in blue ink which mayor may not reproduce well. I've reproduced the letter in full on the opposite page.

My Response

Paragraphs 1 thru 3: no response, but I like the way they reveal the “tone” this intelligent and educated woman chooses to use.

Paragraph 4: it's true of course that I have friends at the IHR. It's true that over the years I talked to O'Keefe more than any of the others and that I have been closest to him.

It's true I have no right to any “so­called” legacy.

The suggestion that I never attended an editorial conference is true. I never worked at IHR offices, I was never part of The Journal's staff, and was never asked to be a member of The Journal's editorial advisory board. I also did not help write The Bill of Right, but I stand by the ideal of a free press.

Paragraph 5: it's true that Mermelstein brought bis second suit against IHR because of (true) statements I wrote in the IHR Newsletter while I was it's editor. It's true Willis never scolded me over the suit. Did Willis “pay” for anything related to the ensuing trial? I doubt it. Who will every know? I think Elisabeth writes here under the mistaken idea that Willis and the IHR are one and the same thing. They are not.

Re the remarks about me and Henry Miller, I have no response (I do refer to this period in my life, however, in the letter to Campus Editors reprinted here on page three and published in The Statesman at SUNY Stony Brook), other than to note that the language, sadly, appears to represent the sensibilities of its author.

Paragraph 6: the Heart of the Matter! The charge that Andrew Allen is my friend is true.

It's true that Allen was refused admittance to IHR conferences because he represented David McCalden pro bono in a censorship suit against the City of Los Angeles. David and Willis were wrangling like children, and Allen got caught in the middle.

Regarding all the allegations of intrigue here, I'll let time sort them out. There is literally no end to those kinds of charges: innuendos, suggestions, speculation etc., etc.

“We all know without a doubt, that [Allen] was the replacement of ADL chief spy, Roy Bullock.” [see SR # 17]

No, Elisabeth, we don't know that. That, precisely, is the rub. What demonstrable proof is on the table proving Allen is an ADL agent? None. Willis Carto has not provided us with any, and now that I've heard from you, I see you have none either. So, while there is “no doubt” that Allen is a spy, there is “no proof” of it either. That's the long and short of this bitter little affair.

Everyone can play the Carto game. It's called conspiracy mongering. No one will ever be able to prove that Andrew Allen is not an ADL spy, just as none of us can prove that at this moment the CIA is not exterminating Jews in secret homicidal gassing chambers. How can I prove they aren't? I can't even prove that I myself am not an ADL spy. Where does it all end?

One of my supporters is convinced that Willis Carto herself is an agent for the “other side.” Why? He finds it impossible to believe that Carto is so politically and culturally stupid that he would have facilitated Liberty Lobby and Spotlight to support the David Duke campaign for President, to give only one of numerous possible examples. He can't believe that Willis, being listed as “founder” of The Institute, could be so stupid he did not understand the immense negative fallout such support would have for The Institute, for revisionism in general, and for all of us working to make revisionism perceived to be a respectable field of study.

And there's the fact that Willis displayed no interest whatever in backing the Campus Project with the significant resources available to him. How else, my friend argues, can it be explained that the most successful revisionist project ever initiated, a national campaign taking revisionism to hundreds of thousands and perhaps several millions of the most educated and influential Americans alive today, has to be handled by one man working out of his garage with the help of only a part-time secretary? Willis (and his wife?) then must be paid agents of those Jewish institutions dedicated to destroying revisionism.

I've gotten some of the best laughs of my life listening to the perfectly logical reasoning of this man about how Willis Carto must be an agent for the Holocaust Lobby, because he can't be so stupid as his actions make him out to be. But I don't believe Willis is an agent for The Lobby, and I know he's not stupid. His agenda, whatever it is, is simply not the agenda of The Institute for Historical Review. That's the underlying reason why it was necessary to fire him.

“Do you, Bradley, believe that the ADL does not have an agent presently in the revisionist movement in a position to do harm?” It's perfectly possible. I don't know. So what? If I ever receive any information about such an agent, I will go straightaway with it to The Institute. But that isn't the charge being made.

The charge being leveled is that a particular individual is an ADL agent. What proof does Elisabeth have that Andrew Allen is an ADL agent? That's the dirty accusation being made by the Cartos. If they can demonstrate the accusation is true, I'm all ears. If they can't, they have involved themselves in something that is dirty or paranoid or both.

And with regard to the “revisionist movement,” what the hell is that? Who makes up this movement? Am I part of it? I never joined any so-called movement. Does this “movement” have a political agenda? If so, what is it? If it has no political agenda, in what way is it a movement? In any event, the so-called revisionist movement and The Institute for Historical Review are not synonymous.

My work is to help create a public arena in which revisionist theory can become part of ordinary public discourse. That does not make me part of a movement.

Well, when my friend gets onto the subject of Willis being an undercover agent for the Jewish lobbies, it never fails to get me started on a big laugh. Nevertheless, I have no more proof that Willis is an agent representing those who want to destroy revisionism than Willis has that Allen is. The difference between us is that I'm not making that filthy accusation.

“Allen will be exposed in good time.” For myself, this is a good time. What's wrong with right now, Elisabeth?

Three Important Question and Answers about the Coup d'Etat at the IHR by Willis Carto

This is the title of a 4-page letter Willis is circulating to interested parties.

CARTO QUESTION #1) asks if Carto was fired from IHR as the result of a “coup.” Carto says he was.

I agree. IHR staff took over The Institute by means of a coup. That's how these things are done. The director of the board becomes, or is seen to have become, a liability to the corporation, board members or others look for a way to relieve the director of his responsibilities, the director works to fight off the challenge and either succeeds or fails. I used to read about these machinations 50 years ago in John C. Marquand novels. In the event, the original board of directors, which was in Willis's pocket, resigned rather than face a legal challenge from staff, a new board was appointed, Willis was fired as “agent” for the board, and now he's whining about it.

CARTO QUESTION #2) How do the “conspirators” attempt to justify their actions?

Willis writes that the primary justification is “money… an alleged estate left to the IHR… They simply believed I had lots of money squirrelled away and wasn't sharing enough of it with them; they wanted it all…”

“Incidentally, I believe they now have concluded, correctly, that no such cash cache exists…”

IHR has concluded no such thing, and in fact is suing Willis Carlo and others to gain access to the “alleged” estate left to IHR that Willis would like you to believe never existed! Maybe he will pretend the suit against him doesn't exist either, but if you want to find out the truth of the matter, you can check with the SAN DIEGO COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT, NORTH COUNTY DISTRICT, 325 So. Melrose, Suite 100, Vista, California 92083.

The suit involving what Carto calls the “alleged” estate was filed on July 22, 1994. The Case Number is N64584. The Notice To Defendant reads:

The LEGION FOR THE SURVIVAL OF FREEDOM, INC., [IHR & Noontide Press] a Texas corporation, is suing “WILLIS CARTO aka FRANK TOMPKINS aka E.L. ANDERSON, Ph.D.; HENRY FISCHER aka HENRI FISCHER; LIBERTY LOBBY, INC., a corporation; VIBET, INC., a corporation; and DOES 1 through 50, Inclusive.”

At stake are some seven to eight millions of dollars. Maybe that's what Willis means when he writes that the bequest was “much less” than the “ten million” reported by The Los Angeles Times.This is a struggle that has only begun. Who knows how much money is really at stake. If the inheritance was intended to go to Willis Carto, he should have it. If it was intended to go to The Legion for the Survival of Freedom (IHR and Noontide Press), then The Legion should have it. If some other entity was supposed to have it, they should get it.

The primary point to be clear about is that Willis Carto and The Legion for the Survival of Freedom are not the same entity. They are different entities. This is what complicates the issue, as for years Carto has encouraged the understanding that he and the corporation are one and the same. They are not, so far as I know. If I'm mistaken, I suppose the court will rule in a way that will demonstrate that I am.

I will say up front that, while I believe the “alleged” bequest was intended for IHR and the revisionist work that only IHR can do, I do not know what was in the mind of the lady who left the bequest, and I have no way to find out. I can only hope that it will all be worked out properly in a court of law by persons who are trained to reveal the truth of such matters.

If the court decides that The Legion / IHR was the intended recipient, IHR could begin a publishing program beyond anything it has even considered in the past. If the court decides Willis should get the money, he can pour it back into some new racialist or conspiratorial campaign about which he claims to have privileged information that is too important to reveal to the public.

CARTO QUESTION #3) Does the “Polis” Decision Prove Carto is Wrong? The decision (18 November 93) by Judge Robert J. Polis of the California Superior Court ruled, shortly and sweetly, that “Carto's” board ofdirectors was illegal and that The Legion's new board made up of John Curry, Fritz Berg and Andrew Allen is the legitimate board o fdirectors for the Legion for the Survival of Freedom, Inc. It's simply the law of the land. Carto has a lot of complaints about the decision and about Judge Polis. It's up to Willis to have the decision reversed. I'm told it isn't likely.

Willis claims that “his” board resigned because they were “threatened” and “cajoled” into resigning by IHR staff. It's true. That's how these things work. Threats of legal action terrified the Carto board into resigning, because its members understood that, following Willis's lead, they had failed for years to run the board according to the corporate law of the State of Texas. If the original board had the best interest of the Legion in mind, rather than the best interests of Willis Carto, it would have operated legally, and staff would not have been able to force its resignation.

If you want a copy of Carto's 4-page letter, send a cease and I'll mail it to you.

Carl Hottelet

Carl is a friend and supporter of myself, The Institute, and Willis. He's closer to Willis and Elisabeth than he is to me. I remember having dinner or drinks with the Hottelets and others in Washington D.C. maybe four years ago where a good time was had by all. Other than that occasion, I don't believe we've been in company.

Carl is distressed by the way I expressed my annoyance with Willis in SR #17, and not being the retiring sort he has written me a 10-page, single-spaced letter expressing his annoyance and challenging me to answer a series of questions. He would like me to distribute the full letter to all my readers, but I'm going to decline to do so, for various reasons. However, the full letter has already been published in Spotlight. If you don't read Spotlight and would like to read the letter for yourself, drop me a s.a.s.e. and I'll send it to you.

While much of what Carl covers is in Elisabeth's letter, his emphasis is different.

Carl notes that I never worked at IHR so that my reporting of what went on in IHR offices between Willis and staff is hearsay and “that from tainted sources.” Carl hasn't worked at IHR either and has gotten his info the way I've gotten mine, though probably from fewer sources.

Carl writes that I didn't work for IHR until July of 1984, so I had no way of knowing first hand what went on before then. I was in regular contact with McCalden and the others beginning in the Spring of 1980. I remember the morning in the parking lot in front of the original offices, those that were to be destroyed by arson four years later, when McCalden told me he was going to leave IHR because of irreconcilable differences with Willis. There was no hint that he had been fired, and in fact he continued to work at the Institute for several more weeks.

Carl notes that I don't mention that two of The Journal editors have since died of AIDS, which I suppose implies a moral condemnation. I don't see dying of AIDS as a moral issue, and do not regard homosexuality in itself as a moral issue. Homosexuals have enough problems in human society without their being attacked by the morality police.

Carl and Willis both are concerned with Tom Marcellus and another employee being Scientologists. Tom was always completely open about being a Scientologist and liked to talk Scientology when we had the time. Willis knew Tom was a Scientologist when Tom was first hired, when he was made Director of IHR a couple years later, when he quit in 1985, and when he was rehired in 1987. Now I'm supposed to be worried because Tom is a Scientologist. Maybe I'm an innocent, but I'm not worried.

With regard to what Scientologists believe, I don't understand what could be stranger than what is believed by Catholics, Evangelicals or Mormons. We are a people saturated through and through with religious cults and beliefs. Why pick out this one for special opprobrium? Particularly in this instance. I've known Tom now going on to 15 years, and he appears to be considerably saner and cleaner than those who attack him over his religious beliefs.

With regard to the “Edison bequest,” Carl writes that an “employer's financial affairs are outside the legitimate concern of his employees.” This is precisely where Carl goes wrong. My guess is, since he gets his information about “The Problems” by hearsay, that this is from Willis rather than from the relevant documents, that he is still under the impression that The Legion is somehow a privately owned company, that Willis Carto owns it and is its chief executive, and that IHR staff are his employees. Not true.

NOT TRUE!

The Legion for the Survival of Freedom (IHR / Noontide Press) is a Texas corporation. It has a board of directors. That's how corporations are managed. Willis used to be an agent for the board. He no longer is. He was fired. Staff are employees of IHR/Noontide, not of Willis. There was a public pretense for years that Willis “owned” IHR. That's because “his” board forwarded the pretense. His board is gone with the wind. Willis is gone with the wind.

This is all the room I have for THE PROBLEMS in this issue. There is a lot more in Carl's letter. Send a s.a.s.e. and I'll send you the full 10-page letter.

But right now I have some information that is too interesting and too important to let it go until next issue.