ustxtxb_obs_1992_01_17_50_00017-00000_000.pdf

“Like Hitler” Duke on Extermination, the Right Package, and a Bengal Tiger 1 N 1988 Evelyn Rich received a doctorate in history from Boston University for her dissertation, “Ku Klux Klan Ideology, 19541988.” Born in Great Britain, Rich now lives in California. She earned her BA in history from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. In the course of her research for her dissertation, Rich tape-recorded two interviews with David Duke on March 18 and March 20, 1985, in a room at La Quinta Motor Lodge in Metairie, La. Excerpts from these interviews, as published in the New Orleans Times-Picayune and in materials provided by the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and presentations in this issue of Duke’s statements on white supremacy, Nazism and the Holocaust. Duke’s 1985 interviews with Rich were remarkable, but his candor with her in Culver City, Calif. on Feb. 17, 1986, approached the unthe Institute for Historical Review, the quasi-academic organization which denies that the Nazi Holocaust happened. At the outset, Rich is interviewing Joe Fields, identified by LCARN as “a California-based neo-Nazi.” There is a knock on the door, and Duke comes into the room, but Rich tells Duke that she doesn’t want to talk to him, and he leaves. Soon Duke re-enters the room where Rich continues interviewing Fields; and gradually, with Rich’s tape running, Duke is drawn into the interview by what Fields is saying. Rich made the record of the interview available to LCARN, which provided the Observer with an 18-page transcript of it. We excerpt that transcript here. The few parts of the dialogue that are published inside parentheses facilitate condensations made by the Observer or seek to clarify meaning. Notes enclosed within parentheses are part of the transcript. Notes enclosed within brackets have been added by the Observer, as have been the explanatory footnotes which are printed at the end of these excerpts. We have chosen to publish certain passages in bold-faced type. For Duke’s responses on questions about this event, see pages 30 and 31. R.D. Rich: Evelyn Rich Fields: Joe Fields Duke: David Duke Fields: I’ve always been a National Socialist at heart….We have kind of a loose-knit National Socialist Party here in L.A….I’m just doing what I can to irritate the kikes, you know…. Rich: So, how did you get into this? Fields: ….I used to watchI’d see the Germanswatch those Hollywood movies and I’d root for the Germans….When I’d see Adolf Hitler give a speech and I’d see the German people and the S.S. march, something inside Of me said, “Yeah, that’s what I like.”… Rich: Yes? Who is it? Duke: Oh, you’re interviewing…. Rich: …Close the door. Anyway, we don’t want to talk to. you. We’ve had enough of you for one year. [Duke withdraws. Rich continues to Fields:] Anyway, how do your parents react? Fields: communism is, and they know the Jew is behind it….But \(my father when you talk about the Jews, you know, you’d think…. Rich: So you were really out on your own?….It must have taken a lot of guts to do this…. Fields: …Usually, you know, I talk to people and they look at me like I’m nuts. I’ve had people tell me that I have a mental problem, that I should be locked up, you know, must because of my views….People are so brainwashed that as soon as you talk about race or the Jews, they just turn off and they won’t listen to you…. Rich: Yes, what do you want? Feel free, to put… Duke: To put my three cents in? Rich: Two-and-a-half cents….[To Fields:] So how did it happen that you got the IHR [Institute for Historical Review] Free Press Award? Fields: ….They gave me the free press award ’cause I didn’t cave hear they’re sorry they gave it to me now though, since I came out as a Nazi. They don’t like Nazis….I don’t believe in total free speech for everyone. I think there are limits. I come from the position that what’s healthy for the white race is the standard. And if it’s going to degenerate the cultureif it’s against your culture, if it’s against your race, then I’d ban it. I have no qualms about that…. Rich: Well…we were joking last night, but you were the only person here who had a swastika on. Everybody else had business suits and dressed normally. Fields: Oh, well, I didn’t wear it upstairs. Rich: Oh, you didn’t? Fields: No, I put that on at the bar afterwards….\(To You know Stan Whittek, don’t you? The ,local Nazi Party? He’s coming over here….McCaulden’s’ having a meeting downstairs. Rich: Oh, I’d love to meet him…. Duke: You don’t want to meet McCaulden….He’s just a troublemaker against Carto. 2… Fields: Well, he’s saying that the IHR is his…. Duke: Oh yeah, it was all Carto’s money, Carto’s brainchild, Carto’s, work to get it set up….Whatever anyone can say about Carto, he’s been the most effective and the most important publisher of anti-Jewish material, and Holocaust revisionism, and historical revisionism. And you know, the Jewsif McCaulden’s not on the Jewish payroll, then he should be. If I was a Jew, I would send McCaulden money. Have you ever met McCaulden? Rich: No. Fields: He looks like a Jew. Duke: Well, he may be… Fields: He’s got the profile. Duke: Attacks by people like him do more for the Jewish cause and hurt Carto, more than any…Look at it this way. If you’re a right-winger, and the Jews want to cut offall right, say you’re like Carto and they want to cut off your support. All right, what happens? What is the most effective way for them to cut off your support? Is it by saying, ‘Cart is,a rabid anti-Semite? A terrible danger to the Jewish people?’…Or is it not the most effective wayand these Jews are not stupidthe most effective way is to come along and say, ‘He’s not sincere!’ [That] He’s either in it for the money, or he’s an agent….That’s cutting off his basic source of financial support, which in turn hurts him far more than anything else the Jews can do. These JewsI mean, they got a multi-million-dollarthe ADL [Anti-Defamation League] has got a budget in the tens of millions of dollars…. [The talk turns to splits in right-wing organizations.] THE TEXAS OBSERVER 17