By coincidence, Doubleday published Dennis King's thoroughly documented dissection of the now imprisoned self-anointed Democratic presidential nominee (four-times), Lyndon LaRouche, on the eve of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, April 18, 1989.
One would have thought that LaRouche, who swung from the Trotskyite left to his own brand of ultra-rightism, would have read the history of the downfall of would-be dictators and totalitarians.
As one weaves the route LaRouche took from the 1968 student riots at Columbia University to his present predicament awaiting sentencing for tax and other U.S. federal law violations, it becomes self-evident that even he must be sitting in his cell and asking: "what went wrong?"
Since he will have much time to contemplate, he would best serve his time by reading Dennis King's volume. Every error is recorded, every petulance is minutely detailed and every political variation, as they developed, is focused in graphic and clearly defined terms. Perhaps more clearly and more graphic than LaRouche's own followers realized--for their own good.
Truthfully, this is a difficult book to digest in one, two or three sittings. King, who has made the LaRouche movement a Iife-work of expose, scolds perhaps too much. He finds himself, and perhaps Irwin Suall, of the ADL, sometimes alone in sounding the alarm as LaRouche enters White House enclaves, CIA offices, diplomatic receptions and newspaper columns with an undeserved respectability.
LaRouche's movement, in 1986, was able to nominate two LaRouchians for Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State of Illinois respectively, because the Democratic machine was asleep at the switch, or fighting amongst themselves. Adlai Stevenson III refused to run with that slate for Governor, withdrew, and was finally defeated, as were the other two candidates for the lesser offices.
Between 1984-86, LaRouche was able to field thousands of candidates in Democratic primaries and, despite counter-propaganda efforts linking his policies to anti-Semitic, pro-Klan, pro-totalitarian and anti-labor programs, his candidates won over 20 percent of the vote. There were other victories scored by his candidates.
He had a midas touch. He had an ability to "raise" millions of dollars world-wide from adherents for policies that were utilizing confusion about nuclear weapons, AIDS, Watergate-style dirty tricks and accusing Queen Elizabeth of being head of a Jewish drug conspiracy. It also included setting up his own version of a CIA Intelligence network that won him the respective ears of some CIA officials. This is all woven into dramatic tapestry in King's documentary style.
What King sets out to prove, and does, is that LaRouche is a complex personality with an equally complex pseudo-fascist operation. Not unlike Mussolini of the 1920's (who began as a Socialist), LaRouche deteriorated into an opportunistic, self-appointed and self-anointed political spokesperson, using the trappings of democratic protectionism in order to destroy every vestige of democracy itself. The judicial system, which LaRouche flaunted, has finally stopped him. Whether it has stopped his movement remains to be seen.
While King's volume is not the 1989 "Mein Kampf," in that it does not reflect the autobiography and blueprint LaRouche wrote himself, it remains for the '90's a warning signal that America has its own Pamyat and should be ready for battle.
