Leesburg
An interesting little article from April 11, 1986 in the New York Times concering LaRouche’s then new hometown. Of course it’s not online, but if you have access to the New York Times archives, try it and learn such things as:
Mr. LaRouche’s guns have raised eyebrows even here in the hunt country of Loudoun County. “I have a major personal security problem,” Mr. LaRouche said in one leaflet, written while he was seeking permits for his bodyguards to carry concealed weapons. Without the permits, he said, “the assassination teams of professional mercenaries now being trained in Canada and along the Mexico bordermay be expected to start arriving on the streets of Leeburg. If they come, there will be many people dead or mutilated within as short an interval as sixty seconds of fire.”
AND
Local merchants say [The Loudoun News — local publication from Larouche]has run advertisements for their businesses without permission, apparently to give the impression of community support for Mr. LaRouche. Danaura Smith, who with her husband runs R and D Furniture, said she was approached by a salesman for The News but said no. Then the paper reprinted an advertisement she had run in The Washington Post. When she complained to the salesman, she said, “He told me I was harassing him.” Mr. Spannaus, the LaRouche spokesman denied that advertisements had been run without merchants’ permission.
AND
Few Loudoun County residents say they have seen Mr. LaRouche, but when he made a rare visit to town about a year ago — associates of his were opening a bookstore — security guards with walkie – talkies staked out each corner, said a shopkeeper, Molly Mosher. They were not uniformed, but easy to spot, she said, explaining that all wore sunglasses but were “sort of nerdy looking for Secret Service.”
Miss Mosher, who sells children’s clothing and toys, asked “How can you run a children’s store with armed guards outside?”
AND
Last fall, organizations dominated by LaRouche applied for a zoning variance to open a children’s summer camp at Sweetwater Farm, a 65-acre tract near Neersville in Loudoun County. At the zoning hearing, a photographer who said he was with Campaigner Publications took pictures of those who spoke against the variance. The picture-taking was legal, but the sheriff and others said the intent was intimidation. Mr. Spannaus said the photographer also took pictures of those who spoke for the variance.
Mrs. Harrison spoke against it, as did Pauline Giruin, the lwayer who is now in hiding. She had collected signatures from neighbors on a petition to stop the camp, fearing that it might become a weapons training ground.
While Miss Giruin was being interviewed on a Leesburg Street by WRC-TV, an NBC affiliate in Washington, someone walked behind her and, according to Miss Giruin, said, “Polly, you’re going to die.” The television reporter said on the air that the comment sounded like a threat. Law enforcement officials said it could not be the basis for an arrest.
Miss Giruin, in a telephone interview from what she said was “a safe house” said she left town after receiving telephone threats and after a car repeatedly pulled into and out of her driveway.
The article also features dead animals in yards — and LaRouche’s libel lawsuit regarding accusations of responsibility, a shop-lifting spree by a group of LaRouchites attending a conference on running for office, and general paranoia aroused by the populace.