Anti-Semitic Paper Targets Sandpoint About 2,000 City Residents Get Bulk Mailing Sent From Georgia

Junk mail’s reputation reached new lows this week as Bonner County residents found an anti-Jewish newspaper in their mailboxes.

The newspaper, called “The Truth at Last,” was delivered Tuesday and Wednesday to a couple thousand area residents.

The bulk mailing, originating from Marietta, Ga., was addressed simply to “Resident, Sandpoint, Id. 83864.”

Sandpoint Postmaster Louise Soles said more bundles of the newspapers could arrive today for delivery.

“It’s upsetting to us to have to deliver this stuff, but it’s freedom of speech and it’s our job to deliver it,” she said Wednesday.

The newspaper is one of the oldest racist newspapers in the country. It targets American Jews and claims that President Clinton has allowed them to take over the government.

The newspaper invites readers to “spread the truth” by ordering extra copies at reduced prices to be mailed by the publisher.

The mailing comes on the heels of two other racist mailings to area residents. Those mailings, however, had individual addresses. They apparently were financed by two wealthy Sandpoint residents, Carl Story and Vincent Bertollini.

Gretchen Albrecht-Heller, president of the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force, called the newspaper “a bunch of anti-Semitic gibberish.”

“There’s no overt tie between the mailings we’ve been receiving and this, but who knows what informal ties there might be,” she said.

Because it’s a bulk mailing, recipients cannot simply write “return to sender” on the envelope to send it back, as Carolyn Sheffield tried to do.

“I didn’t want anything like that and I shouldn’t have to deal with it,” said Sheffield, who also scribbled “unwanted, unsolicited, objectionable content” on her envelope.

The envelopes can be returned if the proper postage is affixed, Soles said.

Staff writer Bill Morlin contributed to this report.