Liberty Lobby
Liberty Lobby was a far-right think tank and lobby group founded in 1958 by Willis Carto. Carto was known for his promotion of antisemitic conspiracy theories, white nationalism, and Holocaust denial.[1][2][3][4]
Formation
The organization produced a daily five-minute radio show called This is Liberty Lobby, which was broadcast on the Mutual Broadcasting System and other radio stations. At the conclusion of each show, listeners were invited to get a copy of its "America First" pamphlet.[5]
Views[edit]
Antisemitism[edit]
Liberty Lobby described itself as a conservative political organization.
Evidence for the antisemitic stance of Liberty Lobby began to mount when numerous letters by Carto excoriating the Jews (and blaming them for world miseries) began to surface, which included statements such as "How could the West [have] been so blind. It was the Jews and their lies that blinded the West as to what Germany was doing. Hitler's defeat was the defeat of Europe and America." Carto's letters eventually became the subject of a federal civil lawsuit.[16] There were several other defamation lawsuits arising from publications that described Liberty Lobby as anti-semitic or racist, but it appears that Liberty Lobby never won any of these cases.
Other evidence of the group's antisemitic views includes the charge that the group's file cabinets contained extensive pro-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan literature. In 1969, True magazine ran a story by Joe Trento, titled "How Nazi Nut Power Has Invaded Capitol Hill".[17]
Repatriation of blacks back to Africa[edit]
Beginning in October 1966 two American journalists, Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson, published a series of stories in their widely-syndicated "Washington Merry-Go-Round" column which recounted the findings of a former employee, Jeremy Horne.[18] Horne said he had discovered a box of correspondence between Carto and numerous government officials establishing the Joint Council of Repatriation (JCR), a forerunner organization to the Liberty Lobby. The JCR stated that their fundamental purpose was to "repatriate" blacks "back to Africa". Ex-Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Thomas Pickens Brady and various members of the White Citizens' Councils who had worked to establish the JCR contributed to the founding of Liberty Lobby. Other correspondence referred to U.S. Congressional support for the emerging Liberty Lobby, such as from South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond (Dixiecrat presidential candidate in 1948) and California U.S. Representative James B. Utt.
Pearson reported that Utt, as well as Congressman John M. Ashbrook, Ellis Yarnal Berry, W. Pat Jennings and William Jennings Bryan Dorn, received "Statesman of the Republic" award from Liberty Lobby for their "right-wing activities".[19]
The Liberty Lobby sued for libel based on the stories in a case decided in 1986 by the U.S. Supreme Court, Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. The case was the most quoted Supreme Court precedent in 1997 because it established the guidelines for issuing summary judgment to end frivolous lawsuits.[20]