Chicago, IL, November 2, 1995...At its 82nd Annual National Commission Meeting in Chicago, the Anti- Defamation League (ADL) released a report exposing the influence of Liberty Lobby, the most significant anti-Semitic propaganda organization in the United States, upon the current proliferation of militia groups in this country. Oklahoma City bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh's association with the militia movement alerted the public to an extremist underworld many Americans previously had not known existed. The ADL report, Liberty Lobby: Hate Central, A Case Study in the Promotion of Anti-Semitism and Extremism, traces the role of three main vehicles in spreading the Lobby's anti-government conspiracy theories and extremist rhetoric: The Spotlight, a weekly tabloid; nationwide radio programs, and The Barnes Review, a monthly magazine.

"Since 1955, when he founded Liberty Lobby, Willis Carto has been associated with almost every far-right movement in America," said David H. Strassler, ADL National Chairman, and Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "Just as they had an impact on the John Birch Society in the 1950's, the founding of the Holocaust denial organization known as the Institute for Historical Review (IHR) in the 1970's, the first presidential campaign of former Ku Klux Klan leader and neo-Nazi David Duke in the 1980's, they now have an influence on the militia movement. Militias themselves are fueled by conspiracy theories, and the Liberty Lobby and Carto recognize there is fertile ground to indoctrinate members with their virulent anti-Semitism, antipathy toward blacks, and the Nazi-like rhetoric on `international Zionism.'"

The ADL 52-page report, prepared by the Research and Evaluation Department of the ADL Civil Rights Division, traces the background and activities of:

* The Spotlight, with a claimed circulation of 100,000, which exerts ideological influence with its anti-government conspiracy theories and extremist rhetoric, and offers for sale in its classified section a variety of paramilitary and "survivalist" items, among these a light anti-tank weapon launcher replica, with flares, which ADL revealed was advertised under an assumed name by McVeigh.

* The radio programs "Radio Free America" and "Editor's Roundtable," which frequently broadcast interviews with hate group leaders and conspiracy theorists in dozens of media markets around the nation, as well as on short-wave broadcasts. Moreover, the League reports, several elected officials, including four members of the U.S. House of Representatives, have been interviewed on Liberty Lobby radio broadcasts since November 1994.

* The Barnes Review, the extremist-tinged historical revisionist publication launched in 1994, with a claimed circulation of 11,000, which continues to share with IHR propaganda a dependence on Holocaust-denial, Holocaust-demeaning and anti-Semitic, extremist rhetoric.

The ADL report provides a history of the Liberty Lobby, a full summary of the bigoted, anti- Semitic beliefs advocated, and a survey of actual propaganda vehicles, with listings of publications and broadcasts. One appendix offers excerpts from The Spotlight promoting anti-government conspiracy theories which point to an agenda of paramilitary resistance against the impending takeover of the nation by a secretive, treacherous, totalitarian security force. A second appendix gives a chronological listing of guests, famous and infamous, appearing on the two currently broadcast Liberty Lobby radio programs.

"Over the years," Strassler and Foxman noted, "Liberty Lobby has attempted to sue The Wall Street Journal, columnist Jack Anderson, conservative commentator William F. Buckley, the bi-monthly publication Information Digest, and ADL for characterizing the group as extremists and anti-Semitic; none of these suits has been successful. In fact, Liberty Lobby's appeal of the suit against The Journal prompted then Federal Appeals Court Judge Robert Bork to write, 'We tend to agree with a district court that if the term `anti-Semitic' has a core, factual meaning, then the truth of the description was proved here.'"

Editors Note: The report is available on-line on NEXIS search code USNWR, and from the ADL Media Relations Department.

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.