Date:  2 Sep 1986 00:45-EDT 
From: Dale.Amon@h.cs.cmu.edu
To: Space@s1-b.arpa

Phil Agre:

I have done a considerable amount of research on Lyndon, and what
becomes very apparrent very quikcly is that the left calls him right
and the right calls him left. I have read both his literature and of
discussions of him by radicals on both sides of the fence. Extremists
of both stripes have amazingly similar personalities and can actually
switch from one set of extreme beliefs to another with hardly a loss of
a heartbeat.

He is not strictly speaking either left or right. LaRouche is more to
be compared with an Adolph Hitler than anything else. IE a 'national
socialist' type. His organization is largely a personality cult that
revolves around his desire to fix the world by running it himself.

LaRouche's history in politics goes back to WWII when he was a member
of the Communist Party and a conscientious objector until the USSR was
invaded.

He was part of SDS and was involved with a strong splinter group that
left it and then attempted to take on Gus Hall, head of the American
Communist Party. The attempted takeover failed, despite the use of
baseball bats as methods of convincing Gus Hall people to see the
light.

As the political scene shifted, La Rouche apparently saw that the high
tech game was a fertile ground for getting money and that quite a few
engineers and scientists were suckers for a good conspiracy theory. He
begin shifting to a more right policy, but kept many of his old ties
just the same.

Some sources think he currently taking money from the KGB and the
Klu Klux Klan (among others), simultaneously. His people are also known
for pulling scams on credit card numbers, phoney loan deals, etc. He
has numerous front organizations such as Fusion and EJR that are money
making operations.

The inner group is absolutely loyal, and in fact went through something
similar to the techniques of the weather underground cells. Probably
very similar since both groups are originally splinters of SDS. A large
number of his people have been trained by mercenaries in anti
assasination techniques and in covert operations. He runs what some
consider to be the largest and most effective private intelligence
network in the world. Purportedly governments buy information from him.
There is also a possibility the organization has been involved in 'wet
work'. The assasination in Sweden (or was it Norway?) is one
possibility.

His organization is international and has some support in third world
countries because his theories jive with what they want to believe
anyway: that there is a "Northern" conspiracy to prevent them from
developing. Just as was suggested about shuttle sabotage, it's easier
for them to blame outsiders than to take blame for their own
incompetence.

I would almost guarantee to you that if the country took a liberal
swing tomorrow, Lyndon would be publicly talking like a socialist
yesterday. Don't try to understand his credo from literature.
Understand him on the purist machiavellian pragmatics of personal power,
big lies and half truths ...and thank god he's not a young man. 


						Dale Amon

					"A Libertarian is a person who
					 can't tell right from left"