Unraveling the Crisis of Masculinity in the University of Oregon’s Keith Stimely Collection on Revisionist History and Neo-Fascist Movements

This proposed paper explores a crisis of masculinity and heteronormativity in the research files, correspondences, and personal papers of Keith Bishop Stimely (1957-1992), former chief editor for the *Journal of Historical Review* (JHR) which conducted and promoted revisionist historiography and journalism, most notably Holocaust denial. Stimely himself inventoried and donated the collection to the University of Oregon’s Special Collections and University Archives Repository where it remains today in its original arrangement. The proposed paper considers social and ethical questions regarding the possession and scholarly analysis of such a repugnant archive, including my positionality as a researcher who last Spring sifted through the collection’s 32 linear feet of materiality (approximately 60 containers), representing some 200 different far-right organizations, publications, and personalities. 

I focus this critical discursive analysis on one of the more unexpected parts of the story Stimely’s archive tells us about American and European far-right political movements and networks in the 1970s and '80s which disseminated their ideas under the guise of scholarly discourse -- how a crisis of masculinity and heteronormativity fueled inter- and intra-group hostilities at the Institute of Historical Review (IHR). The IHR was founded in Torrance, CA in 1978 by antisemites Willis Carto and David McCalden and is one among many historical neo-Fascist and neo-Nazi

organizations I use to contextualize my larger dissertation project on contemporary US-based academic white nationalism. 

Willis Carto (1926-2015) is also known for having founded the Liberty Lobby, a far-right think tank now reorganized as *The American Free Press*, a pseudo-scientific publishing company called Noontide Press, and the National Youth Alliance (NYA). The NYA became the National Alliance under the leadership of William Luther Pierce who authored *The Turner Diaries,* a book that has inspired hate crimes in the US for over 40 years, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the 2021 attack on the United States Capitol (Belew 2018). 

Less is known about the other IHR co-founder, David McCalden (1951-1990). He was a former member of the far-right, fascist British National Front (now National Front) who emigrated to the US as the appointed Director and Editor-in-Chief for the IHR. Under the pseudonym Lewis Brandon, McCalden offered a $50,000 reward for proof that Jews were gassed to death in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp but rejected a submission by Holocaust survivor Mel Mermelstein. Mermelstein, represented by public interest attorney William John Cox, sued both IHR and Carto in 1981 for libel, conspiracy to inflict emotional distress, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The law firm representing the IHR and Carto settled with the plaintiff to remove themselves from the case by agreeing to pay Mermelstein $100,000. This case played a large role in McCalden’s split from Carto and the IHR in late 1981. 

Why is it then that the demonization of McCalden in the Keith Stimely archive is largely centered around his previous involvement with gay pornography? Why did the discovery of McCalden’s appearance in a gay porn magazine cause extreme tension and fear within the movement? What do the actions IHR leaders took in response, including an all-out smear campaign by publishing and disseminating their so-called ‘McCalden Dossier’ tell us about the instability of hegemonic masculinity (Connell 1987)? 

The Keith Stimely Collection contains a document called the “Revisionist Report on the “Other” David McCalden” entitled “The secret life of David McCalden -- the once and present homosexual or skeletons in the, er, ‘closet’” which contains full-page black and white reprintings of nude images of McCalden alone. The caption reads, “Homosexual porno model David McCalden (under his Gay pseudonym “Joel Curry”) smiles alluringly to the queer readers of “JOCK” magazine, at the start of his full-color layout of January 1986, Volume 2, Number 1, pages 67-70. At your newsstands NOW!”. 

Throughout their “David McCalden Revisionist Newsletter,” IHR leaders dedicated themselves solely to the dissemination of accusations that one of their organization’s founders was secretly gay and fears surrounding the spread of homosexuality during the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic via late-stage print media. IHR’s discourse here reflects what Eve Sedgwick said of

“male heterosexual identity in modern masculinist culture;” that it, “may require for their maintenance the scapegoating crystallization of a same-sex male desire that is widespread and in the first place internal” (Sedgwick 1990: 85). 

One of the most striking images is that of an amateur cartoon drawn in black ink showing a nude McCalden typing on a typewriter while being penetrated by an anonymous man wearing glasses reading “The Wallstreet Journal.” McCalden’s facial features are exaggerated and racialized - his nose appears long and protruding while his genitals appear small, thin, and shriveled. Above the image is a thought bubble stemming from the cartoon McCalden’s typewriter which reads “FLASH! More homosexuals in the IHR!...in the world!...homo cliques here - there - everywhere!...Homo this…homo that…Fight the menace! Send your money to me to continue exposing them!!! PLUS! Insidious plot to smear DMcC EXPOSED! A vicious lie! No shred of proof! Homos behind it…” 

This paper will explore how such archival details help us to unpack the spread of Traditionalist far-right fears of sodomy and ‘gay infiltration’ and/or ‘takeover’ as a crisis of masculinity and heteronormativity. The IHR demasculinizes McCalden and other male members of perceived non-dominant sexual orientations by suggesting a correlation between weakness with ‘queerness,’ or rather with those who are penetrated. I also consider how this limited understanding that penetration reduces one's masculinity, and therefore one’s value in the white nationalist project, reflects and reinforces extremist gender complementarity and fears of effeminacy, femininity, and most especially, feminism. 

McCalden died of complications caused by AIDS in October 1990. He was survived by his second wife and daughter (LA Times Obituary). His IHR organization held its last major conference in 2000 and his *Journal for Historical Review* did not cease publication until 2004. Today the organization still runs its website and hosts minor gatherings for white nationalist ideologues and their followers.