-Caveat Lector-
http://www.connix.com/~harry/90s-fbi.htm
ARMIES OF REPRESSION
The FBI, COINTELPRO and Far-Right Vigilante Networks
By Tom Burghardt, BACORR-North
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"Over the years, our approach to investigative
problems in the intelligence field has given rise to a
number of new programs, some of which have been most
revolutionary, and it can be assumed that with a
continued aggressive approach to these problems, new
and productive ideas will be forthcoming. These ideas
will not be increased in number or improved upon from
the standpoint of accomplishments merely through the
institution of a program such as COINTELPRO which is
given another name, and which in fact, only
encompasses everything that has been done or will be
done in the future." J. Edgar Hoover, FBI Director,
Memorandum, July 15, 1964 [1]
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1. COINTELPRO AND THE FAR-RIGHT: THE POLITICAL CONTEXT
OF ANTI-CHOICE VIOLENCE
Now that the Christian Right's anti-abortion,
"national cultural and holy war"2 has evolved into a
campaign of arson, murder and terror, mainstream
"feminist" groups tied to the capitalist Democratic
Party -- NOW, NARRAL, and The Feminist Majority
Foundation -- are demanding that the FBI investigate
anti-choice violence.
In the wake of Rev. Paul Hill's assassination of Dr.
John Bayard Britton; clinic escort, James Barrett; and
the wounding of clinic escort, June Barrett, July 29
in Pensacola, FL, the drumbeat for federal
intervention has reached deafening proportions.
Armed U.S. Marshals, FBI agents using "special
investigative techniques," and police SWAT teams,
however, will neither defend women seeking
reproductive health care nor abortion providers;
rather, such intervention will transform women's
clinics into armed camps. The net result of such a
massive show of firepower by the State will not
guarantee women's safety at clinics. Neither will such
intervention increase women's access to reproductive
health care.
Rather, police intervention on such a grand scale,
plays into the hands of anti-choice terrorists. They
believe that such displays of State power only assist
their own propaganda efforts and tend to buttress
their assertion that "abortion is murder," and that
women who control their bodies are doing something
"wrong."
Despite U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno's statement
that clinic violence, "is a problem throughout the
nation" and that "it is appropriate to address an
issue of deep concern,"3 two more women's clinics have
been fire-bombed since Rev. Paul Hill's murderous
rampage.
A clinic in Falls Church, VA sustained more than
$10,000 in damage, July 30, while a Planned Parenthood
facility in Brainerd, Minnesota, was burned to the
ground on August 10; the Minnesota facility did not
perform abortions. During the same period these two
clinics were attacked, a right-wing vigilante was
arrested in Philadelphia outside a women's clinic; six
molotov cocktails were seized from the trunk of his
car. Reports of death threats against patients,
doctors and health care workers since the Pensacola
murders have skyrocketed.
While the State is poised through the Freedom of
Access to Clinic Entrances Act (the FACE law), to
legitimize anti-abortion thugs who "sidewalk counsel"
and engage in other forms of harassment against women,
gangsters such as convicted clinic bomber, Rev.
Michael Bray, an endorser of Hill's Defensive Action
"Declaration" insist:
"Anyone who truly believes that the slaughter of
innocent children is what we have with abortion could
go out and shoot an abortionist."4
Similarly, other supporters of the "justifiable
homicide" position, go further. According to the Rev.
David Trosch, even pharmacists might eventually become
targets. "I would see no problem with shooting a
pharmacist," who provided a "morning after pill" to
women who seek to terminate their pregnancies.5
Trosch, in a July 16 letter that predicted the
"massive killing of abortionists and their staffs,"
pointedly warned that clinic defenders and
reproductive rights activists "will be sought out and
terminated as vermin are terminated."6
Rev. Trosch and C. Roy McMillan, Executive Director of
the Christian Action Group in Jackson, Mississippi,
believe that clinic escorts and clinic defenders act
as "accomplices," and therefore, are fair game for
right-wing, anti-abortion vigilantes.
McMillan, a weapons specialist who served two tours of
duty in Vietnam, believes that, "Twenty five years
later I have not changed my opinion as to the
justification of the U.S. intervention in Vietnam...I
assume the enemy I killed were not Christian like
me."7
Today, McMillan believes that the killing of unarmed
escort, James Barrett, was no more than so-called
"collateral damage."8 Apparently, McMillan's
ideological fervor will come in handy as he, and other
zealots wage "cultural civil war" on the home front.
Recent protests in Jackson/Gulfport, Mississippi
targeted Black physician, Dr. Joseph Booker, the sole
abortion provider for the entire state. American
Coalition of Life Activists (ACLA), a violent front
group founded by Andrew Burnett, publisher of "Life
Advocate" magazine and Joseph Foreman, a founder of
Operation Rescue and current Director of Missionaries
to the Preborn (MTP) have vowed to drive Dr. Booker
from his practice. Both Burnett and Foreman were
signers of Rev. Hill's Defensive Action "Declaration."
Daniel Ware, a Rescue America member, and friend of
Paul Hill's, was arrested in Pensacola last March for
having a cache of weapons and more than 400 rounds of
high velocity ammunition in his car. Ware had vowed to
"terminate" abortion providers who had gathered in
Pensacola for a memorial service for Dr. David Gunn,
assassinated last year by another Rescue America
member, Michael Griffin. Although prosecuted for
having made statements that he intended "to take out
as many child-killers in a Beirut- style massacre,"
Ware was released after a Florida jury found him not
guilty.9
During the Mississippi protests, Ware declared, "If
you sow death and destruction, you shall reap death
and destruction. If you kill by the sword, then you
must be killed by the sword."10
According to a recent Planned Parenthood news
conference, anti-abortion leaders, Randall Terry, the
founder of Operation Rescue, and Matthew Trewhella, a
top leader of Missionaries to the Preborn and a
Defensive Action supporter, have joined forces with
the far-right U.S Taxpayers Party (USTP).
Planned Parenthood released videotaped excerpts of
Terry and Trewhella's speeches to a USTP meeting held
in Appleton, Wisconsin last May. The footage had been
obtained by clandestine anti-fascist researchers.
"We're living in terror," said Pamela Maraldo,
president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of
America.
While one speaker urged conference participants to
"arm their children," another asserted that
"abortionists should be put to death." The USTP
distributed a 100 page manual, "Principles Justifying
the Arming and Organization of a Militia." The USTP
was founded in 1992 by "New Right" guru, Howard
Phillips.11 Early supporters of the organization have
included Larry Pratt, President of Gun Owners of
America and Julie Makkima, Director of the
anti-abortion group, Fortress International.
Meanwhile, night-riding fascists from five separate Ku
Klux Klan groups plan to demonstrate outside the Aware
Woman Center for Choice, August 20, in Melbourne,
Florida. The clinic, targeted by Operation Rescue
National's (ORN) 12 week long IMPACT team,
paramilitary "boot camp" for "Christian warriors" in
1993, has been under siege for years.
According to J.D. Alder, imperial advisor to a Florida
unit of the Klan, said that the group listed Rev. Paul
Hill as "the hero of the month." Alder added, "I put
an abortionist in the same category as John Wayne
Gacy."
Ostensibly, the Klan groups are gathering to protest
the presence of U.S. Marshals outside women's clinics.
"It's big brother. It's a government who tries to
control people through fear and intimidation," said
"former" Klansman, John Baumgardner.
However, the real agenda of these racist hyenas was
revealed when Alder stated, "We consider abortion to
be tantamount to racial suicide because it's primarily
white people killing their babies. I am selectively
opposed to abortion. I don't care if blacks and Jews
have abortions. It is white babies that are our
primary concern."12
The convergence of Christian Right Reconstructionist
anti- abortion theocrats, far-right vigilante outfits
such as the U.S. Taxpayers Party, an organization with
extensive ties to the quasi-fascist "posse comitatus"
movement of the 1970's, and racist night-riding Klan
thugs should not surprise us in the least. Such a
fascist united front of terror, has been spawned by a
system of class exploitation, racism, sexism, and
deadly homophobia -- capitalism.
The bourgeois State, unsurprisingly, will utilize
fascist and clerical-fascist gangs such as Operation
Rescue, Defensive Action and the Ku Klux Klan to
terrorize and crush opposition to the State and their
"post-modern" corporate employers.
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State intervention by the FBI, BATF, and the U.S.
Marshals at women's clinics however, will only serve
to marginalize -- and potentially criminalize -- one
force that has kept the Christian Right terrorists at
bay: community-based, direct action clinic defense
groups.
Those, such as Feminist Majority Foundation president,
Eleanor Smeal, who call on the FBI "to form a special
task force," to investigate anti-abortion terror,
consciously delete from history the role played by
this repressive agency throughout its existence.13
Far from being a "neutral" investigative agency
concerned with uncovering the depredations of
organized crime or "domestic terrorism," the FBI has
been the vanguard federal force that has targeted
labor, minority groups struggling against racism, the
women's movement, queer activists and the Left.
The sordid history of the FBI is littered with the
bodies of activists murdered to maintain the status
quo. During the 1960's, the FBI's role was not to
"protect" civil right's workers, but rather, through
its utilization of informers and other far-right
"assets" inside the Ku Klux Klan, the Bureau actively
assisted the K.K.K. in their campaign of racist murder
and terror.
Unlike slick Hollywood popularizations of the period,
such as Alan Parker's film, "Mississippi Burning," the
FBI was instrumental in re-building the Ku Klux Klan
in the south,
"...setting up dozens of Klaverns, sometimes being
leaders and public spokespersons. Gary Rowe, an FBI
informant, was involved in the Klan killing of Viola
Liuzzo, a civil rights worker. He claimed that he had
to fire shots at her rather than 'blow his cover.' One
FBI agent speaking at a rally organized by the Klavern
he led, proclaimed to his followers, 'We will restore
white rights if we have to kill every negro to do
it.'"14
The Bureau's not-so-secret war against the Industrial
Workers of the World (IWW), the Communist Party (CP),
the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), the Black Panther
Party (BPP), the American Indian Movement (AIM), the
Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador
(CISPES), and most recently, the attempted frame-up of
Judi Bari and Earth First! span the decades. Will the
clinic defense movement be the FBI's next target, the
recipient of an "active measures" campaign? The
women's liberation movement has been targeted more
than once by the Bureau.
During the 1980's as the FBI waged an "active
measures" campaign against CISPES, a former FBI
informant, Frank Varelli, became disillusioned with
the Bureau's attempt to destroy CISPES. Acting on
disinformation supplied by the murderous Salvadoran
National Guard, false information was forwarded by the
FBI to the Defense Intelligence Agency.
The National Guard claimed that one FMLN coalition
member, the Armed Revolutionary Group (GAR), "were to
promote in North America a strong and violent campaign
of agitation and propaganda on behalf of FMLN-FDR,
having obtained immediate support from different
sectors of North American society. Among the groups
providing support were labor unions, Gay Power groups,
Pro- Abortion groups, groups involved in the women's
liberation movement, and organizations that are
opposed to the strengthening of the military forces of
the US."15
Although not a shred of evidence existed linking these
North American organizations to the GAR, the groups
were included in the National Guard communique -- at
the direct request of the FBI.
According to Varelli, "Can you imagine if gay rights
groups, abortion rights groups, the Equal Rights
Amendment groups were known to support a group that
had killed more than 20 police and soldiers in a
year?" The informant added, "Once the FBI had this
data in their files, they could proceed to investigate
all these other groups. What is even worse, the FBI
knew that this material from the National Guard was
strictly disinformation. But they passed the same
material along to the Secret Service, the Defense
Intelligence Agency and other agencies in the
intelligence community without alerting them to the
fact that it was completely fabricated."16
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My purpose here is to review the Bureau's history of
employing far-right, racist and neo-Nazi operatives in
their on-going war against the American Left,
including the women's movement. While the "Cold War"
may be over, the search for "enemies" continue. Where
"threats to national security" cannot be found, they
are created; this is the legacy bequeathed by J. Edgar
Hoover to the FBI and its current Director, Louis J.
Freeh.
One can only speculate that the Bureau's "reluctance"
to investigate far-right advocates of anti-choice
violence, may stem from their utilization of Christian
Right "assets" during the 1980's as the Reagan
administration and the Bureau prosecuted their own
"dirty war" at home to buttress the terrorist Central
American death-squad states propped-up by the U.S.
Government.
In this writer's view, it is inconceivable that the
FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
(BATF), and other federal investigatory agencies, have
no knowledge of the interconnections among far and
Christian Right terrorists waging their "holy war"
against women's rights; a campaign that now spans
three decades.
Since 1977, according to the National Abortion
Federation (NAF), there have been 128 bombing/arson
attacks; 573 incidents of clinic vandalism; 66
attempted bombing/arson attacks; 199 incidents where
doctors or health care workers have been stalked; and
197 death threats leveled against patients, physicians
or health care workers.17
In the majority of cases, these serious incidents of
domestic terror are treated like unconnected acts of
mayhem by local, state and federal authorities -- with
much complicity by "mainstream" media. Rather, such
heinous acts of violence against women are evidence of
a broad campaign waged by the direct action
anti-abortion movement; a program designed to destroy
abortion access through low-intensity war.
As I have written elsewhere, the direct action
anti-abortion movement and the broader Christian Right
have temporarily ceded the legislative and judicial
domain to their opponents. Having lost in the courts
and in the legislatures, they have turned to a broad
campaign of arson, bombing, selective violence, and
once again, murder, against abortion provider's:
Randall Terry's "weak link."
I will repeat; as a strategic orientation,
low-intensity warfare rests on a simple premise: in
order to achieve political objectives by
"extraordinary" means, a comprehensive, coordinated
set of tactics are required. Such tactics are intended
to guarantee that prolonged economic sabotage and the
cumulative effects of propaganda, espionage,
psychological terror and violence will eventually wear
the "enemy" down and achieve the desired goal:
destruction of access and the loss of reproductive
health care for women.18
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The cases I have chosen to explore present only a
partial index of the Bureau's role as agents of
repression. The massive infiltration and disruption by
the FBI of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the
American Indian Movement (AIM) is beyond the scope of
the present survey. Suffice it say, the Bureau
conspired, with the active assistance and
collaboration of local and state police agencies, to
destroy these organizations.
Between 1968-1971, FBI-initiated terror and disruption
resulted in the murder of more than 38 BPP activists.
When the smoke cleared in the mid 1970's the Black
Panther Party was destroyed, hundreds of activists
were in prison, and thousands of lives lay in ruins.19
The same can be said for the FBI's reign of terror in
South Dakota during the 1970's, against the Oglala
Sioux Nation and the American Indian Movement. A
similar pattern of lies, disinformation, selective
targeting of activists for harassment, as well as
outright political assassination, murder and mayhem
initiated by the Bureau, resulted in the weakening of
AIM.20
Similar to the lesser-known cases I do survey, the FBI
utilized right-wing vigilantes in order to disrupt AIM
and selectively terrorize and murder the Oglala Sioux
people and AIM activists.21
While we turn our sights and survey the FBI's
utilization of far-right "assets," we must remember
those who continue to rot in America's dungeons as
political prisoners: Geronimo (Ji Jaga) Pratt, Leonard
Peltier, and Mumia Abdul-Jamal, as well as countless
other class war prisoners of the American nightmare.22
Clinic defense and reproductive rights activists are
urged to study the Bureau's history of political
violence, the better to be able to recognize the
unmistakable signs of political repression.
2. THE FBI, BATF, AND "PRIVATE" INTELLIGENCE NETWORKS
Subversion hunters do not require evidence in order to
bolster their paranoid world-view. The contemporary
Christian Right, like earlier McCarthyite "red
hunters," inhabit a conspiratorial netherworld which
permits the discovery -- or fabrication -- of
"evidence" for the malignant plot they believe will
destroy "God's nation, set upon on a hill," the United
States.
Sharing much in common with earlier nativist or anti-
communist organizations such as the 19th century "Know
Nothing Party" or Father Charles E. Coughlin's
proto-fascist, National Union for Social Justice,
there is an unmistakable thread of racism, sexism and
nostalgia for a non-existent middle class "paradise"
where "men were men and women knew their place," that
link such groups together.
The contemporary hunt for the "Red Menace" has been
transmuted by theocratic, clerical-fascist alchemists
such as Gary North, Rousas John (R.J.) Rushdoony, and
Randall Terry into an insidious plot to destroy the
family. Similar to earlier manifestations of nativist
paranoia, the search for Christian rightist "fool's
gold," relies on an international plot by communists,
Jews, Satanists, feminists, environmentalists and
homosexuals in order to weave their repressive webs.
Thus Christian Coalition President, Pat Roberstson,
can write:
"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for
women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political
movement that encourages women to leave their
husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft,
destroy capitalism, and become lesbians."23
The search for endless enemies has a darker side; many
of the paranoid declarations of the Christian Right
are shared by the FBI and the "private" intelligence
agencies who serve them.
The Bureau and affiliated federal, state, and local
law enforcement agencies are riddled with agents who
have much in common with earlier witch hunters. Today
however, "The Witch's Hammer" of the 16th century,
used by the notorious Spanish Inquisition to burn
women alive, has been replaced by the "Information
Digest," of John and Louise Rees, or similar
publications of the far-right, such as the John Birch
Society's "The New American," or Lyndon LaRouche's
"Executive Intelligence Review."
Countless "private" sources for intelligence gathering
are used by the Bureau to justify massive
COINTELPRO-style operations. Included here, are the
publications of the Council for Inter-American
Security (CIS); the American Security Council (ASC);
Western Goals, founded by the late Rep. Larry
McDonald, a top leader of the John Birch Society; the
organization of neo- fascist, Lyndon LaRouche; and the
massive intelligence network of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's
Unification Church.24 I will profile three of these
entities.
INFORMATION DIGEST: John Rees is a journalist who
emigrated to the United States from Britain in 1963.
He was fired from the "London Daily Mirror," when
officials at the paper discovered Rees' had used his
professional standing to obtain unethical gratuities
from London hotels and restaurants.25
Rees moved to Newark, New Jersey and launched "New
Careers," a program designed to provide jobs for black
residents. City officials however, discovered that
Rees had overcharged the city $7,500 for services.
They also blocked payment for another $12,000 to a job
training firm for which Rees was a consultant.26
Moving to Chicago in 1968, Rees next worked as an
undercover informant for the Chicago Police
Department, infiltrating and targeting groups opposed
to the Vietnam war. At the time, the FBI dismissed
Rees as "an opportunist who operates with self-
serving interest." However, Rees continued to trade
spurious information to state police agencies across
the country.27
During the early 1980's, trading on his relationship
with Rep. McDonald and Western Goals, Rees began
writing a column for the Moon-owned "Washington
Times." It was during this period that he began to
sell political disinformation to the FBI.28
Rees was the author of the slander-filled, "The War
Called Peace," which targeted the Women's
International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF),
charging that the group was "thoroughly- penetrated by
the Moscow-line Communist party." Rees' brand of
political yellow-journalism, was widely-reported by
the "New York Times," and other media outlets. His
false allegations, innuendos, and slander were used by
the Reagan administration to discredit the nuclear
freeze movement.29
Rees' booklet was incorporated in FBI files and passed
to the State Department. In 1982, the State Department
included WILPF on its index of "communist-fronts," on
the basis of Rees' disinformation.30
Apparently, the collaboration between the Bureau and
John Rees was of long-standing duration. The nature of
the relationship with the former "self-serving
opportunist" and the Bureau surfaced during a lawsuit
initiated by the National Lawyers Guild. Rees' wife,
S. Louise Rees, had infiltrated the NLG, working as a
secretary. An assistant United States Attorney in New
York testified that: "Some federal agencies received
information...from John Rees or S. Louise Rees or
both, sometimes in the form of "Information Digest,"
and from time to time they were compensated by the FBI
for furnishing information."31
WESTERN GOALS: Founded in 1982, by Rep. Larry
McDonald, a top leader of the John Birch Society and a
board member of the World Anti-Communist League
(WACL). Before his death in 1983, aboard KAL flight
007, shot down over the Soviet Union, McDonald
described the purpose of the Foundation as defending
the United States against Marxist subversion and
terrorism. McDonald wrote,
"In the field of Marxists, terrorism and subversion,
Western Goals has the most experienced advisors and
staff in the United States... The Foundation has begun
the computerization of thousands of documents relating
to the internal security of our country and the
protection of government and institutions from
Communist-controlled penetration and subversion."32
One of the key figures of Western Goals was John Rees.
Using falsified documents passed by the Salvadoran
National Guard, Rees penned an article for the
Birchite publication, "The Review of the News." Rees'
article found its way into the FBI's files and served
as their pretext to target CISPES.33
Other key Western Goals figures included former U.S.
Army Major General John "Blackjack" Singlaub, the
North American Director of the World Anti-Communist
League. Founded in 1967, WACL has been described as
the "Fascist International." The League's members have
included arch-conservatives, reactionaries, a number
of former Nazis and Nazi collaborators.
Among its regional affiliates in Central America were,
Mario Sandoval Alarcon, a former Guatemalan vice
president known as the "Godfather of the death
squads," and cashiered Salvadoran Army Major, Roberto
D'Aubisson, described by former U.S. Ambassador to El
Salvador, Robert White, as a "pathological killer."34
League members were invited to Taiwan's Political
Warfare Cadres Academy for training in
counter-insurgency and police techniques. Many members
also traveled to Argentina for training in police
torture techniques by members of the Argentine
military during the "dirty war" which annihilated the
Argentine Left, "disappearing" more than 25,000 people
during the 1970's.35
After McDonald's death in 1983, Singlaub, Rees and
others continued Western Goals' primary mission:
destroy the North American Left through a campaign of
slander and political disinformation. Their
publications were routinely routed to the FBI, the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), and
other U.S. intelligence agencies.36
In 1983, a portion of the public-private intelligence
interchange surfaced when Los Angeles Police
Department intelligence division detective, Jay Paul,
was found to have removed more than 180 boxes of files
from division headquarters. The files contained
extensive dossiers on West Coast political activists.
Environmentalists, opponents of nuclear power, legal
Left groups and political parties found their way into
Paul's house as well as his wife's law office in Long
Beach.37
Internal LAPD investigators learned that the
information removed by Paul had been transmitted via
computer directly into the database of the Western
Goals Foundation, controlled by John Rees. It was
subsequently learned by investigators that Paul's
activities had been approved by a former Intelligence
Division captain.38
Among the material that Paul supplied to Rees were
lists of demonstrators arrested in Florida and
California and a confidential LAPD domestic security
report.39 It was learned that Rees had published some
of this material in a Western Goals publication as
well as his own "Information Digest." The information
was also passed to federal, state and local police
agencies around the country.40
Additionally, selected materials were passed to board
members of Western Goals, some of whom were involved
with Lt. Col. North's criminal "enterprise" to aid the
Nicaraguan contra terrorists.41
Key players of the U.S. Christian Right, including Pat
Robertson and Jerry Falwell were instrumental allies
of the Reagan State Department's illegal "Public
Diplomacy" operation which targeted the American
people with propaganda and disinformation; all in the
name of "stamping out Marxist subversion."42
THE UNIFICATION CHURCH: Perhaps the most prominent
American off-shoot of WACL was Rev. Sun Myung Moon's
Unification Church. A destructive religious cult that
purports that "Our Master," Rev. Moon is a
reincarnation of Jesus Christ sent to rid the world of
communism, Moon's empire was a key element of the
FBI's "active measures" campaign against CISPES.43
Operating through a front-group, the campus-based
Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles
(CARP), Moon activists began plying the Bureau with
information that it obtained through its infiltration
of CISPES chapters throughout the country.44
CARP supplied the FBI with information on CISPES
leaders and activists. Bureau files contained hundreds
of entries and names provided by Moon's theocratic
network. The 48 pages of CARP materials released by
the FBI, contain only a small portion of the Bureau's
CARP index. Pointedly, the FBI refused to release any
of the entries held in the Bureau's main file on the
Moon organization.45
Bureau informant, Frank Varelli, stated that "The
Moonies were a major support group." Varelli reported
that in 1982, agents in the FBI's Washington Field
Office trained a Moon contingent to hold a
demonstration in support of Salvadoran President, Jose
Napoleon Duarte.46
Other FBI-initiated "active measures" campaigns,
recalling earlier COINTELPRO operations, utilized
"private" Moon "assets" for a national campaign of
political harassment and disruption. Varelli's FBI
handler, Special Agent Daniel Flanagan, would
regularly go to the SMU campus in Dallas once a month
to pay the Moonies for their support services to the
FBI. Moon cadres would start fights on the SMU campus
whenever CISPES held a rally or demonstration. After a
series of violent incidents, CISPES moved off campus.
Such scenarios were duplicated across the country.47
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Inside the FBI there is a core of agents with
authoritarian, if not quasi-fascist tendencies, who
are integral to the far-right network of spies and
political operatives that continue to operate with
impunity. Across the decades, such agents freely pass
back and forth between government service and
employment as security consultants and union-busters.
As we will see below, in the two case studies I
present as evidence of the Bureau's employment of
far-right and neo-Nazi "assets," J. Edgar's Hoover's
legacy lives on. Knowledge of this deadly partnership
between the FBI, BATF, state and local police agencies
and the violent fringe of the far-right, is of vital
importance to the women's movement today.
3. RIGHT-WING VIGILANTES AND THE STATE: THE SECRET
ARMY ORGANIZATION (SAO)
Despite tens of thousands of pages of documentary
evidence of on-going State repression by the FBI, the
idea that the Bureau would utilize "private"
right-wing operatives and terrorists is a chilling,
alien concept to most Americans.
During the Red Scare period, 1918-22, and during the
1920's and 1930's, the FBI made considerable use of
Pinkertons and "off- the-shelf" vigilante groups, in
order to destroy labor and radical organizations.
The FBI has systematically utilized "private"
right-wing operatives in order to carry out their
fundamental mission: to maintain the power and profits
of their corporate employers. One notorious case is
the Secret Army Organization (SAO).
The Secret Army Organization was a surrogate of the
FBI. An ex-Bureau informant, Nanda Zocchino, writing
in the "Los Angeles Times," recounted how,
"...the Bureau had created and financed this 'crypto-
fascist' group in San Diego during 1969-70. During the
early- 1970's the SAO engaged in a range of activities
including burglary, mail thefts, bombings,
assassination plots and attempted murder."48
According to Zocchino, the SAO's criminal activities
were supervised directly by the FBI. A second
informant attached to the San Diego Bureau office,
Howard Berry Godfrey, has substantially corroborated
Zocchino's story of State-directed terror against the
Left.49
The Citizens Research and Investigation Committee
(CRIC), documented that the SAO was established
specifically, "...to use violence against radicals
and, at its peak had cadres in eleven western
states."50
According to CRIC's chilling report, a primary target
of the SAO was San Diego State University economics
professor, Peter G. Bohmer. The professor had received
more than forty death threats before SAO operative,
George M. Hoover, fired a 9mm pistol into his home on
the night of January 9, 1972.51
Although Bohmer was not at home that evening, the SAO
assassin, wounded a house-guest, Paula Tharp, in the
right elbow, permanently disabling her. Despite the
fact that the attempted murderer was accompanied by
FBI-infiltrator Godfrey, who informed his handler,
Special Agent Steve Christianson, Hoover was not
arrested for more than six months.52
The FBI's primary motivation in "chilling out" their
terrorist "assets" was not the serious injury to Ms.
Tharp, but the sense that they were "losing control"
of the SAO. They became alarmed by the bombing of San
Diego's Guild Theater on June 19, 1972. Hoover and
eight other SAO members carried out the raid,
allegedly "without the Bureau's knowledge."53
In the wake of this escalating series of right-wing
terrorist incidents, and the ensuing public outcry,
San Diego police raided the homes of SAO members. The
police netted a huge cache of "illegal explosives,
handguns and rifles, including an unpacked case of
M-16 rifles. The market value of these weapons was
estimated at more than $60,000."54
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) attorney
Frederick Hetter discovered during a subsequent
investigation "that [FBI infiltrator] Godfrey supplied
75% of the money for the SAO" in order for the
terrorist army to acquire the weapons.55
Further evidence of the leading role played by the
Bureau for launching the SAO was revealed by "San
Diego Door" reporters, Doug Porter and Ric Reynolds.
Their investigation revealed that Godfrey had also
infiltrated the radical Message Information Center
under an assumed name, as well as the Movement for a
Democratic Military. The FBI's point man, Godfrey, was
also assembling a list of "priority people" in the
Peace and Freedom Party; a legal, socialist party with
ballot status in California.56
Drawing on their extensive experience and expertise as
a repressive arm of the U.S. Government, the FBI's
paid informant was well-placed to assign targets to
the fascist SAO for "neutralization."57
In the wake of Watergate, the Church Committee in the
U.S. Senate and the Pike Commission in the House,
uncovered a systematic campaign by the FBI to
neutralize and disrupt movement building and
organizing by a broad array of socialist, left,
anti-war, black, native American, queer and women's
groups.
While witness after witness testified to the chilling
effects of murderous programs such as COINTELPRO, the
FBI had accomplished their primary mission.
By 1976, the broad movements created by the radical
upsurge of the 1960's had been destroyed. COINTELPRO,
"given another name," continued to operate; standard
practice in the advanced capitalist "democracies."
4. THE FBI, KU KLUX KLAN, AND AMERICAN NAZI PARTY: THE
GREENSBORO MASSACRE
Another case which, after all, "only encompasses
everything that has been done or will be done in the
future," occurred in Greensboro, North Carolina in
1979.
On November 3, 1979, a terrorist posse organized by
Klansmen and neo-Nazis murdered five members of the
Communist Workers Party (CWP) in broad daylight. Their
"crime" had been to organize a "Smash the Klan"
demonstration in Greensboro among the city's heavily
black and working class mill workers. CWP members were
also union organizers and activists who had upset "the
fundamental order of things."58
An essential component for the operation organized by
night- riding Klan killers was U.S. Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) agent, Bernard Butkovich.
The BATF agent, a Vietnam veteran and demolitions
expert undercover in the local branch of the American
Nazi Party, helped the fascists obtain automatic
weapons. After the smoke cleared and five people lay
dead, the BATF "asset" assisted the Klansmen and Nazis
in making their escape.59
This anti-communist death squad, had been recruited,
organized and led on its mission of murder by an FBI
infiltrator, Edward Dawson. Dawson was also a paid
informant for the Greensboro Police Department.60
Dawson reported to his handlers that eighty-five
Klansmen meeting in near-by Lincolnton had expressed
their intent to counter-demonstrate on November 3.61
The night-riders had stated they intended to arm
themselves for their counter-demonstration and that
Klan leader, Virgil Griffin, was actively calling out
Klansmen from other states to participate. It was also
rumored that fascists and neo-Nazis from the
Winston-Salem area had obtained a machine gun and
other weapons. They planned to come to Greensboro on
November 3, "in order to shoot up the place."62
Dawson reported to Greensboro detective Jerry Cooper,
that Klansmen and neo-Nazis were assembling at the
home of a local Klan member and that they were armed.
Grand Dragon, Virgil Griffin was present.63
The police/FBI informant had received a copy of the
parade route the day before the CWP-initiated march; a
map had been supplied by Detective Cooper. Dawson had
driven over the parade route three hours earlier with
a contingent of out-of-town Klansmen. Dawson also
alerted Cooper that the Klansmen and neo- Nazis
possessed three handguns and nine long-barrelled
rifles, including automatic weapons supplied by BATF
agent, Bernard Butkovich.64
Prior to the beginning of the CWP's march and
demonstration, Cooper and other police officials drove
by the house where the Klansmen and neo-Nazis were
assembling. They jotted down some license plate
numbers and then declared a lunch break -- at
approximately 10 a.m.!65
Less than an hour later, Cooper, trailing behind the
fascist caravan reported, "shots fired" and then
"heavy gunfire;" however the tactical squad assigned
to monitor the march were still out to lunch.66
Two other officers responding to a domestic
disturbance call, noted the absence of patrol cars
usually assigned to the area. They arrived at the
Morningside projects, the site of the CWP march.
Officer Wise later reported having received a most
unusual call from the police communications center.
The officers were asked how long they anticipated
being at their call; they were subsequently advised to
"clear the area as soon as possible."67
Moments later, five demonstrators lay dead, murdered
in broad daylight by members of the Ku Klux Klan and
the American Nazi Party.68 According to anti-racist
researcher, Michael Novick, the Greensboro massacre
"set the tone for neo-Nazi organizing by the KKK and
other white supremacists in the ensuing decade."69
A subsequent civil suit brought against the neo-Nazis,
the Klan and the Greensboro police resulted in a
partial award to the surviving family members murdered
by the fascists. However, the FBI and BATF agents
walked away scott-free.
FBI Director William Webster, labelled the charge of
federal complicity "utterly absurd," even though the
killers had been recruited, organized and led on their
murderous rampage by Bureau informant, Edward Dawson
and that automatic weapons supplied by BATF agent,
Bernard Butkovich, were used in the deadly attack.70
As we have seen, however, this is simply standard
operating procedure; what Noam Chomsky has termed, the
"demonstration effect" for those who dare to challenge
the hegemony of U.S. corporate elites and their
fascist and clerical-fascist allies.
5. CLINIC DEFENSE AFTER PENSACOLA
The search for "endless enemies" by the FBI and other
government agencies will continue; of this we can be
certain. It is critical that grass roots organizations
continue to defend women's clinics and health care
providers from the deadly attacks of the Christian
Right.
The clinic defense movement, if it is to remain a
vital source of strength and empowerment for women --
and by its heroic example of militant mass struggle,
to all who fight against every vestige of capitalist
oppression -- must begin an active campaign that
directly challenges and defeats the Christian Right.
Any "partnership" with repressive government agencies,
however provisional, would be a grave political error
with consequences impossible to foresee.
Even before the smoke cleared in Pensacola, however,
the drum-beat of violence-baiting and specious
comparisons between "extremists on both sides of the
abortion issue," have begun to reverberate in the
bourgeois press.71
As with other cases of institutional state repression
cited in this report, the media played a pivotal role
in legitimizing attacks by the FBI and other federal
agencies on radical and progressive movements.72 By
uncritically presenting Bureau disinformation as
unadulterated facts, despite evidence to the contrary,
the media are witting and unwitting accomplices for
the FBI's on-going COINTELPRO operations against the
Left.
Progressive researcher, Chip Berlet, has described
this as a process he terms "paradigm shift."73 Through
"paradigm shift," progressive organizations are
transformed into shadowy terrorist networks by the
media. Oftentimes, political disinformation on groups
targeted for repression is passed to the media by
reactionary right-wing opponents or state agencies
themselves; the ubiquitous "unnamed government
sources."
According to Berlet's definition, "The perceptual
shift from dissent to criminality first goes public
with unsubstantiated allegations and conclusions in
the media of the reactionary and paranoid political
Right. Eventually, the right-wing media attempt to
re-frame the public's perception of the dissident
group as subversive or criminal spills over into more
mainstream media...The dissidents are seen as
non-rational, unstable, alien, and capable of odious
crimes because of their zealous mindset. Lists of
potential crimes are discussed, and finally actual
crimes are blamed on the political movement. Ideas
that were once merely marginalized are thus
criminalized...In some cases, the re-framing is so
successful that there is widespread sentiment
supporting the attacks. When this process of re-
framing is successful, paradigm shift has occurred."74
BACORR and Refuse & Resist! representatives who
recently traveled to Florida were continually quoted
out of context while the primary source material they
distributed, linking national leaders and Pensacola
anti-abortion activists, went unreported.75
They were followed and harassed by local and federal
law enforcement officials, while the anti-abortionists
were given unlimited access to patients outside the
Pensacola Women's Medical Services clinic.76
According to an article appearing in the "New York
Times," their correspondent, Sam Howe Verhovek,
portrayed BACORR and Refuse & Resist! activists as
"fanatics" and "zealots;" that is as "non-rational,
unstable, alien," according to Berlet's definition.77
Though Mr. Howe Verhovek and other Times'
correspondents had interviewed BACORR members and were
well-aware of evidence in their possession linking
"former Klansman" John Burt, Paul Hill and other
anti-abortion activists to a plot to stalk and harass
Dr. Britton prior to his assassination, this material
was ignored. Mr. Howe Verhovek offered instead, a
piece of unvarnished slander as a substitute for an
investigation of the complex interconnections among
anti-abortion cadres.
According to Howe Verhovek's hit-piece, "At a rally
sponsored by a coalition of abortion-rights
groups...one speaker pointedly refused to disavow
violence against anti-abortion demonstrators."78
The speaker, a member of Refuse & Resist! had actually
drawn the comparison between a battered woman
defending herself against her batterer, and women who
defend themselves from physical attacks directed at
them by anti-abortion zealots. Thus, self- defense, is
transformed, in typical "Times'" fashion, into
offensive violence!79
While we cannot control the political disinformation
of the bourgeois media, we must continue to be clear
as to our goals -- unrestricted access to reproductive
health care for women. The tactics we select in order
to achieve this goal must reflect the actual contours
of the struggle as it is waged today.
Self-defense is a right of all oppressed people. Just
as we would urge a woman about to raped to use
whatever force is necessary to deter a rapist, we
would also counsel clinic defenders, patient escorts
or health care providers to defend themselves from
attacks launched by anti-abortion thugs. To
countenance anything less is political suicide -- and
morally indefensible.
In this regard, we would be well-advised to look to
other historical parallels -- to the history of
fighting fascism, for example -- with such knowledge
in hand, clinic defense activists will draw the
necessary conclusions.
THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES... REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM, BY ANY
MEANS NECESSARY!
-------------------------------------------------------
NOTES
1. Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, "Agents of
Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black
Panther Party and the American Indian Movement," South
End Press, Boston, MA, 1990, pp. 61-62
2. Betsy Powell, President, California Pro-Life
Council, fund-raising letter, August 1993; cited in:
Tracey Jeffreys- Renault and Jerry Sloan, "WITHOUT
JUSTICE FOR ALL: A Report on the Christian Right in
California and Beyond," Planned Parenthood of
Sacramento Valley, Public Affairs Dept., 2415 K
Street, Sacramento, CA 95816-5001, 1993, pp. 29-30
3. David Johnston, "Federal Agents Sent to Protect
Abortion Clinics," NEW YORK TIMES, Tuesday, August 2,
1994, p. A-1
4. Mimi Hall, "Abortion foes deny there's a
conspiracy," USA TODAY, Friday, August 5, 1994, p. 3A
5. Gene Owens, "Abortion: call to arms," THE MOBILE
PRESS, Tuesday, August 2, 1994, p. 1A
6. Kathy Kemp, "Priest calls for deadly force against
abortion," BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD, reprinted, SAN
FRANCISCO EXAMINER, Tuesday, August 2, 1994, p. A-1
7. C. Roy McMillan, "Two former killers in this
house...and we sleep fine. Thank you," LIFE ADVOCATE,
Portland, OR, February 1994, p. 34
8. David Tortorano and Renee Busby, "25 on list
support killing," THE MOBILE PRESS, Tuesday, August 2,
1994, p. 4A
9. "Abortion activist may have planned killing,"
ASSOCIATED PRESS, reprinted, SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER,
Thursday, March 17, 1994, p. C-24
10. "Abortion Protesters Target Mississippi Doctor,"
REUTER, August 8, 1994
11. United States Taxpayers Party (USTP); brochure in
author's possession
12. "Klan Broadens Anti-Abortion Plans, REUTER,
Saturday, August 20, 1994
13. Connie Cass, "Terror plot probe in clinic
slayings," ASSOCIATED PRESS, reprinted, SAN FRANCISCO
EXAMINER, Saturday, July 30, 1994, p. A-1
14. Michael Novick, "BLUE BY DAY, WHITE BY NIGHT:
Organized White Supremacist Groups in Law Enforcement
Agencies," People Against Racist Terror (PART), PO BOX
1990, Burbank, CA 91507, Revised and Updated, February
1993, p. 3
15. Ross Gelbspan, "Break-ins, Death Threats and the
FBI: The Covert War Against the Central American
Movement," South End Press, Boston, MA, 1991, pp.
71-72
16. ibid.
17. "Incidents of Violence & Disruption Against
Abortion Providers," National Abortion Federation,
Washington, DC, August 10, 1994
18. Tom Burghardt, "LOW-INTENSITY WARFARE: An
Anti-Abortion Strategy of Terror," Bay Area Coalition
for Our Reproductive Rights, San Francisco, CA January
1994, p. 1
19. Churchill and Vander Wall, op. cit.
20. ibid.
21. ibid.
22. For Further Information on Political Prisoners in
the United States, contact: Partisan Defense Committee
(PDC), PO BOX 99, Canal Street Station, New York, New
York 10013, (212) 406- 4252
23. Pat Robertson, undated fund-raising letter, summer
1992; cited in Kate Cornell, "The Covert Tactics and
Overt Agenda of the New Christian Right," COVERT
ACTION QUARTERLY, Washington, DC, Winter 1992-1993
(Number 43), p. 51
24. For further background on: Council for
Inter-American Security (CIS) and American Security
Council (ASC), see Russ Bellant, "THE COORS
CONNECTION: How Coors Family Philanthropy Undermines
Democratic Pluralism," Political Research Associates,
Cambridge, MA 1990; for further background on Lyndon
LaRouche, see Dennis King, "Lyndon LaRouche and the
New American Fascism," Doubleday, New York, 1989; for
further background on Rev. Sun Myung Moon and the
Unification Church's relationship to the World
Anti-Communist League (WACL), see Scott Anderson and
Jon Lee Anderson, "Inside the League," Dodd, Mead &
Company, New York, 1986
25. Gelbspan, op. cit., p. 79
26. ibid.
27. ibid., p. 80
28. ibid., p. 82
29. ibid., p. 83
30. ibid.
31. ibid., p. 82
32. ibid., p. 77
33. ibid., p. 45
34. Anderson and Anderson, op. cit., multiple
references
35. ibid. pp. 56-57
36. Gelbspan, op. cit., p. 78
37. ibid., p. 169
38. ibid., p. 170
39. ibid.
40. ibid.
41. ibid., p. 171
42. Sara Diamond, "SPIRITUAL WARFARE: The Politics of
the Christian Right," South End Press, Boston, MA,
1989, pp. 165, 168-169
43. Gelbspan, op. cit., p. 75
44. ibid.
45. ibid., p. 76
46. ibid.
47. ibid.
48. Churchill and Vander Wall, op. cit., p. 182
49. ibid.
50. ibid.
51. ibid.
52. ibid.
53. ibid.
54. ibid.
55. ibid.
56. ibid.
57. ibid.
58. Novick, op. cit., p. 4
59. Churchill And Vander Wall, op. cit., p. 182
60. Frank Donner, "PROTECTORS OF PRIVILEGE: Red Squads
and Police Repression in America," University of
California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1990, p.
360
61. ibid.
62. ibid.
63. ibid.
64. Novick, op. cit. p. 4
65. Donner, op. cit., p. 361
66. ibid.
67. ibid.
68. ibid.
69. Novick, op. cit., p. 4
70. Churchill and Vander Wall, op. cit., p. 181
71. Staff reports, "Denouncing violence, Burt called
'murderer,'" PENSACOLA NEWS JOURNAL, Tuesday, August
2, 1994, p. 3A
72. Churchill and Vander Wall, op. cit.
73. Chip Berlet, "Re-Framing Dissent as Criminal
Subversion," COVERT ACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN,
Washington, DC, Summer 1992, (Number 41)
74. ibid., p. 36
75. Laura Weide, Bay Area Coalition for Our
Reproductive Rights, San Francisco, CA, personal
communication
76. ibid.
77. Sam Howe Verhovek, "10 Years of Anger and Strife
Over Abortion in Pensacola, NEW YORK TIMES,Saturday,
August 6, 1994, p. 1
78. ibid., p. 5
79. Weide, op. cit.
-------------------------------------------------------
For more information on how you can get involved in
the battle to win full reproductive rights, contact
THE FIGHT BACK NETWORK:
Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights
(BACORR)
750 La Playa # 730
San Francisco, CA 94121
(415) 252-0750
Refuse & Resist!
305 Madison Avenue #1166
New York, New York 10165
(212) 713-5657
+ 212-675-9690 NY TRANSFER NEWS COLLECTIVE
212-675-9663 +
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