Hermes

Hermes was an underground boylover newsletter printed in Chicago during the 1970s that served as a communications hub for a nationwide child trafficking and pornography network. The publication used coded classified ads to propagate John David Norman's Delta Project and Odyssey Network, and advertised mail-order hardcore child pornography. It catered to a readership of predatory pedophiles who between themselves used the pronoun "chickenhawk," a reference to a hawk that hunts little chickens. Hermes also published advertisements for clandestine groups providing support and instructions on how to infiltrate community groups such as the boy scouts, big brother programs, and church affiliated youth groups, including guides on how to groom children.¹

Hermes was allegedly financed by a philanthropist in Michigan named Francis Shelden, a scion of the old money families of Grosse Pointe, Detroit, who owned North Fox Island in Lake Michigan. The publication was printed and edited by men associated with John Norman in Chicago. Three principal figures behind the publication were arrested: Elden Gale Wake, an employee of Trinity College in Lake Forest who was identified as the Hermes printer; Patrick Townson, who operated a citizens band radio information show for homosexuals; and David Berta, who along with Townson was involved in Norman's trafficking operation. Wake was identified by the Lake County state's attorney's office as having worked at a children's home and two children's camps between 1964 and 1968.² In May 1977 Chicago police arrested a Park Ridge dentist, Dr. Lloyd William Lange, 42, charged with filming a pornographic movie of two 14-year-old boys produced by Berta and John Bell, 19; in Lange's apartment police found five rolls of the commercial child pornography films Lollitots and Lollipops and 69 rolls of other film, three reels of which were marked "John Bell, Michigan trip." Bell told police he owned a summer camp at Hastings, Michigan, with his brother. The State's Attorney, Bernard Carey, announced a grand jury investigation.²

Distribution Network

Gerald Richards identified the California-based F&S Distributors, operated by Guy Strait, as the West Coast distributor for Hermes. Strait himself admitted writing an article for the publication. In February 1977, a Michigan newspaper reported that Shelden had a financial interest in Hermes. An FBI memo confirmed the Delta Project connection to Hermes and noted the operation was attempting to set up a large scale trafficking network. When Shelden fled to Amsterdam after the North Fox Island exposure, he continued the publishing legacy by founding PAN Magazine (Paedo Alert News) under the penname Frank Torey, which was used to platform John Stamford's Spartacus International just as Hermes had been used for Norman's Odyssey Network in North America.¹