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||| **** Volume 1, Number 5 ***** March 7, 1996 **** |||
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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
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 (see
Appendix 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 the
ones 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
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.
*****
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
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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