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Tracking Covert Actions into the
Future
From Issue No. 42, Fall, 1992
by Philip Agee
Over May Day weekend I was one of
several thousand people attending an
international solidarity conference in
Brussels organized by the Belgian
Labor Party. Among the participants
were representatives of progressive
and revolutionary parties and
movements from around the world.
The atmosphere was a refreshing
reminder that the ideal of socialism,
and resistance to exploitation and
oppression, are very much alive.
My role was to outline U.S. efforts
during the Cold War- mainly through
the CIA-to suppress Third World
national liberation movements.
Additionally, I was asked to speculate
on what these movements could
expect from the U.S. under the
Bush-proclaimed New World Order.
Inevitably, questions arose about the
much televised burning of Los
Angeles. Would it affect Bush in the
November elections? Could it be only
the beginning? Was it another sign of
overall U.S. decline? Los Angeles, I
suggested, was the result of the U.S.
system working exactly as it is
supposed to-the failure being not the
existence of poverty, rage, and
despair, but the momentary inability of
the dominant class and culture to
dissuade or distract the "underclass"
from taking mass action. The Rodney
King beating verdict simply lifted the
lid.
The events in L.A. and other cities
underlined the domestic system that
produces, and is in turn affected by,
U.S. foreign policy, including CIA
activities. They were also a vivid
reminder that the 1990s is a period of
transition, with enormous
opportunities for change in national
priorities-a potential not seen since
the late 1940s. The possibilities for
positive change in those post-World
War II years, not overwhelming to be
sure, disappeared when Truman and
his team decided in 1950 to start a
permanent war economy in the United
States. The reason? The U.S.
economy, in its traditional trickle-down
structure, needed militarism at home
and abroad to generate jobs and
exports to avoid a return to the 1930s
conditions of depression-toward
which the economy was then feared to
be moving.
Moreover, we cannot recall too often,
the ideologists of that time believed
that the Soviet Union was out to
conquer the world. At stake, as Paul
Nitze, former Dillon Read investment
banker, wrote in the secret
re-militarization plan known as
NSC-68, was "the fulfillment or
destruction not only of this Republic
but of civilization itself." Intensification
of the Cold War would plant "the
seeds of destruction within the Soviet
system" resulting in a fundamental
change in the system or its collapse.
The plan admitted to being "in effect a
policy of calculated and gradual
coercion."
Public and congressional opposition
to rearmament (the grand plan was
kept secret for 25 years) only broke
when China entered the war in Korea
in late 1950. By 1952, the military
budget had more than tripled to $44
billion while the services doubled to
3.6 million men and women. The
permanent war economy was a
reality. Meanwhile repression of
domestic political dissent reached
near hysteria.
In the process the CIA's covert
operations, already in progress in
Europe, expanded worldwide. By
1953, according to the 1970s Senate
investigation, there were major covert
programs under way in 48 countries,
consisting of propaganda,
paramilitary, and political action
operations. The bureaucracy also
grew. In 1949, the Agency's covert
action arm had about 300 employees
and seven overseas field stations;
three years later it had 2,800
employees and 47 field stations. In
the same period, the budget for these
activities grew from $4.7 million to
$82 million.
Covert operations became a way of
life, or better said, a way of death, for
the millions of people abroad who lost
their lives in the process. By the
Reagan-Bush period in the 1980s,
covert operations were costing
billions of dollars. CIA Director
William Casey would be quoted as
saying that covert action was the
"keystone" of U.S. policy in the Third
World.
Throughout the CIA's 45 years, one
president after an- other has used it to
intervene secretly, and sometimes not
so secretly, in the domestic affairs of
other countries, presuming their
affairs were ours. Almost always,
money was spent for activities to prop
up political forces considered friendly
to U.S. interests, or to weaken and
destroy those considered unfriendly or
threatening.
FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
The friends were easy to define: those
who believed and acted like us, took
orders, cooperated. Until the collapse
of communism in Eastern Europe,
enemies were also readily
recognized: the Soviet Union and its
allies, with China having ambiguous
status since the 1970s. But how to
explain covert action taken against
others, not associated with the
Soviets? Iran in 1953, Guatemala in
1954, Indonesia in 1958, Cuba in
1959, Ecuador in 1963, Brazil in
1964, Chile in 1970, Nicaragua in
1979, and Grenada in 1983-to name
a few. These governments, and others
attacked by the U.S., were left,
nationalist, reform-minded, populist or
simply uncooperative-and U.S.
hostility did indeed drive some of
them to seek arms and other support
from the Soviet Union. But why initially
were they seen as threatening?
What U.S. interests needed
protection from these governments or
from like-minded movements seeking
power? The answers to these
questions from the past show the
need for continuity in the future.
Although the Cold War has ended, the
covert and overt interventions which
characterized it will surely continue
undiminished in the post-Soviet era.
THE THREAT OF
SELF-DETERMINATION
Around 100 years ago, U.S. leaders,
like their European counterparts
before them, recognized a
fundamental strategy for enhancing
the domestic economy and at the
same time increasing international
power. Already U.S. production was
too great for the domestic market to
absorb, and excess capital was
looking for investment overseas. It
was essential to ensure access to
foreign markets, as well as to cheap
resources and labor. These goals
required an interventionist foreign
policy wherein "their" resources were
theirs only by accident of geography.
Today the U.S. economy is more
dependent than ever on access to
foreign resources through the
operations of transnational
corporations, especially in the Third
World. But this access is constantly at
risk because those countries so often
have grossly unjust, and therefore
unstable, domestic systems. Some
are autocratic, but many are akin to
the U.S., with formal democracy and
an entrenched elitist ruling minority.
The difference, of course, is that their
"underclass" is the mass of the
population whereas ours, although
increasing, is still proportionally much
smaller.
Despite brutal repression, people
throughout the Third World disputed
not only the right of the U.S. to erode
their national sovereignty, but they
also challenged the legitimacy of their
own ruling minorities-often remnants
from colonialism. Their nationalist
political and economic agendas
meant reduced dependence on, and,
therefore reduced control by, the
North. Government programs to favor
peasants, the working class, and the
poor violated free market principles,
and were a bad example. Agrarian
and urban reform programs violated
individual property rights, including
those of foreigners. And, worst of all,
they were seen to breach U.S.-led
anticommunist solidarity. Usually, the
CIA mounted covert operations to
weaken and destroy the the
programs-and with no small success.
Local elites, whose privileged
position was also threatened by
movements for social change, were
the CIA's natural allies.
HIGH STAKES
The economics of Cold War
domination meant large transfers of
wealth from South to North. Consider
only the last decade. From
1982-when the debt crisis reached
critical mass-to 1990, the net flow of
wealth from South to North was $418
billion. This net transfer resulted from
average monthly payments of interest
and principal of nearly $12.5 billion or
a nine-year total of $1.3 trillion. Such
payments, as Susan George points
out in her recent book, The Debt
Boomerang, were only possible
through accumulation of new debt by
the poor countries, which by the end
of 1990 owed 61 percent more than in
1982. Mass misery and environmental
destruction in the South are part and
parcel of the continuing net transfer.
While the East-West dimension of the
Cold War was a stand-off from the
beginning, it was here, within the
North-South dynamic, that both the
economic battle and the shooting
wars raged. As long as the underlying
rationale-control of resources, labor
and markets- remains, these conflicts
are bound to continue irrespective of
the disappearance of the East-West
conflict. And as long as injustice,
exploitation, and repression prevail,
whether in the form of "structural
adjustments" or death squads, people
will resist. The U.S. will react to the
resulting "instability" as it has for
decades: with covert operations
mounted against movements for
independence, reform, and social
justice, whether they have achieved
power, as in Cuba, or whether they
are struggling for power. Until U.S.
definitions of threats, friends, and
enemies change - -and they are
unlikely to without profound alterations
in the U.S. domestic system-its need
for covert operations will continue.
MEANS AND ENDS
For a hint of covert operations in the
1990s and beyond, it is instructive to
reconsider some recent examples
from the 1980s with emphasis on
means and ends.
Central America was a major focus of
U.S. attention during this period.
Through CIA covert and semi-covert
operations, and overt activities as
well, the U.S. tried simultaneously to
overthrow the government of
Nicaragua and to destroy the
movement for revolutionary reform in
El Salvador, the Farabundo Marti
National Liberation Front (FMLN). In
Nicaragua the means were terrorism
and destruction through a
10,000-strong surrogate paramilitary
force, along with economic blockade,
propaganda and diplomatic
pressures. About one percent of the
population, some 35,000 people,
died. In El Salvador, the CIA and U.S.
military expanded local military and
security forces, and by extension the
infamous death squads, to enable the
government to fight the FMLN to a
standoff. In the effort, the U.S.-backed
forces killed over 70,000 people.
Although they targeted trade
unionists, student activists, human
rights advocates and peasant
organizers, the majority of the
casualties-randomly selected
campesinos-were killed or
disappeared simply to instill terror.
Under the guise of exporting
democracy, the CIA and other U.S.
agencies in El Salvador promoted
"demonstration elections" as public
relations exercises to cover their
clients' atrocities. The
military-controlled civilian government
could then be renamed a "fledgling
democracy."
In the 1980s, in both Nicaragua and El
Salvador, the U.S. introduced a new
vehicle for exporting U.S.-style
democracy-the National Endowment
for Democracy (NED). Its origins go
back to the early catastrophic scandal
that erupted after Agency covert
operations were revealed in 1967. I
remember the gloom in the CIA when
Ramparts magazine revealed the
Agency's control and funding of the
U.S. National Student Association's
(NSA) foreign activities program.
Suddenly, because of overlapping
funding through U.S. foundations and
front groups, the links between the
Agency and scores of foreign trade
unions, student and youth
organizations, political institutes, and
publications spread in the U.S. and
foreign press. Usually the money flow
was from the Agency to a real or
bogus foundation, then to a U.S.
private organization like NSA or a
trade union, and from there to the
foreign recipient.
Two months after the revelations
began, some members of the House
of Representatives, led by Dante
Fascell (D-Fla.), proposed legislation
to create an "open,"
government-financed foundation to
carry on financing the activities
recently revealed as CIA-connected.
The idea was to make money
available "over-the-table" to foreign
political parties, trade unions, student
groups and other private
organizations-not to eliminate secret
CIA money but to provide an
alternative, given the perennial
problem of recipients in "covering" the
CIA money.
The Fascell proposal went nowhere
because of the breakdown of the
Democratic-Republican "bipartisan"
consensus during the Vietnam war.
But by 1979, the idea resurfaced with
the establishment of the American
Political Foundation. Backed by
"internationalist" Republicans and
"Cold War" Democrats, this institute
set out to study the feasibility of
government financing of the foreign
activities of private U.S.
organizations. Participants came from
rightwing think tanks such as the
American Enterprise Institute and the
Center for Strategic and International
Studies.
THE WEST GERMAN MODEL
The study-made through "task forces"
set up by the two political parties, the
AFL-CIO, and the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce-became known as the
"Democracy Program." The
participants eventually adopted the
West German model of
government-financed private
foundations linked to each of that
country's four main political parties.
The program was used in the 1950s
to channel CIA "democracy-building"
money to the West German parties.
By the 1960s these foundations were
supporting parties and organizations
around the world with West German
government money-and at the same
time they served as conduits for CIA
money to third country organizations.
By the 1980s, the German
foundations had programs worth
about $150 million in some 60
countries. And they operated in
almost total secrecy. Equally
appealing was the way the German
foundations had been able to sustain
like-minded political organizations in
countries under dictatorships such as
Greece during the "Colonels" regime,
Spain under Fran- co, and Portugal
under Salazar and Caetano. The
arrangement allowed correct
government-to-government relations
with simulta- neous "private" support
to political forces opposed to their
governments. These forces, beholden
to their donors, would then be in
position to fill the political gap on the
eventual fall of the dictatorship,
excluding communists and others to
the left of social democrats. Ronald
Reagan, an early and enthusiastic
supporter of the Democracy Program,
described it in his speech to the
British Parliament in June 1982 as
building "an infrastructure of
democracy" around the world.
Originally he set up a "Project
Democracy" in the U.S. Information
Agency (USIA) by secret Executive
Order, which included participation by
CIA Director Casey. When his
connection leaked to the press, the
CIA's role was supposedly canceled.
An early project under this set-up was
a $170,000 grant to a U.S. public
relations firm, MacKenzie, McCheyne,
Inc., which had earlier represented the
Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua. In
a kind of finishing school,
image-improvement course for
murderers, it taught "media officials"
in El Salvador and similarly besieged
client governments how to deal with
U.S. media.
Since the whole idea was to
"privatize," and USIA was part of
government, its role was only a
temporary solution. The future pattern
of intervention was more clearly filled
out when Congress established the
private, non-profit foundation, the
National Endowment for Democracy,
and appropriated $18.8 million in
November 1983. The law
appropriating the money gave an idea
of how private NED was. It stipulated
that NED could have no projects of its
own- it is purely a funding channel-and
that the U.S. government would have
full access to NED's files, papers, and
financial records. NED officers would
have to testify before Congress
whenever called. In practice, the
Department of State and other
government agencies like the CIA are
part and parcel of the formulation and
approval process of NED projects.
Monies appropriated by Congress
would pass through NED to any of
four private foundations, known as
"core groups," set up for the purpose
by: 1) the AFL-CIO (the Free Trade
Union Institute); 2) the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce (the Center for
International Private Enterprise); 3)
the Republican Party (the National
Republican Institute for International
Affairs); and 4) the Democratic Party
(the National Democratic Institute for
International Affairs). NED, for its part,
encouraged others in the private
sector to set up foundations for
getting money into foreign activities,
e.g., media, academics, lawyers and
clergy. In the available documentation
on NED, I never came across any
consideration that these private U.S.
organizations might raise funds
through public appeals or ask their
membership to pay for their foreign
programs-i.e., real "privatization."
What happened with NED, in fact,
was simply a continuation of public
funding for intervention in foreign
countries using new conduits, with the
"private" organizations serving as
instruments of U.S. foreign policy. The
means and ends, formerly secret and
justified by anticommunism, were
transformed into an open agenda
devoted to promoting U.S.-style
democracy.
Each of the four recipient foundations,
in statements of purpose, followed the
central theme of the Democracy
Program study: political action abroad
to meet the Soviet "global ideological
challenge." Projected beneficiaries
covered the spectrum: governments,
political parties, information media,
professional associations,
universities, cooperatives, trade
unions, employers' associations,
churches, women, youth, and
students-in short, all traditional CIA
covert action targets.
As for the Soviet Bloc, NED money
would be used to promote
anticommunist dissidence through
propaganda and support to �migr�
groups and internal opposition
movements. Projected activities
included conferences,
exchange-of-persons, seminars,
training programs, publications, and,
above all, financial support. NED as a
mega-conduit also expanded
possibilities for "open" funding of
activities controlled behind the scenes
by the Agency, as well as the means
for spotting potential recruits as
sources of intelligence and agents of
influence.
PANAMA: JUST 'CAUSE THE U.S.
WANTED CONTROL
Panama was an early example of
political intervention through NED. For
the 1984 elections, General Manuel
Antonio Noriega selected an
economist, Nicolas Ardito Barletta, as
presidential candidate of the
military-controlled Democratic
Revolutionary Party (PRD). Barletta
was a vice president of the World
Bank and former student of Secretary
of State George Shultz at the
University of Chicago. The other
candidate was no friend of the U.S.
Arnulfo Arias' long political career had
centered on nationalism and
populism. The U.S. feared that, if
elected, his anti-military platform
would bring instability to Panama.
The U.S. interest was to ensure that a
new Panamanian president would
continue to cooperate with U.S. efforts
to overthrow the Sandinista
government in Nicaragua and to
defeat the insurgency in El Salvador.
Noriega, a long-time CIA "asset," was
at the time providing services of great
importance to the U.S., allowing
Panama to be used for Contra
training and resupply bases, as well
as for training Salvadoran military
officers. Barletta's election would
assure untroubled continuation of
these activities.
During the election campaign, NED
money passed through the AFL-CIO's
Free Trade Union Institute to finance
Panamanian unions which actively
supported Barletta. A vote-count fraud
organized by Noriega gave Barletta
his election victory, but the
Reagan-Bush administration made no
protest even though the U.S.
Embassy count showed Arias the
winner by 4,000-8,000 votes.
Reagan received Barletta in the White
House and Shultz attended his
inauguration. A more thorough study
of the 1984 Panamanian elections
would probably uncover more NED
money and suggest the passage of
CIA funds as well. By 1987, Noriega's
usefulness to the U.S. was coming to
an end. Procedures were under way
for his indictment by the Justice
Department for drug trafficking, and
U.S. agencies, including the CIA,
began plotting to remove him from
power.
HOW NED WORKS
In the spring of 1987, NED financed a
trip by the president of the
Panamanian Chamber of Commerce,
Aurelio Barria, to the Philippines. The
purpose was for Barria to learn the
operation of a Filipino national civic
and political action organization,
NAMFREL (National Movement for
Free Elections). Originally set up by
the CIA in 1951 as a vehicle for the
presidential election of the Agency's
man, Ramon Magsaysay, NAMFREL
had played a key role in monitoring
the 1986 Philippine elections.
Through parallel tabulation,
NAMFREL was able to expose the
fraudulent "re-election" of Ferdinand
Marcos and then help mobilize the
"people power" that forced him out.
As it happened, the Agency for
International Development (AID) gave
NAMFREL nearly $1 million for its
work in the 1986 election. The funds
were channeled through NED and the
Asia Foundation (set up by the CIA in
the 1950s as a funding front).
Aurelio Barria's planned role was to
set up a NAMFREL-style organization
in Panama in preparation for 1989
elections-still almost two years
away-in the likelihood that Noriega
would again manipulate the count.
However, just as Barria returned from
Manila, Noriega's number two in the
Panamanian Defense Force, Col.
Roberto Diaz Herrera, precipitated a
national crisis by going public with
sensational accusations against
Noriega, including political murder
and the rigging of the 1984 election.
Spontaneous anti- Noriega demon-
strations followed, with thousands
rioting against No- riega's police.
Barria moved quickly into the lead of
the anti-Noriega movement. On the
first day of demonstrations, he
launched his Panamanian NAMFREL
as the Civic Crusade for Justice and
Liberty. Some two hundred pro-
fessional, business, religious and
civic organizations participated.
For a week the demonstrations
continued, with Barria's Civic
Crusade leading the call for civil
disobedience, a national strike, and
Noriega's resignation. Noriega
survived that crisis, but the Civic
Crusade, which evolved into a
minority White, upper-class
movement, continued its campaign of
agitation through, and beyond, the
1989 election. Noriega eventually
nullified that election when the
Crusade's (and the U.S.'s) preferred
presidential candidate, Guillermo
Endara, appeared to be winning. With
the CIA behind the scenes
manipulating the Civic Crusade, the
events in Panama which culminated in
the invasion followed a pattern
well-established in many other
countries besides the Philippines.
One close observer of Panama, the
journalist John Dinges, wrote of "at
least five covert action plans to get rid
of Noriega." In addition, the CIA
reportedly had a budget of $10 million
for support to Endara in the 1989
elections. In the end, only U.S. military
invasion would end Noriega's rule,
and the Civic Crusade, by creating a
lynching atmosphere outside the
Papal Nuncio's residence, would
force the General to surrender. The
lessons of the Noriega saga are clear
enough. The Bush justification of the
invasion-to combat drug trafficking
and bring Noriega to justice- could not
be the real reason because the CIA
and other agencies had known of his
drug dealing since the early 1970s.
The real reasons were that Noriega
was no longer needed for support of
U.S. goals in Nicaragua and El
Salvador, had become an
embarrassment by defying U.S.
hegemony, and was himself the
source of instability in Panama. Using
Noriega as a pretext for invasion, the
Bush administration could destroy the
Panamanian Defense Forces and
reverse the social reforms favoring
the poor majority, mostly Black and
mulatto, that had been underway
since the Torrijos period began in
1968. With the traditional White
political elite back in power, the door
was open to retaining U.S. military
bases and control of the Panama
Canal past the 1999 turnover date set
by the Carter-Torrijos treaties.
On the night of the invasion, Guillermo
Endara, representative of the White
upper class, was sworn in as
President on a U.S. military base, and
democracy was "restored." Within a
short time, drug dealing and money
laundering in Panama would exceed
that of the Noriega period, and poor
Panamanians would presumably be
back in their place--in poverty and
under control. But resistance to
U.S.-imposed rule continued, as
George Bush could plainly
see-through eyes smarting from tear
gas-as he was whisked from the
speakers' platform in Panama where
he stopped in May 1992 on his way to
the Rio Earth Summit.
NICARAGUA
Military force was also required to
"restore democracy" in Nicaragua. In
this case, however, the invasion was
carried out by a surrogate army of
10,000 Contras built by the CIA
around the remnants of the 43-year
Somoza dictatorship's National
Guard, itself a U.S. creation.
Beginning in 1981, through terrorism,
atrocity and destruction, this force
gradually bled the economy,
undermined Sandinista social
programs, and demoralized a large
sector of the population which had
benefited during the revolution's early
years. By 1990, faced with nothing but
worsening poverty and continuing
terror, the Nicaraguan electorate-as if
with a loaded pistol to the head-gave
victory to the Nicaraguan Opposition
Union (UNO). This anti-Sandinista
coalition was created and financed by
various U.S. agencies, including the
CIA and NED.
Anyone with a modest acquaintance
with U.S. national security doctrine
since World War II would have
assumed that the 1979 Sandinista
revolution could never be acceptable
to the elites who control the United
States. After all, the Sandinistas were
of a similar cut to the Cuban revolution
which, in 1959, triumphed against
another U.S.-backed dictator. Worse,
the Cubans, and later the Sandinistas,
established policies designed to
benefit the majority of the people,
especially peasants and workers,
through agrarian reform, literacy
campaigns, and expansion of
education, health care, and mass
organizations among women, youth
and students, small farmers, and
others. Property rights, especially of
the minority upper classes, would
have to yield if reform programs were
to be effective, as would the rights of
foreign capital. As occurred in Cuba
and in Nicaragua, mass mobilization
of the beneficiary population-the vast
majority-was an ugly and threatening
sight, another bad example breaking
traditional apathy and fatalism by
giving lower-class people hope,
confidence, and dignity. Intervening in
the human marketplace and upsetting
the "natural order" of rewards and
punishments for the defenseless
smacked of "communism."
In order to undermine links between
the Sandinistas and the people, the
CIA deflected the Contras away from
the Nicaraguan military toward "soft"
targets having minimum defenses:
cooperatives, clinics, schools, and
infrastructure like roads and bridges,
committing numerous atrocities along
the way. Specialized teams of
mercenaries destroyed port
installations and mined harbors. As a
result, average individual
consumption dropped 61 percent
between 1980 and 1988. One
estimate puts the U.S. investment in
the Contra war at $1 billion. Though
the Contras successfully sabotaged
the economy and terrorized large
sectors of the rural population, they
failed to defeat the Sandinista military
or even to take and hold the smallest
town for any length of time. Meanwhile
the U.S. economic blockade, both the
bilateral trade embargo and the
blocking of loans from multilateral
lending institutions, cost the economy
$3 billion.
Eventually the World Court ruled that
the United States was carrying on a
war against Nicaragua in violation of
international law and ordered $17
billion in reparations, an order which
the U.S. predictably ignored.
U.S. DIRECTS THE
PROPAGANDA WAR
From the beginning of the war against
Nicaragua, the Reagan-Bush
administration faced the problem of
overcoming public opposition at
home. The solution was to repeat
Edward W. Barrett's 1950 domestic
propaganda campaign to "sell the
Soviet threat" and thus reduce
opposition to the programs of
NSC-68. In 1982, a CIA propaganda
specialist, Walter Raymond, moved
from the Agency to the National
Security Council to head the
campaign while the Contras, under
CIA direction, began their own PR
campaign in the U.S. Controlled
behind the scenes by Raymond and
officials running the Contra war, a
public front was set up in the State
Department as the Office of Public
Diplomacy for Latin America and the
Caribbean. This office then handled
the contacts with think tanks,
researchers and, most importantly,
the U.S. media.
The purpose was to place, in the
public's imagination, black hats on the
Sandinistas and white hats on the
Contras. In effect, it became a huge
government campaign using taxpayer
money to propagandize the same
taxpayers and their representatives in
Congress. Following various
revelations, a congressional
investigation concluded in 1987 that
the campaign had been illegal.
Nevertheless, this Ministry of Truth
played a successful role in building
the U.S. media consensus that the
Sandinistas were unacceptable and
must be driven from power.
By 1987 it was clear that, although
they could continue to terrorize and
destroy infrastructure, the Contras
could never win a military victory. That
year the Central American presidents,
in the Esquipulas Accords, agreed to
end Contra activities on their
territories, thus beginning the process
that eventually led to a ceasefire. The
agreements also shifted attention to
the political struggle within Nicaragua
that would culminate in the 1990
elections. During the interim of
two-and-a-half years, the CIA, NED,
and other U.S. agencies would
intervene with massive psychological,
economic, and political engineering
programs, probably unprecedented in
relation to Nicaragua's population of
3.5 million. By then, they could lay the
blame for Nicaragua's economic
collapse on the Sandinistas as well as
exploit the FSLN's own mistakes.
The U.S. plan called for mobilizing
three main bodies: a political coalition
to oppose the Sandinistas, a trade
union coalition, and a mass civic
organization. Within these three main
sectors, sub-groups would focus on
youth and students, women, religious
organizations, and others. Media
operations would be central to the
campaign, which would include
seminars, training of activists, and
grass roots organizing.
The first sector, the political coalition,
was forged by the U.S. Embassy in
Managua from some two dozen
disparate and conflicting factions by
letting it be known that money would
be available only to those that "got on
board." The result was UNO, whose
electoral budget was prepared in the
U.S. Embassy, and whose
presidential candidate, Violeta
Chamorro, owned the anti-Sandinista
daily La Prensa, which had received
CIA money from early on.
The second sector, the labor coalition,
came into being as the Permanent
Workers Congress (CPT). This
organization, crucial to using the
economic crisis as a principal
campaign issue, grouped five union
centers for propaganda and voter
registration. Some of these unions
had also received prior U.S. funding.
The third sector, the civic
organization, became Via C�vica
following the NAMFREL and Cruzada
C�vica examples in the Philippines
and Panama. Although self-described
as "non-partisan," it functioned in
concert with UNO and CPT.
The National Endowment for
Democracy spent at least $12.5
million to finance this structure,
passing out the money to the
Democratic and Republican parties'
institutes mentioned above, as well as
to the AFL-CIO, which in turn passed
the money to recipients in Nicaragua.
Other NED money went to an array of
intermediary organizations in the U.S.
and other countries that spent it for
programs in training, pro- paganda
and support for the coalitions. In all,
NED funds were the equivalent of a
$2 billion foreign intervention in a U.S.
election. The CIA, in addition, is
estimated to have spent $11 million,
possibly even more, in the election.
Not to be forgotten, the still-armed
and U.S.-financed Contras played a
key role in the election. During the
summer of 1989, taking advantage of
a Sandinista unilateral ceasefire then
in effect, they began large-scale
infiltration of forces from bases in
Honduras. They ended months of
relative calm, elevating their military
actions from an average of 100 per
month during the first six months of
1989 to 300 per month by October,
four months before the election. In the
seven months from August 1989 to
the February 1990 election, the
Contras killed dozens and kidnapped
some 700 civilians, including 50
Sandinista campaign officials. During
the same period, they openly
campaigned for UNO, distributing
leaflets and threatening peasants if
they failed to vote UNO. By election
time Nicaraguan voters, whose per
capita standard of living was declining
to the Haitian level, were given a grim
choice in this "free and fair" election:
Vote for the Sandinistas and the
ten-year war will go on with ever-
worsening poverty and violence; or,
vote for UNO and the war and
economic blockade will end and the
U.S. will help finance reconstruction.
UNO won 55 percent of the vote, the
Contras were partially disarmed, and
modest amounts of U.S. aid began to
flow-nothing, however, in comparison
with the destruction visited by the U.S.
on Nicaragua during the Contra war.
Two years into the Chamorro
government, UNO had split over the
depth and pace of rolling back the
revolution and had failed to make
good its pledges of land and other
support for former Contras and
Sandinista military alike. The
Sandinistas still controlled the army
and police and were still the largest
and best organized of the political
parties. The U.S. government was far
from happy with Chamorro's failure to
de-Sandinize Nicaragua, and the drug
trade, never a problem during the
11-year Sandinista rule, was
becoming a national plague, both in
consumption and transshipment to the
U.S. And conflict over such matters as
land titles meant continuing instability.
For many, if not most, the war and
devastation continued.
The manner in which the U.S.
"restored democracy" in Panama and
Nicaragua taught rich lessons. Cuban
leadership, fully aware that any
opening for U.S.-exported elections
would mean tens of millions of dollars
of NED, CIA, and other foreign money
for "electoral counter-revolution,"
rejected such an option. The FMLN in
El Salvador, converting to a political
party following the 1992 peace
accords, will have the Nicaraguan
experience to elucidate U.S.
intervention against them in elections
scheduled for 1994. And, back in
Nicaragua, the CIA-NED-AID
machinery is still operating to prevent
the Sandinistas' return to power in the
1996 election.
ONCE AND FUTURE COVERT
OPERATIONS
The current U.S. defense plan, at $1.5
trillion for the next five years, suggests
that the money will be there for covert
interventions. The Bush plan, largely
accepted by both houses of
Congress, calls for a mere three
percent reduction in defense
spending under projections made
before the dissolution of the Soviet
Union. According to Robert Gates,
Director of Central Intelligence,
reductions in the intelligence
community budget-hidden in the
overall defense budget but generally
believed to be in excess of $31
billion-will begin at only 2.5 percent.
Meanwhile plans under discussion in
Congress for reorganizing the whole
intelligence community would
maintain the capability and legality,
under U.S. law at least, of covert
operations.
As the Defense Department, the CIA,
and other intelligence agencies have
had to articulate new justifications for
their budgets now that the Soviet
menace is gone. In collection and
analysis, announced targets include:
arms control agreements; economic
matters; the spread of nuclear,
chemical, and biological weapons;
terrorism; the drug trade; Islamic
fundamentalism; and regional, ethnic,
and national disputes. Generally they
argued: With the breakup of the
Soviet Union, the world is far less
stable, less predictable, and even
more dangerous than before. More
suggestive of future intelligence
operations was the 1992 series of
leaks of highly classified Pentagon
documents on military planning. The
first, in February, was a 70-page
study projecting U.S. military
requirements over the next ten years.
The report outlined seven possible
scenarios which U.S. forces would
have to be prepared to face, and,
presumably, would require those $1.5
trillion for the first five years.
war with Iraq
war with North Korea
simultaneous wars with both Iraq and
North Korea
a war to defend a Baltic state from a
resurgent and expansionist Russia
war to defend the lives of U.S. citizens
threatened by instability in the
Philippines
war to defend the Panamanian
government and the canal against
"narco-terrorists"
the emergence of an anti-U.S. global
"adversarial rival" or an "aggressive
expansionist international coalition."
The following month the New York
Times published excerpts from
another classified Pentagon
document revealing the latest military
policy to which the war scenarios
were linked. This 46-page document,
known formally as "Defense Planning
Guidance-1994-99" was, according
to the Times, the product of
deliberations among President Bush,
the National Security Council and the
Pentagon. Its importance in
prolonging U.S. militarism and the war
economy into the 21st century could
equal NSC-68's role in beginning the
Cold War arms race in 1950.
The goal of world hegemony
expressed in the 1992 document
should be as alarming to current U.S.
friends such as Japan and NATO
allies as to adversaries. "Our strategy
must now refocus on precluding the
emergence of any future global
competitor.... Our first objective is to
prevent the emergence of a new rival,
either on the territory of the former
Soviet Union or elsewhere...."
Notably lacking was any mention of
collective settlement of disputes
through the United Nations, although
future multilateral actions through
coalitions, as in the Gulf War, were
not ruled out. And in order to prevent
acquisition of nuclear weapons by
potential adversaries, the U.S.
asserted the need to be ready for
unilateral military action.
As for Washington's friends, both
Japan and Western Europe would be
locked into security arrangements
dominated by the United States.
Without mentioning countries, the U.S.
"must account sufficiently for the
interests of the advanced industrial
nations to discourage them from
challenging our leadership or seeking
to overturn the established political
and economic order.... [W]e must
maintain the mechanisms for
deterring potential competitors from
even aspiring to a larger regional or
global role."
The document went on to suggest
how to prevent Europe, with Germany
in the lead, from becoming an
independent regional arbiter in its
own territory. "Therefore it is of
fundamental importance to preserve
NATO as the primary channel for U.S.
influence....[W]e seek to prevent the
emergence of European-only security
arrangements which would undermine
NATO, particularly the alliance's
integrated command structure, ...a
substantial American presence in
Europe is vital..."
Publication of the globo-bully unipolar
plan for the New World Order caused
the diplomatic blowback one would
expect, an unwanted new debate in
Congress, and wide criticism in the
media. To no one's surprise, two
months later a secret rewrite of the
plan leaked again to the media-this
time no doubt intended to quell the
uproar from the earlier plan. Gone
was the potential threat from allies
and the projected global U.S.
unilateralism.
The first goal of U.S. defense planning
in the rewrite was deterrence of
attack, followed by strengthening
alliances, and preventing "any hostile
power from dominating a region
critical to our interests, and also
thereby to strengthen the barriers
against the reemergence of a global
threat to the interests of the U.S. and
our allies." Cooperation was now the
theme, although the rewrite also
reserved the U.S. right to unilateral
military intervention. In addition, the
original seven war scenarios
remained the basis for budget
requests.
None of the three documents was
published in full, and the New York
Times refused to share copies.
Nevertheless, three observations can
be made on the commentaries and
excerpts that came out in the leaks.
First, the rewrite did not preclude or
renounce any of the ideas contained
in the previous version. Second, the
budget of $1.5 trillion and the base
force of 1.6 million remain. Third, the
purpose of the rewrite was doubtless
to assuage critics and allies, while the
true goal remains U.S. world
hegemony.
The good news, sort of, is that the
goals are unattainable. The U.S.
economy cannot support global
unilateralism or even war against a
country like Iraq. How then, with its
notorious debt and deficit, can it
possibly impose its will on Japan and
Europe, especially if the
French-German Eurocorps takes hold
in the military sphere independent of
U.S. influence in NATO? This French
initiative flies in the face of U.S. policy
to keep European defense under U.S.
domination in NATO and could be the
beginning of the end of that policy.
Little wonder that U.S.-French
relations are so sour.
COVERT OPS HEAD EAST
Keeping in mind that covert
operations, as well as overt
diplomacy, are supposed to prevent
war or the need to use military
force-including the seven
scenarios-consider how this would be
done. To keep Russia from resurging,
expanding, and again rivaling the
U.S.-like the sci-fi "blob"-that country
must remain hopelessly indebted and
dependent on imports of basic
necessities. Aid must be calibrated to
keep Russia stable without allowing
the economy to "take off" on its own
steam. For these purposes the usual
instruments will suffice: the
International Monetary Fund, the
World Bank, and the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
Russia's military industries must be
dismantled or converted to alternative
production, and the country locked
into security arrangements, perhaps
eventually in NATO. Western experts,
especially from the U.S., must
penetrate its economic and political
decision-making and its most
advanced research in science and
technology. No one political party
should become dominant, and, where
possible, Western parties should
establish close working relations with
Russian parties. Ultra-nationalists
must be discredited and shackled
along with unreconstructed remnants
of the old regime. The media should
be filled with Western and
Western-style programming, including
consumerism, info-tainment for news,
and healthy doses of anticommunist
and pro-free market propaganda. The
same would hold for the other
countries of the former Soviet Union.
The whole area is like Germany and
Italy after World War II, wide open for
a double whammy from the CIA and
its new sidekick, the NED-and all the
Western "private" organizations they
use. As with European fascists and
the scant de-nazification that
occurred, the new Russia can be built
on communists-turned-liberals or
social democrats, or even, why not,
conservatives and Christian
Democrats. As after World War II, the
usual suspects can be targeted,
neutralized or co-opted: political
parties, military and security services,
trade unions, women's organizations,
youth and students, business,
professional and cultural societies,
and, probably most important, the
media.
Pure fantasy? Just imagine. If Carl
Bernstein's long report in Time on the
1980s operations of the CIA, NED,
Vatican, and their vast network to
undo communism in Eastern Europe
had any truth, and I believe it did, then
can anyone imagine that, with their
feet already through the door, they
wouldn't follow up their success? The
beneficiaries of this and other 1980s
operations are now the key to
transforming former Soviet bloc
countries into traditional Third
World-style markets and sources of
raw materials and cheap labor. The
CIA- NED team can be crucial in
exercising political influence and in
forming the permanent structures to
assure that American transnationals
get their hot hands, in the race against
Germany, on the resource-richest land
mass on the globe.
KEEPING THE GOVERNMENT ON
WAR FOOTING
How to avoid another war with Iraq?
United Nations sanctions and
reparations payments can keep Iraq
weak for a long time, while Saddam's
continuation in power avoids the
possibly even worse alternatives.
Meanwhile covert operations can be
useful for planning a cooperative,
post-Saddam Iraq. Until then, we can
expect cultivation of contacts within
the Ba'ath movement, support for
exile groups, clandestine radio and
television broadcasts, joint efforts with
"moderate" Arab governments and
allies, and occasional destabilization
like flooding the country with
counterfeit currency. The Bush
administration, according to the New
York Times, is seeking $40 million for
these covert operations in 1993, a
nearly three-fold increase over 1992.
How to avoid another war with North
Korea? Keep South Korea strong as
a deterrent and a U.S. troop presence
to trigger military intervention should
hostilities break out. Make certain that
reunification talks lead toward the
German solution, i.e., absorption of
North Korea by the South. Use
propaganda and cross-border
contacts to foment dissidence in
North Korea while conditioning any
benefits on relaxation of internal
controls, especially of the media.
Repeat the CIA-NED strategy in
Eastern Europe whenever an opening
occurs. As for the Philippines, absent
agrarian and other significant reforms,
U.S. military intervention could be a
last resort should the New People's
Army achieve enough momentum to
create significant destabilization or
even victory. For the time being,
continue the CIA-Pentagon
"low-intensity" methods already under
way. If unsuccessful, and stalemate
continues, consider a negotiated
settlement as in El Salvador and rely
on CIA-NED electoral intervention to
exclude the National Democratic
Front from power.
The projected scenario of defending
the Panama Canal from
"narco-terrorists" is ironic, given the
drug connections of the people that
Operation Just Cause put into power.
And why "narco-terrorists" would
threaten U.S. access to the canal is
difficult to imagine. If reports are true
that drug trafficking and money
laundering in Panama now exceed
the Noriega era, the dealers ought to
be quite happy with things as they are.
With Noriega out of the way, the
CIA-NED duet can take care of the
local political scene, preventing
resurgence of nationalism and
Torrijismo while assuring retention of
U.S. bases and control of the canal.
The same could be said of the
electoral processes of any Third
World country. CIA-NED preparations
are no doubt already under way for
defeating obvious coming electoral
threats: the FMLN in El Salvador in
1994, the Workers' Party of Brazil in
1994, and the Sandinistas in
Nicaragua in 1996-to mention only
three examples in Latin America. The
goal is to exclude from power the
likes of Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
whose 1990 election in Haiti was a
severe and unusual embarrassment
for the system.
Many other scenarios for overt and
covert intervention come to mind. The
Shining Path in Peru is particularly
worrisome for CIA-Pentagon planners
in "regional and national" conflict
management. So far, it seems, the
standard "low intensity" methods have
not been notably successful, nor has
Peruvian government and military
cooperation been ideal. In a region
where nearly half the population now
lives under the official poverty line, a
victory by this guerrilla force would
reverberate like nothing since the
Sandinista revolution in 1979.
Collective action, including military
intervention through the Organization
of American States, might be
possible in the case of Peru. Also
possible is the whole range of covert
and semi-covert interventions
practiced against Cuba for many
years and in Nicaragua, Afghanistan,
Angola, Mozambique, Cambodia,
and elsewhere around the globe.
THE CONTINUITY OF
OPPRESSION
One could go on, but the point is
made. Worldwide opportunities and
needs for covert operations will
remain as long as stability, control,
and hegemony form the cornerstone
of a U.S. policy that permits no rotten
apples or bad examples. And the
Pentagon budget is not the only
indicator of continuity. In late 1991,
Congress passed the National
Security Education Act providing
$150 million in "start-up" money for
development and expansion of
university programs in area and
language studies, and for
scholarships, including foreign
studies, for the next generation of
national security state bureaucrats.
Notable is the fact that this program is
not to be administered by the
Department of Education but by the
Pentagon, the CIA, and other security
agencies. Alternatives to continuing
militarism abroad and social decay at
home exist, as any reader of the
alternative press knows quite well.
The House Black
Caucus/Progressive Caucus budget,
providing for 50 percent reduction in
military spending over four years, got
a full day's debate last March on the
House floor and won 77 votes, far
more than Bush's budget-stirring no
mainstream reporting, non-news as it
had to be. Steps toward formation of
new political parties, the green
movement, and community organizing
are also encouraging.
Yet militarism and world domination
continue to be the main national
priority, with covert operations playing
an integral role. Everyone knows that
as long as this continues, there will be
no solutions to domestic troubles, and
the U.S. will continue to decline while
growing more separate and unequal.
Can anyone doubt that the events of
Los Angeles will recur? Those
struggling in the 1990s for change
would do well to remember the
repression visited on progressive
movements following both World
Wars and during the Vietnam War.
The government has no more Red
Menace to whip up hysteria, but the
"war on drugs" seems to be quite
adequate for justifying law
enforcement practices that have
political applications as well. The hunt
for aliens and their deportation, and
the use of sophisticated methods of
repression following the Los Angeles
uprising, reveal what has been quietly
continuing below the surface for
years. We should be on notice that in
the current political climate, with
clamor for change everywhere, the
guardians of traditional power will not
give up without a fight. They will find
their "threats" and "enemies" in Black
youths, undocumented immigrants,
environmentalists, feminists, gays and
lesbians, and go on to more
"mainstream" opponents in attempts,
including do- mestic covert
operations, to divide and discredit the
larger movement for reform.
At the Brussels conference, I felt
incoherent when asked by someone
in the auditorium to comment on
problems of the U.S. left in convincing
people that progressive alternatives
are in the majority's best interest.
After I rambled for a while about
media, education, divisions, and
repression, a man stood up and said:
"I'm from Brazil. They say we're Third
World and you're First World, but I
don't think we're that different. We
have a lot of the same problems. But
in 1989 the Workers' Party of Brazil,
only ten years old, almost won the
presidency and may win next time.
Maybe the more you get like us, the
more people in your country will start
to listen."
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