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The Western Goals Institute (WGI) was a right-wing anti-communist pressure group in Britain, formed at the beginning of 1989 from Western Goals (UK) (formed in 1985). It was also known for its opposition to non-European immigration into Britain, and Europe.

Hierarchy

Its leading patrons were General Sir Walter Walker, KCB, CBE, DSO, former NATO Chief of Staff, Major-General John K. Singlaub from the World Anti-Communist League and a founder of the CIA, US Military Intelligence, and Major Patrick Wall, MC, VRD, RM. In 1989 its list of Vice-Presidents included Professor Antony Flew, Professor Tryggvi McDonald, Rev.Martin Smyth, M.P., The 7th Baron Sudeley, Dr. Harvey Ward, former head of the Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation (today the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation), Colonel Barry Turner, the Rev. Basil Watson, OBE, MA, RN (Retd), and Gregory Lauder-Frost of the Conservative Monday Club. The Directorate consisted, until the mid-1990s, of Andrew V R Smith, Stuart Notholt, Gideon Sherman, and others.

Objects

Regularly in the news it campaigned constantly and had links to many traditional and free-thinking non and anti-communist political organisations in the former Eastern Bloc and also in Western Europe. Firmly opposed to the Liberal-Left consensus in Western politics, Western Goals argued that it was this concensus which had permitted communism to advance so far into Europe and into other countries throughout the world. Its view was firmly that the West were constantly appeasing communism and all its fellow-travellers, working with them in such organisations as the British Labour Party, here and abroad, where many former communists had moved to (Denis Healey, John Reid, and Peter Mandleson, being just three examples).

It saw its task in Britain to expose the Far Left, and to get its message of 'the enemy within' to a wider audience. The group published numerous policy papers, as well as a short-lived newspaper European Dawn (1989).

Charities

In a BBCRadio interview on 31st January 1989, Andrew V R Smith, of the WGI Directorate, stated: "Western Goals is a British-based monitoring and research organisation opposing subversion. We are particularly concerned with the activities of so-called charities whose real aims are political". It was particularly critical of the World Council of Churches, and was successful in getting Christian Aid fined by the Charity Commission for their assistance to African terrorists, and frequently called into question donations to left-wing organisations made by Soviet front organisations. In the same BBC interview on 31st January 1989, Marc Gordon, director of the libertarian International Freedom Foundation, stated that "Western Goals have done a good job picking up on the charities."

On the 25th August 1989 the left-wing newspaper "Tribune" attacked Western Goals' activities.

South Africa

The WGI supported European government in South Africa, vigorously opposing the communist-dominated ANC. The WGI hosted a visit to the UK, in June 1989, by the hierarchy of the right-wing Conservative Party of South Africa (which had broken away from the National Party of South Africa), including its leader Dr.Andries Treurnicht.The Conservative Party then held 22 seats in the Republic of South Africa's parliament, and was the Official Opposition. A press conference was held for the delegation in a committee room of the House of Lords on 5 June. Conservative Party of South Africa MP Clive Derby-Lewis was made an honourary vice-president of the WGI. Derby-Lewis would later (1993) be tried and convicted for his role in the assassination of Chris Hani of the South African Communist Party.

On the 27th October 1989, left-wing newspaper, The Guardian, carried a letter from Marc Gordon, of the IFF, attacking Western Goals' position on South Africa calling for the release of Nelson Madela, abolition of separate development (Apartheid), and the lifting of restrictions on proscribed organisations such as the South African Communist Party, and the ANC.

Communism

In Central America, which was being heavily infiltrated by communist agents and whose terrorist groups were being armed by Cuba, Western Goals gave, as a token state, their open support to the ARENA Party's government of El Salvador. On the 25th September 1989 Baron Sudeley, then a Vice-President of Western Goals, chaired a major Western Goals dinner at Simpsons-in-the-Strand, for El Salvador's President, Alfredo Cristiani, and his inner cabinet. The guest list was packed with the luminaries of the British Respectable Right, including Sir Alfred Sherman - policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher, Lord Nicholas Hervey, Professor Antony Flew, Andrew V R Smith, Dr.Zigmunt Szkopiak of the Polish Government in Exile, Colonel Barry Turner, R.E.,(Retd.), Sam Swerling (former Monday Club Chairman), Gregory Lauder-Frost (WGI Vice-President), W.Denis Walker, and Harvey Ward, the former Director Rhodesian Broadcasting.

In Europe, Western Goals gave their open support to the French 'Front National', the populist political party led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, who came second in the last French Presidential Election. On 12 October 1989 WGI hosted a controversial fringe meeting at the Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool, addressed by Front National MEP, Pierre Ceyrac. Western Goals also examined the possibility of links with the right-wing party, The Republicans (Germany), which in 1989 had six members in the European Parliament. It was led by Franz Shoenhuber, a TV presenter in Bavaria. On 12th August 1989 a delegation from the Western Goals Institute attended a massive anti-communist demonstration at Moln, near Lubeck, where 20,000 people had gathered. This was widely reported in the Hamburg press. It was organized by 'Die Deutschen Konservativen e.V.' led by another media personality, Joachim Siegerist, now a parliamentarian in Riga, with whom the WGI had contacts.

The group hosted many social events including an Annual Dinner at the Grosvenor Hotel at Victoria on 24 November 1989 when the guest of honour was Kenneth Griffith, who spoke out against non-European Third World immigration into Britain and Europe. On the 20 November 1990 they hosted the General Franco Memorial Dinner, commemorating the anniversary of his death. This was also chaired by Baron Sudeley. A WGI notice in "The Times" argued that the late ruler of Spain was "remembered as a hero against communism".

Major-General Singlaub, who remained a Patron of the WGI, visited London and had several meetings with the directorate of Western Goals in May 1991. The WGI was anxious to damage the communist-controlled ANC, and following Singlaub's lobbying the US Congress reversed their grant-aid to the South African ANC in June. The Institute was also affiliated to the World Anti-Communist League, and sent a delegation to the 22nd World Anti-Communist League Conference in Brussels in July 1990.

Western Goals subsequently hosted a dinner for Jean-Marie Le Pen and his team at the Charing Cross Hotel in the Strand, London, at the beginning of December 1991 which was widely reported, with an exclusive appearing in "The Mail on Sunday" on 8 December. There was a large demonstration against the meeting outside the hotel and some damage to property took place, notably the hotel's front doors and surroundings, which were smashed.

Attacks on the WGI

On the 19 September 1992 Norman Fowler, then Chairman of the Conservative Party, said in a letter to The Independent newspaper that the Western Goals Institute was "an extreme anti-conservative group". WGI responded refuting this on the 24 September. The Jewish Chronicle ran two articles attacking Western Goals for hosting Jean Marie Le Pen's forthcoming visit to London. The same newspaper reported on 25th September 1992 that Marc Gordon, director of the libertarian International Freedom Foundation urged the Conservative Party to expel members of Western Goals, and again in the same newspaper (2nd October) Julian Lewis (now a M.P.), then deputy-head of Conservative Central Office's Research Department, said he would strongly advise local associations that Western Goals was hostile to conservative objectives. Gordon's attack was replied to by the WGI in a letter dated 24th September to the Jewish Chronicle, which they failed to publish.

Because of its links with Le Pen, The Independent newspaper stated that the WGI had ties to foreign neo-fascist parties (28 November 1992), although Roger Griffin states that the Front National is "basically non-fascist" and Mike Whine of the Board of Jewish Deputies admitted that "Western Goals are not fascists or anti-semitic" (Jewish Chronicle, 13 September 1991. The Guardian later accused the WGI of attempting "to infiltrate fascists into the Conservative Party" (18 August 1993). These claims were disputed by the WGI, which described them as "laughable".

Activities scaled down

In a circular letter to supporters in late 1993, the Directorate stated that "the WGI remains opposed to a non-traditional Britain, and Europe, and we condemn the slide into general degeneracy visible everywhere. We condemn unacceptable numbers of immigrants, whether born here or not. We object to our economies being run by multi-nationals whose first consideration will never be the national good, but internationalism and profit."

Activities diminished and lack of finance reduced any subsequent campaigning to occasional Policy Papers, the glossy newsletter, and letters to editors, such as that by WGI Vice-President, Gregory Lauder-Frost, which appeared in "The Scotsman" in October 1994, opposing constitutional devolution. Another letter by Lauder-Frost, writing again as Vice-President, appeared in the London Evening Standard on 4 January 1995 which called for "witch-hunts" of traditionalists within the Conservative Party to cease, and for "the party to return to its original philosophies".

Yorkshire-based Anthony Murphy, who had been a prominent local Conservative in Bradford, and Chairman of the Yorkshire branch of the Monday Club, became the Secretary from 1993 - 1996. The group sent representatives to The Right Conference in London on 21 May 1994. In March 1995 the guest-of-honour at the Western Goals Annual Dinner, chaired by Gregory Lauder-Frost and held at the Grosvenor Hotel in Victoria, was Ulster Democratic Unionist Party M.P., Peter Robinson.

In January and February 1996 WGI issued two 'opinion papers' as a Press Statements, headed "The Monarchy in Crisis - Our Opinion", and "Crush the IRA" calling for the army's SAS to be deployed in Ulster, for Sinn Fein to be proscribed, and for a formal declaration by the British government that Ulster will remain an integral part of the United Kingdom in perpetuity.

The group's secretary had a letter in the London Evening Standard on 10 September 1996 supporting the right of revisionist historians to be heard. In July 1997, Western Goals formally complained by letter to the BBC's Director-General that the BBC was "promoting minorities and minority opinion at the expense of the majority population" and that they had an institutionalised left-wing bias. Also in July 1997 Lauder-Frost, writing on behalf of the WGI, made a formal complaint to British Airways opposing the abolition of their traditional logo on plane tails, to be replaced by a logo which, in their response, BA said "represents a willingness to embrace different cultures".

On the 4 February, 1998 Western Goals sent a letter to the Evening Standard over their headline "Britain attacks Iraq Arsenal". The letter asked "what was the United Nations doing when the Soviet Union had all these weapons of mass destruction"? It called for Iraq's sovereignty to be respected. On the 1 March that year several of the 'Old Guard' from Western Goals went on the first Countryside Alliance march through London, followed by a luncheon at the Lansdowne Club.

In January 1999 the group wrote to the Daily Telegraph on two occasions, on the 21st attacking Margaret Beckett's 'instructions' to the hereditary peerage not to obstruct the legislation which would remove them from the House of Lords, and on the 28th, when they commented on the report of that day that Islamic terrorists were now living and training in Britain, and called for a halt to immigration. Their last sentence said "the alternative will be a disaster-in-waiting for all of us."

Wound up

Their December 1999 mailing carried a personal letter from General Sir Walter Walker on WGI notepaper, calling for vigilance against 'the enemies within' and saluting Western Goals' 15 years of activity in Great Britain.

The organisation folded in 2001 following Walker's death.

References

• The Traditional Britain Group archives, BCM Box 9045, London, WC1N 3XX.

• Various newspapers and TV programmes.

• Griffin, Roger, The Nature of Fascism, London, 1991, ISBN 0-86187-112X

Some WGI publications

• "European Dawn" short-lived tabloid newspaper on quality paper. July 1989 edition carried headlines on EEC Elections and "Reds to come clean over 1940?" Page 6 carries an article: "outcry grows over Hong Kong sell-out" and on page 7 there is a Tribute to Senator Joseph McCarthy. The September 1989 edition carries the headline "AIDS Crisis Deepens" with quotes by Jean Marie le Pen. Another front-page article states "Drugs Menace Crosses Atlantic". Page 4 carries a full-page article by Gregory Lauder-Frost entitled "Legacy of Betrayal" on supposed Western appeasement to communism. Page 6 carried a picture and article ont he visit to Britain of Dr.Andries Treurnicht, and page 7 carries an article entitled "Communist Tactics in Chile".

• "Family Protection Scoreboard" magazine - Special full edition on "Liberation Theology", , editor David W. Balsiger, published by the National Citizens Action Network, Costa Mesa, CA92627, USA.,1989.

• "Hit-job on Margaret Thatcher" WGI Viewpoint Paper, by John Wilkes. n/d but probably 1990.

• "The Mandela Myth" WGI Viewpoint Paper, by James Gibb Stuart. June 1990.

• "The Finance Factor" WGI Viewpoint Paper, by James Gibb-Stuart. n/d, but probably 1991.

• "The Conservative Ethic" by James Gibb Stuart, April 1994, .

• "Western Goals Political Briefing Papers" - glossy 4-page bi-annual editions. Editor: Gregory Lauder-Frost. Special 1997 General Election edition headlined "Britain: Province or Nation?. September 1998 edition headline: "New Labour and the New Face of Conservatism" with an inside article attacking the unveiling of 'left-wing' statues at Westminster Abbey. February 1999 edition headline states: "NO to Blair, NO to the Euro", with inside articles on "The Death of Free Speech" and "Nationalism". The Winter 1999 edition was headlined "The lies, the shame, the betrayal of Ulster" with an inside editorial attacking the the "Conservative Party", and another "Withdraw from the EU NOW!"

See also

• Traditional Britain Group
• Western Goals (UK)

• Conservative political pressure groups of the United Kingdom