The extent to which LP News was to serve the interests of the National Committee’s staff and their friends, rather than the interest of the Party and its elected governing body, was revealed four years later. An article about the Willis Invoice and its aftermath was to appear in LP News. The October 2001 issue of Liberty magazine, based on interviews with Dasbach, Winter, and Lark, reported “…Lark and Winter had indeed disagreed about where the article should appear in LP News. Winter wanted it to appear on page 4, a very unprominent position in the paper. Lark thought it was important enough that it should appear on page 1. Winter said that he’d do that if Lark insisted but that he would consider it to be ‘a vote of no confidence with respect to his professional judgement’ “ The story finally appeared on page 3 with a box announcing the location on page 1. On a critical governance issue, the Party’s CEO allowed the staff to bury a discussion of earlier staff conduct.
Liberty magazine appends to their description of the situation a peculiar footnote. They had interviewed Winter, but “Curiously, Winter was unwilling to answer our inquiry about the matter. ‘I have no comment on this. Why don’t you make up quotes on this like you do on everything else?’ “ Challenged by Liberty to supply an example of a made-up quote, Winter declined.
The National Committee gave the Browne campaign more substantive propaganda aid. In 1998 and 1999 the National Party purchased nearly 4000 copies of Browne’s book “Why Government Doesn’t Work”. The books were to be used as premiums, gifts given to especially generous donors to the National Party.
The books themselves were highly targeted advertising for Browne’s next campaign: The National Party does not subsidize travel for the ca.
1000 delegates actually likely to appear at a National Convention. In most states, any Libertarian who wants to be a National Convention delegate is able to do so. By putting a book by Harry Browne in front of the party’s 4000 most generous donors, the Party had at its expense put Harry Browne’s name, likeness, and words in front of 4000 people who were highly likely to be delegates to the next convention, and who were all relatively able to afford the trip. The book premium by itself was an enormous advantage for Browne, a contribution in kind to his campaign worth many tens of thousands of dollars.
Even if one of Browne’s opponents had had a book and the money to spare to distribute it, he could not have duplicated the feat. The Party treated the list of maximum donors as a closely held secret. Even if the opponent had had the LNC Major Donor list, whatever he sent the donor would have appeared to the donor to be advertising matter and therefore suspect. In contrast, Browne’s book came from the Party itself and implicitly carried the Party’s imprimatur.
Browne’s book was effective well beyond its near-4000 recipients. The book premium was not a surprise gift. Fundraising letters systematically outlined the additional rewards that would go to major contributors. Even if a recipient of the letter gave no money at all, the recipient saw what the Party thought was a worthwhile gift to thank its donors. And did the party think was worthwhile? Why, the words and thoughts of Harry Browne. If the book itself wasn’t enough, references to Browne’s works and quotations from Browne’s words in at least some of the Party’s direct mail letters might have filled the gap. Fundraising letters went out to Party members on a regular basis. In addition, the Party mailed, under Willis’s direct supervision, over two million Project Archimedes letters to a wide range of lists, many of which included National Party members, and many of which includes references to and quotations from Harry Browne.
