MARCHING ORDERS FOR THE POLITICAL RIGHT
Baldinger, Wilbur H.
Marching Orders for The Political Right by WILBUR H. BALDINGER TN THE absorbing literature of ruthless political movements—including the Manifesto of Karl Marx and Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf— it...
...Under present conditions, this is impractical...
...And he regards McCarthyism as something worth fighting for: "Too many of us are imbued with the concept of fair play when fighting the enemy...
...The Colonel was invited to be tire lead-off witness for another excursion by the Un-American Activities Committee into subversive criticism of the Mc-Carran-Walter Immigration Act...
...The Alliance is an elite right-wing corps, tightly organized, which has not only the prestige of the Roosevelt name but recognition in Washington WltBUR H. BAtDINGER, a veteran Washington magazine and newspaper correspondent, is a frequent contributor to The Progressive...
...The Manual, fast becoming a bestseller among eager followers of the more militant right-wing outfits in the United States, covers everything from the organization of domestic revolt (make it military) against the major political parties to discretion in dinner conversations (lay off the cocktails...
...It is serious stuff...
...It has been proven that in war, election of officers is ruinous...
...The Colonel himself is president of The Alliance...
...He appeared not only for The Alliance but held credentials as an expert witness on immigration policy from the Sons of the American Revolution and the American Coalition of 100-odd "Patriotic, Civic, and Fraternal Societies...
...We must remember this is political warfare...
...Discipline—"Many groups have been formed...
...as an authoritative—not to say authoritarian—exponent of anti-Communism...
...the audience reassured him in satisfying unison...
...In order to survive, one side often has to learn from the methods of its enemies...
...He doesn't go for "bickerings" and such nonsense as election contests for office "in the name of so-called democracy...
...This is not a mere game or contest...
...At one gala dinner staged by The Alliance at the Hotel New Yorker recently the honor guest and main speaker was Representative Francis E. Walter, Pennsylvania Democrat and chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities...
...They are brain-washed by the left-wing slant of most columnists, radio and television commentators, and those daily newspapers who are on the side of socialists and communists . . . There is lots of small money...
...Walter, in turn, did the honors for Roosevelt in Washington...
...Charles Kenneth Clinton, secretary...
...The Manual is fresh off the private press of The Alliance of New York, for which Roosevelt maintains command headquarters in his town house at 200 East 66th Street...
...It lists Manual for American Action under "Books and Pamphlets That Are Right," along with such fare as Fightum by Gen...
...The Colonel, who won the Croix de Guerre and was wounded in action as a Captain in the 26th Infantry in France in World War I and served with an infantry division in the Southwest Pacific during the second, is a fighter...
...Archie Roosevelt disapproves of popidar political organizations unless rank and file members know how to keep quiet and do what they are told, not what they might want to say they want to do...
...The American Legion...
...This is a necessary stage of development when a nation is caught unprepared and the accustomed national and local leaders have either been bought or liquidated...
...on a membership basis, whereby all people joining them receive a membership card and can then vote...
...Infiltration—"There are . . . organizations . . . which have not yet been infiltrated . . . and individuals should be encouraged to join them...
...I mention as examples: The Veterans of Foreign Wars...
...A divertissement at the dinner was supplied by Roosevelt...
...we can be compared to what . . . the United States was at the time of the Civil War...
...We are at the time when we have political guerilla bands throughout the country, and an unorganized, but valiant, militia...
...He took advantage of the occasion to report to The Alliance on the progress of his hunt for "Communist cells" in Senate Committee staffs as well as in executive agencies of the government...
...The Coalition's New York liaison man, incidentally, is Major George Racey Jordan, another military-type tactician of the right...
...See Manual, p. 18...
...Crackpots—"Crackpots are a menace...
...Is Senator Joe McCarthy out of business...
...The Manual states the problems and the patriotic solutions: Position or weakness—"The anti-communists are in about the same period of growth and organization that the communist, socialist, liberal element was in this country in the twenties...
...do not mix well with business...
...Roosevelt, whose own forefather was Klaes Martensen van Roosevelt, a Dutch immigrant, testified on November 12, 1956, that the only opposition to the restrictive law comes from "hard-core Communists" abetted by a few "bleeding-heart" and "well-meaning people who have been brain-washed...
...Archie was Tom Sawyer, he was Huckleberry Finn, he was the American boy incarnate," Hermann Hagedorn relates in The Roosevelt Faintly of Sagamore Hill...
...John E. Baumann is vice president...
...They fear either blackmail, or loss of government contracts, or income tax reprisals, or strike reprisals...
...Zygmund Dobbs is research director of an anonymous staff at 200 East 66th which works on "a most comprehensive and completely cross-indexed, up-to-date library of records, statements, documents, letters, speeches, photographs, reports, reference books, news clippings, and sworn testimony on the internal Communist menace and its allied aspects...
...the command group must be few in numbers, and not subject to being elected and re-elected by votes . . ." War chest—"People of wealth generally do not support our republic, or free enterprise...
...From your organizations, when our troops are finally organized, must be chosen the officers...
...Cells—"Each group must be run by a very small, tightly coordinated inner circle...
...The "fire with fire" offensive is directed by the Manual for American Action against all "leftists," Democrats and Republicans alike—"the general assortment of communists, socialists, pinks, onr-worlders, and all those who favor more centralization and increase of power by executive government...
...The Alliance itself is no mass movement...
...But his third son at least is demonstrating a capacity lor bold forays into political thinking...
...Rallies—"Dispense entirely with recognizing people on the floor...
...More recently Major Jordan has been soliciting contributions to his Committee for a Free Gold Market, which maintains that Communists sabotaged the gold standard and substituted phony currency, which the Major nevertheless is happy to accept...
...Mutiny in the ranks—"Never hesitate to eliminate obstructionists, even though sincere, who are hindering the functioning of your group...
...You are the first volunteers in this political war," Colonel Roosevelt tells all right-thinking readers at the conclusion of his guidebook, which sells for 50 cents a copy, SO cents in quantities of 25 or more...
...It was written by Colonel Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt, late of the White House, Sagamore Hill, And-over, Harvard, and now of the Wall Street brokerage firm of Roosevelt &; Welgold...
...But any jokes in Manual for American Action are unintentional...
...Other current titles from his press are The Leftist Background of Ralph Bunche, Conquest via Immigration, and Brainwashing and Senator McCarthy by Joseph Z. Kornfeder, a charter Communist Party member who now bills himself as a reformed graduate of the Lenin School, Moscow...
...This library has been laboriously collected since 1917" —a few years prior to the birth of the first known Communist cell in America...
...You must bear in mind that you are not only shock troops at this stage of the war, but you are, in effect, an officers' training school...
...President Theodore Roosevelt, although an adventurous man himself, might not have found the book "Bully...
...Gardner Osborn, treasurer...
...he asked the diners, rhetorically, from the speaker's table...
...Among right-wing organs whidi have endorsed the how-to set of Roosevelt political instructions is Right, distributed by Liberty & Property of San Francisco...
...Debate—"Organizations of our side make the mistake in staging debates . . . We should not stage debates where both sides are shown . . . We should advertise our own side only...
...In addition to maintaining the library, to which Congressional investigators of subversion have ready access, and publishing handbooks on patriotism, The Alliance sponsors banquets for distinguished public servants...
...But that's another story...
...If you have dinner, do not serve alcoholic drinks . . . Cocktails...
...certain of the great patriotic societies . . ." Chain of command...
...When Archie Roosevelt was a child at the White House, newspaper readers used to delight in stories about his pranks around the grounds...
...In political warfare, just as in military warfare, one side can profit from the more effective techniques of the enemy," the Manual advises...
...This circle should, preferably, be not more than seven and cannot be less than three . . . You should have contributors and supporters—not members...
...Staff conferences—"The organization meetings should consist of a small group of people, preferably not more than seven...
...Order of the day—"At the present stage, it is the duty of us, who are political soldiers in the unorganized army for the Republic of the United States, to bend our efforts to organize political guerilla groups and isolated units as well as we can, and develop leaders to take the place of those who have been liquidated or have deserted us...
...Military situation...
...Marching Orders for The Political Right by WILBUR H. BALDINGER TN THE absorbing literature of ruthless political movements—including the Manifesto of Karl Marx and Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf— it is doubtful that there are many more explicit guidebooks to power than a chastely-printed 32-page pamphlet titled Manual for American Action...
...George Van Horn Moseley, Brainwashing by Kenneth Goff, and Deviationists to the Madhouse by Glenn O. Young...
...He published a special tabloid— "Ike Renominated in Spite of His Red Record" was one bannerline— at the Republican National Convention...
...See Manual, p. 17...
...Americans have always learned the hard way that the only way to fight an unscrupulous and immoral enemy is to throw the polite book of rules out the window and to fight fire with fire...
Vol. 21 • February 1957 • No. 2
