CIS cncl for inter-am security
A N T I F A I N F O - B U L L E T I N
News * Analysis * Research * Action
Volume 1, Number 5 ***** March 7, 1996
Communism as the ultimate evil has always been the specter haunting property owners, as it threatens the very root of their class position and superior status. The Soviet, Chinese, and Cuban revolutions were traumas to Western elites, and the on-going conflicts and the well-publicized abuses of Communist states have contributed to elevating opposition to communism to a first principle of Western ideology and politics. This ideology helps mobilize the populace against an enemy, and because the concept is fuzzy it can be used against anybody advocating policies that threaten property interests or support accommodation with Communist states or radicalism. It therefore helps fragment the left and labor movements and serves as a political- control mechanism. If the triumph of communism is the worst imaginable result, the support of fascism abroad is justified as a lesser evil.
-- Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky
A Small Circle of Friends:
Larry Pratt, the Council for Inter-American Security and International Fascist Networks
by Tom Burghardt
Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights
The Council for Inter-American Security
CIS and WACL: A Marriage Made in Hell
Larry Pratt, the Council for Inter-American Security and the War Against Immigrants
Introduction
Recent allegations of anti-Semitism and racism levelled against Larry Pratt, a national co-chairman of the Buchanan for President campaign committee, is an intriguing example of media obfuscation and "truth" on the half-shell. That Pratt addressed the 1992 "Christian Men's Meeting," organized by notorious Christian Identity racist, Pete Peters, is an established fact. That Pratt shared the platform with Aryan Nations fuhrer , Richard Butler and "former" Klan "Grand Dragon," Louis Beam, the neo-Nazi architect of "leaderless resistance," is incontestable. That he gave a speech at the 1993 Jubilation Conference in Sacramento, California, an annual gathering of far-rightists' sponsored by the anti-Semitic publisher of Jubilee, the flagship tabloid of the Christian Identity movement, is true and has been accurately reported by the bourgeois press.
What should be of equal concern to the media is information about Mr. Pratt which is far more damaging -- his close collaboration over a 20 year period with an international network of war criminals, neo-Nazi terrorists, and the organizers of Asian, European and Latin American death squads. But because such activities advanced the geopolitical and military goals of the United States, Pratt's actual record is passed over in silence ; a facet of media self-censorship that has been well- documented elsewhere.[1]
At the outset of this report I will emphasize, Pratt is a reactionary whose political orientation can aptly be described as clerical-fascist. On numerous occasions, he has expressed disdain for democracy and the economic, political and social rights of the oppressed. His ideological and personal links to the theocratic wing of the Christian Right, the anti-abortion movement and "Patriot" militias, though of interest, will be explored in another report currently in preparation.
This edition of AFIB however, will explore at some length, the dimensions of Larry Pratt's ties to the national security state. I will demonstrate that Pratt, Buchanan and a host of other "respectable conservatives," far from being "outsiders" or "populists" are active agents and apologists for the global crimes of U.S. imperialism.
The Council for Inter-American Security:
Intellectuals in the Service of Global Terror
The Council for Inter-American Security (CIS) is a rightist outfit that played a pivotal role formulating Washington's program for counter-revolutionary war and mass murder in Central America during the 1980s. Larry Pratt, was a central figure within the CIS hierarchy as was Patrick Buchanan; Pratt was secretary to the group while Buchanan functioned as an organizational director (seeAppendix for complete list of board members and principle players).
But CIS was more than a New Right think-tank researching and formulating foreign policy for the Reagan administration. The group functioned in a dual-capacity; as an alarmist "public policy institute" and as a domestic spy ring, a "privatized" version of the FBI's infamous COINTELPRO operations. Having staked-out Latin America as their geopolitical niche, CIS targeted Central America solidarity activists, progressive clergy, and the Salvadoran exile community. The group gathered intelligence and disseminated disinformation, funneling data on foreign policy opponents to the FBI and the intelligence service of the Salvadoran death squad state.
The domestic side to illegal CIA-Contra operations were aided by a broad spectrum of domestic and international reactionaries. Many of the state-sanctioned criminals who sought to subvert democratic processes in the U.S. and overseas were connected to a network which included, among others: the John Birch Society (JBS); the World Anti-Communist League (WACL); Christian fundamentalist and Catholic theocrats; anti-Castro terrorists grouped in Alpha 66/Brigade 2506; the LaRouche organization and the Unification Movement of South Korean fascist, Rev. Sun Myung Moon.[2]
While such groups operated secretly, they did so with the knowledge, financial backing and encouragement of powerful American corporate and political interests. According to journalist Ross Gelbspan:
A...private group which flourished during the Reagan era was the Washington-based Council for Inter-American Security. The group disseminated reams of material during the 1980s purporting to prove linkages between a Soviet-inspired global terror network and liberal and left-wing American groups opposed to US foreign policies. CIS also expended considerable effort to improve the public image of the reputed Salvadoran death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson. When the FBI's CISPES files were pried open in 1988 by a lawsuit brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights they were found to contain several reports written by J. Michael Waller, a researcher whose work has been sponsored by the nongovernmental Council for Inter-American Security. But Waller's work to connect American political dissenters to an international communist-terrorist plot was part of a public- private partnership.[3]
By 1984, FBI "active measures" against CISPES and the Sanctuary Movement were in full-swing. Fifteen Bureau field offices, dozens of agents and hundreds of "private" right-wing intelligence "assets" were involved in these illegal operations. More than 200 incidents of harassment and intimidation against activists were documented. Many incidents involved church and office break-ins, theft of files and the infiltration of local CISPES chapters by Bureau informants. Peaceful public rallies and demonstrations were disrupted by goons affiliated with Rev. Moon's Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP).
One case that had particularly ominous implications was that of Yanira Corea, a 24 year old Salvadoran exile active in the Los Angeles CISPES chapter. In June 1987, the young woman was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, tortured and threatened with death if her "subversive" activities didn't stop. Corea's brother was a union activist in El Salvador. Prior to her abduction she received a threatening letter containing dried flower petals a photo of her three year old son and the notation -- "Flowers in the desert die," a traditional warning of the death squads.[4]
Though Bureau informants could not produce a shred of evidence linking these groups to "terrorism," the FBI actually increased the level of their attacks. According to the logic of Bureau red hunters, the lack of criminal activity in and of itself was demonstrable evidence of a broad "conspiracy" hatched by shrewd agents linked to the KGB. This was an illusion that the Council for Inter-American Security helped to create.
Throughout the period, the FBI were fed reports alleging that CISPES was a "terrorist" organization. Waller, a research director and editor of the CIS journal, West Watch , wrote a text with the fanciful title, "CISPES: A Terrorist Propaganda Network," that was given wide play by the media.[5] However, because Mr. Waller's services produced the desired propaganda effect intended by his handlers, he secured several generous grants from the State Department's Latin American Office of Public Diplomacy (OPD).[6] Recent American history is replete with examples of the profitability of lying in order to advance State interests; Elliot Abrams and Oliver North are but the tip of the iceberg in this regard.
Prior to Reagan's 1980 election, CIS was the principle organization leading the charge for an "activist" foreign policy to "defeat communism" in Central America. In 1980, they published the influential, A New Inter-American Policy for the Eighties , generally known as the "Santa Fe Document."
Lewis Tambs, "Sante Fe's" principle editor, would be appointed by Reagan as ambassador, first to Columbia and then to Costa Rica, the launching pad for Contra attacks into Nicaragua along the "Southern front."[7] Other Committee of Sante Fe members included Roger Fontaine, a National Security Council (NSC) adviser on Latin American affairs; retired Lt. General Gordon Sumner, who became a special assistant to the Secretary of State for Latin American affairs; and Lynn Francis Bouchey, an active organizer for the Unification Church's CAUSA operations in Central and South America.[8]
Bouchey, the co-author of The Strategy of Terror (written with Stefan Possony), was a former member of the Young Americans for Freedom employed by the American-Chilean Council, a front for the murderous Pinochet regime.[9] Possony, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute, long-time WACL operative and board member of Lyndon LaRouche's, Fusion Energy Foundation, was a founding member of the Council, as was Dr. Anthony Bouscaren, a right-wing operative who had worked for the racist Pioneer Fund (see below).[10]
The Committee of Sante Fe alleged among other things, that the U.S. "must seize the initiative or perish. World War III is almost over." CIS viewed the Soviet Union as an "aggressor" that was "strangling the Western industrialized nations."[11]
Central America was described as "the soft underbelly of the United States." The authors called for the "restoration" of the Monroe Doctrine as the linchpin of U.S. regional strategy. In other words, the United States was free to pursue its regional interests unhindered. Bluntly, this meant that the internal politics of the Central American states were subject to "review" by the U.S.: "correctives" -- dictated from Washington -- would be applied as needed.
As a practical necessity, such "correctives" included the destruction of the Cuban, Grenadian and Nicaraguan Revolutions and the maintenance of "the fundamental order of things" in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. The Committee wrote:
America is everywhere in retreat. The impending loss of the petroleum of the Middle East and potential interdiction of sea routes spanning the Indian Ocean, along with the Soviet satellization of the mineral zone of Southern Africa, foreshadow the Findlandization of Western Europe and the alienation of Japan.
Even the Caribbean, America's maritime crossroad and petroleum refining center is becoming a Marxist-Leninist lake. Never before has the Republic been in such jeopardy from its exposed southern flank. Never before has American foreign policy abused, abandoned and betrayed its allies to the south in Latin America.
...It is time to sound a clarion call for freedom, dignity and national self-interest which will echo the spirit of the American people. Either a Pax Sovietica or a world-wide counter-projection of American power is in the offing. The hour of decision can no longer be postponed.[12]
Though the authors freely employed alarmist rhetoric with little regard to the actual history of U.S. regional domination, "Sante Fe" was not the production of marginal right-wing "kooks" obsessed by the "red menace." According to the Interhemispheric Resource Center,
In the early years of the Reagan administration, the organization was one of the more influential think tanks of the New Right, providing both policy and policymakers to the new administration. In the heyday of its influence, one observer noted, top officials of CIS "shuttle[d] to and from key policy-making and advisory roles in the administration...." Among those tapped for administration positions were Patrick Buchanan, who became President Reagan's communications director...[13]
Today, Buchanan markets himself as an "outsider" standing up for the "workin' man," against a godless, secular humanist cabal of multinational corporations, abortionists, feminists, homosexuals, immigrants and socialistic "one-worlders" intent on imposing a New World Order on the American people. His project has been assisted by the media who have tossed his actual record down the Orwellian memory-hole.
As noted above, CIS was engaged in a covert war against U.S. leftists, progressive clergy and the Salvadoran exile community, channeling information gleaned by its operatives, to the FBI and the Salvadoran national security apparatus. This too, has a long history in the United States.[14]
Col. Samuel Dickens, a former intelligence officer and CIS board member, was the executive director for inter-hemispheric affairs for the American Security Council (ASC), an outfit founded by ex-FBI agents. ASC was an instrumental group which targeted leftists during the 1950s, the period of the McCarthyite witch-hunts. Founded in 1955, ASC funding has been provided by Motorola, Lockheed, Boeing and General Dynamics, among others.[15] The information they collected, much of it bogus, was then sold to ASC's dues-paying corporate members. At the height of their domestic operations ASC red hunters, including the sinister Roy Cohn, Senator McCarthy's chief inquisitor, were gathering the names of alleged "subversives" at the staggering rate of 20,000 per month. [16] One analyst has said that the ASC is "not just the representative of the military-industrial complex, it is the personification of the military-industrial complex."[17]
Another significant source of support for the Council and a host of other "conservative" organizations, was Rev. Moon's Unification Church. Bouchey helped organize two conferences for CAUSA, led by another retired general, E. David Woellner.[18] He was also a board member of the United States Global Strategy Council, identified by researchers, Louis Wolf and Frederick Clarkson as "another CAUSA operation."[19] In 1981, Bouchey was "specially commissioned" by Moon's World Media Institute to prepare and present a "content analysis" of media coverage of U.S. policy in El Salvador.[20]
Active chapters of Moon's organization existed throughout the region; the largest affiliates were centered in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay. In Brazil, the director of CAUSA said, "we are forming the future base for a large political party, though at present we are still apolitical...we want to form a movement like Le Pen's in France." Needless to say, French fascist, Jean Le Pen, has done just that with the National Front, with significant financial backing from the Moon network.[21]
But Moon's extensive Latin American operations had a dual- purpose: the construction of an anti-communist "armed church" and as a "unofficial" link among CIA intelligence assets and the leaders of the death-squad states.
In Bolivia, Thomas Ward was a liaison between the CIA, Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, Barbie's organization, the "Fiances of Death" and the regime of "cocaine general" Luiz Garcia Meza, prior to Bolivia's bloody 1980 putsch. Ward and Barbie "were often seen together;" the introspective Ward was described as an individual "who always seemed to be absorbed in prayer." According to Col. Bo Hi Pak, Moon's chief lieutenant: "God has chosen the Bolivian people in the heart of South America as theones to conquer communism." This during a period when Bolivian narco-operations were greatly expanding -- with the knowledge of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.[22]
Other CIS board members or advisors who have had close ties to the Moon organization:
Roger Fontaine: a former member of the National Security Council. After leaving the NSC, Fontaine became a reporter and political analyst for the Washington Times , a newspaper owned by a subsidiary of the Moon network. Salvadoran death-squad leader, Roberto D'Aubuisson bragged of his ties to the Reagan administration, particularly Roger Fontaine, to the New York Times during a 1981 interview.[23]
Lt. General Gordon Sumner: a CIS director and advisor; Sumner was also a board member of the International Security Council (ISC), described by Herman and O'Sullivan as the "main U.S. agency of the Moon system in the field of terrorism propaganda." An international conference organized by ISC and CAUSA was held in January 1986 in Tel Aviv; speakers included Bo Hi Pak and Arnaud de Borchgrave, the publisher of the Washington Times. [24]
These were neither incidental nor marginal connections. CIS served both as an intelligence conduit from "private" sources such as the American Security Council and CAUSA, and as an informal employment agency which provided analysts to the Reagan administration at the inception of Washington's murderous counter-insurgency wars in Central America.
As CIS secretary, Larry Pratt was a well-placed "asset" in his own right, serving as a link between the public policy/research arms of the organization, the interventionist wing of the theocratic Christian Right and as an "informal" public relations spokesperson for Washington's Central American agenda via Gun Owners of America and the CIS-affiliated, North-South Institute.
But in order to fully appreciate the sinister nature of the Council for Inter-American Security, Pratt's involvement and his broader links to international fascist networks, there is another organization, also little explored by "mainstream" media, which deserves our attention, the World Anti-Communist League.
CIS and WACL: A Marriage Made in Hell
CIS and WACL: A Marriage Made in Hell
The World Anti-Communist League was founded in 1966 by two close Asian allies of the United States, Taiwan and South Korea, and a third organization, the Nazi-dominated, Anti-Bolshevik Block of Nations (ABN), led by the Ukrainian war criminal Yaroslav Stetsko.[25] As we have seen above with CIS, Rev. Moon's Unification network was an instrumental force operating behind the scenes. Moon assets were closely linked to the Korean Central Intelligence Agency and Japanese yakuza crime syndicates, many of whose leaders were convicted war criminals let off the hook by U.S. occupation forces at the war's end.
ABN was a organizational bridge linking Eastern and Western European fascists to the intelligence services of Britain and the United States. Indeed, ABN was formed with U.S. funds and was a model frequently employed by future anti-communist emigre groups. Washington's unflagging commitment to the destruction of the Soviet Union was a continuation of the Third Reich's "Operation Barbarossa" -- by other means. Christopher Simpson's description of the group provides a chilling glimpse into the modus operandi of "containment:"
The ABN was dominated by Ukrainian nationalist veterans of the OUN/UPA (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists/Ukrainian Insurgent Army), and it included a half dozen open Nazi collaborators on its executive board. Its newspaper, ABN Correspondence , published praises of wartime genocidalists such as Ustachi _Fuhrer_ Ante Pavelic and Slovakian quisling Premier Monsignor Jozef Tiso. Alfreds Berzins, whom the U.S. government once termed a "fanatic Nazi" responsible for sending innocent people to concentration camps, was the president of the ABN "People's Council." Berzins was simultaneously a Latvian leader of the Assembly of Captive European Nations. His vice- president at the ABN was the Belorussian quisling Radislaw Ostrowsky.[26]
If such anti-communist "patriots" were serviceable as "democrats" abroad, why not at home? In the United States, WACL's first chairman was Roger Pearson, a white supremacist, eugenicist and neo-Nazi. Pearson was the editor of Willis Carto's anti-Semitic rag, Western Destiny , the forerunner of the Liberty Lobby's Spotlight tabloid. By the mid 1970s, Pearson served on the editorial boards of both the Heritage Foundation and the American Security Council.[27]
Last Fall, Mr. Pratt addressed a Liberty Lobby testimonial banquet in honor of the 20th anniversary of Spotlight . Though Larry Pratt has stated publicly he "loathes" groups such as Aryan Nations and other Nazis, it would appear his oft-quoted protestations of "innocence" are less than credible given Mr. Carto's documented history of bigotry and racism.
Pearson, who has described himself as a "mainstream conservative," boasted to an associate about his alleged role in hiding Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, the "Angel of Death" who directed Nazi "medical experiments" at the Auschwitz extermination camp. With degrees in anthropology and economics, Pearson is the author several books on eugenics. His most "popular" are Eugenics and Race and Race and Civilization . He credits Professor Hans F. K. Gunther, a Nazi racial theoretician, as the inspiration behind the latter volume.[28]
Under Pearson's tutelage, WACL added Western European chapters that were drawn from the ranks of Nazi war criminals, Third Reich collaborators, neo-Nazis and right-wing terrorists. Western European affiliates included the racist British League of Rights and Italy's Italian Social Movement (MSI). Pino Rauti, the founder of the outlawed group, Ordine Nuovo was a key WACL Western European contact.[29] Rauti and countless other Italian fascists including the war criminal, June Valerio "Black Prince" Borghese, and key members of the Italian general staff, were "rehabilitated" Nazi collaborators recruited by the CIA into NATO's "stay behind" anti-communist terror network, also known as "Gladio."[30]
An off-shoot of Ordine Nuovo was the terrorist group, the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei (ARN), responsible for the 1980 bombing of the Bologna train station which killed 85 people. The notorious neo-fascist killer, Stefano delle Chiaie, the ARN architect of the Bologna massacre, attended the pivotal 1980 conference of the WACL-affiliated, Latin American Anti-Communist Confederation (CAL), held in Buenos Aires at the height of the "dirty war" against the Argentine left.[31]
CAL was the organizational expression of a little-known group of Mexican neo-Nazis, the Tecos or "owls," centered at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara. Founded by Third Reich collaborator, Carlos Cuesta Gallardo, the Tecos have created several anti-communist front groups which include the Mexican Anti-Communist Federation (FEMACO) and the Inter-American Confederation of Continental Defense (IACCD). These "men of action" were drawn from the ranks of the Mexican secret police, military officers, wealthy landowners and industrialists.[32]
Tecos leader, Raimundo Guerrero, was recruited into the organization by Gallardo. According to Anderson and Anderson, the Tecos have close links with the remnants of the Romanian Iron Guard fascists of Horia Sima in Spain. The group publishes the anti-Semitic magazine, Replica . Serving as a liaison among right-wing death squads throughout Latin America, the Tecos joined WACL in 1972. But the Tecos are more than a collection of aging Nazis; investigative journalist Manuel Buendia, was assassinated in Mexico City after publishing a three-part series exposing "Los Tecos" in 1984.[33]
The 1980 CAL conclave was hosted by members of the military junta and the Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance (AAA) death squad. Delle Chiaie journeyed to Buenos Aires from Bolivia where he had forged a murder-for-hire and cocaine smuggling partnership with CIA asset, Klaus Barbie.[34]
Others who attended the CAL conference included, John Carbaugh, an aide to North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms and Mario Sandoval Alarcon, the "godfather" of the Guatemalan death squads. Sandoval brought along a protege to Buenos Aires, the cashiered Salvadoran army major, Roberto D'Aubuisson. In 1981, Sandoval was an invited guest at the Reagan inaugural ball.[35]
Another individual who was an honored guest at the Reagan fete was Adolpho Cuellar, the chairman of WACL's branch in El Salvador; that is, until he was permanently "removed from service" by the FMLN. According to Holly Sklar, "Cuellar is remembered by former Salvadoran army officers 'as a man who used to appear at interrogation centers and beg permission to torture the prisoners.'"[36]
Shortly after the CAL conference, 50 Argentine "military advisors" and unconventional warfare "specialists" arrived in El Salvador and began training the military junta in advanced counter-insurgency "techniques," much as their Israeli counterparts were doing in Guatemala and Honduras.[37] They were joining CIA and U.S. Army Special Forces operatives already in place. Massacres and "disappearances" escalated at an alarming rate.[38]
Such developments were greeted with enthusiasm by CIS and their fellow-travellers. Board member, Andy Messing, a close personal friend of Lt. Col. North and the president of the National Defense Council said at the time, "going to war is [my] favorite pastime."[39]
When Pearson became too hot to handle he was forced to resign in 1980, temporarily replaced as WACL's North American chairman by Elmer D. Greaves, an organizer of the segregationist Citizens Council.[40] But did Pearson leave in disgrace, discredited as a fascist, a racist and an apologist for the Nazi Holocaust? Hardly. Hanging on the wall of Pearson's Washington, D.C. office is a letter from then President, Ronald Reagan:
You are performing a valuable service in bringing to a wide audience the work of leading scholars who are supportive of a free enterprise economy, a firm and consistent foreign policy and a strong national defense.
Your substantial contributions to promoting and upholding those ideals and principles that we value at home and abroad are greatly appreciated.[41]
With Pearson's departure, WACL was in crisis and in danger of disbanding. It is during this period, that John K. Singlaub came to the rescue, reorganizing WACL's American chapter.
Retired U.S. Army General and CIS board member, John K. Singlaub, has a long, bloody history of involvement with the formulation and execution of U.S. counter-insurgency strategy and covert operations around the world. A member of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) at the end of World War II, Singlaub moved up the ladder, becoming CIA desk officer for China in 1949 and deputy station chief in Korea during the war. During the Vietnam war he commanded the Special Operations Group, which implemented the CIA's Phoenix Operation, responsible for the cold-blooded murder of some 40,000 Vietnamese and the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of other Vietnamese in "strategic hamlets." Singlaub was appointed head of the U.S command in South Korea in 1976, but was removed in 1978 when he publicly disagreed with President Carter's plans to withdraw U.S. troops.[42]
A significant figure, within the national security apparatus and the far-right, Singlaub was well-placed to serve as a contact who could network neo-fascist killers, drug peddlers and state- sanctioned terrorist "assets" employed by the national security state itself. Herman and O'Sullivan write:
Singlaub was...close to the Reagan White House. From April 1983 until October 1984 he chaired an official Pentagon panel established to design U.S. policies toward developing countries. The panel also included Brigadier General Heine Anderholt, a contributing editor to _Soldier of Fortune_, and another half dozen extreme right-wing military officers and academicians. In April 1984, Singlaub met with President Reagan and National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane and was named "the chief fund-raising contact" to the contra army in Central America. With this choice, the president plucked from the world of the paramilitary/neo- Nazi fringe a man who had spent six years since his forced retirement from the army in some of the most powerful and dangerous organizations on the U.S. and international extreme right, where his associates included former Nazis, Nazi collaborators, anti-Semites, leaders of death squads, and a motley crew of mercenaries. Reagan honored these with a warm greeting to WACL at its 1984 gathering, asserting that the organization was playing a "leadership role" in the "gallant struggle being waged by the true freedom fighters of our day." Within a year at Bitburg, Reagan would pay his respects to the Waffen-SS.[43]
It is within this context as well, that Patrick Buchanan, then Reagan's communications director, echoed calls issued by the Nazi-linked, Captive Nations Committee (CNC), to abolish the Justice Department's Office for Special Investigations (OSI), responsible for prosecuting war criminals still at large. This should not come as a shock to anyone, since many members of CNC held dual membership in WACL.
Andy Messing, as well as Howard Phillips, chairman of The Conservative Caucus and current leader of the United States Taxpayers Party (USTP), were key figures within WACL's American branch. Larry Pratt shares Phillips' ideological commitment to the clerical-fascist doctrine of Christian Reconstructionism; indeed, Pratt is a national committee member of Phillips' USTP.
Phillips and other American far-rightists, including Black "pro-life" Republican Party presidential candidate, Alan Keyes, were members of the South Africa lobby. The International Freedom Foundation (IFF), an organization founded by "conservative" activist, Jack Abramhoff, was recently exposed by senior South African military personnel as a cut-out of the South African military and Special Branch. IFF functioned as a propaganda arm for South African STRATCOM (strategic communications) counter-insurgency operations directed against the African National Congress and the trade union confederation.[44]
These are some of the individuals found within Mr. Pratt's small circle of friends, but for "reasons of state," the bourgeois media has tended to "forget" the invaluable services rendered to imperialism by such "extremist" representatives of the "radical religious right."
Larry Pratt, the Council for Inter-American Security and the War Against Immigrants
Fighting communism at home and abroad were not the only missions undertaken by the Council for Inter-American Security and their stalwart secretary, Larry Pratt. With the collapse of the degenerated workers' states in the USSR and Eastern Europe, crowned by the annexation of the German Democratic Republic by West German Capital, new "enemies" appeared on the horizon -- both in Europe and the United States.
By 1990, the "Culture Wars," the assault on the basic rights of people of color, the organized proletariat, immigrants, women, queers and the left had come to replace the mythological significance of the "Red Menace" for the far-right. Mr. Pratt, this time in the guise of "defender" of "traditional family values," and "America's Godly heritage," was equal to the task, "protecting" white Christians from a "flood" of "illegal" immigrants. Pratt would use his skills as a propagandist and his position as president of Gun Owners of America, to launch a new campaign -- to make English the official language of the United States.
Under the auspices of CIS, Pratt was the president of a racist, anti-immigration outfit, English First. Officers of Pratt's group are also leaders of the alarmist, United States Border Control (USBC). The Denver-based, North-South Institute (NSI) is a non-profit arm of the Council for Inter-American Security. NSI vice president and director, Lt. General Gordon Sumner, also a CIS director as we have seen, is an officer of USBC and NSI.[45]
A close ally of Pratt's in this enterprise is Anthony Bouscaren. A CIS advisor along with Singlaub and Sumner, Bouscaren was a board member of WACL's American branch. During the l960s, Bouscaren worked for Wycliffe Draper's Pioneer Fund, a racist organization which has bankrolled pseudoscientific "research" which allegedly proves that blacks are genetically inferior to whites. The Pioneer Fund has been an instrumental force behind the scenes, funding neo-eugenicist research such as that of Phillipe Rushton, as well as many anti-immigration groups, including the "mainstream" Federation for American Immigration Reform, whose oxymoronic acronym is "FAIR."[46]
During the 1970s, Bouscaren was a board member of the American-Chilean Council, a group which served as a public relations arm of the Pinochet death squad state. There Bouscaren worked with Ronald Docksai, the founder of the Council for Inter- American Security and L. Francis Bouchey, who would lead the organization during the 1980s.[47]
Well after his stint with the Pioneer Fund, Bouscaren published numerous articles in Roger Pearson's Journal for Social, Political and Economic Studies -- that is, after Pearson had been exposed as a Nazi by the Washington Post. [48]
Bouscaren signed the "Declaration of San Salvador," as a proxy for John Singlaub. The declaration was the result of a right-wing conference held in San Salvador in 1985; it included many WACL members and focused on ways to involve civilians in anti-communist efforts. The document announced the formation of the Central American Anti-Communist Defense Accord, intended to create a combat group known as the Central American Civilian Military Alliance (CACMA).[49]
But CACMA was more than a WACL propaganda project. Drawing on the experiences of Guatemala's notorious "Program of Assistance to Areas in Conflict" (PAAC), inspired by the CIA's Phoenix Operation in Vietnam, PAAC's "civic action" program included forced relocation of Mayan peasants into "model villages" and the creation of hated "civilian self-defense patrols." WACL, CACMA and their CIA handlers viewed these operations as a means of generalizing and standardizing the "Guatemalan experience" throughout the region. In this near- genocidal enterprise against the Mayan people, the death squad regime was offered much assistance by Israeli as well as domestic "assets" within the U.S. Christian Right, especially from the clerical-fascist Reconstructionist wing of the movement.[50]
The counter-insurgency doctrine of "low-intensity conflict" (LIC), became a significant factor on the home front. Beginning in the early 1990s, veterans of CIA-Contra operations and their intellectual architects, began propagandizing for a systematic application of LIC methodology within the imperialist heartland itself. The "war on drugs" and the Immigration and Naturalization Service's brutal border sweeps, detention and deportation of so-called "illegals," many of whom are political refugees, are but the tip of the iceberg in this regard.
Echoing the xenophobic campaign already in full-swing within the reunified Germany, CIS and English First issued a paper, Creating a Hispanic America: Nation Within a Nation? This racist diatribe virtually equates bilingual education with "terrorism." "Bilingual education has national security implications," its authors inform us. Given CIS's role in support of the CIA-Contra wars, their equation -- Latino = Terrorist -- certainly comes as no surprise. According to anti- racist researcher and activist, Michael Novick:
The paper compares the U.S. southwest to French-speaking Quebec, with its potential for separatism. It sees the Chicano and Spanish-speaking population as in themselves a threat to U.S. national security and unity.
The paper also indulges in more blatant racism. It describes the Indian ancestors of Latinos as "uncivilized barbaric squatters" with "a penchant for grotesque human sacrifices, cannibalism, and kidnapping women." This is the ideology that guides English First leader Pratt in his fund- raising appeals for the English Only cause. In one letter soliciting potential donors, Pratt claimed, "many immigrants these days are encouraged not to learn English. They remain stuck in a linguistic...ghetto, living off welfare and costing working Americans billions of tax dollars."[51]
Larry Pratt is a key leader of the reactionary U.S. Taxpayers Party (USTP). As touched upon briefly, Pratt is a national committee member of Howard Phillips' outfit, as well as a national co-chairman of Patrick Buchanan's campaign committee. A central plank of the USTP's platform is the requirement that English become the "official" language of the United States. The USTP is opposed both to bilingual education and the use of multilingual ballots for U.S. elections.
But buried within the USTP's 1992 platform is the bland phrase: the USTP "reject[s] the practice of bestowing U.S. citizenship on children born to illegal alien parents while in this country." This is an attack on the 13th and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The 13th amendment abolished slavery, while the 14th amendment granted full citizenship rights to former slaves as well as to the children of non-citizen immigrants born in the U.S., legal or otherwise. In fact, Pratt and his cohorts within the "Patriot" movement seek to repeal these amendments as part of their drive to create a "Christian Republic."
The origins of "Patriot" thinking regarding constitutional "revisions" of citizenship rights, is the little known but virulently racist, League of Pace Amendment Advocates. Daniel Johnson, the author of the so-called Pace Amendment is a far- rightist with close ties to many neo-Nazis, including Richard Barrett's Mississippi-based Nationalist Movement and the Populist Party, founded by arch anti-Semite, Willis Carto, the leader of the Liberty Lobby.[52]
Mr. Pratt and his cohorts within the Council for Inter- American Security have much to answer for in their service to U.S. imperialism. Their role as active agents for murderous policies designed to bring the Central American people "in line" with the "rule of law" and the "civilized norms of the Western democracies," have had very grave consequences indeed.
Their close collaboration with the FBI and the Salvadoran intelligence service unquestionably resulted in the deaths of hundreds of refugees after their forced deportation to El Salvador. According to the Political Asylum Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, out of 154 refugees deported in 1983 and 1984, 42 returnees were killed, seven were arrested, five were jailed, 47 were "disappeared" and an additional 43 others "disappeared" under violent circumstances. Certainly an admirable record Mr. Pratt and his "Patriot" companions can reminisce over during Bible study, perhaps.[53]
Conclusion
Far from being an innocent wrongly accused of anti-Semitism and racism, Larry Pratt is an individual committed to a world- view which begins and ends with global economic-political- cultural-military domination by U.S. imperialism; this is the context and ideology behind Patrick Buchanan's allegiance to xenophobic "America First" nationalism.
Mr. Pratt's 1990 book, Armed People Victorious , touted by the bourgeois press as a "passionate defense" of gun rights and the militia movement, is a volume inspired by the anti-communist death squads which operated so "efficiently" in Guatemala and the Philippines.
Pratt's close working relationship with the Council for Inter-American Security and the World Anti-Communist League provided him both with the theoretical and practical knowledge necessary to forge effective links among a host of individuals and organizations who actively sympathized with U.S.-sponsored terror and mass murder in Central America.
It should come as no surprise, least of all to a mendacious press that remained silent while imperialism implemented a policy of extermination , that fascists such as Pratt would recommend the creation of the domestic equivalent of Central American death squads in the United States to deal with troublesome enemies of today's "Culture Wars."
What is significant is not that individuals such as Mr. Pratt are "extremists" or the "enemies" of a supposedly "pluralist democracy." Of far greater significance is that this "public-private partnership" among a host of reactionary organizations and the national security state, is the norm ; an enduring legacy of settler-colonialism grounded in white supremacist ideologies -- and ideologues -- who are hell-bent on maintaining imperialism's global domination by any means necessary .
Appendix
Principle directors, associates and research analysts involved with the Council for Inter-American Security. Compiled by the Interhemispheric Resource Center, Group Watch Reports, Box 4506, Albuquerque, NM 87196-4506. On PeaceNet, IRC's Group Watch archive can be found on cdp:pra.reactionary; this excellent archive is maintained by Political Research Associates.
L. Francis Bouchey, president; Lt. Gen. Gordon Sumner, Jr. (USA-Ret.), chairman; Larry D. Pratt, secretary; Richard W. Powell, treasurer; Michael Connelly, general counsel. Directors: Robert W. Searby (Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs, Department of Labor), Patrick J. Buchanan (former communications director for President Reagan); Michael Carricarte (Carricarte Corp); Col. Samuel T. Dickens (American Security Council); Ronald F. Docksai (president emeritus); Francis P. Graves (Republican National Committee); Lewis A. Tambs (U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, Costa Rica); Andy Messing (National Defense Council); Robert Emmet Moffit (former senior Legislative Assistant for Foreign Affairs). David Hirschmann, research director; Max Primorac, research fellow; Clemens Michel, research fellow; David Spencer, research fellow; Michael Caputo; John Lenczowski, consultant. James Whelan, president of the Inter-Security Educational Institute, co-publisher of West Watch. Michael Waller, West Watch editor and former research director. General John K. Singlaub (USA, Ret.); advisory board. Members of the first Committee of Santa Fe: L. Francis Bouchey, Roger W. Fontaine, David C. Jordan, Gordon Sumner, Lewis Tambs editor. Members of the second Committee of Santa Fe: L. Francis Bouchey, Roger Fontaine, David C. Jordan, Gordon Sumner. Inter-American Security Educational Institute: Fr. Enrique T. Rueda, project director.
Notes and sources
[1] see in particular: Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media , New York, Pantheon Books, 1988; Noam Chomsky, Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies , Boston, South End Press, 1989; Martin A. Lee and Norman Solomon, Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in the Media , New York, Lyle Stuart, 1990; see, in particular, chapters 10-12
[2] Ross Gelbspan, Break-ins, Death Threats and the FBI: The Covert War Against the Central America Movement , Boston, South End Press, 1991; for background on COINTELPRO see: Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement , Boston, South End Press, 1990
[3] Gelbspan, op. cit., pp. 76-77. Currently J. Michael Waller is a leading spokesperson for the Washington, D.C.-based, American Foreign Policy Council; a rightist think-tank.
[4] ibid., pp. 32-34
[5] cited in Chip Berlet, The FBI and Right-Wing Spy Networks , New York, Center for Constitutional Rights, 1991, p. 4
[6] Gelbspan, op. cit., pp. 124-125
[7] Holly Sklar, Washington's War On Nicaragua , Boston, South End Press, 1988, p. 58
[8] Frederick Clarkson, "'Privatizing' the War," Covert Action Information Bulletin , Washington, D.C., Number 22 (Fall 1984), p. 33
[9] Alan Crawford, Thunder On The Right: The "New Right" and the Politics of Resentment , New York, Pantheon Books, 1980, p. 197
[10] Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States , New York, The Guilford Press, 1995, pp. 348-349 Marvin Liebman, a reactionary leader of the "China Lobby" organized the American-Chilean Council with funds supplied by "private Chilean contributions which were transmitted to us by the Consejo Chileno Norteamericano." According to Dr. Diamond, ACC founders included: Professor James D. Atkinson, Murray Baron, Professor A.T. Bouscaren, Ralph de Toledano, Lev Dobriansky, Ronald Docksai, Walter Judd, David Keene, Anthony Kubeck, Eugene Lyons, Stefan Possony, David Rowe. Ronald Docksai was the founder and first president of CIS.
[11] Sklar, op. cit., p. 58
[12] ibid.
[13] Interhemispheric Resource Center, _Group Watch Project: Council for Inter-American Security_, Albuquerque, 1991
[14] Nelson Blackstock, COINTELPRO: The FBI's War On Political Freedom , New York, Pathfinder Press, 1988; Frank Donner, Protectors of Privilege: Red Squads and Police Repression in America , Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990
[15] Edward S. Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan, The "Terrorism" Industry: The Experts and Institutions That Shape Our View of Terror , New York, Pantheon Books, 1989, p. 100
[16] Diamond, op. cit., p. 46
[17] Herman and O'Sullivan, op. cit., p. 100
[18] Clarkson, op. cit., p. 33; Herman & O'Sullivan, op. cit., p. 93
[19] Louis Wolf and Frederick Clarkson, "Arnaud de Borchgrave Board's Moon's Ship," Covert Action Information Bulletin , Washington, D.C., Number 24, Summer 1985, p. 35
[20] Clarkson, op. cit., p. 33
[21] Frederick Clarkson, "Moon's Law: God Is Phasing Out Democracy," Covert Action Information Bulletin , Washington, D.C., Number 27, Spring 1987, p. 40
[22] Kai Hermann, "Klaus Barbie: A Killer's Career," Covert Action Information Bulletin , Washington, D.C., Number 25, Winter 1986, p. 19
[23] Stewart Klepper, "The United States in El Salvador," Covert Action Information Bulletin , Washington, D.C., Number 12, April 1981, p. 9
[24] Herman and O'Sullivan, op. cit., p. 96
[25] Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson, Inside the League: The Shocking Expose of How Terrorists, Nazis and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League , New York, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1986, p. 13
[26] Christopher Simpson, Blowback: The First Full Account of America's Recruitment of Nazis, and Its Disastrous Effect On Our Domestic and Foreign Policy , New York, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988, p. 269
[27] Diamond, op. cit., p. 157
[28] Anderson & Anderson, op. cit., p. 93
[29] ibid., p. 98
[30] for background on "Gladio" and NATO's "stay behind" network, see: Arthur E. Rowse, "Gladio: The Secret U.S. War to Subvert Italian Democracy," Covert Action Quarterly , Washington, D.C., Number 49, Summer 1994 and, Anti-Fascist Action (AFA), "Staying Behind: NATO's Terror Network," Fighting Talk , London, Issue 11, May 1995
[31] Anderson & Anderson, op. cit., pp. 98-99 and Stuart Christie, Stefano Delle Chiaie, Portrait of a Black Terrorist , London, Anarchy Magazine/Refract Publications, 1984
[32] Anderson & Anderson, op. cit., pp. 71-81
[33] ibid., p. 138
[34] ibid., p. 147
[35] ibid., p. 177
[36] Sklar, op. cit., p. 83
[37] ibid., pp. 84-86; for Israel's role in Central America see, Jane Hunter, Israeli Foreign Policy: South Africa and Central America , Boston, South End Press, 1987, pp. 95-181
[38] Ellen Ray, "Argentina Activates International Death Squads," Covert Action Information Bulletin , Washington, D.C., Number 16, March 1982, pp. 14-16 and, same issue, "Salvadoran Deserter Discloses Green Beret Torture Role," pp. 17-18
[39] Sklar, op. cit., pp. 238-239
[40] Anderson & Anderson, op. cit., p. 102
[41] ibid., p. 92
[42] ibid. pp. 150-155
[43] Herman & O'Sullivan, op. cit., p. 69 Supporting counter- revolutionary terror was a very profitable enterprise indeed. GeoMilitech, founded by Singlaub and his partner, Barbara Studley, procured $5.3 million in weapons which were transferred to Contra leader, Adolfo Calero, in June 1985; a cozy relationship all around.
[44] Dele Olojede, "D.C. think tank was an apartheid tool," San Francisco Examiner , Sunday, July 16, 1995, p. C-7; for background on the International Freedom Foundation see, David Ivon, "Touting for South Africa: International Freedom Foundation," Covert Action Information Bulletin , Washington, D.C., Number 31, Winter 1989, pp. 62-64
[45] Russ Bellant, The Coors Connection: How Coors Family Philanthropy Undermines Democratic Pluralism , Cambridge, MA, Political Research Associates, 1990, p. 65
[46] Ruth Conniff, "The War on Aliens: The Right calls the shots," The Progressive , Madison, WI, October 1993, p. 24
[47] Diamond, op. cit., p. 348
[48] Anderson & Anderson, op. cit., p. 153
[49] ibid., p. 273
[50] Hunter, op. cit., pp. 118-127 and, Sara Diamond, Spiritual Warfare: The Politics of the Christian Right , Boston, South End Press, 1989, pp. 164-168
[51] Michael Novick, White Lies, White Power: The Fight Against White Supremacy and Reactionary Violence , Monroe, Maine, Common Courage Press, 1995, pp. 188-189
[52] ibid., p. 267
[53] Gelbspan, op. cit., p. 219
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BACORR: DEFENDING CLINICS, EXPOSING TERRORISM --
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==
from western goals:
During his relationship with the ne plus ultra of yuppie playboys, Cohn also insisted on a reputably conservative public profile. By the early 80s, he even claimed to reject the John Birch Society, even as he joined the advisory board of the Western Goals Foundation, a private intelligence group organized by leading Birchers that openly worked with Nazis like Hitler’s unreconstructed spy chief, Reinhard Gehlen, who had been rescued from war crimes trials by the CIA’s first chief, Allen Dulles, in order to help coordinate clandestine anti-communist resistance. By the mid-1980s,Western Goals had become embroiled in the Iran-Contra scandaldue to the workings of the CIS, among others, which Cohn had been a part of since the 1950s. (As reported by :{:{:{Antifa:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:0px;border:0px;font-weight:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline"):}::(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:0px;border:0px;font-weight:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline"):}::(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:0px;border:0px;font-weight:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline"):}: in 1996, the CIS’s hierarchy included Klan and Aryan Nations collaboratorLarry Pratt, who went on to co-chair Pat Buchanan’s 1992 presidential run, as well as Buchanan, himself, who we’ll come to later in this article.)
==
Roger Fontaine has been on the board of directors of the United States Council for World Freedom, and has been a reporter for The Washington Times and has served as the director of Latin American studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.[1]
Contents
Articles and Resources
Related SourceWatch Articles
References
- :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ ? (?). World Anti-Communist League. Political Research Associates - Right Web. Retrieved on 2010-01-03. “Roger Fontaine of the USCWF (United States Council for World Freedom) board is a reporter for The Washington Times and has served as the director of Latin American studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.”
External resources
==
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/council_for_inter-american_security/
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/council_for_inter-american_security/
Council for Inter-American Security
last updated: January 1, 1991
Council for Inter-American Security
Acronym/Code: CIS
Updated: 2/91
Categories:Political
Background: The Council for Inter-American Security (CIS) was founded in l976 by Ronald Docksai with the objectives of clarifying the common security interests of nations of the Western hemisphere, recommending approaches for the protection of those interests, and popularizing its recommendations. (10,14) Now claiming a membership of nearly 200,000–up from 70,000 in l986–CIS has been described as a "hybrid institution," which combines the features of a public policy research institution and a citizens’ lobby. One of its major objectives is, therefore, to provide information to Congress, to the executive branch, and to the American public concerning its analyses of national security policy. (14,28) It consequently sponsors educational programs, seminars, conferences, and briefing sessions; conducts direct mail and advertising campaigns; and produces publications, radio shows, films, and television documentaries on various issues relating to foreign policy and national defense posture. (28,32)In the early years of the Reagan administration, the organization was one of the more influential think tanks of the New Right, providing both policy and policymakers to the new administration. In the heyday of its influence, one observer noted, top officials of CIS "shuttle[d] to and from key policy-making and advisory roles in the administration… ."(24) Among those tapped for administration positions were Patrick Buchanan,who became President Reagan’s communications director; Lewis Tambs, initially a consultant to the National Security Council (NSC) and later appointed ambassador first to Colombia and then to Costa Rica; Gordon Sumner, named as special consultant to the State Department’s Bureau of Inter-American Affairs; and Roger Fontaine, assigned to the NSC as a specialist on Latin America. (24,26)
This initial influence was not to last, however. CIS–like other radically conservative groups–always had the ear of President Reagan but were often incapable of working within Washington’s bureaucratic system and were inclined to frustrate and antagonize more pragmatic conservatives both in and out of government. Roger Fontaine, for example, was eased out of the National Security Council, and Pat Buchanan eventually resigned his position with the White House. (34,37)
Despite the less dogmatically conservative political climate of the late l980s, CIS continues its efforts. In l988, the Committee of Santa Fe released a new document, Santa Fe II, with recommendations for the next administration. Although it is somewhat less ideological and more pragmatic than the original "Santa Fe Document," this second publication is unlikely to have the impact of the first simply due to the changing political tenor of the country and the absence from the White House of a truly ideological president. (13)
CIS publications and analyses focus primarily on Latin America but include coverage of other regions of the world as well, particularly the Soviet Union. These analyses are formed by a perspective which, for the most part, frames issues in East-West terms. Groups and individuals which opposed President Reagan’s Central America policy or supported nuclear disarmament, for example, were repeatedly and vociferously accused by CIS of being tied to or dupes of the Soviet Union. (14) Among other projects, the group has campaigned to defeat the Panama Canal and Salt II treaties and has opposed attempts to normalize relations with Cuba.(32) Its publications call for a vigorous and muscular defense posture in the United States, and CIS has asserted that "Soviet-Cuban adventurism in this hemisphere started after Jimmy Carter was elected."(14) The Inter-American Security Educational Institute (ISEI), an offshoot of CIS, sponsors a speakers bureau of individuals with expertise in a variety of areas, including economics, theology, politics, warfare, and diplomacy. (4,30)
CIS is a membership group and claims to have nearly 200,000 members. (14)
Funding:Activities: The Council for Inter-American Security conducts analysis of U.S. national security issues, produces policy recommendations, and acts as a citizens’ lobby. It produces books, monographs, television documentaries, films, and special reports as components of its educational activities. In addition, its members or representatives have testified before Congress on assorted policy issues, and the organization escorts congressional leaders and other policymakers onfact-finding tours to Central America. (14,32) During l985, for example, CIS organized trips to Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua for an assortment of members of Congress and their staffs. It also arranged a trip to Guatemala for congressional aides to observe the elections in December of that year. (32)
In l980, CIS produced the influential report A New Inter-American Policy for the Eighties, known popularly as the "Santa Fe Document." This document became a central building block in the construction of Reagan’s foreign policy in Central America during his first term. (1,12,14,23) The document argued that the U.S. was "engaged in World War III," and proposed that "in war there is no substitute for victory." Describing Central America as "the soft underbelly of the United States," the report called for the restoration of the Monroe Doctrine as the underpinning of U.S. foreign policy in the region. (23)
Its recommendations included increased military ties with "friendly" Central American governments, the provision of military training and assistance programs, and both technical and psychological assistance programs to help those countries fight "terrorism." It suggested an "economic and ideological campaign" to deal with such issues as energy, Latin American debt, industrial and agricultural development, and education to "win the minds of mankind." To undermine the communist goverment of Cuba, it recommended the establishment of Radio Marti and the Caribbean Basin Initiative. It urged the U.S. to revitalize the Rio Treaty and the Organization of American States but simultaneously called for the United States to "assume the role of the unquestionably cohesive force in building a Western Hemispheric community." The "Santa Fe Document" criticized isolationism, containment, and detente as ineffective responses to the Soviet threat in the Americas. Instead, the U.S. was exhorted to take an activist stance in the region as well as in the world, mindful that "the very survival of this republic is at stake."(23)
A subsequent document, published in latel988, Santa Fe II offered the CIS policy recommendations on Latin America for the l990s. While lacking much of the hyperbole of the original "Santa Fe Document," this second report argued that "the Americas are still under attack," and listed communist subversion, along with terrorism and the drug trade, as manifestations of that attack. An underlying assumption of the document was the assertion that communist organizations were connected to and allies of the terrorist and narcotics networks which formed the other two components of the "attack" on the Western hemisphere. The report criticized a "continuation of the attitude of strategic indifference" on the part of the United States toward Latin America and a failure to establish a bipartisan consensus on a long-term, pro-active (as opposed to reactive) set of policies toward the region. Noting the economic stagnation characteristic of the region, CIS called for U.S. policies which support the formation of national capital markets, deregulation, and privatization in order to stimulate Latin American economies. It also noted that the present Latin American debt burden "has to be lessened because it can never be repaid at current terms," although it suggested market-oriented approaches to resolving that dilemma.
The document asserted that liberation theology and intellectual leftist social criticisms are based on a Gramscian attempt to establish Marxist cultural hegemony. In response, Santa Fe II proposed that the United States must set up institutions and programs which "support democracy among the permanent bureaucracy including the military and the political culture," as well as among labor unions, business groups, trade associations, and educational organizations. It also urged the U.S. to recognize the "need" of newly democratic governments or governments in transition to democracy to "restrain anti-democratic parties." Among its other suggestions werebolstering the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program, strengthening the budget of the U.S. Information Agency and the Office of Public Diplomacy, revitalizing and expanding the Caribbean Basin Initiative, setting agricultural policies based on comparative advantage, eliminating U.S. and Latin American trade protectionism, protecting and restoring tropical rain forests, implementing structural changes in the U.S. defense establishment to accommodate the requirements of low intensity conflict (LIC) strategy, renovating the Organization of American States, expanding military assistance to Latin America, utilizing a "sophisticated" version of LIC to support the "democratization" of Nicaragua, and educating the American media and public about the nature of communist subversion in the hemisphere. In a section on "Coming Regime Crises in Latin America and U.S. Responsibilities," the document’s authors highlighted Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Cuba, and Panama. In each, they suggested ways in which the United States might influence the changes likely in those political systems over the next decade. (13)
The Council was an ardent supporter of the Nicaraguan contras, and the group argued for continued pressure on the Sandinistas in three areas: the diplomatic front, the internal front represented by domestic opposition groups, and the military front as represented by the rebels. According to West Watch, the group provided financial aid to the contrasand worked with youth and civic groups which provided political and material support for the rebels. (14,18,32) The group’s 1985 tax return showed grants totalling more than $8,000 given to contra supporters such as Humberto Belli, Jose Rebelo, Harris Whitbeck, Jefferson Education Fund, and the Nicaraguan Development Foundation. In the same year CIS made a contribution to the largest contra group, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN) of $1,650. (46) Prior to the 1990 electoral defeat of the Sandinistas by the U.S. -backed National Opposition Union, Bouchey said there was "no long-term possibility for peace" as long as the Sandinistas were in power and called for "the [Reagan] administration and Congress to do whatever is necessary to remove the Sandinista regime."(1,24)
In March l985, CIS sponsored a "Nicaraguan Freedom Gala" at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in California for contra commanders Fernando Chamorro and Steadman Fagoth. The event cost $100 a couple and generated $8000 in proceeds, including donations. Bouchey said the money was to be used for a radio advertisement campaign which targeted 50 congressional districts thought to be swing votes in the next contra aid legislative battle. Part of the funds were to be used for a television documentary called Central America: Before It’s Too Late, narrated by Rep. Robert Dornan. (20) The following year, CIS sponsored another Nicaraguan Freedom Gala, this one in Washington DC In attendance were Richard Viguerie, direct mail wizard of the New Right, Enrique Bermudez, top contra commander, and Adolfo Calero, a member of the contra political directorate. (31) Former contra leader Edgar Chamorro notes that Bouchey visited contra forces in Honduras. (15)
CIS distributed a Special Report in March of l986, prior to a congressional vote on aid to the Nicaraguan rebels, which argued for resumption of military aid to the contras. Written by William Pascoe III of the Heritage Foundation and Timothy Goodman, the report’s purpose, according to the authors, was to "provide a new rationale for the President’s support of renewed military aid." It framed its arguments in strategic, political, moral, ideological, legal, and economic terms, proposing that U.S. support of the contras was moral, legal, and in keeping with broad security and economic interests. (29) During the debate surrounding the congressional vote in l986, CIS hired a telephone marketing operation to call voters in selected districts, urging them to press their congressional representatives for a yes vote on contra aid. The project involved four days of calls into 25 congressional districts and was part of a $600,000 campaign to support the aid program. (35) CIS co-sponsored a press conference in l986 on the Sandinista incursion into Honduras During the week of March 31 to April 3 of that year, Michael Waller and FDN representative Jorge Rosales toured college campuses in Massachusetts to "articulate President Reagan’s Nicaraguan policy." When the Cuban Interests Section at the Czechoslovakian Embassy in Washington DC (a substitute for a diplomatic delegation) gave CIS a check to cover materials it was purchasing, CIS signed the check over to the FDN. (30)
Prior to the Congressional vote in February l988, CIS spent over $1 million on a campaign in support of renewing aid to the contras. The organization sent out more thantwo million pieces of direct mail in the effort and also produced radio and newspaper ads. One of the ads referred to House Speaker Jim Wright as "Commandante Wright."(19) As part of its campaign, CIS ran five advertisements in eight newspapers in key congressional districts, as well as radio ads on Christian and news/talk stations. The group also sent "action kits" to 500 activists in 25 districts. The kits included a video on Nicaragua, a copy of The Real Secret War, and a letter-writing guide on aid to the contras. (9) CIS and WYES-TV (New Orleans) co-produced a halfhour television documentary called "The Contra Connection." The documentary, broadcast on the public broadcasting network, focused on the aid provided by private organizations to the contras. (32)
In 1989 CIS put out a news bulletin warning U.S. citizens that its prediction that "communist-instigated political turmoil, coupled with acute economic stagnation" could result in up to 20 million refugees entering into the United States. CIS claimed that the flood of refugees had begun, with more than 2,000 Nicaraguans flooding the border into Texas weekly. The plea went on to claim that immediate steps must be taken to stem the flow of refugees or "President Bush will face one of the gravest domestic, social and political problems of the decade."(43) CIS advocates a "hard line" policy on refugees including using the National Guard to beef up the Border Patrol and denial of welfare benefits to undocumented people. (51) Its long term solution is to expand and promote the maquiladora industry along the Mexican border. (51) In another border issue CIS chairman Gordon Sumner, Jr. recently testified before the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Navigation in favor of promoting legislation to permit authorities to shoot down aircraft used in trafficking illegal drugs into the United States. (53)
CIS produces a newsletter called West Watch. (3) Through the Inter-American Security Educational Institute speakers bureau, CIS provides speakers for business, student, and religious organizations in the U.S. (4) At a news conference co-sponsored by CIS and the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC)in 1987, Rep. Bob Walker announced legislation that "would legally bar American leftists from helping the Sandinista government or Marxist revolutionary movements while traveling in the region." CIS (with NCPAC) pushed for Congress to investigate "the secret fundraising networks in the U.S. for the MarxistLeninist FMLN guerrillas in El Salvador."(5)
CIS says that it brought the following "scandals" to the public eye: the Sanctuary Movement’s hidden agenda; the exposing of the "Pledge of Resistance"; the "first hard look at Witness for Peace"; how many "liberal members of Congress work with the Sandinistas and others in an effort to sabotage the President’s (Reagan’s) Central America policies"; a list of12 congressmen-the `Dangerous Dozen’–considered by CIS "most responsible for the sabotage of U.S. efforts to derail Communist expansion in Central America"; how pro-Sandinista groups use unsuspecting congressmen to disseminate propaganda prior to key votes on Contra aid; and "the fraudulent reports by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)."(5)
In September 1986, CIS sponsored a forum with Accuracy in Media (AIM) to "brief congressional staff members on Sandinista disinformation"and its effect on Congress. CIS information was used to discredit Frank Varelli as a witness when he accused the FBI of illegally monitoring groups which opposed President Reagan’s Central America policy. (5) West Watch editor Michael Waller testified before the House Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs in May 1987, that some U.S. organizations "want more American citizens to get killed by the contras for propaganda purposes." He also said, among other points, that U.S. citizens who are working in Nicaragua as supporters of the revolution are being given terrorist training in military camps by Nicaraguan, Cuban, Bulgarian, and Libyan personnel. (18)
Bouchey went on a six-city tour with NCPAC President Brent Bozell IIIto talk about FMLN fundraising in the U.S. (5) Then Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s visit to the Vietnam Memorial in DC was disrupted by CIS staffers who heard about the visit ahead of time and called around DC to rally a crowd of contra supporters to show up at the memorial and confront Ortega, yelling "Murderer Go Home."(6) Bouchey can be heard doing his radio talk show,"Spotlight on the Americas," on over 1000 radio stations nationwide. (6) West Watch sponsors a hotline to "keep up with the facts" on such issues as: the "Nicaraguan freedom fighters," the "latest actions of the Sandinista government, instructions on how to follow up on CIS reports, and votes and pending legislation before Congress" (202-737-5610). CIS supports the revised version of the Caribbean Basin Initiative. (6,16)
CIS wrote and published The Real Secret War: Sandinista Political Warfare and Its Effects on Congress, which argues that the Sandinistas and their supporters manipulate the human rights issue to their advantage. The book also contends that there has been a systematic attempt by Cuban, Soviet, and Nicaraguan communists to influence Congress and public opinion in the United States. (6,16)
CIS says that it has provided proof that Michigan Democratic Congressman George Crockett has been cooperating with the Communist Party. (7) Bouchey did a speaking tour in 1987 with Xavier Arguello (of the Nicaraguan Resistance and journalist for La Prensa) and former Costa Rican Foreign Minister Gonzalo Facio. (8) CIS reported allegations by Max Friedman that freelance journalist Tony Avirgan had a role in sabotaging three Hercules C-130 Air Force transport planes in a 1972 peace protest. (8) The organization is working on breaking apart the Christic Institute’s case against the Iran-Contra affair players. That suit was brought on behalf of Avirgan following a bombing in Nicaragua in l984 in which the journalist was injured. (8) CIS offered to provide camera-ready work to anyone wishing to run pro-Contra aid ads in their congressional districts. (9)
The organization has attempted to refute charges that the far right in El Salvador and Guatemala was involved in the death squads. (10) CIS claims that there are a plethora of groups on the radical left in the United States such as the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) that are led by communist infiltrators. CIS sees the discrediting of these groups supporting the FMLN in El Salvador and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua as one of its major "responsibilities. (14) It sent out a "confidential" report to its members revealing that a number of groups within the U.S. were working to restrict military aid to the government of El Salvador, claiming that this could lead to communist domination of El Salvador by the FMLN guerrillas in the 1990s. The subversive groups named included the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), Nicaragua Network, SANE/FREEZE, Quest for Peace, and the National Assembly of Religious Women. The report also targets members of Congress "honored" by the "Far Left" and implies that they are supportive of communist objectives. (45) One of the named congresspersons, Barbara Boxer (D-CA) was later attacked by CIS as a "member of the procommunist Left" and a vigorous worker for support of the "revolutionaries in Central America."(48) CIS president L. Francis Bouchey and director of Research David Hirschmann were part of an official observer mission to the March 1989 presidential elections in El Salvador. (47) Bouchey was invited by president-elect of El Salvador, Alfredo Cristiani to attend the Salvadoran president’s inauguration in June 1989. (49)
CIS has offered generous praise to the Guatemalan military for its "innovative and highly successful counterinsurgency operation" against Marxist insurgents while completely ignoring the army’s campaign of terror against the Guatemalan population. (16)
The Council for Inter-American Security and the Inter-American Security Educational Institute co-sponsored the American Quincentennial Inaugural Ball, a salute both to the new president, George Bush, and to the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Western hemisphere. Proceeds were designated for CIS and ISEI projects, including West Watch, Congress Watch, the John Davis Lodge Fellowship Program, and the Center for Liberation Strategy. (12)
Waller took a week-long visit to Chile to investigate conditions surrounding its political transition away from direct military rule. While there, he met with civilian and military government leaders, members of the political opposition, and the Catholic Church. The trip was sponsored by the Adolfo Ibanez Foundation, a Chilean foundation which promotes free enterprise. (5) CIS authors wrote of Chile’s "transition to democracy" in several issues of West Watch, arguing against economic and diplomatic sanctions and overlooking the Pinochet regime’s often-brutal policies. (5,12)
CIS publicized a memo said to be an internal document of the Sandinista government. In the memo, then-commandante Daniel Ortega was briefed on how best to approach three important "friends of our revolution," U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd and congressmen Mike Barnes and George Miller. (21,36) CIS has contended that prominent Democrats in the House of Representatives have used "propaganda and disinformation, much of which has been paid for or organized by the Sandinista government," to justify their opposition to contra aid. (22)
Enrique Rueda, representing the Inter-American Security Educational Institute, testified to Congress about liberation theology and its purportedly Marxist roots, links, and applications. (27)
CIS has deftly expanded its operations to Eastern Europe to take advantage of recent political changes. Recent editions of West Watch have cautioned about a premature acceptance of the end of the Cold War and the dangers of the decade ahead. The group sponsored a tour led by Cold Warrior Jack Wheeler to East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. At their first stop tour members were treated to a State Department briefing. (44)
Government Connections: As noted above, Lewis Tambs, Roger Fontaine, Gordon Sumner, and Patrick Buchanan each had positions in the Reagan administration (see Background). Gordon Sumner was the chair of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, known as the Kissinger Commission. (34) Sam Dickens served as an adviser to the Kissinger Commission. (33)
CIS personnel also had connections with major players in the Iran-contra affair. Michael J. Waller was photographed with Oliver North’s former secretary, Fawn Hall. Bouchey’s name appears in North’s diary.Elliott Abrams publically supports CIS. (7)
The following members of Congress have used and praised CIS publications: Sen. James McClure (R-ID) and representatives Bill McCollum (R-FL), Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Beau Boulter (R-TX), Bob Smith (R-NH), and Robert K. Dornan (R-CA). (16) The following members of Congress from California were on the host committee for the l985 CIS Nicaraguan Freedom Gala: Bob Dornan, David Dreier, Robert J. Lagomarsino, Daniel E. Lungren, and Carlos Moorhead. None, however, attended the reception. (20)
At the invitation of the Reagan administration, Bouchey participated in a 12-person official U.S. delegation to observe the l985 presidential elections in Honduras. (32) Bouchey was invited to speak at the White House in April l984 on the subject of "The Manipulation of Human Rights Statistics in El Salvador." His sponsor was the White House Outreach Working Group on Central America. (3)
The following is a brief summary of John Singlaub’s military and intelligence activities. Singlaub was an officer in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. He became CIA deputy chief in South Korea during the Korean War and served for two years in Vietnam during the 1960s. At that time, he was commander of the Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force, known as MACSOG. In that role, he was one of the commanders of Operation Phoenix, although he denies having had a part in that program’s infamous assassination and counterterror aspects. In 1978, as chief of staff of the United Nations Command in South Korea, he publicly condemned the decision of President Jimmy Carter to reduce the number of U.S. troops in the country. He was then forced to retire. (10)
James R. Whelan received Chile’s highest award for foreigners, the Order of Bernardo O’Higgins, in 1990. Whelan received the award for his book, Out of the Ashes: Life, Death and Transfiguration of Democracy in Chile which relates the fall of Marxism in Chile. (51)
L. Francis Bouchey and David Hirschmann were invited by Nicaraguan president-elect Violeta Chamorro to attend her inauguration celebration in April 1990. (52)
Private Connections:CIS has worked with the Natl Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC) and Accuracy in Media (AIM). A CIS-sponsored forum included Herb Romerstein (US Information Agency), Joshua Muravchik (neoconservative member of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority and a fellow with the American Enterprise Institute), and Max Friedman. (5,38,39)
Anthony Bouscaren and retired General John Singlaub have served as advisers to CIS. (10) Singlaub is connected to a great number of rightwing anticommunist groups including the U.S. Council for World Freedom, the U.S. branch of the World AntiCommunist League; the rightwing strategy group, Council for National Policy; the mujahedeen support group, the Committee for a Free Afghanistan; and domestic surveillance groups such as Western Goals and the American Security Council. Singlaub is a member of the Natl Defense Council Foundation and former president of the World Anti-Communist League. He is also a member of Refugee Relief International Inc. , a humanitarian aid group set up by the Omega Group, publishers of Soldier of Fortune. (1,10,40,41). Singlaub founded the U.S. Council for World Freedom and Bouscaren served on its board of directors. (10)
In the l960s, Anthony Bouscaren worked for the Pioneer Fund, an organization which attempted to prove that blacks are genetically inferior to whites. Bouscaren signed the "Declaration of San Salvador," as a proxy for John Singlaub and the USCWF. The declaration resulted from a rightwing conference held in San Salvador in l985 which included many members of WACL and focused on ways to involve civilians in anticommunist efforts. The document announced the Central American AntiCommunist Defense Accord, intended to create an anticommunist combative force known as the Central American Civilian Military Alliance. (10)
Lynn Bouchey was a member of the Nicaragua national support committee during the early l980s. That committee was part of a multinational project coordinated by the Council for the Defense of Freedom with help from the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation. Other CIS members who were on country committees for this project were Andy Messing, then with the Conservative Caucus and Fr. Enrique Rueda, of the Free Congress Foundation. (26) Bouchey organized conferences in Latin America for the Unification Church’s political arm, CAUSA, and has been affiliated with other projects of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon as well. In l981, for instance, he was "specially commissioned" by Moon’s World Media Conference to prepare and present a "content analysis" of the coverage of U.S. policy in El Salvador conducted by the New York Times and the Washington Post. (10,26) Bouchey is a coalition adviser to The Coalition for America At Risk, a group backing President Bush’s decision to use military force against Iraq. (42)
Roger Fontaine, after leaving the National Security Council, became a reporter and news analyst at the Washington Times, a newspaper owned by the Moon organization. (26) Fontaine was director of Latin American studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. As director he made two trips to Latin America in 1980 and reported that Guatemala was being threatened by an armed communist-inspired minority that was being abetted by Cubans. (10)
Gordon Sumner was co-chair of a conference sponsored by the International Security Council, a CAUSA project. (10) In addition, Sumner was named an ambassador-at-large by the Reagan administration. During the l970s, he served as chairman of the Inter-American Defense Board and was earlier assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff as chief of the Plans and Policy Directorate of the Western Hemisphere division. (13)
Ronald Docksai was a member of the American Council for World Freedom, the forerunner to the U.S. Council for World Freedom (USCWF). Both organizations served as the United States affiliate of the World Anti-Communist League. (10)
Michael Waller is a John M. Olin Fellow in Defense Journalism at Boston University. (12) John Lenczowski is Adjunct Professor of National Security Studies at Georgetown University. He worked on the National Security Council from l983 to l987 as director of European and Soviet Affairs. (12)
CIS has promoted the work of Humberto Belli of the Puebla Institute. Belli is an author who was critical of the human rights performance of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. He reputedly received funding, production and marketing assistance, information, and other services from the CIA. (12,15)
Gonzalo Facio served as Costa Rica’s Ambassador to the U.S. and the Organization of American States. He is a member of the Council for Inter-American Security’s speakers bureau. (8)
The Adolfo Ibanez Foundation in Chile sponsored a trip to that country for Michael Waller (see Activities). (5)
The public relations firm of Stewart-Ohanesian acted as the coordinator for the Nicaraguan Freedom Gala held in l985. (20) College chapters of the Young Americans for Freedom and College Republicans have sponsored speaking engagements by CIS representatives. (30)
Les Csorba III, then-executive director of Accuracy in Academia, has written for the CIS newsletter. (30)
Members of the ISEI speakers bureau include Frank Aker, Adolfo Calero, Col. Lawrence Tracy (who worked with the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy), Daniel James, Gonzalo Facio, Laura Ingraham, Ernesto Rivas-Gallont (former Salvadoran Ambassador to the U.S. ), Alejandro Salazar, Dolf Droge (former consultant to the White House Office of Public Liaison, longtime employee of the Agency for Intl Development, adviser to Presidents Johnson and Nixon on national security issues), Sam Dickens, James Darenblum, Jennelee Hodgson, Geraldine Macias, Juan Maldonado, Roberto Quinonez (former Ambassador from El Salvador to the United states), John Singlaub, and Jon Basil Utley. (33) CIS promoted the Shoebox for Liberty project of Louisiana State Rep. Louis (Woody) Jenkins when Jenkins worked with the Caribbean Commission. Jenkins is now head of the Friends of the Americas, and the Shoebox for Liberty project is part of that organization’s operations. (3)
Misc: In a telephone interview with investigative reporter Allan Nairn,Gordon Sumner defended the Guatemalan regime of Gen. Lucas Garcia, a government known to be conducting a murderous campaign of institutionalized terror against members of the opposition."The policy of the Carter Administration," Sumner told Nairn,"is to destabilize the Lucas government and there’s no excuse for it. That is a government that was elected by the people."(11)
In the early l980s, Robert Moffit, one of the directors of the group, wrote an essay calling for a "new international politics of reciprocity" aimed at a strategy of "peaceful coexistence" with the Soviet Union based on U.S. strength."The principle of reciprocity is an equitable principle," he wrote."If it is legitimate for the Kremlin to launch massive and vituperative propapganda campaigns against the American Republic and its allies, roundly condemning th evils’ of capitalism, and to use venomous language in describing Western leaders as exploiters,’ racists,’ imperialists,’ and `warmongers,’ then it is perfectly legitimate for the American Republic to exploit, through the airwaves or through whatever media are available, the glaring ideological inconsistencies, economic weaknesses, and routine injustices of the Soviet Union and its Eastern block satellites." He also called for the U.S. to distinguish between communist elites and the masses in communist countries."American policymakers must attempt to ingratiate themselves with the Soviet and Eastern European peoples… . Crafting such a policy of distinctions will be a delicate undertaking, but it holds out the possibility of reaping significant psychological and political rewards. If this be characterized as a form of subversion, then we should make the most of it."(25)
The organization’s DC office is 1 floor below the CAUSA USA office. (2) In March 1987, CIS West Watch photographer Pete Bertie was shot while working in Nicaragua. (5)
Comments:U.S. Address: 122 C Street NW, Suite 710, Washington, DC , 20001 (202-393-6622).
Principals: L. Francis Bouchey, pres; Lt. Gen. Gordon Sumner, Jr. (USA-Ret. ), chair. (13) Larry D. Pratt, sec; Richard W. Powell, treas; Michael Connelly, gen counsel. Directors: Robert W. Searby (Deputy Undersecretary for Intl Affairs, Dept of Labor), Patrick J. Buchanan (former communications director for President Reagan); Michael Carricarte (Carricarte Corp), Col. Samuel T. Dickens (American Security Council), Ronald F. Docksai (pres emeritus), Francis P. Graves (Republican Natl Committee), Lewis A. Tambs (U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, Costa Rica), Andy Messing (National Defense Council), Robert Emmet Moffit (former senior Legislative Assistant for Foreign Affairs). (1,17) David Hirschmann, research dir; Max Primorac, research fellow; Clemens Michel, research fellow; David Spencer, research fellow; Michael Caputo; John Lenczowski, consultant. (12) James Whelan, president of the Inter-Security Educational Institute, co-publisher of West Watch. (50) Michael Waller, West Watch editor and former research director. (14) Gen. John K. Singlaub (USA, Ret. ), advisory board. (30) Members of the first Committee of Santa Fe: L. Francis Bouchey, Roger W. Fontaine, David C. Jordan, Gordon Sumner, Lewis Tambs, editor. (23) Members of the second Committee of Santa Fe: L. Francis Bouchey, Roger Fontaine, David C. Jordan, Gordon Sumner. (13) Inter-American Security Educational Institute: Fr. Enrique T. Rueda, project director. (27)
Lewis Tambs "was a member of the World Anti-Communist League. He served as ambassador to Costa Rica until 1986. Tambs is(was?) also a member of the Council for Inter-American Security. The Council produced the first so-called "Santa Fe Document" which laid out much of the interventionist policy implemented in Central America during President Reagan's first term in office." [1]
Contents
Articles and Resources
Related SourceWatch Articles
- Committee for the Free World
- Council for Inter-American Security
- Committee of Santa Fe
- Project Vote Smart
References
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http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Council_for_Inter-American_Security
Note: the Council for Inter-American Security is no longer in operation.
According to Group Watch (last updated 1991), the Council for Inter-American Security (CIS) "was founded in l976 by Ronald Docksai with the objectives of clarifying the common security interests of nations of the Western hemisphere, recommending approaches for the protection of those interests, and popularizing its recommendations. Now [1991] claiming a membership of nearly 200,000--up from 70,000 in l986--CIS has been described as a 'hybrid institution,' which combines the features of a public policy research institution and a citizens' lobby. One of its major objectives is, therefore, to provide information to Congress, to the executive branch, and to the American public concerning its analyses of national security policy.
"It consequently sponsors educational programs, seminars, conferences, and briefing sessions; conducts direct mail and advertising campaigns; and produces publications, radio shows, films, and television documentaries on various issues relating to foreign policy and national defense posture. In the early years of the Ronald Reagan administration, the organization was one of the more influential think tanks of the New Right, providing both policy and policymakers to the new administration.
"In the heyday of its influence, one observer noted, top officials of CIS 'shuttle[d] to and from key policy-making and advisory roles in the administration. . . . '. Among those tapped for administration positions were Patrick Buchanan, who became President Reagan's communications director; Lewis Tambs, initially a consultant to the National Security Council (NSC) and later appointed ambassador first to Colombia and then to Costa Rica; Gordon Sumner, named as special consultant to the State Department's Bureau of Inter-American Affairs; and Roger W. Fontaine, assigned to the NSC as a specialist on Latin America.
"This initial influence was not to last, however. CIS--like other radically conservative groups--always had the ear of President Reagan but were often incapable of working within Washington's bureaucratic system and were inclined to frustrate and antagonize more pragmatic conservatives both in and out of government. Roger Fontaine, for example, was eased out of the National Security Council, and Pat Buchanan eventually resigned his position with the White House.
"Despite the less dogmatically conservative political climate of the late l980s, CIS continues its efforts. In l988, the Committee of Santa Fe released a new document, Santa Fe II, with recommendations for the next administration. Although it is somewhat less ideological and more pragmatic than the original 'Santa Fe Document,' this second publication is unlikely to have the impact of the first simply due to the changing political tenor of the country and the absence from the White House of a truly ideological president.
"CIS publications and analyses focus primarily on Latin America but include coverage of other regions of the world as well, particularly the Soviet Union. These analyses are formed by a perspective which, for the most part, frames issues in East-West terms. Groups and individuals which opposed President Reagan's Central America policy or supported nuclear disarmament, for example, were repeatedly and vociferously accused by CIS of being tied to or dupes of the Soviet Union. Among other projects, the group has campaigned to defeat the Panama Canal and Salt II treaties and has opposed attempts to normalize relations with Cuba. Its publications call for a vigorous and muscular defense posture in the United States, and CIS has asserted that 'Soviet-Cuban adventurism in this hemisphere started after Jimmy Carter was elected.'
"The Inter-American Security Educational Institute (ISEI), an offshoot of CIS, sponsors a speakers bureau of individuals with expertise in a variety of areas, including economics, theology, politics, warfare, and diplomacy.
"CIS is a membership group and claims to have nearly 200,000 members."
"COUNCIL FOR INTER-AMERICAN SECURITY (CIS): A key New Right group supporting the Contras and right-wing dictatorships in Latin America. It has been part of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) since at least 1975 and has ties to Moon's Unification Church. Major General John Singlaub, a leader of WACL, and others with intelligence agency backgrounds are on the CIS speakers bureau. (Council for National Policy)/CNP member Frank Aker is also a leader of CIS. General Gordon Sumner is chair of the national CIS."[1]
The following comes from a July 16, 1987 book review written by Joan Didion of The New York Review:
"There were in Washington during the Reagan administration a small but significant number of people for whom a commitment to American involvement in Central America did not exist exclusively as an issue, a political marker to be moved sometimes front, sometimes back. These were people for whom a commitment to American involvement in Central America was always front, in fact 'the' front, the battleground on which, as Ronald Reagan had put it in his second inaugural address and on many occasions before and after, 'human freedom' was 'on the march.' These were people who had believed early on and even formulated what was eventually known as the Reagan Doctrine, people committed to the idea that 'rollback,' or the reversal of Soviet power which had been part of the rhetoric of the American right since at least the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, could now be achieved by supporting guerrilla resistance movements around the world; people who believed that, in the words of A New Inter-American Policy for the Eighties, a fifty-three-page policy proposal issued in the summer of 1980 by the Council for Inter-American Security, 'containment of the Soviet Union is not enough. Detente is dead. Survival demands a new US foreign policy. America must seize the initiative or perish. For World War III is almost over.'"
The following comes from political columnists Jack W. Germond and Jules Witcover who reported in 1977 that fundraiser for the Council was Bruce Eberle: "Finally, Independent groups like the Council for Inter-American Security are tapping the conservative lode. Its fundraiser, Bruce Eberle, says nearly $80,000 has come in from still another anti-treaties letter."
External links
- Tom Burghardt, A SMALL CIRCLE OF FRIENDS: Larry Pratt, the Council for Inter-American Security and International Fascist Networks, Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights. Extremely comprehensive and well-documented essay.