COVERT ACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN: SPECIAL: THE CIA AND RELIGION

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INFORMATION
Number 18 Winter 1983
$3.00
Special: The CIA and Religion
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Editorial
In this issue we concentrate on the CIA and religion,
especially in Central America. We believe that an under-
standing of the degree to which intelligence agencies at-
tempt to manipulate religion and organized churches is
even more essential today than it was in 1975, when Sena-
tor Church's Committee examined the CIA's use of mis-
siori ries as spies.
Central America threatens to become another Vietnam
for U.S. involvement, and in many countries repression
against the poor has become brutal beyond comprehen-
sion. The people of Central America are very religious, a
factor on which the CIA has always relied, as noted in
Sources and Methods, and elsewhere in this issue. Using
religious beliefs against the people and controlling and
manipulating religious-sponsored relief agencies is nothing
new :or the CIA, as is shown in our articles on Thailand
and Guatemala, and on the Miskitu Indians of Nicaragua.
The reason for the critical role of religion in Central
America is clearly the development of what is known as
liberation theology. For hundreds of years, until the late
1950s and early 1960s, the church in Latin America
primarily the Catholic Church- was essentially conserva-
tive and therefore supportive of the repressive national
security states. But in recent decades there has been a
decisive shift in the emphasis of religious workers to an
identification with the poor and underprivileged. Grass
roots work flourished; the Second Vatican Council (1962-5)
encouraged this work; and in 1968 the Medellin, Colombia
conference of Latin American Bishops recognized the pri-
macy of struggles against social injustice and the legiti-
macy of those struggles even when violence was the only
means left to achieve those goals.
Table of Contents
Editorial
2
Summer Linguistics
41
The Masaya Affair
4
World Medical Relief
47
"Secret" War in Nicaragua
7
AID's Carrot and Stick
50
Opus Del'
11
The CIA and BOSS
52
Ideology in Nicaragua
16
South African Torture
55
The Miskitu Case
21
The Puzzle Palace
57
War Fever in Honduras
25
Vietnam Defoliation
58
U.S. Military in Honduras
29
News Notes
60
Evangelicals in Guatemala
34
CIA Religion
68
On the Cover: Pro-Government Townspeople in Masaya, Nicaragua Take Cover as Counterrevolutionaries Fire at Them
From Inside Catholic School. Credit: El Nuevo Diario.
C'ox'riAction Information Bulletin Number 18, Winter 1983, published by Covert Action Publications, Inc., a District of Columbia Nonprofit
Corpo ation, 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 Fac lh Press, Brooklyn, NY. Washington staff: Ellen Ray, William Schaap. Louis
Wolf. Board of Advisers Philip Agee, Ken Lawrence, Elsie Wilcott, Jim Wilcott. Indexed in the Alternative Press hn/e.r. ISSN 0275-309X.
Number 18 (Winter 1983)
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Of course, the rank and file, the "base communities," as
they are called in Latin America, often moved faster than
the Church hierarchy, as our articles on Nicaragua show.
And the Reagan administration was quick to recognize the
overwhelming significance of this spiritual conflict. The
Santa Fe document, prepared for President-elect Reagan,
noted: "The war is for the minds of mankind. Ideo-politics
will prevail.... U.S. foreign policy must begin to counter
(not react against) liberation theology as it is utilized in
Latin America by the `liberation theology' clergy. The role
of the church in Latin America is vital to the concept of
political freedom . . . [found in] private property and
productive capitalism."
As we demonstrate throughout this issue, the New Right
has attacked liberation theology both within the Catholic
Church, among the Jesuits (see the article on Opus Dei),
and within the Protestant denominations. The liberal Na-
tional Council of Churches has been attacked and spied
upon relentlessly, as have several of its denominational
members which have actively supported social progress in
Latin America. The attacks have come from sources as
diverse as the Pope, evangelists, and Reagan administra-
tion officials like Assistant Secretary of State Elliott
Abrams, who has taken to telephoning bishops to ask if
they know "what's happening in Nicaragua." His cynicism
and hypocrisy are apparently boundless, as he defends the
regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala whose death squads
systematically torture, mutilate, and murder thousands of
poor people.
Number 18 (Winter 1983)
The significance of the evangelical groups-of which
there are now hundreds in Central America- -is described
in our articles on General Rios Montt of Guatemala, and
on the Summer Institute of Linguistics.
The Destabilization of Nicaragua
The return to an era of rabid anti-communism and of a
CIA unleashed is epitomized by the massive program to
destabilize and overthrow the government of Nicaragua. In
three articles in this issue we analyze various facets of that
program, manipulation of the Church, manipulation of the
Miskitu Indians, and the use of paramilitary bands.
Paramilitary mercenary gangs have found great favor
with the new administraiton, and meet, train, practice, and
recruit in this country with impunity. Perspectives have
become so warped that in Miami, for example, the city
government voted a $ 10,000 grant for a "homeless refugee
center" to Alpha 66, a terrorist group dedicated to the
overthrow of the government of Cuba. Alpha 66 admitted
that its concern for refugees extended only to training them
to "send them back as fighters."
This Issue
Once again, we must apologize to our readers for the
lateness of this issue. Our subscribers are a loyal and pa-
tient group and we hope the size and content of this issue
make up for our tardiness. The rumors of our demise, as
Mark Twain said, are premature!
t
Grenada:
Nobody's Backyard
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.
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 Approved For Release 2010/06/09: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100180004-4
?he
Malaya Affair
By Ellen Ray and Bill Schaap
Tie market town of Masaya, less than half an hour's
drive from Managua, is considered the center of the Nica-
ragL.an revolution; the barrio of Monimbo there, its very
heart. In July 1982, the third anniversary of the triumph of
the revolution was celebrated in Masaya, with the slogan,
"Monimbo is Nicaragua," honoring the legendary bravery
of the people of that poor district in the struggle against the
bloody Somoza regime.
Thus, to the enemies of that revolution there would be
enormous propaganda value to an anti-Sandinista riot in
Monimbo. And in August there was a concerted effort to
create just such an illusion. All the elements of a compli-
cated script were present: preliminary skirmishes, rumors,
wild tales in the media, outside agitators, and more.
The events themselves are well worth studying.
The Father Carballo Incident
O ie might have guessed that the right-wing press
especially those professing to be Catholic-would have a
field day. According to William Buckley's venemous Na-
tional Review (September 17, 1982): "Sandinista thugs
jumped the archbishop's spokesman, Father Bismarck
Carballo, at lunch, forced him to strip, and drove him
through the streets." Reactionary columnist Patrick J.
Buchanan was equally strident ( Washington Inquirer, Sep-
tember 3, 1982): "In the most recent and outrageous inci-
dent, Rev. Bismarck Carballo, spokesman for the arch-
dioc,-se, was set upon while lunching with a woman friend;
both were stripped naked and paraded through the streets
to jail where he was held six hours."
But even some of the wire services, which purport to give
both sides in a dispute, presented the above version as fact.
The September 3 Associated Press article entitled,
"Church, Sandinistas On Collision Course," gave this ren-
dition: "In mid-August, the Rev. Bismarck Carballo was at
the home of a woman parishioner when a gunman entered
the house, forced the couple to undress and then pushed
there into the street where a crowd of photographers and
television crews from pro-government media were
waiting."
What none of these "objective"journalists reported was
that the couple was caught in flagrante delicto, and the
"gunman" was the woman's lover. Media people were
nearby covering an embassy demonstration into which the
terrified, naked priest practically collided. The journalists
also failed to note that the government ordered the media
not to publish reports or photos of the incident out of
respect for the Church. However, when Father Carballo
broke the silence by calling a press conference and pre-
senting his incredible version, the censorship order was
lifted and the incident-as well as Carballo--was fully
revealed. Moreover, El Nuevo Diario subsequently learned
that the priest and his "parishioner" had been having an
affair for years, and it published an interview with the
woman in which she admitted their relationship and pro-
duced photos of the couple in bathing suits, trysting at the
seaside.
These additional facts appeared well before the pious
denunciations by Buckley and Buchanan, including a re-
port on the August 19 Reuters wire; they were not, of
course, alluded to by the right-wing press. The same day as
the Reuters report, the State Department denounced the
"treatment meted out to Carballo" as a sign of a "systemat-
ic campaign against religion in Nicaragua."
As recently as mid-December, a CBS-TV network news
report made passing reference to the priest who had been
stripped and beaten. Big lies, even outrageous and in-
herently unbelievable big lies, die slowly.
The Reporting On Masaya
On certain events, everyone agreed. Monday, August 16,
nearly 100 people barricaded themselves inside the Catho-
lic Salesian School in Monimbo. Late in the day, when a
large group of protesters assembled in the streets in front of
the school, shots rang out three people were killed and six
wounded.
Patrick Buchanan wrote that "outraged Catholic stu-
dents seized high schools around the country, and in Mo-
nimbo ... barricades were thrown up against Sandinista
mobs and troops, and three people were killed and six
wounded." Elliott Abrams, whose title is Assistant Secre-
tary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs,
wrote a column for the August 22 Washington Post in
which he claimed, "violent clashes in Masaya between
Sandinista mobs and Catholic school students and their
supporters have resulted in three deaths...." Even some
progressive reporting was fuzzy; the September 1 Guardian
said that "shooting between pro- and anti-Sandinista dem-
onstrators left at least two dead and seven wounded in
Masaya August 16."(One of the wounded later died.) Most
of these accounts give the impression, stated in some media
reports, that "Sandinistas killed students."
What none of the explanations clarifies, however, is that
the shooting came exclusively from inside the school,
where the only armed people were gathered. The dead and
wounded were government supporters, outside protesting
the closing. Moreover, there were students on both sides,
and virtually everyone was Catholic.
When the dust settled it turned out that of the 18 people
arrested inside the school-in rooms littered with spent
rifle shells-only nine were local residents. The major role
of outsiders as agents provocateurs and the rapid dissemi-
nation of false and misleading propaganda suggest a well-
planned scenario. Several days after the incident, CAIB
editors visited Monimbo and interviewed residents.
What Really Happened at Masaya?
The Father Carballo incident led, indirectly, to the
events which caused the greatest distortions in the media,
as part of what appears to have been a carefully staged
plan. A few days after the Carballo affair, there was a
significant confrontation in Monimbo. On August 14, Mi-
guel Obando y Bravo, the conservative Archbishop of
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Managua (see sidebar) came to Masaya to participate in a
religious ceremony. During the procession, a large group
of townspeople gathered and confronted the Archbishop,
angry that he had not publicly denounced the recent mas-
sacre at San Francisco del Norte. Other priests had spoken
out against the brutal raid in which counterrevolutionary
exiles from Honduras had killed 15 villagers and kid-
napped eight others, but Obando y Bravo, the senior reli-
gious figure in the country, had been strangely silent. The
petitioning townspeople were rebuffed by followers of
Obando y Bravo, a right-wing mob who took the oppor-
tunity to throw rocks at them.
Then, on the morning of Monday, August 16, the direc-
tor of the Silesian School in Monimbo ordered it closed in
protest against "aggressions suffered by the Church." A
number of youths who supported the closing occupied the
school, barricading it against a large number of students,
supporters of the government, who did not want it closed.
Students and townspeople began gathering in the streets
in front of the school, some in favor of the closing, most
against. In one incident, a pedestrian was hit by a passing
government car. The victim later stated that he had been
pushed into the car by some strangers who were not from
Monimbo. But this incident led to a near rampage by
armed bands who appeared from the hills behind Masaya
and attacked a police substation. It was these same armed
bands who brought their weapons inside the school, al-
though the people outside did not realize this at the time.
Ultimately, after attempts to negotiate an opening of the
school failed, townspeople and students began to march
along the street in front of the school. As they neared the
building shots rang out from inside. The marchers, who
had no guns, dove for cover; three people were killed in the
street and six others wounded. Shortly thereafter, security
forces cleared the school, arresting 81 people. Five
priests -a Spaniard who had evidently instigated the boy-
cott and four Costa Ricans-were taken by the police to
their respective embassies for protective custody.
Within the next few days most of those arrested were
released. Only those determined to be connected with the
shootings were held. The residency permit of the Spanish
director of the school was revoked and he was in effect
deported; the other four priests returned to work at the
school.
Most revealing about the whole incident was the imme-
diate, totally inaccurate reportage which swept around the
world. Items noted above were mild compared to some. An
Associated Press report which went out over their New
York wire early the morning of August 17 stated that
students "took over at least 17 Roman Catholic schools
around the country and protesters in Masaya barricaded
their slum neighborhood against security forces." There
were, in fact, three or four other student protests that day,
though nothing as dramatic as in Monimbo. Moreover,
protesters did not barricade the neighborhood from securi-
ty forces; they demanded that security forces come in and
arrest the persons inside the school who were shooting. At
no time were the townspeople armed, which renders ques-
tionable the following paragraph from the AP wire: "`At
this moment, as you can see, we're building barricades with
paving stones to keep out police and groups of government
supporters. They will surely come and we'll be obliged to
confront them,' one armed resident of Monimbo, a slum on
the edge of Masaya, told reporters."
The article went on to report that "some 2000 residents
built barricades." This is incredible, since the only people
barricaded anywhere were the 81 people inside the
school-and only nine of them were local residents. More-
over, the AP story "from the scene" doesn't even mention
that people were killed! It is possible the story was outlined
even before the events occurred.
But even the AP reportage paled by comparison with
some of the blatant Latin American disinformation pieces.
The local reporter for Excelsior, the prestigious Mexico
City daily, sent, he later said, two separate stories to his
paper. One dealt with the subject of 81 people being arrest-
ed. The other covered the fact that five foreign priests were
in their embassies. The front page headline in Excelsior:
"Eighty-one Priests Arrested in Nicaragua." The following
day Excelsior ran a correction confirming that there were
no priests in jail in Nicaragua, but their original story was
picked up all over the world.
This anti-Sandinista media blitz indicates considerable
coordination, exacerbated by the apparent willingness of
the foreign press corps to believe anything anti-
government. It is a sad indictment of the "investigative"
journalists of Latin American coverage. Only now that the
covert plot against Nicaragua has become so obvious are
these same journalists jumping on the bandwagon. How
many deaths might have been averted if they had done their
homework earlier?
Other Media Manipulation
Some of the blatant distortions which have appeared in
the Nicaraguan opposition press, and in papers in neigh-
boring Honduras and Costa Rica and elsewhere, strongly
suggest a coordinated campaign which can only be seen as
an integrated part of the destabilization plot aimed at
Nicaragua. The photograph on the cover of this issue
shows townspeople in Masaya who were protesting the
right-wing takeover of the Salesian School diving for cover
as they were shot at from inside the school. The photo was
sent by AP wire to Honduras and elsewhere, with, AP later
insisted, the correct caption. Nevertheless, the following
day it appeared in a major Tegucigalpa newspaper with a
caption which said that it showed "Catholics" dodging
"Sandinista bullets."
At the height of the tensions over events in Masaya,
Bishop Salvador Schlaefer from the Atlantic coast was
asked by the government to come to Managua to help in
the various negotiations and meetings that were taking
place. He was provided with government transportation.
La Prensa editor Horacio Ruiz reported to the Brazilian
paper Correo Brasileno, for which he was a correspondent,
that Schlaefer had been arrested by the Sandinistas. He
also gave this "information" to other reporters in Mana-
gua, and the story, which was a complete lie, was reprinted
everywhere. The situation became so confused that Bishop
Schlaefer found it necessary to call a press conference to
inform the media that he had not been arrested and was not
in jail!
Ruiz also writes for the conservative Costa Rican paper,
La Nacion. His articles, denouncing press censorship in
Nicaragua, have been reprinted in U.S. newspapers, in-
cluding the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, without mentioning
that he was La Prensa editor, a fact he finds convenient to
omit. (For a detailed analysis of the role of La Prensa, see
CA 1B Number 16.)
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Conclusion
Religion is a powerful force; religious symbolism is the
most powerful tool which exists for the manipulation of
people. And the Nicaraguans are a religious people. But the
struggle is not between those who are for religion and those
who are not; it is a struggle between progressive religious
people and reactionary religious people. In such a struggle,
when it is known that the largest propaganda agency in the
world, the CIA, is actively involved, it is important for all
observers to study events carefully, to be sure of what is
really happening.
Just as in the case of the Miskitus, discussed in detail
elsewhere in this issue, the big lie is being used constantly.
Total fabrications appear on the front pages of major
newspapers around the world. Such covert operations are
pernicious; the corrections never have the impact of the
original lies. Nicaragua's friends must be extremely vigilant
and must expose these lies immediately and consistently.
Archbishop Obando y Bravo and the
Institute on Religion and Democracy
During the 1970s, the Catholic Church in Nicaragua
became progressively more anti-Somoza, with the rank
and file always leading the hierarchy. By 1974 the
bishops would not attend Somoza's inauguration, and
by 1977 they openly condemned the human rights viola-
tions of the regime. But throughout this period church
leaders, headed by the Archbishop of Managua, Msgr.
Miguel Obando y Bravo, continued to stress the differ-
ences between the tactics and politics of the rank and file
opposition and that of themselves.
The division was over the conflicting views of the
revolution held by the two groups clearly a class
di vision-though often couched by the hierarchy in reli-
gious terminology. They represented the upper class
opposition to Somoza which, after the triumph of the
revolution, became more concerned with threats to its
own class privileges.
Obando y Bravo has become the focal point of oppo-
sition to the Sandinista leadership. He plays a deeply
political role, aligning himself often with U.S. interests,
while pretending to speak "only" in his religious capaci-
ty. He makes political statements with impunity, and at
the same time criticizes the progressive priests for being
"political." In 1980, in fact, Obando y Bravo and his
bishops ordered four priests serving in the government
and in the party to resign their posts. The popular oppo-
sit ion was so widespread that the order was rescinded.
Msgr. Obando y Bravo (second from right) receives right-
: IRD's Religion and Democracy Award.
The hierarchy has also generated considerable con-
flict within the Church and its parishioners by transfer-
ring popular priests from their parishes whenever they
think the local church is too supportive of the revolu-
tion. Emotions have run so high that one congregation
occupied a church to prevent the bishop from removing
the sacraments after their priest was transferred, and a
scuffle ensued. The Archbishop excommunicated all
those involved, though there is considerable question
whether he has the authority to do so.
Obando y Bravo's role is highlighted by the fact that
he has become the darling of the Institute on Religion
and Democracy (IRD), a shady New Right outfit with
deep ties to the CIA. IRD appears to be something of a
cross between an intelligence proprietary and a front for
Reagan administration policies. In January 1982, the
IRD honored the Archbishop in Washington and de-
voted considerable space in its newsletter to him. They
also published a propaganda pamphlet entitled, "Nica-
ragua: A Revolution Against the Church?"
The IRD was founded in April 1981 as an autono-
mous project of the Coalition for a Democratic Majori-
ty (CDM). The CDM is a leading neo-conservative
group, whose board includes Jeane Kirkpatrick. IRI)
shared offices with another CDM special project, the
defunct Citizen's Committee for Freedom in the Ameri-
cas, whose board included Constantine Menges, now a
high CIA official (see CA 1B Number 16), and William
C. Doherty, Jr. of the American Institute for Free Labor
Development (AIFLD), a CIA front.
IRD itself is the brainchild of David Jessup, a right-
wing Methodist layman, who has been attacking the
progressive churches in the U.S. for several years. I R D's
board members cover the neo-conservative spectrum,
with notables from the American Enterprise Institute,
Social Democrats U.S.A., the Ethics and Public Policy
Center (of Nestle hack Ernest Lefever), Commentary
magazine, and assorted evangelical and fundamentalist
religious groups.
IRD's affairs are worthy of further study. A recom-
mended starting point is IDOC International Bulletin
Number 8-9 (1982), "An American Dream: Neo-
Conservatism and New Religious Right in the USA: The
Institute on Religion and Democracy."(Write to IDOC
at 30 via S. Maria dell'Anima, Rome 00186, Italy.)
J
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Nicaragua Under Siege:
CC'S "Secret" War Escalates
By Ellen Ray and Bill Schaap
U.S. Army Claymore mine captured from contra in Nicaragua.
Throughout late 1981 and early 1982 there were per-
sistent reports of a rapidly escalating paramilitary cam-
paign against the government of Nicaragua. Counter-
revolutionary forces were being assembled and trained in
camps in Florida, California, and elsewhere in the U.S.,
and a network of bases were being established in Hon-
duras, along the border with Nicaragua. Sprinkled
throughout the reports were the names of wealthy Nicara-
guan exiles, former members of Somoza's bloody National
Guard, renegade Miskitu Indian leaders, and many vicious
Cuban exiles-with long histories of working for the CIA.
From the outset it was clear to the Nicaraguans, and to
many outside observers, that the operations bore all the
hallmarks of another CIA-sponsored plan. What distin-
guished this plan from earlier escapades, however, was the
rapidity with which confirmation was forthcoming in the
establishment media. In the past it had taken years before
U.S. officials, even anonymous ones, admitted the extent
of covert U.S. operations in Southeast Asia, in Angola, in
Iran, and elsewhere. Reports in foreign and progressive
domestic media were discounted as paranoid fantasy or
rhetoric. But in the case of Nicaragua, revelations are
following hard on the heels of the incidents themselves.
Covert actions have become almost overt actions.
What the orgy of leaks and deep background admissions
really means is a hotly debated point. Some observers
believe that the revelations are designed to prepare the
public for more and deeper involvement, to inure the pub-
lic to further embroilment. But others believe that there is a
sharp split within the intelligence complex and within the
administration itself over the efficacy of paramilitary oper-
ations in the Nicaraguan context, with some strong voices
urging a more sophisticated plan. To develop some under-
standing of what the future-the near future-will bring, it
is helpful to review both the plan and the revelations.
The National Security Council Plan
The Reagan administration clearly inherited from its
predecessor the germ of a program to destabilize the San-
dinistas, but by and large that program was relatively
non-violent. Economic and political pressures were al-
ready in place and there were hints of paramilitary activity,
but no widespread movement in that area. Under the Rea-
gan team a new emphasis and a new urgency came into
play. Some activity on the part of the exiles and their
supporters was anticipatory. They knew that the Reagan
administration would be very supportive, both ideological-
ly and financially, and they began to create some of the
infrastructure which would ultimately fit into the govern-
ment's plan. "At last we have a man in the White House
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with pants on," one exile leader was quoted as saying.
But although paramilitary attacks against Nicaragua
began to escalate during 1981, it was not until the end of
that year that matters reached dramatic proportions. Why
this came about was made clear in revelations which sur-
faced in the media only a few months later, in February,
March, and April of 1982. We now know that in November
1981 the administration asked the CIA to prepare an op-
tion plan for increased covert paramilitary operations
against Nicaragua; we also now know that in December the
National Security Council approved various options in-
cluding, most significantly, a plan to devote at least $19
million to the recruitment and training of a 500-man para-
military force. This force, assembled directly by the CIA,
would supplement the various anti-Sandinista groups
which were also to be bolstered with financial and logistical
support. All of them were to be coordinated along the
Florida-Honduras-Costa Rica axis.
The Role of Honduras
As the operation was geared up, the CIA complement in
Honduras more than tripled. The November 8, 1982
Newsweek magazine article put the figure at 50, the De-
cember 4 New York Times at 150, the December 6 Time
magazine at "about 200," some of whom are said to be
operatives under cover as AID officers, Peace Corps vo-
lunteers, and Delta Force anti-terrorist troops. Honduras
became the focus for operation coordination under the
direct supervision of U.S. Ambassador John D. Negro-
ponte. Additional work was performed by Assistant Secre-
tary of Defense Nestor Sanchez, a veteran CIA officer (see
CAIB Numbers 4 and 16) who was taken on by the Wein-
berger Pentagon. Sanchez was seen in Honduras frequent-
J.D. 1egroponte, the NSC's destabilizer in Tegucigalpa.
ly in recent months. CIA Director William Casey personal-
ly inspected the operation in a secret trip to Honduras.
The direct cooperation of the Honduran military was
essential, and was willingly provided by the commander in
chief, strongman General Gustavo Adolfo Alvarez. Al-
varez was, if anything, overanxious, and had to be re-
strained from prematurely instigating an invasion of Nica-
ragua in mid-1982. Fortunately, there are nationalistic
elements within the Honduran military who fear, with
considerable justification, that there would be no winner in
such a confrontation, and that a lot of Hondurans would
be killed needlessly. (See the Statement of John Buchanan,
in this issue.) Nevertheless, Alvarez works closely with
Negroponte and the commanders of the U.S. military ad-
visers, and sees that his forces provide needed logistical
support to the counterrevolutionary camps spread along
the border with Nicaragua.
The Argentina Connection
Although the role of Honduras is clear and well-
documented, a key part was assigned to Argentina, details
of which have recently come to light. It was known for
some time that a contingent of Argentinean military train-
ers was in Honduras, helping to train the contras. The size
of this force was reduced, though not eliminated, during
the Malvinas crisis, when the U.S. did not support Argen-
tina; but Argentinean participation has now, once again,
expanded.
In November, a defector from Argentina's military intel-
ligence organization appeared on a long videotape first
shown to journalists in Mexico City. The defector, Hector
Frances, explained that Argentina was assisting the coun-
terrevolutionaries in Honduras, in Costa Rica, and in Ar-
gentina itself, where more than 50 Nicaraguan exiles were
being trained.
Argentina has served as a conduit for much of the CIA
money being pumped into this plan, with Argentinean
military officers meeting with and making payments to
exile groups in Buenos Aires and in San Jose.
What's Going On in Costa Rica?
It was becoming clear to many journalists, and was
confirmed by the Frances interview, that Costa Rica has
been playing an ever expanding role in the campaign
against Nicaragua. The administration of President Luis
Alberto Monge has become more pro-U.S. as it has faced
greater economic pressures. The situation was evidently so
bad that President Monge was overheard to remark, on the
way to the U.S. that he felt like a puts, but he did not want
to be remembered as the president under whose adminis-
tration Costa Rica went bankrupt. Frances confirmed that
much of his work with the CIA, and with rightwing Costa
Ricans, was to devise ways to pressure Monge, work which
has been exceedingly successful. Monge has aided with
Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, and against Mex-
ico and Venezuela in the diplomatic battles over Nicara-
gua, and even more importantly has begun to allow Costa
Rica to be used for contra bases and attacks against Nica-
raguan territory.
In fact, splits in the counterrevolutionary forces have led
to the establishment of two key forces in Costa Rica. One
involves the renegade Miskitu Indians. The principal
group, led by Steadman Fagoth, works closely with the
hated former National Guardsmen, and is based in Hondu-
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ras, on the Atlantic Coast. A rival, Brooklyn Rivera, ap-
parently fed up with playing second fiddle to Fagoth,
moved to Costa Rica with some of his men, who are now
staging minor, but annoying raids into Nicaragua con-
stantly. Rivera states publicly that his men are not engaging
in armed struggle, because "the time is not right," but his
men belie this, offering to take journalists with them on
their incursions.
The other force building up its base in Costa Rica is that
of former Sandinistas Eden Pastora and Alfonso Robelo.
Although Pastora was kicked out of Costa Rica some
months ago, Monge has now allowed him back in, and he
and Robelo continue to offer themselves as the "alterna-
tive" to the Somocistas in Honduras.
Pastora assumes an anti-U.S. stance publicly, but CA 1B
has learned that this is a sham. Journalists have discovered
that although Pastora maintains that he has no contact
with the U.S. Embassy, there is, in fact, regular contact
through Robelo. An Embassy official admitted that it
would "look bad for Pastora" if he were seen meeting with
them, so they meet with Robelo and give messages for
Pastora; Pastora responds in the same fashion, through
Robelo. Pastora too claims that he is not encouraging
armed attacks against Nicaragua at this time, but a recent
large attack from Costa Cica appears to have been coordi-
nated by his supporters.
Who Pulls The Strings?
It is obvious that Honduras and Argentina and Costa
Rica are not in any manner serving their own interests, but
are participants in an operation conceived and run by the
U.S. It is also obvious that the aim of this operation is the
overthrow of the Nicaraguan government, though recent
revelations have led to some incredible weaseling on the
part of the Reagan administration and its apologists in
Congress.
When the details of the NSC plan first leaked out early in
the year, the executive branch refused to comment, al-
though some Members of Congress in the know, particu-
larly Senator Barry Goldwater, the Chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, confirmed the essentials of the
plan. It was stated unequivocally at the time that the ad-
ministration's chief concern was Nicaragua's alleged as-
sistance in supplying arms to the FMLN in El Salvador.
That this became, and has remained, the administration
line shows a lot of gall, considering the facts. The U.S.
government has been working hand in glove with exile
fanatics dedicated to the overthrow of the Nicaraguan
government; much of the paramilitary activity has been on
the east coast, hundreds of miles from any potential route
from Nicaragua to El Salvador, which in any event must
pass through Honduras. Moreover, the contras themselves
put the lie to the Salvador rationale. As recently as early
December, Enrique Bermudez, a former colonel in Somo-
za's National Guard and one of the leaders of the so-called
Nicaraguan Democratic Front, stated, "It is not acceptable
to us to carry out missions to interdict Cuban and Russian
supply lines to El Salvador. We are Nicaraguans and our
objective is to overthrow the communists...."
Bermudez's comments were significant, because they
were made the same day that the House of Representatives
voted unanimously that no CIA funds should be used for
any operation which was intended to overthrow the go-
vernment of Nicaragua or which was intended to instigate a
The Vatican Connection:
Vernon Walters and the Pope
In the world of the secret services, coincidences are
much rarer than it would seem. That is why we can be
forgiven for wondering whether there is any connec-
tion between the October 18 visit of Ambassador at
Large Vernon Walters to the Vatican and the papal
demand, a few days later, that Roman Catholic
priests resign from any posts they hold in the Nicara-
guan government.
Vernon A. Walters, CIA shuttler.
The disclosures were separated by several weeks.
The November 9, 1982 New York Times reported
that retired General Walters had seen Pope Paul 11
several weeks earlier, and that right-wing columnists
Evans and Novak suggested he was interceding
against the impending move by the U.S. bishops to
come out against nuclear weapons. But, the Times
also noted, they "discussed a range of issues, such as
the situation ... in Central America....."
Then, on December 8, 1982, the Times reported
that "in late October" the Papal Nuncio in Managua
had delivered to Daniel Ortega, the coordinator of
the Nicaraguan junta, an ultimatum from the Pope
that five priests with high positions in the government
resign. Unnamed church officials gave the story to
the media although neither the Nuncio nor the Vati-
can would confirm it.
The timing is highly suspect, to say the least. Wal-
ters, a devout, conservative Catholic, and former
Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, would be
the right man for the job, if the Reagan administra-
tion did decide to put pressure on the Vatican. Wal-
ters is something of an expert on Central America,
with friends in high places in El Salvador and Gua-
temala. He also has been intimately involved in some
of the bloodiest CIA-sponsored coups, including
Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Brazil in 1964, and
Chile in 1973. It seems he is trying to add a Nicara-
guan feather to his cap.
He may not be successful, though. In mid-
December there were reports that the Pope had
agreed to a Central American visit including Nicara-
gua whether or not the five priests resign. The Pope
was no longer dealing with Ambassador Walters
though, but with his boss, Secretary of State George
Schultz, who paid a highly publicized visit to the
Pontiff, replete with photo sessions.
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war between Nicaragua and Honduras. This language,
whicl. was supported by the Reagan administration, re-
placed infinitely stronger language proposed by Represen-
tative Harkin, which did not present the gaping semantic
loophole found in this measure. The administration can
continue to say that its intention is to interdict supplies,
and if the groups they choose to do that work also happen
to overthrow the government of Nicaragua, well, that was
not their primary intention.
Allies like Bermudez do not help put this flimflam
across,. Nor do exposes from defectors like Frances. Nor, it
is hoped, will the information which can come out during
the course of a recently filed lawsuit.
Sanchez et al. v. Reagan et al.
On November 30, seven Nicaraguans, two Florida resi-
dents and one Member of Congress filed suit against Presi-
dent Reagan, Secretary of State Schultz, Secretary of De-
fense Weinberger, Director of Central Intelligence Casey,
Negroponte, Sanchez, and an assortment of Cuban and
Nicaraguan exiles and organizations.
The Nicaraguans are all victims of cross-border raids.
One, Brenda Rocha, is a 16-year-old girl who was one of
eight people tending a power plant in Bonanza, a mining
town near the east coast. They were attacked by contras
and the other seven were killed. She survived by pretending
that she was dead; because of the wounds she received, she
lost her right arm. Another plaintiff, Dr. Myrna Cun-
ningham, is a medical doctor from the Miskitu Indian
border area, where she practiced for seven years before the
revolution. After the revolution she became health admin-
istrator for northern Zelaya province, and, on a hospital
visit in December 1981, she was kidnapped by contras,
both Somocistas and Miskitus, along with the hospital
administrator, a nurse, and their driver. She and the nurse
were beaten and repeatedly raped, taken to Honduras for
several hours, taken back across the river to Nicaragua,
and finally released when the nearby villagers interceded.
At the time of their release they were in the custody of
Miskitus, who had been taking orders from the former
Guardsmen who ran their camps in Honduras. Dr. Cun-
ninghain, touring the United States in connection with the
filing o Fthe case by the Center for Constitutional Rights in
New Y Drk, remarked that she was sure she escaped only
because the Somocistas were late in returning to the camp
where she was being held. Dr. Cunningham described the
bizarre rape scene during which the Miskitus were singing
religious hymns and chanting religious slogans. She noted
that the manipulation of many of the Miskitus by a handful
of renegade pastors has been so deeply felt that they can
indulge in the self-delusion that it is permissible to torture,
murder, and rape so long as you believe that your victims
are communists.
The other Nicaraguans are all residents of the village of
San Francisco del Norte, on the western border with Hon-
duras. On July 24, 1982, at 6:00 a.m., a band of 80 to 100
contras swept into the defenseless village, massacred 15
people, wounded dozens more, and kidnapped eight
others. The victims were hacked with knives and machetes,
and some actually had their hearts cut out. These raiders,
too, shouted religious and anti-communist slogans. The
plaintiffs from this village include a 15-year-old boy who
was one of those kidnapped. He was subsequently forced to
act as a servant to the leader of the camp in Honduras to
which he was taken and from which, two weeks later, he
escaped. This boy, Javier Sanchez, reported seeing Hondu-
ran soldiers at the contra camp every day, and said that in
their march back to the camp on the first day, the band was
protected by Honduran forces. Two other plaintiffs were
wounded in the raid, and two lost family members.
The Nicaraguan plaintiffs are suing under the Alien Tort
Claims Act which allows foreigners to sue in U.S. courts
for injuries received in violation of international law. They
are arguing that the paramilitary attacks, which are often
brutal beyond description, clearly violate international
law including the Nuremberg Principles. They argue that
the government defendants, as well as the Florida-based
contras, are all part of a conspiracy to commit these viola-
tions which stretches from the National Security Council
right to the bandits in the camps on the border.
The two Florida residents are alleging that the camps in
Dade County violate many federal and local laws, but that
the appropriate officials refuse to commence any prosecu-
tions. They have, they assert, a separate right, under Flori-
da nuisance laws, to complain of the illegal activities and
ask the court to order them shut, even if the administration
will not prosecute.
Finally, a Member of Congress, Ronald V. Dellums of
California, asserts that the secret war against Nicaragua
violates the provision of the Constitution which states that
only the Congress and not the President has the power to
declare war. He also alleges that the action in Nicaragua
violates the Neutrality Act, which prohibits hostile action
against a nation with which the country is at peace, and the
War Powers Resolution, which prohibits the introduction
of U.S. personnel into hostile action without Congression-
al approval.
Recent Actions
The attacks which are described in the lawsuit represent
incidents through July 1982; later assaults have escalated
both in number and in intensity, with substantial evidence
of the introduction of more sophisticated weaponry. The
greatest tragedy to date occurred on December 9, when a
Nicaraguan helicopter evacuating Miskitu children from
the Rio Coco area crashed, causing the death of 75 children
and nine women. The downed aircraft was one of two
participating in rescue missions, evacuating the remaining
Indians from a border area which had been subject to the
most intensive contra invasions. At presstime the precise
cause of the crash was not known, although other partici-
pating helicopters had been fired on by the contras during
the day.
These recent evacuations have been taking place in north-
eastern Jinotega province, more than 100 miles from the
Atlantic coast. The Miskitu in this area have been generally
very supportive of the government, and have been subject
to attacks from contras for more than a year.
Conclusion
The secret war against Nicaragua is being examined in
the press and in the courts. But victory will come only in the
minds and opinions of the American people. The exposes
may show people what horrors are being committed in
their name and with their tax millions. For once the clan-
destine operations are being exposed while they are still in
progress, and not, as had been so often the case, after all the
damage and destruction and death is done. one
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Opus Del':
Secret Order Vies For Power
By Fred Landis
Forgive Me Father
I Have Killed A Man
I Have Loved A Woman
I Have Stolen For The Church
I Am Opus Dei
The support for a nuclear freeze recently given by the
Conference of U.S. Catholic Bishops has fueled the
international counterreformation within the Church. This
backlash is being encouraged by the CIA with charges of
"Soviet influence," and is spearheaded by a secret Catholic
lay order known as Opus Dei, who blame the liberal anti-
nuclear position on their historic enemies, the Jesuits. In
addition, the CIA views liberal Catholic support for
liberation struggles in Central America as one of the
principal obstacles in carrying out Reagan's directive to
pacify El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. While
using various fronts and agents in the field, the principal
effort is at the Vatican: to neutralize Jesuits, support Opus
Dei, and artificially create a panic by spreading
disinformation concerning assassination plots against the
Pope.
During the space of one month (October-November
1982), Pope John Paul II elevated Opus Dei to the status of
"Personal Prelature" and later to that of a Religious Order.
This is a status that Opus Dei had sought since 1928 but
which previous Popes had denied because 98% of the order
are lay. Granting the status of religious order to a
conspiratorial society of young, male, Latin, Fascists was a
payoff for their considerable role in furthering the
candidacy of Polish Cardinal Wojtyla as Pope.
Origins
Opus Dei was founded in Spain in 1928, but played no
public role until the end of the Spanish Civil War. Then it
was assigned by Franco the role of intellectual pacification;
Opus Dei took over several universities and launched an
inquisition against Masons, Marxists, liberals, and
heretics. By 1965, Opus Dei controlled half of Franco's
Cabinet and about a third of his Legislature.
The founder of Opus Dei, Jose Maria Escriva de
Balaguer, was ascetic, mystical, and crusading-closer in
spirit to the Inquisition than to Don Quixote. For 20 years
published articles have reported world membership at
around 70,000. This is probably more a reflection on the
compulsive secrecy of Opus Dei than an accurate measure
of membership. Only two percent are priests and members
of a kind of third order, the Societas Sacerdotalis Sanctae
Crucis. This "Sacerdotal Society of the Holy Cross" runs
Opus Del. The rest are lay members who raise the money
and do the dirty work. The term Opus Dei is used loosely
by the press to refer to both the priestly leadership and lay
support, an ambiguity deliberately encouraged. As a strict
legal matter, the recognition of the order accorded by the
Vatican applies only to the priests, and not Opus Dei as a
whole.
A strict heirarchy was established in the Constitution, a
self-proclaimed elite order of, in descending order:
"numeraries," "oblates," and "supernumeraries." In
practice, there is a fourth category of "collaborators."
A "numerary" is described as "single, of irreproachable
physical appearance, high social status, higher education
or its equivalent in wealth." Character traits viewed with
favor in recruits are: intransigence, audacity, and loyalty.
Females are not eligible for membership in the inner
council as they cannot be priests. Married individuals or
those of lower social status are "supernumeraries."
Prostrate before a wooden cross, the initiate swears an
oath of fealty and secrecy. Escriva de Balaguer insisted that
instead of a crucifix, an empty cross should be used for the
initiation rite so that the inductee be made aware that the
cross he sees before him is his cross.
Every March 19, Opus Del members renew their vows of
chastity, poverty, and obedience. Mortification of the
flesh, ranging from cold showers to self-flagellation is
common. The Constitution of Opus Dei is set forth in full
as an Appendix to Jesus Ynfante's "La Prodigiosa
Aventura del Opus Dei," published in Madrid in 1973.
Among the peculiar provisions one finds:
"98.1. "After initiation, members may not leave of their
own accord."
"191. "Members must never reveal the names of other
members and must never admit that they themselves are
members."
In recent years criticism of the internal workings of Opus
Dei have focused on the practice of recruiting teenagers,
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not allowing members to quit or contact parents, and the
practice of mortification of the flesh.
Opus Dei moved its headquarters from Spain to Rome
in 1947 but remains primarily a Spanish sect. Its current
head's General Alvaro de Portillo, who first suggested to
Pope John Paul II that Jesuit leader Pedro Arrupe be
replaced. In an unprecedented move, the Pope appointed
an outsider, the Reverend Paolo Dezza, as Superior
General of the Jesuit order. This marked the first time in its
history that the Jesuits were not allowed to select their own
leader. Dezza is regarded as an Opus Dei ally and was
formerly father confessor to John Paul I.
The Influence on John Paul II
The courting of John Paul II by Opus Dei began when he
was still Archbishop of Krakow. First he was invited to
give speeches at various Opus Dei colleges and later at their
headquarters in Rome. These speeches were then collected
in book form and printed by Opus Dei. During subsequent
visits to Rome, Cardinal Wojtyla furthered his image as
"Papa bile" by distributing copies of this Opus Dei book to
all me tubers of the Vatican Secretariat of State. During his
visit in August 1978, for the burial of Pope John Paul I,
John Paul II prayed at the tomb of Opus Dei founder,
Escriva de Balaguer.
After his ascension to office, John Paul II received a
succession of Opus Dei delegations and threw his support
behind them in their struggle against the Jesuits. In fact, the
Jesuits' current predicament is ironic in view of the fact that
historically they were the right arm of the Pope and before
Vietnam, closely collaborated with U.S. foreign policy
interests.
The sudden death of John Paul I was only one in a series
of mysterious deaths of liberal Catholic officials. Only
weeks before, the Bishop of Moscow died of a supposed
heart attack at the age of 40 while in a Vatican ante-
chamber waiting to see John Paul I.
The relationship between the CIA and the Vatican is an
old and natural one. The Catholic Church could be
described as the oldest continually operated intelligence
agency in the world. Joseph B. Smith, former head of the
Worldwide Propaganda Guidance desk at the CIA, stated
that he never felt like he fitted into the clandestine service
because everyone else was Catholic. In an age in which
Readers interested in pursuing the topic might want
to begin with the urgent flight to Rome the night before
the death of Pope John Paul I by Michael Ledeen. It is
predictable that it would be Ledeen who would be in the
forefront of those pushing the "KGB plot to kill the
Pope" line.
The story of an international Israeli-CIA Terror Net-
work begins with James Jesus Angleton, former head of
counterintelligence at CIA and Catholic zealot. While
stationed in Rome he set up a network of 60 media
agents and controlled CIA-Israeli MOSSAD collabora-
tion. Over a period of 20 years, many of Angleton's
media agents were recruited from the staff of Newsweek
or The Washington Post in Rome. Claire Sterling was
one of these; Michael Ledeen is her protege; Robert
Moss is a fellow traveller.
After the firing of Angleton in 1975, these Rome-
based media agents lost their main contact in the CIA
and came to rely more on the Israelis. Having lost An-
gleton, the Israelis came to place greater importance on
his network of agents. That is why Claire Sterling's
post-1975 disinformation comes to rely more on Israeli
sources.
"The KGB Plot To Kill the Pope" makes its first
appearance in the CIA-controlled Il Giornale Nuovo of
Milan, Italy in May 1981. Before his incarnation as an
assistant to General Vernon Walters, Ledeen had been a
repcrter for this newspaper. The story gained interna-
tional attention when the British Thames TV made a
special on the plot citing as its source Il Giornale Nuovo.
The Denton Senate Subcommittee on Security and
Claire sterling, et al., and
Terrorism next offered itself as a platform for Claire
Sterling, Michael Ledeen, and Robert Moss. They all
agreed that Agca could not have acted alone, and that
his passage through Bulgaria was proof of Communist
Soviet-KGB complicity.
Robert Moss first came to public attention in 1973 as
an Australian journalist writing about Allende's Chile.
Claire Sterling worked in the 1950's for the CIA-
controlled magazine The Reporter and later appeared at
various conferences with CIA Director William Colby
as an expert on Italian politics. Michael Ledeen is a
Schlockmeister with an uncanny ability to turn serious
and complex social issues into National Enquirer-type
categories. He made his public appearance in the 1970s
as a scholar uncovering the overlooked wisdom of Beni-
to Mussolini. Ledeen once told his class at Washington
University (St. Louis), "Fascism can be fun."
Whatever their background or claimed area of exper-
tise, what immeditely made them stand out was their
skill and compulsion at disinformation. Since 1976 the
author has been following their every utterance with the
reverence certain French intellectuals reserve for Jerry
Lewis films. What we are expected to accept is that after
a career of spreading disinformation, boasting of it and
specializing in it, Ledeen, Sterling, and Moss have sud-
denly reformed, are in touch with The Truth, and that
Truth is that the KGB shot the Pope.
Robert Moss went on ABC's Nightline and proceeded
to connect one of the missing plotters in the"Plot to Kill
The Pope" (an Arab terrorist) to the elusive "hit team"
sent by Qaddafi in the "Plot To Kill Reagan." The
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every intelligence outfit has huge sums to spend, loyalty is
most reliably based on belief, and the best true believers in
the CIA are Eastern European or Latin Catholics. Today
the vanguard of this crusade is the Holy Mafia, the Opus
Dei.
Opus Dei Today
There are no weekend activists in Opus Dei. It is a
vocation, an all-absorbing passion. Opus Dei is today what
the Jesuits were at the time of Ignatius de Loyola, and the
Vatican was at the time of the Borgias. As an organization,
Opus Dei, like the CIA, are kingmakers. They take obscure
individuals and put them in key positions of power.
Today Opus Dei controls 52 radio and TV stations, 38
news agencies, and 12 film companies. Opus Dei-
controlled media in Spain include the newspaper ABC, the
magazines Que Pasa and Arriba, and the news agency
EFE. In addition to the major media outlets in Chile noted
below, Opus Dei has some influence at Zig-Zag, the
Gabriela Mistral Publishing Co., and Eva. This refers to
clandestine control rather than such overt Opus Dei organs
as the magazine Camino.
At the Vatican, Opus Dei has replaced the Jesuits as the
Pope's intellectual and diplomatic arm. They will probably
soon take over the Vatican radio station. The Jesuits had
an army of 26,600 and a history of Papal intrigue over a
442-year span, but lost out to a 54-year-old sect of whom
not more than 1,000 are actual priests.
The ideal Opus Dei recruit is a male, young, upper
middle class, Latin (Spanish or Latin American),
university educated, technocrat. Inductees are let in on the
secret that they are being trained as a technocratic elite
which will inherit the earth from ideologues. Possibly by
coincidence this line becomes prominent in Opus Del
theology at the same time that the CIA organized a
Congress for Cultural Freedom in Milan, Italy, with
papers presented that Daniel Bell compiled under the title:
"End of Ideology".
Now that they have finally achieved the official status of
a religious order, this virus has probably passed the
incubation stage and will spread openly. In Spain and
Chile their penetration was covert, by establishing cells in
the Departments of Law, Sociology, Economics, and
Communications at the Catholic University in Santiago.
"The Plot to Kill the Pope
"Qaddafi Plot To Kill Reagan" makes its first appear-
ance in Robert Moss's fictional non-seller Death Beam.
Qaddafi sends a Palestinian hit team headed by Carlos
to Washington to assassinate Reagan. They set them-
selves up across from the White House with a Soviet-
made SAM-5 ground-to-air, heat-seeking missile.
The plot is to hit Reagan's helicopter as it is coming in
for a landing. Three months later all these details ap-
pear, as news, in David Martin's articles in Newsweek. It
is evident that the same Israeli intelligence agents who
sought to create artificially a total break in U.S.-Libyan
relations, planted the same disinformation on both
Moss and Martin.
The alleged evidence offered up by Moss to an incred-
ulous Ted Koppel of a single hit team, or overlapping
membership, involved arguing for a similarity in physi-
cal appearance between a face in the crowd in St. Peter's
Square (it is a big square) with one of the police compo-
site drawings of the hit team allegedly sent against
Reagan.
This same technique of calculated ambiguity was used
by Marvin Kalb in the September 21 NBC special, "The
Man Who Shot The Pope: A Study in Terror." But now
a different face is plucked from the crowd and made to
resemble an employee of the Bulgarian airline. An Ital-
ian anti-terrorist officer of the CIA-controlled SID now
comes to the U.S. to interview instant experts Kalb,
Sterling, etc., returns to Italy and proceeds to seek the
arrest of various hapless Bulgarians. The Bulgarian
dummies being safely behind bars and deprived of the
luxury of holding press conferences, Marvin Kalb flies
to Rome and confesses all in their names. It is this same
ventriloquist Kalb who managed to write an entire book
on Kissinger without a single mention of his role vis-a-
vis Chile, Allende, or the CIA.
Kalb's September 21, 1982 TV special relied heavily
on Claire Sterling's September Reader's Digest article,
"The Plot To Murder The Pope."This article is a practi-
cal application of the principles for discovering KGB
plots as first revealed in Claire Sterling's disinformation-
ist Bible, The Terror Network. Herewith the Sterling
rules for the correct interpretation of plots:
1. If the terrorist is overtly red, he is controlled by
Moscow.
2. If the terrorist is overtly black (right wing), he is
covertly red and controlled by Moscow.
3. If the weapon used is Soviet, prima. facie evidence
exists of his control by Moscow.
4. If the weapon used is NATO issue, Sterling can
trace it by serial number to an assault by Red Brigades
on some NATO base. They are controlled by Moscow.
5. If all available evidence points to the opposite
conclusion: that the blowing up of the train station in
Bologna was right-wing or that Agca is a simple right-
wing criminal, we must remember that red and black
terrorists work together.
The case for the KGB plot to kill the Pope is thus
based on speculation by Claire Sterling, or on Moss and
Ledeen quoting Sterling, just like Sterling, in The Terror
Network, always cites Moss and Ledeen. Independent,
concrete evidence is never forthcoming.
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Later, graduates of these departments took over key
government posts.
The prototype of an Opus Dei cell was the Consejo
Superior de Investigacion Cientifica (CSIC), a think-tank
which appeared in post Civil War Spain. CSIC had as its
overt role the scientific study of and propaganda in favor of
a Spanish State which was: Nationalistic, Syndicalist,
Totalitarian, Unitary, Catholic.
During the Spanish Civil War, the Opus Dei planning of
CSIC was done while in refuge at the Chilean Embassy in
Madrid. Possibly this may explain their early expansion in
Chile.
Opus Dei and Chile
In Chile the locus of CIA/ Vatican collaboration shifted
during the period 1963-1970 from the Christian Democratic
Party to Opus Dei. Opus Dei had a think tank of free
market economists and technocrats called the Institute of
General Studies (IGS) which was taken over in 1971 by the
CIA. This Opus Dei cell provided most of the civilian
Cabinet and advisers to the Junta in the fields of law,
economics, and media.
In 1970, Nixon ordered a coup in Chile but didn't get it
until 1)73 largely because the CIA couldn't find anyone to
run th,- government in the event of success. Unlike other
Latin American countries, the Chilean military had no
recent history or experience in government. They, and the
CIA, needed a team of professional economists, lawyers,
business executives, and media experts who were willing
and able to work with the military in administering a
complex modern economy. Eventually a think tank of
Opus Dei technocrats was pressed into service. Thus,
having identified this IGS think tank as the appropriate
counter-elite to replace the Socialists in late 1971, the U.S.
Embassy sat on all 20 of its eggheads until they were ready
to hatch in 1973. Once in power in Chile, the Opus Dei
acted very much as they had in Spain-as the brains behind
the throne.
The IGS was first publicly identified in an article by this
author in the February 19, 1979 Inquiry magazine. The
members were shown to be former media executives at
prominent Chilean publications such as El Mercurio, Que
Pasa, and Portada. By happy coincidence these publica-
tions had sent a large staff to Washington to cover the trial
of Orlando Letelier's and Ronni Moffitt's assassins. Copies
of the Inquiry article were provided to these journalists
who rushed to phone their employers with the news they
had just been identified as CIA agents in the American
press.
At this time, a power struggle had emerged in Chile
between the civilian and military groups in the
government-specifically between the secret police, the
DINA, and the IGS technocrats. Under Carter, the CIA
had been ordered to facilitate the return of civilian rule in
Chile. In practice this did not mean a move toward
democracy but rather an attempt to consolidate a group of
CIA agents, the IGS, in power.
Political observers were puzzled when a photo of
Letelier's and Moffitt's killers first appeared in the IGS
newspaper El Mercurio and in an article by Jeremiah
O'Leary in the Washington Star. (O'Leary was identified in
Carl Bernstein's October 20, 1977 Rolling Stone article as a
long-time source of operational assistance to the CIA.) The
Letelier-Moffitt assassination investigation was used by
the IGS as a means of discrediting DINA and, indirectly,
Pinochet. Various branches of the U.S. government under
Carter, such as the Justice Department and FBI, also
collaborated in this effort. The Opus Dei- and CIA-
influenced media in Chile ran daily revelations of DINA
complicity in the Letelier-Moffitt case.
In this context, the political effect of the Inquiry article
in Chile was to serve as ammunition to the military who
claimed a plot was afoot to isolate and discredit them. The
story surfaced as an Opus Dei plot "to diminish the
character of President Pinochet." The capo of the Holy
Mafia, Hernan Cubillos, was fired as Foreign Minister.
The editor of El Mercurio's afternoon tabloid received a
letter bomb, while the president of El Mercurio was found
dead. The plot surfaced in a banner headline in the May 13,
1980 Ercilla: "El Opus Dei en Chile." All the individuals,
organizations, and functions mentioned in the Inquiry
article were listed, but as an Opus Dei plot.
At this same time the Justice Department filed suit
against several individuals at National Review for having
acted as unregistered agents of the Pinochet regime in the
United States. Court documents showed that at least six
authors of "Letter from Chile" articles in National Review
had received junkets courtesy of the Junta. What is really
curious about these articles is they are not so much pro-
Junta as "puff pieces" for the members of the IGS. Of a
population of 10 million, the only Chilean civilians
mentioned in National Review from 1974-1979 are the 20
members of IGS.
Jeffrey Hart in "A Chilean Spring?," March 1978, tells us
what great guys Arturo Fontaine, Jaime Guzman, Claudio
Orrego, Francisco Orrego and other IGS members are,
finally focusing on IGS founder Pablo Baraona: "Chile is
an important sector of the front line in a colossal global
military-political-ideological struggle that makes World
War I look like an Indian raid. . . Probably the most
interesting man in Chile today is Pablo Baraona, Minister
of the Economy... Pinochet and the military intend to
keep public order while Baraona pursues his economic
policies with virtually a free hand. . . What the military
regime is doing is providing a shield-critics say `machine
guns in the street' behind which this process can go
forward... In a sense, Baraona is what the argument over
Chile is all about."
The reaction of William Buckley to the exposure of his
reporters as paid agents of the Junta, and of his Chilean
contacts as CIA/ Opus Dei was histrionic even for Buckley.
An entire issue (June 8, 1979) was devoted to an attack on
Inquiry magazine and an attempt made to read the
magazine's parent organization, the Libertarian Cato
Institute, out of the Libertarian movement. The National
Review cover was done up in the style of an old-fashioned
handbill advertising a play, while each article inside is an
act in which the character of succeeding Inquiry writers is
assassinated by the inmates of National Review.
Those interested in researching further the topic of CIA-
media collaboration might look at the names of "reporters"
who arrived in Chile the day before the 1973 coup. It was
these same CIA media assets who were given advance
warning and a ring-side seat to view the coup who later
wrote that Allende killed himself.
The Catholic Right and U.S. Foreign Policy
The Catholic Right's influence on Reagan foreign policy
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is most evident in Latin America. William F. Buckley,
Michael Novak, and Roger Fontaine's attacks on the
priests in the Nicaraguan government sound more like a
religious crusade than a political conflict. Other prominent
members of the Catholic Right who have served important
policy positions in the Reagan Administration are: James
Buckley, Richard Allen, William Clark, General Vernon
Walters, Alexander Haig, Claire Boothe Luce, Jeane
Kirkpatrick, and William Casey. While these Catholics
had independent, long-standing connections with the U.S.
intelligence community, their collaboration was furthered
by the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International
Studies. This Center is the last outpost of Jesuit-CIA col-
laboration and has led the demand for covert action
against Nicaragua and Cuba.
The religious tone which Reagan's crusade against
communism has taken was expressed in a recent interview
by Los Angeles Times correspondent Robert Scheer with
U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle. Perle
attributed the European anti-war feelings to a liberal Pro-
testant angst and liberal Catholic loss of faith, which was
contrasted to the more healthy and traditional "Catholic
South."
Regardless of who is President, U.S. foreign policy is
conducted more by the CIA than by the Department of
State. The Covert Action branch of CIA is predominantly
Catholic. The formal and informal foreign policy network
in Washington which has the ear of the President happens
currently to have a strong Catholic Right tinge. U.S. policy
in Latin America traditionally is a collaborative effort with
the Vatican due to the overwhelmingly Catholic composi-
tion of the population. The current Pope is more conserva-
tive than most and collaborates closely with Opus Dei, far
right in its beliefs and tactics. The hostility focused on
Nicaragua, especially its religious overtones, is a result of
the overlapping or reinforcing influence of all of these 3
factions, a rightwing shift in all three centers of power:
White House, CIA, and Vatican.
How different U.S. policy toward Latin America can be
under different circumstances is illustrated by taking the
year 1962. With the populist Pope John XXIII and liberal
President Kennedy, the CIA and the Vatican set out to
co-opt rather than repress social unrest in Latin America.
The principal instrument of this collaboration was Chris-
tian Democratic parties. In order to build a popular base of
support the Christian Democrats got involved in land re-
form, voter registration, labor union organizing, etc. To
accomplish the broadening of this base, it was necessary for
the Catholic Christian Democrats to build bridges to Ma-
sons, Radicals, and Marxists. The leaders in this
ecumenical movement were the Jesuits, who were often the
brains behind the Christian Democrats.
Nowhere was this liberal spirit more evident than in
Chile, which Kennedy explicitly chose to be his showcase
of peaceful revolution, and as a contrast with Castro's
Cuba. The Vatican and the CIA regarded Chile as a model
for possible changes in Italy, an area of greater concern.
In 1963 Kennedy gave Jesuit Roger Vekemans $10
million to establish an infrastructure for the Christian Dem-
ocrats and facilitate the election of Eduardo Frei. Frei was
a former Falangist redone in progressive garb in order to
defeat the Marxist Allende in the 1964 elections. Not too
surprisingly, Vekemans spread most of this $10 million,
funneled through CIA and AID, to fellow Jesuits. The
failure of this Christian Democratic coalition to prevent
the election of Allende in 1970 is cited by the Catholic
Right the world over as proof of the bankruptcy of the
Kennedy soft line.
In Chile Opus Dei has lost the Ministries of Foreign
Relations and Economy, but still has enormous influence
in the universities, media, and economic planning.
In post-Franco Spain, Opus Dei has shifted to advising
King Juan Carlos and filling the Chamber of Deputies,
where it is credited with 71 of the 350 Deputies. In Socialist
Spain, Opus Del can be expected to keep a low profile and
confidently wait for the government to discredit itself by:
making promises it cannot keep, being unable to control
terrorism and/or separatist movements, and withdrawing
from NATO. In the event of any future military or Right
Wing solution, Opus Dei would be the logical choice for
key administrative posts.
The "Plot to Kill the Pope"
The purpose of spreading the "KGB plot to kill the
Pope" is to encourage the conservative and anti-Russian
feelings of the Polish Pontiff and further his sense of
vulnerability. Under these circumstances his only recourse
is further dependency for security protection on the CIA-
controlled Italian anti-terrorist squad (See CAIB Number
4.)
During Pope John Paul II's recent visit to Spain, the
Opus Dei-controlled EFE news agency put out the story of
a Terrorist Plot To Assassinate The Pope upon his arrival
at the town of Loyola, birthplace of the founder of the
Jesuit order. There is a logical relationship between Opus
Dei leaders in Rome whispering to the Pope that the Jesuits
are secretly backing international terrorism and one of
their media outlets stating as news that the Pope would be
the victim of such a terrorist plot precisely in Loyola. (See
sidebar for further details.)
Divine Help?
The author's Inquiry article identified among the leaders
of the Opus Dei/ CIA institute in Chile as Alvaro Puga and
Enrique Campos Menendez. Among the CIA-financed
books that appear about the Allende period are Alvaro
Puga's Diario De Vida de Ud., a collection of columns he
wrote under a pseudonym from 1970-73. In the prologue,
Enrique Campos Menendez points out that several columns
appeared in print predicting key political assassinations,
Allende's murder, and the date of the military coup, con-
cluding: "Nobody could have known of these future events,
except through magic, parapsychology or divine premoni-
tion."
I think we can be forgiven for suspecting something
more mundane than divine inspiration behind this Opus
Dei agent's seemingly prophetic powers. I think it was
something other than divine inspiration that led Robert
Moss to have in his latest fictional book all the details of the
"Plot To Kill Reagan" three months ahead of the news
media. Claire Sterling has a vision of an International
Terror Network run by the KGB, that may use Turkish
terrorists, and 1o and behold; the Word Is Made Flesh in
the Plot to Kill The Pope. Michael Ledeen may have had a
divine inspiration to rush off to Rome the day before Pope
John Paul I died, and the agency helping Opus Dei in its
fight against the Jesuits may be divine, or maybe, just the
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CLA Uses Religion:
The Ideological Sfruggle Within
the Catholic Church in Nicaragua
By Patricia Hynds*
ToJay the efforts to destabilize Nicaragua are being
carried out in many arenas: the economic, the political, the
militz.ry--and in a very real and important way in the
religious arena. In fact, many believe that at this time the
ideological struggle is being waged most strenuously in the
religious camp. With the measures enacted under the State
of Emergency and with the control over money coming
into the country, the room for maneuverability has been
reduced in the political and economic spheres. But in Nica-
ragua, where the people have a profound and active faith,
religious sentiments and sensitivities make the churches
easy prey for those who would manipulate them for the
purpose of destabilization.
The struggle, which is being presented as religious the
Sandinistas against the Church---is more a struggle be-
tween the Sandinistas and the opposition, the economic
and political sectors that have lost power and are trying
desperately to regain it. Politically, they have no large
social base and so they must convert religion into a political
base by convincing the people that their religious beliefs
and traditions are being threatened.
In presenting the picture of a religious conflict, a change
in the attitude of the Nicaraguan hierarchy is often men-
tioned. While it is true that during the final days of the
insurrection and immediately after, the bishops did oppose
Somoza, so did most of the private sector. As the private
sector began to move away from the revolution, so did the
hierarchy, encouraged to feel that the Government was
moving against the Church. Thus the alignment of the
Nicaraguan institutional church is where it has always
been, with the private sector.
The international human rights group, Pax Christi, in
the conclusions of their report on Nicaragua published in
October 1981, made this statement: "The church of the
political opposition seems to us to be almost exclusively
linked to the party politics of the Christian Social party and
to the Confederation of entrepreneurs (COS EP) headed by
Alfonso Robelo. It also plays an important role in the
American strategy aimed at destabilizing and overthrow-
ing the revolution."
In terms of the American strategy, since the Republican
National Convention in 1980, the Reaganites and the "new
right" have made their intentions very clear with regard to
Nicaragua. The party platform spoke of the need to. reverse
the Sandinista victory and immediately after Reagan as-
sumed office, aid was cut off, wheat sales credits were
terminated and the destabilization process was underway.
As part of that process, the U.S. began to court conserva-
tive sectors of the Catholic Church here and statements by
the U.S. Embassy and official pronouncements by the
hierarchy began to have a striking similarity.
The Santa Fe Document, which was prepared for U.S.
President Reagan by a team of ultra-conservative advisers
before he took office, says, "The United States must seize
the ideological initiative . . . The war is for the minds of
mankind. Ideo-politics will prevail ..." And also, "U.S.
foreign policy must begin to counter (not react against)
liberation theology as it is utilized in Latin America by the
`liberation' clergy. The role of the church in Latin America
is vital to the concept of political freedom." However, the
committee's assessment of political freedom is only found
in "private property and productive capitalism."Any other
concept is "less Christian than Communist."
In April of 1981, the Institute on Religion and Democ-
racy was formed for the express purpose of combating the
infiltration of communism in the church and combating
the evils of liberation theology. The right-wing Heritage
Foundation consistently presents a picture of the Sandinis-
tas repressing religious freedom and attacking the church,
especially in the person of the Archbishop of Managua,
Miguel Obando y Bravo. The IRD invited the Archbishop
to the U.S. to present him with a special award in early
1982.
According to an article in the Panamanian magazine,
Dialogo Social, of August 1982, "The Reaganites' strategy
tries to stop the advance of the religious groups most
committed to the marginalized sectors of Latin America
and to the anti-imperialists. For their plan, they have had
to create another Jesus Christ. They cannot manipulate the
historical Jesus for their own interests, but they have been
able to distort his image . . . Thus we see that simple
Christian people who have great social limitations, find the
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escape that had been planned by the divisionist missions
and churches and pushed by the North American
government."
A Brief History
Political manipulation of religion by the U.S. has a long
history. A look at the past 20 years gives a clear picture of
the use that the CIA has made of religion, its infiltration in
the Latin American churches and its strategy for fostering
dissent within the churches.
After his visit to Latin America in 1969, Nelson Rocke-
feller warned of the danger of the Medellin documents,
which called for a preferential option for the poor, and he
cautioned that the Latin American Church was vulnerable
to "subversive penetration." At that time, many U.S. mis-
sionaries, both Protestant and Catholic, were willing CIA
informants in the belief that they were doing their patriotic
duty. In her well-documented book, Cry of the People,
Penny Lernoux says, "There is conclusive proof that the
CIA used religious groups in Latin America for its own
secret ends. At the same time it contributed to the persecu-
tion and division of the Latin American Catholic Church
by supporting right wing Catholic groups and financed and
trained police agencies responsible for the imprisonment,
torture and murder of priests, nuns and bishops, some of
them U.S. citizens."
There is convincing evidence of CIA penetration of both
Protestant and Catholic missionary societies. CIA money,
much of it funneled through church-related groups,
amounted to $2.6 million for the successful presidential
campaign of Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei in Chile in
1964. Jesuit Roger Vekemans, who operated the Centro
Bellarmino in Santiago, received huge sums of money from
the West German bishops in the early 60's as well as money
from both AID and the CIA. The U.S. De Rance Founda-
tion, which in 1976 was called "the largest religiously
oriented foundation" in the U.S. by the Milwaukee Jour-
nal, gave Vekemans $200,000 for his book against libera-
tion theology. Vekemans is on the board of directors of the
International Institute of the Heart of Jesus, which is the
major recipient of De Rance funds. Vekemans currently
lives in Bogota where he wields considerable influence
within CELAM, the Latin American Episcopal Confer-
ence. CELAM is outspokenly critical of the Nicaraguan
government and exerts much influence over the Nicara-
guan hierarchy.
The CIA also financed Catholic organizations such as
Fatherland and Liberty, a Chilean paramilitary organiza-
tion which operated before and after the election of Al-
lende. In Chile and other Latin American countries, the
CIA helped finance the right-wing Tradition, Family and
Property which played a role in the overthrow of both
Allende in Chile and Goulart in Brazil. In many instances it
pitted one sector of the church against another.
In 1975 the CIA financed the Banzer Plan in Bolivia
which had as its objectives: to sharpen internal divisions
within the Church; to smear and harass progressive Bolivi-
an Church leaders; and to arrest or expel foreign nuns and
priests.
Knowing this history, the Sandinista government looks
with suspicion at incidents which could fit into the type of
CIA schemes used in other countries. This suspicion com-
bines with other factors to further complicate an already
difficult situation. One of those factors is the admitted
errors on the part of the government in the handling of
some church-related incidents.
In recent months, charges of Sandinista religious repres-
sion have accelerated. The U.S. State Department accused
the Sandinistas of trying to divide the Catholic Church and
to foment the creation of a "popular church" (charges
almost identical to those made by the Nicaraguan hier-
archy). State Department official Elliot Abrams, in an
article in the Washington Post on August 22, treats at great
length what he calls examples of the Sandinistas' decision
to tremendously increase the pressure against organized
religion in Nicaragua. And church sources in the U.S. have
confirmed that State Department officials have been call-
ing U.S. bishops to urge them to speak out against the
"terrible repression of religion in Nicaragua."
Recent Incidents
It is important to look at some of the recent happenings
involving the church in Nicaragua to understand the con-
cern here about manipulation. Tensions within the Catho-
lic Church and between the Catholic Church and the gov-
ernment, which is more specifically between the govern-
ment and the archdiocese of Managua, have resulted in a
certain polarization of position on both sides.
Nicaragua's revolution was the first to be fought with the
active participation of large numbers of committed Chris-
tians. The Catholic Church has, for the first time in history,
the opportunity to participate in a positive way in the
ongoing revolutionary and reconstruction process. How-
ever, the history of the Catholic Church in Latin America,
doubts and fears of the unknown, and individual mistakes
on all sides have caused serious fissures in what could be a
cooperative effort within Nicaragua.
The problem of Santa Rosa. Monsignor Arias, pastor in
the poor barrio of Santa Rosa for the past eight years, was
removed as pastor of that parish and a newly ordained
priest was named in his place. Although the Chancery
Office terms the change "routine," it was the latest in a
series of transfers or removals of priests and nuns for what
are considered by many to be political reasons.
The people protested very strongly, but without success,
to have the decision reversed. One evening during a prayer
vigil in protest of the removal, Managua's Auxiliary Bish-
op, Bosco Vivas, arrived to remove the tabernacle. This
caused a strong reaction from the people and a scuffle
ensued. During the scuffle, the locked tabernacle fell to the
floor. The following day, the Archbishop placed the church
under interdict, signifiying that no religious services could
be held there, and issued a blanket excommunication of all
who had participated in the incident, citing as reasons
blasphemy of the Blessed Sacrament and attacking a bish-
op, based on testimony from Bosco Vivas. People who
were in the church have testified that at no time did anyone
intentionally attack the bishop, although it was quite pos-
sible that he was pushed around in the scuffle. People from
the parish went to see the Papal Nuncio over the excom-
munication but were told that he could not interfere in a
diocesan matter. One Catholic priest with whom we spoke
termed Bosco Vivas' actions "imprudent." The priest said
that if Bosco Vivas had not come to remove the tabernacle
there would have been no problem, and no disrespect to the
Blessed Sacrament, and that his refusal to discuss the situa-
tion with the people gathered in the church had contributed
to the incident.
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Th,? Papal Letter. A letter dated June 29 was sent to the
bishops of Nicaragua from the Holy Father. On August 3,
priests of the diocese were shown the letter and told that the
government had prohibited its publication. The letter was
published in the archdiocesan bulletin, distributed in many
churches and read from the pulpit on August 8. On August
11, the Office of Communications Media published a
communique giving as the reasons for the prior non-publi-
cation the timing (at the time of the San Francisco del
Norte massacre) and the possibility of manipulation. The
communique called for all newspapers to publish the text
of the Papal Letter in its entirety one time. The papal letter
called for Church unity, spoke of the dangers of a "popular
church," and also spoke of the merits of service to one's
country and to others. One priest said that pastorally, the
letter had many merits, but that from a political context, it
was another link in the chain of isolation and aggression
toward Nicaragua. He attributed this negative aspect, the
timing of the letter, both to the influence of CELAM and to
the direct input that some of the Nicaraguan bishops made
to the Pope recently, and which had no alternate voice.
The Bismarck Carballo incident. On August 12, the
morning papers published a short communique from the
Office of Communications Media which prohibited publi-
cation of anything related to the "incident involving Fr.
Carballo in Las Colinas." That day, Fr. Carballo, press
secretary for the Archbishop and director of Radio Catoli-
ca, gave a press conference to La Prensa and foreign jour-
nalists in which he gave his version of the incident, and
which then began to go out over the wire services. Accord-
ing to Fr. Carballo, he was having lunch with one of his
"faithful" when an armed man entered the house, forced
him ar.d the woman to undress and then began to beat him,
forcing him toward the open front door. The police entered
the ho use, and dragged him outside, past a passing demon-
stration, to a police jeep. He claimed he was taken to a
police station, held for several hours and treated very
disrespectfully.
After that press conference, the government lifted the
ban or coverage. TV news that night and the papers the
following morning carried pictures of Fr. Carballo naked,
and gave extensive coverage to the incident. According to
the police version, the demonstration asking for more po-
lice protection at various embassies to prevent criminals
from seeking asylum was, by chance, passing near the
house of the woman. Many embassies as well as the head-
quarters of the Embassy Protection Unit of the police are
located in the wealthy suburb. Shots were heard and upon
approaching the house, the crowd saw a man later identi-
fied as Fr. Carballo running out of the house, pursued by a
man who was hitting him. The police, who were there with
the demonstration, took them all away without realizing at
the monent who the priest was, according to their reports.
Continuing coverage by the pro-government paper pre-
sented interviews with the woman indicating a lengthy
romantic involvement with the priest. The priest and the
Chancery Office have maintained that the incident was a
government set-up to discredit the priest and destroy the
church.
La Prensa ran a picture of Fr. Carballo, supposedly
taken "minutes" after the unfortunate incident with his
shirt torn by his assailant when he was forced to undress.
(This is in spite of Carballo's statement that he was held for
a lengthy time without clothes.) However, pictures of Car-
ballo being turned over to the Papal Nuncio by the police
several hours after the incident show a shirt without tears.
In an interview on August 14 in La Prensa, Fr. Carballo
said, "One must remember that there are concrete docu-
ments that the police know about, in which the destruction
of the Church has been programmed in the person of its
priests who are faithful to the Catholic hierarchy."
In the Pax Christi report on Nicaragua, an identical
charge, made by Archbishop Obando y Bravo is cited.
"When asked for his objections against the FSLN rule, the
Archbishop could mention little or no facts. But he did talk
about the approaching Cubanization, about the plan to
make Nicaragua a Marxist-Leninist state. He cited a cer-
tain document as the most important argument for this
plan. Opponents of the FSLN had mentioned this docu-
ment several times to us, but nobody was able to procure
this document for us."
In an interview with a foreign journalist, Fr. Carballo
was asked about the mysterious document. He referred to
two, one written in China and another written by members
of the Frente, but said that he did not have either document
nor could he say where they might be found.
Public reaction to the Fr. Carballo incident was very
strong and united on at least one aspect of the incident and
resulting coverage. Most people were scandalized at the
publication of the pictures of a naked priest and outraged
at what was often referred to as a "mortal sin" committed
by the newspapers.
The incident sparked a series of protests and actions in
support of the priest in various Catholic schools. These
demonstrations often led to confrontations between differ-
ent groups.
On August 14, Monsignor Obando y Bravo went to
Monimbo, a barrio of Masaya, to celebrate Mass and
participate in a procession celebrating the Assumption of
Mary. According to witnesses in Masaya, an incident oc-
curred when the MDN youth prevented a group from the
Comunidades de Base from presenting a letter to the
Bishop. It was not a serious incident nor an aggressive
action toward the Bishop, although it was portrayed as
such in coverage outside Nicaragua.
On August 15, some students and some of the priests
who staff the Salesian Catholic School decided to close the
school in a 24-hour strike in support of Fr. Carballo. A day
long series of incidents, rumors, etc., culminated in a pro-
test demonstration against the closing of the school. Dur-
ing that demonstration, shots were fired from the area of
the school and two demonstrators were killed. As a result
of all of that, the Salesian high school was temporarily
closed and several of the priests, all foreigners, were taken
to their respective embassies for their own protection,
while the events were being investigated.
One priest, the director of the school, was deported. He
is said to have been outspoken in his oppositon to the
Sandinista government and apparently on one occasion
burned the FSLN flag at a parents meeting.
After several days of meetings between the Minister of
Education and representatives of the Salesians, as well as
between government officials and the people of Monimbo,
an agreement was reached. A new director was named,
government intervention ended, and classes resumed.
On Sunday, August 15, a confrontation broke out be-
tween those attending a charismatic conference in a Catho-
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lic school in Managua and a group of Sandinista youth. No
one was hurt.
Las Brisas. On August 19, after flyers were circulated
around Managua advertising a Mass in support of Fr.
Carballo at his parish in Las Brisas, flyers which accused
the government of anti-religious actions, people objecting
to that position, as well as students on their way home from
neighboring schools, gathered in front of the church where
Fr. Carballo was co-celebrating Mass with Archbishop
Obando y Bravo. According to some of the people who
were in front of the church, which is still under construc-
tion, when the Mass was over, an exchange of slogans
began between people inside the church and those outside.
At one point, according to one observer, a rock was thrown
by someone inside the church, cutting one spectator on the
forehead. This intensified the feelings on both sides and a
melee began. The police had formed a cordon through
which Fr. Carballo and the Archbishop left without prob-
lems. However as they were leaving more rocks were flying
from both directions and one hit the rear window of the
Archbishop's car, breaking it. The Security Police, led by
Lenin Cerna, restored order. Several people from both
groups were arrested.
On August 24, after the incidents in Masaya, which
again were primarily of a political nature, rather than a
conflict between the government and the church, the Epis-
copal Conference published an unsigned letter in which
they denounced "public defamation and insults toward
some Catholic educational personnel and organisms;" at
least the passive complicity of some "authorities of public
order and of the Ministry of Education;" the closing,
"which for us is a camouflaged confiscation." The entire
contents of the letter clearly indicate a position that Catho-
lic schools and Catholic education are under attack. This is
after government officials and personnel from the Ministry
of Education had made repeated public statements to the
contrary and during the negotiations which ended with the
school being returned to the Salesians.
The Problems
These incidents have sharpened the divisions within the
Church, which have nothing to do with doctrine but much
to do with the way in which the carrying out of the gospel
message is perceived. This difference in perception has
further separated the Managuan Archbishop from the gov-
ernment and from significant sectors of the people.
There are strong criticisms because the [Church] hier-
archy has made no statements regarding the increasing
border attacks nor have they decried the deaths of Nicara-
guans such as occurred in San Francisco del Norte. This is
particularly irritating in light of the strong, and never
substantiated, denouncement of human rights violations
toward the Miskitu Indians which the bishops published
last spring.
Fr. Carballo was asked on July 27 if the Chancery were
going to make a statement regarding the San Francisco
massacre and he replied, "The Church can't be putting out
a document every time that something happens." Daniel
Ortega said in an interview, "They (the bishops) go to Mass
for Salazar, but when do they ever go to Mass for the
militia who have been killed?" (Salazar refers to Jorge
Salazar, a private businessman killed in 1980 when appar-
ently involved in gun-running.)
A great increase in the charismatic movement in some
ways parallels the pentecostal experience among non-
Catholics. There is much emphasis on a spiritual approach
to life, the importance of prayer and the exclusion of
involvement in "political activities" which include any gov-
ernment programs. This is seen as very negative by those
sectors of the church that feel community activity is a
necessary manifestation of faith. One priest said to us, "To
only praise God, to only ask that God save the country
from communism and that he convert the comandantes,
without acting in a way that will benefit the community is,
to me, not only counterrevolutionary but also anti-
Christian."
Again citing the Pax Christi report, "... the interwoven
relations between the hierarchy and the political opposi-
tion have been growing considerably. As a result, Archbi-
shop Obando was given a more and more political role. In
the opposition newspaper, La Prensa, he is almost daily
played off against the FSLN. Although the bishops accuse
the FSLN of `politically instrumentalizing' the christians,
they themselves are, in no modest way, instrumentalized by
the opposition. We even witnessed how the political oppo-
sition hailed the Archbishop as a `prophet' and a'martyr.'
Conservative church milieus and the political opposition
constantly mentioned to us a `religious persecution.' . . . It
seemed ridiculous to us to talk about `religious
persecution."'
The newly consecrated bishop of Matagalpa, Mons.
Santi, said in his homily on the day of his consecration,
"Anyone who says there is no religious freedom in this
country is a liar."
It is worth asking, "Why are the problems that exist
between government and church only found to such a great
extent in Managua'? According to Pax Christi, "The whole
issue of polarization is centered around this one question:
being a Christian, should one support the revolution led by
the FSLN or should one adopt a counter-revolutionary
attitude'? This is however not an internal church discussion
but a political one...."
The clergy certainly are drawn into the political arena.
One of the reasons given for the strongly politicized clergy
is: "The traditional totalitarian thinking, leaving little
room for pluralism (especially within the clerical hier-
archy) and resulting in the fact that every criticism of a
person or an aspect of clerical life is experienced as a
criticism of the church or of christianity itself."
In a recent interview in the publication Anianecer, the
Pastoral Vicar of the Diocese of Esteli, Father Jose Ernesto
Bravo, talks of what he sees as the negative aspects of the
church in Nicaragua. Among those things, he includes the
excessive influence of CELAM in the Nicaraguan church,
the break in relations between the Episcopal Conference
and the government, internal church repression against
those who collaborate with the process, and documents
issued by the hierarchy which only focus on what seems
had to them in the process, documents which are excessive-
IN, political rather than pastoral.
The Government
At the height of all of the recent problems, the FSLN, on
August 18, took the positive action of issuing a statement
reaffirming its Document on Religion, issued in November
of 1980. It reaffirmed the government's commitment to
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religicus liberty and its respect for the religious sentiments
of the Nicaraguan people.
Not all of the actions by the government have been
completely positive. The government has recently found
itself faced with sometimes openly counterrevolutionary
activity under the guise of religion so that action against
those activities can easily be depicted as repression of reli-
gion. This has sometimes led to non-action on the part of
the government. The popular organizations then take mat-
ters into their own hands and confrontations result. The
danger is that, as one member of the CDS told us, "Our
own people are well-disciplined and we can control them.
But ir these situations, sometimes other people get in-
volved who do not have that discipline and cannot be
controlled by us, since they don't belong to our group."
Thus, unfortunate results can occur which can further
deteriorate an already tense situation.
The Office of Communications Media has also acted in a
less than prudent way in some of these cases. Many groups,
including the Association of Priests, have written letters
protesting some of the decisions and the coverage by local
media, At times, the office does not seem to have its finger
on the pulse of the people, to be able to read and respond to
their sense of popular religiosity and their sense of what is
sacred and what is inviolable.
The Foreign Media
If coverage of events within Nicaragua has sometimes
been less than responsible, foreign coverage has often con-
tained serious distortions and often outright lies.
In an interview in the Venezuelan English language
paper, The Daily Journal, on August 20, with Monsignor
Jose Joaquin Tronconis, Secretary of the Venezuelan
Episcopal Conference and member of the CELAM team
sent tc Nicaragua in response to the Pax Christi report,
there is such blatantly false information as that the Arch-
bishop of Managua was stoned by a mob while the police
stood by and did nothing, that protests in support of Fr.
Carballo were violently repressed by police resulting in a
number of deaths at the hands of the police, and that
Nicaraguan priests are holding public office in defiance of
papal orders to withdraw. Similar stories have appeared in
papers in Honduras, Costa Rica, Europe and in the United
States.
Another extreme distortion of the truth in the foreign
press coverage of church-related events was the story that
Bishop Schlaefer of the Atlantic Coast was under arrest.
The bi ,hop clearly spoke out against the report, stating
that he had never been arrested, either in Nicaragua or
anywhere else.
As an indication of the extent of CELAM's negative
perspective in relation to Nicaragua, their report, based on
a visit in January 1982, includes the following criticisms of
the Nicaraguan process: growing totalitarianism, progres-
sive disappearance of liberties, repression, sowing hate and
division in the people, excessive militarization ideologized
by Marxism, alignment with Cuba and insertion of the
process in the Russian orbit. Its criticisms of those Chris-
tians committed to the process include: socio-political re-
ductionism and political instrumentalization of the faith,
deviations from the magisterium of the church, insubordi-
nation to the church hierarchy, attempts to divide the
church, the search "more than to christianize Marxism, to
marxize Christianity," letting itself be used.
Conclusions
The attempts of the U.S. to destabilize Nicaragua
through the area of religion and the church has serious
implications in part because of the historic role of Chris-
tians in the revolution and the role of Christians in support
of the FSLN now, with several priests holding key posi-
tions in the government. The churches throughout the
world have played a key role in support for the FSLN, both
before the victory and since that time. Thus, the U.S.
efforts are aimed at cutting off a very important and vocal
area of support by trying to convince those church sectors
that the Sandinistas are now persecuting religion. The U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops has made strong and very
positive statements in support of self-determination in
Central America and against the interventionist policies of
the U.S. government. There is a concerted effort now to get
the bishops to back off of that position, again by picturing
the Sandinistas as attacking the Nicaraguan Catholic
Church. These efforts contribute to the overall plan to
isolate Nicaragua politically.
In the future it can be expected that efforts, both internal
and external, will increase to neutralize the effectiveness of
progressive forces within the churches in Nicaragua by
playing on the differences and internal conflicts. Efforts
will also be made to stop church support for Nicaragua
abroad by media campaigns portraying the Sandinista gov-
ernment as extremely anti-religion; also efforts will be
stepped up to portray those churches or sectors that con-
tinue to support the Nicaraguan process as "communist
sympathizers." This is evident in the attacks in the U.S.
media against congregations such as Maryknoll and at-
tacks against the United Methodist Church and others.
One Nicaraguan priest sees the only hope of reconcilia-
tion, within the Church and between the Church and the
government, as a commitment to dialogue: commissions
from the various sectors, truly committed to an improve-
ment in relations and willing to sit down and dialogue,
admitting mistakes and making concessions. Hopefully,
even though some of these sectors do not have a history of
democratic procedures or dialogue, the seriousness of the
current situation in Nicaragua will move them to go
beyond their own interests and work for "el pueblo"-the
people.
The Archbishop has recently made a statement indicat-
ing his willingness to work for the improvement of rela-
tions with the government. Meetings between members of
the FSLN and some of the bishops have been termed
"fruitful." Daniel Ortega, in an interview on August 31,
reaffirmed the willingness and desire of the government to
continue the dialogue and said that the dialogue had been
continuing with at least some of the hierarchy. The FSLN,
in their statement reaffirming the Document on religion,
says clearly that to them the recent incidents are not a
confrontation between the revolution and religion but
rather a political struggle which the counterrevolution is
portraying as religious.
After a period of extreme tension and a less than op-
timistic prognosis, the recent weeks have brought indica-
tions of a definite lessening of tension and progress toward
reconciliation. There will certainly continue to be caution
and expectation of more moves by the enemies of the
Nicaraguan experiment to find inroads within the church
to continue their battle for the "minds of mankind." -
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Covert Action and Indigenous Groups:
The MLskft -a-S?
By Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz*
In March 1982, allegations were made to the Inter-
American Commission on Human Rights of the Organiza-
tion of American States that the Government of Nicaragua
had violated the human rights of the Miskitu Indians of the
Eastern region (Atlantic Coast) of that country. The case
concerned the relocation in early - 1982 of the Miskitu
communities in the areas where armed conflict was taking
place.
The testimony, provided by two Miskitu opponents of
the Sandinista Government, revolved around three pre-
sumptions: that the Miskitu communities were relocated
by the Nicaraguan government against their will; that the
Miskitu population was singled out for punishment as an
ethnic group; and that the evacuation was merely a pretext
for economically integrating the Miskitus into the national
economy, with the implication that the level of armed
conflict was not such as to require evacuation of the civilian
population.
Careful analysis leads to the conclusion that these three
central presumptions are invalid. The Miskitu Indians,
who were relocated from 37 of more than 250 Miskitu
communities in the Northeast quadrant of Nicaragua, real-
ized the necessity of such action and participated in the
process, though many were not happy about it. All people
in the Rio Coco area of the border with Honduras were
relocated, not only Miskitus, and no Miskitus outside the
border area were relocated by the evacuation. Therefore
the Miskitu population was not singled out for punishment
'Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz is Professor of History and American Indian
Studies at California State University. She is the publisher of Indigenous
World/El Mundo Indigena and the author of The Great Sioux Nation
and Land Tenure in New Mexico. Her book on the Miskitu will appear in
1983.
Number 18 (Winter 1983)
nor for any other goal. Moreover, the evacuation was
caused by a condition of invasion and armed conflict, and
was not a pretext for any other alleged goal, such as "eco-
nomic integration."
The Disinformation
A number of historical and contemporary distortions
have been put forward in an attempt to justify the anti-
government argument. Though the role of foreign inter-
vention, threats, and manipulation of elements among the
Miskitu population are condemned, these factors are min-
imized and it is asserted that even without the threats and
manipulation, the same or similar conflicts and crises
would have developed. It is argued that the Sandinistas are
covering up their actual goals of assimilation and destruc-
tion of Miskitu culture.
Distortions include exaggeration of the size of the region
inhabited by the Miskitus and their population. The colo-
nial term, "Mosquitia," which refers to practically the en-
tire eastern coast of Central America is often used to refer
to the region where Miskitu villages are located, whereas,
in fact, the Miskitu villages are located in the northeastern
part of eastern Nicaragua and across the border in south-
eastern Honduras. The actual Miskitu population in Nica-
ragua is around 70,000 but population figures are doubled.
The 30,000 Afro-American, English-speaking Creoles of
southeastern Nicaragua, as well as the Sumus (who
number about 6700) are often included when referring to
the Miskitu region and population. Furthermore, all Mis-
kitus are included when references are made to disputes
with the government and rarely is it mentioned that many
Miskitus are Sandinistas, and whole villages have em-
braced the revolution as their own without any fear or
desire to lose their culture or language.
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One prevalent myth is that the Sandinistas forced the
Spanish language on the Miskitus when in fact the 1980
literacy crusade was carried out in the Miskitu language in
those villages, and a law was passed which requires the
teaching of all subjects in schools in the mother tongues of
the co:nmunities, with Spanish added as a second language
in the 4th grade.
The Manipulation of Indigenous Peoples
If the Sandinistas do have a sound and just policy and
practice toward the indigenous communities, then one
must consider carefully their motives for identifying the
situation in the border region as a military emergency, and
deciding to evacuate the civilian population. Evidence of a
U.S. covert action plan to recruit and manipulate Miskitus
in the border region is now well-known. The plan, as it has
unfolded, has a familiar ring to U.S. officials and troops
who operated in the border regions of Laos, Vietnam,
Cambodia and Thailand in the 1960s. There the CIA devel-
oped programs to recruit and train the Hmong people as a
secret CIA army.
Ralph McGehee, a career officer for the CIA for 25
years, worked in Thailand during the development of the
Hmong program. In early 1964, several years after the
"secret war" against Laos began, Hmong were recruited
from their villages on the Thai-Lao border. McGehee des-
cribed the process to me as one of recruiting several Hmong
from each village, and inviting them to the base in Thailand
for "agricultural technical training." In fact the "training"
was in communications with the CIA, and the securing of
small air landing strips outside the Hmong villages. Of
course at a certain point, these people, whether allied with
the CIA or not, became cannon fodder.
In Dirty Work: The CIA In Western Europe, Philip
Agee tells the tragic story of the Kurdish alliance with the
CIA during the early 1970s against the progressive regime
in Iraq. The Shah of Iran initiated the idea of supporting
the Kurds, led by Mustafa Barzani, though Barzani did not
trust the Shah and regarded the CIA investment of $16
million in the program as a guarantee against the suspen-
sion of support. However, Agee comments, "the aid was
not meant to provide for a final Kurdish victory and the
limited autonomy that Barzani had fought for since the
1920s," and the United States restrained the Kurds. In
1975, after the Shah received the border concessions he
sought from Iraq, he suddenly cut off aid to the Kurds and
the CIA did the same. The Iraquis proceeded to crush the
Kurdish insurgency, creating 200,000 refugees. Barzani
pleaded for U.S. humanitarian assistance-which was not
forthcc ming-and the Shah drove more than 40,000 Kurds
back into Iraq. The U.S. refused to admit any Kurdish
refugee, and one U.S. official explained: "Covert action
should not be confused with missionary work."
John Stockwell, a former CIA officer in a similar pro-
gram against Angola, commented in a letter to me that
"Washington has launched a program that is almost identi-
cal in Nicaragua. Same size, using an adjoining country
and the U.S. as the base of CIA operations, hiring merce-
naries and U.S. adventurers." In reference to the cost in
human lives, Stockwell writes: "Senate records and other
public Information discloses that the total of people who
have died as direct victims of CIA covert wars is at least
800,000. Those who have died in the wars that were trig-
gered by CIA covert action (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos,
Thailand) number in the millions. And we are talking only
of the dead, without mention of the many more who suf-
fered famine, disease, anguish, lack of schooling, job or
health services as their regions were destabilized."
The appearance which these military programs seek to
project is one of border people "caught in between" some-
one else's fight. But the appearance is deceiving since they
are being consciously recruited, often by bribery or threats,
and manipulated, often by lies and false promises.
The situations described above have occurred on nu-
merous occasions in the past 20 years to indigenous peoples
in border regions. Consistent results are evident: those
peoples become cannon fodder, and those programs truly
constitute genocide.
The Fate of the Miskitus
The Miskitu people in the border region of Nicaragua
came very close to such a fate and are still not safe from it
since the program continues. The government, fully aware
of such past CIA programs, evacuated the border region
and saved the Miskitus from a tragic fate. But were the
Miskitus "caught in the middle"? Are they neutrals victim-
ized by the "East-West struggle"? This is what the Miskitu
exiles and most Western media claim to be the case. But as
it can be shown that some Miskitus, like the Hmong, were
actively recruited and trained in a CIA program to destabi-
lize another government, "caught in the middle" is an
inappropriate way to describe the process or the result. The
United States government, not the Sandinistas, is a viola-
tor of the human rights of the Miskitu people.
The Program
A brief review of the development of the CIA program is
useful. The October 1980 mass demonstrations by Afro-
Nicaraguan Creoles in Bluefields, were the most publicized
early event. The demonstrations ostensibly sought the ous-
ter of Cuban doctors and teachers from the area, on the
grounds that they were taking jobs away from Creoles who
suffer very high unemployment. Since the Cubans were
volunteers, the logic of this argument was suspect. In any
event, the intensity and numbers of demonstrators brought
about a military emergency, and arrested organizers of the
demonstrations admitted links to foreign and domestic
(Somocista) covert action plans to destabilize and over-
throw the Sandinista Government. However, the protests
also indicated some real problems of communication and
deep-seated, extensive dissatisfaction. Working on that
assumption, the Sandinistas initiated extended discussions
between the whole Creole community and Government
leaders, which took place day after day. Many of the prob-
lems being exploited by the covert action plan were worked
out, and others openly discussed with solutions posed, a
pattern that has prevailed since that time between indige-
nous ethnic groups and the Sandinista government. A
similar situation exists between the Sumus, the Ramas and
the Government, as well as with many of the numerous
Miskitu villages.
However, the Miskitus in the villages on and near the
Honduran border, were much more vulnerable to pressure,
simply because of the nearness of armed bands. The focus
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of this manipulation was Steadman Fagoth Muller, half
Miskitu, former Somoza agent and informant. His work
was described by conservative columnist Georgie Anne
Geyer on July 16, 1981: "Fagoth is beginning to represent
to some important people a real chance to overthrow the
Sandinista, pro-Cuban regime in his country .... Fagoth
was in the U.S. to plead for food from the U.N. and other
sources. But there were vague and suggestive whispers of
other possibilities behind his visit." Geyer, who is known
for her intelligence connections, goes on to explain that
Fagoth and his Miskitu followers were working with the
15th of September League, a group run by former members
of Somoza's intelligence services, training in camps in
Honduras and Florida, and that, "way behind the scenes,
the authoritarian countries of the southern cone, plus some
of the other Central American military governments, have
quietly told this new grouping that they would give it every
support for what can only be thought of as a
counter-revolution."
Steadman Fagoth, Contra leader.
The U.S. Destabilization Program
On December 1, 1981, the Reagan administration for-
mally approved the now well-known political and paramil-
itary operations by the CIA against Nicaragua. The plan
included covert aid to individual and private organizations
in Nicaragua, that is, to anti-Sandinista forces, and money
and arms to anti-Sandinista Nicaraguans in bases in Hon-
duras. The excuse was alleged Nicaraguan support for
FMLN forces in El Salvador, but the real aim was to incite
unrest in Nicaragua using former Sorroza National
Guardsmen, dissident elements, ethnic minorities, and
exile groups in the U.S. The plan apparently sought Sandi-
nista retaliatory attacks into Honduras, creating a pretext
for foreign military intervention. To complement a large
influx of U.S. military advisers in Honduras, the CIA was
recruiting mercenaries for the project for some time. One
former Green Beret told reporter Mike Wallace that he had
been approached by his old commanding Dfficer and of-
fered a six months' contract to airdrop inside Nicaragua to
do the same kind of thing he had done in the Vietnam war.
Reporter John Dinges observed in The Progressive
(May 1982): "If the fighting in El Salvador were to end
tomorrow, if the country were again subjected to a stable
dictatorship holding sway over a passive peasantry, Rea-
gan's principal concern in Central America would still be
Nicaragua, and he still would be eager to to,iple the Sandi-
nista regime even though his main pretext for doing so
would have been removed."
Such observations were confirmed by Fagoth's broad-
casts from the training camps in Honduras in the Miskitu
language over the powerful September 15 radio. He at-
tempted to persuade the Miskitu people to join him in
Honduras to prepare for an uprising in the region to oust
the Sandinista "communists." He also threatened the Mis-
kitus by telling them that when the hour of attack would
come, that if they were not on his side, they would be
considered Sandinistas and killed, or that the Sandinistas
would bomb their villages believing them to be part of the
opposition.
"Red Christmas"
In early 1982 the Nicaraguan government exposed a
plan, called "Operation Red Christmas," which had been
designed to provoke a secessionist movement among the
Miskitus. They named Fagoth as the leader of the opera-
tion, along with some Moravian pastors, and some per-
sonnel for the Protestant Relief and Development Agency.
According to the government, the plan was undertaken in
late November 1981 with a series of murderous attacks,
which were most intense during December 12-25, with
Fagoth broadcasting terrifying threats to the people,
telling them that Sandinista planes were coming to bomb
their villages, that the Sandinistas believed all the Miskitus
were in revolt and would punish them, warning them that
they should cross the river border and go tD the Honduran
refugee camp (Mocoron) for safety, where food, shelter,
and medicine would be provided.
As it became clear that the Miskitu people were not
going to "rise up," the warnings to cross the river increased.
Of course, many did cross; perhaps as many as 10,000 are in
the desolate refugee camps in Honduras, the infrastructure
of which is permeated with violent former Guardsmen.
Control of the camps is maintained by Diana Negroponte,
the wife of the U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, John D.
Negroponte. She was a senior official of World Relief,
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which Ldministered the camps. Other Miskitus were fleeing
to stay with relatives in the interior of Nicaragua. The
assertion that the Miskitus were not leaving on their own is
inaccurate, but they had little choice-go to the Honduran
camps or individually find refuge within Nicaragua. Be-
cause the Sandinistas could not defend the communities
from the armed raids without risking firing into Honduras,
which could set off military retaliation, they decided to
evacuate the villages.
By evacuating the villages and destroying all the buil-
dings and crops, the Red Christmas plan collapsed com-
pletely, though commando attacks continue against isolat-
ed villages and farms in the entire region. The Sandinistas
explained that had they not destroyed the resources and
buildings along the river, the commandos could have
herded Miskitus from the refugee camps to the emptied
villages, established bases, and created more cannon
fodder.
The Bid: Lie
When it became clear that the plan for an uprising and
separatist initiative had failed completely, the CIA turned
on its propaganda campaign, filling the teletypes with false
"news" of massacres, Miskitus being burned alive, graves
desecrated, and, of course, concentration camps. Press
reaction to such reports was most interesting to American
Indians and our advocates, who put out nearly daily re-
ports of massacres in Guatemala of Indians, of the reloca-
tion of 10,000 Navajos in Arizona, and other atrocities
committed against Indians by governments, without re-
ceiving a line of press coverage.
President Reagan, then Secretary of State Haig, U.S.
Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and many other State De-
partment officials made statements to the OAS, to the
U.N., and to the press, asserting Sandinista atrocities and
manifesting their "sympathy" with the Miskitu cause. Haig
was moved to tears over a photograph of Miskitus being
massacred, and was unruffled when the photo turned out
to be three years old, and of the Red Cross destruction of
Somoza's war dead. The evacuations during January and
February neutralized all possibilities for reactivating the
separatist plan, so Fagoth was brought to Washington to
meet with congressmen and the media. His trip was spon-
sored by the conservative American Security Council, and
his meetings were arranged by Ambassador Kirkpatrick's
Washington office. Fagoth gave congressional testimony
that thousands of Miskitus were being tortured, buried
alive, and murdered.
The most interesting aspect of the public relations cam-
paign which accompanied this CIA disinformation pro-
gram, differing from earlier ones in Asia and Africa, is the
use of the absolute lie in order to create doubt even among
the strongest Sandinista supporters. That is, in stating that
tens of thousands of Miskitus had been massacred and the
rest herded into concentration camps, the notion that there
had been not even one Sandinista killing of a Miskitu
civilian, which is the truth, carried little weight. Human
rights groups and solidarity organizations in North Ameri-
ca and Europe began to have grave misgivings about San-
dinista treatment of the Miskitus, even though they did not
regard the Reagan administration and Steadman Fagoth
as credible sources of information.
In April 1982, journalists traveled to the Mocoron refu-
gee camp in Honduras where some 7,800 Miskitu refugees
live. Certain Miskitus interviewed repeated the atrocity
stories for the correspondents, but other Miskitus in the
camps as well as all in Nicaragua report that there were no
Sandinista atrocities and that any deaths resulted from
firefights between Sandinista armed forces and armed
raiders, some of whom were Miskitus. Not a single Miskitu
died in the resettlement operation. Indeed the resettled
Miskitus now receive far better health care and other social
services than was ever possible along the river border.
Americas Watch, a branch of the Helsinki Watch inter-
national group, sent a high level delegation to Nicaragua in
April 1982, and reported that the government's justifica-
tion for the relocation, for security reasons, was "not un-
reasonable." The mission found no basis for the press
reports of "widespread massacres" in their interviews with
Miskitus.
The American Indian Movement, through the Interna-
tional Indian Treaty Council, sent a high level delegation to
Nicaragua at the height of the December attacks. At the
38th Session of the United Nations Commission on
Human Rights, meeting in Geneva during February and
March, 1982, the IITC stated that "the Miskitus along the
border area requested to be moved, to prevent their being
further victimized by the forces operating out of Honduran
territory. Although the relocation was difficult for the
Miskitus, the Government of Nicaragua has provided
health care, transport, and arable lands for farming in the
new location .... Our greatest concern is for those Miski-
tus who have been manipulated into crossing the border
and are now being used by the anti-government forces. We
remember clearly the minorities who were used by the CIA
in Laos and Vietnam, and who later became outcasts
among their own people once the CIA didn't need them
anymore. We hope this same fate does not befall the
Miskitus."
LaDonna Harris, American Indian and Director of the
Americans for Indian Opportunity, also met with Sandi-
nista and Miskitu leaders in Nicaragua. She published a
statement in May condemning U.S. intervention and ma-
nipulation of the Miskitus. She asserted that "U.S. spon-
sorship of external subversion against Nicaragua is itself a
major violation of international law and must be seen as an
underlying cause of Sandinista actions."
Conclusion
Given the overwhelming evidence of the CIA program to
destabilize and crush the Sandinista revolution in Nicara-
gua, the probing of their indigenous policy appears ironic
indeed. Yet for the indigenous activist or advocate, this is
an important question because in many cases a poor go-
vernment policy may coexist with CIA intervention, as in
relation to the Kurds. However, this is not the case with the
Sandinista Revolution, which has made qualitative and
quantitative advances in supporting indigenous rights at
every level. Surely not the least of the CIA program's
objectives is to neutralize the effects of the government's
initiatives in the area of indigenous rights in terms of the
million ethnic Indians and tens of millions of Afro-
Americans looking to the Sandinista Revolution with
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Congressional Testimony:
The Prospects of War
Between Honduras and Nicaragua
By LTC. John H. Buchanan, USMC (Ret)
Along with the multi-faceted covert operations being directed at Nicaragua, there is an extensive military build-up in
Honduras which is central to the over-all operations. Recently a detailed analysis of that build-up circulated among several
journalists in Washington and New York. The document is compelling and we reprint it in full here for CAIB readers.
The document appears to be a translation of a Spanish original, and was evidently prepared by a research team in Central
America. It is obvious from reading the document that a certain amount of cooperation was necessary both in Nicaragua
and in Honduras.
On the same subject, John Buchanan, the director of Area Studies for the Center for Development Policy, testified on
September 21, 1982 before the Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Buchanan, a retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel with considerable combat experience in Vietnam, traveled extensively in
Central America, confirming his opinion that U.S. policy towards the area was dangerous and misguided. As a comple-
ment to the document noted above, we also reprint here his testimony.
1. INTRODUCTION
My name is John Buchanan, Director of Area Studies for the Center for
Development Policy, and I am a member of the Commission on United
States Central American Relations.
I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee,
for asking me to testify this afternoon. I appreciate the opportunity to
speak to you on a subject that I believe to be a matter of urgent national
priority.
Speaking generally, I am here to criticize the present administration's
policy toward Central America. It is a misguided policy and if it is not
soon reversed the people of this land and the rest of this continent will
suffer for decades from its grave consequences. It is not in our interests as
a nation.
More specifically, I am here to oppose the present administration's
creation of a military crisis between Honduras and its neighbor, Nicara-
gua, and its sponsorship of a military buildup in Honduras, a move which
will only encourage increased repression in that country.
At the outset, I wish to make it clear that I do not pretend to be an
expert on Central America. I would categorize myself as a concerned U.S.
citizen who became so appalled by this administration's militarization of
Central America's economic and social crisis that I felt compelled to
examine thoroughly the military situation in the region to find out what is
really happening there.
Six months ago I set out to develop the necessary ligatures needed to
understand events in Central America. These months have been busy ones
for me. I spent four weeks during April and May traveling alone through
Mexico, Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and nearly two weeks in July and
August in El Salvador and Honduras as a member of a delegation spon-
sored by the Commission on United States-Central American Relations.
In the course of these travels I met with religious leaders including Mons.
Rivera y Damas, the Acting Archbishop of El Salvador, Bishop Wilson of
the Moravian Church in Nicaragua (the church of the Miskito Indians of
the Atlantic Coast), and evangelical Protestant minisi.ers throughout the
region. I talked with numerous past and present civi ian politicians and
many members of the international media. I was briefed by some of the
leading academics of all these countries, especially po,itical scientists and
economists. I had discussions with local and U.S. businessmen in Mexico,
Costa Rica, Nicaragua and El Salvador, including the National Private
Enterprise Association (ANEP) and the Chamber of Commerce in El
Salvador. I visited the refugee centers in San Salvador, shared the meager
fare of the Miskito Indians in their resettlement communities in Nicara-
gua and spent a night with Salvadoran refugees in their squalid camp at
Mesa Grande, in Honduras. I have talked with numerous exiles from the
troubled countries of El Salvador and Nicaragua; these include Guillermo
Ungo, Hector Dada, Col. Majano and Leonel Gomez of El Salvador and
Heraldo Montealegre of Nicaragua.
In a daze, I have stumbled through the remains of the victims of
Salvadoran death squads. And I walked confidently among the free,
exuberant citizens of Costa Rica. (How long that happy state will obtain is
problematic as this administration is pressuring Costa Rica to build an
army.)
The knowledge and insights I gained through these experiences have
been crucial to my understanding of the turmoil that the Central Ameri-
can isthmus is now enduring. I will be happy to answer any questions
regarding these trips upon completion of my statement.
Most important for my understanding of the military situation in the
region were my contacts with Central America's miitary commanders,
their staffs and their troops. I have had long conversations with military
representatives from all sides of the conflict: the Farabundo Marti Na-
tional Liberation Front (FMLN), with Colonel Majano, the leader of the
October 1979 coup in El Salvador, with General Garcia and his Chief of
Staff, Colonel Flores Lima, with several of the Sandinista Comman-
dantes, with Honduran officers, and with the U.S. Military Group Com-
mander in El Salvador, Col. Waghlestien.
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I flew with the Sandinista Air Force in one of their two or three Cessna
180's to a small jungle airstrip on the Miskito coast. On landing, the plane
veered off the runway and crashed into the trees. The Sandinistas flew in a
new propeller, and my young pilot used a screw driver and a hammer to
straighten out the dents in the wings and tail of the aircraft. We later flew
that aircraft back to Managua at night.
I accompanied a Sandinista combat patrol right along the border with
Honduras in northwest Nicaragua near Somoto. A few weeks later I
learned that several of the young Sandinista soldiers I was with were killed
in one of the frequent ambushes that the Somocista counter-
revolutionaries mount from Honduras. Before I left Nicaragua. I visited
many of he "military installations" that U.S. satellites photographed in
Nicaragua and which were the subject of the briefing presented by the
administration last March. 1 saw little significant difference between a
"Soviet-style obstacle course" and the obstacle courses I ran as a young
Marine.
Durinf my visit to El Salvador in July, I visited a regional commander
of the Salvadoran army and was briefed by him and his staff on the
military situation in his zone, Cuscatlan department, scene of many
heated military encounters. After a fine lunch, we went to the "rifle range"
and test fired some of his M-16 and M-60 weapons. They seemed little
different from the M-16 and AK-47 weapons I inspected in Nicaragua.
While in Honduras I again flew to the Miskito Coast. This time the
aircraft was a U.S. Air Force C-130 transport and I felt considerably more
secure than in the Sandinistas' Cessna. This aircraft was participating in
the relocation of a Honduran combat batallion to the sensitive border
area next to Nicaragua. Fortunately, this plane did not crash on landing
for we w.-re hauling ammunition for the Honduran troops that were
occupying this zone.
Again, I am not suggesting that these encounters with the Central
Americar military make me a military expert. I do not possess the
expertise, resources and intelligence gathering capabilities of General
Alexander M. Haig, or General Wallace H. Nutting or General Vernon A.
Walters. But I do have enough military training and knowledge to see that
a smoke screen is being laid and a military debacle is in the offing.
11. Military Capabilities
After analyzing the military capabilities of Honduras and Nicaragua,
and the limitations that each of them faces, the nature of their conflict and
the threat that they pose to each other, I can only conclude that it would be
ludicrous for Nicaragua to assault Honduras and equally foolhardy for
Honduras to attack Nicaragua. Yet these two countries seem to be headed
for a war, one which this administration is encouraging. Information I
have corning out of Central America is that a war between these two
countries will start in December. I will discuss this date in more detail in a
few moments. (Incidentally, throughout this testimony I will not identify
my sources of "information"; for obvious reasons their names can not be
revealed.;
Before I address what I believe are the factual military capabilities and
limitatiors of Nicaragua I want to direct your attention to a couple of
military briefing techniques. Armchair generals and government officials
who are ocked in combat for Congress' heart, mind and pocketbook
always brief using "uncluttered" maps in which the Soviet Union is pink,
the United States is orange, Cuba is brown, etc. Maps like that avoid
awkward questions about terrain features, lines of communication,
weather patterns, time-distance factors, etc. A good example of this is the
CIA-DIA briefing on "Evidence of Military Buildup in Nicaragua" pre-
sented March 9, 1982.
They include stimulating statistics like 25 "Soviet built T-55 tanks," or
12 to 16 "Cuban supplied M IGs" and then let people's imaginations run
wild. The audience conjures up visions of a vast phalanx of Soviet T-55s
rumbling across the plains of Western Europe orthe deserts of the Middle
East. Thee never interrupt these reveries with details about the capabilities
and limitations of the equipment, the terrain, etc.
Today, however, with your permission I wish to violate the rules of
military briefers. I brought with me a detailed map of the region. This is
the sort of map that men engaged in mortal combat use-not the sort used
in budget )attles. Anyone can instantly see that Honduras has some of the
most rugged topography in the region. This terrain is highly unsuited to
the use of tanks. For example, if Nicaragua employed their "Soviet built
T-55 tanks" in an invasion of Honduras, they would have to negotiate
rises to over 7,000 feet in the vicinity of the capital, Tegucigalpa, and 9,000
feet in the western part of the country. The mountains are steep, the
valleys narrow and deep and cut by rushing, rocky streams. There is only
one route he T-55 could realistically follow: the Pan American Highway.
Over this 190 mile route, the tanks would be easily detected by the U.S.
intelligence-gathering satellites and Honduran reconnaissance aircraft.
On one 30 mile stretch of the road the tanks would have to climb from
about 500 feet to around 5,000 feet. The maximum gradient a T-55 can
manage is 30 degrees and when I drove those twisting Honduran roads
some of them seemed at least that steep. The T-55's maximum speed is 30
MPH so it would take almost 10 hours to travel from Managua to
Tegucigalpa, and 5 hours from the Nicaraguan-Honduran border to
Tegucigalpa.
In addition to the logistical problem, caused by the rugged topography,
there are numerous other characteristics of the T-55 that make it less than
an imposing piece of armor:
? it has a loose "dead" track that is apt to shed during violent turns,
rendering the tank immobile.
? internal fuel and oil supplies are supplemented by 4 flat light steel
tanks (panniers) on the right running board of the tank and in two drums
at the rear of the hull which are highly vulnerable to attack.
? the turret is so cramped that the gunner nearly sits in the command-
er's lap.
? the bulky D-107 gun takes up a large portion of the turret space and
further congestion is caused by a ready rack of ammunition storage along
the rear wall.
? space in the tank is so cramped that it is impracticable to crew the
vehicle with troops taller than 5 foot 5 inches.
? this cramping is made worse because the T-55 is filled on the inside
with small fittings and brackets so the crew will regularly be inflicted with
bruises and gashes.
? the loader's turret cavity is so small that he must remain seated or
crouched. 'The gun ammunition weighs over 50 pounds and is difficult to
manhandle in the best of circumstances. Not only does the T-55 loader
have to maneuver these heavy rounds in a very cramped space but he must
ram them home with his left hand.
? turret space is so limited that only three rounds can be carried in the
turret. Once these rounds have been expended, the loader must perform
acrobatics from the racks at his feet or at knee level in order to acquire
ammunition.
? the interior of the T-55 is so small that the gun cannot be reloaded
unless it is fully elevated. Once a round has been fired, the gun must be
elevated, reloaded, and resighted.
? the average rate of fire is only four rounds per minute.
? the T-55 has no air conditioning system, a definite drawback in the
tropics.
? T-55s have a notably shorter service life than Western tanks as they
are designed to be expended on the battlefield and replaced with freshly
equipped units.
? workmanship of the T-55 is sometimes so poor as to require vehicle
overhaul even before the tank has been issued to the troops.
? engine overheating caused by poorly machined oil lines have some-
times limited effective engine life to only about 100 hours.
? transmissions in the T-55 have never been a strong point and the
clutch accounts for 40 percent of the mechanical breakdowns alone.
? Western defense analysts estimate the effective range of a T-55 is less
than 100-125 miles before a serious mechanical failure.
? the great force required to steer the tank without hydraulic boosting
causes driver fatigue and would seriously hamper a small driver under
trying combat conditions.
? T-55s are especially dangerous when the gyro-stabilizer is turned on
and the vehicle is in motion. While tracking a target, the gun breech and
turret can unexpectedly swing about, pinioning or crushing the loader if
he does not nimbly dodge it. Due to this and other technical deficiencies,
the T-55 has virtually no fire on the move capability.
As I remarked to the Sandinista Commandantes, "With friends who
would supply you T-55s, who needs enemies?"
Doubtless the Sandinistas would accompany the T-55s with the 12
"Soviet built BTR-60 Armored Personnel Carriers" which can each carry
2 crewmen and 8 troops. In addition, a Sandinista armored thrust would
face intense attack from the Honduran Air Force. The Sandinistas'2 T-33
and 3 T-28 aircraft are incapable of providing their tanks the essential air
cover needed for a successful attack. My point is simply that the utility of
the Soviet-supplied armor in a ground war in Central America is very
limited. These facts were not pointed out by Inman and Hughes during the
March 1982 briefing.
In fact, my assessment of Nicaraguan military power leads me to believe
that the capabilities of the Sandinistas have been deliberately exaggerated
by the Reagan administration during this briefing and on other occasions.
As it is with the T-55, so it is with many other elements of the Sandinista
arsenal. Many of the weapons are either ill-suited to the region, out-
moded, or in a state of disrepair. This is particularly true of the logistical
infrastructure needed to sustain a protracted war. There is only one oil
refinery highly vulnerable to attack-and two large capacity fuel stor-
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age tanks, one of which was cracked in the 1972 earthquake. One can only
conclude that the Reagan administration is distorting the facts in order to
justify covert operations aimed at overthrowing the Sandinistas and an
unprecedented military buildup in Honduras.
Across the border, in Honduras, the military's capability looks rosier at
first blush. The Honduran Air Force has been almost completely re-
equipped since the war with El Salvador in 1969 and, while by U.S.
standards its equipment is modest, it has become the most formidable air
power in Central America relative to its neighbors.
The Air Force now possesses:
? 20 Super Mystere B2 fighter-bombers (approximate combat range:
400 miles/ armament: 6,500 Ibs'?).
? 10 F-86 Sabre Jet fighter-bombers (combat range: 460 miles; ar-
mament: four 20 mm cannons, 2000 lbs. bombs, 2 Sidewinder missiles).
? 5 A-37B Dragonfly ground attack bombers (combat range: 400
miles] armament: 7.62 Minigun in forward fuselage and 4100 lbs. bombs).
(The Pentagon expected Honduras to purchase additional A-37B and
T-37B aircraft in FY-82 but purchase/ delivery not confirmed at this
writing.)
? 24 T-28 Trojan trainer-bombers, a number of which are armed and
available for ground attack missions (combat range: 500 miles/ arma-
ment: undetermined at this writing. Typical load is two 50 caliber machine
guns, two 750 lb. bombs, and two 2.75 in. rocket pods.)
? 3 RT-33A reconnaissance aircraft.
? 23 U H-1 H and UH-19D utility transport helicopters (combat radi-
us: approximately 125 miles with 14 passengers.)
? In addition the Air Force has a menagerie of obsolescent modern
trainers; transport/ liaison aircraft.
General Alvarez is now arguing that his Air Force must receive 12
Northrup F-5 E/F fighters to meet its security obligations. Who will
finance the $120 million price tag is a question that will soon be put to you
Congressmen.
What will the formidable Honduran Air Force find when it attacks
Nicaragua? First, it will find a few, but not many, lucrative military
targets: port facilities at Corinto, Puerto Cabezas and Bluefields; a couple
of oil tanks at Corinto; one oil refinery near Managua; four airfields, only
one of which is really significant, a tank park and 49 military garrisons,
many of which are so small that the Honduran pilots will have difficulty
locating them. For example, the "military garrison" near Somoto, where I
stopped for lunch, was comprised of two small buildings and a one vehicle
lean-to maintenance shed. The city of Managua doesn't offer much of a
target either; after the 1972 earthquake most of Managua already resem-
bles a bombed out city. Theoretically, in one day the Honduran Air Force
should be able to heavily damage most or all of the primary military
targets. Surely you would think they could finish the job on the second day
and then take on the secondary targets. But there are snags in the scenario.
The Honduran Air Force will also encounter the Nicaraguan air de-
fense system. Since Nicaragua does not really possess an air force and
Honduras has a relatively large one, it is only logical that Nicaragua
would deploy anti-aircraft missiles and guns. My information is that the
Soviet Union supplied SA-6 GAINFUL surface-to-air anti-aircraft mis-
sile systems to Nicaragua in early 1982. This system is ,,cry similar to that
of the American HAWK. The GAINFUL's maximum range at high-
altitude is possibly 32 miles, at low altitude probably 16 miles. Its maxi-
mum altitude is about 53,000 feet. The quantity of SA-6s is unknown but 1
am told they are in widespread use. Inside the SA-6 envelope the Hon-
Bridge over the Rio Negro, destroyed on March 14, 1982 by ex-Somocista National Guardsmen.
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duran pilots will run into anti-aircraft gun fire. The CIA-DIA briefing
called the 57 mm guns anti-tank guns, but I had better remind the
Hondurans that these guns have a dual capability of engaging air or
ground targets. They have a maximum vertical range (High Explosive) of
about 2`,,000 feet and an effective vertical range of approximately 12,500
feet. If the Honduran pilots elude these defenses, they must still escape the
SA-7 GRAIL (once known as SIRELA) man-portable infra-red homing,
light anti-aircraft missile. This system is very similar to that of the Ameri-
can REDEYE. Its range is about 5 miles.
I am aware that the Israelis have provided training for Honduran pilots
so they riust know that suppression of SA-6 batteries proved to be among
the mos[ costly air missions of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. The Israelis
relied heavily on American Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) equip-
ment and techniques and developed maneuvers to neutralize the SA-6.
Neverth.:less, about 40 percent of Israeli Air Force losses were due to the
SA-6. I doubt that the Hondurans have sophisticated American ECM
equipment or that they are likely to get it, and I know they do not have the
combat ,skills of Israeli pilots. How many Honduran pilots will be able to
run the gauntlet of SA-6s, 57 mm guns and SA-7s? I would suspect that
they would be few in number.
As I understand, the U.S. is now providing $21 million to improve
airfields and storage facilities at La Mesa, Palmerola and Goloson air-
fields in Honduras and airfields in Colombia for U.S. use "in the event of
an emergency." This brings me back to the question of why all the
Honduran military that I talked to predict that the war will start in
December. Optimally, General Alvarez should wait until the U.S. has
"pre-positioned" air munitions and fuel at these airfields before he orders
a surprise air attack against Nicaragua. He could then assure ample
"resupply" by "nationalizing" U.S. air munitions and fuel. Doubtless, the
U.S. w .ald chide him for such an act, but would not intervene.
But the time when U.S. air munitions and fuel are stored in Honduras is
hopefully some time off and General Alvarez seems to be under personal
pressure -from some of the Honduran military and the U.S. government
to engage in a war with Nicaragua in the near future. So why do Honduran
military officers think the war will start in December? "Because," they say,
"the rainy season will be over and the Rio Coco will be down. That is when
Nicaragua will attack." In fact, the Rio Coco does not recede until late
April. But by the middle of December the skies have cleared and provide
ideal weather for air operations. Perhaps that is why the Honduran
military "expect" a Nicaraguan attack in December. How much of this is
macho braggadocio? I cannot be sure right now. They seem to think that
the U.S. military expect to hear these claims.
Turning to ground forces, the CIA-DIA estimates that Nicaragua now
has 20,000 regular troops and a militia of 50,000 people. They believe
Nicaragua's goal is to create a standing army of 25,000 to 30,000 and a
ready-reserve militia of between 100,000 and 150,000. But this goal will
not be reached in the short term.
My information is that Honduras now has 15,050 regular military
personnel (Army: 12,800, Navy: 850 and Air Force: 1,400) and 3,500
police. To this must be added the 3-5,000 Somocistas and counter-
revolutionaries who are operating from Honduran territory. Additionally
the Honduran Army has 17 of the finest, most reliable Armored Combat
Reconnaissance Vehicles in the world: the British made SCORPION. It
can race along at 72 Km/h, has a 400 Km range and mounts a 67 mm gun
and two 7.62 machine guns. A C-130 transport aircraft can carry two of
them so they could be moved to the Miskito coast in a matter of hours. By
comparison the Nicaraguans'T-55s would have to travel over 300 miles of
marginal / unpaved roads-half of which are mountain roads. If the T-55s
could maintain maximum speed (30 MPH) on such roads-and not break
down-toe trip would require 10 hours. At half that speed it would take 20
hours, e1 .
But the Hondurans should not be sanguine about this advantage in
tracked vehicles. The Sandinistas have purchased 7,000 SS-1I (range:
3000 m) and SS-12 (range: 600 m) anti-tank missiles from France. They
also possess unknown quantities of Soviet supplied AT-I and AT-3
antitank missiles.
In the final analysis of Honduran and Nicaraguan tracked vehicles one
can only .:onclude that their capability in offensive combat is limited and
is counterbalanced by defensive anti-tank weapons. Their real usefulness
lies in internal crowd control in their major cities.
III. The Border Conflict
The analysis outlined above indicates a situation in which the armed
forces of the two nations have different areas of strength and weakness but
the overall effect is a balance of force in the realm of more sophisticated
armaments. While the Honduran Air Force is markedly superior to
Nicaragu i's, the Nicaraguan air defenses offset this advantage. And while
the Nicaraguans may have a slight advantage in heavy armored vehicles
(tanks), this equipment is of limited effectiveness in the region and of
inferior quality. The projected U.S. financed arms buildup to Honduras
could tip this balance, and would likely elicit a countervailing reaction
from Nicaragua. In both cases, poor nations are being forced to divert
scarce resources from social and economic development into costly and
increasingly lethal military hardware.
At present, the most volatile areas likely to erupt into full scale combat
are located along the Rio Coco near the Miskito coast and in the moun-
tainous border area of northwest Nicaragua. Of these two areas, it is the
isolated Miskito region that seems to be the focal point of the conflict.
In August, U.S.A.F. C-130s from the Southern Command in Panama
flew a battalion of Honduran troops and their equipment into Puerto
Lempira (ostensibly as part of an exercise). The Honduran battalion is
now headquartered in Mocoron, about 15 miles north of the Nicaraguan
border. Allegedly its mission is to prevent a Nicaraguan incursion into the
Miskito Indian camp located in Mocoron.
Perhaps the battalion is not meant so much to protect the Miskitos as to
confine them. Information reaching me is that many of the older people
want very much to reach an accord with the Sandinistas and return to
Nicaragua. It is the young bucks who want to continue the fight and need
to keep the Miskitos in Mocoron for cover and recruits.
It is no coincidence most of the counter-revolutionary military bands
operating in the area are also entrenched in the vicinity of Mocoron. In
actuality the Honduran battalion provides a protective screen for the
Somocistas and counter-revolutionaries returning from terrorist incur-
sions into the Miskito coast of Nicaragua. The battalion's presence in
Mocoron provides an excellent means of arming and equipping the
counter-revolutionaries. Who, in that forsaken region, can keep an accu-
rate account and control of weapons, ammunition, radios, etc. which are
supplied to the battalion? How many of them reach the hands of the
Somocistas?
And since our ambassadorial family has taken a personal humanitarian
interest in the Miskito Indians in Mocoron it seems that ample food,
medicine, clothing, etc. is being flown into the area. How much of this
material reaches the counter-revolutionaries? Would that the same hu-
manitarian interest were shown for the Salvadoran refugees at Mesa
Grande.
Perhaps the biggest question in everyone's mind is how much coordina-
tion goes on between the battalion and the counter-revolutionaries. Do
they orchestrate operations, share communications, etc.? And just how
much is the U.S. involved? At this point it is impossible to answer these
questions definitively. Dr. Thomas P. Anderson, in testimony before this
Subcommittee, asserted that highly placed sources within the State De-
partment had confirmed the existence of direct U.S. covert intervention
against the Sandinista government, given the history of U.S. intervention
in Chile, Guatemala and Cuba-not to mention Nicaragua itself-these
reports are entirely credible and Mocoron is a likely element in this
strategy.
One possible scenario for the outbreak of a conflict between Nicaragua
and Honduras is the following. If Sandinista troops or militia are in hot
pursuit of a counter-revolutionary group that is escaping back into Hon-
duras, they must break off their pursuit at the border. If they do not, they
will likely confront a unit of the Honduran Regular Army. That confron-
tation would be an act of war.
I would like to make one final comment about the internal situation in
Honduras. When asked if significant leftist guerrilla organizations cur-
rently operate within their country, most of the Hondurans I talked
to-military and civilian-say No. Clearly, however, many Hondurans
fear that the political violence which characterizes El Salvador and Gua-
temala will spread to Honduras. Many are also leery of the Sandinista
experiment that is transpiring across the border. Perhaps their greatest
source of concern is that their nascent democracy, unfolding under the
watchful eye of the military, will be snuffed out by the Armed Forces. U.S.
military aid strengthens the hands of those who are most likely to termi-
nate democratic government in the country. Significant divisions exist
within the Honduran military regarding the conflict in Nicaragua, involve-
ment in El Salvador's civil war and the future of democratic rule. This is
evident in the statements by Colonel Leonidas Torres Arias on August 31
in Mexico City in which he condemned the intent of Gen. Alvarez and
other hardliners to lead Honduras into a war with Nicaragua.
Such a war would truly be a "war without winners." It seems a terrible
price to pay for this administration's determination to seek a military
solution to what are deep-seated social, economic and political problems.
Such a war could easily spark off a regional conflagration involving all the
nations of Central America, and perhaps the U.S. and Mexico-on
opposing sides. It would exact a terrible price from the people of Hondu-
ras and Nicaragua, and stain the name of the United States in the eyes of
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Documentation:
The U.S. Military Role in Honduras
The following data is intended to illustrate changes in the dimensions,
nature and projection of the Honduran Armed Forces. In the course of the
last three years, particularly in recent months, the Honduran Armed
Forces, with the technical and military assistance of the United States, has
acquired an offensive character and capacity which includes a link with
significant groups of Somocistas who use Honduran territory to carry out
attacks against Nicaragua.
This military build-up of Honduras, the emphasis placed on offensive
weapons, the logistical support provided to thousands of ex-Somocista
National Guard, the increase in military skirmishes along the border, as
well as the military attacks within Nicaraguan territory, all place the peace
of Central America in jeopardy inasmuch as the political and military
conditions are being created to spark a war between Honduras and
Nicaragua.
Likewise, the unprecedented increase in the number of joint U.S.-
Honduran maneuvers, the presence of U.S. warships off the coasts of
Nicaragua and the routine practice of reconnaissance flights over Nicara-
guan territory, all confirm the concern which governments and political
leaders of Latin America and Europe have that a serious armed conflict in
Central America is in the making, constituting a grave danger for the
peace not only of Central America, but of the entire hemisphere as well.
1. The Military Build-up in Honduras
The following chart demonstrates the quantum increase in the military
capacity of the Honduran Armed Forces in the period following the
overthrow of the Somoza Government.
Before July
of 1979
Present Percentage
of increase
Total number of troops 14,240
21,400
50%
Ground Forces
Infantry Battalions
10
11 (with prospects of
10%
Artillery Battalions
3
forming a Brigade)
4 One with howitzer
50%
155mm.
Paratrooper Battallions
Armoured Battalions
Engineering Battalions
Communications Unit
Air Forces
Air Bases
I
I
I
I
2
I air/ transport battalion.
I Regiment of armoured
cavalry.
I Engineering battalion
I Communications battalion
3
50%
Military Air Strips
5
10
100%
Fighter Planes
33
38
87%
Transport Planes
19
29
21%
Training and Tactical
Support Aircraft
28
50
79%
Helicopters
7
21
300%
Naval Force
Naval Bases
2
4
100%
Total Number of Naval Units
9
15
67%
Merchant Ships
25
45
70%
In addition to the quantitative increase in military capacity, a qualita-
tive change occurred in fiscal year 1981 not only in bilateral assistance,
military training, combat readiness and the acquisition of new combat
techniques in all branches of the Honduran Naval and Armed Forces, but
also in foreign military technical support. Due to these increases a marked
advance in the operational capacity of the Honduran Armed Forces is
evident in the following areas:
Air Transport Operations: On October 30, 1981 a mobile training
group arrived at the military installations of the Honduran Second Infan-
try Battalion.
Paratroop exercises: Three mobile training groups arrived in Honduras
on the following dates: a) February 6, 1981 from the 82nd Air Transport
Division at Fort Bragg; b) May 17. 1981 from the Seventh Special Forces
of the Third Battalion; and c) November 11. 1981 f-om the Southern
Command.
Assistance and Technical support was provided to the Second Infantry
Battalion known as the Special Tactics Unit (ATE) and a Special Opera-
tions Detachment.
Counter- Insurgency Operations: Mobile Training groups of the
Seventh Special Forces of the Third Battalion carried out various opera-
tions after their arrivals on: a) April 25, 1981 from the Southern Com-
mand; and b) October 22, 1981 from the same location.
Command and General Staff: Technical support was provided by two
mobile training groups which arrived on February 26, 1981 from Fort
Worden and on August 20, 1981 from the U.S. Southern Command in
Panama. Both groups were assigned as instructors to the officers and
teachers of the Southern Command School and the General Staff of
Honduras.
Naval: Upgrading of the Honduran Navy was carried out by a mobile
training group which specializes in small patrol vessels whocame from the
Rodman Naval Base in the former U.S. Canal Zone and arrived in Puerto
Cortes, Honduras on August 16, 1981.
Communications: Three Mobile Training groups arrived: a) on April
25, 1981 from Fort Bragg; b) on September 14, 1981 from the Fort
Gordon School of Communications; and c) on June 25, 1981, from the
1978th Communications Group of the U.S. Southern Command.
Light Arms Maintenance: On May 26, 1981 a Mobile Training Group
of the 193rd Infantry Brigade of the U.S. Southern Command, arrived to
advise the Honduras Special Forces.
Border Patrol: On July 23, 1981 a Mobile Training. Group from the
Southern Command arrived to conduct a course on Customs
investigations.
Supplies& Maintenance: A Mobile Training Group arrived in Hondu-
ras on February 23, 1981 from Fort Lee.
Medical Services: A Mobile Training Group from the Southern Com-
mand arrived on May 13, 1982.
Maintenance of Helicopter Motors: Four Mobile Training Groups
arrived in Honduras from the Southern Command on the following dates:
March 25, 1981, August 3, 1981; and, September 22, 1981. The latter was
from the 210th Air Batallion of the Southern Command.
Radar: Mobile Training Group arrived on September 13, 1981 from the
Southern Command.
Target Practice: A Mobile Training Group arrived in Honduras on July
14, 1981 to give technical assistance in the construction of a large shooting
range for the Honduran Army.
Military Intelligence: Two U.S. Mobile Training Groups arrived in
Honduras for advisory purposes on February 3, 198 and on June 25,
1981.
11. U.S. Military Involvement in Honduras:
The U.S. has played a decisive role in the re-orientation of the charac-
teristics of the Honduran Armed Forces.
a. Technical Assistance:
Financing and technical assistance to four anti-insurgency field
schools;
In 1982, 5 mobile training groups were sent from the Southern Com-
mand and specialized in:
Command and General Staff: On April 18, 1982 a Mobile Training
Group arrived in Honduras to conclude the second instruction course in
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the Corr mand and General Staff School of Honduras. By August of 1982,
10 high ranking infantry officers had graduated.
Flight Instruction: Flight instruction was carried out by two mobile
training groups which arrived in Honduras on June 8, 1982 especially for
officer training in direct air support missions and, on June 29, 1982 to
train 40 regulars of the Honduran Armed Forces.
Airport Resave and Surveillance: On April 11, 1982 a mobile training
group arrived in Honduras to conduct this training under the command of
Captain Gonzalez of the U.S. Southern Command.
Communications Chiefs: A mobile training group arrived on April 12,
1982 to -arry out this training which also included training in the use of'
AN/TRS-2 radio equipment.
Training in Night Flight Missions: On August 24, 1982 a mobile train-
ing grot p arrived in San Pedro de Sula. This group has as its present
mission to advise and train regular forces of the Third Infantry Battalion
of San Pedro de Sula in ambush, incursions and air mobility operations.
Night:ime Small Vessels Patrol: A U.S. Coast Guard mobile training
group arrived in Honduras on April 6, 1982 for specialized training.
Radar: On September 12, 1981 a mobile training group arrived in
Honduras and stayed at the Hotel Maya of Tegucigalpa.
Five courses were conducted in the military installations of the South-
ern Corr mand for Honduran officers and soldiers in the specialized areas
of Teacoing Administration, Joint Operations, Supplies and general
training courses.
An in-rease in U.S. instructors from 40 in February of 1982 to more
than 100 in August of 1982, all forming part of mobile training groups.
In 19E I United States technical assistance to Honduras, from the U.S.
Southern Command, through these mobile training groups amounted to a
total of 32 specialized groups working in Honduran territory.
In 1982, 15 of these mobile training groups have already been registered
in Honduras.
General Gustavo Alvarez (second from left) and Major
Leonel Luque (second from right), both officers in the
Honduran army, receiving instructions from a U.S. Mil-
itary advisor (far right) during the joint military maneuv-
er known as "Combined Deployment."
b. Visis by U.S. military to Honduras:
In 1981 a total of 50 visits were noted with a total of 56 persons, among
these:
44 from the Canal Zone; and.
6 from the United States.
Noteworthy among these visits are:
"Two by the Chief of the Southern Command, It. Gen. Wallace Nutting:
the first o n February 11, 1981 to the installations of the Honduran Second
Infantry Battalion, the Counter Insurgency School in Marcola and other
units in the country and, the second, on October 5, 1982 when he hosted a
reception prior to the launching of the "HALCON VISTA" maneuvers.
Visits iv the Chief of Operations of the Southern Command: on
February I, May 7 and August 15. 1981 all in relation to "HALCON
VISTA."
Visit b', the Chief of Logistics of the Southern Command on January
29, 1982: purpose unknown.
Visit by the Chief of the General Staff of the 193rd Infantry Brigade of
the Southern Command accompanied by an officer specializing in the
Central American Area.
Visits by the Head of the Planning Division of the Military Intelligence
Department of the Southern Command on March 11, 1981 accompanied
by officers of that Department, and also on June 5, 1981 when he visited
the Gulf of Fonseca.
On April 13, 1981 the Air Force Commander and the Second in
Command of the Southern Command met in Honduras with the Hondu-
ran General Staff and the Chiefs of the Honduran Army and Air Force.
On September 24, 1981, the President of the Inter-American Defense
Board (JID), Lt. General John Winn Meenery visited Honduras to speak
with high ranking military officers and assess the situation.
Particularly noteworthy was the visit on May 13, 1981 of General
Vernon Walters, special emissary of the U.S. Secretary of State. Walters
met with the Foreign Minister and Honduran politicians, and with the
then Colonel Gustavo Alvarez.
During 1982, a total of 16 visits by a total of 30 persons have taken
place, including I I from the Southern Command, and 4 from the conti-
nental United States.
Among the 16 visits by high ranking officials this year, the following
should be noted:
Various visits by Lt. Col. Rousell, Commander of the Third Battalion
of the Southern Command's Seventh Group; on February 15, 1982,
purpose not known; and on March 17, 1982 to review the training received
by units of the Honduran Army from the Mobile Training Groups.
On March 20, 1982 Lt. Col. Pat Murray, the historian for the United
States Air Force visited Honduras to meet with historians of the Hondu-
ran Air Force.
On March 20, 1982 Colonel Mark R. Richard, Chief of Public Rela-
tions of the Southern Command made a visit of unknown purpose.
Colonel Derrel Sponberg and Joseph Tyron of Security Assistance
Agency of the Southern Command visited Honduras on April 26, 1982.
They offered a seminar to the Honduran General Staff on U:S. Military
Foreign Assistance Programs.
On April 27, 1982, Colonel Robert Red and Lt. Col. Burton, Com-
mander and Executive Official, respectively, of the 24 ALAS of the
Southern Command, arrived in Honduras and stayed with the Honduran
General Staff.
Lt. Thomas Stevens of the Latin American Military Affairs Division of
the Southern Command visited Honduras on May 19, 1982 and met with
officials of the General Staff of Honduras; and a second visit was on
August 30, 1982 when he met with high ranking Honduran officials to
discuss training programs for the Honduran Armed Forces and Military
Planning for "HAI.CON VISTA 1982."
Of particular interest is the visit by Admiral Harry R. Train, Atlantic
Fleet Commander, in August of 1982. In Tegucigalpa, he met with the
Chief of the Honduran General Staff: he received a briefing at Honduran
Navy headquarters and he also visited the Puerto Cortes Navy Base and
naval units in Puerto Tela, Puerto Castillo and Puerto Lempira.
On August 15, 1982 majority of the personnel of the Third Battalion
Special Forces 7th Group of the Southern Command was transported in
four C-130 aircraft to the Mesa airbase in San Pedro de Sula.
c. Weapons Acquisitions:
In 1980, the Honduran Government received from the United States the
following military equipment:
M-16 and M-14 rifles
Short arms
M-79 Grenade Launchers
Mortars
75 mm. Cannons
105 mm. Howivers
M-21 armored vehicles
Aircraft and helicopter spare parts
High powered air surface missiles
Explosives for aircraft
60 and 81 mm. mortar grenades
In 1981, Honduran Armed Forces weapons acquisitions included the
following:
17 Scorpio-I anks (British)
15 SALADIN armored vehicles
15 SPARTAN carrier transports (British)
Explosives, C-3 & C-4
Planes A-37B and F-37B
R BY armored vehicles (Israeli)
During the month of October, the Honduran Government received
shipment of 10 U H-I H helicopters.
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In November 1981. the United States delivered five F-100 SABRE
combat planes to Honduras.
In May 1982, a U.S. merchant ship arrived in Puerto Cortes with a
weapons shipment. Likewise, the Commander of the Honduran Air Force
traveled in an official visit to the U.S. Southern Command to observe the
performance test of the C-123K transport plane, a plane which Honduras
announced an interest in purchasing.
In July 1982, 83 flights landed in Honduran territory, transporting
weapons and military supplies. Among the carriers: 77 C-130 aircraft
carriers and six C-141s.
In August 1982, the Chief of Honduran Armed Forces requested that
eight C-130 aircraft carriers be included in the next US military assistance
plan. That same month U.S. ships originating from Guantanamo Navy
Base, Cuba, arrived at the Honduran ports of J cia and Cortes with a crew
of 150 men.
In September 1982. a U.S. Naval unit arrived from the United States in
Puerto Lempira carrying weapons for the Fifth Infantry Battalion.
FISCAL YEAR
U.S. DOLLARS
1980:
$ 3 million
1981:
$ 5.5 million
1982:
$10.6 million
In addition to $21 million approved for the
modernization of Honduras' airports.
This military assistance excludes funds designated for the extension and
modernization of the naval bases of CARAIASCA and PUFR10
CASTILLA.
III. Joint Military Maneuvers (U.S.-Honduras), U.S. Military Presence
and U.S. Naval and Air Espionage Operations
A series of United States and Honduran military deployments, carried
out individually and jointly, have focused on Nicaragua as a target for
current and future operations in preparation fora war against Nicaragua.
Since 1980 surveillance and rescue maneuvers have been carried out
from different air bases in Honduras. In October 1981, a naval-air opera-
tion denominated "HALCON VISTA" (Falcon View) was carried out
with the joint participation of U.S. and Honduran troops off the Carib-
bean coast of Nicaragua. The United States had 757 soldiers, one U.S.
Navy troop carrier LSD-30, two 0-2A planes, one C-13C transport carrier,
one CH-47 helicopter, one "PCF" naval patrol, two 6'i foot navy patrol
boats and one "A IF" ocean tug boat. Honduras had a paratrooper unit
from the army general staff, two C-47 airplanes, two A-37 planes, three
U H-l H helicopters, and three 105 foot patrol boats.
Besides this air and water maneuver, in 1981, paratrooper exercises of
the 2nd Infantry Battalion (known as ATE) took place using C47 and
ARAVA planes. These exercises took place in the following places:
a. Toncontin Air Force Base on May 17, 1981;
b. Toncontin and Tamara Air Force Bases on May 2C, 1981;
c. La Ceiba and Comayagua Air Force Base on May 22, 1981; and
d. The "MERENCLON" mountains in the N.W. of Honduras.
There were also airport surveillance and rescue maneuvers, control of
anti-aircraft defense systems and air exercises.
The Honduran Army also has participated in joint rilitary maneuvers
with the Salvadorean Arniy, as was the case of "OPERATION SAND-
WICH," along the border regions of San Juan de Gcarta, the Sompol
River, Valladolid, Mapulaca, Santa Lucia and Colomo ^cagua in Hondu-
ran territory. The seventh and twelfth Infantry Battalions were deployed
in these.
In the first nine months of 1982, military exercises accelerated tremen-
dously, as did air and naval espionage missions in Nicaraguan territory.
On February 27, 1982, the U.S. Navy destroyer "IISS CARON" was
discovered in the territorial waters off Nicaragua's Pacific Coast.
In March, an exercise took place with the use of fighter planes, helicop-
ters, infantry and heavy artillery units, in response to a supposed attack on
the Honduran Air Base of Toncontin. At the same time, in another
exercise, all Honduran Air Force planes were placed o alert to evaluate
the combative disposition of these planes.
On April 15, the U.S. destroyer DDG-40 "USS COONTZ" was detect-
ed in Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast territorial waters. I tie frigate FFG-23
"LEWIS B. PULLER" was seen off Nicaragua's Atlan.ic coast. On June
7, the Frigate FF-1075 "USS TRIPPE" was seen in Nicaragua's Pacific
territorial waters.
Between April and July, two U.S. espionage flights, U-2 planes, flew
over the Puerto Cabezas area. In July, the joint military maneuver
"COMBINED DEPLOYMENT" took place with U.S. and Honduran
forces.
This military maneuver took place in a region in Honduras where there
is a large concentration of Nicaraguan counter-revoluti:nary forces. This
exercise consisted in an airlift of, the Honduran 5th Battalion from the
Department of Comayagua to the Department of Cabo Gracias a Dios
Puerto Lempira, Honduras. Honduran soldiers awaiting transport aboard U.S. helicopters to new military base in
Mocoron.
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and the recently constructed Fort Mocoron. Thirty U.S. pilots, 1,500
soldiers, USAF C-130 transport planes, two heavy transport USAF heli-
copters, CH-47 planes from the Honduran Air Force, and two UH-IH
helicopters participated in the exercises.
Moreover, during this same month the entire Honduran Army was
placed cn full alert on two separate occasions. On July 29 and again on
August 5, 1982 orders were given to concentrate troops and be ready to
move to any point in the country within 48 hours.
Bordt r maneuvers were also carried out in the Departments of Cholut-
eca and El Paraiso, mobilizing small units of the first, third, eleventh,
and sixt i Battalions and company of the regiment of the armored cavalry
and arti.lery pieces of the Third Battalion.
In August, military exercises denominated "ACCION CIV ICA"(Civic
Action) took place with the air units which had participated in the
"Combi red Deployment" operation (two Chinook and two C-13A). The
flights took place over zones inhabited by ex- National Guard and Miski-
to communities and in a route from San Pedro de Sula to Puerto Lempira.
Twenty-two U.S. pilots participated in this.
At the same time, units of the Honduran Air Force with United States
participation carried out rescue and security maneuvers at the San Pedro
de Sula airport.
In August, the USS PORTLAND with 600 marines arrived at Puerto
Cortes. It remained there for two days, but later left to take part in the
U NITAS naval maneuvers in the Atlantic Ocean. During the same period,
two USAF U-2 planes flew two espionage missions over Nicaraguan
territory.
On August 17, the destroyer DD-963 SPRUANCE was detected in
Nicaraguan territorial waters off the Pacific Coast.
In September, the second phase of the "COMBINED DEPLOY-
MENT" maneuvers took place; it consisted in the final phase of relocation
of the Fifth Battalion to Mocoron.
Two JH-IH helicopters, two C-130 transport planes and two C-47
airplanes all from Honduras participated.
IV. Attacks and Infiltrations by Former Members of Somoza's
National Guard From Honduran Territory
Another aspect of the hostile position of certain sectors of the Hondu-
ran Army towards Nicaragua is shown by the active support for the
military activities carried out by former members of the Somocista Na-
tional Guard, based in Honduran territory.
This support includes supplying arms and other supplies as well as
technical and logistical support. In collaboration with the Central Intelli-
gence Agency and advisors from certain South American countries, the
activities of the ex-guard bands are supervised and coordinated. Infra-
structure and logistical support are also provided for their military camps
located For the most part along the border with Nicaragua.
Between 4,700 and 5,500 counter-revolutionaries operate from these
camps with about 3,000 along the western border and 2,500 along the
eastern one, across from the Nicaraguan department of Zelaya.
a. Location, Size and Armaments of the Bases
I. San Judas Base: 14 kilometers west of San Pedro de Potrero Grande;
they opt rate (probably as a battalion) from this base armed with various
weapon-y including hand grenades, M-79 grenade launchers, 60 and 81
mm. mortars, Chinese-made RPG-7s (bazookas) and 2 or 3 helicopters.
2. Cerro Baldoquin Base: I I kilometers northwest of San Pedro de
Potrero Grande (coordinates 02-70); 700 people operating as a reinforced
battalion with armament similar to the above.
3. Sa i Marcos de Colon area: 400 to 600 members, (coordinates
20-84).
4. Cacamuya Base: called BL-5 (coordinates 26-73), 600 ex-guardsmen
led by an Alcides Espinoza, similarly equipped.
5. Trojes Base: 10 kilometers northeast of Teoticaciente; 400 to 600
ex-guardsmen led by "Richard" with operations centering on the border
area of Jalapa; similar armament.
6. An operational school in La Ladoza called the "Nicaragua" Military
Training Base: 130 to 150 ex-guardsmen led by Benito Bravo; similar
equipment. This base is a school for groups of ex-National Guard who are
later either transferred to other camps or infiltrated directly into Nicara-
gua to operate as internal military units or bands.
7. Monte de Aguila Base: 10 kilometers northeast of Jalapa; 250
guardsmen, similar armament, (coordinates 82-43).
8. Hacienda La Estrella Base: 12 kilometers southwest of Jalapa, 250
ex-guardsmen, similar armament, (coordinates 28-37).
9. Cerro Los Nubarrones Base: 10 kilometers west of Jalapa, approxi-
mately 200 ex-guardsmen; similar armament, (coordinates 82-39).
10. Auka Base: 36 kilometers northeast of Leymus; about 400 ex-
guardsmen armed with FAL and M-16 rifles, M-79 grenade launchers and
Law rocket launchers.
11. Rus-Rus Base: 37 kilometers northwest of Leymus; approximately
400 ex-guardsmen; similar armament.
12. Mocoron Camp: 35 kilometers north of Leymus, approximately
400 ex-guardsmen, similar armament.
b. Military Hostilities Carried Out by Ex-Guardsmen
The following are examples of sabotage and attack plans attempted
against Nicaragua:
1. Attempted sabotage against fuel deposits located in the port of
Corinto. Unidentified aircraft launched two rockets, neither of which
reached their target (July 1982).
2. Two small aircraft carrying rockets and bombs attempted an attack
on Nicaragua's only oil refinery. These planes were intercepted and turned
back near their target.
3. "Red Christmas" plot uncovered in December 1981. This called for
armed attacks on political, military and economic installations (with the
support of certain Moravian pastors). Following the attacks, the plan was
for the population to launch an insurrection against the Nicaraguan
Government.
4. The plot to takeover Puerto Cabezas (July 1982): This called for a
series of attacks and the occupation of certain strategic points by well
trained and supplied military units of guardsmen infiltrated from Hondu-
ras. Following the attacks, the units were to regroup for the take over of
Puerto Cabezas with aid of the population. The purpose was to foil the
Third Anniversary celebrations of the Sandinist Revolution. In anticipa-
tion of US support, territory was to be taken and a provisional govern-
ment set up.
5. Plan to seize the mines: Basically sought to destroy the infrastructure
of this industry. This episode began with the attack on the El Salto Grande
dam in Bonanza but proved unsuccessful due to the response by the
Sandinista Militia.
On the other hand, the counter-revolutionary bands have successfully
carried out numerous activities such as the sabotage to the Negro River
bridge in Somotillo, as well as the bridge over the Coco River which ties
Ocotal to Nueva Segovia. These acts occurred on March 14 of this year.
The bands were able to destroy completely the bridge in Somotillo, but
only partially destroyed the bridge in Nueva Segovia.
Nicaragua suffered a tragic loss on July 24, 1982 when ex-guardsmen
attacked militia members in the village of San Francisco del Norte,
located 30 kms. from Somotillo. Fourteen militia members were killed.
Also recently, military units of ex-guardsmen destroyed $2 million
worth of vehicles and machinery used in road construction. This incident
occurred on August 28, 1982 in the village of lyas, located about 12
kilometers northeast of Waslala in the Department of Matagalpa.
As the result of these actions, Nicaragua's armed forces and militia
suffered 75 casualties.
In the annex a detailed list is provided of anti-Nicaraguan activities
which have taken place between 1980 and 1982.
b. Location and Activities of the Bands within Nicaragua:
At present 7 units of ex-guardsmen have been detected operating within
Nicaragua each with between 150 and 200 members.
Seven other groups, each of 40 to 50 members are also active which
makes for a total of between 1,300 and 1,500 men, armed, trained in
Honduras and later infiltrated into Nicaraguan territory.
Units and Bands of Ex-Guardsmen That Have Infiltrated
Nicaragua From Honduran Territory Over the Last Year.
Zones of Operation And Size Of The 7 Units.
1. Sandy Bay, Loma, Kaska and Dakura 200;
2. Kukulaya-Lapan, Haulover Southwest of Puerto Cabezas 200;
3. Musawas, north, north-east of Bonanza 100;
4. Wina, Kuwali, El Ocote, Santa Rosa de Tapaskun, in the Depart-
ment of Jinotega 200;
5. Chachagua, Palo Prieto, Cerro Zacateras, and Murra Ciudad San-
dino 100-150;
6. Labu, Kukuinita, Tadasna, Waylawas all South of Siuna 100;
7. Wapi, Cerro El Cacao, Cerro El Pinol Okonwas, Cerro La Flor 100.
Zones of Operation and Size of the 7 Bands.
1. Cerro La Martina, Rio Kurinwas, Sur de San Pedro del Norte,
Cerro Las Minitas 40;
2. Nueva Guinea, Colonia Agricola Jerusalen, Yolaina 50;
3. Rio Blanco, Aulo, Wanawas, Walana 40;
4. Kilambe, Cerro del Combo, Cano de La Cruz, Wamblan, Los
Mollejones, Los Nogales 50;
5. Planes de Vilan, La Vigia, San Juan de Buena Vista, Noreste de Yali,
Norte de Apanas 40;
6. West of Monkey Point and Punta Gorda, Pijibaye and Cerro Bonito
50;
7. Kakabila, north of Kukra Hill, west of Laguna de Perlas and El
Caimito 50.
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MILITARY ACTIVITY ON THE NICARAGUAN NORTHERN BORDER
1980-1982
Las Manos border area with
Nicaraguan Army (EPS)
185
Honduras in the Department
Border Patrol (TGF)
54
of North Zelaya.
Militia (MPS)
92
Palo Grande, Santo Tomas
State Security (DGSE)
20
del Monte, Pena de Jicote,
in the Department of
Volunteer Police (PVS)
Teachers and Young
8
Chinandega.
Volunteer Tutors
15
Attacks and Ambushes on
Nicaraguan Patrols
Nicaragua's Northern border
Nicaragua's Northern border
Nicaragua's Northern border
374
TEGUCIGALPA
0
M
Somoza Ex-guardsmen Military
Units Operating In Nicaragua
after Infiltration across
Honduran Border.
? Somoza Ex-guardsmen Camps in
Honduran Territory.
Number 18 (Winter 1983)
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Bucks for Butchers:
Evangelicals Support
Guatemalan Dictatorship
By Robert Lawrence*
General Efrain Rios Montt came to power in Guatemala
following a coup by junior military officers in March 1982.
Although the extent of the Reagan administration's
involvement in that coup is unknown, the Reagan team
was anxious to embrace this authoritarian regime in a
country regarded as strategically significant. A congres-
sional ban on military assistance required a cautious public
approach to the new regime, although there is evidence that
the ban was and always has been secretly ignored. (See
sidebar.)
Few ordinary citizens, even some people close to Presi-
dent Reagan and to military and commercial interests in
Guatemala knew much about Rios Montt. Not so with
"The 700 Club," an evangelical TV show. Barely a week
after the coup, host Pat Robertson asked his television
audience to pray for Guatemala and for Rios Montt. "Con-
tinue to pray, if you would, and don't stop, round the
clock," Robertson said, "because he's going to need all of
our prayers continuously."
Soon thereafter, other well known evangelicals, includ-
ing Jerry Falwell, Bill Bright, and Billy Graham, met with
Rios Montt's deputies, who were mobilizing support in this
country for his regime. Who is Rios Montt, and why is he
exciting such a fervor among the religious Right in the
United States?
El Verbo Presidente
General Efrain Rios Montt, a graduate of the Dale Car-
negie School, rose from the rank of corporal to chief of
staff of the Guatemalan Army. He was a veteran of coun-
terinsurgency training in Panama and in the U.S., and once
directed the Interamerican School of Defense in Washing-
ton. In 1974 he was the presidential candidate of the Chris-
tian Democratic coalition which lost the election, widely
documented as fraudulent. Rios Montt went to Spain as a
minor diplomat.
He returned to Guatemala in 1978, renounced Catholic-
ism, and joined an evangelical sect called the Church of the
Complete Word, or E1 Verho, as it is known there. El
1'erho had been established by a Eureka, California sect
called Gospel Outreach following Guatemala's devastating
earthquake in 1976. According to one church official, GGos-
*Robert Lawrence is a journalist and researcher in Washington who has
written extensively on Latin American affairs.
General Efrain Rios Montt, born-again butcher.
pet Outreach has about 1,200 members in G,.iatemala. Sev-
eral church officials, including some U.S. citizens, have
since become close advisers to Rios Montt, especially in the
area of "public relations." One of them, James Degolyer, a
former New Yorker and Haight-Ashbury hippie, is one of
Rios Montt's "spiritual advisers" who is "drawing up a list
of Scriptures to guide" him, according to the 1Vetr York
Times.
Since taking power, Rios Montt removcc. the two other
members of the junta that put him in power, declared a
state of siege, suspended the constitution, and now rules by
decree. He also instituted speciial courts with the power to
sentence to death individuals convicted of "political"
crimes, a penalty expressly forbidden by Gu~itemala's Con-
stitution of 1965.
Concerned about Guatemala's image in the U.S., Rios
Montt sent his top deputy, Francisco Bianchi, to this court-
try in June 1982. At a dinner meeting at the home of US.
Ambassador to the Organization of American States, Wil-
liam Middendorf. Bianchi met with Ed Meese, James
Watt, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and U.S. Ambassador
to Guatemala, Frederick Chapin. On other t Tips to the U_S.
Bianchi met with Billy Graham and Bill Bright of the
Campus Crusade for Christ. (The latter is also involved in
missionary work in Central America.)
34 CovertAction Number 18 (Winter 1983)
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These meetings began to pay quick dividends for the
Rios Montt regime. In July, Robertson's Christian Broad-
casting Network (CBN) sent a film crew to Guatemala that
traveled along with officials of Gospel Outreach into guer-
rilla-held territory in the northern highlands. Film footage
gathered by CBN's crew was shown as a three part series on
the "700 Club" broadcasts.
Ironically, this success among the Protestant fundamen-
talists was of little consolation to Rios Montt's brother,
Bishop Mario Rios Montt, head of the Prelature of Es-
quintla. The Bishop has been a staunch defender of the
rights of the poor Indian peasants in his Prelature; but
recently, according to the National Catholic Reporter
(November 12, 1982), he was forced to go into exile in
Costa Rica.
Mercy Money for Rios Montt
Robertson has issued regular appeals for cash donations
ostensibly to assist Guatemala's Indian population in pur-
chasing seed corn, farm implements, and building mate-
rials. Donations of money and supplies are being coordi-
nated through International Love Lift (ILL), a subsidiary
of Gospel Outreach, and through Youth with a Mission
(YWAM), which is providing two ships to carry the sup-
plies to Guatemala.
ILL circulated appeal letters to hundreds of church
groups in this country and sponsored a speaking tour by
Carlos Ramirez, Rios Montt's pastor and "spiritual advis-
er." ILL's stated goal is to raise between $10 and $20
million during the next 18 months for food, medicine,
tools, and shelter, in a program called FMTS-18. The
possibility of seeking donations of "mercy" helicopters to
transport the supplies into the interior has also been raised.
Ramirez described the groups' efforts to the Baltimore Sun
as "practical missionary work" designed to assist the esti-
mated 250,000 people displaced by Guatemala's "civil
war." (Most political observers note that the term "civil
war" is misleading and that the situation really represents
the repression of the vast majority of the people by a tiny
minority.)
"Scorched Earth" and "Strategic Hamlets"
Despite Rios Montt's protestations that he put a stop to
the activities of paramilitary death squads which claimed
an estimated 7,000 lives under his predecessor, General
Lucas Garcia, reports of the wholesale slaughter of entire
villages suspected of guerrilla sympathies continue to sur-
face, and figures of killings during his eight-month regime
are put at 4,000, according to a recent release from the
Council on Hemispheric Affairs. Rios Montt has made
statements expressing respect for human rights, and has
apparently curtailed the politically unproductive urban
assassinations. (See the Special Update of October 1982 of
the Washington Office on Latin America.) But he has
dramatically escalated the Army's rural campaign. Massa-
cres have increased, not decreased. Moreover, a program
of selective assassinations of guerrilla suspects is being
carried out by newly formed civilian militias forced into
service.
Counterinsurgency training in Guatemala.
Number 18 (Winter 1983) CovertAction 35
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le-
Weapons Ban Defied
Guatemala ostensibly renounced U.S. military aid
in 1977 in response to a critical human rights report
b y the Carter administration. Congress subsequently
blocked further military sales when the Guatemalan
government had a change of heart. But that ban has
always been ignored, and recent disclosures bear this
oat.
In October it was reported in the Washington Post
that U.S. Green Berets have for more than two years
been training Guatemalan Army cadets in "am-
bushes, surveillance, combat arms, artillery, armor,
patrolling, demolition, and helicopter assault tac-
tics. "The instructor interviewed by the Post reporter,
unaware of congressional strictures, described his job
as "not much different" from that of U.S. military
advisers in El Salvador. Straining credulity, the
P1mntagon describes his job as "a language instructor,"
teaching English to officer candidates.
Dramatic proof of U.S. military aid surfaced in
7353 N W 5417, STRFET , MIAMI, FLORIDA 33166
TELEPHONE 13051 7,3 7353
Fuerza Aerea Guatemalteca
Base Aerea L. Aurora
Ciudad de Guatemala,
Guatemala, C.A.
At!ncion: Coronel Mario Vazquez
Jefe Section Logistica F.A.G.
Estimado Coronel Vazquez:
AQlunto envio Cotizacion de los unifornnes.
Ya le compramos el telefono al Sr. Comanandante.
Tarlbien compre -iasJ, ezas oars el King Air 200 - Creo seria
(eTto es una idea) me enviaran el indi cador P/N 2572022n_t.4
RD.444 para overhaul cuando tuvieran ti e-+po, cues es un indicador
bat tante costoso y asi tienen uno en bodega.
Tenemos todavia pendiente las 200 lbs., due la F.A.G. tiene due
resoger en la ease de Homestead en la Florida, tenon oue indicarle
a Is base o la Seccion Logistica de la U.S.A. 30 dial con anticipation.
Para qua ellos ruevan la carga haste la Base de Homestead.
Cor el Coronel Mario Cabrera de Aviateca ie envie un sobre el dia
13 de Junto de 1982, dentro van las facturas oue necesita Porres.
Tanbien necesito oue me envie e1 transponder, del A-37 Para enviarlo
a overhaul.
Le agradecere no envie el modelo de los transponder quo requieren, para
los distintos aviones.
Por este medio le doy las graclas por todos los giros due nos han
enviado. Muchas gracias.
a r'v( Co e L PLC
1{ai
November, when one of the Guatemalan guerrilla
groups, the Organization of the People in Arms,
announced that it had recovered incriminating
documents from an Army helicopter it had shot
down the previous month. Killed in the crash was
Col. Mario Vasquez Mandonado, Air Force chief of
logistics, who had recently returned from advanced
training in Chile. Col. Vasquez was carrying
documents, two of which are reprinted here,
confirming the transshipment of various military
equipment and spare parts from the U.S. Air Force to
the Guatemalan Air Force via the Miami shipping
firm Conex, ,Inc. While some of the material may
arguably be non-controversial, some items, such as
transponders for aircraft communication systems,
are clearly within the ban.
The Reagan administration's pleas to end the ban
are pure hypocrisy. The ban is being violated every
day.
7353 N W 54,7, STREET , MIAMI FLORIDA 33166
TELEPHONE 13051 aaa 7357
FUERZA AEREA GUATEMALTECA
BASE AEPEA LA AURORA 16 de Junto de 1982
CIUDAD DE GUATEMALA
GUATEMALA, C.A. N OTA: PRECIOS VIJENTE5 PA' 45 DIAS
ATENCION: CORONEL FAR10 VAZOUEZ
JEFE SECCIO.'1 LOGISTICA F.A.G.
, nidades ?Chumpas - Verde Gris L28
5- 54
M 41 ENTREGA 45 DIAS
L 5
100 Guantes de vuelo Modelo GS-FRP-2
1 7 - 25
/1 Entrega 30 dias
9 22
10 12
PRECIO POR UNIDAD TOT,_
7500-- 3.3Qi1-00
25.75 2,575.00
142.00 14,200.00
43.00 4,300.00
100 overoles de vuelo Modelo Ci.'U277p (Igu ales /
a its qua usan en USA -Verde
365 23 384 14 42R 1
36R 29 40S 1
36 L 6 40R 11 - Entrega 4 -5 meses
38S 13 40L 2
100 PARES DE BOTAS DE CUERO CON ZIPPER
5 - 2 88 5
64 3 84,8 4
7R 28 BSW 2
7W 4 9R 20 ENTREGA 30 C-AS
711R 9 9W 2
BR 18 9'sP 1
50 Survival Vest Chalecos - Medium
48415,-933,-6231
IOTA: L05 OVEROLES DE CAMOUFLAGE - NO LOS HACEN -
PORDUE LA TELA PARA LOS OVEROLES ES CONTRA
INCENDIO - TESORIAN CUE POKER UNA ORDEN
DE 6,000 a 10,000 OVEROLES - Y SER1A
UNA ORDEN ESPECIAL PORIUE LA TELA TIENE QUE
SER PROCESADA CONTRA INCENDIO -
EST OS VI ENEN EN VERDE Y AZUL SOLAMENTE
116.00 S 800.00
UTA6 S70 375.b5
36 CovelrtAction Number 18 (Winter 1983)
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Rios Montt has improved his military's intelligence ca-
pabilities, with considerable Argentinian and Israeli as-
sistance, so that the Army is developing a better idea of the
guerrilla strengths. In addition the government has estab-
lished a "strategic village" program accompanied by a
scorched earth policy. Whole rural areas are wiped out,
burned to the ground, and villagers rounded up and
relocated.
It is those civilian organizations created by the Guatema-
lan Army as a counterweight to the political organizations
of the guerrilla groups with which the evangelical missions
work most closely. In a special briefing issued by Amnesty
International in July 1982 entitled "Guatemala: Massive
extrajudicial executions in rural areas under the govern-
ment of General Efrain Rios Montt," blame for these exe-
cutions is placed squarely on the military:
"Guatemala security services continue to attempt to con-
trol opposition, both violent and non-violent, through
widespread killings including the extrajudicial execution of
large numbers of rural non-combatants, including entire
families, as well as persons suspected of sympathy with
violent or non-violent opposition groups."
As recently as November 5, the president of the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop John Roach,
issued a statement calling on the Reagan administration
"to withhold any further military assistance to Guatemala
until substantial and verifiable proof is given that the pat-
tern has truly been broken." The Reagan administration
has already authorized the commercial sale of trucks and
jeeps to the Guatemalan government, has proposed a mod-
est $3.2 million dollars for military training and included
Pacification Diary: A Witness's Account
On July 5, 1982, a team of U.S. fundamentalist den-
tists and several members of the Wycliffe Bible Transla-
tors/Summer Institute of Linguistics traveled to the
village of Nebaj in the province of El Quiche, Guatema-
la. Their trip was organized by International Love Lift, a
subsidiary of Gospel Outreach. Transportation by heli-
copter was provided by the Guatemalan Air Force, and
arranged by Harris Whitbeck, a personal representative
of General Rios Montt. Whitbeck, who was born in the
U.S. and whose family has lived in Guatemala for over
30 years, is responsible for all "assistance" programs in
the war areas. He has been closely identified with several
powerful right-wing groups in Guatemala. On one occa-
sion last summer when a BBC film crew asked the Army
to take them by helicopter into the conflict area, the
Army refused, saying they did not have any transporta-
tion available. Later in the day the crew met Whitbeck
by chance on the street, and he arranged an Army heli-
copter for them.
The fundamentalist group which traveled to Nebaj in
July stayed for five days, ostensibly to provide dental
care for the Ixil Indians there. However, CAIB has
received anonymously an internal report of the visit
which was written by one of the Wycliffe Bible people,
describing their stay, portions of which we reprint here.
In addition to verifying the fact that these religious
groups are well aware of what is going on in the rural
war against the Guatemalan people, if not wittingly
participating in the slaughter, the report ends with a list
of townspeople (which we do not reprint), outlining
their backgrounds, their influence in the village, their
weaknesses, etc.-information which is surely used by
the new military intelligence apparatus in their selective
assassination program, called "preventative terror."
As a postscript to this episode, the village of Nebaj
was turned into a strategic hamlet on October 30; Nebaj,
with approximately 2,000 inhabitants, was occupied by
1,000 special counterinsurgency forces on that date. Ac-
cording to testimony of some villagers who managed to
escape, the military has surrounded the center of town
with barbed wire and minefields, and mounted search-
lights in order to enforce a 6 p.m. curfew. Anyone enter-
ing or leaving the town is searched and interrogated.
There is no information yet available on the number of
townspeople who have been executed.
The trip to Nebaj which -- and I were asked to participate in came
about as a result of a number of agencies and factors which the Lord
brought together. For decades Nebaj, and the Ixil area in general, have
been subject to abuse and neglect. Legitimate complaints had long
been left either unlistened to or deliberately suppressed. Now it has
become a focus of both Communist propaganda and guerrilla warfare,
and the government of Guatemala is acutely interested in at least
reversing the military situation in the area. In addition, the Wycliffe
teams assigned to the Ixil area had been talking for some time with
Behrhorst Foundation people, especially Dr. Carroll Behrhorst and
Harris Whitbeck (who is a member of the Foundation board of
directors) about ways and means for getting both short-range and
long-range help to the Ixil area. Moreover, new President of Guatema-
la, people at Verbo Church, and especially the missionary staff there,
were seeking ways by which getting help into the IxiI area could be
used as a wedge for further evangelistic activity. Then four dentists all
from the area of northern California near the mission headquarters of
Gospel Outreach (which had started Verbo Church several years ago)
volunteered to come down to Guatemala to help with dental problems
... So they asked if we could go to interpret for the dentists. We could!
The President of Guatemala ordered the Air Force to provide helicop-
ter transport for us and our gear. It was a cooperative project in many
ways...
We landed at the helicopter pad beside and below the new market.
The local commanding officer, a lieutenant colonel, with his second in
command, a captain, were among those on hand. The commander
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gave orders for a military pickup truck to take our stuff to the town
hall, and when it arrived there ahead of us the town secretary had it
sent on over to the pension (a place offering rooms for rent)...
The town secretary and Jacinto Perez Marcos, who had been mayor
up to mid-June, were there and we received a warm welcome from
there. When they heard we wanted to pull teeth, they put themselves
and the town's facilities at our disposal. We chose to work on the open
corridor in front of the town hall, rather than in a bare empty room at
the end of the string of town offices. It was later discovered that this
room was the "morgue"-the place where bodies are placed (some-
time; stacked) until the order was given to bury them ...
... While we were still eating, we heard a helicopter come in. Within
a few minutes Alfred rushed in carrying a black brief case and asked
me if I had a black briefcase. I said sure, right here in my room, I'll get
it. He left me my brief case and took from me the pilot's black brief
case which had been unloaded by mistake (sounds like a scene out of a
spy movie!). It had secret army orders in it, he said, which had been
worth making a return trip for! He said thanks, rushed out, and injust
a few minutes we heard the helicopter take off and pass overhead.
After we had lunch, I went in to pick up some things I needed for the
afternoon, and just happened to look at a brown plastic portfolio I had
along. I was a bit puzzled to see a packet of long white envelopes
sticking partly out of it, stapled together. I casually looked at them and
was horrified to see the imprint of the Guatemalan army on them with
the big rubber stamp TOP SECRET all over them. I ignored the rain,
dashed out to the guard post of the barracks and told the sentry I
urgently needed to see the commander. The sentry pointed across the
empty plaza and said, "There he is, just now going into that door." I
said -.hanks, ran across the plaza in front of the church, knocked, and
breathlessly told the commandante that I'd just found this packet of
Gualemalan counterinsurgency troops, the Kabil Brigade.
letters. Please excuse me! He looked shocked, flipped through them,
saw they were intact, said thank you, and indicated (body language!)
I'd better go now. I went!
During our stay in town, there was what the commander described
later as an unusual amount of military action. Monday night a civilian
patrol escorted by military patrol was returning to Nebaj and just
beyond the airstrip (not the in town heliopad) they were ambushed.
Six soldiers were killed and several wounded. On this trip back, a pack
mule fell into a VN-type pit in the bottom of which sharpened stakes
had been planted. The impaled animal had to be killed. Later on, the
hindquarters of a horse fell into another, but they got it out and the
injuries were being treated in town Tuesday to see if the animal could
be saved.
Tuesday morning we watched and listened to a firefight between a
helicopter and men returning fire from the ground. It was the first live
war I had actually witnessed, and it left an impression on me. The men
on the ground were on a ridge above the road that goes from town
toward Chajul. Several truckloads of troops were sent to the area, and
they brought in three dead guerrillas, identified as men from Chajul.
and the visiting dentists saw the bodies brought in, dumped out of
the truck and dragged into the improvised morgue, then later that
afternoon dragged back and loaded into the back of a pickup and
taken to the ditch which serves as a grave for such cases. Someone
dumped water on the cement tile floor and swished the blood out with
a broom. We were glad we decided to work in the corridor.
I've already mentioned the swarm of people who crowded around to
have teeth pulled ... A lot of the teeth could have been saved, but of
course it would also have meant that not nearly as many people could
have been taken care of since it takes a lot longer to save a tooth than it
does to pull it. (An object lesson here: some people favor simply wiping
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out all the Indians in the region to bring an end to problems; it takes
longer to do something constructive than it does to kill the "enemy.")
Another helicopter was supporting ground troops on the road just
beyond the pass and the top of the mountain. Part of the road had been
cut away there during the night Sunday and trucks and the bus which
left for the capital early Monday morning had to back up till they
could find a place wide enough to turn around and then come back to
Nebaj. The road along that whole 18-kilometer stretch is a dug-out
shelf along a steep mountain face, and is only one lane wide for
two-way traffic. I was told by Harris Whitbeck after we returned to the
capital that one of the military chores now is to arrange forthat road to
be widened into two lanes. I mentioned the amount of cutting back
into the mountain that would be necessary, and the problem of safely
handling all that material so it wouldn't fall down the mountainside
onto houses below. Since Harris's work has been highway construc-
tion, he didn't need any lessons from me on the subject!...
I spent Wednesday morning from 8:30 till afternoon meeting with
the local committee which has responsibility for emergency relief
distribution, getting cassette players and cassettes, and other such
things ...
When I got back to the townhall Wednesday just after noon, I found
Abibal Garcia from the Behrhorst Foundation; Harris Whitbeck; Bob
Means and Alfredo Kaltschmidt there, along with Mike Rabe and a
3-man crew from CBN-TV (700 Club) headed by Mike Way. I've
mentioned Harris before; Alfredo and Bob are with Gospel Outreach,
the mission which started Verbo Church ...
Harris talked to me briefly, primarily to see how I would feel about
moving back to Nebaj as soon as possible. It would be good for the
town, he said; it would help him in his responsibilities, and it might fit
our own desires for getting the translation done in the Ixil area. There's
a lot to think about before the question gets answered. For one thing, it
would put us in the middle of a fire ring surrounding a town which is,
in effect, under siege, usually cut off from all but helicopter access.
Would we like to be back in Nebaj'? No question! Is now the time'?
We'll have to give it a lot of thought and prayer and ;ee what our
administration thinks of it ...
Tuesday we met six young Guatemalan men who had just come up
from the capital, each representing one of the government dependen-
cies which has responsibility for meeting specialized needs in the
country. One was a Nebaj man whose family we now know; he is
Indian but not Ixil, and has a fair education now and appears ladino-
ized. Their purpose was to learn what they could about the town's
needs and then file a joint report to each of their six organizations. One
thing they did was ask each family to register in a kind of census, to
give as accurate a statistical base as possible to current needs. Eventu-
ally we will benefit from the data they put together, just as their
agencies will be affected by some of the contents of my report .. .
Friday night we were invited to the home of a member of the Gospel
Outreach staff, where several of their leaders got together with the four
dentists and members of the dentists' families who had come to Gua-
temala but had not been allowed to go to Nebaj. We were able to share
with them several things about Nebaj by way of background to the
present situation. Two of the dentists and the CBN television crew left
early Saturday morning for the U.S. - met with Harris \Vhitbeck and
three Verbo leaders to talk about the most urgent elements of imme-
diate need, plus some strategy for developing a long-range plan lead-
ing to self-help for the Ixil area. The other two dentists left the same
afternoon, along with Bob Means, who will be coordinating Stateside
fundraising and PR functions. Alfred Kaltschmidt will coordinate
things on this end.
Elite Guatemalan counterinsurgency troops supervise forced labor on roads to guerrilla areas.
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$11 million of military assistance in the Caribbean Basin
Initiative. In addition, the Agency for International Devel-
opm,.nt (AID) has proposed to Congress a figure of $65
milli :)n for "economic assistance" to the Indians of Gua-
temala's highlands; an amount ten times greater than the
present AID budget for Guatemala.
Congress: No! Collection Plate: Si!
In light of the human rights situation now existing in that
country, the U.S. Congress may not approve much as-
sistance for Guatemala. In any case, it is likely to take
several months before more aid, either military or econom-
ic, can be delivered. Representatives of Rios Montt, lobby-
ing for the aid, have repeatedly stressed that their need for
assistance is immediate in order that they may stamp out
"subversion."
In this regard, the role played by evangelical organiza-
tions could become crucial to the government's ability to
conduct its counterinsurgency war in the remote highlands.
The situation is this: official U.S. military and economic
assistance are blocked for the time being. If ILL and
YWAM are indeed successful in raising $10 to $20 million
in contributions within the United States, this money will
almost surely be sent to the Rios Montt regime, where it is.
likely to bolster the counterinsurgency war against the
Indians. What is not clear is the extent to which the evan-
gelical organizations are openly involved in such a scheme.
Undoubtedly, many Americans will contribute to the
evangelical campaign out of humanitarian motives; none-
theless circumstantial evidence suggests that these organi-
zations are pursuing a more deliberate policy in
Guat,,-mala.
"If You're With Us, Well Feed You; If You're Against Us,
Well Kill You"
Although the provision of food, farm implements and
medicine may appear on the surface as strictly humanitar-
ian aid, the Guatemalan Army is using this assistance to
recruit peasants into the civilian militias. This program,
called Fusiles y Frijoles (Guns and Beans), provides sup-
plies to individuals in return for their acting as the eyes and
ears cf the military in areas where there is no regular Army
prese ice. The militias have also been responsible for the
execution of "suspected" guerrilla sympathizers.
The creation of civilian militias is believed to be part of a
wider strategy, developed by the Guatemalan military and
U.S. counterinsurgency experts, called the "Program of
Pacification and Eradication of Communism," reminis-
cent of Operation Phoenix in Vietnam. A copy of this
420-page document was released to the international press
in 1978 by a former press secretary of the Guatemalan
Ministry of the Interior. According to the document, the
creation of a civilian militia "combines diversionary tactics
with psychological warfare and regular and irregular mil-
itary tactics. Essentially it attempts to confuse and to con-
vince local and international public opinion that in Gua-
temala there is a civil war being fought between the peasan-
try and the revolutionary forces." In any case peasant
participation in the militias is mandatory. As one officer
explained the program, "If you're with us, we'll feed you; if
you're against us, we'll kill you."
Food is also given to peasants for work such as road
repair and construction. They are sometimes provided with
materials to rebuild homes destroyed by the Army. This
aspect of the program is being financed in part by Interna-
tional Love Lift and is mentioned prominently in their
fundraising appeals. Reports by recent visitors confirm a
close working relationship between the Army and the
evangelical organizations. Representatives of ILL and
YWAM travel with the military to the conflict area and
have been observed working with the military authorities
in distributing food and tools under the Guns and Beans
program.
Kemp's Role
One of the more interesting aspects of the activities of
evangelical organizations that claim to be involved in
strictly humanitarian efforts is the language used to en-
courage contributors in this country. In an appeal dated
September 1 from Carlos Ramirez of International Love
Lift, he writes: "I want you to realize just how strategic
Guatemala is in relationship to the United States and this
hemisphere.... If Guatemala falls, what then? Mexico?
Wouldn't you agree that we really don't have much more
time to unite?" Included in this package was a letter from
Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) endorsing ILL's efforts. Anoth-
er enclosure, signed by Ramirez and Bob Means, the U.S.
coordinator of ILL, entitled "Guatemala-An Overview,"
explains that contributions will be used to "counter the
misinformation presently being reported, proclaim the
truth of the situation and support the present Guatemalan
government. In doing so we will weaken the Marxists'
position and decrease their ability to take advantage of
Guatemala's rich oil supply, titanium and other valuable
resources." (Emphasis added.)
A second appeal, sent out in early October, contains a
document entitled, "Has Guatemala's Human Rights
Record Really Improved?" It presents the now familiar
litany of the right-wing in this country: Rios Montt is a
reformer, the guerrillas are the ones responsible for the
massacres and the "liberal" media are only telling one side
of the story. In an attempt to discredit reports to the
contrary such as the Amnesty International report and
dozens of articles in major U.S. newspapers, ILL quotes an
unnamed "U.S. official" as saying that reports of govern-
ment massacres are "a campaign of false information or-
chestrated by guerrilla sympathizers around the world."
One U.S. official who has publicly defended the Gua-
temalan regime is President Reagan himself. After a brief-
ing from Rios Montt behind closed doors on December 4,
in Honduras, Reagan blurted out to reporters that Gua-
temala has gotten "a bum rap."
The Reagan administration wants to resume aid publicly
to the Guatemalan regime. The U.S. economic stake there
is estimated to be in the neighborhood of $750 million.
Furthermore, Guatemala is seen by national security
planners as the "linchpin" of Central America. Acording to
General Wallace Nutting, who heads the 10,000 member
U.S. Southern Command based in Panama, "The implica-
tions for a Marxist takeover in Guatemala are a lot more
serious than in El Salvador." He went on to assert that the
U.S should play "essentially the same role" in Guatemala
that it is now playing in El Salvador. This startling asser-
tion, given the furor in Congress over the U.S. role in El
Salvador, does not faze the evangelical organizations,
Reagan's powerful allies. As Radio Mundo in Guatemala
recently announced, the war is being converted into a "holy
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Pious Infiltrators:
The Institute Of Linguistics
By Louis Wolf
On March 7, 1981, a 28 year-old missionary, Chester
Allen Bitterman III, was found dead in Bogota, Colombia,
seven weeks after he was kidnapped by guerrillas. He had
worked for the Summer Institute of Linguistics, Inc./ Wy-
cliffe Bible Translators, Inc. (SIL/ WBT). Having arrived
in the country 18 months earlier, he had completed training
for his assignment to translate the Bible into the language
of the Carijoha Indians. The revolutionary April 19
Movement (known as M-19) released a communique to the
press calling SIL/ WBT "an affront to ... our national
sovereignty . . . a means by which the plunder of our
national resources is institutionalized," proponents of en-
forced sterilization of the Indians, and a front for the CIA.
M-19 also charged that there was a secret U.S. missile
installation inside of a vast wildlife park 180 miles south of
Bogota. I
SIL/WBT began working in Colombia in 1962, when
they signed a contract with the government to research and
prepare materials of a "high moral character." Since that
time, controversy and suspicion has surrounded the or-
ganization's work. In 1972, after a local Colombian group,
the Movement for the Defense of National Culture, called
for SIL/ WBT's expulsion, the inspector general of the
Army commenced an inquiry into reports about "strange
people" flying in and out of the group's isolated Lomalinda
headquarters southeast of Bogota. There was a lingering
speculation that a secret American rocket base was being
constructed within the headquarters complex.
A commission was created in 1974 to investigate
SIL/ WBT, headed by anthropologist Jose Carlos Matal-
lana. Although scuba divers found no rockets in the lake,
the final report of the commission was nevertheless critical,
and urged that SIL/ WBT be asked to leave Colombia. It
found that despite the group's insistence that its personnel
were linguists, evidence showed conclusively that they were
actually doing the work of missionaries, that few were
Colombian, and that the sole contact which the remote
1. Philadelphia Inquirer, January 28, 1981; Los Angeles Times,
February 8, May 3, 1981; Boston Globe, March 8, 1981.
Number 18 (Winter 1983)
Indian populations had with outsiders was with
SIL/WBT. Matallana saw this as a security threat, espe-
cially on Colombia's borders with Venezuela, Brazil and
Peru.
Despite this stormy history, SIL/ WBT is alive and well
in Colombia today, with a contract that doesn't expire until
1995. In fact, with a resident staff numbering over 300
people, it ranks as one of the organization's biggest contin-
gents of all.
History and Background
Measured in terms of personnel sent abroad, SIL/ WBT
is the largest Protestant missionary society in the world
today. From humble beginnings, it was founded in 1934 by
William "Uncle Cam" Cameron Townsend. First known as
Camp Wycliffe, it was located in an abandoned Arkansas
farmhouse. The initial target country, Mexico, was at the
time undergoing profound social and political change,
much of it against the organized church and anti-U.S. So
instead of being straightforward about h:is evangelical
agenda, Townsend gave the Mexican authorities a line,
depicting it as "linguistic" and "cultural." When it became
clear that the Protestant denominations in the U.S. wanted
converts more than Bible translations, "Uncle Cam" and
his flock continued the dual identity, which has been a
prominent organizational trademark since.
Wycliffe began by translating the Bible into various
languages and strange sounding dialects. They also main-
tained liaison with evangelical churches, recruiting per-
sonnel to go abroad and keeping the SIL/ WBT coffers
filled with money. The Summer Institute of Linguistics, the
name that Wycliffe uses overseas, handled the contracts
with the U.S. government and with the dozens of foreign
governments, and the linguistic training and administra-
tion for the overall domestic and internationE l programs of
the large bureaucracy. The Jungle Aviation and Radio
Service (JAARS), founded by Townsend in 1963, became
necessary as the organization expanded into areas of oper-
ation well beyond the sphere of foreign missionaries.
JAARS has hired pilots, mechanics, radio technicians, and
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others to service the operational needs of the mother organ-
ization. Usually JAARS personnel also serve in a mission-
ary capacity.
Thee connection between WBT and SIL was repeatedly
denied until August 1953, when the Catholic bishops in
Lima denounced the Summer Institute of Linguistics,
charging the group with "making an active and tendentious
campaign to convert the Indians of our Amazon to evan-
gelica:. Protestantism [through] a vast proselytyzing action,
hiding its true intentions behind a series of disguises."
Then, after Cameron Townsend alleged that the SIL had
nothing to do with WBT, the Bishop revealed a University
of Oklahoma publication openly linking the two. Town-
send finally admitted founding Wycliffe Bible Translators
and justified the partnership saying: "Our work of dual
nature brings us contacts of dual nature." He went on
pretending to the Peruvians that the central purposes of the
two were purely scientific and cultural, with the religious-
evang,,-lical part only of secondary importance. A 1981 SIL
brochure is rather more honest on this point when it quotes
Townsend: "One day we'd like to see the Bible available in
every language spoken in the world." Until his death in
April 1982 at 86, Townsend remained actively involved.
Though Townsend seemed interested in preserving the
linguistic traditions of indigenous peoples in order to con-
vert them to Christianity, he inconsistently promoted his
linguistic program by arguing that it would accelerate the
extinction of native dialects in favor of the majority lan-
guage in any given country. This doctrine of "integrating"
small ethnic populations into the larger majority is con-
sistent with the policy of governments in a number of
nations where SIL/ WBT is involved, whether stated offi-
cially or not.
In 1942, SIL/WBT had 37 people translating into 18
languages. By 1963, they had worked their way into 308
different linguistic populations. As of 1975, their own sta-
tistics showed a staff of 3,500, and more recent figures give
over 4,250 people working in 900-plus languages and dia-
lects in more than 30 countries, plus other programs where
for po..itical reasons they function outside of the one being
targeted. By 1990, plans call for entry into 800 new linguis-
tic groups as well for recruitment and training of 3,000
additional staff members.
Commensurate with the sharp growth of its internation-
al program is the expansion of the organization's financial
base. In 1975, SIL/WBT had a reported income of $16.9
million, making it the sixth-largest Protestant mission in
the U.S. In 1981, income had jumped to $35.5 million, with
expenses at the same level. Nearly $2 million was spent just
in "financial resource development." By keeping its long-
tested formula of a "dual image" out in front when solicit-
ing funds (missionary for home public consumption and
scientific-linguistic for governments), SIL/ WBT sustains
maximized financial support for its activities around the
globe. Part of its public relations image and fund-raising
pitch rests on its so-called "literacy" programs in a number
of countries. There are many independent reports from
SIL/WBT projects showing that the "literacy training" is
conducted with a very narrow objective: Teach people to
read and write the contents of the Bible. Functional liter-
acy, when achieved, is a lower priority.
In 1971, SIL set up an academic training front in Dallas
called the International Linguistics Center, affiliated with
the University of Texas. The organization hoped this cen-
ter would enhance the waning credibility of its linguistic
objectives. The move assumed greater significance in 1979
when the Mexican government closed down SIL's entire
program there after 47 years of operation. Also closed
down was the "Jungle Camp" field training facility, known
as the "School for Pioneers," set up in 1959 in Chiapas.
Remaining SIL training facilities are found at universities
in North Dakota, Washington State and Oklahoma, and
overseas in Brazil, France, the United Kingdom, West
Germany, Australia, Japan and the Republic of Korea.
The 30-plus countries where there are present SIL/ WBT
field programs include: North America - U.S. (notably 108
personnel in Alaska); Canada; Mexico (expelled in 1979,
has no formal agreement with SIL/ WBT but still gives
visas to personnel).
Central/Latin America - Guatemala; Honduras; Nicara-
gua (as of 1981); Panama (see below); Colombia; Ecuador
(? - see below); Peru (expelled by government in April 1976
but, after some feverish arm-twisting by both SIL and the
U.S. Embassy in Lima, granted a new five-year contract in
January 1977 specifying that the group work under gov-
ernment supervision and another contract in 1979 for ten
more years); Bolivia (reportedly phasing out in two years);
Surinam; Brazil (all personnel ordered in November 1977
to discontinue work among tribal populations, but resi-
dence at main base locations goes on).
In July 1981, the government of Panama expelled 16
Americans in the SIL team (there since 1970) after police
discovered radio transmitters, a teletype machine, and a
telephone switchboard in the SIL headquarters, all un-
registered. The Panamanian government soon thereafter
ordered SIL to close down and leave.2 Subsequently, ac-
cording to SIL, they have been invited to return.
An odd series of circumstances surrounds recent
SIL/WBT presence in Ecuador, which dates back to 1952.
On May 22, 1981, the office of President Jaime Roldos
Aguilera banned the 50-member group from further activi-
ties and issued an explicit communique: "Wide sections of
Ecuador's society have noted problems in how the institute
conducted its affairs . . . regarding matters of national
sovereignty and the preservation of aboriginal groups."
Noting that its work was in the Amazon region, the gov-
ernment declared "it was necessary to regain control of that
area." 3 Two days later, President Roldos was killed in a
plane crash under mysterious circumstances. Over the
course of the next year, SIL brought repeated pressures to
bear in both Washington and Quito seeking an extension
until 1985. This request was rejected by the Ecuadoreans
and SIL was once again ordered to leave in May 1982.4 At
2. Washington Post, July 8, 1981.
3. Philadelphia Inquirer, May 24, 1981.
4. Philadelphia Inquirer, May 7, 1982; New York Times, May 16, 1982.
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present, while the Embassy of Ecuador told CAIBthat SIL
is "no longer welcome," SIL's James Wroughton claimed
to the writer that while "there are no formal agreements, we
still get visas for Ecuador."
Africa - Mali; Upper Volta; Ivory Coast; Ghana; Togo;
Cameroon; Chad; Sudan; Kenya.
Asia - Malaysia; Philippines; Indonesia; Solomon Islands;
Papua New Guinea (SIL's largest single country program
with 570 personnel; an internal SIL document shows they
intend to stay until 2000-2015); Australia.
Other programs - Language surveys directed toward future
SIL operations are either underway or completed in the
Seychelles, Polynesia and India. Dr. Kenneth Pike, SIL
president from 1942-79, lectured for a month during 1980
in Beijing. Over the years, Cameron Townsend made 11
trips to the Soviet Union, analyzing its 168 minority lan-
guages. Research is also in progress in the Creole, Thai-
Dam and Khmer languages.
In nearly all of the countries where SIL/WBT has a
presence, its field bases are markedly uniform in terms of
physical features that set their workers off from their target
populations. Created along classic middle-class lines, the
bases have "laboratories, hospitals, libraries, workshops,
air base, radio station, schools for missionaries' children,
modern American-style houses, well-trimmed gardens,
and even Coca-Cola vending machines."5
Ideology and Doctrine
Their patented form of missionary zeal dictates that the
Word of God is the path to eternal salvation and that if
only "heather," "ignorant" peoples can be brought around
to embrace it, Satan will be defeated. All opponents of
SIL/ WBT are automatically branded as agents working
for Satan. Who is Satan? He doesn't have a surname but all
in the fold have been introduced in their training. Satan is
Godless communism. And who is God? The United States
of America, working together with God in Heaven.
Two Danish scholars who have studied the organization
closely, Soren Hvalkof and Peter Aaby define the makeup
of SIL/ WBT personnel as follows: "Although SIL is inter-
denominational, its mandatory Statement of Doctrine en-
sures that recruits come from the conservative wing of U.S.
Protestantism; composition has been estimated roughly at
two parts `evangelical' to one part `fundamentalist,' these
terms denoting the conservative and ultra-conservative
tendencies of North American Protestantism. SIL/ WBT's
expansion has also led to recruitment of some members
from other western countries. Nevertheless, members are
overwhelmingly white Americans."6 The figures in Wy-
cliffe's 1978 Prayer Directory show that 72% were from the
U.S., over 271/2% from Canada, Western Europe, Japan,
Australia and New Zealand. The remaining.04% included
11 from South Africa, and smaller numbers from Peru,
Brazil, Mexico, Panama, Ghana, India and Hong Kong.
While Chester Bitterman was being held captive, Robert
Lincoln ("Bud") Hancock, SIL's Washington-based inter-
national director of government liaison, sent a background
sheet to the Washington Star. Referring to SIL, WBT, and
JAARS, he stated unequivocally: "None of these organiza-
tions engage in preaching or ecclesiastical functions."'
Numerous independent, first-hand sources indicate that
this is not so. To a large extent SIL/ WBT's way of working
is guided by a perception of the target population as fun-
damentally primitive. These targets are inculcated by
SIL/WBT field staff with an attitude of submission and
one-directional humility. Hvalkof and Aaby have exam-
ined the Wycliffe fund-raising literature and conclude it
"conveys the distinct impression that the Bibleless tribes
are afflicted with witchcraft, superstition, sickness, im-
morality, lack of self-respect, revenge killings and head-
hunting ... the [SIL] linguists are often surprised by the
resistance they meet and by the delays in finding their first
converts. Sometimes, Satan's grip is so strong that all the
SIL/ WBT members must unite in prayer, or God must
perform a special miracle, so that the conversion process
can proceed."'
A 1971 SIL communication placed the group's political
view of their missionary work in sharp perspective. "God
uses military troops, but He has other methods also. God
turned the tables in Indonesia on the eve of a Marxist
revolution, and the spiritual response of thousands turning
to Christ has been tremendous. Cambodia put all mission-
aries out of their country in 1965 and it seemed God's work
there was finished. Suddenly-a coup d'etat and a new
responsiveness to mission work."9 This tidy analysis con-
veniently fails to recall the bloodbath when more than one
million Indonesians were slaughtered after God, working
closely with the CIA, turned the tables on the eve of what
was anything but a Marxist revolution. The 1970 "coup
d'etat" in Cambodia was in reality only made possible with
U.S. help and soon was followed by the bloody U.S.-Thai
invasion of the country.
SIL/ WBT are also not above altering the words of the
Bible to fit their ideological thrust among indigenous peo-
ples. A blatant case is found in the SIL propaganda leaflet,
"Forjando una Mariana Mejor" [Forging a Better Tomor-
row]. The SIL slogan in the leaflet, ascribed to the thir-
teenth chapter first verse of the Book of Romans is given as
follows by the SIL: "Obey your legal superiors, because
God has given them command. There is no government on
earth that God had not permitted to come to power." As
one authority demonstrates, the Summer Institute of Lin-
guistics has crudely twisted the passage found in both the
English Revised Version of the Bible and its Spanish com-
panion volume. The first sentence is adapted from the
actual "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers,"
while the second is an outright distortion of "the powers
that are ordained by God."10
Another scholar who has long studied SIL/WBT in
Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, and who is writing a book
on the work of SIL in Latin America, sheds further light on
the organization's manipulative techniques. ". . . Wycliffe
has definite religious and political goals for other people. It
has used linguistic credentials to mystify these objectives,
5. Soren Hvalkof and Peter Aaby (Eds.), "Is God An American: An
Anthropological Perspective on the Missionary Work of the Summer
Institute of Linguistics," Copenhagen and London: International
Work Group for Indigenous Affairs and Survival International, 1981,
p. II.
6. Ibid.
7. Robert L. Hancock, signed letter to Washington Star undated, 1981.
8. Hvalkof and Aaby, op. cit. n. 5, p. 173.
9. Translation [WBT promotional publication], October-December
1971, page 2, quoted in Hvalkof and Aaby, op. cit. n. 5.
10. Ibid., p. 109.
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exploiting the relativity of language to harness state power
to the imposition of its, once again absolute, truth on
native people."'
Ends Create the Means
Three examples in Latin America illustrate how
SIL/ WBT have defined the "goodness" of their work. The
result; were self-fulfilling prophecies.
Peru-SIL apparently adopted the "end justifies the
mean i" principle. This is clearly shown in one documented
case12 when the SIL missionaries kidnapped a Peruvian
Maya runa boy (SIL later claimed the boy had "run away"),
and k-pt him in order that they would learn the Mayoruna
dialect. Then, in what was called a "Sky Mission," two
women SIL missionaries went by plane above the area
where the Mayoruna lived and, using loudspeakers in
"Apocalypse Now" style, began talking at them. Soon the
Mayoruna began to see little packages falling from the
clouds, which turned out to be cassette tape recorders. The
message they heard on the tape, in their language, was: "We
are good people who want to help you. We bring
everything good." By 1976, the Mayoruna had begun
killing their newborn children rather than let them grow up
in SI L's "good world."
Colombia-"The distance which they [SIL/WBT]
carefully maintain between themselves and Colombian
sociel:y can only constitute an insult to any nationalist.
When we say that the SIL tries to integrate the Cuiva into
West-rn society, we really mean that they force upon them
the values of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant Americans
and certainly not those of rural Colombia. To the SIL
missionaries, most Colombians are little more than
backward and ignorant peasants for whom they have very
little sympathy. Once their entry into the country is
11. David Stoll in Hvalkof and Aaby, op. cit., p. 38.
12. Ib,'d., p. 114.
sanctioned by the upper echelon of the government, they
are quite wary of any form of intervention by Colombian
institutions. They do not trust Colombian planes,
Colombian food, and even less Colombian linguists and
missionaries. To them, Colombia is a third-world country
on its slow path to becoming as advanced as the United
States and there is no point in living like Colombians or in
teaching Colombian society to the Cuiva."13
Bolivia-Two specific incidents illustrate how SIL
engaged in activities that served either their personal or
institutional material gain. In 1952, the Bolivian border
police arrested an SIL missionary after finding that instead
of batteries, his pocket flashlight was packed with gold
dust. In 1970, an Ayoreode Indian told a Bolivian officer
about a goldmine being run secretly by the SIL: "At night
the missionaries go to a mountain near the mission station.
The mountain is surrounded with barbed wire and we must
not enter it. They carry torches on their heads and shots are
heard from inside the mountain. There is a big runway near
the mountain. Now and then big airplanes come. .."l4
SIL and Pacification
The Summer Institute of Linguistics and the Wycliffe
Bible Translators are not solely engaged in winning souls
from Satan by translating the Bible into various dialects.
The numerous documented cases in different countries
where SIL/WBT worked hand-in-hand with the local
military (see Guatemala sidebar) and, on a few
documented occasions with U.S. military units and
"advisors," reveal another more ominous aspect of SIL's
field operations. This side of their work is called
"pacification." SIL has developed close working relations
with the miltiary infrastructures of many countries in
which they have personnel. Time and again, one partner
has gone to the other for assistance in military campaigns
against indigenous peoples. Generally, these campaigns
have one or all of three primary objectives: (1) Obtain and
protect access for U.S. (sometimes also Japanese)
corporate interests to mineral, timber, cattle-ranching or
other agricultural resources situated in regions where
indigenous peoples are living; (2) Gain communication
with isolated indigenous populations and build a measure
of control over them; (3) Implement a counterinsurgency
effort against an indigenous population that may or may
not be engaged in anti-government guerrilla activities.
In Bolivia, the guerrillas fighting alongside Che Guevara
were initially pinpointed by Chiriguano Indians who had
been reached by a certain Methodist missionary group (not
SIL), and these Indians actually participated in the final
military assault on the guerrillas.
Instances where SIL/WBT was directly involved
include:
? A former high-level officer in the Bolivian army
interviewed in exile gives a revealing inside account.
"At the time I was a member of the Bolivian military
apparatus and was in a leading position in the anti-
guerrilla movement against Teoponte [a guerrilla
leader]. We established contact with the SIL
missionaries, who supplied us with maps of the
13. Ibid., p. 83.
14. Ibid., p. 111.
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guerrillas' area of operation. We were surprised at the
precision of these maps. In addition they supplied us
with data concerning the ethnic composition of the
population and the location of the productive fields.
Furthermore they could tell us with great correctness
which population groups supported the guerrillas..."15
? For centuries, the heavily-forested Gran Chaco region
in Bolivia was of no economic interest to outsiders,
and the small population of Ayoreode Indians
(probably less than 5,000 in all) were the sole people
living there. Then some discoveries of oil and natural
gas transpired and the area suddenly became
important. An American drilling group, the Western
Geophysical Company, was brought in and soon the
entire area was changed. The firm cleared wide
corridors of trees, and boundaries were created that
the Ayoreode were not permitted to cross. Surrounded
on all sides, they felt threatened and had nowhere to
go. In September 1977, having undergone great fear
and frustration, they killed a drilling company
employee. Members of the New Tribes Mission
(which collaborates closely with SIL in Bolivia) came
quickly, as if a rescue squad or fire brigade, and the
last remaining Ayoreode were taken away by the
missionaries for religious indoctrination. Now, there
are no Ayoreode living free in the Gran Chaco, but
there are a large number of white cattle ranchers and
companies drilling for oil. The Indians have been
"integrated" and are forced to live in settlements and
mission stations that observers say are not fit for
human habitation. In some cases, their meagre
Ayoreode woman and child in Bolivia.
dwellings are surrounded by barbed wire, creating an
environment strikingly similar to the "strategic
hamlets" perfected by the United States in Vietnam,
and resurrected by Portugal in Mozambique and
Angola, or presently by the Philippine armed forces,
and by South Africa's occupation forces in Namibia.
The Ayoreode are even exploited by the New Tribes
Mission as tourist attractions and picture postcards of
them are sold.
? In 1971, SIL/WBT signed a contract with the
Peruvian government under which the Jungle
Aviation and Radio Service trained Peruvian Army
pilots and mechanics and provided valuable air
support for remote military bases. Fully a decade
earlier, A JAARS report proudly declared: "Tech-
nical assistance in helping the Peruvian Army
establish a flight program to isolated jungle areas has
required time and effort of our personne' but has been
of real benefit to the work as a whole."lt' The 1971
contract also specified that WBT would undertake air
support for remote military bases. The 1971 contract
also stipulated that WBT would facilitate the
preparation of detailed ethnic and linguistic maps of
the areas they penetrated, and collect indigenous art
and artifacts. The ground for this relationship had
been laid in March 1964; a SIL worker among the
Mayoruna Indians is said to have shared his
knowledge with a group of U.S. Marines then based in
the country. Utilizing reconnaissance flights by the
Marines, Peruvian military units moved in to attack
the Mayoruna, who had been depicted in the local
media as "smugglers, opium dealers, political
agitators, outlaws, communist elements." After
machinegunning the target area from the air and
dropping fragmentation bombs and napalm, a large
Peruvian land force moved in. Some wounded
personnel were evacuated in U.S. helicopters
temporarily deployed there from Panama.''
? In Ecuador during the late 1960s and early 1970s,
large concessions of land were granted to U.S. oil
companies. Their initial entry into the country was
eased by SIL missionaries, who actively "supported
the oil companies and an ethnocidal Ecuadorean go-
vernment policy of encouraging highland home-
steaders to stake out parcels along oil company access
roads. After consultation with the Ecuadorean mil-
itary, Auca [Indian] converts flying above the remain-
ing band of uncontacted kin in SIL heliocouriers op-
erating on Texaco fuel, [urged them] to put down
their arms" and join the evangelized members of their
families." A vivid picture of this operation comes
through in the following evaluation by Bill Eddy, a
JAARS pilot-missionary who also was a liaison be-
tween the oil companies, the government, and the
Auca:
"Twenty-five years ago the Shell Oil Company lost
many workers to Auca spears. For several reasons
Shell decided to leave Ecuador. Suddenly with the
discovery of a vast reserve of oil under the Eastern
Jungle, twenty-one companies are working 1500 men
there. As they advance, we fly ahead of them and
explain to Aucas living in their path that they are
coming. We persuade them that they should move out
of the way. This is done by Auca Christians through a
loudspeaker mounted on the plane. As the Indians
move, we notify the oil companies. As a result of this
close coordination by radio and telephone through
our Quito office, there has not been on.- life lost to
date. PRAISE GOD!!"19
? In Colombia during 1970, there was a festering low-
level war between the Colombian military and a
peaceful Guahibo Indian cooperative. An ex-civil
servant named Rafael Jaramillo was instrumental in
helping create the cooperative. When some of the rich
cattle ranchers determined it didn't serve their
16. Laurie Hart, "Pacifying the Last Frontiers: Story of the Wycliffe
Translators," NACLA's Latin America & Empire Report, December
1973, page 22.
17. Hvalkof and Aaby, op. cit. n. 5, pp. 112-113.
18. Ibid., p. 48.
19. Hart, op. cit. n. 11, p. 25.
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interests, they put out word that Jaramillo was a
communist, and the venture was shut down. He
disappeared and the army began torturing Guahibo in
an attempt to locate him. During the height of the
problem, SIL directly collaborated with the army's
civic action arm to pacify Guahibo in the area by
acting as liaisons and translators, and also made radio
equipment available to the government establishing
communications between the regional capital and the
cooperative site.
? CAIB interviewed two Germans who visited Brazil as
tourists in 1979, and who had a strange personal
encounter with SIL and JAARS. The two were
canoeing down the Amazon River and hadn't seen
any sign of human life for over 36 hours. Suddenly,
they heard a helicopter in the sky, though the heavy
jungle undergrowth prevented them from seeing it
until it flew right above them and landed on the bank
about 100 yards away. A tall heavyset white man
emerged and shouted an order to them in English to
come ashore. As they climbed out of their craft, they
heard voices over the sideband radio in the helicopter,
which displayed JAARS in large block letters on its
right side. The two-way radio transmissions, in both
Portuguese and English, sounded military with
mentions of bases, troop movements, and the words
"Operation 11."
The man marched toward them and they
mmediately noticed his pressed button-down sport
:shirt and braided leather cowboy boots. He angrily
demanded: "Who are you? What are you doing here?"
Mystified by the man's behavior and growing
gradually apprehensive at his threatening tone, they
told him they were tourists, and then asked the same
questions of him in reply, perhaps unwisely, they
realized immediately. "I work with the Summer
Institute of Linguistics and this is the area I work in,"
he grunted. Then, noticing their curious glances at the
helicopter and the chatter of the two-way radio, he
abruptly told them to get back in their canoe and leave
the place without looking back.
They still wonder whether or not they passed
through a time warp.
? In the Philippines starting in 1953, just as Colonel
Edward Lansdale and his CIA team were bringing
defense secretary Ramon Magsaysay to power as
President and running a large counterinsurgency
operation against the Hukbalahap guerrillas, SIL was
contracted to work in the most heavily militarized
zones. Similar SIL work continues today among
indigenous minorities in areas of Central Luzon and
Mindanao where there is armed conflict with the
Philippine military. An internal SIL memorandum
obtained by CAIB shows that SIL intends to remain
there probably until 1990.
? It was the CIA's own Magsaysay who urged Ngo Dinh
Diem to invite SIL/ WBT to Vietnam in 1957, by way
of a U.S. government subsidized grant to the local
education ministry. The key role of SIL/ WBT in the
vast U.S. pacification program was through bilingual
missionary work with both the Montagnard and
Nung peoples. Thanks in large part to these inroads,
both indigenous populations, which had long
traditions of antipathy toward the central gov-
ernment, were transformed into cannon fodder in the
CIA's own paramilitary militia. Reliable estimates are
that more than one-third of the 900,000-plus
Montagnards died as a result of this policy.
One apparent CIA link to the Summer Institute and
Wycliffe in these Montagnard projects was a series of
grants totalling more than $160,000 which they
received from the U.S. Alliance for Industrial
Development. The Alliance has since been exposed as
a CIA conduit for operations in Indochina.20
The insatiable missionary drive of SIL/ WBT, even
while working in war situations as an ally of the U.S.
and South Vietnamese military forces, is embarrass-
ingly obvious in this passage from a Wycliffe
publication: "Our members in Vietnam have often
been discouraged. We have been tempted to withdraw
or cut back... but God has not let us be satisfied with
merely continuing on. . . . New members have
reinforced our ranks, we have entered new tribes and
seen God's blessing in new places.... We are looking
to God for the purchase of new headquarters in
Saigon and trusting Him for advance into Cambodia
and other new tribes as he leads. .."21
? In what was Cambodia and is now Kampuchea,
SIL/WBT soon followed the U.S.-Thai invasion in
1971, working to pacify the Cham and Brao peoples
close to the Thai border and, as in Vietnam, departed
in April 1975 when the Lon Nol regime fell.
Conclusion
SIL/ WBT propaganda describes the organization as "a
private, non-profit, non-sectarian, scientific education,
international organization."22 But the reality of its
insidious work around the world, both in terms of its
objectives and its effects is its truly destructive impact upon
the languages, the cultures, and the beliefs of indigenous
peoples who are targets of SIL/WBT programs. The
illegitimacy of their work is compounded when they make
room for U.S. (or other) business interests, either by
driving indigenous groups out of their homes and land, or
by providing the business interests with a pool of cheap
labor.
There is an obvious question that must be asked: Are the
Summer Institute of Linguistics, the Wycliffe Bible
Translators, and the Jungle Aviation and Radio Service
working directly or indirectly for the CIA? We have cited
the CIA money they received for their work among the
Montagnards in Vietnam and the numerous other ties they
have had with U.S. and foreign military forces, which both
have operational relationships with the CIA. Whether or
not new documentary evidence on CIA connections comes
to light in the future, it is evident that SIL/ WBT's special
brand of counterinsurgency in numerous Third World
countries is greatly valued by the Agency and its clients.
20. Bill Wallace, "Onward Wycliffe Soldiers: Missionaries with a
Mission?," The Nation, May 30, 1981, p. 664.
21. Hart, op. cit. n. 11, p. 21.
22. SIL 1979 Progress Report; page ii; Op. cit., n. 7.
[Other sources used for this article include:
a) SIL 1981 Progress Report, "SIL Serves People Through Linguistics
and its Practical Applications."
b) SIL 1979 Annual Report, "Serving People Around the World."
c) "El Instituto Linguistico de Verano en America Latina," Documentos,
Number 9, June 1981, Santo Domingo.]
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The CIA ries of World
Medical Relief
By Walt Bogdanich, Christopher Jensen and Joe Frolik
In late November the Cleveland Plain Dealer ran a six-part series on ties between the CIA and various
religious and charitable organizations. This impressive and well documented investigation was conducted by
reporters Walt Bogdanich, Christopher Jensen, and Joe Frolik, who generously gave CAIB p:rmission to
reprint the articles which follow. They are from the November 24, 1982 Plain Dealer, and are copyright ? 1982
by The Plain Dealer. They are reprinted exactly as they appeared in that paper.
The aging brick warehouse rises eight floors above the
empty lots, broken glass and abandoned cars that mark the
impoverished inner city neighborhood.
The bulky structure, visible from a nearby freeway, fits
anonymously into a landscape of old warehouses symboliz-
ing Detroit's past commercial glories.
Unlike many of its counterparts, however, this ware-
house has an importance that belies its faded image. As the
home of World Medical Relief Inc., it is known to mission-
aries and doctors the world over as a lifeline of medical
supplies for needy children and adults.
But that is only part of the story.
Less known is the cozy relationship that lTas existed for
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years betwen this supposedly independent, tax-exempt
charity and U.S. military interests.
Thir relationship, a Plain Dealer investigation found,
was most dramatically illustrated by the role World Medi-
cal Relief played in supporting, at least indirectly, the
Central Intelligence Agency's secret war in Laos in the
1960s and early 1970s.
In addition, military personnel have been allowed to
tour the inside of World Medical Relief's warehouse, se-
lecting what they wanted to be shipped to world trouble
spots, according to Irene Auberlin, the charity's 86-year-
old founder and president.
World Medical Relief, an organization exempt from
federa I taxes, said it runs a "non-political, non-government
medical relief program ... dedicated to the service of God's
sick poor." The charity's governing board includes execu-
tives of major American corporations.
Auberlin said World Medical Relief never knowingly
would allow itself to be used by outside political interests.
"We're strictly medical," she said. "We equip hospitals and
clinics for missionaries. We don't get involved with
governments."
However, the Plain Dealer found that World Medical
Relief's involvement with the U.S. military dated back
more 1:han two decades, to a time when the charity first
began using the Air Force to distribute supplies in the
Third World. Since then, a senior CIA official and the
Navy have acted as World Medical Relief distributors.
World Medical Relief was founded by Auberlin and her
late hUsband in 1953. In the last 29 years the charity claims
to have distributed close to $400 million in drugs, food
supplements and medical supplies. Tax laws under which
corporations donate goods to World Medical Relief re-
quire that donations be used only for the needy.
World Medical Relief's ties to the U.S. government devel-
oped primarily through two men-Harry C. (Heinie)
Aderholt, a retired brigadier general in the Air Force, and
Daniel C. Arnold, a retired CIA chief of station in Thai-
land and Laos.
Both acknowledge that while in government service they
served as Southeast Asian conduits for distribution of
millions of dollars in World Medical Relief assistance.
Charity supplies were particularly important in Laos,
where the CIA coordinated covert military operations
against the Communist Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese
invaders.
According to congressional reports, the CIA secretly
equipped, trained and helped supply its own private army
of 30,000 Laotian irregulars. As originally formed, this
fighting force consisted mostly of Hmong tribesmen, also
known as the Meo.
The Plain Dealer has learned that World Medical Relief
assistance was funneled to the Hmong, or Meo, through a
distribution chain that included Air Force commandos and
Edgar "Mr. Pop" Buell, a U.S. official who helped organize
and train Hmong soldiers.
Aderholt, who headed the commandos (known as the 1st
Air Commandos), was at first hesitant to discuss World
Medical Relief's role in supplying the Laotians. "We
couldn't say that," Aderholt said. "Mrs. Auberlin hasn't
cleared that. I am sure that some has, but that might get
into politics and hurt our position."
However, Aderholt later acknowledged, "I administered
all the (World Medical Relief) programs . . . in Laos,
through Doc (Charles) Weldon, who was a very famous
doctor up there, and Pop Buell .... He led the Meo."
Auberlin, interviewed earlier this year in Detroit, con-
firmed that her charity's supplies were distributed not only
in Laos, but in Cambodia and Vietnam. "That whole area,"
she added.
Auberlin said Aderholt would arrange to have the sup-
plies picked up. "Selfridge Air Force Base up in Mount
Clemens (Michigan) would send ... trucks down to pick up
whatever he wanted. He'd send medics in, doctors, they'd
pick out what they wanted."
World Medical Relief's supply line to the Hmong also
was confirmed by retired CIA official Arnold, who in 1976
replaced Aderholt as the charity's prime distributor in
Thailand.
Last July, during an interview in Washington, D.C.,
Arnold was asked if Hmong tribesmen received World
Medical Relief supplies while fighting Communist forces.
"That is correct, yes," Arnold responded. Arnold later
said the supplies only went to Hmong refugees inside Laos.
One retired U.S. diplomat who served in Southeast Asia
said he knew of Aderholt's link to World Medical Relief,
but added: "Keep in mind he (Aderholt) was in the military
during that period, so you have to be careful when you say
`distributing supplies.' That could be potentially embarras-
sing to Aderholt."
"Pop" Buell, the U.S. official through whom Aderholt
said he funneled World Medical Relief supplies, played a
major role in assisting Hmong soldiers, according to
government officials and published accounts.
Journalist Don A. Schanche, author of the book "Mister
Pop," wrote that Buell-even though he worked for the
U.S. Agency for International Development-"became a
one-man supply corps for the CIA's secret army" and
helped organize and lead a 5,000-man guerrilla army that
held off North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao forces.
Schanche, now working as an international correspon-
dent for the Los Angeles Times, visited Buell on numerous
occasions in Laos, according to his book. The book how-
ever, did not identify any of Buell's private supply sources.
In addition to Southeast Asia, the U.S. military also had
a hand in distributing World Medical Relief supplies in
Central and South America. Aderholt said, "She (Auber-
lin) supplied a lot to Air Force military people through us,
but primarily we distributed for her," he said.
"We flew stuff ... to the Canal Zone and then distributed
down in South America." Aderholt further explained that
Air Force commando units "administered a lot of the
medicines down there in the civic action programs."
Civic action programs were important elements in the
U.S. government's foreign counterinsurgency program.
Auberlin said her charity's relationship with Aderholt
was innocuous. "We worked with him for years when he
had the commandos," she recalled. "We were helping him
set up clinics in remote areas of the country .... It was a
beautiful program."
She also contended that World Medical Relief officials
did not realize Arnold was a top CIA official when they
began shipping supplies through him in the mid-1970s. She
said Aderholt introduced World Medical Relief to Arnold,
whose official title was assistant to the U.S. ambassador in
Bangkok.
"Well, it turned out when Dan finally retired from serv-
ice, he was head of CIA over there," Auberlin said. Never-
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theless, Arnold's relationship with World Medical Relief
did not end when he says he retired from the CIA in 1979.
The Plain Dealer has learned that Arnold has continued
to serve as the charity's distributor in Thailand while,
according to federal records, he drew a $50,000 retainer
from the Thai government.
Arnold's relationship with the Thai government is dis-
closed in documents he was required to file with the De-
partment of Justice.
Arnold told The Plain Dealer he does public relations
for the Thai government, but said he received no money for
his efforts. "I'm registered as a lobbyist," Arnold said. "I
have money that is used on their behalf, but personally I do
not receive anything by my own election."
Arnold served as CIA station chief in Laos from 1972 to
1975. He had been stationed in Laos since the early 1960s.
Arnold later was station chief in Thailand, from 1976 to
1979.
Arnold first began handling World Medical Relief sup-
plies while in Thailand, according to Aderholt, who com-
manded all U.S. military personnel in Thailand at the end
of the Vietnam War.
"He was in good with the prime minister," Aderholt said.
"He asked me to let him handle it (World Medical Relief
supplies). I did, much to my regret. The problem was,
because he was head of the CIA over there, he could not
make it public."
Aderholt also said Arnold's background created prob-
lems. "He got me in trouble-the mere fact that when I
went back over there (to Thailand) and he left, everybody
thought I was CIA too. They knew he was CIA."
Aderholt added, "Dan's a very knowledgeable guy ...
and overall good. But I felt he used me and World Medical
Relief more than he should have. But he had his political
reasons, too."
Arnold said he became involved with World Medical
Relief only because he admired the way the charity had
managed to help the needy. He said he channels charity
supplies through the prime minister's office in Thailand,
which in turn distributes the goods to Laotian refugees and
poor Thai residents.
In the United States, Arnold now operates a consulting
firm, International Research Associates. He recently
moved from Washington, D.C., to suburban Philadelphia.
The Plain Dealer also has learned that Arnold recently
wrote two political position papers published out of an
office that does contract work for the CIA. Arnold's last
pamphlet, "Does U.S. Aid Subsidize Soviet Expansion-
ism?" and an earlier one were copyrighted by International
Public Policy Foundation.
Last summer, the foundation's address was listed as 6845
Elm Street, Suite 212, McLean, Va.
Operating out of the same small office is International
Public Policy Research Corp., which does contract work
for the CIA, according to Fred Roth, one of the company's
incorporators. Roth told The Plain Dealer that most of the
people involved in the foundation also work for the re-
search firm.
The foundation did not have a listing in the McLean-
area telephone book, nor is it included in the 1981 edition
of "Foundation Directory," listing more than 3,000 foun-
dations across the country. International Public Policy
Foundation's 1980 income tax return-the latest one
available-listed no contributions, gifts or grants.
Arnold and Aderholt both believe World Medical Relief
not only has done a great service for the needy and poor,
but also has helped polish America's image overseas.
Both cite World Medical Relief's administrative ex-
penses, which are low compared to other charities. Auber-
lin receives no compensation and sleeps on a cot inside the
warehouse.
World Medical Relief officials, Arnold said, "are tre-
mendously committed to what they believe in. You'd have
to be, to work so hard without any concern for personal
recognition or remuneration."
Added Aderholt, "(It) is the best in the whole damn
world. . . . Mrs. Auberlin is so great, it makes me feel
ashamed just to be associated with her because I can't do
enough."
World Medical Relief's office has dozens of awards and
certificates from organizations appreciative of the work the
charity has done.
One of them is an undated certificate from the 1st Air
Commando Wing. It reads: "In grateful recognition of
your outstanding contribution to the advancement of the
special warfare missions by the many general donations
afforded this organization on behalf of the needy of the
world."
It is signed, Harry C. Aderholt.
For more on Daniel Arnold, see The Scott Barnes Story in CAIB
Number 17 (Summer 1982).
World Medical Relief:
The M' 'tary Connection
A former leader of U.S. commando forces in Southeast
Asia was behind a plot to use a CIA-linked relief agency as
a secret supply line for anti-Communist rebels in Cambo-
dia and Laos.
However, the plan recently collapsed when the relief
agency, World Medical Relief, balked at providing the
supplies, The Plain Dealer has learned.
Harry C. (Heinie) Aderholt, a retired brigadier general
who once led Air Force commando units, confirmed that
he attempted to establish the supply line, which would have
supported guerrilla activity inside Laos and Cambodia.
World Medical Relief decided against helping Aderholt,
according to charity official Clara Kohn, because "we
learned that the group he's working with was being investi-
gated" by the U.S. government.
Kohn identified the group as being affiliated with Sol-
dier of Fortune magazine of Boulder, Colo.
Aderholt, 62, is no stranger to World Medical Relief.
While leading the Air Force's Ist Air Commandos-a unit
similar to the Army's Green Berets-Aderlolt often dis-
tributed World Medical Relief supplies around the world,
according to charity officials.
Aderholt also commanded all U.S. military forces in
Thailand during the latter stages of the Vietnam War. He
retired in 1976.
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Another of World Medical Relief's key contacts was
Daniei C. Arnold, who distributed the group's supplies
while serving as CIA chief of station in Bangkok in the late
1970s.
Although Aderholt failed to obtain World Medical Re-
lief supplies, he told The Plain Dealer he and his associates
managed to purchase medicine in Thailand for the anti-
Communist resistance through "private grants" and fund-
raisin?, appeals. He did not elaborate on the source of the
funds.
William Brooks, who identified himself as associate edi-
tor of Soldier of Fortune, confirmed much of Aderholt's
account. "I know I've seen the medical supplies. They come
through here, so I know that's what he's sending. In fact,
there's a ton of that stuff down in the warehouse right now,
if I'm not mistaken," Brooks said.
A State Department spokesman said the U.S. govern-
ment iad no knowledge of any private effort to supply
anti-Communist rebels in Laos or Cambodia. World
Medical Relief President Irene Auberlin said Aderholt first
contacted her relief agency in April to help Laotian refu-
gees "return to their country."
Soon after, Aderholt told The Plain Dealer the supplies
would help the anti-Communist resistance wage its fight
inside Laos and Cambodia. "When a guy gets wounded,
when a guy gets malaria, when a guy gets sick, he could be
treated within the area and not come out," said Aderholt in
a July telephone interview from Fort Walton Beach, Fla.
Aderholt said he operates an import firm in Ft. Walton
Beach and a furniture factory in Bangkok.
Aderholt said that in late summer he planned to send a
representative to World Medical Relief to pick up "all
kinds of supplies (from) a shipping list for the Cambodes
(sic) and the Lao resistance."
Aderholt said some of the supplies were to be channeled
through Dr. Charles (Jiggs) Weldon, a U.S.-born physi-
cian who treated thousands of Laotians wounded while
fighting in the CIA-directed war against Communist forces
in Lacs during the 1960s and early 1970s.
Weldon could not be reached for comment.
Aderholt said his efforts in Southeast Asia were being
assisted by people from Soldier of Fortune magazine "and
others." Earlier this year Soldier of Fortune published a
story describing how Soldier of Fortune "teams" sneaked
into Laos on reconnaissance missions.
Among the refugees Aderholt wants to help are Hmong
tribesmen who fled Laos after the Vietnamese backed gov-
ernment took power in 1975. The Hmong, led by General
Vang ?ao, formed the core of the CIA's so-called secret
army that battled Communist forces in Laos.
"They'll get their country back, if we'll help them,"
Aderh nlt said.
Asked who would head the new guerrilla activity, Ader-
holt said, "I am not going to reveal that. It is a younger
generation. The people we would look more to now to do
something (are) the younger people -people that have
been forcibly moved out."
He 'aid six factions make up the resistance, including
one that is being financed and trained by China.
Besides Laos, Aderholt also wanted World Medical Re-
lief supplies to support the Cambodian resistance--
specifically the rebel faction led by Son Sann, a former
Cambodian prime minister.
Son Sann recently joined a coalition to oppose the Viet-
namese-backed government in Phnom Penh. The two
other coalition leaders are Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the
former king, and Khieu Samphan, who is affiliated with
Pol Pot, whose bloody regime was brought to power in the
1970s by the Khmer Rouge.
"Son Sann, he is the faction we should support," said
Aderholt. "Let's give enough to Son Sann to offset what
the Red Chinese are giving to the Khmer Rouge. And at the
same time you make the coalition stronger militarily and
politically."
Aderholt added: "We would give it to Son Sann's people
who would give it to their people who need it." This would
help to keep Son Sann's followers in Cambodia. "If we
don't support them with medical supplies in Cambodia,
when they get sick, when they have an epidemic, when they
get wounded, they're coming back to Thailand."
Aderholt, although officially retired, retains a military
mailing address in Southeast Asia, according to a Penta-
gon spokesman. He formerly ran a travel agency in
Bangkok.
In the 1950's Aderholt held several positions in Air Force
intelligence. His official military biography credits him
with helping to pioneer "special air warfare techniques" in
the early 1960s.
Also during this period, Aderholt's biography said, he
"was instrumental in developing the Laos airfield complex
known as Lima sites. These fields were used throughout
Southeast Asia as support sites for special warfare opera-
tions ..."
The Carrot and the Stick:
AID Pressures
Poverty is widespread on the Caribbean island of
Grenada.
Poverty is widespread on the Caribbean island of
Jamaica.
Grenada has a socialist government friendly to Cuba.
Jamaica has a conservative government friendly to the
United States.
Does that mean the poor of Jamaica are more worthy of
economic help from American private voluntary groups
than the poor of Grenada?
No, say most international relief officials. They argue
that aid to the world's needy should be dispensed without
regard to politics.
But often that is not how it works.
Under the Reagan administration, relief agency officials
say, political considerations are a major factor in whether
relief organizations receive money from the federally
funded Agency for International Development (AID).
That, in turn, has a significant impact on where and how
private groups may operate.
The government now has a list of countries, socialist
Grenada among them, ineligible for AID-funded projects.
It also has begun to exercise more control over foreign
programs it helps fund.
"We're seeing more direction from the AID administra-
tion than we'd seen in the past," said Leon Marion, execu-
50 CovertAction Number 18 (Winter 1983)
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tive director of the American Council of Voluntary Agen-
cies for Foreign Service. "And to us, this is a no-no--for
one entity, the United States government, to control pri-
vate groups is wrong."
Robert O'Brien, executive director of PACT (Private
Agencies Collaborating Together), a consortium that helps
steer AID grants to 20 American and foreign development
groups, echoed Marion's concerns.
"It's extremely important that the private agencies re-
main private," said O'Brien. "And that means not con-
trolled by the U.S. government."
O'Brien said government control could undermine the
essential "partnership" between local residents and outside
development workers.
"If I worked for the U.S. government on a contract basis,
then it would be very difficult for me to work with peasant
farmers in Nicaragua," said O'Brein. "If you are perceived
as being under the control of an outside government,
you've got problems."
AID officials deny the Reagan administration is trying
to control private development efforts.
Thomas A. McKay, director of AID's office of private
and voluntary cooperation, said the administration simply
wanted to bring more "consistency" to the relationship
between AID and the private sector. He said that relation-
ship was often "ad hoc" in previous administrations and
the Reaganites hoped to introduce more formal guidelines
and structures.
However, an AID policy paper in September noted that
in making its funding decisions, AID must consider "stra-
tegic, geopolitical and economic factors."
During fiscal year 1981 AID awarded nearly $183 mil-
lion in various grants to 85 private voluntary organiza-
tions, according to government figures. Such groups re-
ceived another $561 million from the agency in the form of
ocean freight subsidies, Food for Peace commodities and
excess property gifts.
The Rev. Boyd Lowery--a Presbyterian clergyman and
executive director of CODEL, a consortium of Protestant
and Catholic development groups-said his group would
not accept more than 50% of its budget from AID for fear
of becoming too dependent on the agency.
Despite that, CODEL is feeling the heavy hand of the
Reagan administration, Lowery said. It currently operates
in at least 12 countries the administration refuses to aid and
faces the dismal choice of either dropping those projects or
somehow raising an extra $1.1 million in private
donations.
"When you get a list of countries that is not inclusive of
all countries, there is definitely pressure being applied,"
said Lowery. "And when that list excludes a tiny place like
Grenada because they have a socialist form of government
at the same time the U.S. deals with the U.S.S.R. and
China, it raises a strange contradiction."
The list of approved countries is assailed by many pri-
vate agency officials. "The countries that need our assist-
ance are not the ones on the list from the State Depart-
ment," said Paul McCleary, executive director of Church
World Service, overseas relief arm of the Protestant Na-
tional Council of Churches.
McKay said AID only would commit funds to "meet
very fundamental needs in the poorest countries." He said
that was why such relatively wealthy countries as Mexico
and Brazil were on the list; private sector officials point out
that in those nations only a handful enjoy the affluence that
exists amid pockets of extreme poverty.
Historically, the U.S. government rarely has been apoli-
tical in its approach to private relief groups and foreign aid.
For example, the surplus commodity programs set up after
World War II-forerunners of the current Food for Peace
program were designed not only to feed the hungry but
also to shore up domestic grain markets and create new
markets abroad.
Even so, private agency officials say the Reagan admin-
istration has politicized the AID process more than any in
recent memory.
"Even small interactions between countries get cast in an
East-West context," said Jane V. Blewett, a fellow at Cen-
ter of Concern, a Catholic research center in Washington,
D.C., that recently studied the relationship between AID
and religious private voluntary organizations. "And for the
poor people in the Third World, that would be about 40th
on their list of concerns. Survival ... food ... water....
These are much more important questions.
"But because they happen to be living in a certain coun-
try, their needs get cast in the East-West debate."
CODEL, for instance, is about to receive a grant for use
in Al D-approved countries. But it took more than a year to
negotiate, and Lowery expects it to include more strings
than in past years. He said that for several months the grant
request was blocked by Reagan administration officials
who objected to CODEL's use of private money to fund
projects in Vietnam.
"From CODEL's perspective, when it conies to helping
people in need, we believe political considerations are im-
material," said Lowery.
AID priorities have changed under the Reagan adminis-
tration. The agency now clearly favors projects designed to
encourage "free enterprise." And private sector officials
say it is downplaying some of the social priorities stressed
in past years.
"Three years ago, in any AID grant agreement, you
found very specific language about women in develop-
ment, about human rights," said PACT's O'Brien. "And
you don't see that anymore."
McKay denied that allegation. "I have seen no shift in
emphasis," he said, adding that AID continues to fund
women in development projects.
But he admitted, "Human rights is not an area that All)
funds as a development activity."
Some private voluntary groups, such as the Mennonite
Central Committee and the American Friends Service
Committee, refuse to accept AID funds because they want
to avoid even the appearance of working for the U.S.
government.
That is an appearance that can be especially damaging in
Latin America, say relief agency officials. Many Latin
Americans are well aware that until the mid-1970s, relief
and missionary groups were a favorite cover for the Central
Intelligence Agency.
While he headed AID during the Carter administration,
former Ohio Gov. John J. Gilligan admitted the agency
was once a haven for CIA agents. Gilligan claimed to have
ended that practice, but, in many circles, suspicions
remain.
"You don't want to get involved in a situation where you
are lined up with a political or military strategy in (a)
country," said Marion.
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Statement to the U.N.:
The CIA and BOSS
By Bill Schaap
One of CA/B's co-editors, William Schaap, was invited
to address the Special Political Committee of the General
Assembly of the United Nations on November 8, 1982. One
of the Special Political Committee's principal agenda items
was apartheid, and Schaap addressed the long history of
collaboration between the U.S. and the South African
secret services. The text of his remarks follows:
It is my contention, Mr. Chairman, that the apartheid
regime in South Africa including its unlawful occupation
of Narnibia-has been encouraged and supported by the
United States intelligence complex for decades. Regardless
of the momentary state of formal relations between the two
goverrments, their intelligence services have never ceased
the closest of cooperation. As former CIA Africa specialist
John Stockwell noted in his book, "In Search of Enemies,"
"the CIA has traditionally sympathized with South Africa
and enjoyed close liaison with BOSS," the Bureau of State
Securi:y.I Indeed American and South African intelligence
officials meet regularly, and as one journalist has noted,
there is between them a "shared racism and political
assumptions."2
The cooperation is mutual. Outside South Africa, for
example, as the London Observer has noted, the CIA "is
]John Stockwell, "In Search of Enemies," Norton & Co., New York:
1978, p. 187. The South African security service was known as the Repub-
lican Intelligence in the early 1960s, in 1969 the Bureau of State Security
(BOSS) was created to assume all intelligence functions, including covert
operations. Its name was later changed to the Directorate of National
Security (DONS), and later still to the National Intelligence Service
(NIS), the current appellation. In this statement, BOSS is used
througf out.
2Stephen Talbot, "the CIA and BOSS: Thick As Thieves," in Ellen Ray,
et al., ;ds., "Dirty Work 2: The CIA in Africa," Lyle Stuart, Inc.,
Secaucus: 1980, p. 267. See also, Gordon Winter, "Inside BOSS," Penguin
Books, London: 198 1, pp. 208-9, 214-6, 296, 428-441, for specific exam-
ples of IA-BOSS cooperation. The Winter book has been criticised in
several respects, but not as to the accuracy of its descriptions of' such
cooperz.tion.
prepared to pass on information about anti-apartheid acti-
vists" to BOSS when it needs it.; Only last month, revela-
tions in the Observer, London Sunday Times, and the
Rand Daily Mail indicate that South African intelligence,
with and without CIA assistance, is extremely active in the
United Kingdom, where South African burglary and gun
running operations are apparently flourishing.4 In South
Africa, as stated in the report, "The CIA and BOSS: Thick
As Thieves," the CIA has "depended upon South Africa for
a wide range of covert actions and information gathering."'
Still, as recently as 1979 the Johannesburg Citizen estimat-
ed that the CIA had more than three dozen deep cover
operatives in South Africa,6 and there have always been a
Iarce number of CIA officers under light diplomatic cover
United States Embassy. In fact, for more than five
years my colleagues and I exposed many of these opera-
tives in the pages of the "Dirty Work" books and the
Cove rtAction Information Bulletin,7 until, only this year, a
federal statute here in the United States purported to make
such revelations a crime.
Sometimes, Mr. Chairman, there may seem to be a rift
between the American and the South African services, as in
the 1979 "spy plane" incident, when three U.S. diplomats
were expelled from South Africa for using the Ambassa-
dor's plane to take secret photographs, apparently of
South African nuclear facilities. According to the New
York Times, the Washington Post, and other papers, this
may be the one area to which the cooperation does not
31 he London Observer, September 7, 1980.
41.ontlon .Sunday Times, October 3, 1982: London Observer, October 3.
10, and 24, 1982; Rand Daih? Mail, October 8. 1982; London Guardian,
October 25, 1982.
5Talbot, op. cit., n. 2, p. 267.
6Johanneshurg Star. April 21, 1979: The Citizen, July 9. 10. and 18,
1979.
7Rav, et at.. op cit., n. 2. Appendix; Covert Action In/ormation Bulletin,
passim.
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extend.' But follow-up reporting in the Washington Post
and the Johannesburg Sunday Times revealed that the
indignation was rather feigned. The 70 mm. camera in the
Ambassador's Beechcraft, which "had flown widely to and
fro across Africa on diplomatic missions,-9 had in fact, "for
many years," according to those papers, been photograph-
ing intelligence targets in Angola, Tanzania, Mozambique,
Zambia, and Botswana, and turning those photographs
over to the South African intelligence service.10
Perhaps the most serious, sustained CIA operation to
assist the South African apartheid regime has been the
ongoing program to circumvent the U.S. and U.N. arms
embargoes against South Africa. It has been convincingly
demonstrated in many studies and articles, including a
series of reports in The Nation magazine in 1978 and 1979,
that for many years there has been a vast, officially sanc-
tioned program by the United States to violate its own and
the U.N.'s embargoes.) 1 As recently as March of this year,
the Subcommittee on Africa of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee of the U.S. Congress reported that the CIA was
instrumental in evading the embargo. This report was dis-
cussed in the New York Times and the Christian Science
Monitor at the time.12 These efforts have included the now
well-publicized case of the Space Research Corporation,
but have also included many more mundane and ordinary
gun running operations, which have been reported by the
New York Times, the London Observer, and other
papers. 13 Often the U.S. role is indirect, but on occasion it
delivers the arms directly to the South African forces;
indeed in 1978, according to Reuters and Internews, South
African Prime Minister P.W. Botha admitted that the U.S.
had delivered arms directly to South African forces in
Angola.14
These covert connections, of course, are separate and
apart from the open connections between Pretoria and
Washington, ties which have greatly expanded since the
inauguration of the current U.S. administration. These
ties, which are beyond the scope of my presentation, in-
clude the well-documented visits to the United States of
high-ranking South African military and intelligence offi-
cials; joint military operations; and even such barbaric
transactions as the recent sale by a U.S. company to South
Africa of 2,500 electric shock batons.15
Another area, Mr. Chairman, in which the CIA is active-
ly involved in South African affairs is labor. Since its
beginning in the late 1940s, the CIA has infiltrated and
manipulated the international labor union movement for
its own purposes- to support conservative labor organiza-
tions and to subvert or destroy more progressive ones.
Their methods in this field were exposed in meticulous
detail by former CIA officer Philip Agee in his 1975 book,
"Inside the Company."16 Less than two months ago, a
delegation from the American labor confederation, the
AFL-CIO, visited South Africa. One member of that dele-
gation, according to the Durban Sunday Tribune, "has
been identified as a CIA agent involved in splitting and
manipulating foreign trade unions since the late forties."17
The delegation announced plans for a South African pro-
gram through the African-American Labor Center, an or-
ganization which, the paper noted, has frequently been
accused of CIA ties; and the person suggested to lead the
program has also been accused of being a CIA agent by
former associates and by former CIA and BOSS agents.)"
To a large extent, Mr. Chairman, South Africa has
maintained its illegal apartheid regime in Namibia by wag-
ing a vicious war against Angola as well as against the
people of Namibia itself. The CIA has been of invaluable
assistance on both fronts. The U.S. has said that it supports
the independence of Namibia just as it has said that it
abhors apartheid; but here too actions speak louder than
words. The U.S. has covertly hindered the complete and
unqualified independence of Namibia for many years, par-
ticularly in its secret support for the Democratic Turnhalle
Alliance, exposed in an October 1976 confidential U.N.
memorandum.19 And the CIA has been entirely responsi-
ble for much of the fighting in Angola. In fact, it has been
pointed out that "there never was a `civil war' in Angola at
all, . . . the CIA paid the FNLA and UNITA and armed
them in order to mount a challenge to the M PLA."20 And,
as former South African intelligence agent Gordon Winter
put it, "the FNLA was founded, funded and run by the
CIA.... UNITA was founded by CIA and remains con-
trolled by CIA."21
Jonas Savimbi's UNITA retains such links with the CIA,
despite the Clark Amendment, by which the U.S. Congress
expressed its desire that there be no further clandestine
interference in Angola. As late as Spring of 1981, Savimbi
met in Rabat, Morocco with CIA officers, a.nd his repre-
sentatives are regularly reported having such meetings.77
Recently, a new and deadly element has been added.
CIA-trained Cuban exiles are now planning to assist the
South Africans on the Namibian and Angolan fronts. In
February, the Miami Herald reported that Wilfredo Nava-
BNe,r York Times, April 13, 14, and 15, 1979; Washington Post, April
13, 1979.
9./ohanneshurg Suncla, Times, April 29, 1979.
lolbid., and Washington Post, April 29, 1979.
11 Michael Klare and Eric Prokosch, "Getting Arms to South Africa," in
The .Nation, July 8, 1978; and Klare, "Arms for Apartheid," in The
Nation, July 26, 1979.
12Ne,r York Times, March 25, 1982; Christian Silence Monitor. March
25, 1982.
13Neu? York Times, May 14, 1981; London Observer, May 17, 1981:
"South African Gun Running: The Tip of the Iceberg," CoverlAction
Information Bulletin, Number 13 (July-August 1981), p. 15.
14Rcutcrs, April 17 and 18, 1978; Intcrnews International Bulletin, April
24, 1978.
15Dai1v Nears, September 21, 1982.
16Philip Agee, "Inside the Company: CIA Diary." Stonehill, New York:
1975.
171)nrhan Sundae Tribune, September 12, 1982.
181bid., and Winter, op. cit., n. 2.
19Reprinted in "Confidential U.N. Memo Unmasks U.S. Covert Action
Against Namibia," CounterSpr Magaiine, Vol. 3, No. 2, December 1976,
20M iles Africanus [pseud.], "Dress Rehearsal," a review of Stockwell, op.
cit., n. I, in CovertArtion Information Bulletin, Number 4 (April-May
1979). p. 27.
21 Winter, op. cit., n. 2, pp. 538, 541.
22See Ellen Ray and William Schaap, "The Namibian Solution: the
Future of Southern Africa," in CovertAction h,/i,r,nation Bulletin,
Number 13 (July-August 1981), pp. 4, 10: The Citi_e,t, April 3, 1981;
I)iario de Lisboa, June 3, 1982.
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ro boasted publicly that he and some 500 mercenaries,
advised by Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis, were going to
establish a base in Angola.23 In March, according to United
Press International, Sturgis-who admits to being a long-
time CIA agent claimed he had traveled to Angola in
connection with this plan.24 And in April, according to
Expresso of Lisbon, Sturgis, on behalf of the CIA, was
reported at Lisbon meetings with South African intelli-
gence officers and Angolan exiles.25
Involvement with brutal killers, like some of the Cuban
exiles, is nothing new or extraordinary for either the CIA
or BOSS. The Wilmington News Journal reported in 1980:
"South Africa's Bureau of State Security ... began hiring
CIA trained anti-Castro fanatics in 1973 to carry out con-
tract killings."25 Indeed there is some suggestion that these
CIA killers were responsible for the unsolved murders of
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Smit in South Africa in 1977.27 It is
still unclear to what degree the CIA and BOSS share the
responsibility for the murder of Ruth First in Mozambique
this pest August.
Mr. Chairman, it is known that the CIA played a major
role in South African attacks against Angola, and there are
indications that it has also been involved in assisting in
commando raids into Zimbabwe and Mozambique.2"
Most appalling, however, was the January 1982 raid by
South African commandos on the homes of exiled
members of the African National Congress in Matola,
Mozambique. In this vicious raid 12 unarmed civilians
were murdered and three others were kidnapped. What is
shockng, but not unexpected, is that the CIA was directly
involved in this mass murder. The Mozambican govern-
ment learned, through its infiltration of the large CIA
network in Maputo, that the CIA had provided the South
Africans with the addresses and locations of the ANC
homes,, enabling this deadly plan to be carried out extreme-
ly qui2kly. Several CIA officers were expelled from Mo-
zambique when the details of their assistance to the South
Africans transpired.29
The Matola raid is a brutal, but consistent example of a
fundamental tenet of CIA strategy: a ceaseless effort to
render ineffective- if possible to destroy- the African Na-
tional Congress. For more than 20 years the CIA has
attem pted to disrupt and split the ANC, infiltrating agents,
funding dissidents, financing splinter groups; indeed the
CIA has attempted, though with little success, to manipu-
late and subvert nearly every anti-apartheid organization
in the United States and the United Kingdom as well.'()
The reason this strategy is so important has recently been
made clear in a secret CIA report entitled "South Africa:
The African National Congress in the 1980s," copies of
23t9icu it tterahl, February 10. 1982.
24United press International wire, March 10. 1982.
25FFvpresso (Lisbon), August 7, 1982.
26Wilmington. Delaware Sunday .Aeu.c Journal, February 24, 1980.
271bid. and Winter, op. cit., it. 2, 'p. 504.
28Sce : i Jrica .1'ea s. September 13. 1982.
29See t Hell Rai,"Mo,ambique Smashes Spy Network," in CorrnArrion
Informnion Bulletin, Number 12 (April 1981), p. 24.
30Wintcr, op. cit., it. 2, pp. 430-I. 432-4.
which have been obtained by journalists in Washington.31
The report confirms that "the ANC is now the most popu-
lar black movement among South African blacks," and
notes "the ANC's growing political influence inside South
Africa." In addition, the report notes that "the repressive
security and political measures employed by Pretoria in
response to the increase in terrorist activities have dis-
credited moderate black leaders who oppose the ANC."
The bottom line, of course, is the conclusion of the report
that the growing influence of the ANC has "increasingly
serious implications for U.S. interests both in the region
and internationally. Specifically, racial violence in South
Africa will increase the risks and costs of constructive
engagement with Pretoria. The United States and other
Western nations that have close ties with South Africa will
be frequently attacked in international forums such as the
U.N."
To the extent that this report is critical of South African
policy, it is concerned only pragmatically with actions
which might be counter-productive. The United States is
not concerned about the rights of the black majority, but
with the rights of its multinational corporations.
This concern with counter-productivity is evident in yet
another secret document which has recently surfaced, a
page from the April 15, 1982 National Intelligence Dail. t',322
a compilation of CIA and other intelligence reports circu-
lated to top administration officials. This document notes
that the South African government is attempting to con-
ceal the extent of acts of sabotage in the country. Electrical
towers in northern Transvaal which were destroyed in
January and February were repaired by the government in
secret. "Pretoria," the report notes, "believes that the ANC
benefits from press coverage of its attacks, and authorities
are considering legislation that would place even stricter
limits on such publicity." The CIA, however, appears to
believe that this argument is incorrect and that press cen-
sorship will only encourage "spectacular" attacks.
Mr. Chairman, let me conclude by giving this Commit-
tee a brief summary of the conclusions I draw from my
research. No matter what the government of the United
States says, it is not, and apparently never has been, com-
mitted to unqualified majority rule in Namibia or in South
Africa. It is the staunchest ally of the apartheid regime in
Pretoria; while it may criticize that regime in public, it is at
the same time arming it, financing it, assisting it, and
working hand in glove to suppress the legitimate liberation
struggle of the vast majority of the people of the region.
Internal investigations and criticisms within the United
States do not seem to have much effect. Even as the U.S.
Congress forbade further covert action in Angola, for ex-
ample, the CIA ignored those strictures with impunity.
Perhaps it is only in this international forum in the
United Nations -that this duplicity can be exposed to the
world. The United States has bowed before to overwhelm-
ing world opinion; it must do so again in its reprehensible
support for apartheid.
I thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to
have presented this information to this Committee. ~,.
31 Report ALA 82-10056. April 1982: see also Ita.chinglon Post, No-
vcmbcr 3, 1982.
321 ('S 2788 82, 15 April 1982.
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The U.S. Connection:
South African Torture
By Clarence Lusane*
The gruesome and nightmarish torture methods of the
South African police are finally being revealed on a broad
scale. The inquest into the death of a white labor activist
while in detention and the release of a report based on the
statements of 70 ex-detainees confirm the long-suspected
belief that mental and physical torture is systematic and
widespread in South Africa.
Testimony at the inquest into Dr. Neil Aggett's death has
detailed the methods used by the South African police to
obtain information and "confessions." These methods in-
clude beatings, electric shock, sensory and sleep depriva-
tion, and other forms of physical and psychological
assaults.
Dr. Aggett was found hanged in his cell on February 5,
1982 after two months in detention which included one
nerve-shattering interrogation session during the last week
of his life that lasted 62 hours. Aggett was being held under
South Africa's super-strict security laws which allow a
person to be held indefinitely without being charged with
any crime and without benefit of legal counsel. Aggett's
family and lawyer are asserting that he was murdered or
driven to suicide by the brutal torture techniques of the
South African police. The lawyer, George Bizos, has asked
that two police officers, Major Arthur Cronwright and
Lieutenant Steve Whitehead, be charged with homicide.
The torture chambers of the infamous 10th floor inter-
rogation center of the John Vorster Square police head-
quarters in Johannesburg have long been known to South
African blacks. As the number of whites held in detention
has increased, the macabre secrets of the 10th floor are
coming to light.
During the inquest, a report on torture in the whole of
the South African detention system was released by the
Detainees' Parents Support Committee. The broad-based,
multi-racial group documents in excruciating detail the
activities of the South African security and police forces.
The report lists:
- 22 cases of electric shock torture
- 28 cases of forced standing or kneeling
20 cases of sleep deprivation
I I cases of mid-air suspension while handcuffed at
the ankles and wrists
- 54 cases of beatings with fists, sticks, batons, hose-
pipes, gun butts, etc.
- 25 cases of suffocation
- 14 cases of attacks on genitals
In addition to these examples, the report lists numerous
ways that psychological torture was carried out. Some of
these ways included isolation, intimidation, degradation,
humiliation, threats to life and family, and indefinite deten-
tion. The allegations came from former detainees who had
been held at police stations at all the major centers in South
Africa.
Amnesty International has also released a new study on
torture in Namibia. The study outlines the role of the South
African Defense Forces in the cruel and often deadly inter-
rogation of prisoners suspected of aiding or being SWAPO
guerrillas.
Increased domestic militance is pushing the South Afri-
can government towards stepped-up efforts to crush oppo-
sition. Since the murder of Steve Biko in 1977, government
use of detention-without-trial has grown dramatically.
There are currently about 191 persons being held in that
status and since Aggett's death, two more detainees have
died while in custody. That brings the total number of
persons who have died in police custody since 1963 to at
least 52 with Aggett as the sole white.
These revelations are especially embarrassing at this
time when South Africa, with the aid of the U.S., is trying
to break out of its international isolation. Friendly gestures
by the current administration in Washington have included
lobbying on behalf of South Africa for a $ 1.1 billion loan
from the International Monetary Fund and U. S. defense of
South Africa at the U.N. on issues concerning sanctions.
Former Reagan campaign manager, John Sears, is now a
$500,000-a-year lobbyist for South African interests.
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POWERED
FLASHLIGHT
PRONGS
THAT ACTIVATE
BY 4.5 VOLT
IMPACT-
WITH A STANDARD
500 MILLIONTHS
RECHARGEABLE
ACTIVATION
RESISTANT
PR 13 BULB.
OF ONE AMPERE
NICAD BATTERY,
SWITCH
ABS
THE SPECIALIZED LENS
VIRTUA LI
Y
THE SOURCE CAN
FOR PRONGS
MATERIAL
PRODUCES 12,000
(
L
UNMEASURABLE
PAY FOR ITSELF
TO 15,000
)
WITHIN ONE YEAR.
CANDLEPOWER.
In mid-September, Director of Central Intelligence Wil-
liam Casey, who ironically was Sears' replacement for the
last six months of the campaign, traveled to South Africa
on what was supposed to be a secret "diplomatic" mission
until pis presence there was headlined in the South African
press. though barely even mentioned by most U.S. media.
Reliable sources in Africa and Washington state that the
purpose of his trip was two-fold. First, he held meetings to
further cement bilateral relations with his South African
counterpart, General P.W. Van Der Westhuizen, chief of
military intelligence, and with General Magnus Malan, the
defense minister, who appears to be the most powerful
figures in South Africa today. Then Casey went to Mozam-
bique and Zambia, where he sought unsucessfully to miti-
gate some of the ill will and distrust all the frontline states
have for South Africa, as the targets of Pretoria's ongoing
delta :)ilization efforts. This destabilization, and U.S. com-
plicity with it, was the subject of a very timely hearing
before the House Foreign Affairs Africa subcommittee on
December 8. Only hours after the hearing ended, South
Africa launched a callous military raid into Lesotho,
killin,; at least 30 members of the African National Con-
gress and 12 Lesotho citizens.
Vice-President Bush, during his November trip to 6
African nations, attempted to "sell" the South Africans'
proposal on Namibian independence which includes a con-
troversial provision that Cuban troops must leave Angola.
Rebuffed at every step along the way, Bush also faced
toug1 questions on the highly visible support being given to
Pretoria by the Reagan administration. However, when
Bush returned, a senior State Department official termed
the whirlwind tour "an unqualified success."
The export, from the U.S., of shock batons to South
Africa certainly did not help Bush's argument. In total
violation of a federal embargo on the export of military
and police equipment to South Africa, the U.S. Commerce
Department approved in April 1982 the sale of 2500 shock
batons to South Africa. Calling it a "simple, unfortunate
screw-up," John Boidock, director of the Office of Export
Administration at Commerce, admitted that they did not
contact the State Department before approving the export
license as required by law.
FLASHLIGHT
HEAD CAN BE
REPLACED
WITH ADDITION=
ACCESSORIES
In further violation of the law, the Commerce Depart-
ment failed to include the sale in its internal logs supplied to
the Subcommittee on Human Rights and International
Organizations and the Subcommittee on International
Economic Policy and Trade in the House of Representa-
tives, which regularly monitor crime control equipment
exports. While claiming that they would have denied the
sale, State Department spokesperson Paula Kuzmich dis-
missed the serious violation as mere "administrative
inadvertence."
The crude looking instruments produced by the Largo,
Florida Universal Safety Corporation, were first referred
to as "rechargeable flashlights" with a "high-power voltage
capacity" by the Commerce Department after the sale was
discovered. The reality is that this weapon, known as The
Source, delivers a 3500-volt shock and is similar to the
cattle prods that were used against civil rights activists in
the U.S. South. Described in a company brochure as the
"law enforcement weapon that gives dignity," their sale to
South Africa serves to highlight the false tones of concern
by the Reagan administration about human rights for
blacks in South Africa. The batons were shipped out last
August.
The torture in South Africa has a clear purpose. The
growing defiance of the black trade union movement is
causing the P.W. Botha government great consternation
and anxiety. For example, it is believed that the informa-
tion sought from Dr. Aggett by the police forces involved
the relations between the labor movement and the out-
lawed African National Congress.
The government is also worried by the influence of the
surrounding progressive black countries. The South Afri-
can Defense Force has set up a "destabilization center" in
its Pretoria headquarters. The role of the center is to coor-
dinate and implement aggressive incursions into Angola,
Mozambique, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. This includes di-
rect South African border crossings as well as arming and
training counter-revolutionaries. These attacks have be-
come increasingly brazen and bold as the Pretoria regime
tries desperately to hold back the tides of change sweeping
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Book Review:
"ne Pm--me Palace.
The Puzzle Palace: A Report on NSA, America's Most
Secret Agency, by James Bamford, Houghton Mifflin Co.,
Boston; 1982, 465 pp., $16.95.
This review was prepared for CAIB by a retired long-
time NSA employee.
At long last the public has been given a peek inside the
walls of the secretive National Security Agency. In a pene-
trating expose of the "Puzzle Palace," author James Bam-
ford affords a view into this high-tech spying agency whose
very existence has been hidden for most of its three decades
of growth.
Many times larger than the CIA, the National Security
Agency, now forced out of the closet, would have us believe
that it is engaged primarily in making and breaking secret
codes, securing our national communications systems
from foreign eavesdroppers, and analyzing radar signals.
Bamford develops the theme, however, that the Palace,
though highly proficient in the techniques of cryptology
and such, is using puzzle solution to misdirect attention
from the lion's share of its black art, namely the wholesale
enterprise of listening in on the private telecommunica-
tions of the earth's citizens, domestic and foreign, for the
purpose of gleaning a tidbit here and there which might
have some bearing on "national security." Not content with
the stuff relating to bombs, boats, and bivouacs, the sifting
through is also targeting in on economic, industrial, politi-
cal, and personal information which only by the most
remote and paranoid rationalization could be considered a
deliberate subversive assault on national security.
As a subculture unto itself, the National Security Agency
has been operating largely in violation of both the Consti-
tution and federal law, and has regularly practiced the big
lie, obfuscation, and credible deniability to obscure its
activities from the public, the Congress and even the Presi-
dent himself.
His legal background has given Bamford skill in uncov-
ering the methodology through which the denizens of the
NSA have hoodwinked even those few in the courts, the
Congress, and the Executive who, of necessity, have had
limited exposure to some of its activity. While on the one
hand the Agency has played on the legal naivete of the
communications common carrier companies, bamboo-
zling them into complicity, on the other hand it has
stretched the legal intent of obscure regulations to retard
legitimate academic inquiry and private industrial devel-
opment of methods affording privacy to the telephonic and
telegraphic messages of ordinary citizens.
Bamford describes the paths of intrigue through which
the leaders of the NSA have manipulated political power to
its favor, how it has wrested authority from the CIA, the
FBI, and others, using its claim to higher technological
elitism. He traces the serpentine trail of the eavesdroppers
from the early days of World War I when Herbert Yardley
and the tiny Army intelligence team MI-8, the Black
Chamber, by hook or by crook, acquired copies of interna-
tional cables in direct violation of the Radio Communica-
tions Act of 1912. And so it has been down through the
years, a blatant disregard for the laws of the land: the
Communications Act of 1934, the Omnibus Crime Control
and Safe Streets Act of 1968, the holdings of the Supreme
Court in the Katz and Keith cases of 1967 and 1972, and the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.
The pages of The Puzzle Palace are rife with the code
names of secret intelligence programs largely unfamiliar
even in the busy halls of Washington. Operations Sham-
rock and Minaret wherein millions of telegraphic and tele-
phonic conversations of ordinary U.S. and other citizens
have been lifted and sifted are described in great detail.
Bamford depicts the mammoth scope of listening posts
blanketing the earth and the web of special communica-
tions circuits bringing the fruits of interception back to the
NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, a city unto itself half-
way between Washington and Baltimore. He describes
giant antenna farms encircling the globe whose tireless ears
funnel innocent conversations as well as military and dip-
lomatic messages into the cornucopia. He elaborates on the
use of satellites, aircraft, and ships at sea as mobile plat-
forms carrying the NSA sensors into the backyards of'
whatever nations it chooses to target.
Leafing through The Puzzle Palace the predominant
theme emerges that civil servants and military careerists of
the National Security Agency consider the will of the peo-
ple and their elected representatives irrelevant; that we are
not sufficiently wise or sophisticated to develop the limit-
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ing criteria beyond which intrusive eavesdropping activity
becomes a real detriment to the vitality of the nation. The
fact !:hat the NSA withholds from the U.S. public the
knowledge of the existence of interception programs or
technologies, information well known by the country's
adversaries, suggests that we the people who hold the
burden of taxes and the purse strings of appropriation are
considered the real enemy.
The investigative reporting talents of James Bamford
impress the reader, as he has undertaken to set forth with
clarity subject matter which by its very nature is obscure,
fragmented, and transitory. He attempts to show the dis-
tinction, for instance, between "interception" and "acquisi-
tion" of messages, and how the Agency considers electronic
computer scanning of private messages as not falling under
the slightest restriction as an "unlawful search." Thus, an
intelligent mechanical surrogate of the human psyche is
permitted to plunder our most intimate utterances, a privi-
lege not even granted an officer of the law armed with a
court order.
Although Bamford avoids pejorative comment in his
largely objective development, it becomes evident that he
brings the reader to the conclusion that much of the activity
of the NSA is inconsistent with traditional American ideals
and institutions. He avoids the measure of public outrage,
however, that well might be directed toward the clandes-
tine society of "technotyranny." Perhaps such musings of
societal impact, the chilling effect of Big Brother, and the
resultant gradual degeneration of private freedom are best
described by the political philosopher or the futurist. Each
of us, however, must heed the warning to corral the rouge
elephant.
Book Review:
Secret Defoliation in Vietnam
By E.W. Pfeiffer*
The Chemical Scythe: Lessons of2,4,5-Tand Dioxin, by
Alastair Hay, Plenum Publishing Corp., 233 Spring St.,
New York, NY 10013; 1982, 275 pp., $27.50.
The Chemical Scythe is a most valuable addition to the
growing literature dealing with the use by the U nited States
of chemical warfare in Indochina. Its author, Dr. Alastair
Hay of the Medical School of the University of Leeds, is
eminently qualified to present this story, which reveals
much previously classified information about U.S. herbi-
cide programs in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
Indeed, with respect to defoliation efforts in Cambodia,
this book reveals information the Air Force has fought to
keep secret. Last July the National Veterans Task Force on
Agent Orange lost its court fight under the Freedom of
Information Act to obtain some 20 pages which were delet-
ed from a draft Air Force report entitled: "Operation
Ranchhand: The United States Air Force and Herbicides
in Southeast Asia, 1961-1971." As the New York Times
noted (July 26, 1982), "Disclosure, the court said, would
violate the integrity of the decision-making process where-
by senior Air Force officials determined the content of the
official history." Thus, the Air Force was permitted to
delete a certain incident from its "history."
But despite the court decision, the facts are now in the
public record. The Chemical Scythe describes in meticu-
lous detail the events deleted by the Air Force censors. It is
a fact established by an official U.S. team of experts and
others that the Fishhook region of Eastern Cambodia was
attacked repeatedly by defoliating aircraft in the spring of
*F.W. Pfeiffer is a Professor of Biology at the University of Montana at
M issoula.
1969. The U.S. government neither confirmed nor denied
responsibility but negotiated with the Cambodian gov-
ernment and French rubber planters to pay for the multi-
million dollar damage to their rubber plantations. There is
evidence that the CIA's Air America carried out this clan-
destine operation. Former Senator Frank Church wrote
me on July 26, 1971, that, "I have been told, however, that
Air America was responsible for the Cambodian defolia-
tion. My source was .... an individual who is in a position
to know the facts in this matter." When the CIA obtained a
copy of this letter, it immediately dispatched an agent to
deny the allegation. According to a CIA report, "Senator
Church said he couldn't remember off hand where he
learned this information .... He said he fully accepted our
denial." As Dr. Hay documents in The Chemical Scythe.
Church was still covering up as late as 1978.
Why does the Air Force in 1982 still try to conceal a
comparatively minor operation of 1969? As The Chemical
Scythe explains, the official version, expounded by Henry
Kissinger in The White House Years, is that the Fishhook
region was secretly (and illegally) bombed by B-52s in 1969,
because according to Kissinger, it was necessary to destroy
Viet Cong sanctuaries in the region. Kissinger writes that
"recent intelligence from a rallier [deserter], as well as
photo reconnaissance, showed that the Communist head-
quarters for all of South Vietnam was located just across
the Cambodian border .... The B-52 attack took place on
March 18, 1969, against North Vietnamese Base Area
353 . . . . From April through early August 1969 attacks
were intermittent . . . . Afterward raids were conducted
regularly."
Kissinger's maps show Base Area 353 precisely where I
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Defoliated rubber plantation in Kissinger's Base Area 353. Note absence of bomb craters.
spent several days and nights studying the effects of the
April 1969 defoliation raids. As detailed in The Chemical
Scythe, it was heavily populated with Cambodians and
French Rubber plantation employees and their families.
After reading Kissinger's totally inaccurate description of
the area, I wrote the U.S. Air Force for documents which
might support him.
On November 7, 1980, Charles W. Hinkle, Office of
Assistant Secretary of Defense, wrote me, "The map coor-
dinates in the message (MAC 1782 COMUSMACV) are
those provided by a North Vietnamese rallier [Pentagonese
for deserter] as the location of COSVN headquarters
[COSVN was the Pentagon acronym for Kissinger's
"Communist Headquarters for all of South Vietnam"].
Mr. Hinkle enclosed a map of the Fishhook area with
Base Area 353 drawn according to the coordinates in the
message MAC 1782 which he also sent me. This message,
sent in February 1969 from General Abrams to General
Wheeler, states in part, "Recent information developed
from photo reconnaissance and a rallier gives us hard
intelligence on COSVN HQ facilities in Base Area 353 ....
The area is covered by thick canopy jungle." This is not
true. The Department of Defense map shows the area to be
sparsely covered with brush and surrounded by several
small villages. When I asked for the photos of Base Area
353, Mr. Hinkle wrote me on December 19, 1980, "The
Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has advised that
they do not have the photographs which you requested.
Further, they have advised that they have no information,
other than that previously provided to you [i.e. the coordi-
nates provided by the deserter] to substantiate the precise
location of Base Area 353."
Thus Kissinger's only source for his description of the
so-called "Communist Headquarters in Cambodia" is a
deserter!
Mr. Hinkle also sent me a copy of a report of the "Menu"
(B-52) strikes against Base Area 353 showing tonnage of
bombs dropped beginning on March 18, 1909, and sup-
posedly continuing through January 1970. This approxi-
mately 10 mile square area supposedly received 6529 tons
of bombs delivered by 228 B-52 bombers. A typical B-52
mission consisted of five aircraft whose bombs carpeted an
area about one half mile wide and three miles long. Thus 15
B-52s would have saturated the whole of Base Area 353
with many hundreds of craters some 25 ft. in diameter and
10-15 ft. deep. What would 228 B-52s have done?
All this was supposedly going on unnoticed by the thou-
sands of rubber workers at the French Mimot rubber plan-
tation only ten miles away. Dr. Kissinger can't be serious.
These alleged sanctuaries were the excuse Nixon and Kis-
singer used to invade and subsequently destroy Cambodia.
As The Chemical Scythe records, there were no sanctu-
aries in the Fishhook region and therefore no bombing
could be justified. But the myth has to be kept alive to
maintain Kissinger's credibility. When presented with the
dilemma of why he omitted any reference to what actually
happened in 1969 in Cambodia (defoliation) and described
in detail what did not take place, Kissinger refused to
answer The Chemical Scythe's author. The Air Force,
caught in between, simply deleted all references to the
defoliation.
The Chemical Scythe goes far beyond the wartime uses
of herbicides. It is indeed a book for people with many
diverse interests: chemists concerned with dioxin-
contaminated substances, toxicologists, medical person-
nel, manufacturers of chlorophenol-related compounds,
environmentalists, historians. The chapters dealing with
Seveso and Love Canal are must reading for all who are
concerned with environmental pollution.
The Chemical Scythe is the first book in a series project-
ed by the International Disaster Institute. The aim of the
series is to provide scientific and readable accounts on the
most recent areas of disaster research. Dr. Hay's book sets
very high standards for this much needed series.
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Nem Notes
War Plans for El Salvador
"Shattering the Viet Nam Syndrome: A Scenario for
Success in El Salvador" is the title of a study advocating a
refined military approach to waging a winning war in that
country, already drenched in blood. The 23-page essay has
been making the rounds recently at the Pentagon and the
State Department, and CAIB managed to obtain a copy
from a recipient who was uncomfortable with its
impli-.ations.
Lewis A. Tambs and Frank Aker divide El Salvador
according to its existing political-geographic sectors, and
propose that they be made into five Brigadas, similar to the
four military 1, 11, III, and IV "Corps"divisions by the U.S.
Army of what was South Vietnam. The authors urge adop-
tion of what they call "the tercio technique-strategic of-
fense and tactical defense" and say: "El Salvador is the
ideal testing ground for re-introduction of tercio tactics."
Th.- real thinking of Tambs comes across starkly in the
following passage: "Victory in El Salvador depends on
winning three battles-in the field, in the media, and in
Washington within the administration. All three are ulti-
mate:y wars of the minds of men and the persistent cam-
paign to equate Southeast Asia with Central America is an
integral part of the conflict which is to undermine the West
and to overthrow the United States-the centerpiece of the
coalition."
Frank Aker is a U.S. Navy officer. Lewis A. Tambs is a
well-connected former oil engineer and former history pro-
fessor. In mid-1981, he resigned his teaching post at Arizo-
na State University and, with key backing from Senator
Jess; Helms (Rep.-North Carolina), has since then been a
paid consultant to the National Security Council. He has
been a zealous anti-communist for years.
It was no secret in Washington that Reagan wanted to
reward Tambs with an ambassadorship. The White
House's first choice was Panama, but this met with resist-
ance both in Panama City and on Capitol Hill, so rumors
circulated that Reagan wanted to give him Colombia. The
President skirted the issue during his flying visit to Central
America, where he was confronted by an uncommonly
frank Colombian President, Belisario Betancur. Only after
returning did Reagan formally nominate Tambs.
It remains to be seen whether the Senate confirms Tambs
to this ambassadorship. His visceral political thinking and
the militaristic hawk that dominates the pages of this study
are extremely troubling. He (and Aker) seek to "shatter the
Viet Nam syndrome," where we lost, by winning one in
Central America. As the paper puts it: ". . . the instruments
are at hand for victory in El Salvador."
Spy Vs. Spy:
U.S. Spies on Canada
It appears that the U.S. spies on its friends as well as its
enemies. According to the Toronto Star of September 28,
1982, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) initiated a
one-year, covert intelligence project to learn every detail of
Canada's intelligence service, the Royal Canadian Mount-
ed Police (RCMP).
Operating from February 1981 to January 1982, the U.S.
wanted to know in detail how Canada's special operation
forces conduct unconventional warfare, guerrilla opera-
tions, forgery projects, propaganda, insurgency, terrorism
or support of terrorism, assassinations, use of surrogate
agencies, sabotage, riots, and other destabilization tactics,
agents of influence in demonstrations, and policy with
regard to "anti-American" groups, individuals and activi-
ties. The DIA also wanted details about RCMP's relation-
ships with intelligence agencies in other countries.
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Tambs --Aker 7
Only by destroying the revolutionaries who make the revolution can a
successful conclusion to an extended, insurgency campaign be completed. These
key individuals are concentrated in the revolutionary's infrastructure and cadre.
Trained abroad and patiently infiltrated over a long period of time into the
nation's social, political, intellectual, economic, religious and opinion making
sectors, the revolutionary infrastructure acts as the intermediary between the
insurgent mass and the command post and shock troops of the cadre. The guerrillas
are the body, the infrastructure serves as the nervous system and the cadre is
the brain. Hence, if the body is separated from the system, and the network of
nerves, in turn, is isolated from the cerebrum, the corpse will collapse. This
can be accomplished by severing the enemy's lines of communication and supply.
Since the rebels tend to establish their base camps in frontier areas contiguous
to sympathetic states and/or in inacessable tropical terrain they are able to
either flee across the border or melt away after inflicting heavy losses on the
loyalist forces who have taken the tactical offensive. Conversely, if the allied
armies can uncover and break or block the logistical links between guerrillas,
infrastructure and cadre, then, the rebels, in order to survive must break cover
and attack. Once in the open the irregular levees can be destroyed, eg. Flue in
1968, and the infrastructure and cadre tracked down, isolated, and then allowed
to self-destruct through starvation, attrition or self-im, lation as they beat
themselves to death trying to break out of the double iron ring embracing them.
But how can the loyalists uncover the communications network and provoke the
partisans into attacking?
The Cuban-Sandinista cancer in the Caribbean and Central America can be
QwaRA-J-r# r_
removed through surgery, killed by chemotherapy or isolated through
Armed occupation, incitment of rebellion or air and naval blockade of Cuba
and Nicaragua are the three major options. Should the maximum and secondary
A sample of the Tambs-Aker formula for the Vietnamization of El Salvador.
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While denying that the DIA was actually "spying," a
spokesperson asserted, "you're not really spying on your
allies," but "you do need periodic assessment of your
partner's capabilities." He confirmed the contents of the
DIA directive, a copy of which was sent anonymously to
the Star. The directive ordered DIA components in Cana-
da to make contact with defectors, emigrees, and refugees,
who are codenamed respectively Seek, Peek, and Leep.
Perhaps worried about the capabilities and loyalties of
other partners, the U.S., it was also revealed, is conducting
similar assessments of 33 other countries including some of
its closest and most strategic NATO allies.
Son of a Gun-Maker
Secret identities. Exotic weapons. Hiding underground.
This is the stuff that spies are made of. In this case, howev-
er, it :.s the son of a spy. The life of David Rothman, whose
father designed weapons for the CIA, has not been the
same since he wrote a book on the life of his father.
The book, Mr. Death: The Life of a CIA Assassination
Expert-By His Son, traces the life of Barry Rothman who
was recruited by the CIA while still in high school in the
early fifties. Barry Rothman worked for the CIA for 20
years designing assassination devices such as poisons, ex-
plosives, gun silencers, phosphorus grenades and specially
designed gadgets for special jobs. In 1976, he gave an
interview to Playboy Magazine describing his work using
the pseudonym of"Mr. Death." He died three months later
of a sudden heart attack.
In May 1979, while working on the book, the young
Rothman was shot by a poison dart as he walked down a
Brooklyn street. Surviving the attack, Rothman went un-
derground for two years in order to finish the manuscript.
Attempts to stop the book and its author continue. Mr.
Death was finally published by Playboy Press in June 1982.
Soon after that, however, Playboy Press was purchased by
anot ter company and all promotional work for the book
has suspiciously stopped. Rothman has also had death
threats following appearances on TV shows where he was
promoting his book.
Mr. Rothman, who has done exposes on the nuclear
weapons industry, is continuing to speak out against CIA
domestic assassination programs, a subject with which he
is increasingly familiar.
South Africa Tied to
London Break-Ins
South African involvement in the burglary of the Lon-
don offices of the ANC and SWAPO has recently been
confirmed. When the break-ins first occurred, July 20,
1982 at the ANC office and August 7, 1982 at the SWAPO
offic.-, representatives from both groups charged that
South African agents were responsible. Items stolen in-
cluded U.N. passports, maps, files, photos and pamphlets.
The accusations were vehemently denied by the South
African Embassy.
Now direct links have been established between South
Africa and the two men, Bentil Wedin and Peter Caselton,
charged with handling documents stolen from the offices.
It has been learned that the South African law firm of
Brink, Pfaff and Partners sent a Mr. Hennie Goosen to
consult with Roland Watt, the lawyer who is defending the
two. Mr. Watt stated that Goosen was sent to arrange bail
for Caselton. A spokesman for Brink and Pfaff has refused
to discuss the identity of their client. When contacted by a
journalist, Goosen was rather tense: "I have not asked you
your name so I will ndt tell you mine," he said.
The connection was discovered when Goosen accidental-
ly dropped a scribbled note in a phone booth near a Lon-
don courthouse. The note, written on the letterhead of
Brink and Pfaff, identified and introduced Goosen to the
law firm representing Wedin and Caselton.
Wedin is a Swedish journalist with a history of CIA-
connected right wing activities. He is also rumored to be a
member of the Swedish Nazi Party, the Nordiz Ricks Parti.
Caselton is a former Rhodesian. A third man, Edward
Aspinall, a Briton who actually committed the robberies, is
being sought by the police.
The Heritage Agenda for Power
The impact of the Heritage Foundation upon both the
programs of the Reagan administration and indeed the
thought of Reagan himself has never been completely ap-
preciated by the media and the public. It is especially
important therefore to get a rare glimpse of the inner
workings of the organization. CAIB has received a confi-
dential, 9-page internal Heritage document, drawn up in
late November, which describes the Heritage agenda in
considerable detail.
It is partly a calendar (some of which extends as far
ahead as early 1984) for each of the Heritage executives,
and partly a schedule for future Heritage publications.
They have more than a dozen printed organs, plus syndi-
cated columns in hundreds of U.S. newspapers. There are
40 separate national and international topics under on-
going Heritage research. One section describes a wide
range of administrative components that demonstrate the
size and scope of Heritage's overall program, such as prior-
ities for organizational data processing, strategies for pub-
lications marketing, and the need for an alphabetized list of
companies supporting Heritage.
Efforts by Heritage to extend a helping hand to the CIA
and other U.S. intelligence agencies are also proceeding
apace. Heritage's voluminous hard-line intelligence stra-
tegy paper for the Reagan administration, produced be-
tween the November 1980 election and the January 1981
inaugural, became the fulcrum for many of the ensuing
intelligence policy changes and the swift expansion of CIA-
FBI-NSA powers, both in the U.S. and overseas. (See
CAIB Numbers 10 and 12.)
In mid-1982, Andrew Tully, a conservative journalist
who has authored 16 books including three about intelli-
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gence, came aboard for a year at Heritage to work on a new
book and lectures about "CIA reform," and to plan a series
of luncheons for media people who cover the CIA and FBI
beats.
MONDAY 29 Management Meet Ong 9:15 a
EJF Middendorf Luncheon 12m00 p.m.
JVK Chicago
PT Meet w/Fred Cornish (AVA Program) 1030 p
.m.
PT BYP NSR Luncheon 12:00 p.m
VG Lunch w/Spencer Warren (CongNialdoI
BW Breakfast Meeting w/Herman Ntc ci
MW Meet w/Edwin Feulner 2:30 p.m.
TUESDAY 30 EJF RH Hayek Lecture & Di~gr
JVK Chicago r
WAJ Vacation
BYP IBAC/Barovick Luncheon 1230 p.m
VG BW Waiter Kravir Luncheon
WEDNESDAY I EJF Study Group ov .S. Grand Strategy Breakfast Meeting 8:00 a.m.
EH Manhattan Institute Radio Taping 11:00 a.m.
EJF Intervieyy~~by Thomas Mack (ALEC) 2:30 p.m.
EJF Meet v/'~itry Debeauche, ELF (French Petroleum Company) 4:00 p.m.
PT Lunch w/G Knight (Synfuels Corp.) 12:00 p.m.
WAJ Personnel Luncheon 1200 p.m.
RH White House Staffers Luncheon
BYP LuIh /Sanders 12:00 p.m.
THURSDAY 2 EJF PT 6 Pak 1200 p ?k
JF Portland, Oregon
J0'S Sharon Dinner
B CSIS/IC Group 8:00 a
FRIDAY b
VG CongressionaI Staff Training Seminar
BW Japanese Luncheon
BYP New Members Congress panel 1:30 p.m.
MW Meet '/MI. Perrone (Insurance) 11:00 a.m.
PT RI VG Staff Training Seminar
WAJ Sherman Luncheon
RH BW Lunch w/Honduran Businessmen
BYP Vacation
In early 1983, Heritage plans to publish another two-
year blueprint for the Reagan government. "Agenda 1983"
will examine every federal agency to see how they are
conforming to the 1,093-page 1981 volume, "Mandate for
Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative Admin-
istration." They aren't even waiting for it to get into print
before implementing it. The President of Heritage, Edwin
J. Feulner, Jr. (EJF) sits on a "Study Group on U.S. Grand
Strategy." A Heritage spokesperson told CAIB that this
body is a joint venture with the Center for Strategic and
International Studies.
Destabilization in Suriname
There was another attempt, in late October, to over-
throw the legitimate and "emerging" socialist government
of Suriname. A recent visit by Grenadian Prime Minister
Maurice Bishop and developing relations with the revolu-
tionary governments of Cuba and Nicaragua are provok-
ing domestic and international hostilities from right-wing
forces. Since its revolution in early 1980, Suriname has
thwarted at least four other major coup attempts that
increasingly appear to be tied to the CIA.
Squeezed between two pro-U.S. countries, Guyana and
French Guiana, the tiny nation of Suriname was a Dutch
colony until 1975 when political independence was
achieved. Economic exploitation continued, however, by
the Dutch and North American multinational corpora-
tions assisted by the corrupt and inefficient Henck A.E.
Arron government. High unemployment, dilapidated
housing, low literacy, and poverty characterized the post-
independence government leading to economic and politi-
cal crises by late 1979. Finally, democratic forces in the
military, led by Lt. Colonel Desi Bouterse, took over state
power on February 25, 1980, ousting the Arron
government.
Since that time four major coup plots have been un-
covered. In April 1980, a plan to seize power by Army
Lieutenant Rambocus was discovered early and those in-
volved arrested. In May 1980, former members of the
Arron government and Holland-trained mercenaries tried
also to overthrow the government. Again the plan was
found out and the collaborators caught. Ten months later
in March 1981, Army Sergeant Major Hawker led an
unsuccessful plot to liquidate government leaders. One
year later, on March 10, 1982, Hawker and Rambocus
(who had been released from jail) and some other army
officers battled for two days with government forces before
finally giving up. According to documents in the posses-
sion of the government, the U.S. and Dutch embassies had
prior kowledge of all of these counter-revolutionary
attacks.
In the most recent destabilization attempt, right-wing
trade unions led a campaign of strikes, slander and sabo-
tage. According to the Guyana Mirror of November 7,
1982, they were aided and abetted by the CIA. Formal
protests to the U.S. Embassy have been ignored. The cam-
paign had as its final objective a general strike which the
government was able to nip in the bud. (See the Grenada
Free West Indian, November 3, 1982.)
Connected to this destabilization campaign were plans
for a mercenary-led coup organized by a right-wing group
known as the "Committee for the Re-establishment of
Democracy." Stanley Joemman, a Surinamese govern-
ment envoy to Grenada, told a press conference that "15
million Dutch guilders have been set aside" for this opera-
tion (Free West Indian, October 16, 1982). This group is
being led by Rob Warmer, who is based in Holland and is
trying to build support among the 150,000 Surinamese who
live there. Mercenaries who are being recruited for this
action have previously worked in the Congo, Uganda, and
the French Foreign Legion.
It is no wonder that the Suriname government is com-
paring the tactics being used against it to those used to
destabilize and finally overthrow the progressive govern-
ments of Jagan in Guyana, Allende in Chile, and Manley in
Jamaica.
FLASH: As CAIB went to press, reports were just coming
in that yet another coup attempt, this time a major one, has
been thwarted. On December 8, 1982 approximately 30 to
40 opposition figures were arrested in what ap pears to have
been a last ditch attempt to overthrow the government. The
next day, according to the yet unclear reports in the U.S.
press, more than a dozen of the plotters were killed in an
abortive escape plot, which may have involved others not
rounded up the previous day. Vitriolic reactions from the
U.S. State Department stressed that "our entire relation-
ship with Suriname is under review, including our aid
program."
Number 18 (Winter 1983) CovertAction 63
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Court Rolls Over For NSA /11
A devastating blow to the constitutional rights of every-
one in this country was dealt on October 21, 1982. Accord-
ing to the New York Times (November 7), a federal appeals
court ruled that the National Security Agency is now law-
fully permitted to intercept private telephonic and tele-
graphic messages between U.S. citizens and persons over-
seas, even if there exists no reason to believe the U.S. party
is an agent of any foreign power. The court also legalized
the sharing of the intercepted messages with other intelli-
gence agencies and foreign governments.
The precedent-setting decision involved the case of
Abde,.-n Jabara, a progressive Michigan-born Arab-
American lawyer who for years has been defending fellow
Arab-Americans and other aliens in their own court bat-
tles. The government confirmed it had been investigating
Jabara since at least 1967, and the FBI was forced in prior
court hearings to admit it had solicited and received from
the NSA summaries of Jabara's overseas communications.
The FBI then had provided the data to 17 other intelligence
and law-enforcement agencies, as well as to three foreign
governments.
Nct only does the ruling give legal standing to institu-
tionalized violation of every citizen's rights under the
Fourth Amendment-which protects individuals from un-
reasonable searches and seizures. Many observers have
noted that the sweeping judgement opens dangerous new
vistas in the United States for the operations of all the U.S.
intelligence agencies. At present, before it can commence a
wiretap surveillance or a physical search, the FBI is re-
quired by law to get a warrant from a federal judge or from
the special, highly secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court set up in 1978. The court's decision gives the gov-
ernment leave to ignore the warrant requirement and rely
on the NSA to do the riskier dirty work that needs doing so
as to avoid the encumbrances of the law.
Saad Haddad:
Israel's Triggerman
in Lebanon
One of the most notorious examples of religion in
the service of fascism is the alliance between Major
Saad Haddad of the "Free Lebanon" forces and the
High Adventure Ministries of Los Angeles. High
Adventure runs the radio station Voice of Hope,
beamed from northern Israel throughout southern
and central Lebanon. While much of the program-
ming presents typical fundamentalist preaching, and
the ubiquitous country and western music, the sta-
tion is continually used by Haddad to harangue the
Lebanese. One person who frequently organizes fund-
raising events for the radio station is the born-again
singer, Pat Boone.
It is from the Voice of Hope that Haddad an-
nounces his periodic shelling of Sidon and other
towns, attacks which continue to claim many inno-
cent victims. On numerous occasions Haddad has
ordered the gunning down or shelling of civilians,
despite his so-called "faith." Haddad is known to
have opened fire on a Lebanese Boy Scouts Jambo-
ree; to have shelled the city of Sidon repeatedly; and
to have fired on U.N. peacekeeping troops in a petu-
lant fit when they would not obey his order to leave
"his" territory. While he, and his Israeli sponsors,
have denied that he had any role in the Beirut massa-
cres, Haddad was in Beirut at the time of the
butchery, and although he claims the Lebanese Army
has exonerated him, their spokesman, according to
Jack Anderson's column (October 16, 1982), denies
this.
CAIB has obtained a copy of a recent letter from
Major Haddad to George Otis, the Director of High
Adventure, which we reprint here. While it confirms
the substantial assistance Major Haddad receives
from High Adventure, it does not clarify how as-
sisting a military commander in a war represents a
religious activity. Indeed, according to Anderson,
High Adventure's tax exempt status is already being
challenged.
64 CovertAction Number 18 (Winter 1983)
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MAJOR SAAD HADOAD
COMMANDER
FREE LEBANON
October 7,1982
I am sure with the recent confusion and
distortion of the news, particulary about the
horrible massacre, many are wondering what
really is happening over here.
Our friends, the Israelis, and I have
been falsely accused. It is a part of a satanic
plot to discredit all the good work which God
has been doing here.
I want you to knovi that in the name of our
holy God, I had no part whatsoever in the heinous
massacre in the Palestinian refugee camps up in
Beirut. The Lebanese Army has cleared my name
and so have the Israeli authorities.
My heart is bleeding over these lies about
me. At a time like this it is a great temptation
for me to gust quit. Pray for me. The last
6 years of trying to establish a true Christian
country have left me weary. Then with the present
character assassination by many in the news
media, I feel you and the High Adventure people
are friends God has given me for such a time as
this.
God
has
done great things here in our land.
You and
your
people have played a part in this.
We must
not
allow the enemy to discourage us.
Instead,
we
must redouble our efforts to bring
salvation and sanity to my beloved country.
Thank you also for your great relief achievements
through the Lebanon Aid work, especially to
the widows and the war children.
Will you stand with me? Will you pray
for me? Please pray for a return to God and for a
revival of love in my country.
J
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(continued from page 68)
fare operations in Nicaragua, Italy, Chile, and Jamaica
have all involved similar, if less grandiose "illumination"
patterned after the Army psywar manual's instructions on
the use of Christian symbolism.
Such cynical attempts to terrorize people by manipulat-
ing their religious beliefs probably dates to antiquity. In the
United States, the predecessor to Lansdale's operations
was the World War Two experience against the Japanese in
the Pacific.
The British war against the Mau Mau in Kenya involved
attempts to manipulate popular beliefs in witchcraft,
sorcety, and magic. When the U.S. Department of Defense
learned of this, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Military
Operations commissioned the Cultural Information Anal-
ysis Center to study the possible use of these techniques in
the Congo. The final study, titled "Witchcraft, Sorcery,
Magic, and Other Psychological Phenomena and Their
Implications on Military and Paramilitary Operations in
the Congo," was released by the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee in 1968.
Yet Congress has never condemned these deadly uses of
religion and religious belief. In its final report, the Church
Committee declared:
The Committee considers religious groups like
academia and the press to be among the most im-
portant of our society's institutions. As such, any
covert relationship that might either influence them
or. eopardize their reputation is extremely sensitive.
But the committee's proposed ban (which in any case is
not being observed) would have little effect since its inves-
tigation "focused exclusively on the use of U.S. religious
organizations." In fact, as most of the recent exposes have
shown, the CIA's primary strategy was to manipulate, if
not indeed to create, existing religious institutions in areas
where they wished to engage in religious manipulation.
Such target areas have, reasonably enough, been those
places where religion plays a central role in the lives of the
masses of the people. Central America is such a region, and
that is why the study of the CIA's manipulation of religion,
particularly evangelical groups, is so important to the
struggles in Central America.
Coming Soon:
DEADLY DECEITS
My 25 Years in the CIA
By Ralph W. McGehee
Ralph McGehee spent 25 years in the
CIA, much of it as a case officer in southeast
Asia. He saw the folly of the Vietnam War
and argued, to no avail, with the likes of
William Colby. This is his timely story of
how the CIA distorts reality to conform to
the political line coming from Washington.
This 250-page book, with an appendix, a
glossary, and a detailed index, will be
published February 1. Order your copy
now.
Also available from the publisher: White
Paper? Whitewash! by Philip Agee and
Warner Poelchau on the CIA and El
Salvador.
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Back Issues
All back issues are available from CAIB (although Number I and Number 6 are available only in photocopy).
(Microform versions are available from University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48106.) Highlights of
issues are noted below. Please note extra charges for institutions and for foreign orders.
Number I (July 197)4): Agee on CIA; Cuban Exile Na!: Consumer Research in Jamaica.
Number 2 (October 19714): 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 1970): 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 "I'erspectives or Intcll~gence."
Number 7 (December 1979-,January 19140): Media Destabiliruion in Jamaica: Robert Moss; CIA Budget; Media Operations, t!NII A: Iran.
Number 8 (March-April 19)40): 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, Destabilisation inJamaica: Guyana; Grenada Bombing: Antigua and Dominica, l lie Spike: Deep Cover
Manual.
Number I I (December 1980): Right-Wing Terrorism; South Korea; KCIA: Portugal: Guyana: Caribbean; AT 10: NSA Intersiess.
Number 12 (April 1981): U.S. in 1:1 Salsador and Guatemala; New Right: William Casey; Moiamhique Spy Ring; Mail Sur\ cillance.
Number 13 (July-August 1981): South Africa Documents; Namibia "Solution;" Mercenaries and Gunrunning: I he Klan: Globe Acro Angola: Morun-
bique: 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.
Number 16(March 1982): Green Beret Torture in El Salvador: Argentine Death Squads; CIA Media Operations, Seschclles; Angola: Moiamhique: Klan
Karibbcan Koup Attempt; Nugan Hand.
Number 17 (Summer 1982): History of Biochemical Warfare: Current CBW Plans; Cuban Dengue Epidemic: Scott Barnes and the Yellow Rain
Fabrications: Mystery Death in Bangkok.
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Sources and Methods:
CIA Religion
By Ken Lawrence
When the CIA turns to religion it is not for the purpose
of uplifting humanity, but to bring on the death and de-
structi:)n that is the CIA's stock in trade.
For many years the CIA's high priest was Brigadier
General Edward Lansdale, whose exploits became so well
known that characters in two novels ( The American
and The Quiet American) were modeled after him.
In the 1950s Lansdale, then a colonel, was sent to the
Philippines to advise then Defense Minister Ramon Mag-
saysay in the war against the Huk guerrillas. Stanley Kar-
now interviewed Lansdale in 1972 and reported on one of
his most macabre operations, quoted in The CIA and the
Cult of Intelligence by Victor Marchetti and John Marks:
One psywar operation played on the superstitious
dred in the Philippine countryside of the asuang, a
mythical vampire. A psywar squad entered an area,
and planted rumors that an asuang lived on where the
Communists were based. Two nights later, after giv-
ing the rumors time to circulate among Huk sympa-
thizers, the psywar squad laid an ambush for the
rebels. When a Huk patrol passed, the ambushers
snatched the last man, punctured his neck vampire-
fashion with two holes, hung his body until the blood
drained out, and put the corpse back on the trail. As
superstitious as any other Filipinos, the insurgents
fled from the region.
Although that is probably a self-serving, overly facile
account, the Huk rebellion was defeated, Magsaysay was
elected president of the Philippines, and Lansdale's star
rose in the CIA.
Emboldened by that success, Lansdale proposed invok-
ing Christ to assist the CIA in its war against Cuba. The
plan, described to the Senate Select Committee on Intelli-
gence by Thomas Parrott, was part of Operation
MONGOOSE, a major 1962 covert action:
I'll give VOL] one example of Lansdale's perspicacity.
He had a wonderful plan for getting rid of Castro.
This plan consisted of spreading the word that the
Second Coming of Christ was imminent and that
Christ was against Castro [who] was anti-Christ. And
you would spread this word around Cuba, and then
on whatever date it was, that there would be a mani-
festation of this thing. And at that time this is abso-
lutely true and at that time just over the horizon
there would bean American submarine which would
surface off Cuba and send up some starshells. And
this would be the manifestation of the Second Com-
ing and Castro would be overthrown .... Well, some
wag called this operation and somebody dubbed
this Elimination by Illumination.
MONGOOSE was a failure, but, as Fred Landis has
shown (CA/B Number 16), the CIA's psychological war-
(continued on page 66)
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