The LaRouche movement has been accused of violence, harassment, and heckling since the 1970s. On February 24, 2021, Zepp-LaRouche denounced the LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC) and its treasurer, Barbara Boyd, for going "in a direction which I consider contrary to the central policies that my husband stood for. ... [S]ince he passed away in February 2019, Mrs. Boyd and her associates ... have embarked on a path that I believe misrepresents both my and Mr. LaRouche's positions." and has stated that LPAC and Boyd do not represent the LaRouche movement. She has taken legal action against LPAC to "immediately cease and desist, both now and in the future" from "using Mr. LaRouche's name, likeness, and potentially other confusingly similar terms."
1960s and Operation Mop-Up In the 1960s and 1970s, LaRouche was accused of fomenting violence at anti-war rallies with a small band of followers. According to LaRouche's autobiography, it was in 1969 that violent altercations began between his members and
New Left groups. He wrote that a faction of
Students for a Democratic Society which later became the
Weathermen began assaulting LaRouche's faction at Columbia University, and there were later attacks by the
Communist Party, and the
SWP. These conflicts culminated in "Operation Mop-Up", a series of physical attacks by LaRouche's
National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC) on rival left-wing groups. LaRouche's
New Solidarity reported NCLC confrontations with members of the Communist Party and Socialist Workers Party, including an April 23, 1973 incident at a debate featuring Labor Committee mayoral candidate
Tony Chaitkin that erupted in a brawl, with chairs flying. Six people were treated for injuries at a local hospital. In the mid-1973 the movement formed a "Revolutionary Youth Movement" to recruit and politicize members of street gangs in New York City and other eastern cities. The NCLC allegedly trained some members in terrorist and guerrilla warfare. Topics included weapons handling, explosives and demolition, close order drills, small unit tactics, and military history. described it as the "
COINTELPRO memo", which he says showed "that the FBI was considering supporting an assassination attempt against LaRouche by the Communist Party USA." LaRouche wrote in 1998: The FBI was allegedly concerned that the movement might try to take power by force. FBI Director Clarence Kelly testified in 1976 about the LaRouche movement:
Association with Roy Frankhouser and Mitch WerBell In the later 1970s, the U.S. Labor Party came into contact with
Roy Frankhouser, a felon and government informant who had infiltrated a variety of groups. The LaRouche organization believed Frankhouser was a federal agent assigned to infiltrate right-wing and left-wing groups, and that he had evidence that these groups were being manipulated or controlled by the FBI and other agencies. Frankhouser introduced LaRouche to
Mitchell WerBell III, a former
Office of Strategic Services operative, paramilitary trainer, and arms dealer. Some members allegedly took a six-day "anti-terrorist" course at a training camp operated by WerBell in Powder Springs, Georgia. In 1979, LaRouche denied that the training sessions took place. WerBell introduced LaRouche to covert operations specialist General
John K. Singlaub, who later said that members of the movement implied in discussions with him that the military might help "lead the country out of its problems", a view which he rejected. In 1984, LaRouche said that he had employed WerBell as a security consultant, but that the allegations coming from Werbell's circle were fabrications that originated with operatives of the FBI and other agencies.
Labor unions In 1974 and 1975, the NCLC allegedly targeted the
United Auto Workers (UAW),
United Farm Workers (UFW), and other trade unionists. They dubbed their campaign "Operation Mop Up Woodcock", a reference to their anti-communist campaign of 1973 and to UAW president
Leonard Woodcock. The movement staged demonstrations that allegedly turned violent. They issued pamphlets attacking the leadership as corrupt and perverted. The UAW said that members had received dozens of calls a day accusing their relatives of homosexuality, reportedly at the direction of NCLC "security staff". Leaflets called an Ohio local president a "Woodcocksucker". LaRouche acknowledged that his campaign workers used impersonation to collect information on political opponents. Their names appeared on a photocopied "New Hampshire Target List" acquired by the
Associated Press, found in a LaRouche campaign worker's hotel room; the list stated, "these are the criminals to burnwe want calls coming in to these fellows day and night". New Hampshire journalist Jon Prestage said he was threatened after a tense interview with LaRouche and his associates, and found several of his cats dead after he published an account of the meeting. A LaRouche associate denied responsibility for the dead cats. distributed leaflets accusing U.S. Attorney William Weld of involvement in drug dealing, and "sang a jingle advocating that he be hanged in public". The
Schiller Institute sent a team of ten people, headed by
James Bevel, to
Omaha, Nebraska, to pursue the
Franklin child prostitution ring allegations in 1990. Among the charges investigated by the grand jury was that the Omaha Police Chief Robert Wadman and other men had sex with a 15-year-old girl at a party held by the bank's owner. The LaRouche groups insisted there was a cover-up. They distributed copies of the Schiller Institute's
New Federalist newspaper and went door-to-door in Wadman's neighborhood, telling residents he was a child molester. When Wadman took a job with the police department in
Aurora, Illinois, LaRouche followers went there to demand he be fired, and after he left there followed him to a third city to make accusations. In the 1970s,
Nelson Rockefeller was a central figure in the movement's theories. An FBI file described them as a "clandestinely oriented group of political schizophrenics who have a paranoid preoccupation with Nelson Rockefeller and the CIA." The movement strongly opposed Rockefeller's nomination for U.S. vice president and heckled his appearances. Federal authorities were reportedly concerned that the situation might turn violent. One target of LaRouche's attention has been
Henry Kissinger. LaRouche allegedly has called Kissinger a "faggot", a "traitor", a British or Soviet agent and a "Nazi", and has linked him to the
murder of
Aldo Moro. His followers heckled and disrupted Kissinger's appearances. In 1982, a member of LaRouche's
Fusion Energy Foundation, Ellen Kaplan, asked Kissinger at an airport terminal if it were true that he slept with young boys; Kissinger and his wife, Nancy, were on their way to a heart operation. In response, Nancy Kissinger grabbed the woman by the throat. Kaplan pressed charges and the case went to trial. A LaRouche organization sold posters of Illinois politician
Jane Byrne described by
Mike Royko as "border(ing) on the pornographic." In 1986, two LaRouche candidates, Janice Hart and Mark Fairchild, won in the Democratic primaries for two statewide positions in Illinois, Secretary of State and Lieutenant Governor. Campaign appearances by Democratic gubernatorial candidate
Adlai Stevenson III, who refused to share the ticket with them and shifted instead to the "Solidarity Party" formed for the purpose, were interrupted by a trio of singers that included Fairchild and Chicago Mayoral candidate Sheila Jones. Illinois Attorney General
Neil Hartigan's home was visited late at night by a group of LaRouche followers who chanted, sang, and used a bullhorn "to exorcise the demons out of Neil Hartigan's soul". Before the primaries a group of LaRouche supporters reportedly stormed the campaign offices of Hart's opponent and demanded that a worker "take an AIDS test". In 1984, a reporter for a LaRouche publication buttonholed President
Ronald Reagan as he was leaving a
White House press conference, demanding to know why LaRouche was not receiving
Secret Service protection. As a result, future press conferences in the
East Room were arranged with the door behind the president so he can leave without passing through the reporters. In 1992, a follower shook hands with President
George H. W. Bush at a campaign visit to a shopping center. The follower would not let go, demanding to know, "When are you going to let LaRouche out of jail?" The Secret Service had to intervene. During the 1988 presidential campaign, LaRouche activists spread a rumor that the Democratic candidate, Massachusetts Governor
Michael Dukakis, had received professional treatment for two episodes of mental depression. Media sources did not report the rumor initially to avoid validating it. However, at a press conference a reporter for a LaRouche publication,
Nicholas Benton, asked President Reagan whether Dukakis should release his medical records. Reagan replied "Look, I'm not going to pick on an invalid." Within an hour after the press conference Reagan apologized for the joke. Republican candidate Vice President George H. W. Bush's aides got involved in sustaining the story, and Dukakis was obliged to deny having had depression. To avoid the negative backlash on his own campaign, Bush made a statement urging Congress to pass the
Americans with Disabilities Act, which he signed upon gaining office and which became one of his proudest legacies. At a 2003 Democratic primary debate repeatedly interrupted by hecklers,
Joe Lieberman quoted
John McCain, "no one's been elected since 1972 that Lyndon LaRouche and his people have not protested". The first reported incidence of heckling by LaRouche followers was at the Watergate hearings in 1973. Since then, LaRouche followers have repeatedly disrupted speaking events and debates featuring a large variety of speakers.
Conflict with journalists In the 1980s, journalists including
Joe Klein and
Chuck Fager from Boston's alternative weekly,
The Real Paper, and
Chicago Tribune columnist
Mike Royko alleged harassment and intimidation by LaRouche groups. He also said his assistant found a note with a bullseye and a threat to kill her cat on her door; Also according to Royko, LaRouche supporters picketed the newspaper offices, calling Royko a "degenerate drug pusher" and demanding he take an AIDS test. Another LaRouche group, including
Janice Hart, forced their way into the office of
The Des Moines Registers editor in 1987, haranguing him over his paper's coverage of LaRouche and demanding that certain editorials be retracted. Dennis King began covering LaRouche in the 1970s, publishing a twelve-part series in a weekly Manhattan newspaper,
Our Town, and later writing or cowriting articles about LaRouche in
New Republic,
High Times,
Columbia Journalism Review, and other periodicals, culminating in a full-length biography published in 1989. King alleges numerous instances of anonymous harassment and threats. Leaflets appeared from the NCLC accusing King, a newspaper publisher, and
Roy Cohn, the newspaper's lawyer, of being criminals, homosexuals, or drug pushers. One leaflet included King's home address and phone number. In 1984, a LaRouche newspaper,
New Solidarity, published an article titled "Will Dennis King Come out of the Closet?", copies of which were distributed in his apartment building. In the mid-80s, the
Secretary of State of California,
March Fong Eu, received complaints from the public about harassment by people gathering signatures to qualify the "
LaRouche AIDS Initiative" for the state ballot. She warned initiative sponsors that permission to circulate the petitions could be revoked unless the "offensive activities" stopped. An altercation in 1987 between a LaRouche activist and an AIDS worker resulted in battery charges filed against the latter, who was outraged by the content of some of the material on display; she was found not guilty. In California in 2009, several grocery chains sought restraining orders, damages and injunctions against LaRouche PAC activists displaying materials related to Obama's health care plan in front of their stores, citing customer complaints. In
Edmonds, Washington, a 70-year-old man from Armenia, grew irate at what he viewed as comparisons of Obama to Hitler. He grabbed fliers and tussled with LaRouche supporters, resulting in assault charges against him.
Latin America Brazil's
Party for Rebuilding of National Order (Prona) was described as a "LaRouche friend" and one of its members has been quoted in the
Executive Intelligence Review as saying "We associate ourselves with the wave of ideas which flow from Mr. LaRouche's prodigious mind". Prona gained six seats in the Chamber of Deputies in 2002. After gaining two seats in the 2006 election, the party merged with the larger
Liberal Party forming the
Republic Party. However, there is no independent evidence that Prona or its leaders recognized LaRouche as an influence on their policies, and it has been described as being part of the right-wing Catholic
integralist political tradition. The
Ibero-American Solidarity Movement (MSIA) has been described as an offshoot of LaRouche's Labor Party in Mexico. During peace talks to resolve the
Chiapas conflict, the Mexican Labor Party and the MSIA attacked the peace process and one of the leading negotiators, Bishop
Samuel Ruiz García, whom it accused of fomenting the violence and of being controlled by foreigners. Posters caricaturing Ruiz as a rattlesnake appeared across the country. The movement strongly opposes perceived manifestations of
neo-colonialism, including the
International Monetary Fund, the
Falklands/Malvinas War, etc., and are advocates of the
Monroe Doctrine.
Australia LaRouche supporters gained control of the formerly far-right
Citizens Electoral Council (CEC) in the mid-1990s. The CEC publishes an irregular newspaper,
The New Citizen.
Craig Isherwood and his spouse Noelene Isherwood are the leaders of the party. In 2000, former
Labor MP
Adrian Bennett established the
Curtin Labor Alliance, a LaRouchite political party formed as a joint venture of the CEC and the Municipal Employees Union of Western Australia. In a speech to its inaugural conference, Bennett predicted an imminent global financial collapse and described Lyndon LaRouche as the "world's leading economist", and attributing the
LaRouche criminal trials to a conspiracy by the "global
oligarchy". The CEC opposed politician
Michael Danby and the
2004 Australian anti-terrorism legislation. For the
2004 federal election, it nominated people for ninety-five seats, collected millions of dollars in contributions, and earned 34,177 votes. The CEC is concerned with
Hamiltonian economics and development ideas for Australia. It has been critical of
Queen Elizabeth II's ownership of an Australian zinc mine and believes that she exerted control over Australian politics through the use of
prerogative power. It has been in an antagonistic relationship with the
B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation Commission, which has been critical of the CEC for perceived anti-semitism. It has asserted that the
Liberal Party is a descendant of the
New Guard and other purported fascists such as Sir
Wilfrid Kent Hughes and Sir
Robert Menzies. The CEC also says it is fighting for "real" Labor policies (from the 1930–40s republican leanings of the
Australian Labor Party).
Europe In Germany, the leader of the Green Party,
Petra Kelly, reported receiving harassing phone calls that she attributed to BüSo supporters. Her speeches were picketed and disrupted by LaRouche followers for years.
Jeremiah Duggan, a student from the UK attending a conference organized by the Schiller Institute and LaRouche Youth Movement in 2003, died in Wiesbaden, Germany, after he ran down a busy road and was hit by several cars. The German police said it appeared to be suicide. A British court ruled that Duggan had died while "in a state of terror." Duggan's mother believes he died in connection with an attempt to recruit him. The German public prosecution service said her son committed suicide. The High Court in London ordered a second inquest in May 2010, which was opened and adjourned. In 2015, a British coroner rejected the suicide verdict and found that Duggan's body bore unexplained injuries which indicated an "altercation at some stage before his death." In Sweden, the former leader of the
European Workers Party (EAP),
Ulf Sandmark, started as a member of the
Swedish Social Democratic Youth League (SSU), and was assigned to investigate the EAP and the ELC. After joining the EAP, he had his membership in SSU revoked. Following the
Olof Palme assassination on February 28, 1986, the Swedish branch of the EAP came under scrutiny as literature published by the party was found in the apartment of the initial suspect,
Victor Gunnarsson. Soon after the assassination,
NBC television in the U.S. speculated that LaRouche was somehow responsible. Later, the suspect was released. No connection with LaRouche was shown. Polish newspapers have reported that
Andrzej Lepper, leader of the populist
Samoobrona party, was trained at the Schiller Institute and has received funding from LaRouche, though both Lepper and LaRouche deny the connection. In February 2008, the LaRouche movement in Europe began a campaign to prevent the ratification of the
Treaty of Lisbon, which, according to the U.S.-based LaRouche Political Action Committee, "empowers a supranational financial elite to take over the right of taxation and war making, and even restore the death penalty, abolished in most nations of Western Europe." LaRouche press releases suggest that the treaty has an underlying fascist agenda, based on the "
Europe a Nation" ideas of Sir
Oswald Mosley.
Asia, Middle East and Africa The Philippines LaRouche Society calls for fixed
exchange rates, US/Philippine withdrawal from Iraq, denunciation of former US Vice President
Dick Cheney, and withdrawal of U.S.
military advisors from
Mindanao. In 2008 it also issued calls for the freezing of foreign debt payments, the operation of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, and the immediate implementation of a national food production program. It has an office in
Manila, operates a radio show and says on its website, "Lyndon LaRouche is our civilization's last chance at world peace and development. May God help us." On the matter of internal politics, LaRouche operative
Mike Billington wrote in 2004, "The Philippines Catholic Church, too, is divided at the top over the crisis. The Church under Jaime Sin|Cardinal [Jaime] Sin, who is now retired, had given its full support to the 'people's power' charade for the overthrow of
Marcos and
Estrada, but other voices are heard today." Later that year, he wrote: According to Billington, representatives of LaRouche's
Executive Intelligence Review and
Schiller Institute had met with Marcos in 1985, at which time LaRouche was warning that Marcos would be the target of a coup, inspired by
George Shultz and
neoconservatives in the Reagan administration, because of Marcos' opposition to the policies of the
International Monetary Fund. The LaRouche movement is reported to have had close ties to the
Ba'ath Party of Iraq. In 1997, the LaRouche movement, and the Schiller Institute in particular, were reported to have campaigned aggressively in support of the
National Islamic Front government in Sudan. They organized trips to Sudan for state legislators, which according to
The Christian Science Monitor was part of a campaign directed at African Americans. The
Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee (LaRouchePAC) has been vocal in its support for the construction of the
Thai Canal across the
Kra Isthmus of Thailand. ==Periodicals and news agencies==