Posted: Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:48 am
Revilo P. OliverIn post 50, flow trap wrote:Perhaps you would prefer Oliver Revilo or Oscar Rasco
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This article is about the college professor. For the cartoonist, see Oliver Christianson.
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Revilo P. Oliver
Revilo P. Oliver in 1963
Revilo P. Oliver in 1963
Born Revilo Pendleton Oliver
July 7, 1908
Corpus Christi, Texas
Died August 20, 1994 (aged 86)
Urbana, Illinois
Pen name Ralph Perrier
Paul Knutson
Occupation Author, professor, commentator
Alma mater Pomona College
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Subject American conservatism, politics, anti-communism, White nationalism, religion
Spouse Grace Needham
Revilo Pendleton Oliver (July 7, 1908 – August 20, 1994) was an American professor of Classical philology, Spanish, and Italian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After World War II, he published in American Opinion, becoming known as a polemicist for white nationalist and right-wing causes.
Oliver also briefly attracted national notoriety in the 1960s when he published an article after the President John F. Kennedy assassination, suggesting that Lee Harvey Oswald was part of a Soviet conspiracy against the United States. He was called to testify before the Warren Commission investigating the murder.[1]
Contents
1 Life and career
1.1 Early life
1.2 Academia
1.3 Conservative movement
1.4 White nationalism
1.5 Later years and death
2 Views
3 Name and pseudonyms
4 Works
4.1 Books
4.1.1 Published posthumously
4.2 Correspondence
4.3 Speeches and broadcasts
4.4 Articles by other authors
5 References
6 External links
Life and career
Early life
Revilo Pendleton Oliver was born in 1908 near Corpus Christi, Texas. He attended two years of high school in Illinois. Disliking the severe winters, and once requiring hospitalization "for one of the first mastoidectomies performed as more than a daring experiment", he relocated to California, where he studied Sanskrit. He used Max Müller's handbooks and Monier Williams' grammar, later finding a Hindu missionary to tutor him.[2]
As an adolescent, he found amusement in watching evangelists "pitch the woo at the simple-minded", attending performances of Aimee Semple McPherson and Katherine Tingley.[2] He entered Pomona College in Claremont, California, when he was sixteen.[3]
Academia
In 1930, Oliver married Grace Needham. He returned to Illinois, where he attended the University of Illinois and studied under William Abbott Oldfather. His first book was an annotated translation, from the Sanskrit, of Mricchakatika (The Little Clay Cart), published by the University of Illinois in 1938. He received his PhD in 1940.[3] That same year, the University published his Ph.D. thesis: Niccolò Perotti's Translations of the Enchiridion, which was republished in 1954 as Niccolo Perotti's Version of the Enchiridion of Epictetus.[4]
Oliver began teaching graduate classes. For a number of years he also gave graduate courses in the Renaissance, teaching in the Departments of Spanish and Italian.[3]
During World War II Oliver said that he worked at an unnamed War Department agency from 1942 until the autumn of 1945, writing, "By good luck, I found myself in charge of a rapidly expanding department, and ...responsible for the work of c. 175 persons."[3]
Oliver left Washington, D.C. in 1945. He returned to the University of Illinois as an Assistant Professor, became an Associate Professor in 1947, and Professor in 1953.[5] He published little in the academic press but later became known for politically conservative articles expressing anti-Semitism and white nationalism.[citation needed]
Conservative movement
In November 1955, William F. Buckley, a graduate of Yale, founded the National Review, a magazine to express a conservative viewpoint.[6] Buckley would later claim that he worked to increase conservatism's respectability, prohibiting publication by anti-Semites or extremists such as Oliver, but he employed Oliver, his "close friend", as a book reviewer for the National Review for many years before finally breaking with him over his 1964 article on the Kennedy assassination.[7]
In 1958, Oliver joined Robert W. Welch, Jr. as one of the founding members of the conservative, anti-Communist John Birch Society.[8] Oliver wrote frequently for the Birch Society magazine American Opinion.[citation needed] In 1962, Buckley repudiated Welch and the "Birchers", saying they were "far removed from common sense" and urging the GOP to purge itself of Welch's influence.[9]
Oliver attracted attention from his university and the media by his two-part article called "Marxmanship in Dallas", published in February 1964 after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He said that Lee Harvey Oswald had carried out the murder as part of a Communist conspiracy; and that the Communists wanted to kill Kennedy, whom Oliver described as a puppet who had outlived his usefulness.[10] His comments were reported by the New York Times.[11] In March 1964, the Los Angeles Times reported that Oliver had been reprimanded by the University of Illinois' Board of Trustees for his remarks, but was allowed to keep his position.[12] Oliver testified in the fall of that year before the Warren Commission.[1]
White nationalism
In the 1960s, Oliver broke with American conservatism.[7] Having become convinced that Welch had either tricked him or sold out to Zionist interests, he objected to what he called "the Birch hoax." He was "forced to resign" from the Society on 30 July 1966.[13][8] Oliver later claimed in 1981 to have discovered that Welch "was merely the nominal head of the Birch business, which he operated under the supervision of a committee of Jews."[8]
Oliver subsequently became involved with Willis Carto's National Youth Alliance (NYA).[8] The National Alliance website claims that Oliver worked with William Luther Pierce in the early years of the NYA.[14] Pierce later wrote The Turner Diaries, a 1978 novel about a race war and overthrow of the United States government.[15]
In 1978, Oliver became an editorial adviser for the Institute for Historical Review, an organization devoted primarily to Holocaust denial.[8] He was also a regular contributor to Liberty Bell magazine but received no mainstream notice.[citation needed]
Later years and death
Oliver retired in 1977.[16] In 1994, suffering from leukemia and severe emphysema, he committed suicide at the age of 86 in Urbana, Illinois. His estate arranged to publish several works posthumously through Historical Review Press and Liberty Bell, as well as to attend to the needs of his wife Grace in her declining years.[citation needed]
Views
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Oliver believed that religion was one of the major weaknesses of his nation and civilization. In a 1990 article, he characterized Christianity as "a spiritual syphilis" that "has rotted the minds of our race and induced paralysis of our will to live."[17]
Damon T. Berry, in his book Blood and Faith: Christianity and American White Nationalism (Syracuse University Press, 2017), devotes an entire chapter to Oliver, concluding that "Oliver hated both conservativism and Christianity...because they equally represented to him an ideological poison that was alien to the best instincts of the white race to defend its existence." (p. 41)
Name and pseudonyms
"Revilo P. Oliver" is a palindrome—a phrase that reads the same backwards and forwards. One of his articles was denounced as a fraud because readers thought his palindromic name was suspect. Oliver said his name had been given to first sons in his family for six generations.[18]
He used the pen names "Ralph Perier" (for The Jews Love Christianity and Religion and Race) and "Paul Knutson" (for Aryan Asses). Oliver is sometimes credited as the author of the Introduction (credited to Willis Carto) to Francis Parker Yockey's Imperium.[citation needed]
Works
Books
The Little Clay Cart. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1938.
Niccolò Perotti's Translations of the Enchiridion. University of Illinois Press, 1940.
History and Biology. Griff Press, 1963.
All America Must Know the Terror that Is Upon Us. Bakersfield: Conservative Viewpoint, 1966.
Liberty Bell Publications, 1975.
Conspiracy or Degeneracy?. Power Products, 1967.
Christianity and the Survival of the West. Sterling, VA: Sterling Enterprises, 1973.
Cape Canaveral: Howard Allen, 1978. 78 pages. ISBN 9780914576129 Reprint of 1973 edition with new postscript.
The Jews Love Christianity. Liberty Bell Publications, 1980. Internet Archive. Published under pseudonym “Ralph Perrier”.
America's Decline: The Education of a Conservative. London: Londinium Press, 1981.
Historical Review Press, 1983. ISBN 0906879655 Internet Archive.
The Enemy of Our Enemies. Liberty Bell Publications, 1981.
"Populism" and "Elitism". Liberty Bell Publications, 1982. 101 pages. ISBN 9780942094015
Christianity Today: Four Articles. Liberty Bell Publications, 1987. 37 pages. OCLC 166141772
The Yellow Peril. Liberty Bell Publications, 1983. ISBN 0942094115 Internet Archive.
Published posthumously
The Origins of Christianity. Historical Review Press, 1994.
Reflections on the Christ Myth. Historical Review Press, 1994.
The Origins of Christianity. Historical Review Press, 2001.
The Jewish Strategy. Palladian Books, 2002. Internet Archive (Audio).
Against the Grain. Liberty Bell Publications, 2004.
Correspondence
William F. Friedman. Letter: “Dear Dr. Oliver”. 23 June 1952. Internet Archive. — Reply To Mr. Oliver's letter of 11 June 1952 to Mr Friedman Giving Details on two manuscripts Mr. Friedman is interested in obtaining for the AFSA Library.
John Birch Society. Letter: “To Members of the Council of the John Birch Society”. 14 August 1966. — Revilo’s resignation letter to the John Birch Society.
Speeches and broadcasts
The Meaning of Americanism (18 March 1960) listen
They Shall Not Go Unpunished (1961) listen
Informal talk about Communism (June 1961) listen
On Communism (June 1961) listen
The Ends of Socialism (23 April 1963) listen
The Mad Marxmen (April 1964) listen
Can 'Liberals' be Educated? (10 September 1965) listen
Self Preservation (1966) listen
Conspiracy or Degeneracy? (2 July 1966) listen
The Road Ahead (14 April 1967) listen
What We Owe Our Parasites (9 June 1968) listen
Race and Revolution (10 August 1968) listen
Articles by other authors
Strom, Kevin Alfred. “About: Biographical Note.” revilo-oliver.com
