1972–1976 The U.S. Labor Party was noted for its controversial campaign tactics, and its invective campaigns against other politicians. In 1974 the
Wisconsin branch of the Labor Party took out a newspaper advertisement announcing that it had filed for an injunction to prevent the
CIA,
FBI, and the
New York Police Department from arresting Lyndon LaRouche (then known as Lyn Marcus) or anyone involved in the movement's
kidnapping of Christopher White, who had married LaRouche's former common-law wife. According to detailed descriptions by LaRouche, White had been
brainwashed by the CIA and
KGB to kill him. The advertisement further reported that the movement had found a cure for
psychosis and encouraged
mental health professionals to contact them to develop this discovery. USLP member Harley Schlanger, a candidate for the
House of Representatives, sued the
Mecklenburg County, North Carolina,
ABC Board in August 1976, for prohibiting campaigning on their property, which he contended was public property. The North Carolina
ACLU joined the suit. The district court judge decided that the activity was protected free speech that could not be prohibited so long as activists did not block doorways. One of the U.S. Labor Party's strategies focused on disrupting other left-wing groups, with questionable success.
William Chapman wrote in
The Washington Post in September 1976 that several public figures on the left had reported threats and intimidation, and said those responsible had identified themselves as members of LaRouche's NCLC or U.S. Labor Party. The linguist and political activist
Noam Chomsky was accused of working for the CIA and being a tool of the Rockefellers; meetings he addressed were disrupted, and threats were made. The philosopher
Paul Kurtz, editor of
The Humanist, was asked during his lectures at the State University of New York why he was practicing genocide. According to Chapman, sociologists
Richard Cloward and
Frances Fox Piven, specialists on urban poverty, were followed around the country having their speaking tours disrupted. Environmentalist
Lester Brown was accused of genocide and told he would be hanged from a lamppost. LaRouche was asked how he expected a party with a five-year record of harassment and threats to win the election; he did not deny the incidents, but replied, "We are only engaged in an open political attack. We just want to challenge them in debate." He denied however that anyone had been threatened with physical harm: "Sure, we're going to get them – but politically." The U.S. Labor Party was well financed, operating from the top floor of a building in New York's garment district. A
teletype network connected the New York office to branches in a further 13 U.S. cities, and also included a two-way, 24-hour link to
Wiesbaden, Germany. Membership was small, ranging from 20 to 100 people per city, with a core of 1,000 to 1,800 members; according to LaRouche, these were complemented by another 13,000 part-time party organizers. LaRouche said the party was funded by members' dues, other small contributions, and the sale of publications like
The Campaigner and
New Solidarity – one a theoretical journal, the other a twice-weekly newspaper. The party fielded candidates in local and congressional elections, generally garnering only insignificant percentages of the popular vote; but there were exceptions – in
Seattle, a Labor Party member running for the city council won 27 percent of the vote, with another candidate who ran for city treasurer garnering 20 percent. LaRouche also described Carter as "a nitwit to begin with, an empty slop jar into which bad lemonade is being poured." and "a known quantity we can live with". LaRouche's name was on the ballot in 23 states plus the
District of Columbia on November 2, 1976. He received 40,043 votes (0.05%). U.S. Labor Party candidates sometimes received unusually high vote totals in comparison with those garnered by other small ideologically-based parties. Following the election, the USLP brought lawsuits in three states challenging Carter's victory. The Republican Party joined the suits in Ohio and New York. Regional coordinator Paul Greenberg sought a recount in Milwaukee, saying "the election has actually been stolen — the actual winner was probably Jerry Ford." For more information on LaRouche's 1976 presidential campaign and the movement's legal disputes with the FEC, see
Lyndon LaRouche U.S. Presidential campaigns.
1977–1982 In August 1977, the USLP said that the
Federal Election Commission (FEC) was intentionally harassing the group as a result of a determination that forgiven debts were the equivalent of campaign contributions. The same month the USLP hired a former
OSS and
CIA operative, mercenary, firearms engineer and arms dealer, Colonel
Mitch WerBell, to protect LaRouche. They said that LaRouche, then living in
Wiesbaden, Germany, was being targeted for assassination by the
"Baader-Meinhof Gang", allegedly on behalf of the Carter administration. Werbell in turn recruited the chief of police from his town,
Powder Springs, Georgia, to set up the security. In 1978, LaRouche began a vigorous USLP campaign for the presidency in 1980, targeting
farmers,
small businessmen and
Teamsters Union members in the
Heartland states. In May 1978, USLP Steering Committee member Elliott Eisenberg campaigned in a Chicago suburb, saying that "the reason we picked Schaumburg is because it's a relatively conservative area ... There's more of a tendency for people to support nuclear power." The USLP vice-presidential candidate, Khushro Ghandhi, campaigned in June 1979 and predicted victory based on support from the
Teamsters (a faction of the union had ties to LaRouche). Running on a pro-nuclear power platform, Ghandhi said that the recent
Three Mile Island accident was ordered by Energy Secretary
James R. Schlesinger in order to create a false energy crisis. By late summer of 1979 the NCLC and LaRouche had decided to join the
Democratic Party so that LaRouche could run for that party's presidential nomination, and the U.S. Labor Party was disbanded. In 1982 the USLP was sued for $1.5 million in damages by
U.S. News & World Report when one of its employees allegedly impersonated a reporter. The magazine won an injunction against the party publications. Lyndon LaRouche, when asked about the matter, said, "I don't know anything about it and I never looked into it, but I do know that the liberal press uses undercover press practices that are abhorrent and beneath description."
Far-right contacts The U.S. Labor Party had contacts with several notable figures on the extreme right wing of American politics. By the late 1970s, members were exchanging almost daily information with
Roy Frankhouser, a government
informant and infiltrator of both
far right and
far left groups who was involved with the
Ku Klux Klan and the
American Nazi Party. The LaRouche organization believed Frankhouser to be a federal agent who had been assigned to infiltrate right-wing and left-wing groups, and that he had evidence that these groups were actually being manipulated or controlled by the FBI and other agencies. LaRouche and his associates considered Frankhouser to be a valuable intelligence contact, and took his links to racist and anti-Semitic groups to be a cover for his intelligence work. Frankhouser played into these expectations, misrepresenting himself as a conduit for communications to LaRouche from "Mr. Ed", an alleged CIA contact, who did not exist. Frankhouser was convicted in 1975 of conspiring to sell half a ton of
dynamite in connection with a school bus bombing that left one man dead, and had marched on Fifth Avenue in New York wearing a
Gestapo uniform. LaRouche had organized his defense campaign regarding the dynamite charges. Frankhouser asserted he was working for the government and was sentenced to five years of
probation instead of the decades in prison he could have received. Frankhouser warned LaRouche in 1977 that, according to his claimed CIA contact "Mr. Ed", he was being considered for
assassination, and introduced him to
Mitchell WerBell III, a noted
Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative, mercenary, operator of a counterterrorism school, accused drug trafficker, firearms engineer, and arms dealer who said he had an ongoing connection to the CIA. It was WerBell who arranged for LaRouche movement members to undergo anti-terrorist training. John George and Laird Wilcox say WerBell learned that the way to keep "LaRouche on the hook was to feed his monstrous ego while jerking his paranoia chain". Frankhouser cultivated a contact with a media source in New York, enabling him to tip off LaRouche about upcoming stories before they became public. Forrest Lee Fick, an associate of Frankhouser from the KKK, was added as a consultant in 1982. George and Wilcox called Frankhouser's deception "one of the biggest hoaxes in the annals of political extremism", made possible by what they called LaRouche's "obsession with
conspiracy theories" and intelligence gathering. The USLP also had brief contact with the
Liberty Lobby led by
Willis Carto. Carto had some exploratory talks with LaRouche about a joint strategy against the
IRS, but the contact was marked by much mutual suspicion. Carto was troubled by the number of
Jews in the U.S. Labor Party, and by their adherence to basic
socialist positions, including their support for
central banking, while Labor Party members considered people in the Liberty Lobby "red-necks" and "idiots". ==Criticism==