THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 30, 1995 TAG: 9505010196
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ESTHER DISKIN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 174 lines
Pat Robertson's 1991 best-selling book, ``The New World Order,'' embraces some of the mistrust of government leaders and fears of conspiracy held by the Michigan Militia movement, which has been linked by authorities to the primary suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing.
That doesn't tie Robertson to the bombing. Far from it. He has condemned the violence repeatedly on ``The 700 Club,'' his syndicated religious talk show.
But the parallels raise uncomfortable questions about whether Robertson - a respected Christian businessman and former Republican presidential contender - has legitimized theories that tend to increase political paranoia and, indirectly, lead to attacks upon government.
``The key importance of that book is that he made that way of thinking mainstream,'' said Skipp Porteous, a former Pentecostal minister who leads the Center for First Amendment Studies in Massachusetts. ``The average pentecostal, charismatic or evangelical (Christian) has great interest in what Robertson has to say.''
Porteous and Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Political Research Associates in Cambridge, Mass., say Robertson's book is widely read and respected in militia circles.
``It's reckless behavior, like reckless endangerment, to write this kind of book,'' Porteous said. ``To say the United Nations will be the police force of the United States . . . we have to be careful with what we say and do because it may provoke unstable people to do something you don't support.''
Robertson's ``New World Order'' is only one among many books and tracts read in militia groups, Porteous said. Another popular book is ``The Turner Diaries,'' a 1978 novel by William Pierce. At the militia conventions, Porteous said, participants get packets of articles, many of which talk about a secret network of elites plotting a world takeover.
Porteous and other critics say Robertson's book is the kind of speech that President Clinton decried in the aftermath of Oklahoma bombing.
``We hear so many loud and angry voices in America today, whose sole goal seems to be to try to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other,'' Clinton said. ``We know that words have consequences.''
Robertson described Clinton's condemnation of hate speech as an attempt to stifle political opponents.
``We cannot allow those on the left to use this tragedy - and it is a tragedy - to still the voices of legitimate protest against big government,'' Robertson said on Tuesday's broadcast of ``The 700 Club.''
Robertson has responded to criticism of ``The New World Order,'' which sold more than a half-million copies, mainly through written statements and in comments on ``The 700 Club.'' He declined to be interviewed or to answer written questions about his book from The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star.
In defending the book against criticism that it contains veiled statements against Jews, Robertson also has said that the book does not endorse conspiratorial thinking.
``I intended no anti-Semitic code words, embraced no conspiracy theories, but set forth a historical analysis that raised legitimate policy questions that had been brought to the forefront by Bush administration officials during the Persian Gulf War,'' Robertson wrote in the April 12 edition of The Wall Street Journal.
Gene Kapp, vice president of public relations for Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, said the book's central point is tied to the 1990 political landscape and does not have any relevance to the views of militia leaders.
Critics say Robertson's book is clearly designed for a lasting impact, well beyond the Bush era. They cite Robertson's use of a wide range of historical material and the book's futuristic outlook.
In ``The New World Order,'' Robertson warns of a secret network of elites that operates behind the scenes and beyond the reach of average people. These elites use a web of command including the White House, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations and the United Nations, Robertson says. They plan to set up a one-world government, or the ``new world order'' of the book's title.
He suggests that political leaders of both parties, including Jimmy Carter and George Bush, may have unwittingly helped carry out that mission. The goal, he writes, ``is nothing less than a new order for the human race under the domination of Lucifer and his followers.''
Robertson places his theories about current political forces into a larger context of a Biblical struggle between God's forces and a satanic ruler. In a section headlined, ``The Battle Ahead,'' Robertson writes, ``a vital, economically strong, Christian United States would have at its disposal the spiritual and material force to prohibit a worldwide satanic dictator from winning his battle.''
Robertson's suspicion about the plans of government agencies and the hidden significance of international events has a striking similarity to the conspiracies believed in by some militia leaders, who have gained notoriety since the Oklahoma bombing.
Timothy McVeigh, the chief suspect, is reported to have friends in two militia groups, the Michigan Militia and the Arizona Patriots. A Florida newspaper reported that McVeigh and Mark Koernke, leader of an extremist offshoot of the Michigan Militia, drove from Michigan together to attend a meeting of about 250 militia members in St. Lucie County last year.
Koernke, leader of the Michigan Militia-at-Large, has told listeners to his radio show that the United Nations is planning a military takeover. The federal government, he has said, is part of the plot. He signed off his show with the slogan: ``Death to the new world order!'' His show was removed from the air this week.
John Trochman, leader of the Militia of Montana, speaks about international elites who are planning to use United Nations troops for a military invasion and occupation of the United States. Those elites, he has said, intend to reduce the world's population to 2 billion by the year 2000.
Some experts say Robertson's book has influenced the thinking of citizen militia groups, though Robertson does not encourage taking up arms. ``It is one of the things they read,'' Porteous said. ``The common thread is a belief in these conspiracies. They like the way he spells it out.''
Others say the parallels are mainly due to widespread circulation of the conspiracies that Robertson chose as his topic, but are not a sign that the book is a hit with militia members.
``I'd be surprised if they pay as much attention to Robertson as they do to their own literature,''said James Guth, a professor at Furman University in Greenville, S.C.
Many of the theories detailed in Robertson's book aren't new, although he links them in original ways. These theories usually have stayed at the fringe of society, because the people who support them have less clout than Robertson and less ability to spread the message through a media network.
When Robertson talks about about unseen elites who operate out of the reach of common citizens, he reinforces the idea that democracy is not effective, said David Cantor, a senior research analyst at the Anti-Defamation League.
``This is an unsettled time, when we talk about social, moral decline. They read a book that casts tremendous suspicion on their government . . . behind the scenes, that there is a secret force running things,'' Cantor said. ``It's not a manifesto to overthrow government, far from it. But it does elicit feelings that such a manifesto would do.''
``For Robertson, God's word in the Bible is the ultimate truth,'' Porteous said. ``The Bible doesn't teach democracy.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Koernke
Graphic
EXCERPTS
Excerpts from The New World Order, the 1991 bestseller by Pat
Robertson:
Indeed, it may well be that men of goodwill like Woodrow Wilson,
Jimmy Carter, and George Bush, who sincerely want a larger community
of nations living at peace in our world, are in reality unknowingly
and unwittingly carrying out the mission and mouthing the phrases of
a tightly knit cabal whose goal is nothing less than a new order for
the human race under the domination of Lucifer and his followers.
How does the world of the Bible relate to the events of today? It
is clear that the counterfeit world order will be waiting for the
satanic dictator. It just doesn't happen spontaneously. Therefore,
it must be prepared for him in advance by someone. The next
conclusion is inescapable. Satan knows that a world government must
soon be prepared for the man whom he is preparing to receive his
particular empowerment and authority.
Such a world government can come together only after the
Christian United States is out of the way . . . With America still
free and at large, Satan's schemes will at best be only partially
successful.
Whatever happens in world events, the average American, whose
instincts are usually very good, should not be intimidated by
``experts'' on foreign relations. My wife, Dede, was born in the
Midwest and raised as a Taft Republican. Her comment on foreign
affairs a few years ago was very perceptive: ``I don't trust anyone
running the foreign affairs of America who speaks with a foreign
accent.''
A single thread runs from the White House to the State Department
to the Council on Foreign Relations to the Trilateral Commission to
secret societies to extreme New Agers. There must be a new world
order. It must eliminate national sovereignty. There must be world
government, a world police force, world courts, world banking and
currency, and a world elite in charge of it all. To some there must
be a complete redistribution of wealth; to others, there must be an
elimination of Christianity; to some extreme New Agers there must be
the deaths of two or three billion people in the Third World by the
end of this decade.
by CNB