The Hunt for Red Menace

The Hunt for Red Menace: How Government Intelligence Agencies & Private Right-Wing Groups Target Dissidents & Leftists as Subversive Terrorists & Outlaws

by Chip Berlet Political Research Associates

Revised 19941

”Our First Amendment was a bold effort. .to establish a country with no legal restrictions of any kind upon the subjects people could investigate, discuss, and deny. The Framers knew, better perhaps than we do today, the risks they were taking. They knew that free speech might be the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny.” -U. S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black

Since the colonial period in the late 1690s liberties for illusionary national security our land has been swept by witch hunts, moral safeguards. Some observers of this phenomenon panics, and fears of collectivist plots. Following see it as having fueled Cold War antagonisms the end of World War II, a coalition of and resulted in what they term the “National conservative, ultra-conservative, right-wing and Security State.” liberal anti- communist political movements and Within the United States there developed a groups organized support for high levels of covert apparatus to suuport domestic anti- military spending, promoted the use of covert communism in the form of a loosely-knit action abroad, and cultivated the acceptance of infrastructure where both public and private obsessive governmental secrecy, surveillance intelligence agents and right-wing ideologues and repression at home. In the domestic public shared information both formally and sphere this coalition shaped an overwhelming informally. The result was an ad-hoc domestic willingness among citizens to trade real civil counter-subversion network. Oliver North relied

1 The Hunt for Red Menace on elements of this institutionalized counter- commercial clients. subversion network to raise funds for the  Private spies who supply information to a Contras and serve as a public lightning rod to variety of groups as part of a commercial enterprise. hide his own government- backed covert  Corporate security specialists who utilize operation. In fact, some of the same players political intelligence operatives, hire private North orchestrated in the off-the-shelf private firms to supply political intelligence, or share foreign policy drama were also involved in an intelligence information with their public and off-the-shelf private domestic intelligence private counterparts. network.  Groups specializing in workshops and seminars predicated on the supposition that The private domestic intelligence network is demands for social-change are frequently that sector of the counter-subversion network covers for foreign “active measures,” which conducts surveillance of progressive disinformation, criminal subversion, or groups, and then feeds the information to the terrorism. Federal Bureau of Investigation and other public  Private right-wing intelligence gathering law enforcement and intelligence agencies, as groups which frequently publish their allegations in small limited- circulation well as other private right-wing groups, and in newsletters. some cases corporate and industrial security.  Blacklisting publications that report on the Some of the groups involved in the domestic activities of community, labor, anti-nuclear, intelligence network utilized by North were civil-rights, peace and social justice outgrowths of McCarthy Period witch hunts, activists. others were projects of former agents who fled  Ultra-conservative and far-right magazines federal employ in the wake of civil-liberties and newspapers and other publicly- disseminated publications that target liberal reforms of intelligence agencies prompted by the and left dissidents. intelligence agency scandals of the 1970's, still others were new groups created by ideologues Havens within the U.S. government for of the New Right. Many were formed after the members of the counter- subversion network terror attacks on September 11, 2001. include congressional committees such as the The counter-subversion network is now-disbanded House Committee on Un- comprised of many overlapping institutional and American Activities and the Senate individual components: Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (especially the  Individuals employed at government law counter-terrorism section), military investigative enforcement and intelligence gathering agencies on the federal, state and local units especially Naval Intelligence, certain level. sectors of the Immigration and Naturalization  Staff of various congressional committees Service, and many others. In pursuit of their goal and executive agencies. of exposing and stopping alleged subversion,  Agents and officers of foreign intelligence government intelligence agents periodically services. make tactical alliances with conservative, ultra-  Private associations made up primarily or exclusively of law enforcement personnel conservative, and even anti-democratic far right that share information, run computerized political groups and movements, both domestic data exchanges, and conduct training and foreign. Working cooperatively, the public seminars on suspected subversives and and private components of the domestic terrorists. counter-subversion network carry out legal,  Associations of former intelligence agents electoral, political, and extra- legal attacks on that facilitate the sharing of information on subversives and jobs. dissidents—primarily on the political left.  Private security firms with industrial and Political surveillance, by private or public

2 The Hunt for Red Menace agencies, is designed to preserve and protect the or unwittingly serve the goals of radical politics, status quo. Often, the tactic of infiltration or global communism, or terrorism. This is not a surveillance is used to gather real, imagined, or rational critique of communism, radical political invented mud to sling at social change theory, or actual terrorism, but a non-rational organizers in order to smear their public image ideological construct which resembles the and neutralize their organizing efforts. Even Manichean rightist worldview described in when the spying fails to turn up any illegal (or Professor Richard Hofstadter's classic work The even faintly embarrassing) information, the Paranoid Style in American Politics. Despite its reports are dutifully filed, and frequently traded non-rational metaphysical nature, the views of back and forth between private and public these counter- subversion ideologues have intelligence-gathering agencies. Eventually the consequences which are real and documentable. information percolates into conservative and Many authors have discussed the recurring right-wing publications. themes of political repression by government Among the scapegoats historically and private groups, and noted how the end promoted by the counter-subversion network: result was a defense of the status quo that the Soviet military threat, the international benefits powerful ecomomic and political communist Red Menace, KGB spies, airplane interests. hijackers, terrorists, drug lords, secrets about Historian Frank Donner's 500-page book U.S. nuclear weapons, rioting by urban Blacks, The Age of Surveillance: The Aims &Methods persons organizing against the war in Vietnam, of America's Political Intelligence System is the Black Panther Party, the American Indian considered the definitive study of this Movement, political radicals, Palestinian rights phenomenon and its relationship to federal law activists, members of the Arab community in enforcement probes of dissent.2 Donner the U.S., protesters against U.S. policy in Central followed with Protectors of Privilege: Red America, environmental activists, feminists, Squads and Political Repression in Urban persons calling for equal rights based on sexual America. 3In Protectors of Privilege Donner preference, and AIDS activists. showed how local police intelligence units— Each of these targets have been portrayed often dubbed Red Squads—subverted the as powerful sinister forces attacking the very Constitution while justifying their actions as foundations of America. Each, we have been preserving democracy in the fight against told, could only be stopped by using law subversion. Because they believed the country enforcement and intelligence agency techniques was on the brink of ruin due to internal that required trading civil liberties for safety and subversion organized by communist agents, security. Real terrorists, airplane hijackers, and local police Red Squads not only conducted others engaged in criminal activity can and surveillance and built dossiers on a wide range should be prosecuted for their crimes—but for of activists, but also worked with far-right the most part, the persons spied on by the public vigilante groups to carry out break- ins and and private components of the counter- assaults, sometimes with an assist from the FBI. subversion network are not criminals, but Political Repression in Modern America, persons simply seeking to exercise their First 1870 to Present, by Robert J. Goldstein is Amendment rights to speech, association, another lengthy look at government and religion, or petitioning to redress grievances. corporate attacks on dissident political groups The domestic counter-subversive network through the years. 4 was built by persons who share a perception that Murray B. Levin examined the underlying the U.S. is constantly at peril from foreign attack social and political forces that create repressive or domestic subversion by those who wittingly periods such as the McCarthy Period and the

3 The Hunt for Red Menace

Red Scare of the 1920's in Political Hysteria in ransacked or stolen, but valuable equipment was America-the Democratic Capacity for left untouched. Several years, hundreds of Repression.5 interviews and many thousands of pages of FBI In Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret files later, Gelbspan concluded the perpetrators Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the of the robberies will probably remain a mystery, American Indian Movement, Ward Churchill & but reveals the FBI repeatedly lied to Congress Jim Vander Wall wrote a chilling account of the about the extent and purpose of its murderous tactics used against non-white investigations into the same network of Central political activists during the FBI's America activists victimized by the robberies.10 COINTELPRO program and in the years that Gelbspan documents how the FBI forged back- followed.6 When some academics challenged channel ties to far- right anti-communist groups their thesis they wrote COINTELPRO Papers: in the U.S. and a shadowy network of Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against government agencies and death squads in El Dissent in the United States, which uses Salvador, and how the press was used in the numerous actual FBI documents to make a campaign. The chart in the Gelbspan book (with strong case for convincing skeptics that the addition of ADL), is an accurate sketch of COINTELPRO-type activity continued after the the dimensions of the counter-subversion name was shelved. 7 Both books discuss the way network. in which political repression involves portraying Brian Glick summarized many of the the targeted group as essentially an outlaw techniques of government intelligence abuse in formation. War at Home: Covert Action Against U.S. It Did Happen Here: Recollections of Activists and What We Can Do About It and Political Repression in America by Bud Schultz offered suggestions on how to fight back. 11He and Ruth Schultz uses interviews with victims of included an analysis of the relationship between political repression in the U.S. to construct a U.S. political economy and domestic covert powerful indictment of the myth of equal justice action. under law in the U.S.8 Perhaps the nadir of Eve Pell's The Big Chill looked at the illegal government attacks on non-criminal erosion of civil liberties during the first years of dissidents occurred during the FBI's secret the Reagan Administration, and the role played COINTELPRO operations in the 1950's, 1960's by right-wing and authoritarian ideology. and early 1970's. “Racial Matters”: The FBI's In The Terrorism Industry: The Experts Secret File on Black America, 1960—1972 by and Institutions That Shape View of Terror, Kenneth O'Reilly documents how under authors Edward Herman & Gerry O'Sullivan . 12 COINTELPRO the FBI undermined the civil argue that our national security mania has even rights movement while posing as its defender spawned a specialized industry of self- against violent attacks by the Klan and other promoting experts who manipulate our fears by white supremacists.9 exaggerating the actual threat of terrorism, and Break-Ins, Death Threats and the FBI: The then tell us if we give up more rights the Covert War Against the Central America problem could be solved. Movement by Ross Gelbspan, a veteran Boston Another book detailing the high price we Globe reporter, examines the pattern of pay for our reliance on secret spying is The robberies and attacks reported by persons and Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity In The groups opposing Reagan Administration policies Global Drug Trade by Alfred W. McCoy. 13 in Central America, especially CISPES. McCoy, in this revised edition, unravels the Gelbspan reported that hundreds of offices, CIA's long-standing links to drug-running homes, and cars were broken into, files were networks used as allies during counter-

4 The Hunt for Red Menace insurgency operations. McCoy's first version of Democrat, was the first President who relied on this book was published during the Vietnam the rhetoric of freedom while secretly sending War and dealt primarily with the Golden the CIA on anti-democratic (and frequently Triangle in Southeast Asia. McCoy traces CIA disastrous) foreign covert operations. drug-tainted political operations from today How can this happen? According to back to post-war France where our government William W. Keller in The Liberals and J. Edgar secretly funded anti-communist political parties Hoover, the problem goes back to the issues and labor unions and a group of drug smugglers raised by Moyers regarding balance of powers. who helped break a dockworkers strike. Keller believed liberal congresspersons are When our national security interests are uncomfortable having oversight over agencies of perceived as threatened, apparently the ends police power, and by default, they allow their justify the means. This view was harshly more reactionary colleagues to craft agencies criticized in The Secret Government: The such as the FBI into tools of repression. 16 Constitution In Crisis by Bill Moyers. 14 Moyer Another structuralist view comes from stepped back to examine the covert operations Under Cover: Police Surveillance in America. revealed in Iran-Contragate and concluded: by Gary T. Marx, 1988, Twentieth Century 17 “What is secret is often squalid as well. In the Fund/University of California Press. This dark, men were able to act contrary to the thoughtful critical analysis of undercover police values they proclaimed in public. Paying techniques warns of several serious service to democratic ends, they made league Constitutional problems posed by the uncritical with scoundrels whose interest is anything but expansion of secretive undercover operations in the survival of democracy...today's New Right recent years. ideologues believe in the omnipotence of the goal and the irrelevance of the deed. So their Many of the authors cited above conclude tactics are those of the enemy they hate and that intelligence activities, whether domestic or fear, and they award America's franchises to foreign, almost inevitably turn toward con men, hustlers, terrorists, racketeers, undemocratic techniques without unequivocal murderers and other sleazy characters who for guidelines, firm congressional oversight, and a fee sign up for the crusade. thoughtful judicial intervention. All of these Historian Henry Steele Commanger, in his constraints have failed to keep government introduction to Moyer's book, noted that surveillance abuse from recurring. “Corruption of language is a special form of The counter-subversion network of the deception that recent administrations and the political right was involved in the Palmer Raids, Pentagon have brought to a high degree of the McCarthy Period, the FBI's illegal perfection....Along with the corruption of COINTELPRO operations, and political language goes, of course, the corruption of truth. repression during the Reagan years. Donner, If there were lies during the Vietnam years—and especially, discusses the existence of a counter- lies there were—nothing can compare with the subversion network that persistently survives corruption of truth of the Reagan through a variety of political and social administration.” conditions, and is a deeply- rooted institutional Washington's War on Nicaragua by Holly and ideological presence in American society. Sklar .15 showed how the Reagan administration The network is seldom discussed publicly since worked with far-right groups to use patriotic it is secretive by nature, even paranoid, with language to reframe the Contras, a CIA- some sectors constantly on the alert for spawned anti-Sandinista army, as “Freedom penetration by subversives or foreign agents. It Fighters.” It's not just Reagan and the frequently cloaks its activities by invoking fears Republicans, of course. Harry Truman, a that its critics are breaching national security or

5 The Hunt for Red Menace assisting terrorism. America, Reed Irvine's Accuracy in Media, the The counter-subversion network should not Schlafly family's Cardinal Mindszenty be viewed as an exotic conspiracy, merely a Foundation, Fred Schwarz's Christian Anti- loose coalition of groups and individuals, some Communism Campaign, and Phyllis Schlafly's of whom manipulate a conspiratorial view about Eagle Forum. There are hundreds of other subversion to justify maintaining the status quo periodicals, as well as publications such as so they and their mentors can retain the books, pamphlets, and flyers. In the past, films, perquisites of power and profit margins. Like filmstrips, and slide shows were circulated. As any successful social movement, the counter- they became more popular and relatively subversion network has an informal yet inexpensive, audiotapes and videotapes have frequently cooperative national infrastructure been utilized, and a few computerized that provides educational and ideological telecommunications networks and bulletin board resources. The paranoid and authoritarian views systems have emerged. Radio talk shows and of the counter-subversion network in the U.S. syndicated radio and television programs reach are circulated and perpetuated through Nativist large audiences, with Rush Limbaugh, Pat publications, institutions and events, Robertson, Chuck Harder and Tom Valentine administered by a core of persons who have among the major information sources attacking made counter-subversion and counter-terrorism liberal conspiracies. Every week there are dozens a profession. of direct mail appeals with gossipy tidbits about The key component of the counter- leftist treachery and predicting doom if checks subversion network is the various political are not in the mailto help counter the intelligence specialists who actually conduct subversion. political spying and primary information A number of rightist think tanks, gathering. John and S. Louise Rees and their membership organizations, lobbying groups, Information Digest newsletter are perhaps the trade and professional groups, internship cen- best known practitioners in this field. Other ters, direct mail concerns, and a handful of groups that have supplied information on academic institutions create a permanent political dissidents since the 1970's include the institutional infrastructure to keep counter- Council for Inter-American Security, the subversive theories alive and fresh. A leading American Sentinel newsletter (renamed back to purveyor of counter-subversion theories during its original title Pink Sheet on the Left), Rev. the Reagan Adminstration was the Heritage Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church Foundation and its various publications includ- network, Young American's for Freedom and its ing Policy Review. Others include the Hoover spin-off Young America's Foundation, the Institution at Stanford, and the Foreign Policy Council for the Defense of Freedom, Students Research Institute (FRPI) at the University of for a Better America, and the Anti-Defamation Pennsylvania. The FPRI journal Orbis was League of B'nai B'rith. The LaRouchians are particularly of interest due to its glorification of publicly shunned by many on the political right, authoritarian solutions to numerous problems. but their information regularly showed up in The Free Congress Foundation founded by the right wing (and a few left wing) publications. late New Right strategist Paul Weyrich circulates There are scores of right-wing magazines, many publications that reflect its ultra- newspapers, and newsletters that ply the reader conservative, reactionary and narrow with tales of progressive plots to plunder free fundamentalist views. The exclusive and enterprise in America. These include the weekly secretive Council for National Policy serves as a newspaper Human Events, newsletters from network and resource for the Nativist right. The Beverly LaHaye's Concerned Women for Madison Foundation trains conservative campus

6 The Hunt for Red Menace activists in counter-subversion, and funds a private sector, the FBI has a long history of network of conservative campus publications. collaborating with right-wing groups to attack The word is spread through myriad events movements for peace and social justice. Other including speeches, conferences, investment federal agencies also play a role, as do local and seminars, conferences, and training workshops. state law enforcement agencies. At the same For instance, the Cardinal Mindszenty time there is competition among the groups. The Foundation holds weekend workshops and an Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit was annual conference spreading the gospel of anti- established in part to serve as a horizontal communism. The educational effort includes information sharing network among state and slide shows at American Legion halls, speeches local intelligence units frustrated by the fact that at Reserve Officers Association conventions, the FBI expected information to flow up the and workshops at the World Anti-Communist ladder into their files, but seldom sent League annual convention. American Security information down the ladder to the state and Council films targeted at Republican audiences local units. provided a forum where the public and private While the revelations of Watergate and the contra aid networks did their propaganda and Church Committee in the 1970's resulted in fundraising. In one “documentary” film, temporary restraints against the public side of dominoes topple up the isthmus of Central the domestic intelligence apparatus, these gains America toward downtown Houston. Reader's were soon erased by the Reagan Administration Digest, an occasional source of paranoid which began a broad assault on civil liberties counter-subversion, told us in the 1980's that under a variety of national security slogans. anti- nuclear and pro-peace activists were unwitting dupes who spread KGB From Nativism to disinformation as part of a Soviet “active- McCarthyism: measures” campaign to weaken the West. One newsletter published by the Christian Anti- Communist Crusade even suggested the Soviets Developing the Theories of exploited abortion, pornography, Countersubversion homosexuality, and mass murder to demoralize The modern countersubverion witch- the American spirit in preparation for invasion. hunters are part of an authoritarian trend in the To understand contemporary counter- U.S. which has its roots in the Nativist anti- subversion operations it is necessary to study progressive movement. At the turn of the their lineage which traces back to Nativism, century this Nativist movement fought the through the anti-radical anti-labor manias of the growth of labor unions and the arrival of 1920's and 1930's, and from there to McCarthy ethnically-diverse immigrants. It coalesced Period theories developed to serve the during the turmoil of the Bolshevik revolution ideological needs of the Cold War—theories and World War I and popularized the idea of the which have steered this country away from the global Red Menace. Constitutional guarantees of liberty and toward Even before the FBI was established the the authoritarianism implicit in the demands of Justice Department relied on private Nativist the National Security State. groups to help smash dissent and ferret out The activities of the FBI provide a clear alleged subversion. Frank Donner traces the example of how this Nativist authoritarian roots of this network in The Age of Surveillance: phenomenon functions as the domestic “Beginning in 1918, private intelligence forces component of the “National Security State”. emerged to combat radicalism, labor unionism, Drawing resources from both the public and and opposition to the war,” Donner observed.

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Louis F. Post, the Labor Department official to people fearful about the world political and who signed the deportation order for anarchist economic situation, and longing for simple Emma Goldman after the Palmer Raids in 1919- solutions to complex problems. The use of 1920, later wrote a book, The Deportations scapegoats is common among these Delirium of Nineteen-Twenty where he argued movements, said Hofstadter who laid out the that no evidence of a widespread subversive three “basic elements of...right-wing thought” conspiracy among immigrants ever emerged: . 18 shared by many conservatives who succumbed “The records seldom showed any cause to paranoid forms of conspiracy thinking in the whatever for deportation other than a purely 1950's and 1960's: technical one. It seemed to me at the time, and “First, there has been the now familiar sustained the impression has been deepened by conspiracy, running over more than a subsequent developments, that if there were generation, and reaching its climax in any alien conspirators in the United States who Roosevelt's New Deal, to undermine free were at all dangerous to its institutions, its free capitalism, to bring the economy under the institutions, the detectives of the Department of direction of the federal government, and to Justice did not “hit their trail.” pave the way for socialism or communism. . “As a rule the hearings showed that the aliens “The second contention is that top government arrested to be workingmen of good character, officialdom has been so infiltrated by who had never been arrested before, who were Communists that American policy, at least not anarchists nor revolutionists nor obnoxious since the days leading up to Pearl Harbor, has to the spirit of our laws in any other sense. been dominated by sinister men who were Many of them were faithful fathers of American- shrewdly and consistently selling out American born children. Nearly all had been subject to national interests. arbitrary arrest, to long detention in default of “The final contention is that the country is bail beyond the means of hardworking wage- infused with a network of communist earners to furnish, and for nothing more agents. .so that the whole apparatus of reprehensible, so far as intent counted, than education, religion, the press, and the mass affiliating with friends of their own race, country media are engaged in a common effort to and language. Cases in which there was paralyze the resistance of loyal Americans. substantial proof of any unlawful act with sinister intent or guilty knowledge were excep- One primary role of this right-wing network tions—very rare exceptions. 19 is the dissemination of propaganda on what The Nativist network eventually Donner calls the fear centered twin myths of “an transformed into a network of right-wing all-powerful internal subversive enemy and a ideologues who saw communist subversion permanently endangered national security.” As behind every international movement for Donner explains: national liberation and every domestic “A pattern of support and collaboration between movement for peace and social justice. government and private intelligence forces dominates the history of radical-hunting in this country. The values and priorities of American Conspiracism as an Nativism have decisively influenced both Analytical Model official and private intelligence activities. As a vital ideological resource of American The overly-simplified conspiracy mentality capitalism, nativism has kept the counter- was discussed by Professor Richard Hofstadter subversive tradition burning by continuing and who traced its historic influence in American enlarging its own private intelligence activities. right-wing movements in, The Paranoid Style in There is a symbiotic relationship between American Politics. right-wing hard-liners in law enforcement and According to Hofstadter, paranoid the radical hunters in Congress and the private movements rise and fall periodically, and appeal

8 The Hunt for Red Menace sector. Law enforcement has long relied on the reactionary anti-modernism, and, in a few political right-wing to fight subversion, and this instances, echoes of fascist theories of has always been especially true when it comes nationalism. to the FBI response to critics who point out the FBI's anti-democratic ideological mission. Yet Counter-subversion Theory & the Cold War whether or not a group or individual cooperated The counter-subversive Nativist views on with government law enforcement agencies and subversion were adapted to the geo-political congressional committees or choose to resist, realities of the post WWII period to form the the overall effect on society was to crush dissent basis of the Cold War, the political witch hunts and narrow the acceptable range of political culminating in the McCarthy Period, and a discourse in the United States. number of other events and movements which combined to create the National Security State. The Global Red Menace The Cold War consensus in the 1950's was The anti-communism of the domestic forged primarily through a coalition of three counter-subversion network was not a rationale disparate groups: critique of communism as a political theory, or  Liberals, such as those in the State Department communist repression of dissidents, or and analysis section of the CIA. communist foreign intervention, but a zealous  Conservatives and reactionaries such as those view of communism, real or perceived, as the in Congress and the operational section of CIA. Red Menace. The most extreme form of this  Nativist xenophobes such as Sen. Joseph view saw the Soviet Union as the Evil Empire McCarthy and those who would later form the secretive John Birch Society. and believed there was no compromise with godless Satanic communism. There was certainly contention among these Premised on this obsessive paranoid groups. The liberals distrusted the reactionaries phobia, the anti-communist counter-subversive as authoritarian and militarist and distrusted the movement in the U.S. pursued through public Nativists as anti-intellectual proto-fascists. The and private channels the increased reliance on conservatives distrusted the liberals as naive covert action as a major pillar of U.S. foreign dupes who flirted with socialism and distrusted policy, and secrecy and anti-subversive witch- the Nativists as zealous and isolationist. The hunts as a significant factor in domestic policy. Nativists distrusted the conservatives as rich Since this movement wanted to “Rollback” elitists and interventionists and distrusted the communism and believed in the inevitability of liberals as either naive “one-world-government” war with nations that were communist (or were dupes or witting communist agents. perceived as communist), it saw a need to Remember that McCarthy, the maintain a high level of defense spending for quintessential Nativist was seeking out military preparedness, and the need for constant communists and “fellow travelers” in the State domestic surveillance against internal Department, which at the time was already subversion. actively fighting communism. But Nativists were Civil liberties are seen as always secondary isolationist, and thought every attempt to to national security. Acheiving “Law and Order” involve the United States in global politics was is seen requiring the use of state power to force part of an internationalist plot, even attempts to conformity. It is appropriate to refer to this involve the country in fighting global movement as sharing an ideology that is communism. paranoid and authoritarian and manifesting itself Still, there was agreement among the three most concretely in terms of anti- communism main political tendencies that the spread of and anti-liberalism with an undercurrent of communism had to be stopped if their unique

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(often contradictory) vision of Western Moscow. 25 civilization was to survive. A seminal work in shaping the Cold War Psychological Warfare for Domestic was William R. Kintner's 1950 book The Front Consumption is Everywhere in which Kintner lays out his analysis of the communist style of subversion In a 1958 “consultation” with the House through a “Communist Fifth Column” involved Committee on Un- American Activities, three in otherwise legal “political activity.” major architects of Cold War theory summarized their hard line views concerning the “The Communist plan, as fashioned by Lenin, is always to `carry on work that is possible,' work “Communist Strategy of Protracted Conflict”. that will finally end in `commencing and carrying Dr. Robert Strausz-Hupé, Alvin J. Cottrell, and out the national armed insurrection'. 20 James E. Dougherty, (all affiliated with the Foreign Policy Research Institute of the According to Kintner, since the ultimate University of Pennsylvania) appeared before the goal of communist subversion is armed Committee to answer critics of the Cold War revolution and the destruction of the democratic who urged a less confrontational posture toward state, it is a national security necessity to ferret the Soviet Union. Hupé put it this way: out the presence of communists in organizations involved in non-criminal political activity. “The Communist strategy never has been, and is not now, a strategy of limited war such as that “If American Communists wore the uniform of the which has preoccupied many Western writers Red Army, steps would be taken to safeguard in recent years.... the national security by preventing the “The strategy of protracted conflict prescribes operation of the Communist party's intelligence the annihilation of the opponent by a long net and its fifth-column activity in behalf of a 21 series of carefully calibrated operations, by foreign power. feints and maneuvers, by psychological and “How can they be stopped? Are additional laws economic warfare, and by diverse forms of needed?. .Is the American judicial system violence.... flexible enough to convict the professional “It encompasses all known forms of violent and revolutionaries of a quasi-military party, whose non-violent conflict techniques, and fuses them mode of operation is designed to make into a weapons spectrum which begins on the convictions on the accepted rules of evidence 22 left with the seeminingly most innocuous next to impossible? . political activities, such as the clandestine “The passage of a law outlawing Communist distribution of leaflets, and terminates on the conspiratorial practices would only be the first right end of the spectrum with the megaton step. .A law- enforcing problem to overcome bomb. would be the procurement and training of a “There is no difference between cold and hot sufficient number of agents to infiltrate into 23 war. There is no essential difference between every corner of the Communist conspiracy. military and political means. They are all “The practical problem involved is the instruments of conflict, leading to the same development of a concise legal doctrine on the objective of power accumulation. question of proof through association. Because of the very nature of the Communist party, the Hupé was describing his perception of the government may have to fall back on such communist view of conflict, but the description 24 proof. also fits the ideology underpinning U.S. Cold “The false accusation of `Communist' against War counterinsurgency methods against its citizens who desire some change in the existing order does much harm and no good. The best political enemies, methods now artfully called way to stop these malicious attacks is to “low-intensity conflict”. distinguish accurately between loyal American At the same hearing, Cottrell argued that liberals and radicals and those professional just like “in time of war the American people, revolutionaries who take their orders from

10 The Hunt for Red Menace generally, and their political parties abstain from organization on the left. partisan politics,” that since the Communists The most persistant theoretical underpining were in fact waging an ongoing war through of the FBI's COINTELPRO-era activity was the their theory of protracted conflict, that the notion of the naive front controlled by Executive branch should be able to conduct its communist infiltration, or COMINFIL in Bureau policies concerning Communists with wartime jargon. COMINFIL was described succinctly by efficiency and support absent extended political author William W. Keller: debate. Cottrell observed, “The great debates “...the theory behind Cominfil is that the which are sources of strength in the internal Communist party members seek to infiltrate or affairs of a democracy actually vitiate our join the ranks of legitimate organizations, rise foreign policy”. Cottrell proposed the following to positions of leadership, establish effective as the solution: control of the organization, and ultimately convert it into a vehicle for mass communist “The United States should be able to wage psy- revolution. 26 chological warfare more effectively than the Soviet Union. The fact that it has been unable In this theory, communists are thought to to do so derives from certain features of its have developed a method of control using own democratic system, such as the surrogates, both witting and unwitting, to sensationalism of the press, the irresponsibility actually hold the titular reins of power. of many journalists and politicians, and the Generally, for both conservatives and rivalry of the armed services. The answer does not lie in any institutional modification of our reactionaries, any movement that challenges the democratic social structure. What is urgently status quo, the assumptions of the state, and the needed is an advance to political maturity and control by its leading interest groups, can be responsibility on the part of American elites, perceived as part of what is today called a who should be able to act as intelligent critics “Soviet Active Measures” campaign to of American policy without depriving the undermine America. While this may appear Government of all freedom of choice in the conduct of American diplomacy. overly simplistic and paranoid, one need only read the literature of the counter-subversion Despite the lofty-sounding rhetoric, empire to see the many variations on the theme. Cottrell's position was essentially that when it Orbis, West Watch, and Information Digest, all came to fighting Communism, the democratic have detailed elaborations and fine tunings of process should be short-circuited. .an argument these overall views. reeosundingly similar to that made by Lt. Col According to Keller, the conservatives and Oliver North. In fact, this same mentality of reactionaries effectively control counter- giving government elites a free and covert hand subversion activities in the U.S. due to the in fighting the international Red Menace unwillingness on the part of Congressional permeated the domestic side of the Cold War liberals to actively pursue an oversight role over equation when it came to fighting the internal all counter-intelligence activity. Keller sees this Red Menace. unwillingness stemming from liberal ambivalence regarding the questionable security The Theory of a Subversive Infrastructure techniques employed, and their ultimate The underlying theory of subversion held allegiance to the perceived security needs of the by both the reactionary conservative and state. Nativist authoritarian schools of anti- “The cold war military buildup to deter future communism share a common belief in the conflict is analogous to the domestic security concept of the political front, intentional or intelligence buildup to prevent future unwitting, as the most common form of political subversion, sabotage, civil unrest, and even

11 The Hunt for Red Menace

revolution. In both spheres, the liberal polity massive program of illegal spying and har- 27 demonstrates its stateness. assment dubbed COINTELPRO—the FBI's While courts have consistently ruled that Counterintelligence Program. Meanwhile, passive monitoring of First Amendment activity unaware of COINTELPRO, the grassroots is permissible, critics charge that passive Nativist forces retreated to the fringes of the monitoring and dossier-compiling often turns American political system to regroup and into disruption or attack, sometimes publish their periodicals and books. inadvertently, sometimes intentionally. As Donner explains: COINTELPRO “The listing of individuals, whether for ultimate FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover initiated detention in the event of war or for clues to the COINTELPRO, the acronym given the FBI's source of civil disorders, masked an underlying Counterintelligence Program, in August 1956. tension between passive monitoring and barely COINTELPRO was designed to “increase suppressed aggression. Why wait for the future factionalism, cause disruption and win showdown? What can be done to get at these people now? This tension found an outlet in defections” inside the Communist Party U.S.A. special programs directed at `key figures' and The FBI program was later enlarged to include `top functionaries,' singled out for close disruption of the Socialist Workers Party (1961), penetrative and continuous surveillance. 28 the Ku Klux Klan (1964), Black nationalist groups such as the Black Panther Party and the McCarthy Period Private Nation of Islam (1967), and the entire New Left, including community and religious groups Sector Groups (1968). During the McCarthy period Red Channels, Hoover was certainly obsessed with published by American Business Consultants counter-subversion and a conspiracy view of and Counterattack published by Aware, Inc. history. He was convinced the civil rights were the primary blacklisting newsletters. 29 Two movement was the result of communist groups formed in Chicago, the American subversives agitating normally docile Blacks into Security Council and the Church League of protesting segregation. Hoover even demanded America began as information clearinghouses his agents find out who was behind the women's for industrial and business security agents. movement, apparently assuming he could The American Security Council started life eredicate the global feminist awakening by as an employers reference to ferret out pro- ferreting out a small cabal of malcontents. union and thus supposedly subversive Inside the FBI there developed a core group employees. There is an excellent review of the of agents with authoritarian tendencies who American Security Council's early red-hunting adopt the theories, and sometimes the practices, activities in William Turner's Power on the of the the paranoid Nativist right-wing. This Right. view was institutionalized while Hoover was FBI director, and a self- perpetuating network carries The FBI, COINTELPRO, on the tradition today following his death. and the War on Dissent David Kaplan of California's Center for Investigative Reporting called COINTELPRO When the smear tactics of Joseph “the largest known program yet in domestic McCarthy and his allies were finally discredited, suverillance.” Kaplan observed that “between FBI director J. Edgar Hoover simply took the 1965 and 1975, the FBI opened more than red menace campaign underground and re- 500,000 intelligence files on more than one institutionalized attacks on dissenters with a million Americans, according to a Congressional

12 The Hunt for Red Menace report.... Among the Bureau's targets: Martin “national emergency,” although it is still unclear Luther King and the civil rights movement, anti- what constituted a “national emergency.” The Vietnam War Groups, and the underground FBI created this detention list in the 1940's, even before the legislation was passed press.” providing any statutory authority (the In the Final Report of the Senate Select Emergency Detention Act of 1950)." Committee to Study Governmental Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities, COINTELPRO violated constitutionally- COINTELPRO was castigated in no uncertain guaranteed rights in a carefully calculated terms: manner, and was essentially anti-democratic in design and implementation. Allowed to evolve “COINTELPRO is the FBI acronym for a series towards its logical conclusions, COINTELPRO of covert action programs directed against would have engendered an authoritarian domestic groups. “Many of the techniques used would be environment limiting basic liberties. intolerable in a democratic society even if all of Only a handfulof the tens of thousands of the targets had been involved in violent activity, pages of COINTELPRO documents reviewed but COINTELPRO went far beyond that...the by researchers for various lawsuits had any Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante mention of criminal activity. When the FBI operation aimed squarely at preventing the office in Media, Pennsylvania was raided in 1971 exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing by unknown antiwar activists, the pilfered files the growth of dangerous groups and the revealed the following startling statistics: 1 propogation of dangerous ideas would protect percent of the files were devoted to organized the national security and deter violence. crime, mostly gambling; 15% regarded bank Richard Criley of the National Committee robberies, rape, murder and interstate theft; 30% Against Repressive Legislation, himself a victim were manuals and official bureaucratic non- of government surveillance abuse, has investigative documents; 14% were devoted to chronicled the enormity of privacy violations by draft resistance and AWOL military personnel; the FBI and their use of informants: and a 40% were devoted to political surveillance and investigations of alleged subversion and “In the City of Chicago alone, from 1966 to security risks. Two of these political cases 1976, the FBI employed (at a cost of $2.5 million) over 5,000 secret undercover informers involved right wing groups, ten cases involved to operate within civic and political organ- immigrants, and 200 cases involved political izations which were violating no laws. For 16 activists on the left. years (1960 to to 1977), the FBI employed Sometimes the collusion between the FBI 1,600 informers to infiltrate one small political and the far-right had violent results. Civil rights group, the Socialist Workers Party (at an activists Jim Peck and Walter Bergman were estimated cost of $26 million). Such was the brutally beaten by the Ku Klux Klan in May of national pattern. “The information gathered by the FBI's informant 1961 when buses carrying freedom riders were network was supplemented by illegal wiretaps, ambushed in Anniston and Birmingham, letter openings, burglaries of office files, secret Alabama. examination of bank records, clippings from Former Ku Klux Klan member Gary newspapers, and physical surveillance. At the Thomas Rowe, Jr. was an FBI COINTELPRO FBI and other government offices, vast files of informant who in 1975 testified before a Senate organizations' political policies and individuals' opinions were catalogued according to their committee that he had warned local police and degrees of presumed “dangerousness” in the Federal agents that the ambush would take FBI's secret “Security Index.” place. Peck and Bergman filed lawsuits shortly “Thousands of individuals in the FBI Index were after the 1975 Senate testimony targeted for round-up and detention in case of a

13 The Hunt for Red Menace

Neither local police or federal agents can be deadly. In the late 1960's, according to intervened in the ambush, and in fact the testimony and documents produced in a lawsuit Birmingham Police Department informally filed in Chicago, the FBI informant in the Illinois agreed to allow the Klansmen up to 20 minutes Black Panther Party was unsuccsessful in in which to assault the Freedom Riders before encouraging the BPP members to bomb police would arrive on the scene. buildings and rob stores. So the FBI tipped off Peck was beaten unconscious outside the local police that the Panthers were heavily armed Birmingham bus station while Bergman was and supplied a floorplan of their apartment. The assaulted while the Freedom Ride buses were in ensuing police raid left Panther leaders Fred Anniston, Alabama where one of the buses was Hampton and Mark Clark dead. The few guns destroyed by a firebomb. Bergman, 84 at the found were later discovered to have been legally time of his court victory, was confined to a purchased. An FBI memo noting the deaths wheelchair, in part due to injuries resulting from requested a bonus for the informant.30 the beating. Despite his injuries, Bergman still firmly believed his participation in the Freedom COINTELPRO Media Operations Rides was worthwhile, and contributed to Journalists were not only unwittingly fed “opening up the South to free travel by people disruptive information by the FBI during its of all races.” The lawsuits resulted in judgements COINTELPRO operation, but in many cases, against the government of $25,000 and $35,000 journalists also willingly cooperated with the for Peck and Bergman. FBI knowing they were participating in 31 Evidence is Immaterial counterintelligence programs. An analysis of COINTELPRO documents Contrary evidence was no impediment to showed the FBI's use of newspapers, radio Hoover pursuing his right- wing paranoid vision. stations, and television stations was much In 1969 the FBI special agent in San Francisco greater than previously suspected. A separate wrote Hoover that his investigation of the Black COINTELPRO media program was in operation Panther Party revealed that in his city, at least, from at least 1956 to 1971; and documents the Black nationalists were primarily feeding reveal FBI offices in 16 cities were requested to breakfast to children. Hoover fired back a memo compile lists of cooperative and reliable implying the career ambitions of the agent were reporters for COINTELPRO use. The New directly related to his supplying evidence to Haven, Connecticut office alone submitted a list support Hoover's view that the BPP was “a of 28 media contacts. Media operations were violence prone organization seeking to over- carried out by agents in an additional seven throw the Government by revolutionary means”. cities. The FBI media program was especially Hoover made his real agenda clear in a later active in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and memo instructing agents that the “Purpose of Milwaukee. counterintelligence action is to disrupt BPP and The COINTELPRO media program violated it is immaterial whether facts exist to substan- every single clause of the First Amendment to tiate the charge.” the Constitution by: harassing religious groups, The FBI's relentless disregard of evidence in attacking progressive newspapers, preventing pursuit of its ideological enemies fits Winston free speech, disrupting peaceable assemblies and Churchill's description of the fanatic as “one interfering with citizens' rights to petition the who can't change his mind and won't change the government for redress of grievances. That subject.” It would be comical if it weren't so journalists actively participated in subverting tragic. The results of this authoritarian these First Amendment guarantees is fanatacism by government intelligence agents frightening, and dispels the notion that in

14 The Hunt for Red Menace

America, the press is always an objective months as a punishment. watchdog protecting citizens' rights from The most frequently-reported operation governmental excesses. involved the FBI supplying a cooperative Targets of the FBI media program included: reporter with information designed to harass an  The Communist Party-USA, especially its Black activist and cause public embarrassment. For members and groups; instance, in 1966 the FBI provided the Chicago  Black nationalist organizations such as the Daily News with information that a local Black Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam; communist leader owned a ghetto apartment  New Left groups such as Students for a house with building code violations. The Democratic Society, Socialist Workers Party, resulting article was picked up locally and Youth Against War and Fascism, Progressive Labor party, and anti-HUAC coalitions; nationally, resulting in tremendous loss of  Anti-war groups, especially those on campuses; credibility for the activist. The effectiveness of  Various media ranging from Liberation News this type of operation was underscored in an FBI Service to the New York Post. memo: In some cases the FBI covertly fed “The New York Office has noted that public information to unwitting reporters; but in many statements by columnists and the press have a instances journalists worked with the FBI and considerable effect on the Party. Some have caused the Party to delay work for days at a promised not to reveal that the Bureau had time in an effort to answer charges made, and suggested coverage or provided information. to discover the source of the information Some reporters went further and actually printed. volunteered to assist the Bureau in Among newspapers cooperating in this type counterintelligence operations —writing articles of operation were the New York Daily News, designed to damage a specific FBI- targeted Cleveland Plain Dealer, Philadelphia Inquirer, individual, organization or event. One Chicago Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Herald newspaperman toured the Chicago FBI office Examiner. Hearst chain newspapers were and “indicated that he was always ready and frequently cited as cooperative, and on one willing to be of service to the Bureau.” An L.A. occasion the FBI ordered its Bureaus to collect journalist was recommended for further tasks data to assist a Newhouse chain reporter. after cooperating “in a very successful Television stations WHDH in Boston, counterintelligence operation,” according to FBI KTTV in Los Angeles, and WCKT in Miami files. were active in COINTELPRO/ Miami's WCKT- Print and electronic media journalists agreed TV worked closely with the FBI in preparing a to ask activists embarrassing questions supplied 30-minute color documentary on the Nation of by the FBI; in fact, the FBI circulated to select Islam. “Each and every film segment produced journalists a list of 44 questions designed to by the station” was submitted to the FBI to provoke members of the CP-USA. Documents insure that the FBI was satisfied “and that noting reported that in several instances journalists was included” which in any way would “be supplied news films or tapes to the Bureau. contrary” to FBI interests. Reporters would phone the FBI to report The FBI used a variety of techniques in its upcoming events scheduled by targeted groups, media program. Disruptive information was and in at least three cases, journalists worked as provided to unwitting reporters, sometimes volunteer agents. A Mr. Hall, a Boston reporter, arriving in letters signed with fictitious names. embarrassed the Bureau by publicly claiming a Information damaging to an activist group special clearance from J. Edgar Hoover himself. would be sent in envelopes bearing that group's Hall was scolded for being overzealous and was return address to encourage internal bickering. cut off from leaked information for several

15 The Hunt for Red Menace

The FBI arranged phone call and letter Los Angeles Herald Examiner campaigns to force cancellation of radio and Newark Star Ledger television appearances by progressives. Philadelphia Inquirer Coverage of private meetings was suggested, Newhouse chain (D.C.) often to use the press presence as a disruptive U.S. News and World Report element. Chicago American Cooperative reporters were given Chicago Courier information revealing embarrassing incidents, Arizona Daily Star secret plans, or internal disputes. Often the Jackson Daily News (Mississippi) material was revealed in a way that implied the The Youngstown Vindicator (Ohio) source was a disgruntled group member. Buffalo Courier Express Clippings from newspaper articles were Buffalo Evening News anonymously sent to reporters to encourage KTTV-TV (Los Angeles similar coverage. Once the FBI planted an article WCKT-TV (Miami) in U.S. News and World Report and then WHDH Radio & TV (Boston) distributed clippings to other journalists. ABC-TV (Chicago) Sometimes the FBI would reprint articles for WBZ Radio (Boston) greater distribution, or plant articles critical of KYW-TV (Cleveland) one activist and sent clippings to rivals. The FBI WJW-TV (Cleveland) even wrote its own articles and printed cartoons WELW Radio (Ohio) for dissemination to newspapers. Four Chicago TV stations It is obvious from the documents that every (names deleted) media operation had to be cleared by FBI FED DISRUPTIVE INFORMATION headquarters in Washington, and most, if not all, Sandy Smith, Chicago Tribune * required the personal approval of J. Edgar Edmund J. Rooney, Chicago Daily News * Hoover. The FBI clearly was aware it was Michael Kirkhorn, Milwaukee Journal * violating constitutional rights and took great care Jack Steele, Scrips-Howard * to prevent the program from being revealed Polish Daily News, Detroit * publicly. Charles E. Davis, Jr., Los Angeles Examiner Boston Record American Pittsburgh Press Seattle Times Washington Daily News

MEDIA WITH CONTACTS COOPERATING TWENTY EIGHT COOPERATIVE MEDIA IN COINTELPRO OPERATIONS (Compiled by New Haven, CT FBI) * Hearst newspaper chain The Hartford Courant Associated Press (NY) New Haven Register New York Daily News New Haven Journal-Courier New York Daily Mirror WELI (New Haven) Chicago Daily News WNHC-TV (New Haven) Chicago Tribune (Ron Kosiol) WICH (Norwich) Cleveland Plain Dealer Norwich Bulletin Milwaukee Journal WSUB (Groton) Los Angeles Examiner WNLC (New London) Los Angeles Evening Herald Express New London Day

16 The Hunt for Red Menace

Greenwich Times Albany WNLK (Norwalk Cincinnati Norwalk Hour Dallas Stamford Advocate El Paso WSTS (Stamford) Jackson, MS Bristol Press Miami Meriden Journal Phoenix Meriden Record New Britain Herald Information Collection & WNAB (Bridgeport) Sharing Bridgeport Post Bridgeport Telegram David Kaplan noted that there were other Middletown Press agencies of the federal government who spied WLAD (Danbury) on citizens during the 1960's and 1970's: Danbury News Times “Until 1974, the CIA conducted a widespread, WICC (Fairfield illegal spying operation within the United WMMM (Westport) States. According to Congressional reports, the The Town Crier (Westport) names of 300,000 U.S. citizens were cross- indexed within agency files, and thousands of Waterbury Republican American Americans were placed on “watch lists” to have ——————- their mail opened and telegrams read. * Of 16 FBI offices requested to provide “The Pentagon's intelligence operations spilled lists of “established and cooperative news media into a highly questionable area during the sources which have been or may be used in 1960s and early 1970s. The U.S. Army connection with counterintelligence action,” Intelligence Command, among others, rean a far- reaching domestic spying program that, at only the New Haven office's list has been its height, fielded over 1500 plainclothes released. A list of 20 Ohio contacts was released, agents from 350 offices to spy on anti-war and but all names were blotted out. The 16 FBI civil rights groups. The Army's program was, in offices are: the words of a Congressional subcommittee, Boston “both massive and unrestrained,” and compiled Buffalo an estimated 100,00 dossiers on U.S. citizens. The Secretary of the Army subsequently Chicago ordered those files destroyed, although, like the Cleveland CIA, there are now indications that such Detroit activities may have continued. Los Angeles Information from the private right-wing Milwaukee groups and federal agencies also flowed in and Minneapolis out of the Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit, New Haven an association of local law enforcement New York intelligence and investigative squads set up to Newark compete with the sometimes less- than- Philadelphia cooperative FBI. Pittsburgh Civil liberties activist and author Richard St. Louis Criley was especially concerned with local San Francisco police intelligence units. Seattle Documents reveal COINTELPRO media “In Chicago, the local police intelligence unit operations in these other cities: amassed files on over 200,000 citizens and

17 The Hunt for Red Menace

groups ranging from the PTA to the Communist response the Chicago police sent Detroit a four- Party. They had already considered plans to page report detailing Mrs. Montgomery's lawful computerize the file system when a series of political activities. civil lawsuits brought their activities to light. Chicago was just one of several cities with “Many of these political surveillance similar surveillance units. units—which have also surfaced in Detroit, Seattle, and elsewhere—have been disbanded as In fact, an informal nationwide network for the result of public outrage and, in some cases, sharing political dossiers among police and lawsuits,” observed journalist David Kaplan. private intelligence agencies existed for several “Civil liberties watchdogs, however, believe that decades prior to 1975. According to files other units whose activities remain secret produced in a series of lawsuits against continue to grow.” government surveillance in Chicago, 159 agencies in 33 states throughout the nation AGENCIES EXCHANGING POLITICAL received political spying files from, or sent such SPYING INTELLIGENCE WITH THE files to, the Chicago Police Department CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT Intelligence Division, which for many years was INTELLIGENCE DIVISION (CPD/IU) called the Red Squad. Alabama The agencies include 100 municipal police Alabama Dept. of Public Safety departments, 26 state law enforcement agencies, Birmingham Police Dept. 16 county sheriffs offices, and 17 other public Huntsville Police Dept. and private agencies. Arizona “While many concerned civil libertarians Phoenix Police Dept. have been convinced of the existence of Maricopa County Sheriff politically-motivated activity by their local Temple Police Dept. police, they have frequently been frustrated by Tucson Police Dept. the need for concrete proof.” said Frank Donner, California author of The Age of Surveillance who called for Anaheim Police Dept. a “remedial campaign to abolish such abuses,” Alameda County District Attorney's Office based on the revelations. Bakersfield Police Dept. According to attorney Richard Gutman, California Dept. of Justice, Organized Crime and who obtained the police reports, the following Criminal Intelligence Branch examples are typical of the material discussed in California Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Criminal the Chicago Police Transmittal Files: Identification and Investigation  The Texas Department of Public Safety (“Texas Delano Police Dept. Rangers”) sought “any pertinent information Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office related to subversive activities or affiliations” Los Angeles County Sheriff's OIffice regarding Chicago attorney Terry Yale Feiertag. The Chicago police responded that attorney Los Angeles Police Dept. Feiertag was employed by an organization whic McFarland Police Dept. provided legal aid to low income groups and in Newark Police Dept. civil rights cases; Oakland Police Dept.  The Indianapolis Police Department sought “any Orange Police Dept. data” regarding Clergy and Laity Concerned Palo Alto Police Dept. About Vietnam. The Chicago police in response sent information about the group's lawful anti- San Francisco Police Dept. war activities; San Jose Police Dept.  The Detroit Police Department sought San Mateo County Sheriff information regarding Lucy Montgomery. in Santa Ana Police Dept.

18 The Hunt for Red Menace

Santa Barbara County Sheriff Indiana Torrance Police Dept. Anderson Police Dept. Colorado East Chicago Police Dept. Aspen Police Dept. Gary Police Dept. Denver Police Dept. Indiana State Police Connecticut Indianapolis, Mayor Connnecticut State Police Indianapolice Police Dept. Hartford State Police Northwest Indiana Crime Commission, Inc. Delaware Iowa Delaware State Police Cedar Rapids Police Dept. District of Columbia Des Moines Police Dept. Metropolitan Police Dept. Iowa Dept. of Pulic Safety, Bureau of Criminal Office of Economic Opportunity, Office of Investigation Inspection Kansas Florida Columbia Police Dept. Dade County Sheriff's Office Kansas City Police Dept. Florida Department of Law Enforcement Minneapolis Sheriff's Police Dept. Duval County Sheriff's Office Kentucky Miami Beach Police Dept. Kentucky Dept. of Corrections, Division of Miami Police Dept. Probation and Parole Orlando Police Dept. Kentucky State Police Tallahassee Police Dept. Louisville Police Dept. Tampa Police Dept. Louisiana Hawaii Franklin Parish Sheriff's Office Honolulu Police Department New Orleans Police Dept. Illinois Maine Carbondale Police Dept. Houlton Police jDept. Crystal Lake Police Dept. Maine State Police Decatur Police Dept. Maryland Dekalb Police Dept. Baltimore County Police Dept. Evanston Police Dept. Baltimore Police Dept. Galesburg Police Dept. Maryland State Police Grayville Police Dept. University of Maryland Hammond Corporation, Deerfield Massachusetts Highland Park Police Dept. Boston Police Dept. Illinois State Police Fitchburg Police Dept. Peoria Police Dept. Massachusetts Dept. of Public Safety, Division Rockford Police Dept. of Rock Island Police Dept. Subversive Activities Skokie Police Dept. Massachusetts State Police United States Army Intelligence, 113th MI Medford Police Dept. Group, Michigan Evanston Ann Arbor Police Dept. University of Illinois Police, Chicago Circle Berrien County Prosecuting Attorney Campus Detroit Police Dept. Woodridge Police Dept. Detroit Police Officers Ass'n

19 The Hunt for Red Menace

Eaton County Sheriff's Dept. Ohio State Highway Patrol Flint Police Dept. Steubenville Police Dept. Michigan House of Representatives, Economic Toledo Division of Police Development Committee Wintersville Police Dept. Michigan State Police Zenia Police Dept. Saginaw Police Dept. Oregon Minnesota Eugene Police Dept. Bloomington Police Dept. Portland Bureau of Police Missouri Portland District Attorney St. Louis Metropolitan Police Dept. Multnomah County Sheriffs Office Minutemen Pennsylvania Nebraska Pennsylvania House of Representatives Omaha Police Dept. Pennsylvania State Police Nevada Pittsburgh Bureau of Police Reno Police Dept. Philadelphia Police Dept. New Jersey Rhode Island Atlantic City Police Dept. Providence Police Dept. Camden Police Dept. Tennessee Newark Police Dept. Knoxville Police Dept. New Jersey State Police Memphis Police Dept. New Mexico Nashville Metropolitan Police Dept. Albuquerque Police Dept. Tennessee Office of the Attorney General, New Mexico State Police Dyersburg New York Texas Beacon Police Dept. Dallas Police Dept. Buffalo Police Dept. Fort Worth Police Dept. Ithaca Police Dept. Houston Police Dept. Nassau County Police Dept. Texas Dept. of Public Safety National Goals, Inc. (Private group, John Rees, Utah Dir.) Salt Lake City Police Dept. New Rochelle Police Dept. Virgin Islands New York City Police Dept. Virgin Islands Dept of Public Safety New York State Dept. of Civil Service Washington New York State Police Camas Police Dept. Port of New York Authority Seattle Police Dept. Suffolk County Police Dept. Wisconsin Yonkers Police Dept. FonduLac County Sheriffs Office Ohio Milwaukee Police Dept. Akron Police Dept. Washington County Sheriffs Office Canton Police Dept. Wauwatosa Police Dept. Cincinnati Crime Bureau Wisconsin Dept. of Justice, Division of Cincinnati Division of Police Criminal Investigation Columbus Police Dept. Cleveland Division of Police Private Connections Cuyahoga Falls Sheriffs Office Break-ins and thefts were numerous during Dayton Police Dept. the COINTELPRO period. When a judge

20 The Hunt for Red Menace allowed plaintiffs in one lawsuit against Goldwater and the True government spying access to the Chicago Police Red Squad files, lawyers found original Believers membership lists stolen from radical groups The first highly-visible post-McCarthy such as Medical Committee for Human Rights attempt by American Nativists to gain a mass and Students for a Democratic Society. Former following came as part of their support for the staff members from the groups remembered the 1964 campaign of conservative Sen. Barry lists vanishing after mysterious office break-ins Goldwater to gain the Republican Party's where office equipment was left untouched. presidential nomination. But preparations for In some cases break-ins and assaults were that campaign had been long in the making. In carried out by right- wing paramilitary groups the late 1950's and early 1960's a network of coordinating their efforts with FBI informants, Nativist anti-communists spread the gospel of military intelligence agents, and local police the Red Menace through books, magazine investigative units. Chicago's Legion of Justice articles and workshops. One of the most not only assaulted activists, but stole files and influential leaders of this movement was Dr. distributed photocopies to government Fred Schwarz and his California-based Christian agencies.. 32 Anti- Communism Crusade. A tireless lecturer, Detroit's Operation Breakthrough harassed Schwarz in 1960 authored You Can Trust the activists while it was essentially controlled by Communists (to be Communists) which sold police agents who sometimes outnumbered non- over one million copies. It soon became the informant members. 33 secular Bible of the Nativists. The FBI relationship to the far right reached The views on intractable godless a violent climax in San Diego, where an FBI communism expressed by Schwarz were central informant testified the FBI provided him with themes in three other bestselling books which $10,000 worth of weapons, including explosives were used to mobilize support for the 1964 used in a bombing by the Secret Army Goldwater campaign. The best known was Organization (SAO), a right-wing group which Phyllis Schlafly's A Choice, Not an Echo which harassed activists protesting the Vietnam war. suggested a conspiracy theory in which the The FBI even hid a gun used in an SAO Republican Party was secretly controlled by assasination attempt against a leftist professor elitist intellectuals dominated by members of the until an ACLU-sponsored lawsuit by a woman Bilderberger group, whose policies would pave wounded in the assault forced the FBI to reveal the way for global communist conquest. the weapon's existence.. 34 Schlafly's husband Fred had been a lecturer at The interlocking network of private right- Schwartz's local Christian Anti-communism wing counter-subversion operations flourished Crusade conferences. during the COINTELPRO period. Groups such Schlafly elaborate on the theme of the as the American Security Council, Church global communist conspiracy and its witting and League of America, Wackenhut Security, unwitting domestic allies in a book on military Research West, Agitator, Inc., FIPOL/UCC, and preparedness tailored to and published in Anacapa Sciences gathered information about support of the Goldwater campaign, The alleged subversives. Several of these groups Gravediggers, co-authored with retired Rear were active in California during the governorship Admiral Chester Ward. Ward, a member of the of Ronald Reagan and one security specialist for National Strategy Committee of the American a California utility told investigators of a link Security Council was also a lecturer at the between Research West, Governor Reagan, and Foreign Policy Research Institute which Edwin Meese. published much of Kintner's anti-communist

21 The Hunt for Red Menace strategies. The Gravediggers, showed how “subversives” outside of the government current U.S. military strategy and tactics would channels, and admited using infiltrators to pave the way for global communist conquest. collect information. The League boasted of its Often overlooked because of the publicity skill in using miniature cameras and tape surrounding A Choice, Not an Echo (the title recorders. For many years the League offered to became Goldwater's campaign slogan), was the check four names using their computerized files widely-circulated book by John Stormer, None for any private citizen who made a donation of Dare Call it Treason, which outlined how the $150 and passed a background check. The file equivocation of Washington insiders would check included a year's subscription to the pave the way for global communist conquest. Church League's two newletters, News and None Dare Call it Treason sold over seven Views and National Laymen's Digest. million copies, making it the largest-selling Some of the Church League files were paperback book of the day. inherited from Karl Baarslag, a former research All of the above-mentioned books were director for Senator Joe McCarthy's investigative primarily self-published and circulated through subcommittee. Baarslag's “subversive” files word of mouth. Their effect on the U.S. political were sold to Wackenhut Corporation, a private scene, coupled with an aggressive grassroots security firm. The remaining 700,000 pages of organizing campaign, was virtually invisible until files were turned over to the Church League. the 1964 Republican convention where delegates such as Schlafly and Stormer rallied the Research West Goldwater supporters they had helped organize California's Research West formed the precinct by precinct. The Goldwater nomination foundation of its files on political activists when was the high point for the resurgent Nativists in in 1969 it obtained the subversive files of the the 1960's, and membership in the John Birch Western Research Foundation. For many years Society soared. But if mainstream Republicans the Foundation years supplied information to were not ready for the full Nativist political anti-union corporate customers such as Pacific agenda, neither was the rest of the U.S. Gas and Electric, the Hearst newspapers, and electorate, and the collapse of the Goldwater Standard Oil of California. campaign heralded a slow but steady One Research West contractor, Georgia deterioration of public support for domestic anti- Power, collected files on anti-nuclear activists. communist nativism. Public attention shifted to Georgia Power, incidently, contracted with the the problems posed by the growing civil rights ubiquitous John Rees. Both Pacific Gas and movement and the minor irritation of sending a Electric and Georgia Power hired Research West handful of military advisers to an anti- for “security investigations” which critics charge communist skirmish in the small Asian nation included supplying information about the called Vietnam. activities of anti-nuclear groups. Throughout the period, private counter- One Research West snoop boasted to a subversion groups continued to operate. friend over dinner that while he worked at Research West, the group was infiltrating and Private Counter-subversion spying on anti-nuclear groups all over the Groups of the 1960's country. The researcher's affiliation with Research West was later verified by phone. (Research West nonetheless denied the charge). Church League of America The researcher probably felt safe in boasting The Church League of America claimed to about his counter-subversive activities because have the largest collection of files on at the time his claims were overhead he was

22 The Hunt for Red Menace dining in a restaurant in northern Wisconsin Private Counter- where local businesses still proudly display their autographed photographs of Joseph McCarthy. subversion Networks in Research West no longer is in operation and the 1970's no information on the disposition of its files could be found. Political Spying & Private Combat Security A brief flash in the pan was Combat , which A certain percentage of private security and first appeared in the Spring of 1968. Published investigative agencies will engage in spying if the by National Review , it was edited by Theodore motivation or fee is high enough. Many of them Lit and Ruth I. Matthews and sported Eugene are staffed by former government intelligence Lyons of Reader's Digest fame as editorial officers who resented the short pay, long hours advisor. The editorial credo was succinct: and most especially the tiresome restrictions “Combat intends to make clear to its readers designed to keep public investigations within the intricate plans and action programs of the constitutional guidelines. radical forces now at work undermining the In his introduction to “The Private Sector,” American way of life.” O'Toole noted that the network “can serve as an informal and invisible nexus, linking both public On Target and private police outside officially regulated On Target was the “Intelligence Newsletter channels.” of the Minutemen Organization,” and sports a “It can become de facto a national police rifle cross-hairs inside the Letter “O” on the force; what it lacks in organization and formal newsletter's flag. Issued sporadically, one typical structure, it makes up for in ubiquity....the issue listed the “active members, recruiters and prospect of a shadowy army of a million private chapter leaders” of Science for the People, a cops ready to do the bidding of whoever will group that attempts to de-mystify technology. pay their wages is enough to make even the The same issue also included a list of “pro- most ardent law-and-order advocate a little communist and ultra-liberal meetings and pro- nervous.” grams held at the University of Kansas” in To back up this contention, O'Toole Lawrence. documents some of his favorite atrocity stories: According to On Target, “Most parents who send their kids to college have no idea how  In Indianapolis, a retired air force lockpicking expert broke into the offices of U.S. Senator much pro-communist activity exists on most Vance Hartke. The burglar's accomplices college campuses today.” Among the “pro- planted bugging devices and collected political communist. .ultra-liberal” events at the intelligence as part of a political espionage and University of Kansas, according to On Target dirty tricks campaign to unseat Hartke and were speech on “organized Crime in America” replace him with conservative Republican, sponsored by the Ecumenical Christian carried out by International Investigations, Inc., Missionaries; and a dance sponsored by Gay a private detective firm. The firm may have been involved in as many as 100 other burglaries and Lesbian Services of Kansas. related to political dirty tricks.  In Maryland, a state senate investigating committee heard testimony that a former police officer employed in the security department of the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company helped the Baltimore police install

23 The Hunt for Red Menace

illegal wiretaps. The police also illegally obtained Pinkerton spy. information from a local credit bureau. In his book, “Political Repression in  In California a former police officer, Jerry Modern America,” Robert Goldstein documents Ducote, committed 17 political burglaries against anti-war groups and the United hundreds of cases where public officials worked Farmworkers during a two-year period. Ducote, with corporate security agents to crush union formerly with the John Birch Society, claims he organizing or silence dissidents. During the supplied stolen information to the right-wing turbulent organizing drives of the 1930's, one American Security Council, Western Research Congressional committee found that the use of Foundation, and later Research West, Inc. private spies by employers to infiltrate and While these groups denied Ducote's charge, there is no denying that documents and mailing disrupt labor unions was a “common, almost lists stolen from several groups were passed universal practice in American industry.” through the private and public political According to Goldstein, “When a company's intelligence network and ended up in the files of won resources failed to break the union the FBI, CIA, House Un-American Activities organizational efforts or strikes, corporations Committee, and even the para-military could rely upon intervention by local police, Minutemen, who sent death threats to some people on one list of anti-war activists. state militia or federal troops, especially in major  In Houston, several police officers said their disputes.” illegal wiretaps were installed with the help of In the late 1970's and early 1980's a number Southwestern Bell's security force, a staff which of civil liberties groups sought an investigation is one-third composed of former FBI agents. of the public/private counter- subversion spying The FBI was alleged to be the receiver of much network, especially in the area of employment. of the information gleaned from the illegal Linda Lotz of the Campaign for Political Rights wiretaps which were aimed at collecting information about local political activists. pointed out that “the fact that this type of activity, where corporations and law While there is a certain degree of enforcement officials work together to spy on competition among the various participants unions still continues today is not well known.” within the network, there is also copious In an introduction to a packet of information on information sharing and a demonstrable the growing threat of private sector spying, the willingness to join forces for specific Campaign for Political Rights warned that there investigations. Many of the participants in the was a trend towards “corporations collecting network move from job to job, into and out of information about political activists and giving the private sector, always building up their list of that information to law enforcement officials contacts. who have been forbidden to collect information about citizens involved in lawful political Public/Private Interface activity.” The problem of private sector spies collaborating with their public counterparts is Suburban Spying certainly not new, and hardly a well-kept secret. Doris Strieter and George Elliott had a lot in One famous Sherlock Holmes story is based on common. They were both white, middle-class the infiltration of the Pennsylvania coal miners' Americans who raised their families in the society, the so-called Molly Maguires, by a Chicago suburb of Maywood. Their children Pinkerton agent who was hired by mine owners attended the same Lutheran day school. They to set up the militant workers on charges of both were interested in politics. violence. Several mine workers were hanged George Elliott once covered the Chicago following a trial where almost all of the evidence area political scene through the lens of his came from the uncorroborated testimony of the camera as a volunteer photographer for Second

24 The Hunt for Red Menace

City, a since vanished alternative newspaper. He labor disputes, and union organizing drives. could be seen at various demonstrations during Not much more can be said about George the late 60s and early 70s with a 35mm camera Elliott partly because of a strict protective court draped around his neck. for a while he attended order limiting the release of information, and meetings of the Chicago Peace Council. partly because people engaged in the private spy Doris Strieter's political involvement began network are loath to divulge information about when she and her husband Thomas, a Lutheran themselves and their activities. minister, moved to Maywood, a community that In connection with the Chicago police- in the late 1960's was attempting to integrate spying litigation, Elliott gave a deposition in peacefully. “We became involved in civil rights which he was questioned about his role as an activities on the local level,” recalls Ms. Strieter, informant for public intelligence groups. When it who in 1969 helped organize a multi-racial slate came to discussing private sector clients, of candidates for municipal office in Maywood. however, Elliott invoked an Illinois law that four years later, Doris Strieter herself was allows private investigators to remain silent. elected to the Maywood Village Board of Elliott is one of a small but significant Trustees. number of private security personnel who Because of their outspoken views and engage in political spying. There are more than a public activities, both Strieter and Elliott gained million private security employees in this a reputation as political activists. They had more country, a larger number than work in public law than that in common. both became involved, in enforcement. Private security has become a very different ways, in the world of private multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry. Most agents political spies for hire. One of them was spied are guards or rent-a-cops employed to reduce upon, the other was a spy. pilferage or provide site security. Some, George Elliott was the spy. A former Cook however, are political spies. Their job is to County sheriff's officer turned private collect intelligence to help clients neutralize and investigator, Elliott infiltrated and spied on discredit individuals and organizations working numerous progressive groups in the Chicago for social change, labor reform, or better area for the Chicago Police Department and the working conditions. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Elliott spied on Although many of the private political spies the Chicago Peace Council, Second City maintain close ties and information-sharing newspaper, the Guild Bookstore, and the arrangements with public law enforcement Chicago-based Revolutionary Union-according agencies, and although many of the private to members of those groups. He also monitored groups are staffed by former (and in some cases the activities of several of the plaintiffs in current) police and intelligence officers, it lawsuits filed in the mid 1970's charging the appears that virtually all the spying and dossier Chicago Police Department's investigative unit, collection by the private groups is legal. Many of the “Red Squad,” with unlawful surveillance these spying activities would be illegal if carried activities. out by “official” public law-enforcement Elliott apparently was neither an FBI agent agencies, yet these agencies have easy access to nor a Red Squad cop but a free-lance contract the information collected by the “private” informant who simultaneously worked as an groups. This was the heart of the controversy in investigator for several private companies. San Francisco in 1993. This type of spying was Activists who believe themselves victims of his not uncommon in Chicago during the 1960's and spying worried that he could offer industrial 1970's—Doris Strieter can vouch for that. clients a sophisticated knowledge of which Doris Strieter was a victim. She had heard progressive groups were involved in strikes, rumors that her neighbor George Elliott was

25 The Hunt for Red Menace spying on community groups for the police, but mission to investigate violations of human rights she never had any proof. There is no evidence in Chile. “Commission members included trade that George Elliott spied on Doris Strieter unionists, educators, and people from the herself, although he was aware of her activities. religious community,” said Strieter, “and they Someone was spying on Strieter, though, and in wanted someone from the political community. the course of the police-surveillance litigation So they asked me, I suppose because I am she obtained copies of the file on her kept by the basically very straight—there's probably a better Chicago Police Department Intelligence Unit. word—I didn't have a radical history; in fact, I Her real surprise came when the Red Squad files had just been appointed by the governor to revealed that the International Telephone and serve on a regional planning board." Telegraph Company (ITT) had spied on her The 12-member mission went to Chile in political activities in Illinois. It happened in 1975, February of 1974 and returned to write a report when ITT sent an agent to infiltrate a meeting of that charged “flagrant violations of human activists concerned about ongoing human- rights rights, systematic use of terror and torture, violations in Chile following the overthrow of economic chaos and strong evidence of U.S. the elected government of Salvador Allende. involvement in the coup.” Upon her return, Doris Strieter chaired part of the weekend Doris Strieter joined the Chicago Committee to conference, and a description of her appears in Save Lives in Chile. “After going down there, the report prepared for ITT. there was no way I could remain uninvolved,” she said. As chairwoman of the Chicago ITT Attends a Conference Committee, Doris Strieter co-sponsored the The documents released to Strieter tell an Second National Conference in Solidarity with interesting story. In February of 1975, an ITT Chile. Other organizers included Congressman spy boarded a bus in New York with 18 other Andrew Young, Gloria Steinem, and scores of persons headed for the Second National religious, trade union and community leaders. Conference in Solidarity with Chile, which was The conference call listed five priority areas: going to be held at Concordia College in River freeing political prisoners, seeking legislation Forest, Illinois. An ITT surveillance cutting off military aid to the junta, raising photographer had snapped 11 photographs of money to help exiles and prisoners facing trial, the delegation as they boarded the bus. The blocking further covert CIA intervention in Latin photographs, a memo identifying the people America, and exposing the role of the American photographed, and an eight page report on the Institute for Free Labor Development in conference itself eventually turned up in the files destabilizing the Allende government. Among of the Chicago Police Red Squad. Included in other activities suggested for discussion were the reports prepared by the ITT investigator was “solidarity vigils, boycotts...and support for U.S. a description of Doris Strieter: workers confronting Kennecott, Anaconda, and “Unidentified white female described as a other multinational corporations whose role in trustee of Maywood, Illinois. Husband believed Chile has been brutally documented.” One of to Lutheran minister. May have been in Chile as those multinationals was ITT. late as 1974.” “I don't remember there being much Doris Strieter was a little perplexed that the discussion of ITT at the conference. I know for a ITT spy failed to recall her name. “The rest of fact nothing major was discussed since we the information the spy gave was very accurate,” agreed not to focus on ITT because other said Strieter. companies were reinvesting in Chile,” said It was in her capacity as an elected official Strieter. that she was asked to participate in a fact-finding Still the ITT spy was able to fill eight single-

26 The Hunt for Red Menace spaced, typewritten pages when he was Along with identifying nearly 50 debriefed by ITT's “manager of major participants in the Chile solidarity conference, investigations,” John Rogeberg. Rogeberg, later the report detailed the various proposals chief investigator for ITT, prepared the report submitted for discussion. A capsule analysis of and sent it along with the photographs and the the event was surprisingly erudite, if somewhat identification memo to FBI agent James rhetorical: Vermeersch, who in 1975 was part of a special “To the extent it has been possible to New York FBI squad tracking down Weather determine the purpose or nature of the Underground fugitives. Vermeersch has conference, it might be characterized as a radical admitted in court that as part of the investigation summit conference with a central these of he participated in 15 or 20 “black bag jobs,” the fascists oppression, crimes, and atrocities in coy FBI term for unauthorized, surreptitious Chile as an object lesson for the United States. It entries—in colloquial English they would be appears that around this theme an effort is now called burglaries. being made to unify diverse radical groups in the Vermeersch sent a copy of the ITT United States in a sustained campaign against intelligence reports to his friend Kurk I. the common enemies of United States Klossner, a special agent in the FBI's Chicago imperialism, exploitative capitalism, the CIA and office, and in a hand-written note asked the U.S. intelligence community generally, Klossner to “review & return” the documents multinational corporations, etc.” “within a week,” adding, “I'd appreciate any A militant agenda, perhaps, if one is to take suggestions on our handling of this.” Klossner at face value the words of the ITT spy, but may have followed those instructions, but he certainly an agenda that is amply covered by the also apparently forwarded a copy of the material First Amendment. “What happened at the to his contact in the Chicago Police Red Squad. conference was not at all subversive, not at all The ITT reports would have remained illegal,” said Strieter. “There were discussions tucked peacefully in a manila envelope in a and disagreements over focusing on a single drawer in the Red Squad's voluminous file room issue or general anti-imperialism, and the had it not been for a series of law suits seeking decision was made at that point to stick with the to block the surveillance and harassment of issue of Chile.” A spokesperson for the National social change activists. “Our obtaining these Chile Center and the Chicago Committee to documents was a quirk of fate,” said Richard Save Lives in Chile blasted the ITT spying when Gutman, attorney for the Alliance to End it was revealed in October 1980, saying: “None Repression. He explained that U.S. District of the organizations victimized by ITT spying Judge Joseph Perry impounded the entire have ever discussed, planned, or engaged in any collection of Red Squad files on March 28, 1975, activities that could even remotely cause ITT to after learning that the police were in the process fear for the security of its property or the safety of burning hundreds of thousands of pages of of its employees. ITT could not have infiltrated intelligence dossiers rather than run the risk that and spied on us for any legitimate defensive they would become public. The Red Squad purpose. It did so in order to assess, and if (which knew well in advance about the filing of possible to disrupt, our efforts to expose ITT's the lawsuits since it had infiltrated the Alliance flagrant abuses of corporate power.” to End Repression, the organization preparing ITT's response to press accounts of its the first case) had not yet finished destroying the corporate political spying was predictable. A sensitive documents when the court seized the spokesperson for the multinational files, including the ITT reports, which were just a communications conglomerate issued a press month old. release that simultaneously denied ITT ever

27 The Hunt for Red Menace

“maintained a program of political spying and The Good Ole Boys in Milledgeville infiltration” and authenticated the ITT documents found in the Red Squad files, Surveillance of union meetings can have a admitting the information on the memo was devastating effect on organizing drives by labor “obtained by an ITT employee.” unions as a now-settled lawsuit against J.P. What was ITT's explanation for its political Stevens documents. The incident occurred in the spying? Terrorism. Referring to a series of normally quiet and emphatically anti-union “terrorist threats, bombings, and attacks,” the town of Milledgeville, Georgia, where Mayor ITT spokesperson said, “The company cooper- Robert Rice decided to do something about the ated with law enforcement agencies in presence of Amalgamated Clothing and Textile investigating such crimes in an attempt to Workers Union organizers seeking to unionize protect its personnel and property from further the J.P. Stevens textile plant on the outskirts of terrorist activities.” town. “Baloney,” retorted Richard Gutman. The Mayor Rice called representatives from J.P. spying and infiltration “certainly was not to Stevens, Grumman Aerospace and several other detect crime,” he said. “An examination of the local industries to City Hall in 1976 to discuss reports indicate the ITT gathered information not the problem. According to testimony Mayor of criminal activity but rather the lawful First Rice gave as part of a settlement in the lawsuit Amendment activity such as the organizing of filed by the union, he suggested to the corporate peaceful protests and boycotts against ITT.” representatives that the Milledgeville police Gutman said that it was possible that ITT was “monitor the meetings of union organizers to planning to neutralize the efforts of the anti- obtain [license] tag numbers.” The list of car junta activists. “Intelligence gathering such as licenses could then be run through the town's this inevitably leads to disruption,” he said. nifty computer (part of the National Law And there were signs of disruption at the Enforcement Telecommunications System) Chile solidarity conference. “A number of which had access to Georgia's motor vehicle people had materials stolen,” said Strieter. “My license files. A typed list of who the cars were briefcase was stolen, and at one point the River registered to would be provided to the Forest Police arrived saying they had heard a companies to “check against their personnel file rumor that Angela Davis was appearing.” ITT's folders,” said the Mayor. “Everyone thought this claim that they were investigating terrorists is would be a good idea,” recalls the Mayor, so he angrily dismissed by Strieter. “If ITT was in the directed the Milledgeville Police to start business of rating groups that threatened their surveillance. corporate security, we would have been very For two and one-half years, between the low on the list. Our group never had any history summer of 1976 and early 1979, Milledgeville of violent or illegal activity. It can't be an isolated police monitored the activities of the union instance. If they spied on us, they must have organizers and reported the license plate done it with other groups.” numbers of workers who attended meetings. Strieter's suspicions were confirmed by One of the officers conducting the surveillance Gutman, who said he found evidence he cannot later said he believed “the workers whose names reveal that ITT monitored other groups involved and license plate numbers we provided would be in anti-junta organizing. Gutman is constrained fired.” In the summer of 1978, local newspapers from discussing the details by the court began airing charges that the union organizing protective order. meetings were being watched by police. Following the news articles, attendance at the meetings dropped from over 40 to 1.

28 The Hunt for Red Menace

ACTWU organizer Melvin Tate said after before Lang left for the Lockheed post. the stories about the surveillance began to Lang had learned from one of his several circulate, workers told him they were afraid to “confidential informants” in the plant workforce be seen with him and other organizers. “They that dissident union members had “circulated believe that some workers who have met with communist literature” at the International ACTWU have lost their jobs because the Association of Machinists Union Hall. Lang's employers found out about their participation in supervisor, E.J. Garbers, member of the Society meetings,” said Tate. of Former Special Agents of the FBI, told Lang During the height of the surveillance, local to investigate the activities of the Socialist police were so “worn to a frazzle” by the spying Workers Party in the plant. activity that Mayor Rice asked for and received Lang's call to Donahue in the New York corporate assistance for the spying. According FBI office included a request to check out some to Rice, “Grumman Aerospace...graciously of the names of workers being investigated. A consented to send two of their security men...to few days later, when Lang called Donahue help and assist the Milledgeville Police again, he was told the FBI had voluminous Department's surveillance work.” The Grumman information relating to two of the suspected gumshoes were reputed to be former CIA SWP members. Lang called several other FBI agents, but their work did not impress the “acquaintances” but gained no new information. Mayor, and they left after 10 days. The police Lockheed's agents spied on suspected SWP spying did have its intended effect, however, “It members at work, their cars were tailed, their was quite obvious that from the way the homes watched, and their conversations were attendance had dropped off at the meetings that monitored according to sworn testimony by we had been successful in our surveillance work Lang. His admissions were backed up by and that Union activities had stopped,” Mayor Lockheed “industrial relations” documents Rice stated. produced at Lang's deposition in the SWP's Even the Macon News, which admitted it is massive lawsuit against illegal surveillance and not “overly enamored of organized labor,” was disruption. One document showed cooperation worried about the Milledgeville spying incident. between Lockheed security and a local Police In an editorial it pointed out that “when a large Intelligence Division agent who reported his unit industry enlists the police power of its host had an undercover officer spying on the swp, community to compel workers not to join and that the federal Alcohol, Tobacco and unions through intimidation and harassment, we Firearms unit had “instituted monthly meeting” are entirely too close to the police state for com- of local police intelligence squads where the fort.” SWP was “discussed in some length.” At those meeting, the Lockheed memo reports, “the SWP Lockheed Security & the FBI Old Boy was characterized as a 'terrorist organization Network prone to violence.'“ The SWP may be many things, but it is not When Lockheed security specialist Robert a terrorist organization prone to violence. Still, Lang wanted to find out if some of the rank-and- the Lockheed investigators pursued their file union militants in the Georgia assembly research until they had identified over one dozen plant were members of the Socialist Workers suspected SWP members and sympathizers in Party, he simply picked up the phone and called the plant. A thorough investigation of these his “personal acquaintance” John Donahue in persons' employment applications uncovered the New York FBI office. Lang and Donahue enough exaggerations and discrepancies for had worked together in the FBI for ten years Lockheed to move to dismiss the workers for

29 The Hunt for Red Menace falsifying their records. The real motivation for A 1975 FBI Society list (the last edition to the application review, however, was clearly to slip out of the highly secretive group's tight fist) neutralize the activities of political activists at showed that in that year there were almost 7,000 Lockheed. former FBI agents employed nationwide and Not all of the fifteen workers dismissed paying dues to the Society. were SWP members according to Andree It would be unfair to suggest that all former Kahlmorgan, a 28-year-old SWP member who FBI agents are as obsessed as J. Edgar Hoover toured the country to raise support for the fired used to be with rooting out subversives. And workers. “I've talked to union people all over the certainly, not all former FBI agents engage in country,” reported Kahlmorgan, “and they all nefarious activities. But some do. have a story to tell about company spies at In Houston, several police officers said their union meetings, or electronic surveillance.” illegal wiretaps were installed with the help of Information frequently flows from private Southwestern Bell's security force, a staff that is spies into public intelligence coffers. Sometimes, one-third composed of former FBI agents. The however, the relationship is even more cozy. FBI was alleged to be the receiver of much of Depositions taken in connection with a the information gleaned from the illegal Chicago Socialist Workers Party lawsuit wiretaps, which were aimed at collecting produced claims by several former members of information about local political activists. the Legion of Justice, a right-wing vigilante Of the over 100 former FBI agents listed as group active in Chicago during the antiwar Society members in Chicago in 1975, more than period, that the group cooperated with both half were in law enforcement or with private federal and local intelligence units. The security firms or in corporate posts dealing with cooperation extended to collection information security, investigations, personnel management, for the agencies through illegal activities such as or labor relations. Among the Chicago firms office break-ins and thefts. with former FBI agents in these posts, according Twice in the 1950's, the National Lawyers to the 1975 list, were: Standard Oil, E.J. Brach Guild held its national convention in Chicago, Candies, Purolator Security, American Airlines, and both times wiretaps and black-bag jobs United Airlines, R.R. Donnelly & Sons, Illinois produced information for the Red Squad and the Bell, Walgreen's, Canteen Corporation, Edward FBI. The techniques could have escaped Hines Lumber, Continental Can, Playboy, detection only through active assistance of hotel Beatrice Foods, Texaco, and Marshall Field's. security personnel, according to the Guild. Lest there be any doubt that the FBI Society sees itself as a network encouraging professional Society of Former Special Agents of the interaction among its members, it should be FBI noted that the Society's membership list is organized alphabetically, geographically by state Private security personnel are often happy and city, and alphabetically by corporations for to assist their public counterparts; in many cases which Society members work. The list is a ready the private intelligence agents earned their spurs reference manual for information gathering and in the employ of governmental investigative sharing among private security officers and their agencies. Government agents migrate into public counterparts. private employment with such frequency that In his book “The Private Sector: Rent-a- former FBI agents have their won organization, Cops, Private Spies and the Police Industrial the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI. Complex,” former CIA employee George One cynical FBI alumnus has dubbed the group, O'Toole wrote that “the Society is not a “Hoover's Loyal Legion.” collection of superannuated federal

30 The Hunt for Red Menace pensioners....Many of the members served less lower court decision favoring the police and FBI than three years with the FBI....For them a tour and ordered a new trial in the Panther civil suit. with the Bureau was a kind of internship, a Pell felt that charges against the FBI had no career step.” According to O'Toole, a loyal FBI merit. Attorneys for the Panther survivors tried alumnus working in the private security field unsuccessfully to have Pell removed from the “can often be more useful in achieving the case after they learned of his FBI ties and Bureau's goals than a special agent on active Society membership. Pell said he stopped duty with the FBI. The Society appears to be an paying Society dues in 1977. instrument of this policy -its Executive Services According to a brief filed by Panther Committee is a placement bureau aimed at attorneys from the Peoples Law Office populating the most powerful security positions (Chicago), Pell should have disqualified himself. in both the public and private sectors with The attorneys pointed out that one defendant in former FBI agents.” the case, former Chicago FBI chief Marlin A glance at the Society's 1975 roster Johnson, was also a member of the Society. The certainly proves O'Toole's contention about then Cook County state's attorney, Bernard positions of influence, nationwide, there were Carey, whose office was defending the county over 100 Society members working for officials charged in the lawsuit, was also listed as telephone company security forces alone, and a Society member. Furthermore, according to there were high concentrations of FBI Society Peoples Law Office attorney G. Flint Taylor, members among the security staffs of auto and “The Society had spawned an informational and aircraft manufacturers, oil companies, insurance financial auxiliary that organized support and companies, and private detective agencies. There raised over $400,000 to help defray legal were no fewer than 18 FBI Society members expenses of agents charged with abuses of civil working for the conservative Wackenhut liberties.” detective agency, an agency whose extensive Later the Society claimed credit for a files on leftists were eventually turned over to agreement with the Justice Department that the Church League in Wheaton, where they Justice would pick up certain expenses of the were available to both public and private agents, who in the words of the Society, were intelligence agencies. “defending themselves against the many A controversy over the FBI Society flared harassing civil suits which have been pressed by up in Chicago when it was discovered that a left-wing groups and individuals.” This federal appeals court judge who was hearing philosophy was encapsulated in a policy cases involving alleged FBI misconduct in statement issued by the Society that said that Chicago had been an FBI agent and was “any criminal prosecution of FBI agents [for ac- identified in the 1979 edition of Who's Who as a tions] taken totally without criminal intent, while member of the FBI Society. Wilbur F. Pell was performing their duties with honor and one of three judges hearing arguments in determination to protect the country from connection with the 1969 raid that left Black criminals and subversives, is completely Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark dead unwarranted.” and several other Panthers seriously wounded. The Society does more than issue Among the allegations in the subsequent lawsuit statements, however, and in 1976 adopted a new were charges that the FBI had instigated, activist statement of purpose that stressed in- encouraged, and assisted in the planning of the volvement in efforts to foster increased public raid. respect for law enforcement officials and Not surprisingly, Pell issued a stinging “protect American security from destructive dissent to the majority ruling which overturned a forces, foreign or domestic.” A brief filed by the

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Peoples law Office on the motion that Judge Pell exchange of confidential information not disqualify himself from the Panther case available through normal police channels, contained the vague charge that the Society was concerning organized crime.” The unofficial reported (it was not said by whom) to have an purpose was to establish a national criminal agreement with the FBI by which it would serve intelligence network independent of the Federal as an auxiliary in times of need. Under this Bureau of Investigation, whose agents supposed understanding, whenever the Bureau frequently refused to share information with needed to apprehend numbers of citizens for local law enforcement officers. 35 preventative political detention under its secret By 1962, the LEIU had clearly expanded the Agitator and Security Index programs, the scope of its interest to include nonciminal Society members would be ready to be activity. That year, a regional meeting in San deputized to assist in the round up. Francisco included a discussion of “police If such an agreement seems hard to believe, intelligence units' role in securing information consider that former members of the Legion of concerning protest groups, demonstrations, and Justice in Chicago report that they also were told mob violence,” according to an FBI summary. by people introduced as government agents that Seventy-two persons attended that meeting, and the Legion might be asked to help round up in addition to local and state law enforcement radicals for preventive detention in an officials, the FBI noted the presence of emergency. In fact, according to documents re- representatives from the Immigration and leased under the Freedom of Information Act, Naturalization Service, the U.S. Department of the roundup had two operational names, Labor, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Lantern Spike and Garden Plot, and training and several military investigative units. manuals for the operation were actually The evidence of LEIU's political spying produced by the U.S. military. surfaced in the form of hundreds of five-by- eight-inch index cards on so-called “organized The Law Enforcement crime” figures distributed to member police Intelligence Unit agencies. LEIU's rather novel definition of “organized crime” was sufficiently broad to For close to 250 local and state police include card dossiers reporting the lawful intelligence units, the problem of how to spy on political activities of anti-war, Black, tribal, dissidents was solved by membership in the community, and labor organizers. This Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit (LEIU). As discovery flatly contradicted repeated claims by journalist David Kaplan saw it, the LEIU was a LEIU officers testifying before congressional “private, federally-funded network of committees that their files pertained solely to computerized files.” Who was in the files? criminal activities. “Among the subjects catalogued in LEIU files During politically volatile 1970, LEIU's have been minority, labor and community national and regional conferences held organizers, many with no criminal records,” discussions revealing a preoccupation with wrote Kaplan. monitoring dissidents. Among the topics The Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit was analyzed that year were: “national militant formed in 1956 at a San Francisco meeting of problems,” “international influence on current representatives of 26 law enforcement agencies disorders,” dissident and militant funding," from seven western states. LEIU was later revolution in the streets -intelligence aspects," expanded to encompass agencies from many “viewpoints on campus disorders,” “Students other states. The official purpose of the group for a Democratic Society,” and was “to promote the gathering, recording, and “permissiveness.”

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With workshop topics such as these it is associated with,” and repeated attempts to locate hardly surprising that local LEIU members or even prove the existence of the “Triad” group began submitting information on political have been unsuccessful. Among Zinzun's activists to the group's California clearing house. reputed associates was one Nathan N. Holden, a A 1979 investigation of LEIU by the Detroit former California state senator whose only Board of Police Commissioners found that association with Zinzun was to collect rent - scores of LEIU subject cards contained Holden was once Zinzun's landlord. information on persons “not apparently related The lack of accuracy and plethora of to criminal activities.” This conclusion is unverified reports and innuendos in the LEIU documented by the LEIU cards found in the files prompted investigations of the LEIU by Chicago Red Squad files. local, state and federal agencies. The federal One LEIU card found in the Chicago files General Accounting Office found that only a reported on California activist Leland Lubinsky. small percent of the information recorded on the It described him as a “recognized leader in Peace LEIU cards could be completely documented. movements [who] has operated Draft Evasion Responding to the mounting criticisms of the Counciling [sic] Peace Demonstrations locally.” files by the GAO and other investigative groups, It said that so far as was known, Lubinsky had LEIU in 1979 removed 145 subject cards. The never been arrested. Lubinsky's card, like other cards were purged to meet new LEIU guidelines LEIU cards, included a photograph, along with designed to strike a balance between “the civil information on his physical description, rights and liberties of American civizens and the associates, family, vital statistics, last known need of law enforcement to collect and address vehicle and license numbers, hangouts, disseminate criminal intelligence,” according to and modus operandi. LEIU cards were cross- an LEIU memo. indexed by Social Security number, driver's High-sounding words, but as critics have license number, and FBI number. pointed out, the policy could have been re- Professor Michael Lerner was described on evaluated and changed by the LEIU board as an LEIU card as a “Marxist scholar, political soon as the controversy died down. Besides, activist, leader with Seattle Liberation Front, LEIU will not reveal what cards were destroyed present at many demonstrations, in Seattle.” and what cards were retained. According to Tom Anne Braden, a long-time community and labor Parsons, a spokesperson for the Seattle Coalition organizer with the Southern Conference on Government Spying, there were “continuing Educational Fund, was listed as assisting “in indications of LEIU willingness to share political organizing many radical groups and publications information through its bulletins and files under in the Southern U.S.” Among the “criminal” the guise that it is information about 'terrorism.'“ activities listed for American Indian Movement Parsons feels the most crucial problem is that activists Clyde and Vernon Bellecourt was the the “LEIU continues to operate outside of public damning news that the pair “travels exten- control or accountability.” Unless public sively.” oversight and accountability are established, said Much of the information on California Parsons, the “positive steps...taken by LEIU activist Michael Zinzun's LEIU card was simply could be reversed -in secret, with no notice to inaccurate. The card failed to note that several the public.” arrests were on charges later dismissed, and had The LEIU gets away with hiding its him belonging to the Black Panther Party well activities from public scrutiny because it claims after he had left that organization. Zinzun has to be a private organization -despite the fact that never heard of the “Triad” real estate group that it is composed of law enforcement agencies that the LEIU card said he was “believed to be use tax dollars to pay dues and fees. The LEIU is

33 The Hunt for Red Menace shielded from federal and state laws governing to a 1974 meeting between officials of the FBI the conduct of intelligence gathering and and LEAA. On that occasion, according to an dissemination, and escapes the probing eye of FBI memo, LEAA assistant administrator the federal Freedom of Information Act. Richard Velde tried to establish a “joint FBI- Given the flawed quality of the LEIU's data, LEIU operation” to create a “national it is perhaps surprising the federal government communication network” for dissemination of spent close to two million dollars on a scheme to information about “terrorists and extremists” computerize it. The General Accounting Office during the Bicentennial. found that the federal Law Enforcement The FBI rejected the plan because it was Assistance Administration, a now-terminated “questionable from a legal standpoint” and not program to supply federal funds to beef up local feasible because of the “political climate.” police forces, awarded eight grants totaling over Another FBI memo, written a month later, $1.7 million to research and establish the reports strained relations between the LEAA and Interstate Organized Crime Index (IOCI). The the FBI, with the LEAA threatening to withhold Index was a partial computerization of the LEIU funds from FBI related projects. cards and public record information that could Within the next few months the LEAA be used only by LEIU members, who requested awarded almost half a million dollars in grants to searches by calling a toll-free number at a evaluate and implement an on-line computer computer facility in Sacramento, California. system for the IOCI. One grant, for $324,000, The IOCI computer could also keep track of had to be rewritten so as not to be in violation of which police units submitted data, so that pending federal legislation “dealing with privacy requesting police agencies could be directed to and security,” according to the General the source of the information to trade details Accounting Office. That same year, Velde co- totally outside the data bank. The General signed an LEAA grant for $77,000 that in effect Accounting Office was bothered by the lack of transferred some of the support services for the safeguards regarding the verification of the IOCI computer index from a Califonia law- computerized data and the security of the enforcement foundation to a newly incorporated information dissemination. “We believe private company called Search Group, Inc. intelligence-gathering projects, because they are Search Group itself was originally a “consortium secretive and sensitive, need to be closely of representatives from each state, appointed by scrutinized. IOCI was not,” concluded the GAO their respective governors,” the GAO found. study. GAO investigators were particularly SEARCH stood for “System for Electronic concerned that “in many cases, contributing Analysis and Retrieval of Criminal Histories.” member agencies did not provide public record The $77,000 LEAA grant was administered support for entries in the index, although a by Paul K. Wormeli, who three years later, in special condition of the (LEAA) grants required 1977, was deputy administrator for adminis- entries to be based on such information.” tration of the LEAA and in that capacity Some LEIU critics charge that the whole cosigned (along with Richard Velde) a grant for LEIU/IOCI scheme was an intentional attempt $299,999 to continue and update the manual to circumvent congressional mandates prohib- IOCI system and also fund the “acquisition, iting the Law Enforcement Assistance installation, and operation of the minicomputer Administration from establishing a federally system.” As a Detroit Police Board investigator funded national police network and centralized remarked concerning the merry-go-round of dossier system. One of these critics is Sheila funders and fundees involved in the LEIU-IOCI O'Donnell, a private investigator who specializes network. “It is difficult to discern where one in political surveillance cases. O'Donnell points agency begins and the other one ends.”

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The maze got thicker. Search Group, Inc. information in both the FBI and LEIU computer was given over $3 million in LEAA funds during files,” said the O'Donnell. “Agencies at all levels the three-year period ending June 30, 1977. of government can now be tied into a Search Group's revised bylaws of 1977 state that nationwide intelligence network of dossiers on its corporate membership consists of “one political dissidents.” NLETS, following the representative of each state...appointed by the pattern of Project Search, has incorporated itself chief executive thereof and four representatives as a private firm. “What has happened is that the appointed by the administrator of the Law federal government has spent millions of dollars Enforcement Assistance Administration.” In to fund an old boys network of political spies 1976 and 1977, LEAA's administrator was who want to circumvent the Constitution and Richard Velde. federal regulations,” charges O'Donnell. The report of the Detroit investigation noted that “while registered as a 'private agency,' there Tax Dollars at Work are indications that the LEIU interfaces in a The Law Enforcement Assistance unique manner with public agencies....The LEIU Administration funded several other California appears to operate as a pubic agency, but one projects during Ronald Reagan's governorship which is not subject to governmental oversight that fit into the puzzle of the public/private or control.” political spy network, including the Western Even the FBI was worried about the LEIU's Regional Organized Crime Training Institute computerized intelligence network. one FBI (WROTCI) and the California Specialized memo remarks of an incident involving LEIU's Training Institute (CSTI). information system, “This is indeed an Since 1971, WROTCI has taught over 4,000 outstanding example of one of the worst police such techniques as electronic surveillance, features of any kind of a national clearinghouse infiltration and informant development, but as such for criminal information. It would also organized crime is not the only target. One seem to be an indictment of the LEIUand the police official in California admitted the Institute high-sounding purposes promoted for this taught his men how to conduct surveillance on organization....” Of course, one must remember unions and anti-nuclear activists as well. that the FBI and the LEAA were feuding over WROTCI was operated by the same California who should control the electronic spy empire. state agency that administered the LEAA- Once the LEIU data base was funded LEIU/OICI computerized dossier computerized, another LEAA grantee was system. Two other training centers similar to funded to help speed along the information WROTCI were established in Florida and Ohio. among LEIU members and beyond. The The California Specialized Training Institute National Law Enforcement Telecommunications has graduated thousands of state military, police System (NLETS) is, according to its corporate and national guard personnel; and its Officer charter, a nonprofit corporation established to Survival and Internal Security Course is taught facilitate the exchange of operational and by a staff which “includes men with a administrative data among police departments. considerable background in the areas of In June 1973, LEAA approved a grant of $1.2 insurgency and counter-insurgency, social million to NLETS to improve the speed of the factors and urban unrest, political systems, NLETS Teletype system and make it available to terrorism, internal defense and security, and more police forces. intelligence systems,” bragged the Commandant “NLETS provides police departments in of the Institute in a letter to LEAA. The letter each state with direct access to a teletype system noted a carbon copy being sent to then-governor that can be used to collect and compare Ronald Reagan's Executive Assistant, Edwin

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Meese III. Much of the LEAA funding of spy firms,” said Wallace, “a company that political surveillance networks in California doesn't engage in spying, but teaches other how occurred when Reagan was Governor. Meese to do it.” Wallace has identified similar firms later became a top Reagan aide and then was around the country, including systems Sciences appointed Attorney General. He had a Associates, Profitect, Inc., Systems reputation as a hard-liner on domestic Development Corporation, and the now-defunct intelligence issues, and spoke favorably of a National Intelligence Academy. Heritage Foundation study calling for increased cooperation between public and private security The ACLU Lawsuit Against LEIU and IOCI agencies. Fearing the potential for abuse, the One of the most unique private outfits American Civil Liberties Union of Northern linked to LEIU is the California-based Anacapa California sought copies of the LEIU cards and Sciences Incorporated. Anacapa Sciences is a computer printouts from the IOCI data base Santa Barbara consulting firm that establishes under the terms of the California Public Records political intelligence operations. It helped Act. A lower court ordered the material computerize the LEIU files, and designed the provided, but the case was appealed. urban terrorism course for California's Western The California Supreme Court recognized Regional Organized Crime Training Institute. that the California's Public Records Act's The course clearly includes training on how to “intelligence information” exemption “severly monitor the lawful political activity of dissenters. limits the information subject to disclosure,” yet San Francisco Bay area reporter Bill Wallace it did “not entirely protect the index cards and found that Anacapa's founder and corporate printouts.” The California Supreme Court ruled director, Douglas Harris, assisted in developing that while certain information from the IOCI criminal intelligence courses for California, print-outs should be provided to the ACLU, the Michigan, Texas, Canada and the Drug burden and cost of segmenting out exempt Enforcement Administration. information from the cards was sufficient to bar Graduates of Anacapa's political intelligence the release of that information. courses have already established an impressive In a lengthy dissent, California Supreme track record of trampling on the constitutional Court Chief Justice Bird discussed the issue of rights of persons challenging the status quo. maintenance of law enforcement records that After Anacapa set up a program for the Texas has significance to all law regarding those Department of Public Safety, the Department records and how they are maintained: was accused of amassing files on the Dallas anti- “Simple logic and experience dictate that the nuclear group Citizens' Association for Safe public's right to know not be overriden by claims Energy. California graduates of Anacapa- of bureaucratic inconvenience. spawned courses infiltrated and assisted in the “The bureaucracy -rather than the Legislature, arrest of members of the non-violent anti- the courts, or the people -will [now] be nuclear Abalone Alliance during a empowered to determine what records will be demonstration at California's Diablo Canyon revealed. It is the bureaucracy that decides in what form and where to keep its records. By nuclear reactor. The Abalone infiltrators were commingling exempt and nonexempt information part of a police unit set up by Anacapa with a and spreading out responsiblity for the $30,000 grant from the Law Enforcement compilation and storage of records, the agency Assistance Administration report, reported can be assured of a tenable claim of exemption Wallace. [from being forced to provide records]. “Anacapa Sciences Incorporated appears to “At the very least, already wary agencies are discourged from creating internal procedures be a new and significant variation of the hybrid that will assure that disclosable information can

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be easily separated from what is exempt. A Classic Case of Ultra-Right Information Manipulation Warning Flags One classic incident of private sector The increased use of computers by local political spying involves two right-wing police departments in each state with direct intelligence networks who spied on anti-nuclear access to telecommunications systems was also activists planning for the 1977 nonviolent sit-in a matter of concern. “This could easily become a at Seabrook nuclear power plant building site in nationwide computerized network used to New Hampshire. collect and compare information in both the FBI The pro-nuclear U.S. Labor party (USLP), a and other computerized law enforcement files,” right-wing cult group headed by perennial said Sheila O'Donnell, co-founder of the Public presidential candidate Lyndon laRouche, Eye magazine. “Agencies at all levels of maintains an intelligence gathering outfit that government can now be tied into a nationwide has an international Telex system tied to a intelligence network of dossiers on political computerized dossier filing system of activists, dissidents and, in fact, on every American especially those working against nuclear power. citizen.” O'Donnell and others feared the Members of the LaRouche/USLP spy group development of two parallel computerized routinely pass along their hysterical and political intelligence networks -one public, one inaccurate “intelligence” to local, state and private -that could share information about federal police agencies. political activists and have direct access to One month before the Clamshell Alliance modern data banks as well as to the files staged its massive Seabrook occupation, compiled during the McCarthy period. LaRouche's spies met with New Hampshire “We fear there will soon be a complete State Police agents, and warned them the integration of the public and private political demonstration was a cover for a terrorist attack. intelligence apparatus,” warned attorney Among the documents provided to the police Matthew J. Piers, in 1982. Piers, the former was material from Information Digest, a right- chairman of the National Lawyers Guild Civil wing blacklist newsletter produced by aides and Liberties Committee, went on to predict “This consultants to the late Rep. Larry McDonald (D- network will then be unleased first against GA), a John Birch Society member who often persons accused of having ties to unpopular blasted progressive groups in the Congressional foreign govenments or affiliated with alleged Record. These USLP-supplied documents were terrorist groups. But inevitably the public-private apparently the basis for then-New Hampshire network will move on to investigate and disrupt Governor Thompson's statements that the the activities of a wide range of community, Seabrook Demonstration was being planned by labor and political activists. “terrorists.” In the New Hampshire Police's Piers could not have known at the time he summary of the USLP material, the Labor Party spoke that the FBI was already cooperating with representatives are repeatedly described as private right-wing groups to launch an “well- informed” and the police investigators investigation of the anti-interventionist group give total credence to the charges that the CISPES. One justification used by the FBI was a proposed demonstration was “nothing but a right-wing analysis that characterised CISPES as cover for terrorist activity.” The Seabrook a terrorist group supporting foreign demonstration included non-violent civil revolutionaries. disobedience, but no acts of violence on the part of the demonstrators. The incident is classic for several reasons:

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 The information collected by the private spies were implemented, the counter-subversion was passed along to a public police agency Nativists wailed that America's security was which then took the unverified information and being crippled. committees were established, reported it to an elected official who made decisions and public statements based on the headlines screamed, newsletters warned of dire “intelligence.” consequences. Agents moved into the private  The intelligence was collected from several sector in disgust and wrote memoirs. They different private sources before being passed to joined the other true believers on the right who the public sector. had kept the flame of McCarthyism alive, and  The purpose of the intelligence was to discredit the worked together to launch a campaign to the legitimate organizing activities of a group dedicated to non- violence by publicly labeling rebuild the public arm of the counter-subversion them as “terrorists.” network. Donner saw this rehabilitation effort as  The information itself was inaccurate and connected to the Cold War mentality: grossly distorted by the paranoid conspiracy “The co-star in the script for the revival of theory views and extreme right-wing ideology of domestic counter-subversion is the influential the private sector intelligence gathers. grouping of foreign policy and military defense hawks, which ranges from the American Reform & Backlash Security Council to the Coalition for a Democratic Majority (CDM), composed of With the revelations of government moderate Democrats...to an offshoot, the surveillance abuse that emerged during the Committee on the Present Danger, and other 1970's came a series of lawsuits across the cold war forces. The potential for an alliance country. While many of these cases dragged on even more durable than in the fifties between nativism and this elitist sector has been into the 1980's the vast bulk of the factual strengthened by the emergence of a sense of evidence of government misconduct was the decline of America's role as a world power. publicized during the 1970's and resulted in a 36 series of partial and in some instances short- According to Donner: lived reforms. Since it was the public debate “At a time when established governmental created by the information emerging from the systems for monitoring subversion have been cut back, these private counter-subversive lawsuits, their findings and results will be operations acquire special importance; they discussed here, even though the legal must continue the data collection and storage proceedings sometimes stretched into the 1980's practices formerly shared with government and the Reagan years. agencies, intensify their propaganda efforts, and—a new mission—promote renewed official McCarthy's Shadows involvement in surveillance and related activities directed against dissent. Reagan and the Counter- Donner's analysis was published at the beginning of the Reagan Administration. Since subversion Revival then, evidence showed, there has not only been When the abuses of the COINTELPRO a “renewed official involvement” in spying on period were exposed in post- Watergate dissent, but the continued development of a Congressional hearings and media accounts, parallel private right- wing intelligence-gathering some restrictions and reforms were attempted. apparatus which feeds information to President Carter issued an Executive Order government agencies. mandating stricter investigative guidelines to The mood of both the paranoid right-wing protect the right to dissent. In response, the and the intelligence community changed counter-subversion network shifted its emphasis dramatically as the New Right gained more to the private sector. As post- Watergate reforms influence and assisted in the election of Ronald

38 The Hunt for Red Menace

Reagan as President. In writing Reagan Takes Office in recommendations for the Reagan transition team in the New Right Heritage Foundation's 1980 “Mandate for Leadership”, Sam Francis When Ronald Reagan took office in 1980, recommended that the intelligence agencies be he arrived with a set of assumptions regarding unshackled. 37 internal subversion which he had developed and With words that are essentially the modern refined while leading a purge of alleged transliteration of Kintner, Francis wrote: communists in Hollywood as head of the Screen Actors Guild in the 1950's. Like Ronald Reagan, “Many of the current restrictions on internal security functions arose from legitimate but the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had often poorly informed concern for civil liberties cast itself in a central role during the 1950's of the citizen and the responsibility of the political witch hunts, as had a network of right- government. While these are legitimate wing political vigilantes who ferreted out concerns, it is axiomatic that individual liberties subversion and publicized their findings in are secondary to the requirements of national newsletters such as “Red Channels,” which security and internal civil order: without the latter, the former can never be secure. identified those it felt belonged on the Moreover, much of the current legislation and Hollywood blacklist. administrative measures was adopted with little Reagan facilitated a concerted and appreciation of the threat or the Modus successful attempt by the intelligence agencies Operandi of extremist, subversive, and violent and their counter-subversion allies to abolish the 38 groups. reforms which had restrained them during the “In general, the new restrictions place an late 1970's. The early 1980's also saw emphasis on limiting surveillance to actual or imminent [original emphasis] violence or tremendous growth in the private security illegalities. However, terrorist violence does not industry coupled with an authorization for the usually develop spontaneously. It typically contracting of intelligence investigations to grows in stages, as extreme elements become private firms outside the reach of Congressional increasingly dissatisfied with their organizations oversight and laws protecting privacy. The FBI and come to find them `soft' or `corrupted by and other agencies also redefined the terms the system.' A terrorist cadre forms, therefore, from the splinters of dissident or extremist “terrorism” and “foreign intelligence” to reflect a movements. Once it forms, it typically goes broad and self-serving interpretation; and then underground; its members establish argued their investigations into social change safehouses, clandestine links, adopt noms de groups met the terms of specific legal language guerre, and begin storing arms. Once allowing the FBI greater investigative latitude in underground, it is virtually impossible to probes involving political violence and foreign penetrate systematically. Thus authorities must keep extremist movements under at spying. The result was that by 1983, FBI agents least moderate surveillance, become and private security specialists had launched familiar with their public positions and broad intrusions into the lives of ordinary members as well as their unstated goals, citizens engaged in otherwise legal activities. adherents and fringe elements, and be Ronald Reagan showed his support for prepared to escalate surveillance of counter-subversion investigations when, on whatever groups seem likely to engage in more extreme activities [emphasis added]. 39 taking office, he pardoned two FBI agents con- victed in 1980 by a federal jury of criminal Francis also urged that federal intelligence burglaries of activists homes and offices in what agencies be allowed to contract with private became known as the “Graymail” case. groups for the collection of vital information. “Graymail” because former FBI director L. Patrick Gray successfully blocked prosecution

39 The Hunt for Red Menace by threatening to expose embarrassing “national school prayer, and saw Reagan launch a security” secrets, a tactic also tried by Oliver campaign to destroy the Legal Services North. But the Reagan pardon of two individuals Corporation. More significantly, the Nativist was just the beginning, he went on to pardon the ultra-right saw their people receive appointments entire U.S. intelligence establishment which had to executive agencies, where they served as come under fire during the Carter years. This watchdogs against secular humanism and came as no surprise, given the support for subversion. Reagan organized by the New Right, which Paranoid anti-communism, political witch embraced the counter-subversion network as an hunting and red-baiting all saw a revival during important and patriotic force protecting internal the Reagan Administration, and while they security. never became the dominant themes, they resonated throughout the nation's capital. Still, Reagan and the New Right not all of the Nativists were happy with Reagan, and within a few months of his taking office, The grassroots Nativist forces recruited by there were grumbles that Reagan had alreadly the New Right became part of the coalition that sold out to the Washington insiders. From time sent Ronald Reagan to the White House. That to time the press would report the complaints of fact did not go unnoticed. Drawing from the the more ultra-right figures in the Reagan latter-day disciples of nativism, elitist reactionary Administration as they suggested global conservatism and mainstream Republicanism, thermonuclear war as a serious alternative to Ronald Reagan forged an unusual coalition arms control. It was these more zealous Nativist packaged in a friendly “just folks” style. The paranoid forces who finally went public in 1988 Reagan agenda shifted the American political and branded Reagan a “useful idiot” and dupe scene far to the right, and legitimized the return of the KGB for negotiating with Gorbachev over of active counter-subversion campaigns in the arms control. public and private sectors. Yet the Reagan coalition still was able to unite with mainstream Unleashing the FBI liberalism around anti-communism, often under the banner of “bipartisanship”. Thus, during the Reagan apparently agreed with the Heritage Reagan administration, the anti- communist findings on national security becasue he quickly theory underlying cold war ideology ultimately unleashed the FBI. In December 1981 Reagan served to feed both militarism and issued Executive Order 12333 which authorized interventionism abroad, and surveillance and the FBI to use intrusive investigatory techniques, repression at home, leading to a further such as mail openings, wiretaps and burglaries, institutionalization of the National Security when there was probable cause to suspect a State. “terrorist” threat. While the Reagan Adminstration gave Reagan also authorized the FBI to contract mainstream Republicans a green light for with and rely on private sources of information lucrative trade with communist countries such as in national security investigations. Public the Soviet Union and mainland China, Reagan sections of the mostly-secret “Attorney General gave the meager markets in Central America, Guidelines for Foreign Intelligence Collection” Africa, and Afghanistan to the ultra right as a require the FBI not to question “individuals testing ground for their paranoid plans of acting on their own initiative” how they obtained fighting communism through covert action. information. Thus right-wing zealots could On the domestic side, conservative single conduct their own intelligence operations and issue right-wing constituencies that supported thefts and provide the fruits of their mission to Reagan received promises on abortion and the FBI without fear of reprisal.

40 The Hunt for Red Menace

After only a few months in office, Reagan Reviving the Witch Hunt had legalized the same techniques condemned when COINTELPRO was revealed. The conservative and far-right also began to According to Margaret Ratner of the Center reconstruct the counter-subversive apparatus for Constitutional Rights, “When President soon after Reagan took office. Ultra- Reagan signed Executive Order 12333. .he conservative Strom Thurmond was named head opened the door for the intelligence abuses evi- of the Senate Judiciary Committee which denced in the CISPES files. oversaw the work of the newly formed Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism. SST “Executive Order 12333, permits the FBI and was chaired by ultra-conservative Sen. Jeremiah CIA to surveil individuals even if they are not Denton, who quickly began re- kindling the breaking the law or acting on behalf of a foreign power. Foreign intelligence is defined to include Congressional witch-hunt. One notable SST “information relating to the capabilities, staff member was Samuel T. Francis, who after intentions and activities of foreign powers or authoring the security section of the Heritage persons,” including anything that a any Foundation Reagan transition study, became foreigner is doing. Under such a definition, legislative assistant for national security to ultra- anyone who has any contact with a foreign conservative SST member Senator John P. East. person or organization may be subjected to a foreign intelligence investigation. The order If there was any doubt the Subcommittee does away with the warrant requirement of the would avail themselves of McCarthy period and Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, private spying data, it was laid to rest in an giving the Attorney general, rather than a article by Samuel T. Francis in a 1982 issue of neutral judicial body, the power to approve the the conservative newspaper, “Human Events.” use of “electronic surveillance, unconsented In an article titled “Leftists Mount Attack on physical searches, mail surveillance, or monitoring devices” once he determines that Investigative Panel,” Francis sought to discredit there is “probable cause to believe that the SST critics by labeling them “far-left, technique is directed against a foreign power.” revolutionary, or pro-terrorist.” To bolster his “If such a technique is “directed” against a charges, Francis reached back to the Witch foreign power, it can be utilized against Hunting committees to note that SST critics hundreds of unwitting targets. Searches need such as the National Alliance Against Racist and not be limited to offices, or to premises under Political Repression and the National Emergen- the control of a suspected agent, nor need they be linked to the alleged commission of an cy Civil Liberties Committee had been unlawful act. “identified as Communist Party front groups.” The National Lawyers Guild, Francis reported, Ratner noted that the FBI further justified “was cited in 1950 as the `legal bulwark of the its use of intrusive techniques when it claimed to Communist party' by the House Committee on have the “inherent authority” to conduct secret Un-American Activities.” The Center for entries in national security cases. Ratner noted Constitutional rights is called a “far- with irony that the FBI's remarkable claim of this left...appendage of the National Lawyers Guild” unconstitutional inherent authority came after and staff counsel Margaret Ratner is described the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance as “associated with the legal defense of a Court “turned down an FBI request for a number of political violence groups and warrant to conduct a black bag job, holding that terrorists.” Francis also told Human Events that Congress had given it jurisdiction only over right-wing Birch Society spy John Rees was electronic surveillance.” “authoritative” on the subject of internal subversion. Early targets of SST included alternative media such as Mother Jones

41 The Hunt for Red Menace magazine and the Pacifica Radio network. liberties gains made in the post-Watergate era Luckily the SST Committee's hallucinatory when he released “Guidelines on General hearings on the “Red Menace” soon discredited Crimes, Racketeering Enterprise and Domestic that forum, at least among mainstream journal- Security/Terrorism Investigations.” According to ists, and an attempt to restart the old House Un- Mitchell Rubin, a law clerk who authored a American Activities Committee failed. Despite lengthy analysis of the Smith guidelines for these setbacks, the views of the paranoid right Police Misconduct and Civil Rights Law wing had made serious inroads at the White Report, “Three authorizations granted to the FBI House. under the Smith guidelines. .[included] the FBI's Reagan himself joined the Red Menace alert right to conduct surveillance of peaceful public in 1982. That was the year Reagan charged the demonstrations, to use informants and nuclear freeze campaign was, “inspired by not infiltrators, and to investigate persons or groups the sincere, honest people who want peace, but advocating unlawful activities.” These were three by some people who want the weakening of areas where the FBI had systematically abused America and so are manipulating honest and Constitutional rights in the past, and had been sincere people.” Reagan saw freeze activists as restrained under the guidelines issued in 1978 by dupes or traitors. When asked for proof, President Carter's Attorney General, Edward reporters were told much of the information was Levi. 41 secret, but that one public source was a Rubin questioned the Constitutionality of “Reader's Digest” article by John Barron. Barron the Smith guidelines citing past court cases had based the allegation in part on an article by which raised concerns over the chilling effect of right- wing spy John Rees. Rees had based his such police surveillance procedures. Rubin also article on unsubstantiated red-baiting allegations noted the “Smith guidelines are ambiguously made during McCarthy period hearings. Reagan written so that they can be read to explicitly later openly criticized those who brought down sanction knowing interference with First Joseph McCarthy. A State Department charge Amendment rights by an infiltrator.” The fears that the Women's International League for Peace expressed by Rubin and other critics of the and Freedom was a “communist front” was Smith guidelines appear to have been well- retracted when traced to a Rees report published founded. The CISPES investigation by the FBI by Western Goals Foundation. 40 showed an unsavory mixture of surveillance, At a June, 1982 SSThearing on how the political harassment, and public attack on FBI had been crippled by well-meaning liberals CISPES by the FBI, Reagan Administration duped by communists. Denton called the officials, and private right-wing groups and National Lawyers Guild the “ideological allies” individuals. of terrorism and murder, and said “the support groups that produce propoganda, The Return of the Thought Police disinformation, or `legal assistance' may be even By late 1983, widespread FBI harassment of more dangerous than those who actually throw Latin American support and anti-interventionist the bombs.” The NLG promptly produced large groups began to be reported nationwide. Other buttons with the Guild logo and the phrase intelligence agencies, and right-wing groups also “More Dangerous Than Those...Who Throw the began stepping up their campaigns warning of Bombs.” communist or terrorist subversion, which also smeared exile, emigre, sanctuary, and other Rehabilitating COINTELPRO groups with an international focus. On March 7, 1983 Attorney General Reported incidents included: William French Smith finished erasing any civil

42 The Hunt for Red Menace

 FBI agents visited the employer, friends and co- were held in over ten cities including New York, workers of an activist, asking: “Did you know Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles. 1984 also that your friend works with communists and KGB saw the creation of a political rights education agents?”  FBI agents appeared in the evening at the home project by the National Lawyers Guild Civil of an activist, and said: “We know you are Liberties Committee which later was sincere, just tell us the names of the KGB subsummed by the The Movement Support agents.” Network (MSN) sponsored by the Center for  FBI agents attempted to interview activists Constitutional Rights in cooperation with the about the “lawbreakers” involved in the NLG. sanctuary movement.  FBI agents threatened exposure of an Nearly 100 reports of mysterious break-ins undocumented activist to Immigration officials of activists offices have been compiled by the unless the activist talked. Movement Support Network since 1984. In  FBI agents threatened activists with jail unless Boston, where numerous unexplained break-ins they revealed their “plans” for “terrorist” attacks of movement offices have been reported, a on the 1984 summer Olympics and political symposium on surveillance and dissent in 1986 conventions.  Military Intelligence agents, starting in the mid- drew over 300. At that meeting, Police 1980's, began appearing at reserve weekends Misconduct Manual co-author Michael Avery to interview co- workers of activists saying “tell and long-time civil liberties activist Frank us about your friend at work who hangs out with Wilkinson of NCARL both explained how the Soviet spies.”42 term “terrorism” had replaced the At the same time, a campaign by ultra- “communism” as a justification for intrusive conservatives and the New Right to portray government surveillance and predicted the term dissidents as traitors was well underway. Start- would be the excuse the FBI used to justify ing in the late 1970's, this campaign circulated spying on activists. millions of direct mail letters and tens of thousands of magazines and newsletters Private Counter-subversion warning of a leftist plot to take over America and under Reagan 43 pave the way for a Soviet takeover. The main right-wing domestic intelligence- Some activists in the mid-1980's received gathering networks that operated during the written threats of violence signed by far-right Reagan/Bush Administrations were the John anti-communist groups such as the anti-Jewish Rees Information Digest network, and a more white supremacist Posse Comitatus or neo-Nazi amorphous network of New Right groups National Socialist Liberation Front. around the Council for Inter-American Security, The heavy-footed presence of federal Young American's for Freedom, and the gumshoes became so obvious and irritating American Sentinel newsletter. Two other around 1984 that a loose coalition of civil liber- domestic intelligence operations were run by ties groups, including the National Lawyers two cult leaders, the neo-fascist Lyndon Guild (NLG), Center for Consititional Rights LaRouche, and the theocratic authoritarian Rev. (CCR), National Committee Against Repressive Sun Myung Moon. Dozens of smaller private Legislation (NCARL), American Friends Service right-wing spy operations operated freely during Committee (AFSC) and the Fund for Open the 1980's. Information and Accountability (FOIA, Inc.), While there is competition and sometimes began distributing pamphlets and conducting acrimony among counter- subversion groups, workshops to advise activists how to “Just Say there is also room for cooperation. For instance No” when the feds dropped by to ask for an in 1981 when the American Sentinel was still interview about life in Managua. Workshops

43 The Hunt for Red Menace called “Pink Sheet on the Left” and Phillip while former Western Goals director Linda Abbot Luce was still editor, Luce wrote a Guell went to Singlaub's Freedom Foundation. promotional letter to his subscribers strongly For many years John Rees was a frequent recommending the “informative work being contributor to American Opinion and Review of done by Dr. Fred Schwarz and his Christian the News, John Birch Society periodicals. Anti-Communist Crusade.” Luce called the To prove the nuclear freeze is a Soviet plot, Crusade's newsletter excellent, and went on to Rees in Information Digest noted that public rave that the publication was “Educational, remarks on disarmament by a member of the informative and hard-hitting. I find it accurate, Soviet Central Committee of the Communist fact-filled and very well-documented.” Party bear a “striking similarity” to materials produced by the Mobilization for Survival, John Rees Information Digest and the Old Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy, Birch Network and U.S. Peace Council. Furthermore, Rees The most influential private domestic noted that several of the organizations involved spying operation during the 1980's was run by in the nuclear freeze campaign were identified John Rees, a veritable right-wing spymaster who by witnesses during the McCarthy era as has published Information Digest, a gossipy communist fronts. This is the type of material newsletter, for over twenty years. that appears in his book, The War Called Peace: Rees spent the early years of the Reagan The Soviet Peace Offensive which was the Bible administration as the spymaster for the right- of the anti-Freeze movement. wing Western Goals Foundation. The Foun- Rees material is frequently cited in dation was the brainchild of the late Rep. Larry newsletters and monographs. For instance in McDonald, former leader of the John Birch 1988 Phyllis Schlafly's newsletter cited the Rees Society. Western Goals published several small newsletter Information Digest on the FBI books warning of the growing domestic red CISPES probe. A second Rees newsletter, menace, and solicitated funds to create a published through his Mid-Atlantic Research computer database on American subversives. Associates (MARA) with Arnaud de Borchgrave Western Goals Foundation was sued by the and Robert Moss, and titled Early Warning, was American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) when it cited in an essay by retired Lt. General Gordon was caught attempting to computerize refer- Sumner, former chairman of the Council on ences to “subversive” files pilfered from the Inter- American Security and a national security disbanded Los Angeles Police Department “Red adviser to President Reagan. The Sumner essay Squad.” offered “Some Startegic Thoughts on Central Western Goals esentially collapsed after the America,” including the following paragraph: death of Larry McDonald in September of 1983. “Mid-Atlantic Research Associates, Inc., issued John Rees left shortly after McDonald's death. a special report on August 15, 1984 entitled Western Goals discontinued its domestic dossier Central American Support Networks,

44 The Hunt for Red Menace publication as having served on the “Committee Nicarauguan officials and stage counter of Santa Fe which developed the Republican demonstrations against Central American Party platform on Latin America in the 1980 solidarity activists and other perceived campaign.” communist dupes. They also have been quite successful in The Lyndon LaRouche Network organizing among the Black store-front churches The LaRouche intelligence network is still that are ubiquitous in urban settings. The issue is active despite its legal troubles. Rees, who has the joint struggle against “Godless urged conservatives to not forge alliances with Communism,” according to Rev. James Bevel, a LaRouche whom he considers “a remedial Fas- Black minister who attended a Moonie- cist,” describes the LaRouche operatives as: sponsored conference in Chicago and urged “copious information collectors but their cooperation with Moon. analysis is off-the-wall.” Documents produced For a time the New York-based newsletter in various lawsuits show some intelligence Free Press International was affiliated with the agencies don't trust the LaRouchies yet sift the now-defunct Moonie-owned New York Tribune LaRouche material for informational gems and provided coverage of alleged Soviet activity amidst the mental trash, others seem to find around the world, including periodic articles on even the incredible material credible and domestic subversion. Gelbspan noted the dutifully file it. cooperation of CAUSA activists in targetting The same National Security Council that anti- intervention activists. 44 spawned Oliver North received visits from LaRouche security specialists such as Jeff The Council for Inter-American Security Steinberg, now on trial in Boston facing The Council for Inter-American Security, conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges (CIS) is proud of its role in monitoring the stemming from a credit-card fraud indictment. activities of American progressives, and in one One Reagan aide praised the LaRouchies as direct mail solicitation it told its members, “Our running one of the “best private intelligence files on the organized left are the most extensive networks” in the world—an unusual assessment in the nation,” and in another boasted about for a group that believes the Queen of England Waller's infiltration of a meeting in Europe. An runs an international heroin cartel. When this ad for its newsletter West Watch carried the was revealed, pressure came from more headline “Keep track of the revolution lobby.” pragmatic cold warriors such as Henry Kissinger The text includes phrases such as: (who called the LaRouche episode “. .brings you monthly updates on the activities “outrageous”) and finally forced the Reagan of the Revolution Lobby, going behind the Administration to stop fraternizing with the scenes to enlighten concerned citizens about lunatic LaRouchies. the activities of groups supporting Fidel Castro. “. .features a regular insider's report on different The Rev. Sun Myung Moon Network members and campaigns of the Revolution Lobby. Another player is the Unification Church network. The minions of the Rev. Sun Myung CIS touts itself as a counter-subversion Moon are up to something, but so secretive that watchdog group. In one direct mail piece they nobody willing to talk has any clues. Moonies ask for a donation and say that “if a member of have tracked leftists for years, but seldom Congress is working with pro-Communist publish or disseminate the information radicals, we know about it or we'll find out about externally. They worked in coalitions with it—and expose it!” conservatives and rightists to shadow and pester

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The Council for the Defense of Freedom Specialized Training Institute which taught anti- The Council for the Defense of Freedom in terrorism and counter-subversive techniques to its book Prophets or Useful Idiots? has footnotes local and state police. CSTI was established in indicating pretext interviews of activists by 1971 by then-governor Ronald Reagan and his student interns, and covert attendance by assistant at the time, Edward Meese. Council representatives at meetings of activists. Formerly called the Council Against Communist Church League of America, Aggression, (CACA) it changed its name, One former key counter-subversion outfilt, perhaps when it realized the acronym was the Church League of America, collapsed early unaceptable for use in Spanish-speaking in the Reagan years due to an internal schism. countries. The Church League, which once claimed the National Council of Churches was a communist Ryan Quade Emerson front, shipped its 7 million index cards and 200 Ryan Quade Emerson cultivated the file cabinets full of material on “subversives” to periphery of the law enforcement community, the library at Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty Uni- peddling long lists of alleged subversives, versity where it was stored in a warehouse and radicals, revolutionaries and terrorists. His saw little if any use. material was essentially a compilation of Prior to its collapse, the Church League material obtained from other sources. Emerson continued its publishing program. has operated using several names for his “News and Views,” was a four-to-sixteen activites, including the Zeus Group and the page newsletter published monthly by the Apple Group. He has served as a government Church League of America from its informant against the Lyndon LaRouche headquarters in Wheaton, Illinois. The organizations. Emerson's newsletter on terrorism March/April 1982 issue carried an “expose” on was sold and is now published by a more the Council on Economic Priorities - a cautious individual who has no ongoing liberal/radical think tank. connection, financial or ideological, to Emerson. In an attempt to discredit the Council, “News and Views” reviews the activities of its DanCor, Ltd. founder and executive director, Alice Tepper- DanCor, Ltd. billed itself as specializing in Martin: counter-terrorism and police training. At one “According to U.S.A. magazine, November- seminar in 1985 the workshop schedule included December 1972 Edition, page 8, Alice [Tepper- a speaker from the American Security Council, a Martin] has been involved with the Union of film titled “The KGB Connection,” a workshop Radical Political Economics....Alice Widener, on 60 new “Communist Front Groups” editor of U.S.A., and noted syndicated (allegedly including the the sanctuary, anti- columnist for Barron's Financial Weekly and nuclear power and nuclear freeze movements), other newspapers across the country, said the and a speech on “National Security Concerns” Union of Radical Political Economics is bent on by Fred J. Villella a former official of FEMA's the destruction of the U.S.A. form of National Emergency Training Center which government and has actually penetrated the reportedly was involved in plans to circumvent government. the Constitution and round up and detain tens of “The Wall Street Journal stated that this thousands of persons to prevent civil disorder organization has as its tenet 'class conflict.' The during a national emergency. Louis Giuffrida left-liberal New Republic magazine described headed FEMA while Villella was there. Davis the Union of Radical Political Economics, worked for Giuffrida at the California December 26, 1970, as 'more than Marxist.' The

46 The Hunt for Red Menace organization has stated in writing, that 'radicals were “Soviet agents;” and “The Riverside should attempt to take over economics Connection: The National Council of Churches departments whenever and wherever and the Palestine Liberation Organization,” in possible....If you want to know the theory and which Donald Paul Bates, Sr., director of methods of revolution, you must take part in research for the Church League, asserts that the revolution.'“ national church group is anti-Israel because it “In 1968 the Union of Radical Political supports a Palestinian homeland and negotiation Economics held a seminar in December in with the PLO. Bates traces these positions to the Philadelphia. One of the leaders was Seymour influence of revolutionaries on the National Melman, whose topic was 'The Pentagon State - council of Churches. As is common with the Guns and Margarine?' Melman is listed on the Church League, the last article also includes a advisory Board of the Council on Economic list of all the endorsers of a statement on the Priorities in a folder entitled, 'What CEP Does,” middle east issued by a liberal church confer- which was sent out in a mailing across the ence on issues involving Palestine. country soliciting tax-deductible contributions.... The Church League also published the “The Communist newspaper, Daily World, twice-monthly National Laymen's Digest, a of Thursday, December 26, 1968, page 9, gave newsletter which sought to expose the commun- considerable favorable space to the URPE ist penetration of American churches and church conference in Philadelphia, attended by many organizations using the same guilt-by- leftists and revolutionary group representatives association style of writing. The Digest from around the country. New Left and contained roughly one dozen short articles in Students for a Democratic Society papers were each four page issue. The May 15, 1982 issue distributed among the participants. contained a denunciation of religious leaders “On Alice's staff of 19, in 1970, were left- seeking to develop a new Christian liberal churchmen, stockbrokers and anti- Contemporary Music. This religious music Vietnam War agitators, such as Sam Brown, movement combines lyrics stressing Christian who later obtained a position in the Carter values with upbeat rock tunes. The Digest Administration.” describes one such proponent of Christian The newsletter continues along this line for Contemporary Music as another one of those most of its twelve pages, with only passing compromising, middle-of-the-road 'evangelicals' references to the positions or policies advocated who thinks that a Christian should adopt and by the Council on Economic Priorities. At times imitate unregenerate lifestyles, such as jungle it is necessary to remind oneself that the article rhythms, which accentuate and stir up fleshy is on the Council on Economic Priorities and not emotions in youth, rather than sacred and a discussion of the Union of Radical Political enduring great music to reach lost sinners." Economics or another of the many groups Despite the lack of regard for the laws of English dragged in to discredit the Council or its grammar, the Digest's meaning is made clear in activities. This litany of detailed interconnections the next sentence: “This imitation of the world, of board and staff members with other groups and flesh and the devil, is causing tragic identified as leftist is typical of right-wing upheavals and inordinate sexual responses in Blacklists. young people who once professed Christ as Other issues of “News and Views” from Savior.” this period included articles entitled “Soviet Among the books published by the Church Agents Enter United States Freely,” which League were Common Cause: The Lobbying assumes that all representatives of a World Left Liberal Do-gooders Web, Modern Art: Peace Council delegation which toured the U.S. Political Psywar Weapon, Attorneys for

47 The Hunt for Red Menace

Treason: The True Story of the National legislation. Starting in 1948, however, the Times Lawyers Guild, and The Wicked Alliance coverage of the NLG through the next ten years Between Radical Church Leaders And centers on charges relating to subversion. Secularists For The Destruction of Capitalism. Much of the “documentation” on the NLG When the Fair Credit Reporting Act as a communist front can be traced to (FCRA) was passed, Wackenhut gave the Congressional hearings held during the balance of the Karl Baarslag McCarthy-period McCarthy Period. This labelling was part of a files to the Church League where Wackenhut coordinated campaign involving the still had access to the information, but was not Congressional committees, the FBI and right- compelled to disclose it under the privacy- wing groups. protection terms of the FCRA. New York attorney Michael Krinsky, who Before its demise, the Church League represents the National Lawyers Guild in its circulated material on the ACLU, National lawsuit against 30 years of FBI surveillance, Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, the points to an incident during the McCarthy National Lawyers Guild, Center for National period when an FBI wiretap revealed that Yale Security Studies, Campaign to Stop Law School professor Thomas Emerson was Government Spying, American Friends Service discussing with the NLG the publication of a Committee, and the Institute for Policy Studies. study criticizing as unconstitutional a variety of FBI investigative methods. The FBI passed the American Security Council information to Richard Nixon, then a The American Security Council, still kept congressman on the House Un-American files, but apparently shifted its focus to throwing Activities Committee (HUAC), and pursuaded idelogical icebergs at the thawing cold war and him to hold a press conference announcing a lobbying for increased aid to the military. Re- HUAC probe of the NLG as a communist front. searcher Wes McCune quips that the ASC is the According to Krinsky, a partner in the law personification of the Military Industrial firm Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky, Complex. Lieberman, the FBI then publicly launched an investigation of the NLG and privately fed Case Studies: inflammatory information to right-wing and anti-communist contacts. Certain leaders of the American Bar Association even worked with the The National Lawyers Guild FBI in a campaign to destroy the National & Legal Services Lawyers Guild. Fred Schlafly, Phyllis's husband, One group that came under attack as a front was a leader in early attempts at red-baiting the group during the 1950's was the National Guild. Lawyers Guild (NLG). Red baiting of the NLG Hoover had the FBI write a report (which began soon after the organization was HUAC issued under the Committee's name) established in 1937, but for several years the without hearings or an investigation. The report public mood was such that the charges never was titled “Report on the National Lawyers gained wide circulation or prompted any Guild: Legal Bulwark of the Communist Party.” concern. Articles in the “New York Times” from Krinsky said, “The FBI files reveal that the period show a dramatic change in the HUAC's report on the NLG, which almost situation during the late 1940's. destroyed the Guild by labeling it the `legal Up until 1948, articles on the NLG cited in bulwark of the Communist Party,' was not the the “Times” index center on substantive product of HUAC's attempt to carry out any activities and positions of the NLG on law and legislative function, but was issued by the

48 The Hunt for Red Menace

Committee on the sole instigation of the FBI.” made “in the past” that the NLG had The NLG fought back in court and “communist connections.” eventually forced the government to remove it “Preventing this type of use of the FBI from a list of so-called “subversive” groups, but information is one aspect of the Guild's lawsuit the power of the false accusation alone nearly against the FBI,” said Attorney Michael Krinsky destroyed the NLG, with membership dropping of Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & from over 4,000 to under 600. The Guild Lieberman, the law firm handling the Guild eventually recovered, and, unlike many political lawsuit sponsored by the National Emergency and legal organizations of the period, did so with Civil Liberties Committee. Krinsky's co- its principles intact, having never conducted an counsel, Gordon Johnson, points out that many internal purge of communists, socialists or other of the FBI records on the Guild were gathered targeted groups. by “massive informant infiltration, wiretaps, trash covers, and burglaries; and yet these NLG & Redbaiting Redux misleading and illegally-gathered records have the capacity to be used against the NLG and In the late 1970's the National Lawyers others to recycle the smear.” Krinsky and Guild discovered that thousands of pages of FBI Johnson charge that much of the FBI-collected files on the NLG and its members remained information was not related to any law carefully indexed and neatly filed in numerical enforcement purpose, but was amassed to be order for fast retrieval. Many of the FBI reports used by the FBI and Congressional Witch were inaccurate, inflated by ambitious agents, or Hunters to discredit and destroy progressive illegally obtained, yet in late 1979 the FBI organizations. provided files to Senator Strom Thurmond who Much of the FBI's information was was seeking to block federal judgeship for a originally gathered to provide fuel for the first former National Lawyers Guild activist. 45 round of Witch Hunts, yet it is still intact, and In August of 1979, Thurmond asked the apparently available to Congressional FBI for material on the Guild detailing “the total committees. “It is not proper to draw on the Communist influence,” on the Guild and “any FBI's vast body of illegally gathered political known actions that would reflect on the NLG's intelligence,” insists Krinsky. “The government opposition to our Democratic form of has no right to have membership lists or government.” Thurmond wanted “special financial records from the Guild nor information emphasis placed on the Executive Board of the on political positions taken by Guild members. Detroit, Michigan Chapter for the period 1960- This is simply none of the business of 1965.” That was when Anna Diggs Taylor, the government,” Krinsky said. federal judge nominee, was active in the Detroit Over the years there have been scores of NLG Chapter leadership. articles in the conservative & reactionary press FBI director William Webster sent which Red Baiting the NLG. NLG president Thurmond “excised copies of FBI reports” on Debra Evenson, a law professor at DePaul the Detroit Guild, but limited the material to University in Chicago, said “the National information “previously released to the Lawyers Guild has learned to expect red-baiting plaintiff's” in the NLG lawsuit against the FBI. over the years, and we are discussing ways to An FBI memo noted the material was provided confront it.” One survey conducted by the NLG to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary when showed that older members as well as law “Senators Thurmond and Kennedy both desired students are fearful of professional this information...for a Committee hearing”. repercussions should their membership become Thurmond failed to attend the hearing, but widely known. “Martin Luther King, himself a Kennedy asked Taylor to respond to charges

49 The Hunt for Red Menace target of similar anti-communist attacks, talked included several Supreme Court Justices. about this deep `malady' that afflicts the To people who think like David Williams, American spirit,” said Evenson who sees a need the NLG is a commie front. Williams rhetoric is for a broader coalition to, “address the typical of those on the conservative and pathological anti-communism that has lead our reactionary right who still suspect the hidden country into its present situation in which a hand of the Red Menace, and utilize guilt by presidential candidate has tried to label even association techniques and hysterical anti- `liberals' as being outside the `mainstream'.” communism to “Red Bait” their political In a democracy based on informed consent opponents who are insufficiently conservative. and the free interplay of ideas, the criticism of an The hysterical nature of most Red Baiting is idea based on labeling and smears serves to limit easy to demonstrate historically, and Williams is debate and establish narrow parameters to no exception. Consider the tone as Williams discussion. Yet the right-wing Red Baiters serve noted breathlessly in his report that LSC staff not only to de-legitimize progressive politics attended Guild workshops: “The taxpayers paid through smears, but through conspiratorial for the official training and the NLG increased subversion-mongering, also provide a its opportunities to propogandize the convenient justification for putative criminal Communist Party line and recruit allies and probes by government agencies such as the FBI. potential members.” In his conclusions, This is in part what happened with the FBI Williams wrote of, “the 50 year record of the probe of CISPES. National Lawyers Guild as a Communist Front and a stalwart defender of the Soviet Union.” Redbaiting the NLG & Legal Services in the Williams was especially interested in the 1980's discovery that six LSC programs had NLG representatives on their governing boards, and David A. Williams is convinced that a singled out the Cambridge & Somerville Legal covert cabal of conniving communists controls Services for special note: “Barry P. Wilson is the coffers at the Cambridge-Somerville Legal President of the Massachusetts Chapter of the Services office. Williams considers himself an National Lawyers Guild. He represents them on expert on the subject. In March of 1988, while a the [LSC Board]. Barry P. Wilson is also staffer at the Legal Services Corporation central Chairman of the Cambridge & Somerville Legal administrative office in Washington, D.C., Services, Inc.” claimed Williams who warned Williams conducted an extensive study archly, “The proverbial `tip of the iceberg' would attempting to document communist subversion seem to apply to this subject.” by showing “the extent of the National Lawyers “Bullshit,” Barry P. Wilson, responded Guild (NLG) involvement in the Legal Services succintly. Wilson, a criminal attorney, did Corporation.” When LSC officials learned of indeed chair the Cambridge & Somerville Legal William's study in the reactionary Moonie- Services Board at the time of Williams' study, controlled “Washington Times,” Williams was 46 but Wilson added in a tone fluctuating between given his walking papers. ironic disbelief and anger: “I am not now, nor The NLG is a national organization of have I ever been an elected official of the progressive lawyers, law students, legal workers National Lawyers Guild. I'm a member, and and jailhouse lawyers. It was founded in 1937 as even if I had been an officer, it wouldn't mean an alternative to the American Bar Association, anything. This is garbage, he certainly never which at the time admitted only white lawyers, contacted me. His kinds of remarks reek of the and was fighting against the New Deal policies misleading and totally false accusations made in of Franklin Roosevelt. Its members have the 1950's. This type of smear has no place in a

50 The Hunt for Red Menace rational discussion.” Services attorneys represent clients. A copy of the Williams study and related Williams reported his findings to an ultra- documents were obtained by the NLG through conservative LSC board member, Charles Jarvis, the federal Freedom of Information Act. The who, according to Williams, uged him to go documents show that Williams combed through public with his findings. But LSC President John the 1986 financial records of 325 LSC-funded H. Bayly, Jr., himself a widely-respected legal programs looking for a connection to the conservative Republican, is said to have been NLG. He found 28 programs where he discerned especially angered that he first read about the a connection, including instances where Legal Williams report in an editorial in the Moonie- Services programs listed the NLG among the owned conservative Washington Times participating local Bar associations and those newspaper. Williams was soon job-hunting. times when LSC staff attended legal training According to letters sent by Bayly to several workshops sponsored by the NLG. Congressional staff investigators, “Mr. Williams' When Williams examined the 1987 financial preparation of these memoranda was pursued records from 323 LSC programs, he discovered without my knowledge or that of his supervisors the number of LSC programs sending staff to in the Office of Field Services. Certainly, the NLG-sponsored training workshops went up Corporation authorized no such `study' and Mr. from 9 to 22. “That is an increase of over Williams memoranda do not represent or reflect 140%!!!” reported a shocked Williams, “The Corporate policy.” An LSC review of the taxpayers paid for the official training and the Wiliams study concluded that neither his math NLG increased its opportunities to propogandize nor his conclusions added up properly. the Communist Party line and recruit allies and Bayly himself was ordered to clean out his potential members.” desk a few months later when he refused as a “To conclude then,” wrote Williams, “the matter of principle to carry out orders from the 50 year record of the National Lawyers Guild as ultra-conservative majority of the LSC Board a Communist Front and a stalwart defender of which Bayly felt would have crippled the the Soviet Union, warrants concern when shown agency. the high degree of NLG involvement in the After being terminated by LSC, Williams Legal Services Corporation, especially with wrote of his study in several rightist taxpayers' funds.” publications. In Conservative Digest he penned It's difficult to know where to start when an article titled “Legal Services Caught Funding dissecting red-baiting blithering, but math is a Communist Front,” which repeated the errors handy lever. If 22 of 323 LSC programs sent concerning Boston attorney David P. Wilson. staff to NLG-sponsored training workshops, that The article also reveals that the Washington represents just under 15%, hardly a “high Times editorial on the Williams' study was degree” of involvement, even if you ignore, as penned by Samuel T. Francis, with whom Williams surely did, that the NLG-sponsored Wilson had worked at the Heritage Foundation, training is often accredited for professionally- a conservative think tank. Francis had written a mandated continuing legal education credits. Heritage study that bemoaned the end of Furthermore, NLG lawyers literally write the executive and congressional subversive hunting, book in several areas of law, contracting with the and later joined the staff of Denton's witch respected Clark Boardman Law Publishers in hunting Senate Subcommittee on Security and New York to produce weighty manuals on the Terrorism. law of Immigration, Labor, Jury Questioning, Using Williams “expose,” rightist Civil Rights, Civil Liberties and Police conservative groups began a failed campaign in Misconduct—all areas of the law where Legal late 1988 to cut off funds for the Legal Services

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Corporation. It was not the first time LSC came  “...Litigation to define 'black English' as a foreign under attack from the political right. language;  “...Litigation to compel the New York City Transit Authority to hire former heroin addicts; Legal Services as Communist Front  “Litigation to establish the principle that a The ultra-conservative attack on the Legal mother's lesbianism is not sufficient grounds for Services Corporation has always been linked to changing a custody decree.” the red-baiting of the National Lawyers Guild. Most Congressional representatives found As early as September of 1977 Howard Phillips little odd about the list provided by Helms, since as leader of the Conservative Caucus circulated the Legal Services Corporation was established a letter to every member of the U.S. Senate to assist poor people in asserting their legal saying: “I am deeply concerned the some rights in non-criminal situations. employees of the Legal Services Rep. George E. Brown, Jr (D-CA) Corporation....are active in the National Lawyers responded pointedly that “The problem with the Guild. Indeed, it is a fact that some Legal Services Corporation is not that it is grantees....assign seats on their boards, to be ineffective but rather that it is too effective in filled at the discretion of the National Lawyers representing the needs of the poor and Guild.” Phillips asked the Senate to initiate disenfranchised" public hearings to investigate the connection Legal Services became a key component in between LSC and NLG. a campaign launched by Conservative Digest in The April 8, 1981 issue of Review of the its April 1982 special issue: “How Washington News escalated the rhetoric by claiming LSC Funds the Left: The New Pork Barrel” The was “a federally-funded beehive of radical magazine at the time was published by New activity, swarming with Marxist attorneys who Right direct mail whiz Richard Viguerie, and its want to remake society, and most of whom can't contributing editors included Reagan advisors find jobs in the private sector.” Review of the Patrick J. Buchanan and Lyn Nofziger. The issue News is published by the paranoid ultra-right included a two page spread on why “Legal John Birch Society, a key institution in the Services must be Stopped” and a column by American Nativist right. The column quoted Howard Phillips titled “Let's De-Fund the Left.” ultra-conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) as The November 1983 conservative “Free saying, “The record of this Corporation and Market” newsletter On Principle raised the issue specifically its representatives around the of the NLG as commie front: “The Guild was country contains many horror stories of identified by a Congressional Committee as the harassment and intimidation....” Among the “foremost legal bulwark of the Communist alleged LSC atrocities: Party, its front organizations and controlled  Legal work to help “organize farm workers unions," said the newsletter. The article quoted a unions in California, Florida, the Midwest, and study by Michele Rossi revealing that New Jersey....” “workshop speakers at the 1983 National  “Litigation in order to return major portions of the Lawyers Guild Convention included at least States of Maine and Massachusetts to the eight NLG attorneys who are also Legal Services Indians; Corporation attorneys.”  Legal advice for “A lobbying campaign for the graduated income tax in Massachusetts; The article failed to mention that workshop  “Litigation to compel payment of SSI benefits to speakers numbered over 200 and one workshop alcoholics; panel was a discussion of attacks on Legal  “Litigation to place South Boston High School Services by LSC staff who were also Guild into receivership; members.  “An amicus brief in the Bakke case; Attending the convention were two young

52 The Hunt for Red Menace conservative college students wearing organization. No informed person would Conservative Digest press credentials. One entertain for a moment the accusation that it is a student had the credentials legitimately, but the front organization for a foreign government of other had forged his credentials, and when for anyone.” reporters complained the two had sat in the press section during a major event snickering A New Generation of Witch- and passing racist notes during speeches by hunters Black NLG members including then Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, the Guild leadership All peripheral political movements reach a decided to revoke the credentials and toss them point in their growth towards mainstream out. respectability and influence where they face the The student who had actually registered as issues of broadening their base and perpetuating representing Conservative Digest, blamed his their ideas through some form of colleague for all the disruption, and demanded institutionalization. Signs of the maturization an appeal hearing, so one was quickly convened and mainstreaming of a marginal political by Guild leadership. The appeals board voted movment include its ability to work in coalition that if “Conservative Digest” would verify the with other groups, its ability to network its student's press credential was legitimate, he leaders and its constituency, its ability to recruit would be allowed to stay. The student reached new converts, and its ability to train a new Howard Phillips at “Conservative Digest” but generation of leaders. The success of the New Phillips refused to speak to any member of the Right in institutionalizing itself and broadening NLG so the credential could not be verified. its appeal are well-documented, however the The National Lawyers Guild has learned to more reactionary and Nativist elements of expect red-baiting and to confront it head-on. counter-subversion within the New Right also Responding to a 1985 printed attack in a appear to have been successful in establishing Seattle daily charging the Guild was part of a more permanent structures to further legitimize “Soviet Front,” two local Guild officers their worldview, and in reaching out to a broader responded by explaining the tactic of the “Red audience. Baiter” is to use “labels and name calling to One way to demonstrate the networking cloud issues.” ability of the counter- subversion movement is “It is a technique that discredits dissent, to chronicle the career of one young recruit, J. breeds distrust, and limits debate. We shouldn't Michael Waller, from the perspective of forget the sordid history of the with hunts for cooperation with other groups and individuals in “Un-Americans" in the 50's. Lilian Hellman the paranoid Nativist counter-subversion named that period well — it was a “Scoundrel profession. Time.” Then and now, the National Lawyers Guild stood, with honor, beside those, like J. Michael Waller and the New Kids Hellman, who refused to participate in what was, Network and is, red-baiting." J. Michael Waller is one example of the “The Guild, throughout its history, has successful youth recruitment campaign mounted fought for the rights of women, minorities, the by the aging ultra-conservative counter- poor, the politically and economically subversion network to train a new generation to disenfranchised — and those who dissent. carry on the anti-communist witch-hunt. Waller Anyone at all familiar with the Guild's open and comes out of a group of right- wing former democratic decision-making is aware of the campus journalists whose campus newspapers substantial diversity of political opinion in the received funds from conservatives seeking to

53 The Hunt for Red Menace influence campus politics and recruit new blood the new Students for a Better America (SBA), into the conservative political movement. The which supplanted USAF as a conservative youth funds often are coordinated through the Institute group and was still located at the Heritage for Educational Affairs (IEA) (now merged into building. The SBA version of the Waller report the Madison Foundation). IEA and the Young was titled “CISPES: A Terrorist Propaganda America's Foundation helped financed a Waller Network.” A brochure summarizing the report trip to Central America where he travelled with was also issued by SBA which distributed the Contras. copies of a newsletter, Freedom Fighter, An early Waller article on CISPES was published by a group called Coalition for prepared in 1983 for both the right-wing IEA- Democracy in Central America (CODECA). funded campus newspaper The Sequent In 1985 Waller joined with Allan C. (11/9/83) at George Washington University, and Brownfeld, in authoring The Revolution Lobby , in a differing format for the United Students of published jointly by the Council for Inter- America Foundation (11/7/83). At the time, the American Security and the Inter-American United Students of America Foundation (USAF) Security Education Institute. The 175 paperback was housed at the Heritage Foundation building. provides backround reports on groups such as “CISPES: A Guerrilla Support group,” was the CISPES, the North American Congress on Latin title of the piece Waller wrote as Editor-in-Chief America, the Institute for Policy Studies, the of The Sequent, while “CISPES: A Guerrilla Washington Office on Latin America, and the Propaganda Network,” titled the USAF report Council on Hemispheric Afairs. The book is but which listed Waller as Director of Research for one of many examples of a project which USAF. showed the interlocking nature of the In February 1984 Waller revised and conservative counter-subversion network. expanded his CISPES attack for L. Francis In his biographical note for The Revolution Bouchey's Council on Inter-American Security Lobby , Brownfeld is listed as a former (CIS). The CIS senior researcher, according to “member of the staff of the U.S. Senate Internal CIS fundraising pitches, was Waller. Security Subcommittee” and “author of that Waller's report on CISPES for CIS committee's 250-page study of the `New experienced rhetoric escalation and was titled Left'. .A former lecturer at the U.S. Air Force “CISPES: A Terrorist Propaganda Network.” Special Operations School in Elgin, Florida” and The February 1984 Waller report on CISPES for “a consultant to members of the U.S. Congress CIS was circulated just prior to a series of anti- and the Vice President of the United States. At Administration demonstrations during “Central the time of publication Brownfeld was associate America Week” in March of 1984. A few days editor of the right-wing Accuracy in Media's after the demonstrations were over, CIS issued a AIM Report and associate editor of the The press release calling for then Attorney General Lincoln Review, published by the conservative William French Smith to investigate CISPES, Lincoln Institute for Education & Research. with CIS president Bouchey charging that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas served CISPES was “operating in contravention of the on the editorial advisory board of the The Foreign Agents Registration Act.” The press Lincoln Review. release went on to say that CIS “has offered its Waller is listed in The Revolution Lobby , as assistance and the documentation that it has having been elected National Secretary of compiled on CISPES's activities, including a Young Americans for Freedom in August 1985 detailed report by J. Michael Waller, to the as well as being editor of the CIS newsletter Attorney General's Office.” West Watch . The previous year Waller was Later in 1984 Waller re-wrote his article for listed as being on the CODECA board of

54 The Hunt for Red Menace directors as research director of SBA. He served National Review co-sponsored the Tenth on the CODECA board along with Mike Boos, Annual Conservative Political Action Young America's Foundation, William Pascoe, Conference in 1983 where YAF members could III, Research Fellow, Council for Inter- rub shoulders with “Ronald Reagan, members American Security, and Gustavo Marin, of his Cabinet, Jesse Helms, Orrin Hatch, Jack Chairman, Abdala Cuban Youth Movement. Kemp and a host of other conservative CODECA was a member of the Reagan leaders. .” Administration's United States International Other Nativist recruitment avenues includes Youth Year Commission which represented the those aimed at the college intern. One such U.S. at the U.N. International Youth Year group is the National Journalism Center of the Commission for 1985. <$!expand section on Education & Research Institute. The Center government ties re: Waller, YAF, etc. brings college students to Washington, D.C. for Waller and Boos have long-standing ties to seminars lead by conservative luminaries and Young Americans for Freedom, which is the then places them with a wide range of major route for youth recruitment by ultra- journalistic enterprises such as National conservatives. They both contributed articles to Geographic , Voice of America and UPI, and the “Winter 1982-83” edition of YAF's more conservative outlets such as Human magazine, New Guard .” Events , Reader's Digest, The World and I, Boos, listed as YAF Projects Director, American Spectator , and Campus Report penned an article which was headlined “The (Accuracy in Academia). Alumni of the Center Nuclear Freeze Fairy Tale: Communist Front have gone on to positions at the Council for Groups Behind the Peace Movement,” and Inter-American Security, Heritage Foundation, warned that the “peace movement” is in fact not Center for Strategic and International Studies, spontaneous but “Rather, it is a well conceived Accuracy in Media, Reader's Digest, Mid- and thus far successfully implemented sinister American Institute for Public Policy, Hoover scheme being directed by the Soviet Union Institution, Washington Times, The World and through its front groups in the U.S. and abroad.” I, and Human Events . Boos noted that: “a good source of this One former Washington Journalism Center information. .is The War Called Peace , intern, Scott Powell (Summer 1981), wrote published by Western Goals.” Covert Cadre, a purported expose of the Waller, listed as “Chairman, District of Institute for Policy Studies which alleged the Columbia YAF,” wrote a piece called “Bare- progressive think tank is the nexus for KGB fisted Journalism: How and Why a YAF Activist operatives and Soviet disinformation campaigns Started an Alternative Campus Newspaper” in the U.S. which praises the new wave of conservative campus publications and warns that: Modern Paranoid Conspiracy “Today, a new generation of anti-family, anti- Constituencies religion, anti-capitalist, anti-defense, anti- General John “Jack” Singlaub gained American activists dominates nearly every university. they are the little brothers, sisters, national attention when he testified before the and cousins of the long-haired, flea-ridden Tom joint Congressional committee investigating Hayden groupies who, like their bellwethers of Iran-Contragate on his role in Contra the 1960's, want to destroy America, again, in fundraising. That Committee never pursued the name of `peace, jobs, and justice.' Singlaub's ties to the World Anti-Communist Young Americans for Freedom, American League, which networks not only anti- Conservative Union, Human Events , and communists but racists, anti-Semites, fascists

55 The Hunt for Red Menace and even a handful of aging Nazi collaborators. geographically surrounded by hordes of Singlaub has been a representative of, and mindless commie zombies brainwashed through works closely with, the American Security endless Leninist lectures to have no regard for Council, the major pro-military lobbying group human life. If you don't think anyone seriously in the U.S. and one of the chief lobby groups for believes this wolrdview, you didn't see the Contra aid. ASC started life as a blacklist-style movie “Red Dawn”. agency retained by manufacturers to screen That this paranoid anti-communist premise potential industrial employees for communist or is actually believed by a small but significant subversive pasts—such as a preference for labor segment of American society is illustrated by unions. reviewing the invitational brochure for an ultra- Singlaub is also on the Advisory Board of conservative investment planning seminar the Council for Inter- American Security, the scheduled for September 25-28, 1985 at the Los group that brags about how it infiltrates Angeles Airport Hyatt. The slick multi-color meetings of “leftists” to spy on activists. flyer announced: “Gary North Presents: Racing Another CIS Board member is columnist Patrick to the Year 2000—Planning for personal stability J. Buchanan, who played the role of the pit bull in the midst of change.” Sounds normal enough terrier for the Reagan Administration. Other CIS until you scan the following lecture topics as Board members include Congressmen and printed in the brochure: Senators such as Sen. Jack Kemp, Rep. Bill  General John Singlaub, Chairman of the United Chappell, Sen. Malcolm Wallop, and Rep. Vin States Council for World Freedom (the General Weber. Jimmy Carter axed): “How and Where World Singlaub, who served on the board of the War III Will Be Fought.” The ignored military now-defunct Western Goals Foundation, is a reality that will shape America's future— classic example of how counter-subversion information that will affect your future plans, profits, and personal safety. Nativists with close government ties work to  Antony Sutton, Editor of The Phoenix Letter: influence government policy with paranoid “Soviet Technology: Made in the USA.” How by conspiracy theories and authoritarian solutions. reducing government expenditures, we can That Singlaub is the quitessential counter- cripple the Soviet Union without firing a shot— subversion Nativist can be shown through his and who is seeing to it that we don't do it. own words. For instance Singlaub signed one  Jack Wheeler, Foreign Policy Consultant: “The Soft Underbelly of the Soviet Empire and Who's CIS fundraising letter where he warned: Punching It.” An insider's view of the eight anti- “Ultraliberals want you to believe that Soviet guerrilla wars going on right now and Communist Russia wants peace. .Ultraliberals whether or not you can bet on the Soviet Union want you to believe that the big bosses of the crumbling. Kremlin are people `just like you and me'. .ultraliberals support permanent nuclear Other workshops included presentations by: superiority by Soviet Communists. Selected representatives from various anti- communist guerilla movements; Those, like Singlaub, who filter their anti- Joel Skoussen, Chairman of the communism through a paranoid world view Conservative National Committee, talking on the firmly believe in the existence of the global red secret “puppeteers” behind various Latin menace; an immense and secret international American governments; communist conspiracy the dimensions of which Dr. Frank Aker, newsletter publisher, on are so horrific that the United States of America “Where the Soviets are concentrating their is on the verge of collapse because its very attention, and when your new refugee foundations are riddled with the rot of “neighbors” will be arriving; communist subversion while the country itself is Science Fiction author and computer

56 The Hunt for Red Menace technology consultant Dr. Jerry Pournelle on outcome of the long-standing consciously- Reagan's “Star Shields” program, “The good implemented institutional policies of the news about American technology—and why the counter-subversion network. Soviets are panicked.” The genesis of the FBI probe of CISPES These lecturers were joined by the standard was a complex network of groups and right-wing luminaries such as Howard Phillips, individuals with a common counter-subversive National Director of the Conservative Caucus; worldview: former Congressman Ron Paul, the 1988  The underlying theories which prompted the FBI Libertarian candidate for President; right-wing investigation of CISPES were developed at the Illinois Congressman Phil Crane; conspiracy- start of the Cold War, and reflect the same mongering author Larry Abraham; and discredited view of subversion that the apocalyptic newsletter editor Howard Ruff. American public finally rejected to end the Not your average investment seminar. .the McCarthy period.  Individual and groups who hold this discredited underlying paranoia is palpable. view of subversion played influential roles in shaping the policies of the Reagan The FBI Probe of CISPES Administration in this area, and then in some The FBI probe of the anti-interventionist cases moved on to become consultants and staff members in Adminstration and group Committee in Solidarity with the People Congressional posts. of El Salvador (CISPES) reflected the  These same groups and individuals then set out cooperation of the public and private counter- to rebuild a private counter-subversion network subversion network, but was ahistorically among conservative and rightist groups with the dismissed by the Congress and the media as an goal of assisting the government, and aberration. The CISPES investigation involved specifically the FBI, in investigating subversion. The results of their investigations were almost every FBI Field Office and eventually published in a range of newsletters and journals involved the creation of file indices on 200 other in articles which frequently cross-cited each organizations. When the CISPES probe was other and often traced back to unsubstantiated revealed in documents obtained under the charges of communist subversion made by federal Freedom of Information Act, the FBI persons testifying before congressional witch- contended it was an aberration. Yet even a hunting committees.  Young conservatives from colleges and cursory review of FBI history argues against that universities were recruited and trained to claim. Since its inception, the FBI has conducted participate in monitoring and analyzing the endless surveillance and infiltration of U.S. activities of alleged subversive groups through a dissident groups in a vain quest for the domestic network of interlocking conservative institutions incarnation of the “Red Menace”. based in Washington, D.C. While certain aspects of the FBI  Information and documents collected by private right-wing groups were provided to government surveillance of CISPES prompted media law-enforcement agencies that would otherwise coverage, Congressional hearings and lawsuits, be prevented from obtaining the information by there has been almost no public discussion of constitutional and legislative restrictions. This the underlying political assumptions and biased and unverified information was then used justifications which fuel most counter- to justify criminal investigations of dissidents in subversive investigations by both public and general and the anti-interventionist CISPES in private agencies in the U.S., leaving the door particular. open for continuing FBI abuses against Many activists involved in Central America Constitutionally-protected freedom of speech issues became aware of ham-handed snooping and association. The FBI investigation of by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in the CISPES was not an aberration, but the logical early 1980's. In 1986 the Center for Investigative

57 The Hunt for Red Menace

Reporting in California used the federal probes of the anti-Administration CISPES is Freedom of Information Act to obtain FBI files rather like the IRS assigning Jerry Falwell to which suggested a large-scale probe into audit the financial records of the American Civil CISPES. In 1987 testimony by a former FBI Liberties Union. informant Frank Varelli also suggested a broad attack on CISPES by the FBI. Varelli later told The Terrorist-Baiting of CISPES reporters of the involvement of other The June 1984 report on CISPES by governmental and private right-wing groups in Michael Boos, the staff member at the Young targetting CISPES. Americas Foundation, was titled: “Group in Some 1300 pages of additional FBI files Nation's Capitol to Aid Left-Wing Terrorists.” In released in 1988 by New York's Center for the report Boos wrote that the D.C. Chapter of Constitutional Rights (CCR), on behalf of CISPES would “soon launch a fundraising CISPES, reveal in sharp detail the extent and campaign to provide direct military assistance to nature of the FBI probe into CISPES. More the Soviet supported Marxist terrorists seeking importantly, the files show that the FBI, to to overthrow the recently elected government in justify its actions, accepted as fact a right-wing El Salvador.” This conclusion was reached when conspiratorial world-view which sees dissent as Boos made the Kierkegaardian assumption that treason and resistance to oppression as the shoe factory CISPES planned to help build terrorism. in El Salvador would not really benefit civilians, The first FBI investigation of CISPES was but would secretly make and repair boots for launched in September of 1981 to determine if rebel soldiers—and thus constituted military aid CISPES should be forced to register under the for “Soviet supported Marxist terrorists.” Foreign Agents Registration Act. Among the Boos wrote his report after attending a documents used by the FBI to justify this public CISPES meeting in Washington, D.C. CISPES probe, according to Congressional According to a spokesperson at the Young testimony by FBI official Oliver “Buck” Revell, Americas Foundation, Boos was apparently was a 1981 article by a former FBI informant engaging in a freelance information-gathering and ongoing right-wing private spy—John Rees. activity not directly connected with his staff The Rees article appeared in Review of the News position. Boos filed his report with the right- a magazine published by the paranoid ultra-right wing newsletter American Sentinel, and sent an John Birch Society. This FBI investigation was unsolicited copy to the FBI. The FBI promptly terminated without indictments in December of distributed it to 32 of its field offices and 1981. apparently sent it to other federal agencies as A second FBI investigation of CISPES well. began in March of 1983. It was premised on the It is ironic that the Boos report on CISPES right-wing conspiracy theory that CISPES was a for American Sentinel was revealed in the FBI cover for “terrorist” activity. To justify this view, documents on CISPES since the Young the FBI relied not only on reports from its Americas Foundation is only a minor player in informant Varelli, but also in part on a the right-wing information network. The conspiratorial analysis contained in a report Foundation primarily is involved in recruiting written by Michael Boos, a staffer at the right- college students into the conservative anti- wing Young Americas Foundation. This FBI communist movement. Boos, while at Young “counter-terrorism” investigation was Americas Foundation, circulated a newsletter terminated without indictments in 1985. reporting on campus activists, but it too is not The FBI relying on the malicious musings influential in right-wing circles. of paranoid right-wing ideologues to justify The Young Americas Foundation is a haven

58 The Hunt for Red Menace for aging former members of the right-wing known to only a few CISPES members, but campus-based Young Americans for Freedom represented CISPES' true intentions and (YAF). While it was started by a former YAF activities. Thus headquarters would caution the field office not to be deceived and urge it to dig staffer, the Foundation is not formally tied to deeper. The deeper the field office dug, with no that group. They are certainly right-wing results, then clearly, reasoned the FBI, the ideological soul-mates, however, and they deeper they needed to dig. cooperate closely. The Foundation once sent out “When field offices cabled headquarters to a fundraising mailing calling former Senator inform it that they had located no CISPES George McGovern “anti-American,” and chapter but had found a Central American solidarity committee, or a Latin American claimed “our classrooms are full of teachers and human rights group, or a sanctuary church, textbooks that tear down our system of headquarters would recommend aggressive republican government and free enterprise while investigation and explain that CISPES operated glorifying communism and socialism.” through `fronts,' in which respectable people The American Sentinel, the newsletter were duped for its `terrorist purposes.' which published the Boos report on CISPES In this way, any group which ever worked (without attribution) is, however, one of the core with CISPES or shared members became a right-wing outlets for red menace diatribes. The potential `front.' “The very logic of these Sentinel frequently touts its relationship to law rationales increased the pressure to expand the enforcement. The Sentinel raised funds to send hunt for fronts and intensify the search for its blacklist-style report to “723 FBI offices and covert activities,” Fernandez points out. local police departments,” pledging to keep track The FBI probe of CISPES involved 52 of of “the liberals, the left-wingers, the radicals and the 59 Field Offices of the FBI. Dossiers were the Communists.” compiled on hundreds of other organizations which intersected in some vague way with Paranoid Theories and the FBI Probe of CISPES during the course of the investigation. CISPES Margaret Ratner of the Center for That the views of the paranoid right wing Constitutional Rights called the FBI probe of find safe harbor at the FBI is supported by the CISPES a “sweeping and intrusive investiga- documents they released under the FOIA tion. .the FBI utilized wiretaps, undercover concerning the probe of CISPES. As Alicia agents, and informants in addition to the type of Fernandez of the Center for Constitutional intensive physical surveillance that is normally Rights explained in an article appearing in the reserved for investigation of serious crimes.” Movement Support Network News: According to Ratner: “In order to justify its investigation, the FBI “The investigation, which was begun in 1981 to utilized two rationales: it posited the existence determine if a violation of the Foreign Agents of a covert program and it resurrected a 1950's Registration Act existed, was quickly turned favorite, the concept of a `front group.' These into a `Foreign Intelligence/Terrorism' inquiry, two notions were extremely useful. By positing even though no basis for such existed. The a covert program, FBI headquarters was able new category, however, allowed the FBI to to reason away the lack of findings in utilize `special techniques,' that are considered investigations conducted by the field offices. illegal when applied to domestic investigations. “When a field office reported that assiduous It allowed the FBI to avoid strictures developed investigation had revealed that a local CISPES to remedy the abuses that came to light in the chapter pursued only such projects as teach- post-Vietnam protest era.” ins, slide shows, and pickets, headquarters Ratner charges that “the investigation was would remind the field office of the `covert used as one of the pretexts for the harassment program' This, headquarters explained, was

59 The Hunt for Red Menace and surveillance” being reported by those who era. The `affiliate' membership, on the other oppose the Reagan administration's foreign hand, consists in large part of local college policy. students relatively new to the political scene. It has at least one female high school student FBI director William Sessions, however, member. Some of these younger `affiliate' defended the CISPES investigation as a members appear to be politically un- legitimate probe into criminal activity. But one sophisticated in that they know little of current FBI agent assumed a more sinister motive for international events save what they read or the CISPES investigation in a memo which hear at their political meetings. Pittsburgh has warned: noted at least two of these members or affiliates both were young females.” “It is imperative at this time to formulate some plan of action against CISPES and, specifically, The CISPES FOIA revelations came on the against individuals [deletion] who defiantly heels of charges by former FBI informant Frank display their contempt for the US government Varelli that he was pressured into inventing by making speeches and propagandizing their information to show that CISPES was tied to cause while asking for political asylum. terrorists. Varelli told a Congressional “New Orleans is of the opinion that the Depart- subcommittee in 1987 that his reports were ments of Justice and State should be consulted to explore the possibility of deporting these designed to provide an excuse for the FBI to individuals or at best denying them re-entry intimidate critics of Reagan's Central America after they leave. policies. According to Varelli: Among the many groups named in the CISPES FBI files were: Central American “The FBI led me to believe that CISPES was a Solidarity Committee, Clergy and Laity radical `terrorist' organization. .Ironically, never Concerned, Church of the Brothers, Chicago once during the next three years of my association with CISPES did I encounter Interreligious Task Force, Fellowship of anything even close to the picture painted by Reconciliation, Friends Religious Society, the FBI. The CISPES organization was Maryknoll Sisters, National Education peaceful, nonviolent, and devoted to changing Association, Southern Christian Leaderhip the policies of the United States towards Conference, United Steel Workers Union, and Central America by persuasion and education. the United Auto Workers union. Also named in Varelli sued the FBI, alleging they refused the files were a number of individual churches, to pay him $65,000 in back pay. Varelli was colleges, religious orders, community terminated as an informant when the FBI agent organizations, women's groups and political controlling him carelessly lost in a car burglary groups. files containing secret information that might The following excerpt from the Pittsburgh have blown Varelli's cover. FBI field office file on the local CISPES affiliate, the Central American Mobilization Committee FBI as Thought Police (CAMC), showed the ideological framework which forms the basis of the FBI investigation: Attorney Michael Krinsky was not surprised when he learned the FBI had waged a “The membership of the CAMC and its affiliated five-year surveillance war against CISPES in a groups appears generally to be of two type fruitless search for terrorists and subversives. groups: the `core' membership and the `affiliate' membership. The `core' membership consists This is precisely the scenario Krinsky and the of individuals with strong Communist or National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee Socialist beliefs who have a history of being fought in a now-settled lawsuit against the FBI active in Communist or Socialist political on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild. organizations, some since the Vietnam War Krinsky charges that FBI “subversion/terrorism”

60 The Hunt for Red Menace investigations never really are ended, because Front for the Weather Underground, and they can never really succeed in accomplishing Violation of the Foreign Agents Registration the FBI's primary goal—that goal is not Act. investigating criminal activity, but proving the No criminal charges were ever filed against pre-conceived notion that dissent is fueled by the NLG and each investigation was terminated treason. unsuccessfully when no evidence of criminal “This is the theory under which the FBI has activity was found. “So you see the CISPES so- kept subversion investigations running for 45 called investigation comes as no surprise to us”, years now,” said Krinsky: said Krinsky who added the revelations “They believe there is a subversive element out vindicate the position that former FBI director there trying to infiltrate and destroy our William Webster (under whom the CISPES government. Infiltration is by definition covert, investigation was conducted) never really and therefore, to safeguard our government repudiated the sins of the past. Webster now from this secret plot, the FBI has to know heads the CIA, he is supposed to clean up the everthing about everybody. The fact that the mess left by former CIA director William Casey. FBI never finds any evidence of this subversive infiltration merely demonstrates to Sure. Ann Mari Buitrago, a file specialist from the FBI how clever the subversives really are. the Fund for Open Information and Account- ability, was hired by the Center for Even when their Justice Department Constitutional Rights to read and analyze the superiors repeatedly terminate these types of FBI files on CISPES. Her conclusions: investigations because they result in no evidence of wrongdoing, and only show the non-criminal “The files show a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same nature of the targeted group, the true believers object—the destruction of the people's right to simply bide their time and then open another know and to assemble in order to express investigation under a different file name. opposing views on public policy. When FBI agents can't find the non-existant “The FBI is still reaching into the Hoover-era bag KGB candygram to CISPES, they merely ignore of tricks to fight dissent. They are feeding their the evidence of no criminal activity and fantasies that the Red Menace is everywhere. redoubled their efforts to pursue the group. It is an obssesive belief they share with Reagan—and like all fantasies, facts do not put When the current controversy over CISPES it to sleep. blows over, a new excuse will be found to launch another investigation. Attorney Krinsky Buitrago believed the Boos report on agrees with author Donner that the term CISPES was circulated by the FBI because the terrorism is merely a device used by the FBI to agency actually shares the right-wing paranoid justify its political mission. Krinsky noted: vision of the internal subversive conspiracy. But as Buitrago observed, “This is nothing new.” “The FBI investigated the NLG for over three The new round of FBI and private spying decades, moving from one pretext to another, without being hindered by the fact that none of represents a new strain of McCarthyism, their suspicions proved to be based in fact. As mutated to avoid public scrutiny. The terms may soon as one pretext was challenged by a court have changed from red menace, fellow-traveller, or the Justice Department administrators, the and communist propaganda to terrorist threat, FBI would abandon that pretext and embark on unwitting dupe, and Soviet disinformation, but it a supposedly new investigation using a is McCarthyism nonetheless. different pretext. The true-believers in the FBI serve as the Among the investigative categories used to covert McCarthyists within that agency, justify FBI spying on the NLG, Front for the continuing their super-patriotic crusade down Communist Party, Fomenting Prison Rebellion, through the decades. Those in the Reagan

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Administration and the FBI who shared the Reagan years pacified the true believers. Their paranoid anti-communist worldview initially concerns were expressed at a February 1989 could not understand the fuss about the CISPES conference held by Nativist conspiracy theorists investigation. When it came to smashing in Worcester, Massachusetts where author John perceived criminal subversives and allies of Stormer told the crowd of 200 that, Soviet “terrorism”, the authoritarian Nativists “Communists are running wild in America.” assumed they were simply carrying out their Many in attendance were recruited through mandate—as indeed in a sense they were. flyers distributed by ultra-conservative Christian The less zealous anti-communists in the fundamentalist groups. The conference packet Justice Department are critical of the paranoid held an issue of the magazine published by the true-believers (such as those agents involved John Birch Society whose headquarters graced with directing FBI informant Varelli to engage in the Boston suburb of Belmont for many years. disruption), yet they seek to defend the basic In fact, key figures of the Birch Society attended concept of using political surveillance like a the sessions, and one person who has monitored fishing expedition to hook the criminals hiding the Birchers for almost 20 years concluded the behind the first amendment. Today the FBI seminar was clear evidence that the Birch serves not only an official police function in the Society and its mentality are alive and well, at modern political surveillance network, but also a least in the Boston area. forum for legitimizing attacks on dissenters by The Worcester audience watched Oliver criminalizing their views in the eyes of the North's communist red menace slide show public. Thus someone who supports the which was origially used for contra fundraising. Sandinistas is transformed in the eyes of the North's trial was mentioned repeatedly in the public into a potential terrorist by the FBI context of proving the treason of those who are probe. .and terrorists are clearly not deserving of prosecuting North. Constitutional safeguards protecting free speech. Treason and conspiracy were the main Few activists think “authorized” burglaries themes of the conference. Stormer's “None Dare and infiltration by the FBI could account for all Call it Treason” was for sale at the conference the break-ins, assaults, kidnappings and other and formed the outline of the presentations. The incidents against progressive activists chronicled back cover summarizes the text as detailing “the by the Movement Support Network. Activists communist-socialist conspiracy to enslave on both sides of the ideological fence speculate America” and documenting “the concurent that at least some of the break-ins are being decay in America's schools, churches, and press conducted by a shadowy strata composed of which has conditioned the American people to authoritarian FBI agents, ideological local police, accept 20 years of retreat in the face of the and a loose consortium of right-wingers such as communist enemy.” Liberals, secularists, militant anti-communist ideologues, former humanists, and psychologists were all police and agents from deposed foreign dicta- denounced as helping pave the way for a torships, even U.S.-based members of Latin communist takeover. Stormer was joined by American death squads. Given the historical Conservative Caucus founder Howard Phillips record, these speculations are hardly outrageous. who conducted several workshops on the Ross Gelbspan's book on the CISPES probe domestic subversive network. documented some of these suspicions. According to Stormer, all problems worldwide “stem from the Soviet Union.” The Slippery Slopes roots of government subversion in the U.S. were Not even the tremendous gains of the planted at the Department of Agriculture where counter-subversion worldview during the “Young Communist attorneys, fresh off the

62 The Hunt for Red Menace campuses of Harvard and Columbia” began to agencies, but encouraged the expurgation of plan the take over of every government agency. religion from the then widely-used McGuffey After Iran-Contragate, said Stormer, “hard- Readers series of schoolbooks. Thus it is the line knowledgable anti-communists, such as seculari zation of American society that is Oliver North” were cleaned out of the National leading to its demise. Security Council, when really the “State Depart- Stormer believed that secularists, liberals, ment needs to be cleaned out.” humanists, and socialists pave the way for Stormer blamed liberals in Congress and the communism due to their naive believe that Man Jimmy Carter Administration for destroying is basically good, when true Christian internal security in U.S. and allowing communist conservatives know that Man is basically evil subversion to flourish. He said North was forced and finds goodness only through God. Because to lie to Congress because North didn't want to of the erroneous belief in evolution, all give sensitive information to Congressman humanists think communism will eventually George Crockett, thought to be a security risk evolve, which is impossible. Because of because as an NLG attorney in the 1950's, pervasive acceptance of modern psychology, Crockett defended top communist leaders called humanists believe Man is a product of his before congressional committees and prosecuted environment; they thus think if the communists for their beliefs. Stormer said Crocket, “showed do something bad, it must be our fault. Of his allegiance, although he has never been course, true Christian conservatives realize that identified as a known communist.” Communism is the embod iment of evil, said The audience in Worcester bought the Stormer. whole apple pie served up by Stormer. The only What is important to Stormer and his allies serious discussion between workshops cen tered is made clear by his comment that “Nicauragua the pervasiveness of the conspiracy, and the role under Somoza was not a system we would be of the Trilateralists, Bilderbergers, Council on comfortable living under, but at least you could Foriegn Relations and Fabian Socialism. The own private property and practice your religion.” scene could well have been painted by a tipsy Stormer said Reagan appointees such as U.N. Norman Rockwell attempting a pastiche of Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick understood this Picasso's Guerni ca. There were sex-segregated concept, which is why they were forced out of rows of fresh-faced teenagers from private the Reagan Adminstration, which all conference Christian schools, businessmen in banker's suits, speakers agreed had sold out to the middle aged women with henna hair and “Washington Insiders”. diamond earings, grey-haired dowagers Howard Phillips doesn't have much faith in shrinking into their furs, young professionals in the Bush Adminstration either, calling the first tweed sports coats and wire rimmed glasses, term the “third Bush Administration” Phillips craggy couples in wool shirts and bulky announced that “the Western Alliance is coming sweaters. apart at the seams,” and suggested we should According to Stormer, “If you have millions “take back the Panama Canal” and “support for of people conditioned to think a certain way by South Africa as a bulwark against communism.” the humanists, it only takes a few communists to Phillips, who one headed up the Young manipulate them.” The framework of the Republican Club at Harvard, moved on to be conspiracy is erected through state control of the appointed by Nixon to dismantle the Office on public school educational system which was Economic Opportunity which Stormer described first instituted by John Dewey in the late 1800's as “basically financing the whole revolution in and early 1900's. Dewey not only urged central- American cities.” Phillips spoke on the topic: ized curriculums under state government “How U.S. Taxpayers Finance Perversion and

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Domestic Leftists.” string of newspaper articles and a television Another key thesis of the Stormer documentary have appeared, blowing YAF's conference was that the American intelligence cover. community was still hamstrung by laws, court The pamphlet also archly warns that it decisions. federal regulations and a cabal of hopes to provide: traitors, from adequately penetrating the “a basic idea of the terrible threat these Hard- subversive political movements in America Left groups pose to our way of life. Many of today. Indeed, that premise is a central thesis of these groups take their orders directly from a the counter-subversion network and why it sees hostile foreign power and all of them are a need to not only cooperates with the FBI, but entrenched on at least one of the college also to establish parallel surveillance structures. campuses in your community.

From Red Menace to Corporate Security Subversives and Commercial security consulting firms such Terrorists as Vance Security Assets Protection Team, Business Risks International, and Wackenhut continue to offer services with paranoid right- Case Studies wing assumptions sometimes in evidence. This is especially true with security during labor Campus Counter-subversion struggles or strikes. Information on this area is meager given the secretive nature of the At the 1989 Conservative Political Action organizations. A study of Vance was published Conference counter- subversion star J. Michael by the paperworkers union. Waller spoke at a student workshop on conducting “Opposition Research.” At the Rees's Pieces workshop a pamphlet published by the Young Americans for Freedom was distributed. Titled The former kingpin of the intelligence arm “List of Un-American Organizations on Our of the counter- subversion network John Rees, College Campuses” the 15-page booklet is Rees was a Falstafian figure who relished his dedicated to “Uncle Joe (1908-1957)” and fulfills role and the intrigue it involved. He is assisted its McCarthyist heritage by its blacklist-style by a staff of investigators which includes his smears of CISPES, United Campuses Against wife, Sheila Louise Rees, a former aide to the Nuclear War, Communist Party USA, Oxfam late Rep. Larry McDonald. Rees also runs a America, Trans Africa, Washington Office on network of informants and infiltrators which Africa, United States Student Association, and a often is better placed than FBI informants and is “Sandinista Support Network” including more professional than the young campus- Witness for Peace, Nicaragua Network and oriented network favored by the Council for TecNica. Inter-American Security and Young Americans According to the pamphlet: for Freedom. “With Congress and the FBI no longer able to S. Louis Rees became the official editor of investigate anti-American activities on the Information Digest, published out of a house in college campuses, it has increasingly become Baltimore, Maryland where she is assisted by the responsibility of the Young Americans for John Rees and Martha Powers. Freedom (YAF) to keep watch over those groups who desire to undermine America. The Neo-Nazi KKK Network “While YAF was able to secretly monitor Leftist groups for the last several years, a recent At the farthest fringe of the counter-

64 The Hunt for Red Menace subversion movement are the Neo-Nazi and Program (COINTELPRO) operations from the Klan groups in the U.S. that are known to share 1950's through the early 1970's, the stated goal data on their ideological and racial enemies, of the FBI was to actually “disrupt” or Although this activity frequently is carried “neutralize,” the activites of dissidents, a goal out in secret, one published clue appeared in the both Congress and the courts found to be newspaper of the neo-Nazi White Aryan unconstitutional. Resistance (W.A.R.) run by former California Following media exposure, Congressional Klan leader Tom Metzger. The article, which hearings and numerous lawsuits, the FBI refers to ZOG, the Zionist Occupational attorneys carefully read the applicable case law. Government, speaks for itself: Today, all FBI investigations at least start out “. .Agents of the Jew power system must learn a tied to a possible violation of a specific federal lesson in honesty. (We differentiate between criminal statute. The FBI's legal justifications, an honest labor- oriented Left, eager to know however, merely serve as the current public more about anti-establishment Whites apart rationalization for a decades-long policy of from their media stereotype, and the dishonest targeting alleged “subversives” with extra-legal Leftists who are really only police spies). tactics in an effort to derail or destroy W.A.R. would like to obtain photographs of ZOG agents such as Leonard Zeskind of the movements for social change. .movements with so-called `Center for Democratic Renewal' leaders perceived to be witting or unwitting tools (a.k.a. National Anti-Klan Network), `Chip' of communist agents. Berlet of `Midwest Research' and similar Since this ultimate ideological goal of the police- tied groups (Public Eye, ADL, etc.) and FBI cannot be legally (and certainly not individuals. publically) articulated, the FBI has developed an “All such photographs and documents are intended only to protect our rights. (Our criteria artful use of coded language to obscure and for determining if a Left group is police- justify its actions. To understand these related connected is to examine their reporting of the phenomena, it is necessary to study the political murders of Kahl and Mathews. If they simply ideology behind the current use by the FBI and repeat the pig's version of events, something its allies of the terms “national security,” they would never do if negroes or Jews were “subversion,” and “terrorism.” victims—they are ZOG). Let's keep an eye on the spies and, through legal means, use their own tactics against them: White activists The Rubric of Terrorism should attend these ZOG group's meetings Certainly no foreign agent or actual terrorist whenever possible—taking notes or tape has the protection of the Constitution for his or recording the talks. “Send copies to W.A.R. Counterintelligence c/o her activities; and on a moral level all terrorism this newspaper—and be sure to photograph the (violence directed at non-combatant civilians to speakers and their associates—such photos spread fear and panic in an effort to achieve are a big help to our team. military or political goals), is Needless to say, it is unlikely that reprehensible. .whether carried out by information gathered by this network is shared individuals, political groups or nations, and with federal or local law enforcement officials. regardless of the merit of the political ends. Still, it is important to listen carefuly when the term How Counter-Subversion terrorism is used since it is frequently used purposefully to redirect thinking concerning acts Investigations were of war, armed agression, and violence which, Rationalized in the 1990's while they may be tragic or despicable, in fact During the FBI's Counterintelligence are not accurately described as terrorism, nor carry the stigma of the term terrorism.

65 The Hunt for Red Menace

Nonetheless, whether an act is actual terrorism, The Slippery Slope Theory of Subversion: perceived to be terrorism, or called terrorism, the  Global liberation movements are not prompted effect as a rhetorical device is identical. by a genuine response to social conditions but The FBI uses popular fear of terrorism in a by outside intervention, most often by rhetorical sleight-of-hand to construct a revolutionaries or communists and their proxies. seemingly-plausible reason for surveillance and  Domestic social change movements are not infiltration of groups that the FBI readily fueled by a genuine response to social conditions but by outside agitators, most often admitted are ostensibly engaged in protected revolutionaries or those under the control of speech and associational activity. revolutionaries . According to the FBI theory (as laid out in  Liberalism is the crest of a slippery slope which repeated public statements and FBI internal leads downhill to the Welfare State, then documents obtained under the Freedom of Socialism, and inevitably to Communism or Information Act) lawful groups are used as Totalitarianism.  Dissent is provoked by subversion. Subversion covers or fronts for subversive activities of is a terrorist movement. Terrorism is criminal. enemy agents and terrorists. The goal of these subversive terrorists is to so weaken society as For the true believers who advocate this to allow the takeover of the United States by the view, patriotism equals unquestioning obedience forces of global communism. Thus seemingly to authority and undying resistance to social legitimate groups which appear on the surface to change. Surveillance and infiltration are justified be merely exercising their First Amendment to stop the spread of subversion. It's all a plot. rights, are potentially subversive, can be used as Slippery Slope theorists generally also believe in a staging area for terrorism both abroad and in the Onion-ring theory as well. the U.S., and thus pose a serious threat to our The Onion-ring Theory of Subversion. national security interests.  Subversive cadre bore into the core of all social This rationale was, in fact, put forward to an change movements both at home and abroad. FBI oversight committee, the Senate Select  To uncover the cadre who are engaged in Committee on Intelligence, February 23, 1988 subversive criminal activity, an informant must by Oliver B. “Buck” Revell, Executive Assistant work step-by-step from the outside onion ring of non-criminal free-speech activity through Director of the FBI. Revell had been summoned several rings of hierarchy toward the center to explain the FBI's CISPES investigation. core where the criminal activity lurks. However Revell's explanation was found to be  Honest though naive activists are often dubious by Congressional probers. FBI Director unaware they are being manipulated, and William Sessions then went before the therefore should welcome attempts to expose committee and stated that the CISPES the core of crafty covert criminal cadre. investigation was the result of errors by a few The Onion Ring theory is less extreme than wayward FBI agents and informants—a claim the Slippery Slope theory in its concession that not supported by the FBI's own internal some members of radical and liberal political documents. movements are sincere, and not sliding towards totalitarianism. Nonetheless, its advocates also In Search of the Crafty Core Cadre justify surveillance and infiltration to stop the Implicit in the rationalizations and criminal activity at the core of groups exercising justifications for political repression is a package their free speech rights. of right-wing paranoid beliefs with roots deep in In fact, in order to insure that at least some xenophobia and nativism. Two key paranoid agents or informants succeed in penetrating to theories could be called the theories of the the criminality at the core, an extraordinary level “Slippery Slope” and the “Onion Ring.” of invasion becomes not only legitimate, but

66 The Hunt for Red Menace essential. Onion-ringers advocate infiltrating consider tactics and strategies to protect its every group, spying on every member, and members from the negative effects of political keeping track of all persons even tangentially repression—political, emotional, and physical. involved in all social change movements. Alas, Further, since dissident groups experiencing for the domestic political activist, the end result political repression often are later revealed to be of both the Slippery Slope and Onion Ring victims of illegal government surveillance and theories is the same: political surveillance and harassment, members can be provided with infiltration. simple, common sense techniques to prevent While courts have consistently ruled that passive fears of (and actual incidents of) surveillance monitoring of First Amendment activity is and infiltration from paralyzing or disrupting the permissible, critics charge that passive group and diverting it from its goals. monitoring and dossier-compiling often turn into disruption or attack, sometimes inadvertently, Paradigm Shift & Anti-Ecology Witch Hunts sometimes intentionally. Often overlooked as a possible warning sign Since agents are attempting to find a core of that a campaign of political repression is criminality that, except in rare cases, does not in underway is “paradigm shift.” Paradigm shift, in fact exist, they become frustrated and redouble this usage, means a major negative change in the their efforts. This fervor is especially problematic way the public perceives the political movement with informants and agents provocateur who fail that is ultimately victimized. Paradigm shift to find the sought-after criminals, and thus may frequently is associated with episodes of feel compelled to inflate, provoke, or invent political repression, and frequently precedes charges of criminality to reach their assigned more overt signs of attack such as assaults, goal, gain status, and continue to receive pay break-ins and surveillance. Political repression and bonuses. telegraphs its punches. The dynamic of informant abuse is For many years the major threat to “the discussed in Under Cover: Police Surveillance American way of life” was popularly believed to in America. Some critics insist that without be communism, then generalized leftist unequivocal guidelines, firm congressional revolutionism, and now a vaguely-defined oversight, and thoughtful judicial intervention, domestic terrorism. Targeted individuals are intelligence activities—whether domestic or seen as not only engaged in criminality, but also foreign—almost inevitably turn toward attacking core cultural and political values undemocratic techniques. Other, more which, if abandoned, would destroy America as historically informed critics point out that all of we know it, and which therefore represent a these constraints have consistently failed to threat to national security. This concept of deter abuse. America under attack frequently is filtered through a paranoid worldview that represents Re-Framing Dissent as what social scientists call a “subversion myth.” Criminal Subversion The perceptual shift from dissent to Exactly how the repetitive repressive criminality first goes public with unsubstantiated processes of counter- subversion interact, and allegations and conclusions in the newspapers, which elements are causative, symptomatic, or newsletters and magazines of the reactionary merely anecdotal, has not been fully studied. and paranoid political right. These right-wing Nevertheless, when classic patterns of political media attempts to re- frame the public's repression emerge, regardless of causation, a perception of the dissident group. The concept political or social movement would be wise to of the “frame-up” has been popularized in pulp crime novels and film noir, but few people stop

67 The Hunt for Red Menace to consider what it means when, with wide-eyed subversives is therefore a critical process within innocence, the person being dragged to jail government law enforcement and intelligence proclaims, “I've been framed.” The term “frame” agencies. For internal and external reasons, is condensed from the original jargon, “to hang government institutions must provide a frame” on someone, which means to select for justifications for the fact that on the surface, an observer a perspective from which certain members of a dissident group under conclusions about a person, group or event investigation often appear to be engaged in seem readily apparent, logical, and even activity protected by the First Amendment. inescapable. Agents and officers who become queasy about Eventually, right-wing re-framing of lapses in protecting Constitutional rights, or who dissidents as subversives or criminals spills over object to the paranoid assumptions underlying into more mainstream media. A growing the rationalization of the investigation, are made segment of the public begins to see the targeted aware that their careers will suffer unless they political movement as fundamentally at odds become team players. Sometimes, if public with mainstream society. This antagonism is political conditions are favorable, a Con- portrayed as irreconcilable. The dissidents are gressional committee will start a well-publicized seen as non-rational, unstable, alien, and capable investigation and hold hearings where the of odious crimes because of their zealous government and right-wing experts who started mindset. Lists of potential crimes are discussed, the process are called to testify. This forum and finally actual crimes are blamed on the ensures that the charges against the targeted political movement. Ideas that were once merely group are distributed widely by the media, and marginalized are thus criminalized. Popular hearing transcripts become the basis for a new opposition to government and private attacks on wave of charges. the dissenting group is partially neutralized. In When the public is prepared to view the some cases the re-framing is so successful that dissidents as a clear and present danger, the last there is widespread popular sentiment stage of political repression is implemented. supporting the attacks. When this process of re- Government agents engage in intrusive framing is successful, paradigm shift has investigative procedures and harass members of occurred. the targeted group. Suddenly, demonstrations or Often, derogatory information passes back acts of civil disobedience are met with huge and forth between government agencies and overreaction and displays of police power (and private right wing groups through informal back- sometimes acts of police misconduct or door channels, and the actual source becomes brutality); and unexplained and apparently obscure. Lawsuits and declassified documents random physical assaults, arson attacks, or have revealed that sometimes it is the robberies occur with increasing frequency. investigative agency that leaks information to the Since the occurrence of paradigm shift may right-wing press, and in other cases investigative serve as an early indicator for political repression agencies rationalize investigations by citing it is usefule to study how the environmental charges appearing in the right-wing press. The movement and the movement seeking civil relationship benefits both sides. The agency is rights and equality for gay men and lesbians are able to test public sentiment and prepare the both experiencing paradigm shifting atacks. ground for its assault, while the right-wing press As Johan Carlisle pointed out in Covert furthers its political agenda and at the same time Action Quarterly, “the two environmental appears to be generating hard investigative groups under the heaviest fire are Earth First! journalism. and Greenpeace.” 47Right-wing publications Re-framing of dissenters as criminal have been re-framing the environmental

68 The Hunt for Red Menace movement for several years and current articles 51“Blinded by misinformation, fear tactics, or in mainstream media are beginning to reflect this doomesday syndromes.” 52“The core of this paradigm shift. For instance USA Today in April environmental totalitarianism is anti-God.” of 1992 ran two oppossing views on Rachel 53“An ideology as pitiless and Messianic as Carson's book Silent Spring published thirty Marxism.” 54“Since communism has been years ago last April. 48After claiming Carsons's thoroughly discredited, it has been repackaged warnings about DDT were unfounded, author and relabeled and called environmentalism.” Patrick Cox, “an associate policy analyst for the 55“The radical animal-rights wing of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,” went on to environmental movement has a lot in common frame Carson and the anti-toxics movement as with Hitler's Nazis.” 56 hysterical ideologues. An analysis of Cox's There have been centuries of discrimination polemic results in the following: against persons who challenge the heterosexual majority, but the 1990's saw a wave of physical Frame established for anti-toxics movement: attacks on and harassment of those trying to Persons who oppose pesticides and believe raise awareness about AIDS, or seeking human DDT is unsafe: rights for lesbians and gay men. These attacks reflected classic patterns of political repression.  Reject science. 57  Are inflicted with “environmental hypochondria”. Articles in the right-wing press escalated  Circulate “apocalyptic, tabloid charges.” hyperbolic rhetoric concerning homosexuals  Have “no evidence” to back their “hysterical starting in the late 1970's, as gay rights activists predictions.” moved out of the closet. In the early 1980's  Use “gross manipulation” to fool the media. Enrique Rueda of the Free Congress Research &  Are “unscrupulous, Luddite fundraisers.”  Suffer from “knee-jerk, chemophobic Education Foundation was asked by Free rejection of pesticides.” Congress president Paul Weyrich “to research  Create “vast and needless costs” for the social and political impact of the consumers and farmers. homosexual movement in America.”58 The result was a lengthy 1982 book, The Frame established for pro-pesticide industry: Homosexual Network, in which Rueda Pesticide supporters who believe wide use concluded that “The homosexual movement is a globally of DDT is safe: subset of the spectrum of American liberal movements.59 Rueda was alarmed by “the  Are pro-science and pro-logic. extent to which it has infiltrated many national  Have support from the “real scientific institutions.” 60One jacket blurb writer gushed community—the community of controlled studies, double blind experiments and peer that Rueda had revealed “the widening review.” homosexual power-grab in our society.” From  Are on the side of U.S. consumers and civil rights to power-grab in one volume. farmers and save them money. In 1987 Rueda joined with co-author The rhetoric attempting to frame the Michael Schwartz to produce Gays, AIDS and environmental movement is vivid. “Willing to You. The introduction warns “The homosexual sacrifice people to save trees.”49 “We are in a political agenda represents a radical departure war with fanatics...they will go to any extreme.” from what we as Americans believe...a terrible 50“Behind the Sierra Club calendars...lies a full- threat—to ourselves, our children, our communities, our country...a radical, anti-family fledged ideology...every bit as powerful as 61 Marxism and every bit as dangerous to agenda.” From power-grab to terrible threat. individual freedom and human happiness.” The authors suggest the movement for

69 The Hunt for Red Menace homosexual rights is different from movements organizing efforts reversed early polls showing involving “legitimate” minorities, and using passage of measures that essentially called for conspiratorial phrases, write: firings and quarantines for persons with signs of “This movement is stronger, more widespread, AIDS. LaRouche even obliquely suggested more skillfully structured than most Americans murder as a tactic, writing that history would not realize. It reaches into our media, our political judge harshly those persons who took baseball institutions, our schools, even into our mainline bats and beat to death homosexuals to stop the churches....And now this movement is using the spread of AIDS. One 1985 pamphlet published AIDS crisis to pursue its political agenda. This by LaRouche's National Democratic Policy in turn, threatens not only our values but our lives. 62 Committee was titled “AIDS is more deadly than Nuclear War,” which turned out to be a Back cover blurbs include snippets from repackaged attack on the International Monetary Senator Bill Armstrong, “An urgent warning,” Fund and the Federal Reserve. 66 Beverly LaHaye, “reminds us of the necessity to There are dozens of books and pamphlets reaffirm our civilization's Biblical heritage,” and that marginalize and frame the lesbian and gay Congressman William E. Dannemeyer, “failure men's movements as threats to the American to affirm our heterosexual values not only is way of life, and fit the pattern for paradigm shift. unhealthy, but could result in the demise of our 67 civilization.” From terrible threat to end of civilization. Rees & Kincaid An order form for Gays, AIDS and You circulated by the Free Congress Foundation While covering the January 26, 1991 includes a picture of a man at a desk, his face in Washington, D.C. demonstration against the shadows, and the headline: “This Man Wants Gulf War for the newspaper Human Events, His `Freedom' So Bad He's Ready To Let reporter Cliff Kincaid contacted and quoted America Die For It.” The text added, “Our Sheila Louise Rees, who claimed the group civilization stands in the path of his fulfillment coordinating the antiwar demonstration, the as a freely promiscuous homosexual.” 63 Campaign for Peace in the Middle East, was Dr. Ed. Rowe, author of Homosexual established “by the traditional hard-line peace Politics: Road to Ruin for America, goes further activist organizations that have always worked in outlawing the targeted movement, stating that with the Communist Party U.S.A....” including, “Homosexual politics is a moral cancer eating at according to Rees, the War Resisters League, the fabric of America. It is an unholy, satanic American Friends Service Committee, crusade...this evil movement must be stopped!” Mobilization for Survival, and SANE/Freeze. 64Senator Jesse Helm's introduction to Rowe's The phrasing of the quote implied that the peace book also raises the theme of non-rational groups were really fronts for the Communist zealousness: “Homosexual politics continues in Party, U.S.A. The headline for Kincaid's fanatical pursuit of its goal of carving out a new February 9, 1991 article read, “Far Left Sparks 'civil right' based on the sexual appetite of its Anti-War Protests: Effectively Supports Iraq,” adherents.” 65 implying that in time of war, the peace activists Neo-fascist hatemonger Lyndon LaRouche in effect were guilty of being criminal traitors. was among the first in the paranoid right to The rhetoric, source, and outlet for the story move the alarm into the political arena. La- are all familiar components of an Rouchians spawned restrictive propositions institutionalized domestic counter-subversion placed on the California ballot that were network. One arm of this network is comprised successfully defeated only after broad-based of private right- wing groups that spy on progressive dissidents and then publicize claims

70 The Hunt for Red Menace that the dissidents are engaged in potentially- sources, were used by the FBI as part of their illegal activity. These biased claims are then used justification to probe members and allies of the by the other arm of the network, counter- anti-interventionist group Committee in Soli- subversive units within government intelligence darity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) agencies, as a rationale to launch investigative as possible terrorists or foreign agents. In the probes which frequently interfere with legitimate suspicious world of counter- subversion, protest acitivites of dissidents who are not information such as that printed in Human engaged in criminal activity, but merely Events and Information Digest targets a liberal exercising their First Amendment rights. or leftist political movement as acting as a Human Events, is an ultra-conservative foreign agent for a hostile government, weekly newspaper that periodically carries promoting communist revolution, or providing a articles claiming to have uncoverd subversive cover for terrorism, all of which involve plots. And, as Human Events reporter Cliff violations of criminal law. Kincaid pointed out in his story on the Gulf War protest, Louise Rees is “publisher of Spies, Researchers, or Journalists? Information Digest, the publication that moni- Like other right-wing investigators tors extremist groups.” interviewed for this study, J. Michael Waller Starting in the late 1960's, S. Louise Rees rejects the label spy, and points out what he is and her long-time partner John Rees conducted doing is what any good journalist would do. political monitoring and surveillance operations Waller believed he had “the goods” on CISPES: on leftists for twenty-five years, circulating their “if the FBI had access to the same information reports in their Information Digest newsletter to we came up with, they would have reached a a wide range of public and private groups. The different conclusion” about CISPES, Waller Reeses supplied information to such private claimed. sector conservative groups as the Old Right He said he parts company, however, with John Birch Society, the Christian Right Church those journalists who are too close to the FBI. League of America, the New Right Heritage “If someone is writing in a journalistic capacity Foundation, and the Neo-conservative Anti- they should maintain their independence by not Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. The Reeses cooperating on the side of a government also provided information to government law agency.” enforcement and investigative agencies such as Waller's position on this topic is eroded by the FBI, congressional committees, and local the fact that the CIS publicly announced its police intelligence units. In addition, the Reeses assistance to law enforcement and intelligence supplied data to private sector industrial and agencies, and Waller himself prepared a report corporate security departements. for the State Department's Office of Public Allegations by the Reeses and other right- Diplomacy, which has been described in a wing spies have been used by the FBI as a Congressional staff report as essentially a justification for launching massive investigative domestic CIA propaganda operation. probes. These intrusive FBI investigations In a 1987 interview Waller allowed that the harassed, smeared, and disrupted groups that CIS fundraising claims are a bit hyped, but said were not engaged in any criminal activity, but CIS did maintain the best files on Central simply exercising their constitutional rights to America activists. Waller insists he “would not dissent from offical government policies. For knowingly accept information obtained instance, articles by John Rees in Information illegally,” and said flatly that those involved with Digest and a John Birch Society magazine, CIS “don't steal, don't break in, we don't do along with material from other right-wing anything of that.” According to Waller, “several

71 The Hunt for Red Menace disenchanted former CISPES members have America,” said Byrne. According to Byrne, Iran- been pretty helpful to us,” but he refused to say Contragate showed the Administration is willing whether that help extended to passing along to use any method with “contempt for the law” internal documents. to achieve their goals. The Constitution protects the right of right- It is unlikely that any presidential wing groups to monitor groups and disseminate administration in post- McCarthyist America the most outlandish charges about their political could successfully pursue a policy of openly enemies on the left. As long as the right-wingers “stifling dissent.” Government actions which are not stealing documents or tapping phones or can be interpreted by activists as “stifling engaging in other criminal acts against privacy dissent” are rationalized by government agencies rights, they are not breaking the law. “CISPES as fulfilling legitimate law enforcement members have attended our meetings,” noted functions. The paranoid Nativist's who pursue Ron Robinson, President of Young Americas counter-subversion as a central issue create a Foundation, “if that's infiltration then every body of literature and a functioning constituency reporter who attends a meeting and writes about which the FBI relies on to justify its political it is an infiltrator.” According to Robinson, the spying in terms of unravelling terrorist and Foundation “provides information to the criminally-subversive (actually traitorous) government,” especially to those members of activity on the part of dissenters. While what the the Reagan Administration who had a “long private counter-subversives do is protected by history of activism in conservative youth the Constitution, how the FBI uses their “re- groups.” search” is to engage in political surveillance and John Rees, the dean of right-wing sleuths investigations which almost inevitably end up argues that “the Constitution protects what I violating the constitutionally-protected rights of do.” What if the FBI launches a criminal probe those who dissent from administration policies. based on his material? Rees responded “I'm Revell disputed that the FBI based its delighted they are supplementing my effort; and investigations of CISPES on John Rees's John when they close down an investigation I report it Birch Society reprints. Responding to a question as being closed down.” Rees added he has been after delivering a speech at the 1989 annual repeatedly sued by his liberal critics for his meeting of the American Society for Industrial activities, “and none of them prevailed.” Security, Revell described the FBI circulation of The problem, according to Hugh Byrnes, Rees's material as the work of one FBI staffer. political director of CISPES, is when Reagan's 68According to Revell, he told the Congressional law enforcement agencies used “the false picture comittee that this was an isolated incident, but of CISPES portrayed by these right-wing Revell said that he was informed by an associate loonies” to launch a criminal investigation which that this was not technically accurate. “Then in fact was simply a pretext for crude Steve Pomeranz, who was the section chief on harassment against anti-administration dissent in terrorism, says, `Well B'Nai B'Rith does send us general, and CISPES in particular. “The stuff and we do send it out on the activities of fundamental issue is the right to free speech and some of the Palestinian groups,'and I said we the right to dissent,” said Byrne. “Under Reagan, shouldn't do that either,” explained Revell. “But the government's policy, from the highest levels, I didn't get the same reaction from the has been to stifle all dissent that is in opposition congressional committee members on that one.” to the Administration's failing policies in Central America. They learned from Vietnam it is Conclusions necessary to prevent social upheaval and silence A murky netherworld exists among ultra- critics to be able to win their war in Central right ideologues that see conspiracies

72 The Hunt for Red Menace everywhere, the “Cowboys” of the private scapegoat is interchangeable, but the process security sphere, and certain segments of the law remains constant. With the collapse of the enforcement community. They spy on activists, Soviet bloc, the counter-subversion network trade information, and inevitably end up quickly shifted its scapegoats from the minions harassing persons engaged in the type of of the Red Menace to the threat posed by other freedom of expression our laws are supposed to contemporary worldwide movements seen as protect. threatening to U.S. national security interests. The view of treacherous subversion These perceived threats include narco-terrorism, embraced by the ultra- conservative right was Arab terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, spying based on a paranoid conspiratorial world view by economic competitors, militant with its historic roots in turn-of-the-century environmentalists, homosexuals, and other xenophobic nativism. Some persons who share members of movements which are stereotyped this paranoid worldview work in public and then presented as scapegoats. government intelligence agencies and private The civil liberties problems created by the right-wing groups, and they forge ad hoc covert excesses of this domestic counter-subversive spy networks to investigate dissidents and trade network remain unresolved, as was information and files on activists they suspect of demonstrated by revelations in 1993 of an subversion or other criminal activity. intelligence network that involved persons As government intelligence agencies came associated with the San Francisco Police under public scrutiny in the 1970's, and some Department, the CIA, and the Anti-Defamation limited reforms were implemented, many League of B'nai B'rith. In at least one instance, functions of the government counter-subversion information collected by an ADL associate was apparatus were privatized. When the Reagan provided to the foreign intelligence service of Administration resuscitated the intelligence Israel, and one ADL contract agent, Roy community, a parallel public/private counter- Bullock, also sold information on anti-apartheid subversion network emerged once again on the groups to the government intelligence service of political scene. South Africa. This incident was not an The loosely-knit domestic counter- aberration, but another example of the subversion network engages in an ongoing unrestrained counter- subversion network in obsessive witch hunt against dissidents, action. surviving through different presidential As reporter Bill Moyers observed: “The administrations, working inside and outside of apparatus of secret power remains intact. The government agencies and congressional voices that airily dismissed Watergate now committees, and pursuing its goals in the public ridicule the `lessons' of Contragate and continue and private sectors with little regard for a spirited defense of lawbreaking, arguing that legislative or Constitutional safeguards. The the United States cannot play by the rules in a network sees itself as composed of latter-day world where others are lawless.” knights on a patriotic crusade, with all liberal or Journalist Eve Pell, who wrote “The Big radical-left dissenters pictured as infidels. Chill: How the Reagan administration, corporate The existence of a public/private counter- America, and religious conservatives are subversion network is not new. Paranoid subverting free speech and the public's right to nativism predates both the Cold War and the know,” 1984, Beacon Press, worried that the Red Menace. Even before the rise of Bolshevism situation keeps getting worse and yet most there were periodic hysterias in the U.S. centered Americans seem complacent. “The Bill of Rights around imagined subversive plots by Papists, was designed to protect dissidents because the Freemasons, and the Bavarian Illuminati. The colonists knew from direct experience that when

73 The Hunt for Red Menace the rights of the unpopular are eroded without around the country. According to MSN coordi- protest, the rights of the average person will nator Jinsoo Kim, “since 1984 there have been soon be infringed.” Pell concludes her book with over 300 suspicious incidents including 150 a quote from Benjamin Franklin: “They that can unexplained break-ins” where usually files are give up essential liberty to obtain a little rifled but expensive office equipment not stolen. temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor Suspicions point to an ad-hoc alliance of FBI safety.” agents and informants, other government According to reporter Ross Gelbspan, investigators, far right vigilantes, and private “Looking at the CISPES investigation in light of security sleuths who trade information and other political investigations dating back to the justify their actions in the name of national 1950's, one gets the distinct impression that the security and fighting terrorism. Clearly the FBI sees its mandate as neutralizing or disabling environmental movement is the target of some every political movement that has the potential type of harassment campaign. for bringing about significant changes in the Although it is a needed reform, revising the American political system,” argues Gelbspan. Executive Orders which have unleashed the FBI Kit Gage, the Washington representative of is no long-term solution. The problem of chronic the National Committee Against Repressive domestic government intelligence agency abuses Legislation (NCARL) agrees with Gelbspan. is not so much that there are rogue elephants in “We know first hand the kind of havoc the FBI the intelligence community, but that there are can wreak on a group exercising its First timid mice in Congress that are seldom chased Amendment rights,” said Gage who has leafed into meaningful corrective action by the through FBI files recording “38 years of surveil- toothless cats in the Washington, D.C. civil lance on NCARL and its predecessors which liberties community. No one in congress wants produced 130,000 pages of files but not one to be perceived (or labelled) soft on “terrorism”. criminal conviction.” What is well documented Legislative reforms to rewrite the FBI “is an incredible amount of harassment and Charter, such as those proposed in a petition disruption of our organization,” Gage charges. campaign by the National Committee Against “Since the FBI seems unable to regulate itself,” Repressive Legislation, offer some safeguards said Gage, “NCARL is currently seeking legal against government intelligence abuse, but the remedies in the form of legislation that would larger problem is societal not legislative. As long limit FBI investigations solely to criminal as paranoid nativism, hysterical anti- activity.” Hundreds of law school professors communism, and counter-subversion which have endorsed NCARL's proposed legislation. hunts maintain a significant grassroots Surveillance and disruption continues to constituency, the right to dissent in the U.S. will hamstring activists. At the Center for be under attack, and the basis of informed Constitutional Rights in New York, the consent which undergirds pluralistic democracy Movement Support Network (MSN) maintains a will suffer. list of suspicious incidents called in by groups

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EndNotes

In a few cases, newer and more complete sources of information have been added to these citations. This was last done on January 21, 2013.

12 Herman, Edward & Gerry O'Sullivan. The 1 The original version of this study was first Terrorism Industry: The Experts and published on May 1, 1987). Institutions That Shape View of Terror, New 2 Donner, Frank. The Age of Surveillance: The Aims York: Pantheon, 199 & Methods of America's Political Intelligence 13 McCoy, Alfred W. The Politics of Heroin: CIA System. New York: Alfred Knf, 1980 Complicity In The Global Drug Trade. 3 Donner, Frank. Protectors of Privilege: Red Lawrence Hill Books, 1991 Squads and Political Repression in Urban 14 Moyers, Bill The Secret Government: The America. Berkeley: University of Cafornia, Constitution in Crisis: With Excerpts from An 1991 Essay on Watergate. Cabin John, MD: Seven 4 Goldstein, Robert J. Political Repression in Locks Press, 1988. Modern America, 1870 to Present, 2nd edition. 15 Sklar, Holly. Washington's War on Nicaragua, Rochester VT: Schenkman Books, Inc., 1978. Boston: South End Press, 19 5 Levin, Murray B. Political Hysteria in America- 16 Keller, William W. The Liberals and J. Edgar the Democratic Capacity for Repression. New Hoover. Princeton: Princeton University Press, York: Basic Books, 1971. 198 6 Churchill, Ward & Jim Vander Wall. Agents of 17 Marx, Gary T. Under Cover: Police Surveillance Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the in America. California: Twentieth Century Black Panther Party and the Amican Indian Fund/University of California Press, 19 Movement. Boston: South End Press, 1988. 18 Post, Louis F. The Deportations Delerium of 7 Churchill, Ward & Jim Vander Wall. Nineteen-Twenty. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the 1923. P. 20 FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the 19 The Deportations Delirium of Nineteen-Twen United States. Boston: South End Press, 1989. 20 Kintner, Front: p. 225. Emphasis in the original 8 Schultz, Bud and Ruth Schultz.It Did Happen 21 Kintner, Front: p. 24 Here: Recollections of Political Repression in 22 Kintner, Front: p. 24 America. , Berkeley: University of California 23 Kintner, Front: p. 25 Press, 1989 24 Kintner, Front: p. 25 9 O'Reilly, Kenneth. “Racial Matters”: The FBI's 25 Kintner, Front: p. 2 Secret File on Black America, 1960—1972. 26 Keller, William W. The Liberals and J. Edgar New York: Free Press, 1988. Hoover. Lawrenceville, N.J.: 1989, Princeton 10 Gelbspan, Ross. Break-Ins, Death Threats and University Press, pp. 157-15 the FBI: The Covert War Against the Central 27 Keller, Liberals, p. 19 America Movement. Boston: South End Press, 28 Frank Donner, Age: p. 16 1991 29 Navasky, Names, p.8 11 Glick, Brian. War at Home: Covert Action 30 Haas, Jeffrey. The Assassination of Fred Against U.S. Activists and What We Can Do Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago About It. Boston: South End Press, 19. Police Murdered a Black Panther. Chicago, Ill.:

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Lawrence Hill Books/Chicago Review Press, Analysis of Attorney General Smith's 1983 FBI 2010. Guidelines on Domestic Security 31 This section is drawn from a series of articles by Investigations." Mitchell S. Rubin, Police the author and using research materials Misconduct and Civil Rights Law Report, provided by the Public Eye Network’s Clark Boardman Law Publishers, New York. COINTELPRO indexing project. Two parts: Vol. 1, No. 14, March-April 1986 32 See numerous articles in Chicago Sun-Times, and Vol.1 No. 15, May-June 1986. (edited Chicago Daily News, Chicago Tribune, under the auspices of the National Lawyers especially circa July 1970 when first grand jury Guild Civil Liberties Committee) . indictments were handed down, and July- 42 All of the incidents of visits by FBI agents and August 1975 when sworn testimony firmly tied Military Intelligence agents are based on members of police unit to Legion. Noteworthy interviews by the author with activists during are the articles by Larry Green in Chicago 1983- 1984. See “FBI Harrassment: Vaguely Daily News July 29 & 30, August 1, 1975. Also Reminiscent of the 60's” The Mobilizer, depositions from Soalist Workers Party, et. al. Mobilization for Survival Newsletter, Summer v. Joseph Grubisic, et. al. Also discussed in 1984, by the author; For general FBI return to Donne surveillance and disruption, see “Harrassment 33 Conclusions arrived at after review of material Monitored: Big Brother Returns,” Public Eye produced in the Michigan ACLU lawsuit, Magazine, Summer 1984 pp. 7-8. Benkert v. Michigan State Police. Also 43 Numerous examples of this type of rhetorical unblished academic paper by Daniel Jacob direct mail are on file at Political Research 34 See generally San Diego Door coverage of SAO, Associates in Cambridge, MA. One classic was especially investigation by Doug Porter, Larry from the Council on Inter-American Security Remer and Bill Ritter. “The FBs Secret which contained a questionnaire asking “In Soldiers,” Peter Biskind, New Times, Jan. 9, your opinion, should we crack down harder on 1976. For hiding of gun see Donner p.444-44 revolutionary groups already inside our 35 This section is based in part on research provided borders? Yes/No/Undecided” . by private investigator Sheila O'Donnell. 44 Gelbspan, Ross. Break-ins, Death Threats, 36 Donner, Age, pp. 453-45 and the FBI: The Covert War against the Central 37 Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in America Movement. Boston: South End Press, a Conservative Administration, Charles L. 1991. Heatherly, ed. (Washington, D.C., Heritage 45 This section was originally researched in coopera- Foundation, 1981). See chapter 28: “The tion with Nancy Katz for the National Lawyers Intelligence Community,” Samuel T. Francis, Guild lawsuit against the FB Editor. pp. 903- 953. See especially: list of 46 This section was originally researched with my potential security threats, p. 935; call for colleague Margaret Quigley as a joint project constant surveillance/comprehensive files p. from which we both wrote articles and papers. 940; contracting with prate organizations, p. 94 47 Carlisle, Johan. Bombs, Lies and Body Wires: 38 Mandate, p. 939 . Targetting the Environmental Movement. 39 Mandate, pp. 939-9 Covert Action Information Bulletin, Number 40 An excellent discussion of Rees's role in these 38 (Fall 1991). See also: Berlet, Chip. “Hunting matters can be found in the Village Voice, the Green Menace.” The Humanist, August 16, 1983, “The Spy Who Ca Down on July/August 1991. Berlet, Chip and William K. the Freeze: Rees, Reagan, and the Digest Burke. “Corporate Fronts: Inside the Anti- Smear,” by Seth Rosenfeld Environmental Movement.” Greenpeace 41 "The FBI and Dissidents: A First Amendment Magazine, Jan./Feb./March, 1992.

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48 USA Today, April 14, 1992, p. 12A. 49 As cited in Knox, Margaret. “Meet the Anti- 61 Rueda, Enrique T. and Michael Schwartz. Gays, Greens: The 'Wise Use' Movement Fronts for AIDS and You. Old Greenwich, CT: The Devin Industry.” The Progressive, October 1991. Adair Company, 1987. p. 7. 50 As cited in Goldenthal, Howard. “Polarizing the 62 Ibid. p. 8. Public Debate to Subvert Ecology Activism,” 63 Ad for Gays, AIDS and You, from Free Congress NOW (Toronto), July 13-19, 1989. Foundation, circa 1988, as reproduced in 51 Postrel, Virginia I. “The Green Road To Bellant, Russ. The Coors Connection. Boston: Serfdom.” Reason, April 1990. South End Press, 1991. p. 65. 52 Sikorski, Merrill. “Neo-Environmentalism: 64 Rowe, Dr. Ed. Homosexual Politics: Road to Balancing Protection and Development.” Ruin for America. Herndon, Virginia: Growth American Freedom Journal, December 1988, Book and Tape Co. (Church League of January 1989.. America-Washington, D.C. office), Back cover. 53 Krug, Edward C. “Save the Planet, Sacrifice the 65 Ibid. P. 4. People: The Environmental Party's Bid for 66 National Democratic Policy Committee. “AIDS is Power.” Imprimis (Hillsdale College, more deadly than Nuclear War.” Pamphlet, Michigan), July 1991. NDPC, 1985. 54 Rockwell, Llewellyn H., Jr. “An Anti- 67 See, for instance, Monteith, Dr. Stanley. AIDS: Environmentalist Manifesto.” From The Right The Unnecessary Epidemic-America Under (newsletter of Patrick J. Buchanan). Vol 1, #6, Seige. Sevierville, TN: Covenant House Books, Quarterly II, 1990. 1991. LaHaye, Tim. The Unhappy Gays. 55 Williams, Walter E. Column distributed for Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1978. publication June 4, 1991, as reprinted in Noebel, David A. The Homosexual Revolution. Summit Journal, July 1991. Citing Rockwell Tulsa, OK: American Christian College Press, article above. 1977. See also, various pamphlets and reprints 56 Ibid. from the John Birch Society, including “The 57 Kaplan, Esther. “Act Up Under Seige—Phone Truth About AIDS,” The New American, Harassment, Death Threats, Police Violence: Is August 31, 1987, and “What they are not telling the Government Out To Destroy This Group?” you about AIDS, a pamphlet reprinting articles Village Voice, July 16, 1991. from the January 19, 1987 issue of The New 58 Rueda, Enrique T. The Homosexual Network: American. Private Lives and Public Policy. Old 68 The author, reporting for Greenpeace, asked the Greenwich, CT: The Devin Adair Company question to Revell from the audience while (The Free Congress Research & Education posing as an industry consultant at a security Foundation), 1982. p. 15. conference. See Berlet and Burke, “Corporate 59 Ibid. p. 18. Fronts: Inside the Anti-Environmental 60 Ibid. p. 15. Movement, footnote 47.”

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