COVERT ACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN: SPECIAL: U.S. LINKS TO MERCENARIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000100180009-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 44
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 9, 2010
• Sequence Number: 9
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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51H1
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INFORMATION BULLETIN
Number 22 $3.00
Special: U.S. Linlts to Mercenaries
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Editorial
Goveriintent Issue Mercenaries
Once it appeared impossible to cover up the origin of the air-
craft involved in the maneuvers of the Civilian-Military Assist-
ance group, the public was fed a flurry of articles about how
Air Force property could work its way into the hands of pri-
vate, civilian mercenaries. This was a good example of the
CIA and the Pentagon trying to cut their losses. Absent from
the ens uing discussion was any explanation of the govern-
ment's deep ties to the CMA crowd and the other mercenaries
reported)}~ in Honduras and Costa Rica with the contras. They
were not so independent of the U.S. government as the press
secretaries would have us believe. Can anyone really believe
that private American citizens could fly in and out of EI Sal-
vador and Honduras with tons of weapons and supplies without
active, not passive, U.S. government assistance?
[n this issue we report at length on the history of U.S. in-
volvement with mercenaries and on the leading mercenary
public relations organization, Soldier of Fortune. We report
painstalcing inside investigations into the mercenary outfits and
their Pentagon and CIA links. Taken together, the stories con-
firm substantial and direct connections between the mer-
cenarie~~; in Central America, the CIA, and the Pentagon.
In this issue we also show that the U.S. Army is not only
training mercenaries to fight like soldiers, it is also training sol-
diers to fight like mercenaries. Active duty U.S. troops, as
well as American civilians, are fighting and dying with the
contras; the Special Forces are engaged in large scale training
in guerrilla combat, small unit maneuvers, and use of out-
moded and surplus equipment moves which can only suggest
workinl; with, or as, mercenaries, something the American
people ought not condone or finance.
Additionally, we present an analysis of the "privatization"
of part of the war against Nicaragua and against the FMLN, the
use of ostensibly religious or humanitarian groups to funnel
materiel and supplies to the combatants.
We also present an analysis of the administration's use of
terrorism as an excuse for the virtual imposition of a police
state mentality on its foreign policy. And we look in some de-
tail at two places where U.S.-sponsored terrorism is at its most
active, southern Africa and Nicaragua.
Manuel Buendia
On May 30, 1984, Mexican journalist Manuel Buendia was
gunned down in a Mexico city parking lot. For 30 years, Buen-
dia had relentlessly exposed corruption and dirty tricks on the
Mexican political scene, most recently in his widely read col-
umn Red Privadn (Private Network) in the influential daily Ex-
celsior.
Buendia was an expert on the CIA, its activities in Latin
America, and especially its interferences in Mexico. We were
honored to have corresponded regularly with him since the
founding of this magazine. His assassination, which most ob-
servers consider a terrorist action involving both CIA and
right-wing forces, is a blow to the ongoing movement to ex-
pose the machinations of the C[A. Only a month before his
death, La C/A en Merrco, a collection of his speeches and col-
umns on CIA intervention, was published-a partial memorial
to his life's work.
Please Come Out of the Closet
In recent months two former C[A employees, one a contract
analyst and the other a veteran case officer and former Chief of
Station, have openly attacked the shocking lack of objectivity
in CIA analyses under Director William Casey.
In June, David MacMichael, a well known academic who
had spent two years as a CIA analyst specializing in Central
America, publicly denounced as distorted and manipulative the
government's assertions that Nicaragua was a major source for
~ab1e of Contents
Editorial
2
SoF's Seamy Side
22
Pen~:agon Terrorism Moves
4
Nicaraguan Overthrow Plans
2 5
CAI]S Special Forces
Secret GAO Report
29
Investigation
6
"Privatizing" the War
30
Hist~~ry of Mercenaries
10
News Notes
34
SoF'~s Robert K. Brown
12
U.S. and South Africa
36
Fronn Phoenix to CMA
18
The Fascist Network
44
Cover: Sandinista soldiers probe wreckaee ofCIA-contra plane shot down inside Nicara?ua. Credit: E/ Nuevo Diario.
CovertAction Lnformation Bultetrn, Number 22, Fall 1984, published by Covert Action Publications, Inc., a District of Columbia Nonprofit corporation, P.O. Box
50272, Washington, DC 20004; telephones [phone] and [phone]. All rights reserved; copyright ?by Covert Action Publications, [nc. Typography by
Your Type, Islew York, NY; printing by Faculty Press, Brooklyn, NY. Washington staff: Ellen Ray, William Schaap, and Louis Wolf. Board of Advisers: Philip
Agee, t{en Lawrence, Clarence Lusane. Elsie Wilcott, Jim Wilcott. Indexed in the Alternative Press Index; ISSN 0275-309X.
2 CovertAction Number 22 (Fall 1984)
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the flow of arms to the FMLN in EI Salvador. MacMichael as-
serted that the CIA's research on the subject, which he had
been privy to, and had analyzed, did not support the conclu-
sions publicly expressed by high administration figures. There
was no proof of such an arms flow, he said, and when the CIA
refused to consider his protestations, neither was willing to
renew his contract with the Agency.
In September, John R. Horton, former Chief of Station in
Mexico and in Uruguay, and Deputy Chief of the Latin Ameri-
can Division at Headquarters, first spoke publicly of his resig-
nation from the CIA in May, after having been recalled from
eight years of retirement in 1983. Horton's falling out with
Casey had to do with the Director's refusal to accept the con-
clusions of Norton's analysis of conditions in Mexico, his re-
fusal in particular to emphasize any threat to the national secu-
rity of the United States from that quarter.
It seems clear that the CIA, under the Reagan administration
is affected more than ever with the same disease which encour-
aged so much disillusion in the late 1970x: the refusal to tailor
policy recommendations to the facts and the insistence on mis-
representing the facts in order to jibe with policy. This is a
major reason why U.S. Foreign policy is such a disaster.
We can only hope that more officials and former officials
will demonstrate the courage shown by MacMichael and Hor-
ton. Only a chorus of such revelations will change current poli-
cies.
Grenada, One Year Later
It is one year since the murder of Maurice Bishop and his
colleagues and the U.S. invasion of Grenada. Reports suggest
In Memoriam
that conditions on the island, particularly in the areas of em-
ployment and education, have greatly deteriorated. Elec-
tions are scheduled for December 3, under U.S. occupation
and supervision, with a highly financed strongly pro-West co-
alition carrying the U.S. banner. Despite restrictions on public
gatherings and political activity, supporters of the slain Prime
Minister, led by former NMJ leaders Kenrick Radix, George
Louison, and Einstein Louison, are leading a slate campaign-
ing in the name of the memory of Maurice Bishop. If the undi-
minished popularity of that memory can overcome the oppres-
sive atmosphere of a year of occupation (300 U.S. troops are
still there), the U.S. administration could be in for a surprise
First Principles'?
We rarely criticize our colleagues in the pages of CA1B, be-
cause we have never believed infighting of any kind to be help-
ful in the struggle against U.S. covert operations. However, we
must comment on an article in the May/June 1984 issue of
First Principles, the journal of the Center for National Security
Studies.
The piece, by Jay Peterzell, entitled "identities Law Does
Not Impair Or hnpede Press," is, in our opinion, scandalous.
For some reason-one which it is not difficult to guess-
the national security project of the American Civil Liberties
Union has chosen to proclaim at length the alleged failure of
the Intelligence identities Protection Act to "chill" anyone ex-
cept the Co~?ertActiorr Informathm Bulletin.
The gist of the argument is a textbook example of a logical
fallacy. It is that, since several articles exposing intelligence
identities have appeared in the major media over the past two
years, and since a few macho journalists have announced (with
no evidence) that no law is going to stop [hem from doing
whatever they want, therefore no one is being chilled from re-
searching, writing, or publishing exposures which include the
identities of undercover intelligence operatives. That. we sub-
mit, is so much eyewash.
The few articles cited as proof of the author's thesis are all
from the major, establishment media, but even they do not
prove that the Netir York Times or anyone else has not been
chilled. Most of the stories cited deal with old events; not one
of them identifies a particular individual as a CIA attirer un-
dercover in a U.S. Embassy or elsewhere. We cannot tell of
course, what has been left out of a story; we can only see what
has been left in. But these are just quibbles. The real point is
that failure to chill the New York Times is no proof of failure to
chill thousands of less prestigious publications, writers, resear-
chers, academics, historians, and the like. Peterzell concludes
that this is one of those laws "that accomplish a narrow pur-
pose by being enacted." He misconstrues that purpose, how-
ever, and he does the progressive community a disservice by
the publication of this unabashedly seN~-justifying article.
The reason for the ploy seems clear. The ACLU is under
strong attack for its new policy of legislative compromise in
favor of court-room absolutism, a policy it believes is justified
by the conservative nature of the current Supreme Court.
The ACLU-CIA deal-making on the Intelligence Identities
Protection Act was just the beginning of the institution of this
new policy. The latest example, one for which the ACLU also
received widespread criticism, is its capitulation to the CIA's
demand for the exemption of its operational files from the
coverage of the Freedom of Information Act.
Moreover, one of the formulators and leading practitioners
of that new policy is running for high ACLU office. It there-
fore behooves the promoters of compromise to try to show that
their most notorious compromise wasn't so bad after all. Since
that is not even true, the spread of this disinformation is doubly
wrong. ~
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Pentagon Moves on "terrorism"
By EII?n Ray and Bi11 Schaap
To Lnderstand the increasingly confusing public debate over
"terrorisim," it is essential to acknowledge the ideological
semanlic:ism inherent in defining the term, particularly within
the Reagan administration. In its 1980 report on the subject,
the CIA defined terrorism as "the threat or use of violence for
political purposes by individuals or groups, whether acting for,
or in opposition to, established governmental authority, when
such actions are intended to shock or intimidate a target group
wider than the immediate victims."Amore precise definition
was put forward recently by former CIA Director William
Colby .n a New York Times Op Ed piece (July 8, 1984). His en-
suing discussion of terrorism, however, suggested that he did
not comprehend his own meaning.
Colby noted that terrorism "is a tactic of indiscriminate vio-
lence used against innocent bystanders for political effect-and
it muse: be distinguished from the selective use of violence
against tlhe symbols and institutions of a contested power,
which s unfortunately a norm of international life." This is an
accurate statement as far as it goes, although, as international
law :professor Alfred P. Rubin noted in a letter to the Editor of
the 1Ve~a York Times responding to Colby (July l 1, 1984), it
would be clearer to define terrorism as "acts committed in time
of peace 'that, if committed by a soldier in time of war, would
be war crimes."
Colby demonstrates an utter failure to grasp his own defini-
tion. He says the distinction is necessary "to distinguish `your'
terrorist from `my' freedom-fighter or to differentiate aid to
terrorists from covert support of friendly forces like the Nicara-
guan con;rras, or counterrevolutionary fighters. Aid to friendly
guerrilla forces, from the American colonists to the Afghans
today, ~s a regular part of the international contest, whereas the
indiscriminate use of violence can be denounced on a solid
moral I>asis. "
In a burst of unmitigated hypocrisy, Colby glosses over the
most important issue: Suppose the "friendly forces" one aids
are using indiscriminate violence as a part of their struggle?
Columnist Carl T. Rowan focused on the discrepancy in the
Chicag~~ Sun-Times (April 30, 1984): "In the eyes of officials
and citizens of a given country, a `terrorist' is someone who is
killing Friends, but the murderer of political enemies is labeled
a `retie:' or a `freedom fighter.' "
Rowan's remarks were made in the context of examining the
deeply ingrained double standard which infects virtually all the
establishment media in this country. The bombing of the
Marine barracks in Beirut and the shooting at passersby from
the Libyan Embassy in London received massive coverage in
the LJ.S. But, Rowan notes, two days after the London inci-
dent, UN]'TA guerrillas, supported overtly by South Africa and
coverth~ by the United States, drove a car bomb into a govern-
ment building in Huambo, Angola, killing 20 Cubans and 10
Angolans. The massacre was unreported for three days, and
then was given barely an inch or two in the U.S. press. A more
recent example is the Reagan administration's vituperative
conden-.nation of the alleged Libyan mining of the Red Sea
contrasted with the same administration's contorted justifica-
tions far its own CIA mining of the harbors of Nicaragua.
Terrorism as War
The administration has compounded public misunderstand-
ing by describing "international terrorism" as a war being
waged against the U.S. In addition to advancing the totally un-
warranted assumption that all (or even most) terrorists are o~n
the "enemy" side, it also confuses conventional warfare with
war crimes. The administration, Brian Michael Jenkins of
RAND Corporation noted in Newsday (May 6, 1984), "has
shown a tendency to define terrorism in extremely broad terms,
encompassing within the term both suicide drivers in Lebanon
and Marxist guerrillas in El Salvador. But if the United States
treats terrorism as a component of its global contest with the
Soviet Union, or of its involvement in regional contlicts in the
Middle East or Central America, it risks alienating allies who
might be willing to cooperate in combatting terrorism but who
differ with U.S. policy and methods for dealing with Marxist
guerrilas, or who, for political or economic reasons, are reluc-
tant to participate in America's battles."
In fact, when the Western nations met in London in early
June to discuss "international terrorism," President Reagan
and Prime Minister Thatcher suffered a setback in their plan for
the conference to condemn the Soviet Union as the source of
terrorism. They also failed to get agreement on establishing co-
ordinated policies for exchanging intelligence and technical in-
formation, passing unified legislation on dealing with ter-
rorism, or expelling large numbers of diplomats thought to be
involved in terrorism.
State and Mercenary Terrorism
Indeed, right-wing ideologues have begun to speak of ter-
rorism as if it is identical with leftist guerrilla warfare and lib-
eration movements in general. In reality, however, the two
most significant types of terrorism-state terrorism and merce-
nary terrorism-are in the vast majority of instances supported,
or at least condoned, by the United States government.
State terrorism-government by the imposition of terrorism
upon its own people-is the norm for many present and past
U.S. allies, although their excesses are excused as merely
"moderately authoritarian" by Reagan administration offi-
cials. Chile under Pinochet, Haiti under the Duvaliers,
Paraguay under Stroessner, and Guatemala, Uruguay, and El
Salvador under all of their recent regimes are the most obvious
examples in our hemisphere. It is also the rule in South Korea,
Zaire, the Philippines, South Africa (with respect to the non-
white majority), Turkey, and elsewhere.
Mercenary terrorism is a less obvious phenomenon, but one
which bears the U.S. stamp. "Soldiers of fortune" everywhere
commit atrocities against populations struggling to liberate
themselves from the yoke of imperialism.
Because of the administration's carefully orchestrated pub-
licity campaign-devised by the intelligence complex and its
media friends-public hoopla about terrorism fingers the
Soviet Union as its source, followed closely by Cuba, Libya,
and Bulgaria. It is interesting that little mention is made of two
unassailable facts: First, within the U.S. there has been a con-
siderable decline in what the FBI calls "domestic terrorist" in-
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cidents, and they were never plentiful in the first place. And,
second, the major "terrorist" attacks which have taken place
internationally, particularly in Lebanon and elsewhere in the
Middle East, have actually been nationalist and even religious
in nature, not terrorist. Both Palestine and parts of Lebanon
have been occupied by Israel, and the warfare being waged
against that occupation and its American supporters is just that,
war. We call the other side terrorists simply because they are
the other side. How can anyone call the U.S. Marines innocent
bystanders? American aid to and support for Israel and its an-
nexationist policies cannot be taken as innocent, nor can the
military enforcers of that policy be viewed as bystanders.
Moreover, as the war escalates in the Middle East and the
U.S. role deepens, it is inevitable that attacks on U.S. targets
will proliferate. A look at the Middle East escalation bears this
out. In the 1960s U.S. ambassadors and other officials were
targeted; in the 1970s there were demonstrations and occupa-
tions of embassies; and in the 1980s the attacks have involved
massive armed actions against embassies, missions, and mili-
tary installations.
In his first press conference, on January 28, 1981, Secretary
of State Alexander Haig said that "international terrorism will
take the place of human rights [as] our concern, because it is
the ultimate ...abuse of human rights." This became, in a
way, aself-fulfilling prophesy.
The Israeli Model
All of these developments, including the truck bombs, can
be seen as develoments which parallel U.S. support for Israeli
policies. This year the Reagan administration is considering
emergency aid of at least $1 billion on top of $2.6 billion al-
ready approved by Congress for the new ' `unity" government
of Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Far more than half of that aid
is earmarked for military use.
Additionally, the Reagan administration is fashioning its
policies-in military training, in criminal law, and even in
constitutional theory-on Israeli models. (See sidebar on the
Jonathan Institute conference.)There is simply no comprehen-
sion by the U.S. government of the fact that adopting Israel's
"ten eyes for an eye" rhetoric and military policy will assure
the U.S.'s future as a legitimate target of the national aspira-
tions of the victims of Israeli aggression.
This is not a hypothetical point. The Reagan administration,
embarrassed and frustrated by the bombing of the Marine bar-
racks in October 1983, not only used the Grenada invasion as a
scapegoat for our "lost honor," but also ordered the battleship
New Jersey to fire into Druse villages, tolerating, in the words
of conservative terrorism expert Robert Kupperman, "killing
hundreds of people who had nothing to do with the bomb-
ings." (U.S.A. Today, April 20, 1984.) Kupperman was not
commenting on the morality of this retaliation, only noting
how much simpler it would have been to allow the direct assas-
sination of people thought to be involved in such bombings,
"preemptive retaliation," for which the administration has
since announced its wholehearted support. The London confer-
ence also discussed preemptive retaliation, but according to the
Washington Post (June 10, 1984) these "Western democ-
racies" produced no resolution on it because "the issue is con-
?he Jonathan Institute
Amid heavy security checks by Israeli and American
bouncers-an unusual feature for a genteel, intellectual
gathering-the Second Conference on Terrorism of the
Jonathan Institute got under way in a Washington hotel on
June 24, 1984.
The Jonathan Institute, a joint U.S.-Israeli organization
with offices in Washington, was founded in 1979 and is
named after Jonathan Netanyahu, an Israeli commando who
died in the Entebbe Airport raid in Uganda in July 1976. It
held its First Conference on Terrorism in Jerusalem in 1979.
As arch-conservative Congressman Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.)
reminded the audience at the second go-around, "It is to
their credit that the 1979 conference first set aside the polite
niceties of the detente era and identified the Soviet Union's
sponsorship of terrorism."
The Institute's preoccupation with the Soviet Union and
its insistence that all terrorism evolves from the left were
also points emphasized by another speaker, former Israeli
Prime Minister Yitzhak: Rabin. He told the conference,
"The United Nations cannot present the framework within
which such an organization [to combat terrorism] can be
created, because of the membership of the Communist bloc
and other countries that encourage and support terrorism."
Little doubt remains after reviewing all the conference lit-
erature and speeches, including those of Secretary of State
George Shultz and other top U.S. officials, including Presi-
dential counsellor Edwin Meese, Secretary of Defense Cas-
par Weinberger, and U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick,
that the U.S. has accepted Israel's proposition, that virtually
the entire Islamic world and anyone else who questions Is-
rael's occupation of her neighbors' territory, is a terrorist or
terrorist supporter.
Conference speakers included a bevy of leading disinfor-
mationists like Arnaud deBorchgrave, Michael Ledeen,
Midge Decter, and Claire Sterling, as well as an interna-
tional right wing, with Lord Chalfont of the United King-
dom, Vladimir Bukovsky formerly of the Soviet Union,
leading the pack.
The level of scholarship and ideology was demonstrated
by Walter Berns of the American Enterprise Institute, who
asserted that the President should be tougher and exercise
his powers more freely. After all, he added, President Lin-
coln suspended the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil
War. A member of the audience, conference participant and
former Justice of the Supreme Court Arthur Goldberg, re-
minded Berns that Lincoln's action had been declared un-
constitutional, in a famous Supreme Court decision. Berns
was unruffled by this rebuke. `That was later, after the war
was over,' he said.
The conclusions of the conference were predictable. In-
ternational terrorists are attacking "democratic regimes and
free institutions;" they are not "freedom fighters." "Soviet
Russia and its satellites are playing a leading role in the
sponsorship and sustenance of terrorist organizations."
The Institute could not support mere passive defense;
"active measures against terrorist groups and states must be
not only preemptive but punitive." This was little more
than an ex post facto justification of existing Israeli policies.
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~B IriVeSti?~eS $peCi~ FOi~CeS CalripS
P,fter the news reports appeared describing the numerous
secret military commando units discussed in this article,
CA~'B asked a military training expert to investigate. His ob-
servations confirm the growing Pentagon participation in
covert paramilitary planning and operations-a field which
was previously considered the province of the CIA and its
agents and secret armies.
A.s ithe New York Times explained (June 8, 1984), "Some
of the units were created to fight terrorism but have acquired
broadened mandates and training for missions against in-
sur?;encies in developing countries in Central America, Af-
rica, and Asia. . . . In a few instances, including operations
in Central America, these new units have worked in con-
junction with CIA covert activities. .. . "While the degree
aF Pentagon-CIA cooperation varies from case to case, what
emerges is a picture of deep U.S. military involvement in
what have been thought to be purely mercenary or "indi-
genous" operations. At all three major Special Forces
bases, FL Bragg, North Carolina; Ft. Benning, Georgia;
and Ft. Lewis, Washington, civilian mercenaries and for-
eign forces are being trained to fight like soldiers, but, more
remarF:ably, U.S. military personnel are also being trained
to fight like mercenaries-and to look like them and act like
them, too.
On the one hand, it is now clear that "private" mer-
cenaries, like the team from Civilian-Military Assistance,
are receiving some Ranger training, particularly at Ft Ben-
ning and Ft. Bragg. (The two CMA members killed in Sep-
tember in Nicaragua had received training at Ft. Bragg only
a few months previously.) They are trained in small unit
maneuvers, demolitions, communications, and use of older,
surplus weapons. In addition, although it is well known that
Salvadoran troops are being trained at Ft. Bragg, CRIB has
learned from a high ranking soldier stationed at Ft. Bragg
that the trainees include "death squad" members, a star-
tling fact.
At Ft. Lewis there are units being trained to resemble pri-
vate mercenary groups, including such unusual aspects as
use of outmoded airplanes like C-46s, C-82s, and C-l 19s,
which are no longer used by the regular airborne units, but
which are frequently used in Central America, by the
CIA-equipped contras, and by some local armed forces.
The implications of these developments are clear. Even if
an open U.S. invasion is not "convenient" in the near fu-
ture, an invasion is already taking place. Not only is the
U.S. training, financing, and leading the contras and, it
seems, the death squads, it is also infiltrating active duty
troops into the mercenary battle field in unknown numbers.
U.S. soldiers, CAIB has learned, are being killed and
wounded. The bodies are being taken back to Honduras and
families are told of "fatal traffic accidents" in Honduras.
How long can the pretense be kept up that there is no direct
U.S. troop involvement`? ?
NEW FROM SHERIDAN SQUARE:
SECRET CONTENDERS:
The Myth of Cold War
Counterintelligence
By Melvin Beck
Introduction byTnomas Powers
The first in-depth analysis of the world of
counterintelligence. Melvin Beck examines,
as only an insider can, the battle between
the CIA's Clandestine Services and its
Soviet counterparts, the foreign directorates
of the KGB and the GRU. Beck provides
a rare insight into the efforts of the CIA
to show the people at home that the U.S. is
engaged in a war against an implacable enemy,
to serve U.S. policy by justifying any action,
no matter how unconstitutional, wasteful, or counterproductive.
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sidered too sensitive for public discussion."
"Pro-active" Measures
The "latest buzzword in security circles," Time Magazine
called it (April 30, 1984). Pro-active, the opposite of reactive,
is how the administration wants to respond to terrorists. Instead
of waiting for them to commit a terrorist act, they should be at-
tacked, and if necessary killed, before they have a chance to
commit the act. The practice of such a theory ought to require
omniscience, but that does not seem to bother U.S. officials.
As one told Robert Toth of the Los Angeles Times (April 15,
1984), "If we knew the whereabouts of Carlos, I'd recom-
mend to the President that we go after him. Pd worry later
about what we'd call it" if Carlos were killed in the process.
This is from a representative of the same intelligence official-
dom which loudly and repeatedly pays lip service to the regula-
tion which prohibits assassination.
CIA Director Casey was rather blunt in his adoption of a
strong retaliatory stance. In a U.S. News & World Report inter-
view in April he said:
"There's a question of deterring terrorism by sending the
message that if the terrorists attack there will be retaliation.
The Israelis, for example, send the message: `[f we're hit
from your territory, that's your responsibility and we're going
to kick you in the teeth somehow.' I think you will see more
of that-retaliation against facilities connected with the
country sponsoring the terrorists, or retaliation that just hurts
the interests of countries which sponsor terrorism."
Developments in the U.S.
The use by the Reagan administration of an amorphous pub-
WHITE PAPER?
WHITEWASH!
Philip Agee on the CIA
and EI Salvador
lie fear of terrorism to justify its increasingly repressive gov-
ernment has grown in leaps and bounds. For the last four years
a succession of laws, regulations, Executive Orders, and ad-
ministrative actions, involving particularly the Pentagon and
the C[A, have been put in place.
The Intelligence Support Activity
The first serious development commenced even before the
new administration took office. In late 1980, in the wake of the
abortive hostage rescue attempt in Iran, the U.S. Army estab-
lished the super-secret Intelligence Support Activity (ISA).
According to the Nei+~ York Times (June 8, 1984), the ISA was
formed "without the knowledge of the Secretary of Defense,
the Director of Central Intelligence or Congress."
This group was to collect intelligence for "special opera-
tions"-a synonym for covert actions-and soon developed
the capability to conduct them. According to the Times, the
ISA then "became involved in supporting CIA covert activities
in Central America, including aid to Nicaraguan rebels."
The Joint Special Operations Command
Around the same time that the ISA was created the Pentagon
established the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort
Bragg, ostensibly to coordinate counterterrorist activities. It
has> according to the same Tirnes article, "a core force of elite
troops" to supplement Special Forces personnel. It also repor-
tedly has "a separate budget for the development and procure-
ment of special assault weapons." These special units have
been providing "both equipment and personnel to the CIA for
its covert operations in Central America." (See sidebar.) The
command is headed by Brig. Gen. Richard A. Scholtes.
In 1982 there were also significant developments in arms
transfers. The Special Defense Acquisition Fund was created
to stockpile arms and equipment for quicker transfers to Third
World allies. In fact, the U.S. now supplies about 40~Io of the
Third World's arms, to the tune of $9.5 billion in 1983.
(Washington Post, June 10, 1984.)
Executive Order 12333
In December 1981, President Reagan signed Executive
Order 12333 on foreign intelligence gathering. (See CAIB
Number 16, page 29, for a summary of E.O. 12333.) This c~n-
tinued the trend toward increasing C[A power and White
House support. In particular, it authorized the infiltration,
manipulation, and disruption of domestic organizations by the
FBI and the CIA even in the absence of any evidence of wrong-
doing. It also authorized the broad use of warrantless electronic
and other surveillance, taking the position that constitutional
warrant requirements did not apply whenever the government
said it was acting for intelligence gathering purposes rather
than for law enforcement purposes.
Subsequent to the promulgation of E.O. 12333, the C(A es-
tablished antiterrorist attack teams and the Pentagon created a
counterterrorism strike force, reportedly of about 100 to 150
personnel (Philadelphia lnyuirer, April 22, 1984). Coordina-
tion between these two operations seems likely in view of a
secret memorandum reportedly prepared by Defense Secretary
Caspar Weinberger for President Reagan sometime in 1983.
The Secret Weinberger Memorandum
The memorandum informs the President of a pledge by the
Pentagon to "provide a wide range of logistical support and
manpower to assist CIA covert operations in Central America,
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includ ng support of Nicaraguan rebels" (New York Times,
June 8, 11984).
Appar~?ntly both the House and the Senate intelligence com-
mittees investigated whether the function of this memorandum
was to circumvent congressional restrictions on spending
levels For covert operations in Central America. However, the
"surprise" expressed over the discovery that the planes used
by the Civilian-Military Assistance mission in Nicaragua (see
article, in this issue) had been given by the Pentagon to the
CIA and by the CIA to CMA suggests that no such investiga-
tionshad been completed~r if they had, that the results were
ignored.
By late 1983 it had become apparent that the CIA had up-
graded its war against "terrorism" to a new level, emphasizing
the inflh?ation and penetration of suspect groups. But, as the
PhiG-ad~?lphia Inquirer pointed out, the problems raised by in-
filtration "may skirt the edges of the law and raise new con-
troversies for the frequently embattled CIA." It is a logical
enough argument from their point of view that to obtain the
best information about an organization one must infiltrate it,
but left unspoken is what the CIA must do to infiltrate such a
group. An infiltrator participates, to establish his or her bona
fides. Thus to learn about terrorism, the CIA will be participat-
ing in--and in some instances instigating-terrorism, a role in
which she CIA has excelled in the past.
A "longtime intelligence specialist" confided to James
McCartney of the Philadelphia Inquirer (April 22, 1984),
"Some oiF our people may have to be a part of low-level assas-
sinations and we will have to keep their mouths shut to protect
their cover." Low-level assassinations, whatever they are, is
not all they may have in mind. A congressional source told
McCarney that Cuban President Fidel Castro, "once a specific
target of CIA assassination attempts, may again be a potential
target, this time of non-Americans but possibly with the unspo-
ken acquiescence of the CIA."
Command Centers
For twelve years the coordination of CIA counterterrorist ac-
tivities has been the purview of the Global Issues Staff, respon-
sible for intelligence collection and analyses and for related
covert operations.
The Army formed the First Special Operations Command in
1982 to coordinate Special Forces activities, and the Air Force
created a similar unit, the 23rd Air Force, in 1983. Then, in
January of 1984, the Pentagon established its own unit for co-
ordination of "special forces operations and war plans against
terrorists." This unit, the Joint Special Operations Agency, is
headed by Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Wesley H. Rice. Accord-
ing to the Defense Department, there is a "shortfall . . . in
doctrinal development" for guerrilla wars, a problem this
Agency is "moving to correct." (Washington Post, June 10,
1984.) This Agency also reportedly manages a top secret com-
mando unit with personnel from all four services. General Rice
is not looking for publicity, either. He offended the members
and staff of the House Intelligence Committee when he told a
subcommittee in April that he did not view his organization
"as an agency of interest to the intelligence oversight commit-
tee . "
The 1984 Offensive
The first half of 1984 saw major offensives in both the legis-
lative and the executive arenas. In Congress, a package of in-
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Number 22 (Fall 1984)
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credible antiterrorism laws was introduced by Senators Denton
and Thurmond, at the request of the White House. The two
most significant bills create the offense of terrorism and the of-
fense of assisting terrorist governments, factions, or groups.
(See sidebar for excerpts.) The only thing clear about these
proposed laws is that they would be used selectively, against
supporters of the administration's enemies, not against the
backers of its friends.
National Security Decision Directive 138
NSDD 138, a classified directive, was signed by President
Reagan on April 3, 1984. In our last issue we described some
of the highlights of NSDD 138. In addition to approving both
preemptive and retaliatory raids against terrorists, it approves
the creation of FBI and CIA paramilitary squads for anti-ter-
rorist operations, and authorizes the Defense Intelligence
Agency to have its own contract intelligence agents, for the
first time.
The Directive also calls upon 26 federal agencies to draft
their own counterterrorism plans, presumably for coordination
with the already burgeoning military and civilian units noted
above.
But there are many ambiguities and problems. It is unclear,
for example, what kind of conduct will prompt either preemp-
tive action or a reprisal. Moreover, in addition to the moral
questions noted above, there is a serious question whether
either preemptive or retaliatory strikes can be reconciled with
the War Powers Act, or Congress's exclusive power to declare
war. Furthermore, in most cases there are real questions about
whom to strike. U.S. intelligence, both military and civilian, is
still not certain who was responsible for the Beirut car bombs,
and one can only assume that intelligence for preemptive pur-
poses would be even worse.
The administration's faulty identification of terrorists was
highlighted recently when an obscure State Department divi-
sion, the Office for Combatting Terrorism, released its list of
organizations around the world that had engaged in the taking
of hostages. The list included a small, peaceful political party
in Paraguay, the leaders of which were surveilled and harras-
sed after the listing, and a newspaper which had interviewed
leaders of that party was shut down. Only protests by human
rights groups obtained the removal of the party from the list.
Conclusion
It is not only because of the administration's blatant double
standards that we should worry about the sanctimonious cam-
paign against terrorism; it is not simply that they disapprove of
terrorism in Lebanon but approve of it in Nicaragua. It is also
that they do not understand--0r if they do, they are decidedly
disingenuous-the causes and meaning of what they call ter-
rorism, either historically or contemporarily. As history Pro-
fessor Thomas Goldstein put it in a letter to the New York
Times (June 17, 1984), "Modern terrorism .. . is the modern
individual's rejection, under desperate provocation, of psychi-
cally intolerable infringements of his rights.. ..What keeps
our present world in turmoil . . . is that during the last century
the West has spread its gospel of individual self-assertion clear
around the globe." ?
~ie Anti-~~i`hOYiSt BiuS
The proposed legislation creating the new offense of ter-
rorism, S.2469, makes criminal "the knowing use of force
or violence against any person or property in violation of,the
criminal laws of the United States or any State, territory,
possession, or district, with the intent to intimidate, coerce,
or influence a government or person in furtherance of any
political or ideological objective." If a death results from
the commission of an act of terrorism, the punishment is to
be death; otherwise, twenty years to life, "without possibil-
ity of parole." An attempt to commit such an act of ter-
rorism is also punishable by death, if a death occurs, or by
ten to twenty years' imprisonment otherwise. It is also a
crime to "threaten" to commit an act of terrorism, though
that is punishable only by five to ten years in prison.
This bill is incredible for a number of reasons. First of
all, it recriminalizes acts which are already crimes-al-
[hough it does not require conviction of the underlying of-
fense in the appropriate jurisdiction-so that a federal pro-
secution could also determine whether one would have been
found guilty in the other court. Secondly, its scope is enor-
mous. If any offense is committed involving "force or vio-
lence" for the purpose of influencing anyone, what might
otherwise be a minor, and common, offense, is converted to
one with a long mandatory sentence.
Virtually all forms of protest and civil disobedience
would fall within the purview of this bill. All such actions,
from picket lines to massive demonstrations, are intended to
influence someone. Otherwise they would be meaningless.
Of course, the term "political or ideological objective" is
not defined, and might well exclude common robbery,
though perhaps little else.
The bill to "prohibit the training, supporting, or inducing
of terrorism," 5.2626, is even more bizarre. It allows the
Secretary of State to designate any foreign government, fac-
tion, or international group as "terrorist." This designation
is made unchallengeable in the courts. It is then made a
crime to "serve in, or act in concert with, the armed forces
or any intelligence agency" of such a designated group; to
"provide training in any capacity to the armed forces or any
intelligence agency, or their agents," of such a designated
group; to "provide any logistical, mechnical, maintenance,
or similar support services to the armed forces or any intelli-
gence agency, or their agents," of such a group; or to "re-
cruit or solicit any person" to do any of the foregoing.
Who exactly might be the agents of the intelligence
agency of an international terrorist group is left to our imag-
ination, but it is not hard to see that the intention of the bill
is to make it difficult, if not impossible, for Americans to
participate in solidarity organizations which support groups
with whom the administration does not agree.
Another bill which appears likely to become law shortly
provides for rewards up to $500,000 for information leading
to the capture of terrorists. That level of incentive can only
lead to flimsy and reckless accusations. ?
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Fre~m the Hessians to the Contras:
Mercenaries
in the Service of Impe ' ' m
By Ken Lawrence
The usf; of mercenaries to fight unpopular wars is not new.
Almost every schoolchild in this country has been taught about
the 20,000 Hessian soldiers hired by King George III to fight
against his rebellious North American subjects in 1776.
Mercenaries are soldiers recruited one way or another for
pay in order to fight wars that cannot be justified politically, in
a popular sense, in the countries on whose behalf they fight.
The ew~o classic models of mercenary forces employed by
modern imperialism are the so-called "martial race"-the best
known example is probably the Gurkha army, most recently
used b~~ ?he British in the Falkland/Malvinas War against
Argenti ~a~-and the "dregs of humanity"-typified by the
French .Foreign Legion, which has been deployed in Chad and
Zaire o~~er the past few years.
The latter army is recruited from the criminal class of every
country on a "no questions asked" basis. In exchange for a
fixed term of rugged and ruthless military service, each soldier
is rewa~?ded with de facto immunity from prosecution, plus
money, a new identity, occupation, nationality, personal his-
tory, and .papers.
The powers employing the mercenaries advertise them in
ways that are calculated to strike terror into the hearts of their
enemies. 'Chus the British have disseminated worldwide their
racist c~~ricature of the Gurkhas as exceptionally bloodthirsty
and ferocious, who will kill without a moment's hesitation,
preferably at close quarters with primitive weapons. Similarly,
the Foreign Legion is universally portrayed as the baddest of
the bad, so horrible that they cannot be permitted contact with
civilized society and must carry along their own brothel when
they rnarch off to war.
The rE;ason for employing mercenaries is always the same. If
the British had attempted to build and maintain an empire sol-
ely on the conquests of the British professional army and im-
pressed navy, it would have been far smaller and less signifi-
cant historically. No conscripts could have maintained French
sway in Algeria as long as the Legionnaires did.
Even a country whose population generally accepts its gov-
ernme~.nt's jingoism and supports aggressive military policies
politically may require mercenaries for some wars. This is
especially true when a government's actual policy conflicts
with its 3eclared policy. In the seventies, U.S. official policy
in Southern Africa was opposed to the racist Rhodesian gov-
ernment o1~ Ian Smith, but secretly the CIA and U.S. Army
were recruiiting mercenaries to fight for Smith against the Zim-
babwe liberation forces. And nearby in Angola, Nixon and
Kissinger intervened by sending CIA mercenaries and by back-
ing indigenous surrogates because the fresh memory of Viet-
nam would have blocked any overt attempt on their part to send
U.S. troops.
Similarly in the Middle East, despite Reagan's ill-fated at-
tempt to commit U.S. Marines, the most persistent U.S. pre-
sence before and since the Israeli invasion of Lebanon has been
the force of North American mercenaries in the various right-
wing Lebanese "Christian militias."
Mercenaries are also employed to use military methods that
cannot be justified domestically or internationally, such as the
application of torture, the massacre of civilian populations, the
murder of prisoners, and other crimes proscribed by interna-
tional law.
The Central Intelligence Agency has adopted and adapted
both basic models of mercenary warfare.
A "martial race" is a subservient ethnic group assigned to
full-time military service by an imperial power. If successful,
the military profession is promoted over time to the extent that
it becomes a defining aspect of that people's ethnicity and is in-
ternalized. (A full treatment of the subject is contained in
Cynthia Enloe's book Ethnic Soldiers.)
An example of the CIA's adaptation of this approach was its
secret war in Laos. While the main burden of the U.S. war ef-
fort in Indochina was borne by soldiers, sailors, and fliers of
the U.S. and South Vietnamese armed forces, the CIA employ-
ed the Hmong people under the command of General Vang Pao
to conduct its clandestine war in Laos.
The methods by which the CIA first recruited the Hmong as
mercenaries and later coerced them to fight once the going got
rough are now understood in ways that can be modified and ap-
plied in other, very different contexts.
The first necessity was to create an economic dependency.
In the Hmong case the CIA accomplished this easily by taking
over and operating the Hmong's opium trade, marketing their
crop for them (undoubtedly at a handsome profit to the
Agency's proprietary airlines and banks). The dependent
Hmong were then armed and trained by U.S. specialists and
sent into battle against the CIA's enemies.
But gratitude to the CIA for peddling their dope went only so
far, and eventually some Hmong resisted the escalating pres-
sure to expand the U.S. war against other Laotians. At that
point the CIA's ruthlessness became evident. Food and
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supplies, which had previously been delivered to [he Hmong
villages, were now air dropped many miles away, in contested
areas of Laos; so Hmong soldiers had to attack just in order to
keep themselves and their families alive. The CIA's message
to them was clear: Fight or starve.
The CIA is currently applying both mercenary models to its
war in Central America: sending in a band of cold-blooded pro-
fessional sadists and cutthroats in one region; luring an indi-
genous tribal people, through a sector of its leadership, into
economic dependence, arming and training its young men,
then compelling them to fight, in another.
The criminals and right-wing fanatics include white racists
from the southern U.S. and veterans of the many wars for
white supremacy in Southern Africa, particularly men who
fought for the Rhodesian government of Ian Smith; gangsters
from the Batista era in Cuba, and members of various anticom-
munist Cuban exile terrorist organizations; former members of
the Nicaraguan National Guard and secret police during the
Somoza dictatorship; and other assorted desperadoes eager to
kill for bloodlust and money.
These mercenaries are fighting mainly against the people of
northwestern Nicaragua, and to a smaller extent in El Sal-
vador. Their task is to terrorize, not to win hearts and minds.
They kidnap, torture, and massacre; sometimes they murder
men before their wives and children, then mutilate the corpses.
In striking contrast is the CIA's mercenary war against
Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast, where the Agency has had some
success applying its Laotia-~ Hmong approach among some
Miskito Indians.
The initial toehold was gained by securing the allegiance of
one Miskito leader, Steadman Fagoth Muller (a police agent
during the years of Somoza's tyranny), making Fagoth the
Miskito equivalent of Vang 1'ao, and by exploiting friction that
had developed between Miskitos and Spanish Sandinistas early
in the war when overzealous Sandinista officials failed to
exhibit proper respect for Miskito needs, aspirations, and cul-
tural autonomy.
The Miskitos had no narcotics for the CIA to administer, so
a different approach was taken to foster economic dependency.
Counterrevolutionary attack forces concentrated on critical
economic targets, making it dangerous or impossible for In-
dians to fish or tend their crops. Large sawmills at Prinzapolka
and Sukat-pin were leveled; both had been economic mainstays
of the Miskitos, not only because they furnished hundreds of
jobs to village residents, but also because they provided the
main source of foreign exchange for the entire region.
At the same time, contra attacks on civilians, though harsh
(young men were kidnapped, and shot if they refused to go),
were restrained in comparison to the unbridled terrorism un-
leashed by the CIA in the west. Anti-Sandinista propaganda
was spread by word of mouth rumor and clandestine radio
broadcasts.
At first the CIA efforts were successful. Thousands of Mis-
kitos, believing that the Sandinista government could not or
would not provide them with food and safety, fled to Hon-
duras. Many were recruited into the contra force armed and
trained by the CIA. But it is doubtful that this endeavor can be
sustained. The CIA has not been able to escalate the level of
coercion to that applied against recalcitrant Hmong in Laos,
and many Miskitos, disillusioned with the reality of CIA
mercenary life, have returned to their homes under the terms of
the amnesty declared by the Sandinistas.
Mercenaries sometimes precipitate the very defeat they are
employed to prevent. When Britain sent the Hessians to shore
up its rule in North America, many colonists who previously
had supported the Tories or had been indifferent shifted their
allegiance to George Washington's Continental Army, en-
abling Washington to inflict a humiliating defeat on the Hes-
sians as they celebrated Christmas of 1776 at Trenton.
In Nicaragua, the realities of the U.S. sponsored mercenary
war have evoked almost universal revulsion, even among
people who have complaints about the Sandinista government.
Miskito Indians in the village of Wount told a Navnjo Times
reporter that the contra force that attacked and occupied their
town last October consisted of Miskitos, Blacks, and Spanish,
led by "strange Chinese," and "Chinese" mercenaries have
been reported attacking other Miskito villages as well. (Not
surprisingly, Soldier of Fortune employee Steve Salisbury,
who participated in one of the raids into Nicaragua with
Fagoth's men, made no mention of Asians in his report in the
November 1984 issue of the magazine. )
Earlier last fall, British papers reported that international
mercenary recruiters in Europe were concentrating their efforts
on Indochinese exiles. It seems likely that the CIA has im-
ported veterans of its Asian mercenary wars, perhaps remnants
of Vang Pao's Hmong army, to shore up its faltering efforts in
Central America, but at a costly price.
The introduction of foreign mercenaries in command posi-
tions has effectively put the lie to Washington's propaganda
that has tried to portray one element of the CIA's covert war as
an indigenous insurgency. ?
Grenada: Nobody's Backyard
Historical perspective of U.S. destabilization against
Grenada during first year of revolution-events which
later led to coup and invasion.
A 16 mm, 60-minute color documentary film.
Includes interviews with late Prime Minister Maurice
Bishop, former Guyanese P.M. Cheddi Jagan, Chilean
patriot Isabel Letelier, Workers Party of Jamaica leader
Trevor Munroe, and former CIA officer Philip Agee.
Produced by CovertAction Information Bulletin;
directed by Ellen Ray. For rental information, telephone
[phone] or [phone], or write to P.U. Box
50272, Washington, DC 20004.
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Sc~Idier of Fortune's Roi~ert K. Brown
By Ward Churchill
There is a law in the United States (Title 18 U.S.C. Sec.
959) popularly known as "The Neutrality Act." It reads in
part: ` Whoever, within the United States ...retains another
. .. to go beyond the jurisdiction of the United States to be en-
listed in the service of any foreign prince, state, colony, district
or peo ~le~ as a soldier or a marine .. .shall be fined not more
than $ l ,000 or imprisoned not more than 3 years or both. "
Robert. K. Brown, editor and publisher of a publication enti-
tled Sald~ier of Fortune: The Journal of Professional Adventur-
ers, based in Boulder, Colorado, says he is not in violation of
this law, nor of others such as 22 U.S.C. Sec. 611, et seq.,
"The Foreign Agents Registration Act." It holds that individu-
als witl~irt the United States who directly represent the interests
of other governments must clearly and officially acknowledge
the fact through a formalized public recording process.
In combination, the body of legislation represented by the
two aces was designed to preclude private actions-as well as
the advocacy and organization of such actions-by individuals
or ot?gani:zations in the United States which would tend to un-
dermin~ or supplant formal foreign policy mechanisms such as
the Sta:e Department and Congress. In practical effect, one of
the thirg~i the legislation is intended to prevent is what is com-
monly referred to as "mercenarism" by U.S. nationals and
others falling under U.S. jurisdiction.
Yet, siince 1975, Brown has been running classified adver-
tisemerts in his magazine such as the following:
EX E~R.MY VET, Viet 65-66, 2/7 Cav., 37 yrs. old, seeks
job as tnerc or security. Combat experience. Good physical
condition. Will travel worldwide. You pay expenses.
Hey has also run full-page display ads (outside, rear-cover,
prime placement) featuring color reproductions of official
Rhodesian National Army recruitment posters on a gratis basis
and interviews with individuals like Major Nick Lamprecht,
former Rhodesian National Army Recruitment Officer. Ear-
lier, he financed the start-up of his magazine through the sell-
*Ward Churchill is an active member of the American Indian Movement
who works at the University of Colorado. Several years ago he successfully in-
filtrated tte Scldier of Fortune inner circle. His experiences on the magazine's
staff and nuch of what he learned are told in his 1980 Africa Today article,
"U.S. Mercenaries in Africa: The Recruitment Network and U.S. Policy."
The Rhodesian Army offers you
an interesting and varied career
with new allowances for f fighting
troops
fo,,,?r~~, ~r ras ~o~ro~t
The Army Careers Officer
Phone : 707087 s,~,.e~?
one.
~o;aon...,..
eo. BrJe Causeway
Replica of Rhodesian Army Recruiting Poster. 77" . 22", 53.00
Soldier of Fortune, BoK 693, Boulder, CO 80302
ing of "overseas employment opportunity packets"- consist-
ing of enlistment materials for the armies of Rhodesia and
Oman-through classified ads run in periodicals such as Shot-
gun News.
Despite the apparent conflicts with official U.S. policy in-
herent in such activities-the United States was supposedly en-
gaged in a formal sanctioning of Rhodesia at the very time
Brown was most busily promoting military service there-he
has suffered no adverse consequences as a result of his con-
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duct. In part, this may be due to awide-spread public impres-
sion that the man is more buffoon than menace.
Bob Brown in Person
Leaning back in a desk chair beneath a poster captioned
"Kill 'em all: Let God sort 'em out," and wearing atee-shirt
stenciled with a death's head and the legend "Kill a Commie
for Mommie," an obviously aging Bob Brown struggles val-
iantly to hide the facts. Spitting out a cud of Skoal, he arranges
his sagging features into a best-effort imitation of Clint
Eastwood's celluloid scowl, forces anear-glint into the fading
blue eyes peering owlishly from behind coke-bottle lenses and
"explains" the situation.
"I do not recruit. I market information. If somebody goes
An ageing Robert K. Brawn with a Salvadoran comman-
der.
there because they get an information packet . . . "Allowing
the thought to dangle, Brown breaks into aself-congratulatory
smile and continues, .. .some State Department official
stated something to the effect that Mr. Brown was staying
within the bounds of the law, but not the spirit of it. Well,
that's tough shit. I didn't do anything illegal."
The aura of Soldier of Fortune's proprietor is, on its face, so
absurd as to virtually command dismissal by the serious-
minded. The notion of a rniddle-aged man with a congenital
back defect and a hearing impairment scurrying about the
streets of Boulder-the veritable buckle of the granola belt-
wearing the latest in camouflage fatigues (to blend in with all
the brick and tinsel?) and military berets is immediately laugh-
able. Similarly, his propensity to posture at every given oppor-
tunity, sporting esoteric looking armaments, has tended to be
treated as little more than a sick joke-especially when the
weapons have been manufactured by Replica Arms, as has
turned out from time to time.
The magazine itself bears the indelible stamp of its owner's
eccentricity. Long on blood-and-guts color photography and
short on the real meat-and-potatoes information which would
allow anyone to stay alive in irregular combat situations, Sol-
dier of Fortune might rightly be viewed as the stuff of armchair
rather than active warriors. As one highly decorated veteran of
Korea and Vietnam recently put it, "I don't read the thing.
Who needs a picture of a half-naked woman wearing tiger
fatigues to sell an obsolete machine-gun?"
But there is another aspect to Brown and his enterprise
which tends to be overlooked when he is dismissed as an objec-
tionable, though thoroughly frivolous, phenomenon. For star-
ters, two of Soldier of Fortune's staff editors have been killed
while performing what can only be regarded as outright merce-
nary activities in the field. George W. Bacon III, the
George W. Bacon III with Hmong soldiers in Laos.
magazine's underwater combat editor, died in a 1976 ambush,
an unabashed combatant fighting for Holden Roberto's CIA-
sponsored FNLA in Angola. Michael Echanis, martial arts di-
rector, was killed in a bomb blast aboard an aircraft in
Nicaragua while serving as military advisor to Anastasio
Somoza-and as tactical commander of the dictator's infamous
National Guard in late 1978.
Shortly after Bacon was killed, and while the State Depart-
ment was still denying that U.S. citizens were serving as mer-
cenaries in that country, another American was captured by the
winning MPLA forces. Daniel Gearhart was tried by the new
Angolan government under Organization of African Unity
anti-mercenary covenants, convicted, and executed. He had
secured his employment through an ad placed in So/flier of
Fortune during the summer of 1975.
The Sandinista bomb which claimed Echanis also killed his
assistant, a U.S. national named Charles Sanders, and a Viet-
namese on U.S. green card alien status, euphemistically
known as "Nguyen Van Nguyen" (approximately the equiva-
lent of "Smith, John Smith"). Nicknamed "Bobby," he had
long worked for the CIA and Special Forces, and had accom-
panied Echanis and Sanders to Nicaragua to work with the
other person killed by the blast, National Guard commander
Brigadier General Jose Ivan Allegrett Perez.
Around Soldier of Fortune they showed copies of a cable
from Secretary of State Cyrus Vance to Echanis asking that he
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Mike lEchanis posing with his collection of hand-to-hand
combat weapons.
be careful to spare noncombatants in the course of performing
his duties. Echanis's reply, if any, is unknown.
Investigations Thwarted
This combination of circumstances was enough to lead Col-
orado (:ongresswoman Patricia Schroeder and others to call for
an inv~sligation into the activities of Brown and those as-
soci;rted with his publications, all subsidiaries of another
Brown-hc;aded company, Omega Group, Ltd. It is apparently
named alter the anti-Castro Cuban terrorists' group, Omega
Severn, which shared responsibility for the assassination of Al-
lende-era Chilean diplomat, Orlando Letelier, and his col-
league Ronnie Moffitt, in Washington, D.C.
Brown and Omega Group, including Robert Himber, one-
time ~crrny Intelligence operative attached to the CIA's
Phoeni:c assassination program in Vietnam, ran feature articles
on the deaths of Bacon and Echanis in the magazine.
Schroeder's investigation's demands, made in 1976 and
again in x979, have met with a rather curious response from
the U.~>. Department of Justice. In effect, Justice informed
Schroeder that Brown and his cohorts had indeed been placed
under investigation, and that the investigation would continue
until the activities being investigated stopped. Details of any
ongoing criminal investigation could not, of course, be di-
vulged. Hence, the net result of Schroeder's attempts to bring
the doings of the Omega Group into the light of day has been to
clamp the mantle of official secrecy tightly about the individu-
als and organizations involved. This situation has prevailed
consistently under both the Carter and the Reagan administra-
tions, despite the supposed ideological "changing of the
guarcl" that the switch in executives entailed.
It l;of;s without saying that such aleak-free, Catch-22 envi-
ronment at this level of government is not typical. Such a rigid
application of the supposed safeguards of citizens' rights to pri-
vacy hay historically been reserved only for domestic covert in-
telligenre operations and operatives (e.g. the FBI's COINTEL-
PRO and its successor, COMTEL) and the more internation-
ally oriented clandestine activities of Military Intelligence, the
National Security Agency, the CIA, and so forth.
Links to 1:he CIA
Brown is particularly touchy on this subject, branding it
"pure bulflshit" and often terminating conversations when
questions drift toward possible associations between his or-
ganizati ~n and the CIA.
When Brown is denying a CIA connection, it helps that he
numbers among his longtime personal friends such prominent
"liberals" as Paul Danish, a member of the Boulder City
Council and former advisor to top administrators at the Univer-
sity of Colorado. Danish was an early (but unlisted) member of
the Soldier of Fortune editorial board.
A long-time Boulder anti-mercenary activist says, "There is
more than one level to what is going on at Soldier of Fortune.
These guys go out of their way to come across as clowns to
people who might otherwise [end to oppose them. It's a tactic
designed to defuse the potential of effective criticism.
"Meanwhile, there's a very effective gray propaganda oper-
ation being conducted right under our very noses. A whole
range of the American public is now being conditioned to ac-
cept the notion that mercenaries and small, contained, pri-
vately fought `brushfire wars' are not only okay, but somehow
glamorous. Soldier of Fortune did that. It's not that they're
managing to get large numbers of people to run off and be mer-
cenaries-although they are attracting some, and that factor
shouldn't be underestimated-but they are managing to con-
vince an ever increasing number of people that there's nothing
fundamentally wrong when others do.
"In the post-Vietnam era, when the commitment of any sort
of official U.S. advisory, never mind combat presence is apt to
draw so much domestic heat-as it is in EI Salvador-that it's
simply not viable, having a small but effective `private' army
of mercenazies who are accepted by the public is a very impor-
tant paramilitary counter for any administration to possess.
"Of course, it's all highly illegal under U.S. law, but what
else is new? When you get to the level of the reality of foreign
policy things cannot really be considered in terms of their leg-
ality, but rather in terms of their packaging (as with the Gulf of
Tonkin Resolution or the Grenada invasion) or their deniability
(as with the Cambodia/Laos bombing or current operations in
Honduras).
"The mercenary activities revolving around Soldier of For-
tune and Omega Group are being handled both ways, packaged
and hidden. It's a very sophisticated operation in its way, and
you just don't get this sort of finesse from a bunch of apparent
rum-dums in the private sector. The whole thing smacks of a
CIA operation, although admittedly a very weird one."
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To be sure, both the intelligence community and Brown ve-
hemently deny that any linkage between them exists, or has
existed in the past. The record, however, shows something
rather different. For example, a 1962 letter written by Brown
and recently obtained from the archives of an archconservative
California-based institution neveals that he spent the period
from 1954 to 1957 as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army's highly
selective and very secretive (;ounterintelligence Corps. Not to
be confused with the larger acid more diversified Military Intel-
ligence units, Counterintelligence has always had extremely
close linkages (indeed, major overlaps) with the CIA.
Much of Brown's life was spent drifting from job to job-
Brink's truck guard, timber cutter, and ranch hand-mostly in
and around Boulder. He has boasted of setting up connections
in the international arms traffic, and occasionally he dabbles in
South African diamonds and precious metals.
After this first stint in the Army, Brown undertook a mas-
ter's degree program in political science at the University of
Colorado at Boulder. His studies led him-naturally, if you ac-
cept his version of events-t~~ a deep and abiding sympathy for
the cause of Fidel Castro's July 26 Movement. In any event, he
trekked to Cuba to do research on a thesis which eventually
was completed under the title "Communist Penetration and
Takeover of the Cuban Labor Movement," attempting to hook
up with the guerrilla commanders Che Guevara and Camilo
Cienfuegos in the Sierra Maestra once there.
Evidently, the guerrilla leadership held certain doubts as to
the student's bona fides, avoiding infiltration by denying him
access to their ranks. (A number of U.S. journalists were al-
lowed into the mountains at the same time Brown was being
shut out.) Their precautions turned out to be rather well
founded, as Brown surfaced again shortly after the revolution,
engaged in training Batistaite groups in the Florida Everglades
to conduct raids against their former homeland.
Although he did not participate in any of the exile actions
against Cuba underwritten by the CIA during the early 1960s-
he always managed to be sick or otherwise disposed when the
missions departed-he was already engaged in investigating
possibilities for the application of other sorts of covert U.S.
force to sensitive areas of the world, both at home and abroad.
Brown's 1962 letter was written to Marvin Leibman, then
head of the New York based "American Committee for Aid to
Katanga Freedom Fighters.," a CIA front group engaged in
drumming up sympathy and organizing material support for the
so-called "5 Commando" e~f European mercenaries active dur-
ing the Congo Civil War. In credentialing himself to Leibman,
Brown revealed that he had been a domestic undercover opera-
tive, infiltrating "Fair Play for Cuba" committees for the
notorious Chicago Police Subversive Squad. He then inquired
as to whether Leibman had information concerning how Amer-
ican nationals might circumvent the provisions of the Neutral-
ity Act in order to become mercenary combatants in places like
the Congo.
Brown re-entered the Army during the second half of the
1960s as a Special Forces captain. Posted to the Pleiku region
of Vietnam's Central Highlands, he headed a detachment sup-
porting aSpecial Forces/CIA joint venture code-named "Mili-
tary Assistance Command, Vietnam, Studies and Observations
Group." Actually, MACVSOG~r "the sog,' as it was
called-stood for "Special Operations Group." The unit was
responsible for direct intelligence gathering, and ran highly
secret missions into Cambodia, Laos, North Vietnam, and-
some say-southern China, during the Vietnam War.
Brown's detachment was also involved in NLF/NVA politi-
cal cadre identification for liquidation by the assassins of the
CIA's "Operation Phoenix." The captain himself, of course,
Marvin Liei~man
Bob Brown's mentor, Marvin Liebman, was a mem-
ber of the Communist Party and the Young Communist
League in the late 1930s and early 1940s. If his beliefs
then were legitimate, he made a 180 degree ideological
turn in 1951, working for the CIA-assisted refugee net-
work, the International Rescue Committee. In 1957,
with initial financial backing from then New Jersey Gov-
ernor Charles Edison, he set up Marvin Liebman As-
sociates, to provide public relations, fundraising, pro-
gram organization, and management services "at the
disposal of the Conservative and anti-Communist move-
ment." He became an expert in anti-communist prop-
aganda working with more than 50 front organizations.
From 1969 to 1974 he took an unexplained leave from
this career to produce for the stage, screen, and televi-
sion in London. [n 1974 he returned to New York and
"public relations," as president of Marvin Liebman,
[nc.
In 1975 he joined with William F. Buckley, Jr. in
forming the highly controversial American-Chilean
Council (ACC). He wrote in a confidential June 1977
memorandum that the group "serves as a spokesman for
Chile," claiming that ACC ' `has been phenomenally
successful in making a real impact on American thinking
on behalf of Chile." ACC was closed down in 1978 after
repeated violations of Justice Department regulations for
foreign agent registration.
In February 1982 Liebman was named public relations
director of the federally funded National Endowment for
the Arts.
Among the many far right efforts he either founded or
served are:
? American Committee for Aid to Katunga Freedom
Fighters.
? American Afro-Asian Educational Exchange, Inc.
(which reprinted and distributed a speech by the South
African Foreign Minister and sent "fact-finding tours"
to Rhodesia). The group exists today as the American-
African Educational Exchange, Inc.
? World Anti-Communist League.
? Asian Peoples Anti-Communist League, and its at~-
filiate, Friends of Free Asia.
? World Youth Crusade for Freedom.
? Young Americans for Freedom.
? International Youth Crusade for Freedom in Viet-
nam.
? Committee for the Monroe Doctrine.
? People's Emergency Committee to Defend Freedom
Against Communist Aggression.
? The American Friends of Portugal (supporting Por-
tugal's then "overseas territories").
? William F. Buckley for Mayor of New York City
Committee.
~ Goldwater for President.
? Association of Former Intelligence Officers. ?
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was rf;sponsible for liaison with CIA personnel, given his
unit's operational capacity.
Brown's Publications
In the early 1970s, having mustered out of the Army for the
second time-he was "retired" due to physical infirmities in-
cluding; scoleosis (a congenital spinal disease) and deafness in
one ear for which he claims to have been awarded the Purple
Heart--E~rown set out to establish his mercenary clearing
house operation and accompanying trade journal. One of the
steps he took along the way was to resume a career as publisher
he hac undertaken in partnership with a Coloradan named
Peder Lund before his last military enlistment.
Together, Brown and Lund had founded a company called
"Pantl-er Press." The purpose of this venture was to reprint
army weapons and field manuals (obtainable free of charge
from appropriate government agencies at the time) for sale to
the public. Involvement in Panther Press resulted in one of the
few times Bob Brown was brought to court by the government,
but not for the act of "borrowing" government publications in
this :fashion. Rather, the government was concerned that-be-
cause of its name-the enterprise was an undertaking of the
Black ]'anther Party. Once it was firmly established that the
press was a rightwing rather than leftwing activity, the case
No Help for Vets
was quietly dismissed.
In any event, according to various versions of events he has
told, either publicly or privately, Brown then proceeded to sell
his share of Panther Press (renamed Paladin Press), market his
Oman/Rhodesia "employment packets," and/or obtain a loan
from his mother in order to actualize Soldier of Fortune. By his
account, Brown founded the credibility of his new endeavor
upon the active involvement of a number of former "super sol-
diers." Again, the facts belied his claim.
For example, editor George Bacon, before his death consis-
tently portrayed as a former Green Beret, turned out actually to
have been a member of the CIA field station in Laos and win-
ner of the country's highest clandestine decoration, the Intelli-
gence Star.
Similarly, Mike Echanis was never a member of Special
Forces, albeit as a civilian he provided martial arts instruction
to elite units such as the Ranger Groups, SEAL Teams and
Green Berets. Rather, during his period as an editor of the
magazine, he was a CIA contract employee. According to the
CBS television program 60 Minutes and other sources, he was
involved in Edwin Wilson's ill-fated CIA mission in Libya be-
fore going to Nicaragua.
David Bufkin, aself-proclaimed mercenary recruiter who,
although not an official member of the Soldier of Fortunel
Robert K. Brown and his associates at Boulder's Soldier
of Fortune magazine have periodically thrashed about in the
bushes of Southeast Asia for some time now, running "sec-
ret missions" attempting to recover some sort of proof that
the Borth Vietnamese dupes of "Soviet aggression" have
been using chemical warfare agents against the populations
o1F Laos and Kampuchea.
When their "samples" of so-called "yellow rain" turned
out ro be the excretions of tropical bees, they resorted to of-
fering substantial rewards to anyone able to come up with
the read thing. There have been no takers.
Meanwhile, Brown and friends marched-in their minds,
at least-to the forefront of Vietnam veterans' rights advo-
cacy, using their magazine as a vehicle upon which to de-
man3 stridently that the gracefully somber Vietnam Memo-
rial be scrapped before it was constructed. In its stead they
called for yet another kitschy ode to the glories of war, such
as the ;gigantic statue of World War II's Iwo Jima flag-rais-
ing in Washington, DC.
Oddly, the concerned humanitarians of Soldier of For-
tune need not have gone to such lengths to discover proof of
praci iced chemical warfare against Southeast Asians. They
need only have turned to the Pentagon's official HERBS
tapes to have proved that the United States dumped hun-
dreds of thousands of gallons of defoliants-Agents Blue,
While, Green, Purple and Orange-across the Indochinese
countr}~side in the ten years between 1961 and 1971.
All of these herbicides are known to have been contami-
nated with dioxin, the most toxic chemical ever synthesized
by humans, a substance which is not only a proven carcino-
gen, but which has been estimated to be about 100,000
times more mutogenic than thalidomide.
If .Soldier of Fortune were in any real way concerned with
the e -fects of chemical warfare upon the masses of people in
Southeast Asia-a matter Brown has long and proudly proc-
laimed motivated his expeditions-the magazine would
long ago have adopted a stance of calling upon the United
States to assist the Laotian, Kampuchean, and Vietnamese
multitudes it has obviously poisoned with dioxin . . .and
then walked off and left.
But on this subject, "The King of the Mercenaries" has
maintained an absolute silence.
Similarly, rather than pouting and puffing about an
abstraction such as the symbolic content of the memorial by
which America will remember its Vietnam veterans, if
Brown were really concerned with the fate of the men who
fought in Vietnam he might have addressed their real prob-
lems both journalistically and editorially.
For example, it is known that thousands of Vietnam vet-
erans are suffering from the same chemical contamination
afflicting the Indochinese. The effects of dioxin poisoning
include the deformation of offspring, rampant chloracne,
neurological degeneration and a variety of unusual cancers.
The veterans in question-and there are a lot of them-are,
in effect, slowly rotting to death before our very eyes.
Again, Soldier of Fortune has stood mute, not bothering
to criticize the Veteran's Administration for failing to pro-
vide even perfunctory services to these inside victims of the
military mentality Brown so loves to laud.
None of these matters are so obscure as to have gone un-
noticed by the editor/publisher of "the journal of profes-
sional adventurers." Rather, his has been a conscious
choice to ignore them.
In the final analysis, nothing could so dramatically illus-
trate the cynicism and ideological hucksterism marking the
real meaning of Soldier of Fortune than Robert K. Brown's
figurative abandonment of both the people he says he fought
to save, and the men he says he fought beside. ?
1
J
Number 22 (Fall 1984)
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Omega Group circle, is a close friend of Brown, and who
"handled" the Americans killed in Angola, claims to have
been a CIA employee for a long time now.
Another, more circumstantial link between Brown and the
most secretive elements of U.S. officialdom has been his treat-
ment by the Army since he went on reserve status. It is axioma-
tic that a criminal investigation, or an investigation centering
upon tangible conflict with iJ.S. foreign policy, spells the ef-
fective end of an Army office;r's career. The case of General of
the Army Douglas MacArthur is perhaps the most famous of
this principle in practice.
Yet Brown, who left the Army a mere captain, has been pro-
moted not once, but twice--first to major, then to lieutenant
colonel-since coming under investigation for violation of the
Neutrality Act. Further, rather than being shunned by the mili-
tary establishment, as have officers such as Lt. Colonel An-
thony Herbert (whose "crime" was blowing the whistle on a-
trocities committed by the :military in Vietnam), Brown has
been selected repeatedly to receive the honor of addressing the
Army's prestigious War College. His subject has been mer-
cenaries and their implications for U.S. irregular warfare doc-
trine.
Expanded Activities
Since the rebuff of Schroeder's inquiries by the Justice De-
partment effectively proved that domestic criticism can be con-
tained, and that the potential for prosecution under U.S. sta-
tutes (a la Edwin Wilson) can be forestalled, Brown and
Omega Group have become increasingly brazen. For instance,
the magazine has featured an article by former managing editor
Bob Poos recounting how a team of Soldier of Fortune "jour-
nalists" ran a full combat patrol-` `to kill a last few terrs"-
in Zimbabwe the very night before the election marking transi-
tion from white minority to black majority rule in that country.
There have also been a spate of "I was there" stories by
U.S. nationals who served in the Rhodesian National Army,
despite ongoing and "official" State Department denials that
evidence has been obtained that American citizens were in-
volved in the fighting in Zirbabwe. Several of these individu-
als-Major Mike Williams and Captain John Early, among
others-have now been added to the Soldier of Fortune roster.
In 1980, the magazine began to sponsor a series of annual
conventions, bringing together the faithful a thousand at a
time. Staged in Columbia, Missouri, the first convention pre-
sented a "Bull Simons Freedom Award" to Vang Pao, former
head of the CIA's clandestine Hmong guerrilla army in Laos
during the late 1960s. The late Arthur D. "Bull" Simons
headed the first CIA-sponsored Special Forces mission into
that country, later worked as a SOG commander and led the
unsuccessful Special Forces raid on North Vietnam's Son Tay
POW camp in 1970. (Promoting the quest for the return of
mythical "live POWs" by the Vietnamese is another activity
Soldier of Fortune excels at.)
Says Illinois left activist, Bob Sipe, who attended the first
conference, "It was what 1 always thought sitting in on an SS
reunion would be like, except the people were younger at this
one. It was amazing. Some of these guys were even wearing
the totenkopf (SS death's head insignia) on their berets."
Another indication of the; magazine's new freedom of action
has been a virtual rash of Soldier of Fortune clones across the
face of American periodical literature. Omega Group has
launched a new glossy monthly entitled Survive. And then
there is Gung Ho!, edited and published (and, reputedly, al-
most entirely written) by former Soldier of Fortune editor Jim
Shultz. Other recently added magazine titles in this genre in-
clude New Breed, Eagle, Combat Illustrated, Special Weapons
and Tactics and Combat Ready.
Omega Group retains an active interest and presence in
southern Africa. For example, editor Jim Graves was in con-
tact with the two American participants--Charles William
Dukes (formerly of the Rhodesian National Army's elite Spe-
cial Air Service) and Barry Francis Briggon (formerly of the
Rhodesian Light Infantry)-in the abortive 1981 attempt by a
mercenary force to stage a coup in the Seychelles Islands. (See
CRIB Number 16.) The strike force, led by Colonel Mike
Hoare (commander of 5 Commando in the Congo twenty years
earlier), was launched from South Africa, where Graves just
happened to be visiting at the time. He later acknowledged that
he had been aware of the planned coup attempt a month before
it materialized.
Central America and Grenada
The organization has also demonstrated a lively interest and
involvement in Afghanistan, Southeast Asia and the Middle
East, but its real nuts-and-bolts focus has clearly shifted to
Central America over the past two years. In 1983, for example,
Omega Group sent a team to El Salvador on two separate occa-
SoF EI Salvador team (left to right): Robert K. Brown,
John Metzger, Alex McColl, John Donovan, Ralph Edens,
and Craig Nunn.
sions. Ostensibly led by Brown, the composition of the group
was as follows:
? Colonel Alexander McCnll: former SOG member and CIA
liaison officer.
? Captain John Early: former Special Forces A Team com-
mander and self-described mercenary in Rhodesia and Eritrea.
? Ben Jones: former mercenary in the Rhodesian African
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Rifles.
Captain Cliff Albright: former Republic Airlines DC-9
pilot and also a former DC-3 and C-47 pilot for the CIA's Air
America Company, according to Soldier of Fortune's Jim
From Phoenix 1~J~ssociates to C' , 'an-M' , As~ce
\~Vhen Robert K.
Brown first got in-
vol ve~d in the mercenary
reciuitrnent racket, he
made no attempt to con-
ceal his purpose, as one
of his old advertise-
ments shown here dem-
ons trates.
In the early years of
Soldier of Fortune,
publisher Brown and
his staffers were care-
less about revealing
their ties to U.S. intelli-
gence., and they boasted
of Heir military affilia-
tions and ranks.
Lieutenant Colonel
Bro ~vri of the 12th Spe-
cial Forces Group (Air-
borne), Lieutenant Col-
onel Alexander McColl
of the Special Forces
WANTED
NOW!
MERCENARIES
~~ ~~~~
PER MONTH
for captain... No income tax... Arrtare
and travel ezpensei refundtd on
arnral... free Quarters and medical
treatment... 60 days kare yearly...
520.000 life i~wirce. M~ra~atiM
packet reraliar ~. aRa, q,
sernce agreement, spgiiation lam,
wr scheduk, medical certificate...
55.00
Pboena Auot~es
Bo:831,
Dept. S~1,
Arraca, Colo. 8000?
Resf~rve and Captain John Donovan, also of the 12th Spe-
cial Forces Group (Airborne), have been around since the
days when the magazine was promoting Rhodesian merce-
nary service in a big way, but their ranks no longer grace the
masthead. (McColl is now a full bird colonel.)
Perhaps they all suffered embarrassment when supporters
of Zimbabwe liberation revealed that Brown's and Dono-
van's unit, the 12th Special Forces Group, was the channel
through which the CIA was sending mercenaries to shore up
the Smith regime. Under the circumstances, they may have
felt that it had been unwise to profile McColl's career as a
high level CIA officer in Laos in the Fall 1976 issue.
Today Brown denies he recruits mercenaries, and clams
up when asked about his CIA connections, but otherwise
nat much has changed.
Soldier of Fortune's dirty dozen went to El Salvador on
August 3 of last year. While they were there, Roberto d'Au-
buissori held a news conference to say he wanted fewer
U.S. military advisors and more mercenaries. His recruiting
appeal was carried (via the Associated Press) in newspapers
around the country. USA Today's plug "Welcome mat out
for mercenaries" ran on page one beside a color picture of
d'Aubuisson.
The September 1983 issue of Soldier of Fortune reports
on an earlier staff mission to EI Salvador. Brown wrote:
"The United States may lose the war in El Salvador in the
near future.... because the U.S. Congress refuses to pro-
vide the necessary funds and advisors.. .. "His solution
is simple: Mercenarize the war. He tells how many mer-
cenaries are needed, where they are needed, and at what
cost. How will this be funded? "Through the private sector.
We have some suggestions regarding the funding problem,
but are not going to print them. " (Remember the millio^
dollars ITT contributed to the CIA's coup in Chile?)
These were by no means the first moves toward recruiting
mercenaries for duty in the current U.S. intervention in
Central America. Newspapers widely reported the existence
of military training camps operated by Cuban and Nicara-
guan exiles in the southern California desert and in the
Florida everglades in late 1981 and early 1982. Reporters'
questions about these facilities brought yawns from State
Department and law enforcement officials, the polite way of
indicating government knowledge and approval.
But three years ago mercenaries were relatively far less
important to the war strategy, even if, on occasion, they
were uniquely suited to perform certain tactical assign-
ments. The scope of the two Soldier of Fortune missions to
El Salvador last year followed by d'Aubuisson's strong
public endorsement at a time when the press was tirelessly
tagging him a "pathological killer" indicates that an impor-
tant strategic decision had been taken which would require
an apparatus capable of recruiting mercenaries on a scale
not seen since the last of them were routed in Zimbabwe.
Meanwhile, a check of the Arlington Heights, Illinois,
headquarters of the 12th Special Forces Group during the
wee hours of the morning revealed that it, too, is humming
again. It's all so reminiscent of that headline in the Spring
1976 issue which profiled the 12th SF, Brown's and Dono-
van's unit: "Special Forces Reserve and National Guard
Units offer unique opportunities for adventure."
In July 1983, Tommy Posey of Flint City, Alabama, de-
cided to organize a group to send mercenaries and military
supplies to El Salvador. Posey is a former Marine corporal
who served in Vietnam; he owns a wholesale produce busi-
ness in Decatur and is a federally licensed firearms dealer;
he has also served in the Alabama National Guard. Posey
and four of his National Guard buddies "who shared an in-
terest in weapons and fighting communism" formed Civil-
ian-Military Assistance (CMA). Among the founders was
Dana Herber[ Parker, Jr., a captain in the National Guard
Special Forces unit and Huntsville police detective who had
been a Marine in Vietnam.
The geography was ideal. Huntsville is the home of one
of the country's very large military/security complexes.
The advanced space and military units there mean there
are plenty of intelligence personnel around too, whose pre-
sence is justified every once in a while with a "KGB spy"
scare in the newspapers. A Navy recruiter says this part of
North Alabama is "the best recruiting spot in the nation for
the military." The terrorist fringe thrives too; the Ku Klux
Klan operated a paramilitary training camp at Cullman in
1980 and 1981, which was closed down only after the
Southern Poverty Law Center threatened a lawsuit.
In this political and military climate, CMA grew. Mem-
bers were recruited through National Guard contacts, at gun
shows and in gun shops. The Alabama National Guard Spe-
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Graves. Albright was also part of the Civilian Military Assist-
ance mission to Honduras when two of its members were killed
in Nicaragua nn September 1 (see below).
? John ~Do~iovan: former SOG member, SWAT Team
1
cial Forces unit proved to be an especially fertile ground; it
specializes in counterinsurgency, and trains other units, in-
cluding the Tennessee National Guard.
One of the Guardsmen who joined, Staff Sergeant Don
Gilmore, started an offshoot organization in Memphis
called Civilian Refugee Military Assistance (CRMA). The
CMA/CRMA network spread to other parts of the South:
Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Georgia.
Quickly, official doors began to open for Tommy Posey
and his band. In October of 1983, Army Major Charles
McAnarney, a logistics officer at the U.S. Embassy in San
Salvador, arranged a meeting between Posey and a Salvado-
ran army colonel, to arrange the shipment of supplies. CMA
then went public.
Between November 11983 and March 1984, McAnarney
helped process eleven shipments of military supplies from
CMA to the Salvadoran army, continuing the "private" ef-
fort to bolster the war that Brown's Soldier of Fortune gang
had initiated in August. As these activities continued, both
Posey and Soldier of Fortune shifted their attention some-
what toward the war against Nicaragua.
Posey, Parker, and two other CMA members went to
Honduras in January, and again officials hastened to put
them in touch with the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Democratic
Force (FDN). The pressure to "privatize" U.S. support for
the contras was especially acute at that time because a U.S.
helicopter had been shot down over Nicaragua, killing the
pilot-the first known U.S. casualty of the war. That
episode caused considerable embarrassment in the U.S.,
and domestic opposition to the war sharply increased.
A U.S. Embassy official introduced Posey to Honduran
General Alvarez Martinez, who in turn sent the CMA
group, heavily armed and carrying 4,000 rounds of ammun-
ition, to an FDN base camp. Upon his return home, Posey
told the Huntsville Times that he had fired 300 rounds at
Nicaraguan troops patrolling the border. He also hinted that
he had been involved in hand-to-hand combat, saying that
the butt of his rifle had been stained by someone "running
into it."
The CMA began to hold public events to promote their
mercenary activities and to raise money for supplies. The
FDN's Alfonso Callejas addressed a CMA public meeting
in Decatur in April; volunteers and donations poured in. Ac-
cording to Mario Calero, the FDN's representative, the
CMA sent $70,000 worth of supplies between January and
September.
Posey says that CMA has recruited 15 men to "train" the
contras, and CRMA's Gilmore estimated that his group has
sent as many as 35. Like Soldier of Fortune's teams, these
men now officially deny that they are combat mercenaries
in order to minimize problems for the government when
there is public and congressional pressure to observe and
enforce the Neutrality Act, but they, too, admit they will
fire on Nicaraguan soldiers in "self-defense."
On August 23, a seven-man team departed for Honduras.
Among them were CMA co-founder Dana Parker and FDN
representative Mario Calero. The others were Captain Wal-
ter "Cisco" Blanton and Chief Warrant Officer William
"Bill" Courtney, both officers in the Alabama National
Guard Special Forces along with Parker, and three Mem-
phis recruits, James P. Powell III, Louis McKnight, and
Cliff Albright.
Powell had been a gunship pilot for the America) Divi-
sion in Vietnam in 1971; he later flew Huey and Cobra
helicopters for the Mississippi Army National Guard.
McKnight, a flight instructor, had been Powell's high
school chum. Albright, previously a member of the Soldier
of Fortune mission to El Salvador, and apparently the link
between Brown and the CMA/CRMA bunch, was a retired
Republic Airlines pilot and commander of the Phantom Di-
vision, Tennessee Airborne. If the stories about his tlying
for Air America arc true (see above) he may also be the
group's CIA liaison. The Memphians had been recruited on
August 1 when Calero addressed a Memphis VFW meeting.
Powell and one of the others left Memphis in a single en-
gine Cessna 206, heavily laden with supplies, while the
other five flew from New Orleans to Tegucigalpa by com-
mercial airlines. All seven then made their way to the c~oil-
Ira base.
At I :30 p.m. on Saturday, September I ,Parker and Pow-
ell flew in a CIA helicopter to the site of a c~orNra attack on
the Tapasali Military School near Santa Clara, Nicaragua,
10 miles from the Honduran border, where they were shot
down and killed, rocketing the mercenary war into the head-
lines and bringing the first blast of negative publicity since
Brown and d'Aubuisson had issued their call to mercenarize
Central America a year earlier.
Just as quickly, the coverup began. Tommy Posey, whu
had bragged about engaging in combat just last January,
now denied that CMA members were armed mercenaries,
and insisted that Parker and Powell has simply been on an
unarmed "mercy mission." But a colleague of Parker's told
USA Todu~~ that he had been paid "so much for duty in a
hostile zone and so much for duty in anon-hostile zone," as
mercenaries frequently are. CRMA's Gilmore said his
group would have to maintain a low profile "for a few
weeks" while the heat was on the government to investiga-
tion violations of the Neutrality Act.
Despite denials from mercenary recruiters and the CIA,
press and congressional critics smelled a rat and pressed
ahead. Bit by bit the media uncovered and exposed the C[A
connection, as they had done previously with the mining of
Nicaragua's harbors. Sen. Jim Sasser of Tennessee and
Rep. Dan Glickman of Kansas attacked the C[A's use of~
mercenaries to support the contras through the "back door"
after Congress had cut off funds for direct aid.
Even the mercenaries themselves have fallen out over this
incident. While CMA's "Cisco" Blanton of Sheffield,
Alabama, a Vietnam veteran, works full time for the organi-
zation, his colleague at the National Guard Special Forces,
"Bill" Courtney, described their Honduran mission as "a
bag of worms" and announced that he would not be going
back.
Unfortunately, as long as mercenary recruiters are per-
mitted to flout the Neutrality Act with a wink and a nod
while the CIA orchestrates their activities in the shadows,
there will be plenty of volunteers eager to take his place.
By Ken Lawrence
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trainer (bey contract) and owner of Donovan's Demolitions, a
company in southern Illinois specializing in blowing buildings
and clearing logjams.
? "John Doe": believed to be John Crawford of Nederland,
Colora~Io. If true, he is another former mercenary in Rhodesia
and claims to have been one in the old Transjordanian Camel
Corps.
? Peter G. Kokalis: former member of U.S. Army Intelli-
gence, now believed to be employed by the CIA.
? .Ralp,h G. Edens: an old friend of Brown's from the Ever-
glades Says; Edens's main claim to fame seems to lie in hav-
ing not been prosecuted for having undertaken a private bomb-
ing raid on Haiti, using a Constellation passenger aircraft and
homemade napalm in 55 gallon drums, in 1964. A number of
Port au Prince's slum dwellers were burned to death in Edens's
"boyish" escapade.
? ,Tohn Padgett: farmer SOG medic.
? Philip Gonzalez: former Special Forces medic.
? 'T'homas D. Reisinger: no real background, reputed to be
Brown's CIA control officer.
The l~u~rpose of the visits was to assess the potential for an
Americ~in "private sector" deployment of troops in El Sal-
vador, ;ind to provide training for the rabble of that country's
exceptionally brutal Atlacatl Regiment. Instruction included
the tactics of ambush and patrol, proper utilization of the U.S.
light wE~apons issued to Salvadoran troops as standard gear,
and principles of airmobile operations.
Considering these pilot efforts a success, Brown has now
publicly offered to replace the hotly contested advisory pre-
sence of U.S. Army personnel in El Salvador with professional
cadres cf his own choosing. Salvadoran fascist leader Roberto
d'Aubuisson has accepted the offer in an equally public fash-
ion. Both parties agree that the financial underwriting of such a
venture presents no particular problems. Money will be put up,
no doubt, by the Salvadoran right, and also in all probability by
the same: sorts of U.S. rightwing financiers exposed by Ken
Lawrence in his 1981 articles, "Behind the Klan's Karibbean
Koup Attempt." (See CRIB Numbers 13 and 16.) However, the
overaN.l scope of the envisioned intervention clearly implies
support an a grand scale, the sort historically provided by the
CIA.
There is another bit of evidence of the extraordinary cozi-
^ess which exists between Omega Group and the U.S. intelli-
gence community. It is well known that the American press
was barred-ostensibly for its own safety-from the October
1983 ~U.S. invasion of Grenada until the fifth day of military
operations on the island.
By then, most resistance had been crushed by Rangers and
Marines, the nature of combat unobserved by independent
journalists. Perhaps of more importance, the key members of
Grenada's ;government had been arrested, whisked away to an
interview-free environment of close confinement, when they
were not being paraded, blindfolded and in shackles, through
the streets of their capital city. Similarly, intelligence units had
gained ample time in which to conduct a thorough survey of
the situation, declaring certain buildings and their contents-
for reasons of "sensitivity" and "security"off limits to all
but certified "spooks."
While constitutional controversy understandably swirls
around this latest abridgement of the First Amendment by the
executive branch of government, Soldier of Fortune editor Jim
Graves. anrnounced that his publication was the sole exception
to the press ban. In a rather drunken but very well witnessed
exchange in a Boulder, Colorado, restauranUbar ("The Hun-
gry Farmer") Graves shot from the lip, contending his
magazine's "people" were allowed in on the first day, "with
the assault troops."
Sandinista soldiers inspecting wreckage of downed CMA
helicopter.
Pastora Flip-Flop
Soldier of Fortune's Steve Salisbury has described his
participation in the September 1983 attack on El Cas-
tillo, Nicaragua, by Eden Pastora Gomez's Democratic
Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE), and in an earlier
ARDE cross-border raid from Costa Rica to rustle cattle
from Nicaraguan campesinos. "Dr. John," another of
the magazine's writer-mercenaries, has written of his ad-
ventures in ARDE also.
But the November 1984 issue of Soldier of Fortune
turned against Pastora, the former Sandinista "Comman-
der Zero," and savaged him with a vengeance. This re-
port revealed, among other things, the falsity of Pas-
tora's public political stance: "His personal bodyguards
were, to a man, former members of Somoza's hated
Guardia Nacionale." (Pastora had always insisted that
he would not permit former Somocistas in ARDE, and
that was his pretext for refusing to merge with the FDN. )
In the belated attack on Pastora he is described as cor-
rupt, inept, and egotistical. "Pastora's reputation as an
aggressive military commander has always been largely
unmerited. "
"Dr. John" uses language rarely seen in So/dier of
Fortune to describe an ARDE attack on Nicaraguan
women and children. "We were on a bullshit mission-a
mission that violated international law, human decency
and all ideas of right or wrong that ['ve ever had," he
wrote, and "we were led by a fool."
It is an interesting confession, and would have
sounded even more convincing had it been published at
the time. But for many long months afterward, ARDE
and Pastora were heroic "freedom fighters" to the Sol-
dier of Fortune faithful.
However, once the CIA's line changed-` `CIA con-
trol agents now admit that they made a big mistake in
backing Zero"- Soldier of Fortune dutifully switched
and parroted the new line. ?
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This, of course, could lie chalked up merely to sodden
stupidity (we all tend to exaggerate from time to time) were it
not for the fact that Graves also mentioned that this head start
had allowed Soldier of Fortune to stake out and examine the
New Jewel Movement's Central Committee Headquarters.
pect of the covert means through which the United States gov-
ernment and its transnational corporate allies plan to continue
to assert their hegemony over much of the globe.
Treating Bob Brown as merely a pathetically aging adoles-
cent who never quite outgrew his flirtation with toy soldiers is,
in the end, not quite fair. He is that, to be sure, but he is not all
posture and pretension. At the very least, he has fashioned a
lucrative career out of sending other people off to kill. And to
die. The fundamental reality of Omega Group is perhaps best
summed up by a poster hanging on the wall of Boulder's Sol-
dier of Fortune office complex: featuring a picture of a vulture
awaiting its chance to descend upon its prey, the poster reads,
"Killing is our business, and business is good."
There is nothing abstract in that honest statement. And the
number of corpses strewn like litter across the landscapes of
Asia, Africa, and Latin America can attest to the accuracy of
its meaning. ?
A Challenge
Jim Graves at NJM Headquarters; Bob Brown in back-
ground.
This, he said, had resulted in the magazine's obtaining gov-
ernmental and party documents marked "secret," not avail-
able to the rest of the press.
Certain of the documents have now been published, authen-
ticating at least a portion of Graves's inebriated contentions.*
Further, it turns out the U.S. intelligence had the military bar
not only the press, but also a Congressional Investigating Com-
mittee, from the very same New Jewel Movement headquarters
facility to which Soldier of Fortune was obviously allowed ac-
cess. Congressman Ro^ C-ellums (D-Cal.), a member of the
committee, was reportedly "stunned" by the implications of
the situation. For its part, Soldier of Fortune has stated that its
cache of documents show that Dellums and several members of
Congress are essentially in league with "the communists" (Joe
McCarthy's ears must certainly have perked up on that note),
although the magazine has yet to print anything illustrating its
claims.
Finally, there is the connection of Soldier of Fortune to
"Civilian Military Assistance," two mercenaries from which
recently died in Nicaragua.. (See sidebar.)
Conclusion
All in all, given the whole context of circumstances sur-
rounding them, it seems evident that the supposedly "private
sector" activities of Robert K. Brown and Omega Group are
something else altogether. To the contrary, it is a near certainty
that the whole operation is an integral, if little considered, as-
*It has been pointed out that Gravel's story could still be malarky, as there are
other ways Soldier of Fortune could have obtained the documents .. .such as
a leak from someone in U.S. intelligence. For our purposes, it doesn't matter,
as the same sort of close relationship is implied. The magazine's published
version of how it came by the documents-finding and cracking an unguarded
safe in the Central Committee HQ (which the rest of the press was too dumb to
find) is too transparent to wash.
A highly decorated officer who served in both Korea
and Vietnam recently suggested a way to separate some
of the fact from fiction where those associated with Sol-
dier of Fortune and Omega Group are concerned. The
idea is so simple yet effective that it deserves repeating
here.
Each individual serving in the U.S. military is issued
"Separation Papers" when leaving the service. While
the overall package of such papers may vary (depending
on rank, branch of service and so forth), a common de-
nominator is always form DD-214.
The DD-214 form provides a sort of official ' `mini-
history" of an individual's military service, including
special schools or training sequences attended (e.g., Air-
borne training, Ranger training, Special Forces training,
etc.), awards and decorations received and so forth.
Since so much of Soldier of Fortune's credibility has
been predicated upon the hard-core warrior status of its
proprietor, staff and associates, it seems only fair to the
public that some of the magazine's statements and allu-
sions to these individuals' backgrounds be substantiated.
War stories should be differentiated from war records.
Hence, it would be interesting to see the voluntary
publication of the DD-214s of certain key Soldier of For-
tune personnel, beginning with that of Bob Brown him-
self. Since there are federal laws prohibiting the altera-
tion of this form, we could all be assured of obtaining
some accurate information as to who did (or did not) do
what, and when.
This seems a matter of fundamental journalistic con-
cern, and we're all professional journalists here. Right,
Bob'?
In fact, 1'll go one better and make the whole thing
materially worthwhile. A challenge: [f your DD-214 re-
veals that you are even qualified to wear the Combat In-
fantry Badge-the basic award denoting combat ser-
vice-I'll buy you a brand new beret from Brigade Quar-
termaster. Deal'?
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Na::i~s and Klansmen:
Soidier of Fortune's Seamy Side
By Ken Lawrence
Whenever Soldier of Fortune falls under scrutiny sufficient
to challenge its image as simply a fierce partisan voice of
swashbuclaing adventure and anticommunist opinion, pub-
lisher Robert K. Brown seeks refuge behind one group of his
critics, -:hose who dismiss him and his followers as a band of
loony V/after Mittys. At that point, most investigators shake
their heads and move along.
As w~ have demonstrated many times before, and again in
this issue, Brown and his magazine are essential ingredients in
the CIA's arsenal of clandestine warfare. But exposing the de-
gree of Soldier of Fortune's involvement in recruiting and
fielding mercenaries is not sufficient to convey how dangerous
the magazine and its imitators really are. As always in these
matters, the truth is shrouded in lies and misleading
euphemism.
Brown claims that he and his magazine are opposed to ra-
cism, the l{u Klux Klan, and Nazis, but the history of Soldier
of Fortune suggests otherwise. An early issue carried a full
page .advertisement for the Spotlight, Liberty Lobby's weekly
tabloid newspaper, which is generally regarded as the largest
circuLati:~g voice for anti-Semitism and overt racism in the
U.S.
The same issue carried another full page promotion for a
Spotlights "friendship tour" of Rhodesia, while the classifieds,
in additi~~n to the usual ads for mercenaries and the John Birch
Society, offered a book called Forced Integration, "A critical
examinario~n of such concepts as equal rights, equal protection
of the laws and equality of opportunity. "
Racist associations cause Brown occasional embarrass-
ments, lint only when they create a public commotion. Then
Brown apologizes and retreats.
At the: 1980 Soldier of Fortune convention in Columbia,
Missouri, the keynote speaker was Robin Moore, well known
author o' The Green Berets and other books that romanticize
military combat. He had just published The Crippled Eagles
glorifying the mercenaries in Rhodesia, the favorite Soldier of
Fortune heroes up to that time. When Moore used racist epithets
to denounce then U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Andrew
Young, reporters were astonished. The next day Brown called a
news conference to apologize, and said he had told Moore to
leave the convention.
For approximately a year after that, Soldier of Fortune car-
ried disp a}~ ads for The Turner Diaries, the Ku Klux Klan and
neo-Nazi "manual for revolution" described by its publisher as
a book which "portrays in stark terms the stern and bloody
measures which will be required to set that world right again
and put our race once more on the upward path." [t contains
grisly arguments for the extermination of people of color,
Jews, and white "racial traitors." In the fall of 1981, Soldier
of Fortune subscribers received a mailing from the National
Alliance, the neo-Nazi organization that published The Turner
Diaries. That brought a loud outcry from Jewish organizations,
forcing Soldier of Fortune's editors to publish an apology to
readers and to drop the National Alliance from its list of adver-
tisers.
Even so, the classified section still ran recruiting ads for the
Christian Patriots Defense League, an ultraright paramilitary
organization with links to Liberty Lobby, the National Al-
liance, and the Ku Klux Klan, until the former managing editor
was embarrassed about them in a debate with this writer. Other
racist organizations still are permitted to advertise in Soldier of
Fortune, as are purveyors of Nazi regalia and other pro-Nazi
books.
Paladin Press, the publishing house associated with Soldier
of Fortune, markets a whole library of manuals on murder and
mayhem. The six-volume set How to Kill is listed under "self
defense," presumably to allay the suspicions of critical inves-
tigators; in fact its purpose is to teach assassination techniques.
Here's an example from Volume V:
"An effective gag may be had from a tennis or sponge rub-
ber ball. By forcing it into the subject's mouth it is retained and
cannot be withdrawn as it expands to fill the mouth cav-
ity... .For purposes of this study: By soaking the ball with
ipecac (uanha) or similar emetic, the vomit will be forced into
his air passages, effectively drowning him. After expiration the
ball can be pierced and removed."
The latest volume tells how to prepare a rope for a hanging,
presumably in deference to Paladin's KKK followers. Another
Paladin book, Hit Man, is by a professional killer, according to
the advertisement. "Learn how a pro makes a living at [his
craft without landing behind bars. Read how he gets assign-
ments, creates a false working identity, makes a disposable si-
lencer, leaves the scene without a trace, watches his mark un-
observed, and more."
Other series teach Techniques of Harassment and Get Even:
The Complete Book of Dirry Tricks, both multi-volume sets.
One provides detailed information on how to break into the
home of someone you don't like and destroy virtually every-
thing he or she owns in almost no time at all. Shortly after the
volume containing that item appeared, vandals attacked a de-
segregated public school in Jackson, Mississippi, using
methods described in the book, leaving the worst devastation
police and school officials had ever seen, including the initials
"KKK" spray painted on one of the walls.
Number 22 (Fall 1984)
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Illustration from Elementary Field Interrogation.
The 34-page Paladin cal:alog also lists a series of booklets of-
fering instructions on how to convert semi-automatic firearms,
sold legally for sporting purposes, into fully automatic illegal
machine guns, and others on how to manufacture firearm
silencers, which are also illegal. Machine guns are strictly mil-
itary weapons; only murderers and assassins would have use
for a silencer. The rest of Paladin's books follow the same
vein.
Another Soldier of Fortune advertiser publishes a torture
manual titled Elementary Field Interrogation. The author, "a
former U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who took part in the
notorious Phoenix Program in Southeast Asia," methodically
arranges the lessons. First he lists the universal fears that the
torturer should seek to arouse in his victim: sexual mutilation,
physical mutilation, blin mg, debilitation, and prolonged
agony. Then he gets speci~ic:
"Ignite a piece of C-4 in front of your subject and use it to
boil water in a small pot. Say nothing to him while the water
comes to a boil, which should take only a few seconds. Let the
subject observe the intense heat generated by the little bit of C-
4. Pour a little of the boiling water on his genitals for effeclz if
you wish.
"Now, take a similar amount amount of the same explosive
and tape it over the subject's eye, leaving one eye unobstructed
to see that you are holding a lighted match within a few inches
of the material on his eye. Begin your questions, if the subject
panics or refuses to answer, hold the flame to his nipple to let
him know you're serious. No one wants to be blinded by fire.'
That is a portion of torture number 5, titled "the cook out."
The manual is fully illustrated. The author advises that pris-
oners should be killed quietly. "Gunshots from beyond a hill-
top are not conducive to credibility. Use bayonets or clubs to
do the job." And make certain they stay dead. "A badly in-
jured enemy who digs himself out of a shallow grave is the
worst sort of propaganda."
The U.S. government can't afford to be caught disseminat-
ing abook like Elementary Field Interrogation, but it's must
reading for mercenaries, and a hot seller at their gatherings. A
comparable guide for Soldier of Fortune readers who prefer to
administer their mayhem on the homefront is Vigilante Hand-
book. The author says that for vigilantes, "torture is accepted
as a legitimate technique," and he> too, provides step by step
instructions, but without pictures. He declares that hanging is
"obsolete .. .clumsy and inefficient." Instead he recom-
mends assassination by gun, knife, or bludgeon. And so on.
When Soldier of Fortune's former managing editor, Jim
Graves (later its "chief foreign correspondent" and now
"Washington bureau chief"), was questioned by a reporter
about torture manuals and racist publications sold through Sol-
dier of Fortune, he admitted that Paladin Press and other ad-
vertisers are free to promote these items in the magazine and do
so, but he said they are included in the interests of "free
speech," not because they reflect Soldier of Fortune's point of
view. Had the reporter been better prepared, he could have
proven that Graves was a liar. (We shall leave aside the matter
of whether Graves would adopt this civil libertarian stance if
offered an advertisement by a liberal or leftist publisher.)
Journalists? Jones, Padgett, Brown, and Early interrogate
guerrilla suspect at request of Salvadorans, late 1983.
On March 19, 1981, ABC broadcast an hour long documen-
tary program on mercenaries called Soldiers of the Twilight. It
opened with shots of a U.S. mercenary who had recently re-
turned to California after fighting the losing war to preserve
white supremacy in Rhodesia. He was called "Rebel, to keep
his real name secret." In the ABC interview, "Rebel" told of
his mercenary experience proudly:
"The blacks over there are not equal to the whites. Once in a
while you've got to ask a prisoner, `is the road up ahead there
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mined?' For any liberal that's interested in brutality, let him
get in the truck and him drive down that road. You tie the guy
to the front of your truck and go down.. ..Man, we just
swept through there like the hand of God. But I'll be back, and
I'll bring you a string of ears."
"Rebel" is a Soldier of Fortune folk hero; his name is
Michael Peirce. Peirce's model was always Heinz Guderian,
the German general who commanded Adolf Hitler's war
against t1e Soviet Union. A dabbler in music, "Rebel" carried
a copy cf Guderian's book Panzer Leader in his guitar case.
Peirce was prompted to join the Rhodesian army as a merce-
nary by an article in the January 1979 issue of Soldier of For-
tune by ]~o~bert K. Brown himself. When he read "The Black
Devils," about Rhodesia's elite armored corps commanded by
Major D~n?ell Winkler, a U.S. mercenary, "the magical word
panzergrenadier flashed in my mind like a bloody great neon
sign," Peirce later wrote, so off he went.
When Soldier of Fortune published "Rebel" Peirce's three
part memoir beginning in its December 1981 issue, the crude
racism. captured by the ABC cameras was missing, but it re-
mains arevealing portrayal of mercenary life even after being
sanitized. His matter-of-fact anecdotes range from tales of cel-
ebrating leave singing Wehrmacht songs "with a bunch of
people who might be described as unsavory at best" to battle
experiences: "Six wounded prisoners were questioned, then
taken for cone-way walk in the woods. " On another occasion,
"We killed the wounded terrorist with an eagerness that chills
me in retro~~spect."
It is unfortunate that Peirce wasn't available as a witness
when the "human rights" organization Freedom House was
proclaiming; the election of Bishop Abel Muzorewa as Prime
Minister of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia "free and fair." Here is his
account:
"Next stop: the polling booth. We shot anybody w}ro didn't
want to vote or tried to run away. Even I had to vote.
" `But, Marge, I can't vote here. I'm an American.'
" `You Yanks are always talking about democracy; here's
your big chance. You're going to vote.'
" 'But who do I vote for?'
" `T'he kaffir of your choice.' "
Ironically, the article by Robert K. Brown that recruited
"Rebel." to mercenary service was published in part to pro-
mote tt-at "democratic" election.
Another of Soldier of Fortune's heroes is Major L. H.
"Mike"' 'JVilliams. A former U.S. Army officer with the 10th
Special Forces, 77th Special Forces Group, and 101st Air-
borne, Williams had fought with Michael Hoare's mercenaries
in the Congo in the sixties. In 1975 he returned to Africa in
search of `one last war" and joined the Rhodesian army. Even-
tually he became the commander of the elite horse cavalry
unit called Cirey's Scouts. But even Ian Smith had to get rid of
him after photc,graphs of troops under his command engaged in
torturing prisoners were obtained by U.S. newspapers and pub-
lished. Orie showed a Rhodesian soldier holding one end of a
rope; at the other end was a noose around the neck of an Afri-
can prisoner. Two others were similarly damning.
After his expulsion from Africa, Williams moved on to El
Salvador. When ABC interviewed him in 1980 he was plotting
a coup sanewhere else, but he was nostalgic about life as a
Rhodesian mercenary. "Where in the world could you get a
job riding horses and killing Marxists and having a good old
time?" By 1981 he was looking for another war, perhaps in
Central America again. "The fact is that I really love this. I
don't just like it, I love it."
ABC closed the documentary as it opened, with "Rebel."
"People just don't understand. There's gonna be wars. And
why don't they just let us guys that enjoy it do it?" ?
Soldier of Fortune's hypocrisy knows no bounds. When the
CIA issues marching orders, its editors fall in without hesita-
tion, and without a look back. Shown here is the cover of the
January 1981 issue (actually on the stands in November of
1980). It was illustrating an article on the holocaust in Kam-
puchea committed by the Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot and
Ieng Sary. But even as this issue was on sale, the decision to
provide clandestine CIA support for the Khmer Rouge forces
was being taken to destabilize the Heng Samrin government
backed by Vietnam which had ousted Pol Pot.
Even before Reagan was inaugurated he had dispatched old
ClA hand Ray Cline on a goodwill mission to Ieng Sary's
Khmer Rouge base in Thailand, and since that time the U.S.
has tried to unify the various Kampuchean exile groups, in-
cluding the Khmer Rouge, into a coherent opposition. The Au-
gust 1984 issue of Soldier of Fortune carried a feature by Jim
Graves promoting the opposition forces attempting to over-
throw the Heng Samrin government. In the earlier portrayal
Pol Pot was the murderer of three million Cambodians who
presided over a "horror chamber." Now he's an ally.
"There is little love for Pol Pot," writes Graves, "but all
the Khmer leaders and governments supporting the resistance
movement realize that any attempt to oust the powerful Pol Pot
would be impossible and only result in the breakup of the re-
sistance coalition. " ?
Number 22 (Fall 1984)
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Nicaragua Update:
Feverish Overthmw Plan
Builds Toward Climax
By Louis Wolf
As Daniel Ortega stood before the United Nations October
2, his country faced an ongoing war of aggression which no
one still calls covert. "We want the world to know that the
Nicaraguan people-barefoot, ragged, and with empty
stomachs-are going to fight to the end, until we achieve
peace, by either defeating the invaders or immolating our-
selves, if imperialist strategy leaves us no other choice," he
declared.
However, the U.S. has made it clear that peace is not part of
its agenda. Just weeks before Ortega's arrival U.N. Ambas-
sador Jeane Kirkpatrick noted that, "if reelected, President
Reagan will step up aid" to the contras. Since 1982 the U.S.
has spent over $ I50 million on the "covert" war, in addition
to the acknowledged Pentagon expenditures, mostly in Hon-
duras. Under-Secretary of Defense for Inter-American Affairs,
30-year CIA veteran Nestor Sanchez, told journalists on Sep,
tember 28, "Our policies regarding Nicaragua) are working.'
The U.S. War Policy
What has been the thrust of those policies'? The clear pattern
of military exercises in the region, with increasing numbers of
Special Forces, Army Engineers and Airborne units, Navy
SEAL teams, and others training Honduran, Salvadoran,
Guatemalan, and Panamanian paramilitary personnel, leaves
no doubt that Washington has chosen a military solution.
Since 1981, the inexorable buildup in Honduras has been
overwhelming (see CA113 Number l8). Honduras has been
transformed into the CIA/Pentagon launching pad for the war
against Nicaragua. Indeed there is a striking similarity between
the role of Honduras todau and that of Thailand during the Viet-
nam War. Prior to Reagan there were no more than 30 U.S.
military personnel in Honduras. By 1983 there were about 350
permanent military advisers and several hundred CIA person-
nel (see Time magazine, December 6, 1982). At present there
are between one and two thousand U.S. troops in Honduras on
what the Pentagon calls "an interim presence basis," and
many hundreds of CIA officers and agents. In addition,
thousands of troops are deployed in Honduras in the nearly non-
stop succession of joint military exercises. More than $250
million has been spent on such exercises in 1984 alone, with
the total for 1985 expected to be double that (South magazine,
June 1984).
Reviewing the troops(left to right): John D. Negroponte,
Roberto Suazo Cordova, Gen. Gustavo Alvarez, and Gen.
Paul Gorman.
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From the beginning, the bottom line of U.S. policy towards
the Sandinista government has been its overthrow. John D.
Negroponte was sent to Tegucigalpa as Ambassador in August
1981, his Embassy was upgraded in importance, and Honduras
began to Ibe speckled with U.S. military installations which,
Congress was originally told, were purely temporary. Only
later did visiting Members of Congress, and the General Ac-
counting Office, learn that most of the mushrooming bases
were permanent.
There are now more than 12 separate facilities in use, with
others under construction. U.S. military aid to Honduras has
multiplied ten-told during the Reagan administration and more
than $100 million has already been spent on the facilities with
nearly g~~500 million appropriated for this fiscal year. (Hon-
duras alto serves as a base for U.S. personnel in El Salvador,
where Congress has set a limit of 55 "advisers." The nearby
bases give the Pentagon a "24-hour use of manpower," ac-
cording to a diplomat quoted in the London Financial Times,
May I , 1984. )
Honduras and the Contras
The prirnary reason for the dramatic militarization of Hon-
duras is the presence there of the largest private army the CIA
has ever fielded. The contras' numbers have grown in direct
proportion to CIA involvement and U.S. aid. Today there are
an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 contras out to overthrow the
government of Nicaragua, about three-fourths of them with the
Nicarag~ an Democratic Force (FDN) along the Honduras-
Nicaragt; aborder and the remainder with the Democratic Rev-
olutionary Alliance (ARDE) along the Costa Rica-Nicaragua
border. Both groups have been organized by the C[A and the
U.S. military with Special Forces style command structures,
and U.S. arms, equipment, and logistics. Green Berets have
been training contras and, according to some detailed reports
(see Allan Nairn's investigation in NACLA Report on the
Americas, May-June 1984), accompanying them on terrorist
missions inside Nicaragua.
In the last two years, "the U.S. has established the essential
infrastructure to launch a large scale intervention anywhere in
Central America from Honduras." (Financial Times, May 1,
1984.) The scope of operations can be glimpsed by reports that
on one of the U.S. bases, the Jamastran air base just north of
the border, U.S. military vehicles consume more than 1,400
gallons of fuel each day.
Byproducts of the U.S. presence in Honduras include the
emergence of a flourishing black market in U.S. goods and
currency, increased prostitution, and a growing level of repres-
sion. At least 112 people have "disappeared," believed vic-
tims of secret paramilitary teams. There has also been a drama-
tic rise in public opposition to the government's fawning sub-
servience to the U.S., opposition which led to the ouster of
former armed forces commander Gen. Gustavo Alvarez, and
demonstrations against President Roberto Suazo Cordova and
what is called "the U.S. occupation." The largest such dem-
onstration took place in Tegucigalpa on September 16.
CA/B learned on a recent visit to Nicaragua that Honduran
soldiers participate in the U.S. advisers' sessions with the con-
tras, where the rebels are told that "soon the U.S. Marines will
be backing you up directly .. .one day you will be in charge
of the Nicaraguan military . . .now go on down there and fight
and kill the enemy." But the contras are facing a determined
foe in the Nicaraguan people and have taken more than 3,000
M' ' ary Maneuvers in Central l~merica
The following is a summary of U.S. military maneuvers in Central
America since President Reagan took office. Most of the material first ap-
peared i nthe July issue of Fl Sc~h~ado/s Link, and was reprinted in the Au-
gust issue of Lucha.
Falcods Eye: October 1981; naval maneuvers near Puerto Cortex, Hon-
duras; =00 troops, including 130 U.S. personnel, fi ships.
Combinied Movement: July-August 1982; construction of permanent
Honduran base at Durzana, 25 miles from the Nicaraguan border; 30 U.S.
support troops, U.S.-supplied C-130 transport planes, Hucy and Chinook
helicopters.
Big Fine I (Ahuas Tara I): February 1983; mock defense of Honduras
from attact: by "Red Army." 25 miles from the Nicaraguan border, I ,600
U.S. Army, Navy, and Air force personnel, 4,000 Honduran troops.
Big Pine IL? August 1983 to February 1984; included practice bombing
runs ut San Lorenzo, near EI Salvador and Nicaragua, a massive amphibi-
ous landing near Puerto Castilla, and a field training exercise in eastern
Honduras, near the Nicaraguan border; 5,500 U.S. Army, Navy, and Air
Force troops and Navy tactical air crews, two aircraft carriers with battle
group escorts, several thousand Honduran troops and officials.
Emergency Deployment Readiness: March 1984; testing of tactics and
medical. communication, and survival capabilities, 25 miles north of
Tegucigalpa; 40 U.S. Special forces and 150-200 Honduran Special
Forces.
Kilo Yunch: March 1984; paratrooping near the Palmerola airfield and
securing of the San Lorenzo airfield by combined airborne and air assault
forces; ?50 U.S. personnel and 130 Honduran airborne infantrymen.
(Granadero I: April to June 1984; upgrading of airfields at Cucuyagua
and Jamastran, near the Salvadoran and Nicaraguan borders respectively,
in order to accommodate C-130 transport planes, counterinsurgency train-
ing, and an airborne helicopter assault operation; 800 U.S. Army en-
gineers, 200-250 U.S. Air Force personnel, an additional 750-800 U.S.
troops, and I ,200 Honduran troops, with some Panamanian, Guatemalan,
and Salvadoran troops.
Lightening II: April 1984; paratrooper assault to secure an operations
base from which to stage an attack on an airfield, near Aguacate, 120 miles
northeast of Tegucigalpa and 60 miles from the Nicaraguan border; 170
Honduran Special Forces and 120 U.S. Army troops.
King's Guard: April to May 1984; U.S. ships to detect vessels on their
radar and pass information to Salvadoran and Honduran patrols, which
then practiced surveillance and interdictions operations, in the Culf of
Fonseca; two U.S. destroyers, U.S.S. De~~o, guided missle frigate U.S.S.
Reid, and members of the 193rd Infantry Brigade based in Panama, Sal-
vadoran patrol boats based at La Union and 100 Salvadoran personnel,
Honduran patrol boats and 75 personnel based at the Ampara naval facility
on Tiger Island.
Big Pine IIL? June 1984 to present; similar to Big Pine II; over 20,000
troops from Honduras, Salvador, and Guatemala, and over 6,000 U.S.
troops.
Lempira: September to October 1984; joint U.S.-Honduran counterim
surgency exercise, part of series of exercises called Bigger Focus, with
night landings and deployments, air and parachute drops, ground assaults,
and training on how to operate on short or no advance notice; several
hundred troops from U.S. 7th Special Forces Group of Ft. Bragg, North
Carolina, and Ft. Davis (formerly Ft. Gulik), Panama, with task force
headquartered at Comayagua, and Honduran 7th, loth, and 12th Infantry
Battalions. ~
~~
Number 22 (Fall 1984)
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casualties in just four months of 1984. During August alone
there were 122 separate battles with the contras.
The Nicaraguan population has suffered greatly also. As of
July 1984 there were 2,31 l dead, 1,900 wounded, and 3,720
disappeared or kidnapped at the hands of the contras. There
has been at least $237 million in damages to the Nicaraguan
economy directly from the CIA's war.
A continuing contra tactic is wholesale kidnapping. In early
September, 32 civilians were kidnapped; at least 80 people have
disappeared since July. On September 5, an armed contra band
seized scholar Ray Hooker Taylor, FSLN political secretary
Patricia Delgado, and riverboat pilot Santiago Mayorka as they
crossed the Rio Grande River during the election campaign.
Hooker is a well-known academic, director of the Moravian
School, and an authority on Atlantic Coast affairs. He is a very
popular candidate for the National Assembly.
U.S.-Contra Ties
U.S. officials readily acknowledge the FDN-CIA ties, but
U.S. links with ARDE are less well known, despite bragging
by ARDE leader Alfonso Robelo on Costa Rican television this
spring that ARDE was getting "aid from the American tax-
payer." Mariello Serrano, a Nicaraguan state security official,
successfully infiltrated ARDE for two years, becoming one of
Eden Pastora's bodyguards. On his return home Serrano told
how Pastora was receiving $600,000 a month from the CIA
and how he had lengthy meetings with William Casey, Jeane
Kirkpatrick, and other U.S. officials.
Congressionally imposed restrictions on aid to the contras
have required ingenuity on Casey's part as the CIA circum-
vents the will of Congress. In addition to the "privatization"
of the war (described elsewhere in'this issue), and to the not-
so-subtle transfer of Pentagon assets to the CIA's minions,
government and FDN sources have asserted to the New York
Times (September 9, 1984) that Israel, Guatemala, Argentina,
Venezuela, and Taiwan have all been used to launder money
and materiel for the contras. Congressional cutoffs have not
appeared to daunt the FDN. In an October 3 press release from
Washington, FDN chief Adolfo Calero said, "We are not
going to quit . . . we receive help from others who are sym-
pathetic to our cause."
In August the Nicaraguan government uncovered evidence
that the CIA was planning as part of its range of options an at-
tempt to split the FSLN leadership, perhaps coupled with an
assassination made to look like the result of an internal power
struggle. One indication was the full-page advertisements
which appeared in newspapers in Venezuela, Costa Rica, and
Panama, signed by a fictitious "Friends of Tomas Borge."
ThP ads said, "Not Cruz. Not Ortega. Borge for President."
U.S. attempts to damage the Nicaraguan economy even in-
clude the Embassy, which converts its local employees' dollar
wages at black market rates.
Recent Events
The following are some major recent events in the CIA's
war against Nicaragua. (See CRIB Number 21 for our previous
update. )
~ June l: Secretary of State George Shultz visited Managua
for a few hours and met with Junta Coordinator Daniel Ortega,
Foreign Minister Miguel D'Escoto, and Ambassador to the
U.S. Antonio Jarquin. At dawn the same morning more than
600 FDN contras invaded Ocotal, destroying a lumber mill and
a coffee drying plant, destroying a grain storage facility and a
power station, and burning down the offices of Radio Segovia,
its employees still in the building. Fifteen townspeople were
murdered in all, and more than 50 contras were killed in the
fighting.
? June 3: ARDE leader Robelo acknowledged his support
for the inclusion of former Somoza National Guardsmen in
ARDE. He insisted the ex-Guardia should be forgiven if they
would fight on the frontlines. (Since the bungled attempt to as-
sassinate Pastora on May 30, the CIA has eased out Pastora in
order to unify ARDE and FDIC)
? June 7: Adolfo Calero declared, "We have instructions
from the Northamerican government to attack the most impor-
tant centers of production and then retreat into the mountains."
~ June 12, l8, and 20: Over 500 demoralized ARDE mem-
bers deserted the organization and turned themselves in to
Costa Rican authorities.
? June 14: Reliable reports indicated that FDN members
participated in the Granadero I military exercises in Honduras,
receiving training.
~ June I5: A 70-man contra invasion from Costa Rica was
repelled, and hundreds of rides, grenade launchers, mortars,
cannons, machine guns, and Claymore mines were captured,
along with sophisticated signals communications gear, and a
portable field hospital and operating room. Identification docu-
ments found on several dead contras showed they were from
Guatemala, Panama, and Puerto Rico.
BO~RG_E DE~BE ~ESCATAR
LA R~ElIOLUCION.
NABIA UN SOLO
AUGUSTO CESAR SANDING;
Y E! ; AU!~CUE ME!ERTO,
VIVE AUN EN EL C(tRAION DE
TODOS LOS NICARAGUENSES.
VIVE AUN UN :1010 FUNDADOR DEL FREIITE SANDINISTA DE
LIBERACION NACIONAL (F. S. 1. N. ), Y EL ES EL COMANDANTE
TOMAS BORGE INARTINEI.
EL COMANDANTE BORGE ES EL ULTIMO REVOLUCIONARIO
SANDINISTA VERDADERO, Y EL SOLO PUEDE 1_LEVeR A NICARAGUA
A' LA nEALilwfiO~N DE LA PROMESA DE LA REVOLUCION DE 1579.
;BORGE PARR PRESIDENTS
[)-E NICARAGUA.
iIRM1 RFSPONS1Rl[:
COMITE R1R~ lI GUFRRI
POIUI~R PROIONGRD~~~
AMIGOS DF TOMIS lORGI
sRN sosE, T of ~oosro of Ivee
Provocative Borge ad in Costa Rican paper.
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? June Il7: Pedro Hernan Espinoza Sanchez (known as "El
Pez" or "'the Fish") was arrested and confessed that for three
and a half years he had been working with FDN to try to form
an "internal front" coalition of right-wing business, labor, and
religious leaders. He said he had received training from U.S.
and Argentinian advisers in the use of explosives to sabotage
factories, buses, and electric plants, and had handled more
than $220,000 in operational funds.
? June 19: A group of ARDE contras attempted unsuccess-
fully to introduce counterfeit currency in Nueva Guinea.
? July 1 and 2: Some 150 contras attacked El Tortuguero
and destroyed a health center which was due to open shortly. In
a fierce ten-hour battle, 15 Sandinistas and 36 contras were
killed.
? July 5: Authorities announced the discovery of CIA Oper-
ation Black Moon, which had intended to deploy over 4,500
contras in northern Nicaragua in a huge offensive aimed at
seizing some temtory to set up a "provisional government"
which would then ask for U.S. intervention.
? July 8: CBS News reported that the CIA was using South-
ern Air Transport of Miami, Evergreen Air of Tucson, and
Summit Aviation of Delaware to move arms and equipment for
CIA terror Malnual
'The CIA usually trains in secret those upon whom it re-
lies to do its dirty work, but the urgent timetable in
Nicaragua has apparently caused a deviation from the norm.
During June 1984 there suddenly appeared in the border
town of Ocotal, Nicaragua just after a June 1 FDN at-
tack--a 16-page printed pamphlet in comic book form, enti-
tled `'Manual of Struggle for Liberty." Though designed to
look as though it had been produced locally and clandes-
tinely by the FDN, the Associated Press confirmed through
official sources that the manual was the handiwork of the
CIA.
'Ch s "practical guide to liberate Nicaragua from the op-
pression and paralyzing misery" of the "traitor" govern-
ment presents ideas and semi-technical information for use
in sabotage and destruction, without requiring money, spe-
cial resources, or training.
Several features of the manual confirm its foreign origin.
It casually suggests tasks which are not appropriate to the
condi!ions of most Nicaraguans, such as methods of dis-
rupting one's telephone service. The facial features of the
1. MOJAR UNA ESPONJA.
I. ENVOLVER U ESPONJA BIEN APRETAOA
CON UNA CUERDA Y DEJARU SECAR.
J. REMOVER U CUERDA.
~. INTROIXKIR U ESPONJA EN CUALOUIER
INODORO O CONOUCTO DE OESAGUE,
PARR ASI OBSTRUIRLO AL HINCNARSE U
ESPONJA
"saboteurs" in the manual are more Northamerican than
Central American. The man who falsely calls in sick to
work is seen sprawled in a lounge chair drinking a cocktail.
And the Spanish in the text is different from colloquial
Nicaraguan Spanish.
Some of the tasks the CIA instructs the manual's readers
to do include:
Going to work late; calling in sick; failing to repair vehi-
cles; throwing tools down drains; leaving water taps on;
leaving lights on; short circuiting the electricity; breaking
light bulbs; dropping typewriters; and ripping up books.
Others include: spreading rumors; hoarding food;
threatening supervisors and officials over the phone; paint-
ing anti-government slogans on walls; putting dirt or water
in gas tanks; and stopping up toilets and sewers.
Others are more sinister and dngerous, including: cutting
fire alarm cables and calling in false alarms; throwing nails
and rocks on highways; setting fires in storage areas; and
throwing Molotov cocktails at fuel storage areas.
This is the CIA at work.
1. COLOGIR UN CIGARRILLO NO ENCENpDO ENTRE
AMBAS HILERAS DE fOSFOROS. IINIRL03 FlN
MEMENTE ATANOOLOS CON UNA GIERDA
I. ENVOLVER LOS FOSFOROS EN PAPEL SEGO O
GIALOUIER OTM SUSTANpA INFLAMABLE.
COLOOUE EL OISPO6RIV0 ENTRE CAJAS VACULS
DE CARTON O MADEM.
J. ENGENDER EL CIGARItlLLO POR SU EIRREMO
UBRE. l05 FOSFOROS SE ENCENOEMN EN 5 O l0
MINUTOS.
BOMBA INCENDIARIA
rCOCTEL MOLOTOF")
1. l1ENAR DE OASOLINA, LUZ
BRILUNTE (NEROSEM O
COMBUSTIBLE DIESEL UNA
BOTELU OE CUELLO
ESTRECNO; MEJOR MIN SI
SE LE ANADE A$SERRIN DE
MADEM O JASON RAYADO.
I. INTROOUpR UN 7MP0 EN
U BOTELU NASTA OUE UN
EMREMO 110CE EL LIOUIDO
Y EL OlRO SE EXTIENDA NO
MENOB DE A CMS OE U
BOCA DE U BOTELU.
SELLAR FIRMEMEME U
BOTELU CON UNA pNTA O
VENDA
1 PAM ACTIVAR EL DISPOSITIVO:
N 903TENER U BOTELU EN UNA
MANO El(TENDIENDO BIEN EL BRAZO.
B) ENGENDER CON U OTRA MANO EL
Pages from CIA Manual.
Number 22 (Fall 1984)
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the contras to U.S. bases ire Honduras.
? July 25: A small village north of Matagalpa was hit by a
band of 60 contras who, according to villagers, literally tore a
child to pieces and repeatedly raped and then killed its mother.
Fifty-two of the attackers were killed when pursued by govern-
ment troops.
? July 27: Contras attacked a small town on the Pacific
coast where voter registration was about to begin and beheaded
eight peasants in view of their families. Villagers were warned
that the same fate would befall them if they registered.
? August 9: Contras shot and decapitated all three members
of a campesino family.
? August 27: A U.S.-made C-47 plane on a contra resupply
mission was shot down sough of Quilali. The crew included the
personal pilot of Somoza's son.
? September 1: Contras murdered six civilians, including an
11 year-old child, on the Puerto Cabezas highway.
? September 2: The Voice of America announced plans to
install a powerful relay station at Quesada, Costa Rica, near
the border, for the express purpose of transmitting anti-San-
dinista propaganda into Nicaragua. The arrangement was facil-
itated through a secret contract signed by U.S. Ambassador
Curtin Winsor and President Luis Alberto Monge.
? September 5: Six contras tried unsuccessfully to kidnap
and assassinate the Delegate Minister to the Atlantic Coast,
Comandante Lumberto Campbell.
? September 7: Four agrarian workers were kidnapped near
Monkey Point; the body of one was later found.
? September 12: ARDE leader Fernando Chamorro Rap-
pacioli called for direct U.S. intervention as the "only means
to overthrow the Nicaraguan government." ARDE also an-
nounced that it was going to mine the Rio San Juan, which sep-
arates Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
? September 20: Right-wing sometime presidential candi-
date Arturo Cruz was campaigning in Leon; his entourage was
accompanied by diplomatic vehicles from the U.S. Embassy.
? September 29: During a meeting of the foreign ministers
of the ten-nation European Economic Community on economic
and political cooperation with Central America, in San Jose,
Costa Rica, a letter to all the ministers from George Shultz was
leaked to reporters. It strongly urged that the meeting "not lead
to increased economic aid or any political support for the San-
dinistas." French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson re-
sponded, "Where does Mr. Reagan come in here? As far as I
know he is not a member of the European Community, unless
it has happened in the last few minutes. As far as [know, he is
not a member of the Central American community. . . .
Conclusion
The centerpiece of Washington's ongoing war is the con-
stant barrage of psychological warfare directed at the people of
the United States. A day does not go by without high govern-
ment officials, usually, though not always, off the record, de-
crying the Nicaraguan government and its Sandinista leaders.
The contras are called the forces of freedom who will restore
democracy to Nicaragua. For a time, lip service was paid to the
Contadora group's efforts to draft a peace treaty, but even that
pretense has been abandoned as Nicaragua wholeheartedly
adopted the efforts of Contadora.
The spectre of armed LJ.S. intervention in the very near fu-
ture remains real. Nicaraguan intelligence suggests that con-
tras or Honduran soldiers, dressed as Sandinista forces, may
undertake a mission to kill some Honduran soldiers or civilians
as a provocation. President Suazo would call the White House,
denounce the "invasion," and plead for U.S. help.
"Because it is a rich and powerful country," charged For-
eign Minister D'Escoto recently, "the United States mista-
kenly believes that it is the Lord and Master of the world. .
The justification for attacking Nicaragua has been based on
false information gathered by the U.S. administration, which
has proclaimed itself as accuser, judge, and jury over the
Nicaraguan government."
Whatever happens, Nicaraguans live by the words of their
national hero, General Augusto Cesar Sandino, in 1927:
"Nicaragua proved before the eyes of the world that its na-
tional honor is not to be sullied, that there still remained suns
who, with their blood, would wash out the stains Ief~t by
others." ~
Secret GAO Report
CAlB has obtained documentary evidence of further
collaboration between the Pentagon and the CIA in the
Honduras-based prosecution of the war against
Nicaragua. In mid-1984 the General Accounting Office
(GAO) issued a 21-page report classified ' `Secret - No
Foreign Dissemination." The report was in response to a
series of 27 questions posed by a Member of Congress.
Question Five asked: "Under which U.S. federal sta-
tutes relating to national defense and/or international re-
lations is DOD authorized to `loan,' temporarily assign
or otherwise make available to the Central Intelligence
Agency, U.S. military personnel or civilians funded with
DOD money or money appropriated to the President fur
planning and/or carrying out strategic, tactical, and/or
psychological warfare activities in foreign nations or for
training and/or equipping foreign nationals for such ac-
tivities? Please cite examples of such occurrences in and/
or outside Central America."
The GAO replied that the CIA "declined to provide us
with answers to your questions" on the grounds that they
had already briefed the House and Senate intelligence
committees. A Pentagon official told the GAO that the
1957 Command Relationships Agreement (CRA) was
the basis for Pentagon resource sharing with the CIA and
for reimbursement to the DOD by the CIA, but that the
CRA was not available for GAO to read nor were they
allowed to discuss the issue with DOD because of the
CIA's position. The GAO concluded that they were una-
ware of anv audit or review of the CRA.
Further, the report noted, "A member of the Joint
Task Force (JTF-1 I) Command told us, however, that on
one occasion DOD personnel/aircraft were used to trans-
port ammunition for the CIA. In addition, U.S. Southern
Command (SOUTHCOM) officials informed us that the
austere base, 8,000 foot landing strip, and the water sys-
tem, constructed by the 46th Combat Engineers at
Aguacate will be left behind for use by CIA personnel."
These facilities, and others, perhaps millions of dol-
lars worth, are being used exclusively for, and ultimately
by, the contras, in violation of all congressional restric-
?
lions.
Number 22 (Fall 1984)
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/09 :CIA-RDP90-008458000100180009-9
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/09 :CIA-RDP90-008458000100180009-9
"Privatizin "the War
By Fred Clarkson ~
The Colld War notion of "rolling back the Soviet empire"
has returned, and the anti-communist crusade has undergone
an unpre.ce:dented revival. While this movement is taking many
forms, cne of the most important is the increasing involvement
of ostensibly independent private groups in providing
"hum.anita.rian" as well as logistical and training aid to various
anti-communist "liberation movements." However, some, if
not all, of these efforts appear to have been instigated and or-
chestrated by the Reagan administration in a thinly disguised
end ntn past Congress's efforts to assert its constitutional role
and control the CIA.
The: rr.eclia, led by the New York Times, have reported on the
"privatisation" of the covert war against Nicaragua, with new
revelations almost daily. Of particular interest are reports of
food, medical, and military aid channeled through a host of
right-wing political groups and non-profit agencies, sometimes
shipped by military transport planes. Similar aid is being pro-
vided to the government of El Salvador. (See New York Times,
July 15, 1984; National Catholic Reporter, August 3, 1984.)
The groups claim that most of the aid is sent by private car-
rier, .but CRIB has learned that at least one of the main
suppliers is. World Medical Relief, which has a long history of
collabor