REASON Profile: James U. Blanchard, III

In the short space of four years since its founding in 1971, the National Committee to Legalize Gold (NCLG) became an organization of international importance with members in all 50 states and 18 foreign nations. The Committee's publication, Gold Newsletter, which is edited and written by James U. Blanchard, is perhaps the most widely followed publication on the subject of gold and monetary reform. As Blanchard says, "The committee was started over a beer in my living room, and in the meantime has accomplished its original goal and grown to a mailing list of over 20,000." NCLG recently changed its name to the National Committee for Monetary Reform (NCMR) and announced a three-point program: 1) prevention of the sale of U.S. gold reserves, 2) legalized gold contracts, 3) longterm education for a gold coin standard.

As Director of the NCLG and NCMR, Jim Blanchard planned and organized the two largest monetary conferences ever held: 750 attendees in January 1974, and nearly 1000 in March of this year. [See "Frontlines," this issue.] His approach has always been to combine long term education and political action. "Obviously, education is the only hope for a true libertarian society, but in the meantime, political activism can help prevent the general movement towards collectivism and in the longterm, education is the only way to reform if not remove the state."

A long-time New Orleans resident, 31 year old Blanchard is also a full time businessman. He owns his own investment advisory company and charges $100 per half hour for consultation. He is co-owner and co-editor of the weekly Kaffir Trac, a computerized study of the South African gold shares, and he also owns 50 percent interest and heads the American office of Orleans-Brazilian Export-Import.

Mr. Blanchard graduated from Louisiana State University, New Orleans with a major in history and taught for several years before founding the NCLG. He became interested in libertarianism in 1961 after reading the works of Ayn Rand and was a business manager for the Nathaniel Branden Institute.

Although he has a heavy workload from his business interests, he and his French- Ukrainian wife, Jacqueline, love to travel and they are away from New Orleans about 2 months a year. In addition to making money and traveling, his favorite pastimes are reading, movies, New Orleans food and fine foreign beer. His two hobbies are gold coin collecting and historical Americana, especially of the Revolutionary War period.