Larry
Grathwohl, my friend and hero, has passed
on to join the pantheon of other truth-tellers about communism. His death
last week merited mentions in blogs and sites like PJ Media, Canada Free Press,
and the People’s
Cube. Tina Trent, who republished his book, Bringing Down America,
was the first in our circle of friends and admirers to learn about his death
and to publish the remembrance
on her site and a notice on the book page blog. As the People’s Cube
points out, in a just world Larry’s death would have made front-page news in
the New
York Times. Instead we have had the relentless attention on Trayvon
Martin and the “pioneer” reporter Helen Thomas.
But it’s
part of the plan to deny any truth about communist dangers facing us and to use
the old Soviet strategy going back to the 1920s to divide us over race until we
collapse in a civil war. Larry, who never held an academic, government, or
editorial board position, saw the strategy clearly and from first-hand
experience from infiltrating the domestic terrorist group Weather Underground,
led by today’s darlings of academia, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. A
Midwesterner (from the flyover country of Ohio) and from a blue-collar family,
he did this after serving a tour of duty in Vietnam, described here by James
Simpson. The continued manipulation of race for revolutionary purposes was
described in a paper Larry presented at an America’s Survival conference.
Larry
shunned the hero label, saying that what he did was what anyone would do. That
is true and not true. A certain kind of person understands the difference
between right and wrong, and takes the stand against evil without regard to
personal reputation or safety. This is the unpretentious person, who operates
from moral conviction, without calculation. That is the kind of person Larry
was.
I feel
lucky that I got to meet Larry at an America’s Survival conference and to spend
a week this spring with him as he, Tina Trent, and I went on a speaking
tour in Florida. As we talked over a beer at Tina’s dining room table late at
night, I was struck by his matter-of-fact way of considering what he had done
as he lived with a group of highly educated and mostly privileged young adults
intent on bringing down this great country. How he woke up to see boxes of
dynamite in his room, hid the acid he was told to take during Weathermen’s
“criticism/self-criticism sessions,” and “proved” by his words, actions, and
even facial expressions his devotion to their cause were described
matter-of-factly. His methods of survival were related in the same way that
those in Vietnam were, at my prompting, with no self-glorification. This is
what you needed to do, was his attitude.
Larry,
however, had a different demeanor when he talked about the moral depravity of
Weatherman, a group that with cold calculation discussed re-education camps in
the Southwest for the 100 million Americans they estimated would be resistant
to the new regime after their revolution. The estimated 25 million who could
not be “re-educated” would have to be executed, they speculated.
“How can
a group of college-educated, rich young people talk that way?” Larry would say
incredulously. The other moral depravity that amazed Larry was the forced
separation of a mother from her young daughter. These sociopaths thought family
ties would interfere with revolutionary goals.
Larry
loved his three daughters intensely, and spoke to them frequently from Florida.
He had a father’s tender concern for them and worried about their illnesses and
troubles.
I was
looking forward to resuming our lecture tour here in Georgia in the fall. The
tea party people, especially the military vets, loved hearing Larry. I was
hoping to continue to spread the word about a leader of the Weathermen, Bill
Ayers, who had gone from discussing plans to execute Americans on a mass scale
to specializing in training teachers on how to indoctrinate school children for
the revolution that would bring about their destruction.
I was
hoping to be able to share a beer with Larry again and recount the day’s event.
I wanted to hear more stories. I wanted to hear his silly jokes told with the
distinctly Midwestern inflections. Larry was like the guys from blue-collar
families I knew--with decency, courage, and a sense of duty. They went to
Vietnam, raised families, and worked hard--and with no fanfare.
But
Larry was also like the other forgotten or besmirched figures in history who
tried to tell the world the truth about the communists: Victor Kravchenko,
Gareth Jones, George H. Earle, William Bullit, John C. Wiley, Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn, Whittaker Chambers, Elia Kazan, Major George Racey Jordan, John
Van Vliet, and Ivan Krivosertsov, the last a Russian peasant who witnessed and
told about the execution of Polish officers in the Katyn forest by the Soviets,
but was found dead, mysteriously, some years later in England. These people all
did the right thing. A just world would have rewarded them. Instead, it still
denies the great evil they were fighting.
They are
in the same mold as Larry Grathwohl. Larry did the dangerous work and then went
on to tell his story and continue an unassuming life. He was as unpretentious as
they come. In fact, he was visibly touched when I addressed my book on Bill
Ayers to him as an “American hero,” flattered that I thought so.
As much
as we might be dismissed by the elites in academia, government, and the media,
we need to tell Larry’s story. He would want us to. He was genuinely alarmed by
recent developments, that someone mentored by Bill Ayers would become
president, that Bill Ayers would be feted at academic conferences.
Like
Larry, we must continue to be amazed by such developments, but fight them with
the serenity, pragmatism, purposefulness, and confidence that he displayed.
His
obituary in the Cincinnati Enquirer is here.
Donations to the Wounded Warriors Project are requested in lieu of flowers.
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