Bellant: Old Nazis/Am. Sec. Council 1
PART TWO – SECTION 1
[ The American Security Council ]
“In the councils of government we must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought,
by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the
disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We
must never let the weight of this combination endanger our
liberty or democratic processes.”
(President Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961)
– Cold Warriors –
It’s been called “The Cold War Campus” and “The Heart
of the Military-Industrial Complex.” [f-71] Both are names the
American Security Council wears with pride. Its boards are filled
with retired senior military officers, executives of major
corporations, including some of the largest military contractors,
and some New Right leaders. Wes McCune of the Washington,
D.C.-based Group Research, which monitors the political right
wing, says the ASC “is not just the representative of the
military-industrial complex, it is the personification of the
military-industrial complex.” [f-72]
The ASC focuses on foreign policy, military and
intelligence issues. It is the clearinghouse for U.S. political
rightists on arms control, aid to the Contras, new weapons
programs and lobbying for special projects, such as aid to Jonas
Savimbi’s UNITA in Angola. In its specialized areas, the ASC
probably has had more influence with the Reagan Administration
than the well-publicized Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think
tank in Washington, D.C., which produced massive studies
suggesting conservative policies to the Reagan Administration
following each election. However, the ASC is less visible than
the Heritage Foundation.
Little noticed by the press, the ASC is extremely
influential among right-wing groups and within the Reagan
Administration. In spite of the veneer of respectability its
board members’ credentials might provide in some circles, the ASC
is in some respects more extremist than the Republican Heritage
Groups Council. It also serves as a connecting point between Nazi
collaborationists and fascists on one hand, and Reagan
Administration policymakers on the other.
The key outreach arm of the ASC is the Coalition for Peace
Through Strength. Composed of 171 organizations that are supposed
to form a grassroots lobby for ASC political priorities, the
Coalition is where many of the ASC extremist ties are
established. The Republican Heritage Groups Council and some of
its component elements, such as Galdau’s Romanian-American
Republican Clubs, are members of the Coalition. These ties to the
authoritarian, collaborationist and fascist Right are consistent
with the history of the ASC.
– Origins of the ASC –
The ASC began in Chicago in 1955, staffed primarily by
former FBI agents. In its first year it was called the
Mid-American Research Library. Corporations joined to take
advantage of what former FBI agent William Turner described in
as “a dossier system modeled after the
FBI’s, which was intended to weed out employees and
prospective employees deemed disloyal to the free enterprise
concept.” [f-73]
Before the founders of the ASC got into the business of
collecting dossiers on Americans, however, they had another sort
of political interest. Their political histories go back to the
racialist and anti-Semitic groups in the 1930’s that were working
in concert with Hitler’s war aims. Three groups in particular
would later provide elements of the future ASC: the America First
Committee, the American Vigilante Intelligence Federation, and
the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies.
– The America First Committee: –
The person most responsible for establishing the ASC was
General Robert Wood, then Chairman of Sears Roebuck. [f-74] Prior
to Pearl Harbor, Wood was also the chairman of the America First
Committee, an organization committed to opposing all efforts to
aid Allies besieged by Nazi Germany. [f-75]
As national chairman, Wood made no effort to keep out
openly pro-Nazi groups known to have been supported by Germany,
such as the German-American Bund. Radio priest Father Charles
Coughlin’s anti-Semitic and pro-Axis followers were also
permitted by Wood to work within America First. A 1942 FBI report
indicated that Wood’s “patriotic” group had “been called upon to
accept financial assistance from pro-Nazi sources.” [f-76]
After Pearl Harbor and Germany’s declaration of war on the
United States, the America First Committee didn’t go out of
business as it officially declared on December 12, 1941. Five
days later, a secret meeting of certain key leaders of America
First took place in New York to plan for what they assumed (and
hoped) would be the Axis victory in Europe and the Far East.
[f-77] “[T]he Committee has in reality gone underground,” FBI
Director J. Edgar Hoover reported to the White House. [f-78] It
began planning for the day when they would be the Americans with
whom the victorious Nazis would negotiate a surrender. Finally,
when the defeat of the Nazis by Allied powers was a foregone
conclusion, the America First Committee secretly dissolved itself
in 1944.
William Regnery, an incorporator and early leader of
the Committee with Robert Wood, [f-79] helped Wood to found the
ASC. His son, Henry Regnery, replaced him at their book
publishing company and at the ASC. The younger Regnery told an
interviewer several years ago that “I was very much opposed to
our getting into the war; and I published this book, which was
highly critical of Roosevelt and of the whole realm of American
policies involving World War II. Very gladly, I must say.”
Regnery said that the book, published in the early 1950’s,
reflected his “personal tastes.” [f-80]
– American Vigilante Intelligence Federation: –
The ASC began collecting dossiers in the McCarthy era in
what was often seen as a blacklisting operation against union
organizers and those with “suspect” political orientations. Files
and documents were collected from the House Committee on
Un-American Activities and several private file collections. One
such collection originally was compiled by Harry Jung, [f-81]
whose research was motivated by a search for what he saw as a
Jewish-Communist conspiracy. [f-82]
Jung founded the American Vigilante Intelligence Federation
(AVIF) in 1927 as an anti-union spy operation. [f-83] With the
rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, Jung became the first major
distributor in the U.S. of the anti-Semitic forgery, “The
Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.” [f-84] The “Protocols”
text had been used as a pretext by Russian Czars and European
Nazis to conduct pogroms and extermination campaigns against
European Jewry. His AVIF became involved with German Nazi agents
in the U.S. In 1942, Jung’s East Coast operative, a Col. Eugene
Sanctuary, was indicted by the Justice Department for sedition.
[f-85] One can only wonder at the purpose and content of the
files collected by Jung, and purchased by the ASC. The Jung file
collection reportedly had one million names indexed when the ASC
acquired it some thirty years ago.
– American Coalition of Patriotic Societies: –
The American Coalition of Patriotic Societies (ACPS) is
another “patriotic” group that flourished during Jung’s heyday
and still exists as a member of the Coalition for Peace Through
Strength. The ACPS was founded by John Trevor in 1929 to support
and maintain tight U.S. immigration restrictions enacted into law
in 1924. [f-86] Trevor was the behind-the-scenes architect of the
1924 Immigration Restriction Act, designed to exclude East
Europeans, Italians, Jews and other non-Nordics. [f-87]
The American Coalition of Patriotic Societies leadership included
Harry Jung and others with links to German National Socialism.
One associate of Trevor, Madison Grant, explicitly repudiated
“democratic ideals and Christian values in the interest of a
Nordic philosophy,” according to John Higham’s . [f-88] Another ACPS director,
Harry Laughlin, was
given an honorary Ph.D. in 1936 by a Nazi-controlled German
university for his work in the area of racial eugenics. [f-89]
John Trevor, Jung and a third ACPS official, Walter Steele,
were among 15 Americans whose names appeared inside a 1933 German
Nazi book, recommending it for an American audience. Begun with
an endorsement by Adolph Hitler, the book contains such
statements as “The total contrast to Jewish-Marxist-Bolshevism is
exclusively represented by German National Socialism.” [f-90] In
1942, U.S. Army Intelligence called Walter Steele’s “fascist.”
[f-91] In the same year, the
American Coalition of Patriotic Societies was named by the
Justice Department as “a factor” in the sedition charges brought
against those thought to be aiding the Axis. [f-92]
General Wood, John Trevor, Walter Steele and their
associates all became patriotic anti-Communists after World War
II, however, aiding Senator Joe McCarthy, lobbying for a more
intense Cold War, and supporting reprieves for convicted
Nazi war criminals.
General Wood helped establish , then a
monthly magazine, that in late 1945 called the Nuremberg Trials
a “travesty of justice.” [f-93] Involved in a number of
other rightist groups after the war, he recruited John M. Fisher,
a World War II bomber pilot, from the FBI as a security
consultant for Sears Roebuck in 1953.
John Trevor was a leader of a group, Ten Million Americans
Mobilizing for Justice, attempting to prevent the censure of Joe
McCarthy. Its leadership represented a Who’s Who of American
anti-Semitism. [f-94] At their 1954 rally for McCarthy, a female
photographer taking pictures of the special guest section for
magazine was physically assaulted amid shouts of “Dirty
Jew” and “Hang the communist bitch!” [f-95]
John B. Trevor, Jr. became acting secretary of the American
Coalition of Patriotic Societies after his father’s death in
1956, but the political character of the group showed no
noticeable change. [f-96] The ACPS in 1962 condemned the
Nuremberg war crimes trials as a “dreadful retrogression into
barbarism,” and called for the release of those “who may still be
suffering imprisonment.” [f-97]
John B. Trevor, Jr. was one of eight members of the
American Security Council Board of Directors until several years
ago. The current president of the American Coalition of Patriotic
Societies is John Fisher, and their address is the same as the
ASC. [f-98]
– The Emergence of the Military-Industrial Complex –
Although the ASC began as an anti-labor operation with
support from Sears (Fisher was on the Sears payroll the first
five years he headed ASC) [f-99] and other businesses, it soon
became involved in foreign policy issues. It cosponsored a series
of annual meetings from 1955 to 1961 called National
Military-Industrial Conferences in which elements of the
Pentagon, National Security Council and organizations linked to
the CIA discussed Cold War strategy with leaders of many large
corporations, such as United Fruit, Standard Oil, Honeywell, U.S.
Steel, and, of course, Sears Roebuck. Robert Wood was the key
organizer of these events. [f-100] One conference “cooperating
organization” was the CIA-linked Foreign Policy Research
Institute. [f-101]
The Institute’s foreign policy thesis during this period
was spelled out in a book, by
Robert Strausz-Hupe, William Kintner and Stefan Possony . In
discussing nuclear option scenarios in a hypothetical expanding
U.S.-Soviet conflict, the book makes the following statement:
“Even at a moment when the United States faces defeat
because, for example, Europe, Asia and Africa have fallen to
communist domination, a sudden nuclear attack against the Soviet
Union could at least avenge the disaster and deprive the opponent
of the ultimate triumph. While such a reversal at the last moment
almost certainly would result in severe American casualties,
it might still nullify all previous Soviet conquests. [f-102]”
Another sponsor of the conferences was the Aircraft
Industries Association (AIA). According to Clarence Lasby’s
, the AIA pressured the U.S. government in the
1950’s to get Nazi scientists into the United States.
[f-103] Werhner von Braunwho worked on the Nazi rocket
program, and General John Medaris, who supervised the Nazi
scientists in the U.S. (and has opposed the investigations of the
program by the Justice Department’s OSI), were both conference
participants. [f-104]
Influential private groups such as the National Association
of Manufacturers, Chambers of Commerce, and several university
institutes also participated in the conferences. In 1959 the
National Military-Industrial Conferences established an Advisory
Committee on Foreign Affairs that included a number of
representatives of big business. Also included, however, were
three political figures of the anti-Semitic extreme right. One of
these was Mark M. Jones, who followed Mervin K. Hart as head of
the anti-Semitic National Economic Council. Also a member of the
Advisory Committee was Martin Blank, from Germany. Blank’s
entries in described him as having worked
in Berlin for a mine and steel mill business group from 1922 to
1945. [f-105] A study of backers of German Nazism, ,
says that Blank represented a secret group of
12 Ruhr industrialists called the , “the most
powerful secret organization of big business that existed during
the Weimar period.” [f-106] and its political
emissary, Martin Blank, became involved in funding the rise of
Hitler. The 1959 Military-Industrial conference bulletin
identifies him as a representative of German industry.
A third member of the committee was Baron Frederich August
von der Heydte, who had also been active with the 1958
conference. His entry in and other sources
say that he was an “active officer 1935-47” in the German army.
[f-107] Heydte, whose family was close to the exiled
Hohenzollen monarch, [f-108] was reported to have written in 1953
that “democracy is linked with collapse, defeat and foreign
uniforms stalking German soil,” and that “democracy was brought
by the victorious enemy together with the army of occupation.”
[f-109] Von der Heydte was a co-founder and ideological leader of
the Christian Democratic Union, a party that brought a variety of
Nazi elements into its fold after the first post-war German
elections. [f-110] In recent years von der Heydte has formed an
association with Lyndon LaRouche’s neo-fascist cult group.
[f-111] The only foreign members of the National
Military-Industrial Conference’s Foreign Affairs Committee during
this period were Blank and von der Heydte.
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PART TWO – SECTION 2
– Eisenhower’s Nightmare –
In 1958, the Military-Industrial Conference formed the
Institute for American Strategy (IAS) to conduct ongoing Cold War
propaganda. It was left to the American Security Council and the
University of Pennsylvania’s Foreign Policy Research Institute to
administer the IAS. [f-112] The IAS became a center of
controversy in 1961, however, because of its role in political
indoctrination of the military and its ties to active duty
military organizations that were beginning to conduct propaganda
in civilian forums. The concern of IAS critics was that an
emerging military-industrial complex could begin to dominate
politics and government policymaking, as was noted by President
Eisenhower in his 1961 farewell address. Senator William
Fulbright and President John F. Kennedy began to share that
concern, especially when it became clear that it was liberalism
itself that was under attack.
In 1961, the reported that a 1958 National
Security Council> directive recommended that “the military be
used to reinforce the cold war effort.” The NSC decided that the
>military should conduct indoctrination campaigns for the
American public on cold war and foreign policy issues. The
Institute for American Strategy became the vehicle for the NSC
program, organizing “National Strategy Seminars>.” The noted:
“What is particularly striking about the National Strategy
Seminars is that through the authorization of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, the Institute for American Strategy, in effect, took over
from the services the responsibility for training reserve
officers on active duty, even though the National War College,
whose facilities were used, had been giving courses on strategy
to senior officers of the three services as well as civilians for
the past ten years. ”
“At the same time, while the government paid for allowance,
travel, facilities and services, the Richardson Foundation
provided the funds for other expenses, including the cost of
developing a curriculum for the seminar, hiring a staff, securing
speakers, and purchasing books and other materials to be
distributed to the students without charge. [f-113]”
Fulbright warned of the dangers implicit in the situation:
“The relationships between the Foreign Policy Research
Institute, the Institute for American Strategy, the Richardson
Foundation, the National War College, and the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, should be re-examined from the standpoint of whether these
relationships do not amount to official support for a viewpoint
at variance with that of the Administration. ”
“These relationships may give one particularly aggressive
view a more direct and commanding influence upon military and
civilian concepts of strategy than is desirable. [f-114]”
Frank Barnett was Director of Research for the Richardson
Foundation (now the Smith-Richardson Foundation) and Program
Director of the Institute for American Strategy. Barnett
advocated “political warfare” abroad that included fomenting
“diverse forms of coercion and violence including strikes and
riots, economic sanctions, subsidies for guerrilla or proxy
warfare and, when necessary, kidnapping or assassination of enemy
elites.” [f-115] Riled by those who did not share his militant
foreign policy outlook, Barnett told attendees at one Cold War
seminar that “it is within the capacity of the people in this
room to literally turn the State of Georgia into a civilian war
college,” in order to overcome their opponents. [f-116]
William Kintner, a 25-year ASC veteran who left the CIA
after 11 years as a planning officer and joined IAS in 1961,
attacked the critics of extreme rightism in the ,
May, 1962. He said the campaign against extreme rightists,
including the John Birch Society, began when “dossiers in
Moscow’s espionage headquarters were combed for the names of
unsuspecting persons in the United States who might do the
Kremlin’s work.” In other words, Presidents Eisenhower and
Kennedy were dupes of the KGB. . .or worse. In the jargon of
today’s extreme right, those concerned over the growing
military-industrial complex were spreading “Soviet disinformation.”
Despite the controversy, the NSC directive authorizing the
military’s role in Cold War propaganda remained in effect.
Edward Lansdale became Administrative Director of IAS in the
mid-1960’s, serving while John Fisher was president of the
organization. Lansdale was also an architect of CIA covert
operations in Vietnam. [f-117] The Institute for American
Strategy later changed its name to the American Security Council
Foundation.
In the early 1960’s the ultra-right was planning
Goldwater’s presidential campaign effort, helping to build the
political base of extreme right groups. In concert with the
Goldwater campaign, the American Security Council in 1964
published a book called which
listed board members and cooperating organizations from several
far-right groups, including some linked to the John Birch
Society. At least one ASC official was even associated with the
quasi-Nazi Liberty Lobby. [f-118]
These relationships take on greater significance as one
learns more about the nature of groups such as Liberty Lobby and
the John Birch Society. For instance, the founder of the John
Birch Society, Robert Welch, once called President Eisenhower “a
dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy,” while
the leader of Liberty Lobby, Willis Carto, edited a publication
in 1960 calling for voter support for the American Nazi Party.
In his book ,
author Frank P. Mintz outlines the “overlap in ideology and
clientele” between Liberty Lobby and the John Birch Society as
well as the important differences:
“The John Birch Society in the early 1960’s aspired to the
leadership of a `radical right’ that strongly defended national
sovereignty and opposed American membership in international
organizations such as the United Nations. Closely related to the
nationalist stance was a conspiratorial interpretation of U.S.
history that made the Council on Foreign Relations an ally of the
`Communist conspiracy.'”[f-119]
But while the Birch Society trumpeted jingoistic patriotism
via conspiracy theories, Mintz says that the “Lobby voiced racist
and anti-Semitic beliefs in addition to conspiracism.”
Mintz explains:
“Structurally, the Lobby was a most unusual umbrella
organization catering to constituencies spanning the fringes of
Neo-Nazism to the John Birch Society and the radical right. It
was not truly paramilitary, in the manner of the Ku Klux Klan and
Nazis, but was more accurately an intermediary between racist
paramilitary factions and the recent right. The pro-defense
network being created by the American Security Council in the
1960’s offered a respectable and anonymous way for members of the
radical right John Birch Society and quasi-Nazi Liberty Lobby to
pursue the pro-military anti-communist portions of their ideology
in a setting where the less savory portions of their views could
be ignored in the spirit of coalition building. ”
– The Coalition for Peace Through Strength –
The ASC’s role in elections wasn’t highly visible until
1970. That year it targeted opponents of Richard Nixon’s Vietnam
War policies for defeat through the distribution of a “national
security vote index” which claimed liberals were soft on
communism. The ASC warned voters, “Did vote for. . .a real
missile gap? A new Cuban missile crisis?. . .Well, that’s what
you got! And a powerful coalition of members of Congress is
trying to further reduce our defenses.” [f-120]
After Jimmy Carter became President in 1977, the ASC began
to organize opposition to his plans to ratify the SALT II treaty.
The ASC formed the Coalition for Peace Through Strength in
August, 1978 for that purpose, and to put together a network to
defeat the Democratic Party’s nominee in 1980. In a Coalition
report issued immediately after the 1980 elections, Coalition
co-Chair Paul Laxalt, who was also Reagan’s 1980 campaign
chairman, praised Fisher and the ASC: “The combination of all
your efforts–particularly your TV blitz, Speakers Bureau and
Political Action Committee–had a powerful impact on the election
results.” [f-121]
– The ASC Role in the 1980 Elections –
In 1980 the American Security Council Foundation produced a
film, “The SALT Syndrome,” to oppose Senate ratification of the
SALT treaty and to suggest that Jimmy Carter was unilaterally
disarming the U.S. Its use by the tax-exempt ASC Foundation was
described by Fisher: “In the last three months of the campaign. .
.ASCF increased its average TV showings from 30 a month to 180
bookings per month for a total of 1,956 showings during this
election year.” Fisher claimed that the purchased commercial air
time, cable showings and screenings by private groups reached
anywhere from 50 to 137 million people.
The ASC was also active in realigning the Senate toward the
GOP. Fisher, for instance, celebrated the victory of James Abdnor
of South Dakota, by noting Abdnor had “unseated the 18-year
super-dove incumbent, Senator George McGovern.” Fisher also
reported Abdnor expressed pleasure with the help he received.
“Aside from my own campaign committee itself, no organization was
more helpful in my successful Senate race than the Coalition for
Peace Through Strength/American Security Council,” Abdnor is
quoted as saying.
In the South Dakota race, according to the
(the newsletter of the Coalition for Peace Through
Strength), the film “The SALT Syndrome” was shown 11 times on the
three major television stations in South Dakota and as a
projected film or videotape it was screened to 1,000 audiences.
Making the ASC film his own, “Abdnor prepared an opening and
closing statement that was incorporated in the 16mm version of
`The SALT Syndrome.'” ASC organizers “along with Abdnor’s staff
were responsible for these more than 1,000 showings of the film.
. .throughout the state,” reported the .
The ASC-PAC also gave Abdnor’s campaign $8,000. Other
pro-military Senate candidates for whom the ASC made special
efforts included Charles Grassley, Alfonse D’Amato, and Steven Symms.
According to Fisher:
“Coalition Co-chairman Major General [Ret.] John (Jack)
Singlaub played a continuing role in the Grassley campaign, first
visiting Iowa in the early summer. Singlaub’s radio and
television ads made for Grassley became an important part of the
campaign’s thrust. In addition, Singlaub filmed a special
introduction to “The SALT Syndrome” for Grassley, who used the
film widely in his campaign.”
The report notes that Grassley’s Democratic opponent,
incumbent Senator John Culver, moved ahead in the polls, so
Grassley asked retired Lt. General Daniel O. Graham, former CIA
deputy director and ex-head of the Defense Intelligence Agency,
to campaign for him. Graham, who was executive director of the
ASC’s PAC, was carried by private plane on “a whirlwind tour of
Western Iowa.” A rally and press meetings were arranged. Grassley
pulled ahead in the polls and held the lead through the November
4 elections. The ASC PAC also gave the Grassley campaign $8,000.
Another all-out effort was made by ASC in behalf of
Alphonse D’Amato against Elizabeth Holtzman in New York’s Senate
race. “ASC staffers were in there pitching from the start. A
whole contingent went to help the D’Amato campaign with the
press. . . .” According to the report, Gen. Graham, retired Brig.
Gen. Robert Richardson and several Admirals represented the
Coalition for Peace Through Strength on D’Amato’s behalf. The ASC
PAC also gave his campaign $1,000. The Fisher ASC election report
notes that Graham enjoyed most his campaign against Frank Church,
who had led the Senate investigation of illegal CIA activities.
Graham called Church, in typical ASC overstatement, “the
architect of the destruction of our intelligence system” for
investigating the CIA illegalities.
Both Graham and Singlaub (who also had worked for the CIA)
“campaigned vigorously for Steve Symms. . .each paying Idaho
three separate visits. They were together for the Idaho Republican
State convention.” One headline, typical of the ASC style of rhetoric,
read “Singlaub blames Church for Soviet supremacy.” Symms received
$2,000 from ASC-PAC. Fisher claims that in 1980 the Coalition and ASC
“briefed and/or campaigned for 67 candidates.” He said ASC
staffers served as media consultants, researchers, and aided
candidates in making introductions and closing statements to the
ASC’s film, “The SALT Syndrome.”
The ASC-PAC also aided Republican Senators Jake Garn and
Dan Quayle [now vice-president Quayle] with $3,000 each, as well
as Paula Hawkins, Paul Laxalt, Mack Mattingly and Don Nickles
with $1,000 each. In the House, Jack Kemp, Robert K. Dornan and
Gerald Solomon were Republicans who received $1,000 each, as did
Democrats Sam Stratton, Andrew Ireland and Bill Chappell.
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PART TWO – SECTION 3
– Not Exactly a Peaceful Coalition –
While the Coalition for Peace Through Strength became more
involved in elections and lobbying for Reagan Administration
priorities, the number of organizations in the Coalition grew
from about 40 in 1978 to 171 in 1986. As the Coalition grew, more
bizarre groups were brought in. Many of the groups mentioned
earlier are part of the Coalition: the Republican Heritage Groups
Council and its Slovak, Romanian, Italian, Chinese and Cossack
Republican units; the Slovak World Congress, the Bulgarian
National Front, the Byelorussian-American Association and several
other emigre fascist groups. But one organization that is a
Coalition member and brings together, under ASC auspices, the
Republican Heritage Groups Council and more ardent Nazis is the
National Confederation of American Ethnic Groups (NCAEG).
The NCAEG is an organization which becomes active about a
year before presidential elections. Treasurer Richard Kolm says
of the NCAEG “We don’t have contact with the Democratic Party.
NCAEG has a reputation as Republican.” It is also called “Szaz’s
personal springboard” by one of its officers, in reference to
Executive Vice President Z. Michael Szaz’s dominance. Szaz is an
official of the Virginia Republican Heritage Groups Council, an
associate of racialist Roger Pearson (see Part 3), and a director
of the ASC’s American Foreign Policy Institute. In mid-1983, the
NCAEG began operating out of the ASC’s Washington office in
preparation for the 1984 elections. [f-122]
The NCAEG presents itself as a congress of American
ethnicity with a mandate to fight for the interests of millions
of ethnic Americans, which some NCAEG leaders say are treated as
second class citizens. It is, however, an organizational forum
for, and dominated by, Nazi collaborationists, emigre fascists
and anti-Semites. A number of the groups and leaders within the
NCAEG are also affiliated with the National Republican Heritage
Groups Council. [f-123]
One of the exceptions is the Romanian affiliate of the
NCAEG, the Romanian American National Congress. Unlike the
reticent Galdau, who denies being an Iron Guardsman, Dr.
Alexander Ronnett, head of the Romanian American National
Congress, has written a defense of the Iron Guard. [f-124]
Throughout its sixty-year history, the Iron Guard has
maintained a mystical, morose Romanian volkish nationalism and
anti-Semitism. [f-125] The Iron Guard’s links to the German SS
and their attempted 1941 coup against the Romanian monarchy were
evidence of the violent nature of the Guard. Their macabre ritual
assassination practices were given full play during the three-day
coup attempt, when thousands were rounded up and many murdered.
Jews were a special target. [f-126]
Today, Ronnett talks of “Jew-Communists” and the need for
the American military to destroy the Warsaw pact. In his suburban
Chicago M.D.’s office, Iron Guard symbols hang on the wall along
with autographed photos of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet
meeting with Ronnett and other Iron Guard leaders. The message of
the Iron Guard is still taken seriously in some circles. [f-127]
An Illinois ethnic advisor to the Reagan-Bush campaign in
1984, Ronnett spoke at the February, 1986 annual meeting of the
Institute for Historical Review, where he claimed Jews were
enemies of the Iron Guard. [f-128] The IHR is the
Holocaust-denial group in Los Angeles that attempts to rewrite
the history of World War II in favor of the Axis powers and
present Nazism in a favorable light. The IHR is sponsored by
Willis Carto who also leads the anti-Semitic and quasi-nazi
Liberty Lobby. Ronnett’s Romanian American National Congress,
which has long-standing ties to The World Anti-Communist League
(WACL), [f-129] recently joined the Coalition for Peace
Through Strength.
Another NCAEG leader who was active with IHR was Austin App
of the German American National Congress (also known by its
German acronym “DANK”). App, a pro-Nazi activist for decades,
wrote , [f-130] asserting that
the Nazi extermination of Jews didn’t happen. Until his death in
1986, App was also active with extreme rightists based in
Germany. App was a founder of the NCAEG. DANK is its German
affiliate. DANK was active in the Republican Heritage Groups
Council in the early 1970’s, but the GOP German slot has had no
affiliate in recent years. DANK, a group that glories in the
memory of the Third Reich, is also a member of the Coalition for
Peace Through Strength, despite the fact that App had written in
1946 that “the German armies [were] the most decent armies of the
war.” In his 1974 pamphlet, , App wrote,
“The truth is that in WWII the Third Reich fought for justice,
and the Allies fought to prevent justice.” [f-131] Writing
in , December 1980, Lucy Dawidowicz bluntly called
DANK “pro-Nazi,” a characterization easily justified by the
content of the group’s literature.
When NCAEG held a meeting in the fall of 1983,
representatives of the White House and Republican National
Commitee were participants. Republican Heritage Groups Council
Executive Director Radi Slavoff was identified in the program as
also being the NCAEG’s Secretary/Director of Activities. One of
the activities planned was to honor NCAEG founders Austin App and
Slovak Josef Mikus, the former Tiso diplomat. [f-132]
In 1985, Slavoff and Pasztor were replaced by American-born
ethnics in order to campaign against the Justice Department’s
Office of Special Investigations (OSI), the Nazi prosecution
unit. New Jersey NCAEG chair Joseph Plonski, who is also
vice-chair of the New Jersey Republican Heritage Groups Council,
says that the “Soviets are using OSI as a vehicle to divide and
conquer America.” He said they wanted NCAEG leaders to be
American-born so they couldn’t be accused of “war crimes.” [f-133]
NCAEG’s anti-OSI campaign put together a booklet that has a
friendly note from White House Communications Director Patrick
Buchanan. [f-134] NCAEG credibility on the OSI question is
further complicated by the public assertions of some of its
associates that the Holocaust never happened.
Other Republican Heritage Groups Council leaders who have
been active with the NCAEG include Walter Melianovich, Nicolas
Nazarenko, Alexander Aksenov, and Laszlo Pasztor. In a 1971
story on some of the extreme elements within
the NCAEG and Republican Heritage Groups Council, Pasztor’s
attitude was described as uncritical of the fascists he was
working with: “He talks to all of them, he says, and praises the
concept of an umbrella organization for ethnics. He denounces no
one.” [f-135]
Ethnic groups are not the only extremists in the Coalition
for Peace Through Strength. Other groups include:
***{Catholics for Christian Political Action}. A lobby and
newsletter operation run by Gary Potter. Its February-March 1983
newsletter attacked “Zionist” wealth, and “skillful playing on
the Holocaust theme.” The proposed solution is stated thus: “The
nation does not necessarily have to become Christian again to
shake off the Zionist power. Germany didn’t. Germany also
ultimately failed. . .following Him [Christ] is the course the
U.S. should take to be free.” [f-136]
***{Order of St. John of Jerusalem}. Although it poses as a
Catholic organization, the Order of St. John is a Masonic group
that claims to be the real Knights of Malta. [f-137] Its Grand
Master for 50 years until his death several years ago was Charles
Pichel, an adviser (via correspondence from the U.S.) to Hitler
aide Ernst Hanfstaengl. [f-138] Pichel’s Order is a secret
society led by anti-Semites who have worked with the quasi-Nazi
Liberty Lobby and with neo-fascist Lyndon LaRouche groups. [f-139]
***{Heritage Groups Council for Citizenship Education}. A
subsidiary of the pro-Nazi German American National Congress
(DANK), the Council is headed by Karol Sitko. Active in NCAEG,
Sitko was described in the as an ally of Austin
App and Ivan Docheff. [f-140] Sitko was also the
organizer for the West German branch of the Western Goals
Foundation, a far-right political organizing and research group
which, until the death of its founder, Congressman Larry
McDonald, was essentially a front for the John Birch Society’s
private intelligence network. In Germany, Sitko organized rallies
in Nuremberg and Hanover drawing 240,000 people. He was supported
by billionaire H.L. Hunt and General John Singlaub. [f-141] His
activities were conducted in concert with the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc
of Nations (See Section 3, part 4).
***{Conservatives Against Liberal Legislation}. Renamed
Conservative Alliance (CALL), this group was organized by the
late Terry Dolan’s National Conservative Political Action
Committee (NCPAC is also in the Coalition for Peace Through
Strength). CALL receives major funding through groups affiliated
with Rev. Sun Myung Moon, according to the
and other reports. [f-142] CALL started The National
Coalition for America’s Survival, which includes the
newly-reincarnated America First Committee. [f-143] The current
America First Committee, related only by name to the earlier
group, is a Chicago-based racist and anti-Semitic organization
headed by neo-Nazi Art Jones. Jones alternates Nazi uniforms with
Klan robes and participated in a Klan-Nazi unity meeting
sponsored by Aryan Nations in October of 1985. [f-144] Jones
constantly issues attacks on Blacks, Jews and Hispanics, and
functions as the ideological leader of Chicago-area Nazi groups.
***{Committee to Unite America}. One of three groups in the
Coalition headed by Lady Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton, who is also on
the board of the American Security Council Foundation. Her
deceased husband, part of the British aristocracy, was the
brother of the host of Rudolph Hess when, in 1940, Hess made his
secret flight to England. Hess, a top aide to Hitler and Nazi
Party official, sought to meet with the British aristocratic
circles known as the Cliveden Set. [f-145] Sympathetic to
Hitler’s war aims, the Cliveden Set tried to get England out of
the war it had declared against Germany in September, 1939, after
Germany invaded Poland. Hess was arrested and imprisoned. After
Lord Malcolm Douglas came to the U.S., he established an
American branch of a racial eugenics group headquartered in
Scotland. The oil billionaire Hunt brothers and Senator Jesse
Helms are members of the group. It was headed by Robert Gayre,
who published the racialist until Roger
>Pearson took it over in 1978. (See Section 3, part 1.) Lady
Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton set up a number of groups, including the
Committee to Unite America. John Fisher is listed among its
Founders and on its Sponsoring Committee, as are other ASC principals.
– The ASC, the White House, and the National Security Council –
The American Security Council sponsors weekly private
meetings between National Security Council representatives,
congressional staffers and New Right groups active on foreign
policy issues. Begun in January, 1985, the Tuesday Group, as it
has become known for its Tuesday morning Capitol Hill sessions,
has focused on gaining aid for the Contras, a top White House and
ASC priority.
ASC leaders in 1985 were reluctant to discuss the Tuesday
Group due to the participation of Lt. Col. Oliver North, then a
deputy director of the National Security Council, and the
attendance of Constantine Menges, the former head of Latin
American affairs at NSC. North eventually came under
Congressional fire in 1987 for his role in coordinating secret
and private aid to the Contras. North has participated in other
ASC activities and had his picture in the , January, 1986, with Fisher,
even though the White House
demanded that the and other papers not use
North’s picture–for reasons of national security.
The Tuesday Group is chaired by Sam Dickens, ASC’s Director
for Inter-American Affairs and editor of Radio Free Americas, a
radio program picked up by the ASC in 1968 when a similar program
was exposed in 1967 as CIA-sponsored. Others in the group, whose
attendance varies slightly depending on the weekly topic,
include: representatives of the Pentagon and State Department;
the Heritage Foundation; the Center for Strategic and
International Studies; the National Forum Foundation; former U.S.
Ambassador to Costa Rica Curtin Winsor, Jr.; Lynn Bouchey, head
of the Council on Inter-American Security; Dave Sullivan, an
aide to Senator Jesse Helms, Steve Symms and James McClure; and,
until recently, Angelo Codevilla, a former aide to Sen. Malcolm
Wallop, who now works for the Hoover Institution in California. [f-146]
Menges described the meetings as purely “social affairs”
and said he only came in contact with the Tuesday Group “a couple
of months ago.” He had left the NSC a month prior to our
interview, in early 1987, to work for Jack Kemp’s Fund for an
American Renaissance.
One Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
also attends the Tuesday meetings in order to maintain contacts
with other foreign policy hard-liners. At the risk of losing his
job, he blasts the policies of Secretary of State George Schultz,
Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Chester Crocker and
Deputy Assistant Secretary Frank Wisner. The impact of Tuesday
Group work was noted by one source who said “the Michel
Amendment” for Contra aid was written through its process.
Various experts are brought in to discuss the topic of any
given meeting. According to Dickens, guests may include
“Congressmen, former heads of state, ambassadors, military
leaders from El Salvador, Honduras–Eden Pastora, Roberto
D’Aubuisson we’ve had at our breakfast.” According to Winsor, Sol
Sanders of made one presentation on the situation
in Mexico. “His views are virtually the same as [former
Ambassador] Jim Gavins,” Winsor added.
Dickens said in 1986 that the focus of the Tuesday Group
had been on Contra aid, and would continue to be. The Tuesday
Group’s purpose was “to bring people together to develop ideas
and action plans to get support from Congress for the Freedom
Fighters,” according to the ASC activist. Dickens said that for
Reagan to get consensus on the Hill for funding the Contras it
was going to take private sector involvement, “So we’ve been
working on that basis. . . .” Dickens said that he would “advise
Contra leaders” and “help raise money for them through foundations.”
After insisting that “the U.S. ought to break diplomatic
relations” with Nicaragua and “recognize UNO [United Nicaraguan
Opposition],” Dickens said that the NSC at the time was
considering such a move after initial funding for the contras was
approved. He predicted that the break would come after “another
country takes the lead in South America” to end diplomatic ties
with Nicaragua. These predictions came shortly before the story
of Iran-Contragate broke in the national news media.
In addition to the foreign policy subjects of the Tuesday
Group, a working group meets in “crisis” situations, presumably
to aid funding for programs that need Congressional lobbying,
such as Star Wars, chemical weapons and the MX. The appropriate
administration officials, military contractors and political
groups are believed to participate. [f-147]
The relationship between Reagan and the ASC has been a long
and mutually beneficial partnership. Presidential candidate
Ronald Reagan joined the Coalition for Peace Through Strength as
an individual member as the Coalition was being formed in 1978.
[f-148] The ASC supplied campaign advisors and a drumbeat of
propaganda for the defeat of Jimmy Carter. After Reagan’s 1980
victory, the ASC was heavily represented on the transition teams
and in the new administration. In turn, Reagan provided three
fundraising letters for the ASC during his first year
in office. [f-149]
Observing this relationship near the end of 1980, retired
Admiral Gene La Rocque, director of the Washington, D.C.-based
Center for Defense Information, stated that “the American
Security Council, which only a few years ago was generally
dismissed in serious defense circles as an insignificant fringe
group left over from the McCarthy era, today stands poised to
take control of the defense policies of this nation.” La Rocque
noted that Reagan’s inexperience in defense issues meant that
“[w]hen it comes to military policy, Governor Reagan depends
totally on his advisors.” [f-150]
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PART TWO – SECTION 4
– The Propaganda Arm of the Military Establishment –
Reagan’s NSC turned to the ASC early on for collaboration
on its projects. A March 11, 1982 letter from then-National
Security Advisor William Clark praised ASC’s 1980 film “Attack on
the Americas” as “effective and accurate” and asked the ASC to
produce an updated version incorporating Reagan’s Caribbean and
Central American policies. The “Dear John” letter to Fisher on
White House letterhead claimed that it was necessary to turn to
the ASC because “media coverage has been fraught with both
misinformation and disinformation. . . .” Clark ended the letter
with a “look forward to working with you in the future.”
The ASC produced the film, bringing Sam Dickens in as a
consultant. [f-151] In August 1982, the ASC Foundation held a
speakers training forum in the White House with high
administration officials participating. [f-152] The speaker’s
bureau was another ASC vehicle made available to the
Administration to help develop public support for its policies.
The 1980 version of “Attack on the Americas” reportedly received
funds for its $500,000 budget from several extreme right-wing
groups in Guatemala with links to death squads in that country.
[f-153]
Another film on Central America, “Crisis in the Americas,”
was also produced with NSC interests in mind. According to one
source, however, the NSC paid the ASC for its help. “I was
screening the film footage taken in Central America so that we
could make a copy,” said British Broadcasting Corporation
producer David Taylor, who works in Washington, D.C. “The film’s
producer, Walter Gold, told me I couldn’t use some of the footage
because it was shot for the NSC through a contract arrangement
with the ASC. It was supposed to be secret.” Taylor said that
some of the footage was of a classified U.S. air base in El
Salvador to which journalists could not get access. “For them to
get to that base, they had to be cleared.” Some of the footage
had a C-130 aircraft landing at the base that Gold identified as
“a CIA transport.” He also told Taylor that footage of the 1984
elections in El Salvador had “CIA election observers.” It was
never explained why the NSC wanted this footage, nor how much was
paid to the ASC to produce it. [f-154] The public version of
“Crisis in the Americas” premiered in the White House in
February, 1985. [f-155] NSC head Robert McFarlane headlined the
event, while former presidential assistant Faith Whittlesey
praised the ASC for its “initiative.”
Another source of funds for ASC film efforts came from the
First National Bank of Chicago. In 1987, the
noted the FBI was investigating the unauthorized use of $100,000
by two former bank officials to aid an ASC promotional film.
One bank employee, Wayne Gregory, was head of the Illinois Branch
of the ASC’s U.S. Congressional Advisory Board (USCAB), a part
of ASC’s fundraising operation. [f-156] Gregory’s
attorney, Matthias Lydon, said of the ASC’s involvement, “nothing
was said, assumptions were made” between Gregory and the ASC.
[f-157] The ASC gave Gregory an award “to honor the example and
dedication he has shown.” [f-158] The USCAB had further problems
when the home of former Illinois Congressman Robert Hanrahan, who
headed the national USCAB fundraising operation, was raided in a
“nationwide investigation into a scheme to hide drug profits.”
[f-159]
In September, 1983 Reagan sent a “Dear John” letter to
Fisher on White House stationery which began “I am glad to hear
that you are launching an IN DEFENSE OF AMERICA project
to counter the massive Soviet propaganda and disinformation on
issues like Central America and the nuclear weapons
freeze….My Administration will cooperate fully with you in this
project.” [f-160]
The “In Defense of America” project was geared toward
shaping public opinion for the 1984 campaign. The centerpiece of
the fifteen-million-dollar project was production of two films
that were intended to play a campaign role similar to the use
made of “The SALT Syndrome” in 1980. The Coalition’s November
1983 newsletter notes that “a special team drawn from the
National Security Council, the State Department, [and] the
Department of Defense” will assist the ASC project.
The first film was “A Strategy for Peace Through Strength”
which, like all ASC propaganda, claims U.S. military inferiority.
A scene of Carter embracing Brezhnev is later contrasted with a
hard-line Reagan speech, giving viewers an idea as to who is
weakening America.
The second film was “Crisis in the Americas.” Its graphics
featured a bear from the eastern horizon aggressively looming
over Central America. President Reagan and Administration
spokesmen are the star players in the script.
Part of the appeal to raise the $15 million for the ASC
project was to double the number of groups in the Coalition for
Peace Through Strength, from 158 to 300. Another goal was to
build state and local units of the Coalition. A separately stated
goal was to “Encourage the organization of affiliated Coalitions
in all other free world countries.” [f-161]
In several interviews, Fisher declined to discuss any means
by which they intended to organize other “Free World” Coalitions.
Although he suggested that CIOR, the NATO reserve officers
association, would be a possible vehicle, he seemed to have no
plan, or intention of developing one. It was also unclear what
the international character and function of a Coalition for Peace
Through Strength may be in, say, Chile, Paraguay or South
Africa–countries where domestic peace is maintained through the
strength of police and military units deployed by the government.
Those aspects of the ASC project related to Reagan’s
re-election, however, were implemented with some success. J.
Walter Thompson Advertising Company arranged half-hour slots on
nearly 200 commercial stations to show the “Peace Through
Strength” film a month before the November election. Public and
cable TV showings were also arranged. The “Crisis in the
Americas” film didn’t make it before the elections.
The ASC planned to complement that week of film showings on
TV with “Peace Through Strength” rallies in 48 states. [f-162]
Most were poorly attended. The ASC also planned a “World Peace
Through Strength Day” on September 19, 1984. Although the nature
of the event was unclear, the ASC noted “the day-long
extravaganza is scheduled for the eve of America’s Presidential
elections” which the ASC felt “further enhances its
significance.” [f-163]
The coordinators of some of the state Coalition activities
represent the extreme politics of the national organization. The
North Carolina Coalition coordinator during the 1984 re-election
effort for Senator Jesse Helms was Milton Croom, [f-164] a
longtime supporter of Lyndon LaRouche’s activities, and a partner
in a western Maryland radio station owned by the LaRouche
group.[f-165] The LaRouche network frequently organizes around
anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi themes, and collaborates with American
neo-Nazi groups and the Ku Klux Klan. Former members say the core
of the organization is a cult with members totally subservient to
LaRouche. [f-166]
Betty McConkey, the Iowa Coalition coordinator, was a
candidate for state legislative office under the banner of the
Populist Party, [f-167] a political front of the anti-Semitic and
quasi-Nazi Liberty Lobby. The Populist Party openly includes
elements from the Ku Klux Klan as well as the violent
paramilitary Posse Comitatus. [f-168]
When the ASC put together the “In Defense of America”
project, they assembled a “strategy board” for the ASC
Foundation. [f-169] It included two former directors of covert
operations of the CIA, and two former intelligence operatives
involved in organizations aiding the illegal shipments of lethal
material to Libya under the direction of former CIA operatives
Edmund Wilson and Frank Terpil.
One of the operatives involved in the Wilson-Terpil arms
trade is Brig. Gen. (retired) Robert C. Richardson III. He was a
vice-president of Consultants International from 1973-77, [f-170]
a front company used in the Libyan operations. [f-171] A senior
officer in U.S. Air Force Politico-Military Affairs (covert
operations), he is an associate of Roger Pearson (see Pearson
section) and retired Lt. Daniel O. Graham’s High Frontier, a
group which lobbies for a form of Star Wars and is also a member
group of the Coalition for Peace Through Strength.
Another covert operator on the strategy board was the late
Brig. Gen. Edwin F. Black. Formerly on Eisenhower’s Operations
Coordinating Board, which implemented National Security Council
policies and supervised the CIA, [f-172] Black was a principal of
the Nugan Hand Bank of Australia. [f-173] The Australian
government found that the bank was involved in drug and gun
trafficking [f-174] and that it aided the Wilson-Terpil
operations. [f-175]
The government also noted the bank’s employment of “so many
former high ranking U.S. and Armed Services personnel and other
people widely known to have had a previous formal connection with
the U.S. intelligence community.” [f-176] Although the government
did not find Nugan Hand to be a sanctioned covert cover for CIA
activities, it remarked that “there are a number of matters that
give rise to serious disquiet,” including “the relationships that
some of the Nugan Hand group. . .had with persons of U.S.
intelligence background.” [f-177] Black and Richardson also serve
on the ASC National Strategy Committee. [f-178]
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PART TWO – SECTION 5
– The ASC and Congress –
The ASC’s close relationship to the executive branch
continued after the 1984 elections. A “Salute to Ambassador Jeane
J. Kirkpatrick” dinner was arranged by the ASC in 1985, with a
host committee studded with administration officials. [f-179]
Having solidified its relationship with the Reagan
Administration, ASC targeted Congress to receive more attention. –
“Our increasing emphasis is going to be on Congress,” said
Fisher. [f-180] He was mindful of the Congressional resistance
that still exists on a variety of foreign and military policy
issues. The two ASC vehicles for influencing Congress are the
U.S. Congressional Advisory Board (USCAB), a part of the ASC
Foundation, and the Congressional Division of the Coalition for
Peace Through Strength.
USCAB gives citizens the opportunity to become “advisors”
to Congress by paying money to the ASC, although an occasional
postage stamp is cheaper and perhaps just as effective. As a
member of USCAB you also get invited to ASC fundraisers called
“annual meetings” of USCAB. The meeting held in July, 1986 cost
$150 a head to attend.
Administration officials aid these fundraisers by providing
speakers and even the White House for events. Caspar Weinberger
has addressed the 1985 [f-181] and 1986 meetings; SDI director
Lt. Gen. James Abrahamson and George Keyworth, former Science
Advisor to the President, have also addressed USCAB. [f-182] In
December of 1985 a “Post Geneva Summit Briefing” was sponsored by
USCAB that featured speeches from Lt. Col. Oliver North, John
Lenczowski, Director of European and Soviet Affairs for the
National Security Council, and William Martin, Executive
Secretary of the NSC. [f-183]
The Congressional Division of the Coalition for Peace
Through Strength is the ASC’s fig leaf of bipartisanship. With
252 congressmen and senators as members in 1986, the ASC claims
their Congressional Division to be the largest caucus in
Congress. Nearly forty percent are Democrats, according to the
ASC. As a Division member, elected representatives are expected
to support a “Peace Through Strength Resolution” and maintain a
seventy percent positive rating on the ASC index of key
congressional votes. This entitles congressional representativs
to certain rewards. The main reward is financial.
The ASC has a Political Action Committee that doles out
money–if you are a member of the Coalition’s Congressional
Division. In 1985, reported that
conservative Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia was
denied a campaign donation unless he joined. Warner, who says he
refuses donations with strings attached, said no. He also told
the magazine that he believed they wanted his name for
fundraising purposes. “I was not about to become part of their
fundraising operations,” Warner was quoted as saying. [f-184]
ASC-PAC donations are a small part of the money available
to influence Congress. While ASC reported that in 1982 its PAC
distributed $82,000 to Congressional candidates, Fisher’s annual
ASC report noted that the Council also “played a senior role in
the raising of over $2 million” in the campaign. [f-185] In 1984
ASC-PAC spent $225,000 while raising another $4.5 million in
campaign money, [f-186] possibly from defense contractors.
Select congressmen receive other benefits. Florida
Democratic Congressman Bill Chappell, chair of the Defense
Appropriation Subcommittee and a co-chair of the Congressional
Division of the ASC, says that in 1984 the ASC was responsible
for the “most successful Washington fundraiser ever held during
my 18 years in Congress.” [f-187] He recently praised the ASC by
writing “I am pleased and honored that you will once again be
coordinating my Steering Committee efforts.” [f-188]
Another direct means of rewarding congressional favorites
is by paying honoraria to members of Congress who participate in
ASC activities. Congressman Bill Dickinson of Alabama, the
ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee and an
endorser of the anti-Semitic and quasi-Nazi Liberty Lobby,
[f-189] received $7,000 in honoraria from the ASC in 1984 [f-190]
and $6,500 in 1985. [f-191] One $2,000 payment came specifically
for aiding the In Defense of America fundraising project. [f-192]
ASC raised $500,000 from defense contractors over three years.
[f-193] The project funds were used to produce films and organize
political activity on behalf of increased military spending and
aid to the Contras, and to bolster the 1984 re-election efforts
of Ronald Reagan.
The ASC regularly organizes meetings between defense
contractors and key members of Congress. For instance, in the
summer of 1987, then Senator Dan Quayle, a member of the Senate
Armed Services Committee, addressed such a meeting to “discuss
the vital importance of the Strategic Defense Initiative,”
according to the ASC newsletter . The
newsletter reported Quayle told the meeting that “the Soviets
have outspent the United States on strategic defense during the
past decade by a margin of 15 to 1.” [f-194]
After the July, 1986 USCAB annual meeting, as is the yearly
practice, the ASC gave awards to members of Congress who were
members in good standing. With martial music blasting out of the
Cannon Office Building Caucus Room, representatives and senators
queued up to receive bald eagle statues with their names engraved
on brass plates.
The ASC also attempts to punish its opposition. It ran a
full-page ad in the , [f-195] a
newspaper long associated with the ASC, [f-196] demanding that
Congressman Richard Gephart support Contra funding.
The ASC’s biased voter index is sent to a targeted
congressperson’s hometown press pointing out the low ratings,
hoping to elicit negative stories and editorials. The and newspapers from
around the country use the
>ASC index as if it comes from a responsible, nonpartisan
organization. [f-197] The votes upon which ratings are
made require the most hard-line positions in order to gain ASC approval.
Congressmen Bill Chappell and Sam Stratton and Senators
Dennis DeConcini, the late Ed Zorinsky and Bennett Johnson were
the Democrats most often associated with ASC political and
fundraising activities in recent years. [Zorinsky switched to the
Republican Party shortly before his death]. Often their presence
is highlighted to suggest what is termed the bipartisan character
of the event or the bipartisan character of the Coalition. In
effect, however, the ASC acts as if it were a GOP operation.
All of the partisan groups in the Coalition for Peace
Through Strength are Republican, including 15 units of the GOP
itself. The “Private Sector Co-Chairmen,” as distinct from the
Congressional Division of the Coalition for Peace Through
Strength, are Republican. The so-called private sector in the
Coalition refers to the 171 groups that are supposed to be the
“grass-roots” complement which interacts with the Congressional
Division. Among the 171 are the Nazi-linked groups previously described.
The ASC Political Action Committee also reflects a GOP
bias. Eighty percent of the $138,560 disbursed between February,
1985 and June, 1986 went to Republicans, with Steve Symms the big
winner with $6,738. [f-198] Reps. Guy Molinari and Jack Kemp
followed with $5,250 and $5,000 respectively.
In presidential elections,the ASC can be counted on to
support the Republican candidate. Among the first to use heavy
negative advertising as a partisan tool, ASC campaign material
continues to exaggerate and misrepresent the views of Democratic
opponents in order to defeat them. Campaign crisis-mongering
statements by Singlaub and Graham, used by the ASC in the 1980
elections, have become a Council trademark. As early as 1970, the
ASC campaign warned “the 1970 elections may be [your]{last
chance}to vote for Peace Through Strength.” [f-199]
Admiral La Rocque noted that “They have always used the
rhetoric of fear and panic to make their case.” He cited a 1980
ASC appeal: “No generation of Americans has ever before been so
recklessly placed at the mercy of so pitiless and powerful an
enemy. . .our nation stands paralyzed in blind obedience. . .so
utterly unprepared is America. . .the crisis is approaching the
point of no return. . . .” [f-200]
In 1984 the ASC mailed a list of Russian-English language
translations of words and phrases it would be necessary for
Americans to learn if Mondale won. Fisher says it was “one of the
politest” ways of saying what they thought would happen if Reagan
lost in 1984. [f-201]
One of the sources of ASC funding is the Communication
Corporation of America and its subsidiaries, Preferred Lists and
Direct Marketing, all owned by Fisher and his family. [f-202] CCA
is a direct mail firm that employs 250 people on three shifts.
Located on the ASC’s 850-acre Virginia estate, CCA does work for
private businesses, New Rightists such as Tim LaHaye, and for 11
years has had a contract with the Republican National Committee.
“If we didn’t have the CCA, the ASC would have gone out of
business on three occasions,” says Fisher. [f-203] The firm also
works for GOP campaigns and local GOP units.
It is easy to see the partisan and pecuniary motives of the
ASC, its corporate friends and Republican allies. But the ASC
also represents a world view with the influence to spread that
world view. Fisher himself summed it up in four words–“I believe
in Rollback.” [f-204] The ASC network, including its Nazi
friends, has not given up the idea of the U.S. military
destruction of the USSR. The purpose of the massive weapons
buildups they advocate is toward that end.
Jay Winek, a former executive director of the
neo-conservative Coalition for a Democratic Majority, said that
the ASC “uses the word `peace’ to justify strength. They really
don’t see peace as the purpose of strength.” [f-205]
Forge together elements from the New Right, the Republican
Party, certain hawkish Congressional Democrats, military and
intelligence agency connections and powerful business interests,
and you have the essence of the ASC, a lobby for weapons and war.
Toward its goal the ASC has also pulled into its coalition
racialists, American sympathizers of Hitler’s war aims,
representatives of post-war Italian fascism, and even
collaborators with Hitler’s Waffen SS.
This is consistent with the end goal of the ASC and its
allies, who would finish the job originally started by German
National Socialism–militarily eliminating the USSR. Given the
nature and past of the coalition pushing this aggresssive
militarist option, it might well serve the American people to
consider a wider range of options in foreign policy matters.
From: [email protected] (NLG Civil Liberties Committee)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: Bellant: Old Nazi Networks in US
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 12 Dec 92 02:27:00 GMT
References: <[email protected]>
Sender: Notesfile to Usenet Gateway
Lines: 296
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1299600110:cdp:1299600118:000:15426
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!cberlet Dec 11 18:27:00 1992
[Editor’s note: Part Two of the Bellant Report was originally posted in five
parts. I have removed all but the Message-ID and References from the
articles and concatenated them here. knm Dec 14, 1992]
/* Written 9:10 pm Dec 8, 1992 by cberlet in igc:publiceye */
/* Written 8:30 pm Dec 6, 1992 by cberlet in igc:p.news */
/* Written 6:50 pm Mar 4, 1990 by nlgclc in igc:publiceye */
