-Caveat Lector-
Re: The WACKENHUT Corporation
===================================================================
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (nessie)
Date: Thu 4 Jan 1996
Subject: Fwd(2): more on Wackenhut (pt. 1)
This originally appeared on the WELL:
PAY YOUR MONEY, TAKE YOUR CHANCE
PART 1 OF 2 PARTS
As long as we refuse to protect ourselves and each other, we are at
the mercy of a legal system whose very business is crime, and a
lucrative business it is. By this point in history, all but the
most naive of us have stopped expecting cops, public or private, to
all behave like Boy Scouts. There has been simply too much hard
evidence to the contrary. In that murky gray zone where law
enforcement overlaps with organized crime, an underground empire
has arisen. It is a world where the so-called "War on Drugs" is
often a war on rival drug dealers, and always a war on the poor. It
is a world where "national security," excuses war crimes and
genocide is a commodity. It is a world where justice is for sale
and cops are for rent. Cops, rent-a-cops in particular, vary widely
in quality.
A family business, Wackenhut Corp. was founded in 1954 by a one
time FBI man George R. Wackenhut. His son Richard, a Citadel
graduate, is president and CEO. The immediate family hold over 50%
of the stock The rest is divided among just 1100 stockholders.
Wackenhut stock is traded on the New York Stock exchange. Buy a
share, and you will receive a fascinating brochure. The company's
revenue has grown from just $300,000 in 1958 to nearly half a
billion today. It is one of the largest private security firms in
existence.
Wackenhut specializes in security contracts. Government contracts
are best, of course, and the company's remarkable growth is due on
no small part to George Wackenhut's relationship to certain
government officials. His first big break came when he secured a
contract to watch over Titan missile sites in four states. Since
then, security and public safety functions have proven a lucrative
focus. Wackenhut provides security guards for such high-risk
installations as the trans-Alaska pipelines, major airports both in
the United States and abroad, dams and the nuclear test site in
Nevada. It also owns a casualty reinsurance firm, a travel service,
and an airline services company. The Department of energy provides
25% of Wackenhut's total gross. Their operatives also serve
friends of the U. S. Govt. and Big Oil (like the fugitive Shah of
Iran), abroad as well as at home.
Wackenhut personnel guard the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Sites in Louisiana and Texas. From time to time, they can be seen
around the complexes, dodging alligators, and exchanging laser
gunfire with soldiers, local police and sheriff's deputies. This is
just practice to prepare for real trouble, such as terrorists.
Wackenhut touts it's supposed anti-terrorist expertise.
James*P.*Davis, who manages the site for government contractor
Boeing, declares: "I pity anybody who tries to invade here. It
would be tougher than Fort Knox." That is arguable. The government
itself concedes that the security could be beefed up. But the
analogy to Fort Knox is fitting. There is gold here, too, only it's
black. Never forget the Golden Rule: "Gold rules."
Wackenhut often recruits ex-police and military men who don't
require a fresh background check. Cutting this corner (at $30,000
to $40,000 apiece) has allowed the employment of a number of
unsavory characters, including infamous navy spy John Walker. When
Wackenhut operatives were caught recently in the public spotlight
by court allegations of illegal surveillance, Associated Press
reports that they were staunchly defended by their employer in the
case, the president of Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., James B.
Hermiller. Alyeska is a consortium of seven oil companies
including Exxon Corp., owners of the Exxon Valdez. They are also
long time Wackenhut clients. During the spill, industry security
mounted an armed "bear patrol" to "keep grizzlies from rolling in
the contaminated sand." They kept potential witness from the spill
scene. Alyeska lies about clean up. State studies have confirmed
that contaminants -- including carcinogens such as benzene and
toxic materials such as heavy metals -- are ending up in the waters
and sediments of Port Valdez. Happy dining, crab lovers. Alyeska
also lies about the carcinogen content of the atmospheric pollution
they inflict on their neighbors. Breath deep, Valdez.
Few of it's victims are any longer surprised that Big Oil lies.
Internal documents to that effect (and worse) were leaked by
Aleyska employees to long time industry gad-fly, professional
tanker broker Charles Hamel The whistle blowing employees were
afraid to let their names be used. Charley Hamel was not. At least
one regulatory action, a $20,000 fine proposed by the EPA in
August, 1992 against Alyeska for illegal waste-water dumping, is
attributable to information provided by Hamel.
One former employee, Robert Scott, has filed a complaint with the
U.S. Labor Department charging that Alyeska illegally fired him for
leaking information that detailed problems with vapor-emission.
"This is not a knock down and kill you problem," says Riki Ott, a
marine toxicologist and president of the Oil Reform Alliance, a
coalition of fishing and environmental groups in Alaska. "It's more
like a 20 year from now cancer problem."
Cancer is not the only problem in this case. This is more about
lies than it is about cancer. Disinformation is cancer in our body
politic. It has so saturated our culture that it is no longer the
social norm to take a stranger at his word on such basic
information as his name. Can Wackenhut's public relations
department be trusted to tell the truth? Their track record, and
that of their clients, tell the tale.
Company officials claim that Alyeska is committed to operating in
an environmentally sound manner. But environmentalists, state and
even federal officials and other observers differ. Privy employees
agree. Alyeska has been a major source of water, air and soil
pollution in Alaska. Wackenhut Corp. has been, at the very least,
a witting accomplice, both during and after the fact. They have
worked to conceal disturbing truths from Congress, law enforcement,
and the public at large. They have perpetuated dangerous, sometimes
fatal lies. They hired Wackenhut to help cover them up. Wackenhut
certainly gave it a hell of a try. Wackenhut blew it. Fortunately
for us, many Wackenhut operatives are incredibly lame.
As disturbing as the cover-up itself, allegations have surfaced in
court that Alyeska has pursued an aggressive campaign of spying and
covert operations aimed at ferreting out internal whistle-blowers
and silencing outside opponents. Their main tool in this
undertaking has been Wackenhut Corp. Three of five dissident
Wackenhut employees allege that even Rep. George Miller
(D-California), chairman at the time of the House committee that
oversees environment and resource development issues was targeted
for "dirty tricks" when he began investigating alleged
environmental wrongdoing by Alyeska, according to sources and sworn
court statements. Miller became incensed to the point of subpoena.
His committee quickly began investigating the possibility that
Wackenhut may have obstructed Congress, as well. Alyeska, as well
as Wackenhut, denies any wrongdoing. But for some, the alleged
black-bag operation conjures up disquieting echoes of the past, and
uneasy foreboding about the future. One honest (and prudent) cop,
Rafael Castillo, a thirty year veteran of city, county, state, and
federal police work left Wackenhut rather than expose himself to
the possibility of criminal prosecution and a ruined career. Twice
he had confronted superiors on the matter, to no avail. He had no
honorable choice but to quit, which he did, reputation intact. It's
too bad that all cops aren't Rafael Castillo, but they're not.
Sworn court statements and interviews with sources familiar with
the probe, portray a conspiracy of electronic surveillance, lies,
phony offices, burglaries and similar behavior aimed at silencing
critics. With one side of it's mouth, Alyeska has denied the
charges. With the other side, Alyeska assigned Wackenhut the task
of rooting out the sources. Wackenhut began by attempting to
backtrack from Hamel. In a sworn statement in U.S. District Court
in Houston one former Wackenhut employee stated that the company's
special investigations division conducted illegal electronic
surveillance of Hamel's home, searched his garbage, obtained his
telephone records and attempted to furnish him with large amounts
of cash.
The employee, whose name was blacked out in the court file, said
Wackenhut agents also masqueraded as news reporters and
environmentalists. They also steal garbage. Charley Hamel caught
them on video tape stealing his. They also got a parking ticket
while inside bugging his house. These are not exactly what you
could call rocket scientist types. They were beaten at their own
game by an amateur armed with little more than a camcorder and a
realistic estimation of the degree of privacy he enjoyed. It can be
done. Wackenhut also set up a phony environmental group, called
Ecolit, with offices near Hamel's home. This was part of a 17
person "special investigation unit" created by Wayne Black. Black
described it in an interview with the Washington Post as a "private
FBI." Black had once been a criminal investigator for the Dade
County prosecutor. According to the Anchorage Daily News, he had
been suspended for illegally conducting a wire tap and pressuring
witnesses. Despite, or perhaps because of, the efforts of a special
prosecutor, he managed to squirm out of the charges. A month later
he went into private practice. In 1989 his firm was purchased by
Wackenhut. He's their kind of guy. He told Hamel his name was Dr.
Wayne Jenkins, a staff researcher for Ecolit. At one point, Hamel
was told that real estate tycoon Donald J. Trump was on Ecolit's
board of directors. For a while, Hamel fell for it. Then his
garbage started disappearing. His suspicions aroused, he set a trap
with his trusty camcorder. It worked.
On occasion, Wackenhut also delivers garbage. One operative,
identifying herself as an environmental journalist, tried to
"befriend" Hamel in an Anchorage hotel bar in March, 1990, and
later on an airline flight. Her aim was to discover Hamel's sources
and also to "compromise him" in some way, court statements said. It
didn't work.
Wayne Black was not a loose cannon. According to Castillo, Black
kept Wackenhut security chief, and former head of Alaska's State
Police Pat Wellington abreast of his progress. Black has since been
promoted. He is now vice-president of investigations for Wackenhut.
Alyeska President James B. Hermiller said the company would
cooperate fully with Miller's committee, but he has denied that
Alyeska targeted Hamel for investigation. Hermiller declined to
comment on the specific allegations in the court documents. But he
did say, "Wackenhut is probably the premiere security firm in the
world, and they do not do anything illegal. They conduct programs
in a very professional and legal way."
Premier? Professional? Legal? Hardly. In service to other less
influential clients Wackenhut operatives have appeared, on numerous
occasions, to be the premier bunglers of the trade. Yet they can,
on occasion, appear deadly efficient and, in fact, downright
sinister. Wackenhut performs a wide variety of services with widely
varying efficiency. Some are scarier than others.
One such service is union busting. The firm provides a
comprehensive strike-breaking service. It includes armed
protection, bedding, bath facilities and a catering service for
scab labor. Clients of this particular service range from the
Greyhound Corp. to Capital Cities. Capital Cities (owner of ABC)
was founded by the reputedly deceased Director of Central
Intelligence, William Casey. Casey is the alleged mastermind of the
"October Surprise" and convenient scapegoat of the Iran-Contra
affair, as well as being a Knight of Malta. The Knights are no
friends of labor.
The Wackenhut Corporation boasts widely of the sophistication of
its "strike service." Potential clients also take note of other,
more objective, versions. A poignant vignette of Wackenhut labor
relations is found in SPOOKS The Haunting of America- The Private
Use of Secret Agents Author Jim Hougan recounts the dilemma of a
certain Muldoon, hired by Wackenhut to guard publisher Katherine
Graham and other executives of the Washington Post during a dispute
with the pressmen. About twenty of Muldoon's spooks were given
plainclothes assignments that placed them round the clock in the
executive's living rooms. Muldoon remembered the awkwardness of the
situation. "It was uncomfortable," he said, "These were really nice
homes. The family would eat dinner, the kids would be playing-and
there, sitting on the couch would be me or some other guy from the
agency -- big, you know, and checking his gun. It was sorta tense.
We didn't really fit in. I'll tell ya: some of those people were
real shits about it. Katherine Graham wouldn't even let us in. She
wanted my man to sit outside on a cot in the cold all night. I
wouldn't let him. I mean, who the hell does she think she is?"
Meanwhile the pressmen bothered Muldoon even more. One morning he
came home to find his car filled with garbage and a threat painted
on his hood. Muldoon was furious. He "called a friend in New Jersey
who's very well connected to both the unions and, well, organized
crime. And I told him that I had a list of twelve union leaders
here in Washington. If anyone fucked with me or my family or
anything of mine, I was going to take out three of the bastards at
the exact same time. As a warning. If anything else happened, I was
going to hit the other nine - all at once. I told him I didn't care
if those guys were responsible or not. I was holding them
responsible and he'd better get the word out. I was not
bullshitting either. I would have done it. I know guys inside the
Agency, and guys who left, who could do that. And they would, too.
I offered, as a demonstration, to abduct three of the union people
and hold them for an hour -- just to show I was serious. But he
took the hint. Nothing ever happened after that." Muldoon, smiling,
admitted that such an abduction would have been "embarrassing" to
the Post's publisher. He shrugged. "What the hell? If they can hit
my car, they can hit my family."
Employing Wackenhut placed the liberal Katherine Graham in some
very strange company indeed. The immense private intelligence
service relies on dossiers of the Church League of America, a
right-wing think tank whose massive intelligence files on the
"left" surely included volumes about Mrs.*Graham herself. In 1971,
six executives of Wackenhut, Pinkerton's, and Burns were found
guilty of bribing New York City policemen to obtain confidential
records of would-be employees of American and Trans-Caribbean
Airlines. One wonders why they needed to resort to bribes at all,
since, as Rand Corporation reports, Wackenhut and Pinkerton's
(never mind Burns) have dossiers on more than four million
Americans.
Wackenhut sells what it calls "protection" to more than just media
moguls. A look at how well they deliver presents a telling
appraisal of their skill level and intent. Far from "premier," they
instill little confidence in their ability to protect even
themselves against bunglers, turncoats, and law enforcement, let
alone serious terrorists. Still less does Wackenhut's consistent
corner cutting inspire confidence in it's ability to protect the
lives and property of ordinary clients. I'd hire the Keystone Kops
first, if I was you.
Wackenhut has repeatedly proven to be incapable of protecting the
Nevada Nuclear Test site from the intrusion of pacifist protesters
in peace time. They perform better in the brochure than they do
on the ground. They're not the only ones. The "premier" track
record of Wackenhut's much vaunted and ballyhooed "protection"
business has been repeatedly exposed, even by America's routinely
lapdog press. Some things are just too big to ignore. During the
recent Gulf War, Wackenhut's impotence was driven home by
terrorists. February 6, 1991 the Los Angeles Times reported that
"guerrillas opposed to the U.S. role in the Persian Gulf War" blew
up a car outside the offices of Pesevisa, the Peruvian subsidiary
of Wackenhut. Pesevisa is under contract to provide security for
the U.S. and Canadian embassies in Lima. Three security guards
were killed, and seven other people were seriously injured,
authorities said. In a drive-by attack, assailants threw at least
22 pounds of dynamite and fired machine-gun bursts at three
diplomats' cars parked in front of the company, police said. The
explosion left a large crater and blew out windows outside the
office. Leaflets condemning American involvement and attributed to
the pro-Cuban Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement were left at the
scene. A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Lima said the attack was
directed at Pesevisa, though Tupac Amaru guerrillas also attacked
the U.S. Embassy twice that week and dynamited the North American
Cultural Institute the previous November. Wackenhut guards have
also died on the job in El Salvador. The "premier" protection
business seems hard pressed to "protect" themselves, let alone
clients. What would Muldoon say?
In fairness, it must be emphasized that in 1986, when Wackenhut
Corp. announced the creation of an anti-terrorism division headed
by former agents of the FBI, CIA and State Department, the director
of the new division did state specifically that it would not
provide "rent-a-commandos" but would instead provide what it called
"training" on how to survive a terrorist attack. The anti-terrorism
and crisis management division would be for hire to "advise"
corporations or governments, said Richard R. Wackenhut, "This is a
new corporate division to deal (sic) not only with the threat of
terrorism but with a major industrial accident, hostage taking or
any other crisis facing an organization,"
The L.A. Times reported that in 1985, the increasing fear of
terrorism had boosted the already growing security business
significantly, citing a 25% increase in 1984 of clients for
Wackenhut's executive protection division, provision of bodyguards
and "other" security services in 28 countries. Revenue was up 16%
said Matt Kenny, director of corporate communications. The greater
the number of terrorist incidents, what ever their source, the
greater the demand is for "protection." One can not help but wonder
if some incidents are covert operations by private security
operatives, aimed at drumming up business.
"We are aiming at some U.S. government contracts," said Conrad V.
Hassel, the director of the new division. Hassel had previously
served as chief of special operations for the research unit of the
FBI for part of his 23-year career with that agency, and so
presumably knew where to peddle his wares. Hassel foresaw embassy
security as one potential marketplace, adding that Wackenhut
already posted guards at five U.S. embassies.
"There's no way we're going to be rent-a-commandos," Hassel said,
"We're not going to put a force together to storm any airplanes."
Instead Hassel predicted the new division would provide "training"
for clients and their families who might be targets of terrorism.
"We will try to instruct them how to survive over there, but we're
not going to train them how to become 'Rambos' and kick their way
out of a room," he said. Training would include discussions by
former hostages, and focus on psychological preparedness, such as
teaching potential victims to humanize themselves in the eyes of
their captors. "The terrorists are reacting against a symbol of
what they are fighting against," he said. "Once you become human,
it becomes damn hard to kill you." This bit of Wackenhut wisdom was
marketed to customers from among the company's 15,000 member base
of clients as well as to the United States and certain unnamed
foreign governments.
.
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