WOULD-BE RAMBOS SWIM INTO MAINSTREAM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000201100001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 11, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: September 22, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

I
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/11: CIA
ARTICLE AP?' ED CHICAGO TRIBUNE
ON PAGE 22 September 1985
Nation/world
Brown acknowledged in an inter-
view that "a really big key" to his
entry into the mainstream has
been President Reagan's moves to
get around Congress' desire to
limit U.S. involvement in Central
America by calling for voluntary
help from the private sector.
Operating out of a headquarters
in Boulder that now includes a
warehouse for storing combat sup-
plies, Brown's group has sent
Would-be Rambos swim into
By James Coates mainstream
Chicago Tribune
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I.AS VEGAS--Whi
Fortune magazine publisher Bob
Brown stood beside the Sahara
Hotel's pool being interviewed by a
Finnish television reporter, explo-
sives expert John Donovan was in
the water teaching a group of
would-be mercenaries the finer
'Points of planting bombs in Central
American rivers.
Nearby, as barelegged "keno
ls" scurried about collecting
bets for the bingo-like gambling
game, another group of "mercs"-
as the mercenaries like to call
themselves-practiced knife-
fighting techniques beneath the
hotel palm trees.
"Even for Vegas this is weird,"
said Richard Yuthas of Scottsdale,
Ariz., a hotel guest, as he watched
Donovan's students bobble about
the swimming pool in full scuba
regalia and men in camouflage
clothing fighting with knives and
Oriental fighting sticks.
It was the Sixth Annual Soldier
of Fortune Convention and Combat
Weapons Expo, a yearly party
Brown throws for readers and
friends who lead lives of mystery
and intrigue in the world's
backwaters and back alleys.
But in some ways, the gathering
last week of aficionados of Ameri-
ca's leading journal of paramili-
tary affairs was less weird and
more part of the American main-
stream than past events.
After a decade of existence on
the fringes of the radical right
survivalist movement, Brown sud-
denly has found himself in the role
of a newsmaker.
Ten years ago, Brown, a former
Army Special Forces officer in
Vietnam, started the magazine in
a miner's shack on the outskirts of
Boulder, Colo.
The lead article on Volume 1
Issue 1 was devoted to "un
derwater knife-fighting techni-
ques" and the ads focused on "how
to kill" books and cheap outdoors
gear, Brown recalled.
Today, the magazine has mul-
timillion-dollar revenues and ads
from such major gun makers as
Beretta, Colt and Ruger. And,
Brown notes with glee, "people are
taking us seriously for the first
time."
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donated by magazine readers.
SOF's other activities are financed
by magazine revenues, he added,
and by contributions from wealthy
individuals, some of whom even he
doesn't know.
None of the monev he said,
comes from the U.S. mtel iaence
STAT
commum
have friends I trust who know
who is giving the money, and I
know that it is not government,"
said the adventurer turned publish-
er.
Reporters from German
France, an an Brit-
ain Brown
at the convention on whether is
an operative o
"I~tell them no; but they don't
want to believe it," he said.
But because of what he is doing
in Central America, Brown has
become a celebrity, sought out not
only by the world's press corps but
also by Hollywood and even. the
U.S. government.
Moments before going on Fin-
nish television, Brown received a
visit from Academy Award-win-
ning actor Robert Duvall, who said
he wanted to know how to play the
role of a mercenary in an
upcoming film.
Brown said he had been a techni-
cal adviser for Sylvester Stallone
on the hugely popular "First
Blood" movies and that his maga-
zine had run bare-chested macho
poses of both Stallone's Rambo
character and body builder Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
Another indication of the rehabil-
itation of SOF was the appearance
of representatives from the federal
Drug Enforcement Administration
who wanted to ask Brown and his
followers for advice in attacking
cocaine traffic in south Florida.
An estimated 800 people, most of
them men and virtually all in mili-
tary camouflage clothing, attended
volunteer civilian delegations of
demolition experts, automatic
weapons instructors and others to
El Salvador to train soldiers for
the U.S.-backed army.
Demolition expert Donovan said
he recently trained Salvadoran
commandos to spot enemy booby
traps and to plant their own.
"I know they killed some folks
using the expertise I gave them,"
said Donovan, president of Dono-
van Demolition Inc. of Danvers.
Ill., which specializes in blowing
up bridges and buildings for rail-
roads and construction companies.
"I like to think we're doing
something useful, that we're
fighting back against commu-
nism," said the bomb expert, a
hulking man with a shaved bald
head and a single small gold ear-
ring.
Donovan, who also went with
Brown to Afghanistan Provide
similar training for rebel forces
fighting Soviet troops, said he was
one of 12 "SOF" [Soldier of For-
tune] freelance military trainers.
In addition to dispatching advis-
ers, Brown's group sends food,
clothing and medical supplies to
the Salvadoran military and the
rebels in Nicaragua fighting to
overthrow the leftist Sandinista
government.
However, Alexander McColl, a
director of the resupply unit who
wears a pin reading, "I'd rather be
killing Communists," denied that
SOF is supplying guns and explo-
sives.
The laws and bureaucratic red
tape involved in the movement of
weapons in large enough quantities
to be useful just make it not worth
the hassle to send weaponry,"
McColl said.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/11: CIA-RDP90-00845R000201100001-3