George Bush: The Company's Man, by Covert Action Information

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Out of the Loop: The VP's Office: Cover for Iran/Contra
by Jane Hunter*
Winter 1990

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Throughout George Bush's presidential campaign and well into the first year of his presidency, polls consistently showed that a majority of the U.S. public did not believe Bush was telling the truth about his role in the Iran/contra affair. Of course, they were right -- he wasn't.

Bush's plea of ignorance of the arms sales to Iran, that "I was out of the loop," was widely repeated, and always certain to get a laugh. However, we should not forget that in reality, George Bush attended all but one of the important White House meetings on the subject. (The one he missed conflicted with the December 7, 1985 Army-Navy football game.)

Secretary of State Shultz testified before the Iran/contra committee that, at a key January 6, 1986 meeting about the "finding" authorizing arms sales to Iran, Bush had not supported Shultz's own vehement opposition to the plan. This undercut Bush's assertion that he had had "reservations" about trading arms for hostages but just didn't think it was proper to reveal the counsel he had given President Reagan on the subject. [1]

During the course of investigating Bush's role in the Iran/contra affair both the U.S. Congress and several news agencies revealed that, contrary to his assertions of innocence, the president-to-be was up to his knees in "deep doo-doo."

The Harari Network

One of the most compelling revelations came in 1988 and related to the connection between Donald Gregg and the so-called "Harari network." The Harari network consisted of Israelis, Panamanians and U.S. citizens set up by the Reagan administration and the government of Israel in 1982 to run a secret aid program for the contras. Its namesake was Mike Harari, a longtime Mossad official, who since around 1979 has served as Israel's agent in Panama. [2] Still reliably reported to be a senior intelligence operative. [3] Harari supervises Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega's security arrangements and is credited with helping the general withstand a coup sponsored by the Reagan administration in 1988. Harari also acts as a financial adviser and business partner to Noriega. [4] Following the October 1989 coup attempt, Harari reportedly took over the day-to-day supervision of Panama's military intelligence. [5]

The existence of the Harari network became publicly known in April 1988, during testimony before the Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism and International Operations of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which was looking into the connections between the war against Nicaragua and drug trafficking. It is, however, possible that the Congressional Iran/contra investigators knew all about this organization but, because the committee made a decision not to examine anything prior to 1984, it easily avoided exposing it.

Between 1975 and 1977, Sharon was a private citizen who was trying to build a fortune dealing in arms in Central America. He had a network of people working with him there, one being the disgraced Mossad agent Mike Harari, who had just left Israel because of his failure in the "Moroccan Waiter Affair," where the wrong man was shot dead in Lillehammer, Norway, during an attempted hit on Ahmed Salame, a Palestinian who had been involved in the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Harari was a close associate of Panama's military intelligence chief, Manuel Noriega.

Sharon's network had been able to provide military equipment from Israel to various Central American countries, including El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Costa Rica, and even Mexico. This was never official Israeli government policy, and it was frowned upon by the cabinet itself, but Sharon was too wild a goose for anybody to handle. So Sharon's private network bought their weapons from Israeli government factories and got their export licenses from the Israeli government. Gates had developed a professional interest in the arms network that Sharon and his former intelligence cowboys were operating in Central America. By 1981, Sharon and Harari were running what Harari described as more of a CIA network than an Israeli operation -- and were filling their private bank accounts at the same time.

It was in 1981 that they started supplying a secret army in Central America, the contras, who were trying to destabilize and eventually bring about the downfall of the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, which had come to power in 1979. The contras did not have any money -- Congress was not then willing to fund them -- and desperately needed cash to buy their arms.

Sharon, with all his power, could not force the prime minister or the leaders of the Israeli intelligence community to pay for weapons from the slush fund that had grown out of the Iran arms sales. So, with the backing of Gates and the CIA, some members of the group created their own fund. They did this, according to Harari, by transporting cocaine from South America to the United States via Central America. A major player was Manuel Noriega, who had known George Bush since he had been the CIA chief in the mid-1970s. Hundreds of tons of cocaine poured into the United States, and another handy slush fund was created.

Because of the close relationship between Gates and Sharon and the special relationship between Robert McFarlane and Rafi Eitan, the strategic U.S./Israeli agreement sought by Sharon was reached. The signing of the strategic agreement by Sharon and the U.S. was made public, but the contents were kept secret and are still not available through any Freedom of Information Act requests.

However, one part of it was that any U.S. arms sold to Israel involving technology that was 20 years old or more could be resold at the discretion of the Israeli government. The agreement was very loosely worded -- it could be interpreted to mean that Israel was allowed to resell brand-new American weapons as long as the technology behind them was at least 20 years old.

This was our first ploy to overcome American denials, if any. If Israel were discovered to be selling arms to the Iranians, we would simply brandish the agreement the Americans had signed ... with its gaping loophole.

Our second protection involved the money from the arms sales -- when letters of credit or cash were paid to us to purchase U.S. arms, we simply and quite blatantly ran the sums through U.S. banks.

A letter of credit from the Iranian government would be issued to an Israeli "front" company by a European-based Iranian company through the London or Paris branch of Iran's Bank Melli. It would be endorsed by the National Westminster Bank in England, and we would then ask for it to be transferred to an American bank. Favorites were the Chicago-Tokyo Bank in Chicago, the Chemical Bank in New York, Bank One in Ohio, and the Valley National Bank of Arizona. Then the banks would have to explain these letters of credit, in U.S. dollars, to the U.S. Treasury if they were to accept them. According to U.S. Treasury regulations, letters of credit for sums in excess of $10,000 had to be approved by Treasury.

Since the sales were a U.S.-sanctioned operation, the CIA would have to ensure that Treasury issued an acceptance. Once the letter of credit was approved, it was moved back again to Europe. Except for the John Street operations in 1981 -82, this was to be the way almost all the American-supplied arms sales to Iran were handled from late 1981 until late 1987.

-- Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network, by Ari Ben-Menashe

In April 1988 Jose Blandon, a former intelligence aide to Gen. Noriega told the narcotics subcommittee, headed by Sen. John Kerry (Dem.-Mass.), that the Harari network had brought East bloc arms to Central America for the Nicaraguan contras and had smuggled cocaine from Colombia to the United States via Panama. Blandon testified that on occasion, the aircraft and Costa Rican airstrips the Harari network used for arms deliveries to the contras also carried narcotics shipments north to the U.S. [6]

Three days after Blandon testified, ABC News interviewed a U.S. pilot, who said he had helped purchase and deliver the Harari network's arms and had also flown drugs from Colombia to Panama. Using the pseudonym "Harry," the pilot said he had regarded Israel as his primary employer and the U.S. as his secondary employer. [7]

A short time later, Richard Brenneke, who was also involved in the Harari network, went public. Brenneke is an Oregon businessman who claims to have worked for both the Mossad and the CIA. Brenneke said he was recruited to work with the Harari network by Pesakh Ben-Or, the Mossad station chief in Guatemala. When he asked if the operation was approved by the U.S., Brenneke claims that Ben-Or gave him Donald Gregg's phone number in Washington, DC to call to verify that it was. He said that when he called Gregg on November 3, 1983 [8] Gregg told him that he should "by all means cooperate." [8]

ABC News reported that Israel had provided $20 million start-up capital for the Harari network and was later reimbursed from U.S. covert operations funds. Brenneke claimed that the funding, aircraft, and occasionally pilots for the Harari network and its counterpart in Honduras, dubbed the "Arms Supermarket," were supplied by the Medellin Cartel. [9]

According to United Press International, the Arms Supermarket consisted of three warehouses in San Pedro Sula, Honduras which were filled with Eastern bloc arms. Brenneke stated that it was established "at the request of the Reagan administration" and "initiated jointly by operatives of the Israeli Mossad, senior Honduran military officers now under investigation for drug trafficking, and CIA-connected arms dealers." [10]

Brenneke, however, claims the Supermarket was a separate operation from the Harari network. This was because Pesakh Ben-Or did not get along with Mario Del Amico and Ron Martin, the CIA arms dealers connected to the Supermarket. [11]


Credit: Jean Marie Simon
Pesakh Ben-Or, Mossad Station Chief in Guatemala.

In a May 1988 article about the Arms Supermarket, Newsweek said it had possession of a 1986 report prepared for Oliver North by an arms dealer ''warning bluntly that disclosure of 'covert black money' flowing into Honduras to fund military projects 'could damage Vice President Bush."'[12]

Both Brenneke and ABC News identified Felix Rodriguez, the former CIA official who managed secret contra supply operations from Ilopango Air Base in El Salvador, as the Harari network's U.S. contact in Central America. [13]

Brenneke said that in 1985, after becoming disenchanted with the drug smuggling element of the operation, he called Gregg to warn him about the Harari network's connection to the Medellin Cartel. Brenneke claims that Gregg told him "You do what you were assigned to do. Don't question the decisions of your betters." [14]

Making Brenneke's allegations about Gregg more plausible are classified documents, which, according to Steven Emerson, author of Secret Warriors, "show that the National Security Council had assumed a new operational role as early as 1982, with Gregg serving in a key role as a pivotal player in the NSC 'offline' links to the CIA." [15]

"By early 1983," wrote Emerson, "officials of the NSC and the vice president's staff assumed authority over Central America policy having wrested control over it from the State Department." [16] Gregg was a lifelong CIA officer before going to work as a member of the NSC staff between 1979 and 1981, after which he became Bush's national security adviser.

In the Spring of 1983, the network began to turn its attention toward beefing up the Administration's capacity to promote American support for the Democratic resistance in Nicaragua and the fledgling democracy in El Salvador. This effort resulted in the creation of the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean in the Department of State (S/LPD), headed by Otto Reich.

On May 25, 1983, Secretary of State George P. Schultz, in an effort to head off the creation of S/LPD, wrote a memorandum to the President asking for the establishment of "simple and straight-forward management procedures." [Schultz testimony, Exhibit 69a supra]. The memorandum to the President followed a discussion between the President and Schultz earlier in the day. In the memo Schultz said:

"… Therefore, what we discussed was that you will look to me to carry out your policies. If those policies change, you will tell me. If I am not carrying them out effectively, you will hold me accountable. But we will set up a structure so that I can be your sole delegate with regard to carrying out your policies.

"… What this means is that there will be an Assistant Secretary acceptable to you (and you and I have agreed on Tony Motley) who will report to me and through me to you. We will use Dick Stone as our negotiator, who, in conjunction with Tony, will also report solely to me and through me to you. Similarly, there will be an inter-agency committee, but it will be a tool of management and not a decision-making body. I shall resolve any issues and report to you."

The President responded with a memorandum, which stated in part:

Success in Central America will require the cooperative effort of several Departments and agencies. No single agency can do it alone nor should it. Still, it is sensible to look to you, as I do, as the lead Cabinet officer, charged with moving aggressively to develop the options in coordination with Cap, Bill Casey and others and coming to me for decisions. I believe in Cabinet government. It works when the Cabinet officers work together. I look to you and Bill Clark to assure that that happens." [Schultz Testimony, Exhibit 69B].

Attached to the memo was a chart placing the NSC between the Secretary of State and the President for the management of Central American strategy. Schultz had not only lost the battle to prevent the establishment of the office, he also accepted the NSC-sponsored candidate to run the office, and accepted the fact that Reich would report directly to the NSC and not through the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs.

-- An unpublished draft chapter of the congressional Iran-Contra investigation, that was suppressed as part of the deal to get three moderate Republican senators to sign on to the final report and give the inquiry a patina of bipartisanship.

When Vice President Bush challenged Richard Brenneke's credibility, Brenneke produced documentation that seemed to substantiate some of his claims. [17] Unfortunately, all he had to document his conversations with Gregg were his phone records.

In fact, Bush was so threatened by Brenneke's charges that he and his supporters decided a strong counter-attack was in order. Bush personally accused Sen. Kerry of allowing "slanderous" allegations to leak from his committee, which Brenneke had testified before in closed session. Bush also exclaimed that Newsweek, which used Brenneke as one of its sources for a report on the Arms Supermarket, was printing "garbage." Of Brenneke, Bush said "The guy who they are quoting is the guy who is trying to save his own neck." [18] It is important to note, however, that Richard Brenneke has never been indicted on any criminal charges (compared to Oliver North, Robert McFarlane, and John Poindexter who all worked closely with George Bush).

Just Say No To Quid Pro Quo

After Bush was safely ensconced in the presidency it was revealed that in March 1985 he had served as an emissary to Honduras, as part of a Reagan administration effort to keep that government cooperating with its illicit support of the contras. Bush was sent a copy of a February 19, 1985 memorandum from National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane to President Reagan, in which McFarlane advised accelerating the flow of economic and military aid to Honduras as "incentives for them to persist in aiding the freedom fighters." [19] A second memo by McFarlane, dated the same day, suggested sending an emissary to then Honduran President Roberto Suazo Cordoba to privately offer this quid pro quo. Another memo which gave details of this proposal was written by North to McFarlane the following day and had a notation by John Poindexter saying, 'We want VP to also discuss this matter with Suazo." [20]

The memos were two of six documents that were released during North's trial but which the Congressional committees investigating the Iran/contra affair never received. Another document, summarizing a phone conversation between Reagan and Suazo, had a notation indicating that Bush was supposed to receive a copy. [21]

Rep. Lee Hamilton (Dem.-Ind.), who chaired the House side of the joint Iran/contra committee, said the missing documents were "about as clear a statement of quid pro quo as you'll ever see in a government document" and did not discount the possibility that they would be cause to reopen the Iran/contra investigation. [22]

Not surprisingly, when the Senate intelligence committee did investigate the matter of the withheld documents, they concluded there was "no evidence to suggest" that the documents "had been deliberately and systematically withheld by the White House, or persons within the White House, from the Congressional investigating committees." [23]


Credit: The White House
Donald Gregg and his good friend, George Bush.

President Bush denied discussing a quid pro quo with Suazo and he refused to respond to the stories while North's trial was underway. Michael G. Kozak, acting Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, told Congress that from his review of the documents, the plan to have Bush carry the message to Honduras had been killed. [24] He said he had a secret cable proving that Bush never explicitly linked contra aid and assistance to Honduras. However, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs pointed out that the cable, written by then Ambassador John Negroponte -- himself a main Iran/contra player -- would have been routinely sanitized (in this case, probably by Donald Gregg) before it was consigned to the permanent files. [25]

None of this back and forth even touched on a paragraph contained in a document submitted in Oliver North's trial. Referred to as an official admission of facts, the document summarized classified material North was not permitted to introduce. The government agreed, for the purposes of the trial, that the 107 assertions contained in its 42 pages, were true. The 79th stipulation recounts preparations for a Bush mission to Honduras:

In mid-January 1986, the State Department prepared a memorandum for Donald Gregg (the Vice President's national security adviser) for Vice President Bush's meeting with President [Jose] Azcona. According to DoS [Department of State], one purpose of the meeting was to encourage continued Honduran support for the contras. The memorandum alerted Gregg that Azcona would insist on receiving clear economic and social benefits from its cooperation with the United States. Admiral Poindexter would meet privately with President Azcona to seek a commitment of support for the contras by Honduras. DoS suggested that Vice President Bush inform President Azcona that a strong and active contra army was essential to maintain pressure on the Sandinistas, and that the United States government's intention to support the contras was clear and firm. [26]

Gregg's Reward

Donald Gregg's reward for his loyalty to George Bush, as well as for his role in running the Nicaraguan contras, was to be nominated as ambassador to South Korea. Members of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee had pleaded with the administration to withdraw Gregg's nomination, warning that to press on risked a reopening of the Iran/contra affair and an unraveling of the newly-forged ''bipartisan consensus" on foreign policy. The administration could hardly have withdrawn the nomination, as that would have been regarded as an acknowledgment of President Bush's own complicity in the illegal resupply of the contras.

According to Sen. Alan Cranston (Dem.-Calif.), Gregg's diplomatic nomination came after "key members" of the Senate Intelligence Committee blocked a move to appoint him to a "top CIA post." Gregg claimed that he lost out on the CIA job when discreet inquiries had revealed that his nomination to a top CIA post would embroil the Agency in questions over his role in the Iran/contra affair. [27]

Incredibly, when asked during his confirmation hearings why Bush had nominated him as Ambassador to Korea rather than taking him to the White House, Gregg said that Bush had a marked aversion to seeing the NSC take on an operational role. [28] Did he mean to imply that his assignment in South Korea was operational? Reflecting widespread disappointment with the nomination, an editorial in a South Korean newspaper asked whether Gregg's return to the nation where he had been CIA station chief from 1973-75 meant that "the U.S. regards Korea not as a diplomatic but as an intelligence and operations target." [29]

"If Gregg was lying, he was lying to protect the president, which is different from lying to protect himself."

The confirmation hearings that stretched over May and June 1989 were a test of strength, with the committee destined from the start to be the loser. Speaking -- under oath -- in an indifferent monotone Gregg baited Alan Cranston, chairman of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs and his principal interrogator, with outrageous answers. For example, after denying that in 1985 he met with Oliver North and Col. James Steele -- then the chief U.S. military adviser in El Salvador -- to discuss the contra operation, Gregg coolly absorbed the news that Steele had confirmed the meeting. [30]

An indignant Cranston charged: "Your career training in establishing secrecy and deniability for covert operations and your decades-old friendship with Felix Rodriguez apparently led you to believe that you could serve the national interest by sponsoring a freelance operation out of the Vice President's office." [31]

Copters not Contras

The greatest moment of absurdity (and outright lying) came when Gregg offered what he called a "speculative explanation" for a reference to a mention of "resupply of the contras" in a May 1, 1986 memo, prepared for a meeting between Bush and Rodriguez. It was "possible," Gregg said, that it ''was a garbled reference to resupply of copters instead of resupply of contras." Later, Gregg remarked to reporters, "I don't know how it went over, but it was the best I could do." [32]

Cranston failed to question Gregg on a key point. Steven Emerson reported that he had seen a March 1983 memo prepared by Gregg which accompanied a plan to organize a "search-and-destroy air team." The plan was drafted by Felix Rodriguez and contained a map which "strongly suggested that targets inside Nicaragua would be attacked." Emerson said these "still classified" documents bore the handwritten approval of then National Security Adviser William Clark. [33]

Cranston repeatedly tried to crack Gregg's facade and Gregg continued to deny any connection to the contras or ever having discussed the mercenaries with Bush. He didn't even back away from his earlier statement that Bush had learned of the secret resupply network from an interview Gregg gave the New York Times in December 1986.

Cranston wondered aloud how Gregg didn't know that Rodriguez was involved with the contras when the NSC staff, the State Department, and Gen. Paul Gorman, head of the U.S. Southern Command, all knew that the illegal contra aid operation was Rodriguez's real priority in Central America. Gregg said he had to agree with Cranston's (heavily sarcastic) interpretation of his testimony: that Oliver North and his longtime friend Felix Rodriguez were conspiring against him! At his trial Oliver North testified that "I was put in touch with Mr. Rodriguez by Mr. Gregg of the Vice President's office" [34] and that Gregg knew about the arms shipments. During his confirmation hearing Gregg said North's statements were "just not true." [35]

Hopeless as all of this was, Cranston's interrogation hovered around the fundamental question. Recalling Bush's statement in October 1986 that Felix Rodriguez was not working for the U.S. government and Gregg's own knowledge that Rodriguez had received help from the U.S. military in El Salvador, Cranston asked Gregg, "Did you inform Bush of those facts so he could make calculated misleading statements, or did you keep him in the dark so he could make misleading statements?"

Gregg evaded the question, contending that Rodriguez was not being paid a government salary but was living off his CIA pension. He also insisted that Bush "made no misleading statements." [36] During the hearings, Cranston had accused Gregg of using Rodriguez's work with the Salvadoran government as "a cover story," to which Gregg replied that Cranston was providing "a rather full-blown example of a conspiracy theory." [37]

That Donald Gregg had blithely lied under oath was apparent to everyone. Even one of his Republican supporters on the committee, Sen. Richard Lugar (Rep.-Ind.), said that some of Gregg's testimony "certainly strains belief." Another Republican, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, noted -- perhaps disingenuously, certainly inaccurately -- that other Bush ambassadorial appointments of individuals more heavily involved in the Iran/contra affair than Gregg had "sailed through." [38]

Ultimately it was power that overrode perceptions, not to mention truth. The senators did not really want to challenge Bush, whose popularity was soaring. Just to get the administration to release relevant documents it had been withholding, Cranston had to promise to schedule a vote on Gregg. [39]

Three Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee joined all the Republicans, in voting to report the nomination favorably to the full Senate. One of the Democrats, Terry Sanford of North Carolina, confirmed Cranston's explanation of his vote -- that he was afraid "the path would lead to Bush." "If Gregg was lying," said Sanford, "he was lying to protect the president, which is different from lying to protect himself." [40] Oh, really?

_______________

Notes:

* Jane Hunter is the author of several books and contributor to several foreign newspaper as well as the editor of the independent monthly report Israeli Foreign Affairs, which is available for $20 per year from Israeli Foreign Affairs, P.O. Box 19580, Sacramento, CA 95819.

1. Joel Brinkley, "Bush's Role in Iran Affair: Questions and Answers," New York Times, January 29, 1988.

2. For more on Harari and the Harari Network, see Israeli Foreign Affairs, May 1987, and February, March, April, May and June 1988.

3. Andrew Cockburn, "A friend in need," Independent, March 19, 1988.

4. Uri Dan, "Israeli is Power Behind Noriega," New York Post, July 11, 1988.

5. Stewart M. Powell and John P. Wallach, "Israeli Working For Noriega," San Francisco Examiner, October 22, 1989.

6. Hearings of the Narcotics, Terrorism, and International Operations Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 4, 1988.

7. Transcript, ABC News, April 7, 1988.

8. Jim Redden, "Burning Bush," Willamette Week (Portland, OR), July 14-20, 1988; United Press International (UPI), May 15, 1988; Robert Parry and Rod Nordland, "Guns for Drugs?," Newsweek, May 23, 1988.

9. ABC News interview, May 28, 1988.

10. UPI, May 15, 1988.

11. Interview with Brenneke, Israeli Foreign Affairs, June 1988.

12. Newsweek, May 23, 1988.

13. "Arms, Drugs and the Contras," a Frontline television documentary aired on U.S. Public Television stations in May 1988, also identified Rodriguez as the contact.

14. Parry and Nordland, op. cit., n. 8.

15. Steven Emerson, Secret Warriors (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1988), p. 129.

16. Ibid, pp. 125-26.

17. Brenneke's documents of his activities are reproduced in The Brenneke Report: An Assessment of the International Center's Investigation, Washington, DC, August 25, 1988. (Brenneke worked for the International Center for Development Policy after he went public.) For a more detailed examination of Brenneke's veracity, see Israeli Foreign Affairs, October 1988 and Jane Hunter, "A Renaissance Man," NACLA, Report on the Americas, September/October 1988. It must also be said that some analysts do not believe that Jose Blandon is the essence of credibility, either, even though his testimony was less disconcerting than Brenneke's.

18. David Hoffman, "Bush Lays 'Slanderous' Leaks to Kerry; Senator Denies Charge; Contras and Drug-Running Involved," Washington Post, May 17, 1988.

19. Doyle McManus, "Senate Panel to Probe Iran-Contra Papers," Los Angeles Times, April 27, 1989.

20. Sara Fritz, "Hamilton Prods Bush on 2 Papers," Los Angeles Times, April 15, 1989.

21. "Dispute over Iran-Contra papers grows," Washington Post, in Sacramento Bee, April 27, 1989, which notes that incomplete versions of two of the six documents had reached the committee.

22. Doyle McManus, "Details Surface of U.S. Deal to Aid Contras," Los Angeles Times, April 16, 1989; "Iran-Contra Prober Doubts Bush's Denials," UPI, San Francisco Chronicle, May 8, 1989.

23. Select Committee on Intelligence, United States Senate, "Were Relevant Documents Withheld from the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair?" June 1989 (Doc. No. 199-533-89-1), p. 7.

24. Stephen Engelberg, " 'No Quid Pro Quo President Insists," New York Times, May 5, 1989.

25. Council on Hemispheric Affairs, "Bush, Gregg, Negroponte: Was There a Quid Pro Quo Deal?" Press release, May 16, 1989.

26. Government submission to U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, April 6, 1989, Criminal No. 88-0080-02-GAG, pp. 31-2.

27. Gregg's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, June 15, 1989.

28. Ibid.

29. Chosun Ilbo quoted by Peter Maass, "Gregg Post Causes Ire In Seoul; Envoy's CIA Past Resented by Critics," Washington Post, January 14, 1989.

30. Robert Parry, "Bush's Envoy on the Grill," Newsweek, May 29, 1989.

31. Robert Pear, "Bush Nominee Is Quizzed Over Illicit Contra Aid," New York Times, May 13, 1989.

32. Joseph Mianowany, "Former Bush aide tries to explain Iran-Contra role," UPI, May 13, 1989.

33. Emerson, op. cit., n. 15, pp. 124-26.

34. "'Black Hole,'" Newsweek, April 24, 1989.

35. Lee May, "Panel Probes Ex-Bush Aide on Contra Supply Scheme," Los Angeles Times, May 13, 1989.

36. Gregg's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, June 15, 1989.

37. Joseph Pichirallo and Walter Pincus, "Gregg: Kept Bush in Dark About North Role; Senators Greet Ex-Aides' Contra Testimony with Skepticism," Washington Post, May 13, 1989.

38. Mary McGrory, "The Truth According to Gregg," Washington Post, June 22, 1989.

39. Walter Pincus, "State Dept. Budget, 4 Nominations Advance; Iran-Contra Questions Delayed 1 Appointee," Washington Post, June 9, 1989.

40. McGrory, op. cit., n. 38.

[admin]

Bush and Noriega
by CovertAction Information Bulletin
Winter 1990

During the 1988 campaign, George Bush was repeatedly asked whether, when he met with General Manuel Noriega in 1983 and 1985, they had discussed the allegations that Noriega was involved in narcotics money laundering. Bush managed to neatly evade the issue with the response that he did not know about the reports of Noriega's involvement with drug trafficking until a U.S. court indicted the general in February 1988. Commented US News & World Report, "The best that can be said is that Bush displayed little curiosity in an environment rich with allegations about Noriega." A prosecutor who worked on Noriega's indictment said Bush "either closed his eyes to it or deliberately ignored it." [1]

Yes, but he got away with it. Bush himself said of the December 1983 meeting, "What I talked to the Panamanians about was doing what they could to get their banks out of laundering any money, that was laundering it for the narcotics traffic." A Bush spokesman said that Gen. Noriega was at the 1983 meeting, but he [Noriega] didn't "participate." [2]

Donald Gregg also attended the 1983 meeting [3] and, according to Jose Blandon, former intelligence aide to Noreiga, Gregg obtained Noriega's commitment "to help secretly arm, train and finance the contras in early 1984." Gregg, however, denies ever dealing with Noriega. [4] In September 1988, Panamanian Col. Roberto Diaz Herrera and Jose Blandon appeared in a British documentary, saying that Gen. Noriega claimed to have photographs and tape recordings made at this meeting that would show "Bush or his aides knew that the United States was helping to train Nicaraguan insurgents at a time when this was prohibited by American law." [5]

In December 1985, Bush met in Washington with the then U.S. Ambassador to Panama, Edward Everett Briggs. According to a memo prepared by Bush's aides to brief him for the meeting, its purpose was to "discuss U.S. relations with Panama and narcotics matters." In the weeks leading up to the meeting, Briggs had sent a number of cables to the State Department detailing allegations of Noriega's narcotics trafficking. [6] Nonetheless, Briggs later obligingly said he had lacked the evidence to brief Bush on that subject. That somewhat surprised a Treasury Department aide and two congressional staffers who said Briggs briefed them about the allegations 17 days after he met with Bush. [7]

In November 1987, [retired] Adm. Daniel J. Murphy, who had been Bush's chief of staff until 1985, visited Noriega in Panama. According to Jose Blandon, Murphy undercut U.S. efforts to persuade Noriega to retire by proposing an alternative deal and telling the Panamanian that "anything could happen" after the 1988 election. Accompanying Murphy on his trip was Korean lobbyist (and central figure in the Koreagate scandal) Tongsun Park. They reportedly promised to lobby for Japanese economic assistance, both with Japan and with the White House. A Bush spokesperson said that Murphy had spoken with Donald Gregg after Murphy returned from Panama. However, the spokesperson did not know whether the two had talked before Murphy left. [8]

What is known is that in 1988 the Reagan administration ordered the State Department, the Pentagon, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the CIA not to cooperate with the GAO (the investigative arm of the Congress) in a "case study" it had been ordered to conduct, using Panama as an example of how drug trafficking by foreign officials influences U.S. foreign policy decisions. "Democrats and investigators said the White House order was aimed at preventing potentially embarrassing disclosures from rocking the presidential campaign of Republican Vice President George Bush." [9]

_______________

Notes:

1. Kenneth T. Walsh and Andy Plattner, "Miami Nice: George Bush as drug czar," US News & World Report, July 11,1988.

2. Jim McGee and David Hoffman, "Rivals Hint Bush Understates Knowledge of Noriega Ties," Washington Post, May 8, 1988.

3. Stephen Engelberg and Jeff Gerth, "Bush and Noriega: Their 20-Year Relationship," New York Times, September 28, 1988.

4. "More on Bush-Noriega," Newsweek, October 31, 1988.

5. Gerald M. Boyd, "Aides to Bush Move to Counter Report on Noriega," New York Times, September 23, 1988.

6. Stephen Engelberg and Jeff Gerth, "Officials Say Bush Heard '85 Charge Against Noriega," New York Times, May 8, 1988.

7. Stephen Engelberg, "Envoy's Account on Noriega Surprises Three He Briefed," New York Times, May 14, 1988.

8. Michael Wines and Ronald J. Ostrow, "Ex-Bush Aide Seen Spoiling Bid to Oust Noriega," Los Angeles Times, February 11, 1988.

9. Brian Barger, "White House Blocks GAO Report of Noriega," United Press International, August 18, 1988.

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Bush's Boy's Club: Skull and Bones
by CovertAction Information Bulletin
Winter 1990

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

To be a member of the ruling elite, George Bush must meet certain criteria. He must be white, he must be male, and he must be rich. He must also belong to certain elite clubs and institutions which help to distinguish him from those he is called upon to rule.

George Bush is a member of Skull and Bones, an elite secret society open only to a select 15 males in their senior year at Yale University. If this club appears somewhat exclusionary, don't worry; they have made great strides in the past few years. Recent Bones inductees include a few blacks, gays, and even some foreign students. However, it has been said that if women were ever allowed into the secret "tomb" (meeting place) of Skull and Bones, the tomb would "have to be bulldozed." [1]



The importance of Skull and Bones is not that it provides good gossip about young males doing strange things in tombs, but that it provides a certain bond between members which they carry for life. Membership to Skull and Bones is the first initiation into the world of power politics and capitalism. It is somewhat akin to a "junior" old boy's network.

One of the interesting aspects of this secret society is the number of Bones members who, after graduation, move on to do intelligence work. There has even been informed speculation that there is a "Bones cell" in the CIA.

Whether there is a Bones cell or not in the CIA is open to interesting debate. We can, however, examine the histories of several Bonesmen who have gone on to illustrious careers in intelligence work.

One of the most unusual Bonesmen is the Reverend William Sloane Coffin, Jr. Known best for his anti-Vietnam war activities and his political activism at Riverside Church in New York City, Sloane Coffin was recruited by the CIA shortly after he graduated from Yale in 1949. Although his tenure at the Agency was short, he is one example of the CIA's use of the secret society to fill their ranks. [2]

Another illustrious Skull and Bones member with close ties to the CIA is arch conservative and renowned propagandist, William F. Buckley. According to several experts on the CIA, Buckley began his cooperation with the Agency while he was in Mexico City in 1952, where his good friend, E. Howard Hunt, was CIA station chief at the time. [3]

As an interesting aside, Buckley and Bush (as well as many other Washington and business elites) are members of the "prestigious" older-boys California getaway, "The Bohemian Club."

It is not surprising, given the Buckley family's wealth and status, that Bill's older brother, James Buckley, is also a member of Skull and Bones. From 1981-82 Buckley was Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science, and Technology where it was his job to see that U.S. military aid went to support the right regimes. [4]

He once stated that CIA covert activities in Chile, which led to the overthrow of democratically-elected Salvador Allende, were necessary because, "It was only by virtue of covert help by the United States that these free institutions were able to survive in the face of increasingly repressive measures by the Allende regime. [5]

Buckley was also directly connected to the work of the Chilean secret police, DINA. In September 1976, DINA agents assassinated former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his colleague, Ronni Moffitt in Washington DC. "Independent researchers verified through the FBI and Department of Justice -- that on September 14, 1976, one week before the Letelier assassination, Michael Townley and Guillermo Novo [two DINA agents involved in the assassination] drove to the office of Senator James Buckley in New York City for a meeting. Buckley had helped finance trips to Chile for Novo and others close to the killing." [6]

When CIA agent David Atlee Phillips was accused of being involved in the assassination he started an organization entitled "Challenge: An Intelligence Officers' Legal Action Fund." The board of "Challenge" included former CIA director William Colby, former CIA Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick, former intelligence officer General Richard Stillwell, and interestingly, James Buckley. [7]

Hugh Cunningham, Bonesman from the class of 1934, is a Rhodes Scholar with a lengthy career in the CIA. He was in the Agency from 1947 to 1973 during which time he served in top positions with the Clandestine Services, the Board of National Estimates, and was the Director of Training from 1969- 73. He also served with the CIA's precursor, the Central Intelligence Group from 1945-47. [8]

William Bundy is a Bonesman from the class of 1939. Bundy began his intelligence career in the OSS during World War II. From 1951-61 he worked at the CIA, including at its Office of National Estimates. [9] During the Vietnam War, he was the Assistant Secretary of State for Asian Affairs and a vocal advocate for escalating the war.

A true Cold War liberal, Bundy expressed his belief in the necessity of CIA covert actions in his foreword to the book The Counter-Insurgency Era: ''The preservation of liberal values, for America and other nations, required the use of the full range of U.S. power, including if necessary, its more shady applications." [10] "Shady applications" is a veiled euphemism for covert activities which support dictators, overthrow legitimate governments, and contribute to the destabilization of world order.



From the class of 1950 comes Bonesman Dino Pionzio. His claim to fame was the time he spent as CIA deputy chief of station in Santiago, Chile in 1970, during the massive CIA destabilization of the Allende government. He is also a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. [11] The CIA proved not to be lucrative enough for Pionzio so he left his intelligence career behind and became an investment banker. As of 1983, he was a vice president at the investment firm Dillon, Read. (Just to illustrate how small these circles really are -- Nicholas Brady, the current Secretary of the Treasury was the co-chair of Dillon, Read and a graduate of Yale University. Brady, however, was not a Bonesman. He belonged to another Yale secret society called "Book and Snake." [12]

From the days of George Bush's father, Prescott Bush, comes former spook F. Trubee Davidson. Davidson, a Bonesman from the class of 1918, was the Director of Personnel at the CIA in 1951. [13] Davidson then begot little Bonesmen, Endicott Peabody Davidson and Daniel Pomeroy Davidson. Endicott Davidson went to work at the law firm of Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam, and Roberts (Henry Stimson was the Secretary of War during World War II and also a Bonesman).

Another interesting Bonesman is David Lyle Boren, the Senate Democrat from Oklahoma. While he is not an employee of the CIA (some say this is open to question) Boren nevertheless is part of the intelligence community because he is the chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence.

Finally, but certainly not at the end of the list, comes Richard A. Moore. Moore began his intelligence career in World War II where he served as a special assistant to the chief of military intelligence. He was rewarded for this service with the Legion of Merit for Intelligence Work. [14]

In the 1970s, Moore was special assistant to President Nixon and in the thick of things during the Watergate scandal. At his recent congressional confirmation hearing for the post of Ambassador to Ireland, Moore was asked by one of the committee members if he was one of 14 unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators of the Watergate scandal. [15] Moore, however, emphatically denied the accusation. It is interesting to note that Moore, a Bonesman from 1936, was recently appointed to a high-level State Department post by George Bush, Bonesman, 1948.

The list of Bonesmen-made-good goes on and on and includes McGeorge Bundy (National Security Adviser to Kennedy and Johnson), William Draper (Defense Department Import-Export Bank, etc.), Dean Witter, Jr. (investment banker), Potter Stewart (Supreme Court Justice who swore in George Bush as Vice President in 1981), John Forbes Kerry (Senator from Massachusetts), Winston Lord (Kissinger protege and former Ambassador to China), Robert H. Gow (president of Zapata Oil, once owned by Bush and which had possible links to the CIA), and Henry Luce of Time-Life fame. [16]

This old (and new) boys network helps to illustrate the old adage "it's not what you know, it's who you know." Given the extent of Bones members in intelligence, it is also "how you come to know it."

A special thanks to Peggy Adler-Robohm who provided research assistance for this article.

_______________

Notes:

1. Ron Rosenbaum, ''The Last Secrets of Skull and Bones," Esquire Magazine, September 1977; David Dunlap, "Yale Secret Society Resists Peek into Its Crypt," New York Times, November 4, 1988, pp. B1-2.

2. Ibid.

3. Donald Freed and Fred Landis, Death in Washington: The Murder of Orlando Letelier (Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill and Company, 1980), p. 152; Winslow Peck, "Death on Embassy Row," CounterSpy, December 1976, p. 65.

4. Ronald Brownstein and Nina Easton, Reagan's Ruling Class (Washington, DC: The Presidential Accountability Group, 1982), p. 568.

5. Ibid., p. 570.

6. Freed and Landis, op. cit., n. 3, p. 168.

7. Louis Wolf, "Old Soldiers Fade Away ... Old Spies Lobby," CovertAction Information Bulletin, December 1980, p. 27.

8. Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1974), p. 110-11; Yale Alumni Directory, I985.

9. Ronald Payne and Christopher Dobson, Who's Who in Espionage, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984), p. 110.

10. Douglas S. Blaufarb, The Counter-Insurgency Era (New York: Free Press, 1977), p. X, quoted from Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (Boston: South End Press, 1979), p. 373.

11. Members List, Association of Former Intelligence Officers, 1989.

12. Yale Yearbook, 1952

13. New York Times, July 5, 1951.

14. Intelligence Newsletter (Paris), May 24,1989.

15. Washington Post, August 8, 1989, p. A15.

16. Yale Yearbook, 1969.

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Here Today, Here Tomorrow: Bush's "Secret Team"
by Jane Hunter*
Winter 1990

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

The media honeymoon that marked the first weeks of the Bush administration soon gave way to complaints that the new administration had no overall direction and no foreign policy. In April 1989, New York Times White House correspondent Maureen Dowd noted that:

White House officials worry that the coming evaluations of the "first hundred days" will suggest that the President has done little of note so far. They are nervous that pundits will charge that Mr. Bush has no agenda, no money, no strategy, no message, no ideology, no world view and no explanation of his mysterious role in the Iran-contra scandal. [1]

It might take some time for George Bush to assemble a coherent foreign policy, even one simply for purposes of display. However, from the very beginning, the Bush administration has had the mechanism - and the actors in place - for pursuing a covert foreign policy.

The day after his election, Bush announced he would receive daily briefings from the CIA. According to a former CIA official, "This is a major change. It says that Bush wants a very close and direct relationship with the agency, without any filters in between. It says something about the role of intelligence and the degree to which the CIA, not the other intelligence agencies, is going to be a major influence on policy development. It says to me that the agency is back in the saddle." [2]

Well before he took the oath of office, Bush wrote a letter to UNIT A leader Jonas Savimbi assuring the longtime South African and CIA client of continued U.S. support for his war against Angola. One of Bush's first moves as president was to make a highly unusual appearance before the Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committee, asking them to fund a CIA operation to influence the May 1989 Panamanian elections. [3]

Unlike the ideologues of the Reagan era, the Bush people have no driving need to unite the nation in a war against "godless communism." The new administration does not want to lead public crusades. Indeed. it does not want anyone to look at what it is doing, or even wonder about it.

It is possible to draw these conclusions by looking at the history of the people whom Bush has appointed to senior positions in his administration. By examining the record, we see that many of the Bush appointees were involved in the Iran/contra affair and should probably be in jail rather than making policy. Furthermore, some of Bush's new (and old) recruits are longtime intelligence operatives.

The New (and Old) Players

Robert Gates: Gates was deputy director of the CIA under the late William Casey, but Congress refused to consider him as Casey's replacement because of his knowledge of the CIA's role in the Iran/contra affair. Now, under Bush, he holds the position of deputy national security adviser.

At the NSC, it is Gates's job to convene a daily "deputies committee" meeting of the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Deputy Director of the CIA, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and when needed, the Deputy Secretaries of State and Defense will attend. The idea, according to an administration official, is to avoid the plethora of inter-agency committees - the Restricted Inter-Agency Group (RIG) being the most infamous, which was devised to direct the secret war against Nicaragua. [4]

John Tower: One of several instances in which the President tried to repay those who helped him squeeze through the Iran/contra scandal was his nomination of John Tower as Defense Secretary. Tower, as the Reagan-appointed head of the Tower Commission, was the man who cleared Bush of complicity in the scandal - thus acquiring the moral status of co-conspirator. Bush stuck by Tower's nomination through weeks of revelations about the former Texas Senator's sordid past up until the time when the nomination went down in. a lopsided defeat on the Senate floor.

Tower was asked during a question-and-answer session at the National Press Club whether his nomination was "a payoff" for the "clean bill of health" the Tower Commission gave Bush. He responded:

I think that when you consider the fact that the Commission was made up of three people, Brent Scowcroft and Ed Muskie in addition to myself, that would be sort of impugning the integrity of Brent Scowcroft and Ed Muskie .... We found nothing to implicate the Vice President .... I wonder what kind of payoff they're going to get? [5]

Perhaps Tower did not consider Scowcroft's appointment as Bush's national security adviser sufficiently rewarding.

Thomas Pickering: In December 1988 Bush appointed Thomas Pickering, another Iran/contra player, to the prestigious post of Ambassador to the United Nations. Former Secretary of State George Shultz recommended him to Ronald Reagan, who sent him as Ambassador to El Salvador, as "the cream of America's career diplomats." 6

Yet during his time in El Salvador, from 1983-85, Pickering became entwined in the Iran/contra affair and never bothered to report some of his activities to the State Department. [7] In his (extensively censored) deposition to the Congressional committee investigating the Iran/contra scandal, Pickering admitted receiving a document in El Salvador from a representative of a "private" contra support group and delivering it to Oliver North in Washington, D.C.

The group was having trouble arranging for the delivery of the weapons and equipment - enough to outfit 4,000-5,000 contras - listed in the document and wanted it passed to contra boss Adolfo Calero. "At that point I had heard enough rumors of Ollie's activities in connection with private support for the contras that I thought he would be a useful address," Pickering told committee staffers. Later, he said, intelligence reached him that the weapons had been delivered.

Pickering also dismissed communications he received from Donald Gregg (at the time, Vice President Bush's National Security Adviser) regarding Felix Rodriguez as well as those from Gen. Paul Gorman, head of the U.S. Southern Command. Rodriguez was well connected to Bush and Gregg, as Gorman's communications clearly noted, and Oliver North wanted to use him as well. The general also spelled out that "Rodriguez' primary commitment to the region is in [one word censored] where he wants to assist the FDN," the main contra force bivouacked in Honduras.

Nevertheless, Pickering staunchly maintained that his contact with Rodriguez mainly concerned the helicopter warfare techniques he was supposedly developing for the Salvadorans. [8]

Pickering's contention that, during his tenure as ambassador in Israel, from 1985-1988, he had no idea that the arms-for- hostages machinations might be closer to the truth. The Israelis would hardly want regular reports going to the State Department of how, working through friends in the White House and the Iran/contra network, they were guiding U.S. policy toward Teheran.

John Negroponte: Bush's choice as Ambassador to Mexico was John Negroponte, who was Ambassador - many thought the term proconsul was more descriptive - to Honduras between 1981 and 1985. A foreign service officer in Vietnam in the 1960s, then an aide to former Secretary of State Kissinger during the Paris peace talks, Negroponte was assigned in the early 1980s to oversee the assembling of the mercenary army that came to be known as the contras and to ensure continuing Honduran cooperation. [9] According to one report, Negroponte "allegedly helped [Gen. Gustavo] Alvarez create Battalion 316, an elite unit responsible for more than 100 death squad killings." [10]


Credit: Rick Reinhard
Robert Gates was slated to be head of the CIA but Congress refused because of his role in Iran/contra.

In a written response to a question posed during his confirmation hearing, Negroponte wrote: "I was net involved in the operational details of contra activities, and my contact with contra leaders was strictly limited." [11]

It is an open question as to whether Negroponte, whose last post in the Reagan administration was as deputy to National Security Adviser Colin Powell, is intended to preside over the dismantling of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) or to protect it from defeat by the ascendant coalition slightly to its left, led by Cuauhtemoc Cardenas. The Mexican government was unimpressed with Negroponte's reportedly close personal connections with Bush and hesitated a week before approving his appointment. "The impression people have is that you don't send Negroponte to a place where you don't expect trouble," said Jorge Castaneda, a Mexican political scientist. [12]

Melton and Others

Richard Melton: George Bush has picked Richard Melton to be Ambassador to Brazil. Melton was Reagan's Ambassador to Nicaragua until he was kicked out in June 1988 for helping to organize a violent demonstration. Melton has an interesting knack for turning up in unstable political situations - he was stationed in the Dominican Republic when the U.S. invaded in 1965 and was sent as Ambassador to Portugal after the overthrow of the military government in 1974.

Ironically, a bit of Melton's previous experience was gained in Brazil when he was a political affairs officer at the U.S. consulate in Recife in 1968. Ricardo Zaratini, now an adviser to a member of the Chamber of Deputies, recently saw a picture of Melton and recognized him as one of two U.S. officials who interrogated him in 1968. Zaratini, at the time a union organizer, says he had been arrested several days earlier and tortured before his confrontation with Melton. The encounter was brief, said Zaratini. "They were wearing short -sleeve shirts. They did not touch me." Melton, recalled Zaratini, "asked me what I had against the United States." [13]

Brazilian officials, who had expected Herbert Okun, a former U.S. consul in Brazil, to be appointed, were greatly displeased. [14] Brazilian government sources said that, while Brazil would not refuse to accept Melton, he would be put at the end of a long list of diplomats waiting to be officially received. [15]

Richard Armitage: Another Bush nominee - and Iran/contra activist - Richard L. Armitage, withdrew from consideration for the post of Secretary of the Army to avoid hearings "that were expected to include questions about his role in the Iran-contra affair" as well as allegations of drug dealing during his service in the Vietnam war. Armitage also resigned as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.

In December 1985, Armitage discussed Iran arms sales with Menachem Meron, the director-general of the Israeli defense ministry, and, according to an unreleased Israeli report on the Iran/contra affair, told Meron that, besides Secretary Caspar Weinberger, he [Armitage] was the only Pentagon official "in the picture on the Iranian issue." [16]

Robert Kimmitt: Robert Kimmitt is yet another actor involved in the Iran/contra scandal who now serves in the Bush administration. Kimmitt was the executive secretary of the NSC during much of the Reagan presidency. As a member of Bush's campaign staff, Kimmitt is credited with dreaming up the choice of Dan Quayle for vice president. Kimmitt is a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran and is one of the only people to know if Dan Quayle is indeed "impeachment insurance" for Bush. [17]

According to one account, Kimmitt was not part of the Oliver North-Robert McFarlane inner circle at the NSC, [18] but he was involved in the quid pro quo deals with Honduras in 1985-86. (These were the agreements through which the Reagan administration secured Honduras's continued cooperation in the war against Nicaragua and in which George Bush played an important role.) As Bush's under secretary of state for political affairs, Kimmitt recently pressured Honduras into ignoring the agreement of the Central American governments to disband the contras and into dropping its demand that the mercenaries leave Honduran territory. [19]

Cresencio Arcos: Cresencio S. Arcos, Jr., commonly known as Chris Arcos was deputy director of the State Department's notorious Nicaraguan Humanitarian Aid Office between September 1985 and August 1986. Bush has recently chosen him to succeed Everett Briggs as Ambassador to Honduras. [20]

A career foreign service officer with the U.S. Information Agency since January 1973, Arcos had spent the five years leading up to his NHAO assignment as a public affairs counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Honduras under then Ambassador John Negroponte.

While in Honduras, Arcos said he had the opportunity to meet Oliver North and Felix Rodriguez. Rodriguez, he claims, "was referred to me by Mr. Jorge Mas Canosa, who is the President of the Cuban-American (National] Foundation in Miami."

In his deposition to the Congressional Iran/contra committee, Arcos recounted meeting Rodriguez again, in December 1985 during a stopover in El Salvador on a one-day trip to Honduras he made with Oliver North and deputy assistant secretary of state William Walker (now U .S. Ambassador to El Salvador). Arcos said he and Walker became good friends when Walker was deputy chief of mission in Honduras from 1980-82.

Arcos also recalled sitting at a meeting of the Restricted Inter-Agency Group (RIG) and listening to Walker, Elliott Abrams, and NHAO director Robert Deumling, discuss a request by Oliver North to give Rob Owen a consultancy at NHAO. After his stint at NHAO, Arcos went to the State Department once again, this time as coordinator for public diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean. [21]

John Kelly: John Kelly, a long time State Department employee, has been nominated to be Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs. Before he left to begin work as Ambassador to Lebanon in August 1986, Kelly sought out Robert McFarlane (then no longer National Security Adviser) and asked for his help in obtaining release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon. Kelly is also known to have met with an assistant of Oliver North regarding the same issue. Kelly acknowledged having known McFarlane for over a decade and having met North during the Reagan years.

McFarlane told Kelly that he might be asked to help with a hostage release and three months later he was. Kelly admits that he followed instructions from Oliver North and John Poindexter, McFarlane's successor, communicating through a back channel without informing the State Department. Secretary of State George Shultz reprimanded Kelly for this breach and sent him back to Lebanon. Kelly's involvement might have been more extensive - much of the testimony he gave Iran/contra committee investigators has been blacked out. [22]

John Bolton: In February 1989, Bolton became Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. Until that time, he was Assistant Attorney General, a post he also held under Attorney General Edwin Meese. In the Meese Justice Department, Bolton sabotaged Sen. John Kerry's investigation into contra connections with drug trafficking, according to an aide to Kerry's subcommittee on terrorism, narcotics and international operations, by failing to provide requested information and by working actively with Republican senators who were opposed to Kerry's investigation. [23]

Herman Cohen: Cohen, the Bush administration's new Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, was formerly on the Reagan administration's National Security Council staff. According to the London weekly SouthScan, Cohen "emerged as a key actor in the arming of Unita through Zaire" [24] which the CIA began after the repeal of the Clark Amendment in 1985.

Lawrence Eagleburger: The refusal of Eagleburger, who made $900,000 last year as president of Kissinger Associates, to reveal the names of all the "consulting" company's clients during his confirmation hearing for Assistant Secretary of State in the Bush administration, provoked an outcry which led nowhere. (National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, another associate, salaried at $293,000, also refused this request during his confirmation hearing.25) Speculation on exactly what Henry Kissinger has been doing as a private citizen - and for whom - resulted in the portrayal of Eagleburger as a man who would have a special relationship with the political and corporate elites of the creditor nations.

James Lilley, who was the CIA's China station chief when Bush was ambassador there ... is now himself Ambassador to China.

Yet Eagleburger's involvement in the Reagan administration's covert partnership with Israel suggests that there will be an additional dimension to his function in the Bush administration, where cooperation with Israel is certain to be a key element in covert policy.

"Strategic cooperation" is the code phrase for U.S.-Israeli covert operations against developing countries that was formalized in three "strategic" agreements during the Reagan presidency. In 1983, a U.S.-Israeli political-military committee was established and David Kimche, director of the Israeli foreign ministry, and Eagleburger "were named as coordinators of the new strategic cooperation outside the Middle East." [26] Kimche and Eagleburger met at least three times, the last one being in April 1984, when a major topic on the agenda was Israeli support of the administration's activities in Central America.

In addition to Donald Gregg, [28] Bush has kept at least two other CIA veterans in circulation. James Lilley, who was the CIA's China station chief when Bush was ambassador there (and was most recently Ambassador to South Korea, following a stint at the NSC and in the Taiwan diplomatic office), [29] is now himself Ambassador to China, where he is well positioned to continue the covert relationship, most notably coordination of Cambodia policies.

Vernon Walters, formerly deputy director of the CIA and most recently the Reagan administration's Ambassador to the United Nations, is now serving as Ambassador to West Germany. [30] It is not clear whether Walters will continue the special missions to trouble spots around the world that kept him busy during his tenure at the UN. He has already made it clear, however, that he is dead set against the nuclear disarmament that West Germans are increasingly demanding. [31]

With this crew of Iran/contra conspirators assembled, it would be wise for the major media outlets to have reporters mulling over administration handouts and statements for subtle signs of purpose.

Perhaps now some of the highly regarded (and highly paid) columnists and news analysts who were so shocked when the Iran/contra scandal broke might not be so easily fooled the next time around.

_______________

Notes:

* Jane Hunter is the author of several books and contributor to several foreign newspaper as well as editor of the independent monthly report Israeli Foreign Affairs which is available for $20 per year from: Israeli Foreign Affairs, P.O. Box 19580, Sacramento, CA 95819.

1. Maureen Dowd, "White House," New York Times, April 14, 1989.

2. News Conference, November 9, 1988; Stephen Engelberg, "With Bush in the Oval Office, Is the CIA 'Back in the Saddle'?" New York Times, November 13, 1988. The article notes that the CIA briefed Bush every morning when he was Vice President, after which Bush "usually attended the national security briefing for Mr. Reagan."

3. Doyle McManus, "CIA Aids Opposition in Panama Election," Los Angeles Times, April 24, 1989, citing U.S. News & World Report.

4. Bernard Weinraub, "Bush Backs Plan to Enhance Role of Security Staff," New York Times, February 2, 1989.

5. "How Tower Responds," New York Times, March 2, 1989.

6. John M. Goshko, "Low-Profile, High-Prestige Diplomat," Washington Post, December 7, 1988.

7. Walter Pincus, "Pickering Told Hill Panel of Aiding Contras; Bush Choice for U.N. Assisted on Donation," Washington Post, December 8, 1988.

8. Deposition of Thomas R Pickering, July 15, 1987, Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, Appendix B: Volume 20, 100th Congress, 1st Session, H. Rep. No. 100-433, S. Rept. No. 100-216, pp. 950-996. Quotations, pp. 962, 973.

9. Adam Platt, et al., "Have Savvy, Will Travel," Newsweek, February 20, 1989.

10. "Bush's ambassadorial mistakes," Washington Report on the Hemisphere, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Washington D.C., June 21, 1989.

11. Robert Pear, "A Bush Nominee Runs Afoul of the Contra Issue," New York Times, April 19, 1989.

12. Op. cit., n. 9.

13. O Estado de Sao Paulo, May 31,1989, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), Latin America, U.S. Department of Commerce, June 1, 1989, p. 47.

14. Folha de Sao Paulo, May 27, 1989, FBIS Latin America, May 31, l989, p. 35.

15. EFE (Spanish News Agency, Madrid) 1400 UCT, June 2, 1989; FBIS Latin America, June 5, 1989, p. 42.

16. Andrew Rosenthal, "Armitage Withdraws as Army Secretary Nominee," New York Times News Service, International Herald Tribune, May 27, l989.

17. Joe Conason, ''The New Zoo," Village Voice, November 22, 1988.

18. Jane Mayer & Doyle McManus, Landslide (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1988), pp. 57-63.

19. "Honduras Bows to U.S. Pressure," Washington Report on the Hemisphere, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Washington D.C., June 21, 1989.

20. Washington Report on the Hemisphere, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Washington DC, July 5, 1989.

21. Deposition of Cresencio Arcos, May 11, 1987, Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, Appendix B: Volume 1, 100th Congress, 1st Session, H. Rep. No. 100-433, S. Rept. No. 100-216, pp. 1239-1358. Quotations, pp. 1342 and 1253.

22. Deposition of John H. Kelly, June 10, 1987, Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, Appendix B: Volume 14, 100th Congress, 1st Session, H. Rep. No. 100-433, S. Rept. No. 100-216, pp. 1153-1206.

23. David Corn and Jefferson Morley, "Beltway Bandits," The Nation, April 17, 1989.

24. "Hopes for Unita cut-off recede as Mobutu's dependence on Washington increases," SouthScan, April 5, 1989.

25. ''The out-of-office reign of Henry I," U.S. News & World Report, March 27, 1989.

26. "Israeli arms sales pick up," Latin America Weekly Report, January 13, 1984.

27. John M. Goshko, "Israeli Technical Aid to El Salvador Part of Meetings Here," Washington Post, April 21, 1984.

28. See Jane Hunter, The VP's Office: Cover for Iran/Contra, this issue.

29. The Today Show, NBC, June 8, 1989; Jim Mann, "Bush Reportedly Picks Ex-CIA Officer as Ambassador to China," Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1989.

30. See "Vernon Walters: Crypto-diplomat and Terrorist," CAIB Number 26, Spring 1987, p. 3.

31. Terrence Petty, "Bluntness is trademark of new U.S. envoy to Bonn," AP, Sacramento Bee, April 25, 1989.

[admin]

Old Nazis and the New Right: The Republican Party and Fascists
by Russ Bellant*
Winter 1990

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

It is May 17, 1985: Ronald Reagan has been back in the nation's capital less than two weeks after his much criticized trip to the Bitburg cemetery in West Germany. Now, floodlights and television cameras that are part of a President's entourage are waiting at the Shoreham Hotel, as are 400 luncheon guests.

Ronald Reagan had recently characterized the Nazi Waffen SS as "victims" and these comments held special meaning for some of his afternoon luncheon guests. Although it was a Republican Party affair, it was not the usual GOP set, but a special ethnic outreach unit, the National Republican Heritage Groups (Nationalities) Council (RHGC).

The RHGC is an umbrella for various ethnic Republican clubs and operates under the auspices of the Republican National Committee. It has a special type of outreach and appears to have consciously recruited some of its members - and some of its leaders-from an Eastern European emigre network which includes anti-Semites, racists, authoritarians, and fascists, including sympathizers and collaborators of Hitler's Third Reich, former Nazis, and even possible war criminals. The persons in this network are a part of the radical right faction of the ethnic communities they claim to represent.

These anti-democratic and racialist components of the RHGC use anticommunist sentiments as a cover for their views while they operate as a defacto emigre fascist network within the Republican Party. Some of the unsavory personalities who were present in that 1985 luncheon audience would later join the 1988 election campaign of President George Bush.

This fascist network within the Republican Party represents a small but significant element of the coalition which brought Ronald Reagan into the White House. It is from this network that the George Bush presidential campaign assembled its ethnic outreach unit in 1988 - a unit that saw eight resignations by persons charged with anti-Semitism, racism, and even Nazi collaboration.

Axis Allies and Apologists

This network organizes support for its ideological agenda through national and international coalitions of like-minded constituencies which often work with other pro-fascist forces. This broader coalition ranges from Axis allies and their apologists to friends and allies of contemporary dictatorships and authoritarian regimes.

In the case of the Republican Heritage Groups Council, the nature of this network can be illustrated by briefly reviewing the backgrounds of some of the past and current leadership:

• Laszlo Pasztor: The founding chair and a key figure in the Council, Pasztor began his political career in a Hungarian pro-Nazi party and served in Berlin at the end of World War II. He continues to be involved in ultra-rightist groups and fascist networks while working with the GOP.

• Radi Slavoff: The RHGC's executive director is a member of a Bulgarian fascist group and leader of the Bulgarian GOP unit of the Council. He was able to get the leader of his Bulgarian nationalist group an invitation to the White House even though that leader was being investigated for concealing alleged World War II war crimes. He is also active in other emigre fascist groups.

• Nicolas Nazarenko: A former World War II officer in the German SS Cossack Division, Nazarenko heads the Cossack GOP unit of the Republican Heritage Groups Council and has declared that Jews are his "ideological enemy." He is still active with pro-Nazi elements in the U.S.

• Florian Galdau: He is a close associate and defender of Valerian Trifa - the Romanian archbishop prosecuted for concealing his involvement in war crimes of the pro-Nazi Romanian Iron Guard. Charged by former Iron Guardists and others with being the East Coast recruiter for the Iron Guard in the U.S., Galdau heads the Romanian Republican unit of the RHGC.

• Philip A. Guarino: He is a honorary American member of the conspiratorial P-2 Masonic Lodge of Italy, which plotted in the early 1970s to overthrow the Italian government in order to install a dictatorship. Guarino, an Italian Heritage Council member and Republican National Committee advisor, offered aid to those P-2 members being investigated.

• Anna Chennault: The newly-elected Republican Heritage Groups Council chairperson and fonder of the Chinese Republican affiliate, which for years has been closely linked to the authoritarian Taiwan regime.

The founding chair of the Republican Heritage Groups Council was Laszlo Pasztor, an activist in various Hungarian rightist and Nazi-linked groups.

The names of all but one of the persons listed above appeared on the invitational literature for the October 1987 meeting of the National Republican Heritage Groups (Nationalities) Council in Washington, D.C.

History of the Republican Heritage Groups Council

Many of the RHGC leaders of Central and Eastern European nationalities were part of the post- World War II immigration from displaced persons camps. It would be unfair to suggest that all or even a majority of Eastern and Central Europeans were anti-Semites or fascists. Most displaced persons were victims of the war who played no role in collaborating with Nazism. Yet quite a few persons in the displaced persons camps were there as political escapees to avoid the consequences of their collaboration with the German occupation of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

The Displaced Persons Commission, which worked from 1948 to 1952, arranged for approximately 400,000 persons to come to the U.S. [1] Initially it sought to bar members of pro-Nazi groups, but in 1950 a dramatic reversal took place. The Commission declared" ... the Baltic Legion not to be a movement hostile to the Government of the United States." [2] The Baltic Legion was also known as the Baltic Waffen (armed) SS.

The final report of the Commission noted that the decision "was the subject of considerable controversy,,,3 as well it should have been. The Waffen SS participated in the liquidation of Jews in the Baltic region because the SS units were comprised of Hitler's loyal henchmen, recruited from fascist political groups long tied to the German Nazi Party. Anyone opposed to the German occupation of the Baltic region (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia) was likely to meet a cruel death at their hands. They were now considered qualified to come to the United States, to become American citizens. Further, pro-Nazi elements from other parts of Europe came to the U.S. through nominally private groups associated with the Commission.

In 1952, the Commission completed its work. The Eisenhower- Nixon presidential campaign was on and the Republicans were charging the Democrats with being "soft on Communism." Talk of "liberating" Eastern Europe became part of the GOP message. That year, the Republican National Committee formed an Ethnic Division. Displaced fascists, hoping to be returned to power by an Eisenhower-Nixon "liberation" policy, were among those who signed on. This would become the embryo for the formation of the Republican Heritage Groups Council in 1969.

In a sense, however, the foundation of the Republican Heritage Groups Council lay in Hitler's networks in Eastern Europe before World War II. In many Eastern European countries the German SS set up or funded political action organizations that helped form SS militias during the war.

In Hungary, for example, the Arrow Cross was the Hungarian SS affiliate; in Romania, the Iron Guard. The Bulgarian Legion, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), the Latvian Legion, and the Byelorussian (White Russian) Belarus Brigade were all SS-linked. In each of their respective countries, they were expected to serve the interests of the German Nazi Party before and during the war.

This should not be taken to suggest that all Eastern and Central Europeans were Nazi collaborators who participated in atrocities, but it is a historical fact that some rightwing elements from virtually every Eastern European nationality tied their nationalistic goals to the rising star of fascism and Hitler's racialist Nazism.

The Council's Leadership

The founding chair of the Republican Heritage Groups Council was Laszlo Pasztor, an activist in various Hungarian rightist and Nazi-linked groups. In World War II Pasztor was a member of the youth group of the Arrow Cross, the Hungarian equivalent of the German Nazi Party. [4]

When Pasztor came to the U.S. in the 1950s, he joined the GOP's Ethnic Division. One of the leaders of the 1968 Nixon-Agnew campaign's ethnic unit, Pasztor says that Nixon promised him that if he won the election, he would form a permanent ethnic council within the GOP, as the Ethnic Division was only active during presidential campaigns.

Pasztor was made the organizer of the Council after Nixon's victory. Pasztor claims, "It was my job to identify about 25 ethnic groups" to bring into the Republican Heritage Groups Council. "In 1972 we used the Council as the skeleton to build the Heritage Groups for the re-election of the President." [5]

Pasztor's choices for filling emigre slots as the Council was being formed included various Nazi-collaborationist organizations mentioned above. Each formed a Republican federation, with local clubs around the country. The local clubs of the various federations then formed state multi-ethnic councils. Today there are 34 nationality federations and 25 state councils that constitute the National Republican Heritage Groups Council.

According to RHGC delegates interviewed during the May 1985 conference, in setting up the Council, Pasztor went to various collaborationist and fascist-minded emigre groups and asked them to form GOP federations. It eventually became clear that it was not an accident or a fluke that people with Nazi associations were in the Republican Heritage Groups Council. In some cases more mainstream ethnic organizations were passed over in favor of smaller but more extremist groups. And it seems clear that the Republican National Committee knows with whom they are dealing. A review of the federations will illustrate this point.

Bulgarians

One of the organizations which Pasztor approached to help form the RHGC was the Bulgarian National Front, headed by Ivan Docheff. As early as 1971, the GOP was warned that the National Front was beyond the pale. A Jack Anderson column quoted another Bulgarian-American organization, the conservative Bulgarian National Committee, which labeled Docheff's National Front as "fascist." [6] Neither the GOP nor the Nixon campaign took action. Professor Spas T. Raikin, a former official of the National Front, says the group grew out of an organization in Bulgaria that in the 1930s and 1940s was "pro-Nazi and pro-fascist." [7]

Docheff, age 83, is semi-retired from GOP activity, and the National Front is now represented by Radi Slavoff, Republican Heritage Groups Council executive director and head of the Bulgarian GOP federation. Slavoff also represents the National Front in several other Washington, D.C. area coalitions, including one that is Nazi-linked. [8]

While Docheff was representing the National Front, the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) was investigating him for possible war crimes he was suspected of committing while the mayor of a German-occupied city in Bulgaria. Docheff denies he ever committed war crimes, and the OSI never brought charges.

Docheff's political history, however, is not in dispute. Founder of a Bulgarian youth group in the early 1930s, Docheff met with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement's leading philosopher, Alfred Rosenberg, in 1934, shortly after the Nazis came to power. [9] Docheff then established the Bulgarian Legion, a pro-Hitler group that agitated for government action against Bulgarian Jews.

Romanians

Romanian-American Republicanism is led by a retired priest who, in 1984, said that the most important issue for Romanian Republicans is stopping " ... the deportation of our beloved spiritual leader, Archbishop Valerian Trifa." [10] Faced with charges by the OSI that he participated in the murder of Jews as part of a coup plot in Bucharest, Romania in 1941, Trifa left the U.S. in 1984. But his political network stayed behind. The Romanian Republican priest, Florian Galdau, is part of that network.

After the war, Trifa was able to come to the U.S. and take over the Romanian Orthodox Church by means of physical coercion and with some help from the U.S. government. In 1952, Trifa became an Archbishop of the Romanian Orthodox Church. [11]

FBI documents from 1954 and 1955 (which were used in the prosecution of Trifa) show that Trifa "is bringing Iron Guard members into the U.S. and installing them as priests." One of those priests, according to a document dated October 5, 1955, was Florian Galdau, whom an FBI source described as "a Romanian Iron Guard member and who at Trifa's instructions was elected Pastor of St. Dumitru," a Manhattan parish. [12]


Credit: Russ BeHant.
George Bush stands next to Bohdan Fedorak at the 1988 Captive Nations banquet in Warren, Michigan.

Friends of Dictatorships

Certain Republican Heritage Groups Council members have close allies in Italy who have plotted to overthrow the government and re-install fascism in Rome. Italy's problems with fascism have been much more recent than World War II. In 1981, Italian authorities uncovered a conspiracy in which a group of business, political, Mafia, military, and Vatican-connected figures planned to overthrow Italian parliamentary democracy and install a dictatorship. The group, called the P- 2 Masonic Lodge, had nearly a thousand members. The prestige of P-2 members (heads of the intelligence agencies, 38 generals and admirals, and 3 cabinet officers, for example), plus revelations of financial scandals, brought extensive European press coverage, the collapse of the Italian government, and a parliamentary inquiry. [13]

One American involved in this intrigue was Philip A. Guarino, 79, an adviser on senior citizens' affairs to the Republican National Committee, who was long active in Italian GOP politics. A theology student in Mussolini's Italy in the late 1920s and much of the 1930s, Guarino helped establish the ethnic division of the GOP in 1952. He was vice-chair of the Republican Heritage Groups Council from 1971-75. [14] He attended the 1985 Council convention to ensure that his friend, Frank Stella, won the chairmanship of the Council in a tight race with former Cleveland mayor Ralph Perk.

Guarino was also described in St. Peter's Banker, a book about activities involving P-2, as an "honorary member of P- 2.,,15 Foreign members of P-2 were rare. Another member of the select group was Jose L6pez Riga, founder of the Latin American death squad group known as the Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance (AAA).


Credit: Coalitions for America
Laszlo Pasztor, founding chair of the Republican Heritage Groups Council.

Guarino was also involved in John Connally's Committee for the Defense of the Mediterranean, which disseminated propaganda on the Italian Communist Party (PCI) supposed threat to the West. [16] Connally was Richard Nixon's Secretary of the Treasury and member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under Nixon and Gerald Ford. [17] In 1978, Guarino's friend and ally, Frank Stella, became National Chair of the "Heritage National Committee of Connally for President," when Connally sought the 1980 GOP nomination for president. [18]

Later Stella got on track with Ronald Reagan. Mark Valente, a Stella protege and suburban Detroit City Council member now serving as a Republican National Committee Ethnic Liaison staffer, says, "Everyone at the White House knows Frank." Stella's name has gone through the White House appointment process on several occasions. In 1981 he was nominated for the little-known Intelligence Oversight Board, which is supposed to monitor the legalities of covert operations of the intelligence agencies. [19] He withdrew his name after it had been publicly released. Stella was being considered for the post of Ambassador to Italy in 1985, but withdrew his name again, according to Valente. In 1983 he was made a White House Fellow.

Taiwan's Input

The Chinese-American and Asian-American Republican federations are led by Anna Chennault, who gained fame in the 19505 and 1960s as an ardent advocate of Chiang Kai-Shek's dictatorship of Taiwan. Both federations appear to be little more than adjuncts to Taiwan government activities in the U.S. This fact was highlighted at the 1985 RHGC convention when an official Taiwan Republican Heritage Groups Council delegation arrived at the meeting as part of a nationwide tour belatedly celebrating Reagan's second inauguration four months earlier. While the foremost visitor from Taiwan was the Deputy Minister for National Defense, the honorary president of the delegation was Ben John Chen, who also chairs the Asian-American Republican Federation.20 Other Chinese and Asian GOP federation members are part of trade groups linked to Taiwan.

The Republican Heritage Groups Council agenda was interrupted at the Chinese federation's request so that the delegation could present awards from the Taiwan government to Michael Sotirhos, the outgoing Republican Heritage Groups Council chair (who later became Reagan's ambassador to Jamaica). Also receiving an award from the Taiwan regime was Anna Chennault, who funds the Asian-American GOP federation, according to Chen. Chennault became RHCG chair in 1987.

Ethnic Realignment

The Republican Heritage Groups Council's ethnicity is broad, ranging from Albanians to Vietnamese. But two groups are missing at the RHGC. There are no African-American or Jewish Republican federations. Remarks by a number of delegates at the 1986 RHGC meeting made it clear that there was no desire to have either community represented on the Council. [21] Republican leaders say that African-American and Jewish relations are "special" and are dealt with in separate units of the GOP.

The key issues for every one of the Eastern European Heritage Council leaders interviewed were foreign policy issues. All of them called for more support for Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Most called for the abandonment of the Yalta agreement, the major treaty that set the post-war features of Europe, and all want a far more aggressive foreign policy against the Soviet Union. The most public activity the RHGC participates in is the annual "Captive Nations" rallies held in cities across the U.S. "Captive Nations" is the term used to describe countries which have communist governments.

The Republican National Committee seems to identify the RHGC as one of its keys to past electoral success and future opportunities. Republican Chairman Frank Fahrenkopf told the 1985 Council meeting, "On behalf of the Republican Party I want to express thanks for all of you in this room who were such a vital, integral part of the great victory we achieved on November 6 last year. We couldn't have done it without you, and I want you to know that." [22]

A few minutes later, President Reagan told the meeting, "The work of all of you has meant a very great deal to me personally, to the Party, and to our cause .... I can't think of any others who have made a more vital contribution to the effort than those of you who are in this room today ....I want to encourage you to keep building the Party. Believe me, bringing more ethnic Americans into the fold is the key to the positive realignment that we are beginning to see take shape."

Former RHGC chair Michael Sotirhos said in an interview that "The Council was the linchpin of the Reagan-Bush ethnic campaign .... The decision to use the Republican Heritage Groups was made at a campaign strategy meeting that included Paul Laxalt, Frank Fahrenkopf, Ed Rollins, and others." He claims that 86,000 volunteers for Reagan-Bush were recruited through the Council. [23]

Forgive and Forget

The GOP cannot be ignorant of the backgrounds of their ethnic leaders. When Nixon was encouraging the growth of the Republican Heritage Groups Council in 1971, Jack Anderson did a series of reports on the pro-Nazi backgrounds of various GOP ethnic advisors. Included in the reports were Ivan Docheff and Laszlo Pasztor. In November of 1971, the Washington Post did a story that elaborated on some of the fascist elements coming into the GOP. [24]

On August 2, 1988, many of the key figures in the RHGC were named as leaders of the George Bush presidential campaign's ethnic outreach arm, the Coalition of American Nationalities (CAN). These included Anna Chennault, Walter Melianovich, Laszlo Pasztor, Frank Stella, Radi Slavoff, Philip Guarino, and Florian Galdau. Other persons on the Bush ethnic panel with questionable views or pasts were Bohdan Fedorak and Akselis Mangulis.

In September 1988, Pasztor, Slavoff, Guarino, Galdau, Fedorak, Brentar, and Ignatius Billinsky resigned from the Bush panel following revelations about their pasts or views appearing in the Washington Jewish Week, Philadelphia Inquirer, and the extended version of this article which was published by Political Research Associates.

Bush adviser Fred Malek resigned from the Bush campaign after the Washington Post identified him as having compiled lists of Jews working at the Bureau of Labor Statistics on orders from the Nixon White House.

In early November, the Philadelphia Inquirer raised questions about a Latvian member of CAN, which prompted the final resignation, that of Akselis Mangulis, charged with having belonged to the pro-Nazi Latvian Legion which had connections to the SS.


Credit: RHGC
Frank. Stella and Florian Galdau at RHGC Convention.

While Bush campaign spokespersons pledged there would be an investigation into the backgrounds and views of the CAN members whose resignations it had announced, no serious investigation ever took place, and the campaign repeatedly referred to the charges as unsubstantiated politically-motivated smears. Several of the persons who had been reported as resigning told journalists they had never been asked to resign and considered themselves still active with the Bush campaign. Furthermore, Guarino, Slavoff, Galdau, and Pasztor are still active with the Republican Heritage Groups Council.

As a candidate, President Bush defended Galdau, Pasztor, Guarino, and Slavoff as innocent of all accusations of collaboration, and insisted they are all honorable men. But the historical record belies his assertions.

The GOP for decades has misread ethnic America's concerns about crime, employment, anti-ethnic discrimination and the future of its youth. It has offered instead the fascism and ethnic prejudices of the Heritage Council, which focuses primarily on funding Radio Free Europe and stopping Justice Department prosecutions of Nazi-era war criminals who illegally entered the country.

_______________

Notes:

* Russ Bellant is a researcher who has written extensively on the rise of the New Right in the U.S. This article is an edited version of a monograph by Political Research Associates. The monograph entitled, "Old Nazis, The New Right and the Reagan Administration," is available for $5 from: Political Research Associates, 678 Massachusetts Ave., Suite 205, Cambridge, MA 02139.

1. U.S. Displaced Persons Commission, Memo to America, The DP Story, The Final Report of the Displaced Persons Commission (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1952), p. V.

2. Ibid., p. 10l.

3. Ibid.

4. Jack Anderson, "Nixon Appears a Little Soft on Nazis," Washington Post, November 10,1971, p. B17; Nora Levin, The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry 1933-1945 (New York: T.Y. Crowell, 1963; Schocken Books, 1973), pp. 610-11, 644, 653-55, 662-64.

5. Interview with Laszlo Pasztor, Washington, D.C., May 15, 1985.

6. Anderson, op. cit., n. 4, p. B17.

7. Interview with Spas T. Raikin, by telephone, August 1986.

8. Interview with Ivan Docheff, by telephone, September 1984.

9. Interview with Professor Frederic Chary, Detroit, MI, August 1984. Chary is author of Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1972).

10. Interview with Florian Galdau, by telephone, September 1984.

11. Howard Blum, Wanted: The Search for Nazis in America (New York: Quadrangle/New York Times Book Co., 1977), pp. 109-11, 114-16. Trifa offered an opening prayer for the U.S. Senate on May 10, 1955, at the request of Richard Nixon, who presided over the Senate as part of his vice-presidential duties.

12. "Viorel Donise Trifa," FBI Memo (April 6, 1954), p. 1; on Galdau, "Viorel Donise Trifa," FBI Memo (October 5, 1955), p. 2. Copies of these memos are in the possession of the author.

13. New York Times, May 25-June 10, 1981; Thomas Sheehan, "Italy: Terror on the Right," New York Review of Books, January 22,1981, pp. 23- 26. Also, Luifi Di Fonzo, St. Peter's Banker (New York and London: Franklin Watts, I983); Larry Gurwin, The Calvi Affair (London: MacMillan, 1983).

14. Who's Who in American Politics: 1987-1988, 11th ed. (New York and London: RR Bowker Co., 1987), p. 258.

15. Di Fonzo, op. cit., n. 13, p. 229.

16. Gurwin, op. cit., n. 13, p. 189.

17. Who's Who in America: 1984-1985, 43rd ed. (Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, 1984); Gurwin, op. cit., n. 13, pp. 12, 189-190.

18. Stella's curriculum vitae, 1986, p. 2.

19. Op. cit., n. 14, p. 767. The announcement was made October 20, 1981, according to an undated White House letter received by the author in February 1984.

20. The delegation's membership, their backgrounds and planned itinerary were described in a booklet distributed at the Republican Heritage Groups Council meeting, "President Reagan's (sic) Reinauguration Celebration Delegation" (Room 8, 11F, 150, Chi Lin Road, Taipei, Taiwan: Chinese Times, 1985).

21. A proposal to create such affiliates was roundly denounced by delegates at the June 1986 convention.

22. Quotations from the 1985 Republican Heritage Groups Council convention are from the author's own notes of the event.

23. Interview with Michael Sotirhos, Washington, D.C., September 1984.

24. Peter Braestrup, "GOP's 'Open Door': Who's Coming In?," Washington Post, November 21, 1971, p. A1.

[admin]

NED Overt Action: Intervention in the Nicaraguan Election
by William Robinson and David MacMichael*
Winter 1990

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

A great deal of attention is being paid to the Nicaraguan election, to be held on February 25, 1990. While most outside observers see the elections as a contest between the governing FSLN (the Sandinistas) and their political opposition within the country, the Sandinistas view the elections as another stage of the struggle between the Nicaraguan Revolution and the government of the United States.

Although current U.S. strategy does not rule out a military element, its thrust is to transfer the anti-Sandinista struggle from the battlefield to the political arena. This strategy dates from the August 1987 Esquipulas Accords where the Central American presidents signed an agreement that sealed the defeat of Reagan's armed counterrevolutionary project. Even though the Republican right wing denounced the Esquipulas agreement and did their worst to undermine it, many Democrats and the more pragmatic Republicans accepted the contras' military defeat and made plans to exploit the political openings within Nicaragua. The slogan in Washington changed from "support the freedom fighters" to "democratization in Nicaragua."

The U.S. Embassy in Managua declared it was going to strengthen ties and gain increased influence with the "civic opposition." [1] The State Department put out a call for "other governments, foreign political organizations and private U.S. foundations ... to fund the Nicaraguan opposition." [2]

Soon after, the U.S. government began sending money, supplies, and political specialists to Managua in support of the anti-Sandinista opposition. This was the beginning of the all-out U.S. effort to create an anti-Sandinista political opposition.

The U.S. strategists faced a difficult task. For years the opposition believed that a contra military victory or a U.S. invasion would oust the Sandinistas. This left the internal political opposition fragmented and lacking any real grassroots political support. Splintered into some two dozen parties and factions, the opposition wasted its time on internal bickering. The U.S. largesse exacerbated divisions because it made money available for any professed opposition group. For many, anti-Sandinista activity was more business than politics.

In addition, many of the brightest potential opposition leaders left the country to join the constantly reshuffled ranks of CIA-organized contra political fronts. A Bush State Department official described the situation as, "Reagan's policy was to take the political protagonists out of Nicaragua; ours is to put [them] back in."

Thus, the first task for the U.S. was to bring the internal and external political fronts together: "Unification is the single most important ingredient for the success of the opposition." [3]

The U.S. needed to provide the opposition with a political definition that went beyond vague anti-Sandinista rhetoric. Next would come intensive training for "civic activists" and political instruction in building party infrastructures, youth and women's organizations. All these would then form the framework for the U.S. anti-Sandinista strategy.

As one Bush official explained, "The 1990 elections figure prominently in the administration's strategy toward Nicaragua. They give us a chance to test the Nicaraguans, to mobilize all international pressure possible against [the Sandinistas] ... ,to transfer the conflict in Nicaragua to the political terrain." [4]

The "Democracy Network"

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was set up by the Reagan administration in 1983 as an instrument to promote U.S. foreign policy objectives through direct political intervention in other countries. At the time of its inception, NED's founders explained that the public nature of NED activities would provide an important tactical alternative to clandestine CIA intervention. [5]

NED is funded wholly by Congress and its main purpose is to provide grants - in close consultation with the State Department - to U.S. organizations working to create and support the growth of pliant political institutions abroad. Although its charter defines it as "promoting democracy abroad," the NED 1985 annual report outlines its work as such: "planning, coordinating and implementing international political activities in support of U.S. policies and interests relative to national security."

There are four "core" groups which receive most of their funding from NED and which are tied to different facets of the U.S. political and foreign policy structure.6 These groups are the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NOI) and its Republican counterpart, the National Republican Institute (NRI) (the international affairs departments of the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively), the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI) (the operational part of the American Institute for Free Labor Development [AIFLD], whose ties to the CIA are well documented and which acts to generate moderate, pro-U.S. labor movements in Latin America), and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Center on International Private Enterprise (CIPE).

The logic behind this so-called "democracy network" is that the first two groups (NDI and NRI) form the bridge with political parties and organizations, the third (FTUI) forms ties with labor, and the fourth (CIPE) with private enterprise. The U.S. is using this intervention strategy throughout the world.

Beyond the "core" groups are a host of secondary organizations directly tied to U.S. foreign policy and intervention. These groups include Freedom House, the Center for Democracy, as well as many others who have received NED funding to begin election projects in Nicaragua. Among more "shadowy" groups receiving funding from NED for programs in Nicaragua are the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) , Delphi International, the Simon Bolivar Fund, and the Centro para las Asesoria Democratica (CAD).

In Fiscal Years 1989 and 1990, Congress appropriated $12.5 million for NED to use in the Nicaraguan electoral process. [7] If we just consider the $12.5 million of U.S. political aid this averages to about $10 per voter. It is the equivalent of a foreign power injecting $2 billion into a U.S. electoral campaign.

On August 4, 1988 NED held a major meeting in Washington, DC to map out "a more broadranging strategy" for developing the opposition. Present at the meeting were NED officials, core group representatives, and Richard Melton, the then recently-expelled U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua. The record of the meeting speaks of:

• " ... enlisting the support of the Central Americans generally.

• ... in preliminary phases - create lines of vertical command.

• ... continue to organize seminars and workshops, focusing on imparting group dynamics, styles of leadership, hypothetical situations.

• ... encourage more outside visitors to Nicaragua; visitors can provide moral and political support.

• .... try to establish a permanent [U.S.] presence in the country." [8]

In expectation of future funding the August 1988 meeting was used to map out a plan for expanding organizing activities in labor, the communications media, business, women and youth. A month later Congress approved $2 million which would go through NED to fund these programs. New contracting groups were brought in to administer the projects.

U.S. Parties Get Involved

NDI and NRI act as major conduits for NED funding of the Nicaraguan opposition and have received NED money for work on a "democratic development program" [9] in Nicaragua. The initial phase of this program called for formalized and systematic contacts with the opposition. An internal NDI document describes the initial efforts:

NDI and NRI, following conversations in Washington with visiting [Nicaraguan] party representatives and meeting with the other core institutes of the NED, visited Caracas, Panama, and Nicaragua to hold exploratory talks with civic opposition leaders .... Follow-up talks have also taken place and FTUI and CIPE have agreed to pursue opportunities for strengthening the civic opposition. [10]

NDI President Brian Atwood explained, "We have set about to unify the opposition and orient its anti-Sandinista activities." [11]

In 1987, NDI and NRI began organizing seminars with opposition leaders in Managua and abroad. According to an NDI official, these seminars "generate international support and attention for the opposition leaders, put the Sandinistas on notice, and explore the possibilities for the civic opposition to take major advantage of the Esquipulas opening." [12]

The seminars, funded with $600,000 in NED grants, "provide[d] training, in how to formulate organizational strategy and tactical planning, to the civic opposition ... designed around three core themes: party planning and organizational strategies, constituency building, and coalition formation .... U.S. and international experts will be brought in." [13]

These initial efforts also involved U.S. political consultants who analyzed the opposition groups' strengths and weaknesses. One NDI team went to Managua and reported:

The purpose of the mission was to find the answers to the following questions: 1) what are the prospects of democratization in Nicaragua? 2) what are the capabilities and needs of the democratic opposition? 3) what program(s) could be developed by NDI to assist the democratic opposition in presenting a unified, effective challenge to Sandinista rule?

On the surface, the overall environment for change in Nicaragua appears to favor the opposition. The economy is in shambles .... Poverty and despair are evident everywhere ... . It is hard to know where the Sandinista mismanagement ends and the country being bled white by the contra war begins. This should not be a problem for the democratic opposition; incumbents are almost always blamed for the mess at hand ....

But, the various political parties which are included in the opposition have been unable or unwilling to forge an effective coalition due to personal or ideological rivalries .... [14]

Delphi International Group

Another private organization central to the U.S. government's plan to influence the Nicaraguan electoral process is the Delphi International Group. In 1988, Delphi was the largest single recipient of NED funds.


Credit: Delphi International Group
Paul Von Ward, President of Delphi.

In 1988 Henry R. Quintero directed Delphi's Nicaraguan operations. [15] Quintero is an intelligence community veteran. Since World War II, he has served as an intelligence analyst with the Department of Defense, State, and U.S. Information Agency (USIA). He helped run the Institute for North-South Issues (INSI), which was exposed in the Iran/contra scandal as an Oliver North front group which had laundered illegal contra funds, while at the same time holding a $493,000 NED contract. [16]

Delphi's president is Paul Von Ward, a former government official who has held several delicate State Department posts in the U.S. and overseas between 1966-79. These positions included special personnel adviser to the Director General of the Foreign Service and U.S. coordinator of a special NATO committee on the "Challenges of Modern Society."

One of Delphi's projects is the "Nicaraguan Independent Media Program." This program is designed to strengthen the opposition media, including La Prensa. In 1984-85, La Prensa received $150,000 in NED funds. [17] Beginning with 1986, Delphi has acted as the conduit for NED funds to La Prensa, and more recently the amount of funding has jumped to almost $1 million. [18]

Delphi has also established the "Independent Radios Project" which equips and advises opposition radio stations in Nicaragua. It was begun with initial grants from NED totaling $150,000. In a memo from Delphi to NED the group stated that "Radio remains the best means for reaching the masses of Nicaragua ...." [19]

In August 1989, the Bush administration suspended the United States Information Agency funded contra radio station, "Radio Liberacion," operating from Honduras, and redirected its propaganda efforts to creating "Radio Democracia," a new outlet inside Nicaragua.

An October 19, 1989 letter from opposition leader Roger Guevara Mena to NED reported that the Board of Directors for "Radio Democracia" had been formed. The board was comprised exclusively of anti-Sandinista opposition leaders. "Radio Democracia," the letter explained, would serve as an "instrument of democratization and the formation of a civic consciousness, functioning both in the pre and post-election period, in order to offset the FSLN's instruments for consciousness formation."

Two of Delphi's Nicaraguan operations targeted youth and women, these groups were identified by NED strategists as special constituencies critical to the elections. Early in 1988, NED awarded Delphi $33,000 to create the Centro de Formacion Juvenil (CEFOJ) [20] and in 1989 another $118,000 to consolidate this new "civic youth organization." [21]

According to internal Delphi documents, their plan was to hold seminars throughout 1988 for a core group of youth leaders from rightwing political parties. As a paid national leadership, this group would identify regional leaders. These regional leaders would oversee local activists who would work in the nation's secondary schools, communities, and recreational centers to organize an anti-Sandinista political youth movement. [22]

This system of "multiplier" political training is standard in most NED-funded programs in Nicaragua. This method of political organizing is recommended in CIA, AID, and Department of Defense political operations manuals. [23] In fact, some of the language of the Delphi documents is remarkably similar to that of the CIA's 1984 contra "assassination manual" -Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare. One major difference is that the old reference to the "freedom struggle" against "communist dictatorship" has been updated to refer to the "civic struggle" for "democratic objectives."

Delphi's ''women's project" focuses on organizing efforts in the marketplace. "Nicaraguan women have begun to speak of the decisive role they must play in organizing rallies and protests." The document prescribes "seminars and workshops tailored to train 'multipliers' to train and motivate their peers to participate." [24]

Meanwhile, the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI) worked to bring labor into the program. Like their political counterparts, the non-Sandinista trade union movement was splintered into small groups of diverse ideologies.

These groups include the Confederation of Trade Union Unity (CUS), two opposing Christian Democratic labor factions - both of whom call themselves the Nicaraguan Workers' Confederation (CTN), the General Confederation of Labor-Independent (CGTI), and the Communist party's Federation of Trade Union Action and Unity (CAUS). It was the U.S. government's strategy to unify the union movement. Thus, FTUI used $992,000 in NED money [25] to bring together the factions, at least nominally, in the Permanent Workers Congress (CPT). U.S. second secretary of the Embassy, David Nolan worked directly in this process. [26]

According to U.S. analysis, labor was especially critical to the election project. Although the Sandinistas had strong worker support, the U.S. strategy was to exploit Nicaragua's economic crisis in an attempt to turn the workers against the FSLN. From 1984 to 1989, FTUI received just under $2 million in NED grants for its labor programs; [27] this however does not include covert funding.

An FTUI internal document dated August 22, 1989 expressed satisfaction with its progress and described plans to spend $1 million more for mobilizing workers and their families. FTUI planned to organize 4,000 activists "to mount an effective, nation-wide effort to register workers and their families and then see that they vote." FTUI's training, supervision and direction of the effort was considered "crucial." The plan involved using a trained Managua headquarters staff to supervise an elaborate network reaching down to ten-member voter teams in towns and villages.

The United Nicaraguan Opposition

After months of negotiations, it was announced in June 1988 that the Union Opositora Nicaraguense (UNO) would be the formal coalition to represent the opposition in the upcoming elections. Their presidential candidate is La Prensa director, Violeta Chamorro.

Congress has stipulated that NED and its funding should only be used to "bolster democratic political systems ... [and] to support democratic activities in Nicaragua .... " [28] However, the majority of NED funding is going to specifically support UNO. In 1989, the CIA provided $5 million in covert funding for UNO "house-keeping," [29] and it is estimated that the CIA gave $10-12 million in the previous year. [30]

According to the independent research group, Hemisphere Initiatives, U.S. covert and overt support to anti-Sandinista political groups in Nicaragua totaled $26.1 million over the last five years. Added to this money is substantial funding provided by European, principally West German conservative foundations. [31]

In April 1989, the five Central American presidents signed the Costa del Sol agreement in which Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega agreed to call early elections. The U.S. took this as a signal to begin intensive efforts to organize the anti-Sandinista election campaign.

In an April 1989 meeting at the U.S. Embassy, NED representatives and charge d'affaires John Leonard planned the creation of the formal coalition which was later to become UNO. An internal NED document states that their primary strategy was to "organize the opposition around a single candidate. It should include as many parties as possible, COSEP and the labor movement, women and youth. The CDN [Coordinadora Democratica Nicaraguense] would form the core ... " [32]

NED had earlier given Delphi International $22,000 to consolidate CDN as the core group and to carry the unity process forward. [33] After the Costa del Sol agreement advanced the elections, a flood of visitors raced to Managua from Washington, DC to take part in the unity negotiations, including the president of NED, Carl Gershman. It was made clear to opposition figures that failure to get on-board meant no U.S. money. One top opposition leader confessed to a friend, "The pressures on me from the Embassy to join are really intense. They distributed a lot of cash; it's difficult for some to resist."

U.S. participants in the April meeting stated: " ... first [we must] successfully negotiate the conditions for the elections, the rules, and then they can squabble amongst themselves over the candidates." [34]

Late in April, representatives of the opposition were brought to Washington. In intensive consultations at the State Department, with members of Congress, and NED officials, the importance of unity was driven home. In June 1989, UNO was formally announced.

Via Civica

Another important component of NED's strategy was a non-partisan "civic group." An internal NED document of June 1989 stated:

There are three main centers of activity in this election. One is the political parties grouped in UNO. Another is the labor group in CPT. Each of these has come together fairly well and there is a good working relationship between them .... The third group is a civic group which has yet to solidify. Conceptually, this is a vital part of the democratic process .... The civic group needs to be independent and non-partisan, but it should also coordinate with the other two main groups and avoid duplication of effort.

On July 7, 1989, U.S. organizers and opposition representatives met in Managua. At a press conference shortly afterwards, they announced the formation of Via Civica, proclaiming it would press its cause "through ballots, not bullets." It was quickly dubbed "CIA Civica." Although Via Civica was announced as a "non-partisan grouping of notables," all ten members of its national executive committee were vocal anti-Sandinista activists. Three were UNO politicians, five were COSEP leaders, and two represented CPT unions. Olga Maria Taboada, named as head of Via Civica women's affairs, was a national coordinator of UNO's Nicaraguan Conservative Party.

In 1987 Taboada received $22,000 from NED to form a mothers of political prisoners group.35 The group considered all captured contras political prisoners, including the imprisoned former Somocista Guardsmen. Via Civica formed a youth organization which was headed by Fanor Avendano, also a leader of the Conservative Party and the director of CEFOJ.

With Via Civica established, the three separate components of the NED strategy were in place. As one NED document concluded, all three, UNO (political), CPT (labor), and Via Civica ( civic), were expected "to function during the election as a single unit." [36]

In 1989 NED allocated $540,000 - in three successive grants - to the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) to administer Via Civica. [37] On the IFES board of directors sit many Reagan-era contra supporters. The Chair of IFES is F. Clifton White (also on the board of NRI), who helped the CIA develop covert propaganda used to encourage the U.S. public support for the contras.

The IFES treasurer is Richard Stone, a rightwing Republican and former Senator from Florida. In the early 1980s, Stone was Reagan's roving ambassador to Central America where he played a key role in supporting the contras. Stone is currently the chief operating officer of the Miami and Washington-based Capital Bank, which houses the accounts of UNO and IFES. [38]

Robert Walker is another IFES official. He was a White House aide to President Reagan and is currently vice president of Coors Brewing Company, which provided millions of dollars in private contra assistance. Walker is a close personal friend of contra political director Adolfo Calero.

In June 1989, Henry Quintero, having launched Delphi's media, youth, and women's projects, transferred to IFES to oversee its Nicaragua program, Via Civica. [39]

The Flow of Funds

As in countless other interventions, the U.S. is attempting to buy the Nicaraguan elections. In pursuit of this goal, the U.S. is flooding the country with money during a time of general economic hardship. One observer calls this the "strategy of gringo dollars." In violation of Nicaraguan law, millions of NED dollars marked for political use have entered the country without being registered with the Central Bank.

As late as November 1989, UNO still claimed to have not received funding from the U.S. Yet, a Barricada report explains how U.S. payments to opposition groups are laundered. [40] The article reports that hundreds of thousands of dollars which IFES provided for UNO use in voter registration was laundered through a Nicaraguan company, Construcciones y Proyectos, SA (CYPSA). CYPSA is the local subsidiary of Inversiones Martinez Lopez (IML). IML was founded by a one-time Somoza minister of finance who moved to Miami after the overthrow of the regime. IML recently opened an office in San Jose, Costa Rica.

CYPSA's president is Jeronimo Sequiera, a COSEP and Via Civica leader. Via CEvica's president, Carlos Quinonez, acknowledges that he sent Sequiera to San Jose to meet with Henry Quintero and IFES president Richard Soudriette on August 1, 1989. [41] On August 28, Quintero entered Managua and registered with immigration officials as a "consultant for CYPSA."

On each of the four registration Sundays in October 1989, UNO party workers set up refreshment stands at registration centers, and gave out thousands of sandwiches, coffee, and cold drinks. The UNO teams were transported in flashy new Toyota jeeps. For many, these scenes recalled the days of Somoza elections when peasants were trucked to the polls and rewarded for their vote with a meal and cheap liquor.

Although UNO denies receiving any money from the U.S. government, it has requested plenty. Its campaign budget, drawn up by the U.S. Embassy in Managua, and made available by a UNO delegation which visited Washington, DC in September, totalled $5.67 million. This included $1.24 million in salaries for campaign staff: $2,000 a month for the national campaign manager; $1,000 for administrators and publicity directors; and $500 a month for sixteen regional administrators. There is also $337,000 in vacation pay budgeted, $525,000 to run rallies and meetings, $600,000 for poll watchers, and $50,000 for international travel.


Credit: CPAC
F. Clifton White, Chair of IFES.

Via Civica is also able to spend openly. It has budgeted $55,000 for salaries, but many observers regard this as money to be spent for buying votes. Henry Quintero has acknowledged that IFES is paying 1,500 Via Civica ''volunteers'' a dollar a day, a considerable inducement in today's Nicaragua.42 High school students at one registration center in Managua told reporters the CEFOJ activists were giving out free T-shirts and offering students 20,000 cordobas (about one-half days' wages at the time) to sign up with UNO. [43]

Centro para las Asesoria Democratica

The U.S. is also coordinating the opposition's campaign from three key offshore centers. They are Miami, Caracas, and San Jose, Costa Rica. The U.S. has also established opposition centers in every Central American capital and their activities are coordinated regionally from San Jose through an NED conduit, Centro para las Asesoria Democratica (CAD).

CAD began under the name "Asociacion Pro-Democratica" (APD). Between 1986-87, it received at least $250,000 from NED for the "training and civic education" of the Nicaraguan opposition.44 In 1988, NED decided to expand APD's role, and changed its name to Centro para las Asesoria Democratica. NED then gave CAD $247,000 to "improve the communications within and among the organizations of the Nicaraguan democratic opposition and promote regional solidarity with the non-violent struggle for democracy in Nicaragua." [45]

With the beginning of the electoral process in April 1989, NED decided to link CAD more directly to the specific NED electoral projects. CAD would reinforce the already existing programs run by Delphi, the IFES, the FTUI, and the NDI and NRI. The plan called for CAD to inject clandestine and overt support to bolster these projects. [46]

The range of CAD activities included sending "reporters" from Costa Rica to reinforce the La Prensa staff in Managua. It also purchased Toyota vehicles in Costa Rica for UNO and then drove them into Nicaragua in order to avoid paying Nicaraguan import taxes. [47]

The Miami Connection

The city of Miami, where there is a large Nicaraguan exile community, has been transformed from a contra rearguard to a base for the electoral effort. A number of new Nicaraguan "civic opposition" groups have been formed there. The largest is the "Committee for Free Elections and Democracy in Nicaragua," headed by Jose Antonio Alvarado. In September and October 1989, Alvarado, with help from NRI, raised approximately $30,000 to produce UNO T-shirts and baseball caps which were sent to Nicaragua for distribution during the registration period. Alvarado also confirmed that the committee was receiving private donations from "wealthy Americans." [48]

La Prensa has recently opened a post office box in Miami for all its international correspondence. La Prensa will send a courier three times per week to pick-up its mail and bring it to Managua.

An important element in the Miami operation is the television station "Channel 23," owned by the Spanish-language UNIVISION network. In early 1989, the State Department contracted Channel 23's Carlos Briceno to develop a television production facility in Managua. On September 15, 1989 NED approved a grant for $200,000 to begin the project. In October, NED authorized NRI and NDI to rechannel some $300,000 into the television project.

In a letter from Briceno to the anti-Sandinista opposition, Briceno states:

This production facility, in addition to producing commercials for the political campaign, will also prepare reports in English and Spanish on the electoral process, aimed at abroad, in order to keep the world informed on the Sandinistas' compliance or non-compliance ....

... If you participate in the elections and there are anomilies [sic], the opposition needs to have the capacity to almost instantly transmit an international condemnation of this fraud through the use of satellite signals ....

In early May 1989, Briceno met with Jeb Bush, son of the president and a close friend of contra leader, Adolfo Calero. A few days after the meeting, Bush sent Briceno a letter which strongly endorsed the television project and wished him "every success in generating political and financial support."

Briceno also received help from the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) whose president, Edward O. Fritts, sent letters to NAB affiliates soliciting "broadcast equipment which would be used to establish a facility to produce TV programming on behalf of groups opposing the Sandinistas."

Briceno also has stated that he intends to violate Nicaraguan law by trying to avoid import duty on the broadcasting equipment. In a letter to Barbara Haig, program director at NED (and daughter of Alexander Haig), Briceno wrote, " ... According to Luis Sanchez (UNO's 'Communications Director'), I won't have any trouble introducing the equipment. In the worst case I would have to pay a 15 percent import duty on it, which would not be substantial since purchase receipts could be fudged down."

The Contra Role

The Bush administration has opted for the electoral route in Nicaragua yet it has refused to forsake the contras as a bargaining chip. Moreover, the old guard of the contra leadership retains a certain degree of clout because of its ties to Nicaragua's right wing opposition and the U.S. far Right.

Meanwhile, in Congress, the Democratic leadership entered into a bipartisan compromise which sent $47 million in "humanitarian aid" to the contras. It was understood that the contras were to remain in their camps and undertake no offensive actions inside Nicaragua.

However, there appears to have been some rethinking of this strategy after the 10th anniversary celebration of the Sandinista Revolution. This event produced a groundswell of support for the FSLN which greatly troubled the U.S. government. On August 8, 1989, the Central American Presidents signed the Tela Accords, calling for the demobilization of the contras by December 5th. This sent shock waves through the U.S. government as policy makers scrambled to find a way to stop the demobilization.

In August 1989, the contras announced that there would be a large increase in the level of contra infiltration from Honduras. The rationale behind this move was to avoid detection by the U.N. monitoring troops sent as a condition of the Tela Accords. By September, Nicaraguan intelligence found that this number had reached 1,000 a month.

It was clear that the reappearance of the contras was not separate from the electoral activity. Nicaraguan government officials believed the contra infiltrations would recreate fear in the rural areas after months of relative peace; thus the Sandinistas could not maintain their claim to have militarily defeated the contras. The lesson would be drawn that unless the Sandinistas were voted out, there would never be peace.

The contras also hoped to provoke government reactions such as a reintroduction of the military draft which would alienate voters or that could be denounced by the opposition as interfering with the electoral process.

Nicaraguan government reports and independent investigators (including the North American church group, Witness for Peace) state that the contras have both openly and covertly acted for UNO. In one case in the town of La Gateada in Chontales, in September, numerous witnesses testified that the contras, trying to pass themselves off as state security officers, murdered a local resident who had been accused of being a Sandinista infiltrator of UNO.

Elsewhere the contras carry and distribute UNO leaflets. Peasants have reported being threatened at gunpoint by contras who tell them they must vote for UNO. During most of 1988, contra military actions averaged about 50 per month. That figure jumped to 100 in the first half of 1989 and by October, it had risen to 300 actions per month. [49] Sandinista electoral officials have been threatened and murdered and during the October 1989 registration period at least 37 registration places had to closed because of contra military actions. [50]

In November 1989, Barricada caused a controversy by reprinting a letter allegedly from Alfredo Cesar to Enrique Bermudez that had appeared in El Tiempo, the independent newspaper of San Pedro Sula, Honduras. In it Cesar tells Bermudez not to demobilize because the existence of the contras is necessary for a UNO victory.

Cesar denounced it as a forgery and former President Jimmy Carter, at an Atlanta conference, criticized the Sandinistas for dirty politics in reprinting the letter. However, until a few months ago Cesar, as a political director of the contra movement, routinely made such statements publicly.

As for Bermudez, in October 1989, he signed the following communique:

We want to express all our backing and unconditional support for the UNO candidates .... We are not going to put down our arms, we are not going to accept demobilization .... We will carry on in the mountains with our weapons loaded against Sandinismo. So as to avoid fraud, we are going to prevent Sandinista accomplices and collaborators from registering. We are going to assure the triumph of UNO. [51]

After a contra ambush killed 18 young reservists in route to their hometowns to register for the elections, President Daniel Ortega angrily announced the end of the government's unilateral cease-fire. UNO denounced Ortega's action as detrimental to the holding of free elections. The U.S. media and Congress reacted by condemning the Sandinista revocation of the cease-fire, not the killing of the reservists.

Conclusion

Whether the U.S. effort to oust the Sandinistas pays off in February 1990 remains to be seen. However, the long-term intervention strategy should not be lost sight of. University of Southern California professor, and executive director of Inter-American Dialogue, Abraham Lowenthal writes, "Even if [the opposition] does not win - and defeat is probable - the [electoral] effort opens the way .. .. In the long run, their best chance of countering the Sandinistas is by building national support step by step. Sustained internal opposition can eventually pay off." [32]


Credit: NDI
NDI President, Brian Atwood (second from left).

In its attempt to defeat the Sandinistas, the U.S. government has organized an astonishing array of resources and has expended huge sums of money. Even though NED claims to be a legitimate, above-board institution, it is in reality, a quasi-official conduit for U.S. covert and overt activities in Nicaragua and in dozens of other countries. [53]

NED claims it is building a framework for democracy in Nicaragua. However, a close examination of NED documents clearly shows it is attempting to manipulate the electoral process to U.S. government ends. Through NED's "legitimate" activities, the U.S. government obfuscates its true intentions for Nicaragua.

U.S. actions toward Nicaragua have a strange and disturbing Orwellian character. Intervention is defined as non-intervention. Non-partisan bodies are made up of highly partisan figures. Those who champion democracy in Nicaragua have shown contempt for democracy in the rest of the world.

This is the new covert action. Kinder, gentler and open to view - if you only know where to look and what to look for.

_______________

Notes:

* William Robinson is the ANN (Nicaragua News Agency) correspondent in Washington, DC and co-author of David and Goliath; The U.S. War Against Nicaragua. David MacMichael, a former CIA analyst, is an outspoken critic of U.S. intervention who researches and writes on V .S. foreign policy.

1. See Central American Information Bulletin, February 24, 1989, special report, ''The Chileanization of the Nicaraguan Counterrevolution," William Robinson. See also, New York Times, August 26, 1987, October 15, 1987.

2. State Department briefing, August 10, 1987.

3. National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), internal memorandum, "Nicaragua, Municipal Elections," the report is of an NDI survey mission, October 31, 1987, prepared by Martin Anderson and Willard Dupree.

4. Peter Rodman, National Security Council (NSC) representative, in testimony to the "Bipartisan Commission on Free and Fair Elections in Nicaragua," May 10, 1989, Washington, DC. Rodman is Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs at the NSC. He opened his statement confirming he was speaking on behalf of the administration.

5. Memorandum prepared by David MacMichael for the Institute for Media Analysis' "Nicaragua Election Monitoring Project," November 1989.

6. Carl Gershman, president of NED, public testimony before the International Operations Subcommittee, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, September 28, 1989.

7. Congress approved $1.5 million in a special Nicaragua appropriation in September 1988, then another S2 million in June 1989. In October it approved $9 million, allocated specifically for the electoral process.

8. Internal NED document, August 1988.

9. Op. cit., n. 3.

10. Ibid.

11. Central America Information Bulletin, op. cit., n. 1.

12. NDI Program Assistant Michael Stoddard, in testimony before the "Bipartisan Commission on Free and Fair Elections in Nicaragua," May 10, 1989, Washington, DC.

13. NED's executive summary on Nicaragua projects, "Programs of the Endowment and its Institutions in Nicaragua," 1988; updated version, Fall 1989.

14. Op. cit., n. 3.

15. Phone interview with Delphi President Paul Von Ward.

16. Ben Bradlee, Jr., Guts and Glory: The Rise and Fall of Oliver North (New York: Donald I. Fine, Inc., 1988), pp. 233-36.

17. NED Annual Reports, 1985-87; op. cit., n. 13.

18. La Prensa began to receive covert CIA subsidies as early as 1979 to enable it to play the counter-revolutionary role that El Mercurio had done during the Allende years in Chile and that The Daily Gleaner performed in Jamaica in 1976-1980 in the anti-Manley effort. In Nicaragua, the result was that the incorruptible managing editor, Xavier Chamorro, resigned along with 80 percent of the staff to found the pro-Sandinista El Nuevo Diario. The new editor, Violeta's son, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, later went into self-exile in Costa Rica where, on a CIA salary supposed to have been several thousand a month, he published an exile edition of La Prensa and served on the contra political directorate.

19. "Support for Nicaraguan Independent Radios," internal Delphi document, June 1989; op. cit., n. 13.

20. Op. cit., n. 13.

21. Op. cit., n. 13.

22. ''Youth voter education project in Nicaragua," NED summary of the Delphi programs, June 1989; "CEFOJ Evaluation," internal Delphi evaluation of the first year of the program.

23. Department of the Army, "U.S. Army Guide for the Planning of Counter-insurgency" (Washington, DC, 1975); William Robinson and Kent Norsworthy, David and Goliath (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987), p. 216.

24. ''Women's voter education and training project in Nicaragua," internal Delphi document presented to NED, June 1989.

25. Ned Annual Reports, op. cit., n. 17.

26. See William Robinson, "Special Report: The Melton Plan - Chronicle or a Destabilization Plot Foretold," Central America Information Bulletin, August 10, 1988.

27. Op. cit., n. 13.

28. AID Report to Congress on Public Law 101-119, November 1989.

29. Newsweek, September 25, 1989.

30. UPI Dispatch, August 1, 1988.

31. West German foundations which support UNO include the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the Friederick Naumann Foundation. The West German donations alone are in the several million dollar range. For more information see, Ralph Fine, David Kruse, Jack Spence, and George Vickers, "Hemisphere Initiatives: Nicaragua Election Update Number 2-Foreign Funding of the Internal Opposition," Boston, October 16, 1989.

32. Internal NED document, April 1989.

33. Op. cit., n. 13.

34. op. cit., n. 32.

35. Robinson, op. cit., n. 1; op. cit., n. 13.

36. Op. cit., n. 32.

37. Op. cit., n. 13.

38. Holly Sklar, "Washington Wants to Buy Nicaragua's Elections - Again," Zeta Magazine, December 1989, p. 46.

39. Telephone interview with IFES Director. Richard Soudriette.

40. Barricada, October 10-11, 1989.

41. Ibid.

42. From a source close to IFES.

43. Barricada, October 9, 1989.

44. op. cit., n. 13.

45. Op. cit., n. 13.

46. ADF document, "Modified Programmatic Structure and Contents for NED Grant 89-08.0 (Elections Nicaragua-90)," July 1989. One of the U.S. conduits that NED used to fund CAD is the America's Development Foundation (ADF). This Alexandria, Virginia-based organization is headed by Michael Miller.

47. Internal CAD document, "CAD-Centroamerica, Participation Through Media and Civic Organizations," November 2, 1989.

48. Phone interview with Jose Antonio Alvarado, October 1989.

49. Nicaraguan Ministry of Defense bulletin, October 1989.

50. Official report on the registration process, Nicaraguan Supreme Electoral Council, October 1989.

51. Barricada, November 2, 1989.

52. Abraham Lowenthal, "Even Loss in Nicaragua Vote Can Be Gain," Los Angeles Times, September 20, 1989, Op/Ed page.

53. A policy report by the Resource Center provides good background material on NED activities. The report is due to come out in February 1990. For more information write, The Resource Center, P.O. Box 4506, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87196.

[admin]

The "Melton Plan"
by CovertAction Information Bulletin
Winter 1990

In April 1988, Ronald Reagan appointed Richard Melton as U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua. Melton was in the Dominican Republic at the time of the 1965 U.S. invasion, in Portugal in 1975, and as the former head of the Central American desk at the State Department, worked closely with Elliott Abrams in Iran/contra operations. Immediately on his arrival in Managua, he declared his "militant anti-Sandinismo" and announced he would "go all out" to bolster the opposition. In May 1988, NED President Carl Gershman, a rightwing militant who had served as aide to Jeane Kirkpatrick at the United Nations, visited Nicaragua to synchronize NED activities with those of the Embassy.

In July 1988, an opposition rally in the town of Nandaime ended in a violent confrontation between police and opposition rioters. A number of opposition leaders were arrested, and eventually convicted on charges of incitement to riot.

The Nicaraguan government charged that the demonstration was organized by the CIA as a deliberate provocation. Authorities presented strong circumstantial evidence, and claimed that U.S. agents based in Costa Rica had done the footwork. Melton and six other Embassy officials were expelled from Nicaragua and in retaliation, the U.S. sent the Nicaraguan Ambassador, Carlos Tunnerman, and six of his staff members back to Managua.

At the time of the riot, the U.S. mainstream media belittled the charges of U.S. complicity in the riot. However, several weeks later, then-House Speaker Jim Wright (Dem. - Tex.) confirmed the Nicaraguan government's charges. At a press conference on September 20, 1988, Wright stated publicly that the CIA had admitted to Congress that they were manipulating the internal opposition in Nicaragua in order to "provoke an overreaction" by the Sandinistas.

Melton himself had appeared at an opposition meeting in Estell one week before the Nandaime provocation. At this meeting, the opposition called for the dissolution of the Nicaraguan government and its replacement by a "Government of National Salvation." Melton addressed the gathering, expressing U.S. support for the call and urging the opposition to unite around it. It is no coincidence that one year later, the UNO electoral platform states that if it wins the elections, the "united opposition" will form a "Government of National Salvation."

The U.S. government described the Nandaime incident as a Sandinista "crackdown" on civil liberties and an outpouring of anti-Sandinista propaganda followed in the media. The Right Wing called for renewed contra aid, but Congress instead opted for a special $2 million appropriation for NED activities in Nicaragua. The congressional vote showed that the choice had been made for the "political alternative" of creating and then directing an internal political opposition to oust the Sandinistas.

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We Need Your Help
by CovertAction Information Bulletin
Winter 1990

We recently sent a letter to all our subscribers asking for their help in funding our work. To all those people who responded, we want to express our deepest thanks.

To all those who received our letter and haven't yet had the time to respond, and to those loyal readers who buy CAIB off the newsstand, we need your help as well.

I know many of you are going to see this letter and say "oh no, not another fund raising letter" but please take a minute and read this -learn a little more about just what CAIB does and why your support is so important.

First, as most of you recognize, CovertAction Information Bulletin is a unique magazine containing articles which you will not find in other places. It is an important outlet for information and an important asset in the struggle against U.S. government abuses.

We all know that the CIA is repeatedly involved in destructive covert activities all around the world. The problem is that the "mainstream" press refuses to write about them. The difference is - we do.

Our value as a magazine is that we provide an outlet for information that the U.S. government would rather not see in the public domain. Your contributions support this critical voice and help to provide knowledge for those organizing and struggling for progressive change in the U.S. and around the world.

There is, however, another side of CAIB that you probably don't know about. When we are not working on the magazine, we spend our time doing research for other writers, keeping our files current, and helping countless organizations, individuals, and media outlets to expose the covert activities of the CIA.

Our office houses an enormous collection of data and resources on a multitude of CIA operations, rightwing organizations, and government documents. Our library contains over 1000 books on the CIA, covert operations, and intelligence-related activities.

We play an important role in providing information and we need your support to continue our work. I'm not going to "cry wolf' and tell you that we're going to fold if we don't get your money immediately. The truth is, we are always on the edge, always struggling to raise money.

The important thing to remember is that when you contribute to CAIB, you are not just helping to publish a magazine -- you are supporting solid, yet often unrecognized, political work.

Please contribute as much as you can to CAIB and help to continue the fight against destabilizing CIA intervention. A lot of people are counting on it.

Our sincerest thanks,

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for the CAIB staff

Send your contribution to: CAIB, P.O. Box 50272, Washington, DC 20004.
(Contributions of $100 or more can be tax-deductible if made to our fiscal sponsor, the Institute for Media Analysis.)

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Book Review: Cults and Christian Warriors
by Fred Clarkson *
Winter 1990

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

Spiritual Warfare: The Politics of the Christian Right by Sara Diamond, South End Press, 116 St. Botolph Street, Boston, MA 02115; Combatting Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan. Park Street Press, One Park Street, Rochester, VT 05767.

It is rare when a book comes along that takes the wind out of the sails of the conventional wisdom. Rarer still when there are two. It could leave the conventional wisdom rudderless. This wisdom has told us that the Religious Right is dead or dying. We've also been told that "cults" are not a problem anymore, and that criticism of "new religions" is simply religious and/or racial intolerance. For anyone who has heard and not known how to respond, or believes these notions, Spiritual Warfare: The Politics of the Christian Right by Sara Diamond, and Combatting Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan may help the convention-bound jump ship.

Much has been written about low-intensity conflict in recent years. But on the critical intersection between LIC and the activities of the Christian Right, reporting has been piecemeal and there has been little analysis. Spiritual Warfare establishes Sara Diamond as the foremost writer in this emerging field of investigative reporting and scholarship.

Much has also been written about "cults" and "mind control," as complex and controversial a subject as there is. Thus Steven Hassan's book is a guide for the perplexed, offering practical advice on how to view and what to do about unethical techniques of recruitment and indoctrination used by "cults." Hassan is an ex-Moonie leader, with a Master's Degree in counseling psychology, and ten years' experience as an "exit counselor" (as distinct from a "deprogrammer").

Hassan defines a cult as a group that practices "mind control;" he explains what it is, how it works, and suggests sensible, humane ways for friends and family to regain contact with a loved one, and perhaps help them find an "exit" from a group that seems to have them locked in.

The significant political implications of this are only touched on in the book itself. Many of the right -wing or fascist groups discussed in Spiritual Warfare are cults. The political utility of cult-controlled individuals to intelligence agencies and national security states is well documented in Spiritual Warfare. Tactics for community leaders, families and societies for dealing with cults are the subject of Combatting Cult Mind Control.

Spiritual Warfare

While the U.S. media were obsessed with the sexual peccadillos of Jimmy Swaggart, and the outrageous criminal frauds (and, of course, sexual escapades) of Jim Bakker, Sara Diamond was investigating the political activities of the Christian Right. She reveals, among other significant, and generally unreported, activities, Swaggart's assistance to dictators Augusto Pinochet of Chile, Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay, and the white minority regime in South Africa.

Spiritual Warfare is a primer on the history, ideology, factions, and plans of the Christian Right, focusing on the 1970s and 1980s when it emerged as a political force. Though there is much noteworthy reporting on U.S. politics, some of the most original and remarkable reporting is on international operations. One may find many of the roots of contemporary Christian broadcasting in the international radio broadcasts of the Cold War. " ... [O]ne can point to a dramatic shift in the role of missionary radio when," writes Diamond, "after World War II, evangelicals decided to broadcast into countries that were closing its [sic] borders to U.S. missionaries." For example, after Mao's victory in China, the Far East Broadcasting Company was established, and according to Sig Mickelson, the former head of Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty (RL) it was a "U.S. government operation with intelligence ties similar to RFE and RL."

The message articulated the Manichean Cold War vision of good Christian vs. evil atheistic communists who persecute Christians for their faith. These themes played domestically as well, and continue today. Diamond details how these themes were used during the Reagan administration's war on Nicaragua - and even exposes a phony persecutee, who was popular on evangelical Christian talk shows.

There are many such stories of the recent foreign adventures of the U.S.-based Christian Right. For example - the extensive support provided by evangelicals (especially Pat Robertson), to the genocidal Gen. Rios Montt of Guatemala, during 1982-83. This support for Montt (a member of a U.S. based Pentecostal sect) had the blessing, if not partnership, of the Reagan administration. For many evangelicals, it was also a political epiphany: "The Guatemalan experience, however vicarious, of a born again Christian shepherding an entire nation reinforced a mentality ... that they could seize the reigns of power and install - by force if necessary - a 'kingdom of God on earth.'''

Diamond persuasively argues that in order to understand the strategy of "total war" employed by the U.S. and other governments, it is necessary to study the role of religion. "It is doubtful," she insists, "that counterinsurgency could be effective without the use of religion. Because the conduct of 'psychological operations' relies on the successful interpretation and manipulation of a target population's deeply held beliefs and cultural practices, the functional use of religion simply must be addressed .... "

There are discussions of such operations in the Philippines, Central America, Southern Africa, and the Middle East, including an updated report on the Christian Right's collusion with South African government propaganda and political operations and its peculiar relationship to the government of Israel. The Christian Right's role in Oliver North's supply lines to the contras is further explored - as is the report that it is still intact, untouched by the Iran/contra scandal.

"Humanitarian aid, and psychological operations are the two areas of total war where the Christian Right serves U.S. foreign policy best," she continues. The Christian Right as "promoters of anti-communist ideology use religion to mask the aggressive, cynical use of 'humanitarian' projects. Cloaked as missionary evangelism, the 'spiritual warfare' component of counter-insurgency escapes serious attention by anti-intervention activists ... " and most everyone else. One brief example: The head of Pat Robertson's Operation Blessing relief arm, Robert Warren, is a retired U.S. Navy Captain and a veteran of counterinsurgency programs in the Philippines. In 1984, Warren and Harry "Heinie" Aderholt of the Air Commando Association established a medical clinic in Guatemala as part of "then president Gen. Mejia Victores's counter-insurgency 'model village program.' The model villages where civilians are 'protected' by the military, have frequently been declared by human rights observers as de facto concentration camps."

One of the critical discussions in Spiritual Warfare is the relationship between cults and the national security state. Diamond describes, for example, how fanatical cultic groups are being organized and armed into vigilante death squads in the Philippines. What's more, Diamond reveals the CIA's long term interest in cults: "At least as early as 1964, the CIA was aware of the political potency of such groups. In a 1964 'National Intelligence Survey,' the CIA analyzed a pseudo-Catholic Filipino cult called 'Iglesia Ni Kristo' (Church of Christ), which then represented an estimated one percent of the population and which, the CIA noted, was distinguished by its intense authoritarianism, its multi-tiered cell group structure, and the fact that members were required to vote for 'church designated political candidates.' In other words, the CIA analysts understood the political utility of the kind of 'shepherding' groups described in Chapter 4."

Indeed, in Chapter 4, Diamond documents the role of shepherding cults in American politics, and other countries. In shepherding cults, one "submits" to a "shepherd" influence, who may not control just religious, but all aspects of life; personal relationships, finances and politics. Many in Pat Robertson's "hidden army" of activists in the 1988 presidential campaign were members of shepherding cults, notably Maranatha Campus Ministries.

Of tremendous significance is the covert cooperation between Protestant and Catholic shepherding leaders, who have worked secretly together since 1968, orchestrating much of the "charismatic revival" in mainstream Protestant and Catholic churches. In fact, mainstream Christianity has been systematically infiltrated by charismatic shepherding cells which peel away members, or influence, even take over congregations. Mainstream Christianity has not fully come to grips with its cult problems. Nor has the secular Left, which not only faces off politically with such groups, but has cults of its own. Several cults of the Left wreak havoc in coalitions and in the broader progressive movement, notably the New Alliance Party led by Lenore Fulani, and (former Lyndon LaRouche associate) Fred Newman.

Combatting Cult Mind Control

The attack of cultic groups on communities can be profoundly disorienting, leaving people feeling helpless before strange, even fearsome entities. Hassan demystifies the cult phenomenon, providing clear definitions, and guidance for how to distinguish between what is a cult, and what is just an unconventional group. Hassan says that mind control, or "thought reform," is not to be confused with ''brainwashing,'' which best describes methods used on political prisoners, to extract false confessions, etc. Mind control is more subtle, not usually involving physical force. It does involve deceptions intended to place people in vulnerable positions for purposes of indoctrination, which Hassan says usually involves forms of hypnosis and sophisticated manipulations of group dynamics.

Hassan stresses that he believes in religious freedom, recalling the random abuses he suffered as a "Moonie." His is a case study in how to distinguish between fair criticism and bigotry. It is important to note that cults are not just religious, but may be political, commercial, or psychotherapy groups. Thus the use of "mind control" is what distinguishes a cult.

Ultimately, this book is about empowerment - how individuals and societies can defend themselves against these unethical applications of behavioral sciences. The reader is provided with resource lists, usable definitions, and simple communication and investigative strategies for when a loved one falls under cultic influences -- as well as strategies for intervention. Hassan teaches for example about how to use one's history and strengths of family, community, beliefs, and individual identity to reach and rescue people from false, cultic identities: " ... cult mind control never fully succeeds in erasing a person's core self. It does impose a dominating cult identity ... As a Unification Church member, I thought that the old Steve Hassan was dead. Yet the core 'me' woke back up during my deprogramming. He had been there all along."

"I have discovered," he writes, "that when someone in slavery is given a free choice, he or she does not choose to be enslaved." It is not unlike people in company towns who form unions to stand up to a domineering industry, or societies that rise up against unjust political or economic elites.

Spiritual Warfare makes clear that cults are being deployed by powerful interests to further their political agendas. But whether a cult is connected to power or not, Combatting Cult Mind Control warns: "People who know how mind control operates will have a distinct advantage over those who do not." Similarly, those who need to understand the Christian Right, and read Spiritual Warfare, will have a distinct advantage over those who do not.

_______________

Notes:

* Fred Clarkson is a Washington, D.C. based freelance journalist. He has written extensively about the Religious Right.

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El Salvador 1989: Elections Under State Terror
by Terry Allen and Edward S. Herman*
Winter 1990

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

On March 19, 1989, in an election in which two thirds of the eligible voters did not vote, the ARENA party won full control of the government of El Salvador. Chile's General Augusto Pinochet was the first to congratulate the President-elect, Alfredo Cristiani. It was a fitting conclusion to a U.S. investment of $4 billion, in the interest of "democracy," that power should fall into the hands of a party founded and still strongly influenced by the death squad organizer and "pathological killer" Roberto D' Aubuisson. [1] It was also predictable that the U.S. mass media and leading liberal Democrats would still find this election, as they had its predecessors, a legitimating exercise in democracy.

We will review here the background of the March 1989 election and the reasons why it was democratic in form but not in substance.

The 1982 and 1984 Elections

The 1982 and 1984 elections in El Salvador were classic examples of "demonstration elections" and effectively served their purpose: they induced the U.S. mass media and the Congress to find El Salvador a "democracy" worthy of material and moral support, and money flowed there to sustain administration policy. That policy was exclusively military, aiming at the defeat of the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN) by a counterinsurgency (CI) war of attrition; the elections were simply a public relations (PR) arm of this military effort.

The U.S. mass media helped make the 1982 and 1984 demonstration elections successful by failing to acknowledge and discuss the primacy of the CI war and the role of elections in clearing the ground for intensified warfare. Reporters at the 1982 election almost universally observed that "peace" was the first objective of the voters. The electoral slogan formulated in the United States to encourage voting by the war-weary people of El Salvador was "Ballots versus Bullets," suggesting that the election was a route to a peaceful resolution of the conflict. But neither the Salvadoran army, the Reagan administration, nor any party represented in the elections favored a negotiated settlement of the war. When the 1984 elections approached, the media avoided discussing the anomaly of the public having desired peace above all in 1982, and the obvious failure of the earlier allegedly democratic election to bring about - or even to elicit attempts to negotiate - peace.

In order to perpetuate the myth that democracy was a goal of the Salvadoran elites, the army, and the U.S. government, it was also incumbent on the mass media covering the 1982 and 1984 elections to avert their eyes from history. The Salvadoran elite had been fighting furiously against political, social and economic democracy for decades before 1982. So had the army, which was its ally and instrument. The U.S. government showed no concern over the lack of democracy in El Salvador until rebellion threatened the status quo. Could these parties be taken seriously as sponsors of democracy? The question doesn't arise for a patriotic media. Client state leaders who have murdered thousands are assumed to have "changed course" and must be "given a chance." By contrast, spokespersons for states being destabilized "cannot be trusted," and their word is not accepted on their claimed beneficent plans.

Above all, the mass media do not discuss the fundamental conditions of a free election. Is there freedom of speech and assembly? Is there a free press? Are organizations like unions, peasant leagues, and student groups allowed to organize and operate openly? Can parties and candidates qualify and campaign without fear, irrespective of their political position? Is the public subject to any threats of violence? None of these conditions was met in El Salvador in 1982 and 1984. [2]

The 1982 election was held in the midst of an ongoing reign of terror in which 700-800 unarmed civilians were murdered per month during the preceding 30 months by official and officially sponsored paramilitary forces. Many of the victims were raped, tortured, and mutilated; their bodies often left on public display. More than two dozen journalists were murdered in El Salvador between 1979 and 1984 and the two independent newspapers were eliminated by violence in 1980 and 1981. A large number of organizations were destroyed and their leaders killed or driven underground.

The "main opposition," the guerrilla movement and the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FOR), could not participate in any election for fear of assassination. Their five top leaders had been tortured and murdered in November 1980, and the remaining leadership was on army death lists. Furthermore, they were not intended to run. The U.S. plan was to clear the ground by systematic terror, then to pretend that the guerrillas wouldn't join in the election because they feared losing in a fair contest! The guerrillas were also portrayed as trying to disrupt the election, and voter turnout was used as a measure of support for the army - which was "protecting the election" - and by implication, U.S. policy and the CI war.

The mass media also failed to report in 1982 that voting was required by law, ID cards had to be stamped, and the head of the army had warned the public that a failure to vote was treasonous. In an environment of mass killing, these characteristics of the voting process were clearly relevant to explaining voter turnout.

In the 1984 election, the presence and victory of Jose Napoleon Duarte gave the election credibility as a genuine exercise in democracy. As an alleged reformer, running against D' Aubuisson, he provided an appearance of choice. Duarte was also a charismatic man, spoke excellent English, and was able to convince many members of Congress that he was really going to improve human rights and bring peace to El Salvador. The reality, however, is that Duarte joined the Salvadoran junta in March 1980, just as the real reformers resigned in recognition of their inability to stop an army reign of terror. Duarte then served as a fig leaf for the organized violence that followed, engaging in steady apologetics for the army's mass murder. [3]

Most important, in order to be able to take power, survive in office, and maintain the vital flow of U.S. aid, Duarte had to accept the army's and Reagan administration's pursuit of a war to the finish, and engage in no compromise with "the subversives" (a phrase used regularly by the army and by Duarte himself). At no time, therefore, did Duarte offer the peace option of a negotiated settlement, although he was vague and duplicitous enough to convince some that he was a peacemaker. [4] During his tenure in office no state or para-military murderer was prosecuted for killing or torturing Salvadorans, despite the huge civilian toll and the fact that in many cases eyewitnesses presented official depositions identifying the perpetrators and presenting ironclad evidence of their guilt. Duarte was the perfect front man for a regime of terror.

The Rise of ARENA

The decline of the Christian Democrats was inevitable. Their base of popular support gradually eroded as a result of regressive economic policies, failure to make progress toward ending the war, exposure of their massive corruption, increasing party divisions, and resentment at their subservience to U.S. interests. The Christian Democrats had split apart in 1980, when Duarte and his faction decided to align itself with the army against the guerrillas (who Duarte admitted at the time had the support of the general populace ). [5] It split apart again in 1988, partially over the choice of Duarte's successor, but also because of attempts by the faction led by Rey Prendes to distance itself from the increasingly obvious corruption, ineptitude and dwindling support of the ruling group.

ARENA, on the other hand, prospered under the conditions created by the U.S.-sponsored CI war, which fostered the growth of the army and anticommunist ideology, and concentrated on weakening and destroying the left and its popular support base. There was little "center" to begin with, and the luke-warm liberal-left support of Duarte and the Christian Democrats eroded as they revealed themselves to be corrupt, powerless, and agents of the army and a foreign government.

ARENA almost won the 1982 election. It lost in 1984 only because of a massive foreign (i.e., U.S.) intervention in support of Duarte and a last gasp of electoral hope by an important segment of the public that Duarte and the Christian Democratic Party might do something constructive. Following the 1984 election, ARENA embarked on a systematic organizational effort that positioned it well for future politicking. [6] By the end of 1988, ARENA had gained control of the legislature, the judiciary, and a good portion of the electoral apparatus. In 1989, with its new organizational structures in place, and backed by the wealth of the army and oligarchy, it presented itself as a unified party standing for peace, prosperity, and incorruptible patriotism.

Organized by Roberto D' Aubuisson, ARENA is the party of the oligarchy, the army officer corps, and the death squads. D' Aubuisson is the best known leader of the Salvadoran death squads? Trained in Taiwan and the United States, and a close ally of Guatemalan leader and death squad organizer Mario Sandoval Alarcon, D' Aubuisson was a participant in the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero, and has close links to the fascist international. [8] In 1982, he told several Western European correspondents that Hitler had treated the Jews appropriately. [9]

D' Aubuisson and ARENA were always acceptable to the Reaganites - they were merely less desirable than Duarte and the Christian Democrats. The latter provided a better facade for the alleged democracy, and had the additional advantage of being more subservient to U.S. demands than ARENA. Historically, the Salvadoran oligarchy has been relatively independent and not eager to share its power and profits with foreign capital. As the party of the oligarchy, ARENA represents a rightwing nationalist movement that resents U.S. intervention, even while accepting it out of necessity. Its leaders do not kiss the American flag and do not accept orders as readily as the "reformers."

But ARENA is anticommunist and hostile to radical change in El Salvador, and it is therefore ''within the ballpark" for U.S. leaders and bureaucrats, just as Stroessner, Pinochet, and Somoza were quite acceptable for most of their lengthy tenures in power. When ARENA came close to full power in 1982, the U.S. Embassy quietly began to rationalize D'Aubuisson, [10] setting the stage for his becoming a Free World leader. The press did likewise, suppressing his statement on Hitler and the Jews and treating him in a tone quite different from that accorded enemy terrorists like Abu Nidal or Carlos. [11]

Table 1. Human Rights Violations Against Civilians in El Salvador in 1988*
Number of Incidents
Captures of Civilians by Uniformed Soldiers or "Heavily Armed Men in Civilian Clothes": 1,556
Assassinations: 412
Attempted Assassinations: 30
Reported Disappearances: 36
Members of Cooperatives Killed or Disappeared: 20
Civilians and Unidentified Persons Killed During Military Operations: 167
Incidents of Violence Against Internationals (Captures, Deportations, Injuries, Assassinations): 87
Violations Attributable to FMLN:
Kidnappings: 56
Executions: 21

* Source: El Rescate Human Rights Department, Chronology of Human Rights, Violations in El Salvador, January-December 1988, pp. vi-vii.

Despite these sanitation efforts, ARENA remains the party of terrorism. D'Aubuisson, its founder and continuing leader, is a "terrorist" by any western definition of the word. Voted ARENA's Honorary President for Life in 1988, he retains his power in the party and still gets the loudest applause at ARENA gatherings. Before the 1989 election it was widely known in El Salvador that D' Aubuisson dominated the party, set policy, and did most of the talking at planning meetings. Cristiani contributed little and nodded often, according to a source who was present. [12] D' Aubuisson also maintains his charismatic influence with a portion of the middle class, small business people and peasants who are fiercely nationalistic. These groups see ARENA as the only party capable of standing up to the United States. They are tired of war, but believe the rightwing line that the FMLN is part of an international communist conspiracy, and that it can be defeated by a burst of intensified warfare.

The ARENA support base overlaps with the membership of the earlier terrorist organization ORDEN, a paramilitary structure from which the death squads were partly drawn (along with the army and police). With D'Aubuisson a death squad organizer, many other death squads supported by oligarchs who joined ARENA, and the remnants of ORDEN supplying many death squad cadres, the death squads may be said to be institutional affiliates of the ARENA party.

ARENA has long had strong representation in the El Salvador judiciary, and its entrenched position has been a major factor rendering the law inoperative as regards state and rightwing terror. A steady stream of Supreme Court decisions in 1988 and 1989 exonerated the murderers of Archbishop Romero, the assassins of two American labor advisers, the mass killers at La Hoya and San Sebastian, and others. It is evident that ARENA's taking control of the executive, as well as the legislative and judicial apparatus of the state, will eliminate all internal legal protections against unrestrained state terrorism.13 This series of court decisions received little coverage in the U.S. media, and their implications for the meaning of the election have also been ignored.

The Brief Opening - And Then Escalated Terror

Following the 1984 election, a small amount of space opened up in El Salvador. [14] The press and TV stations were able to criticize, and unions and other groups could organize and engage in protest without assured violent retribution. The media were still under conservative ownership and control, and outright espousal of the guerrilla cause was not possible above ground. A newspaper with a level of dissent equal to that of La Prensa in Nicaragua would not have been able to operate, even in the "thaw" years. Leaders of the FDR, Reuben Zamora and Guillermo Ungo, returned to El Salvador and initiated a campaign, thus reintroducing a left presence into the electoral process.

From 1987 on, however, as the army made little progress in the CI war, and elections loomed on the horizon, the space opened up in 1984 began to shrink. Death squad activity increased, army violence against ordinary citizens escalated, and systematic attacks on dissident unions and other revived groups and their leaders rose sharply. Death squad killings increased 138 percent between 1987 and 1988, Tutela Legal, with four new groups coming into existence and threatening "subversives."

Table 1 shows the number and type of attacks on civilians for the year 1988, derived from the El Rescate Chronology and list of abuses for that year. The vast majority of these incidents were carried out by members of the army and security forces. It should be noted that the largest item, 1,556 "Captures of Civilians by Uniformed Soldiers or 'Heavily Armed Men in Civilian Clothes'," is almost entirely the result of operations of state agents, to whom we may also allocate virtually all of the large total for "Assassinations." The flavor of the reality that lies behind these numbers is hinted at in the tiny sample of El Rescate entries given in Box 1, taken from their Chronology which is 291 pages for 1988 alone.

One of the most notable features of the growing state terror in El Salvador has been the return to systematic attacks on popular organizations and the arrest, torture, disappearance and murder of their leaders. Americas Watch published two volumes which described in detail the recent onslaught against organized labor in El Salvador: Labor Rights in El Salvador (March 1988) and Petition Before the U.S. Trade Representative on Labor Rights in El Salvador (March 1989). In the former document, which notes 13 murders and disappearances of labor activists in a 12 month period, it is stressed that the security forces have been systematically attacking organized labor as an important part of their overall service; that "recurrent military involvement in detentions of, and attacks against, union and peasant cooperative activists suggests that such measures remain a component of government policy" (p. 14). The Petition submitted in 1989 summarizes case after case of police and army intervention in labor disputes, with frequent arrests, torture, sexual abuse, and sometimes murder. These two documents by Americas Watch were not reported on in the New York Times and mass media in general.

Box 2 shows a small sample of the record of increasing and systematic attacks on organizations, which encompassed virtually all the major trade union groups, peasant organizations, the University of San Salvador, refugee groups, and even day care centers. The murders and raids are not on the scale of 1980-1981, but they are numerous, destructive, and traumatizing.

Freedom of the Press and the Murder of Journalists

As in the earlier period, open media support for the guerrillas is impossible in El Salvador. Broadcast stations interviewing guerrilla leaders were sent a "quiet message" of warning by the army. [15] The two largest newspapers in El Salvador not only supported ARENA, they blacked out news of the activities and statements of moderate and left opposition groups and even refused to take their paid advertisements. [16]

Box 1. How Security Forces Treat Civilians in "Free" El Salvador, 1988*

January 6: Jose Victor Manuel Gomez de Leon, 25 years old, a member of ANT A (the National Association of Agricultural Workers), in Las Marias, Chinameca, San Miguel, is captured by soldiers from the ARCE Battalion on the Las Zelayas Farm, Plan Grande. Days later, his body is found with the feet and legs burned, and the head and left arm missing. (Tutela Legal)

January 11: Jose Angel Alas Gomez, 27 years old, is captured by the Treasury Police. The Police announce that Alas dies from a "cardiac arrest" in a Treasury Police vehicle. According to investigations by the CDHES (Non-Governmental), the body shows lacerations, swelling, burns on one shoulder and on the legs, and blows and pokes on the testicles. (CDHES)

January 25: Nelson Rivas, 16, is abducted from his house in Cuesta Blanca by men in civilian clothes at 9:00 p.m. According to neighbors from the area, there were many soldiers on the highway that day. The next day Rivas's body is found with his hands tied, his shirt in his mouth, his throat slashed, and with signs of torture. (IDHUCA and North American churchworkers)

January 29: Bodies of eight persons are found in La Libertad, six in Sacoyo and two in San Pablo Tacachico: all tortured including two young women found hanging from a tree, breasts cut off, faces painted red. (El Mundo, January 30, 1988)

January 31: Six uniformed soldiers abduct Juan Alberto Guevara Monge and his son Jose Adelmo Deras Guevara, 9 years old, who is mentally handicapped, from Platanillo, La Libertad. Guevara Monge's body is found in the Agua Caliente River, with the legs broken, the head mutilated, the shirt and pants burned, an ear split, and a bullet in one cheek. (Tutela Legal)

*Source: A tiny sample taken from the almost 5,000 incidents reported in the El Rescate, Human Rights Department, Chronology Of Human Rights Violations in El Salvador, January-December 1988.

In the pre-election period, also, the Salvadoran Attorney General officially warned the press against allowing any statements "inciting" the public not to vote. [17] This was not mentioned in the U.S. mass media, to our knowledge.

Box 2. Attacks on Organizations by the Armed Forces*

December 28, 1988: A bomb explodes in the Lutheran Church, causing extensive damage to the sanctuary and the pastor's office. A group of men entered the church at 3 a.m. and after throwing religious ornaments on the floor, placed an explosive. Bishop Medardo Gomez had received death threats in recent weeks. (El Mundo December 28, 1988)

December 29: ANTA offices in Santa Ana are searched and ransacked by soldiers of the Second Brigade; two workers are captured and almost $6,000 in equipment stolen. Later the two workers are released. (San Salvador Television, Channel 12, December 30, 1988)

June 1, 1989: The Bracamonte Battalion enters San Jose Las Flores, Chalatenango, destroys the day care center and holds people captive in the church for more than two hours; gunfire damages a home, the clinic and the convent, and soldiers threaten to rape the nuos. (El Mundo, June 19, 1989)

June 6: Soldiers of the Atlacatl Battalion raid and rob the SOICES union offices in San Jose Las Fiores, Chalatenango. (El Mundo, June 17, 1989)

July 17: Twenty thousand rounds of ammunition fired by soldiers and security forces into the National University campus in San Salvador, injuring 11 people. Fourteen students and professors have been captured by authorities in the past two weeks; two from Santa Ana campus are thought to be "disappeared."

July 18: Treasury Police invade UNADES office (Office of Earthquake Victims) to search. They rip the office apart. According to Carmen Rivera, at midnight they took ten workers to the police headquarters. "There the interrogator pulled my hair and chased me around the cell .... More than anything else they asked me about my children. Then they asked me about my husband. This was the hardest thing for me. Every time I would answer he would say I was lying, and that the next interrogator would kill me. The entire time I was not allowed to use the bathroom, given no food or water. I was denied sleep and forced to stand for 72 hours. They kept touching my breasts; I feared they would rape me. I had been told that they would put me in the electric chair." [She was transferred to the women's prison on July 21].

*Sources: El Rescate, Human Rights Department, Chronology for 1988; updates for June and July 1989.

During the 1989 election the Salvadoran state continued its practice of murdering journalists, and the U.S. mass media continued their role of protecting a client state election by looking the other way. On election day, two reporters from Reuters were shot by Air Force personnel, one of whom died, the other severely wounded. A Dutch journalist was shot in a cross-fire, and died while his fellow reporters were unable to get him to a hospital because military helicopters kept firing at their trucks, plainly marked with press insignia. Another reporter, from the local San Salvador TV Channel 12, was shot dead by military personnel. The western reporters assembled in El Salvador were perturbed at these murders, and asked sharp questions of Defense Minister Vides Casanova at a press conference. He claimed these were regrettable accidents, that he would investigate, and that anyone guilty of misbehavior would surely be punished. [18]

But once again, the U.S. mass media down-played these murders. None of them featured this story, and few provided the background information that there had been several dozen prior journalist killings. None of them called attention to the fact that Channel 12 had angered the security establishment by its reporting on human rights abuses and that other staff from the station had been captured, tortured and released the previous year as a warning. They did not mention that the two Reuters reporters had been shot in the back after having been allowed to pass through a check point. None of the papers followed up the press conference with a report on whether or not guilty parties were found and punished.

The Democratic Convergence and Its Role

Among the factors differentiating the 1989 election from those held in 1982 and 1984, the most striking was the presence of the Democratic Convergence, a coalition of three left parties which was openly aligned with the FMLN.

According to its officials, the Convergence chose to participate in order to create political space, widen the frame of debate, obtain a seat on the Central Election Council (CCE), [19] and serve as a bridge between the FMLN and the government and United States in future negotiations. It remains to be seen whether this strategy was effective. What is certain, however, is that the participation of a leftist group gave the U.S. press another reason for declaring the 1989 election open (although the absence of such an electoral option in earlier years hadn't prevented the media from finding those also triumphs of democracy). The press failed, however, to provide the context that would explain why the Convergence was not able to mount a serious electoral bid.

In 1980, opposition parties had been forced underground by systematic murder. It was not until 1987 that Zamora and Ungo felt able to return from exile abroad. However, they had neither the necessary time nor the money to develop an organization that could span the country. With a budget of only $200,000 - compared with an estimated $6 million and $8 million for the Christian Democrats and ARENA, respectively. [20] The Convergence was not able to hire U.S. public relations firms, organize many rallies or pay for extensive advertising. [21]

These "legal" disadvantages were exacerbated by a pattern of illegal tactics used against the leftist party. In violation of the electoral code, a propaganda campaign was mounted against the Convergence by the army and others. In Santa Ana, army personnel passed out leaflets proclaiming that Zamora and Ungo were traitors. At one rally, the army distributed leaflets featuring Zamora enveloped in a hammer and sickle. Posters also appeared throughout the country with "enemies of the people" superimposed over photos of Zamora and his running mate Reni Roldan. So many violations were recorded that the president of the Central Election Committee (CCE) told a delegation from the International Human Rights Law Group (IHRLG) that he had "formally requested the armed forces to cease interfering with the Convergencia's campaign." [22] This request, and the numerous incidents of army partisanship in the election, were not reported in the mainstream U.S. press.

Because of the personal risks and lack of money, the Convergence's campaign was limited largely to San Salvador. Only once did Zamora travel outside the city to campaign. Even within the capital the danger was substantial. Their major rally, held in front of the National Cathedral on the last campaign day before the election, was broken up as it started to grow dark by the approaching sound of machine gun and heavy weapons fire. The candidates were rushed to cars and the crowd melted away. [23]

Another source of problems for the Convergence was the opposition of the FMLN to their participation in the electoral process. The FMLN claimed that "elections at the point of a gun" could not lead to a democratic outcome, and it called for a boycott. This split over tactics on the left cost the Convergence a great many votes.

As noted, the U.S. media cited the Convergence's participation as evidence of the openness of the election. In this connection, Lindsey Gruson observed in the New York Times that "In 1981... the armed forces put a bounty on the heads of 138 leftists by publishing a list of their names and describing them as wanted traitors." [24] This important fact, which tells us so much about the integrity of the 1982 election, was not reported by the New York Times in 1982. Now, with this fact mere "history," with the social democrats running in 1989, it can be mentioned! The suppressions now move to the factors that make the left appearance merely nominal and that worked in favor of ARENA, sometimes outside the law.

From Mandatory to Restricted Voting

Another major difference between the elections of the early 1980s and that of March 1989 was the government's policy on obligatory voting. In the elections of 1982 and 1984 voting was mandatory and citizens without a stamp on their national identity card (ID, cedula) certifying that they had voted risked fines, accusations of FMLN collaboration, harassment and even death. After their legislative victories in 1988, ARENA introduced a series of electoral "reforms." Among these, the legal requirement to vote was eliminated. Instead of having his/her voting record on the ID, which citizens are required to carry at all times, a new card (carnet) was issued specifically for voting.

At the same time, however, confusing and often arbitrary and costly restrictions were placed on obtaining these cards. The ID was required for obtaining a voting carnet, and this could only be gotten in one's home town or by paying more than $60 (approximately half the annual income of a rural worker) for alternative documentation. This discriminated heavily against refugees, migrant workers, and the poor. According to the IHRLG, "Fully 20 percent of those applying for a new carnet were rejected by the computer" because of technical "discrepancies," leading the IHRLG to conclude that the "procedure may eliminate more eligible voters than ineligible ones." [25] Local boards, often controlled by ARENA, also had discretionary authority to rule on the validity of documentation presented to obtain a carnet. In addition, the registration period was shortened.

Many Salvadorans did not even try to get the new cards. Publicity about the changes in the law was poor and travel in El Salvador is dangerous, especially without proper papers. As of 1985, over half the 285 municipalities in the country reported that their town halls (where birth certificates and records are kept) had been destroyed. The number is undoubtedly higher today.

Between 20 and 30 percent of the Salvadoran population is either internal or external refugees. The IHRLG estimated that there were 450,000-700,000 internal refugees and displaced persons, who had great difficulty voting under the new restrictions. A large fraction of these were effectively disqualified from voting. All of the estimated 600,000-1,000,000 external refugees were ineligible to vote by law. This adds up to between 1-1.7 million Salvadorans excluded from the vote (a million actually voted in the election). The excluded Salvadorans were mainly rural and urban peasants and workers, many of whom had been victimized by the army and paramilitary forces, and would tend to oppose ARENA.

Not all the exclusions were legal, even by Salvadoran standards. "[Jose Ricardo] Perdomo [president of the CCE] announced that the records of an estimated 290,000 voters in the election registry have been tampered with." [26] Charges of double and even triple voting were made in some districts. "It's like sneaking into a fair," joked one multiple voter to an international observer (who told this story to Terry Allen). The Convergence charged that fraud had robbed them of the third place standing which would have given them a place on the election review board.

By eliminating mandatory voting and instituting restrictive registration requirements and control over documentation, ARENA gained not only a public relations victory, but also a tactical advantage over both the Convergence and the Christian Democrats. With its large campaign fund and extensive organization, ARENA was able to ensure that its supporters registered and turned out. The Christian Democrats went into the election disorganized, dispirited, and outvoted on the electoral boards. The Convergence was unable to compete in organizational reach and communications effort.


Credit: Terry Allen
Figure 1: Clear plastic balloting boxes used in Salvadoran elections.

The extremely effective transportation strike called by the FMLN, which brought most traffic to a halt throughout the country on election day, undoubtedly helped ARENA. It had planned for an Operacion Rescale, and mobilized thousands of private vehicles that brought its supporters to voting stations. 27 The army also helped bring voters to the voting stations in trucks, bedecked with banners "In the service of the public." Ordinary citizens might not be keen on riding to vote in army trucks. For the Convergence, the strike emphasized the split with the FMLN over participation in the tainted electoral process, and like the Christian Democrats it was unable to provide private transportation to get its supporters to the polls.

Of 3.1 million eligible voters (i.e., excluding external refugees), only 2.2 million actually registered; and of these only 1.8 million eventually received cards allowing them to vote. Of those, 1 million actually voted. Another 56,000 ballots were unmarked or annulled [28] (a strategy supported by the FMLN for those who were afraid to stay away from the polls, but did not wish to support the electoral process). Thus while almost 54 percent of those who voted cast their ballots for ARENA, this represented only 16.5 percent of the number of eligible voters and under 14 percent of the potential electorate (including external refugees). Thus while ARENA may be said to have won by a "landslide," [29] it was of a shrunken and minority electorate. The number of eligible voters participating in the election fell from 68.5 percent in 1984 to 32.5 percent in March 1989.

Although the low turnout was partially the result of the elimination of compulsory voting, the transportation strike, and the exclusion of many potential voters by the new registration procedures, another important factor was the loss of credibility of elections as a means of achieving any useful ends. This attitude also biased the election in favor of the right. Its constituency could hope to achieve power and implement their preferred agenda. Those who had thought that elections might bring peace, human rights improvements, and progressive reform, had reason for disillusionment and justification for the search for other tactics.

The Non-Privacy of the Vote

If an election is held in an environment of potential coercion, it is important to examine possible abuses in the basic mechanics of voting. Despite the Salvadoran constitutional guarantee of voter privacy, the ballot boxes used in the 1982, 1984 and 1989 elections were made of clear plastic. Figure 1 is a photograph taken by one of the authors (Allen) at the March 19 election. The ballots, which are numbered, are printed on translucent paper and can easily be seen after they are deposited by the voter in the plastic bags. The brightly colored party logos and the voters mark (an official felt tip pen is provided) bleed through and are readable on the reverse side of the paper, even when the ballot is carefully folded.

Figure 2 shows numerous members of the armed forces standing near the polling stations. The government announced in early March that 75 per cent of its 56,000 man force would be deployed on election day to ensure "security." ARENA poll watchers were also present at every one of the 7,000 voting booths in the country, sometimes in numbers greater than the single watcher permissible by law (ARENA mobilized an army of 23,000 poll watchers, 30 who were provided with fancy box lunches, decorated with the party logo).

We cannot be certain what effect these violations of voter secrecy had on the election result. In the past, however, voting for the ''wrong'' faction was sometimes punished by such sanctions as harassment, loss of employment, beating, rape, imprisonment, and even murder. As these punishments were commonly meted out by death squads closely linked to both ARENA and the army, voters contemplating dissent were not likely to be put at ease when members of these two groups were present and able to observe their votes. Although the U.S. media are very alert to the intimidating threats of security forces in the case of enemy elections, friendly security forces only "protect elections," whatever their actual record. [31] In accord with this patriotic rule, the threats to the most basic requirements of privacy in El Salvador that we have just described were not reported by the mainstream media in 1989, just as they were not in the two prior elections.

After the 1988 elections, a Permanent Committee of the National Debate, a broad-based coalition of 59 social, political and religious institutions and organizations, was formed under the leadership of the centrist Archbishop of San Salvador, to assess electoral politics. Meeting in September 1988, a large majority of the participants agreed that elections under existing conditions, which excluded a large fraction of the population from participation, and were closely tied to the aims of the war party, were neither very helpful in solving the nation's problems nor an expression of democracy. [32]

Although the National Debate was organized under respectable auspices and included a wide range of Salvadoran groups, its activities and findings were blacked out in the U.S. mass media (which did the same to the powerful critique of the Guatemalan elections of 1984-1985 by its Catholic Bishops). [33] The press sticks to sources that will confirm the official view, such as the official observer delegations, which always find client state election turnouts impressive and public enthusiasm for the new army-sponsored "democracies" inspiring. [34]

The FMLN Proposal

On January 24, 1989, two months before the election, the FMLN put forward a proposal "To Convert the Election Into a Contribution Toward Peace," which offered FMLN acceptance of and participation in the electoral process in exchange for concessions by the government. The proposal called for postponement of the election from March 19 to September 15; guarantees by the government to end repression of the popular movement; confinement of the army to the barracks on election day (and the substitution of less threatening observers and "protectors"); participation of the Democratic Convergence in the Central Electoral Commission; a revised electoral code; arrangements to allow the huge external refugee population to vote; and U.S. withdrawal from the election process.


Credit: Terry Allen
Figure 2: Soldiers watch over Salvadoran voters.

This proposal shocked the Salvadoran establishment and U.S. government, and they spent a month hemming and hawing and working out the best way of rejecting the proposal. There were some elements of the establishment who were interested, and the Church and popular groups urged serious consideration. They pointed out that the FMLN proposals added up to the conditions for making the election democratic. The United States, however, was still committed to winning the war, and the dominant elements of the army and ARENA were adamantly opposed to doing business with "delinquent terrorists." Thus an important peace option was rejected, and a public still claiming peace as a foremost objective was allowed an election that would consolidate the power of the extreme war party. This irony escaped the western media.

Conclusions

The March 19, 1989 election in El Salvador was neither free, fair, nor democratic. The level of state-sponsored terror was too high to allow the basic conditions of a free election to be met. Among other limitations, journalists continued to be murdered, unions, peasant groups, and other popular organizations and their leaders were under steady threat and attack by the army and paramilitary groups, and transparent voting boxes that compromised the secrecy of the vote remained in use. We believe that if these electoral characteristics existed in Nicaragua, the U.S. media would find that election a farce. As it is, they remained discreetly silent on the negatives and, as in the past, saw to it that an election sponsored by their government was a triumph of democracy.

The victory of the ARENA party was an ironic but logical consequence of U.S. intervention and policy. The United States supported the systematic attack on and decimation of popular organizations, while trying to shore up Duarte and a largely mythical center. But U.S. policy assured that Duarte could not fulfill any reformist or peace-making campaign promises, and his support base disintegrated. With the collapse of the Christian Democrats, only the nationalist right remained as a viable force in electoral politics. The Convergence Party and other progressive forces could make only a nominal showing in the face of the earlier destruction of its leaders and organizational support base, and the continuing attacks from the army and right. Only the party of D'Aubuisson, the death squads, the army and the oligarchy had the enthusiasm, money, organization and military force to win an election under the conditions of economic crisis and in the midst of an ongoing counterinsurgency war.


Credit: Terry Allen
This banner, displayed in front of bombed-out labor union office, reads "ARENA ASSASSINS."

As we stressed earlier, an important feature of the electoral environment of El Salvador has been the shift from mandatory to restricted voting. This reflects the growing legislative muscle of ARENA. In 1982 and 1984, when the United States viewed "turnout" as crucial to the success of the election (reflecting its PR role), voting was legally required in El Salvador. For ARENA, a distinctly minority party, restricted voting was desirable because it would tend to keep off the voting rolls the support base of the left. ARENA would do best with a small but "select" voter turnout. Its legislators used their legislative power to eliminate mandatory voting and put in its place laws which made registration more difficult. A million or more potentially eligible voters therefore did not register. Many more didn't bother to vote, and ARENA won with the vote of only 16.5 percent of the eligible electorate and under 14 percent of potentially eligible voters. But just as the U.S. press failed to report and discuss the significance of mandatory voting in 1982 and 1984, the next phase of undemocratic and manipulative adjustment of the vote - by the deliberate shrinkage of the electorate - also escaped their notice in 1989.

Following the March 1989 election, and helped by the fact that the U.S. mass media simply refused to publish information on the escalating state terror in El Salvador, the Senate Democrats joined forces with the Bush administration and voted $90 million in unconditional military aid to the Salvadoran government on September 20, 1989, to show that "we appreciate and support what he [Cristiani] is doing and we stand behind him" (Christopher Dodd). There are two fallacies in this position. One is that, even on the assumption that Crisitiani is a moderate who means well, and is not merely a powerless front man for D' Aubuisson and the security forces, unconditional aid would weaken his ability to restrain the hardliners. It would signal them that any barriers to kill imposed by the United States are down. Second, apart from the matter of incentives, there is a question of what Cristiani is actually doing? Under considerable pressure, he was talking to the rebels, although no agreement has been reached, and in our view, no useful compromise is likely to come out of negotiations reluctantly engaged in by the Salvadoran extreme right. We believe these talks are necessary to ARENA for political and PR purposes, but that they will only clear the ground for an intensified war, just as demonstration elections did earlier.

On the other hand, Cristiani has escalated state terror against popular groups in El Salvador since he took office. The National Union of Salvadoran Workers (UNTS) reports that in the first three months after ARENA took over executive power, there were 317 civilians assassinated, 62 disappeared, over 400 captured by the security forces, and more than 100 women sexually assaulted while in detention. According to this same group, over 140 of its members were seized by the military and police in the period during and immediately after the September 13-15 peace talks in Mexico City. Eight of the 11 members of the executive board of the National Trade Union Federation of Salvadoran Workers (FENASTRAS) have been arrested under ARENA rule, and their protests and demonstrations have been broken up violently. In a press conference in late September, members of FENASTRAS claimed that of 64 people detained by the National Police during their protest march on September 18, eight were raped while in custody. The National University has been periodically attacked by gunfire which has wounded significant numbers, and over a dozen faculty and students have been arrested, with several murdered or disappeared. The office of the Union of Earthquake Victims (UNADES) has been ransacked and its officials arrested and abused. [35]

These are a sample of Cristiani's material actions, but as the mainstream press is not featuring - or even mentioning them, for the Democrats these events do not occur. Just as the election of Duarte - a front man for the army and the Reagan administration - neutralized the Democrats in 1984; five years later they have embraced Cristiani - a front man for Roberto D' Aubuisson, the death squads, and the oligarchy.

El Salvador 1989: Epilogue on the Collapse of the Democratic Facade

Shortly after the completion of our article, on October 31, the San Salvador office of FENASTRAS was bombed, killing nine senior labor leaders and wounding 40 other people. On the same day the office of COMADRES (Committee of Mothers and Relatives of Political Prisoners) was bombed, wounding six. These events were given low-key coverage in the U.S. media, just as the escalating state terrorism of the preceding year (summarized in our text above) was hardly noticed.

Thus, when the FMLN began a major offensive on November 11-12, this was portrayed by the political establishment and in the media as perverse behavior coming out of the blue, not as an almost inevitable result of a growing state violence which showed that the Cristiani/ARENA participation in peace talks was a meaningless gesture. Another fact that would have put the FMLN offensive in meaningful context was the Salvadoran (and U.S.) government's refusal to take seriously the FMLN pre-election proposed accord that would have ended the war, eliminated state terrorism, and provided the basis for genuinely free elections. That refusal, the escalating attacks on popular groups, and the increased and unconditional military aid by the U.S. government, suggested that it was the Salvadoran establishment and U.S. government, not the rebels, who understand only the language of force.

It was the cold-blooded murder and mutilation - following torture - of six distinguished Jesuit clerics and their two housekeepers, on November 16, 1989, that weakened the liberal establishment's post-election complaisance regarding the "new" ARENA. The Salvadoran army and police had been torturing and killing ordinary citizens week after week without being called to task, and were even given accolades for their moderation. Killing and torturing notables, however, resulted in publicity and focused attention, and although nothing changed, suddenly there was the "perception" of a human rights problem! The line that resurfaced in the establishment was that Cristiani might be "unable to control" the army and death squads, just as the junta of 1980-84 and Duarte allegedly couldn't control them. The fact that not one soldier or officer has yet to be punished for murdering any Salvadoran in nine years, and that the party of death squad killer D'Aubuisson now runs the government and judiciary, is still not seen as making the "inability to control" argument a foolish apologetic.

The nature of the Salvadoran regime revealed itself once again during the renewed warfare of November 11 and after. During the stepped up fighting the Air Force used rockets, 500 pound bombs and gatling guns capable of firing 8,000 rounds per minute on heavily populated areas. The army and death squads moved more aggressively against members and leaders of the popular movements, the murder of the six clerics and two women providing only the most dramatic and "newsworthy" episode of a wide-ranging assault. Despite offers from the FMLN, ARENA also refused to negotiate a truce or to respect the neutrality of the Red Cross and the press corps. Civil liberties such as the rights of due process, assembly, and the press were totally suspended. A draconian "anti-terrorism" package is in its last stages of movement through the ARENA-controlled legislature, a bill which even the New York Times describes as involving "sweeping new restrictions on individual freedoms, including virtually unhindered government power to ban dissent and peaceful protest" (November 25). Leaders of the Christian Democratic Party describe this legislation as a "fascist project." This is entirely compatible with the long-standing agenda and aims of the leaders of the ARENA party.


Credit: Terry Allen
Firebombed office of Jesuit priests murdered by Salvadoran Army.

In light of the main focus of the present article, on the March 1989 Salvadoran election, it is notable that President Bush himself, questioned on U.S. support of the Salvadoran government, relied heavily on the legitimation by election. And on CNN's "Crossfire" on November 21, Michael Kinsley of the New Republic, relying entirely on the cliches of state propaganda, sharply criticized an FMLN representative for the military offensive against a government duly accredited by an election. As we have described in the main text, however, this was an election held after an extended period of extreme state terror which dismantled the left opposition and its organized base, and under conditions of ongoing state terror. Like its predecessors, the March 1989 election failed to meet the basic conditions of a fair and free election.

It is interesting to note that the United States gave unconditional support to the terror regime of January 1980-March 1982, which was unelected. The elections of 1982 and 1984 then consolidated the power of an army and political establishment that had previously run the killing machine without elections. Nevertheless, these elections legitimized the government according to U.S. official observers and the mass media. Official observers, however, always find U.S.-sponsored elections meritorious, and no matter how biased they may be and how superficial their observations, they are always cited as credible sources by the mainstream media. We believe that the establishment press will find any election carried out under their government's imprimatur to be legitimizing, no matter how distant it may be from fairness and freedom. The legitimized government may also kill its citizens freely, if it avoids murdering and mutilating notables, in which case the press may raise questions about whether the "elected government" real-

[PIECE MISSING?!]

_______________

Notes:

* Terry Allen, a journalist and writer, was in El Salvador during the March 1989 election. Edward Herman is the author of the forthcoming book, with Gerry O'Sullivan, The "Terrorism" Industry, to be published by Pantheon in January.

1. The quoted phrase was applied to D'Aubuisson by former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Robert White.

2. For a full discussion, see Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead, Demonstration Elections: U.S. Staged Elections in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and El Salvador (Boston: South End Press, 1984), pp. 119-26.

3. Dennis Hans, "Duarte: Man and Myth," CovertAction Information Bulletin, No. 26, Summer 1986.

4. See Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent (New York: Pantheon, 1988), pp. 101-102.

5. See Edward Schumacher, New York Times, February 21, 1981.

6. On this organizational program, see Sara Miles and Bob Ostertag, "The Rise of the Reebok Right," NACLA Report on the Americas, July 1989.

7. Michael McClintock, The American Connection Volume One: State Terror and Popular Resistance in El Salvador (London: Zed, 1985), pp. 260- 74; Craig Pyes, "Dirty War in the Name of Freedom," Albuquerque Journal, December 18, 1983.

8. Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson, Inside the League (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1986), pp. 136-7, 147-48, 191-213.

9. Op. cit., n. 4, p. 58.

10. Op. cit., n. 2, pp. 140-142.

11. Op. cit., n.4, p.58.

12. This information was given to Terry Allen by an official of the ARENA Party.

13. The constitution and laws of El Salvador do provide the trappings of democratic process and legal guarantees of civil rights. Although these are selectively enforced at best, they provide a basis for public protest and are often cited at demonstrations and in paid public advertisements in El Mundo, the one daily newspaper which occasionally prints them, as evidence of the hypocrisy and lawlessness of the Duarte and ARENA regimes. Rather than bring actual policy in line with the law, ARENA has proposed a draconian "anti-terrorism law" which eliminates most civil rights and would bring the law into line with policy.

14. This was partly a result of the fact that after 30,000 killings and organizational disruption of the popular forces, mass killing was no longer needed. It was also a result of pressures and demands from Duarte's voting constituency, which could be met within limits and for a period without excessive cost to the war project. The U.S. antiwar movement had also been pressuring Congress to cut off funds, so that unrestrained killing threatened the flow of dollars. Until such time as a new wave of mass terror might become politically necessary. assassination and imprisonment could be more selective and the body count kept at a level that could be easily ignored by the U.S. press and Congress and more acceptable to pressure groups.

15. International Human Rights Law Group (IHRLG), Report on the 1989 Salvadoran Electoral Process (Washington, D.C.: March 1989), p. 131.

16. Ibid., p. 125.

17. "Attorney General Restricts Media Activities," U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), March 17, 1989.

18. Michael Massing, "When More Means Less," Columbia Journalism Review, July-August 1989, p. 44.

19. The Democratic Convergence failed to attain this objective, as it came in fourth in the vote, losing third place by a very tiny margin. Only the first three parties in voter popularity obtained a seat on the CEC.

20. Linda Garrett, "Salvadoran Election: A Victory For the Right or For Peace?" El Rescate: E1 Salvador, March 22, 1989, p. 8.

21. Both the Christian Democrats and ARENA hired U.S. PR firms to handle their campaigns. ARENA worked with political consultant Roger Ailes, who was George Bush's media advisor. "With Ailes's help, the party has succeeded in conveying a populist image through television advertisements employing to a great effect humor and upbeat jingles (one of which is strikingly similar to the song used in the 'No' campaign in Chile's plebiscite)," Op. cit., n. 15, p. 85.

22. Op. cit., n. 15, p. 122.

23. This scene was observed by one of the authors, Terry Allen.

24. "A Fingerhold for Dissent in Salvador," March 17, 1989. This statement is in error: many of those on the list were centrists, not leftists.

25. Op. cit., n. 15, p. 52.

26. Washington Center for Central American Studies, El Salvador On Line, July-August 1989.

27. Sara Miles and Bob Ostertag, "Marching Orders," NACLA Report on the Americas, July 1989, p. 25.

28. Arnon Hadar, ed., Central American Bulletin, May 1989, p. 3.

29. Michael Massing was one of many reporters who called the ARENA victory "a landslide." Michael Massing, "Sad New El Salvador," New York Review of Books, May 18, 1989, pp. 53-6).

30. Op. cit., n. 27, p. 25.

31. Op. cit., n. 2, pp. 157, 173-80.

32. Catholic Archdiocese of San Salvador, Final Document, National Debate, San Salvador, September 1988, p. 11.

33. Op. cit., n. 4, pp. 113, 116.

34. For a humorous case, see Appendix 1, "The U.S. Official Observers in Guatemala, July 1-2, 1984," op. cit., n. 4. Senator Mitch McConnell, head of the U.S. delegation to El Salvador in March 1989, commented that "Our turnouts aren't this good in the United States." Newly-elected President Cristiani concurred shortly after on the MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, "The turnout equaled or surpassed the voter participation rate in the 1988 [U.S.] presidential election."

These remarks are inaccurate, as the U.S. voter participation rate in the 1988 election substantially exceeded 325 percent. Furthermore, as we noted the Salvadoran turnout declined precipitously from that in 1984. It was also drastically below the turnout for the Nicaraguan election of 1984. None of these points was featured, or even mentioned, in the mainstream media.

35. See El Rescate's Human Rights Chronology for June through September; Washington Center on Central American Studies, On Line, October 2, 1989; Kate Thompson, "Repression Targets Popular Movement," Alert', Oct. 1989.