Activities
Members of other more open far-right movements were recruited into Column 88's ranks, with membership limited to those seen as the most extreme. Indeed A.K. Chesterton, who had established the National Front, wrote in one of his final letters to John Tyndall expressing his concerns that NF members were becoming involved in Column 88.
In the late 1970s, the organisation allegedly carried out several bomb attacks on left-wing British organisations, including the Socialist Workers Party, the Anti-Nazi League and the left-wing Housmans bookshop, where the pacifist and anti-racist magazine Peace News was published. Many suspected that this group were behind the arson attack that destroyed the Albany Empire in Deptford, south London in July 1978 during the Rock Against Racism campaign. Other bomb attacks that it was reported to have carried out included those against targets as diverse as the homes of Conservative Party members and transmission towers whilst the group also claimed a series of arson attacks on Jewish-owned businesses.
Column 88 first came to public attention in 1975, when the regional British newspaper, the Western Daily Press, published accounts of Column 88 members training, in Savernake Forest, Wiltshire, with elements of the Territorial Army. This led to a question being asked, by a Member of Parliament, in the House of Commons, and to other reports in British newspapers, such as The Guardian. The British anti-fascist magazine, Searchlight, also published articles about Column 88 in May 1975, and May 1976.
Infiltration of the Army Cadet Force was also organised by Column 88. Column 88 was also said to have been involved in the establishment of a number of other far-right groups, including the exclusive League of St. George and the National Party. National Party leader John Kingsley Read claimed that he received funds from Column 88 both for his own party and during his time as chairman of the National Front. In 1983 Column 88 hit the headlines again when the press reported that Clarence had been "safe-housing" three German neo-Nazis terrorists Odfried Hepp, Ulrich Tillmann and Walter Kexel, who were wanted for bomb attacks on US Army bases in Germany.
Read more about this topic: Column 88
Famous quotes containing the word activities:
“...I have never known a “movement” in the theater that did not work direct and serious harm. Indeed, I have sometimes felt that the very people associated with various “uplifting” activities in the theater are people who are astoundingly lacking in idealism.”
—Minnie Maddern Fiske (1865–1932)
“When mundane, lowly activities are at stake, too much insight is detrimental—far-sightedness errs in immediate concerns.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“If it is to be done well, child-rearing requires, more than most activities of life, a good deal of decentering from one’s own needs and perspectives. Such decentering is relatively easy when a society is stable and when there is an extended, supportive structure that the parent can depend upon.”
—David Elkind (20th century)