Embattled Bigots:
On October 4, 1993, according to court records, Willis Carto received a
letter signed by four senior staff members of The Journal of Historical
Review (
Thomas Marcellus,
Mark Weber,
Ted O'Keefe and
Greg Raven)
announcing that the IHR was "firing" him. Although Carto, in a court
document, contended that he had "no inkling of their conspiracy to take
over," trouble between Carto and his staffers reportedly had been building
for some time. Carto's reputed highhandedness towards his employees and
associates appears to be the primary reason for his ouster, in addition to
several reasons listed by Marcellus in a court declaration, including:
Elisabeth Carto's purchase of a new Cadillac with IHR funds; Carto's
frugality in taking out an insufficient insurance policy (a 1984 fire had
destroyed the IHR warehouse and offices and the $50,000 insurance policy
purchased by Carto covered only a fraction of the damage); his skimping on
pay and health benefits; and his "launching and subsequent mishandling of
the reward offer" in the
Mel Mermelstein affair.
Marcellus asserted, moreover, that the primary point of contention rested
on the editorial direction of The Journal of Historical Review. To the
editorial staffs dismay, Carto allegedly wanted to reduce Holocaust denial
features -- the publication's stock in trade -- by 80%, eventually to
abandon the issue along with the name of the journal entirely. Furthermore,
Marcellus accused Carto of trying to turn the journal into a "racist"
and "Nazi" publication -- as if the IHR's Holocaust-denial agenda weren't
inherently anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi from the outset. Carto, of course,
denies the allegations against him and insists that the rebellious staff
members were manipulated by "sinister forces," as he put it in a letter
to Holocaust denier
Arthur Butz. This letter was included in a mailing
from Carto to IHR contributors and contained attacks on ADL and Mel
Mermelstein.
In light of the tension between Carto and the staffers, Marcellus and
O'Keefe decided to take the issue to the board of the
Legion for the Survival of Freedom, Inc., IHR's parent organization. According to the Los
Angeles Times (May 8, 1994) Marcellus described their decision in a court
declaration:
"Having suffered Carto's machinations, hair-brained [sic]
schemes, mismanagement, insults and irrationality long enough, the senior
staff met to determine the course of action to stop Carto from taking harmful
actions." It was alleged that the Legion for the Survival of Freedom, Inc.,
had listed a corporate director who had been dead for five years; that the
board had never met, and that Willis Carto was the sole and controlling
voice in the corporation.
Most importantly, at stake in this controversy was over $10 million in
stock certificates bequeathed to the Legion by Jean Farrel, the granddaughter
of Thomas Edison. The summer before the October "coup," Marcellus reportedly
discovered a $100,000 bank order for Carto's
Liberty Lobby, drawn from the
Jean Farrel bequest. According to Marcellus, Carto directed his wife to set
up a corporation for the sole purpose of controlling the money and loaning
it back to the Legion -- thus making the Legion a less attractive target for
potential lawsuits. Because the IHR advertised itself as the Legion, the
senior staffers demanded control of the money Mrs. Farrel had bequeathed
to the parent company.
After discovering and exposing Carto's alleged business improprieties, the
staffers and their lawyer, William Hulsy, reportedly convinced two elderly
directors of the board of the Legion to resign. The remaining third member,
Thomas Kerr, appointed a new board which subsequently voted to terminate all
association with Carto. Kerr later contended that he was "misled as to the
facts" by the rebel staffers, and later rejoined the Cartos in a suit
against the Legion.
The
original plaintext version
of this file is available via
ftp.
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A Split in the Ranks of the Holocaust Denial Movement
Mutiny at the IHR