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Slow Burn
David Duke | 3. The Nazi and the Republicans
00:49:58
The woman who tried to stop David Duke, and the GOP officials who accommodated him.
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- [00:05]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
If you've been enjoying this season of Slow Burn, please consider joining Slate plus, Slate's membership program. We couldn't make this show without the support of Slate plus members, and in this economic climate, Slate really needs your Help. It's only $35 for the first year. That's less than $3 a month, and that money will really go a long way for us. Once you sign up, you'll get access to weekly bonus episodes where you'll get exclusive or extended interviews and also get the inside scoop on how we make the show. You'll also get to skip all ads on all Slate podcasts, including ads like these. You can find out more@slate.com slowburn that's slate.com slowburn okay, here's episode three. This podcast contains language that some listeners might find offensive. Beth Rickey found politics thrilling, but also a little bit terrifying. As a member of Louisiana's Republican State Central Committee, she helped manage the state party from behind closed doors. Ricky liked watching the action from a slight remove, making droll asides about the frontline players. But sometimes she couldn't resist speaking a little louder. Here she is in 1991 in an interview for a radio documentary.
- [01:34]
Beth Rickey
I mean, I get really angry if I think someone is getting stepped on, but I hate to be. I hate criticism. I mean, I'm like this real sensitive person. So it's like, this is not what I should be doing.
- [01:47]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Ricky grew up in a big house in Lafayette, Louisiana, and she had the bearing in the bouffant hairdo of a Southern debutante. She idolized her father, Horace Rickey, who died when she was young. Horace fought in World War II and helped liberate the German death camps. He'd also been a key figure in the Louisiana Republican Party back when segregationist Democrats ruled the South. Beth grew up believing that the GOP stood for rectitude and morality. Before David Duke got elected to the Louisiana State House of Representatives, she still believed it. In 1989, Ricky was a 32 year old graduate student in political science at Tulane in New Orleans. She was also working for Duke's opponent in that House race, John Trean. During that campaign, Ricky spent a lot of time reading up on Duke in the Tulane library. The material that she uncovered shocked her.
- [02:45]
Beth Rickey
I come bounding up the stairs with all this, these book lists and writings, and I said, you know, my God, he's a Nazi. He's not only the head of the Klan, he's a Nazi.
- [02:59]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
The Trin campaign presented Ricky's findings to voters a Photograph of Duke in Nazi regalia. Duke's claim as a college student that Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf was. Was the greatest piece of literature of the 20th century. His long standing embrace of eugenics.
- [03:17]
Beth Rickey
So we thought that if you get the message out about David Duke, people would be shocked and they wouldn't vote for him. I don't think the strategy worked.
- [03:29]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
When Duke won the seat, Rickey felt shaken and discouraged. But she wasn't ready to give up her fight. Two weeks after election day in March 1989, she followed Duke to Chicago. He was going to speak at the national convention of the Populist Party, the fringy far right group that had backed his run for the presidency a year earlier. Ricky wanted to hear what David Duke said when he was among friends. Hanging out with a bunch of Midwestern fascists was a surefire way for Duke to sully his cleaned up image. But these were the people who had rejuvenated Duke's political career and who had helped bankroll his successful run for the state legislature. Duke decided that he couldn't turn his back on them. Ricky had registered for the Populist Party convention as a journalist, and Duke's speech was closed to the media. To get into the room, Ricky went undercover as a member of the party.
- [04:27]
Beth Rickey
The guards at the door, I found out later they were with the American Nazi Party in Chicago. If I'd known that, I don't know if I'd be so brave now. But I pretended one of them was a friend of mine. I said, hey, how you doing? How's your family? How's the wife? I'm glad he was married.
- [04:42]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Ricky got past the guard and found herself among skinheads and neo Nazis. In front of this crowd, David Duke felt comfortable talking strategy.
- [04:52]
Beth Rickey
So he said, I may be a Republican, but I'll always be a populist, or something like that. And then they all cheered. I felt like I was in on a dirty little secret. Ha ha ha. Look what I did in Louisiana. Pulled the wool over their eyes and he was using the Republic and that just made me mad.
- [05:10]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
After that closed meeting, Duke was photographed shaking hands with a man named Art Jones. Jones was the vice chairman of the American Nazi Party. That picture would run in newspapers all over the country. This wasn't the image that Duke wanted to project. When he got back to Louisiana, he whined that the media had treated him unfairly. Duke said, probably truthfully, that he'd never met Art Jones before, and he called Jones a Nazi kook. Duke also claimed not at all, truthfully, that the Populist party was simply an anti tax organization. And Duke said he repudiated any efforts of extremist groups to capitalize on his electoral victory. Beth Rickey knew that last part was a lie. She'd been there when Duke had told a room full of extremists that he was one of them. She'd also heard Duke admit that he was a Republican in name only. Ricky had a clear stop the Republican Party from becoming the party of David Duke. She had no idea how hard that would be. Foreign. This is slow burn. I'm josh levine. Episode 3 the nazi and the republicans. Billy Nungessr's loyalty to the Republican cause was boundless and he couldn't help expressing it. Here he is with radio reporter Gary Covino in 1991, three years after Nungessr became chairman of the Louisiana Republican Party.
- [07:16]
Billy Nungesser
Tell me what that big thing is in your parking lot. That's an elephant that I bought some years ago. That is life size, as you noticed.
- [07:28]
Lance Hill
Do you tow it around?
- [07:30]
Billy Nungesser
Yeah, yeah. Either I tow it or have someone tow it to where we want it. I bought it in a weak moment one time.
- [07:37]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Nungesser grew up working class in New Orleans. He became a self made millionaire, the proprietor of a seafood canning company and a catering firm for oil rig workers. The writer Quinn Hillier says Nungessr was the life of the Republican party.
- [07:53]
Billy Nungesser
So he had this Persona of this roughneck and he was a burly guy and strong, but if he was at a wedding or something, you might see him in a all white suit with a bright pink shirt and a bright orange tie. Very excitable, very pithy, very earthy and all in this one big package of energy. He was like, like nobody I have ever known.
- [08:30]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
When Nungessar was elected chairman of the state party, he told his fellow Republicans, we are the good guys. David Duke joined the party less than a year later. During Duke's race against John Treen. Nungessr said that a victory for the Klansmen would be a disaster for the party, the state and the nation. When that disaster came to pass, Nungesser had a decision to make. He could either disavow an elected Republican officeholder or he could embrace the most notorious bigot in American politics. The chairman of the national Republican Party. Lee Atwater made his position on David Duke very clear.
- [09:11]
Billy Nungesser
And this man's got a 20 year history of participating in Ku Klux Klan and Nazi activities. There's no place for this in the Republican Party, not as long as I'M chairman.
- [09:21]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
During the statehouse race, Atwater, Ronald Reagan and the newly elected George H.W. bush all denounced Duke. After Duke got elected, the Republican National Committee voted to censure him and to deny Duke any form of aid and assistance. Atwater called this an excommunication.
- [09:40]
Billy Nungesser
I don't care whether he's been elected or not. This is something I feel very strongly about and I'm letting my moral compass take over rather than my political compass. So I'm going to tomorrow.
- [09:50]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Coming from Lee Atwater, this was an unexpected move. A little like Satan saying he was installing central air conditioning. Atwater was notorious for his vicious racial politics. In a 1981 interview released after his death, Atwater explained that Republican politicians hid racist policies behind race neutral code words.
- [10:13]
Billy Nungesser
You start out in 1954 by saying nigger, nigger, nigger. By 1968 you can't say nigger. That hurts your backfire. So you say stuff like force busing, states rights and all that stuff. And you're getting so abstract now you're talking about cutting taxes and all of these things you're talking about are totally economic things and the byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites.
- [10:38]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Atwater had been George Bush's campaign manager in 1988 when he ran for president against Democrat Michael Dukakis. That election turned on a campaign ad about a felon named Willie Horton who was black.
- [10:52]
Billy Nungesser
Despite a life sentence, Horton received 10 weekend passes from prison. Horton fled, kidnapped a young couple, stabbing the man and repeatedly raping his girlfriend. Weekend prison passes, Dukakis on crime.
- [11:06]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
The Bush campaign didn't make the ad, but Atwater loved it. He said he wanted to make Horton Dukakis running mate. Before 1989, Beth Rickey had never criticized the Republican Party's racial politics. But she told the independent radio journalist Plato Robinson that the rise of Duke made her reevaluate her views.
- [11:28]
Beth Rickey
The Republican Party has had a platform for a number of years of being opposed to affirmative action and minority set asides and has appealed to the white southern voter in a veiled way. Willie Horton, Willie Horton is a classic example of that. But their greatest nightmare was that some out and out racist would come along and say this is the home of the Republican Party or for racist.
- [11:57]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
For Billy Nungesser, David Duke was a different kind of nightmare. One that was threatening to rip apart the Louisiana Republican Party. Elected officials in Louisiana had to choose sides very quickly. Just before Duke was scheduled to take his oath as a state representative, an independent legislator named Don Baque raised an objection. Baque said that Duke had violated the state's residency requirements, that he hadn't been living in Jefferson Parish's District 81 for long enough. That meant his victory was illegitimate.
- [12:29]
Billy Nungesser
If the people of District 81 want someone like that to be their representative, that's their right. That's America. They can vote for him as long as it is legal. And if it's not legal, and it wasn't, then no matter how they voted, he should not have been seated.
- [12:56]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
None of Duke's opponents In that District 81 race had challenged his residency. Baque was raising the issue now because he hated everything Duke stood for. He was using parliamentary procedure to take a moral stand, and the Republicans in the statehouse hated him for it. What did you hear from your legislative colleagues? Kind of behind the scenes, that it.
- [13:19]
Billy Nungesser
Was stupid, that there was no way that I was going to win, that. Why put them through making a vote if they have to vote? They're on the record.
- [13:31]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Baque's colleagues were right. He didn't come close to winning. 69 state representatives voted to give Duke his seat. 33 voted against Duke. Only three of them were Republicans. Duke was now officially a state representative and a member of the Republican Legislative caucus. It was easy to denounce Duke's victory from Washington. It was much harder when his message was resonating in your own backyard. Nungesser didn't want Duke to gather strength, but the Republican chairman also knew that attacks on Duke were creating a backlash in Louisiana.
- [14:08]
Billy Nungesser
Because the press in every case, comes on and says, this Nazi, this Ku Klux Klanner, and people expect when they start paying attention, they expect him to talk about where they're gonna lynch a black tonight and maybe where they're gonna gas the Jew. And he doesn't do that. And when they don't hear that, they're almost receptive. When he comes on with a legitimate message, they say, hell, this guy ain't burning houses or churches. You're warned about Duke, and then when he don't turn out to be this monster, you give him more credit for not being the monster than you would give somebody who's never been a monster.
- [14:51]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
If Nungessr excommunicated Duke from the Louisiana Republican Party, he'd risk losing every voter who liked what Duke was saying. And that could be a lot of voters. All of that was in Nungessar's head when Beth Rickey came to speak with him in March 1989, when Ricky told the chairman about David Duke's speech to the Populist party. He advised her to keep quiet. Nungessar said that making a big stink about Duke might give him the attention he craved. Beth Rickey didn't want to defy Billy Nungessar, but she continued gathering intelligence on David Duke. She had help From a Tulane PhD student named Lance Hill. Hill had been monitoring Duke for a long time. In the early 1980s, he started looking into Duke's so called civil rights organization, the national association for the Advancement of White People.
- [15:51]
Lance Hill
I subscribed to his paper under a phony name and then I even went out and met him. He had two sets of literature. One on one side of the wall was the naawp, the New Improved Racism. And on the other wall was all the Nazi stuff. He kept trying to push the NAAWP stuff on me and I'd say, yeah, what about this book over here? About did 6 million really die? He said, well, don't worry, just read this for now. You know, it was kind of a bait and switch. You know, get me hooked on the milquetoast racism and then he'd drop the real stuff later.
- [16:32]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
In April of 1989, two months after Duke took office as a state representative, Hill placed a call to the naawp. The person who answered the phone said, David Duke, District 81.
- [16:49]
Lance Hill
I thought, well, that's odd. And so I called Beth and I said, I bet he's still selling all of these Nazi books out of his basement there in Metairie, right? With his legislative office.
- [17:04]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
To confirm their suspicions, Hill and Ricky started placing orders for books popular among white supremacists. Here's how Rickey told the story to Plato Robinson.
- [17:15]
Beth Rickey
Lance called and asked for the Turner Diaries and they said, oh, sure, we have it. So I went in and bought it. They didn't know me at that point. Then over a period of three weeks, I sent in other people. I had someone call and ask for, do you have Hitler Was My Friend. You know, I had the book list. And they said, just a minute, oh, we're out of that. But we do have Mein Kampf. I'll never forget that. I thought that was so funny. So we bought all these books and then they gave us, because we were such good buyers, bonus these little books on eugenics, on breeding a master race. So it was kind of a lagniappe, as we called a little extra.
- [17:56]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Ricky now had clear proof that the new David Duke was really the old David Duke. So she reached out to Billy Nungessr again. But Nungessr's position hadn't changed. He said that she was stirring up a hornet's nest and that going public would just give Duke free publicity. Ricky was at an impasse. She didn't want to add fuel to Duke's movement. But she knew what she believed, and she had hard evidence to confirm those beliefs. What Ricky needed was guidance and a path forward. She got it from an unexpected source. A Holocaust survivor who'd never thought of herself as an activist. Let's take a break. On June 6, 1989, Ann Levy got on a chartered bus to the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge.
- [18:50]
Ann Levy
I was there with a whole lot of people from New Orleans, some survivors, and we just went there to visit to see the exhibit.
- [19:01]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
The exhibit had been brought to the Capitol by a Jewish human rights organization, the Simon Wiesenthal Center. It was called the Courage to Remember, and it showed the history of the Holocaust in photographs. There were pictures of burning synagogues and starving children. For Ann Levy, this exhibition was deeply personal. Levy was born in lodz, Poland, in 1935. The German army invaded her homeland four years later.
- [19:31]
Ann Levy
Happy times. That I remember is right before the war, walking with my parents, getting ice cream and balloons on a Sunday afternoon. And that stopped abruptly.
- [19:48]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Less than 1% of Jewish children in Poland survived the Holocaust. By the end of World War II, the Nazis had killed at least 3 million Polish Jews. Levi, her younger sister, and her parents faced horrifying deprivations, but miraculously, they all made it out alive. They may actually be the only nuclear family to survive the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. They lived in part because Livy and her sister managed to stay hidden for 12 hours every weekday for as long as five months.
- [20:22]
Ann Levy
There was like a dowry chest. So you lifted the top and you could store things in it. So my father made a false bottom. And on the top, if you lifted the top, all you saw was old rags and old newspapers. And in the morning before they went to work, my sister and I would.
- [20:49]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Go in there, and it was totally dark in there, totally dark. And you would spend the day we just sat there.
- [20:58]
Ann Levy
I don't know how we did it, but circumstances and a different time in the world. We knew we had to do what we were told.
- [21:12]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Livi was a very small child during those years in Poland.
- [21:16]
Ann Levy
People think that just because I was that young, how could I remember when I saw with my own eyes what happened to people when they died in the street, for example, if they had clothing on them, it would be gone. I remember seeing these dead bodies naked, and somebody would come by and maybe cover that Body with a newspaper. How could you forget that? I don't care how old you are.
- [21:52]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Levy and her family escaped the Warsaw ghetto in 1942 or 1943 and passed as Christians until the war was over. But Anne still had to stay out of sight, as her curly hair and olive complexion gave away her Semitic heritage. When she made it to America in 1949, she did her best to leave the past in the past.
- [22:14]
Ann Levy
You have to realize that when we came here as survivors, it was like, okay, forget what you experience in Poland and you put up this shade and you start a whole new life.
- [22:33]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
In 1989, Ann Levy was a 53 year old new Orleans grandmother, and she owned and operated an antique store with her husband. She'd started to open up very tentatively about what she'd lived through during the Holocaust. But when she got on that chartered bus to Baton Rouge, she wasn't expecting to get involved in any kind of conflict. She was going to look at the photographs in the Capitol Rotunda and to listen to a speech from Louisiana's Governor Buddy Roemer. But then Levy saw someone she didn't expect to see.
- [23:06]
Ann Levy
But I noticed David Duke coming in, and I couldn't imagine what he was doing there.
- [23:16]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
The Wiesenthal center had brought its exhibit to Baton Rouge because of David Duke. The images on display at the State Capitol refuted Duke's core beliefs. They showed very starkly what exactly Holocaust deniers were denying. Duke had kept quiet about the Holocaust when he ran for the State House. But after the election, a New Orleans TV reporter confronted him about his views.
- [23:42]
Billy Nungesser
The hoax of the 20th century talking about the Holocaust being a hoax. Yeah. Saying that the atrocities were exaggerated in Europe. Do you believe that they were? I think it's possible that some of the atrocities were exaggerated.
- [23:57]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Ann Levy had been following Duke's rise to power with increasing horror. She wasn't sure why he'd come to the Capitol. Maybe he'd wanted to prove he couldn't be intimidated by a bunch of Jews. Whatever the reason, she wanted to keep an eye on him.
- [24:13]
Ann Levy
He was going from poster to poster looking at these horrible pictures. And it was also his demeanor with his hands behind his back, like it kind of flashed back what the German officers used to walk around like. And he had the same mannerism as Hitler's henchman. And that's what stayed in my mind. And that's what came to my mind at that particular moment. I thought I had to speak up. It took over my body and I just had to do it. I tapped him on his shoulder and nothing happened. He ignored me. I did that three times. And finally he turned around and I just got to ask him, what are you doing here? Why are you looking at these posters? I thought you said it didn't happen. And that's when he turned around and sort of foul mood, he said, I didn't say it didn't happen. I said it was exaggerated. Well, I lost my cool a little bit because for him to tell me that it was exaggerated, I realized the man didn't know what he was talking about. And when that happened, he started walking off. And I tried to follow him, but his legs are much longer than mine, and he just left.
- [26:07]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
The press took notice of Duke's skirmish with the Holocaust. Survivor journalist Jason Barry was in Baton Rouge that day.
- [26:14]
Billy Nungesser
He got out of that part of the Capitol as fast as he could. And I managed to, you know, trail around and find him. And I went up to him and I said, what do you think about all this? And he said, well, I'm being accused of Orwellian thought crimes, which I thought was quite a striking statement.
- [26:36]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
When he was cornered by reporters, Duke said, I know there were terrible atrocities against the Jewish people. But he insisted that it was fair to question certain aspects of the Holocaust. And he said that he rejected the politicization of the whole thing. If Duke had gone to the exhibition to show he couldn't be intimidated, his behavior proved the exact opposite. He didn't want to talk about the Holocaust, and he didn't want to talk to a Holocaust survivor. Ann Levy is a family friend. I've known for a long time that this moment in Baton Rouge was important to her, but I didn't understand how important.
- [27:18]
Ann Levy
I never wanted to be in the papers, and I never wanted to make a nuisance of myself, but it was something about making myself a nuisance to David Duke that I didn't mind. I was this meek, very in the back person that didn't speak up. And it really did change my life. It changed because in a way, my children look at me differently because I did speak up.
- [27:52]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Levy's encounter with David Duke wasn't just consequential for her personally. It helped shape the entire anti Duke movement. Beth Rickey heard right away about what Ann Levy had done. She thought that Levy had showed tremendous courage in exposing David Duke in public. She wanted to back Levy up to summon the same kind of strength and conviction. Confronting Duke directly also seemed like smart strategy. It clearly threw Duke off his game, and it was sure to draw attention from the press. The next day, Ricky brought the Nazi book she'd purchased to the state capitol. She met the media outside the Louisiana House's committee rooms. Later, she did an interview standing in front of the Holocaust exhibition.
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Beth Rickey
I'm absolutely outraged this man has the gall to put forth literature that says the Holocaust was a hoax.
- [28:48]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
The New Orleans media thought Beth Rickey was onto something. Duke says the books that were available.
- [28:53]
Beth Rickey
At his office don't necessarily reflect his views.
- [28:57]
Billy Nungesser
This is not the issue. This is not what I'm doing in the legislature. This is not the issue that I'm standing up for. But I do believe in freedom of speech. Well, sure. It's again, this book right here. This book, this book right here you can buy in Doubleday bookstore.
- [29:15]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Duke would ultimately vow to stop selling Nazi books, part of his never ending project to present himself as a changed man. But Ricky's expose had worked. She'd embarrassed Duke and laid bare who he was. You'd think David Duke would have seen Beth Rickey as an implacable enemy. You'd think he might have worked to discredit her or maybe just ignored her. Instead, he did something surprising. He tried to win her over. Two weeks after Beth Rickey publicized David Duke's Nazi bookselling operation, she invited a couple of friends over to talk about where the anti Duke movement should go next. Around 10pm the phone rang. It was Duke. Beth Rickey and David Duke spoke for three hours that night. He told her that Iceland had a superior culture. And he talked about sperm banks and his love of nature. In the background, he played the song Silent Running by Mike and the Mechanics on repeat. That was the first in a long series of phone calls in the summer of 1989. Ricky thought it was bizarre that Duke wanted to talk to her. But she saw it as an opportunity, a chance to get him to open up and reveal his true intentions. Ricky didn't quite understand who she was dealing with. David Duke started working on her right away.
- [30:46]
Beth Rickey
He would do things that were very disarming. You know, he would say, hey, there's something on TV I think you'd find interesting. And I would say to him on occasion, please don't tell me anything that you don't want repeated. Oh, I know you wouldn't do anything to hurt me. You know, we're going to be friends. And it was very clever of him.
- [31:12]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Ricky found that Duke had no sense of humor and that he only wanted to talk about himself. He saw Ricky as a potential conquest, intellectually and maybe romantically. Here she is with Plato Robinson he.
- [31:27]
Beth Rickey
Was reading his book Finders Keepers to me over the phone. I'm, like, thinking, I've got to do this for the sake of history. And he's reading this, how to keep a man and how to keep a man interested in you. And he said, oh, one way to do it is to attack him publicly at the state capitol. And I'm like. I said, david, I don't go out with Nazis or something like that.
- [31:50]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Duke and Ricky's relationship would remain platonic. That summer, Duke tried to convince her that he was a family man. One Friday night, he showed up at Ricky's place with his two adolescent daughters, his children from a marriage that had ended five years earlier.
- [32:07]
Beth Rickey
So he insisted he wanted to go to a bar. We had these two kids with us. We were like, daddy, we don't want to go to a bar. And they were just like. There was a strange conversation going on. He'd say, Erica, tell Ms. Beth about how I used to dress you up in a Klan robe as a kid. And she said, daddy, that embarrasses me. But he kind of ignored the children. You know, I had to give them money to go play video games. And it was just a real bizarre evening.
- [32:37]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Beth Rickey had been trying to evict Duke from the Republican Party. She'd busted him selling Nazi literature. The only reason they were talking was because she'd taken it upon herself to unmask him. But as she explained to Plato Robinson, all these conversations were having an effect she hadn't expected.
- [32:56]
Beth Rickey
It's like being held captive by somebody. You get kind of goofy and start identifying with your captor, so to speak. And I would call people at night and say, look, deprogram me. You know, I've gotten all this stuff in my head.
- [33:09]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Ricky was still investigating Duke, digging into the identities of his campaign donors and his bogus claims about serving in the military during the Vietnam War. But she was also going on drives with him, listening as he sang along to the Impossible Dream from Man of La Mancha. Duke told Ricky that he wanted her to call another press conference and this time tell the world she'd been wrong about him. That wasn't going to happen. But Ricky still needed to break Duke's spell to remind herself what she was up against. That reminder came in August 1989, when Duke started chatting her up about the Holocaust.
- [33:48]
Beth Rickey
We had lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Metairie. Here we are at lunch, having lunch, and we're talking about bodies at death camps. And he was telling me how in sort of a conspiratorial tone, leaning over and saying, you know, Beth, it really didn't happen. And you know, finally at one point I leaned over and said, David. He said, yeah, Beth. I said, are you out of your mind? And all around me, life is going on. You know, here are these normal people sitting there eating Chinese food. And we're talking about him going to visit one of the death camps in Europe, Mauthausen, I believe, scraping the walls. He said, beth, he talks like this. He leans over, this kind of breathy voice. Beth, if there had been any gassings, there would have been a residue on the walls called Prussian blue. I went and scraped. There wasn't a residue. And he's telling me this, and I wish I could convey to you this growing sense of horror. To be sitting there talking to this guy was just. I just found it so offensive. And that was the last time we had lunch.
- [35:04]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
When Ricky went public with the Chinese restaurant story a couple of years later, Duke would claim it was completely untrue. His denial is hard to believe though, given what he told the graduate student Evelyn Rich just a few years earlier.
- [35:19]
Beth Rickey
You know, there was, you know, so what do you do about the testimony.
- [35:22]
Billy Nungesser
Of the survivors then? But it really isn't much testimony. The fact that they survived themselves is a tremendous argument for the fact that extermination didn't take place.
- [35:35]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Duke was always bragging to Ricky that He had an IQ of 171. But for a guy who thought of himself as highly intelligent, he did a lot of really dumb things. He went places he shouldn't go and said things he shouldn't say to people he shouldn't say them to. Beth Rickey had a theory about that.
- [35:55]
Beth Rickey
There's a self destructive streak in him that I see. He has this sense of religious mission about his calling. He almost has a, you know, a Jesus complex, I'd call it, or something like, he's untouchable.
- [36:14]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
As of the fall of 1989, Duke had good reason to think he was untouchable. At that point, the Louisiana Republican party had done nothing to hold him back. For David Duke, the Louisiana state House wasn't a place to pass legislation. It was a performance space. As a freshman state representative, Duke proposed a bill to require drug tests for welfare recipients. He also wanted to impose harsher punishments on people who sold drugs in public housing. These bills weren't designed to become laws and they didn't. They were written to get attention and to send a message about who Duke wanted to see punished. Some of Duke's Republican colleagues helped show him the legislative ropes. Others found Duke's beliefs abhorrent. I don't want to be associated with that racist S.O.B. one Republican legislator told the New Orleans Times Picayune. But that official wouldn't be quoted by name. Here's Larry Powell. He wrote a book about David Duke and Ann Levy. There was hardly anyone who was willing to step up and speak out against him. They sensed that his support, which was growing statewide, was stronger for him than it was for them. I mean, all you had to do was go up there, and I went up there several times and watch Duke.
- [37:48]
Billy Nungesser
If he would be at the back of the back rear seat in the state legislature and his desk would be.
- [37:55]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Piled with envelopes, and he'd be there slicing him over while people are debating and checks and money would be falling out of it. As a member of the Republican State Central Committee, Beth Rickey was still pushing her party to do something, anything, to condemn Duke.
- [38:15]
Beth Rickey
I was trying to compromise with the party leaders. And why don't you just say you don't like him? I mean, you know something, you know, how about you wouldn't have him home for dinner? I mean, you know.
- [38:27]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Ricky had one major ally on the State Central Committee, an evangelical Christian named Neil Curran.
- [38:34]
Billy Nungesser
I thought as a matter of principle, we needed to stand against Duke. He really wasn't a Republican in heart. He was a Nazi.
- [38:43]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Rickey and Curran worked together to draft a motion to censure Duke, just like the National Republican Party had done months earlier. The resolution wouldn't do much. Practically. It wouldn't kick Duke out of the state party, but Rickey and Curran saw it as a clear statement of principles, a line in the sand for Louisiana Republicans. Billy Nungesser didn't want his party to have to cross that line. When the chairman found out what Ricky was up to, he flew into a rage. Here's how Ricky described it to Plater Robinson.
- [39:17]
Beth Rickey
I had no right, no right to do this. I was grandstanding, trying to seek publicity for myself. I was also writing a book and getting publicity for the book, which was not true. I mean, and I said, look, you know, I've received two death threats this week from Duke people. I had a particular specific threat. If I got up and said anything about Duke, I was going to get shot. And when I said that to the state chairman, I said, you know, I think that if that doesn't say for you how serious this is and how serious I feel about this, that I am going ahead in spite of that. And his response, well, you know he didn't want me to get shot.
- [40:02]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Nungesser did allow Beth Rickey and Neil Curran to present their censure resolution. It said that Duke was still associating with neo Nazis and Klansmen and that the Reagan administration had identified Duke's national association for the Advancement of White People as a racist group. Curran was the one who stood up and read the motion.
- [40:22]
Billy Nungesser
And there must have been 30 television cameras there from all over the world. There were several from Germany, I know. And David Duke was standing in the back of the room, just his eyes burning. He was mad.
- [40:38]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
The resolution came to nothing. Another member of the central Committee, an ally of Billy Nungesser, moved to have it tabled. Nungesser had made a backroom deal, one that ensured that the Louisiana Republican Party wouldn't have to take a public stand on David Duke. Nungesser, who died in 2006, argued that the committee had no choice. He said that Curran and Ricky hadn't followed the rules.
- [41:05]
Billy Nungesser
We have a procedure that anything that comes to a state, you have to give five days notice to have it go. Any resolution, there's no procedure for censuring. What people don't realize is there were and are in this party people who hate David Duke and in the past have hated him, but legitimately think that when you start censoring somebody, then you have to do it correctly.
- [41:37]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Beth Rickey thought Nungetzer was being totally craven, that no matter what the official rules were, he clearly didn't have the spine to protect the Republican Party from David Duke. When her resolution got killed, Rickey sent the chairman a note. Dear Billy, she said, you double crossed me. I will never ever let you forget this. Plato Robinson interviewed Ricky a year later.
- [42:05]
Beth Rickey
As I look back now, I see that they see there are some sympathies for Duke. Also, I believe party leaders, and this has come out now, the party leaders have finally admitted to me that the reason they didn't come out against Duke is because they don't want to alienate the Duke voters because they may need them.
- [42:32]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Ricky herself began to speak out against Duke a lot more loudly. She became one of the leading voices in the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism, the state's most prominent anti Duke organization. While Ricky criticized the Republican Party in increasingly harsh terms, I don't believe she ever publicly renounced it. But Ricky said in 1991 that her fight against Duke and against the party she'd grown up with took a significant toll.
- [43:03]
Beth Rickey
It's fractured many relationships. I'm having to find a whole New circle of friends. And it's been very difficult because I don't want to lose people I've worked with for 20 years.
- [43:14]
Lance Hill
She was a lone voice, you know, in the woods.
- [43:19]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Here's Lance hill again.
- [43:22]
Lance Hill
And she was villainized. And she was not emotionally, you know, the most secure person, though she was capable of some very courageous things. She was a vulnerable person, and I believe she really paid a price.
- [43:46]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Ricky began to decline physically after she contracted an illness on a mission trip in the mid-1990s. From then on, her life was marked by instability. She moved from place to place, struggled with money, and was often in poor health. In 2009, Ricky was 53 years old and living in a motel in Santa fe, new mexico. She told a newspaper there that she had been through a lot with the Duke situation and that she needed to get away from the insanity. Her friend Quinn Hillier asked a woman in New Mexico to look in on Ricky.
- [44:23]
Billy Nungesser
Knocked on the hotel room door. Nobody answered. She called, nobody answered. And so she called the authorities, and they opened the door, and she was famous for loving, you know, homemade instant iced tea. And she had a pitcher of iced tea in her hand or spilled iced tea in her hand as she fell to the floor, and she was dead.
- [44:54]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Beth Rickey died of pneumonia and heart disease. In his obituary for Ricky, Hillier wrote that she was one of the bravest women you could ever meet. When it made a huge difference to a state gone haywire, he said, Beth more than answered the. In 1991, radio journalist Gary Covino asked Beth Rickey a simple question that she had a very hard time answering.
- [45:26]
Beth Rickey
Do you hate David Duke? I. I hate what he stands for. I. I really hate the fact that he has a high iq and he knows better. He should know better.
- [45:45]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
During the years she spent battling Duke, Beth Rickey was continually alarmed that other people were not alarmed by him. She knew how charming he could be and how ambitious. Duke saw the Louisiana legislature as a stepping stone. In December 1989, after less than a year in the state house, he was ready for his next move.
- [46:11]
Billy Nungesser
The media and the establishment is scared to death that we are going to have a senator, at least one voice.
- [46:19]
Beth Rickey
In the United States senate that will stand up for you, ladies and gentlemen, for you.
- [46:29]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
Even at this point point, with Duke as a senate candidate, a lot of Republicans in Louisiana didn't think he was a problem. When Ricky spoke with Plato Robinson in 1990, that campaign had yet to play out.
- [46:43]
Beth Rickey
But what if he goes to Washington as a Republican senator? You know, it just puzzles me why these people can't look ahead and see the damage. I've heard of Republican legislator telling me, you know, oh come on, Beth, what is he going? What damage could he possibly do in the U.S. senate? And I just looked at him like, are you nuts?
- [47:14]
Narrator (Josh Levin)
We've reached the halfway point of this season of Slow Burn. Next week we have something a little different planned. A brief interlude. It's a story from 1989 when David Duke had just been elected of the Louisiana State house. A black 12 year old girl in New Orleans was writing about Duke for a social studies project, so she picked up the phone and gave the white supremacist a call and recorded the whole thing. We'll also be letting you in on a few choice Excerpts from our Slate + bonus episodes, including some of my interview with Topher Grace, who played David Duke in Spike Lee's Oscar winning film Black Clip. The following week we'll be back with episode four of our season. That's Slow Burn Season four, Episode four in two weeks. Slow Burn is a production of Slate Plus, Slate's membership program. Slate plus members get weekly bonus episodes of Slow Burn, where we'll dive deeper into the history we're exploring this season on this week's bonus episode. In this episode we'll hear more from Ann Levy, the Holocaust survivor who confronted David Duke in 1989. Head over to slate.com slowburn to sign up and listen. Now, we couldn't make Slow Burn without the support of Slate plus, so please consider signing up if you like this series and you're able to contribute. It's only $35 for the first year and you get a free two week trial. Go to slate.com slow burn to find out more. Slow Burn is produced by me and Christopher Johnson, with editorial direction by Lo and Liu and Gabriel Roth. Madeline Ducharme is our production assistant. Sophie Summergrad is Slow Burn's assistant producer. Our mix engineer is Paul Mounsey. David Gross composed our theme song. The artwork for Slow Burn is by Lisa Larson Walker. The title of this episode, the Nazi and the Republicans, comes from an essay by Beth Rickey published in the anthology the Emergence of David Duke and the Politics of Race. Larry Powell's book about Duke and Ann Levy is titled Troubled Memory. Special thanks to Jordan Hirsch, Jessica Seidman and Slate's Chow Tu, Katie Rayford, Laura Bennett, Allison Benedict and Jared Holt. Thanks for listening.