22 Facts About Willis Carto

Willis Allison Carto was an American far-right political activist.

Willis Carto described himself as a Jeffersonian and a populist, but was primarily known for his promotion of antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial.

Willis Carto ran a group supporting segregationist George Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign and reorganized the group into the National Youth Alliance, which promoted Francis Parker Yockey's ideology.

Willis Carto helped found the Populist Party, which served as an electoral vehicle for white supremacist group and Ku Klux Klan members, such as David Duke in the 1988 presidential election and Christian Identity supporter Bo Gritz in 1992.

Willis Carto ran the American Free Press newspaper which publishes antisemitic and racist books and features columns by Joe Sobran, James Traficant, Paul Craig Roberts, and others.

Willis Carto served in the United States Army in the Philippines in World War II and earned the Purple Heart when he was shot in the shoulder by an enemy sniper.

Willis Carto later expressed disgust over his military service, describing it as a:.

Willis Carto studied law for a semester at the University of Cincinnati Law School.

In 1955, Willis Carto founded an organization called Liberty Lobby, which remained in operation under his control until 2001, when the organization was forced into bankruptcy as a result of a lawsuit.

In 1966, Willis Carto acquired control of The American Mercury via the Legion for the Survival of Freedom organization.

Willis Carto ran a group called "Youth for George Wallace" to aid the third party presidential campaign of George Wallace in 1968.

Willis Carto eventually lost control of the National Youth Alliance to Pierce who transformed it into the National Alliance, a white nationalist and white separatist political organization.

Willis Carto was the founder of a publishing company called Noontide Press, which published books on white racialism, including Yockey's Imperium and David Hoggan's The Myth of the Six Million, one of the first books to deny the Holocaust.

The IHR and Willis Carto were sued in 1981 by public interest attorney William John Cox on behalf of Auschwitz survivor Mel Mermelstein.

In 1984, Willis Carto was involved in starting a new political party called the Populist Party.

Willis Carto formed the Foundation to Defend the First Amendment, one of several nonprofits Willis Carto used to spread money to like-minded individuals and groups.

In 2004, Willis Carto joined in signing David Duke's New Orleans Protocol on behalf of American Free Press.

In 2007, Willis Carto condemned the "genocidal maniacs like Vice President Cheney and commentator Bill O'Reilly" in their support of the Bush administration's attack on Iraq, and warned that "now the crooks are prodding America to attack Iran".

Willis Carto died on October 26,2015, at the age of 89, reportedly from cardiac arrest.

Willis Carto was a devotee of the writings of Francis Parker Yockey, a far-rightist who heralded Adolf Hitler's Third Reich as the "European Imperium" against both Bolshevism and the United States, which he considered Jewish-controlled.

Willis Carto adopted Yockey's book Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics as his own guiding ideology, and he obtained a 15-minute interview with Yockey on June 10,1960, while the latter was held in prison for passport fraud.

Later, Willis Carto would define his ideology as Jeffersonian and populist rather than National Socialist, particularly in Willis Carto's 1982 book, Profiles in Populism.