the CIA, written memos purporting to be from CIA agents, and warned of imaginary assassination plots against the LaRouches. George and Wilcox called Frankhouser's deception "one of the biggest hoaxes in the annals of political extremism", made possible by what they called LaRouche's "obsession with conspiracy theories" and intelligence gathering. The USLP also had brief contact with the Liberty Lobby led by Willis Carto. Carto had some exploratory talks with LaRouche about a joint strategy against the IRS, but the contact was marked by much mutual suspicion. Carto was troubled by the number of Jews in the U.S. Labor Party, and by their adherence to basic socialist positions, including their support for central banking, while Labor Party members considered people in the Liberty Lobby "red-necks" and "idiots". Criticism In 1979, a two-part article by Howard Blum and Paul L. Montgomery appeared in the New York Times that accused LaRouche of running a cult. Blum wrote that LaRouche had turned the U.S. Labor Party—with 1,000 members listed 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. The Times alleged that members had taken courses in how to use knives and rifles, and had produced reports for South Africa on anti-apartheid groups in the United States. A farm in upstate New York was allegedly being used for guerrilla training, attended by LaRouche members from Germany and Mexico. Several members also underwent a six-day anti-terrorist training course, at a cost of $200 per person per day, at a camp in Powder Springs, Georgia, run by WerBell. The Times reported that U.S. Labor Party members were playing a dominant role in a number of companies in Manhattan: Computron Technologies Corporation, which included Mobil Oil and Citibank among its clients; World Composition Services, which the Times wrote had one of the most advanced typesetting complexes in the city and had the Ford Foundation among its clients; and PMR Associates, a printing shop that produced the party's publications and some high school newspapers (see below). Blum wrote that, from 1976 onwards, party members were transmitting intelligence reports on left-wing members to the FBI and local police. 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