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* Opportunism Talbot noted that critics call NAP the “La- groups list the Newmanites as a cult, other critics say the core of the Cult is the Therapy Institute, while a few critics think the entire NAP movement displays cult aspects. Those that say the New- manite movement is totalitarian in style feel the word cult is superfluous, since totalitarian groups by definition enforce a high level of blind loyalty and unquestioning obedience. As early as 1977, journalist Dennis King was writing of the cult-like nature of the Newmanites, and interviewed Frank Touchet, a New York cults such as the Reichians and the Sullivanians. After studying the therapy group which forms the core of Newman’s followers, Touchet concluded: What you are dealing with is people who have been criminally tampered with in the deepest fibers of their being, and who have descended into a strange childlike world of dependency, in which the rational functions of te ego are relin- quished completely to Fred Newman — who regulates their lives on the most intimate level. It is difficult to resolve the issue of psychologi- cal manipulation because there are undoubtedly NAP supporters who are sincere and genuine in their beliefs and have no connection to the New- manites, the IWP nor the Social Therapy In- stitutes. Still, most of the functional core leadership of NAP has a connection to the Therapy Institutes and the Newmanite political philosophy. Ultimately the question of psychological manipulation, cultism and cult of personality can only be resolved by each person who comes into contact with NAP oa the basis of : observed, and within the framework of one’s own sensitivity to geet wg, a 0 ism of the Newmanites and the New Al- liance Party is their continuing effort to imply a connection with Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rain- bow Coalition, For instance the Newmanites have 10 - Political Research Associates established in Washington, D.C. the “Rainbow Reuchies of the -Left.” Several cult watchdog _Lobby” billed as “The Lobbying Office of the Rainbow Alliance.” The Rainbow Lobby bas of-~ fices at 236 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E., and lists Nancy Ross as Executive Director and Tamara Weinstein as Assistant Director. The Rainbow Lobby office has been frequent- ly mistaken for the Washington office of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, a mistake that in the past, NAP leadership seems to have gone out of its way nui to clarify. Newspaper articles bave ap- peared about NAP’s Rainbow Lobby in which throughout, the reporter assumes the Rainbow Lobby represents Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition — a circumstance NAP leadership could have easily avoided by explaining upfront that the " ¢wo groups are unrelated, Jackson has had to publicly distance himself and the Rainbow Coalition from NAP and its Rainbow Alliance and Rainbow Lobby on several occasions. Most recently Jackson told Chicago Sun-Times reporter Basil Talbot that “we have 10 relationship at all.” In the June 21, 1985 issue of the National Al- lignce, an article on the Rainbow Alliance shows been dodged in the past: Hostile critics and curious allies are forever saying to Nancy Ross, “Does Jesse Jackson support what you're doing?” Ross, who heads thé Washington of- fice of the Rainbow Alliance Confederation's lobbying arm, has learned how to respond to such inquiries. “The point is not whether Jesse Jack- son supports me, but whether I support Jesse Jackson,” says Ross, a founder of the six-year-old independent New Al- liance Party, and candidate for Jackson delegate in Harlem in 1984. “And I sup- port Jesse completely because of the so- cial vision he has articulated on behalf Rainbow movement. Yes, I have politics is ‘prophetic’ whereas I believe its time has come right now— but J won't allow anyone to sever the his-