Eustace Mullins

Eustace Clarence Mullins Jr. (March 9, 1923 – February 2, 2010) was an American writer, white supremacist, antisemitic conspiracy theorist, and Holocaust denier. He wrote a variety of articles, books, and pamphlets focused on conspiratorial subject matter over decades. His best-known work is The Secrets of The Federal Reserve, in which he alleged that several high-profile bankers had conspired to write the Federal Reserve Act for their own nefarious purposes, and then induced Congress to enact it into law.

A disciple of the poet Ezra Pound, he was involved with several far-right groups and movements, including the neo-fascist National Renaissance Party and the Patriot movement. A writer for numerous far-right periodicals over the decades, he began his writing career with Conde McGinley's antisemitic paper Common Sense. He also wrote for the National Renaissance Party's journal, the National Renaissance Bulletin, and the far-right paper Women's Voice.

He was known for frequently creating hoaxes, including the nonexistent book A Racial Program for the Twentieth Century and the fabricated speech Our Race Will Rule Undisputed Over The World, which were widely spread in far-right publications. Mullins was also known for filing numerous, typically unsuccessful, lawsuits. The Southern Poverty Law Center described him as "a one-man organization of hate".

Early life

Eustace Clarence Mullins Jr. was born on March 9, 1923 in Roanoke, Virginia. In 1934, he moved with his family to Staunton, Virginia. He was a veteran of the United States Army Air Forces, serving thirty-eight months during World War II.

He attended Washington and Lee University, from which he graduated in 1949. He later stated that he believed McCarthy had "started to turn the tide against world communism".

Mullins created several one-man "letterhead" organizations, including the "Aryan League of America". In 1956 he sued the APIC for breach of contract, charging that the group had hired him as a sub rosa propagandist to undermine Zionism, but failed to live up to a verbal agreement to pay him $25,000 for his covert services. The APIC responded that Mullins had been hired “as one of several economist-writers in a subordinate capacity", and denied that he had been employed “in any capacity at any time for the purpose he [alleged].″ He also sued George E. Sokolsky, King Features Syndicate, and The Washington Post in 1961 over a story Sokolsky had written about him for King Features. The case was thrown out. Eustace Mullins's home at 126 Madison Place in Staunton, VirginiaTo care for his sick mother, Mullins returned to Staunton in the 1970s and remained there after her death, living in the house at 126 Madison Place where he grew up, through the end of his life. He spoke regularly to militia groups across the United States during this time. The Secrets of the Federal Reserve provided, in part, the theoretical underpinning of the movement's conspiracy theories about a secretive cabal of wealthy families controlling the international monetary system.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Mullins wrote for Criminal Politics. Mullins was on the editorial staff of the American Free Press and became a contributing editor to the Barnes Review, both published by Willis Carto's Liberty Lobby. In 2000, he sued the local newspaper the Daily News Leader, this time suing thrice over a story they had written about him, all of which were eventually thrown out.

Writings and views Mullins in 1980 at an exhibit based on his donated Pound materialsThroughout his career, Mullins wrote a variety of articles, pamphlets, and books focused on conspiratorial subject matter, particularly antisemitism, and Holocaust denial. The Southern Poverty Law Center described him as "a one-man organization of hate".

According to Paul F. Boller and John George, Mullins had a "a marked propensity for phony claims and counterfeit creations". Mullins created several notable antisemitic hoaxes: A Racial Program for the Twentieth Century, a nonexistent book purported to be by Israel Cohen, where he supposedly declared a plan for Jewish destruction of the white race, and Our Race Will Rule Undisputed Over The World, a purported speech by a nonexistent rabbi describing a plot for domination of the world. He also created the story of the "Lizzie Stover College Fund"; Lizzie Stover, the hoax went, was President Dwight D. Eisenhower's secret African-American mother.

Boller and George wrote that "Mullins, it is said, has a sense of humor and doesn’t take his own fabrications too seriously." Such hoaxes were widely spread in far-right publications for several decades. A 1968 FBI memo said of his claims that he was a:

Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons saiid of Mullins' writings that "Mullins writes in two styles, one ostensibly focusing on banking practices, the other expressing open and vicious antisemitism." Scholar Martin Durham wrote in 2000 that while "his writings on such topics as 'Jews and Ritual Murder' are unashamedly anti-Semitic, his better-known book on the Federal Reserve is not so easily pigeon-holed."

He self-published some of his books under the imprint "Revelation Books". Michael Barkun described Mullins' 1992 work The World Order: Our Secret Rulers as "a more openly anti-Semitic version of the Illuminati theory". He wrote:

Hitler and the Holocaust Mullins' October 1952 article entitled "Adolf Hitler: An Appreciation" was mentioned in a report by the House Un-American Activities Committee. In it, he espoused antisemitic views and expressed the belief that America owed a debt to Hitler. The article first appeared in National Renaissance Bulletin, journal of the National Renaissance Party.

In a tract from 1984 called The Secret Holocaust, Mullins stated that the accepted account of the Holocaust is implausible, calling it a cover story for Jewish-led Soviet massacres of Christians and anti-communists. In particular, Mullins argues that by the mid-1960s, in order to divert the world's attention away from this putative mass slaughter, "the Jews" had cooked up the story of the Holocaust, using photographs of German victims.

In 1968, Mullins authored the tract The Biological Jew, which he claimed was an objective analysis of the forces behind the "decline" of Western culture. He claimed that the main influence that people were overlooking in their analysis of world affairs was "parasitism".

The Secrets of the Federal Reserve His best-known work is The Secrets of The Federal Reserve, in which he alleged that several high-profile bankers had conspired to write the Federal Reserve Act for their own nefarious purposes, and then induced Congress to enact it into law. It became his best known book, and remains broadly influential in American far-right movements.

In his "Foreword" to The Secrets of the Federal Reserve, Mullins explains the circumstances by which he came to write his investigation into the origins of the Federal Reserve System: "In 1949, while I was visiting Ezra Pound… [he] asked me if I had ever heard of the Federal Reserve System. I replied that I had not, as of the age of 25. He then showed me a ten dollar bill marked "Federal Reserve Note" and asked me if I would do some research at the Library of Congress on the Federal Reserve System which had issued this bill." Mullins told Pound that he had little interest in such a research project because he was working on a novel. "My initial research" wrote Mullins, "revealed evidence of an international banking group which had secretly planned the writing of the Federal Reserve Act and Congress’ enactment of the plan into law. These findings confirmed what Pound had long suspected. He said, 'You must work on it as a detective story.'"

Mullins completed the manuscript during the course of 1950 when he began to seek a publisher. Eighteen publishers turned the book down without comment before the President of the Devin-Adair Publishing Company, Devin Garrity, told him, "I like your book but we can't print it ... Neither can anybody else in New York. You may as well forget about getting [it] published." In 1952, the book was finally published by two of Pound's other disciples, John Kasper and David Horton, under the title Mullins on the Federal Reserve.

In it, Mullins postulated a conspiracy among various bankers that led to the founding of the U.S. Federal Reserve System. In an updated edition published in 1983 and retitled Secrets of the Federal Reserve, Mullins expanded on his argument. He called the Rothschilds "world monopolists", and claimed that City of London bankers owned the Federal Reserve, since they owned much of the stock of its member banks. He attempted to trace stock ownership, as it changed hands via mergers and acquisitions, from the inception of the Federal Reserve in 1913 to the early 1980s.

Death While on a speaking tour in Columbus, Ohio, in January 2010, Mullins suffered a stroke. He died on February 2, 2010, aged 86, in Hockley, Texas.