Chip Berlet | |
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 Chip Berlet in Mexico in 2012 | |
| Born | John Foster Berlet (1949-11-22)November 22, 1949 (age 76) |
| Occupation(s) | Policy analyst,investigative journalist,photojournalist |
| Known for | Study of right-wing movements and conspiracy theories |
John Foster "Chip"Berlet (/bɜːrˈleɪ/;[1] born November 22, 1949) is an Americaninvestigative journalist,[2] research analyst,[3][4]photojournalist, scholar, and activist specializing in the study ofextreme right-wing movements in the United States.[4][5] He also studies the spread ofconspiracy theories.[6] Since the 1995Oklahoma City bombing, Berlet has regularly appeared in the media to discuss extremist news stories.[4] He was a senior analyst atPolitical Research Associates (PRA), a non-profit group that tracks right-wing networks.[7]
Berlet, aparalegal, was a vice-president of theNational Lawyers Guild. He has served on the advisory board of theCenter for Millennial Studies atBoston University, and for over 20 years was on the board of theDefending Dissent Foundation. In 1982, he was a Mencken Awards finalist in the best news story category for "War on Drugs: The Strange Story ofLyndon LaRouche", which was published inHigh Times. He served on the advisory board of theCampaign to Defend the Constitution.
Berlet attended theUniversity of Denver for three years, where he majored insociology with a minor injournalism. A member of the 1960sstudent left,[5] he dropped out of the university in 1971 to work as an alternative journalist without completing his degree. In the mid-1970s, he went on to co-edit a series of books on student activism for theNational Student Association andNational Student Educational Fund. He also became an active shop steward with the National Lawyers' Guild.
During the late 1970s, he became theWashington, D.C., bureau chief ofHigh Times magazine, and in 1979, he helped to organize citizens' hearings onFBI surveillance practices. From then until 1982, he worked as aparalegal investigator at the Better Government Association in Chicago, conducting research for anAmerican Civil Liberties Union case, involving policesurveillance by the Chicago police (which became known as the "ChicagoRed Squad" case).[8] He also worked on cases filed against the FBI or police on behalf of theSpanish Action Committee of Chicago (S.A.C.C.), theNational Lawyers Guild, theAmerican Indian Movement,Socialist Workers Party, theChristic Institute, and theAmerican Friends Service Committee (aQuaker group). He was a founder member of theChicago Area Friends of Albania, leaving the organization when he relocated to Boston in 1987.[5]
Along with journalistRuss Bellant, Berlet has written aboutLyndon LaRouche'sNational Caucus of Labor Committees, calling it anti-Jewish and neo-Nazi, and urging an investigation of alleged illegal activities.[4][9] In 1982, Berlet joinedPolitical Research Associates, and in 1985 he founded the Public Eye BBS, the first computerbulletin board aimed at challenging the spread of white-supremacist andneo-Nazi material through electronic media, and the first to provide an online application kit for requesting information under the U.S.Freedom of Information Act.[10] He was one of the first researchers to have drawn attention to the efforts bywhite supremacist and antisemitic groups to recruit farmers in theMidwestern United States in the 1970s and 1980s.[11] Berlet was originally on the board of advisers of Public Information Research, founded by Daniel Brandt. Between 1990 and 1992, three members of Brandt's PIR advisory board, including Berlet, resigned over issues concerning another board member,L. Fletcher Prouty and Prouty's bookThe Secret Team.[12] Berlet discussed this in a study titled "Right-Woos Left".[13]
In 1996, he acted as an adviser on thePublic Broadcasting Service documentary mini-seriesWith God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America, which was later published as a book by William Martin.[14][15] Berlet criticizedRalph Nader and his associates for a close working relationship with Republican textile magnateRoger Milliken, erstwhile major backer of the 1996 presidential campaign ofPat Buchanan, and anti-unionization stalwart.[16][17] Berlet has provided research assistance to a campaign run by the mother ofJeremiah Duggan, a British student died in disputed circumstances near Wiesbaden, Germany, and to reopen the investigation into his death.[18]
As aphotojournalist, Berlet's photographs, particularly ofKu Klux Klan and neo-Nazi rallies, have been carried on theAssociated Press wire, have appeared on book and magazine covers, album covers and posters, and have been published inThe Denver Post,The Washington Star, andThe Chronicle of Higher Education,[19]
Berlet's second book, co-authored with Matthew N. Lyons, isRight-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort, was published by The Guilford Press in 2000. It is a broad historical overview of right-wing populism in the United States. The book received generally favorable reviews.Library Journal said it was a "detailed historical examination" that "strikes an excellent balance between narrative and theory."The New York Review of Books described it as an excellent account describing the outermost fringes of American conservatism.[20] A review by Jerome Himmelstein in the journalContemporary Sociology said that "it offers more than a scholarly treatise on the activities of theThird Reich", that it provides a background to help the reader understandthe Holocaust, and that it "merits close attention from scholars of the political right in America and of social movements generally."[21]
Robert H. Churchill of the privateUniversity of Hartford criticized Berlet and other authors writing about the right-wing as lacking breadth and depth in their analysis.[22] InWho Watches the Watchmen?,Laird Wilcox criticized Berlet and other writers for what Wilcox says is their use of a technique he describes as "Links and Ties," which he says is a form ofguilt by association.[23][24]Jack Z. Bratich, an associate professor in the Journalism and Media Studies Department at Rutgers University, said that Berlet uses the methods of conspiracy theorists.[25]
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