The Occidental Quarterly

To Whom It May Concern:

This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act. I hereby request the following records:

Records relating to or mentioning the Occidental Quarterly and Charles Martel Society. Founded in 2001 by Chicago millionaire publishing scion William H. Regnery, the Charles Martel Society publishes The Occidental Quarterly (TOQ), a racist journal devoted to the idea that as whites become a minority "the civilization and free governments that whites have created" will be jeopardized.

William H. Regnery II, an heir to the Regnery publishing fortune, made his mark as a major player in radical-right circles when he founded the Charles Martel Society in 2001 as a nonprofit group. The organization is named in honor of Charles Martel, who is credited with saving Europe by defeating an invading Muslim force at the Battle of Tours in 734. In keeping with the actions of its namesake, the Charles Martel Society seeks to protect what it sees as the white European heritage of America from a perceived ethnic and ideological invasion by non-Europeans. To this end, the group is strongly against immigration (except from industrialized European nations) and dedicated to the idea that "race informs culture."

The society is best known for publishing The Occidental Quarterly (TOQ), a journal that "unapologetically defends the cultural, ethnic, and racial interests of Western European peoples and examines contemporary political, social, and demographic trends that impact the posterity of Western Civilization." To help run TOQ, Regnery assembled some of the biggest names from radical right circles. Its one-time chief editor was Kevin Lamb, who had written for racist publications since the 1990s, when he published articles in Mankind Quarterly, a eugenics journal. TOQ's former managing editor was Louis Andrews, whose Washington Summit Publishers reprints a range of classical and modern racist tracts, along with books on eugenics. Its associate editor was Wayne Lutton, who also works at the Social Contract Press, also a hate group (according to the society's 2006 tax forms, Lutton is on its board of directors). TOQ's editorial advisory board has contained such notables as Richard Lynn, who called for "phasing out" people from "incompetent cultures"; American Renaissance Editor Jared Taylor, who also serves as a board member and whose book, The Color of Crime, sought to "prove" that blacks are far more criminal than whites; and Virginia Abernethy, a retired professor who has close ties to the racist Council of Conservative Citizens who has described herself as a white separatist.

TOQ also publishes an array of other extremists, including Robert S. Griffin, a University of Vermont professor who has been a member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance and promoter of its late leader, and the well-known racist writer Marian Kester Coombs, wife of Fran Coombs, the longtime managing editor of The Washington Times who was forced out of his job in 2007.

In 2004, the society went beyond publishing for the first time, holding a black-tie dinner in a fancy Washington, D.C., hotel, where it awarded California State University, Long Beach, Psychology Professor and major anti-Semite Kevin MacDonald $10,000 and its Jack London Literary Prize for books describing the alleged "group evolutionary strategies" of the Jews. MacDonald is a favorite of TOQ, having written several articles for the journal on the tactics Jews supposedly engage in, such as supporting high levels of non-white immigration in order to reduce the power of whites in America. The society has a held a handful of other small gatherings of its supporters, according to its tax forms. Since that time, the group has held several private meetings featuring various prominent academic racists.

The Charles Martel Society and its journal have been very well received among academic racists in America — so much so that when Florida race scientist and professor Glayde Whitney (Whitney had written an adoring introduction to neo-Nazi David Duke's anti-Semitic autobiography) died in 2002, his family asked that in lieu of flowers, mourners send donations to the society.

According to the society's 2005 tax returns, Regnery stepped down from his role at the society that year. Since then, the society, which also includes The Occidental Press (an outfit that publishes and sells racist books, in addition to The Occidental Quarterly), has as its president of the board former Klan lawyer and Holocaust denier Sam Dickson, whose is a property lawyer from Atlanta. Dickson has built a multimillion-dollar business in the niche field of tax liens and title acquisition, concentrating on acquiring distressed properties inexpensively from poor, black clients in Georgia.

The society's 2006 tax return showed that other board members included MacDonald; white nationalist Wayne Lutton, who edits the anti-immigrant hate journal The Social Contract, Jared Taylor, editor of the racist newsletter American Renaissance, and Kevin Lamb, who was fired from his managing editor position at Human Events in 2005, after his racist pieces for publications like TOQ were disclosed to his employers by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Lamb left TOQ in 2007, however, as a result of what he calls an "editorial purge." He later joined the Social Contract Press as its managing editor.

Please conduct a search of the Central Records System, including but not limited to the Electronic Surveillance (ELSUR) Indices, the Microphone Surveillance (MISUR) Indices, the Physical Surveillance (FISUR) Indices, and the Technical Surveillance (TESUR) Indices, for both main-file records and cross-reference records of both HQ and all field offices for all relevant names, agencies, organizations, companies and events including but not limited to those cited in the previous paragraphs and/or links as well as a cross-reference with the Southern Poverty Law Center to include any information provided by the SPLC. My request includes but is not limited to 137, 157, 176, 177, 183, 184, 188, 214 and 266 files. If previously released records are available, then I request a rolling release consisting of those records while additional records are located and processed for release.

I am a member of the news media and request classification as such. I have previously written about the government and its activities for AND Magazine, MuckRock and Glomar Disclosure and have an open arrangement with each. My articles have been widely read, with some reaching over 100,000 readers. As such, as I have a reasonable expectation of publication and my editorial and writing skills are well established. In addition, I discuss and comment on the files online and make them available through the non-profit Internet Archive, disseminating them to a large audience. While my research is not limited to this, a great deal of it, including this, focuses on the activities and attitudes of the government itself. As such, it is not necessary for me to demonstrate the relevance of this particular subject in advance. Additionally, case law states that “proof of the ability to disseminate the released information to a broad cross-section of the public is not required.” Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Dep’t of Justice, 365 F.3d 1108, 1126 (D.C. Cir. 2004); see Carney v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 19 F.3d 807, 814-15 (2d Cir. 1994). Further, courts have held that "qualified because it also had “firm” plans to “publish a number of . . . ‘document sets’” concerning United States foreign and national security policy." Under this criteria, as well, I qualify as a member of the news media. Additionally, courts have held that the news media status "focuses on the nature of the requester, not its request. The provision requires that the request be “made by” a representative of the news media. Id. § 552(a)(4)(A)(ii)(II). A newspaper reporter, for example, is a representative of the news media regardless of how much interest there is in the story for which he or she is requesting information." As such, the details of the request itself are moot for the purposes of determining the appropriate fee category. As such, my primary purpose is to inform about government activities by reporting on it and making the raw data available and I therefore request that fees be waived.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Michael Best

I am appealing the integrity of the search, including but not limited to (once again! this is a systematic failure on the part of your agencies!) the failure to perform the cross-reference searches and field office searches that were explicitly requested.