Re: Vintage: JHR Archive Revilo P. Oliver: 1910–1994

On 16 Apr, 02:07, mebratziuj...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
JHR Archive

Revilo P. Oliver: 1910–1994

Prof. Revilo Oliver — outstanding scholar, brilliant political commentator and good friend of the Institute for Historical Review — died August 10, 1994, at his home in Urbana, Illinois. He was 84. He is survived by Grace, his wife of more than 50 years.

Revilo Pendleton Oliver (his first name was his family name spelled
backwards) was born on July 7, 1910, in Corpus Christi, Texas. A
scholar of international stature, he knew twelve languages and wrote
articles in four of them for prestigious academic publications in the
United States and Europe. His first book, published in 1938 by the
University of Illinois, was a copiously annotated translation from the
Sanskrit of a play, "The Little Clay Cart." During the Second World
War he was Director of Research in a highly secret War Department
intelligence agency, and was cited for outstanding service to his
country.

Oliver earned his doctorate from the University of Illinois in 1940,
and in 1945 he began his teaching career with the Classics department
there. During the early 1950s he was both a Guggenheim and a Fulbright
fellow. "We regret the loss of professor Oliver," said James Dengate,
current head of the department. "He was a scholar not only in Latin
but in Sanskrit with quite a large reputation, an international one."
Miroslav Marcovich, who was head of the department when Oliver retired
in 1977, was similarly laudatory: "He was an excellent teacher during
32 years of service, and a great scholar."

A man of towering intellect and strong convictions, Oliver played an
important role in conservative organizations. Between 1955 and 1959,
he was a frequent contributor to William Buckley's National Review. He
helped to organize the anti-Communist John Birch Society, and for some
years served as a member of its National Council. Oliver was a
frequent contributor to the Society's main periodical American Opinion
until 1966, when he resigned following a policy disagreement with
founder Robert Welch. In 1969 he supported the founding of the
National Youth Alliance (now the National Alliance), headed by Dr.
William Pierce. During the late 1960s and 1970s, Oliver became ever
more outspoken and emphatic in his defense of the cultural-racial
heritage of Europe and the West.

In an essay written shortly before his death, the editor of the "paleo-
conservative" intellectual journal Chronicles (Sept. 1994), Thomas
Fleming, paid tribute to Oliver's courage and intellectual integrity:

Oliver is among the most learned men who have descended into the arena
of political commentary. Older right-wingers can amuse each other for
hours telling stories of Professor Oliver, who used to wear a gun to
class because of the many death threats he had received … [He was] a
major scholar, an expert on, among other things, the textual tradition
of Tacitus … a man honest in his prejudices, frank in his follies;
most liberals are as incapable of his dignity as of his erudition.

A brilliant and meticulous stylist, Oliver's writing could be elegant
and erudite or sarcastic and scathing. It is a tribute to the
effectiveness of his style that he was quoted by two of the speakers
at the American Renaissance conference on "Race and American
Civilization" held last May in Atlanta.

A 375-page collection of his political writings was published in 1982
under the title America's Decline: The Education of a Conservative.
With a worthy introduction by Georgia attorney Sam G. Dickson, this
collection includes a 105-page semi-autobiographical essay by Oliver,
along with many of his best National Review and American Opinion
reviews and essays. (America's Decline, softcover, is available
through the IHR for $8, plus $2 shipping.)

From 1980 he served as a member of this Journal's Editorial Advisory
Committee. Recently, both in a March 11 letter and in a telephone
conversation on June 19, Oliver expressed to Journal editor Mark Weber
his continued support for the Institute for Historical Review and its
mission, under its current leadership.

Sam Dickson, who addressed the Seventh IHR Conference, recalled
Oliver's personality and character in a recent memorial tribute:

One of the most noteworthy features of Dr. Oliver's personality was
the grace with which he bore his tremendous intellect and erudition …
Through decades of intimate and daily contact with the classics, Dr.
Oliver lived physically in contemporary America but with an aura of
the timelessness of the values of antiquity. He was not humble. He
simply was himself, and as such refrained from patronizing or
condescending behavior toward the less educated and humble, just as he
refused to flatter the mighty.

Dr. Charles E. Weber, a member of this Journal's Editorial Advisory
Committee, has written of Oliver: "His work and inspiration will live
on. His life and efforts obligate those who knew and admired him to
continue in our struggle."

A man of rare hardiness of mind and character, Revilo P. Oliver will
be greatly missed. " <<

http://www.historiography-project.com/jhrchives/v14/v14n5p14_oliver.html

you leftr out some of this
(excerpts form wiki)

Oliver also briefly received national notoriety in the 1960s when
he published an article following the John F. Kennedy assassination,
suggesting that Lee Harvey Oswald was part of a Soviet conspiracy
against the United States; in response, he was called to testify
before the Warren Commission.

Oliver joined Robert Welch in being one of the founding members
of the anti-Communist John Birch Society. Oliver even wrote
frequently
for the Birch Society magazine American Opinion, his most widely-
noted
piece being a two-part article called "Marxmanship in Dallas" that
asserted
that Lee Harvey Oswald had carried out the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy as part of a Communist conspiracy. In Oliver's
opinion,
the Communists wished to eliminate Kennedy as a puppet who had
outlived his usefulness. Oliver even testified before the Warren
Commission
on the basis for his assertions, but was laughed off the stage. He
was
even reprimanded over his remarks by the University of Illinois' Board
of
Trustees, but they did not try to unseat him

In the 1960s, Oliver supposedly broke with conventional American
conservatism and, having become convinced that Welch had either
cozened him from the start or sold out later, he even severed his
connections with what he called "the Birch hoax." He thus came to
openly embrace an essentially far-right worldview, and eventually to
assist William Luther Pierce in forming the National Alliance, a
White
Nationalist organization, a significant portion of whose supporters
and
members would re-form under the name National Vanguard.

He has been described as "one of America's most notorious fascists"
and, according to B'nai Brith Canada, was "a long time proponent of
antisemitism."

Revilo was an editorial adviser for a Holocaust denial organization,
the Institute for Historical Review, and a regular contributor to the
notorious anti-Semitic periodical, Liberty Bell His writings have
even been promoted by Kevin Alfred Strom of National Vanguard.

He retired as Emeritus in 1977 and committed suicide in 1994,
after suffering with emphysema.




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