Candidate Metcalf Assailed Over Ties To `Far-Right Activist'

In his long-running crusade against the Federal Reserve System, 3rd District congressional candidate Jack Metcalf forged connections - connections, he says, that no longer exist - with a right-wing organization blasted by critics as anti-Semitic.

Metcalf, a Republican former state senator, is still listed as a correspondent on the masthead of a California-based periodical called the National Educator. But both Metcalf and the publisher, James Townsend, say he hasn't written for the monthly paper in several years.

In the mid-1980s, Metcalf says, he sat on the board of a national group founded by Townsend to push for the abolition of the Federal Reserve. He also received travel money from the group to give speeches.

A leading Jewish organization, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, described Townsend in 1988 as a "far-right activist" with ties to extremist groups.

The campaign of Metcalf's Democratic opponent, Harriet Spanel, this week distributed copies of articles from the National Educator warning of Zionist control of the media and government and discussing "white rage" toward blacks.

Metcalf says he hasn't read the Educator in a long time and was unaware his name remained on the masthead. He wrote Townsend a few years ago asking him to remove it. Townsend says he received the letter but didn't comply because of a computer glitch.

Metcalf says he disavows any racist, anti-Semitic material in the publication.

"I've been a teacher for 30 years; I've been in politics for 30 years. I haven't said anything that could remotely be considered racist except by those who want to smear me," he says.

Responds Chris Cooper, Spanel's campaign manager, "This is part of who he is and what he does. This is the source of getting his information out regarding the Federal Reserve. If you involve yourself with people like that, that definitely links you to them."

Metcalf's ties with Townsend and the Educator grew out of a shared opposition to the Fed.

In the mid-1980s, Townsend formed a group called Redeem Our Country to fight for the Fed's abolition. Metcalf says the group funded one or two of his speaking trips.

The Educator still runs ads - placed by a company with no ties to Metcalf - for Metcalf's 1986 book on the monetary system.

"I'll go to talk with anybody," says Metcalf. "I'm willing to stand behind whatever I say, but I'm not going to defend what some groups say or endorse them."

Says former state Sen. Pat McMullen, D-Sedro-Woolley, who is backing Spanel: "I think Jack is so happy to find people following him and on the same wavelength that he doesn't stop to ask who they are."

In a 1984 speech in Oklahoma, according to a tape provided by the Spanel camp, Metcalf called Townsend "one of the greatest patriots in the country." Metcalf now says he can't recall making such statements but adds, "I may have said real good things about (Townsend)."

In 1987, Metcalf sponsored an unsuccessful voter referendum challenging the constitutionality of the Federal Reserve on grounds it acts on behalf of private banking interests rather than the public and shrouds itself in secrecy.

During that campaign, Metcalf said, "There are a lot of kooks on this issue. . . . It's not a racial thing, a religious thing or an international thing. It's all about economics and politics, about a special-interest group that has too much power."