COVERT ACTION: SPECIAL REPORT: SEYCHELLES INVASION - 1982/03/01

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: Argentina Declassification Project - The "Dirty War" (1976-83)
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 05531264
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 60
• Document Creation Date: April 3, 2019
• Document Release Date: April 12, 2019
• Publication Date: March 1, 1982

Number 16
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March 1982
$2.50
Special Report: SEYCHELLES INVASION
Cove
�
INFORMATION BULLETIN
CIA HAS NO OBJECTION TO DECLASSIFICATION
AND/OR RELEASE OF THIS DOCUMENT DATE:
09-14-2018 444'
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Editorial
The morality of U.S. foreign policy continues to
plummet. The Reagan administration snuggles up to the
most vicious and repressive regimes in the world. The
brutal junta in El Salvador is in its death throes while the
U.S. stuffs millions into its coffers. With bloody hands, the
government has the effrontery to assert that "progress" is
being made in the field of human rights there. And it
embr ices other such regimes, like the racist South African.
Secrecy and Deceit
Th political climate can be summed up briefly: secrecy
and deceit both at home and abroad. President Reagan has
issued his Executive Order on United States Intelligence
Activities which, among other evils, unleashes the CIA
within the United States, subjecting people here to the
same surveillance, infiltration, manipulation, and dirty
tricks which have plagued the rest of the world--especially
the Third World�for the last 35 years.
In response to objections suggesting that the CIA is far
better trained to break the law than to uphold it, Director
Casey has demanded immunity from prosecution for his
minions. CIA officials brazenly called for the authority to
"maintain our capabilities to do the kinds of things we do
abroad." One Justice Department official called the pro-
posal "harebrained;" we would suggest that "hair-raising"
is more apt.
Along with an upsurge in covert operations, the trend
toward greater secrecy continues. The President issued a
second Executive Order, on classification of documents,
which completely reverses a 25-year trend toward greater
openr ess in government. The public's right to know has
been sacrificed in the name of national security.
Domestically, decades of social programs are meeting
their deaths at the same altar; every budget is slashed but
that of defense. The administration replaces every helicop-
ter blown up in El Salvador with money taken from the
pockets of the poor.
The Intelligence Identities Protection Act
A word is in order about the so-called "Names of Agents
Act." To our surprise, the bill was not approved by the
Senate in the last session, and has not yet come up in 1982.
Because it is certain to pass in some form soon we have
adhered to our announcement last issue to suspend the
Naming Names column for the time being.
About This Issue
The bulk of this issue is devoted to the themes of mercen-
arism and state repression, both of which are exemplified
by South Africa. Not content to suppress savagely the
aspirations of the vast majority of its own people, it sends
armies into Angola and terrorists into Mozambique, and
connives to invade the Seychelles with a ragtag band of
veteran mercenaries, the dogs of war.
The Reagan administration's open admiration for the
South African regime is matched only by its warmth for
any Latin American dictator with just enough brains to be
able to say "anti-communist." In this issue we look at
institutionalized torture by Argentina and by El Salvador,
the latter with direct U.S. guidance and participation. And
we examine the rabid desire of the administration to
Table of Contents
Editorial
Seychelles Invasion
War in Angola
Mozambique Rebels
Argentina's Death Squads
Green Beret Torture
While Paper II
2 Constantine Menges 22
4 Deceit and Secrecy 24
11 CIA Media Operations 32
13 Klan Koup Attempt Part II 44
14 Nugan Hand, The CIA Bank 51
17 Where Are They Now? 56
19 Sources and Methods 60
Cove,tAction Information Bulletin Number 16, March 1982, published by Covert Action Publications, Inc., a District of Columbia Nonprofit
Corporttion, P.O. Box 50272, Washington, DC 20004. Telephone: [phone]. All rights reserved; copyright � 1982 by Covert Action Publications,
Inc. Typography by Art for People, Washington, DC; printing by Faculty Press, Brooklyn, NY. Washington Staff: Ellen Ray, William Schaap, Louis
Wolf. Board of Advisors: Philip Agee, Ken Lawrence, Elsie Wilcott, Jim Wilcott. The CovertAction Information Bulletin is available at many bookstores
around the world. Inquiries from distributors and subscription services welcomed. Library subscriptions encouraged. Indexed in the Alternative Press
Index. ISSN 0275-309X.
2 CovertAction Number 16 (March 1982)
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destabilize Cuba. Nicaragua, and Grenada. Secretary
Haig's "continental approach" could spell disaster for the
people of this hemisphere. Indeed, CA IB has learned that
the CIA has been given a specific order to topple the
Sandinista government of Nicaragua in less than two years.
LINESICKIR
Number 16 (March 1982)
As we went to press, a report in the February 14
Washington Post confirmed many of the observations
which appear in this issue. "Informed sources" have
disclosed a CIA proposal for "a secret $19 million plan to
build a broad political opposition to the Sandinista rule in
Nicaragua, and to create 'action teams' for paramilitary,
political operations and intelligence gathering in Nicaragua
and elsewhere."
The report also noted that Argentina may be training up
to 1,000 men for these activities. Sources also confirmed
that the U.S. is supporting and advising the anti-Sandinista
forces in Honduras. _
We also are pleased to publish an in-depth analysis of
psychological warfare on CIA media operations in Chile,
Jamaica, and Nicaragua. We conclude the report on the
complex plot to invade Dominica. And we present a study
of the machinations of the now defunct Nugan Hand Bank
of Australia, a major financier for CIA-related operations.
Housekeeping Matters
First, we apologize to all our subscribers and supporters
for the lateness of this issue. We hope that its size and
contents will make up for the delay. However, we have
come to realize (after nearly four years) that our intentions
to publish every two months do not allow us to do justice to
the subjects we cover. We cannot realistically publish issues
as large as this one under our current subscription sche-
dule, and are considering a change to quarterly, double-
issue format. We would like to hear from our readers about
this, and any other suggestions you might have.
One Sad Note
We cannot close without noting, with sadness and anger,
the jailing of David Truong, a staunch opponent of U.S.
intervention in Vietnam who went on to involve himself in
many of the progressive struggles in this country. He was
victimized by a paid CIA/ FBI informant and was subject-
ed to intensive unconstitutional surveillance, telephone
tapping, and mail opening, actions upheld in an unprece-
dented decision.
The Carter administration charged him with being a
"spy," his real crime was that he had the audacity to think
that the war was over and that relations between the two
countries should be normalized. David is one of the first
but certainly not the last�to feel the weight of the Reagan
administration's national security state.
People interested should write to: Vietnam Trial Sup-
port Committee, 1322 18th Street, NW, Washington, DC
20036.
About the Cover
U.S. "adviser," circled, instructs Salvadoran sol-
diers in methods of war. (See page 17 for interview
with Salvadoran deserter on Green Beret torture in-
struction.) This photograph was taken secretly and
was first published in Soherania, the magazine of the
Central American Anti-lmperalist Tribunal in Man-
agua. Subscriptions, in the U.S. and Europe, are U.S.
$30; write to Soherania. Apartado 49, Managua, Ni-
caragua Libre.
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The Indian Ocean:
Seychelles Beats Back
Mercenaries
By Ellen Ray
Th 2 United States defines the "trouble spots" of the
world through official foreign policy statements. This is
often a U.S. intelligence tactic which allows entire geo-
political areas of the world to escape close scrutiny. The
U.S. media continually fall prey to this maneuver. Thus
events in Poland, for example, become "the news" while
significant covert actions of far more strategic importance
may be employed elsewhere without much risk of
detec .ion.
Such inattention has been the fate of the Indian Ocean,
even though it has been described repeatedly as perhaps the
most strategic area in the world. Recent events, culminat-
ing in the abortive invasion of the Republic of the Sey-
chelles in November, suggest that the U.S., South Africa,
and other Western allies are deeply involved in a massive
scheme to manipulate developments covertly throughout
the Ir dian Ocean area.
The Indian Ocean is bordered by some 40 nations con-
taining the world's richest known deposits of fuel oil and
minerals. It controls the Persian Gulf sea lanes crucial to
the West. At the same time, an increasing number of Indian
Ocean nations are moving toward socialism and are active
members of the Non-Aligned Movement; India, Tanzania,
Mozambique, Madagascar, and the Seychelles have led a
struggle to demilitarize the Indian Ocean and have it de-
clarea a nuclear-free zone of peace. There is, however, one
major military installation in the middle of the Indian
Ocean�Diego Garcia�and it is controlled by the U.S.
The F'entagon is committed to expanding its facilities in
Diegc Garcia, making the huge air and naval base under
construction there the largest overseas U.S. base.
For obvious reasons the U.S. is unhappy about the
political trends in the area. Two of Diego Garcia's nearest
neighbors (though they are each more than a thousand
miles away) are the Seychelles, with a socialist government,
and Mauritius, whose pro-Western government is widely
expec .ed to lose to the socialist opposition in elections
which must be held in the first half of 1982. U.S. pre-
occupation with Mauritius is all the more significant be-
cause Diego Garcia is in fact a dependency of that country.
In 1965, three years before Mauritius became independent,
the U iited Kingdom leased Diego Garcia to the United
States, rent-free, for 70 years. The socialist opposition, the
Mauritius Militant Movement (M M M), has relentlessly
attacked this agreement. MMM General-Secretary Paul
Berenger has affirmed that his party, if elected, will chal-
lenge the validity of the lease agreement under which every
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Mauritian on Diego Garcia was forcibly removed to the
main islands, all grossly under-compensated for their
MMM's Berenger is seen as threat to U.S. control of Diego
Garcia.
losses. The Seychellois government of President France
Albert Rene has vigorously supported Berenger's position.
Mauritius and the CIA Covert Action Flap
In August 1981 Mauritius was briefly in the U.S. news in
a context which begins to explain the complex scenario
that follows. On July 25 the Washington Post reported that
members of the House Intelligence Committee, in an un-
precedented move, wrote directly to President Reagan ex-
pressing their concern over a plan outlined to them by then
CIA Deputy Director for Operations Max Hugel. Though
the Congressional "oversight" committees do not have the
power on their own to approve or disapprove CIA covert
operations, federal law obliges the CIA to inform them, at
least in broad outline, of major secret proposals. Hugel's
briefing disturbed both Republicans and Democrats on the
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Committee enough to drive them to put their objections in
writing to the President. The plan was described variously
in subsequent leaks as "a covert action in Africa," "a covert
scheme aimed at overthrowing a foreign government," and
"a plot to assassinate a foreign leader in Africa."
On July 26 Newsweek magazine reported that the plan
involved in action�perhaps assassination-- against Lib-
yan leader Muammar Qaddafi. Two days later a White
House official, probably then national security adviser
Richard Allen, leaked the information that the plot was
actually directed against Mauritania, not Libya. Finally,
when the government of Mauritania demanded an explan-
ation, U.S. officials "clarified" the matter in an admission
to the Wall Street Journal which went largely unnoticed:
the target of the plan was really Mauritius, not Mauritania.
To underscore this "final word" on the affair, an adminis-
tration source told the Washington Post for its August 15
edition that the confusion had come about because of the
similarity in the two countries' names, and that in any case
the plot "did not involve cloak-and-dagger action but was
mainly a quiet effort to slip money to the government there
to help counteract financial aid being supplied to forces
opposing the government by . . . Qaddafi."
The Real Plot
CAIB's investigations suggest that the third explanation
was no more valid than the first two, except to pinpoint the
area of the world being targeted. For one thing, it is incon-
ceivable that "slipping" some funds to a friendly leader
facing a difficult election---a commonplace CIA
operation�could generate such unheard of Congressional
objections. Indeed it is unlikely the CIA considers such
routine payments worthy of reporting to the oversight
committees The original leaks indicated that the House
Committee was appalled by a plan, broad in scope, "which
they felt was not properly thought through." Countering
Qaddafi's influence, in fact destabilizing his government,
was already overt U.S. foreign policy.
But the Indian Ocean is another matter. The papers and
the newsmagazines focused on CIA disinformation which
threw them off the scent. None of the media looked beyond
Mauritius; none explained that the MM M is likely to come
to power despite any secret funding to the government and
that the MMM does not need any Libyan financing to
succeed. Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, 81, Prime Minister
of Mauritius since independence in 1968, is highly unpopu-
lar. In the 1976 elections, the MMM won more seats in
Parliament than any other party, and had 40% of the
popular vote, but Ramgoolam formed a hasty coalition to
stay in power; Now the MMM and the Socialist Party have
formed a coalition for the upcoming elections which most
observers believe cannot be beaten.
Ramgoolam paid an official visit to Washington Octo-
ber 13-16, visiting the World Bank, the IMF, the State
Department, and President Reagan in a quest for overt aid
for his beleaguered government. On the surface, the visit
was a total failure; all funding requests were turned down.
According to the State Department's East Africa desk
officer, many projects were discussed, but nothing was
resolved. Of course, since the White House itself was leak-
ing details of plans for covert funding, it would be impolitic
to announce at the same time plans for open aid. Yet when
Ramgoolam returned to Mauritius, he called President
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Reagan "the greatest President of the greatest country,"
high praise indeed for someone who did not give him a
dime. This of course raises the question: What deals were
really made?
U.S. Involvement in the Seychelles Invasion?
Since the Mauritius Militant Movement is not yet in
power and thus cannot be overthrown, the objections of
the House Intelligence Committee must have focused on a
broader plan for the region. What would surely have upset
them was a half-baked scheme involving the CIA, the
South Africans, and a ragtag band of macho mercenaries,
plotting not merely to destabilize the MM M but to over-
throw their most vocal supporters, the government of Pres-
ident Rene of the Seychelles, a chain of tiny islands with a
population of about 62,000.
This would not be the West's first attempt to rid the
Indian Ocean of President Rene and his militantly non-
aligned government. In 1979, in fact, another plot was
President Rene continues to be target of U.S.-and South
African-inspired destabilization.
uncovered, resulting in the expulsion from the Seychelles
of several of the 120 American civilians employed at what
the U.S. Air Force describes as a "satellite tracking sta-
tion," on the main island, Mahe. (For economic reasons,
the Rene government allowed the station to remain, after
renegotiating a more equitable lease last year.) According
to Colin Legum, Africa correspondent for the London
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Observer, the U.S. Ambassador to Kenya and the U.S.
Charge d'Affaires in the Seychelles were also implicated in
the 1979 plot.
In the recent attempted overthrow, a number of sources
indicate that the planned invasion of the Seychelles,
though it did not occur until November, was widely known
at the time the Committee's letter to Reagan was written.
The September 1981 issue (published in August) of
American Relations, the Washington newsletter of the
right-wing Institute of American Relations, carried a brief
item entitled, "A Coup in the Seychelles?" With prophetic
certa nty, the story stressed U.S. concern over the
"Marxist-oriented" Seychelles because "the United States
does not want an unfriendly power astride such important
sea lanes."
"Look for trouble in the Seychelles in the coming
months," the magazine concluded.
Th Institute of American Relations is a small think tank
created and nurtured by Senator Jesse Helms, acknowl-
edgec leader of the New Right in Congress. The Institute's
Director is Dr. Victor A. Fediay, a Russian emigre who,
according to the November 1978 Boston magazine, spent
twenty years working for a secret Air Force intelligence
program called the Aerospace Technology Division. As an
aide to Senator Strom Thurmond in 1975, Fediay was the
Washington liaison for an international cartel comprising
Azorean businessmen, American Mafia figures, and
French mercenaries who openly lobbied the U.S. govern-
ment and the CIA for military support for a proposed coup
against Portuguese rule in the Azores. The military aspects
of the coup were planned by the right-wing French para-
milita ry Secret Army Organization (OAS). Since the CIA
was, at that time, under intense criticism, President Ford
apparently vetoed the plan. Some months later, however,
in January 1976�according to Mother Jones magazine
(Septmber-October l980)--Richard Allen reintroduced
the plan in a letter to Henry Kissinger. Allen, later Rea-
gan's national security adviser and now a consultant to the
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, was representing
fugitive financier Robert Vesco at the time.
The Azores coup would have given the U.S. complete
control over its Air Force base there, a benefit not over-
looked by Fediay and his boss Thurmond. In the current
Seychelles situation the stakes are even higher and the
administration not so hesitant.
The Recruitment
Recruitment for the Seychelles invasion of November 25
proceeded apace during the summer and fall. Gung Ho, a
mercenary magazine which competes with Soldier of For-
tune, ran an article in its May 1981 issue entitled, "Mercen-
ary Opportunities East of Suez." It extolled the benefits
and possibilities of a "dogs of war" invasion of the Sey-
chelle and Mauritius, noting former Seychelles Prime
Minister James Mancham's support for such an action.
M ancham, who lives the life of a rich playboy exiled in
London, has been implicated deeply in the preparations for
the invasion.
According to the Johannesburg Sunday Times (No-
vember 29, 1981) Jim Graves, managing editor of Soldier
of Fa-tune told their reporter, "I heard four months ago
from a source in France that something big was going to
blow ip in Africa." Graves assured the reporter that hi-
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visit to South Africa two days before the invasion was
purely "coincidental."
The London Sunday Times of the same date noted that
the recruitment had apparently begun some 18 months
before in South Africa, and that "something big became
the gossip of Durban bars." The same day the London
Observer pointed out that "recruitment offers were made
fairly openly in bars." Even Eschel Rhoodie, the former
South African Information secretary, told the Observer
that "he had heard about the planned coup from French
and British sources four weeks ago." Robin Moore, author
of "The Green Beret," and a favorite celebrity of the mer-
cenary magazine crowd, told the Johannesburg Sunday
Times that "shares" in the $5 million Seychelles operation
had been offered around the U.S. for months preceding the
invasion. "I was trying to get people to invest in it," he said.
(Moore did not make this admission to any U.S. media, to
whom he only said he thought the plan was crazy. The
statement to the Johannesburg paper would seem grounds
for prosecution under the U.S. Neutrality Act, although in
recent years that law has almost never been enforced
against mercenary activities in this country.)
Who Paid?
Moore's claim aside, much reportage of the funding for
the Seychelles operation appears riddled with disinforma-
tion, "red herrings" to mask the real sources of financing.
But the respected London Financial Times of November 27
quotes the Johannesburg Star, saying "the mercenaries had
been recruited in Johannesburg with money from the U.S."
The Durban Sunday Tribune, November 29, said, "Despite
a terse, one-sentence denial by the U.S. government yester-
day, separate mercenary sources in South Africa are em-
phatic that funding for the operation originated with the
CIA." Continuing, the Sunday Tribune points out that
"their statement is backed up by former Rhodesian mer-
cenaries, who as recently as a month ago spoke of a
planned CIA-backed operation in the Indian Ocean 'like
Bob Denard's invasion of the Comoros Islands.�
This is rather more likely than the story in a London
gossip column (picked up by the Washington Post) quoting
a British socialite who contributed $9,000 for the coup
because the Seychelles "was running out of decent
Chablis."
The French Connection
It is significant that several news sources reported hear-
ing of the plan in France. French mercenaries, most nota-
bly "Colonel" Bob Denard, figure prominently in the Indi-
an Ocean region. Denard led the 1978 invasion which
installed the right-wing government in the Comoros and
was implicated in the 1979 plot to invade the Seychelles, a
plan which was discovered by the Rene government before
the mercenaries were able to leave Durban. Denard today
shuttles back and forth between the Comoros, Kenya,
South Africa, Gabon, and France; he heads Socovia, an air
freight service which ostensibly delivers meat.
As the Seychelles plot unfolds, the Comoros/ Kenya
connection remains one of the biggest mysteries.
Several other incidents in the fall of last year may relate
directly to French involvement, or at least Denard's. In
September, exiles from the Comoros in Paris charged that
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South Africa was behind the planning of a military inva-
sion against either the Seychelles or Madagascar, another
Indian Ocean nation with a progressive government.
Though the charge was vague, a former Congo mercenary,
apparently connected to Denard, was supposedly equip-
ping an expedition to the Comoros, but absconded with the
funds to Mombasa. Kenya when an investigation into the
expedition was launched.
More substantial evidence is found in the October arrest
of Olivier Danet in Paris. Danet, a former French volun-
teer in the Rhodesian army, had taken part in Denard's
invasion of the Comoros, and more recently had been a
bodyguard for then French President Valery Giscard
d'Estaing. He was arrested with Captain Paul Barris, depu-
ty commander of France's elite anti-terrorist group, and six
others, all charged with smuggling light arms into France
from Belgium, "arms believed to be destined for an extreme
right group," according to the October 13, 1981 Rand
Daily Mail.
The Comoros Mercenaries
The Comoros, the only mercenary-run government in
the world, figures prominently in the recent invasion. The
plane which brought the attackers from Swaziland to the
Seychelles had stopped there for half an hour. According
to the Royal Swazi Airline pilot, "there is a bit of mystery
... whether anyone joined the aircraft there and flew to the
Seychelles." The January 1982 issue of Afrique-Asie maga-
zine claims that five Europeans and several crates labelled
"gifts for handicapped children" went on board during the
stopover.
When the Comoros obtained independence from France
in 1975, Ahmed Abdallah ruled briefly as President. He
was deposed and a progressive government under Ali S oi-
lih took power until 1978, when it was ousted in the mer-
cenary invasion led by Denard. The mercenaries reinstalled
Abdallah, but effectively ran the country. Olivier Danet, in
fact, served a few months as Justice Minister; "Major
Charles" heads the Presidential guard; and Christian
Olgater, another mercenary, controls the national shipping
line. Virtually all other aspects of the country's economic
and political life are so controlled. Though Denard has
been forced, by pressures from the Organization of African
Unity (OAU), to spend little time in the Comoros, he owns,
with Abdallah, about 60% of the local posts and tele-
communications monopoly, STICOM. President Abdal-
lah periodically denies that he is under the influence of the
mercenaries, particularly Denard, but all independent re-
ports are to the contrary.
The Comoros have significantly increased their links
with neighboring South Africa recently, reportedly
through negotiations carried out by Denard. In mid-1981
the Comoros signed a secret agreement with the South
African government allowing the latter to construct a
major telecommunications earth station on Grand Como-
ro, in exchange for economic aid. Pretoria is also in charge
of the expansion of Radio Comoro, and reports have circu-
lated that the United States has also installed a radio
communication station there. Additionally, there are re-
ports that a joint U.S.-British deep water research team is
in fact based at a large mercenary camp at Kandaani,
Grand Comoro. (It is known that the Mozambique Chan-
nel includes some very warm currents which pass over very
Number 16 (March 1982)
cold water, a condition which makes it difficult to detect
submarine movements.)
A delegation of French journalists recently visited the
Comoros in an attempt to interview the mercenaries, but
they could not be found. Apparently they are maintaining a
very low profile. The journalists did learn, however, that
Denard was in the Comoros at the time of the invasion of
the Seychelles, arriving from South Africa on November
19 and departing on December 8.
The Invasion
Despite minor discrepancies in the many accounts of the
incident, a fairly clear picture of what happened can be
pieced together. Most difficult, however, is a precise ac-
counting of the individuals involved, because of inconsis-
tencies in names on travel documents and uncertainty
whether the South African authorities released the names
of all persons who ultimately escaped to that country.
On November 24 a group of 44 men pretending to be
members of a fictitious drinking club, The Ancient Order
of Foam Blowers, boarded a Swaziland-bound bus at Jo-
hannesburg, en route to a Seychelles vacation. They spent
the night at a Holiday Inn in Transvaal where, according to
some reports, two women also bound for the Seychelles
checked in. The next day the entire group reached the
Swaziland airport and boarded a Royal Swazi Airlines
plane bound for the Seychelles via the Comoros. At the
Comoros the two women left the plane, although the pilot
later recalled that he thought a man and a woman had
disembarked. Moreover, if the unconfirmed reports of five
other men joining the flight at the Comoros are true, it is
possible that the original group numbered 39, rather
than 44.
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South African reports suggested that the two women
"warned" the Seychelles authorities of the impending arri-
val of the mercenaries, but considering the ensuing melee at
the Seychelles airport this seems unlikely, and the precise
role of the two women is unknown.
The plane arrived at the Seychelles in the late afternoon
on November 25. Waiting at the airport were six of at least
eight confederates who had arrived on the island over the
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preceding several weeks to reconnoitre. Some of them were
apparently armed, and all of the arriving mercenaries had
weapons hidden in their luggage, under packages of toys
marked "presents for handicapped children." These in-
cluded rockets and rocket launchers, machine guns, rifles,
and grenades.
It is clear, both from the manner of the entry and from
subsequent investigations and confessions, that the attack
was not planned for the arrival, but for some weeks in the
future The mercenaries expected to leave the airport with
their arsenal and move in with the advance team which had
rented villas in the mountains neat the U.S. tracking sta-
tion. Indeed many other weapons were subsequently dis-
covered packed up at a villa.
As the new arrivals passed through customs, however, a
sharp-eyed inspector discovered a hidden weapon. Within
a shor time the others removed weapons from the baggage
and a battle ensued which ultimately destroyed much of the
airport and demolished the Royal Swazi plane. The mer-
cenaris finally took over a large part of the airport, includ-
ing the control tower and some adjoining facilities. They
also took 70 people hostage�airport personnel, other pas-
sengers, and some people captured just outside the airport.
Seychellois security forces ringed the airport, and pre-
vented some of the mercenaries from taking over a nearby
military installation; one soldier was killed in the defense of
the fort, and another at the airport. Although the mercen-
aries were surrounded, the authorities refrained from im-
media :e action because of the many hostages. Fortunately
for t11:, invaders, a regularly scheduled Air India plane
approached the airport some five hours after the standoff
began The mercenaries, who were in possession of the
contrc I tower, guided the plane down, pretending that
nothir g was amiss. The Seychellois, who controlled one
end of the runway, tried to warn the plane not to land by
setting off flares, but this was not understood by the Air
India pilot. In landing, one of the plane's wingflaps was
damaged by a vehicle put on the runaway by the Seychel-
lois to discourage him. It is unclear how the Air India pilot
was cc nvinced to land at all.
After some four hours of sporadic shelling and cross-
fire--which further devastated the airport-and negotia-
tions with the Air India pilot, he was forced to agree to fly
to Durban, South Africa. At least 42 of the invaders and 2
members of the advance team, one of them wounded,
entered the plane under cover of darkness, carrying the
body of another invader who had been killed in the initial
shootout. Three heavily armed members of the advance
team r mtained, guarding the hostages. At this point, one of
the new arrivals and one of the advance team were un-
accounted for.
By c awn, some of the hostages managed to escape and
reported that the ranks of their captors had been drastically
reduced. The Seychellois, until then unaware that almost
all of the invaders had left on the Air India plane, rushed
the facilities and captured the three men guarding the
remaining hostages without incident. Shortly thereafter
the mh;sing member of the advance team which had come
to the airport was captured. Later the two who had re-
mained at the villa were arrested, but it was only two weeks
later that the one missing mercenary who had arrived on
the Royal Swazi flight crept, half-starved, out of the woods
and was arrested. One local Seychellois contact was also
arrested.
8 CovertAction
The Mercenaries
Many days passed before the true identities of the mer-
cenaries came to light from flight manifests, travel docu-
ments, confessions from the captured, and belated state-
ments from the South African government. The South
Africans had held the Air India arrivals incommunicado
and released no details or names for some time.
The leader of the landing force was none other than
Mike Hoare, 62, Irish-born resident of South Africa. "Mad
Mike" Hoare had been a key mercenary in the Congo in the
1960s, leading the forces which suppressed the supporters
of Patrice Lumumba and helping to install Mobutu. Hoare
had worked off and on with both the CIA and the South
Africans for years.
Aging mercenary Mike Hoare: End of Dog-of-War era.
Second in command was "Captain" Peter Duffy, anoth-
er Congo veteran who had served with Hoare. The man
who hid in the woods for two weeks was Jeremiah "Josh"
Puren, who had fought with Hoare in the Congo and had
served as an aide to Katangese secessionist leader Moise
Tshombe. Puren was a South African Air Force veteran,
reported to be an active member of South African military
intelligence.
There were two Americans involved, both of whom
made it to Durban: Barry Gribben and Charles Dukes, the
wounded member of the advance team. But most interest-
ing was the discovery that more than half of the group were
South Africans, most of them active or reserve members of
the "Red Devils," an elite reconnaissance commando
group. According to the Financial Times, the Red Devils
were linked to raids into both Mozambique and Angola
last year.
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"Red Devils" commander Chris Hillebrand, one of defeated mercs, training at South Africa Combat School.
The member of the advance team captured shortly after
the hostages were freed turned out to be Martin Dolinchek,
an active-duty member of South African intelligence, NIS
(formerly BOSS). Dolinchek, who subsequently confessed
in great detail and gave numerous interviews to the press,
said he was on leave from NIS, although the South Afri-
cans tersely stated that he had quit. His testimony deeply
implicated the South African government. His false pass-
port had been duly issued by the passport division of the
Durban Department of the Interior. He admitted that he
had arranged for Mike Hoare's false passport through the
same office. Dolinchek also said that he and Robert Sims,
Mike Hoare's brother-in-law, arrested at the villa, had
tested the weapons packed for the operation at a Durban
airport in broad daylight. Dolinchek had been scouting the
island for nearly a month with Sims and his colleague,
Susan Ingles. She had been in charge of finances, apparent-
ly spending large sums throughout the island.
South African Reaction
When, several days after the mercenaries landed at Dur-
ban, the South African authorities finally reacted, to the
astonishment of most of the world, they released 39 of the
44 men with no charges, and charged five, including Hoare,
with the relatively minor offense in South Africa of kid-
napping. They were immediately released on very low bail.
International reaction was swift and vitriolic. South
Africa has been a strident vocal opponent of "terrorism,"
including air piracy, and is a signatory to several interna-
tional conventions on hijacking. The South African law is
very strict, with a mandatory five-year minimum sentence
and possible 30 years' imprisonment. There is no minimum
for kidnapping. International pressure was overwhelming,
and on January 5 the entire group of 44 was charged with
air piracy.
Number 16 (March 1982)
-I' here is an unexplained discrepancy in the figures, how-
ever. South Africa originally announced that 44 mercenar-
ies had been detained upon landing in Durban, but the
January 5 announcement by the provincial Attorney Gen-
eral spoke of 45 warrants.
There are already indications that the new charges may
be a sham. South African legal authorities have comment-
ed that the international conventions, and South African
law, define hijacking as a taking over of a plane after the
doors have been closed for takeoff. If the decision to take
over the plane, even by force, was made before boarding it,
they say, this would not constitute air piracy, but a "politi-
cal crime" committed on Seychellois soil. Since South
Africa has no extradition treaty with the Seychelles, se-
rious prosecution of most of the offenders may be illusory.
The Role of James Mancham
One of the many loose ends in this affair is the role of
former President James R. M. Mancham, the man deposed
by Albert Rene in 1977. Mancham was on a lecture tour of
the United States when the botched invasion occurred,
speaking on "The Struggle for Power in the Indian Ocean."
When the wreckage of the airport was cleared, two partial-
ly burned tape recordings were found, containing messages
from Mancham to the people of the Seychelles in which he
offered to accept an "invitation" to resume the presidency
and "help the country in the national task of restoring
democracy." Faced with this evidence. Mancham admitted
to reporters that he had been approached in September by
"dissident Seychellois" who asked him to make some tapes
for use in an impending coup. However, Martin Dolinchek
told Seychellois authorities that Hoare had described to
him a September meeting with Mancham in London, and
other mercenaries reported that Hoare spoke often of
Mancham, saying that he would be "a figurehead" after the
takeover, suggesting a Comoros-type regime.
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It is impossible to believe that Mancham knew nothing
of the actual plot. He has always been close to South
Africa, and during his presidency was sharply criticized for
providing Seychelles passports for South Africans to aid
their travels in the rest of Africa.
South Africa and the CIA
What most strains credulity are the official South Afri-
can assertions of total ignorance. Open recruitment had
been :aking place in South Africa for at least eighteen
months. Everyone in mercenary circles in South Africa,
France, and the U.S. seemed to know about it. Rumors
were printed in magazines and newspapers on three conti-
nents. Sims and Dolinchek strongly suggest South African
complicity, and Air India passengers reported that the
mercenaries who took over their plane talked openly on the
trip tc Durban of the South African government role.
It is also difficult to believe that the CIA was not aware
of, if not deeply involved in, the plot. Interest in the Indian
Ocean is intense, and, as noted above, the CIA has in the
past if anipulated affairs in both the Seychelles and Mauri-
tius. Moreover, the evidence is strong that the House Intel-
ligenc well as many right-wing organiza-
tions in the U.S.--had some idea of the machinations
under way.
In an ironic twist, Prime Minister Ramgoolam of Mauri-
tius accused the Seychelles on December 5 of seeking to
oyertI7 row his government by "actively promoting de-
stabilization" there. With the Seychelles still reeling from
the invasion and attempting to shore up defenses against
further threatened attacks, this complaint was surely a
diversion, perhaps part of Ramgoolam's faltering reelection
campaign.
In fact there are recent reports out of South Africa that
Mike Hoare met with Bob Denard in Durban in mid-
December to discuss a second invasion. It is unclear wheth-
er this is only South African disinformation to increase the
justifi.ble nervousness of the people of the Seychelles.
Was K enya Involved?
A more difficult question relates to the possible official
involvement of Kenya in the plot. Dolinchek told his cap-
tors: "A new government was to be flown in from Kenya.
The Kmyan government agreed to provide two airplanes
which were to fly in Kenyan soldiers and police to replace
Tanza lian troops which were believed to be in this coun-
try. Colonel Mike Hoare said the whole thing would be a
pushover."
The Kenyan government was silent for 20 hours after
this statement was reported, and then vigorously denied
any involvement and insisted that Dolinchek was lying. It
is impossible at this time to know whether Dolinchek's
claim was anything more than subtle disinformation, an
obvious difficulty in interrogating a trained intelligence
officer, whose mission might well be to sow the seeds of
dissension among other African countries.
But Kenya is not a close friend of the Seychelles. Its
policies are decidedly pro-Western. Huge military facilities
have been granted the U.S. at the Kenyan port of M omba-
sa. Though Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi is current
head of the OAU and claims to abhor mercenarism, he
allows one of the largest CIA stations in Afri,'a to operate
10 Col ertAction
out of Kenya. Moreover, Kenya was implicated in the 1979
plot against the Seychelles.
Conclusion
Several facts emerge from the many reports of this mean
adventure, from which some observations can be made.
They should be viewed in light of the fixation of the United
States with the Indian Ocean and its paranoia over "threat-
ened" sea lanes. As President Rene observed, "Our com-
mitment to socialist development, coupled with the strate-
gic geographical location of our islands in the Indian
Ocean make us prone to such ruthless maneuvers of desta-
bilization and aggression."
Events in the Indian Ocean region raise some parallels
with U.S. activity in the Caribbean Basin. There, too, there
are expressions of concern over sea lanes, and there, too,
mercenary activity is encouraged. Cuban exiles and Somo-
cista fugitives play the role that South Africans fill in
Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean. (In fact, U.S. mil-
itary maneuvers were taking place in the Caribbean and in
North Africa during the months and weeks preceding the
Seychelles invasion.)
It seems clear that both South Africa and the United
States knew of, and condoned, the plan. Beyond the admit-
tedly unreliable braggadocio of mercenaries interviewed in
the press, the circumstantial evidence is strong. Most sig-
nificant is financing. Estimates of the cost of the Seychelles
operation range between two and five million dollars, and
it is inconceivable that such a sum was raised by a handful
of dissident Seychellois exiles, or society types looking for
a thrill. The alleged CIA funding of the ruling party in
Mauritius may well have been a cover, in part, for some of
this money.
Moreover, the close relationship between the Reagan
administration and Pretoria cannot be underestimated.
The U.S. and South Africa are openly exchanging infor-
mation and plans, as they connive to block SWAPO's
relentless path to true independence for Namibia, and as
they plot the brutal destabilization of Angola. Mozam-
bique, and Zimbabwe. Toeholds in the Comoros and Mau-
ritius�and, they hope, in the Seychelles secure the pe-
rimeter of Southern Africa as they counter socialist devel-
opment in the Indian Ocean.
More information will surely come to light. On De-
cember 15 the U.N. Security Council unanimously agreed
to send a commission of inquiry to the Seychelles to inves-
tigate the invasion and report back. Every member of the
Security Council except the U.S. was enthusiastic in its
condemnation of mercenarism. Jeane Kirkpatrick suggest-
ed that sending the mission was assuming that the "Sey-
chelles affair was not purely internal," which was "prejudg-
ing the situation." This is a preposterous statement, con-
sidering that the 52 armed mercenaries, led by Mad Mike
Hoare, recruited, funded and supplied under the noses of
the South Africans, were hardly a group of dissident
Seychellois.
In addition, although little is expected to come to light
from the trials, if any, in South Africa, those to commence
shortly in the Seychelles may explain much more of this
strange episode.
Whether the House Intelligence Committee or anyone
else will call for greater scrutiny of the U.S. role remains to
be seen.
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Number 16 (March 1982)
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Angola:
Pretoria's Continuing War
Small Africa's relentless war against Angola has escala-
ted dramatically over the past several months. In August
and again in November, Cunene Province in southwestern
Angola was devastated by massive, weeks-long South Af-
rican attacks. Invading forces advanced over 150 miles into
Angolan territory with more than twice the number of
troops deployed in the 1975-76 South African invasions.
Coverage of these events has removed any lingering
credence given to South Africa's contention that its "raids"
into Angola are limited incursions aimed at military bases
of the South West African People's Organization
(SWAPO). In fact, the scope of the war is vast, the battle is
non-stop, the targets are primarily Angolan towns and
villages, and substantial areas of the Angolan side of the
border with Namibia have been openly occupied by South
Africa. The myth nurtured by Pretoria that much of the
Number 16 (March 1982)
fighting has been conducted by U N ITA forces is no longer
even peddled.
Operation Protea
The first major escalation, Operation Protea, began on
July 28, 1981, and by September 5 most of the southern
part of the province, including the key towns of Xangongo
and Njiva, was occupied by South African Defense Force
(SADF) troops. As in previous major confrontations, the
Angolan army, FAP LA, held its own in the head to head
ground fighting, but was overwhelmed by the massive air
and artillery support which poured in whenever the SADF
advance faltered. Whole towns and villages in the region
were leveled Journalists who reached the area on Sep-
tember 5 -and were bombed by South African fighter
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planes�confirmed the reports of wide-spread civilian ca-
sualties and the destruction of non-military targets. The
planes, they said, were attacking "anything that moves."
The invasion and occupation were the subject of a Secur-
ity Council debate at the United Nations, and the U.S. veto
was the only vote against condemnation of South Africa.
Chester Crocker, Assistant Secretary of State for African
Affairs, commented, "The Reagan administration has no
intention of destabilizing South Africa to curry favor else-
where." Crocker defended the veto as an expression of
American "neutrality." The U.S. position, which amount-
ed to open support for naked South African aggression,
was a clear signal to Pretoria. "We are grateful that Ameri-
ca ha!, shown a sense of balance about the Angolan 'inva-
sion' issue," wrote the Citizen, an English-language Johan-
nesburg paper closely linked to South African intelligence.
South Africa insisted that its operations were directed
against SWAPO, but it was obvious that the primary pur-
pose was to bolster the sagging fortunes of UNITA, an
explanation supported by a September 14 London Times
analysis. The Times Johannesburg correspondent noted
that UNITA forces were moving into the territory occupied
by South Africa from their sole stronghold, desolate
Cuando-Cubango Province, to the east of Cunene. "In-
formed observers here," he reported, "believe that the scale
of the South African incursion was part of a longer-term
strategy aimed at developing UNITA into a proxy force
which could police a broad swathe of territory along Ango-
la's southern border."
Operation Daisy
During September and October SADF positions were
shuffkd, with some occupied areas abandoned and others
fortified. Then, on October 27, another massive attack was
launched�Operation Daisy. This battle raged for three
weeks, and was reported daily by the Angolan authorities.
It was not until December 7, however, that Pretoria con-
firmed the reports. South African journalists, who were
aware of the operation, were prohibited by law from men-
tioning it until that time.
Operation Daisy involved fighting from 100 to 150 miles
inside Angola. As Joseph Lelyveld reported in the New
York Times (December 8, 1981), "Each subsequent attack
has carried South African forces deeper into Angola."
Finally, on November 30, in a vicious act of sabotage,
the Petrangol oil refinery in Luanda was bombed. South
African equipment was found at the scene, as well as mate-
rial in Afrikaans. Most significantly, the sabotage opera-
tion had been conducted by white mercenaries; several
white bodies were found, apparently the result of a pre-
mature explosion which, fortunately, halted the bombing
before the refinery complex was totally destroyed.
An ecological disaster was narrowly averted through the
heroism of Angolan refinery workers who rolled away
thousLnds of barrels of lead tetraethyl from blazing storage
buildings. Had this toxic additive been vaporized, a Bel-
gian rfinery official noted, "an enormous poison cloud
could have enveloped Luanda, had the wind blown the
wrong way."
UNIT A Claims
The day after the explosion Jonas Savimbi of UNITA,
12 CovertAction
who was in New York at the time, claimed credit for the
sabotage. Western diplomatic observers, however, agreed
that the saboteurs were South African mercenaries, and
whether or not they were nominally acting for UNITA, it
was clear that South Africa trained them, supplied them,
and sent them on their mission. Moreover, there was specu-
lation over the manner of arrival of the mercenaries. At a
press conference while the fire was still being fought, the
Angolan oil minister suggested that the mercenaries might
have come by South African submarine. A similar charge
had been leveled by Mozambique at the time of the attemp-
ted mining of Beira harbor. Interestingly, only two days
before the attack on the refinery the South Africans had
relaunched one of the navy's three submarines after a 15-
month overhaul, and it had immediately left port for a "sea
trial."
The U.S. role in the Angolan war has not been limited to
outspoken support for the Pretoria regime. Jonas Savimbi
received VIP treatment on his recent visit in November and
December. [See CAIB Number 7 for details of Savimbi's
November 1979 visit.] It was no coincidence that this visit
came precisely as the House considered the Senate's pro-
posal to repeal the Clark Amendment, prohibiting U.S.
intervention in Angola. Savimbi's meetings with numerous
CIA, National Security Council, and State Department
officials did not prevent the House from upholding the
Clark Amendment, although this victory may be irrele-
vant. On January 22 an interview with Savimbi appeared in
the conservative Portuguese weekly Tempo. He said, refer-
ring to U.S. aid to UNITA, "Material help is not dependent
on, nor limited by, the Clark Amendment. A great country
like the United States has other channels . . . The Clark
Amendment means nothing." Knowledgeable observers
point out that the Reagan administration has been known
to offer to increase proportionately aid to countries that
will commence or increase aid to UNITA.
Simultaneously with Savimbi's tour, President Mobutu
of Zaire made a state visit to the U.S. This visit had been
scheduled for early 1982, but was moved up�at the urging
of the CIA�for reasons of great concern to Angola. While
Mobutu has his own serious internal problems in Zaire, he
is also providing cover for another front in the U.S.-South
African war against Angola. A group of Zaire-based mer-
cenaries, along with some remnants of Holden Roberto's
defunct FNLA, have established "the Military Committee
of the Angolan Resistance" (COM I RA). This group, with
what appears to be CIA support in direct violation of the
Clark Amendment, is said to be planning attacks against
Angola from the north, while the Luanda government is
preoccupied with the massive South African operations in
the south, a strategy similar to that which failed in 1975-76.
To have Mobutu and Savimbi in Washington together
seemed like an attempt to coordinate puppets.
American press coverage has focused obsessively on the
presence of Cuban troops in Angola, although they were
not involved in the battles against South Africa, but pro-
vided rear guard support for FAPLA. But public opinion
must come to grips with the extent of South African and
CIA operations against Angola and the blatant disregard
of the Clark Amendment. Extensive destruction and grow-
ing civilian casualties can clearly be laid at the doorstep of
the Reagan administration. Chester Crocker's assertion of
"neutrality" is a farce.
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Mozambique Rebels Exposed
South African aggression against Mozambique, which
increased in early 1981 (see CAIB Numbers 12 and 13), has
dramatically escalated. A campaign of terrorism and sab-
otage has followed the mid-October speech of South Afri-
can Defense Minister, Gen. Magnus Malan. The speech,
which has been described as a call for a "second Matola-
type' raid in Mozambique," announced preparations for
the opening of a "second front." While Gen. Malan was not
specific, the first front is Angola, and the second front,
observers agreed, must be Mozambique. Mike Hough, the
director of the Pretoria Institute for Strategic Studies, was
quoted by the Rand Daily Mail (October 16, 1981) as
pointing out that "the Mozambique and Angola situations
were almost identical." Speaking of Gen. Malan, Hough
said, "I have a good idea that he must be referring to
Mozambique."
Even while Gen. Malan was speaking, it now appears, a
band of South African commandos were infiltrating Mo-
zambique for purposes of sabotage. On October 14, a
Mozambican army patrol found a group of men laying
mines along the vital Beira-Umtali railway, which links
Zimbabwe with the major Mozambican port. Six sabo-
teurs were killed; they were discovered to be three South
African demolitions and explosives experts and three
members of the "Mozambique National Resistance," a
small, shadowy group which has been sniping at the Ma-
chel government since 1976.
The MNR was widely believed to be a creation of South
Africa since its first appearance, and the identification of
the bodies by the railroad tracks provided further confir-
mation. Afrikaans writing had been found on crates of
ammunition captured from the MNR. Further and more
detailed confirmation has come from a most unexpected
source, a 16-year BOSS veteran, agent Gordon Winter.
In early October Penguin Books distributed in London
advance copies of "Inside BOSS," Gordon's 640-page con-
fessional of his years as a South African intelligence agent.
The book aroused so much controversy --and dozens of
threatened lawsuits- -that it was withdrawn from sale only
days after it became generally available. Although several
British journalists have questioned Winter's change of
heart and openly speculated that he is still working for
South Africa, the book's details of South African intelli-
gence operations are generally regarded as accurate.
In it, he describes how MNR was created in 1976 by Gen.
Malan, then Chief of Staff of the Army, as "a fake Black
liberation movement in Mozambique." Winter, in his
cover as a journalist, spent much of 1977 writing stories
glorifying the exploits of the non-existent organization. All
of the acts of sabotage and terrorism were, in fact, conduct-
ed by South African commandos. By 1978 the South Afri-
cans recruited "between ten and twenty Blacks from Mo-
zambique" who became a "real" MNR. They were photo-
graphed with weapons and uniforms a few miles from
Pretoria. The pictures were published by Winter and other
journalist-agents as guerrillas "training at secret bases in-
side M ozambique." Over the next few years a small core of
Number 16 (March 1982)
MNR members, assisted by South African weapons, ex-
plosives, experts and financing, sporadically caused exten-
sive damage throughout Mozambique.
The MN R --that is to say, the South Africans stepped
up its activities after the abortive railway episode. That
their cover was fully blown was of no consequence. At the
end of October a series of explosions damaged the
Zimbabwe-Mozambique oil pipeline, and disrupted rail
and road links between the two countries. Two bridges
crossing the Pungue River. 50 km. east oft he port of Beira,
were sabotaged. Mozambican authorities indicated that
those responsible had infiltrated the country with the
group killed at the railway.
On November 12, the channel marker buoys in Beira
harbor were blown up, an action which appeared to have
required the use of a submarine or very fast gunboats,
equipment obviously not available to the MN R. On De-
cember 7 the Mozambican Army overran the main base of
the MN R at Garaguq and discoverd a cache of correspond-
ence and minutes of meetings between MN R leaders and
South African officials, including a colonel in military
intelligence. One document confirmed that the railway mine-
laying plan had been conceived and ordered by the South
Africans. Finally. on December 17, t WO foreign wildlife
experts and several aides from the Mozambican wildlife
school were kidnapped.
Zimbabwe too has not been immune to South African
instigated violence, to say the least. Small MNR groups
have often camped near the border, and, according to the
October 4, 1981 New York Time.s., South African planes
supplying the MNR have on occasion violated Zimbab-
wean airspace. In August a Zimbabwean garrison arms
dump was sabotaged in an action which Prime Minister
Robert Mugabe suggested involved South African collu-
sion. And in mid-December a massive explosion ripped
through his party's headquarters. Mugabe, commenting on
South African adventures in his country, Mozambique,
and the Seychelles, said, "A rabid racist regime has gone
wild in our neighborhood."
On December 28, 1981, the Washington Post revealed
that "Western intelligence sources . . . have confirmed
Mozambican charges that the rebels are receiving South
African armaments and logistical support." This is rather
dramatic understatement. The MNR is South African. Its
activity is no less an enormity than the sending of merce-
naries to the Seychelles or the raid on Matola.
"MINIM
Mozambican Movie on CIA Planned
The Mozambican government has announced that
it is planning a full-length feature film on the CIA spy
ring which operated in Mozambique since independ-
ence in 1975. This ring was described in ('AIB
Number 12.
MID
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Argentina Activates
International Death Squads
By Ellen Ray
Argentina, according to a Foreign Ministry official,
wants a "balance of power" in Latin America, seeking a
"modus vivendi" to keep the area "independent from super-
power conflicts." In fact, however, it is working hand in
glove with the United States and some of the most repres-
sive regimes around the world. In particular it is exporting
on a growing scale its well-honed specialties of disappear-
ance, torture, and murder.
Argentina brutally stifled political dissent following the
coup in which the military junta overthrew Isabel Peron in
1976. Now, in secret agreements between the military re-
gime -Lnd the Haig State Department finalized last Sep-
tember, Argentina is activating its torturers around the
world, where they had been marking time since the Carter
administration penalized their gross human rights viola-
tions which lett between 15,000 and 30,000 Argentines
dead. Though the junta has slowed down its domestic
killing somewhat, it has never eliminated its heinous poli-
cies of extermination.
Into El Salvador
It is now apparent that in return for lifting the arms
embargo imposed by Carter, Argentina will lead the way in
the U.S. strategy of outside intervention�covertly in Nica-
ragua and overtly in El Salvador�by aiding the CIA's
plans 10 destabilize Nicaragua and by preparing to send
troops into El Salvador after the bogus March elections.
This is part of Haig's "continental" approach to involve
reactic nary Latin American regimes in U.S. inter-
ventionism.
The embargo was lifted on December 14, 1981 after
extens ve shuttle diplomacy. U.S. Army Chief of Staff
Gen. Edward C. Meyer visited Buenos Aires in April; Gen.
Leopo [do Galtieri, then Chief of Staff of the Argentine
Army and now President, visited Washington in August;
Secretary Haig's envoy Gen. Vernon Walters met in Argen-
tina with Galtieri in September; and Galtieri returned to
the U.S. in November, shortly before he forced Gen. Ro-
berto Viola to step down from the Presidency. During this
period significantly, there were several reciprocal visits
between high Salvadoran and Argentinean officials.
The 3utcome was foreordained; Galtieri announced that
he was willing to send troops to El Salvador, though Sal-
vadoran Defense Minister Guillermo Garcia publicly stat-
ed they were "not needed at the moment." In fact, they are
14 CovertAction
desperately needed, as the Salvadoran regime is on the
verge of complete collapse. Moreover, an unknown
number of Argentinean officers have been in El Salvador,
Guatemala, and Honduras for some time.
On December 2, 1981, the New York Times revealed that
Salvadoran military intelligence officers have been in
Argentina for more than two years, taking courses
"focusing on problems of organization, infiltration, and
interrogation." Other reports indicate that Argentinean
military personnel - --described as "experienced foreign
counterinsurgency specialists"--are in Guatemala,
Honduras, and El Salvador. In Guatemala they have
helped in the capture of a number of guerrillas through
"network analysis," described by Latin America Regional
Reports as a method "whereby telephone, electricity and
other household bills are scrutinized by computer
for 'abnormalities.'" In fact this computer "suspect-
identification system" was U.S.-built and exported to
Argentina, according to intelligence sources.
Computer expertise aside, Argentina's specialty is tor-
ture, and recent exposes in South Africa confirm the scope
of their activities.
South Africa
A press campaign by liberal South African journalists
recently resulted in the transfer from his "diplomatic" post-
ing in Pretoria of one of the chief torturers of the notorious
Escuela Mechanica de la Armada (Naval Mechanics
School), which operated in Buenos Aires between 1974 and
1978. In a series of articles running from October through
December, the Durban Sunday Tribune identified four
Argentinean naval officers operating out of Pretoria who
had administered the Escuela death camp, including Lieu-
tenant Alfredo Astiz�the "Blond Angel." Astiz left South
Africa in December after more than two years' undercover
work there.
The question of their precise mission was not addressed
in the flurry of press statements about the presence of the
Argentinean torturers in South Africa. Observers outside
South Africa have noted, however, the connection between
the training of Salvadoran and South African intelligence
teams in Argentina. It is possible that Astiz, as an expert in
military repression, is now working in Argentina's expand-
ing military role in El Salvador. If so, it is with the blessing
of Washington.
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The "Blond Angel," IA. Astiz, infiltrated citizens' groups,
marking countless Argentines for torture and death.
In their series, the Sunda.i. Tribune compiled the follow-
ing documentation:
� Lieutenant Alfredo Astiz headed kidnapping opera-
tions for the Escuela, one of the largest of at least 15 death
camps used as secret detention and torture centers. Over
4,700 men, women, and children thought to oppose the
military junta passed through the Escuela. Fewer than 100
survived the camp, according to Amnesty International.
Astiz also infiltrated what were considered "subversive
groups," for example a church center run by women at-
tempting to petition the Argentine government over the
whereabouts of the "disappeared" children. Under an as-
sumed name and pretending to have a missing relative,
Astiz infiltrated the church group to identify those in-
volved. Then they were kidnapped, tortured, and killed.
Astiz was appointed naval attache in Pretoria on June 20.
1979.
� Rear Admiral Ruben J. Chamorro (the Dolphin) was
commander of the Escuela from 1974 to 1978. There he
supervised the "operating theaters" or torture rooms,
where over 100 people at a time were detained during the
height of the repression. The victims were handcuffed and
hooded, according to survivors, and were systematically
tortured and then finally killed, often flown by helicopter
over the Atlantic and dumped while still alive. As one
survivor recounted, "Chamorro was fond of personally
showing visitors from the naval high command around his
camp, which he would proudly describe as the `best-known
maternity hospital in Buenos Aires,� because of the facili-
ties for pregnant women sent there. Those women who did
not abort on the torture table were put on display for naval
staff who wanted to adopt babies. After the babies were
born, the women would be murdered and the children
given away. Chamorro was appointed armed forces at-
tache in Pretoria on June 14, 1979.
� Captain Jorge Acosta (the Tiger), one of the most
powerful men in the Escuela, was later responsible for the
placement of himself and the other torturers to senior
"diplomatic" postings throughout the world. Acosta is cre-
dited with refining the use of the naval task force GT
333/ 2� as the instrument of intelligence collection and
Number 16 (March 1982)
torture. A former naval intelligence officer. Acosta was
said to be the most sadistic of the torturers and the person
who decided, with Chamorro, which of the prisoners
more than 90('i of them were to be killed. When the
Escuela was dismantled in 1978. Acosta managed to secure
appointments of his men as "diplomats" abroad. The
South African government would not provide details of his
accreditation there, according to the SundaT Tribune.
� Captain Jorge Perren (the Puma) was a close friend of
Captain Acosta and was one of the torturers. Later, survi-
vors documented the transfer of Perren to Argentina's
counter-propaganda center in Paris, where he W as joined
by Lieutenant Astir. Both were recognized by the Argenti-
nean exile community there and, rendered ineffective,
forced to leave France. Perren was appointed to the armed
forces mission at the Argentine Embassy in Pretoria on
October 17, 1979.
SATO
The surface connection between South Africa and Ar-
gentina has been the proposed defense pact, the South
Atlantic Treaty Organization (SATO). Under the proposal
the two countries' navies would play main roles, supplied
by the NATO powers with sophisticated armaments "to
fight Soviet naval encroachment of the South Atlantic." In
December of 1980 then Argentine President Jorge Videla
ruled out the possibility of a South Atlantic pact, saving
that Latin American countries could take no part in any
such organization "which might include South Africa."
But successive military presidents have changed their tune.
Indeed President Galtieri is a virtual client of the Reagan
administration, which has been instrumental in cementing
relations between Argentina and South Africa. When Gal-
tieri visited the U.S. for the Conference of American Ar-
mies, he toasted top U.S. military officials: "Argentina will
march together with the U.S. in the ideological battle."
Pushing this theme is Galtieri's friend, Gen. Meyer. Mey-
er's ideology is exemplified by his public statement that
World War III began when the Soviet Union moved into
Afghanistan.
But perhaps the closest friends South Africa and Argen-
tina have in the Reagan administration are Gen. Walters
and Peter Hannaford, a former Reagan speechwriter who
is a registered lobbyist for Argentina. (See CA IB Number
12 on Hannaford's role, with his then partner Michael
Deaver, the White House aide, as a lobbyist for Guatema-
la.) Hannaford recently visited South Africa and Namibia,
expressing public support for the policies of the South
African government.
In May of 1981 an international conference to promote
the concept of SATO was convened in Buenos Aires,
privately sponsored by the Institute of American Relations
(see the Seychelles article in this issue), the Council for
Inter-American Security, and the Carlos Pellegrini
Foundation of Argentina. The symposium was comprised
of military and strategic experts from the U.S., Argentina,
South Africa, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Brazil. Playing a
key role was Gen. Walters, former Deputy Director of the
CIA and a ubiquitous lobbyist for right-wing regimes. The
conference was less than successful, however, in that
Brazil has difficulty getting involved with South Africa
because of its substantial trade with Nigeria, Angola, and
other Black African countries.
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What Is In Store for El Salvador?
As noted above, Argentina's torturers are training mil-
itary officers from many countries, highlighting problems
of "organization, infiltration, and interrogation." A fright-
ening look at some of the methods involved can be found in
an extraordinary article, "How Argentina Won Its War
Against Leftist Terrorism," in the February 13, 1982
Human Events. The piece in the right-wing journal ex-
presses the "hope" of the authors that Argentina can teach
El Salvador the lessons of success. The writers, former
Chicago Sun-Times correspondent Virginia Prewett and
former Vew York Times reporter William R. Mizelle, now
publish "private intelligence reports on Latin America"
called Hemispheric Hotline. They interviewed the
eamismito
members of the junta and "respected the entreaties of Ar-
gentines ... as well as warnings of U.S. counterinsurgency
experts to avoid naming . . the principal architects of
Argentina's victory over leftist terrorism." The high offi-
cials praised the order, in early 1975, which "permitted the
armed forces to move in," and praised the rising "terrorist
body-count."
One of their sources is quoted as follows: "Don't say it
was I who said so, but the victory over the terrorists began
the day my wife said, 'There's no way out except to kill
these monsters; we've got to kill them all!"
The indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians has
plagued El Salvador for 50 years; Argentina's contribution
will be more of the same.
From August 1 to October 15, 1981 the U.S. sponsored the largest naval maneuvers ever conducted by Western
force s during peacetime. Codenamed "Ocean Venture 81," the exercises involved over 120,000 troops, 250 ships, and
1,000 aircraft from 14 countries, and ranged from the South Atlantic to the Caribbean to the Baltic Sea. The massive
show of power in the Caribbean was coordinated by Rear Admiral Robert P. McKenzie, Commander of the
Caribbean Contingency Joint Task Force.
Claiming that the maneuvers in the Caribbean were in response to increasing Cuban power in the area, the U.S.
targeted its "fictitous" war game scenario against Cuba, codenamed "Red," and Grenada and the Grenadines,
codenamed "Amber and the Amberdines."
On November 15 the U.S.S. Dwight Eisenhower, a nuclear-powered carrier which the captain claimed was "one of
the most awesome weapons systems in the world," paid an official visit to Barbados. The Barbados Peace Committee
and he Movement for National Liberation ( MONA LI ) met the ship with banners that proclaimed "Hands Off
Grenada and Cuba" and "Caribbean Must be a Zone of Peace." The two groups sent a letter of protest to Prime
Minister Tom Adams which said in part, "At a time when the Ronald Reagan government is one of the few
governments in the world supporting the racist South African state and its continuing attacks on Angola, your
government is trying to cozy up to the Yankee warmongers."
�41=MMINII
16 Cove rtAction
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Interview:
Salvadoran Deserter Discloses
Green Beret Torture Role
For a long time documented reports of massacres by the
Salvadoran armed forces and death squads have been
commonplace. Suggestions that U.S. "advisers" have been
involved were invariably denied by the Reagan administra-
tion. But readers of the establishment press were shocked
by a dispatch from Raymond Bonner in the January II
New York Times which placed U.S. Special Forces Green
Berets at classes devised to teach methods of torture to
Salvadoran soldiers. Bonner had interviewed an army de-
serter in Mexico Citi' who described the classes in detail.
The implications of this shift from indiscriminate killing
to deliberate torture are significant. During the Vietnam
war U.S. troops and CIA "police advisers" regularly en-
gaged in torture to try to obtain information. And, as the
Dan 14 itrione incident in 1,7ruguay makes clear, U.S. ad-
visers have in the past shown their clients how effective
torture can he both in obtaining information and in intimi-
dating the population. The role of Argentina in South
Africa and El Salvador, discussed elsewhere in this issue,
also confirms this development in the strategy of the Sal-
vadoran junta.
Moreover, in .further taped interviews with other jour-
nalists, Bonners' source, 21-year-old Carlos Antonio
Gomez Montano, implicated some of the Green Berets
directly in the commission of torture. These interviews
were first reported in the January 1982 issue of El Salvador
Alert, the publication of the Committee in Solidarity with
the People of El Salvador. CAIB has obtained the tran-
script of the critical interview, and what .follows are the
portions dealing with the participation of the U.S. troops.
Gomez was drafted into the Salvadoran army in De-
cember 1980, and was jaded the .following April. In May
some friends helped him escape, and he spent the next
several weeks traveling through El Salvador, Guatemala,
and Mexico, where a refugee aid group has helped hint to
settle.
In El Salvador I was cited to report to the barracks. At
the same time, my brother was involved with the guerrilla
struggle. Before I entered into the military, my brother was
a guerrilla fighter. He told me many times, why didn't I
incorporate into the guerrilla struggle, for the people? I
Number 16 (March 1982)
said, "No. I didn't like those sorts of things." A few months
later I got a citation from the army that I had to report in
February to the barracks. I did not answer the summons in
February, was summoned again and finally had to go in
December of 1980. So I went and presented myself.
After we were there they taught us how to handle the
rifles, different types of formations, working the streets.
They brought us out to the different towns to carry out
searches. After a month, they taught us a course in anti-
guerrilla warfare. Many of my friends went on this course
to Panama but I didn't go. After they returned, there was
another course that I took which was for paratroopers.
After that course, they taught us a lot of tactics
advancing, retreating, military tactics. After that they gave
us uniforms and boots that came from the U.S.,
camouflage uniforms. There they gave us some classes
about the war in Vietnam how we should act on the
battlefield. What they told us was that we shouldn't have
mercy on anyone, whether it be children or women or men,
but you have to kill all of them.
Many times we would go into the mountains. I saw many
things in relation to the officials, the officers. They took the
young men and women from the houses and brought them
to the barracks and afterwards they tortured them and
killed them.
Later we had a welcome for the Green Berets. That day
was the day of the soldier. They formed all of us up in
columns. We had a homage for those who had fallen and
for those still alive, too. They got us up for this to greet
these Green Berets who came from the U.S. The officers
said they would be able to teach you a new tactic. We didn't
have any idea what this new tactic was; we thought it was
something else. The first time they brought us to a volcano
and they brought us to the slopes of the volcano so that we
were going to combat with the guerrilla fighters. The Green
Berets didn't go into combat; they were just behind
teaching us how to do these things. They would criticize us
as to what was good and what was bad. We passed five days
on a volcano. There were 600 of us --in all, 5,000. Of those,
there were many who didn't return. There were lots of
soldiers who were killed.
Six days later we returned to the barracks and then they
began to teach us how to torture. One evening they went
and got nine young people that were accused of being
guerrillas and brought them to where we were. This was
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more Of less the last time that I had to see very well the type
of torture they carried out against the guerrillas. The first
one they brought� a young fellow who was around 15 or
16 years old and the first thing they did was to stick the
bayone.s under his fingernails and pulled them out. That
day he was the first one that died under torture. This young
fellow said all sorts of things against them to let him go.
The officers said "We are going to teach you how to
mutilat, and how to teach a lesson to these guerrillas." The
officers who were teaching us this were the American
Green Berets. They didn't speak Spanish so they spoke
English and then another officer�Salvadoran�translated
it into Spanish for us. Then they began to torture this
young fellow. They took out their knives and stuck them
under his fingernails. After they took his fingernails off,
then they broke his elbows. Afterwards they gouged out his
eyes. Then they took their bayonets and made all sorts of
slices in his skin all around his chest, arms, and legs. They
then took his hair off and the skin of his scalp. When they
saw there was nothing left to do with him, they threw
gasoline on him and burned him. The next day his dead
body wasn't around but was found by people out in the
streets--left in the street.
The r ext day they started the same thing with a 13-year-
old girl. They did more or less the same, but they did other
things to her, too. First, she was utilized, raped by all the
officers. They stripped her and threw her in a small room,
they went in one by one. Afterwards they took her out tied
and blindfolded. Then they began the same mutilating�
pulling her fingernails out and cutting off her fingers,
breaking her arms, gouging out her eyes and all they did to
the other fellow. They cut her legs and stuck an iron rod
into her womb. The last one that they killed that day
suffered more, because they stripped him naked at mid-
day. There they put him on this hot tin and made him lie
there-- e was like cooking. After about a half-hour, when
they fin3.11y took him off, he was all covered with blisters�
like wounds. They did different types of torture to him.
Then they threw him out alive at 14,000 feet altitude from a
helicor. er. He was alive and tied. They go and they throw
them out over the sea.
Q: Can you give a better description of the Green
Berets? Names, numbers, anything?
A: I ion't know their names, but there were eight. The
officers knew. There was only one of the eight that could
speak Spanish. They were all white�there were some
Blacks, but I don't know where they were from. The eight
U.S. Green Berets that were there were all white. They
dressed themselves the same as any soldier. One of them
sort of gave orders but they didn't have any indication of
their rank.
Q: Did they rape the women too?
A: No, they only taught.
Q: Did they do the fingernail pulling?
A: It was one of the Green Berets doing the teaching.
The Green Beret did the torture on the first one and then
the others did the tortures on the others.
Q: Were there any other Americans involved?
A: Some sergeants there spoke English but I never knew
much about them. They arrived to teach classes on how to
use the helicopters.
18 CovertAction
Q: Are you sure the Green Berets were with the U.S.
Army, or were they mercenaries?
A: 1 think they belonged to the U.S. Army because our
officers searched us very well and told us not to talk about
the presence of the U.S. Army there; they prohibited us
from speaking about this.
411���
A Luta Continua
Unaffected by the imminent passage of the
Intelligence Identities Protection Act, a group of
European researchers have begun to expose light
cover CIA officers serving in U.S. embassies. The
first public appearance of this group was at a
November press conference in San Jose, Costa Rica,
at which a list of 225 present and former case officers
in Central America and the Caribbean was made
public, complete with extensive biographies.
The material included 13 currently active opera-
tives in Nicaragua; 6 in El Salvador; and 4 in
Honduras. Despite cries of protest from the
Americans, details, including lists of names, were
published in the regional media. The U.S. media were
noticeably silent about the details of the press
conference, except to report unsubstantiated claims
by the U.S. Embassy in Managua that the press
conference must have been linked to a visit by Philip
Agee to Nicaragua some weeks earlier. The
Embassy's wrath was generated by the publication in
the Managua papers of all the names exposed as
present or former CIA operatives in Nicaragua, with,
in several instances, photographs.
MINIM
White Paper?
Whitewash!
Philip Agee on the CIA
and El Salvador
The CIA's history of document falsifications;
the use of AIFLD as a CIA front; the CIA's work
with paramilitary and terrorist gangs; and a line-
by-line analysis of the State Department "White
Paper" and the "captured" documents. The re-
search which proved the White Paper was a fraud.
Includes complete White Paper with exhibits and
State Department Dissent Paoer; 220 pages; paper-
back: $6.50 plus $1.50 postage and handling;
hardcover: $12.95 plus $1.75 postage and hand-
ling.
Order from: Deep Cover Publications, P.O. Box
677, New York, NY 10013.
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White Paper H:
Administration Stonewalls
While Covert Operations Escalate
By Bill Schaap
The Reagan-Haig State Department is nothing if not
persistent. Its February White Paper on communist influ-
ence in El Salvador was demolished last spring and
summer by commentators from the left, right, and center.
Yet by October a new version on the same theme was
launched amid considerable diplomatic fanfare. The re-
port, originally entitled "Cuba's Covert Operations in
Latin America," was first submitted to NATO representa-
tives at the October 14-16 Brussels meeting on Latin Amer-
ican exports. On November 8, in the form of a confidential
cable, it was sent to all major U.S. embassies; on December
14, now slightly revised and entitled "Cuba's Renewed
Support for Violence in the Hemisphere," it was submitted
to the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Shortly thereaf-
ter it was released publicly as a State Department Special
Report.
This "research paper" avoids some of the more egregious
errors of the February White Paper --conclusions unsup-
ported or even contradicted by the supporting "evidence" -
by the simple expedient of providing no evidence what-
soever to support its conclusions. And it did not charge
that Cuban troops or advisors were actually in El Salvador,
ignoring the frequently repeated fabrication that Cuban
forces had blown up a bridge inside El Salvador. As News-
week magazine (December 1, 1981) conceded, "earlier re-
ports of Cuban troops [in El Salvador] were simply untrue,
says one U.S. official."
In attempting to avoid the criticisms which had been
leveled at the White Paper, the charges were "monumental-
ly hollow, and presented without factual or analytical sup-
port."[Latin American Regional Reports Caribbean, Jan-
uary 15, 1982.] Some allegations were so far-fetched that
they were denied by the putative sources. The paper
claimed that in 1978 Guyana had expelled "five or seven"
Cuban diplomats; this was flatly denied by the Guyanese
government. The paper repeated Edward Seaga's pre-elec-
tion claim that there were as many as 500 Cuban advisors in
Jamaica under the Manley government, but failed to point
out that Seaga himself has now admitted this charge was
untrue.
Psychological Warfare
Despite the unconvincing nature of this new presenta-
Number 16 (March 1982)
tion, however, it was, as Newsweek noted, "an exercise in
psychological warfare" designed to leave the Cubans and
the Nicaraguans wondering what the U.S. will do next. In
that respect it is consistent with the current and dangerous
theme that the United States is maintaining various op-
tions regarding the Caribbean Basin. For many observers
have noted that a strong, coordinated destabilization pro-
gram, aimed in the first instance at Nicaragua, is not an
"option" but a reality.
This thesis is strengthened by the administration's ad-
missions that it wants to keep Cuba and Nicaragua guess-
ing. "Let them worry," said Gen. Vernon Walters, Secre-
tary Haig's roving envoy. "We believe that constructive
ambiguity is a very powerful weapon in American foreign
policy." When Assistant Secretary of State Thomas 0.
Enders addressed a foreign policy conference of out-of-
town journalists in Washington October 29, he pointedly
noted, "Our policy towards Cuba is under very active
consideration. You haven't heard the last of this at all."
The policy has kept not only Cuba and Nicaragua but
also Congress guessing. On November 12 Haig appeared
before Rep. Michael Barnes's subcommittee of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee. Despite repeated attempts to
pin him down. Haig would not reject the possibility of
direct involvement in the destabilization or overthrow of
Nicaragua. Barnes was so taken aback he stated, "If I were
a Nicaraguan. I would be building my bomb shelter." A
number of liberal Democrats wrote to the President ex-
pressing "shock" that the administration was "considering
military actions in response to the apparent stalemate in El
Salvador," and a bipartisan group of Committee members,
including Chairman Clement Zablocki, wrote to the Presi-
dent to register their "concern over possible U.S. actions
directed against Nicaragua."
The Numbers Game
To the United States, where the biggest is so often consid-
ered the best, numbers have become an important part of
the psychological war. The new international airport under
construction in Grenada is invariably referred to as "huge"
or "mammoth," even though it is no bigger than several
other Caribbean airports, and the minimum necessary to
accommodate jumbo jet passenger planes. Similarly, there
is being waged a scare campaign over the size of the Cuban
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and Nicaraguan armies. Nicaraguan hopes for a force of
50,000 were described in November by Undersecretary of
State James Buckley as "just huge." And Max Singer, the
reactionary deputy director of the Hudson Institute, said
(Waslington Post, December 23, 1981) that the resulting
army will be "overwhelmingly the most powerful military
force 1)etween Colombia and Mexico." Singer is the only
well-known academic moronic enough not only to refer to
the Duarte regime as "El Salvador's revolutionary govern-
ment," but also to call its sadistic and barbaric armed
forces "the revolutionary army."
U.S. "a dviser," identified as Cpt. Mike Sheehan, at refugee
camp on Honduras-Salvador border.
Whz t these critics never discuss is the size of the U.S.
armed forces, or the constant threats of invasion by the
U.S., or the boasts of the bands of mercenaries openly
training throughout the United States and in Honduras
and Guatemala. When Enders asked Nicaragua's Foreign
Minister Miguel D'Escoto why Nicaragua was building up
its army, he replied, "to defend ourselves in case you invade
us." To which Enders responded, "In that case you are
wasting your time, because we are one hundred times
bigger than you."
The Flaw of Arms
Somewhat surprisingly the new "research paper" per-
petuates the most discredited theme of the White Paper.
that Cuba and Nicaragua are responsible for a "massive"
flow of arms to the revolutionary forces in El Salvador.
The paper gives no documentation of this charge, except
for a reference to the White Paper itself. The theme was
reiterated by Secretary Haig in his December 4 speech to
the OAS meeting in St. Lucia: "Meanwhile, the principle of
non-intervention is being violated as arms, ammunition,
and other military supplies flow from Nicaragua to the
Salvadoran insurgents." These assertions continue to be
made even though the only proven, admitted intervener in
20 CovertAction
El Salvador is the United States, which continues to pump
millions of dollars worth of military equipment into the
country.
Sea Lanes, Mexico, and Other Hyperbole
The desperation with which the U.S. views the conflict in
El Salvador has led to some dire predictions, which can
only be thwarted by incessant escalation of U.S. involve-
ment. When Thomas Enders presented the research paper
to Congress on December 14 he was dramatic: "If, after
Nicaragua, El Salvador is captured by a violent minority,
what state in Central America will be able to resist? How
long would it be before the major strategic U.S. interests--
the canal, sea lanes, oil supplies - were at risk?" Under
questioning, Enders confirmed that military contingency
planning has been undertaken, but would not say whether
military options had "become policy."
The next day Undersecretary of Defense Fred C. I kle
appeared before the same subcommittee in a far more
bombastic mood than Enders. "It would be a grave mis-
take," he said, "if we ignored the direct military threat that
this Soviet-Cuban arsenal represents, some 90 miles to the
south of Florida." I kle, who was making the pitch for
further funding of the war in El Salvador, "far in excess" of
existing authorizations, described at length the shipping
paths and oil refineries of the Caribbean, as well as the
Navy's need for secure maritime operations in the region.
As noted elsewhere in this issue, Constantine Menges
was an early exponent of the new Central American domi-
no theory. The theory was implicit in the testimony of
Enders and I kle, and was explicit in the Max Singer col-
umn noted above. Singer predicted that if the government
of El Salvador fell, there would be "little possibility" of
preventing the same results in Guatemala and Honduras.
"Then," he continued, "drastic polarization is likely to be
started in Mexico . . . violent conflict . . not likely to be
without serious security implications for the United
States."
Plotting in Nicaragua
The U.S. line that Cuba and Nicaragua were destabiliz-
ing Central America was dealt a rude setback in January
when Nicaraguan security forces uncovered plots to sabo-
tage major industrial plants, and bomb Nicaraguan civil
airliners. The bombers, who damaged an AeroNica plane
in Mexico City before it took off, were CIA-trained Cuban
exiles, including some connected to the 1976 Cubana
bombing in Barbados. They were connected to the exile
group CORU, nominally headed by Orlando Bosch.
The plot to sabotage an oil refinery and a cement plant
involved Somocistas and Venezuelan, Honduran, Salva-
doran, and Argentine officials. Two of the would-be sabo-
teurs, captured with hundreds of sticks of dynamite and
other paraphernalia, implicated the diplomats and
soldiers�including military intelligence officers�in their
confessions, leading to intensive discussions between Nica-
raguan and Venezuelan officials. Nicaraguan Interior Min-
ister Tomas Borge publicly stated that relations between
the two countries should not be disturbed, as the Venezue-
lans involved were clearly working for the CIA, not for
their government.
Other evidence of CIA-style operations emerged. The
leader of the Miskito separatists, Steadman Fagoth, a
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former Somoza agent, had fled his base on the Atlantic
coast region of Nicaragua for Honduras. From there he
frequently broadcasts on a stridently anti-Sandinista clan-
destine radio station. He has denied accusations that the
station is a CIA-Honduran operation; however, on De-
cember 20 he was injured in the crash of a Honduran
military transport plane, near the Nicaraguan border. A
number of Honduran officers were also on board.
The creation of "dissident" groups within Nicaragua,
including those Miskitos taken in by Fagoth's propaganda,
is very important to the would-be destabilizers. An un-
named State Department official quoted by the San Fran-
cisco Examiner said that a naval blockade against Nicara-
gua would be "impractical unless it was connected to some
uprisings in Nicaragua ... unless parts of Nicaragua were
taken by anti-Sandinista guerrillas." A blockade might
then be justified to "prevent outside intervention."
What Does It Mean?
The U.S. campaign and its rhetoric are carefully timed
and coordinated. Despite constant exposures of its med-
dling, the U.S. insists that its plans are undecided and its
options flexible. The impression that the administation is
uncommitted is fraudulent, and can only be aimed at les-
sening the vigilance of the targets of its covert operations.
While open and direct military invasion of either Cuba or
Nicaragua may be politically impractical, the intention is
to prepare public opinion in the U.S. for anything short of
such action. But those operations have already begun,
despite the failure to convince the public, the Congress, or
the media of the viability of the U.S. position.
There is, it seems, an attempt to catch up to the reality
with the propaganda. Critics of U.S. involvement in the
Central American struggles, especially those who see the
striking comparisons to early U.S. involvement in Viet-
nam, must work to assure that the media and the people
will continue to expose the administration's hypocrisy....
Americans in Managua demonstrate before U.S. Embassy
for end to covert actions.
KKK (continued from page 50)
ties might have looked the other way and permitted the
attempt. Some aspects of the plot that are still being kept
secret are suggestive. Why, for example, of the 12,40, or 80
backers of the coup, depending on which report you choose
to believe, were only two indicted by the grand jury? Why
are the identities of the others not disclosed? Perhaps be-
cause the U.S. government has something to hide.
Similarly, why was no action taken against the unidenti-
fied "several others" the Las. Angeles Times said refused to
answer the grand jury's questions? In this respect David
Duke is a significant figure. He was central to the original
plot and never denied his role in it; he rebuffed the grand
jury, yet no action at all was taken against him. This plus
the highly suspicious fact that Duke sent Perdue to a boat
captain who was an ATF informer lends some credibility to
old charges leveled by Duke's Klan rivals that he's a gov-
ernment agent. If so, it would suggest that the U.S. looked
favorably on the intentions of this ragtag band of Klans-
men, Nazis, and gangsters as long as they kept their sights
firmly set on Grenada.
One cannot be certain, however. It seems unlikely that a
group this weak and incompetent could pose a significant
military threat to the Grenada revolution, even if assisted
by Eric Gairv's fifth column on the island. But a failure by
such a group is likely to sharpen the alertness of Grenadi-
ans to the threat their country faces from the U.S. Prime
Minister Maurice Bishop documented the seriousness of
the danger in a letter to then U.N. Secretary General Kurt
Waldheim last August. He pointed out that the U.S..'
NATO military manuever called "Ocean Venture 81," the
largest such exercise since World War 'Iwo, had as its
target a fictional group of Caribbean islands called Amber
and the Amberdines, a thinly disguised reference to Grena-
da and the Grenadines. The practice amphibious landing
took place on the southeastern tip of the Puerto Rican
island Vieques, which corresponds to an area of Grenada
that actually is called Amber. Other equally obvious sim-
ilarities were shown. With an attack of this magnitude
being practiced, it does seem improbable that a small and
inept band of mercenaries would be considered a serious
U.S. option.
Another puzzle the U.S. hasn't answered concerns two
unidentified members of the invading party. Perdue con-
tracted with Howell to transport twelve, vet only ten were
arrested. Who were the other two? One was probably Cana-
dian Klan leader Alex McQuirter. He had originally been
slated to lead one of the mercenary groups, but couldn't
join the group in New Orleans because he was barred from
the U.S. in January 1981. What about number twelve? No
one has yet identified the missing mercenary.
There remains, finally, the question of what action the
Canadian government will take, if any. At our press time a
representative of the Ontario attorney general's office told
CAIB, "There has been an active investigation for a
number of months. It is rapidly drawing to a close, and
there will either be action or an announcement in the
immediate future. Beyond that we cannot comment."
FLASH: As (AIB went to press, it was learned that the
Canadian authorities had brought charges against Alex
McQuirter and Charles Yanover.
Number 16 (March 1982) CovertAction 21
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Constantine Menges
CIA Ideologue
By David Arthur*
In an almost unprecedented action, three U.S. Senators
have complained to CIA Director William Casey that a
December 10 briefing they received on the Caribbean "se-
riously violated" the Agency's obligation to provide them
with ar objective analysis.
The ihree Democrats, Paul Tsongas (Mass.), Claiborne
Pell (R.I.), and Christopher Dodd (Conn.), charged in a
December 11 letter to Casey that the closed session briefing
for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee "evidenced a
rhetorical tone and selective use of information which bor-
dered on policy prescription rather than a straightforward
analysis of available intelligence data."
The briefing was to present "evidence" of charges leveled
in the Reagan administration's controversial White Paper
on Cuban influence in Latin America and to assess U.S.
political and military options in Central America and the
Caribbean. Congressional committees often ask the CIA to
provide them with background material on important mat-
ters relating to national security. These briefings, accord-
ing to tile letter, should present a "professional, impartial,
and balanced approach to highly controversial and sensi-
tive issues. These vigorous standards insure the separation
of intelligence assessment from foreign policy advocacy..
The briefing was delivered by the CIA's National Intelli-
gence Officer for Latin America, Constantine Menges. The
letter characterized Menges's spoken presentation as one
that "undermines his credibility as a National Intelligence
Officer and calls into question his further effectiveness."
Some o pservers believe that Menges's presentation further
encourz.ges the view that the Reagan administration has
politici2.ed the CIA by bringing in ideological conservatives
to fill se nsitive posts.
Menges, 42, officially joined the CIA in September 1981
after se-ving as a policy analyst at the conservative think
tank, a e Hudson Institute, and as an editor of Interna-
tional Strategic Issues, a monthly newsletter published by
SAGE Associates focusing on strategic risk assessment for
U.S. businesses. Over the years Menges's writings have
often borne strong resemblance to the Agency's official
views on matters pertaining to U.S. interests in Latin
America.
Menges received a Ph.D. in government and political
economy from Columbia University and studied at the
school's Russian Institute war and peace studies program
before becoming an assistant professor at the University of
*David Arthur is a freelance writer living in Washington, DC.
Copyrigh. � 1982 by David Arthur.
22 CovertAction
Wisconsin in the mid-1960s. In 1967 he joined the staff of
the RAND Corporation where he authored two studies on
agrarian reform in pre-Allende Chile. During the same
period he served as a consultant to VPI Films Inc. of Los
Angeles and co-directed a documentary on 'c'successful"
economic development projects in Latin America.
Between 1970 and 1975 Menges held several posts as a
special assistant in various offices of the then Department
of Health, Education, and Welfare. His duties there, ac-
cording to Menges, "included innovative work for [then]
Secretary Caspar Weinberger on linkages between work
and education." Menges joined the Hudson Institute in
1979.
The Hudson Institute is well-connected to the defense
and intelligence complex. Staffed by more than 40 profes-
sional "analysts," several of whom have worked at the
Pentagon or the CIA. the Institute is endowed by more
than 40 major multinational corporations, such as Exxon,
AT&T, Mitsui, the Royal Bank of Canada, and the Bank
of America. Stern magazine (November 13, 1980) reported
that since 1975 the Institute has received contracts primari-
ly from the U.S. defense agencies (up to 40%) and Ameri-
can oil and weapons firms. The Institute performs a wide
range of classified research on national and international
energy and national security issues.
Even before the election of Ronald Reagan, Menges had
worked vigorously to support a more hard-line policy in
Central America. In October 1980 Menges sent a letter
(reprinted in CA IB Number 12) to then Assistant Secretary
of State for Inter-American Affairs William Bowdler urg-
ing him to send "credible, well-informed individuals" to
meet with democratic socialist leaders in Western Europe
in order to begin a "more active and time-urgent effort to
achieve changes in the Socialist International position on
the extreme left in El Salvador and Central America." Two
of the individuals recommended by Menges, Roy
Prosterman and Mike Hammer, were consultants with the
AIFLD program in El Salvador at that time. Hammer and
two other AI FLD officials were gunned down by a right-
wing death squad in a San Salvador coffee shop on Janu-
ary 4, 1981.
The first issue of Menges's International Strategic Issues
was published in April 1980, a few months before the State
Department's controversial White Paper on El Salvador,
"Communist Military Intervention," had received a tho-
rough discrediting in the media. In the newsletter the au-
thor cited a May 1979 CIA report that "Cuba has intensi-
fied its efforts to unify insurgent groups, not only in Nica-
ragua where Cuba has concentrated its efforts, but in
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Guatemala as well." Menges's vision of falling dominoes in
Central America culminated in a "tactical scenario of Ethel
destabilization" of Mexico, which Menges ominously calls
the "Iran next door." He warns of the potential that by
1983 "a new revolutionary government in Mexico could
offer non-intervention in American affairs ... if the same is
strictly observed by the United States."
Menges's prescriptions for U.S. policy in the region were
brought out in a discussion held on January 7, 1981 at the
Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. He
argued that U.S. policy "must find the middle ground
between the unrealistic interventionism of a crusade and
the merely routine diplomatic relations in all situations
short of visible crisis." Between the extremes of normal
diplomatic relations on the one hand and what Menges
called "direct help to counteract externally supported desta-
bilizing forces" on the other, a level of involvement which
might be necessary in Nicaragua and El Salvador, Menges
posits two levels of useful government and private action in
which the U.S. "can support democratic forces and weaken
those seeking to polarize the hemisphere into either com-
munist or authoritarian regimes."
One level would utilize discretionary resources such as
information, communication, and cultural exchange pro-
grams to nurture "democratic groups" systematically. An
example cited by Menges was the AIELD program. A
second level of activity would be focused on specific coun-
tries of interest and would involve the establishment of
semi-autonomous foundations modeled on the West Ger-
man Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and the Konrad Adenauer
Stiftung "which would act separately from the official dip-
lomatic presence." The functions of such organizations,
"which could be performed at comparatively modest
costs," were spelled out in detail, and included: increasing
"the sense of solidarity among the existing democratic
governments in Latin America:" building "links between
newly legalized political parties, trade unions, voluntary
associations, and their democratic counterparts in Latin
American nations:" encouraging "democratic opposition
groups through publication and distribution of their writ-
ings and invitations to travel in the democracies:" "com-
municating the facts of successful social and economic
performance in the democracies and the repression, pover-
ty, corruption and elite privilege of communist regimes
such as Cuba;" providing "appropriate accurate informa-
tion to leaders of democratic groups when extremists make
efforts to penetrate and obtain control:" "providing advi-
sory help in the conduct of fair elections, monitoring servi-
ces, and establishment of independent parties and media:"
and "reaching out to students and workers from Latin
American countries while they are temporarily studying or
residing in the U.S."
These functions read like a detailed list of covert opera-
tions by the CIA in Latin America for decades. It is particu-
larly interesting that the foundations and organizations
cited by Menges have long been suspected of deep links
with the CIA and other western intelligence agencies, and
in the case of AI FLD such charges are well-documented.
In their letter to Casey, the three Senators asked the CIA
Director to review Menges's testimony and inform them of
any actions to be taken by the CIA regarding future brief-
ings by Menges. The CIA, the Senators, and Menges all
declined to comment on the briefing or the letter. But
Number 16 (March 1982)
right-wing Senator Jesse Helms who chaired the session in
question called it "one of the best presentations I've heard.
It wasn't an attempt to brainwash any Senator . . . The
problem for these Senators was that they were hearing
things they didn't want to hear about the communist take-
over in this hemisphere."
Menges now "official" after years of toeing Agency line.
In mid-January Casey replied in writing. While he did
not repudiate any of Menges's remarks, he reportedly ac-
knowledged his "inexperience" and even hinted that the
CIA had been pressured to take Menges on in such a
sensitive position. Though this may have been intended to
mollify the ruffled Senators, it is unlikely to do so.
Despite the flap, however, the administration remained
undaunted in its insistence that Cuba is the "source" (in
Secretary Haig's words) of instability in Central America.
Only four days after the Menges briefing, Assistant Secre-
tary of State for Inter-American Affairs Thomas Enders
appeared before the Subcommittee on Western Hemi-
sphere Affairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
He told his audience about several major developments in
the Caribbean Basin that have created, in his words, a
"state of danger." One, he said, "is the new Cuban strategy
for uniting the left in the countries of the region, commit-
ting it to violence, arming it, training it in warfare, and
attempting to use it for the destruction of existing
governments."
Thus advocacy and rhetoric continue to characterize the
administration's presentations to Congress, despite the in-
herent dangers recognized by the Senators who corn -
plained.
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Deceit and Secrecy:
Cornerstones of U.S. Policy
By Bill Schaap
It is a political error to practice deceit
if deceit is carried
too far.
� Frederick the Great, 1740
To dismiss unpleasant truths as lies spread by the oppo-
sition is a political reflex, but the Reagan administration
has elevated this reflex to an obsession. Those who agree
with tIT e government's ideological underpinnings are tell-
ing the truth: those who disagree are lying. They are not
only liars but also, as we shall explain below, foreign
agents.
The current craze centers around the formerly obscure
term, "disinformation." While the U.S. government takes
the position that disinformation is a Soviet invention and
that the Soviets are the major practitioners, in fact dis-
information has been a U.S. specialty since the days of the
World War II OSS, which had an entire branch devoted to
it.
Current estimates of the CIA's budget suggest that earlier
figures were far too low. While studies of materials relating
to the late 1960s and early 1970s suggested an annual CIA
budget of one to two billion dollars [see CA /B Numbers 4
and 7]. current conservative estimates, such as that of
Defense Electronics (December 1981), indicate that a fig-
ure of ten billion dollars is more accurate for the CIA, and
"in excess of $70 billion annually" represents "the overall
intelligence budget." Perhaps one-fourth of the CIA's
budget. nearly three billion dollars, is being devoted each
year by the CIA to the spread of disinformation, through
what it terms "deception operations." This is exclusive of
the expenditures in this area by the State Department itself
and its subsidiary, the International Communications
Agency (ICA), parent of Voice of America (VOA).
The first major disinformation operation of the Reagan
administration was the El Salvador campaign, epitomized
by the State Department's "White Paper." The second was
the Libya campaign, exemplified by the "hit squad" story.
Early in the Reagan administration the State Depart-
ment launched its campaign to "prove" that the Salvador-
an revolutionary forces were creatures of external forces,
most notably the Soviets and the Cubans. The flimsy "evi-
dence" presented in the White Paper was subsequently
demolished, most notably in Philip Agee's "White Paper?
Whitewash!" Within a few months the establishment
24 Covi!rtAction
media joined in the attack, and despite sporadic attempts
to revive it, the White Paper is no longer taken seriously.
The Libya campaign is another story.
Qaddafi
administration.
was targeted
from first days of Reagan
The Libyan Hit Squad
In the Spring and Summer of 1981 numerous news re-
ports circulated suggesting various U.S. plots against the
Libyan government, and its leader, Col. Muammar Qad-
dafi. While U.S. hostility to Libya was real to the point of
paranoia, and while many of the reports were undoubtedly
true, most perplexing was the public nature of the disclo-
sures. In light of subsequent events, it now appears that the
threats and plots were publicized in order to argue later
that they formed the "justification" for Libyan actions
against the United States. As early as April 6, 1981, U.S.
News and World Report said that the U.S., with Egyptian
logistical support, funneled arms to anti-Qaddafi forces in
Chad and the Sudan. At the same time, the U.S. openly
made major arms deals with Morocco, another bitter foe of
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Libya. In May the U.S. expelled all Libyan diplomats from
the country, and stories circulated that the U.S. planned to
assist Egypt in a move to overthrow Qaddafi.
On July 8 Assistant Secretary of State for African Af-
fairs Chester Crocker testified before Congress that the
U.S. would "help" any country that opposed Libya, and
announced the sale of weapons to Tunisia "to defend itself"
against Libya.
Then, on July 26, details were leaked of the CIA's plans
to destabilize the Qaddafi government. Although this plot
was denied by the U.S. administration (see article on the
Seychelles in this issue) the complicated plans surely had a
basis in fact. Indeed, as Don Oberdorfer reported in the
Washington Post ( August 20, 1981): "The first inter-
departmental foreign policy study ordered by the incoming
Reagan administration early this year considered what the
United States should do to oppose Libya and its militant,
unconventional leader, Col. Muammar Qaddafi. A few
months later, authoritative sources reported that the ad-
ministration had drawn up plans to 'make life uncomforta-
ble,' at a minimum, for the leader of radical Libya."
Also in August. U.S. planes shot down two Libyan
aircraft in the Gulf of Sidra, after creating a deliberately
provocative situation ---announced two days in advance by
Newsweek magazine.
Jack Anderson elaborated in his August 25 column,
noting that, despite the Mauritania-Mauritius explana-
tion, "the CIA plotters still have Qaddafi in their sights."
There have been, he said, "whispers about slipping an
assassin into Libya to do away with Qaddafi. One scheme
would be to have the hit man pose as a mercenary and join a
ring of mercenaries in Qaddafi's employ."
According to the Oberdorfer article, and the October 4
Parade Magazine, a Libyan group called the Free Unionist
Officers responded to the revelations by issuing a statement
which concluded, "we will physically liquidate anyone who
may even think of harming Qaddafi, beginning with Ron-
ald Reagan and ending with the smallest agent inside Libya
or outside."
Anderson followed the Parade item with a self-described
"bombshell" in his October 8 column. Col. Qaddafi, he
reported, "has placed President Ronald Reagan at the top
of a hit list and is plotting his death." He said that the
National Security Agency had advised the White House
during the summer that Reagan was the target of an assas-
sination, and that this was why the President would not be
attending the upcoming funeral of Anwar Sadat.
It took nearly two months for the bombshell to have any
real repercussions, some of them instigated by Anderson
himself. In late November both NBC News and Newsweek
reported unusual security precautions involving President
Reagan and Vice-President Bush, and linked the precau-
tions to intelligence reports that a Libyan hit squad was on
its way. On November 22 the Secret Service - whose re-
sponsibilities include protection of top officials- reported
that it was "aware" of the reports, and investigating them.
On November 27, the FBI confirmed the heightened securi-
ty measures, but said they were "a precaution, not a reac-
tion to specific information that a band of foreign terrorists
is roaming the countryside."
On November 28 the Washington Post reported that
Middle East intelligence sources had provided a list of six
names, comprising a hit team entering, or already inside,
Number 16 (March 1982)
the U.S. On December 4 the New York Times reported that
the team was made up of five people, and the same day
ABC News reported that the government had "names and
pictures." Shortly thereafter, Jack Anderson released the
pictures rough drawings--which were being circulated to
police and immigration authorities.
Although the Libyan government vigorously denied the
reports, the U.S. insisted it had detailed evidence of what
was now described as a "10-man squad." The government
refused, and has continued to refuse, to reveal any of the
details.
The first real skepticism in the establishment media was
found in a December 7 Washington Post article by Michael
Getter. The reports, he said, were "a source of puzzlement."
Some analysts doubted, he pointed out, that Libya would
back such a scheme which, if discovered, could lead to
massive retaliation by the United States. Moreover, Getler
continued, "if such an assassination plan actually were in
effect, it likely would be a most closely guarded secret, and
the ability of an informant to obtain the kind of detailed
information on each squad member, as is now circulating,
is viewed as highly unlikely. Furthermore, a 10-man team is
viewed by some specialists as too large, offering too great a
chance for slip-ups by one or two members." It was also
pointed out that the reliability of the informant, who was
allegedly in CIA custody and asking for both asylum and
money, was questionable.
Doubts were so widespread now that the December 8
Washington Post carried a page-one commentary by
Haynes Johnson entitled, "The Believe It or Not Show."
The hit squad stories, Johnson noted, "are setting a new
standard of incredibility." He was most concerned about a
possible U.S. military action against Libya: "It's almost as
if public opinion were being prepared for dramatic
action--say a strike against Libya or Qaddafi himself. . .
the U.S. rhetoric about the threats emanating from Qadda-
fi's Libya has been increasing in volume and severity. It is
reminiscent of the talk about Castro in the days when the
United States was planning the Bay of Pigs invasion, and,
in fact, commissioning assassination schemes against
Castro."
Editorials varied; some applauded the precautions, some
thought they were overdone; but none would dismiss the
allegations, because as Haynes Johnson had put it, "we in
the press are hardly capable of proving or disproving the
case." The government asserted that the mysterious Carlos
was a member of the hit squad. In Robert Ludlum's 1980
best-seller, "The Bourne Identity," a captured terrorist
bargains for his life by promising information about Car-
los. And disinformation master Robert Moss's new book
includes a Libyan plan to send a hit squad into the U.S. But
truth is stranger than fiction, as a December 14 Los An-
geles Tittles story demonstrated. The initial leaks about the
hit squad had not come from the administration directly,
but from Mossad, Israeli intelligence. As Robert Toth
and Ronald Ostrow reported, "among the possible expla-
nations for the tips to the news media was that the Israelis
wanted to intensify the U.S. public's concern about Col.
Qaddafi so that Americans would support a strike at
Libya."
On December 10 President Reagan invalidated U.S.
passports for travel to Libya and ordered all Americans
there to leave, knowing, according to Secretary of State
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Haig, :hat U.S. allies would not go along with similar
actions.
As late as December 17, the President insisted at a news
conference that the intelligence information on the hit
squad Ras solid - -- while still refusing to reveal any of it. He
denied any overreaction by the U.S.
Now You See Them, Now You Don't
Only one week after the President's news conference, the
December 25 Washington Post carried this headline: "Li-
byan Hit Men Are Reported to Suspend Activity." The
article said that "U.S. analysts with access to the latest
top-secret intelligence now say the alleged Libyan hit
squads two of them, with five members each �have sus-
pended their operations, at least temporarily." Secretary of
State Haig refused to comment on the report, but said that
"if such reports are true, it underlines the validity of the
steps taken by the President." Abracadabra!
It be:ame fashionable to brag if you had never believed
the hit !;quad was here at all. FBI Director William Webster
told A 13C News that it was "a possibility" that the entire
story was a plant, and stressed that the FBI had never
confirmed it. White House officials tried, unsuccessfully,
to fenc off further press skepticism: "This was not an
artificial affair created by the White House to justify puni-
tive action against Libya. We believed the threat was real
when it first appeared, and we now believe it has receded."
However, they still refused to release any evidence of the
threat or of its "receding." They simply stated that the new
information came from another source.
Jack Anderson, who was responsible for more of the
hysteria than any other individual, was understandably
miffed, and in his January 7, 1982 column described how
everyone had been duped�failing, of course, to mention
his owr role. He gave six reasons why the credibility of the
threat had diminished. The source of the allegation had
demanded $500,000 for his information; he gave the names
of others who also had information for the CIA and they
turned out to be "hustlers who had been peddling phony
documents for years;" two of the names on the list of the hit
squad members were members of a Lebanese Shiite Mos-
lem sec: who were sworn enemies of Qaddafi; some of the
informers had connections with Israeli intelligence "which
would have its own reasons to encourage a U.S.-Libyan
rift;" the original reports said that more detailed informa-
tion was forthcoming and nothing materialized; and, sig-
nificantly, the government's allies found the CIA findings
"unconvincing�in a class with the white paper on El Sal-
vador earlier last year, which was later shown to have relied
on highly questionable and probably forged documents."
But i is the close of Anderson's column which is most
enlightening: "Footnote: There is a possibility that the CIA
was played for a sucker by its own 'disinformation' cam-
paign d rected at Qaddafi. The campaign, ordered by CIA
Director William J. Casey last May, used foreign nationals
for the dirty work. Knowing what the CIA wanted, and
without proper supervision by American agents, it's possi-
ble the CIA's foreign hirelings cooked up the 'hit squad' on
their own. It fit neatly into the Reagan administration's
political scheme of things, and �voila! a full-blown inter-
national incident was born."
There are rumors that the disinformation was "con-
firmed" by Mossad and by Frank Terpil, who is reportedly
26 Coll rtAction
in their custody now.
Whose Disinformation?
Readers of this magazine need no elaboration of the
proposition that the U.S., and particularly the CIA, have
been masters of disinformation. Abundant detail is re-
corded in the books of Agee, Corson, Marchetti, Marks,
Stockwell, and others. But the ideologues of the Reagan
administration and their more wild-eyed supporters have
taken to spreading the line that disinformation is a tactic
Casey ordered Qaddafi destabilized �then "discovered"
hit squad.
Were Terpil and Mossad mysterious hit squad source?
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exclusive to the Soviets and their allies. For example, Reed
Irvine, chairman of perhaps the most falsely-labeled organ-
ization in Washington. Accuracy in Media (AIM), began a
recent column: "By now a lot of Americans have heard
about disinformation --the measures taken by the Soviet
Union to deceive and confuse public opinion in was s that
benefit Soviet foreign policy objectives." As C.T. Hanson
pointed out in the Columbia Journalism Review
(September-October 1981): "According to AIM. virtually
every story that seems to slant leftwards, or is critical of the
military or of business, amounts to disinformation."
The Bible of those who foster this line is "The Spike," by
Robert Moss and Arnaud de Borchgrave (see (/1/B
Numbers 10 and 12). A similar theme is found in "Target
America," by James L. Tyson, a "non-fiction" version of
"The Spike." These works and the daily outpourings of
right-wing columnists hammer the message: virtually all
media workers in the U.S. are witting agents or at best
unwitting dupes of the KGB. (Since hundreds of news-
papers carry the syndicated columns of these right-wing
journalists, the charge is a bit silly on its face.) A comment
by Adam Hochschild in the :Veit. York Times (October 14,
1981) noted that when de Borchgrave accuses virtually
every liberal publication in the U.S. of disseminating KGB
disinformation, he provides "no specific examples of facts
or articles." And when he "accuses skeptical journalists of
being unwitting purveyors of disinformation, the accusa-
tion is more slippery, less easy to definitely disprove, and
less subject to libel law than if he were to accuse them of
being conscious Communist agents."
Indeed, the accusations of de Borchgrave, Moss, et al.,
are singularly lacking in any up-to-date support. Most of
the "evidence" is ten to twenty years old. De Borchgrave
and AIM continually cite the testimony of Ladislav Bitt-
man, a former Czech intelligence officer who defected
many years ago. Bittman gives no specifics, simply claim-
ing that the Soviet Union had "many" agents of influence in
the Western media. "Target America" stresses the revela-
tions of Alexander Kaznecheev, an alleged KGB officer
who defected in 1959, and spoke only of trying to get
articles friendly to the Soviet Union in the press. And
Secretary of State Haig, in his fulminations about Soviet
support for international terrorism, evidently relied on the
testimony ofJan Sejna, a Czech army officer who fled to the
U.S. in 1968. According to the October 18, 1981 New York
Times, even the CIA criticized Haig for relying on "10-year
old testimony." "There is no substantial new evidence," an
Agency official said.
Some of the ardent proponents of this thesis are the
"former" CIA officers turned journalists, such as Cord
Meyer and Jack Maury. One former CIA officer who did
not toe the line, Harry Rositzke, had the temerity to ques-
tion the message of Claire Sterling's turbid book. "The
Terror Network." He did not believe that the Soviet Union
was behind all the terrorism in the world. For this he was
harshly attacked by Reed Irvine and Jack Maury, among
others. Maury's response, in the September 23, 1981 Wash-
ington Post, contained some bold disinformation of his
own. He detailed the confessions of a "defector" from the
Cuban Mission to the United States; only the person about
whom he spoke, Nestor Garcia, never defected and remains
an official in the Cuban Foreign Ministry.
Newspapers, large and small, have been running features
Number 16 (March 1982)
with headlines such as "Soviets Embark on New Campaign
of Anti-American lies" (Norwich., C onnecticut Bulletin.
April 14, 1981) .% ms week devoted its cover and mans
pages (November 23, 19811 to "The KGB in America."
Both the State Department and the Congress fanned the
flames. The State Department, which periodically produ-
ces reports on what it considers Soviet disinformation,
most recently issued Special Report No. 88. "Soviet 'Active
Measures:' Forgers , Disinformation, Political Opera-
tions." The Soviets, the Report pointed out. "use the bland
term 'active measures'taktivrivve meroprivatival to refer to
operations intended to affect other nations. policies."( Why
this is more "bland" than "special activities," the term the
United States uses for covert actions, is unclear.) Among
the active measures attributed to Soviet disinformation are
the opposition to the NATO theater nuclear force in Eu-
rope, opposition to the neutron bomb, and opposition to
"U.S. efforts to assist the Government of El Salvador."
That the U.S. government views these positions, held by
millions of people around the world. as Soviet dis-
information would be humorous, were the stakes not so
high, and the Reaganites not so serious. It was President
Reagan, after all, who saw an international conspiracy to
oppose U.S. policy on El Salvador because demonstrators
in Canada carried "the same signs" as demonstrators in the
U.S.: "U.S. Out of El Salvador."
Reports of a similar nature appear periodically in the
Congressional Record; right-wing legislators such as Larry
McDonald, John Ashbrook, and .John Porter insert copies
of the more lurid columns into the pages of the Record as
well as the publications on this theme from the Inter-
national Communications Agency publications which by
law the ICA cannot circulate within the United States.
Tensions between the administration and Congress arc
also growing. On December 10 Constantine Menges, the
CIA's national intelligence officer for I.atin America, gave
a "briefing" to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
which so incensed some of the members that they com-
plained in writing to Director Casey. They called the ses-
sion "a policy statement" which "seriously violated" the
Agency's obligation to provide them with objective analy-
sis. Senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts was so angry
that he called the presentation "an insult" and walked out
on the briefing.
The Voice of America and Radio Marti
A major concern of the Reagan supporters is the Voice
of America. During the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and
Johnson administrations, the Voice of America had be-
come such a blatant propaganda machine that efforts had
been undertaken to "reform" it, to make the news some-
what more impartial, and even to report, albeit gently, on
matters of some embarrassment to the U.S., in the interests
of establishing credibility. Although these reforms were
minimal, they were clearly too much for the new adminis-
tration. Reagan appointed as head of the International
Communications Agency (ICA). the Voice of America's
parent organization, his close friend Charles Z. Wick, a
California nursing home magnate whose main qualifica-
tions appeared to be the fifteen million dollars he had
raised for the Reagan presidential campaign. By mid-year,
Wick moved into high gear, vowing to make the VOA a
weapon in the campaign to counter Soviet propaganda. He
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accused the VOA of "erring on the side of imbalance
against our Government."
Congress, at the urging of Senator Jesse Helms, insisted
that pro paganda aimed at Cuba was insufficient. Although
the VOA had been beaming Spanish-language broadcasts
on both medium wave and short wave to Cuba for over
twenty years, this was not enough for Helms and his sup-
porters. They urged the creation of a special Cuban service,
to be named "Radio Marti." (Commentators pointed out
that, in: nically, Jose Marti is venerated by the present
Cuban government as an intractable foe of U.S. imperial-
ism who coined the phrase, "the belly of the beast.")
As plans for Radio Marti developed, the ICA inaugurat-
ed, in November, "Project Truth." Project Truth is a pro-
gram designed "to provide a fast reply service to posts
abroad when rumors or news reports about American
activity thought to be untrue begin to circulate." (New
York Times, November 4, 1981.) Under the project, a
monthly bulletin, "Soviet Propaganda Alert," is sent to all
ICA posts overseas. Another feature of Project Truth is a
"news feature service" called "Dateline America," which
will be disseminated through the ICA to foreign media
willing to run it. The National Security Council has direct-
ed all government agencies to "cooperate" with Project
Truth.
Wick, apparently subject to emotional outbursts, creat-
ed some media incidents of his own. At an October 23
meeting of the National Council of Community World
Affairs Organizations Wick announced, "We are at war."
This startled participants so much that Wick was later
forced to explain that he only meant a "war of ideas." At
the same meeting, a participant questioned the accuracy of
the White Paper on El Salvador, and Wick exploded,
suggesting that the questioner was spreading Soviet dis-
information. When someone at the meeting asked Wick
about plans to cut drastically the ICA's budget for scholar-
ships and student exchanges while keeping all the funds for
propaganda, Wick called the question a "crypto-
communist remark" and refused to answer. According to
the Washington Post (November 10, 1981), Wick later
apologizA for the outburst.
Fears I.hat academic programs may be subject to politi-
cal tests also increased. On November 7 the ICA cancelled
an African lecture tour it was to sponsor because the speak-
er, John Seiler, had published an article critical of Reagan's
policy to ward South Africa.
Editorials questioned Wick's "zeal," and suggested that
he has a "weakness for simplistic approaches to complicat-
ed subjects like Soviet 'disinformation.� Wick simply es-
calated the battle. On November 10 his subordinate, VOA
chief James B. Conkling, announced the appointment of
Philip Nicolaides as VOA coordinator for commentary
and new; analysis. Nicolaides was the author of a Sep-
tember 2 memorandum to Conkling, circulated within the
VOA, which described the VOA as "a propaganda agency"
which should function like an advertising agency selling
soap. It c plied for the VOA to become more "hard-hitting"
and to abandon the contention that VOA is a "journalistic
enterprise." Conckling and Wick defended the appointment,
praising Nicolaides as a "creative writer." They insisted
that the recommendations of the memorandum�which
Nicolaides said had been "stolen" from his office�had not
been followed. The memorandum clearly stated that the
28 Cover tAction
"Crypto-communist" and "disinformation" new buzz-
words for Wick's ICA.
goal of the VOA should be "to destabilize" the Soviet
Union and its allies, to "portray the Soviet Union as the last
great predatory empire on earth."
VOA staff were dismayed by the controversy, but those
most concerned were eased out. Conkling's deputy, M.
William Haratunian, was replaced, and said in his farewell
memorandum that the was "deeply troubled by recent
personnel actions." Rumors circulated that there was a "hit
list"at VOA of personnel who would not toe the Wick line.
On December 21 the VOA's chief news editor, Bernard H.
Kamenske, announced that he was quitting, after more
than 28 years. The New York Times editorially grieved his
departure and the program of "over-eager ideologues."
On December 9 Wick announced "the formation of the
first of four advisory committees of private citizens to
provide advice and expertise to the agency." This first
group, the "New Directions Committee," is comprised of
individuals who run the gamut of political persuasion from
right-wing to extreme right-wing. They include Norman
Podhoretz, the neo-conservative editor of Commentary
magazine; Michael Novak, the rabidly right-wing colum-
nist who most recently promoted the hoax that Cuban
soldiers had blown up a bridge in El Salvador; Evron
Kirkpatrick, husband of U.N. Ambassador Jeane
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Kirkpatrick, and long suspected of having been a CIA
agent; and Edwin J. Fuelner, Jr., the president of the
Heritage Foundation.
The Attorney General and the Executive Order
Two significant events in December together help ex-
plain the dangerous direction in which the administration
is really heading and underscore the preoccupation with
disinformation. On December 4 the President signed Ex-
ecutive Order 12333 on United States Intelligence Activi-
ties; and in a December 18 speech in Los Angeles Attorney
Iv
General William French Smith delivered what the :Veit.
York TinICS described as "the first comprehensive discus-
sion" of the order.
The Executive Order itself, repealing President Carter's
1978 order on the same subject, makes profound changes in
the scope of authorized intelligence activities. [See sidebar
for details.] As we have noted previously ( CA 113 Numbers
12, 14-15), the Reagan administration always intended to
replace Carter's order, which it viewed as overly restrictive.
Drafts were leaked in March and again in August; Carter,
theJustice Department insisted, "had set up a burdensome
The Executive Order
From a civil liberties standpoint, the Carter Executive
Order of 1978 was far from exemplary, and contained a
number of unconstitutional authorizations. In brief, it
allowed extensive spying on, and intrusions into the
lives of, people who were not suspected of engaging in,
or attempting to engage in, any crime. But the Reagan
Executive Order of December 4, 1981 (E.O. 12333)
authorizes much activity which was prohibited under
the Carter version and, more importantly, sets an entire-
ly different tone and philosophy for intelligence
activities.
For example, the old Order was "intended to achieve
the proper balance between protection of individual
rights and acquisition of essential information." The
new Order says that "collection of such information is a
priority objective," and calls for "the proper balance
between the acquisition of essential information and
protection of individual interests." The old Order al-
lowed such activities "as permitted kr this Order." while
the new version allows activities "consistent wit h " the
Order.
The Carter Order stated that senior officials must
ensure that activities "are carried out in accordance with
applicable law," a provision deleted from the new ver-
sion. It also required reporting of activities "which raise
que.slions of legality or propriety," while the new Order
requires reporting of activities "they have reason to
believe may be unlawful."
The Carter Order also required that collection of
information "must be conducted in a manner that pre-
serves and respects established concepts of privacy and
civil liberties." While it can be shown that the spirit of
this provision was often ignored, the Reagan Order
eliminates it entirely.
These differences are subtle indeed compared to the
substantive changes in Part 2 of the Reagan Order,
"Conduct of Intelligence Activities." For example, while
the Carter Order also allowed the CIA to engage in
collection of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence
within the U.S., the latter was "subject to the approval of
the Attorney General." Under the new order, such col-
lection is to be conducted "as required by procedures
agreed upon by the Director of Central Intelligence and
the Attorney General." Thus specific CIA activities will
not be subject to particularized scrutiny.
Most significantly the new Order allows the CIA tor
the first time to engage in covert operations in the U.S.,
so long as they are "not intended to influence United
States political processes, public opinion, policies, or
media." How this qualification can ever be enforced is
unclear.
The Carter Order allowed physical surveillance by the
CIA of a U.S. person abroad only if the person "is
reasonably believed to be acting on behalf of a foreign
power, engaging in international terrorist activities, or
engaging in narcotics production or trafficking." The
Reagan Order allows such surveillance merely to obtain
"significant" foreign intelligence. Since foreign intelli-
gence is defined to include "information relating to the
capabilities, intentions and activities of foreign powers,
organizations or persons." it is ohs ions that virtually.
any American overseas, dealing with any. foreigners. Will
be subject to such surveillance.
'The Reagan Order nov, allows warrantless uncoil-
sented physical searches, mail surveillance, monitoring,
and similar techiques, if "there is probable cause to
believe that the technique is directed against a foreign
power or an agent of a foreign power." The former
version of the Order required "probable cause to believe
that the United States person is an agent of a foreign
power." It is unclear what the Reagan administration
means by a technique "directed against a foreign
power." One cannot search, follow, or monitor a "for-
eign power." The new language would seem to authorize
such intrusive techniques to be used against a person
who is not suspected of being a foreign agent, merely if
the person is in contact with foreigners.
The provisions relating to undisclosed participation
in domestic organizations have also been substantially
modified. The agency heads, rather than the Attorney
General, may now approve such tactics, and they deter-
mine whether "lawful purposes" are to be achieved.
Finally, it has been reported that 30 pages of secret
guidelines are being prepared to implement the new
Executive Order. It is likely that here, under cover of
secrecy, the dangerous orientation of the new adminis-
tration will be given effect.
=MD
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array of requirements" which had to be changed.
During October and November there was an open de-
bate, primarily through newspapers, over the most egre-
gious aspect of the original drafts, provisions to allow the
CIA to ngage in "special activities" in the United States.
As we suggested in our April issue, this appears to have
been a tactic�quite a successful one�to deflect attention
from the many other evils of the proposed Executive
Order.
Cong.-ess and most commentators focused on two as-
pects of the proposed Executive Order. These were the
provisions allowing the CIA, as well as the FBI, to infiltrate
and manipulate domestic organizations, and those allow-
ing the CIA a free hand to "collect foreign intelligence or
counterintelligence information" within the U nited States.
Controversy raged. No less an authority than former
CIA Director Stansfield Turner wrote, in a November 1
Washington Post commentary: "Why should we be con-
cerned about [authorizing the CIA to look into the activi-
ties of Americans]? Because CIA officers are not trained to
operate .n the domestic environment, where regard for law
is a primary consideration. The ethic of intelligence is to get
the job done in spite of local laws. It is unwise and unfair to
force CIA operations into the domestic arena. It isn't ne-
cessary either, for that is exactly where FBI officers are
trained to operate."
Turtle:- pondered "the risks that the CIA would be overly
zealous in the domestic arena," and worried that "informa-
tion gained about Americans might be utilized for domes-
tic political purposes." He feared "the politicization of
intelligence." Critics of the CIA have worried about that, of
course, s. nce the Agency's inception, with activities such as
Operation CHAOS justifying such concerns.
According to Ronald J. Ostrow of the Los Angeles
Times, the CIA insisted that the change would give the
Agency no greater latitude than it has at present, but that it
wanted only to "maintain our capabilities to do the kinds of
things wt do abroad." However, as Admiral Turner point-
ed out, xhat the CIA does abroad is break the law
constantly.
Althou gh Justice Department officials belittled Turner's
fears, real cause for concern became apparent in late Janu-
ary. At that time CIA Director Casey wrote to the Attorney
General sking that the federal criminal code be amended
to provide complete immunity for intelligence operatives'
conduct while on the job. This startling request, which was
barely reported in the media, has ominous implications. As
it is, there is little control over CIA operatives; if they also
are given immunity from prosecution there will be no limit
to the enormity of the crimes they could commit, at home
as well as overseas.
The oui.come of informal negotiations between Congress
and the administration was minimal. The CIA cannot con-
duct domestic operations to collect foreign intelligence
unless it is "significant foreign intelligence." "Significant"
is not defined, and would seem to include anything the CIA
desires. The CIA was given approval to infiltrate domestic
organizations. but not, as contrasted to the FBI, the au-
thorization to manipulate them, unless the organization is
"composed primarily of individuals who are not United
States persons and is reasonably believed to be acting on
behalf of ri foreign power." This provides little consolation
30 CovertAction
to exile groups and various international solidarity organi-
zations. Moreover, the express authority given the FBI not
merely to infiltrate but also to influence domestic organiza-
tions is a frightening break with precedent. Not that it
hasn't happened all along; but now it has been legitimized
by the President. In addition, the distinction�that the CIA
can infiltrate, but not influence�is specious. It is impossi-
ble to infiltrate an organization without influencing it to
some degree. Otherwise the infiltrator would be obvious.
The Spreaders of Disinformation
But it is the gloss given the Executive Order by the
Attorney General's speech which highlights the adminis-
tration's focus on "disinformation." A connection with
"foreign intelligence or counterintelligence information" is
enough to subject one to CIA domestic action. Counterin-
telligence is defined as "information gathered and activities
conducted to protect against espionage, other intelligence
activities, sabotage, or assassinations conducted for or on
behalf of foreign powers." And foreign intelligence means
"information relating to the capabilities, intentions and
activities of foreign powers, organizations or persons."
When the Attorney General made his speech, on De-
cember 18, he discussed the threat of foreign agents. He
talked about international terrorism and he spoke of the
theft of technological secrets. But then he went on: "Per-
haps even more insidious is the threat posed by hostile
'active measures' in this country, which are aimed at in-
fluencing public opinion and the political process through
'disinformation' and 'agents of influence."
The implications of this remark are staggering. Spread-
ing disinformation is tantamount to espionage; those who
spread disinformation are fair game for the CIA; and, as we
have noted above, the administration's ideologues believe
that everyone who disagrees with U.S. foreign policy is
spreading Soviet disinformation. Most critics of the Exec-
utive Order have focused on the threat to the Fourth
Amendment�freedom from unreasonable searches and
seizures. They must contemplate also the threat to the First
Amendment�freedom of expression.
The Clampdown
The clampdown has already begun. In our last issue we
described "the return to super-secrecy," and outlined a
number of steps taken and proposed by the administration
to make it more difficult for the American people, and of
course the rest of the world, to learn of the activities of the
government.
Three major developments occurred in January 1982.
First, on January 6 the administration announced that it
was ready to brief Congress on its new proposed Executive
Order on classification, versions of which had been circu-
lating since October. Almost immediately, the briefing was
cancelled, and the draft was circulated to government
agencies for comment. Here too the plan is to replace, by
executive fiat, a Carter Executive Order on the same sub-
ject. The move, in the words of the Associated Press,
"would reverse a 25-year-old trend toward restricting the
power of government officials to shelter information from
public view." The new proposal reverses the presumptions
of the Carter Order and specifies that when there is"reason-
able doubt" about the need to classify a document, it
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should be done.
Moreover, while the Carter order had spoken of the need
to balance government secrecy against the public's right to
know, the new draft makes "national security" the sole
basis for classification decisions. It may also have the effect
of exempting completely the CIA and the entire intelli-
gence complex from the requirements of the Freedom of
Information Act, since it mandates the withholding of
"information relating to intelligence sources and meth-
ods." As critics noted, the CIA can claim that virtually all
of its material relates to "intelligence sources and meth-
ods." Since the FOIA itself exempts from disclosure mate-
rial which has been properly classified according to law,
this provision would allow the CIA and the other agencies
to remove themselves from the coverage of the FOIA with-
out specifically amending that law, something the Agency
has called for, but until now been unable to obtain.
A second draft was discussed in an Associated Press
bulletin January 21. The revised version, just submitted to
Congress, still contains all of the objectionable provisions
noted above.
On January 7 the CIA launched an unprecedented at-
tack on the scientific community. Deputy Director Admi-
ral Bobby Ray Inman addressed the annual meeting of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science and
demanded that scientists submit their research papers for
CIA review prior to publication to curb Soviet acquisition
of technological developments. If scientists would not
submit to censorship voluntarily, Inman noted, they face a
government crackdown, and will be "washed away by the
tidal wave of public outrage."
Representatives of the scientific community called the
proposal "disastrous," "a nightmare." As one university
spokesman observed, if scientists do not publish, "we
would lose the science ourselves. We would be the bigger
loser."
Plugging Leaks
Then, in mid-January, reports circulated indicating that
the administration was incensed over leaks to the media,
and intended to "use all legal methods" to stop the prob-
lem. The irony is that for decades the biggest leaker in this
country has always been the administration in power.
Leaking proposed government plans is often the best way
to gauge public reaction and allow for changes before final
action is taken.
The new requirements were extremely sweeping. All gov-
ernment departments were told that every major interview
must be cleared with the White House, and those involving
national security issues would require detailed advance
information on the substance of the proposed interview,
and if approved, a comprehensive memorandum of the
interview afterwards. Following extensive press criticism,
the administration dropped these provisions but instituted
a new form for keeping track of every individual's access to
all classified documents. Each reader will have to sign a
cover sheet acknowledging that it is against the law for
them to discuss the contents of the item with any unautho-
rized person.
The concept that government employees must get ad-
vance approval to leak information is of course self-con-
tradictory, and the notion that this administration will be
Number 16 (March 1982)
able to prevent leaks any better than previous ones is
far-fetched. But that it is serious is clear. The Pentagon, for
example, is planning to reverse a 1965 ruling that its em-
ployees could not be forced to take lie detector tests. Poly-
graph examinations, highly suspect by almost every agency
except the CIA, are already under way. Deputy Secretary
of Defense Frank C. Carlucci, a former Deputy CIA Direc-
tor, was reportedly "enraged" when details of a January 7
meeting of the Defense Resources Board appeared in the
press. He magnanimously took a lie detector test and "of-
fered" one to others with knowledge of the meeting. A
Defense spokesman acknowledged that no national securi-
ty information was involved in the leak, but went on, "It's
the principle of the thing that we strenuously object to the
expression of minority opinion via leaks to the news media
designed to influence the course of events."
There have been a few other developments in this area.
Last issue we noted that the CIA was "curtailing- the
extent of its publication of reports and analyses. On No-
vember 10 the Agency announced that it will stop such
publication completely, because "they take too much time
to prepare and draw too much attention to the agency.-
Among publications to be discontinued are the CIA's stu-
dies of international terrorism and estimates of future So-
viet oil production, two sources of extensive embar-
rassment to the Agency last year.
Finally, there is a bizarre and little-noticed provision in a
proposed revision of the immigration laws submitted by
the administration to Congress in October. .1-he bill would
allow the President to declare "immigration emergencies,"
such as uncontrollable influxes of immigrants from Cuba
or Haiti, for example. These emergencies could last up to
an entire year and would activate various emergency pow-
ers. Among these powers would be the right of the Presi-
dent to restrict the domestic travel of Americans, previous-
ly unknown in peacetime.
Conclusion
What does it all mean? There is little hope that the trends
of the new administration discussed in previous issues have
lost any momentum. On the contrary, the Reagan team
seems bent on overreaching, overreacting, and infusing an
ideological narrowness into all aspects of government.
Clearly, national security has become a shibboleth by
which all manner of unprecedented restrictions on the
democratic rights of Americans, such as they are, will he
imposed.
It is not rhetoric to claim that "thought control- is on its
way. The massive campaign to equate dissent with disinfor-
mation has ominous overtones when taken in conjunction
with the Executive Order as interpreted by the Attorney
General. COI NTELPRO and Operation CHAOS are alive
and well. The government wants, on the one hand, a blank
check to spread its disinformation, and on the other, ast
powers to prevent anyone from accusing it of doing so.
Clearly, truth is the first casualty of cold wars as well as hot
wars.
Massive resistance to this trend is necessary. Journalists,
scientists, whistleblowers, everyone must continue to fight
to expose the government's lies. People cannot accept the
proposition that telling the truth is a crime. If they do, the
country and the world are in big trouble.
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CIA Media Operations in Chile,
Jamaica, and Nicaragua
By Fred Landis*
In t he last decade, four American nations have chosen a
socialist road to development�Chile, Jamaica, Nicaragua,
and Grenada. In the first three cases the CIA responded,
among other actions, by virtually taking over the major
newspaper in that country and using it as an instrument of
destabilization. (Grenada closed the opposition newspaper
shortly after the revolution for failure to comply with local
ownership laws.)
The appropriation of newspapers by the CIA proceeds
through certain discrete, identifiable stages. These include:
using an international press association, firing many of the
staff, modernizing the physical plant, changing the format
of the front page, using subliminal propaganda, assas-
sinating the character of government ministers, promoting
a cour ter-elite to replace the socialist government, spread-
ing dkinformation, using divisive propaganda to create
artific al conflicts within the society, dusting off stock CIA
stories and themes, coordinating the propaganda effort
with an economic, diplomatic, and paramilitary offensive,
and generally following the blueprint for psychological
warfare as outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual of
Psichological Operations.
The stages the CIA embarks upon in taking over a
newspaper, combined with the drastic changes of the front
page, are so specific that it is possible to identify the
Agency's hand in the effort. When the propaganda offen-
sive is coordinated with economic sabotage, paramilitary
terrorism, and other psychological activities using known
*Fred Landis, a Chilean-born American psychologist, received his Ph.D.
from the University of Illinois based upon his thesis, "Psychological
Warfart and Media Operations in Chile, 1970-1973." He served as a
consultant for the Subcommittee on CIA Covert Action in Chile of the
Church Committee. He is the co-author, with Donald Freed of "Death in
Washington: The Assassination of Orlando Letelier" (Lawrence Hill &
Co.: 1980), and has contributed articles to many magazines, including the
CovertA etion Information Bulletin.
This lirticle reflects the content of a 30-minute color video movie
produce] by I.andis entitled: "CIA Media Operations, A Study in Imagi-
nation and Perversity." Organizations interested in showing this film,
together with a lecture by Dr. Landis, should contact him at P. 0. Box
3068, Anaheim, CA 92803.
Artur) Cruz, who was the Nicaraguan Ambassador to the U.S. when
this article was written, has since resigned, but continues to support the
Sandinista government.
Copyrigit 1981 by Fred Landis.
32 Col ertAction
CIA fronts, one can state positively that a covert operation
is underway.
The CIA has access to over 200 newspapers, advised by
its World-Wide Propaganda Guidance Desk, which issues
a "Bi-Weekly Propaganda Guidance" to every CIA
station, for use in dealing with local media contacts. There
is a continuing propaganda effort precisely to avoid crises
like Chile, Jamaica, and Nicaragua. The purpose of this
article is to describe what a CIA newspaper looks like
during a crisis.
I first learned about the CIA's propaganda methodology
in Chile in 1973 while I was working on a Ph.D. disserta-
tion on changes in the mass media during the Allende
period, especially the newspaper El Mercurio. About a
year later, the Senate Intelligence Committee chose Chile
as a case study of CIA covert action. For the first time, the
U.S. government would give official status to a report on
CIA covert activity. Also for the first time there were
several former CIA analysts on the Congressional investi-
gative staff familiar with CIA methods, who knew exactly
the right questions to ask. With copies of my dissertation in
hand, they went to CIA Headquarters to ask about Chile.
Subsequent studies of CIA covert operations make fre-
quent reference to Chile, and articles on the CIA and the
media rely heavily on the case of El Mercurio.
During subsequent years I monitored several Latin
American newspapers but saw nothing like the El Mercurio
of 1970-1973. Then in 1980, the Jamaica Dade Gleaner
underwent the same metamorphosis. The Jamaican Press
Association launched an investigation focusing on tradi-
tional areas of journalistic concern: the firing of journalists
from the Dade Gleaner, the systematic appearance of fab-
ricated stories, and the violation of traditional ethics of the
profession. I was invited to testify before a Commission
of Inquiry and explained that these changes were a by-pro-
duct of the CIA taking over the newspaper. The Press
Association issued a 32-page summary of my testimony in
booklet form entitled "Psychological Warfare
in the Media: The Case of Jamaica."
In May 1981 I helped the Union de Periodistas de
Nicaragua with a similar report which appeared in install-
ments in the newspaper Barricada July 8-22. The method-
ology to be discussed here can also be found in my disserta-
tion, "Psychological Warfare and Media Operations in
Chile: 1970-1973;" "Covert Action," Volume 7 of the 1975
Hearings of the Senate Church Committee; "The CIA and
the Media," 1977-1978 Hearings of the House Intelligence
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Committee; and the above-cited reports of the Jamaican
and Nicaraguan Press Associations.
The Methodology
The first step of the process is to elevate the owner of the
target newspaper to the Board of Directors of the CIA-
influenced Inter American Press Association. The
December 26, 1977 Nevi' York Times quoted a high CIA
official referring to IA PA as "a covert action resource" of
the Agency. Next, IAPA lists the country in question as
one in which freedom of the press is threatened. The Tech-
nical Services Division of IAPA is sent to "modernize"
the newspaper. These "technical" improvements nearly al-
ways include getting rid of the typesetters, whose union is
usually leftist in Latin America. Most of the editorial staff,
even including some conservatives, is fired.
The style of the front page of the newspaper is changed
dramatically, from that of the conservative London Times
to that of, for example, the sensationalist New York Post.
Screaming headlines and huge photos on related themes
replace the previous randomness of unrelated news stories.
The usual conservative newspaper in the Third World em-
phasizes what is happening in Europe and the United
States. But in a media operation, local news suddenly takes
over. Local catastrophes become the only image of the
world� a dark, frightening, and claustrophobic place.
Headlines in a newly CIA-influenced newspaper have an
exclusively negative nature, blaming the socialist govern-
ment for all the ills which suddenly befall the country.
Where sufficient local problems cannot be manufactured,
stories from other times or other countries are made into
"news" in order to further a given theme: "Economic
Collapse in Cuba;" "Economic Collapse in Poland;"
"Economic Collapse in Nicaragua." The front page looks
more like a political poster than a newspaper. The "news" is
a carefully selected collage pushing a few simple themes,
aimed at discrediting the government and creating div-
isions among the population.
The first theme is economic chaos, because this is the
easiest for the U.S. to create. Foreign aid is cut off; the
Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank
cut off loans; private U.S. banks cut off loans; spare parts
for U.S.-manufactured machinery are denied.
The next theme is social chaos. In almost every country
there are bizarre incidents which a conservative newspaper
normally will not touch. Suddenly this National Enquirer-
type material fills the front page: Violence, chaos, perman-
ent crisis, unnatural events, omens from heaven, death,
gruesome food stories, household pets who eat their mas-
ters, children who inform on their parents, servants who
turn on their employers, etc. The difference is that after
creating a climate of tensions, this situation is blamed on
the government: First on the ideology that the government
represents (socialism) and then on the government itself;
first by insinuation and then explicitly; first with humor
and then with terror; first with character assassination and
then with physical assassination.
Strategically, the attack on government ministers pro-
ceeds like a chess game in which one eliminates the pawns
and works up to the king. In Chile, there were no direct
attacks on President Allende until all his Cabinet ministers
had been individually ridiculed, isolated, discredited, and
often forced to resign. In extreme cases, character assassi-
Number 16 (March 1982)
nation is followed by physical assassination, as was the
case with three successive Chilean Ministers of Defense,
Rene Schneider, Carlos Prats, and Orlando Letelier.
Subliminal Propaganda
Indirect attacks on government ministers employ the
juxtaposition of photos of the targeted official with unre-
lated headlines, subliminal propaganda, and pre-selected
word associations.
In the December 5, 1980 La Prensa in Nicaragua, a
photo of FSLN leader Humberto Ortega is adjacent to a
photo of a mutilated body. Connecting them is an official
Sandinista police badge allegedly found near the body.
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La Prensa, December 5,1980: Photo of Humberto Ortega
by mutilated body.
During the 1980 election campaign in Jamaica, the Dailv
Gleaner placed the photos of three cabinet ministers over
the headline "23 Men Rape 15-Year-Old Girl." The entire
page was carefully laid out to produce shock effect. Read-
ing the story carefully it becomes clear that the photos have
nothing to do with the headline; but the emotional shock
effect has been accomplished.
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Approved for Release: 2018/09/17 C05531264
L.ONES
BY CC
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ripskel IS.vt�ot old 1.(hool girl oo tho
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Sometimes a semantic association will be involved. On
September 25, 1972, El Mercurio subliminally associated
the rape and murder of a schoolgirl with the Minister of
Education. Seven years later in Jamaica, photos of
Anthony Spaulding, the Minister of Housing, were placed
next to photos of and headlines about houses burning
down.
_
EL MERbtmo
Pf�i&As&uid!dde brio Joven
Acusaclein Contre,
Intendente Joignin
---
7-771777F7'"
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Renuncici
Ministro de ,
EducociOn
El Mercurio, September 25,1972: Story about Minister of
Education next to article entitled, "Horrible Murder of a
Young Girl."
34 CovertAction
This practice of destroying the moral authority of
"enemy" leaders by pictorial insinuation derives from
experimentation during World War II in the production of
propaganda leaflets. The U.S. Army, Field Manual of
Psychological Operations (FM 33-5). in the section dealing
with the preparation of psychological warfare leaflets,
recommends the use of pictorial or graphic insinuation as
being more effective among a local population than direct
attacks on their leaders, which might be met with resent-
ment and rejection. Paul Linebarger, the Godfather of
modern CIA media operations, placed great emphasis on
the success the U.S. encountered when the psychological
warfare leaflets were prepared in the style and format of a
German newspaper. Linebarger studied both Allied and
Axis propaganda efforts and concluded that the British
were superior, because they disguised their propaganda
as news.
Among radio, TV, and newspapers, the highest credibil-
ity is accorded the print media. Conservative newspapers
have higher credibility among all social classes in Latin
America than government newspapers, newspapers openly
identified with a political party, or populist rags. This helps
to explain why, in the three cases examined here, the CIA
took over the major conservative newspaper in each
country.
The reason the new front page resembles a psychological
warfare leaflet is because it is a psychological warfare
leaflet. The historical progression is clear. First the U.S.
Army Propaganda Battalion produced leaflets which
attacked enemy leaders by pictorial insinuation. Next,
leaflets were prepared in the style and format of an enemy
newspaper. Today, the CIA simply takes over the news-
paper itself.
The reason a CIA-influenced newspaper changes its
front page into a psychological warfare leaflet has to do
with the enormous effect which this type of activity is
deemed to have. An indication of this magnitude is given in
The War on The Mind, by British sociologist Peter
Watson, wherein he points out that in the single month of
May 1968, three hundred million PSYOPS (U.S. Army
Psychological Operations) leaflets were dropped on
Vietnam. According to Paul Linebarger, several billion
PSYOPS leaflets were dropped by the U.S. in the German
theater of operations alone. Given the personnel needed to
print the leaflets and fly them over enemy territory, it is
surprising that so little has been written on the subject.
IAPA-(IA Collaboration
At least during World War II, with bombers dropping
the leaflets, the source was evident. Today, the mastheads
of the conservative newspapers are used to disguise the
real source.
IAPA stands ready, with all its hundreds of cooperating
member newspapers, to scream "Marxist Threat to Free
Press" if any attempt is made by the target government to
restrict the flow of hostile propaganda. In 1969 the CIA
had five agents working as media executives at El
Mercurio, all of whom in subsequent years were elevated to
the Board of Directors of IAPA. The owner of El Mercurio
was made head of the Freedom of the Press committee, and
later President. IAPA bylaws permitted only working
owners to be members, so the bylaws were changed to
accommodate him. Then many of the CIA operatives at
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Copley' News Service were made members of the Board of
Directors of IAPA. Immediately before the campaign to
oust socialist Prime Minister Michael Manley�lamaica
Daily Gleaner publisher Oliver Clarke was added to the
Executive Committee; he has now been promoted to
Treasurer. At the last annual convention in San Diego,
IA PA elevated Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, Jr., to its Board
of Directors. At that time he was not an editor or publisher
of La Prensa, but the CIA needed him because he had the
same name as his martyred father. After his elevation he
was belatedly made Assistant Director of La Prensa. and
when he was recently added to the IAPA Executive Com-
mittee, La Prensa began carrying the IA PA membership
credential in its masthead. At the last IAPA meeting in Rio
de Janeiro in October, speeches, including those by Vice-
President Bush, were dominated by alarmist references to
the situation of the press in Nicaragua.
Obviously the owner of a conservative newspaper in
Latin America does not need CIA money to be against a
socialist government. The assistance provided by the CIA
is primarily technical, not financial. Without CIA help, the
local newspaper's opposition would be openly stated on the
editorial page in language reflecting the ideology of the
local conservative elite. That would be ideological warfare,
not psychological warfare. But the CIA is not concerned, in
these operations, with local ideology; it is concentrating on
the use of its bag of technological dirty tricks. One of these
tricks is disinformation.
Disinformation
Disinformation is a special kind of "black" propaganda
the CIA's term for the use of false information usually
supported by forged documents. CIA practice in this area
is discussed in a recent article in The Nation, "Foreign
Policy By Forgery" (April 11, 1981), by Ralph McGehee, a
25-year veteran CIA analyst. Despite CIA censorship and
even after numerous deletions, the article notes:
"Where the necessary circumstances or proofs are
lacking to support U.S. intervention, the CIA creates
the appropriate situations or else invents them and
disseminates its distortions worldwide via its media
operations . . . Disturbed at the Chilean military's
unwillingness to take action against Allende, the CIA
forged a document purporting to reveal a leftist plot
to murder Chilean military leaders. The discovery' of
the `plot' was headlined in the media and Allende was
deposed and murdered. There is a similarity between
events that precipitated the overthrow of Allende and
what happened in Indonesia in 1965. Estimates of the
number of deaths that occurred as a result of the
latter [word deleted; probably "deception"] opera-
tion run from a half million to more than one million
people. . . ."
The principal disinformation agent involved in the
Chilean deception was Robert Moss, who seven years later
co-authored The Spike, arguing that the Soviets had in-
vented this strange technique called disinformation. First
Moss wrote of a secret army of Cubans in Uruguay. After
the military coup in Uruguay, he claimed there was a secret
army of 14,000 Uruguayan, Bolivian, and Cuban leftists in
Chile. After the Chilean coup, Moss discovered a secret
army of 5,000 Chilean leftists in Portugal. On October 8,
Number 16 (March 1982)
1979, Moss wrote in the London Daily Tele,i,Yraph that
there was a secret army of 5,000 Cubans in Jamaica. This
article was reprinted in the Jamaica Daily Gleaner under
the headline "Castro Plans to Make Jamaica an English-
Speaking Cuba." According to the Jamaican government,
there were only 420 Cubans in Jamaica, most of them
teachers, doctors, and agricultural experts. In the August
10, 1981 Daily Telegraph, Moss discovered vet another
5,000 Cubans "deployed" in Nicaragua.
Psychological operations may be divided into tWo prin-
cipal types according to purpose: stability operations and
destabilization. In the case of a government considered
friendly. CIA propaganda is designed to create a positive
image of that regime and in general to support its stability.
In previous articles in CA 113, we have cited the examples of
Arnaud de Borchgrave's defense of the Shah of Iran and
Robert Moss's fulsome praise of the Chilean Junta.
Destabilization is a word which entered world currency
when former CIA Director William Colby used it to des-
cribe what the CIA had done to Chile. Destabilization
means that having studied the glue that keeps a society
together, one then uses that knowledge to make that same
society come unglued. Among the met hods used, according
to the Manual of Psychological Operations:
"To stimulate dissension between military and politi-
cal estates; to undermine confidence in leadership; to
encourage disaffection on the part of religious, eth-
nic, political, economic and other elements, against
the government or against each other; to make friend-
ly leaders stronger and enemy leaders weaker."
Channels of Disinformation
The mere appearance of divisive propaganda, "black"
propaganda, and disinformation is primajiicie evidence of
a psychological operation run by a hostile intelligence
agency. One of the methods for determining when it is a
CIA operation is to trace the hidden channels for moving
disinformation into the target country. I call this process
the circulation of non-news or the laundering of "black"
propaganda. As described by Philip Agee:
"For example, the CIA station in Caracas can cable
information on a secret communist plot in Venezuela
to the Bogota station which can `surface' through a
local propaganda agent with attribution to an
unidentified Venezuelan government official. The in-
formation can then be picked up from the Colombia
press and relayed to CIA stations in Quito, Lima, La
Paz, Santiago . . ."
If done properly, it is very difficult to trace any of this
activity to the CIA. First, the "black" propaganda item is
laundered through a reputable news organization in order
to disguise the source. Then CIA proprietary news organi-
zations move the story around --the circulation of non-
news. One clue in uncovering this technique is the attribu-
tion of a sensational news story to a far-away source. In the
above example, how could a Colombian newspaper be the
first to know about a secret plot in Venezuela?
Let us examine a recent fake headline in La Prensa to
illustrate the laundering of "black" propaganda. On
August 16, 1981 La Prensa headlined that Nicaraguan
Chancellor Miguel D'Escoto had gratuitously insulted the
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Catholic Church. D'Escoto categorically denied having
made any such statements. La Prensa then said its source
was the Miami-based El Diario de las Americas. This is a
Cuban exile newspaper which shares office space with
IA PA, and which has a number of CIA agents on its staff.
El Diario's head, Horacio Aguirre, is the new President of
the I A PA Executive Committee. El Diario de las Americas
in turn attributed the source of the alleged D'Escoto inter-
view to an obscure Mexican newspaper, El Periodic�,
which at the time it carried the interview had been in
existence only a short time. It claimed as its source a taped
interview made six months previously by one of its report-
ers in N ew Delhi. How can a fledgling Mexican newspaper
afford to send a reporter to New Delhi? How do they
manage to make an eight-column headline out of an inter-
view that allegedly took place six months earlier? When
challenged by D'Escoto to produce evidence of such an
interview, the reporter claimed that the tapes were garbled,
as his batteries had run out.
Symbols
Perhaps the most specific feature of a CIA-controlled
newspaper is the abandonment of any attempt to convey its
message in the text, and its reliance instead on a few key
symbols planted on the front page. The symbols manipu-
lated are those which have strong emotional associations
for the Larget group. By simply placing the key word near a
photo of government leaders, a crude behaviorist attempt
is made to condition new associations and new values to
familial- personalities.
For the purpose of identifying this kind of propaganda
in the following analysis, the items discussed are from the
front page only, and within that page headlines, photos,
and captions under photos:
LA PRENSA. 12..1��
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La Prensa, March 7, 1981: On top, the word "cross" (cruz)
and the word "peace" (paz); between them the word "leav-
ing" (despide). The message: The cross is leaving
Nicaragua; peace is leaving Nicaragua.
36 CovertAction
In the middle of the page are three photos of a govern-
ment leader with a convenient name, Cruz (cross); below
there is the headline "Peace Corps Is Leaving." The three
photos of Cruz and the caption under the photos all say
"cross" over that headline. The message thus repeats the
association, "cross is leaving,"peace is leaving." The head-
line "Peace Corps Is Leaving" was a fraud, in fact, there
being no Peace Corps operation in Nicaragua at that time
to leave. The leftist press considered the fake headline to be
a provocation and ignored the emotional manipulation of
cross and peace. In my dissertation there is an entire section
devoted to fake headlines in El Mercurio. Only later did I
realize that all the illustrations used were adjacent to
photos of government leaders.
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expert, visits
Daily Gleaner, November 13, 1979: Photo of Prime
Minister Michael Manley at a social event is directly
above a story entitled "Plot to Assassinate Police Officers."
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Number 16 (March 1982)
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For three years President Allende's picture appeared
rarely in El Mercurio, but whenever it did it was always
next to headlines which included the words Soviet, com-
munist, Marxist, violence, or death.
11�����.� learaii.~ onpherodwit-
Ponortrselon 9 ovieks on Chile
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91 Q
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to*
Salvador Allende Puso Tern
A Su Campana en Sant
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NO SOT NONVINTS
on snot Awes
'' '
El Mercurio, September 2, 1970: A photo of Salvador
Allende is placed next to an unrelated story entitled "Soviet
Penetration in Chile."
Mision Secre
Partido
��� '4e$
VI k� 11107,....
ilio�
El Mercurio, March 1, 1972: Another photo of Salvador
Allende placed next to a story about a Soviet nuclear
submarine base and another story about a "secret mission
of the Communist Party."
Number 16 (March 1982)
Several other examples, which cannot be illustrated here
due to space limitations, can be noted: The August 28, 1970
El Mercurio had a photo of Minister of the Economy Pedro
Vuscovic next to a huge photo of a noose hanging over a
baby's head with the headline "Wanted to Strangle This
Baby." The June 12, 1972 El Mercurio has another picture
of Vuscovic next to a headline "Mother Raped,
Assassinated."
The March 31, 1980 Daily Gleaner carried a photo of
Michael Manley next to two unrelated headlines, "Dark
Future," and "Reds Took Over." The January 6, 1976
Daily Gleaner (during the election campaign) had a photo
of Manley next to an unrelated headline, "Policeman, Two
Others Shot." This was repeated in the January 6, 1978
issue which carried a photo of a dead policeman with the
related headline "Policeman Shot," next to an unrelated
article about Manley, entitled "A Cadillac for the Prime
Minister."
By the simple juxtaposition of photos with unrelated
headlines, government leaders in socialist countries and the
ideology they represent are associated with death, plagues,
and violence. The new El Mercurio-Daily Gleaner-La
Prensa are more similar to each other than to their old
conservative formats. The immediate reaction of people
when shown examples is that the pattern is clear, but how
does one know it works? In tact, it has long been an article
of faith among the "small effects" communications theor-
ists that propaganda of any kind has little demonstrable
effect on voting and similar political behavior. �[his unwar-
ranted assumption was being repeated by an unwitting
southern Congressman to Dr. Frederick Frei of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Representa-
tive was arguing against funding propaganda on the
ground that no substantive benefits to the national security
derived from such activities. Dr. Frei revealed, however,
that actual studies conducted in Chile and Turkey proved
the contrary. From the undeleted portions of the censored
testimony it was clear that Dr. Frei was referring to the
1964 Chilean elections when the CIA spent a reputed
twenty million dollars to stop Allende. While Dr. Frei's
testimony may hake been self-serving, it can be taken as
evidence of a CIA belief that their peculiar anti-Allende
propaganda methods do work. In a book published in
Venezuela in 1968, Interview La CIA en Investigaciones
Sociologicas enI "c'nezuela, by Rodolfo Quintero, Frei was
described as a CIA agent.
The "Semantic Differential"
Behavioral conditioning by highly selective, emotionally-
charged words has come to be the most distinguishing
characteristic of CIA propaganda, due to the influence of
three men: B. F. Skinner. Charles Osgood, and Edward
Lansdale.
During the days of the OSS, the CIA's predecessor,
propaganda was heavily influenced by Freudians. later the
Pentagon and the CIA came to regard the views of B. F.
Skinner as being more pragmatic. Skinner wrote a book
called The Behavior of Organisms, based entirely on ob-
serving the behavior of white mice and pigeons.
Modern attitude theory is a branch of behaviorism which
views the higher mental functions as explainable in terms
of stimuli and response. A mental concept has logical
associations, or meaning, and emotional associations, or
affect.
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Psycholinguists have long believed that the grammatical
and semantic features of a given language shape the world
view of its speakers. Merely by studying the language of a
culture it should be possible to uncover hidden psychologi-
cal processes peculiar to that culture. If, in addition, one
analyzed such matters as characteristic word associations
and the emotional associations of certain key words, one
could use psycholinguistics to prepare psychological pro-
files not only of cultures but also of individual leaders.
Professor Charles Osgood, whose research was funded
by the CIA and used in the Agency's MK-ULTRA pro-
gram, developed a technique called the "semantic differen-
tial" which can do all of the above.
Edw ard Lansdale, a notorious veteran of both the OSS
and thi. CIA, glorified in The Ugly American, operated on
the philosophy that in each foreign culture there was some
hidden psychological key which, if discovered, would per-
mit the minds of the people to be easily manipulated.
In 1958 the semantic differential became the official
method chosen by the CIA to search for this hidden key.
Twenty years later the CIA released boxes of previously
classified records covering its MK-ULTRA experiments in
the field of psychological and mind control research. Based
on thee documents, John Marks wrote in The Search for
the Manchurian Candidate:" The CIA and Mind Control:
"Agency officials saw his research as 'directly rele-
vant' to covert activities. They believed they could
transfer Osgood's knowledge of 'hidden values and
cues' in the way people communicate into more effec-
tive overseas propaganda. Osgood's work gave them
a tool called the 'semantic differential'�to choose the
right words in a foreign language to convey a particu-
lar meaning." [In 1958 the CIA gave Osgood
$192,975 to finance a world-wide study of 620 key
words in 30 cultures using the semantic differential.]
The reason for dwelling at such length on the topic of the
semantic differential is that it explains a host of phenome-
na unic ue to CIA propaganda: why certain words are used
and others are not; the use in propaganda of words that
sound d'ike communism; the attempt at behavioral condi-
tioning of previously positive terms into negative ones by
simple physical association; the projection of a highly-
polariz,:.d world view in which the government is depicted
exclusively in terms that reflect not only the expected nega-
tive attitude, but also impotency and passivity.
By 1974 I had concluded that whoever was running El
Mercurio was using the semantic differential. Interestingly,
it was Charles Osgood himself who agreed with this analy-
sis and helped me to prove it. The voluminous MK-
ULTRA records released by the CIA in 1978 confirm that
the semantic differential is the strategic intelligence on
which CIA propaganda targeting is based. It is to CIA
psychological warfare the equivalent of the inertial guid-
ance system of an atomic missile.
Subliminal Methods
The combined effect of word associations (derived from
the semantic differential) with subliminal imbeds is so
strong that it displaces any other message.
The intense psychological and physical fear aroused in
viewers of the film The Exorcist is notorious. Not as well
known is the fact that these reactions were the result of the
use of very strong subliminal messages, in particular of a
38 Cove rtAction
death mask. The subliminal use of the death mask in The
Exorcist has been widely discussed in many publications. It
should be noted that William Peter Blatty, the author, has
stated that he was involved in psychological warfare opera-
tions in Viet Nam.
As described in Media Sexploitation, by Wilson Brian
Keys, The Exorcist was "a brilliant repertoire of visual and
auditory subliminal innovations.... There is no possibility
of rational decision making or defense, since consciousness
is bypassed completely. Numerous times during the movie
there was a flash of light and the face of Father Karras
momentarily appeared as a large, full-screen death mask
apparition.... At the movie's climax, when Father Karras
was possessed by the devil, his face turned white--closely
resembling the tachistoscoped death mask."
During the 1980 Jamaican elections heavily retouched
photos of Prime Minister Michael Manley looking like a
death mask appeared in the Daily Gleaner. (Other exam-
ples can found in Psychological Warfare in the Media: The
Case of Jamaica.)
Jamak,
sold on
the Cull
for le.ssi
30 pee
ot slIvel
An example of the death mask photos of Michael Manley
used by the Daily Gleaner.
Keys described the physiological impact of The Exorcist:
"As tension within a person increases, he perceives
less and less at the conscious level and becomes more
and more susceptible to subliminal stimuli. . . . The
tension and release, tension and release, tension and
release, always building higher and higher and
higher, induced exhaustion and even nausea for
many in the audience."
What it feels like to be in a country like Chile or Jamaica
during a period of intense psychological warfare is as if one
were actually in The Exorcist instead of just watching
it. Compare the above audience reactions with the follow-
ing descriptions by visitors to Chile:
Baeza Flores, writing in Radiografia Politica de Chile: "I
arrived like a traveller feeling a bit dizzy from the gas of
propaganda and counter-propaganda of psychological
warfare, a little seasick from the ideological gas."
Oscar Waiss, writing in La Nacion: "The purpose of the
CIA is to create a national psychosis, including an insane
repetition of themes, which could serve as background
music for a horror film."
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Ralph McGehee stated in his Nation article that the CIA
attempted to recreate the same psychological mood in
Chile as it had in Indonesia in 1965. Note what a newspaper
reporter in Djakarta, Arnold C. Brack man, writing in The
Communist Collapse in Indonesia, later wrote about this
mood: "In 1964-1965, this community was subject to 'men-
tal terror,'the popular phrase used by articulate Indonesians
to describe the period.... The murders can be characterired
as a 'psychological explosion' among a repressed people
who had suffered 'mental terror.' "
What the CIA unleashed in Indonesia was a psychologi-
cal warfare bomb that killed more people than the atom
bomb at Hiroshima. It is this demonstrated ability to create
emotional tidal waves and political earthquakes that war-
rants a careful examination of CIA psychological
operations.
On April 8, 1972 El Mercurio placed a full color photo of
open heart surgery next to a photo of Allende. This is not
the sort of thing that Chileans had come to expect with
their morning coffee. On November 24, 1972 El Mercurio
improved on the original by surrounding Allende's photo
with four color photos showing the implantation of a
radioactive battery in a Chilean heart. The imagery NA hich
is intended here is that of (the Marxist) Allende, like the
radioactive implant, as an alien element which has pene-
trated into the very heart of Chile. In this organic model.
Chile is a healthy body which will eventually reject the alien
Marxist implant (Allende).
4
at' ......
EL MERCURto7-
::::::.
.#7
Rechazado el
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La Marcha
$�.1
-uts,
El Mercurio, April 8, 1972: Color photo of open heart
surgery next to picture which includes Allende.
On August 13, I973�one month before the coup -El
Mercurio lifted an omen out of Bergman's The Seventh
Seal. A sepulchral hag done up in a hooded monkish robe
shuffles in front of the Presidential Palace clanging cym-
bals. El Mercurio manages to catch this omen of death
come knocking on the door just as it arrives at the portals
of La Moneda.
On March 9, 1972 El Mercurio presented another photo
of Minister of the Economy Pedro Vuscovic; just below:
jaws--the hideous face of a growling attack dog jumping
straight at the camera. On August 2, 1972, and for several
preceding days, El Mercurio manipulated other omens of
death in the form of dead cows and chickens. This was
Number 16 (March 1982)
El Mercurio, August 13, 1973: The hag, with cymbals, in
front of the open door to La Moneda.
coordinated with the distribution of movies and comic
books prepared by the CIA based on George Orwell's
Animal Farm.
---�=f-1 EL MERCURIO
......
Repudio a
ActuaciOn
De Vuskovic,
vm4h�or ri V r .
4CtiRIEBL 0
1E) ciOO
ISIt4
63 e
Banzer Inicio Visito a Paraguay
Wuskie Gond
Primaria
ElMercurio, March 9, 1972: The attack dog near the article
about Minister Vuscovic.
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CovertAction 39
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casez d
Vacun as Efeva
revolutionary rhetoric; the cynicism, greed, and lust for
power of revolutionary leaders; all culminating in slave
labor, show trials, starvation and death. The CIA does not
say Nicaraguan government leaders are pigs; it shows
Animal Farm and lets people make their own analogies. In
the event the desired analogies are not made, the local
newspaper will retouch photos of leaders making them
look like pigs, contrasted with photos of victimized and
emaciated citizens.
On March 18, 1981 La Prensa featured a photo of
Chancellor D'Escoto taken at a very odd angle, which,
together with added shadows, emphasized his double chin.
The title under the photo reads, "Overflowing With Health
and in a High State of Optimism," contrasting sharply with
the photo below, of a victimized citizen lying on a hospital
bed, with the headline, "Calvary of an Innocent. Is This
What Our People Fought For?"
SPOOKII MOO Or V
Or Or Or 0/WOO& Or LiveVelloor
INOOOOlOOSPOIVOk sinebook 14. fteletikitela
bail� Mos Cara que .61 \lacuna,
qui. /Or
tra,adv. rarAs, ,
El Me-curio, July and August 1972: Dead chickens and
cows on the front pages of the paper.
Counterrevolution and Animal Farm
The iymbolism of dead cows surfaced anew in La Prensa
of Nicaragua in April and May of this year. Animal Farm
was printed in installments on the editorial page of La
Prensa, and every vendor had free copies of the comic book
to distribute. According to E. Howard Hunt in Memoirs of
an Amr?rican Secret Agent, one of his responsibilities while
with the CIA was to arrange for the production and distri-
bution of the film version of Animal Farm. In its comic
book view of the world, a socialist country is a farmyard in
which t he pigs have taken over and the victimized citizenry
are depicted as cows and chickens. The pigs get fatter while
the cows get thinner.
The movie Animal Farm is a good example of the advan-
tages of psychological warfare over explicit ideological
propaganda. Animal Farm has no explicit political mes-
sage. II. is a simple allegory involving familiar farm ani-
mals. In a country like Nicaragua, it is a way of reaching
individuals who may be illiterate or apolitical with a very
strong counterrevolutionary argument. Its central theme is
the futility of revolution. The new pigs are just as bad as,
and end up looking like, the old master. The hypocrisy of
40 CovertAction
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La Prensa, March 18, 1981: Photo of "healthy" Minister
juxtaposed against photo of hospitalized youth.
In May 1981 La Prensa began a campaign (later retracted)
alleging that cows brought from Cuba had hoof-and-mouth
disease. Although no evidence was ever offered in support
of these allegations, it skillfully combined the imagery from
Animal Farm with the already established association of
the (Marxist) government with plagues and death.
Divisive Propaganda�The Manipulation of Religious
Symbolism
The purpose of a CIA campaign of divisive propaganda
is to reduce national unity. In April 1981 a major campaign
of psychological warfare began in Nicaragua with an at-
tempt to mobilize protests by Catholics against the gov-
ernment. The first step was to inflame the parents of stu-
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Number 16 (March 1982)
Approved for Release: 2018/09/17 C05531264
dents attending parochial schools. A La Prensa campaign
attacked and polarized democratic nationwide forums to
discuss educational reform by using such terms as "Marxist
brainwashing," "turning children into guerrillas," "filling
children with hatred," "priests who support the Marxist
government and betray their allegiance to the True
Church," etc.
The manipulation of religious symbolism, especially that
of the cross and of the Virgin, was initiated by La Prensa
and the CIA, not by the Nicaraguan Catholic Church.
Although the clear intention of the propaganda campaign
was to polarize relations between Church and State, the
religious tone which the political struggle acquired was not
created by the Church. Alan Riding, in a ;Vete York Titne.s.
article of May 29, 1981, entitled "Religion Becomes a Polit-
ical Weapon for both Left and Right in Nicaragua," unwit-
tingly bolstered the CIA line:
"Thousands of Nicaraguan Roman Catholics trekked
to the small village of Cuapa, 100 miles east of here,
where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared....
'The cult of the Virgin of Cuapa is a response to the
fears of Communism,' a foreign priest said."
Before a "miracle" can occur, the way must be prepared.
The first recorded CIA plan in this area was by Edward
Lansdale. A witness before the Senate Intelligence Com-
mittee investigating alleged assassination plots described
the plan:
"I'll give you one example of Lansdale's perspicacity.
He had a wonderful plan for getting rid of Castro.
This consisted of spreading the word that the Second
Coming of Christ was imminent and that Christ was
against Castro. And you would spread this word
around Cuba, and then on whatever date it was, that
there would be a manifestation of this thing. And at
�
ayer a las cinco de la mans. Masachapa.
no aprcsumadamente dejan- Segun mformes prelimma-
do el saldo de unas 20 porno- res el bus coma a gran veto-
nas lemonades. dor de ellas cidad y el conductor no pudo
de gravedad controlar el times at tomer
El accidents, de transits, se la curve.
Dora Molina, Maria Lulea
Carballo de Narviez. Angeli-
a Bermudez. Carmen Mu-
noz Leper. Irma Gutierrez
e Flores. Marta Elena
Senchez, Carmen Munoz
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En estado sums
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LA pRENSA Slarisol Mena
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de Cap. Sand]
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dos Informactones aparem-
des en LA PRENSA.
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Sanchez Informe
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men algunos mo
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Psi. In tallim�
La Prensa, December 28, 1980: Heavily symbolic photo of
Maria Lourdes Mejia.
Number 16 (March 1982)
that time �this is absolutely true and at that time
just over the horizon there would be an American
submarine which would surface off Cuba and send up
some starshells. And this would be the manifestation
of the Second Coming and Castro would be over-
thrown. Well, some wag called this operation 'Elimi-
nation by Illumination.' "
Nicaragua began to be illuminated at Christmastime. La
Prensa of December 28, 1980 carried the photograph of a
young lady with the convenient name Maria Lourdes.
Maria was photographed in white raiment against the
heavens in the shape of a cross. La Prensa found the only
spot in Managua where the entire National Cathedral can
be shown in the background. She appears as a statue of the
Virgin descending from the heavens upon the National
Cathedral. The word "Lourdes" borders the photo on each
side. Mary, Angel, Heaven, Lourdes, Cross, National
Cathedral. . . it is impossible to imagine more heavily-
loaded religious symbols being squeezed into one photo-
graph.
On April I. 1981, a day favored by pranksters, La Prensa
began the creation of a local Lourdes. They mobilized
thousands of the devout to a spot where the Virgin Mary
had appeared to a simple shepherd and a La Prensa re-
porter while praying in a circle of roses (rosary). The
shepherd's name was Bernardo (echoing the Song of
Bernadette). According to the CIA's newspaper, the Virgin
was not happy with current affairs in Nicaragua.
I LA PRENSA. 16 ...An
At ...octo owtA,1AvA.,,A = z=
Visits al campesIno de las aparIclones
Con Bernardo en Cuapa
La Prensa, April 3, 1981: Photo of the shepherd and the site
of the visions of the Virgin.
Symbolism of the Cross
U.S. Army Field Manual of Psychological Operations:
"142 Symbols
Among Christians the power of the Christian
cross is effective as a symbol because it graphi-
cally represents Christ's suffering and death
for man."
When La Prensa wishes to turn the front page into a
religious tableau, it begins by running a headline about the
Nicaraguan Ambassador to the United States, Dr. Arturo
Cruz, never using the title Ambassador, or Doctor, or his
other names in order to leave the symbolic "Cruz" (cross).
Within a few inches of "Cruz" appears a Christ-like figure
and a cross.
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Cruz: Can
6
La Prensa, March 23, 1981: Headline, "Cruz." Immediate-
ly below is an unrelated photo of two Christ-like figures
with a cross planted next to each body. In fine print La
Prensa admitted that two volunteers agreed to play the role
of the 'dread bodies, while it supplied the two crosses.
Ultima bora
10 muertos en accidente
�1.71
� MY?. ZOIL-4�0.1.1
:74.71. � aa "Idenas.
��� ������� d�
Malwalso. risst./..."
re� I so 1....������� Is asiga ...���� �
---Ve salecian a prelim cm El
Cruz se va ii
OtILVANIKet in EL ellta..�
. �
La Prensa, April 9, 1981: Headline, "Cruz." Above are two
unrelated photos of victims of violence (genuine), with
arms outstretched. To the left is an unrelated photo, a
retouched composite, with a cross on the top of a hill and,
in the caption, the expression, "our long-sufferring
Nicaragua."
42 Covi.rt Action
l'erbi*te
6'0
7
,
EinbajculorY.'ruz.exiiea (Ind&
Huelgas de hambre en la URSS
aJokul Baez fi%
La Prensa, May 9, 1981: Headline, "Cruz." Above is an
unrelated photo showing a huge cross awkwardly hung
over the back of a youth, with young people in a circle,
singing.
The May 9 photo, apart from its association with Cruz,
is very interesting. It shows a pastoral scene with happy
young people strumming guitars. The CIA distributed a
half million copies of a very similar photo in Italy before
the 1976 national elections. The thematic content is also the
same, where the beatific scene of Christian folk singers is
contrasted with code-words for Marxist youth: hatred,
materialism, political, conflict.
The Italian version was distributed as ads in the Milan-
based newspaper, Avvenire and II Giornale Nuovo, and as
a pamphlet attributed to the organization "Communione e
Liberazione," identified in the House of Representatives'
Pike Commission Report as a recipient of CIA funding. On
election day a new version appeared in which was added
the symbol of the Christian Democratic Party (a cross over
a shield) and an exhortation to Catholic youth to vote for
that political party and against Marxism.
During the 1970 Chilean elections, the same photograph-
ic and thematic content appeared in ads for an organiza-
tion calling itself "Nueva Accion Cristiana" (New Christian
Action). An investigation by the Chilean Chamber of
Deputies established that this was an illegal, unregistered,
non-existent organization invented by executives at El
Mercurio. This front was incorporated in an adhoc adver-
tising agency called Andalien, which was shown to have
received CIA funds, and whose executives were later
identified as CIA agents.
On June 18, 1980 the Jamaica Daily Gleaner's front
page was dominated by a photo of an open Bible, an arrow
indicating where a bullet was lodged. The headline read,
"The Bullet and the Bible." Readers were asked to believe
that a simple Christian farmer was reading his family Bible
when suddenly a communist bullet came whizzing through
the window, headed straight for his heart. Personally I
prefer Woody Allen's version. He claims a Jesus Freak
assaulted him with a Bible which was stopped by a bullet he
carried in his vest pocket.
Some time later the Daily Gleaner ran a photo of a huge
egg covered by an amorphous black spot. The story was
that a good Christian farmer found the egg in his chicken
coop and brought it to the offices of the newspaper as an
oddity. The Gleaner was able to identify the mess on the
egg positively as a map of the Soviet Union, and the ap-
pearance of the magic egg was said to be an omen from God
to the people of Jamaica that they should not let their
country be turned over to the Soviets.
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Number 16 (March 1982)
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Campaign Coordination
All of this should not suggest that the CIA just plays
games with foreign newspapers. The internal propaganda
campaign is coordinated with an economic, diplomatic,
and paramilitary offensive. Eventually, the economic
chaos claimed in the propaganda becomes real. Suddenly
there really are shortages. Then conflicts develop with
bordering states, ancient racial and religious divisions sud-
denly flare up, communications and transportation are
sabotaged.
In Nicaragua, the appearance of the Virgin coincided
with the arrival of Morris Zerulo, a right-wing American
evangelist, amidst a massive publicity campaign touting his
alleged ability to exorcise the demons afflicting Nicaragua.
The U.S. cut off economic aid. The State Department
accused Nicaragua of fomenting insurgency in El Salva-
dor. Former CIA Deputy Director Vernon Walters visited
the hostile neighboring states. Incursions by former
Somoza guards across the Honduran border increased,
while these same mercenaries were openly trained in the
United States. Thousands of Catholics were mobilized
against the government and pressures were exerted on the
priests serving in the Sandinista administration to resign.
During the 1980 electoral campaign in Jamaica, the
character assassination of government ministers in the
Daily Gleaner was coordinated with actual assassination
plots against Prime Minister Michael Manley, Minister of
National Security Dudley Thompson, and the General
Secretary of the Peoples National Party, Dr. D. K.
Duncan. Fake headlines about Soviet planes and Cuban
boats landing were coordinated with a real paramilitary
terrorist campaign that claimed some 700 lives. A serious
but little publicized coup attempt occurred in June 1980.
U.S. companies closed. U.S. economic aid, public and
private, was unobtainable.
On October 1, 1972 the CIA organized the Chilean truck
owners to paralyze transportation. The CIA-dominated
Inter American Press Association held its annual conven-
tion in Chile to investigate the perceived threat to El
Mercurio. U.S. warships participating in Operation Unitas
appeared off the coast of Valparaiso giving symbolic sup-
port for dissident military units to act. CIA sabotage
squads began blowing up bridges, railway lines, and peo-
ple. El Mercurio called on the armed forces to save Chile.
Number 16 (March 1982)
Conclusion
The stages of psychological warfare are well defined. In
fact, the U.S. Army issues Field Manuals for each stage.
Interestingly, the primary responsibility for planning and
conducting the activities discussed in the first stages does
not lie with the military. Like James Bond's license to kill,
only the CIA is supposed to engage in "black" propaganda,
forging of documents, paramilitary actions, and other such
covert operations. [During the early 1970s, however, the
U.S. Army was found to have engaged in massive political
spying in Europe. This conduct was ruled unlawful by a
Federal court.] The ultimate military objective only be-
comes evident in the later stages. Psychological warfare is a
form of secret unconventional warfare which may, if all
else fails, shift to open conventional warfare.
While the terminology varies among different agencies,
the Army's somewhat archaic terms for the stages are:
Propaganda, Psychological Operations, Psychological
Warfare, Civil Affairs, and Reconstruction.
Propaganda consists of presenting a positive image of
the U.S. and a negative image of the socialist bloc. The CIA
cooperates to some degree in this effort with the U.S.
International Communications Agency, soon to be re-
named, as before, the U.S. Information Agency.
Psychological Operations take place in peacetime and
are geared toward throwing elections or moderating the
policies of a foreign government.
Psychological Warfare is undeclared war. All the agen-
cies of the U.S. government coordinate their activities as a
team, all resources of the U.S. short of overt war are
brought to bear. Open and underground resistance groups
are set up by the CIA. There is an attempt to mobilize
the masses against the government. Paramilitary opera-
tions, including terrorism and assassination, are coordi-
nated with subversive propaganda. While instigated by the
CIA, their agents are primarily local people. The task is still
to manipulate civilians or the military or both indirectly to
overthrow their own government.
To arrive at the stage of Civil Affairs means that within
the goals which have been set for the CIA by the President,
they have failed. A conventional military coup is necessary
or the Marines must be sent in. The principal actors here
are regular military forces of the U.S. and of those elements
friendly to the U.S.
In the Reconstruction stage, forces friendly to the U.S.
are in undisputed physical control of the entire national
territory. The country has been pacified. A think-tank of
U.S.-trained economists, attorneys, and journalists is set
up to advise the new pro-capitalist government. Ideally, the
economy is restructured according to the theories of
Milton Friedman, as in Chile.
Of those examples under discussion, only in Chile has
the final stage been reached. That was because the CIA
failed in its frenzied efforts to throw the elections of 1970
and 1973. In Jamaica the CIA suffered a defeat in the 1976
elections and came prepared for the 1980 campaign with
both military and electoral options.
Contrary to the Chilean example, success was achieved
for the CIA in Jamaica in the third stage, psychological
warfare. That stage is currently well under way in
Nicaragua. Timely and firm defensive measures, and par-
ticularly education of the populace to the nature of psycho-
logical warfare, can and will prevent a CIA success there.
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Behind The Man's Karibbean
Koup Attempt
Part II
By Ken Lawrence
Grenada was the target. The aim was to overthrow the
revolution led by the New Jewel Movement and to return
the ousted tyrant, Eric Gairy, to power.
Mercenary leader Michael Perdue of Houston, Texas,
began plotting his counterrevolution as soon as he read
publiOied accounts of the revolution in the spring of 1979.
First le sought out Gairy, met him in San Diego, and put
forward this proposition: for a price, Perdue would over-
turn Maurice Bishop's government and reinstate Gairy as
prime minister. Gairy agreed and told Perdue to proceed.
David Duke's Men
Perdue then contacted his old friend in New Orleans,
David Duke, one-time Nazi and former Grand Wizard of
Knigt ts of the Ku Klux Klan, now leader of the National
Association for the Advancement of White People. Duke
helped by putting Perdue in touch with several of his
contats, beginning a tangled web of international fascist
intrigue and high finance.
One of Duke's referrals was to German-born Wolf-
gang W. Droege, an organizer for the KKK in Canada
whose father had been a personal friend of notorious Nazi
war et iminal Julius Streicher. Another was Don Andrews,
former head of the Western Guard, Canada's neo-Nazi
group. A third was J.W. Kirkpatrick, a prominent attorney
in Memphis, Tennessee, whose ties to Duke and the Klan
had never been publicly revealed.
Each of these men eagerly joined the burgeoning conspi-
racy against the young revolution in tiny Grenada. Droege
became second-in-command of the invasion force. An-
drews recommended using the island of Dominica as a base
for the attack on Grenada, and, on the recommendation of
his friend Arnie Poli, invested in a Dominican coffee firm
to furnish cover for intelligence-gathering trips and supply
shipmmts. Kirkpatrick and an unidentified associate con-
tributed $10,000 to help finance the plot. Perdue later said
he goi another $45,000 from James White, a business
associate.
Grenada Abandoned
In Toronto they worked out a plan for the attack. It
called for Gairy to accompany the landing party from
Dominica and lead his Grenadian supporters. But Gairy
refused; he was unwilling to land until the mercenary force
44 Col ertAction
had captured police headquarters and the army barracks.
The argument that ensued between Perdue and Gairy
ended their partnership, and Perdue began to consider
other possibilities.
Arnie Poli, who had originally helped set up the base on
Dominica, had been kicked out of the coup plot after he
spent $3,000 of the group's money on high living in Miami
while failing to carry out his assigned task of purchasing a
boat, but not before he had mentioned to Perdue that
Patrick John had been ousted from the office of prime
minister of Dominica and desired to return to power. Al-
though John rebuffed several initial attempts to contact
him, he eventually returned Perdue's call after he lost the
July 1980 election to Eugenia Charles. (Ironically, one of
the plotters, Don Andrews, may inadvertently have helped
bring to power the very government he later sought to
overthrow. It was he who informed Charles about interim
prime minister Oliver Seraphin's deal, negotiated by fi-
nance minister Michael Douglas, to sell Dominican pass-
ports to stateless Iranian supporters of the Shah for
$10,000--one of several scandals that discredited Sera-
phin's government to the benefit of Charles's Freedom
Party.)
A Nazi Paradise
Patrick John signed a contract with Perdue, dated Sep-
tember 20, 1980, promising Perdue's company, Nortic En-
terprises, $150,000 in cash and banking, gambling, agricul-
ture, tourism, and lumber concessions that were to be tax
exempt for 20 years. Droege later said that the mercenaries
also intended to establish a cocaine refining plant in Do-
minica. The plans were not simply to pillage the island's
treasures, however. Don Andrews wanted Dominica to
become a base for international distribution of white su-
premacist propaganda. Martin Weiche, Andrews's Nazi col-
league, envisioned eventually expelling all the Black inhab-
itants and building an "Aryan" fascist paradise on the
island that Canadian Ku Klux Klan leader Alex McQuirter
said "needs white order and white government." McQuir-
ter's U.S. counterpart, Don Black, had boasted in high
school that he would one day take over a country. Missis-
sippi racist agitator Paul Haecker, a personal friend of
several of the mercenaries, described their aims in a letter to
the Jackson Daily News: "There are only about 70,000
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people on Dominica. Miami absorbed 100,000 Cubans.
Why don't they send the 70,000 to Mississippi and put them
on food stamps and welfare? Then let all the white racists
go to Dominica. Furnish us enough supplies to get our
economy started, and then we won't bother the rest of the
country any longer."
But first things first. Droege brought in a Canadian
mobster, Chuckie Yanover, who was looking for a new
base for his operations. Yanover and his associate, Charles
Kim, went to reconnoiter Dominica, taking hundreds of
aerial photographs. The first major setback occurred when
details of the planned coup attempt leaked out and Patrick
John was jailed. But Perdue's band modified their arrange-
ments and went ahead.
Operation Red Dog
The plan was to land the mercenary force on Dominica
between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., to capture the police station,
and to free John. John's forces would then take over the
government while Perdue and his men would "slip into the
wilderness," leaving the impression that only local forces
had overthrown Eugenia Charles. It was dubbed "Opera-
tion Red Dog."
Most of the mercenary recruiting was done by Wolf
Droege. In Canada he lined up KKK leader Alex McQuir-
ter. McQuirter's girl friend, Mary Anne McGuire, was sent
to Dominica as a spy. Using his Klan connections in the
Droege drew in Don Black of Birmingham and Joe
Danny Hawkins of Jackson. Hawkins then brought in
fellow Mississippi Klansmen William Waldrop and George
Malvanev, while Black recruited Michael Norris of Tusca-
loosa. Hawkins also put Perdue in touch with his long-time
KKK associate, L.E. Matthews, who reportedly furnished
financial backing and explosives. Christopher Anderson,
former police chief of Kiowa, Kansas, answered Perdue's
ad in Le Mercenaire. Klan organizer Larry Jacklin of
Listowell, Ontario, and Nazi Robert Prichard of Raleigh,
North Carolina, joined up.
Lies and Security Lapses
All were recruited under false pretenses. Perdue told
them he was a Vietnam veteran with combat mercenary
experience in Uruguay and Nicaragua. He claimed he had
backing from the CIA and the State Department, and that
former Texas governor John Connally and U.S. Represent-
ative Ronald Paul of Houston knew what he was doing and
approved of it. He told them they would be fighting com-
munism in Dominica.
Security was lax from the very beginning, not only in
Dominca where John and his collaborators, and then
Mary Anne McGuire, were arrested, but in the U.S. and
Canada as well. For five months Perdue and Andrews
conferred about their plans by calling to and from pay
telephones, apparently unaware that all such calls are au-
tomatically monitored by authorities. Reporter Gordon
Sivell of Toronto radio station CFTR notified a friend in
the Ontario Provincial Police of the plot after he had
learned the details from Poli, McQuirter, and Perdue.
McGuire's cables to the plotters, relayed by CFTR staff,
were probably monitored by all three governments. Mer-
cenary trainer and FBI informer Frank Camper of Dolo-
mite, Alabama, was aware that Perdue was recruiting for
an assault on Dominica. It seems likely that the authorities
would keep tabs on advertisers in publications like Le
Number 16 (March 1982)
Mercenaire. The captain of the Manana, the boat char-
tered by Perdue to carry the raiding party to Dominica,
was described by the Los Angeles Times as "an unofficial
federal informant. He enjoys keeping his eye on harbor
activities and has provided information before to Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents here. He knew
the agents by their first names. He even had a Coast Guard
Auxiliary decal on his boat's window, which Perdue failed
to notice." (Perdue was sent to this man, Mike Howell, by
David Duke, who got the referral from his girl friend's
father, Sheldon Udel.) Perdue had even attempted to pur-
chase Israeli Uzi submachine guns from police acquain-
tances.
There is nothing unusual about government authorities
being aware of mercenaries' conspiring, although this case
may set a record for the sheer number of security lapses.
But given the scope of any such plot --- weapons purchase
and storage, finance, transportation, and recruiting
almost no coup attempt of this sort can really be kept a
secret. Many times knowledgeable governments tacitly
support such ventures, but in this case both the U.S. and
Canada decided to intervene and scuttle the plot, because
they had helped install Eugenia Charles's government and
didn't want to lose such a loyal, conservative friend.
Arrest
and Trial
The ten mercenaries were arrested last April 27 as they
headed for Geohegan's Harbor near New Orleans whence
they intended to set sail on a ten-day voyage to Dominica.
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It did not take long for seven of them to plead guilty�
especially since the leader, Perdue, was the first to strike a
deal with the government. The Los Angeles Times reported
that the State Department was heavily involved in the plea
bargaining. Two of the seven, George Malvaney and Larry
Jackl in, were given indeterminate sentences as youth of-
fenders; they could be released almost immediately. The
other five�Perdue, Droege, Waldrop, Prichard, and
Anderson�were each sentenced to three years.
Three others chose to fight the charges, and it was
through their trial that many of the conspiracy's details
became public. Each had a different apparent motive. Don
Black, Grand Wizard of Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, used
the trial as a platform to promote himself and his Klan. Joe
Danny Hawkins, who has a long record of Klan-related
convictions and only recently had been released after serv-
ing a Jiree-year federal sentence for a firearms violation,
had more to lose than any of the others. Michael Norris of
National Alliance, a dangerous neo-Nazi group, believed
that he could convince the jury he was just a dumb country
boy kred into something he didn't fully understand, and
apparmtly he was right.
,01110M1111
They went on trial in June. Norris was acquitted, but
Black and Hawkins were convicted and each sentenced to
three years; both have appealed their convictions and are
currently out on bond. Though disappointed in his two-
count conviction, Black said, "It could have been worse, a
lot worse." Hawkins commented, "We won one. Mike's
loose. That's important."
Black's defense must have shamed his racist followers.
Asked by the prosecutor, "Do you believe, for example,
that everyone is equal?" Black answered, "Under the law,
yes." Asked, "Do you believe in equality of opportunity?"
he gave the same answer. He testified concerning his mo-
tive for participating in the coup attempt, "I supported
Reagan and the reason why is we need a strong national
defense. More and more countries are being swallowed up
by communism and it was important to stop it in Dominica
because it is in our hemisphere." (A State Department
witness ridiculed the defense assertion that Dominica was
threatened by communism.) Black's lawyer, Patrick
McGinity, a former federal prosecutor, praised Black in his
closing argument to the jury. "He believes in America. He
believes in the Constitution. He believes in the equality of
The Money Men
Ever since the first details of the Man/ Nazi coup plot were revealed
to tI,e public last April there has been considerable speculation as to
the ilentities of the mercenary group's backers. In May the Toronto
Globe and Mail reported that "law enforcement authorities in Canada
and the United States believe as many as 80 people may' have been
behiad the venture." Later, during a federal grand jury investigation in
New Orleans, a U.S. investigator told the Birmingham News, "There
were probably 40 names or more mentioned before the grand jury."
The Houston Post reported that the grand jury had "a list of at least 12
uniniicted co-conspirators who are believed to have .financed the
venture."
Re grand jury went on to indict only James White and L. E.
Matthews. charging them with having furnished $57,800 of the
$88,000 Michael Perdue said he had raised, despite the Los Angeles
Timcs 's prediction that "several others" would he indicted. David
Duke reportedly refused to cooperate with the grand jury but was
never charged with anything. During Matthews and White's trial,
Perdve admitted that he was trying to shield Duke and Ronald Cox
from criminal indictments�easily understood as to Cox, Perdue 's
lover, but difficult to grasp in the case of Duke, who has repeatedly
blasted Perdue in the press as "a liar." The defense introduced docu-
ments, later proven to have been forged, in an attempt to discredit
Perdite, and Perdue's initial uncertainty as to whether they were
genuine apparently caused the jury to doubt his reliability as a witness.
Whit.? and Matthews were acquitted, leaving the always murky ques-
tion of who finances today's fascist movement still in doubt.
Mtanwhile, ever since August journalists on both sides of the
border have expected charges to be laid by the Canadian government
against at least four people�Alex McQuirter, Martin Weiche, Cha-
rles Yonover, and Mary Anne McGuire�but that hasn't happened as
of this writing. The list presented here is compiled from trial testim-
ony, news reports, and interviews in the U.S., Canada, and Dominica.
JAM ES C. WHITE of Lakeland, Louisiana, apparently made the
largest contribution to the coup attempt�$45,000, according to tes-
timony by Michael Perdue, plus use of his credit card and E. & S.
Const ruction Company's Longview, Texas post office box. In other
respects White remains a mystery, so it is unclear whether his interest
was simply to pillage Dominica or whether he intended also to back
the more long-term genocidal white-supremacist policies of the
Klansmen and Nazis.
\IMO101==
LODRICH F. MATTHEWS of Florence, Mississippi, contributed a
total of $12,800 and a gift-wrapped box of dynamite, according to
Perdue. Matthews, an electrical contractor, has long been associated
with Ku Klux Klan terrorism. On April 10, 1968, Matthews was one of
ten men indicted for bombing the Blackwell Real Estate Company of
Jackson a year earlier presumed to have been a reprisal against
Blackwell for selling property to Black families in previously all-white
areas of Jackson. A wave of terror bombings had plagued the city after
the one at Blackwell, including blasts at Temple Beth Israel and the
homes of Rabbi Perry Nussbaum, civil rights advocate Robert B.
Kochtitsky, and Jane Schutt, former chair of the Mississippi Advisory
Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Among those
indicted along with Matthews were Sam Bowers of Laurel, convicted
of participation in the murders of three civil rights workers in Neshoba
County in 1964 and the killing of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer of
Hattiesburg in 1966. Another was K K K hit man Joe Daniel Hawkins,
one of the Dominica mercenaries. At the time of his 1968 arrest,
Matthews was described by the FBI as a former province giant (local
leader) of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the most violent of
the Klan groups active in the sixties. The FBI believed Matthews was
involved in making clock-operated detonating devices used in several
Klan bombings of that era -including one intended to blow up the
home of Jewish businessman Meyer Davidson of Meridian in 1968
and another aimed at A. I. Botnick, director of the Anti-Defamation
League of B'nai B'rith in New Orleans. Both of these cases are now
thought to have been set up with advance knowledge by the FBI: in the
Meridian case, FBI agents ambushed and seriously wounded Klans-
man Thomas A. Tarrants III and killed his companion, Kathy
Ainsworth; in the New Orleans incident, Byron de la Beckwith,
charged with the 1963 murder of NAACP leader Medgar Evers but
never convicted, was intercepted by authorities on his way to Botnick's
house. Despite his long history of keeping this kind of company,
Matthews was never brought to trial on the bombing charge.
J. W. KIRKPATRICK of Memphis, Tennessee, and an unidentified
associate gave $10,000 to Perdue toward his original scheme to con-
quer Grenada. Kirkpatrick was a prominent attorney specializing in
insurance defense, probate, corporate, family, medical malpractice,
and personal injury law. He had written to David Duke endorsing
Duke's views following an appearance on television to promote the Ku
Klux Klan, and the two were good friends for about four years. Duke
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man. He believes in God, in this country, and for what it
stands." He called Black "highly principled, definitely out-
spoken, and not afraid to take a stand for what he believes
in. He is a strong, conservative, active young American. He
is a doer. We need more people like him." Somewhat more
truthfully. Hawkins's lawyer, David Craig, called his client
"a redneck, a Confederate-flag-carrying Son of the South
who wanted to do something to fight communism."
The day after Hawkins and Black were convicted, assist-
ant U.S. Attorney Lindsay Larson flew to Dominica to
offer evidence against Patrick John and his backers on the
island. In a hearing in October, charges against five former
members of the Dominican Defense Force Major Fred-
erick Newton and Corporals Ronnie Roberts, Howell
Piper, Hubert Charles, and Walton Phillip were dis-
missed. Captain Malcolm Reid and two former employees
of Dominica's Public Broadcasting and Information Ser-
vice. Julian David and Dennis Joseph, were acquitted.
Patrick John, as of this writing, has not been tried.
Only Mary' Anne McGuire, the KKK spy from Canada,
was convicted by the Dominican court. She has been sen-
tenced to three years without parole, and since her trial has
attempted suicide twice. Stephen Hammond, who attempt-
ed to rescue McGuire, has been deported to his native
England. (Hammond was called Harold Phillips Wood in
our first installment; according to Judy Stoffman of Cana-
da's Today magazine this was merely the name shown on
Hammond's illegally procured passport.)
Two of those charged with financing the coup attempt,
James White and L.E. Matthews, were tried in New Or-
leans in October. 'Testimony by the prosecution's main
witness, Michael Perdue, was sufficiently confusing, and at
times improbable, that the jury acquitted them.
Will Canada Prosecute?
There is still a possibility that indictments may be re-
turned against some of the plotters in Canada. Police
passed their dossier and a recommendation to prosecute to
the provincial attorney general in September. One source
says that the U.S. government has offered to release
Droege "if he would sing against Chuck ie up here, but Wolf
won't talk to the police. He's hanging tough." Another says
Mary Anne McGuire will probably be released by Domini-
sent Perdue to Kirkpatrick shortly after the original plot against
Grenada was hatched. Five days after Perdue testified in court about
Kirkpatrick's $10,000 contribution, and on the very day that the
Assistant IHS. Attorney in New Orleans announced that he planned to
seek indictments against the plot's financial backers, Kirkpatrick
drove to Earle. Arkansas, and committed suicide with a shotgun.* His
law partner, Max Lucas, described him as "a knight of old- who
"preferred death to dishonor." Another colleague called him a "super,
ultra-, ultra-. ultra-conservative. He thought the country was going to
hell in a hand basket."
DON ANDREWS of Toronto formerly headed the right-wing
Edmund Burke Society and a Nazi group called the Western Guard. He
now heads the National Socialist Party of Canada. Four years ago he
was convicted of possessing explosives, conspiring to commit arson,
and painting swastikas and racist slogans on walls. He was an early
member of the group that plotted originally against Grenada, and
once this began to look difficult he suggested using Dominica as a base
for an invasion force. Andrews has real estate interests in Toronto, and
after the coup plot was under way he invested in a coffee business in
Dominica. Michael Perdue testified that Andrews raised a $10,000
contribution for the coup from Martin Weiche. Both Andrews and
Weiche, facing possible prosecution in Canada, have denied
the charge.
MARTIN WE IC H E contributed $10,000 to the coup attempt, accord-
ing to testimony by mercenary leader Michael Perdue. Weiche, leader
of the Canadian National Socialist Party, fought for Nazi Germany in
World War Two. He now lives in a house in London, Ontario, mo-
deled after Adolf Hitler's Alpine retreat decorated with oil paintings
and photographs of Hitler, a photo of the late U.S. Nazi leader George
Lincoln Rockwell, swastika flags, and an autographed copy of Mein
Kampf: Although Weiche denies having financed the abortive coup,
he admits to having been in touch with Perdue concerning the plot,
and says he wants to relocate Caribbean Blacks to Canada so that
white racists can repopulate the islands and set up an "ideal" fascist
society there. Since 1979 he has aspired to create a colony in Dominica
for "all pure whites Aryan stock, physically as well as mentally."
*David Duke has questioned whether Kirkpatrick actually killed him-
self. It is true that the method - a shotgun blast in the mouth is one
that Col. I.. Fletcher Prouty has described as an assassination tech-
nique used by the CIA to eliminate evidence of murder. In this case,
however, a suicide note not released to the press seems to have con-
vinced Kirkpatrick's survivors that the act was just what it seems to be.
CHARLES YANOV FR. named by Canadian law enforcement offi-
cials as an organized crime figure and international gun dealer, con-
ducted reconnaissance missions for the coup plotters. Canadian
sources say Yanover, who has also been accused in several reports oi
furnishing $10.000 to back the coup attempt,** went to Dominica with
his Korean associate. CHARLES KIM. a tavern owner and karate
instructor, and took aerial photographs of the island. The Klansmen
and Nazis called Yanover �TheJew"and planned to kill him after they
seized power in Dominica, but in the meantime promised to commis-
sion him major in the Dominician army as his reward for support-
ing them.
ARNIE POLI advised Don Andrews on business arrangements in
Dominica, according to Judy Stoffman in Today magazine (weekend
supplement to the 'Toronto Star). A frequent traveler from Toronto to
the Caribbean. Poli went to Miami on Perdue's behalf to purchase a
boat for shipments to Dominica. He spent $3,000 of the money that
Perdue said came from Don Andrews and Martin Weiche without
actually obtaining a boat, and Perdue's subsequent fury over this
ended Poll's participation in the coup plot. Poli, a stringer for CFIR,
was the first one to notify the station of the plot.
TOM MY THOM PSON. a Las Vegas hotel operator, was named as
one of the coup attempt's backers. He reportedly provided housing for
the coup organizers but has not been accused of additional finan-
cial involvement.
CHUCK KESSLING of Houston, texas, furnished rooms in which to
store weapons. Perdue testified that he had persuaded Kessling to
provide this service by saying he planned to start a survival camp, and
that Kessling was unaware of the coup plot.
RONALD L. COX, Perdue's roommate and lover, provided valuable
antiques which Perdue used as collateral for money advanced to pay
the mercenaries' salaries. equipment, and expenses. Cox also allowed
checks from the coup 's backers to be processed through his bank
account.
**Toronto Globe and Mail reporter Peter Moon, who first reported
the $10,000 from Yanover (but without naming him) in a copyrighted
story last May 13, told CA /B he now believes his Klan sources lied to
him on this point. Other Canadian journalists, however, continue to
consider the report credible.
Number 16 (March 1982)
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ca if she agrees to testify against Andrews in a Canadian
trial.
Charges could be brought under a section of the Canadi-
an criminal code that makes it an offense to conspire in
Canada to do something in another country that is against
the laws of that country. The section carries a penalty of up
to two years' imprisonment. Yet, as Canada's Black news-
paper Contrast editorialized in late October, "Alex
McQu rter has freely admitted his part in the conspiracy
to ov( rthrow the government of [Dominica]. Eight
month; have elapsed since McQuirter's role in the abortive
coup was revealed . . . [He's] still on the loose."
48 CovertAction
It seems doubtful that anyone from Toronto radio sta-
tion CFTR will be charged, even though its staff was in on
the plot and served as intermediaries by carrying
McGuire's coded spy messages to the conspirators in Can-
ada. The station's management may face some embarrass-
ing questions when their broadcast license is up for rene-
wal, however. (CFTR's actions in this case were similar to
those of U.S. networks in the past. In 1966 CBS helped
fund a plot called "Project Nassau" to overthrow "Papa
Doc" Duvalier in Haiti, then to use Haiti as a base for
operations against Cuba. That plan fell through when
former CIA contract agent Mitchell WerBell double-
crossed his CBS co-conspirators. Just last year ABC was
involved in a coup plot, later cancelled, against Haiti's
current ruler, "Baby Doc" Duvalier, organized by former
Congo and Rhodesia mercenary Mike Williams. In each of
these cases the media were willing to risk a lot of bloodshed
for the sake of an exclusive story.)
Second Coup Try
Yet another coup attempt aiming at restoring Patrick
John's rule* was thwarted just before Christmas. This one
involved many of the same former members of the Defense
Force who had been charged in the previous plot but had
been released or acquitted. One of them, Howell Piper, was
killed in the attack on police headquarters and the central
prison, along with a police officer. Six hours later another
former soldier was shot and killed by police after he had
raised his hands to surrender, according to eyewitnesses.
Ten others were wounded, including Police Commissioner
Oliver Phillip. Following this attack the government de-
clared an emergency and assumed special powers, includ-
ing arbitrary search and arrest, a ban on political gather-
ings, and strict press censorship. There was apparently no
outside support for this latest coup attempt.
Although the plotting has been the work of discredited
former officials partly backed by outside fascists, Prime
Minister Eugenia Charles has used these episodes as a
pretext for a crackdown on leftists and a general escalation
of political repression. The Dominica Liberation Move-
ment says "a reign of police terror" has descended upon the
island since the original state of emergency was declared,
including the brutal killing of a youth, John Rose Lindsay,
in police detention, and the routine use of torture during
interrogation. Eleven other police killings have also been
protested by the DL M. Newspapers from Cuba and
Grenada have been banned by the government. DLM gen-
eral secretary Bill Riviere protested a "police rampage" last
June. "Young men and some, women were punched in the
head and jaw, kicked in the groin, slapped in the face, a few
were gun-butted in the head and others in the chest and
stomach, and some were kicked in the face and head as they
fell to the ground. These blows were accompanied by in-
sults of the worst kind. One victim lost a number of teeth
and another's head and face were severely battered. Yet in
the end not a single one of them has been charged."
*This is taking the published news reports at face value. In Dominica,
rumors abound. One story has it that Patrick John was not to be released
and his Dominica labor Party restored to power, but that he was to be
killed, along with his rival Oliver Seraphin, leader of the Democratic
Labor Party. Another version blames the rising on United Labor Party
leader Michael Douglas. The prime minister has hinted that the Dominica
Liberation Movement was responsible, a charge vigorously denied by the
DL M.
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Dominica's Economic Crisis
After the December coup attempt, police detained two
members of the DLM Political Committee and ransacked
its headquarters. The two were later released, but one of
those arrested and held for a longer time, a leader of the
National Workers Union, Rawlins Jemmot, is described as
"close to DL M." The actual reason for the crackdown on
these forces is the public's growing discontent with the
government's economic policies. In November 1980 the
Camper's Training School
SELLING MY U.S. Millitary medal collection All genuine
medals of Honor in presentation case Army $350, Air
orce $350. Navy-Marine Corps $375, Purple Heart $25:
Bronze Star $20; Army Commendation $12; Meritorious
Service $12. Air Medal $10; Army Good Conduct $10.
Korean Service $10; Vietnam Service $7; Vietnam Cam-
paign $10 Add postage stamp as trade item, and $2
dostage. S A S E. for free list. Martin Ledermann, 21
Naples Road. Brookline, MA 0214
ox 1
ccepted,
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Combat Course Professional Cadre. Affordable training
in demolitions, weapons, unarmed combat. Details and
ipplication $1, P0 Box 309, Dolomite, AL 35061.
WANTED: Patriotic men and women, especially voter-
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ical, economic and milita str
with insignia.
M.C. & VISA
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throughout the United States for this specific purpose
Mr details contact the CHRISTIAN-PATRIOTS DE
and the FBI
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INTERNATI
invites you
fr
In our first installment we showed that this adver-
tisement from the March 1981 Soldier of Fortune
recruited potential mercenaries for Franklin Joseph
Camper's training school. Camper was aware of the
Dominica plot but declined to participate.
In July, Camper's training school received considera-
ble play in the press feature stories with photographs
in the Washington Star, the Christian Science Monitor,
the Huntsville Times, and hundreds of other papers via
Associated Press. Nearly all the free advertising for
mercenary training in the U.S. was promoting Frank
Camper, it seemed.
But two weeks after the publicity blitz began, the
Birmingham News and the Tampa Tribune learned that
Camper was an FBI informer when the Dade County
prosecutor listed him as a key witness against his erst-
while partner, Robert Lisenby, on explosives and wea-
pons charges in Miami.
Camper's cover had been so effective that Lisenby's
father wrote to Soldier of Fortune following his son's
arrest to solicit information: "Why would anyone with
Mr. Camper be arrested? He seems like a very fine young
man and, according to my son Robert, is one of his best
friends. Yet right now it seems like both face very stiff
prison terms due to some informer. If anyone can shed
any light on the matter, please write us." (The same issue
lieralso ran a letter ridiculing Camper for the training exer-
Number 16 (March 1982)
cise near a Florida nuclear power plant that got his
entire "school" arrested for trespassing.)
Camper wasn't happy that he had been exposed. "The
reason I worked with the government is to help counter
terrorism and 1 can't do that if my identity is known." He
also feared that the unwanted publicity would hurt his
mercenary school. "The Bureau has done me a great deal
of harm."
Once the truth was out, Camper admitted that his
work for the FBI began years ago when he posed as a
"disgruntled Vietnam vet" in order to spy on the Alaba-
ma Black Liberation Front and the Communist Party.
ABLF activists contacted by CA IB had no recollection
at all of Camper, but Jim Bains, now secretary of the
Birmingham Peace Council, remembered him well:
"I don't think he ever successfully infiltrated any-
thing. As far as I know, everybody assumed he was a
cop. He was such a classic. I vividly recall the first time
he showed up--in his fatigues--at an anti-draft meeting
at Birmingham Southern College in 1969 or 1970. He
advocated bombs, blowing up draft boards, and things
like that. Everyone thought either he was absolutely
crazy or more likely a provocateur sent to destroy the
anti-war movement."
For a brief period Camper's ads disappeared from
Soldier of Fortune, but apparently most of his potential
recruits missed the stories about his FBI connection. He
now advertises his merc school as "Best in the U.S.A."
The April 1982 issue of Gung- Ho, another mercenary
magazine in which Camper advertises, contains a long
article about his training school, complete with color
photos. It not only makes no mention of Camper's
career as an informer, but actually implies the opposite,
mentioning his two arrests in Florida and his connection
with the Dominica coup plot. "I knew he had been in
and out of controversy�and jail--through confronta-
tions with the law, especially the BATF," wrote the
author.
So it would seem that Camper has successfully res-
tored his cover, placing him in an enviable position for a
government agent. Many of the most serious potential
mercenaries will be attracted to him. Those the govern-
ment may find useful can be recruited for the usual dirty
work, while those who support causes not approved by
the U.S. can be found out and stopped.
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Charles government negotiated a loan of EC$37 million
from the International Monetary Fund. (One U.S. dollar
equals about 2.7 Eastern Caribbean dollars.) The routine
terms of austerity demanded by IMF have hit the island
hard--a ceiling of ten percent on wage and salary increases
until November 1983; a freeze on public sector jobs; and a
ban on subsidies to state bodies, all of which are heavily in
debt. Taxes have nearly doubled. The DI.M says Christ-
mas 1981 was the hardest ever, with the price of 9.6 cents
per pound being offered to banana farmers at a time when
they need 19 cents to survive. Bananas account for 75
percent of Dominica's export earnings. Unemployment
continues to be very high, especially among youth who
constitute 60 percent of the population, while the doors to
foreign employment have closed to them one by one-- Bri-
tain in the fifties, the U.S. and Canada in the sixties, the
Virgin Islands in the seventies, and Guadeloupe and St.
Martin just recently.
Clarifications
The first installment of this report stated that
Patrick John had been prime minister of Dominica
for 8 years before he was toppled in 1979. Actually
Joh I had been prime minister only since 1974, al-
though his Labor Party had ruled the island for 18
years.
We also reported, inaccurately, that the Dominica
Liberation Movement was an alliance of four organi-
zations; actually, by the time of our report, only two
of the original four groups- - the Working People's
Vanguard and the People's Democratic Party- had
merged to form the DL M. Other forces that had
joined the DI. M earlier left with former Black Power
lead n- Rosie Douglas and his brother Michael, who
was the finance minister in Oliver Seraphin's interim
government and who is today the minority leader in
the Dominican parliament.
No more evidence has surfaced, in the courts or in
the press, to document charges by Prime Minister
Eugenia Charles that the South African government
had backed Patrick John and the mercenaries. Nor
have any direct ties yet been demonstrated between
the backers of this coup attempt and previous shady
dealings between U.S. financiers and Dominican pol-
iticians described in part one of this article.
The possibility of learning more about the allega-
tion that a wealthy Cuban-American in Miami had
furnished money to this plot, first reported in the
May 1, 1981 Christian Science Monitor, washed out
when Klan-linked terrorist Robert Lisenby of Troy,
North Carolina, pleaded guilty to reduced federal
weapons and explosive charges in exchange for a
ten-year sentence. Had Lisenby's case gone to trial,
testimony by his collaborator, FBI informer Frank
Camper, might have revealed the identity of
that financier.
50 Coy ertAction
U.S. Military Aid
After the first Klan/ Nazi coup attempt, Prime Minister
Charles flew to Washington to ask for U.S. military aid,
which is being given in several forms. The State De-
partment arranged a U.S. $60,000 grant, and a number of
Dominican police are now undergoing training in Panama.
U.S. arms and ammunition have been donated through
Edward Seaga's government in Jamaica. Dominica will
join Barbados, St. Vincent, and St. Lucia in a regional
coast guard service while negotiations are under way to-
ward the creation of a regional army; meanwhile the Bar-
bados Defense Force, beefed up and modernized by the
U.S., will be on call while the Dominican police force is
expanded and given a paramilitary component. A CIA
Dominica attempt spawned at mere school like this.
source told Robert Alan Michaels, writing for Caribbean
Review, that Dominica is also being defended by a "west-
ern European nation or nations," probably France and
Britain. (Michaels also concurs with CAlBs report of CIA
involvement on behalf of Eugenia Charles and the Free-
dom Party in the July 1980 election.)
While it is clear that the U.S. had strong reasons to nip
the Klan/ Nazi conspiracy in the bud, what if the plotters
had stuck to their original aim of overturning the Grenada
revolution? It is possible that U.S. and Canadian authori-
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The Australian Connection:
Nugan Hand, The CIA Bank
By Nancy Grodin*
Just over two years ago, in January 1980, Australian
lawyer and financier Frank Nugan was found dead in his
Mercedes sedan on a back road in Sydney. Later that year,
his two partners, Michael Hand and Bernie Houghton,
disappeared.
The three owned and directed the Nugan Hand Bank
Ltd., a private merchant bank, which reliable reports indi-
cate was a CIA-run operation for drug trafficking, arms
smuggling and political payoffs throughout the 1970s.
This is the story of a group of men who aggressively
exploited the drug trade, the arms market and the political
unrest in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and perhaps
elsewhere. These men used their CIA connections to seek
out and profit from worldwide organized crime.
The CIA Link
A direct Nugan Hand-CIA link has been verified by Neil
Evans, former head of the Chiang Mai, Thailand branch of
the bank. Evans went on the Australian TV program "60
Minutes" last February to tell his story. He joined the bank
in 1977, and remained for only six months. Yet in that time
he saw millions of dollars smuggled through the northern
Thailand branch, which he knows to have been CIA
money. Evans also said that in March of 1977 Nugan Hand
had officially become a CIA paymaster.
"Hand told me and the others at the meeting that he'd
been successful in arranging a contract with the CIA where-
by the bank was to become its paymaster, for disbursement
of funds anywhere in the world on behalf of the CIA and
also for the taking of money on behalf of the CIA."
The role the CIA played in controlling the bank is un-
clear; what is known is that almost all of the personnel who
ran the bank had direct CIA ties.
In 1970 Nugan and Hand joined forces, starting a com-
pany called Australasian and Pacific Holdings, Ltd.2 The
two struck it rich promoting tourism, investing in mining
shares and in the property market in Australia. Four of the
original shareholders in the company listed the CIA-
operated airline, Air America, as their address. Among the
first investors, two were from the CIA-influenced Associa-
tion for International Development.3
These early CIA connections were nurtured in the 1960s
when Sydney, Australia became a rest and recreation cen-
ter for American servicemen stationed in Vietnam. It was
I. Hancock, David, The Australian, February 16, 1981; Clarke, Simon,
The Age, February 16, 1981.
2.Wilkinson, Marian, The National Times of Australia. August 10-16,
1980, p.3.
3.Ihid., p. 2.
*Nancy Grodin is a free-lance journalist in Washington, DC who often
writes about the CIA.
Number 16 (March 1982)
at this point that Texas-born Bernie Houghton expatriated
to Sydney and opened three restaurants catering to the
American clientele.4
Houghton kept company with members of the American
intelligence network, and has since been identified as an
undercover agent himself. He also worked under Admiral
Houghton, pictured above, had many intelligence contacts
including notorious Edwin Wilson.
Lloyd Vasey, who was head of U.S. Naval Intelligence in
the Pacific.5
Michael Hand was a Green Beret with the Special Forces
in Vietnam and often boasted about working for the CIA.
Hand was the son of a New York State public official, and
attended Syracuse University, where he received a degree
in forestry. In 1964 he joined the Green Berets and was
trained at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He visited Australia
in the late 1960s while on leave and decided to stay.6
Nugan Hand's Finances
The Nugan Hand Bank was founded in 1973, with paid-
in assets of $1 million: presumably the profits from Aus-
tralasian and Pacific Holdings, Ltd. Early, on the bank sent
letters to lawyers, accountants, and businessmen enticing
them with offers of private banking services, high interest
rates (higher than anywhere else in the region), tax-free
deposits, and complete secrecy. Minimum deposits were
set at U.S. $5,000, or its equivalent in any international
currency, for a period of seven days to five years.8
4.Wilkinson, op. it.. n. I. March 29-April 4, 1980.
5. Toohey. Brian, op. cit., n. 2. November 12-18, 1980.
6. Toohey, op. cit., n. 2, January 4-10, 1981; Marshall, Jonathan, Inquiry
magazine, November 24, 1980, p. II.
7. Richardson, Michael, Sydney Morning Herald, May 2, 1980.
8. Richardson, op. cit., n. 7. May 3, 1980; Lindsay, Patrick, The Austra-
lian, July 8, 1980.
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The bank grew quickly. In 1978, Rydges Magazine es-
timatixl the assets at $43 million. By 1979 the yearly turn-
over had jumped to $1 billion. Nugan Hand had sixteen
branches throughout the world; some were just mail drops,
but 01 hers like the Chiang Mai branch handled millions of
dollars each year.�
The most important offices were in Chiang Mai, Saudi
Arabia, the Cayman Islands, and Sydney. Chiang Mai is in
the hc art of Thailand's "Golden Triangle." Australia's big-
gest c rug pushers operated out of this region; they also
bankcd with Nugan Hand.
The manager of the Chiang Mai branch, Neil Evans, was
told that his sole purpose was to get to know bigtime drug
dealers, and let them know that the bank was willing to
smuggle large amounts of currency to its offices around the
world. Interestingly, the Chiang Mai branch was located in
the U S. Drug Enforcement Agency building.")
The importance of the Saudi Arabian branch of Nugan
Hand, which was headed by Bernie Houghton, is that it
was one of the arms smuggling centers for the bank.
Houghton was a close friend of former CIA agent and
fugitive arms dealer Edwin P. Wilson."
Wilson had fingers in every pie, including Nugan Hand.
A former foreign intelligence agent, who asked not to be
named, recently told this reporter that millions of dollars
had pissed from Saudi Arabia to a company in Nassau
during the 1970s. The agent was approached by Nugan to
do "deep cover" work for the bank. He declined the offer,
but did get to know the bank's directors, as well as Wilson.
He is sure that the Saudi Arabian money was Nugan Hand
money obtained through the Wilson-Houghton connec-
tion, and derived from arms smuggling operations.12
One of Nugan Hand's early promotional letters stated
that all interest earned on deposits would be free of income
tax because of the bank's incorporation in the Cayman
Islands, a tax-exempt British haven. This, coupled with the
region's guarantees of complete secrecy for all banking
operations, made the Cayman Islands an ideal location for
depositing "black money." This branch probably con-
9. Loc. cit., n. 7.
10. Perkins, Kevin, The Sun-Herald, February 16, 1981; Hancock, op.
cit., n. 1, Clarke, op. cit., n. I.
II. Loc. cit., n. 4.
12. Interview by author, June 18, 1981.
52 Co'vertAction
tamed most of the stable money deposited in the Nugan
Hand Bank."
The Sydney office was the nerve center of the organiza-
tion. It seems that most of the worldwide connections were
made from this branch, and much of the money Nugan
Hand "laundered" was channeled from Sydney to other
branches.
Solid Connections
Whether or not Nugan Hand was a CIA-run operation,
the bank had CIA connections. Michael Hand has been
identified by Fletcher Prouty, the Pentagon's former liai-
son to the CIA, as a CIA agent. 14 A former Green Beret
Hand was identified by Fletcher Prouty as CIA agent.
who traveled with Hand also confirmed that Hand was an
operative, and that his second tour in Vietnam was with the
Agency.15
The head of the Cayman Islands branch was Rear Admi-
ral Earl Yates.16 Yates, who retired in 1974, was an aide to
the U.S. Secretary of the Navy.17 He had connections in
high places, and arranged for Frank Nugan to attend a
$1000-a-plate fundraising dinner for Jimmy Carter in
1979."
General Ed Black, the top consultant to the bank,
worked in World War II for the OSS, the forerunner of the
CIA. He was a commander of forces in Thailand and
Vietnam in the 1950s and 1960s, and went on to work for
LTV-Aerospace Corporation in the 1970s. Black was a key
figure in the establishment of high-level political connec-
tions in Thailand and the Philippines, where much of the
drug trade and political influencing sought by Nugan Hand
and the CIA was found.19
The Taiwan representative for the bank was Dale
Holmgren, former flight services manager in Thailand for
the CIA-run Civil Air Transport.20 Nugan Hand's man in
Manila was Roy Manore, a CIA consultant who recently
13. Richardson, /oc. cii.. n. 8.
14. Toohey, Brian, The Australian Financial Review, September 26, 1980.
15. Toohey, /oc. cit., n. 6.
16. Interview by author, July 27, 1981.
17. Wilkinson, op. cit., n. 2, May 4-10, 1980, p. 20; U.S. Navy Retired List:
1978.
18. Toohey, op. cit., n. 14, August 1980, p. I.
19. Toohey, /oc. cif., n. 6; U.S. Army Retired List: 1968.
20. Wilkinson, op cit., n. 2, August 10-16, 1980.
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was an advisor in the failed rescue mission of American
hostages held in Iran.21 Admiral Lloyd Vasey, former head
of U.S. Naval Intelligence in the Pacific, was also head of
the Nugan Hand branch in Hawaii.22
The calling card of William Colby, former Director of
the CIA, was found on Nugan's dead body, and Colby has
since admitted being Nugan's personal lawyer. Colby was
introduced to the banker by Walt McDonald, a former
CIA petroleum expert. McDonald was a close friend and
sailing partner ofJohn Paisley, the CIA's senior analyst on
21. Toohey, be. cit., n. 6.
22. Toohey, op. cit., n. 2, October 12-18, 1980.
Soviet military strength, who died mysteriously in the Ches-
apeake Bay in late 1978. Paisley's abandoned boat con-
tained highly classified electronics gear capable of trans-
mitting to satellites linked to the ground station at Pine
Gap in central Australia. [See sidebar.] McDonald was a
consultant to the Nugan Hand Bank, and was introduced
to Nugan by Guy J. Pauker. Pauker, also a bank consul-
tant, is the Asia specialist for the Rand Corporation, a
think tank with some ties to the CI A.2'
Other CIA personnel linked to the bank were: John D.
Walker, CIA station chief in Australia, who spent much
23. Toohey, be. cit., n. 2.
The Ousting of the Labor Party: 1975
In 1973 the Labor Party was voted into power in
Australia and Gough Whitlam became Prime Minister.
Whitlam' quickly antagonized the U.S. by pulling Aus-
tralian troops out of Vietnam and condemning Nixon
for the increased bombing of Hanoi. But nothing stirred
the rage of the CIA and the Australian Security Intelli-
gence Organization, ASIO, as much as Whitlam's re-
peated suspicions of the U.S. satellite communications
station at Pine Gap, in central Australia.'
Pine Gap is, perhaps, the single most important over-
seas communications base the U.S. has. It employs high-
ly sophisticated electronics equipment used to eaves-
drop on the Soviet Union, Asia, and the Middle East.
Pine Gap is run by American personne1.2 Chris Boyce,
the American convicted of spying for the Russians in
1978, claimed that CIA interference in Australia was
worse than the Agency's involvement in the violent over-
throw of the Allende government.3
Boyce worked at TRW, a top secret aerospace plant.
He was given a top security clearance to handle CIA
communications with TRW's spy satellite and the
ground station at Pine Gap. With a childhood friend,
Daulton Lee, Boyce photographed and sold ciphers and
secret documents on Pine Gap to the Soviet Embassy in
Mexico City.4
Long before Boyce embarrassed the CIA with his
inside knowledge of Pine Gap, Prime Minister Whitlam
threatened the continued secrecy of the base.
Ray Cline, former CIA deputy director of intelli-
gence, confirmed that' a joint CIA-ASIO plan to de-
stabilize the Whitlam government was in effect in 1973:
"Cline said,'. . . when Whitlam came to power, there
was a period of turbulence to do with Alice Springs
[another name for Pine Gap] ... the CIA would go so far
as to provide information to people who would bring it
to the surface in Australia ... say they stumbled onto a
Whitlam error which they were willing to pump into the
I. Toohey, Brian, The National Times of Australia, November 9-15,
1980, p. 10.
2. Ball, Desmond, "A Suitable Piece of Real Estate," Hale & Ire-
monger, Sydney: 1980; Toohey, /oc. cit., n. I.
3. Pinwell, William, op. cit., n. 1, p. II.
4. Lindsay, Robert, "The Falcon and the Snowman," Pocket Books,
New York: 1980.
system so it might be to his damage . . if we provided a
particular piece of information to the Australian intelli-
gence services, they would make use of it."
The plan worked, and in November 1975, Whitlam
was sacked by the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr.
A British businessman, Joe Flynn, who claims to have
worked for the CIA, was paid by Michael Hand to bug
Whitlam's hotel room while he was vacationing. Flynn
was also paid to forge documents in a loans affair used
to discredit the Labor government.6
Edwin Wilson was believed to be involved in activities
leading up to Whitlam's sacking in 1975, through his
Task Force 157 ties. This may have included persuading
Labor Party members to invest in certain Nugan Hand-
controlled financial transactions, which would then be
used to embarrass the politician.7
John Walker, the CIA station chief in Australia, was
the CIA-ASIO intermediary in the program to dispose of
Whitlam.8 Walker was a close associate of Bernie Hough-
ton, and one can only speculate on the role the Nugan
Hand bank played in supporting Walker's actions.
The Nugan Hand bank was established while William
Colby was director of the CIA. Colby himself admits
that he viewed the Whitlam government as a threat.9 A
former executive of the bank told Inquirv magazine that
the CIA, under Colby, laundered millions of dollars
through Nugan Hand to help support pro-U.S. political
parties. 10
The Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, who removed
Whitlam from office, served in intelligence during
World War II. After the war, Kerr worked for the CIA-
funded Law Association for Asia and the Western Pacif-
ic, known as Lawasia, and the Association for Cultural
Freedom.H
�Nancy Grodin
5. Loc. cit., n. 3.
6. London Sunday Times, September?, 1980, p. I; Toohey, op. cit.,
n. 1, January 4-10, 1981, p. 9.
7. Toohey, op. cit., n. I. October 5-11, 1980, p. 4. October 12-18,
1980, p. 17.
8. Loc. cit., n. I.
9. Loc, cit., n. 3.
10. Marshall, Jonathan, Inquiry magazine, November 24, 1980, p. 11.
I I. Freney, Denis, "The CIA's Australian Connection," Freney. Syd-
ney: 1977, p. 34.
Number 16 ( March 1982)
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time in the company of Bernie Houghton; Kent B. Crane, a
former CIA case officer, who developed a plan with Yates
to draw local politicians to the bank;24 and Patry E.
Loomis, a CIA officer named as the key link between the
Agency and the bank. He was also involved in Edwin
Wilsc n's arms smuggling and recruitment operations.25
The Drug Traffic
During the latter half of the 1970s, Nugan Hand ex-
panded rapidly, building up an impressive clientele of drug
dealers, mob leaders, arms smugglers, and general inves-
tors. This group of people were given the privilege not only
of banking with some of the CIA's best and brightest, but
also of receiving personalized, inside financial advice by
CIA personnel. And it is likely that these patrons were also
subsidized or otherwise helped by the Agency in furthering
their imterprises.
Many high-level drug dealers banked with Nugan Hand.
Murray Riley, a leader in Australian organized crime, was
picke I up in the largest drug bust in Australian history in
1978. Michael Hand's Hong Kong phone number was
found on Riley when he was caught by the police. One of
Riley's employees admits that Riley shifted large amounts
of money through the Nugan Hand Bank, and visited the
Sydney office several times.26
Paul Hayward was one of Sydney's biggest heroin deal-
ers. H is network was out of Thailand, and he is known to
have 3een one of Nugan Hand's biggest customers.27
Brian Alexander, a personal friend of Nugan's, was in-
volved in the largest drug ring in Australia. And Terrence
Clarke, the head of the Mr. Asia drug syndicate, did his
banking with Nugan Hand.28
Not only was the bank plugged into the heart of the
Southeast Asian drug trade, it also had informants placed
high in the Australian Federal Bureau of Narcotics.
In 1977 one of the Bureau's informants told an investigat-
or ab put two merchant bankers he knew named Michael
Hand and Frank Nugan.
"They are bigger than anything you have ever seen here
in the heroin game and are said to be part of an American
security organization. If you caught these blokes, all hell
would break loose."
In fact, the informant worked for Nugan Hand, and had
firsthand knowledge of the two bankers and their business
operation.
His movements were monitored by the Bureau after his
allegations. Within twenty-four hours of the commence-
ment of surveillance, he called the Bureau demanding to
know why he was being followed. When alerts were put on
his associates, he knew within hours. The investigator on
the ca se was so upset by the security breach that he com-
plained to his superiors. Nothing was done about the leak,
and the investigator was forced to leave the Bureau.
By early 1978 it was clear that Frank Nugan had direct
accesi, to Bureau information, which he obtained often
within hours of its internal appearance. According to a
former Bureau officer, "Nugan was getting to hear about
24. Loc. cit., n. 22.
25. Toohey, op. cit., n. 2, May 3I-June 6, 1981.
26. Marshall, /oc. cit., n. 6.
27. The Melbourne Herald, August 22, 1980, p. I.
28. Loc. cit., n. 26.
54 Cc vertAction
Frank Nugan�did his hotline to the Bureau cause his
death?
our inquiries literally before we could even up-date our
holdings on them."
At this point, the director of the Bureau, Brian Bates,
placed on file a memo suspending any further investigation
into the Nugan Hand affair. The Bureau disbanded in late
1979. Proposals for an Australian federal task force in-
quiry of Nugan Hand were made in late 1980, but nothing
has been heard from that quarter since.29
The Arms Traffic
There is also evidence that Nugan Hand had significant
ties to arms dealers around the world. A former Nugan
Hand employee claims that the bank acted as a financial
intermediary in multimillion dollar international arms
deals, involving mainly small weapons, ammunition, and
helicopters. Most of these transactions were out of Sing-
apore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and the Philippines, often to
supply right-wing political groups. The source noted:
"The Brazilian deal was one arms transaction involving
Nugan Hand. The group was involved in a number of
others, including arms sold in Singapore to various Malay-
sian interests money has no religion."
A system of back-to-back invoicing was employed to
assure secrecy in arms deals serviced by the bank.3�
Frank Nugan visited Summit Aviation in Delaware in
1978. This firm specializes in outfitting Cessna Skymasters
with machineguns and rockets, for sale to countries like
Thailand. Defense Industries International of Washing-
ton, D.C. was approached by Nugan to finance their arms
sales.31
There is evidence that Nugan Hand was linked to Edwin
Wilson and the U.S. Navy's secret Task Force 157, through
Bernie Houghton.32
Wilson and his partner, Frank Terpil, are now fugitives
wanted on a ten-count indictment by a U.S. grand jury on
charges of conspiracy to supply explosives to terrorists,
arms smuggling, and murder, among other things.
29. Webb, Wilkinson, and Toohey, /oc cit., n. 2; personal examination of
Australian Narcotics Bureau documents by author, March 1980.
30. Lindsay, Patrick, The Australian, September 8, 1980, p. I.
31. Toohey, /oc. cit., n. 6.
32. Toohey, O. cit., n. 2, October 5-11, 1980.
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Task Force 157 was disbanded in 1977. The Navy refuses
to talk about it, but sources close to the group say that it
folded because Wilson was involved in too many illegal
business ventures.33 Since leaving Task Force 157, Wilson
and Terpil developed their extremely profitable business in
Libya, supplying bombs, arms and personnel throughout
the Middle East and elsewhere. In 1981 Terpil moved his
base of operations to Beirut, Lebanon, and in November
was allegedly abducted from the site of a restaurant he was
constructing there.
It is believed that the Saudi Arabian branch of the bank,
run by Wilson's personal friend Bernie Houghton, shifted
33. Interviews by author, June 18, July 27, and August I I, 1981.
U.S.-Australia Ties Tighten
The Australia Connection, as exemplified by the
machinations of Nugan Hand Bank, is growing. This
is apparently a function of the compatibility of the
Reagan administration in the United States and the
Malcolm Fraser administration in Australia.
On October 30, 1981 the Washington Post report-
ed that joint U.S.-Australian military ties have been
strengthened. In addition to the now well-known
communications intelligence operations at Pine Gap,
the article described recent military operations
involving all four U.S. services, the Australians, and
the New Zealanders�as "the most sophisticated and
one of the biggest joint military exercises ever staged
here."
In addition, the Australians have given permission
for the landing of U.S. B-52 bombers, and the U.S. is
selling 75 F-18 jet fighters to Australia to replace their
aging fleet of French Mirage 30s.
The Australian Defense Department now insists
that it plays a role in the operation of Pine Gap and
the other spy satellite tracking stations, something
which critics of the operations dispute. Moreover,
Australian participation, whatever the degree, does
not eliminate the most significant objection: that
massive CIA operations throughout Australia make
the country a primary target in the event of hostilities
involving the United States, the Soviet Union, or the
Peoples Republic of China.
An ominous note was reported in the November
20, 1981 New York Times. The Department of
Energy announced President Reagan's decision "to
offer Australia access to highly classified centrifuge
technology to enrich uranium, technology that until
now has not been shared with foreign governments."
The disclosures led to heated debate in the Senate
Subcommittee on Energy, Nuclear Proliferation and
Government Processes. As the Times noted, "Cen-
trifuge technology has traditionally been closely held
by governments because of the risk it poses to efforts
to stop the spread of atomic weapons. It can provide
nations with a relatively inexpensive means of pro-
ducing nuclear fuel for use in commercial plants or
possibly in nuclear weapons."
Number 16 ( March 1982)
large sums of money for him- money earned from his arms
ventures.14
The Collapse of Nugan Hand
Following Frank Nugan's untimely death in January
1980, court-appointed liquidators began investigating the
bank's books. They found as much as $50 million unac-
counted for, $20 million of this missing from the Cayman
Islands branch alone.35
According to official investigators who examined the
books three days after Nugan's death, $23 million was
found to be missing from the Singapore branch. The books
showed $5 million transferred from Singapore to the Syd-
ney office over a two-year period, yet no records exist of the
money's ever being received in Australia. Following
Nugan's death, Houghton had $150,000 shifted from the
Hong Kong branch to a personal account in the United
States.36 These transactions are among many that indicate
just how much money Nugan Hand dealt in, and how often
the bank records were fixed to conceal some of that money.
Unfortunately, though, most of the files of Nugan Hand
transactions were missing or destroyed by the time federal
officials entered the offices. r The books obtained by the
court showed that 194 companies were banking with
Nugan Hand at the time of Nugan's death. But virtually no
persons or companies have made formal claims on any of
the $50 million owned by the collapsed bank.38
Most of the bank's executives are now in hiding, on
prolonged vacations, missing, or in the case of Frank
Nugan, dead. Why?
The evidence seems to show that the Nugan Hand Bank
was a CIA-run operation, and that most of its clients were
involved in drug smuggling, arms dealing or political
payoffs. Based on this, it would stand to reason that few
would risk the consequences of stepping forward.
Many Freedom of Information Act requests have been
filed on Nugan Hand. The FBI released forty-six pages of a
119-page file on the bank. These pages were heavily delet-
ed, mostly on national security grounds "in the interests of
national defense or foreign policy." The U.S. Customs
Service "will neither confirm nor deny the existence of an
investigation of Nugan Hand Bank." And the CIA has not
responded to a request in over a year and a half.40
In Australia, public interest in Nugan Hand is wide-
spread. However, little has been written about it in the
United States. A decade of organized criminal activities
has come to an end. Yet with all the evidence provided, we
may never know the full extent of the CIA's involvement in
the bank. Without the cooperation of former bank officials
and the federal agencies, much of this story will remain a
mystery. In the words of a former Nugan Hand associate,
"This thing is so big . . . bigger than you can imagine."4'
IMMF
34. Toohey, op. cit., n. 2, May 31-June 6, 1981; interviews by author. June
18 and July 24, 1981.
35. Perkins, op. cit., n. 10. April 27, 1980.
36. Ibid., August 10, 1980, p. 5.
37. Ibid.
38. Loc. cit., n. 35.
39. Responses to Freedom of Information Act requests of author and
Brian Toohey, 1980 and 1981.
40. Mid.
41. Interview by author, June 18, 1981.
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Where Are They Now?
By Louis Wolf
Cl A. veteran Nestor D. Sanchez, 54, now holds the most
important position in the Pentagon relating to Latin Amer-
ica and the Caribbean. He joined the Agency in 1953,
spending tours in Morocco, Venezuela, and as Chief of
Station in Guatemala, Colombia, and recently, in Spain
from 1976-79. As Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
for International Security Affairs, a post to which he was
named on August 7, 1981, Sanchez promptly visited Gua-
temala, Honduras, and the U.S. Army Southern Com-
manic in Panama, on what a Defense Department spokes-
man told CAIB was "a fact-finding tour to get him cur-
rent." Unlike his non-Agency predecessors but typical of
CIA people generally, Sanchez is extremely reluctant to
speak with the media. In six months, he has agreed to grant
only .wo interviews, both "on deep background" and not
for attribution. Contrary to the Pentagon's public profile
in the region which seems to leap higher almost daily,
Sanchez stays hunkered down on the Department of De-
fense fourth floor.
The CIA has moved in to the State Department as well.
Hugh Montgomery, 58, who like Sanchez entered the
Agency in 1953, became the top intelligence official at
State in October when he was named Director of the Bu-
reau of Intelligence and Research (INR). A Europe special-
ist, Montgomery's career spanned senior postings in
Greece, the Soviet Union, France, Austria, and two sepa-
rate assignments in Italy. His most recent job had been on
the CIA's National Intelligence Council, where he was the
National Intelligence Officer for Western Europe. The lat-
est appointment is particularly significant. Though there is
close communication between INR, the CIA, and the Pen-
tagon intelligence branches, professional Foreign Service
personnel have nonetheless traditionally resented much of
the CIA's encroachment into the conduct of diplomacy and
the INR directorship has nearly always been held by a
career State Department officer.
James R. Lilley, 54, who was born in China and became
a CIA employee in 1951, was assigned in November as head
of the Taipei-based American Institute in Taiwan, head-
quarters for U.S. dealings with the Republic of China since
diplomatic relations were broken in 1979. A long-time
China watcher, Lilley held CIA posts in Manila, Phnom
Penh, Bangkok, Vientiane, Hong Kong and Peking. In an
unpublished 1980 paper, "Security Considerations in Tai-
wan's Future," he bemoaned the fact that Mainland Chi-
nese emigres "are in actual control" and suggested that the
one-China policy to which the U.S. has haltingly given lip
service be maintained, "at least verbally." Lilley recently
hosted John H. Holdridge, since May 1981 the Assistant
56 CovertAction
Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, a
member of the Foreign Service since 1948 who worked in
five Southeast Asian countries including China from 1973-
75 and as Ambassador to Singapore from 1975-78. H ol-
dridge, who prior to this appointment was assigned to the
National Intelligence Council as National Intelligence Of-
ficer for East Asia, was the messenger carrying the news to
Taiwan's leaders that, to avoid causing a rift with Peking,
the U.S. would not be selling them sophisticated military
aircraft. The purpose of his visit was leaked from within to
the Washington Post, causing the White House considera-
ble distress. [See "Deceit and U.S. Foreign Policy" in this
issue.]
Thomas P. Elmore, a senior CIA officer who is chief of
the political analysis branch in the Agency's Near East and
South Asia division, is taking a sabbatical. He has been
given a one-year chair as a "visiting fellow" at the conserva-
tive American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Re-
search in Washington. AEI's self-described mission is "to
assist scholars, businessmen, policy makers, the press, and
the public by providing objective analysis of national and
international issues." His participation in the White House
Executive Fellows program is paid for by the CIA.
After working with Army intelligence in Vietnam and 10
years in the CIA's Directorate of Operations, Robert R.
Simmons, 38, was named staff director of the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence in October. Simmons "retired"
from the CIA in 1979 at an uncommonly early age to
become a legislative assistant to Republican Senator John
Chafee of Rhode Island. He joined the Committee staff in
early 1981. This may explain Chafee's zeal in pressing for
passage of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
Max Hugel, 55, who served briefly as CIA Deputy Di-
rector for Operations�the job which without a doubt is
one of the most pivotal in the entire government
bureaucracy-- has surfaced again. His six months at the
CIA ended abruptly on July 14, 1981 after revelations that
he had engaged in fraudulent stock manipulations during
the 1970s. In a drab February 4 televised discussion with
Daniel Schorr on the Cable News Network, Hugel allowed
that he would not wish to do it over again. He said he was
the victim of "leaks" from inside the operations directorate,
apparently by those who wanted one of their own in the key
slot. "Knowing what-----what the situation�how the thing
operates, I would not [take the job again]," he stammered.
Having spent much of his adult life in assorted commercial
pursuits, he has "just continued to be very active in the
business world" in New York and Washington, but he is
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markedly secretive about his activities now. Due to the
nationwide controversy surrounding him, Centronics Data
Computer Corporation in New Hampshire, where he was
executive vice president before joining the Reagan presi-
dential campaign, has not taken him back. Reached by
CA/B, Centronics said they had been "instructed" not to
discuss Hugel with anyone. Several independent sources
have related to CAIB that Hugel was totally out of his
element for the 10 weeks he spent as Deputy Director for
Operations, and was effectively excluded from the director-
ate's real inner circle by two of his subordinates, John
Henry Stein, who replaced him as DDO, and Clair Elroy
George, Stein's assistant. There is, however, still a legiti-
mate question to be asked: Now back in the world of
business and finance, is Max Hugel going to resist utilizing
the highly-privileged information he gained on the inside
about everything from international commerce to counter-
feiting to coups d'etat and from the Caribbean to Southern
Africa to the Persian Gulf and back again to the U.S.? He
has already shown a propensity to yield to such tempta-
tions; why will he act differently now? Some observers,
including one who knows Hugel personally, have suggest-
ed that his good friend, Director of Central Intelligence
William Casey, may occasionally still rely on him for cer-
tain proprietary business operations, especially in Asia,
where Hugel wheeled and dealed for many years. [See
CAIB Number 13 for more background on Hugel.]
Former national security advisor Richard V. Allen, now
a $190 per day "consultant" to the President's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board, has not yet received full credit
for all of his activities while still employed as Ronald
Reagan's right hand man. One unnoticed item that should
have been at least as worthy of scrutiny as taking bribes
that were relatively small by Washington standards is his
contribution to a recent South African publication. Allen
wrote the introduction to Joseph Churba's book, "Retreat
from Freedom," published by Howard Timmins Publish-
ers of Capetown. Churba begins with the assertion, "De-
tente is dead and buried. It must be replaced." The book
argues for a two-pronged strategy: military escalation by
the U.S. and NATO, coupled with a massive propaganda
campaign aimed at the populations of the Warsaw Pact
countries. Allen, in his introduction, calls Churba's book
"indispensable," and describes the author as "one of our
most incisive and skilled military intelligence analysts."
Why, then, did Churba need to find a South African pub-
lisher to peddle his and Allen's insights?
Another most interesting appointment is that ofJeremi-
ah O'Leary, veteran correspondent of the now defunct
Washington Star, as "special assistant" to national security
advisor William P. Clark. Replacing Richard Allen, Clark
has become the point man for the White House offensive
against the media, hoping also to stem the infuriating tide
of leaks. O'Leary's ostensible switching sides is noteworthy
because of his long and loyal service to the intelligence
agencies. It is known, for example, as a result of documen-
tation obtained through the Freedom of Information Act,
that O'Leary was singled out personally by former FBI
Director J. Edgar Hoover as a friendly media asset used by
the Bureau to promote the stories it favored. Will he be
continuing this cozy relationship from inside the govern-
ment as Clark's assistant? 1=1.
Number 16 ( March 1982)
Correction
In CAIB Number 10, on page 21, in the article
entitled "Guyana: The Faces Behind the Masks," this
statement appears: "Leo Ryan's name appears in
'Who's Who in the CIA' by Julius Mader." This was a
reference to Congressman Leo J. Ryan of California
who was killed in Guyana at the outset of the Jones-
town massacre.
CAIB has learned that the person named in Mad-
er's book is Leo John Ryan, born in 1923, while the
late Congressman was Leo Joseph Ryan, born in
1925. We regret this error, and thank the Jonestown
Research Project of Philadelphia for pointing this
out.
A sixteen mm., 60-minute color documentary
celebrating the Grenadian Revolution on its first an-
niversary and examining the campaign of destabiliza-
tion being waged against Grenada, the tiny "jewel" of
the Caribbean. Includes interviews with Maurice
Bishop, Cheddi Jagan, Isabel Letelier, Trevor Mon-
roe, and Philip Agee.
Produced by CovertAction Information Bulletin;
directed by Ellen Ray; for rental information, tele-
phone [phone], or write to P.O. Box 50272,
Washington, DC 20004.
Approved for Release: 2018/09/17 C05531264
CovertAction 57
Approved for Release: 2018/09/17 C05531264
Sources and Methods (continued from page 60)
to "Military Compound 19"at Sverdlovsk as they straight-
ened out their stories), and a reference to the 1957 nuclear
accident in the Urals described by Soviet dissident scientist
Zhort s Medvedev.
It wasn't until the following March that the story was
issued in the U.S., timed to coincide with a meeting in
Geneva to review the accords banning biological warfare�
first in a release from the State Department, followed
shorty by testimony of a Russian emigre witness,
"Mr. Popovsky," before a House Intelligence subcom-
mittee. A report by a Paris-based Russian emigre paper
was published and distributed by Freedom House, and the
charges flew thick and fast while the Soviet explanation�a
natural outbreak from diseased meat�met scorn.
Harvard University geneticist Matthew Meselson, who
had advised the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
on chemical and biological warfare for ten years,
considered the Soviet explanation plausible and the U.S.
charges unlikely. But it was Zhores Medvedev, whose
name had been invoked to lend credibility to the original
Now! magazine story, who conclusively debunked the
charge of germ warfare in the July 13, 1980 issue of New
Scienlist.
Medvedev traced the allegation to its source, a Russian
emigre publication in Frankfurt, which had itself
acknc wledged that its original report was mistaken. He
then explained why the corrected stories also could not
suppc rt the germ warfare suspicion:
"If Any outbreak of pulmonary anthrax (which the CIA
suspects) is the result of the accidental explosion of an
actua weapon (with a cloud of spores), then the stories that
the epidemic continued for a month, with thirty to forty
casualties per day, could not have been true. Pulmonary
anthrax develops a few hours after the infection has been
i ihaled, and the disease continues for only two to three
days. Death is almost inevitable�not within three to four
hours as reported, but two to three days. Intestinal anthrax
is also lethal; death is usually within one to six days after
infection. If the epidemic really lasted for a month, then the
pulmonary form could have been present only during the
first few days, and not later."
Despite Medvedev's categorical conclusion�"it is not
reasonable to use arguments about the tragedy in
Sverdlovsk to revive germ warfare preparations or
chemical warfare research and production"�the U.S. has
continued to do precisely that. Colonel Charles H. Bay,
comn- ander of the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah
(where the U.S. nerve gas arsenal is stored), argued in the
December 1980 Parameters, the journal of the U.S. Army
War College, "The Sverdlovsk incident stands as evidence
that the United States was unsuccessful in its quixotic
efforts to impose biological warfare restraints on the Soviet
U niort." He concludes that the U.S. should expand its
stockpile of chemical weapons.
Unclassified Report Suppressed
A recent unreported episode indicates the degree to
which the U.S. government sees the double-edged
propaganda potential of an incident of this sort. Last May
the General Accounting Office prepared a report titled
"Revi nA/ of Matters Relating to U.S. Army Laboratories
58 CovertAction
and Research Activities in the San Francisco Area (H RD-
81-98)." It analyzed allegations that unauthorized
biological research was being conducted at Letterman
Army Institute of Research (LAIR) and that an outbreak of
fever linked to LAIR research activities had occurred
among the staff. The report concluded that there was "no
evidence of unauthorized research" and that "eight persons
working at the LAIR facility were diagnosed as having
contracted Q fever" from sheep that were housed in the
LAIR facility for use in Letterman Army Medical Center's
clinical research. Q fever is not unusual among people who
handle sheep, said the study. The report concluded that the
suspicions of impropriety were groundless.
Then a curious thing happened. The report was
suppressed. It was sent to Congress on May 29 and
contained no classified information, nor any that could
even be reasonably construed as embarrassing. Yet when
CovertAction Information Bulletin asked for a copy in
October, five months later, our request was denied. The
GAO told us the report was "Restricted," and we were
unable to obtain it until January. The only reasonable
conclusion is that the epidemic of Q fever at LAIR could be
subject to the same type of misconstruction as the outbreak
of anthrax at Sverdlovsk. Presumably by postponing
release until the document was relatively "old" there was a
reduced risk of any sort of media scrutiny.
It is well to remember, as we reflect on these matters, that
since the ban on biological weapons went into effect in
1975, the only proven violator has been the U.S. The very
first public hearings of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence (the Church Committee) disclosed the
unauthorized storage of toxic agents by the CIA, shellfish
toxin and cobra venom.
CIUB Announces Bound Volume
CAIB is pleased to announce the hardcover
publication of its first bound volume, containing
original copies of issues 1 through 12, plus the complete,
detailed index of everything which appeared from our
first issue in July 1978 through Number 12, April 1981.
The volume, in a cloth, library-quality hard binding,
with gold-stamped spine, will be sold to libraries and
other non-subscribers for $55.00; CAIB subscribers may
purchase it for $45.00, postage (in the U.S.) included.
Overseas subscribers must add $2.00 for surface
postage. (Overseas airmail rates, unfortunately quite
high, are: Mexico, Caribbean and Central America,
$7.00; Europe and South America, $12.00; all other,
$17.00.)
Order now, as this volume has been prepared in a very
limited edition, utilizing all remaining copies of our
premier issue. Send $45.00 per copy, and appropriate
postage if any (please specify), to: CA/B, P.O. Box
50272, Washington, DC 20004. Foreign orders must be
paid in U.S. funds payable in the U.S.
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Number 16 (March 1982)
Approved for Release: 2018/09/17 C05531264
Special Offer to Our Readers
Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe, the first of this series of startling and invaluable exposes, lists at $24.95. Dirty
Work 2: The CIA in Africa lists at $29.95. Current or new subscribers may order these books from us for $12.00 for Dirty
Work and for $20 for Dirty Work 2. This includes surface postage anywhere. For airmail overseas, please add $10.00 for
DW/ or $8.00 for DW2.
Back Issues
All back issues are available from CA I B (although Number 1 is only available in photocopy). (Microform versions are
available from University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106.) Highlights of issues are listed below.
Prices are as follows: Number I, $3.00; Numbers 2-13, $2.50; Number 14-15, $5.00. Add $1.00 per issue outside North
America.
Number 1 (July 1978): Agee on CIA; Cuban Exile Trial; Consumer Research in Jamaica.
Number 2 (October 1978): CIA Recruiting Diplomats; Researching Undercover Officers; Double Agent in CIA.
Number 3 (January 1979): CIA Attacks Bulletin; Supplement B to Army Field Manual, Spying on Host Countries.
Number 4 (April-May 1979): U.S. Spies in Italian Services; CIA in Spain; Recruiting for Africa; Subversive Academics; Angola.
Number 5 (July-August 1979): U.S. Intelligence in Southeast Asia; CIA in Denmark, Sweden, Grenada.
Number 6 (October 1979): U.S. in Caribbean; Cuban Exile Terrorists; CIA Plans for Nicaragua; CIA's secret "Perspectives for Intelligence."
Number 7 (December I979-January 1980): Media Destabilization in Jamaica; Robert Moss; CIA Budget, Media Operations; UNITA; Iran.
Number 8 (March-April 1980): Attacks on Agee; U.S. Intelligence Legislation; CAIB Statement; Zimbabwe; Northern Ireland.
Number 9 (June 1980): NSA in Norway; Glomar Explorer; Mind Control; Notes on NSA.
Number 10 (August-September 1980): Caribbean; Destabilization in Jamaica; Guyana; Grenada Bombing; Antigua and Dominica; The Spike Deep
Cover Manual
Number II (December 1980): Right-Wing Terrorism; South Korea; KCIA; Portugal; Guyana; Caribbean; NSA interview: AE10.
Number 12 (April 1981): U.S. in El Salvador and Guatemala; New Right; William Casey; Mozambique Spy Ring; Mail Surveillance.
Number 13 (July-August 1981): South Africa Documents; Namibia "Solution;" Mercenaries and Gunrunning; Globe Aero; Angola; Mozambique;
BOSS; Central America; Max Hugel; Mail Surveillance.
Number 14-15 (October 1981): Complete Index to Numbers 1-12; Review of Intelligence Legislation, CAIB Plans; Extended Naming Names.
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Mail to: CovertAction Information Bulletin, P.O. Box 50272, Washington, DC 20004.
Number 16 ( March 1982) CovertAction 59
Approved for Release: 2018/09/17 C05531264
Approved for Release: 2018/09/17 C05531264
Sources and Methods
Germ Warfare Disinformation
By Ken Lawrence
Phony allegations about the U.S.S.R.'s chemical and
biological warfare capabilities are not new for the
worldwide disinformation network operated by the CIA�
the "mighty Wurlitzer," as the late CIA Deputy Director
for Plans, Frank Wisner, called his creation.
One old example is contained in the famous best-seller
The Penkovskii Papers (Doubleday, 1965), ostensibly
written by Oleg Penkovskiy, a Soviet intelligence officer
who worked as a spy for the CIA and MI-6. Actually the
book was a CIA fabrication. The CIA ghostwriter has
Penkovskiy say, "I know a new gas has been invented
which is colorless, tasteless, and without odor. The gas is
avowed to be very effective and highly toxic. The secret of
the gas is not known to me. It has been named 'American';
why this name was chosen, I can only guess."[page 249] He
goes on to say that Soviet officers are trained in first-strike
use of chemical weapons and that the decision whether to
use them is the field commander's.
A more recent campaign of this type was launched in
1979, seizing upon a Soviet misfortune and turning it into
false and malicious cold war propaganda. The incident was
an outbreak of anthrax in the eastern Ural city of
Sverdlovsk.
The opening blow in the propaganda campaign was
struck by the now-defunct British news magazine Now!, a
publication that seemed to be a hybrid of Time and the
National Enquirer. The cover of No wrs October 26-No-
vember 1, 1979 issue screamed, "Exclusive: Russia's Secret
Germ War Disaster." Although supposedly based on an
eyewitness account, the essential details of the story were
entirely wrong. Now! placed the outbreak in Novosibirsk,
about 1,000 miles to the east of Sverdlovsk, during June
(the actual tragedy was in April). Otherwise all the ele-
ments were in place�wild speculation about the type of
agent that could have caused "the skin markings seen on
the victims," reference to a secret research center (which
had to be moved by later propagandists from the Siberian
branch of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk
(continued on page 58)
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