[BretLudwig]

Saturday was the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of the most
enigmatic and fascinating men of the Twentieth Centyry, Dr. Revilo P.
Oliver.

Just thought you'd like to know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revilo_P._Oliver
http://www.revilo-oliver.com/




"Dr. Revilo Pendleton Oliver, Professor of the Classics at the University
of Illinois for 32 years and one of the leading philologists of his time,
read eleven languages, including Sanskrit, and for more than half a
century wrote scholarly articles in four languages for academic
publications in the United States and Europe.

Oliver was also the possessor of a penetrating intellect €” and a
scintillating wit unequaled by any writer, though the great H. L. Mencken
may have come close.

Dr. Oliver was born in Texas in 1908, and was an undergraduate at Pomona
College, California. He obtained his doctorate under the tutelage of the
highly respected Classicist William Abbot Oldfather at the University of
Illinois. His first book was a copiously annotated translation from the
Sanskrit, Mrcchakatika (The Little Clay Cart) published by the University
of Illinois in 1938.

During World War II, he was Director of Research in a highly secret
cryptographic agency of the War Department in Washington, DC, and was
cited for outstanding service to his country. It was during his time in
Washington that Dr. Oliver first became aware of the degree to which
Communism €” and, more importantly, the forces behind Communism €” had
penetrated the American establishment and had precipitated the fratricidal
slaughter of 1939-1945. He believed at the time, however, that the
treasonous acts of these subversives would be quickly brought to light
after the war and that an awakened public would sweep an American
administration into office. Confident in his nations future, he
continued his pursuit of the scholarship which was, next to his beloved
wife Grace, his greatest love in life.

After his work for the War Department, Dr. Oliver was awarded a Guggenheim
Post-Service Fellowship, and during the years 1953 and 1954 he travelled to
Italy on a Fulbright Research Fellowship to study Italian Renaissance
manuscripts.

Upon his return to the United States in 1954, Dr. Oliver was alarmed at
the progress made by the subversive forces in the United States, who had
infiltrated both major political parties and the business establishment
there €” especially the media of information and entertainment. He made a
fateful decision in that year, 1954, to devote all his available energies
to what was then called anti-Communism or Americanism or conservatism, and
which is today called by its adherents Racial Nationalism. For the next 40
years, until his death in 1994, he was a major figure in that movement,
though in many ways an anomalous one.

Dr. Oliver made many notable contributions to his chosen cause: he
participated in the creation of National Review magazine; he was one of
the founders of the John Birch Society; he made numerous speeches before
patriotic groups including the Congress of Freedom, the Steuben Society,
the Indignation Committees, the Citizens Councils, and the Daughters of
the American Revolution; and he wrote hundreds of articles and reviews for
Modern Age, American Progress, Free Enterprise, American Opinion,
Christian Economics, National Review, Nations Business, The American
Mercury, Instauration, and Liberty Bell magazines. A collection of many of
Dr. Olivers best writings from his first decade in the patriotic
movement is contained in his book Americas Decline: The Education of a
Conservative, available from Historical Review Press and Liberty Bell
Publications. That book also chronicles his eventual bitter
disillusionment with conservatism as a political weapon for restoring
America and the West.

Revilo Oliver stood apart €” not only from his more €œliberal€�
colleagues who accepted or welcomed the political and social changes
forced upon the West after World War II €” but also from his
€œconservative€� and €œpatriot€� allies who refused to see that much
of the fault for our civilizations decline lay in ourselves, in the
racial and societal characteristics that left us nearly defenseless
against an implacable, relentless, and clever enemy. In his most striking
departure from most of his conservative allies, Dr. Oliver concluded that
one of the major weaknesses of our nation and civilization was its
religion, which had been, since the latter years of the Roman Empire, some
form of Christianity.

We are fortunate indeed to have lived in the same century, and the same
world as Dr. Revilo Pendleton Oliver. And we are infinitely better off for
the fact that he chose to share his genius and his insights with us.

We give him but a small part of the tribute he earned when we remember him
with the words of Telemann, who said of another genius, Bach:

Then sleep! The candle of thy fame ne'er low will burn;
The pupils thou hast trained, and those they train in turn
Prepare thy future crown of glory brightly glowing....

Revilo Olivers words are echoing through Time. Hear them and learn."

K.A. Strom

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