Setting the Record Straight: The Case of Gerald Sprouse

The case of publisher Gerald L. Sprouse illustrates a form of malfeasance for which Harold Covington has long been (as John McLaughlin writes below) notorious: publishing letters that he wrote to himself, with authorship fraudulently attributed to somebody else, typically somebody that would not willingly be associated with Covington. This pattern has also been demonstrated on this blog in the cases of Carlos W. Porter and much more recently, in the case of posts on Covington's blog attributed to Fred Streed and Ron Doggett, and a few others.

Among the documents shown below are:

I. three pages from Covington's Resistance newsletter of 1 September 1997, featuring a long letter attributed to patriotic publisher Gerald L. Sprouse, and one page from Covington's newsletter of the following week, wherein Covington (writing under the name Winston Smith) refers to the alleged letter.

Covington represents Sprouse as urging him to relocate far away from the "lunatic" that supposedly intends to kill him. Will Williams describes the evident purpose of the fake letter: "Covington was setting the stage to his sucker list for him to take flight from Charleston, SC, to avoid execution of my judgment on the pretext that I would soon assassinate him."

As is Covington's usual practice with sockpuppets, Covington has "Sprouse" make shrill statements that would show Covington as undignified if he uttered them under his own name.

II. John McLaughlin's letter (17 September 1997) to Gerald Sprouse letting him know that Covington had published a letter attributed to him.

III. Sprouse's hand-printed letter (23 September 1997) to McLaughlin stating emphatically that he had not written the letter and asking McLaughlin for advice on what to do. It reads, in part, as follows:

Dear Mr. McLaughlin:

Yes, indeed, you are most absolutely correct. That son-of-a-bitch Covington is writing letters to himself and publishing them in my name. Thanks for sending me this
evidence!

[...]

I don't even know the goddamned son-of-a-bitch. He got my name and address a year or so back and wrote to me trying to get me to join his organization. I told him I wasn't the least bit interested in him or his organization. He kept writing to me and sending me copies of his publication bad-mouthing every major patriotic publisher in the country. I kept telling him in ever stronger verbiage that I had the lowest possible opinion of him, his organization, and the crap he publishes. Finally he stopped sending me anything, and I assumed he got the message. I thought I was rid of him, but now this.

[...]

What have others done to force Covington to stop writing in their name, and to stop talking about them as if they were something that they are not? What can be done to undo the damage that he has caused to my reputation as a writer and a patriot and as a non-Nazi? Can you help me to get the truth about what he is doing to me to the people who read his publication?

[...]

It seems clear to me that Covington is an enemy agent. We need to expose him as such to all of those who may come into contact with him. He is a dangerous man because he is such an effective liar. He must be Jewish, because he is as effective a liar as any Jew that I ever saw. If he had not done this to me, I might not have ever been totally sure that some of what he said about patriot leaders wasn't true. Now, I wouldn't believe a word he said if he swore on a stack of bibles while wrapped in a Nazi flag.

[...]

Perhaps he still thinks Will White Williams is out to get him as he did when he was sending me his crap a year or more ago. I met will at Ben Klassen's when I was going to be editor of Racial Loyalty, and again at National Alliance when I was going to be editor of National Vanguard. He didn't strike me as an assassin. And if Covington was talking about Will White Williams as his expected assassin, he was using my name to attempt to incriminate someone who I consider to be a friend, even though I really don't know him very well at all. He was very friendly to me.

Although I exchange information with all patriots and have found that some of the best patriots are National-Socialists, I do not want to be considered a National-Socialist or a Nazi. In fact, I am at the far other end of the scale. Fascists and Communists seem the same to me. I despise all forms of government, and I despise despotic dictatorships with a passion. I am an anarchist, one who believes in total freedom from government of any kind. Perhaps I would support a despotism based on race to clean up the mess, but just as soon as the problem was solved, I would want to be free of government entirely. I believe in the law of the sixgun, the only law that works and the only form of freedom with respect to government. I don't like Covington painting me as a Nazi!