IRAN'S AYATOLLAHS OF TERROR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87T00434R000200150049-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 29, 2010
• Sequence Number: 49
• Publication Date: December 31, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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PART II -- MAIN EDITION -- 31 DECEMBER 1984
READER'S DIGEST JANUARY 1985 (31 Dec 84) Pgs. 36 - 42
A Reader's Digest Special Report
Iran's Ayatollahs of Terror
A T 6:20 a.m., October 23,
1983, a pickup truck
loaded with over a ton
of powerful cyclonite explo-
sives careered past the gates of
the U.S. Marine compound on
the edge of Beirut Internation-
al Airport, crashed into the
headquarters building and det-
onated with a thunderous roar.
Within minutes, a similar
kamikaze-driven truck bomb
exploded against a French
peace-keepers' building some
five miles distant. Dead were
241 American servicemen and
58 French paratroopers.
Responsibility for the attacks
was claimed by the Islamic Ji-
had-"Hol War"-a loose
coalition of Shi'ite fundamen-
talists linked directly to Iran's
Ayatollah Khomeini. "We are
the soldiers of God," their com-
munique announced, "and we
are fond of death!"
Less than a year later-at
11:44 a.m. on September 20,
1984-yet another suicide truck
bomb exploded at the new U.S.
embassy annex in East Beirut.
Fourteen died, including two
Americans. Had the truck
reached its intended target-a
garage below the building-the
death toll would have been far
higher. Once, again, Islamic
Jihad claimed responsibility.
The bloody Beirut bombings
were only the most graphic
atrocities committed by pro-
Khomeini terrorists. In addition,
they have attacked the French
and American embassies in Ku-
wait, a French passenger train,
and a crowded Marseille train
station. They have assassinated
the president of the American
University in Beirut; kidnapped
three Americans (a diplomat, a
news-bureau chief and a minis-
ter), who are rumored to be
imprisoned in Teheran; and
wounded the U.S. consul gener-
al in Strasbourg, France. Mean-
while, authorities narrowly
thwarted terrorist plots to blow
up a U.S. airliner over the At-
lantic, to destroy NATO facilities
in Turkey, and to murder mod-
erate Arab leaders. There were
even reports of a plot to bomb
the White House itself.
What are the dimensions of
the threat? Is it that serious? To
find out, Reader's Digest spent
months interviewing intelli-
gence and anti-terrorist experts
here and throughout Europe
and the Middle East. Key Irani-
an exiles were also debriefed.
Some members of the Teheran
regime itself, appalled by the
brutality of Khomeini's rule,
risked their lives to speak with
us. All agreed that the threat is
very grave. To understand it,
one must know something of
the convulsions of hatred that
have shaped Khomeini's Iran.
Allah's Avengers. Through-
out Iran, the period of Febru-
ary i to 1 t, 1984, is designated
"The Eleven Dawns" to cele-
brate the fifth anniversary of
Ayatollah Khomeini's over-
throw of the Shah's regime.
Tens of thousands of demon-
strators converge on Teheran
to attend rallies and denounce
the "satans of the world": the
United States and its allies.
I)ay after day they maich
and assemble, as many as a
million at a time. There are
the fanatical Revolutionary
Guards or pasdaran, as well as
hordes of jobless peasants bused
in from the countryside. In the
front rows, the place of honor,
are the Basijis, among them
the youthful suicide volunteers,
some not yet ten years old. Their
red headbands signify their will-
ingness to become martyrs for
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PART II -- MAIN EDITION --31 DECEMBER 1984
TERROR... Continued
the Revolution. "i'housanc s a ready
have. Armed with symbolic plastic
keys which they have been told will
unlock the gates of Paradise, they
have flung themselves in human
waves against Iraqi minefields in
the brutal war with that country.
Ayatollahs and mullahs-the
officer corps of the Shi'ite church-
mount platforms to harangue the
crowds. Eyes gleam, faces twist
with hatred. Thousands of rifles lift
as one in defiance. Then the chants
begin.
"Death to America!"
"Death to France!"
"Death to Israel!'"
'Death to all who oppose the
Revolution!"
Mad Mullahs. What brought
about such an abrupt change in a
society once considered staunchly
pro-West? Much of the answer can
be found in Shi'ite Islam itself. As
practiced by Iran's ruling fundamen-
talists, its dogma is glorification of
martyrdom in pursuit of global Is-
lamic conquest. While only a tiny
minority of the world's 65o million
Moslems, Shi'ites are significant in
Iran (go percent of the population)
and in Iraq (6o percent). Under Kho-
meini's guidance, the fundamental-
ists envision a return to medieval
Islam and a violent cleansing of
"corrupting" Western influences.
Only then can a purified Islam
launch its crusade of conquest.
Thus, Iran today is in the grip of
some 5o Shi'ite ayatollahs support-
ed by too,ooo mullahs. Together,
they presume to dictate the lives of
every Iranian. Hundreds of local
mullah-led committees force neigh-
bor to spy upon neighbor, sons and
daughters upon their parents.
Prowling gangs of Revolutionary
Guards enforce the Islamic code.
Violators are hauled before kanga-
roo courts presided over by Shiite
clergymen, tried and sentenced
within the hour. Women failing to
hide their faces in public have been
shot as prostitutes-sometimes with
their children beside them. To date,
as many as to,ooo Iranians have
been executed; at least 1oo,ooo oth-
ers have been imprisoned.
Many of the condemned are first
brought to the notorious Evin Prison
outside Teheran, where thousands
have perished by gunfire or torture.
Those who are to face firing squads
often have their blood drained be-
forehand for use as plasma on the
Iraqi front; they are left with just
enough to remain conscious and feel
the executioner's bullets.
This grisly blood bank was in-
vented by the scarred and sunken-
faced Assadollah Lajevardi,a former
Teheran lingerie peddler. He is now
Evin's commander and a "revolu-
tionary prosecutor," carrying out
sentences imposed by the courts.
He follows in the footsteps of Aya-
tollah Sadegh Khalkhali. Known as
"Judge Blood," Khalkhali was pho-
tographed desecrating the charred
bodies of U.S. servicemen left be-
hind following the Carter Admin-
istration's aborted hostage rescue
mission in April 1980.
Using men such as these to crush
opposition, Khomeini began
to export his Islamic Revolution to
Iran's neighbors in the Gulf. In
November 1979, Iranian-supported
extremists launched an audacious
plot to overthrow the Saudi royal
family, execute its leadership and
declare an Islamic republic similar
to Iran's. Tipped off, Saudi authori-
ties stopped the conspiracy, but the
terrorists seized the Grand Mosque
at Mecca, hoping to negotiate free
passage to Iran. The Saudis refused
and rooted them out in several days
of bloody fighting. But the plot was
just a sampling of what lay ahead.
Networks of Death. They began
to assemble in Teheran during the
second week in May 1984, nearly
40o delegates from 6o nations across
the world. Among them were "the
Friday Imams," leaders of Friday
prayer services whose teachings in-
fluence millions of Sunni and Shi'ite
fundamentalists from Istanbul to
Singapore. The delegates had gath-
ered for a week-long series of semi-
nars advertised as an exchange of
fundamentalist Islamic thought.
In fact, they represented a massive
underground support system for
Khomeini-inspired terrorism.
On May 13 Khomeini told the
Imams: "During the Friday prayers,
give strong and exciting talks to
your compatriots so the Moslem
people will rise up against atheistic
governments." Delegates were in-
structed on how to recruit terrorists,
finance networks through religious
donations, purchase arms and ex-
plosives. Later, many were guided
on tours of terrorist training centers.
't'hree of these camps have facili-
ties for training suicide volunteers.
Here students are separated from
other trainees and within weeks
transformed into mindless fanatics
schooled to die upon command.
Western intelligence agencies sus-
pect that well over a thousand have
been trained thus far. While most go
to the Iraqi front, as many as 5o may
have been infiltrated into Europe and
the United States.
Overall direction of Iran's terror
networks is in the hands of the
regime's second most powerful
ayatollah and Khomeini's designat-
ed successor, 62-year-old Hussein
All Montazeri. In 1982 Montazeri
spent $8 million to recruit Moslem
students and immigrant workers in
France, with millions more allocat-
ed to Great Britain and West Ger-
many. As many as too full-time
recruiters operate behind the cover
of mosques and Islamic student and
cultural centers throughout Europe.
Montazeri also finances a net-
work in the United States, where
more than 6o,ooo students from
Islamic nations attend universities.
The fundamentalists among them
provide a fertile recruiting ground
for Iranian agents. "Khomeini's
followers have been building in the
United States for 15 years," says
exiled former Iranian Prime Minis-
ter Ali Amini. "They are very well
hidden and financed."
Beginning in the mid-1g7os, un-
der the cover of providing classes in
Shi'ite dogma to Islamic converts,
Khomeini's agents recruited mili-
tant black inmates at U.S. prisons.
Upon release, these men joined
Khomeini's American terrorist
apparatus. On July 22, 1980, anti-
Khomeini leader Ali Akbar Taba-
tahai was assassinated at his home
in Bethesda, Md. The assassin, ac-
cording to the charges filed against
him, was one of these recruits, a
man named David Belfield.
At present, the FBI is investigat-
ing links between Teheran and sev-
eral militant groups here in the
United States. It was exactly such
ties between Khomeini and U.S.-
based militant Islamic networks
which so concerned American se-
curity officials in November 1983
when they learned of an Iranian-
sponsored plot to blow up the
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TERROR... Continued
White House.. Alerted by a phone
call warning that an attack was
imminent, the Secret Service placed
dump trucks filled with sand bags
at the White House gates. Later,
permanent barriers were installed,
which officials hope will prevent
any future attempts.
Agents of Influence. Militant Is-
lamic groups girdle the globe, rang-
ing from Lebanon's Islamic Jihad to
the Philippines' Moro National
Liberation Front. Funding and co-
ordination for Khomeini's net-
works are often provided through
Iran's diplomatic corps, many of
whom are former Revolutionary
Guards. In Washington, which has
no diplomatic relations with Tehe-
ran, Khomeini's agents operate out
of the Iranian Interests Section of
the Algerian embassy. Initially used
by the Carter Administration as a
negotiation conduit to secure re-
lease of the 52 Americans held hos-
tage after the seizure of the U.S.
embassy in Teheran in 1979, the
Section has now, grown to more
than 6o individuals-virtually an
embassy in itself. It remains in con.-
stant contact with Khomeini' net-
works across the United States and
arranges for clandestine funding of
their activities through tax-free Is-
lamic front organizations.
Iran's embassies in Bonn, West
Germany, and Bern, Switzerland,
are conduits for weapons and -ex-
plosives. In June 1982, for example,
an employee of Khomeini's Bern
embassy secretly purchased 300
tons of the lethal explosive cyclonite
from a weapons broker in Brussels.
Shipped in disguise to Lebanon via
India, the explosives are believed to
have been used in the suicide attack
on the U.S. Marine barracks in
Beirut. Last spring, a Reader's Di-
gest representative, posing as a Eu-
ropean arms broker, contacted
Khomeini's agent in Bern. Within
minutes, the agent had agreed to
purchase ten tons of illicit cyclonite.
Some nations have sought to
harness Iran's wholesale export of
terror for their own advantage.
Syria, for example, aided Iran's
2000 Revolutionary Guards in Leb-
anon, hoping thereby to drive out
the U.S. and European peace-keep-
ing forces and take control. The
plan worked. Appalled by rising
casualties, the United States and
MAIN EDITION -- 31
its allies withdrew their troops.
Libya's Muammar Qaddafi also
found Iranian, fanaticism useful.
During Khomeini's 14-year exile,
hundreds of his followers were al-
ready training in Libyan terrorist
camps. Qaddafi himself contribut-
ed millions to the campaign to de-
stroy the Shah's rule. Today, the
dividends have paid off in joint
terrorist ventures. Egypt's Anwar
el-Sadat, assassinated by Egyptian
Islamic fundamentalists in 1981,
was among the first victims.
But the ayatollahs of terror had
an even bigger backer. In late sum-
mer of 1983, Western intelligence
agencies learned of an extraordi-
nary conference of Middle East ter-
rorists being held in the Bulgarian
Black Sea port of Varna. Present
were representatives of Palestinian
factions, the anti-Turkish Arme-
nian Secret Liberation Army and
the Islamic Jihad. The order of
business: plans to transform Leba-
non's Bekaa Valley into a launch
pad for terrorism throughout the
Middle East and Europe. Confer-
ence moderators included intelli-
gence officers from East Germany
and Bulgaria. There is evidence
that the unofficial sponsor was the
Soviet KGB.
It would not be the first time the
Soviet Union had aided Khomeini.
Beginning in the late 196os, when
Khomeini was exiled in Najaf,
Iraq, the KGB funneled hundreds
of thousands of dollars to him. A
Soviet radio station near the Iranian
border beamed anti-Shah propagan-
da and coded messages to Shi'ite rev-
olutionaries operating underground.
Today, with an eye toward Kho-
meini's inevitable death -or over-
throw, the Kremlin is quietly
building its own infrastructure
deep within Iran's ruling clique of
ayatollahs. Moussavi Khoienia, for
example, who ranks second only to
Montazeri in Teheran's hierarchy
of terror, is known to be pro-Soviet.
It was Khoienia who planned and
led the 1979 seizure of the U.S.
embassy in Teheran. It is now be-
lieved that he also was behind the
bombings of the French express
train and of the Marseille station.
Obviously, the Kremlin recog-
nized years ago the advantages of
penetrating the Shi'ite movement.
Meanwhile, it remains relatively
DECEMBER 1934
quiet as Khomeini stamps out
Iran's local Communist Party, the
Tudeh-Moscow's sacrificial lamb.
Needed: New Policy. The ban-
ner that greets passengers arriving
at Teheran's airport reads: 'Ameri-
ca Can't Do a Damn Thing!" Thus
far the banner is sadly accurate. No
action was taken after the attack on
the Marine barracks in Beirut, de-
spite solid evidence that Iran was
behind it. And that fact has not
gone unnoticed by other nations.
Kuwait, which had accused Kho-
meini of bomb attacks in December
1983, sent a delegation to Teheran
,for conciliatory discussions. The
reason: Kuwait's leaders no longer
felt they could rely on the-United
States to:counter Iranian subversion.
What can the United States do to
safeguard its friends and interests
from Iran's expanding terror? On
October 19, 19134, President Reagan
signed House Bill 6311 into law. In
two important ways this legislation
improves our ability to protect our
interests abroad: it authorizes pay-
ment of rewards for information
concerning terrorist acts, and it
provides $356 million for security
improvements at U.S. missions
abroad. But there are at least two
other areas of opportunity that
should-be explored:
Economic quarantine. Last Feb-
ruary, Rep. Gerald B. Solomon (R.,
N.Y.) asked colleagues to join him
in sponsoring legislation to cut off
all U.S. trade with Iran. He dis-
closed that American firms nearly
doubled their sales to Iran between
1982 and 1983. And during the first
eight months of 1984, the boom in
trade continued. We sold $12o-mil-
lion worth of goods to Iran and,
more incredibly, we purchased
$365 million of Iranian oil, even as
Iranian kamikazes continued to
snuff out the lives of U.S. Marines
and others. Clearly, we cannot ask
our allies to quarantine Khomeini
economically-one of the few effec-
tive steps open to us-while we our-
selves profit from trade with Iran.
. Support for resisters. Despite the
fanaticism of Khomeini's followers,
cracks have begun appearing in his
regime. Increasing numbers of Ira-
nians, chafing under harsh rule and
the hardships imposed by Iran's
four-year war with Iraq, are begin-
ning to speak out. Armed resistance
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PART II -- MAIN EDITION -- 31
JOURNAL OF COMMERCE 26 December 1984 Pg.1B
General Dynamics Bailout
Raises Many Questions
united Press International
(Second in a Series)
WASHINGTON - Even while a
three-man Navy board was challeng-
ing most of the General Dynamics
Corp.'s $544 million cost overrun
claim on a nuclear submarine con-
tract, the company's top brass and
military chiefs were concocting their
own solution.
What surprised members of the'
Navy Claims Settlement Board was
the adeptness with which the com-
pany overcame their 1977 ruling
allowing $125 million in claims to win
the biggest taxpayer bailout in naval
history - a sixfold increase to $750
million.
The settlement, along with similar
arrangements for two other ship-
builders, ended years of acrimony
between. Navy officials and their
prime contractors over unsettled
claims. But it triggered a flurry of
questions from congressional investi-
gators.
Newly released documents have
revealed the General Dynamics set-
tlement - the largest of the three -
was worked out in a series of private
meetings involving the company, As-
sistant Navy Secretary Edward Hi-
dalgo and Hidalgo aides.
Mr. Hidalgo, a lawyer, was hired
on retainer by General Dynamics in
1981, 11 months after he left his Navy
job. The company says he earned
$70,000 during the next two-and-a-half
years. Sen. William Proxmire, D-Wis.,
charges the move created the appear-
ance of a conflict of interest
"He engineered a bailout that is
still hard to understand and is being
questioned," Sen. Proxmire said in an
interview.
Mr. Hidalgo terms such sugges-
tions "absolute nonsense by ignorant
people ... who simply are deter-
mined to ignore the facts."
Many of the questions about the
Public Law 85-804 bailout surround
Mr. Hidalgo's decision to push it
through Congress although the settle-
ment board had found some of the
company's claims were "exaggerat-
ed" and the Justice Department was
opening an investigation into possible
claims fraud.
Although the Justice Department
inquiry closed in 1981 without prose-
cutions, Mr. Hidalgo's name has
surfaced again as part of a recently
reopened FBI and grand jury inquiry.
Public Law 85-804 allows the
secretary of the Navy to take "ex-
traordinary contractual actions to
facilitate the national defense," such
as a bailout, unless Congress inter-
venes within 60 days.
Critics allege the bailout resulted
in part because the Navy, at odds
with the only other shipyard that
produces 688-class attack subma-
rines, was at.General Dynamics'
mercy.
Mr. Hidalgo and General Dynam-
ics officials staunchly defend the
settlement. They assert the immense
financial woes facing several mili-
tary shipyards so endangered the
national defense it was critical to
reach a compromise.
"It made eminent economic sense
for the taxpayers," Mr. Hidalgo said
in an interview, recalling that the
company had threatened-in early 1978
to close its Electric Boat Division in
Groton, Conn., if prompt federal aid
was not forthcoming.
If the yard was shut, he said, the
government would have been forced
to seek a court injunction, as it did a
year earlier to compel Litton Indus-
tries' Ingalls Shipbuilding Division to
continue production during a similar
claims stalemate.
The federal judge who issued the
Litton order required the Navy to pay
the company 91, percent of costs while
the claims were, litigated.
Mr. Hidalgo argued that if the
courts.reacted similarly toward Gen-
eral Dynamics, the government
would have. been forced to pay the
company $300 million above its origi-
nal contract price while enduring
years of bitter claims litigation and
facing up to $1 billion in new claims
from the company.
P. Takis Veliotis, a former Gener-
al Dynamics executive vice president
who now is a fugitive from a federal
indictment, told UPI he hired Mr.
Hidalgo as a consultant in 1981 to sell
airplanes to Spain.
Mr. Veliotis said it was "subtly"
hinted 'to Mr. Hidalgo, while he still
was in the Navy, that General Dy-
namics would take care of-him when
he left the service.
Mr. Hidalgo called the allegation
"absolutely, ~ totally inaccurate, and
stupid and defamatory."
DECEMBER 1984
(31)
He said the company was "mad at
me" for forcing it to accept a $359
.million loss as part of the settlement,
and that General Dynamics officials
considered him to be an "intransi-
gient" ' negotiator. He said he pre-
sumed the company hired him be-
cause he spoke Spanish and was an
international lawyer with connec-
tions in Spain.
Law enforcement sources said
that, when pressed, Mr. Veliotis
stopped short of accusing Mr. Hidalgo of
corruption. .
. To secure the bailout, there is evidence
that. Mr. Hidalgo and his aides took' these
actions:
? After the settlement board headed by
Adm. Frank F. Manganaro disallowed . all
but $125 million of the company's $544
million claim, Mr. Hidalgo ordered his own
staff review of the claims.. Jeffrey Komi
ners, counsel to the settlement board, said
he was puzzled by the action. He noted Mr.
Hidalgo's review was assisted by junior
lawyers on the board, but its top specialists
were excluded.
Mr. Kominers, now in private. law
practice, recalled that although he was the
senior claims' expert on the board, "the
secretariat's (Mr. Hidalgo's) office did not
ask me to look at any of their analyses."
Stressing that the board's analysis was
"extremely sophisticated,", Mr. Kominers
said he would be "a little flabbergasted" if
Mr. Hidalgo's office found even $25 million
more in legitimate claims.
Jack McDonnell, Mr. Hidalgo's deputy
assistant who oversaw the review, denied
it involved the "identical set of
claims"studied by the board, but declined
further comment.
Mr. Hidalgo said of his staff review,
"The Manganaro board was doing its thing.
I was doing my thing ... and seeing what I
would come up with." He said he wanted
the board's results for use as a starting
point in.hegotiations.
? According to notes. of Gorden MacDon.
ald, General Dynamics' chief financial
officer, the company advised Mr. Hidalgo.
on Dec. 7, 19n, that it might file more than
$800 million in additional claims - beyond
the $544 million already under review. Mr.
Hidalgo reportedly suggested General Dy-
namics could qualify for a' public law
settlement as a "failing business." Mr.
MacDonald wrote that he and company
Vice President Max Golden objected be-
cause the company was not facing col-
lapse, and blamed government delays for
the losses. Mr. Hidalgo indicated that such
a move would draw :'resistance" from
Adm. Hyman Rickover, the tough chief of
the nuclear' Navy who later asked, the
Justice Department to open a false claims
probe.
? Also that December, Mr. Hidalgo
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