January 26, 1981
To: The National Executive Committee, and NCLC membership
From: Anne-Marie Vidal Sawicky
I joined the National Caucus of Labor Committees in January 1973. I was originally motivated to join because of an intense intellectual atmosphere which was concretized in programmatic organizing to build a class-wide movement. I have always considered myself a loyal cadre and a good organizer. Like any other NCLC member, I have endured physical and financial difficulties during my membership. These I neither regret or bemoan; I never fooled myself that being a Labor Committee member would be easy.
I did, however, expect that as an LC member that reason and morality would be the guidelines in any internal or external political discussion. The recent series of memos written by Lyndon LaRouche are a violation of reason. LaRouche has subjected Costas Kalimtgis to a trial by memo, having pronounced Costas guilty without bothering to produce evidence. LaRouche's tactics would make Mao's Cultural Revolutionaries blush. But more seriously, LaRouche has cynically destroyed that very moral and intellectual atmosphere he sought to create. At the present, an LC member in good standing must swallow whole LaRouche's claims that Costas is a paranoid schizophrenic, Andy T. is a thief, and Alice R. has no independent mind.
It is hardly original for a leader of an organization to deal with inquiries or skepticism by sounding the alarm of "intelligence agency's dirty tricks" to inspire the membership to complete obedience. This has been the case in totalitarian organizations before; it is the case in the Labor Committees now.
There is a hideous immorality in LaRouche's manipulation of the NCLC membership. There is a cowardly lack of morality in the NEC's [National Executive Committee's] response. If I were to accept LaRouche's lying assertions of Costas' insanity or Andy's thievery, I would have to admit that the NEC stood by and watched themselves be robbed. This would hardly be indicative of world historic leadership. If Andy and Gus are being slandered—which I emphatically believe—the NEC is cowardly in not informing the membership of the truth.
Because the NCLC no longer exists as a humanist organization capable of building a political movement, I resign. This has been a difficult decision but the only appropriate one under the circumstances. I urge all members to take the same action.
Anne-Marie Vidal Sawicky
(signed)