It’s ‘a Scam . . . Absurd,’ Specialist Says : LaRouche’s View of AIDS--$1 Pamphlet Spells It Out

One expects the untraditional from Lyndon H. LaRouche and his political followers, and their new campaign booklet urging passage of Proposition 64 is no exception.

The LaRouche booklet carries a price--$1 “suggested contribution”--a rarity for political literature. For that buck you get a personal message from LaRouche himself, attacking film stars Elizabeth Taylor and Patty Duke and asserting that “no sane person” should oppose the AIDS initiative, which has been denounced by virtually all AIDS experts and California leaders.

Much of the 24-page pamphlet is taken up with charts, maps and testimonials that seek to explain the unique view of AIDS that LaRouche and his supporters have made the basis for their initiative campaign.

They claim mounds of scientific backing, but Dr. Don Francis, an AIDS specialist for the Centers for Disease Control, flipped through the pamphlet this week and said, “It’s a scam--the whole thing is absurd.”

Picture on Back Cover

Finally, on the back cover, a woman in the leather garb favored by some punk rockers and a smattering of gay men is shown next to a billboard about missing children. The phrase “Had Enough?” is emblazoned on the photographs along with a pitch to join the National Democratic Policy Committee, a LaRouche political arm that has no connection to the Democratic Party.

The booklet, paid for by the committee, is the main campaign effort so far on behalf of Proposition 64, which seeks to force health officials to identify carriers of the AIDS virus and to remove the carriers from some jobs. As expected, the booklet has proven controversial.

“I think it’s really a classic case of the big lie,” said Torie Osborn, Southern California coordinator of the Stop LaRouche--No on 64 campaign, the group leading the opposition to the initiative. “The information is totally inaccurate.”

Some gays complained that the picture on the back cover--which they say links gays to missing children--is a slur. However, Brian Lantz, a veteran LaRouche supporter and co-sponsor of the initiative, said Friday that it refers instead to reports that satanic, counterculture cults are tied to child kidnapings.

Experts Lying, He Says

In the booklet, LaRouche repeats his claim that doctors and other health experts who oppose Proposition 64 are lying when they say AIDS is not transmitted by insects or by casual contact with people infected by the virus that causes AIDS.

“Every leading medical institution in the United States and Western Europe knows that the deadly disease called AIDS is spread by ‘casual contact,’ ” LaRouche begins. “. . . Obviously, no sane person should be opposed to Proposition 64.”

The text of the booklet goes on to assert that AIDS has been spread through saliva and bites from mosquitoes and bedbugs. That explains the spread of AIDS in Africa and parts of Florida, the LaRouche publication claimed. “Since I am fortunate to be influential in scientific circles internationally, I have used that influence to organize support for AIDS research,” LaRouche adds.

Scientists, however, say the LaRouche booklet is riddled with false data.

“Fortunately, the absurd quality of this is going to come out clearly,” Francis of the CDC said.

‘Rally for Satanism’

In his essay in the booklet, LaRouche says Elizabeth Taylor opposes the initiative because a concert she scheduled in Italy was canceled because it was “discovered to be a rally for satanism. . . .” Patty Duke, president of the Screen Actors Guild, is dismissed as the leader of a “kookish faction” against Proposition 64. Later, LaRouche writes that the money spent on drugs at “Hollywood parties” could significantly help the fight against AIDS.

More than a million of the blue-covered booklets will be distributed to voters, the initiative’s sponsors say. But how they plan to accomplish that California-sized task is unclear.

Lantz said Friday that LaRouche supporters in the state will circulate the booklets. But LaRouche’s personal following in California is no more than a few hundred, say most groups who keep watch on the extremist three-time presidential candidate. Paid petition circulators were needed last summer to gather enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot.

Otherwise, Lantz said, the campaign has made no plans to spend money on media campaigns and mailings as opponents had feared.

‘Resources . . . Limited’

“We still haven’t ruled out media altogether,” Lantz said. “But our resources are limited. We don’t have millions of dollars to throw around.”

Reports from other states say that lawsuits and criminal investigations of several LaRouche organizations’ fund-raising tactics have cut into cash flow.

Four groups allied with LaRouche, including the National Democratic Policy Committee, are facing daily fines of $45,000 for refusing records to a federal grand jury in Boston investigating credit card fraud. The fines now total more than $21 million.

The groups, which provide the cash that pays for LaRouche’s upkeep at a heavily guarded Virginia estate and his international political operations, have also been sued in a variety of financial disputes and have reportedly asked creditors for more time to pay bills. In addition, supporters last month paid a $200,000 court judgment against LaRouche to NBC. In California, Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp is also investigating charges of election fraud in the collection of signatures used to qualify Proposition 64 for the ballot.