Events

338 BC – A Macedonian army led by Philip II defeated the combined forces of Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea, securing Macedonian hegemony in Greece and the Aegean.

216 BC – Second Punic War: Battle of Cannae – The Carthaginian army led by Hannibal defeats a numerically superior Roman army under command of consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro.

1377 – Russian troops are defeated in the Battle on Pyana River because of drunkenness.

1610 – Henry Hudson sails into what is now known as Hudson Bay thinking he had made it through the Northwest Passage and reached the Pacific Ocean.

1776 – The signing of the United States Declaration of Independence took place.

1790 – The first US Census is conducted.

1798 – French Revolutionary Wars: the Battle of the Nile concludes in a British victory.

1830 – Charles X of France abdicates the throne in favor of his grandson Henri.

1869 – Japan's samurai, farmer, artisan, merchant class system (Shinōkōshō) is abolished as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms. (Traditional Japanese date: June 25, 1869).

1870 – Tower Subway, the world's first underground tube railway, opens in London.

1873 – The Clay Street Hill Railroad begins operating the first cable car in San Francisco's famous cable car system.

1897 – Anglo-Afghan wars: The Siege of Malakand ends when a relief column is able to reach the British garrison in the Malakand region of colonial India's North West Frontier Province.

1903 – Fall of the Ottoman Empire: an unsuccessful uprising led by the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization against Ottoman Turkey, also known as the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising, takes place.

1916 – World War I: Austrian sabotage causes the sinking of the Italian battleship ''Leonardo da Vinci'' in Taranto.

1918 – Japan announces that it is deploying troops to Siberia in the aftermath of World War I.

1918 – The first general strike in Canadian history takes place in Vancouver.

1922 – A typhoon hits Shantou, Republic of China killing more than 50,000 people.

1923 – As vice president, Calvin Coolidge becomes the 30th President of the United States after the death of Warren G. Harding

1932 – The positron (antiparticle of the electron) is discovered by Carl D. Anderson.

1934 – Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany.

1937 – The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 is passed in America, the effect of which is to render marijuana and all its by-products illegal.

1939 – Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan project to develop a nuclear weapon.

1943 – Rebellion in the Nazi death camp of Treblinka.

1943 – World War II: the Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 is rammed by the Japanese destroyer ''Amagiri'' and sinks. Lt. John F. Kennedy, future U.S. President, saves all but two of his crew.

1944 – ASNOM: birth of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, celebrated as Day of the Republic in the Republic of Macedonia.

1945 – World War II: the Potsdam Conference, at which the Allied Powers discuss the future of defeated Germany, is concluded.

1964 – Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin incident – North Vietnamese gunboats allegedly fire on the U.S. destroyers and .

1968 – An earthquake hits Casiguran, Aurora, Philippines killing more than 270 people and wounding 261.

1973 – A flash fire kills 51 at the Summerland amusement centre at Douglas, Isle of Man.

1980 – A bomb explodes at the railway station in Bologna, Italy, killing 85 people and wounding more than 200.

1985 – Delta Air Lines Flight 191, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar crashes at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport killing 137.

1989 – Pakistan is re-admitted to the Commonwealth of Nations after having restoring democracy for the first time since 1972.

1989 – A massacre is carried out by an Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka killing 64 ethnic Tamil civilians.

1990 – Iraq invades Kuwait, eventually leading to the Gulf War.

2005 – Air France Flight 358, lands at Toronto Pearson International Airport, and runs off the runway causing the plane to burst into flames leaving 12 injuries and no fatalities.

Births

1455 – John Cicero, Elector of Brandenburg (d. 1499)

1533 – Theodor Zwinger, Swiss scholar (d. 1588)

1612 – Saskia van Uylenburgh, wife of Rembrandt van Rijn (d. 1642)

1672 – Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, Swiss scholar (d. 1733)

1674 – Philip II, Duke of Orléans, Regent of France (d. 1723)

1696 – Mahmud I, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1754)

1702 – Dietrich of Anhalt-Dessau, German Prince (d. 1769)

1703 – Lorenzo Ricci, Italian Jesuit leader (d. 1775)

1740 – Jean Baptiste Camille Canclaux, French general (d. 1817)

1788 – Leopold Gmelin, German chemist (d. 1853)

1815 – Adolf Friedrich von Schack, German writer (d. 1894)

1820 – John Tyndall, British physicist (d. 1893)

1828 – Manuel Pavía y Rodríguez de Alburquerque, Spanish general (d. 1895)

1834 – Frédéric Bartholdi, French sculptor (d. 1904)

1835 – Elisha Gray, American inventor and entrepreneur (d. 1901)

1858 – Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont, Queen of the Netherlands (d. 1934)

1865 – Irving Babbitt, American literary critic (d. 1933)

1865 – John Radecki, Australian stained glass artist (d. 1955)

1867 – Ernest Dowson, English poet (d. 1900)

1868 – King Constantine I of Greece (d. 1923)

1871 – John French Sloan, American artist (d. 1951)

1872 – George E. Stewart, American soldier, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 1946)

1875 – Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Russian painter (d. 1957)

1878 – Aino Kallas, Finnish-born Estonian author (d. 1956)

1882 – Red Ames, American baseball player (d. 1936)

1884 – Rómulo Gallegos, 46th President of Venezuela (d. 1969)

1886 – John Alexander Douglas McCurdy Canadian aviator (d. 1961)

1887 – Tommy Ward, South African cricketer (d. 1936)

1890 – Marin Sais, American actress (d. 1971)

1891 – Viktor Maksimovich Zhirmunsky, Russian literary historian and linguist (d. 1971)

1891 – Arthur Bliss, British composer and Master of the Queen's Music (d. 1975)

1892 – Jack Warner, Canadian-born American film producer (d. 1978)

1895 – Matt Henderson, New Zealand cricketer (d. 1970)

1896 – Lorenzo Herrera, Venezuelan singer and composer (d. 1960)

1897 – Karl Otto Koch, German SS officer (d. 1945)

1897 – Max Weber, Swiss Federal Councilor (d. 1974)

1898 – Ernő Nagy, Hungarian fencer (d. 1977)

1899 – Charles Bennett, British screenwriter (d. 1995)

1902 – Helen Morgan, American actress (d. 1941)

1905 – Karl Amadeus Hartmann, German composer (d. 1963)

1905 – Myrna Loy, American actress (d. 1993)

1907 – Mary Hamman, American writer (d. 1984)

1910 – Roger MacDougall, Scottish writer (d. 1993)

1912 – Palle Huld, Danish actor (d. 2010)

1912 – Ann Dvorak, American actress (d. 1979)

1912 – Vladimir Žerjavić, Croatian statistician (d. 2001)

1914 – Félix Leclerc, Quebec singer, songwriter and writer (d. 1988)

1914 – Beatrice Straight, American actress (d. 2001)

1915 – Gary Merrill, American actor (d. 1990)

1919 – Nehemiah Persoff, American actor

1920 – Louis Pauwels, French journalist and writer (d. 1997)

1922 – Geoffrey Dutton, Australian author and historian (d. 1998)

1922 – Gábor Agárdy, Hungarian actor (d. 2006)

1923 – Shimon Peres, Israeli politician, Prime Minister of Israel and the ninth President of the State of Israel

1924 – James Baldwin, American writer (d. 1987)

1924 – Joe Harnell, American pianist, composer and arranger (d. 2005)

1924 – Carroll O'Connor, American actor (d. 2001)

1925 – John Dexter, English stage and film director (d. 1990)

1925 – John McCormack, Canadian ice hockey player

1925 – Jorge Rafael Videla, Argentinian dictator, 43rd President of Argentina

1925 – Alan Whicker, British journalist and broadcaster

1926 – Betsy Bloomingdale, American socialite

1928 – Malcolm Hilton, English cricketer (d. 1990)

1930 – Vali Myers, Australian painter (d. 2003)

1931 – Pierre DuMaine, American Catholic bishop

1931 – Viliam Schrojf, Slovak footballer (d. 2007)

1931 – Eddie Fuller, South African cricketer (d. 2008)

1932 – Lamar Hunt, American sports executive (d. 2006)

1932 – Peter O'Toole, Irish actor

1933 – Ioannis Varvitsiotis, Greek politician

1934 – Valery Bykovsky, Soviet cosmonaut

1935 – Hank Cochran, American country music singer and songwriter (d. 2010)

1937 – Billy Cannon, American football player

1937 – Garth Hudson, Canadian organist and keyboardist (The Band)

1938 – Dave Balon, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2007)

1938 – Pierre de Bané, French-Canadian politician

1938 – Terry Peck, Falkland Islands-born British soldier (d. 2006)

1939 – Benjamin Barber, American political theorist

1939 – Wes Craven, American film director

1939 – John W. Snow, American 73rd United States Secretary of the Treasury

1940 – Will Tura, Belgian singer

1941 – Doris Coley, American singer (Shirelles) (d. 2000)

1941 – Ede Staal, Dutch singer-songwriter (d. 1986)

1942 – Isabel Allende, Chilean author

1943 – Tom Burgmeier, American baseball player

1943 – Kathy Lennon, one of the original Lennon Sisters

1943 – Max Wright, American actor

1944 – Jim Capaldi, British drummer and songwriter (Traffic) (d. 2005)

1944 – Naná Vasconcelos, Brazilian jazz percussionist and vocalist

1945 – Joanna Cassidy, American actress

1945 – Alex Jesaulenko, Australian rules footballer

1947 – Massiel, Spanish singer

1948 – Andy Fairweather Low, Welsh guitarist (Amen Corner)

1948 – Dennis Prager, American radio talk show host and author

1949 – James Fallows, American journalist

1949 – Bertalan Farkas, Hungarian cosmonaut

1950 – Jussi Adler-Olsen, Danish author

1950 – Lance Ito, American judge

1950 – Sue Rodriguez, Canadian assisted suicide advocate (d. 1994)

1951 – Andrew Gold, American singer-songwriter (d. 2011)

1951 – Joe Lynn Turner, American singer (Deep Purple, Rainbow)

1951 – Freddie Wadling, Swedish singer and musician (The Leather Nun, Fleshquartet)

1951 – Per Westerberg, Swedish politician

1953 – Marjo, Quebec singer

1953 – Donnie Munro, former lead singer with Runrig

1953 – Butch Patrick, American actor

1954 – James Charles Kopp, American anti-abortion militant, murderer of Barnett Slepian

1954 – Sammy McIlroy, Northern Irish footballer and manager

1955 – Caleb Carr, American novelist and military historian

1955 – Tim Dunigan, American actor

1955 – Tony Godden, English footballer

1956 – Fulvio Melia, Italian-born American physicist, astrophysicist and author

1956 – Jim Neidhart, American professional wrestler

1956 – Isabel Pantoja, Spanish singer

1957 – Mojo Nixon, American singer, lyricist and actor

1957 – Butch Vig, American record producer and drummer (Garbage)

1957 – Farhat Basir Khan, Indian Photography and Media Activist Academician, a critically acclaimed Media Professional.

1958 – Arshad Ayub, Indian cricketer

1959 – Victoria Jackson, American comedian

1959 – Apollonia Kotero, American singer and actress

1960 – Neal Morse, American keyboardist and vocalist (Spock's Beard, Transatlantic)

1960 – David Yow, American vocalist (Scratch Acid, The Jesus Lizard)

1960 – Linda Fratianne, American figure skater

1961 – Graham Dye, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (Scarlet Party, The Alan Parsons Project)

1961 – Cold 187um, American rapper (Above the Law)

1961 – Pete de Freitas, born in Trinidad, drummer with Echo & the Bunnymen (d. 1989)

1962 – Cynthia Stevenson, Canadian actress

1962 – Lee Mavers, English musician, lead singer with The La's

1963 – Daniel Pelosi, American convicted murderer

1963 – Laura Bennett, American architect and designer

1964 – Frank Biela, German racing driver

1964 – Mary-Louise Parker, American actress

1965 – Hisanobu Watanabe, Japanese baseball player and coach

1966 – Takayuki Iizuka, Japanese professional wrestler

1966 – Tim Wakefield, American baseball player

1966 – M.V. Sridhar, Indian cricketer

1967 – Aaron Krickstein, American tennis player

1967 – Aline Brosh McKenna, American screenwriter

1968 – Stefan Effenberg, German footballer

1968 – John Stanier, American drummer Helmet

1969 – Cedric Ceballos, American basketball player

1969 – Fernando Couto, Portuguese footballer

1969 – Jan Axel Blomberg Norwegian drummer (Dimmu Borgir, Winds, Mayhem)

1969 – Richard Hallebeek, Dutch jazz guitarist

1970 – Tony Amonte, American ice hockey player

1970 – Kevin Smith, American director and screenwriter

1970 – Philo Wallace, Barbiadian West Indies cricketer

1971 – Alice Evans, English actress

1971 – Michael Hughes, Irish footballer

1972 – Mohamed Al-Deayea, Saudi Arabian footballer

1972 – Jacinda Barrett, Australian model and actress

1972 – Daniele Nardello, Italian cyclist

1972 – Justyna Steczkowska, Polish singer

1973 – Hiroyuki Goto, Japanese game designer

1973 – Danie Keulder, Namibian cricketer

1973 – Jay Meetze, American conductor and impresario

1973 – Susie O'Neill, Australian swimmer

1973 – Reyn Ouwehand, Dutch C=64 Composer

1974 – Angie Cepeda, Colombian actress

1974 – Phil Williams, Radio 5live Presenter

1975 – Mineiro, Brazilian footballer

1975 – Xu Huaiwen, Chinese-born German badminton player

1975 – Tamás Molnár, Hungarian water polo player

1975 – Ingrid Rubio, Spanish actress

1976 – Reyes Estévez, Spanish mid-distance runner

1976 – Sam Worthington, Australian actor

1976 – Jay Heaps, American footballer

1976 – Michael Weiss, American figure skater

1976 – Mohammad Zahid, Pakistani cricketer

1977 – Edward Furlong, American actor

1978 – Goran Gavrančić, Serbian footballer

1978 – Matt Guerrier, American baseball player

1979 – Marco Bonura, Italian footballer

1979 – Reuben Kosgei, Kenyan middle- and long-distance runner

1979 – Donna Air, English television presenter

1980 – Ivica Banović, Croatian footballer

1980 – Nadia Bjorlin, American actress

1980 – Dingdong Dantes, Filipino actor

1980 – Ugur Rifat Karlova, Turkish TV and stage entertainer

1981 – Aleksander Emelianenko, Russian MMA fighter, brother of Fedor Emelianenko

1982 – Hélder Postiga, Portuguese footballer

1982 – Sara Foster, American actress

1982 – Kerry Rhodes, American football player

1982 – Grady Sizemore, American baseball player

1983 – Nick Diaz, American MMA fighter

1984 – Giampaolo Pazzini, Italian footballer

1985 – Harry Smith, Canadian professional wrestler

1985 – Britt Nicole, American Christian pop vocalist

1986 – Mathieu Razanakolona, Canadian-born Malagasy skier

1988 – Brittany Hargest, American singer

1990 – Skylar Diggins, American basketball player

1991 – Evander Kane, Canadian ice hockey player

1992 – Hallie Kate Eisenberg, American actress

Deaths

686 – Pope John V (birth year unknown)

924 – King Ælfweard of Wessex (b. 904)

1100 – King William II of England (b. c. 1056)

1222 – Count Raymond VI of Toulouse (b. 1156)

1316 – Louis of Burgundy, Prince of Achaea (b. 1297)

1445 – Oswald von Wolkenstein, Austrian composer (b. 1376 or 1377)

1511 – Andrew Barton, Scottish naval leader (b. c. 1466)

1589 – King Henry III of France (b. 1551)

1611 – Katō Kiyomasa, Japanese warlord and samurai (b. 1562)

1696 – Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, Scottish military commander (b. 1630)

1769 – Daniel Finch, 8th Earl of Winchilsea, English politician (b. 1689)

1776 – Louis François I, Prince of Conti, French military leader (b. 1717)

1788 – Thomas Gainsborough, English painter (b. 1727)

1799 – Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier, French inventor (b. 1745)

1815 – Guillaume Marie Anne Brune, French marshal (b. 1763)

1823 – Lazare Carnot, French general, politician and mathematician (b. 1753)

1849 – Muhammad Ali of Egypt, Egyptian military officer and statesman (b. 1769)

1859 – Horace Mann, American educator and abolitionist (b. 1796)

1876 – Wild Bill Hickok, American gunfighter (b. 1837)

1889 – Eduardo Gutiérrez, Argentinian writer (b. 1851)

1890 – Louise-Victorine Ackermann, French poet (b. 1813)

1903 – Edmond Nocard, French veterinarian (b. 1850)

1913 – Ferenc Pfaff, Hungarian architect (b. 1851)

1920 – Ormer Locklear, American stunt pilot (b. 1891)

1921 – Enrico Caruso, Italian tenor (b. 1873)

1922 – Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-born Canadian inventor (b. 1847)

1923 – Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States (b. 1865)

1929 – Mae Costello, American actress (b. 1882)

1934 – Paul von Hindenburg, German field marshal and 2nd President of Germany (b. 1847)

1936 – Louis Blériot, French aviation pioneer (b. 1872)

1939 – Harvey Spencer Lewis, American Rosicrucian mystic (b. 1883)

1945 – Pietro Mascagni, Italian composer (b. 1863)

1955 – Alfred Lépine, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1901)

1967 – Walter Terence Stace, British philosopher (b. 1886)

1972 – Helen Hoyt, American poet (b. 1887)

1972 – Brian Cole, American bass player (The Association) (b. 1942)

1973 – Jean-Pierre Melville, French film director (b. 1917)

1974 – Douglas Hawkes, British racing driver (b. 1893)

1976 – Fritz Lang, Austrian film director (b. 1890)

1976 – László Kalmár, Hungarian mathematician (b. 1905)

1978 – Carlos Chávez, Mexican composer (b. 1899)

1979 – Thurman Munson, American baseball player (b. 1947)

1983 – James Jamerson, American bassist (b. 1936)

1986 – Roy Cohn, American politician (b. 1927)

1988 – Raymond Carver, American writer (b. 1938)

1988 – Joe Carcione, American consumer advocate (b. 1914)

1990 – Norman Maclean, American writer (b. 1902)

1990 – Edwin Richfield, British actor (b. 1921)

1992 – Michel Berger, French singer and songwriter (b. 1947)

1996 – Michel Debré, French politician (b. 1912)

1996 – Mohamed Farrah Aidid, Somalian warlord (b. 1934)

1997 – William S. Burroughs, American writer (b. 1914)

1997 – Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Nigerian musician (b. 1938)

1998 – Shari Lewis, American puppeteer (b. 1933)

2001 – Ron Townson, American singer (The 5th Dimension) (b. 1933)

2003 – Don Estelle, British actor (b. 1933)

2003 – Mike Levey, American television personality (b. 1948)

2003 – Peter Safar, Austrian physician (b. 1924)

2004 – Don Tosti, American violinist, composer and bandleader (b. 1923)

2004 – Ferenc Berényi, Hungarian painter (b. 1929)

2004 – François Craenhals, Belgian comics artist (b. 1926)

2005 – Steven Vincent, American journalist and writer (b. 1955)

2007 – Chauncey Bailey, American journalist and editor (b. 1950)

2007 – Holden Roberto, Angolan politician (b. 1923)

2007 – Kay Dotrice, English repertory actress (b. 1929)

2008 – Fujio Akatsuka, Japanese cartoonist (b. 1935)

2011 – DeLois Barrett Campbell, American gospel singer (b. 1926)

Holidays and observances

Christian Feast Day:

*Alphonsus Mary de Ligouri

*Basil Fool for Christ (Russian Orthodox Church)

*Eusebius of Vercelli

*Pope Stephen I

*August 2 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

Day of Airborne Forces (Russia and Ukraine)

Day of Azerbaijani cinema (Azerbaijan)

Our Lady of the Angels Day (Costa Rica)

Republic Day, also known as Ilinden. (Republic of Macedonia)

External links

BBC: On This Day

On This Day in Canada

----

Category:Days of the year Category:August

af:2 Augustus ar:ملحق:2 أغسطس an:2 d'agosto frp:2 oût ast:2 d'agostu az:2 avqust bn:আগস্ট ২ zh-min-nan:8 goe̍h 2 ji̍t be:2 жніўня be-x-old:2 жніўня bcl:Agosto 2 bs:2. august br:2 Eost bg:2 август ca:2 d'agost cv:Çурла, 2 ceb:Agosto 2 cs:2. srpen co:2 d'aostu cy:2 Awst da:2. august de:2. August dv:އޮގަސްޓު 2 et:2. august el:2 Αυγούστου myv:Умарьковонь 2 чи es:2 de agosto eo:2-a de aŭgusto eu:Abuztuaren 2 fa:۲ اوت hif:2 August fo:2. august fr:2 août fy:2 augustus fur:2 di Avost ga:2 Lúnasa gv:2 Luanistyn gd:2 an Lùnasdal gl:2 de agosto gan:8月2號 gu:ઓગસ્ટ ૨ xal:Ноха сарин 2 ko:8월 2일 hy:Օգոստոսի 2 hr:2. kolovoza io:2 di agosto ilo:Agosto 2 bpy:আগষ্ট ২ id:2 Agustus ia:2 de augusto ie:2 august is:2. ágúst it:2 agosto he:2 באוגוסט jv:2 Agustus kl:Aggusti 2 kn:ಆಗಸ್ಟ್ ೨ pam:Agostu 2 ka:2 აგვისტო csb:2 zélnika kk:Тамыздың 2 sw:2 Agosti kv:2 моз ht:2 out ku:2'ê gelawêjê la:2 Augusti lv:2. augusts lb:2. August lt:Rugpjūčio 2 li:2 augustus lmo:02 08 hu:Augusztus 2. mk:2 август mg:2 Aogositra ml:ഓഗസ്റ്റ് 2 mr:ऑगस्ट २ xmf:2 მარაშინათუთა arz:2 اغسطس ms:2 Ogos mn:8 сарын 2 nah:Tlachicuēiti 2 nl:2 augustus nds-nl:2 augustus ne:२ अगस्ट new:अगस्ट २ ja:8月2日 nap:2 'e aùsto no:2. august nn:2. august nrm:2 Août nov:2 de auguste oc:2 d'agost mhr:2 Сорла uz:2-avgust pa:੨ ਅਗਸਤ pag:August 2 nds:2. August pl:2 sierpnia pt:2 de agosto ksh:2. Aujußß ro:2 august qu:2 ñiqin chakra yapuy killapi rue:2. авґуст ru:2 августа sah:Атырдьах ыйын 2 se:Borgemánu 2. sco:2 August stq:2. August sq:2 Gusht scn:2 di austu simple:August 2 sk:2. august sl:2. avgust ckb:٢ی ئاب sr:2. август sh:2.8. su:2 Agustus fi:2. elokuuta sv:2 augusti tl:Agosto 2 ta:ஆகஸ்டு 2 kab:2 ɣuct tt:2 август te:ఆగష్టు 2 th:2 สิงหาคม tg:2 август tr:2 Ağustos tk:2 awgust bug:2 Agustus uk:2 серпня ur:2 اگست vec:2 de agosto vi:2 tháng 8 vo:Gustul 2 fiu-vro:2. põimukuu päiv wa:2 d' awousse vls:2 ogustus war:Agosto 2 yi:2טן אויגוסט yo:2 August zh-yue:8月2號 bat-smg:Rogpjūtė 2 zh:8月2日

Name	Lyndon LaRouche
Alt	photograph
Birth name	Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche, Jr.
Birth date	September 08, 1922
Birth place	Rochester, New Hampshire
Residence	Leesburg, Virginia
Other names	Lyn Marcus
Known for	Perennial presidential candidate, conspiracism
Party	Democratic (since 1979), U.S. Labor Party (until 1979)
Spouse	Janice Neuberger (1954–1963)Helga Zepp (1977–present)
Parents	Jessie Lenore Weir Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche, Sr.
Children	Daniel, born 1956 }}

Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche, Jr. (born September 8, 1922) is an American political activist and founder of a network of political committees, parties, and publications known collectively as the LaRouche movement. Often described as a political extremist, he has written prolifically in his publications on economic, scientific, and political topics, as well as on history, philosophy, and psychoanalysis, largely promoting a conspiracist view of history and current affairs.

LaRouche was a perennial presidential candidate from 1976 to 2004, running once for his own U.S. Labor Party and campaigning seven times for the Democratic Party nomination, though he failed to attract appreciable electoral support. He was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment in 1988 for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and tax code violations, but continued his political activities from behind bars until his release in 1994 on parole. Ramsey Clark, his chief appellate attorney and a former U.S. Attorney General, argued that LaRouche was denied a fair trial but the Court of Appeals unanimously rejected the appeal.

Members of the LaRouche movement see LaRouche as a political leader in the tradition of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Other commentators, including ''The Washington Post'' and ''The New York Times'', have described him over the years as a conspiracy theorist, fascist, and anti-Semite, and have characterized his movement as a cult. Norman Bailey, formerly with the National Security Council, described LaRouche's staff in 1984 as one of the best private intelligence services in the world, while the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, wrote that he leads "what may well be one of the strangest political groups in American history."

Background

Early life

LaRouche was born in Rochester, New Hampshire, the eldest of three children of Lyndon H. LaRouche, Sr. and Jessie Lenore. His father worked for the United Shoe Machinery Corporation in Rochester before the family moved to Lynn, Massachusetts. LaRouche described his childhood as that of "an egregious child, I wouldn't say an ugly duckling but a nasty duckling." According to his autobiography, ''The Power of Reason: A Kind of an Autobiography'' (1979), LaRouche began to read around the age of five, and was called "Big Head" by other children at his school. He recalls that in the third grade his eyesight was poor and he was made to sit at the back of the class, where his vision remained blurred.

His parents became Quakers after his father had converted from Roman Catholicism, and his mother from Protestantism. They forbade him from fighting with other children, even in self-defense, which he said led to "years of hell" from bullies at school. As a result, he spent much of his time alone, taking long walks through the woods and identifying in his mind with great philosophers. He wrote that, between the ages of twelve and fourteen, he read philosophy extensively, embracing the ideas of Leibniz, and rejecting those of Hume, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Rousseau, and Kant. He graduated from Lynn's English High School in 1940. In the same year, the Lynn Quakers expelled his father from the group, for reportedly accusing other Quakers of misusing funds, while writing under the pen name Hezekiah Micajah Jones. LaRouche and his mother resigned in sympathy for his father.

University studies, the army, marriage

LaRouche attended Northeastern University in Boston and left in 1942. He later wrote that his teachers "lacked the competence to teach me on conditions I was willing to tolerate." As a Quaker, he was a conscientious objector (CO) during World War II, and joined a Civilian Public Service camp, where, in the words of Dennis King, he "promptly joined a small faction at odds with the administrators." In 1944 he joined the United States Army as a non-combatant and served in the India and Burma with medical units and ending the war as an ordnance clerk. He described his decision to serve as one of the most important of his life. While in India he developed sympathy for the Indian Independence movement. LaRouche wrote that many GIs feared they would be asked to support British forces in actions against Indian independence forces, and that prospect was "revolting to most of us."

He discussed Marxism in the CO camp, and while traveling home on the SS ''General Bradley'' in 1946, he met Don Merrill, a fellow soldier, also from Lynn, who converted him to Trotskyism. Back in the U.S., he resumed his education at Northeastern University, but left because of his perception of academic "philistinism." He returned to Lynn in 1948, and the next year joined the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), adopting the pseudonym Lyn Marcus for his political work. He arrived in New York City in 1953, where he took a job as a management consultant. In 1954 he married Janice Neuberger, a psychiatrist and member of the SWP. Their son, Daniel, was born in 1956.

1960s

Teaching and the National Caucus of Labor Committees

By 1961 the LaRouches were living in Central Park West, Manhattan, and LaRouche's activity were mostly focused on his career and not on the SWP. He and his wife separated in 1963, and he moved into a Greenwich Village apartment with another SWP member, Carol Schnitzer, also known as Larrabee. In 1964 he began an association with an SWP faction called the Revolutionary Tendency, a faction which was later expelled from the SWP, and came under the influence of British Trotskyist leader Gerry Healy. For six months, LaRouche worked with American Healyite leader Tim Wohlforth, who later wrote that LaRouche had a "gargantuan ego," and "a marvelous ability to place any world happening in a larger context, which seemed to give the event additional meaning, but his thinking was schematic, lacking factual detail and depth."

In 1967 LaRouche began teaching classes on Marx's dialectical materialism at New York City's Free School, and attracted a group of students from Columbia University and the City College of New York, recommending that they read ''Das Kapital'', as well as Hegel, Kant, and Leibniz. During the 1968 Columbia University protests, he organized his supporters under the name the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC). The aim of the NCLC was to win control of the Students for a Democratic Society branch—the university's main activist group—and build a political alliance between students, local residents, organized labor, and the Columbia faculty. By 1973 the NCLC had over 600 members in 25 cities—including West Berlin and Stockholm—and produced what King called the most literate of the far-left papers, ''New Solidarity''. The NCLC's internal activities became highly regimented over the next few years. Members gave up their jobs and devoted themselves to the group and its leader, believing it would soon take control of America's trade unions and overthrow the government.

1970s

1971: "Intelligence network"

Robert J. Alexander writes that LaRouche first established an NCLC "intelligence network" in 1971. Members all over the world would send information to NCLC headquarters, which would distribute it via briefings and other publications. It would include political developments about supposed behind-the-scenes processes, though Alexander wrote that they were more often flights of fancy than inside information. Douglas Foster wrote in ''Mother Jones'' in 1982 that the briefings consisted of disinformation, "hate-filled" material about enemies, phony letters, intimidation, fake newspaper articles, and dirty tricks campaigns. Opponents were accused of being gay or Nazis, or were linked to murders, which the movement called "psywar techniques."

LaRouche organized the network as a series of news services and magazines, which commentators say was done to gain access to government officials under press cover. They included ''Executive Intelligence Review'', founded in 1974 and known for its conspiracy theories, including that Queen Elizabeth II is the head of an international drug-smuggling cartel, and that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was part of a British attempt to take over the United States. Others included ''New Solidarity'', ''Fusion Magazine'', ''21st Century Science and Technology'', and ''Campaigner Magazine''. His news services and publishers included American System Publications, Campaigner Publications, New Solidarity International Press Service, and The New Benjamin Franklin House Publishing Company. LaRouche acknowledged in 1980 that his followers impersonated reporters and others, saying it had to be done for his security. In 1982, ''U.S. News and World Report'' sued New Solidarity International Press Service and Campaigner Publications for damages, alleging that members were impersonating its reporters in phone calls.

U.S. sources told the ''Washington Post'' in 1985 that the LaRouche organization had assembled a worldwide network of government and military contacts, and that his researchers sometimes supplied information to government officials. Bobby Ray Inman, the CIA's deputy director in 1981 and 1982, said LaRouche and his wife had visited him offering information about the West German Green Party, and a CIA spokesman said LaRouche met Deputy Director John McMahon in 1983 to discuss one of LaRouche's trips overseas. An aide to William Clark said when LaRouche's associates discussed technology or economics, they made good sense and seemed to be qualified. Norman Bailey, formerly with the National Security Council, said in 1984 that LaRouche's staff comprised "one of the best private intelligence services in the world"; he said, "They do know a lot of people around the world. They do get to talk to prime ministers and presidents." Several government officials feared a security leak from the government's ties with the movement.

From the 1970s through to the 2000s, LaRouche founded several groups and companies. In addition to the National Caucus of Labor Committees, there was the Citizens Electoral Council (Australia), the National Democratic Policy Committee, the Fusion Energy Foundation, and the U.S. Labor Party. In 1984 he founded the Schiller Institute in Germany with his second wife, and three political parties there—the ''Europäische Arbeiterpartei'', ''Patrioten für Deutschland'', and ''Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität''—and in 2000 the Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement. His printing services included Computron Technologies, Computype, World Composition Services, and PMR Printing Company, Inc, or PMR Associates.

1973: Political shift; "Operation Mop-Up"

According to Antony Lerman, in 1973 and with little warning, LaRouche adopted more extreme ideas, a process accompanied by a campaign of violence against his opponents on the left, and the development of conspiracy theories and paranoia about his personal safety. He began to believe he was under threat of assassination from the Soviet Union, the CIA, Libya, drug dealers, and bankers. Paul L. Montgomery suggested in ''The New York Times'' that the change of political direction might have been linked to his partner, Carol Schnitzer/Larrabee, having left him in 1972 for a British activist, Chris White (see below). LaRouche apparently spent months in Germany, and returned with what Montgomery described as a "messianic vision." He spent most of his time in his bathrobe in his New York apartment, and began to suggest there was a conspiracy against him led by the Rockefeller family and the British. He also established a "Biological Holocaust Task Force," predicting that an epidemic of apocalyptic proportions would strike humanity in the 1980s.

LaRouche wrote in his 1987 autobiography that violent altercations had begun in 1969 between his NCLC members and several New Left groups. Between April and September 1973, during what LaRouche called "Operation Mop-Up," NCLC members began physically attacking members of leftist groups that LaRouche classified as "left-protofascists"; an editorial in LaRouche's ''New Solidarity'' said of the Communist Party that the movement "must dispose of this stinking corpse." Armed with chains, bats, and martial-art nunchuk sticks, they assaulted Communist Party, SWP, and Progressive Labor Party members and Black Power activists, on the streets and during meetings. At least 60 assaults were reported. The operation ended when police arrested several of LaRouche's followers; there were no convictions, and LaRouche maintained they had acted in self-defense. King writes that the FBI may have tried to aggravate the strife, using measures such as anonymous mailings, to keep the groups at each others' throats. LaRouche said he met representatives of the Soviet Union at the United Nations in 1974 and 1975 to discuss attacks by the Communist Party USA on the NCLC and to propose a merger, but said he received no assistance from them.

1973: U.S. Labor Party

LaRouche founded the U.S. Labor Party in 1973 as the political arm of the NCLC. A two-part article in ''The New York Times'' in 1979 by Howard Blum and Paul L. Montgomery said LaRouche had turned it—at that point with 1,000 members in 37 offices in North America, and 26 in Europe and Latin America—into an extreme-right, anti-Semitic organization, despite the presence of Jewish members. LaRouche denied the newspaper's charges, and said he had filed a $100 million libel suit; his press secretary said the articles were intended to "set up a credible climate for an assassination hit."

The ''Times'' alleged that members had taken courses in how to use knives and rifles; that a farm in upstate New York had been used for guerrilla training; and that several members had undergone a six-day anti-terrorist training course run by Mitchell WerBell III, an arms dealer and former member of the Office of Strategic Services, who said he had ties to the CIA. Journalists and publications the party regarded as unfriendly were harassed, and it published a list of potential assassins it saw as a threat. LaRouche expected members to devote themselves entirely to the party, and place their savings and possessions at its disposal, as well as take out loans on its behalf. Party officials would decide who each member should live with, and if someone left the movement, his remaining partner was expected to live separately from him. LaRouche would question spouses about their partner's sexual habits, the ''Times'' said, and in one case reportedly ordered a member to stop having sex with his wife because it was making him "politically impotent."

===1973: "Ego-stripping" and "brainwashing" allegations=== LaRouche began writing in 1973 about the use of certain psychological techniques on recruits. In an article called "Beyond Psychoanalysis", he wrote that a worker's persona had to be stripped away to arrive at a state he called "little me," from which it would be possible to "rebuild their personalities around a new socialist identity," according to ''The Washington Post''. ''The New York Times'' wrote that the first such session—which LaRouche called "ego-stripping"—involved a German member, Konstantin George, in the summer of 1973; LaRouche said he discovered during it that a plot to assassinate him had been implanted in George's mind.

He recorded sessions with a 26-year-old British member, Chris White, who had moved to England with LaRouche's former partner, Carol Schnitzer. In December 1973 LaRouche asked the couple to return to the U.S.; his followers sent tapes of the subsequent sessions with White to ''The New York Times'' as evidence of an assassination plot. According to the ''Times'', "[t]here are sounds of weeping, and vomiting on the tapes, and Mr. White complains of being deprived of sleep, food and cigarettes. At one point someone says 'raise the voltage,' but (LaRouche) says this was associated with the bright lights used in the questioning rather than an electric shock." The ''Times'' wrote, "Mr. White complains of a terrible pain in his arm," then LaRouche can be heard saying, 'That's not real. That's in the program'." LaRouche told the newspaper White had been "reduced to an eight-cycle infinite loop with look-up table, with homosexual bestiality"; he said White had not been harmed and that a physician—a LaRouche movement member—had been present throughout. White ended up telling LaRouche he had been programmed by the CIA and British intelligence to set up LaRouche for assassination by Cuban frogmen.

According to ''The Washington Post'', "brainwashing hysteria" took hold of the movement; one activist said he attended meetings where members were writhing on the floor saying they needed de-programming. In two weeks in January 1974, the group issued 41 separate press releases about brainwashing. One activist, Alice Weitzman, expressed skepticism about the claims. According to ''The New York Times'', LaRouche sent six NCLC members to her apartment, where she was held captive for two days until she alerted a passer-by throwing a piece of paper out of her window asking for help. The members, who were charged with unlawful imprisonment, told police she had been brainwashed to help the KGB and needed deprogramming. Weitzman was reluctant to testify and the charges were dismissed.

1974: Liberty Lobby, Ku Klux Klan, intelligence reports

According to ''The Los Angeles Times'', LaRouche established ties with the Ku Klux Klan and the Liberty Lobby in 1974. Frank Donner and Randall Rothenberg wrote that he made successful overtures to the Liberty Lobby and George Wallace's American Independent Party, adding that the "racist" policies of LaRouche's U.S. Labor Party endeared it to members of the Ku Klux Klan. Gregory Rose, a former chief of counter-intelligence for LaRouche who became an FBI informant in 1973, said the contacts with the Liberty Lobby were extensive. George and Wilcox say that while the contact is often used to imply "'links' and 'ties' between LaRouche and the extreme right", it was in fact transient and marked by mutual suspicion. The Liberty Lobby pronounced itself disillusioned with LaRouche's views in 1981, because of what they described as his softness on "the major Zionist groups". According to George and Wilcox, American neo-Nazi leaders expressed suspicion over the number of Jews and members of other minority groups in his organization, and did not consider LaRouche an ally.

Howard Blum wrote in ''The New York Times'' that, from 1976 onwards, party members sent reports to the FBI and local police on members of left-wing organizations. In 1977, he wrote, commercial reports on U.S. anti-apartheid groups were prepared by LaRouche members for the South African government; student dissidents were reported to the Shah of Iran's Savak secret police; and the anti-nuclear movement was investigated on behalf of power companies. By the late 1970s, members were exchanging almost daily information with Roy Frankhouser, a government informant and infiltrator of both far right and far left groups who was involved with the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party. LaRouche and his associates considered Frankhouser to be a valuable intelligence contact, and took his links to extremist groups to be a cover for his intelligence work. Frankhouser played into these expectations, misrepresenting himself as a conduit for communications to LaRouche from "Mr. Ed", an alleged CIA contact, who did not exist.

Blum wrote that, at around this time, LaRouche's Computron Technologies Corporation included Mobil Oil and Citibank among its clients; that his World Composition Services had one of the most advanced typesetting complexes in the city and had the Ford Foundation among its clients; and that his PMR Associates produced the party's publications and some high school newspapers.

Around the same time, according to Blum, LaRouche was telling his membership several times a year that he was being targeted for assassination, including by the Queen of England, Zionist mobsters, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Justice Department, and the Mossad. LaRouche sued the City of New York in 1974, saying that CIA and British spies had brainwashed his associates into killing him. He has repeatedly asserted that he is a target for assassination. According to the ''Patriot-News'' of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, LaRouche said he had been "threatened by Communists, Zionists, narcotics gangsters, the Rockefellers and international terrorists." LaRouche later said that,

Since late 1973, I have been repeatedly the target of serious assassination threats and my wife has been three times the target of attempted assassination...My enemies are the circles of McGeorge Bundy, Henry Kissinger, Soviet President Yuri Andropov, W. Averell Harriman, certain powerful bankers, and the Socialist and Nazi Internationals, as well as international drug traffickers, Colonel Gadaffi, Ayatollah Khomaini and the Malthusian lobby."

1975–1976: Presidential campaign, alleged harassment of public figures

In March 1975 Clarence Kelley, director of the FBI, testified before the House Appropriations Committee that LaRouche's NCLC was "a violence-oriented organization of 'revolutionary socialists' with a membership of nearly 1,000 in chapters in some 50 cities." He said that during the previous two years its members had been "involved in fights, beatings, using drugs, kidnappings, brainwashings, and at least one shooting. They are reported to be armed, to have received defensive training such as karate, and to attend cadre schools and training schools to learn military tactics."

In 1975, under the name ''Lyn Marcus'', LaRouche published ''Dialectical Economics: An Introduction to Marxist Political Economy'', called his "magnum opus" by one observer and described by its only reviewer as "the most peculiar and idiosyncratic" introduction to economics he had ever seen. Mixing economics, history, anthropology, sociology and a surprisingly large helping of business administration, the work argued that most prominent Marxists had misunderstood Marx, and that bourgeois economics arose when philosophy took a wrong, reductionist turn under British empiricists like Locke and Hume.

In 1976, LaRouche campaigned for the first time in a presidential election as a U.S. Labor Party candidate, polling 40,043 votes (0.05 percent). It was the first of eight presidential elections he took part in between 1976 and 2004, which enabled him to attract $5.9 million in federal matching funds; candidates seeking their party's presidential nomination qualify for matching funds if they raise $5,000 in each of at least 20 states. His platform predicted financial disaster by 1980 accompanied by famine and the virtual extinction of the human race within 15 years, and proposed a debt moratorium; nationalization of banks; government investment in industry especially in the aerospace sector, and an "International Development Bank" to facilitate higher food production. When Legionnaires' disease appeared in the U.S. that year, he said it was a continuation of the swine flu outbreak, and that senators who opposed vaccination were suppressing the link as part of a "genocidal policy."

His campaign included a paid half-hour television address, which allowed him to air his views before a national audience, something that became a regular feature of his later campaigns. There were protests about this, and about the involvement of the NCLC in public life generally. Writing in ''The Washington Post'', Stephen Rosenfeld said LaRouche's ideas belonged to the radical right, neo-Nazi fringe, and that his main interests lay in disruption and disinformation; Rosenfeld called the NCLC one of the "chief polluters" of political democracy, citing an article in ''Crawdaddy'' that said LaRouche members had attacked the SWP in Detroit, reportedly beating a paraplegic member with clubs. Rosenfeld argued that the press should be "chary" of offering them print or air time: "A duplicitous violence-prone group with fascistic proclivities should not be presented to the public, unless there is reason to present it in those terms." LaRouche wrote in 1999 that this comment had "openly declared... a policy of malicious lying" against him.

1977: Second marriage

LaRouche married again in 1977. His new wife, Helga Zepp, was a leading activist in the German branch of the movement. She went on to work closely with LaRouche for the rest of his career, standing for election in Germany in 1980 for his ''Europäische Arbeiterpartei'' (European Workers Party), and founding the Schiller Institute in Germany in 1984. Paul Kacprzak, who worked for LaRouche in the 1970s, told ''The Washington Post'' that Zepp had a profound effect on the movement, and that it basically became a German organization. "We'd have classes in German. They'd be teaching German language. We'd be reading German poetry." He said LaRouche sent round a memo that, when he was elected president, his wedding anniversary would be a holiday and all workers would be given a week off.

1980s

National Democratic Policy Committee, "October Surprise" theory

From the autumn of 1979, the LaRouche movement conducted most of its U.S. electoral activities as the National Democratic Policy Committee (NDPC), a political action committee. The name drew complaints from the Democratic Party's Democratic National Committee. Democratic Party leaders refused to recognize LaRouche as a party member, or to seat the few delegates he received in his seven primary campaigns as a Democrat. His campaign platforms included a return to the Bretton Woods system, including a gold-based national and world monetary system; fixed exchange rates; and ending the International Monetary Fund. He supported the replacement of the central bank system, including the U.S. Federal Reserve System, with a national bank; a war on drug trafficking and prosecution of banks involved in money laundering; building a tunnel under the Bering Strait; the building of nuclear power plants; and a crash program to build particle beam weapons and lasers, including support for elements of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). He opposed the Soviet Union and supported a military build-up to prepare for imminent war; supported the screening and quarantine of AIDS patients; and opposed environmentalism, deregulation, outcome-based education, and abortion.

In December 1980, LaRouche and his followers started what came to be known as the "October Surprise" allegation, namely that in October 1980 Ronald Reagan's campaign staff conspired with the Iranian government during the Iran hostage crisis to delay the release of 52 American hostages held in Iran, with the aim of helping Reagan win the 1980 presidential election against Jimmy Carter. The Iranians had agreed to this, according to the theory, in exchange for future weapons sales from the Reagan administration. The first publication of the story was in LaRouche's ''Executive Intelligence Review'' on December 2, 1980, followed by his ''New Solidarity'' on September 2, 1983, alleging that Henry Kissinger, one of LaRouche's regular targets, had met Iran's Ayatollah Beheshti in Paris, according to Iranian sources in Paris. Although ultimately discredited, the story was widely discussed in conspiracy circles during the 1980s and 1990s.

Meetings with world leaders, involvement in Latin America

In 1982, LaRouche had private meetings with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, maintaining frequent contact until her assassination in October 1984. His movement engaged in intensive outreach work in Latin America, producing research papers and gaining access to top government officials, including Peruvian President Alan García. LaRouche met with Mexican president José López Portillo. George Johnson writes that LaRouche warned Portillo about attempts by international bankers to wreck the Mexican economy, meeting him under the auspices of LaRouche's National Democratic Policy Committee. Both the American Embassy and the Democratic Party issued disclaimers; a Mexican official told ''The New York Times'' that LaRouche had arranged the meeting by representing himself as a Democratic Party official. He also met Argentine's president Raúl Alfonsin. In 1982 he authored ''Operation Juárez'', described by Dennis King as "a brilliant call to arms against the International Monetary Fund austerity programs." The IMF was the focus of widespread popular resentment throughout Latin America, and LaRouche acquired a reputation as a serious economist in Latin America, according to King. King wrote that Fidel Castro developed "his own version of Operation Juárez."

Mexican journalist Sergio Sarmiento wrote in the ''Wall Street Journal'' in 1989 that LaRouche's Labor Party in Mexico was used to attack the country's opposition; LaRouche members alleged that the National Action Party (PAN) were agents of the KGB, and later produced a pamphlet that "a vote for PAN is a vote for Nazism." When leaders of the Mexico Oil Workers' Union were jailed—corrupt leaders, according to Sarmiento—LaRouche said the union had been attacked by the Anglo-American Liberal Establishment, controlled by Scottish Rite Freemasonry. According to Jose I. Blandon, an adviser to Manuel Noriega—the military dictator of Panama from 1983 to 1989—LaRouche had ties to Noriega, and according to Sarmiento, LaRouche members harassed the opposition in Lima, Peru, in support of President Alan García.

LaRouche also met Turkish Prime Minister Turgut Özal in 1987; according to the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', Özal reprimanded his aides who had mistaken LaRouche for the Democratic Presidential candidate.

1983: Move from New York to Loudoun County

''The Washington Post'' wrote that LaRouche and his wife moved in August 1983 from New York to a 13-room Georgian mansion on a 250-acre section of the Woodburn Estate, near Leesburg, Loudoun County, Virginia. The property was owned at the time by a company registered in Switzerland. Companies associated with LaRouche continued to buy property in the area, including part of Leesburg's industrial park, purchased by LaRouche's Lafayette/Leesburg Ltd. Partnership to develop a printing plant and office complex.

Neighbors said they saw LaRouche guards in camouflage clothes carrying semi-automatic weapons, and the ''Post'' wrote that the house had sandbag-buttressed guard posts nearby, along with metal spikes in the driveway and cement barriers on the road. One of his aides said LaRouche was safer in Loudoun County: "The terrorist organizations which have targeted Mr. LaRouche do not have bases of operations in Virginia." LaRouche said his new home meant a shorter commute to Washington. A former associate said the move also meant his members would be more isolated from friends and family than they had been in New York. According to the ''Post'' in 2004, local people who opposed him for any reason were accused in LaRouche publications of being commies, homosexual, drug pushers, and terrorists. He reportedly accused the Leesburg Garden Club of being a nest of Soviet sympathizers, and a local lawyer who opposed LaRouche on a zoning matter went into hiding after threatening phone calls and a death threat. In leaflets supporting his application of concealed weapons permits for his bodyguards in Leesburg, Virginia, he wrote:

I have a major personal security problem...[Without the permits] the assassination teams of professional mercenaries now being trained in Canada and along the Mexico border may be expected to start arriving on the streets of Leesburg...If they come, there will be many people dead or mutilated within as short an interval as 60 seconds of fire."

Regarding LaRouche's paramilitary security force, armed with semi-automatic weapons, a spokesperson said that they were necessary because LaRouche was the subject of "assassination conspiracies".

1984: Schiller Institute, television spots, contact with Reagan administration

Helga Zepp-LaRouche founded the Schiller Institute in Germany in 1984. In the same year, LaRouche was able to raise enough money to purchase 14 television spots, at a cost of $330,000 each, in which he called Walter Mondale—the Democratic Party's Presidential candidate—a Soviet agent of influence, triggering over 1,000 telephone complaints. On April 19, 1986, NBC's ''Saturday Night Live'' aired a sketch satirizing the ads, portraying the Queen of England and Henry Kissinger as drug dealers. LaRouche received 78,773 votes in the 1984 presidential election.

In 1984, media reports stated that LaRouche and his aides had met Reagan administration officials, including Norman Bailey, senior director of international economic affairs for the National Security Council (NSC), and Richard Morris, special assistant to William P. Clark, Jr. There were also reported contacts with the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the CIA. The LaRouche campaign said the reporting was full of errors. In 1984 two Pentagon officials spoke at a LaRouche rally in Virginia; a Defense Department spokesman said the Pentagon viewed LaRouche's group as a "conservative group ... very supportive of the administration." White House spokesman Larry Speakes said the Administration was "glad to talk to" any American citizen who might have information. According to Bailey, the contacts were broken off when they became public. Three years later, LaRouche blamed his criminal indictment on the NSC, saying he had been in conflict with Oliver North over LaRouche's opposition to the Nicaraguan Contras. According to a LaRouche publication, a court-ordered search of North's files produced a May 1986 telex from Iran–Contra defendant General Richard Secord, discussing the gathering of information to be used against LaRouche. King states that LaRouche's ''Executive Intelligence Review'' was the first to report on important details of the Iran–Contra affair, predicting that a major scandal was about to break months before mainstream media picked up on the story.

Strategic Defense Initiative

The LaRouche campaign supported Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Dennis King wrote that LaRouche had been speculating about space-based weaponry as early as 1975. He set up the Fusion Energy Foundation, which held conferences and tried to cultivate scientists, with some success. According to King, LaRouche's associates had for some years been in contact with members of the Reagan administration about LaRouche's space-based weapons ideas. Physicist Edward Teller, a proponent of SDI and X-ray lasers, told reporters in 1984 that he had been courted by LaRouche, but had kept his distance. LaRouche began calling his plan the "LaRouche-Teller proposal," though they had never met. Teller said LaRouche was "a poorly informed man with fantastic conceptions." LaRouche later attributed the collapse of the Soviet Union to its refusal to follow his advice to accept Reagan's offer to share the technology.

1984: NBC lawsuit

In January 1984 NBC aired a news segment about LaRouche, and in March a "First Camera" report produced by Pat Lynch. In an article for the ''Columbia Journalism Review'' in 1985, Lynch wrote that the reports included the allegation that LaRouche was "the leader of a violence-prone, anti-Semitic cult that smeared its opponents and sued its critics." In interviews, former members of the movement gave details about their fundraising practices, and alleged that LaRouche had spoken about assassinating U.S. President Jimmy Carter. The reports said an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would lead to an indictment, and quoted Irwin Suall, the Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) fact-finding director, who called LaRouche a "small-time Hitler." After the broadcast, LaRouche members picketed NBC's office carrying signs saying "Lynch Pat Lynch," and the NBC switchboard said it received a death threat against her. Another NBC researcher said someone placed fliers around her parents' neighborhood saying she was running a call-girl ring from her parents' home. Lynch said LaRouche members began to impersonate her and her researchers in telephone calls, and called her "Fat Lynch" in their publications.

LaRouche filed a defamation suit against NBC and the ADL, arguing that the programs were the result of a deliberate campaign of defamation against him. The judge ruled that NBC need not reveal its sources, and LaRouche lost the case. NBC won a countersuit, the jury awarding the network $3 million in damages, later reduced to $258,459, for misuse of libel law, in what was called one of the more celebrated countersuits by a libel defendant. LaRouche failed to pay the damages, pleading poverty, which the judge described as "completely lacking in credibility." LaRouche said he had been unaware since 1973 who paid the rent on the estate, or for his food, lodging, clothing, transportation, bodyguards, and lawyers. The judge fined him for failing to answer. After the judge signed an order to allow discovery of LaRouche's personal finances, a cashier's check was delivered to the court to end the case. When LaRouche appealed, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, rejecting his arguments, set forth a three-pronged test, later called the "LaRouche test," to decide when anonymous sources must be named in libel cases.

1985–1986: PANIC, LaRouche's AIDS initiative

The advent of AIDS seemed to fulfill LaRouche's 1973 prediction that an epidemic would strike humanity in the 1980s. LaRouche said it had been created by the "Soviet war machine," or by the International Monetary Fund to kill "excess eaters" in Africa. According to Christopher Toumey, his subsequent campaign followed a familiar LaRouche pattern: challenging the scientific competence of government experts, and arguing that LaRouche had special scientific insights, and his own scientific associates were more competent than government scientists. LaRouche's view of AIDS agreed with orthodox medicine in that the HIV virus caused AIDS, but differed from it in arguing that HIV spread like the cold virus or malaria, by way of casual contact and insect bites—an idea that would make HIV-positive people extremely dangerous. He said "a person with AIDS running around is like a person with a machine gun running around", and that people who lynched gays might be remembered as the "only political force which acted to save the human species from extinction." He advocated testing anyone working in schools, restaurants, or healthcare, and quarantining those who tested positive. Some of LaRouche's views on AIDS were developed by John Seale, a British venereological physician who proposed that AIDS was created in a laboratory. Seale's highly speculative writings were published in three prestigious medical journals, lending these ideas some appearance of being hard science.

LaRouche and his associates devised a "Biological Strategic Defense Initiative" that would cost $100 billion per annum, which they said would have to be directed by LaRouche. Toumey writes that those opposing the program, such as the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control, were accused of "viciously lying to the world," and of following an agenda of genocide and euthanasia. In 1986 LaRouche proposed that AIDS be added to California's List of Communicable Diseases. Sponsored by his "Prevent AIDS Now Initiative Committee" (PANIC), Proposition 64—or the "LaRouche initiative"—qualified for the California ballot in 1986, with the required signature gatherers mostly paid for by LaRouche's Campaigner Publications. Seale, presented as an AIDS expert by PANIC, supported the LaRouche initiative but disagreed with several of LaRouche's views, including that HIV could be spread by insects, and described the group's political beliefs and conspiracy theories as "rather odd". According to David Kirp, professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, the proposal would have required that 300,000 people in the area with HIV or AIDS be reported to public health authorities; might have removed over 100,000 of them from their jobs in schools, restaurants and agriculture; and would have forced 47,000 children to stay away from school.

The proposal was opposed by leading scientists and local health officials—including the deans and faculties of four California schools of public health, scientists at Stanford University, the Red Cross, the surgeon general, labor unions and the Democratic Party of California—as based on inaccurate scientific information and, as the public health schools put it, running "counter to all public health principles." It was defeated, reintroduced two years later, and defeated again, with two million votes in favor the first time, and 1.7 million the second. AIDS became a leading plank in LaRouche's platform during his 1988 presidential campaign. He vowed to quarantine its "aberrant" victims who were "guilty of bringing this pandemic upon us."

1986: Electoral success in Illinois; press conference allegations

In March 1986, Mark Fairchild and Janice Hart—LaRouche National Democratic Policy Committee candidates—won the Democratic primary for state-wide offices in Illinois, bringing LaRouche national attention. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Adlai Stevenson III, withdrew his nomination rather than run on the same slate as LaRouche members, and told reporters the party was "exploring every legal remedy to purge these bizarre and dangerous extremists from the Democratic ticket." A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee said it would have to do a better job of communicating to the electorate that LaRouche's National Democratic Policy Committee was unrelated to the Democratic Party. ''The New York Times'' wrote that Democratic Party officials were trying to identify LaRouche candidates in order to alert voters, and asked the LaRouche organization to release a full list of its candidates.

A month later, LaRouche held a press conference to accuse the Soviet government, British government, drug dealers, international bankers, and journalists of being involved in a variety of conspiracies. Flanked by bodyguards, he said, "If Abe Lincoln were alive, he'd probably be standing up here with me today," and that there was no criticism of him that did not originate "with the drug lobby or the Soviet operation ..." He said he had been in danger from Soviet assassins for over 13 years, and had to live in safe houses. He refused to answer a question from an NBC reporter, saying "How can I talk with a drug pusher like you?" He called the leadership of the United States "idiotic" and "berserk," and its foreign policy "criminal or insane." He warned of the imminent collapse of the banking system and accused banks of laundering drug money. Asked about the movement's finances, he said "I don't know. ... I'm not responsible, I'm not involved in that."

1986–1988: Raids, criminal conviction

In October 1986, hundreds of state and federal officers raided LaRouche offices in Virginia and Massachusetts. A federal grand jury indicted LaRouche and 12 associates on credit card fraud and obstruction of justice; the charges included that they had attempted to defraud people of millions of dollars, including several elderly people, by borrowing money they did not intend to repay. LaRouche's "heavily fortified" estate was surrounded and he at first warned law-enforcement officials not to arrest him, saying any attempt to do so would be an attempt to kill him; a spokesman would not rule out the use of violence against officials in response. While surrounded, LaRouche sent a telegraph to President Ronald Reagan saying that an attempt to arrest him "would be an attempt to kill me. I will not submit passively to such an arrest, but ... I will defend myself." LaRouche disputed the charges, alleging that the trials were politically motivated. A number of LaRouche entities, including the Fusion Energy Foundation, were taken over through an involuntary bankruptcy proceeding in 1987; the government's use of the sealed order was regarded as a rare legal maneuver.

He received 25,562 votes in the 1988 presidential election, standing under the banner of the "National Economic Recovery" party. On December 16 that year, he was convicted of conspiracy to commit mail fraud involving more than $30 million in defaulted loans; 11 counts of actual mail fraud involving $294,000 in defaulted loans; and one count of conspiring to defraud the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. He was sentenced to fifteen years, but was released on January 26, 1994. The judge called his claim of a political vendetta "arrant nonsense," and said "the idea that this organization is a sufficient threat to anything that would warrant the government bringing a prosecution to silence them just defies human experience." Thirteen associates received terms ranging from one month to 77 years for mail fraud and conspiracy. Defense lawyers filed unsuccessful appeals that challenged the conduct of the grand jury, the contempt fines, the execution of the search warrants, and various trial procedures. At least ten appeals were heard by the United States Court of Appeals, and three by the U.S. Supreme Court. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark joined the defense team for two appeals, writing that the case involved "a broader range of deliberate and systematic misconduct and abuse of power over a longer period of time in an effort to destroy a political movement and leader, than any other federal prosecution in my time or to my knowledge."

In his 1988 autobiography, LaRouche says the raid on his operation was the work of Raisa Gorbachev. In an interview the same year, he said that the Soviet Union opposed him because he invented the Strategic Defense Initiative. "The Soviet government hated me for it. Gorbachev also hated my guts and called for my assassination and imprisonment and so forth." LaRouche asserted that he has survived these threats because of protection by unnamed U.S. government officials. "Even when they don't like me, they consider me a national asset, and they don't like to have their national assets killed."

1989: Musical interests and Verdi tuning initiative

LaRouche and his wife have an interest in classical music up to the period of Brahms. A motto of LaRouche's European Workers' Party, is "Think like Beethoven"; movement offices typically include a piano and posters of German composers, and members are known for their choral singing at protest events and for using satirical lyrics tailored to their targets. LaRouche abhors contemporary music; he said in 1980, "Rock was not an accidental thing. This was done by people who set out in a deliberate way to subvert the United States. It was done by British intelligence," and wrote that the Beatles were "a product shaped according to British Psychological Warfare Division specifications." LaRouche movement members have protested at performances of Richard Wagner's operas, denouncing Wagner as an anti-Semite who found favor with the Nazis, and called a conductor "satanic" because he played contemporary music.

In 1989 LaRouche advocated that classical orchestras should return to the "Verdi pitch," a pitch that Verdi had enshrined in Italian legislation in 1884. The initiative attracted support from more than 300 opera stars, including Joan Sutherland, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti, who according to ''Opera Fanatic'' may or may not have been aware of LaRouche's politics. A spokesman for Domingo said Domingo had simply signed a questionnaire, had not been aware of its origins, and would not agree with LaRouche's politics. Renata Tebaldi and Piero Cappuccilli, who were running for the European Parliament on LaRouche's "Patriots for Italy" platform, attended Schiller Institute conferences as featured speakers, and the discussions led to debates in the Italian parliament about reinstating Verdi's legislation. LaRouche gave an interview to National Public Radio on the initiative from prison. The initiative was opposed by the editor of ''Opera Fanatic'', Stefan Zucker, who objected to the establishment of a "pitch police," and argued that LaRouche was using the issue to gain credibility.

1990s

Imprisonment and release on parole

LaRouche began his jail sentence in 1989, serving it at the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minnesota. From there he ran for Congress in 1990, seeking to represent the 10th District of Virginia, but received less than one percent of the vote. He ran for President again in 1992 with James Bevel as his running mate, a civil rights activist who had represented the LaRouche movement in its pursuit of the Franklin child prostitution ring allegations. It was only the second-ever campaign for president from prison. He received 26,334 votes, standing again as the "Economic Recovery" party. For a time he shared a cell with televangelist Jim Bakker. Bakker later wrote of his astonishment at LaRouche's detailed knowledge of the Bible. According to Bakker, LaRouche received a daily intelligence report by mail, and at times had information about news events days before they happened. Bakker also wrote that LaRouche believed their cell was bugged. In Bakker's view, "to say LaRouche was a little paranoid would be like saying that the ''Titanic'' had a little leak."

LaRouche was released on parole in January 1994, and returned to Loudoun County. ''The Washington Post'' wrote that he would be supervised by parole and probation officers until January 2004. Also in 1994, his followers joined members of the Nation of Islam to condemn the Anti-Defamation League for its alleged crimes against African Americans, reportedly one of several such meetings since 1992. In 1996, LaRouche was invited to speak at a convention organized by the Nation of Islam's Louis Farrakhan and Ben Chavis, then of the National African American Leadership Summit. As soon as he began speaking, he was booed off the stage; one delegate said it was because of his actions against African Americans in the past.

In the 1996 Democratic presidential primaries, he received enough votes in Louisiana and Virginia to get one delegate from each state, but before the primaries began, the Democratic National Committee chair, Donald Fowler, ruled that LaRouche was not a "bona fide Democrat" because of his "expressed political beliefs ... which are explicitly racist and anti-Semitic," and because of his "past activities including exploitation of and defrauding contributors and voters." Fowler instructed state parties to disregard votes for LaRouche.

LaRouche opposed attempts to impeach President Bill Clinton, charging it was a plot by the British Intelligence to destabilize the U.S. Government. In 1996 he called for the impeachment of Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge.

In 1999 China's press agency, the Xinhua News Agency, reported that LaRouche had criticized the Cox Report, a congressional investigation that accused the Chinese of stealing U.S. nuclear weapons secrets, calling it a "scientifically illiterate hoax." On October 13, 1999, during a press conference to announce his plans to run for president, he predicted the collapse of the world's financial system, stating, "There's nothing like it in this century.... it is systematic, and therefore, inevitable." He said the U.S. and other nations had built the "biggest financial bubble in all history," which was close to bankruptcy.

2000s

2000–2003: Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement, September 11 Attacks, Presidential run

LaRouche founded the Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement (WLYM) in 2000, saying in 2004 that it had hundreds of members in the U.S. and a lesser number overseas. During the Democratic primaries in June 2000, he received 53,280 votes, or 22 percent of the total, in Arkansas.

In 2002 LaRouche's ''Executive Intelligence Review'' argued that the September 11, 2001 attacks had been an "inside job" and "attempted coup d'etat," and that Iran was the first country to question it. The article received wide coverage in Iran, and was cited by senior Iranian government officials, including Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Hassan Rowhani. Mahmoud Alinejad writes that, in a subsequent telephone interview with the ''Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran'', LaRouche said American and Israeli elements had organized the attacks to start a war, and that Israel was a dictatorial regime prepared to commit Nazi-style crimes against the Palestinians.

LaRouche again entered the primary elections for the Democratic Party's nomination in 2004, setting a record for the number of consecutive presidential campaigns; Democratic Party officials distanced themselves from him and did not allow him to participate in candidate forum debates. He did not run in 2008.

As during the preceding decade, LaRouche and his followers denied that human civilization had harmed the environment through DDT, chluorofluorocarbons, or carbon dioxide. According to Chip Berlet, "Pro-LaRouche publications have been at the forefront of denying the reality of global warming".

2003–2009: Articles in the Arab, Chinese, and Russian press

Iqbal Qazwini wrote in the Arabic-language daily ''Asharq Al-Awsat'' in 2003 that LaRouche was one of the first to predict the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1988 and German unification. He said LaRouche had urged the West to pursue a policy of economic cooperation similar to the Marshall Plan for the advancement of the economy of the socialist countries. According to Qazwini, recent years have seen a proliferation of LaRouche's ideas in China and South Asia. Qazwini referred to him as the spiritual father of the revival of the new Silk Road or Eurasian Landbridge, which aims to link the continents through a network of ground transportation. In November 2005, an eight-part interview with LaRouche was published in the ''People's Daily'' of China, covering his economic forecasts, his battles with the American media, and his assessment of the neoconservatives. The interviewer wrote that LaRouche was "quite famous in mainland China today," and seemed to be better known overseas than in America.

Tatiana Shishova interviewed him for ''Russia Today'' in 2008, describing him as "the greatest American economist, a prominent politician, one of the first to struggle with the financial oligarchy and its major institutions—the World Bank and IMF. He has no equal in the field of economic and financial forecasts." LaRouche gave an interview in 2009 to ''China Youth Daily'', which wrote that he had warned in July 2007 that unless the United States stopped monopolizing world finances, and united with China, Russia, and India to reorganize the world financial system, a new global credit crisis would be unavoidable.

2007–2009: Financial crisis, U.S. healthcare reform

In 2008, he was credited by press in Italy as having forecast the financial crisis of 2007–2009. In December 2008, Ivo Caizzi of ''Corriere della Sera'' referred to him as "the guru politician who, since the nineties, has announced the crash of speculative finances and the need for a New Bretton Woods." The article said Italian Economics Minister Giulio Tremonti was "an attentive reader" of LaRouche's anti-Free Market and anti-Marxist writings. Italian Senator Oskar Peterlini, in a July 2009 speech before the Senate, called LaRouche an expert in the field who had predicted the crisis.

During the discussion of U.S. health care reform in 2009, LaRouche took exception to what he described as Barack Obama's proposal that "independent boards of doctors and health care experts [should] make the life-and-death decisions of what care to provide, and what not, based on cost-effectiveness criteria." LaRouche said the proposed boards, later compared to "death panels" by Sarah Palin, would amount to the same thing as the Nazis' Action T4 euthanasia program, and urged Americans to "quickly and suddenly change the behavior of this president ... for no lesser reason than that your sister might not end up in somebody's gas oven." His movement printed pamphlets showing Obama and Hitler laughing together, and posters of Obama with a Hitler-style mustache. In Seattle, police were called twice in response to people threatening to tear the posters apart, or to assault the LaRouche supporters holding them. During one widely reported public meeting, Congressman Barney Frank referred to the posters as "vile, contemptible nonsense."

Ideology

History as a struggle between Platonism and Aristotelianism

According to the Heritage Foundation, LaRouche believes that a super elite (the "oligarchy") is in control of world events, a group that includes the Rockefellers, the London financial center, the British royal family, the Anti-Defamation League, the KGB, and the Heritage Foundation itself. Others include Nazis, Jesuits, Freemasons, Communists, Trilateralists, international bankers, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Socialist International—all supposedly controlled by the British—as well as Hitler, H.G. Wells, Voltaire, and the Beatles as representatives of the 1960s counterculture. George Johnson in ''Architects of Fear'' (1983) compares the view to the Illuminati conspiracy theory; after he wrote about LaRouche in ''The New York Times'', LaRouche's followers denounced Johnson as part of a conspiracy of elitists that began in ancient Egypt.

LaRouche sees history as a battle between Platonists, who believe in absolute truth, and Aristotelians, who rely on empirical data. Platonists in LaRouche's view include figures such as Beethoven, Mozart, Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, and Leibniz. He believes that many of the world's ills result from the dominance of Aristotelianism as embraced by the empirical philosophers (such as Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume), leading to a culture that favors the empirical over the metaphysical, embraces moral relativism, and seeks to keep the general population uninformed. Industry, technology, and classical music should be used to enlighten the world, LaRouche argues, whereas the Aristotelians use psychotherapy, drugs, rock music, jazz, environmentalism, and quantum theory to bring about a new dark age in which the world will be ruled by the oligarchs. Left and right are false distinctions for LaRouche; what matters is the Platonic versus Aristotelian outlook, a position that has led him to form relationships with groups as disparate as farmers, nuclear engineers, Black Muslims, Teamsters and pro-life advocates. The conspirators may not be in touch with one another: "From their standpoint, [the conspirators] are proceeding by instinct," LaRouche has said. "If you're asking how their policy is developed—if there is an inside group sitting down and making plans—no, it doesn't work that way ... History doesn't function quite that consciously."

Allegations of fascism, anti-Semitism, and racism

From the mid-1970s onwards, the mainstream press and other commentators alleged that LaRouche had fascist and anti-Semitic tendencies. Paul Montgomery wrote in ''The New York Times'' that the charges dated to around 1976, when LaRouche's U.S. Labor Party began to include Zionist and Jewish groups in its stories about conspiracies. It started a campaign against the Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai Brith (ADL), which included setting up a group called "The Provisional Committee to Clean Up B'Nai Brith." Montgomery wrote that material sold by LaRouche organizers in airports and shopping centers included a book that said Jews dominated the drug trade with the help of Jewish bankers. This, despite the fact that the LaRouche movement had Jewish members who had been recruited from the 1960s student movement.

LaRouche maintained that he was anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic. When the ADL accused him of anti-Semitism in 1979, he filed a $26-million libel suit; Justice Michael Dontzin of the New York Supreme Court ruled that it was fair comment, and that the facts "reasonably give rise" to that description. LaRouche said in 1986 that descriptions of him as a neo-fascist or anti-Semite stemmed from "the drug lobby or the Soviet operation—which is sometimes the same thing," and in 2006 wrote that "religious and racial hatred, such as anti-Semitism, or hatred against Islam, or, hatred of Christians, is, on record of known history, the most evil expression of criminality to be seen on the planet today." Antony Lerman wrote in 1988 that LaRouche used "the British" as a code word for "Jews," a theory also propounded by Dennis King, author of ''Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism'' (1989). George Johnson argued that King's presentation failed to take into account that several members of LaRouche's inner circle were themselves Jewish. Daniel Pipes wrote in 1997 that LaRouche's references to the British really were to the British, though he agreed that an alleged British-Jewish alliance lay at the heart of LaRouche's conspiracism.

Manning Marable of Columbia University wrote in 1998 that LaRouche tried in the mid-1980s to build bridges to the black community. Marable argued that most of the community was not fooled, and quoted the A. Philip Randolph Institute, an organization for African-American trade unionists, declaring that "LaRouche appeals to fear, hatred and ignorance. He seeks to exploit and exacerbate the anxieties and frustrations of Americans by offering an array of scapegoats and enemies: Jews, Zionists, international bankers, blacks, labor unions-much the way Hitler did in Germany." During LaRouche's slander suit against NBC in 1984, Roy Innis, leader of the Congress of Racial Equality, took the stand for LaRouche as a character witness, stating under oath that LaRouche's views on racism were "consistent with his own." Asked whether he had seen any indication of racism in LaRouche's associates, he replied that he had not. Innis received criticism from many blacks for having testified on LaRouche's behalf.

Movement

Estimates of the size of LaRouche's movement have varied over the years; most say there is a core membership of 500–2000. The estimated 600 members in 1978 paid monthly dues of $24. Johnson wrote in 1983 that the Fusion Energy Foundation and National Democratic Policy Committee had attracted some 20,000 members, as well as 300,000 magazine subscribers.

A 1987 article by John Mintz in ''The Washington Post'' reported that members lived hand-to-mouth in crowded apartments, their basic needs—such as a mattress and pillowcase—paid for by the movement. Their days were focused on raising money or selling newspapers for LaRouche, doing research for him, or singing in a group choir, spending almost every waking hour together.

According to Christopher Toumey, LaRouche's charismatic authority within the movement is grounded on members' belief that he possesses a unique level of insight and expertise. He identifies an emotionally charged issue, conducts in-depth research into it, then proposes a simplistic solution, usually involving restructuring of the economy or national security apparatus. He and the membership portray anyone opposing him as immoral and part of the conspiracy. The group is known for its caustic attacks on people it opposes and former members. In the past it has justified what it refers to as "psywar techniques" as necessary to shake people up; Johnson in 1983 quoted a LaRouche associate: "We're not very nice, so we're hated. Why be nice? It's a cruel world. We're in a war and the human race is up for grabs." Charles Tate, a former long-term LaRouche associate, told ''The Washington Post'' in 1987 that members see themselves as not subject to the ordinary laws of society: "They feel that the continued existence of the human race is totally dependent on what they do in the organization, that nobody would be here without LaRouche. They feel justified in a peculiar way doing anything whatsoever."

Selected works

Marcus, Lynn. ''The third stage of imperialism''. New York: West Village Committee for Independent Political Action, 1967.

with Tony Papert. ''Mass action''. SDS Regional Labor Committee,1968.

''The philosophy of Socialist education''. New York: National Caucus of Labor Committees, 1969.

with Uwe Henke von Papert. ''Centrism as a social phenomenon: how not to build a revolutionary party''. New York: National Caucus of SDS Labor Committees 1970

''Education, science and politics''. New York: National Caucus of Labor Committees, 1972.

''The question of Stalinism today''. New York: Campaigner Publications, 1975.

''How the International Development Bank will work''. New York: Campaigner Publications, 1975.

''A presidential campaign white paper on agricultural production''. New York: New Solidarity International Press Service, 1975.

''The Rothschilds, from Pitt to Rockefeller''. 1976

''Dialectical Economics An Introduction to Marxist Political Economy''. New York: Heath, 1975. ISBN 0-669-85308-9

''The Case of Walter Lippmann A Presidential Strategy''. New York: Campaigner Publications, 1977. ISBN 0-918388-06-6

''How to Defeat Liberalism and William F. Buckley 1980 Campaign Policy''. New York: New Benjamin Franklin House Pub. Co, 1979. ISBN 0-933488-03-3

''The Power of Reason: A Kind of Autobiography''. New York: New Benjamin Franklin House Pub. House, 1979. ISBN 0-933488-01-7

''Will the Soviets Rule During the 1980s?''. New York: New Benjamin Franklin House Pub. Co, 1979. ISBN 0-933488-02-5

''Basic Economics for Conservative Democrats''. New York: New Benjamin Franklin House Pub. Co, 1980. ISBN 0-933488-04-1

''What Every Conservative Should Know About Communism''. New York: New Benjamin Franklin House Pub. Co, 1980. ISBN 0-933488-06-8

''Why Revival of "SALT" Won't Stop War''. New York: New Benjamin Franklin House Pub. Co, 1980. ISBN 0-933488-08-4

with David P. Goldman. ''The Ugly Truth About Milton Friedman''. New York: New Benjamin Franklin House, 1980. ISBN 0-933488-09-2

''Operation Juárez: Mexico/Ibero-America policy study''. Executive Intelligence Review, 1982.

''There Are No Limits to Growth''. New York: New Benjamin Franklin House, 1983. ISBN 0-933488-31-9

''So, You Wish to Learn All About Economics? A Text on Elementary Mathematical Economics''. New York: New Benjamin Franklin House, 1984. ISBN 0-943235-13-8

''Imperialism The Final Stage of Bolshevism''. New York: New Benjamin Franklin House, 1984. ISBN 0-933488-33-5

''The Power of Reason, 1988: An Autobiography''. Washington, D.C.: ''Executive Intelligence Review'', 1987. ISBN 0-943235-00-6

''In Defense of Common Sense''. Washington, D.C.: Schiller Institute, 1989. ISBN 0-9621095-3-3

''The Science of Christian Economy''. Washington, D.C.: Schiller Institute, 1991. ISBN 0-9621095-6-8

with Paul Gallager. ''Cold Fusion: A Challenge to U.S. Science Policy''. Washington, D.C.: Schiller Institute, 1992. ISBN 0-9621095-7-6

''Now, Are You Ready to Learn About Economics?'' Washington, D.C.: EIR News Service, 2000. ISBN 0-943235-18-9

''The Economics of the Nöosphere'' Washington, D.C.: EIR News Service, 2001. ISBN 0-943235-20-0

Notes

References

;Books or chapters about LaRouche : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

;Books (general) : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

;News articles :Associated Press. "TV Viewers Irate Over Slur at Mondale", October 24, 1984. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :Blair, William. "12 Lyndon LaRouche supporters arrested on fraud charges", ''The New York Times'', March 19, 1987. :. :Boyer, Edward J. "Court Bars Democrats' Bid Against LaRouche Hopefuls", ''Los Angeles Times'', May 31, 1986. :. :. :. :. :. :. :Clines, Frances X. "Two Held in a Double Street Gang Stabbing on Lower East Side", ''The New York Times'', October 11, 1973. :. :Corn, David. "Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism", ''The Nation'', June 26, 1989. :. :. :''Der Spiegel'' (September 22, 1980). "Dunkle Kräfte"; pdf here; Google translation. :. : :Drum, Kevin. "Publish and perish", CBS News, October 29, 2007. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :Gregg, Charles. "The Plague Mentality", ''New Internationalist'', Issue 169, March 1987. :. :Harris, John F. LaRouche Followers Arrested; 15 Charged, 9 in Loudoun, in Fraud Case", ''The Washington Post'', March 18, 1987. :. :. :. :. :. :. : :Kirby, Terry. "The Cult and the Candidate", ''The Independent'', July 21, 2004. :. :Küppers, Kirsten. "Als Jeremiah verloren ging", ''taz'', November 22, 2003. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :. :Ng, David. "L.A.'s 'Ring' cycle begins with protests outside, mixed reaction inside", ''Los Angeles Times'', May 30, 2010. :Ng, David. "Protesters greet start of 'Ring'," ''Los Angeles Times'', May 31, 2010. :Nugent, Helen. "Call for new inquest on Jewish student linked to far-right 'cult'", ''The Times'', 28 March 2007. :. :Pearlman, Jeff. "Lyndon LaRouche's LONG Campaign", ''Newsday'', September 23, 2003. :. :. :. : :Reich, Kenneth. "Quits Leftist Camp", ''Los Angeles Times'', September 21, 1977. :. :. :. :Roberts, Joel. "Lyndon LaRouche Tries Again", CBS News, May 2, 2003. :. :. :. :. :. :Royko, Mike. "LaRouchites test positive for fleece", ''Chicago Tribune'', July 25, 1986. :Rutenberg, Jim and Stelter, Brian. "Obama, purse swelling, plans half-hour tv ad", ''The New York Times'', undated. :Samuels, Tim. "Investigation into British student death stalled", BBC, February 12, 2004. :. :. :. :. :. :. :Smith, David James. "Motorway madness", ''The Sunday Times'', July 18, 2004. :Springston, Rex. "LaRouche evokes fear in Va. town; with the candidate came guns and his bodyguards", ''Richmond Times-Dispatch'', April 4, 1986. :Springston, Rex. "Ex-LaRouche 'sucker' feels vindicated", ''Richmond Times-Dispatch'', April 23, 1986. :. :. :. :''The New York Times''. "Trial Date Is Set for 6 Radicals Accused of Kidnapping Woman", January 24, 1974. :''The New York Times''. "6 Marxists Here Absolved of Imprisoning a Member", February 27, 1974. :. :''The New York Times''. "State Dept. Official's Speech Is Interrupted by a Rightist", May 29, 1985. :. :. :. :. :. :. :Wardrop, Murray. "Fascist cult 'may have killed Jewish student'", ''The Daily Telegraph'', May 21, 2010. :. :.

;Journal and other papers, records : : : : : : : :Watson, Francis. "U.S. Labor Party", Heritage Foundation, Institution Analysis No. 7, July 19, 1978. : : : :

;LaRouche publications : : : : : : : : : : : :

Further reading

LaRouche Political Action Committee, retrieved February 13, 2011.

Executive Intelligence Review, retrieved February 13, 2011.

World Larouche Youth Movement, retrieved February 13, 2011.

Schiller Institute, retrieved February 13, 2011.

Atkins, Stephen E. "LaRouche, Lyndon Hermyle," ''Encyclopedia of Modern American Extremists and Extremist Groups''. Greenwood Press, 2002. ISBN 0313315027

Beyes-Corleis, Aglaja (1994). ''Verirrt: Mein Leben in einer radikalen Politorganisation''. Herder. ISBN 3-451-04278-9

Berlet, Chip (1981). "War on Drugs. The Strange Story of Lyndon LaRouche," ''High Times'', May 1981.

.

Kalimtgis, Konstandinos and Goldman, David (1978). ''Dope, Inc.: Britain's Opium War Against The U.S.''. New Benjamin Franklin House Pub. Co (LaRouche).

King, Dennis and Radosh, Ronald (1984). "The LaRouche Connection," ''The New Republic'', November 19, 1984, p. 15.

King, Dennis (1982). "LaRouche: A Dictatorial Mind at Work", ''New America'', April–May 1982.

LaRouche, Lyndon (1976–2008). Footage of LaRouche on the financial collapse, ''YouTube'', accessed September 7, 2009.

Political Research Associates. Articles about LaRouche, retrieved February 13, 2011.

Riggs, Carol (1996). ''Lyndon LaRouche: A Study in Political Extremism''. George Mason University.

Roberts, Paul (1995). ''An American Fuhrer: Lyndon Larouche and the Politics of Paranoia''. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312021615\

Rowell, Andrew (1996). ''Green Backlash: Global Subversion of the Environment Movement''. Routledge. ISBN 0415128285

Schiller Institute. "Meet Lyndon LaRouche", accessed February 10, 2011.

The Nizkor Project. "Partners in Bigotry: The LaRouche Cult and the Nation of Islam", accessed February 10, 2011.

Zuckert, Catherine H. and Zuckert, Michael (2006). ''The Truth about Leo Strauss: Political Philosophy and American Democracy''. University Of Chicago Press, p. 11ff. ISBN 0226993329

;Newspaper archives of material on LaRouche

''The New York Times'', before 1981.

''The New York Times'', 1981–present.

''The Washington Post'', before 1987.

''The Washington Post'', 1987–present.

Mintz, John. "The Cult Controversy", ''The Washington Post'', includes a series on LaRouche by Mintz and links to other ''Post'' articles on LaRouche.

''Los Angeles Times'', before 1985.

''Los Angeles Times'', 1985–present.

Category:1922 births Category:Living people Category:American anti-war activists Category:American conscientious objectors Category:American fraudsters Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:American people convicted of tax crimes Category:American people of English descent Category:American people of French-Canadian descent Category:Anti-Zionism Category:Conspiracy theorists Category:LaRouche movement Category:People from Rochester, New Hampshire Category:United States presidential candidates, 1976 Category:United States presidential candidates, 1980 Category:United States presidential candidates, 1984 Category:United States presidential candidates, 1988 Category:United States presidential candidates, 1992 Category:United States presidential candidates, 1996 Category:United States presidential candidates, 2000 Category:United States presidential candidates, 2004 Category:U.S. Labor Party politicians Category:American people convicted of fraud Category:American politicians convicted of crimes Category:Virginia Democrats

ca:Lyndon LaRouche de:Lyndon LaRouche es:Lyndon LaRouche fr:Lyndon LaRouche it:Lyndon LaRouche pl:Lyndon LaRouche pt:Lyndon LaRouche ru:Ларуш, Линдон fi:Lyndon LaRouche sv:Lyndon LaRouche uk:Ліндон Ларуш zh:林登·拉罗奇

name	Frank Zappa
background	solo_singer
birth name	Frank Vincent Zappa
born	December 21, 1940Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
died	December 04, 1993Los Angeles, California, U.S.
instrument	Guitar, vocals, bass, keyboards, drums, synclavier, bicycle
genre	Progressive rock, jazz fusion,
occupation	Composer, musician, conductor, producer
years active	1950s–1993
label	Verve, Bizarre, Straight, DiscReet, Barking Pumpkin
associated acts	The Mothers of InventionCaptain BeefheartSteve Vai
website
notable instruments	}}

Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. Zappa produced almost all of the more than 60 albums he released with the band The Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist.

While in his teens, he acquired a taste for percussion-based avant-garde composers such as Edgard Varèse and 1950s rhythm and blues music. He began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands; he later switched to electric guitar. He was a self-taught composer and performer, and his diverse musical influences led him to create music that was often impossible to categorize. His 1966 debut album with The Mothers of Invention, ''Freak Out!'', combined songs in conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. His later albums shared this eclectic and experimental approach, irrespective of whether the fundamental format was one of rock, jazz or classical. He wrote the lyrics to all his songs, which—often humorously—reflected his iconoclastic view of established social and political processes, structures and movements. He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education, political participation and the abolition of censorship.

Zappa was a highly productive and prolific artist and gained widespread critical acclaim. Many of his albums are considered essential in rock and jazz history. He is regarded as one of the most original guitarists and composers of his time. He also remains a major influence on musicians and composers. He had some commercial success, particularly in Europe, and for most of his career was able to work as an independent artist. Zappa was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.

Zappa was married to Kathryn J. "Kay" Sherman from 1960 to 1964. In 1967, he married Adelaide Gail Sloatman, with whom he remained until his death from prostate cancer in 1993. They had four children: Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen. Gail Zappa manages the businesses of her late husband under the name the ''Zappa Family Trust''.

Early life

Frank Zappa was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 21, 1940. His mother, Rose Marie Colimore, was of Italian and French descent; his father, Francesco Vincente Zappa, was a native of Partinico, Sicily. Zappa was the eldest of four children. The family moved often because his father, a chemist and mathematician, worked in the defense industry. After a time in Florida in the 1940s, the family returned to Maryland, where Zappa's father worked at the Edgewood Arsenal chemical warfare facility of the Aberdeen Proving Ground. Due to their home's nearness to the arsenal, which stored mustard gas, gas masks were kept in the home. This had a profound effect on Zappa, and references to germs, germ warfare and the defense industry occur throughout his work.

Zappa was often sick as a child, suffering from asthma, earaches and sinus problems. A doctor treated his sinusitis by inserting a pellet of radium into each of Zappa's nostrils; little was known about the potential dangers of even small amounts of therapeutic radiation. Nasal imagery and references appear in his music and lyrics, as well as in the collage album covers created by his long-time collaborator Cal Schenkel.

Many of Zappa's childhood diseases may have been due to exposure to mustard gas. His health worsened when he lived in Baltimore. In 1952, his family relocated for reasons of health. They moved next to Monterey, California, where his father taught metallurgy at the Naval Postgraduate School. They soon moved to Claremont, then to El Cajon, before finally settling San Diego.

Musical influences

Zappa joined his first band, the Ramblers, at Mission Bay High School in San Diego. He was the band's drummer. About the same time his parents bought a phonograph, which allowed him to develop his interest in music, and to begin building his record collection. R&B; singles were early purchases, starting a large collection he kept for the rest of his life. He was interested in sounds for their own sake, particularly the sounds of drums and other percussion instruments. By age 12, he had obtained a snare drum and began learning the basics of orchestral percussion. Zappa's deep interest in modern classical music began when he read a ''LOOK'' magazine article about the Sam Goody record store chain that lauded its ability to sell an LP as obscure as ''The Complete Works of Edgard Varèse, Volume One''. The article described Varèse's percussion composition ''Ionisation'', produced by EMS Recordings, as "a weird jumble of drums and other unpleasant sounds". Zappa decided to seek out Varèse's music. After searching for over a year, Zappa found a copy (he noticed the LP because of the "mad scientist" looking photo of Varèse on the cover). Not having enough money with him, he persuaded the salesman to sell him the record at a discount. Thus began his lifelong passion for Varèse's music and that of other modern classical composers.

Zappa grew up influenced by avant-garde composers such as Varèse, Igor Stravinsky and Anton Webern, R&B; and doo-wop groups (including the Medallions and local pachuco groups), and modern jazz. His own heterogeneous ethnic background, and the diverse social and cultural mix in and around greater Los Angeles, were crucial in the formation of Zappa as a practitioner of underground music and of his later distrustful and openly critical attitude towards "mainstream" social, political and musical movements. He frequently lampooned musical fads like psychedelia, rock opera and disco. Television also exerted a strong influence, as demonstrated by quotations from show themes and advertising jingles found in his later works.

Youth and beginning of career (1955–1960)

By 1956, the Zappa family had moved to Lancaster, a small aerospace and farming town in the Antelope Valley of the Mojave Desert close to Edwards Air Force Base, in northern Los Angeles County. Zappa's mother encouraged him in his musical interests. Although she disliked Varèse's music, she was indulgent enough to give her son a long distance call to the composer as a 15th birthday present. Unfortunately, Varèse was in Europe at the time, so Zappa spoke to the composer's wife. He later received a letter from Varèse thanking him for his interest, and telling him about a composition he was working on called "Déserts". Living in the desert town of Lancaster, Zappa found this very exciting. Varèse invited him to visit if he ever came to New York. The meeting never took place (Varèse died in 1965), but Zappa framed the letter and kept it on display for the rest of his life.

At Antelope Valley High School, Zappa met Don Vliet (who later expanded his name to Don Van Vliet and adopted the stage name Captain Beefheart). Zappa and Vliet became close friends, sharing an interest in R&B; records and influencing each other musically throughout their careers. Around the same time, Zappa started playing drums in a local band, The Blackouts. The band was racially diverse, and included Euclid James "Motorhead" Sherwood who later became a member of The Mothers of Invention. Zappa's interest in the guitar grew, and in 1957 he was given his first guitar. Among his early influences were Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Howlin' Wolf and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. (In the 1970s and '80s, he invited Watson to perform on several albums.) Zappa considered soloing as the equivalent of forming "air sculptures", and developed an eclectic, innovative and highly personal style.

Zappa's interest in composing and arranging proliferated in his last high-school years. By his final year, he was writing, arranging and conducting avant-garde performance pieces for the school orchestra. He graduated from Antelope Valley High School in 1958, and later acknowledged two of his music teachers on the sleeve of the 1966 album ''Freak Out!'' Due to his family's frequent moves, Zappa attended at least six different high schools, and as a student he was often bored and given to distracting the rest of the class with juvenile antics. He left community college after one semester, and maintained thereafter a disdain for formal education, taking his children out of school at age 15 and refusing to pay for their college.

Zappa left home in 1959, and moved into a small apartment in Echo Park, Los Angeles. After meeting Kathryn J. "Kay" Sherman during his short stay at Pomona College, they moved in together in Ontario, and were married December 28, 1960. Zappa worked for a short period in advertising. His sojourn in the commercial world was brief, but gave him valuable insights into how it works. Throughout his career, he took a keen interest in the visual presentation of his work, designing some of his album covers and directing his own films and videos.

Early 1960s: Studio Z

Zappa attempted to earn a living as a musician and composer, and played different nightclub gigs, some with a new version of The Blackouts. Financially more rewarding were Zappa's earliest professional recordings, two soundtracks for the low-budget films ''The World's Greatest Sinner'' (1962) and ''Run Home Slow'' (1965). The former score was commissioned by actor-producer Timothy Carey and recorded in 1961. It contains many themes that appeared on later Zappa records. The latter soundtrack was recorded in 1963 after the film was completed, but it was commissioned by one of Zappa's former high school teachers in 1959 and Zappa may have worked on it before the film was shot. Excerpts from the soundtrack can be heard on the posthumous album ''The Lost Episodes'' (1996).

During the early 1960s, Zappa wrote and produced songs for other local artists, often working with singer-songwriter Ray Collins and producer Paul Buff. Their "Memories of El Monte" was recorded by The Penguins, although only Cleve Duncan of the original group was featured. Buff owned the small Pal Recording Studio in Cucamonga, which included a unique five-track tape recorder he had built. At that time, only a handful of the most sophisticated commercial studios had multi-track facilities; the industry standard for smaller studios was still mono or two-track. Although none of the recordings from the period achieved major commercial success, Zappa earned enough money to allow him to stage a concert of his orchestral music in 1963 and to broadcast and record it. He appeared on Steve Allen's syndicated late night show the same year, in which he played a bicycle as a musical instrument. With Captain Beefheart, Zappa recorded some songs under the name of The Soots. They were rejected by Dot Records for having "no commercial potential", a verdict Zappa subsequently quoted on the sleeve of ''Freak Out!''

In 1964, after his marriage started to break up, he moved into the Pal studio and began routinely working 12 hours or more per day recording and experimenting with overdubbing and audio tape manipulation. This set a work pattern that endured for most of his life. Aided by his income from film composing, Zappa took over the studio from Paul Buff, who was now working with Art Laboe at Original Sound. It was renamed Studio Z. Studio Z was rarely booked for recordings by other musicians. Instead, friends moved in, notably James "Motorhead" Sherwood. Zappa started performing as guitarist with a power trio, The Muthers, in local bars in order to support himself.

An article in the local press describing Zappa as "the Movie King of Cucamonga" prompted the local police to suspect that he was making pornographic films. In March 1965, Zappa was approached by a vice squad undercover officer, and accepted an offer of $100 to produce a suggestive audio tape for an alleged stag party. Zappa and a female friend recorded a faked erotic episode. When Zappa was about to hand over the tape, he was arrested, and the police stripped the studio of all recorded material. The press was tipped off beforehand, and next day's ''The Daily Report'' wrote that "Vice Squad investigators stilled the tape recorders of a free-swinging, a-go-go film and recording studio here Friday and arrested a self-styled movie producer". Zappa was charged with "conspiracy to commit pornography". This felony charge was reduced and he was sentenced to six months in jail on a misdemeanor, with all but ten days suspended. His brief imprisonment left a permanent mark, and was key in the formation of his anti-authoritarian stance. Zappa lost several recordings made at Studio Z in the process, as the police only returned 30 out of 80 hours of tape seized. Eventually, he could no longer afford to pay the rent on the studio and was evicted. Zappa managed to recover some of his possessions before the studio was torn down in 1966.

Late 1960s: The Mothers of Invention

In 1965, Zappa was approached by Ray Collins who asked him to take over as the guitarist in local R&B; band The Soul Giants, following a fight between Collins and the group's original guitarist. Zappa accepted, and soon he assumed leadership and the role as co-lead singer (even though he never considered himself a singer). He convinced the other members that they should play his music to increase the chances of getting a record contract. The band was renamed The Mothers, coincidentally on Mother's Day. The group increased their bookings after beginning an association with manager Herb Cohen, while they gradually gained attention on the burgeoning Los Angeles underground music scene. In early 1966, they were spotted by leading record producer Tom Wilson when playing "Trouble Every Day", a song about the Watts Riots. Wilson had earned acclaim as the producer for singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and the folk-rock act Simon & Garfunkel, and was notable as one of the few African Americans working as a major label pop music producer at this time.

Wilson signed The Mothers to the Verve Records division of MGM Records, which had built up a strong reputation in the music industry for its releases of modern jazz recordings in the 1940s and 1950s, but was attempting to diversify into pop and rock audiences. Verve insisted that the band officially re-title themselves "The Mothers of Invention" because "Mother", in slang terminology, was short for "motherfucker" — a term that apart from its profane meanings can denote a skilled musician.

Debut album: ''Freak Out!'' (1966)

With Wilson credited as producer, The Mothers of Invention, augmented by a studio orchestra, recorded the groundbreaking ''Freak Out!'' (1966) which, preceded by Bob Dylan's ''Blonde on Blonde'', was the second rock double album ever released. It mixed R&B;, doo-wop, musique concrète, and experimental sound collages that captured the "freak" subculture of Los Angeles at that time. Although he was dissatisfied with the final product—in a late '60s radio interview (included in the posthumous ''MOFO Project/Object'' compilation) Zappa recounted that the side-long closing track "Return of the Son of Monster Magnet" was intended to be the basic track for a much more complex work which Verve did not allow him to complete – ''Freak Out'' immediately established Zappa as a radical new voice in rock music, providing an antidote to the "relentless consumer culture of America". The sound was raw, but the arrangements were sophisticated. While recording in the studio, some of the additional session musicians were shocked that they were expected to read the notes on sheet music from charts with Zappa conducting them, since it was not standard when recording rock music. The lyrics praised non-conformity, disparaged authorities, and had dadaist elements. Yet, there was a place for seemingly conventional love songs. Most compositions are Zappa's, which set a precedent for the rest of his recording career. He had full control over the arrangements and musical decisions and did most overdubs. Wilson provided the industry clout and connections to get the group the financial resources needed.

During the recording of ''Freak Out!'', Zappa moved into a house in Laurel Canyon with friend Pamela Zarubica, who appeared on the album. The house became a meeting (and living) place for many LA musicians and groupies of the time, despite Zappa's disapproval of their illicit drug use. He labeled people on drugs "assholes in action", and he tried cannabis only a few times, but without any pleasure. He was a regular tobacco smoker for most of his life, and strongly critical of anti-tobacco campaigns. After a short promotional tour following the release of ''Freak Out!'', Zappa met Adelaide Gail Sloatman. He fell in love within "a couple of minutes", and she moved into the house over the summer. They married in 1967, had four children and remained together until Zappa's death.

Wilson nominally produced The Mothers' second album ''Absolutely Free'' (1967), which was recorded in November 1966, and later mixed in New York, although by this time Zappa was in ''de facto'' control of most facets of the production. It featured extended playing by The Mothers of Invention and focused on songs that defined Zappa's compositional style of introducing abrupt, rhythmical changes into songs that were built from diverse elements. Examples are "Plastic People" and "Brown Shoes Don't Make It", which contained lyrics critical of the hypocrisy and conformity of American society, but also of the counterculture of the 1960s. As Zappa put it, "[W]e're satirists, and we are out to satirize everything." At the same time, Zappa had recorded material for a self-produced album based on orchestral works to be released under his own name. Due to contractual problems, the recordings were shelved and only made ready for release late in 1967. Zappa took the opportunity to radically restructure the contents, adding newly recorded, improvised dialogue to finalize what became his first solo album (under the name ''Francis Vincent Zappa''), ''Lumpy Gravy'' (1968). It is an "incredible ambitious musical project", a "monument to John Cage", which intertwines orchestral themes, spoken words and electronic noises through radical audio editing techniques.

New York period (1966–1968)

The Mothers of Invention played in New York in late 1966 and were offered a contract at the Garrick Theater during Easter 1967. This proved successful and Herb Cohen extended the booking, which eventually lasted half a year. As a result, Zappa and his wife, along with The Mothers of Invention, moved to New York. Their shows became a combination of improvised acts showcasing individual talents of the band as well as tight performances of Zappa's music. Everything was directed by Zappa's famous hand signals. Guest performers and audience participation became a regular part of the Garrick Theater shows. One evening, Zappa managed to entice some U.S. Marines from the audience onto the stage, where they proceeded to dismember a big baby doll, having been told by Zappa to pretend that it was a "gook baby".

Situated in New York, and only interrupted by the band's first European tour, The Mothers of Invention recorded the album widely regarded as the peak of the group's late 1960s work, ''We're Only in It for the Money'' (released 1968). It was produced by Zappa, with Wilson credited as executive producer. From then on, Zappa produced all albums released by The Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. ''We're Only in It for the Money'' featured some of the most creative audio editing and production yet heard in pop music, and the songs ruthlessly satirized the hippie and flower power phenomena. The cover photo parodied that of The Beatles' ''Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''. The cover art was provided by Cal Schenkel whom Zappa met in New York. This initiated a life-long collaboration in which Schenkel designed covers for numerous Zappa and Mothers albums.

Reflecting Zappa's eclectic approach to music, the next album, ''Cruising with Ruben & the Jets'' (1968), was very different. It represented a collection of doo-wop songs; listeners and critics were not sure whether the album was a satire or a tribute. Zappa has noted that the album was conceived in the way Stravinsky's compositions were in his neo-classical period: "If he could take the forms and clichés of the classical era and pervert them, why not do the same ... to doo-wop in the fifties?" A theme from Stravinsky's ''The Rite of Spring'' is heard during one song.

In New York, Zappa increasingly used tape editing as a compositional tool. A prime example is found on the double album ''Uncle Meat'' (1969), where the track "King Kong" is edited from various studio and live performances. Zappa had begun regularly recording concerts, and because of his insistence on precise tuning and timing, he was able to augment his studio productions with excerpts from live shows, and vice versa. Later, he combined recordings of different compositions into new pieces, irrespective of the tempo or meter of the sources. He dubbed this process "xenochrony" (strange synchronizations) — reflecting the Greek "xeno" (alien or strange) and "chrono" (time). Zappa also evolved a compositional approach which he called "conceptual continuity," meaning that any project or album was part of a larger project. Everything was connected, and musical themes and lyrics reappeared in different form on later albums. Conceptual continuity clues are found throughout Zappa's entire œuvre.

During the late 1960s, Zappa continued to develop the business sides of his career. He and Herb Cohen formed the Bizarre Records and Straight Records labels, distributed by Warner Bros. Records, as ventures to aid the funding of projects and to increase creative control. Zappa produced the double album ''Trout Mask Replica'' for Captain Beefheart, and releases by Alice Cooper, Wild Man Fischer, and The GTOs, as well as Lenny Bruce's last live performance.

Disbanding the original Mothers of Invention (1969)

|title=Peaches en Regalia [Song Review] |last=Couture |first=François |publisher=Allmusic |accessdate=April 11, 2010}} and has been covered by many artists. |title="Peaches En Regalia"|pos=right|}}

Zappa and The Mothers of Invention returned to Los Angeles in the summer of 1968, and the Zappas moved into a house on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, only to move again to one on Woodrow Wilson Drive in the autumn. This was to be Zappa's home for the rest of his life. Despite being a success with fans in Europe, The Mothers of Invention were not faring well financially. Their first records were vocally oriented, but Zappa wrote more instrumental jazz and classical oriented music for the band's concerts, which confused audiences. Zappa felt that audiences failed to appreciate his "electrical chamber music". In 1969 there were nine band members and Zappa was supporting the group himself from his publishing royalties whether they played or not. 1969 was also the year Zappa, fed up with MGM's interference, left MGM Records for Warner Bros. Records' Reprise Records subsidiary where Zappa/Mothers recordings would bear the Bizarre Records imprint. In late 1969, Zappa broke up the band. He often cited the financial strain as the main reason, but also commented on the band members' lack of sufficient effort. Many band members were bitter about Zappa's decision, and some took it as a sign of Zappa's concern for perfection at the expense of human feeling. Others were irritated by 'his autocratic ways', exemplified by Zappa's never staying at the same hotel as the band members. Several members would, however, play for Zappa in years to come. Remaining recordings with the band from this period were collected on ''Weasels Ripped My Flesh'' and ''Burnt Weeny Sandwich'' (both released in 1970).

After he disbanded The Mothers of Invention, Zappa released the acclaimed solo album ''Hot Rats'' (1969). It features, for the first time on record, Zappa playing extended guitar solos and contains one of his most enduring compositions, "Peaches en Regalia", which reappeared several times on future recordings. It was backed by jazz, blues and R&B; session players including violinist Don "Sugarcane" Harris, drummers John Guerin and Paul Humphrey, multi-instrumentalist and previous member of Mothers of Invention Ian Underwood, and multi-instrumentalist Shuggie Otis on bass, along with a guest appearance by Captain Beefheart (providing vocals to the only non-instrumental track, "Willie the Pimp"). It became a popular album in England, and had a major influence on the development of the jazz-rock fusion genre.

1970s: From The Mothers to Zappa

In 1970 Zappa met conductor Zubin Mehta. They arranged a May 1970 concert where Mehta conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic augmented by a rock band. According to Zappa, the music was mostly written in motel rooms while on tour with The Mothers of Invention. Some of it was later featured in the movie ''200 Motels''. Although the concert was a success, Zappa's experience working with a symphony orchestra was not a happy one. His dissatisfaction became a recurring theme throughout his career; he often felt that the quality of performance of his material delivered by orchestras was not commensurate with the money he spent on orchestral concerts and recordings.

Rebirth of The Mothers and filmmaking (1970)

Later in 1970, Zappa formed a new version of The Mothers (from then on, he mostly dropped the "of Invention"). It included British drummer Aynsley Dunbar, jazz keyboardist George Duke, Ian Underwood, Jeff Simmons (bass, rhythm guitar), and three members of The Turtles: bass player Jim Pons, and singers Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, who, due to persistent legal and contractual problems, adopted the stage name "The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie", or "Flo & Eddie".

This version of The Mothers debuted on Zappa's next solo album ''Chunga's Revenge'' (1970), which was followed by the double-album soundtrack to the movie ''200 Motels'' (1971), featuring The Mothers, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Ringo Starr, Theodore Bikel, and Keith Moon. Co-directed by Zappa and Tony Palmer, it was filmed in a week at Pinewood Studios outside London. Tensions between Zappa and several cast and crew members arose before and during shooting. The film deals loosely with life on the road as a rock musician. It was the first feature film photographed on videotape and transferred to 35 mm film, a process which allowed for novel visual effects. It was released to mixed reviews. The score relied extensively on orchestral music, and Zappa's dissatisfaction with the classical music world intensified when a concert, scheduled at the Royal Albert Hall after filming, was canceled because a representative of the venue found some of the lyrics obscene. In 1975, he lost a lawsuit against the Royal Albert Hall for breach of contract.

After ''200 Motels'', the band went on tour, which resulted in two live albums, ''Fillmore East - June 1971'' and ''Just Another Band From L.A.''; the latter included the 20-minute track "Billy the Mountain", Zappa's satire on rock opera set in Southern California. This track was representative of the band's theatrical performances in which songs were used to build up sketches based on ''200 Motels'' scenes as well as new situations often portraying the band members' sexual encounters on the road.

Accident, attack and their aftermath (1971–1972)

In December 1971, there were two serious setbacks. While performing at Casino de Montreux in Switzerland, The Mothers' equipment was destroyed when a flare set off by an audience member started a fire that burned down the casino. Immortalized in Deep Purple's song "Smoke on the Water", the event and immediate aftermath can be heard on the bootleg album ''Swiss Cheese/Fire'', released legally as part of Zappa's ''Beat the Boots II'' compilation. After a week's break, The Mothers played at the Rainbow Theatre, London, with rented gear. During the encore, an audience member pushed Zappa off the stage and into the concrete-floored orchestra pit. The band thought Zappa had been killed—he had suffered serious fractures, head trauma and injuries to his back, leg, and neck, as well as a crushed larynx, which ultimately caused his voice to drop a third after healing. This left him wheelchair bound, forcing him off the road for over half a year. Upon his return to the stage in September 1972, he was still wearing a leg brace, had a noticeable limp and could not stand for very long while on stage. Zappa noted that one leg healed "shorter than the other" (a reference later found in the lyrics of songs "Zomby Woof" and "Dancin' Fool"), resulting in chronic back pain. Meanwhile, The Mothers were left in limbo and eventually formed the core of Flo and Eddie's band as they set out on their own.

During 1971–1972 Zappa released two strongly jazz-oriented solo LPs, ''Waka/Jawaka'' and ''The Grand Wazoo'', which were recorded during the forced layoff from concert touring, using floating line-ups of session players and Mothers alumni. Musically, the albums were akin to ''Hot Rats''. Zappa began touring again in late 1972. His first effort was a series of concerts in September 1972 with a 20-piece big band referred to as the Grand Wazoo. This was followed by a scaled-down version known as the Petit Wazoo that toured the U.S. for five weeks from October to December 1972.

Top 10 album (1973–1975)

Zappa then formed and toured with smaller groups that variously included Ian Underwood (reeds, keyboards), Ruth Underwood (vibes, marimba), Sal Marquez (trumpet, vocals), Napoleon Murphy Brock (sax, flute and vocals), Bruce Fowler (trombone), Tom Fowler (bass), Chester Thompson (drums), Ralph Humphrey (drums), George Duke (keyboards, vocals), and Jean-Luc Ponty (violin). By 1973 the Bizarre and Straight labels were discontinued. In their place, Zappa and Cohen created DiscReet Records, also distributed by Warner Bros. Zappa continued a high rate of production through the first half of the 1970s, including the solo album ''Apostrophe (')'' (1974), which reached a career-high No. 10 on the Billboard pop album charts helped by the chart single "Don't Eat The Yellow Snow". Other albums from the period are ''Over-Nite Sensation'' (1973), which contained several future concert favorites, such as "Dinah-Moe Humm" and "Montana", and the albums ''Roxy & Elsewhere'' (1974) and ''One Size Fits All'' (1975) which feature ever-changing versions of a band still called The Mothers, and are notable for the tight renditions of highly difficult jazz fusion songs in such pieces as "Inca Roads", "Echidna's Arf (Of You)" and "Be-Bop Tango (Of the Old Jazzmen's Church)". A live recording from 1974, ''You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 2'' (1988), captures "the full spirit and excellence of the 1973–75 band". Zappa released ''Bongo Fury'' (1975), which featured live recordings from a tour the same year that reunited him with Captain Beefheart for a brief period. They later became estranged for a period of years, but were in contact at the end of Zappa's life.

Business breakups and touring (1976–1979)

Zappa's relationship with long-time manager Herb Cohen ended in 1976. Zappa sued Cohen for skimming more than he was allocated from DiscReet Records, as well as for signing acts of which Zappa did not approve. Cohen filed a lawsuit against Zappa in return, which froze the money Zappa and Cohen had gained from an out-of-court settlement with MGM over the rights of the early Mothers of Invention recordings. It also prevented Zappa having access to any of his previously recorded material during the trials. Zappa therefore took his personal master copies of the rock-oriented ''Zoot Allures'' (1976) directly to Warner Bros., thereby bypassing DiscReet.

In the mid-1970s Zappa prepared material for ''Läther'' (pronounced "leather"), a four-LP project. ''Läther'' encapsulated all the aspects of Zappa's musical styles — rock tunes, orchestral works, complex instrumentals, and Zappa's own trademark distortion-drenched guitar solos. Wary of a quadruple-LP, Warner Bros. Records refused to release it. Zappa managed to get an agreement with Mercury-Phonogram, and test pressings were made targeted at a Halloween 1977 release, but Warner Bros. prevented the release by claiming rights over the material. Zappa responded by appearing on the Pasadena, California radio station KROQ, allowing them to broadcast ''Läther'' and encouraging listeners to make their own tape recordings. A lawsuit between Zappa and Warner Bros. followed, during which no Zappa material was released for more than a year. Eventually, Warner Bros. issued major parts of ''Läther'' against Zappa's will as four individual albums with limited promotion. ''Läther'' was released posthumously in 1996.

Although Zappa eventually gained the rights to all his material created under the MGM and Warner Bros. contracts, the various lawsuits meant that for a period Zappa's only income came from touring, which he therefore did extensively in 1975–1977 with relatively small, mainly rock-oriented, bands. Drummer Terry Bozzio became a regular band member, Napoleon Murphy Brock stayed on for a while, and original Mothers of Invention bassist Roy Estrada joined. Among other musicians were bassist Patrick O'Hearn, singer-guitarist Ray White and keyboardist Eddie Jobson. In December 1976, Zappa appeared as a featured musical guest on the NBC television show ''Saturday Night Live''. The performances included an impromptu musical collaboration with cast member John Belushi during the instrumental piece "The Purple Lagoon". Belushi appeared as his Samurai Futaba character playing the tenor sax with Zappa conducting. Zappa's song, "I'm the Slime", was performed with a voice-over by ''SNL'' booth announcer Don Pardo, who also introduced "Peaches En Regalia" on the same airing.

Zappa's band at the time, with the additions of Ruth Underwood and a horn section (featuring Michael and Randy Brecker), performed during Christmas in New York, recordings of which appear on one of the albums released by Warner Bros., ''Zappa in New York'' (1978). It mixes intense instrumentals such as "The Black Page" and humorous songs like "Titties and Beer". The former composition, written originally for drum kit but later developed for larger bands, is notorious for its complexity in rhythmic structure, radical changes of tempo and meter, and short, densely arranged passages.

''Zappa in New York'' featured a song about sex criminal Michael H. Kenyon, "The Illinois Enema Bandit", which featured Don Pardo providing the opening narrative in the song. Like many songs on the album, it contained numerous sexual references, leading to many critics objecting and being offended by the content. Zappa dismissed the criticism by noting that he was a journalist reporting on life as he saw it. Predating his later fight against censorship, he remarked: "What do you make of a society that is so primitive that it clings to the belief that certain words in its language are so powerful that they could corrupt you the moment you hear them?" The remaining albums released by Warner Bros. Records without Zappa's consent were ''Studio Tan'' in 1978 and ''Sleep Dirt'' in 1979, which contained complex suites of instrumentally-based tunes recorded between 1973 and 1976, and whose release was overlooked in the midst of the legal problems. Also released by the label without the artist's consent was ''Orchestral Favorites'' in 1979, which featured recordings of a concert with orchestral music from 1975.

Zappa as an independent artist (1979)

Resolving the lawsuits successfully, Zappa ended the 1970s "stronger than ever", by releasing two of his most successful albums in 1979: the best selling album of his career, ''Sheik Yerbouti'', and the "bona fide masterpiece", ''Joe's Garage''. The double album ''Sheik Yerbouti'' was the first release on Zappa Records, and contained the Grammy-nominated single "Dancin' Fool", which reached No. 45 on the ''Billboard'' charts, and "Jewish Princess", which received attention when a Jewish lobby group, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), attempted to prevent the song from receiving radio airplay due to its alleged anti-Semitic lyrics. Zappa vehemently denied any anti-Semitic sentiments and dismissed the ADL as a "noisemaking organization that tries to apply pressure on people in order to manufacture a stereotype image of Jews that suits their idea of a good time". The album's commercial success was attributable in part to "Bobby Brown". Due to its explicit lyrics about a young man's encounter with a "dyke by the name of Freddie", the song did not get airplay in the U.S., but it topped the charts in several European countries where English is not the primary language. The triple LP ''Joe's Garage'' featured lead singer Ike Willis as the voice of the character "Joe" in a rock opera about the danger of political systems, the suppression of freedom of speech and music — inspired in part by the Islamic revolution that had made music illegal within its jurisdiction at the time — and about the "strange relationship Americans have with sex and sexual frankness". The album contains rock songs like "Catholic Girls" (a riposte to the controversies of "Jewish Princess"), "Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up", and the title track, as well as extended live-recorded guitar improvisations combined with a studio backup band dominated by drummer Vinnie Colaiuta (with whom Zappa had a particularly good musical rapport) adopting the xenochrony process. The album contains one of Zappa's most famous guitar "signature pieces", "Watermelon in Easter Hay".

On December 21, 1979, Zappa's movie ''Baby Snakes'' premiered in New York. The movie's tagline was "A movie about people who do stuff that is not normal". The 2 hour and 40 minutes movie was based on footage from concerts in New York around Halloween 1977, with a band featuring keyboardist Tommy Mars and percussionist Ed Mann (who would both return on later tours) as well as guitarist Adrian Belew. It also contained several extraordinary sequences of clay animation by Bruce Bickford who had earlier provided animation sequences to Zappa for a 1974 TV special (which later become available on the video ''The Dub Room Special'' (1982)). The movie did not do well in theatrical distribution, but won the Premier Grand Prix at the First International Music Festival in Paris in 1981. The Zappa Family Trust released it on DVD, and it has been available since 2003.

Zappa later expanded on his television appearances in a non-musical role. He was an actor or voice artist in episodes of ''Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre'', ''Miami Vice'' and ''The Ren and Stimpy Show''. A voice part in ''The Simpsons'' never materialized, to creator Matt Groening's disappointment.

1980s: Productive as ever

After spending most of 1980 on the road, Zappa released ''Tinsel Town Rebellion'' in 1981. It was the first release on his own Barking Pumpkin Records, and it contains songs taken from a 1979 tour, one studio track and material from the 1980 tours. The album is a mixture of complicated instrumentals and Zappa's use of ''sprechstimme'' (speaking song or voice)—a compositional technique utilized by such composers as Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg — showcasing some of the most accomplished bands Zappa ever had (mostly featuring drummer Vinnie Colaiuta). While some lyrics still raised controversy among critics, in the sense that some found them sexist, the political and sociological satire in songs like the title track and "The Blue Light" have been described as a "hilarious critique of the willingness of the American people to believe anything". The album is also notable for the presence of guitar virtuoso Steve Vai, who joined Zappa's touring band in the fall of 1980.

The same year the double album ''You Are What You Is'' was released. Most of it was recorded in Zappa's brand new Utility Muffin Research Kitchen (UMRK) studios, which were located at his house, thereby giving him complete freedom to work. The album included one complex instrumental, "Theme from the 3^rd Movement of Sinister Footwear", but focused mainly on rock songs with Zappa's sardonic social commentary—satirical lyrics targeted at teenagers, the media, and religious and political hypocrisy. "Dumb All Over" is a tirade on religion, as is "Heavenly Bank Account", wherein Zappa rails against TV evangelists such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson for their purported influence on the U.S. administration as well as their use of religion as a means of raising money. Songs like "Society Pages" and "I'm a Beautiful Guy" show Zappa's dismay with the Reagan era and its "obscene pursuit of wealth and happiness". In 1981, Zappa also released three instrumental albums, ''Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar'', ''Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar Some More'', and ''The Return of the Son of Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar'', which were initially sold via mail order, but later released through the CBS label due to popular demand. The albums focus exclusively on Frank Zappa as a guitar soloist, and the tracks are predominantly live recordings from 1979–1980; they highlight Zappa's improvisational skills with "beautiful performances from the backing group as well". Another guitar-only album, ''Guitar'', was released in 1988, and a third, ''Trance-Fusion'', which Zappa completed shortly before his death, was released in 2006.

From hit single to classical performances

In May 1982, Zappa released ''Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch'', which featured his biggest selling single ever, the Grammy Award-nominated song "Valley Girl" (topping out at No. 32 on the ''Billboard'' charts). In her improvised lyrics to the song, Zappa's daughter Moon Unit satirized the vapid speech of teenage girls from the San Fernando Valley, which popularized many "Valspeak" expressions such as "gag me with a spoon," "fer sure, fer sure," "grody" (gross), and "barf out". Most Americans who only knew Zappa from his few singles successes now thought of him as a person writing "novelty songs", even though the rest of the album contained highly challenging music. Zappa was irritated by this and never played the song live.

In 1983, two different projects were released, beginning with ''The Man from Utopia,'' a rock-oriented work. The album is eclectic, featuring the vocal-led "Dangerous Kitchen" and "The Jazz Discharge Party Hats", both continuations of the sprechstimme excursions on ''Tinseltown Rebellion.'' The second album, ''London Symphony Orchestra, Vol. 1'', contained orchestral Zappa compositions conducted by Kent Nagano and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO). A second record of these sessions, ''London Symphony Orchestra, Vol. 2'' was released in 1987. The material was recorded under a tight schedule with Zappa providing all funding, helped by the commercial success of "Valley Girl". Zappa was not satisfied with the LSO recordings. One reason is "Strictly Genteel", which was recorded after the trumpet section had been out for drinks on a break: the track took 40 edits to hide out-of-tune notes. Conductor Nagano, who was pleased with the experience, noted that in "fairness to the orchestra, the music is humanly very, very difficult". Some reviews noted that the recordings were the best representation of Zappa's orchestral work so far. In 1984 Zappa teamed again with Nagano and the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra for a live performance of ''A Zappa Affair'' with augmented orchestra, life-size puppets, and moving stage sets. Although critically acclaimed the work was a financial failure, and only performed twice. Zappa was invited by conference organizer Thomas Wells to be the keynote speaker at the American Society of University Composers at the Ohio State University. It was there Zappa delivered his famous "Bingo! There Goes Your Tenure" address, and had two of his orchestra pieces, "Dupree's Paradise" and "Naval Aviation in Art?" performed by the Columbus Symphony and ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus.

Synclavier

For the remainder of his career, much of Zappa's work was influenced by his use of the Synclavier as a compositional and performance tool. Even considering the complexity of the music he wrote, the Synclavier could realize anything he could dream up. The Synclavier could be programmed to play almost anything conceivable, to perfection: "With the Synclavier, any group of imaginary instruments can be invited to play the most difficult passages ... with ''one-millisecond'' accuracy—every time". Even though it essentially did away with the need for musicians, Zappa viewed the Synclavier and real-life musicians as separate. In 1984, he released four albums. ''Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger,'' contains orchestral works commissioned and conducted by world-renowned conductor Pierre Boulez (who was listed as an influence on ''Freak Out!'') and performed by his Ensemble InterContemporain, juxtaposed with premiere Synclavier pieces. Again, Zappa was not satisfied with the performances of his orchestral works as he found them under-rehearsed, but in the album liner notes he respectfully thanks Boulez's demands for precision. The Synclavier pieces stood in contrast to the orchestral works, as the sounds were electronically generated and not, as became possible shortly thereafter, sampled.

The album ''Thing-Fish'' was an ambitious three-record set in the style of a Broadway play dealing with a dystopian "what-if" scenario involving feminism, homosexuality, manufacturing and distribution of the AIDS virus, and a eugenics program conducted by the United States government. New vocals were combined with previously released tracks and new Synclavier music; "the work is an extraordinary example of bricolage". Finally, in 1984, Zappa released ''Francesco Zappa'', a Synclavier rendition of works by 18th century composer Francesco Zappa (no known relation), and ''Them or Us,'' a two-record set of heavily edited live and session pieces.

Senate testimony

On September 19, 1985, Zappa testified before the United States Senate Commerce, Technology, and Transportation committee, attacking the Parents Music Resource Center or PMRC, a music organization co-founded by Tipper Gore, wife of then-senator Al Gore. The PMRC consisted of many wives of politicians, including the wives of five members of the committee, and was founded to address the issue of song lyrics with sexual or satanic content. Zappa saw their activities as on a path towards censorship, and called their proposal for voluntary labelling of records with explicit content "extortion" of the music industry. In his prepared statement, he said:

The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems inherent in the proposal's design. It is my understanding that, in law, First Amendment issues are decided with a preference for the least restrictive alternative. In this context, the PMRC's demands are the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation ... The establishment of a rating system, voluntary or otherwise, opens the door to an endless parade of moral quality control programs based on things certain Christians do not like. What if the next bunch of Washington wives demands a large yellow "J" on all material written or performed by Jews, in order to save helpless children from exposure to concealed Zionist doctrine?

Zappa set excerpts from the PMRC hearings to Synclavier music in his composition "Porn Wars" on the 1985 album ''Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention'', and the full recording was released in 2010 as ''Congress Shall Make No Law...''. Zappa is heard interacting with Senators Fritz Hollings, Slade Gorton, Al Gore (who claimed, at the hearing, to be a Zappa fan), and in an exchange with Florida Senator Paula Hawkins over what toys Zappa's children played with. Zappa expressed opinions on censorship when he appeared on CNN's ''Crossfire TV series'' and debated issues with ''Washington Times'' commentator John Lofton in 1986. Zappa's passion for American politics was becoming a bigger part of his life. He had always encouraged his fans to register to vote on album covers, and throughout 1988 he had registration booths at his concerts. He even considered running for President of the United States.

Digital medium and last tour

Around 1986, Zappa undertook a comprehensive re-release program of his earlier vinyl recordings. He personally oversaw the remastering of all his 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s albums for the new digital compact disc medium. Certain aspects of these re-issues were, however, criticized by some fans as being unfaithful to the original recordings. Nearly twenty years before the advent of online music stores, Zappa had proposed to replace "phonographic record merchandising" of music by "direct digital-to-digital transfer" through phone or cable TV (with royalty payments and consumer billing automatically built into the accompanying software). In 1989, Zappa considered his idea a "miserable flop".

The album ''Jazz From Hell,'' released in 1986, earned Zappa his first Grammy Award in 1987 for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Except for one live guitar solo (St. Etienne), the album exclusively featured compositions brought to life by the Synclavier. Although an instrumental album, containing no lyrics whatsoever, Meyer Music Markets sold ''Jazz from Hell'' featuring an "explicit lyrics" sticker — a warning label introduced by the Recording Industry Association of America in an agreement with the PMRC.

Zappa's last tour in a rock and jazz band format took place in 1988 with a 12-piece group which had a repertoire of over 100 (mostly Zappa) compositions, but which split under acrimonious circumstances before the tour was completed. The tour was documented on the albums ''Broadway the Hard Way'' (new material featuring songs with strong political emphasis), ''The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life'' (Zappa "standards" and an eclectic collection of cover tunes, ranging from Maurice Ravel's ''Boléro'' to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven"), and ''Make a Jazz Noise Here'' (mostly instrumental and avant-garde music). Parts are also found on ''You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore'', volumes 4 and 6.

1990s: Classical music and death

In early 1990, Zappa visited Czechoslovakia at the request of President Václav Havel, and was asked to serve as consultant for the government on trade, cultural matters and tourism. Havel was a lifelong fan of Zappa who had great influence in the avant-garde and underground scene in Central Europe in the 1970s and 1980s (a Czech rock group that was imprisoned in 1976 took its name from Zappa's 1968 song "Plastic People"). Zappa enthusiastically agreed and began meeting with corporate officials interested in investing in Czechoslovakia. Within a few weeks, however, the U.S. administration put pressure on the Czech government to withdraw the appointment. Havel made Zappa an unofficial cultural attaché instead. Zappa also planned to develop an international consulting enterprise to facilitate trade between the former Eastern Bloc and Western businesses. Most of Zappa's projects came to a halt in 1990, when he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. The disease had been developing unnoticed for ten years and was considered inoperable. After his diagnosis, Zappa devoted most of his energy to modern orchestral and Synclavier works. In 1993 he completed ''Civilization, Phaze III'' shortly before his death. It was a major Synclavier work which he had begun in the 1980s.

In 1991, Zappa was chosen to be one of four featured composers at the world-acclaimed Frankfurt Festival in 1992 (the others were John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Alexander Knaifel). Zappa was approached by the German chamber ensemble, Ensemble Modern, which was interested in playing his music for the event. Although ill, Zappa invited them to Los Angeles for rehearsals of new compositions and new arrangements of older material. In addition to being satisfied with the ensemble's performances of his music, Zappa also got along with the musicians, and the concerts in Germany and Austria were set up for the fall. In September 1992, the concerts went ahead as scheduled, but Zappa could only appear at two in Frankfurt due to illness. At the first concert, he conducted the opening "Overture", and the final "G-Spot Tornado" as well as the theatrical "Food Gathering in Post-Industrial America, 1992" and "Welcome to the United States" (the remainder of the program was conducted by the ensemble's regular conductor Peter Rundel). Zappa received a 20-minute ovation. It would become his last professional public appearance, as the cancer was spreading to such an extent that he was in too much pain to enjoy an event that he otherwise found "exhilarating". Recordings from the concerts appeared on ''The Yellow Shark'' (1993), Zappa's last release during his lifetime, and some material from studio rehearsals appeared on the posthumous ''Everything Is Healing Nicely'' (1999).

Frank Zappa died on Saturday, December 4, 1993 in his home surrounded by his wife and children. At a private ceremony the following day, Zappa was interred in an unmarked grave at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, Los Angeles, next to the grave of actor Lew Ayres. On Monday, December 6 his family publicly announced that "Composer Frank Zappa left for his final tour just before 6:00 pm on Saturday".

Legacy

Acclaim and honors

Zappa earned widespread critical acclaim in his lifetime and after his death. ''The Rolling Stone Album Guide'' (2004) writes: "Frank Zappa dabbled in virtually all kinds of music — and, whether guised as a satirical rocker, jazz-rock fusionist, guitar virtuoso, electronics wizard, or orchestral innovator, his eccentric genius was undeniable". Even though his work drew inspiration from many different genres, Zappa was seen establishing a coherent and personal expression. In 1971, biographer David Walley noted that "The whole structure of his music is unified, not neatly divided by dates or time sequences and it is all building into a composite". On commenting on Zappa's music, politics and philosophy, Barry Miles noted in 2004 that they cannot be separated: "It was all one; all part of his 'conceptual continuity. ''Guitar Player'' devoted a special issue to Zappa in 1992, and asked on the cover "Is FZ America's Best Kept Musical Secret?" Editor Don Menn remarked that the issue was about "The most important composer to come out of modern popular music". Among those contributing to the issue was composer and musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky, who conducted premiere performances of works of Ives and Varèse in the 1930s. He became friends with Zappa in the 1980s, and said "I admire everything Frank does, because he practically created the new musical millennium. He does beautiful, beautiful work ... It has been my luck to have lived to see the emergence of this totally new type of music." Conductor Kent Nagano remarked in the same issue that "Frank is a genius. That's a word I don't use often ... In Frank's case it is not too strong ... He is extremely literate musically. I'm not sure if the general public knows that". Pierre Boulez stated in ''Musician'' magazine's posthumous Zappa tribute article that Zappa "was an exceptional figure because he was part of the worlds of rock and classical music and that both types of his work would survive." Many music scholars acknowledge Zappa as one of the most influential composers of his generation. As an electric guitarist, he has become highly regarded.

In 1994, jazz magazine ''Down Beat'''s critics poll placed Zappa in its Hall of Fame. Zappa was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. There, it was written that "Frank Zappa was rock and roll's sharpest musical mind and most astute social critic. He was the most prolific composer of his age, and he bridged genres — rock, jazz, classical, avant-garde and even novelty music — with masterful ease". He received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. In 2005, the U.S. National Recording Preservation Board included ''We're Only in It for the Money'' in the National Recording Registry as "Frank Zappa's inventive and iconoclastic album presents a unique political stance, both anti-conservative and anti-counterculture, and features a scathing satire on hippiedom and America's reactions to it". The same year, ''Rolling Stone'' magazine ranked him at No. 71 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2011, he was ranked at No. 45 on the list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time by the same magazine.

Artists influenced by Zappa

A number of notable musicians, bands and orchestras from diverse genres have been influenced by Frank Zappa's music. Rock artists like Alice Cooper, Primus, Fee Waybill of The Tubes all cite Zappa's influence, as do progressive rock artists like Henry Cow, Trey Anastasio of Phish, and John Frusciante. Paul McCartney regarded ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' as The Beatles' ''Freak Out!'' Heavy rock and metal acts like Black Sabbath, Mike Portnoy, Warren DeMartini, Steve Vai, Strapping Young Lad, System of a Down, Clawfinger, and Devin Townsend acknowledge Zappa's inspiration. On the classical music scene, Tomas Ulrich, Meridian Arts Ensemble, Ensemble Ambrosius and the Fireworks Ensemble regularly perform Zappa's compositions and quote his influence. Contemporary jazz musicians and composers Bill Frisell and John Zorn are inspired by Zappa, as is funk legend George Clinton. Other artists whose work is affected by Zappa include new age pianist George Winston, electronic composer Bob Gluck, parody singer "Weird Al" Yankovic, industrial music pioneer Genesis P-Orridge, and noise music artist Masami Akita of Merzbow.

References in arts and sciences

Scientists from various fields have honored Zappa by naming new discoveries after him. In 1967, paleontologist Leo P. Plas, Jr. identified an extinct mollusc in Nevada and named it ''Amaurotoma zappa'' with the motivation that, "The specific name, ''zappa'', honors Frank Zappa". In the 1980s, biologist Ed Murdy named a genus of gobiid fishes of New Guinea ''Zappa'', with a species named ''Zappa confluentus''. Biologist Ferdinando Boero named a Californian jellyfish ''Phialella zappai'' (1987), noting that he had "pleasure in naming this species after the modern music composer". Belgian biologists Bosmans and Bosselaers discovered in the early 1980s a Cameroonese spider, which they in 1994 named ''Pachygnatha zappa'' because "the ventral side of the abdomen of the female of this species strikingly resembles the artist's legendary moustache". A gene of the bacterium ''Proteus mirabilis'' that causes urinary tract infections was in 1995 named ''zapA'' by three biologists from Maryland. In their scientific article, they "especially thank the late Frank Zappa for inspiration and assistance with genetic nomenclature". In the late 1990s, American paleontologists Marc Salak and Halard L. Lescinsky discovered a metazoan fossil, and named it ''Spygori zappania'' to honor "the late Frank Zappa ... whose mission paralleled that of the earliest paleontologists: to challenge conventional and traditional beliefs when such beliefs lacked roots in logic and reason".

In 1994, lobbying efforts initiated by psychiatrist John Scialli led the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center to name an asteroid in Zappa's honor: ''3834 Zappafrank''. The asteroid was discovered in 1980 by Czechoslovakian astronomer Ladislav Brozek, and the citation for its naming says that "Zappa was an eclectic, self-trained artist and composer ... Before 1989 he was regarded as a symbol of democracy and freedom by many people in Czechoslovakia".

In 1995, a bust of Zappa by sculptor Konstantinas Bogdanas was installed in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. A replica was offered to the city of Baltimore in 2008, and on September 19, 2010 — the twenty-fifth anniversary of Zappa's testimony to the U.S. Senate — a ceremony dedicating the replica was held, with the bust installed at the Southeast Anchor Branch Library in Baltimore's Highlandtown. Speakers at the event included Gail Zappa and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake In 2002, a bronze bust was installed in German city Bad Doberan, since 1990 location of the ''Zappanale'', an annual music festival celebrating Zappa. At the initiative of musicians community ORWOhaus, the city of Berlin named a street in the Marzahn district "Frank-Zappa-Straße" in 2007. The same year, Baltimore's mayor Sheila Dixon proclaimed August 9 as the city's official "Frank Zappa Day" citing Zappa's musical accomplishments as well as his defense of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Discography

References

Notes

External links

The official Frank Zappa website

Category:1940 births Category:1993 deaths Category:20th-century classical composers Category:American atheists Category:American blues guitarists Category:American comedy musicians Category:American composers Category:American experimental filmmakers Category:American experimental musicians Category:American humanists Category:American jazz guitarists Category:American musicians of Italian descent Category:American multi-instrumentalists Category:American people of Arab descent Category:American people of French descent Category:American people of Greek descent Category:American people of Sicilian descent Category:American rock guitarists Category:American rock singers Category:American satirists Category:American voice actors Category:Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Captain Beefheart Category:Censorship in the arts Category:Comedy rock Category:Contemporary classical music performers Category:Deaths from prostate cancer Category:Experimental composers Category:Free speech activists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Lead guitarists Category:Musicians from California Category:People from Baltimore, Maryland Category:People from Echo Park, Los Angeles Category:People from Harford County, Maryland Category:Progressive rock musicians Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Rykodisc artists Category:Songwriters from Maryland Category:The Mothers of Invention members Category:Verve Records artists Category:Warner Bros. Records artists

ar:فرانك زابا ast:Frank Zappa bs:Frank Zappa br:Frank Zappa bg:Франк Запа ca:Frank Zappa cs:Frank Zappa da:Frank Zappa de:Frank Zappa et:Frank Zappa el:Φρανκ Ζάπα es:Frank Zappa eo:Frank Zappa fa:فرانک زاپا fr:Frank Zappa fy:Frank Zappa gd:Frank Zappa gl:Frank Zappa ko:프랭크 자파 hr:Frank Zappa io:Frank Zappa id:Frank Zappa ia:Frank Zappa it:Frank Zappa he:פרנק זאפה ka:ფრენკ ზაპა la:Franciscus Zappa lv:Frenks Zapa lb:Frank Zappa hu:Frank Zappa nl:Frank Zappa ja:フランク・ザッパ no:Frank Zappa nn:Frank Zappa pl:Frank Zappa pt:Frank Zappa ro:Frank Zappa ru:Заппа, Фрэнк Винсент scn:Frank Zappa simple:Frank Zappa sk:Frank Zappa sl:Frank Zappa sr:Френк Запа sh:Frank Zappa fi:Frank Zappa sv:Frank Zappa tr:Frank Zappa uk:Френк Заппа zh:弗兰克·扎帕

name	Larry King
birth name	Lawrence Harvey Zeiger
birth date	November 19, 1933
birth place	Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
alma mater	DePauw University
religion	Jewish (1933–1966)Agnostic (1966–present)
occupation	Television/Radio personality
years active	1953–present
spouse	Freda Miller (1952–1953; annulled)Annette Kaye (1961; divorced)Alene Akins (1961–1963; divorced)Mickey Sutphin (1963–1967; divorced)Alene Akins (1967–1972; divorced)Sharon Lepore (1976–1983; divorced)Julie Alexander (1989–1992; divorced)Shawn Southwick (1997–present)
website	}}

Lawrence Harvey "Larry" King (born November 19, 1933) is an American television and radio host.

He is recognized in the United States as one of the premier broadcast interviewers. He has won an Emmy Award, two Peabody Awards, and ten Cable ACE Awards.

King began as a local Florida journalist and radio interviewer in the 1950s and 1960s. He became prominent as an all-night national radio broadcaster starting in 1978, and then, in 1985, began hosting the nightly interview TV program ''Larry King Live'' on CNN.

On June 29, 2010, it was announced that he would step down as host of the show but would continue to host specials for CNN. In early September, CNN confirmed that he would be replaced by Piers Morgan. King's last show aired on December 16, 2010.

Early life

King was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to Edward Zeiger, a restaurant owner and defense plant worker, and his wife Jennie Gitlitz, a garment worker, who emigrated from Belarus. King grew up in a religious and observant Jewish home, but in adulthood became an agnostic. King's father died at 44 of heart disease, and his mother had to go on welfare to support her two sons. His father's death greatly affected King, and he lost interest in school. After graduating from high school, he worked to help support his mother. From an early age, however, he had wanted to go into radio.

Career

Miami radio and television

A CBS staff announcer, whom King met by chance, told him to go to Florida, a growing media market where openings still existed for inexperienced broadcasters. King rode a bus to Miami. After initial setbacks, King persisted and got his first job in radio. The manager of a small station, WAHR (now WMBM) in Miami Beach, hired him to clean up and perform miscellaneous tasks. When one of their announcers quit, they put King on the air. His first broadcast was on May 1, 1957, when he worked as the disc jockey from 9 a.m. to noon. He also did two afternoon newscasts and a sportscast. He was paid $55 a week. He acquired the name Larry King when the general manager Martial Cemen said that Zeiger was too ethnic and difficult to remember, so Larry chose the surname ''King'', which he got from an ad in ''The Miami Herald'' for King's Wholesale Liquor, minutes before air. He started interviewing on a midmorning show for WIOD, at Pumpernik's Restaurant in Miami Beach. He would interview anyone who walked in. His first interview was with a waiter at the restaurant. Two days later, singer Bobby Darin, in Miami for a concert later that day, walked into Pumpernik's as a result of coming across King's show on his radio; Darin became King's first celebrity interview guest.

His Miami radio show launched him to local stardom. A few years later, in May 1960, he hosted ''Miami Undercover,'' airing Sunday nights at 11:30 p.m. on WPST-TV Channel 10 (now WPLG). On the show, he moderated debates on important issues of the time. King credits his success on local TV to the assistance of another showbiz legend, comedian Jackie Gleason, whose national TV variety show was being filmed in Miami Beach during this period. "That show really took off because Gleason came to Miami," King said in a 1996 interview he gave when inducted into the Broadcasters' Hall of Fame. "He did that show and stayed all night with me. We stayed till five in the morning. He didn't like the set, so we broke into the general manager's office and changed the set. Gleason changed the set, he changed the lighting, and he became like a mentor of mine." Jackie Gleason was instrumental in getting Larry a hard-to-get on air interview with Frank Sinatra during this time.

During this period, WIOD gave King further exposure as a color commentator for the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League, during their 1970 season and most of their 1971 season. However, he was dismissed by both WIOD and television station WTVJ as a late-night radio host and sports commentator as of December 20, 1971, when he was arrested after being accused of grand larceny by a former business partner. Other staffers covered the Dolphins' games into their 24–3 loss to Dallas in Super Bowl VI. King also lost his weekly column at the ''Miami Beach Sun'' newspaper. The charges were dropped on March 10, 1972, and King spent the next several years in reviving his career, including a stint as the color announcer in Louisiana for the Shreveport Steamer of the World Football League in 1974–75 on KWKH. Eventually, King was rehired by WIOD in Miami. For several years during the 1970s in South Florida, he hosted a sports talk-show called "Sports-a-la-King" that featured guests and callers.

National radio

In 1978, he went national, inheriting the nightly talk show slot on the Mutual Broadcasting System, broadcast coast-to-coast, that had been "Long John" Nebel's until his death, and had been pioneered by Herb Jepko. One reason King got the Mutual job is that he had once been an announcer at WGMA-AM in Hollywood, Florida, which was then owned by C. Edward Little. Little went on to become president of Mutual and was the one who hired King when Nebel died. King's Mutual show developed a devoted audience.

It was broadcast live Monday through Friday from midnight to 5:30 a.m. Eastern Time. King would interview a guest for the first 90 minutes, with callers asking questions that continued the interview for another 90 minutes. At 3 a.m., he would allow callers to discuss any topic they pleased with him, until the end of the program, when he expressed his own political opinions. That segment was called "Open Phone America". Some of the regular callers used the pseudonyms "The Portland Laugher", "The Miami Derelict", "The Todd Cruz Caller", "The Scandal Scooper", "Mr. Radio" and "The Water Is Warm Caller". "Mr. Radio" made over 200 calls to King during Open Phone America. The show was successful, starting with relatively few affiliates and eventually growing to more than 500. It ran until 1994.

For its final year, the show was moved to afternoons, but, because most talk radio stations at the time had an established policy of local origination in the time-slot (3 to 6 p.m. Eastern Time) that Mutual offered the show, a very low percentage of King's overnight affiliates agreed to carry his daytime show and it was unable to generate the same audience size. The afternoon show was eventually given to David Brenner and radio affiliates were given the option of carrying the audio of King's new CNN evening television program. The Westwood One radio simulcast of the CNN show continued until December 31, 2009.

CNN

He started his ''Larry King Live'' CNN show in June 1985, hosting a broad range of guests from controversial figures of UFO conspiracy theories and alleged psychics, to prominent politicians and leading figures in the entertainment industry, often doing their first or only interview on breaking news stories on his show.

Unlike many interviewers, King has a direct, non-confrontational approach. His reputation for asking easy, open-ended questions has made him attractive to important figures who want to state their position while avoiding being challenged on contentious topics. His interview style is characteristically frank, but with occasional bursts of irreverence and humor. His approach attracts some guests who would not otherwise appear. King, who is known for his general lack of pre-interview preparation, once bragged that he never read the books of authors before making an appearance on his program.

In a show dedicated to the surviving Beatles, King asked George Harrison's widow about the song "Something", which was written about George Harrison's first wife. He seemed surprised when she did not know very much about the song.

Throughout his career King has interviewed many of the leading figures of his time. CNN claimed during his final episode that he had performed 60,000 interviews in his career.

King also wrote a regular newspaper column in USA Today for almost 20 years, from shortly after that newspaper's origin in 1982 until September 2001. The column consisted of short "plugs, superlatives and dropped names" but was dropped when the newspaper redesigned its "Life" section. The column was resurrected in blog form in November 2008 and on Twitter in April 2009.

Departure

On June 29, 2010, King announced that after 25 years, he would be stepping down from his nightly job hosting ''Larry King Live''. However, he stated that he would remain with CNN to host occasional specials. The announcement came in the wake of speculation that CNN had approached Piers Morgan, the British television personality and journalist, as King's primetime replacement.

On September 8, 2010, CNN confirmed that Morgan would occupy King's 9:00 pm timeslot from January 2011 onward.

The final edition of ''Larry King Live'' aired on December 16, 2010. Guests and friends were led by Ryan Seacrest while thanking the legend for his years of service to journalism. The show concluded with his last thoughts and a thank you to his audience for watching and supporting him over the years.

Possibility of work with Comedy Central

Various sources have indicated that Larry King may be joining Jon Stewart as a contributor on ''The Daily Show''. Stewart was featured on King's last show, offering praise for his work and his decision to step down. Stewart stated, "You're the last guy out of a burning building, my friend." King's position on Stewart's show has only been discussed briefly, and could fail to culminate. Sources have been quite clear that King is not planning to take on a role as a regular correspondent, but rather as a contributor with occasional appearances on the show, a position adopted by comedian Lewis Black. Regardless of his future with ''The Daily Show'', King has been clear that he is interested in taking a comedy tour of his own now that his position as a regular host is over. King also held a position in ''Comedy Central's'' ''Roast of Donald Trump''.

On February 24, 1987, King suffered a major heart attack and then had quintuple-bypass surgery. Prior to this, King was an avid smoker, sometimes consuming three packs of cigarrettes a day. He stopped smoking the same day he had his heart attack, and has not lit up since.

Since then, King has written two books about living with heart disease. ''Mr. King, You're Having a Heart Attack: How a Heart Attack and Bypass Surgery Changed My Life'' (1989, ISBN 0-440-50039-7) was written with New York's ''Newsday'' science editor B. D. Colen. ''Taking On Heart Disease: Famous Personalities Recall How They Triumphed over the Nation's #1 Killer and How You Can, Too'' (2004, ISBN 1-57954-820-2) features the experience of various celebrities with cardiovascular disease including Peggy Fleming and Regis Philbin.

On February 12, 2010, Larry King revealed that he had undergone surgery 5 weeks earlier to place stents in his coronary artery to remove plaque from his heart. During the segment on Larry King Live which discussed Bill Clinton's similar procedure, King said he was "feeling great" and had been in hospital for just one day.

Charitable works

As a result of heart attacks, he established the Larry King Cardiac Foundation, an organization to which David Letterman, through his American Foundation for Courtesy and Grooming, has also contributed. King gave $1 million to George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs for scholarships to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

On September 3, 2005, following the devastation to the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina, King aired "How You Can Help", a three-hour special designed to provide a forum and information clearinghouse for viewers to understand and join nationwide and global relief efforts. Guest Richard Simmons, a native of New Orleans, told him, "Larry, you don't even know how much money you raised tonight. When we rebuild the city of New Orleans, we're going to name something big after you."

On January 18, 2010, in the wake of the devastation caused by the 2010 Haiti earthquake, King aired "Haiti: How You Can Help", a special two-hour edition designed to show viewers how to take action and be a part of the global outreach.

Following the Deepwater Horizon explosion, King aired "Disaster in the Gulf: How You Can Help", a special two-hour edition designed to show viewers how to take action in the clean-up efforts on the Gulf Coast.

King serves as a member of the Board of Directors on the Police Athletic League of New York City, a nonprofit youth development agency serving inner-city children and teenagers.

On August 30, 2010, King served as the host of Chabad's 30th annual "To Life" telethon, in Los Angeles.

Controversial positions

On September 10, 1990, while on ''The Joan Rivers Show,'' Rivers asked King which contestant in the Miss America pageant was "the ugliest". King responded, "Miss Pennsylvania. She was one of the 10 finalists and she did a great ventriloquist bit [...] The dummy was prettier." King was a judge for the September 8, 1990 pageant. King later sent Miss Pennsylvania, Marla Wynne, a dozen long-stemmed roses and a telegram apologizing for saying she was the ugliest contestant in the pageant that year.

In 1997, King was one of 34 celebrities to sign an open letter to then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, published as a newspaper advertisement in the ''International Herald Tribune'', which protested the treatment of Scientologists in Germany, comparing it to the Nazis' oppression of Jews in the 1930s. Other signatories included Dustin Hoffman and Goldie Hawn.

Personal life

King has been married eight times, to seven different women. He married high-school sweetheart Freda Miller in 1951 at age 18. The union ended the following year at the behest of their parents, who reportedly had the marriage annulled. King was later briefly married to Annette Kaye who gave birth to his son, Larry Jr., in November 1961. King did not meet Larry Jr. until the son was in his thirties. Larry Jr. and his wife, Shannon, have three children.

In 1961, King married his third wife, Alene Akins, a ''Playboy'' bunny at one of the magazine's eponymous nightclubs. The couple had son Andy in 1962, and divorced the following year. In 1963, King married his fourth wife, Mary Francis "Mickey" Sutphin, who divorced King. He remarried Akins, with whom he had a second child, Chaia, in 1969. The couple divorced a second time in 1972. In 1997, Dove Books published a book written by King and Chaia, ''Daddy Day, Daughter Day''. Aimed at young children, it tells each of their accounts of his divorce from Akins.

On September 25, 1976, King married his fifth wife, math teacher and production assistant Sharon Lepore. The couple divorced in 1983.

King met businesswoman Julie Alexander in summer 1989, and proposed to her on the couple's first date, on August 1, 1989. Alexander became King's sixth wife on October 7, 1989, when the two were married in Washington, D.C. The couple lived in different cities, however, with Alexander in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and King in Washington, D.C., where he worked. The couple separated in 1990 and divorced in 1992. He became engaged to actress Deanna Lund in 1995, after five weeks of dating, but they never married.

He married his seventh wife, Shawn Southwick, born in 1959 as Shawn Oro Engemann, a former singer and TV host, in King's Los Angeles, California, hospital room three days before King underwent heart surgery to clear a clogged blood vessel. The couple have two children: Chance, born March 1999, and Cannon, born May 2000. He is stepfather to Danny Southwick. On King and Southwick's 10th anniversary in September 2007, Southwick boasted she was "the only [wife] to have lasted into the two digits". On April 14, 2010, both Larry and Shawn King filed for divorce. but have since stopped the proceedings, claiming "We love our children, we love each other, we love being a family. That is all that matters to us".

Shawn attempted suicide in May 2010 when she overdosed on prescription pills.

In July 2009, King appeared on ''The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien'', where he told host O'Brien about his wishes to be cryogenically preserved upon death, as he had revealed in his book ''My Remarkable Journey''.

Larry has adapted throughout his life to changing technologies. King is currently an active user of Twitter. When hosting Larry King Live, King used Twitter as a method to interact with fans during his show. Fans could tweet questions to guests of the show and even live-chat with Larry while watching. This allowed fans to be active participants in the interviews and contribute their opinions. Despite being retired from Larry King Live, King continues to use Twitter in his daily life. King’s tweets consist of updates on his activities, messages to his celebrity friends, promotion of his charities, and updates on current news stories.

Awards

King has received many broadcasting awards. He won the Peabody Award for Excellence in broadcasting for both his radio (1982) and television (1992) shows. He has also won 10 CableACE awards for Best Interviewer and for Best Talk Show Series.

In 1989, King was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame, and in 1996 to the Broadcasters' Hall of Fame. In 2002, the industry magazine ''Talkers'' named King both the fourth-greatest radio talk show host of all time and the top television talk show host of all time.

in June 1998, King received an Honorary Degree from Brooklyn College, City University of New York, for his life achievements.

King was given the Golden Mike Award for Lifetime Achievement in January 2009, by the Radio & Television News Association of Southern California.

King is an honorary member of the Rotary Club of Beverly Hills. He is also a recipient of the President's Award honoring his impact on media from the Los Angeles Press Club in 2006.

King is the first recipient of the Arizona State University Hugh Downs Award for Communication Excellence, presented April 11, 2007, via satellite by Downs himself. Downs sported red suspenders for the event and turned the tables on King by asking "very tough questions" about King's best, worst and most influential interviews during King's 50 years in broadcasting.

References

External links

CNN profile

Larry King Cardiac Foundation - Foundation to fund treatments cardiac patients with little or no insurance

Clark lawsuit

Larry King Live - Transcripts of all interviews since 2000

Larry King interviewed by Gianluca D'Agostino

Larry King Archive of American Television video interview

Category:1933 births Category:Living people Category:American actors Category:American agnostics Category:American Jews Category:American talk radio hosts Category:National Radio Hall of Fame inductees Category:American television talk show hosts Category:American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent Category:American people of Russian-Jewish descent Category:American voice actors Category:Jewish actors Category:Jewish agnostics Category:Miami Dolphins broadcasters Category:National Football League announcers Category:People from Brooklyn Category:World Football League announcers

ar:لاري كينغ bg:Лари Кинг cs:Larry King da:Larry King de:Larry King et:Larry King es:Larry King fa:لری کینگ fr:Larry King gl:Larry King ko:래리 킹 hr:Larry King id:Larry King it:Larry King he:לארי קינג hu:Larry King mn:Ларри Кинг nl:Larry King ja:ラリー・キング no:Larry King pl:Larry King pt:Larry King ro:Larry King ru:Ларри Кинг simple:Larry King sh:Larry King fi:Larry King sv:Larry King th:แลร์รี คิง tr:Larry King uk:Ларрі Кінг zh:拉里·金