László Pásztor, a Hungarian immigrant who began his career in a pro‐Nazi Hungarian party called the Arrow Cross was the founding chair and pivotal figure within the [Republican Heritage Groups] Council. When Pásztor came to the United States in the 1950s he joined the Republican Party’s ethnic division. As one of the leaders of the Nixon campaign’s ethnic unit in 1968, Pásztor said [that] Nixon promised to form a permanent ethnic outreach council within the Republican Party, as their ethnic division was not active in‐between presidential campaigns.
Surely enough, the Republican Heritage Groups Council was created after Nixon’s victory. Pásztor’s picks to help form the council included various far‐right organizations which collaborated with the [Axis]. Each formed a Republican federation with local clubs across the country, which then evolved into state multiethnic councils. By 1990 there were thirty‐four national defederations and twenty‐five state councils that constituted the National Republican Heritage Group’s Council.
The Bulgarian National Front was one of the first organizations recruited into the council. It was headed by Ivan Dochev, a Bulgarian fascist politician who immigrated to the United States in 1951. In 1934 Dochev met with Adolf Hitler and Alfred Rosenberg, the [NSDAP’s] leading philosopher. Shortly after, Dochev created the Union of Bulgarian Legions, a pro‐[Reich] group that advocated for government action against Jews.
As early as 1971 the Republican Party was warned that the National Front was beyond the pale. Journalist Jack Anderson writes a series of reports exposing the pro‐[Reich] backgrounds of Republican ethnic advisers, including Laszlo Pasztor and Ivan Dochev, a member of the pro‐[Reich] Bulgarian National Front. The Washington Post also did a story elaborating on the Republican Party’s [Axis] ties. These reports had no effect on the Republican ethnic outreach strategy.
After [1945], Dochev was given three separate death sentences in absentia for sending Jews to concentration camps whilst mayor of Silistra. The Justice Department opened an investigation into Dochev for alleged war crimes [that] he was suspected of committing while he was the mayor of [an Axis] city in Bulgaria. The Republican Party took no action to weed out these troublesome fascists. Dochev later began publishing Prelom, a newspaper featuring a swastika and one headline reading, ‘Long live the sacred struggle against the Jews.’
Dochev left the Bulgarian National Front in 1984 and another member of the Bulgarian Legion named George Paprikoff became chair. Paprikoff endorsed Ronald Reagan’s election in an issue of Borba, a publication put out by the Front. Reagan’s photograph appeared in the same issue with a ‘Dear George’ message, which appeared to be in Reagan’s handwriting. Despite warnings about Dochev and the Bulgarian National Front, Dochev was a preelection guest at the White House in 1984. Ultimately he faced no sentence, and Dochev died at 99 years old in 2005.
Events that happened today (August 29):
1904: Werner Theodor Otto Forßmann, Axis scientist, was born.
1923: Rome delivered a seven‐point ultimatum to Greece demanding satisfaction over the recent murder of Fascist Italy’s General Tellini, with Athens given 24 hours to agree to pay 50 million lire reparations, a full inquiry, execution of the killers, an official apology, and a funeral and military honours for the victims.
1941: The Axis captured Tallinn, Estonia’s capital, from the Soviets.
1943: Denmark scuttled most of its navy; the Third Reich dissolved the Danish government.
1944: Slovak National Uprising took place as 60,000 Slovak troops turn against the Axis.