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GroupWatch was compiled by the Interhemispheric Resource
Center, Box 4506, Albuquerque, NM
87196. http://www.irc-online.org/
These files reveal an important aspect of U.S. history in
the 1980s, and help us understand how we got here today.
GroupWatch files are available at http://www.pir.org/gw/
Good link for information CNP: http://www.pir.org/gw/cnp.txt
Group: American Coalition for Traditional Values File Name:
actv.txt Last Updated: 8/89
Principals: Tim LaHaye, head; Gary Jarmin, natl field dir;
William K. Lyons, exec dir, Family
Life Seminars. Executive board includes: Jerry Falwell, James
Robison, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat
Robertson, Rex Humbard, Colonel Doner.(1,3,5)
Category: Political, Religious
Background: The American Coalition for Traditional Values
(ACTV) was an umbrella organization
of the religious Right.(2) Pronounced "Active," the
group was the Christian Right's largest
umbrella group. Besides the Board members listed above, ACTV
also included leaders from the
Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God.(3)
ACTV began as a project to register voters for the 1984 presidential
campaign.(3)
ACTV is now defunct. Tim LaHaye is now the President of Family
Life Seminars (FLS). According
to William K. Lyons, exec dir of FLS, "Due to the lack of
interest of churches, we have put
this organization [ACTV] on hold until a further date."(5)
Countries: US
Funding: In our research we have not been able to locate concrete
sources of funding for ACTV,
although it has been reported that LaHaye received money from
the Unification Church.(7) In
1985 ACTV had a budget of $200,000 (6) and in a source dated
Dec. 1987 LaHaye was listed as
having a budget of $2,500,000.(7)
Activities: ACTV promoted a fundamentalist job bank which
was designed to put right-wing
evangelicals in government jobs. The job placement project was
a reward for ACTV which
registered over a million fundamentalist voters for Reagan's
re-election in l984. A White
House aide, however, said he doubted the effectiveness of the
"talent bank," noting that ACTV
had not shown any understanding of how to get activists into
office.(1,3) ACTV brought
together Jerry Falwell, James Robison, Jimmy Swaggert, Pat Robertson,
and Rex Humbard in the
1984 voter registration drive that signed up voters in some 35,000
churches.(2) In l985, the
group aimed to form more than 300 chapters nationwide to lobby
on local and national issues
and to register voters.(3)
In the 1988 presidential campaign, LaHaye origionally supported
candidate Pat Robertson only
to switch support to Jack Kemp. Kemp, who had made LaHaye a national
co-chair of his campaign,
released him one week later. The release of LaHaye was due to
a report in the Baltimore Sun
that LaHaye had written that Roman Catholicism is "a false
religion."(7)
Now active with FLS, LaHaye prepares a daily TV and radio
program (Capitol Report) that gives
news briefs from Washington D.C. There is contradictory evidence
as to how many TV stations
Capitol Report is broadcast on. One letter says it is aired on
35 TV stations (5) and one says
that it is aired on 70.(8) Capitol Report covers issues which
are important to the Right, such
as abortion, pornography, and the bail-out of Savings and Loans.
LaHaye is also an author and holds seminars dealing with the
family and marriage.(5)
Private Connections: Tim LaHaye is married to Beverly LaHaye
of Concerned Women for America
(CWA). CWA had Lt. Col. Oliver North (ret.) speak at their 1985
and 1986 conventions.(2,7)
Herb Ellingwood, chair of the Merit Systems Protection Board
and a prominent conservative
evangelical, headed the job placement bank described above.(1)
Gary Jarmin is/was also legislative director of the fundamentalist
lobby Christian Voice.(3)
ACTV and Christian Voice worked closely together, and in l985
the two groups moved their bases
of operations to Washington D.C. to coordinate their activities.(3)
ACTV was a member of the RAMBO (Restore a More Benevolent
Order) Coalition.(4)
Tim LaHaye has been active both in the Moral Majority and
Christian Voice. He has served as
president of the Council for National Policy (as did Pat Robertson).(7)The
Council is an
umbrella group of conservative individuals which promotes a foreign
policy agenda reflecting
their objectives.(11) He has also given exclusive interviews
to a John Birch Society
magazine.(7)
Misc: In a fairly recent Capitol Report, LaHaye related "that
Castro took over one of the most
prosperous Central American countries and turned it into a nightmare
of poverty, totally
dependent on the Soviet Union."(9) In the same issue LaHaye
notedthat the number of people
murdered in the U.S. in the last year is "several times
more people killed annually than the
number killed by the South African government in the last ten
years. Yet we put economic
sanctions on South Africa."(9) CWA has been known to support
South Africa through the
Conservative Caucus.(10)
Comments:
U.S. Address: Family Life Seminars, 370 L'Enfant Promenade,
S.W., Suite 801, Washington D.C.
20024. (202) 488-0700
- Sources:
- l. "Dear Reader" column, Interchange
Report, vol 6, #1-2, Winter/Spring l985.
- 2. Kris Jacobs, "Right Sets l990 as
Target for Takeover," Interchange Report, vol 6, #1-2,
Winter/Spring l985.
- 3. William Bole, "The Christian Right
Eyes the Republican Party," Interchange Report, vol 6,
#1-2, Winter/Spring l985.
- 4. Sara Diamond, "Shepherding,"
Covert Action Information Bulletin, Spring l987.
- 5. Letter from William K. Lyons, FLS, February
7, 1989.
- 6. Washington 1988 (Washington D.C.; Columbia
Books, 1988).
- 7. Group Research Report, Vol 26 No 10, December
1987.
- 8. Letter from Tim LaHaye, FLS, March 6,
1989.
- 9. Tim LaHaye, Capital Report, February 1989.
- 10. Member's Message, The Conservative Caucus,
Inc., February 1989.
- 11. The Resource Center, The New Right Humanitarians,
1986.
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