DEATH OF PLO COULD SPREAD REIGN OF TERROR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150066-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 29, 2012
• Sequence Number: 66
• Publication Date: August 23, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STA-r
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/29: CIA-R
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE
THE WASHINGTON POST
23 August 1982
DP90-00965R000100150066-6
Death of PLO
Could Spread
Reign of Terror
As the sands run out on the Pal-
estine Liberation Organization in
Lebanon, intelligence analysts pre
dict it will disintegrate into a dozen
underground groups that will spread
terror and revolution throughout the
western world.
In fact, the PLO has never been
anything more than a collection of
revolutionary bands and aggressive
egos held together by a web of agree-
ments and alliances. Its charismatic
chairman, Yeager Arafat, has limited
control over its disparate parts.
Now that its 12 fighting factions
have been defeated on the battle-
fields of Lebanon, the stuvivors are
expected to go underground. They
will work closely, the analysts be-
lieve, with revolutionary movements
around the world.
Stiiely, they will take out their
'vengeance on Americans. U.S. gov-
ernment and corporate officials may
become the victims of shootings and
kidnapings, the analysts fear. The
PLO may even try to set up a ter-
rorist base in the United States.
The PLO turned Lebanon, as I
have reported in the past, into a
haver for terrorists. During a recent
tour of the Lebanese front, I spoke
with PLO soldiers who had trained
with *foreigners." The foreigners had
not stayed to fight in Lebanon but
had returned to take the "revolution"
to their homelands, the soldiers said.
In the rubble of an abandoned
PLO post I also found documents
that revealed the PLO's close con-
nections with revolutionary move-
ments. The evidence proved that the
Soviet Union supports and subsi-
dizes these movements as part of an
underground campaign to destabilize
western democracies.
Israeli troops captured stacks of
documents, which corroborate thest
findings. In Washington. my asso-
ciate Lucette Lagnado double-
'checked the contents of these doc-
uments with State Department
sources, intelligence analysts and
Library of Congress experts.
One document gives an inside
look at the relations between the
PLO and East Germany. It is the
transcript, in Arabic, of meetings
that a PLO delegation held with
East German military brass in East
Berlin just last April.
The PLO delegation was greeted
at the airport by East German of-
ficials, including the deputy defense
minister, Gen. Werner Fleissner. The
captured document indicates prep-
arations for extensive military coop-
eration between the PLO and East
Germany.
For example, one East German
official is quoted as telling the Pal:
eatinian visitors that his government
was studying "an agreement . . . to:
accept trainees from the liberation' -
organization and attach them to our i
military schools." f
He outlined the training that
would be offered to the PLO, and -
then asked: -"The Marxist-Leninist!.
doctrine constitutes the basis for
training. Do you have any objections
to that?" According to the transcript, -'?
the PLO man replied: "None at all;".
The PLO delegates asked that
their guerrillas be instructed 'within
the same training framework' as the
East German army. Their hosts
countered: "They will be training'.
with German officers, but as an in.. -
dependent group, as their proficien-
cy in the German language is limit,.
ed." ? -
A question was raised over thee
length of training that would be.
given to the PLO recruits. The East
Germans' three-year hitch was too
long for the PLO's taste, so the Ger-.
mans agreed to *speed up training".
for the guerrillas.
?Intelligence sources note that East '
Germany is only one of a number of
Soviet bloc countries that have;
.played host to the PLO.
.9Iy sources say PLO recruits have
been trained in the use of Warsaw
Pact military hardware, and intel-
ligence analysts suspect the goal was
for the FLU to attain the capabil-
ities of a conventional army, instead
of just a guerrilla force.
I Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/29: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150066-6