The Masters of WorldNetDaily

What are the links between WND and an evangelist and radio mogul who has been accused of being a cult leader?

By Terry Krepel
Posted 4/19/2006

WorldNetDaily has been notoriously close-mouthed about its behind-the-scenes operations. Editor and CEO clammed up when ConWebWatch asked him questions about where WND's start-up money came from.

But there's one connection WND has never spoken of: its links with an evangelist, meditation advocate and talk-radio mogul named Roy Masters.

Masters leads an organization called the Foundation of Human Understanding. FHU was officially recognized as a church by the Internal Revenue Service after a long fight in the 1980s; the IRS originally recognized the group as a religious organization (which must file annual IRS reports) but not a church (which doesn't), but the Tax Court overruled that decision after the FHU appealed it.

Masters and his FHU has been accused of cult-like tendencies over the years; his followers have been called "Roybots." Masters moved his operations to Grants Pass, Oregon, in 1982 -- followed by 2,000 of his supporters, who proceeded to attempt to take over the town; that prompted a boycott of Masters-related businesses by some local residents. A July 1992 episode of Geraldo Rivera's TV show featured a former FHU member who said of the group: "The role of women is to be very submissive, quiet, never questioning, not thinking, no decisions." The ex-wife of one of Roy Masters' sons denounced Masters on a 1999 TV show, citing a "long history of Masters' denigration of women."

A Nov. 29, 1990, Washington Post article quoted Steve Hassan, a Boston-based counselor and author of a book on cults, as calling Masters "a cult leader" who sways disciples through hypnosis and meditation. He says Masters has staged "phony exorcisms" in which "he would hypnotize people into believing there were demons inside of them, and they would drool and grumble and he would force the demons out."

Masters has vehemently denied the cult accusation, blaming the reputation in part on the local newspaper, which he claimed "was extremely liberal, having, for instance, extreme editorial contempt for pro-lifers." Masters blamed the FHU's "anti-woman reputation" on "feminists" who oppose the fact that he "teaches the story of Adam and Eve as true."

The Washington Post article also reported that in 1988, Masters and his sons filed a $2 billion lawsuit against Oregon's governor and attorney general, several other officials and the local paper, the Grants Pass Courier. The suit charged an unlawful conspiracy to deprive the plaintiffs of their rights. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called the suit a "rambling, unintelligible harangue," and Masters dropped it. Masters' TRN also sued to shut down three web sites critical of Savage, suits it later dropped.

In 1984, according to a Nexis search, Masters issued a press release declaring that there is no such thing as mental illness; rather, "[i]t's all a matter of demon possession." The release added: "He proved his point, he says, in front of television cameras for a Cable News Network (CNN) documentary. He passed a wooden cross over the audience, and, he says, all the fiends came popping out, screaming and growling like animals. Masters adds that the CNN reporter almost went into shock."

Masters founded (and until 2003, was president of) talk-show syndicator Talk Radio Network -- responsible for conservative radio hosts such as Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham and Tammy Bruce, as well as new acquisition Mancow; Masters has his own TRN-syndicated show as well. The FHU is officially TRN's owner, Masters' son, Mark, is now president.

The most direct connection between WorldNetDaily and Masters is David Kupelian, WND's vice president and managing editor. In the early 1990s, Kupelian was managing editor of a Masters-published magazine called New Dimensions. The magazine's tagline was "The Psychology Behind the News," but it appears to have been merely a conservative-oriented magazine taking on such issues as opposing abortion and gun control and supporting convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. (The fixation on Pollard in particular has been a crusade picked up by WND, with Jerusalem reporter Aaron Klein regularly agitating for his release.) From the 1990 Washington Post article:

The magazine frequently attacks what it calls the "pro-abortion media," including The Washington Post, for liberal bias. One story criticized The Post for failing to give front-page coverage to a rally here by 200,000 abortion opponents last spring.

A cover story called "Hollywood's New Blacklist" says that "you're a potential blacklisting target in Hollywood if you are a political conservative, an outspoken Christian, pro-life or even just swimming against the popular liberal, secular, hedonistic tide." Another article describes the National Organization for Women as "a hard-core lesbian-rights organization."

A June 1990 Seattle Times article reported that a local deputy fire chief passed around New Dimensions articles on the subject of AIDS to his co-workers -- articles that mad the alarming (not to mention false) claims that AIDS can be caught by kissing someone infected with the disease, and that the virus can also be spread by a sneeze.

New Dimensions sounds a lot like WND's Whistleblower magazine; indeed, WND has described Kupelian as "the driving force behind" Whistleblower. With the Kupelian connection, it would not be inaccurate to say that WND's Whistleblower is, for all practical purposes, a continuation of New Dimensions. (By the way, Kupelian also joined Masters and his sons in that failed lawsuit against the Oregon officials.)

Masters sold New Dimensions in April 1992 to a group headed by Lee Bellinger, longtime publisher of the right-wing, national security-oriented newsletter American Sentinel. Joseph Farah served for a time as its editor-in-chief, a tenure that apparently started after the sale.

WND has had a symbiotic relationship with TRN's hosts over the years. WND published Savage's first two books. WND's Aaron Klein makes regular appearances on Rusty Humphries' TRN show. Former TRN executive vice president Bob Just is a WND columnist and editor-at-large for Whistleblower. Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson -- whose claims WND has unquestioningly publicized and whose book WND published (he's also a member of WND's speakers bureau) -- has credited Masters for setting him on his current path of conservative activism and at one point co-hosted a radio show with Masters. A January 2000 WND article notes that TRN "can also be accessed directly from WorldNetDaily" by way of a "'Talk Radio Network' banner on left side of page one."

Masters also was a part owner of the company that syndicated graveyard-shift radio conspiracy promoter Art Bell; Kupelian served as editor of Bell's newsletter for two years.

Additionally, WND's editorial operations are based in Selma, Oregon, about 20 miles down the road from Grants Pass, the headquarters of Masters' empire, and the e-mails it sends out list a Grants Pass post office box for WND (though its website currently claims a P.O. box in Medford, Oregon, about 30 miles on the other side of Grants Pass, as its mailing address).

Yet despite this intertwining of Masters' and WND's interests, Masters himself is mentioned only three times in WorldNetDaily articles: twice in lists of TRN hosts and once in a September 1998 column by S.L. Goldman, who considered Masters among "potential candidates for a Goldman hatchet job," then adding in parentheses, "sorry, I happen to be a fan of Mr. Masters."

So, what does all of this mean? Since WND has yet to publicly admit these ties, it's unclear, but the links between WND and Masters seem a little too numerous to be coincidental. Is it a business relationship? Are WND bigwigs Masters' followers? Perhaps it's time for WND to start talking about it.

Lecture Notes: 7-15-07

Not everyone likes Iraq. It is too hot for some. Too dusty for others. Then there is the politics of the place. Really civil strife. A government teetering on the edge.

One thing that puts some off is the fact that the average age is 18. It is a young, really adolescent society. People drive too fast. And then there are the guns. And bombs. All driven by youthful idealism or at least youthful conviction.

Have you noticed that the houses don’t have house numbers displayed at their entrances? For one thing how do they get their mail? Do they have mailmen? And how do you develop a data base for the population? How do you know where everyone is living? What do you put on their identity papers?

No, not everyone likes Iraq. I think our President has soured on the place. He wanted them to be more like us. Older, for one thing. Yes, and more temperate. I think their Parliament mystifies him. Everything is subject to negotiations.

The Constitution, for example, which they have only just finished writing, was to be changed because Mr. Bush felt that the federal system needed to include the Sunnis’ view. (Why didn’t he provide a constitution for them which included a stronger central government? He did not think he had the right to “impose” on them.)

The oil distribution law also is being negotiated. And again this law was not originally established when the government was being set up because he did not want to impose a fair pro rata distribution for all the people of Iraq. Some imposition. Our young people are permitted to stay out on point while these negotiations go on. He can impose on our young people just not on the Iraqi.

The negotiations on the Constitution are so deep it is hard to tell where they stand. Months pass in complete silence but we are told that the negotiations are continuing. As outsiders it is hard to tell. Then too whole Iraqi Army units show up at 50% of strength because privates have negotiated leaves for themselves. (Which they need we are told because there is no such thing as direct deposit.)

It is a place where everything depends on who you know. Which explains why the mail delivery may be a bit spotty and why the government appears to be constantly teetering.

So these are some reasons why people, including our President, don’t like Iraq.

But your perspective changes if you start out accepting that it is a country which is facing 9 years of civil war. Things look different if you assume a government that is constantly negotiating its way. Then its gyrations don’t look so wild. Accept that it will always appear to be teetering. If you accept that it is a hot dusty place, accept it for what it is, things don’t look so alien.

I think our President needs to change his perspective. He tends to be a little up tight. He always dresses nattily. He went on the wagon completely. No half way for him. He jogged until he damaged his knees. He is very particular about how he sees things. ‘Stubborn,’ is a word which is often used about him.

But he may just be one of those people who don’t like Iraq very much. Not his cup of tea. He can not accept it for what it is. A country at war, that will be at war for years to come. A people with their own ways of solving their own problems. A society where everything is subject to negotiations of a highly personal nature.

Does he understand, for example, that our troops, our young people, are seen by the Iraqi as just another aspect of what is to be negotiated? If the Iraqi is told ‘We will stay in Iraq as long as the Iraqis need us’, as he did tell them, then is it so unreasonable for the Iraqi to assume that this has been settled? As long as needed.

Did the President mean for that to be our negotiating position? Did he even understand that he was negotiating? Senator Carl Levin told the President that this was just the wrong thing to tell the Iraqis. The President seemed to admit his mistake when he told the Senator in reply, “That’s a good point.”

Does the President propose his policies for Iraq because he likes Iraq so much? Or because he doesn’t like Iraq so much? Doesn’t like Iraq the way it really is?

Rather than changing Iraq perhaps the President should change his attitude about the place and accept it for what it is.

Lecture Notes: 7-9-07

I told you so Part II

Dear Mr. President;

So now after much delay and many casualties you are considering pulling our troops back to military reservations from which they can assist the Iraqi Army with logistics and training, and striking high value targets, instead of trying to do everything ourselves. Good.

You could have followed this policy years ago when I first proposed it, and avoided many casualties. But better late than never. Unfortunately now there is a question of whether Congress will allow you to keep the troops in Iraq even in this deployment.

Instead of allowing the Iraqi Army to take the lead as I advised, you disbanded it, and put our troops out on point patrolling the dusty streets of Iraq. The resulting casualties have so eroded support that you may not now be allowed to keep them in Iraq.

And what is possibly even worse you allowed the enemy to define success as his ability to carry out tactical operations. As long as he can set off a car bomb somewhere in Iraq he wins for you have allowed this to serve as the definition of our “winning.” You confused tactical success with our strategic goals.

In other words during the intervening years, and intervening casualties, you allowed our strategic goal, of having our troops deployed in Iraq were they could serve as a backstop for the Iraqi Army, (and a counter weight to prevent the odd coup), to be undermined by casualties taken for short term tactical goals. Tactics over strategy. A classic example of winning every battle and losing the war.

From a larger philosophical perspective we can agree with Alan Watts when he said that “the goody goodies are the thieves of virtue.” By doing everything for the Iraqis you have prevented virtuous Iraqis from coming forward. Or as I put it several years ago: There is a reason the cavalry only comes to the rescue in the third reel . . . if they came to the rescue in the first reel there wouldn’t be a picture.

Your officers are all type ‘A’ personalities. Their aggressiveness and controlling personalities have their advantage in most military problems yet what was required here was more subtlety. From a systems point of view the Iraqi political social system was too complex for an outsider, even one trained at West Point, to master.

For example, the question of which militias to incorporate into the Iraqi Army and which to disarm and disband, is one best left to those whose lives depend on the outcome of the question. Nothing would focus the attention of the Iraqi Parliament so much as knowing that their security is being provided not by the American Army but by their own officers that they have themselves promoted to office.

Hopefully it is still not too late to salvage our strategic goal of having a force situated in Iraq to guarantee the newly won independence of the Iraqi people.

Lecture Notes 7-4-07

Iran and Zimbabwe push forward with price controls.

New York Times reports Zimbabwe is trying to implement the same price control policies Iran is attempting according to the Gulf Daily News. Professor Gotz Aly reports in his recent book, Hitler’s Beneficiaries, that Hitler was forced to war by the logic of his own mismanagement of the German economy. He needed to plunder neighboring states in order to get at their gold reserves and other resources, manipulate their currency, and seize the property of the Jews.

Hitler had used credit to purchase his arms race and in January 1939 the strains on the economy had become so great that the Reichsbank felt compelled to send him a letter which read in part:

“The unlimited expansion of state expenditures flouts every attempt to draw up an orderly budget. It has brought state finances, despite the drastic tightening of tax legislation, to the brink of collapse and threatens now to destabilize both the national bank and the currency. No financial recipes or systems --- no matter how ingenious or well thought out --- and no institutions or set of fiscal mechanisms can suffice to rein in the disastrous consequences of unbridled deficit spending on the currency. No national bank is capable of propping up the currency against the inflationary spending policies of the state.” (39)

This may be regarded as the letter that caused World War II. Hitler used WWII to cover up his phony bookkeeping. He was a simple opportunist with no idea how to run a national economy. Now today Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran and Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe carry out the same policies of state control.

Will Mugabe or Ahmadinejad turn to war in an attempt to conceal their economic mismanagement? Their policies are not sustainable. Disaster must follow their “price control” legislation. In the case of Iran will that disaster be nuclear?

The second Holocaust proceeds like the first.

LONDON (AP) - Prime Minister Blair committed British troops to Iraq even though he despaired at the failure of America to plan adequately for the aftermath of the invasion, a newspaper reported Sunday.

The Observer quoted Jeremy Greenstock, a former British envoy to Baghdad, as saying Mr. Blair "was tearing his hair over some of the deficiencies" in planning for the stabilization and reconstruction of the country.

"There were moments of throwing his hands in the air," added Mr. Greenstock, who was Britain's representative in Iraq in 2003 and 2004.

The newspaper said the remarks were made in a documentary about Mr. Blair's decade in power to be shown next week on Britain's Channel 4 television. The documentary is presented by Andrew Rawnsley, who is also The Observer's chief political correspondent.

The newspaper said David Manning, the current British ambassador in Washington, told the Channel 4 documentary that Mr. Blair was "very exercised" about postwar planning as early as March 2002, a year before the invasion.

"All these issues needed to be thrashed out," Mr. Manning was quoted as saying. "It wasn't to say that they weren't thinking about them, but I didn't see the evidence at that stage that these things had been thoroughly rehearsed and thoroughly thought through."

Mr. Manning visited Washington in March 2002 at Mr. Blair's request and on his return sent Mr. Blair a memo warning that "there is a real risk that the (Bush) administration underestimates the difficulties" in Iraq.

Mr. Blair's office declined to comment on the documentary before it was broadcast. >[?In planning for the aftermath of the war, "we did all we could and were faced with a challenging situation," a Downing Street spokesman said on condition of anonymity because of government policy.

Mr. Blair is due to step down June 27. His decision to join the American-led invasion of Iraq is the dominant, and most divisive, event of his 10 years in office. More than 150 British troops have died in Iraq since the invasion.

Where is this man? He lived in a house. He had neighbors and friends. He was employed at a government job. He received pay checks. He owned a vehicle. His family and friends know his interests and habits. Know where he was treated for his epilepsy. Know where he buys his prescriptions for epilepsy. The government of Iraq offered to turn him over on the eve of the invasion. What information has been gathered on him so far? What leads? Syria? Iran? Why is nothing said? Why are no questions being asked?

Cause for war:

WANTED

Abdul Rahman Yasin

Up to $5 Million Reward

Date of birth: April 10, 1960

Place of birth: Bloomington, Indiana

Height: Approximately 5'10"(1.75 m)

Weight: Approximately 180 lbs(81.65 kg)

Hair: Black

Eyes: Brown

Complexion: Olive

Sex: Male

Nationality: American

Characteristics: Possible chemical burn on right thigh. Epileptic; takes medication for condition

Aliases: Abdul Rahman Said Yasin, Aboud Yasin, Abdul Rahman S. Taha, Abdul Rahman S. Taher

Build: Unknown

Following the New York World Trade Center bombing, law enforcement officials obtained evidence which led to the indictments and arrests of several suspected terrorists involved in the bombing. ABDUL RAHMAN YASIN, one of those indicted, fled the United States immediately after the bombing to avoid arrest. YASIN is now a fugitive from justice. YASIN was born in the United States, moved to Iraq during the 1960's, and returned to the U.S. in the fall of 1992. He possesses a U.S. passport. Because of the nature of the crimes for which he is charged, YASIN should be considered armed and extremely dangerous.

Indicted for: damage by means of fire or an explosive; damage by means of fire or an explosive to U.S. property; transport in interstate commerce an explosive; destruction of motor vehicles or motor vehicle facilities; conspiracy to commit offense or defraud the U.S.; aiding and abetting; penalty of death or life imprisonment when death results; assault of a federal officer in the line of duty; commission of a crime of violence through the use of a deadly weapon or device.

>A reward of up to $5 million is being offered for information leading to the arrest or conviction of YASIN. If you have information about YASIN or the World Trade Center bombing, contact authorities or the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate.

Photo of Yasin