Willis Carto and the IHR

Willis Carto is perhaps best known as the founder and director of Liberty Lobby, an organization based in Washington, DC that publishes a weekly tabloid paper, The Spotlight. Carto has also been affiliated with the Institute for Historical Review since its founding in 1978. As those who have attended recent IHR conferences know, the IHR staff acknowledges the many hours of volunteer help that he and his wife Elisabeth have contributed over the years. Neither, however, contributed financially to the IHR. Neither was involved in the IHR's day to day operations, nor was either ever a paid employee. Willis Carto did, however, occasionally act as an “agent” for the Institute and its non-profit corporate parent, the “Legion for the Survival of Freedom, Inc.”

During the past several months, facts have come to light to persuade the IHR senior staff that Carto's relationship with the IHR had become a liability. After much careful deliberation, and on advice of legal counsel, the Institute resolved to terminate this relationship. Accordingly, the corporate Board of Directors, meeting on September 25, voted unanimously to end its relationship with the Cartos. This decision has the full support of the IHR staff, including Director Tom Marcellus and editors Mark Weber, Theodore O'Keefe and Greg Raven.

Editor's Comments

CODOH has hesitated whether or not to post this brief article, as we try to remain neutral when revisionists get into non-scholarly arguments. However, since we are dedicated to posting all the papers of all issues of the JHR, we decided to post those dealing with in-fightings as well. We do, however, reserve the right to comment on this.

In this particular case, this brief notice signaled the beginning of a suicidal inter-revisionist fratricide which fractured and ruined almost the entire organized revisionist community in the U.S., if not worldwide. All the amazing progress revisionism had made in reaching out to the general public, which you have read about up to this point in many papers published in the JHR, was subsequently voided, resources were squandered, talents wasted. The trigger was money, lots of money, which was bequeathed to… well, going into the details of it would already mean to be accused by either side of taking sides, so we are not going there. Be that as it may, fact is that friendships end when a lot of money gets involved and responsibilities and hierarchies aren't properly defined. And that's what happened to the IHR and Carto back in 1993. Which proves once more that, if you want to ruin an idealistic organization, you just have to give it a lot of money. The wolves within will do the rest.

Let this be a warning to everybody!

– Santiago Alvarez