Hindsight from The New Gun Week March 20, 1998

Heston Replies on Link to GCA '68
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

In recent years, award-winning actor and political activist Charlton Heston has been a popular and well-received speaker at National Rifle Association events and an NRA friend who has spoken out on behalf of the Association with politicians, the press and the public.

Since being elected a director and then first vice president of the NRA in Seattle last year, Heston has been the central figure in NRA internal and external communications. He is also the centerpiece of the Association's membership recruiting and fund-raising efforts, and is featured in internal political advertising—including the NRA's official journal, this publication and others, as well as in direct mail campaigning on behalf of a slate of candidates for the Association's board of directors favored by NRA leadership.

Heston, who is also a candidate for reelection this year, was featured on the cover of March 1998 NRA publications which contained the election ballot.

In a short time, Heston has become the public symbol for the NRA. He is perhaps the biggest celebrity to ever be identified with the nation's oldest and largest gun organization.

His performance before the National Press Club last September and in a CNN interview with Frank Sesno a few days later were outstanding and received appropriate praise in this column.

GCA '68 Tie-In

However, during the current heated, acrimonious and negative campaigning for the NRA board, some person or persons with long memories placed on the Internet reports of Heston's role in support of President Johnson's gun control agenda, with specific focus on long guns.

As might be expected, some conspiracy buffs added speculations of their own. Cooler heads did some research. Perhaps the easiest thing to find was a story in the October 1968 issue of The American Rifleman, entitled, "Stars Fall From Anti-gun Bandwagon."

Some may say that 30 years ago it was a different time and a different NRA. Nevertheless, that NRA publication reported:

"In the heat of summer and apparently in hot pursuit of publicity, scores of movie and television personalities hopped on the gun control bandwagon" briefly. When the furor died down, they quit.

"Actor-producer Tom Laughlin, chairman of a Hollywood anti-gun movement billed as 'Ten Thousand Americans for Reasonable Gun Control,' admitted defeat and dejection in a news report in 'Film and Television Daily.' Laughlin was quoted as terming the quitting actors 'summer soldiers' and lamenting:

" 'We'd put them all on network shows. We built the campaign, and then everyone just became uninterested. When the failure set in in Washington, when it was clear that there was a need for a sustained, organized effort, everyone became disinterested.

" 'They were all hepped up for 2 weeks. The commitment couldn't last any longer than that. It's frightening to me.'

"Laughlin cited as diehards who stuck with his anti-gun movement a 'little more than a handful,' including Producers Richard Zanuck and Robert Blumoffe, Producer-Director Robert Wise, and film stars Warren Beatty, Candice Bergen, Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Hugh O'Brien, Jill St. John."

LBJ Library

It took somewhat longer for others to probe the files at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Texas. Among the presidential papers they found correspondence related to Hollywood's support for the Johnson gun agenda. Some of the letters between White House staffers, Johnson and various speechwriters and media consultants mention Heston as a player in the effort to impose controls on sales of rifles and shotguns. Those provisions became part of GCA '68.

One of the documents is a telegram to Heston with a proposed statement of support for Johnson's agenda. Another, from a Hollywood PR consultant addressed to Johnson aide Joseph Califani (sic) included the statement that "Charlton, Gregory and Hugh personally planted this statement with the bureau chiefs at AP and UPI. They were greeted warmly and Hugh reports that, based on the reception and ensuing converstaion, the results should be excellent. The AP also photographed the trio."

After seeing copies of the documents from the LBJ Library in Austin, I queried NRA on March 4 for a comment from Heston, regarding the information which had been on the Internet, indicating that I wanted to hear, and share with our readers, what Heston himself had to say about his role in the 1968 effort to pass GCA '68. I specifically mentioned that I would like to know if Heston's position had changed since 1968, and if so, when and why he had changed his mind.

I was told that it might be difficult to contact the NRA's first vice president since he was on the campaign trail in California, on behalf of a pro-gun congressional candidate, who is supported by the NRA and other pro-gun groups.

On Friday, March 6, I received Heston's reply, relayed by Bill Powers, the NRA's press spokesman.

Here is Heston's complete comment:

"It has come to my attention that a handful of dissidents—after failing in all other attempts—now seeks to impugn my integrity regarding the Second Amendment and Bill of Rights, based on a couple of meetings held thirty years ago with suspicious types like Jimmy Stewart, Kirk Douglas and Gregory Peck. My political views on a variety of subjects, including the Second Amendment and Bill of Rights, are well known to both friend and foe. I stand by my record."

Contempt Citation

The legal battle over publication of the NRA nominating committee report seems far from over.

An undisclosed petition candidate for the 1998 board election sent a copy of the ballot issue of the NRA official journal to New York Judge Shainswit, who had issued a temporary injunction preventing publication of the committee report in the official journal, with particular reference to the "P" page in the ballot which explained why the committee report was not being published and listed the names of the 10 candidates who had filed suit. That official statement included the following paragraph:

"A preliminary injunction was issued by Justice Shainswit on the Supreme Court. This injunction will be reviewed on appeal by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. Until it is reversed, the injunction must be obeyed."

While the NRA did appeal the decision, no ruling was immediately likely, and the outcome in doubt. Publication of a statement suggested to members that Shainswit would be reversed. On March 2, the judge's clerk notified counsel for the NRA and the plaintiffs that they should appear in her court on March 5.

At that brief hearing, the judge heard both attorneys and then expressed dismay at the way the NRA had attempted to get around its own bylaw prohibiting publication of the committee report. She also invited a motion for a contempt of court citation against the NRA.

A spokesman for the 10 plaintiffs who filed the suit to make the NRA leadership obey its own bylaws told Gun Week that a motion for a contempt of court citation would be made as early as the week of March 9.

A Personal Disclosure

In the interest of full disclosure, I should report that I was involved in the NRA reform movement in the late 1970s, including as a national coordinator for the Federation for NRA which led the reform movement at Cincinnati. However, I resigned that position when I became editor of Gun Week in August 1979. And, since the Second Amendment Foundation acquired Gun Week in 1985, I have consciously tried to keep the newspaper and the Foundation removed from even the appearance of partisanship in NRA internal affairs. Like almost a million gunowners, Alan Gottlieb, founder of SAF, Julianne Versnel Gottlieb, his wife and a key player in the gun movement as well as publisher of Women & Guns, Peggy Tartaro, my daughter and editor of Women & Guns and Gun Week advertising director, and I are all lifetime members of the NRA. In addition, many employees of the Foundation are also lifetime members, including John C. Krull, who is a petition candidate for the board this year.

In addition, two of Neal Knox's children work for the Foundation: Stacey Knox, in advertising sales, and Jeff Knox, managing a radio station in Spokane, WA, owned by the Foundation and CCRKBA. Jeff is also a petition candidate for the NRA board this year.

I have chosen recently to report and comment on the internal conflict within the NRA because of the general interest and widespread confusion among the membership concerning this extremely personal, power struggle between popular leaders who once appeared to be allies. However, while we have a personal stake in the future growth and success of the NRA, we will not choose sides nor endorse any slate of candidates. Indeed, the NRA personnel mentioned will be voting secretly and privately for candidates they know who are likely to be on both lists, or for petition candidates who have been ignored by both factions.

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The New Gun Week is published three times a month by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) on the 1st, 10th, and 20th. Hindsight is a commentary written by SAF President and Gun Week Executive Editor Joseph P. Tartaro. This commentary may be reprinted so long as credit is given to the author and the publication. For more information or to subscribe, write Gun Week, PO Box 488, Buffalo, NY 14209, or call 716-885-6408 Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, or inquire on Compuserve to John Krull, Production manager-JohnSAF@Compuserve.com or gunweeksaf@broadviewnet.net

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