Hate’s Affluent New Godfathers
All of human history, as white supremacists see it, is laid out in a poster mailed to 3,000 households in northern Idaho last September.
The story begins with the union between Eve and Satan that produced Cain--the “hybrid, mongrel, bastard and soul-less child”--and culminates in such signposts of the coming Armageddon as the “fraudulent” United Nations and the U.S. Constitution, which has been “destroyed by Jewry influence of the Supreme Court.”
The expensive, glossy anti-Semitic posters, sent with a Richard Butler video, are courtesy of Carl E. Story and R. Vincent Bertollini--two wealthy veterans of the California computer industry who recently moved to Sandpoint, Idaho, and set up a group called the 11th Hour Remnant Messenger.
The two men also picked up the tab to host anti-government lecturer Joyce Riley in a two-day event sponsored by America’s Promise Ministries, a Christian Identity church in Sandpoint.
The potential millions that Bertollini, 59, and Story, 65, have to spend on behalf of the white supremacist movement have sparked widespread concern among human rights activists.
They have kept a low profile since coming to Idaho, declining most interview requests, including several from The Times, but more is known about their life in California:
During the 1970s, Story and Gerald M. Starek, a business partner, operated two start-up companies in Northern California--including I.I. Industries of Sunnyvale, one of the semiconductor industry’s early leaders in photo-resist processing technology. Story served as vice president for sales.
The two men were convicted in 1977 for conspiracy to violate federal export laws in the sale of $900,000 worth of semiconductor manufacturing equipment to the Soviet Union. The indictment charged that equipment used to build missile guidance systems was sold through fictitious companies in the United States, Canada, Switzerland and Germany and falsely invoiced as commercial washing machines and industrial ovens. Story and Starek each were fined $10,000.
After selling that company, Story and some of his former partners went on to start up the Silicon Valley Group, which developed even newer technology and became one of the area’s most successful firms.
Story sat on the board of Silicon Valley Group but never worked there, company officials said. Still, his initial investment paid off. The company, started in 1977 with a $160,000 investment, today is worth more than $600 million. Story’s involvement with the company ended in 1983 when he sold his stock and made, according to one longtime acquaintance, “a pot of money.”
“Basically when [Story] left, it was a very dynamic, hot company, and they had grown it from nothing to being one of the real winners in the Silicon Valley,” said G. Dan Hutcheson of VLSI Research Inc., a San Jose industry analyst.
Story went on to found a chemical equipment delivery company, Systems Chemistry, and subsequently sold that at a profit as well.
Story was never involved on the technical side, but was considered a superb salesman, said one former business associate who asked not to be identified. “He was a very charismatic-type sales guy. The type that comes up and puts his arm around you.”
Story also had strong religious leanings, friends said. He gave a large donation to the fundamentalist Jubilee Christian Center in San Jose, and “has always been worried about survival . . . that there’s going to be a bomb dropped, worried about not being religious enough,” said one friend.
Bertollini worked with Story at Systems Chemistry, but acted “more as Carl’s caretaker,” the friend said. “Vince, he’s the Bible thumper.”
According to the Spokane Spokesman-Review, which recently interviewed Bertollini briefly, the pair sold their two multimillion-dollar companies and left California in 1995, spending six months touring the country before settling in Idaho.
Bertollini told the Spokesman-Review that he has never advocated hate or white supremacy. “Is there anything in our literature that says anything about hate? No. It just says we white people are different,” he said. “Our intent is to bring truth to a world that believes a lie. It’s a burden, a burden on my heart, and it’s Carl Story’s burden too.”
