-Caveat Lector-
HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL
But can Heston's celebrity and rhetoric revive the N.R.A.?
By MARGOT HORNBLOWER /LOS ANGELES
Charlton Heston thrusts out his chiseled jaw, tips his eagle-beaked profile
toward the light, narrows his steely eyes and folds his arms akimbo. "'Hard'
is what I do best," says the veteran actor, explaining how he poses for
photographs. "I don't do 'nice.'" No matter that Heston is, in fact, in pain,
only days away from a hip-replacement operation, and has been limping around
his Beverly Hills home in stretch Speedo slippers. No matter that a toupee,
capped teeth and a partly unbuttoned shirt reveal a touch of vanity. At 73,
the man best known for playing prophets and warriors is embracing a new role
with gusto: president of the 127-year-old National Rifle Association. As
poster pinup for America's muscular gun lobby, he isn't expected to do
"nice."
Art Streiber for TIME
No Hollywood prop man could design a more fitting set for the top rifleman
than Heston's study, situated on a ridge overlooking Coldwater Canyon, with a
view of the distant Pacific Ocean. Models of Air Force bombers and spent
.50-cal. machine-gun casings adorn a side table ("I was a gunner in the
war"). A portrait of Hemingway ("He was not a very nice man") hangs above a
cartoon from the strip Hagar the Horrible ("with whom I have great
sympathy"). Stacked around his desk like a fortress are volumes on the Boer
War, the Civil War and World War II; biographies of the Founding Fathers;
bound editions of the American Hunter; tough-guy novels by Larry McMurtry,
Elmore Leonard and Patrick O'Brien. And, yes, the souvenirs: the ax, dripping
fake blood, from a production of Macbeth and the sword from the movie El Cid.
("All things I've killed with or been killed with.") A statue of Andrew
Jackson, given to him by the director Cecil B. DeMille, recalls another epic
role. "Jackson was one of my favorite Presidents," says Heston, grinning.
"One mean son of a bitch."
>From this cluttered bastion over the past two decades, Heston has fought
crusades on issues ranging from gun owners' rights and right-to-work laws
(he's for them) to nuclear freezes and raunchy rap music (he's against them).
He has flung rhetorical grenades at Bill Clinton and, with funds from his
personal political-action committee, ArenaPAC, he has sallied forth to
campaign for conservative candidates, 54 in 21 states during the past
election cycle. Now, with a national stage at his disposal, Heston has vowed
to wage "a cultural war" in which gun control is only the first line of
skirmish. At issue is nothing less than how Americans define themselves. From
a wall festooned with flintlock rifles, Heston takes down a skinning knife
made from a deer antler. "It was given to me when I was made a blood brother
of the Miniconjou Sioux in 1951," he explains. He fingers it lovingly. And
then the actor, who traces his Scots ancestors back to 18th century Canada,
exclaims with sudden passion, "I'm pissed off when Indians say they're Native
Americans! I'm a Native American, for chrisakes!"
Heston's election as president of the N.R.A. comes at a critical juncture.
Long one of the most powerful players in U.S. politics, the group has been
weakened by vicious internal power struggles. Although it still has the means
to pour millions of dollars into federal and state elections, its aura of
invincibility evaporated with the 1993 passage of the Brady Bill, requiring a
five-day waiting period to purchase handguns, and, later, a Clinton-backed
ban on manufacturing and importing assault weapons. Law-enforcement officers,
once allies, defected in droves after the N.R.A. defended so-called
cop-killer bullets and its executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, called
federal agents "jack-booted government thugs." The N.R.A.'s hard-line stances
have contributed to a drop in membership from 3.5 million in 1995 to 2.8
million today. As Heston told the N.R.A. convention last month, "Too many gun
owners think we've wandered to some fringe of American life and left them
behind."
LaPierre, who orchestrated the actor's election to the part-time, unpaid
post, claims the N.R.A. has been "demonized by the national media." He adds
with glee, "Now Moses is here to set the record straight." Heston's heroic
image, burnished by such films as The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, is
already paying off in free airtime. "The day I became president, I don't
think I held the gavel 10 minutes," he boasts. "I did 29 media interviews
that day." Heston plans to leave the policy setting to LaPierre and focus on
salesmanship. "I've been doing interviews for 50 years," he says. "I know how
to sell a movie or a book. Now I'm selling the reputation of the N.R.A."
Political access is another asset. "If I'm perhaps an iconic figure, it helps
me get in to see a Senator. They say, 'I'll be glad to see you, Chuck. And,
by the way, could you have your picture taken with my staff?'"
But if anyone thinks Heston is out to soften the gun lobby's image, take
note: "hard" is still what he does best. Addressing 41,000 N.R.A.
conventioneers last month, the new president thundered at Clinton in his
magnificent basso profundo: "America didn't trust you with their health-care
system, America didn't trust you with gays in the military, America doesn't
trust you with our 21-year-old daughters. And we sure, Lord, don't trust you
with our guns." A few days later, Clinton aide Rahm Emanuel chided the actor
for "personal insults," given that Clinton had made gracious remarks about
Heston at a recent Kennedy Center Honors ceremony and received him at the
White House. Chastened, Heston told TIME, "I don't think I should have used
quite such harsh language about the President."
A popular speaker on the right-wing circuit, "Heston is no
middle-of-the-roader," says Thomas Catina, executive director of the American
Conservative Union. "I chuckle through his speeches, thinking, 'This guy's
got guts.'" Heston's rhetoric on homosexuality, feminism, multiculturalism
and the skin color of the Founding Fathers has made it onto the website of
white supremacist David Duke. (Headline: CHARLTON HESTON SPEAKS UP FOR THE
WHITE MAJORITY!) But does it help the average duck hunter to preserve the
sporting life? Or even the Second Amendment fundamentalist who believes, as
Heston does, that any infringement of the "right of the people to keep and
bear arms" is a slide down the slope of totalitarianism? N.R.A. opponents
suggest it is convenient for the group to try to drown out the clamor against
handguns by changing the subject. But to Heston, who quips that "in Hollywood
there are more gun owners in the closet than homosexuals," the cultural war
is all of a piece with the war against guns. "We seem to be unloosening and
unraveling as a nation," he says.
If Heston can preach traditional values from his Beverly Hills perch, it is
because he is seen as one of the rare Tinseltown practitioners. Raised in
rural Michigan, he has fond memories of roaming the woods with his .22-cal.
rifle (and unhappy ones of his parents' broken marriage). He studied drama at
Northwestern University, where he met his wife, Lydia Clarke, an actress and
photographer. They have been married for 54 years and remain close to their
two grown children. As for his six-year-old grandson Jack, who lives close
by, Heston's macho stance melts, and he turns positively gaga. "To me, he's
king of the world," says the actor, surveying a once elegant patio, now taken
up by a sandbox, a miniature basketball court and well-worn tricycles. The
actor published a book last year, To Be a Man: Letters to My Grandson. But
even in that sentimental volume, Heston can't resist a few pot shots:
"Somewhere in the busy pipeline of public funding is sure to be a demand from
a disabled lesbian on welfare that the Metropolitan Opera stage her rap
version of Carmen as translated into Ebonics." Got that, Jack?
Like Ronald Reagan, Heston was once a moderate Democrat. He campaigned for
Adlai Stevenson and voted for John F. Kennedy. In 1961, when an old friend,
Dr. Louis J. West, became active in civil rights, Heston agreed to stop by
Oklahoma City and picket several whites-only restaurants for a brief photo
opportunity. In his 1995 autobiography, In the Arena, he explains, "It was
also part of my expanded persona, riding the tiger." Two years later, as
president of the Screen Actors Guild, Heston was among a score of actors who
attended Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington. "Our job was to get as
much ink and TV time as possible," he recalls. Now, 35 years later, although
his civil rights activism consists of only two appearances, he tells
audiences, "I was one of the first white soldiers in the civil rights
movement"--as he launches into attacks on affirmative action. When asked what
made him get involved in the N.R.A., he told TIME, "The same thing that made
me undertake picketing for civil rights." And has he acted on behalf of
minorities in the past three decades? He pauses. "Once the 1964 Civil Rights
Act passed, I had other agendas."
Heston sees his evolution as the result of years of reading. "I didn't
change," he insists. "The Democratic Party slid to the left from right under
me." He concedes one U-turn: in 1968, after the assassinations of King and
Robert Kennedy, Heston endorsed Lyndon Johnson's 1968 gun-control law--a fact
that his N.R.A. rivals blasted over the Internet in an effort to stave off
his election. "I was young and foolish," Heston explains.
Now his positions track the N.R.A.'s. Trigger locks? "A ludicrous invention.
If you can't put it on a weapon without taking the bullets out, why put it
on?" A five-day waiting period? "It's hard for me to accept that a guy says,
'I'm going to kill that s.o.b., but, darn, I have this five-day waiting
period.' He probably still wants to kill him after five days." Ban
Saturday-night specials? "The black and Hispanic women who clean office
buildings until 3 a.m. and then walk home--of course, they want a handgun in
their purse." Limit purchases to one gun a month? "It's the camel's nose in
the tent. Look at Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Idi
Amin--every one of these monsters, on seizing power, their first act was to
confiscate all firearms in private hands." Sarah Brady, head of the lobby
Handgun Control Inc., doubts that Heston will moderate the N.R.A. "A pretty
face but the same old words," she says.
Michael Levine, Heston's publicist, believes the actor's outspokenness has
damaged his career. "There's a reverse blacklist," he says. "It is far better
in Hollywood to admit you're a drug addict than a conservative." But Heston,
having just wrapped his 75th film, Gideon's Webb, shrugs off the concern.
"People in the film community think being politically active means getting on
Air Force One and going to dinner at the White House," he says. "I've scorned
a few liberals in this town, and I get a kick out of that." Only six weeks
ago, he called a press conference to attack Barbra Streisand as "the Hanoi
Jane of the Second Amendment" for a TV movie she had produced on the 1993
mass shooting on the Long Island Rail Road.
And he hasn't hesitated to take on a major employer. Heston's first skirmish
in the cultural war dates back to 1992, when, in what he calls "one of my
proudest moments," the actor stood up at the shareholder meeting of Time
Warner, owner of Warner Bros. studio and this magazine, to read out loud the
violent lyrics of Ice-T's Cop-Killer CD, distributed by the company. But
Heston limited his attack on media violence to rap music and has had little
to say about film or television. "I'm part of the problem," he acknowledges
with a chuckle. Had he no qualms about accepting a part in True Lies, the
notably violent 1994 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie? "No," he confesses. "It was
an interesting part, and they paid me an obscene amount of money."
Sitting by his pool in the sunshine, as a small coyote strolls by and
red-tailed hawks circle above, Heston seems a man at peace, relishing his
foray onto the nation's political stage. In his autobiography, he offers a
philosophy of life: "In the beginning an actor impresses us with his looks,
later his voice enchants us. Over the years, his performances enthrall us.
But in the end, it is simply what he is." Last week, as part of a revived $5
million ad campaign, Heston's metaphysics came newly into focus. His jaw set,
his gaze uncompromising, his rifle gleaming, he stared out from a magazine ad
under the caption, "I've never been afraid of doing the right thing...I'm the
N.R.A."
CHUCK HESTON'S COMMANDMENTS
I remember when...the Nazis forced [Jews] to wear yellow stars as identity
badges. So, what color star will they pin on gun owners' chests? --Speech to
the Conservative Political Action Committee, January 1998
I find my blood pressure rising when Clinton's cultural shock troops
participate in homosexual-rights fund raisers but boycott gun-rights fund
raisers--and then claim it's time to place homosexual men in tents with boy
scouts and suggest that sperm-donor babies born into lesbian relationships
are somehow better served. --To the Free Congress Foundation, December 1997
Mainstream America is depending on you--counting on you--to draw your sword
and fight for them. These people have precious little time or resources to
battle misguided Cinderella attitudes, the fringe propaganda of the
homosexual coalition, the feminists who preach that it's a divine duty for
women to hate men, blacks who raise a militant fist with one hand, while they
seek preference with the other. --December 1997
The Constitution was handed down to guide us by a bunch of those wise old,
dead, white guys who invented this country. It's true--they were white guys.
So were most of the guys who died in Lincoln's name, opposing slavery in the
1860s. So, why should I be ashamed of white guys? Why is Hispanic pride or
black pride a good thing, while white pride conjures up shaved heads and
white hoods? --December 1997
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
