BRIAN WILLSON: Counter Terrorism Under Reagan-Bush I

August 23, 2011
ARCHIVES: Counter Terrorism Under Reagan-Bush I 

Reagan Launches Explicit Policy Using “Terror“ as Pretext for Repression

By S. Brian Willson*

**July 22, 1982, NSSD-47, “Emergency Mobilization Preparedness,” authorized “relocation of large numbers of people” [detention] and an “intensified counterintelligence effort” during major domestic or national security emergencies.

**July 28, 1983, NSSD-100, “Enhanced U.S. Military Activity and Assistance For the Central America Region”, ordering U.S. military operations in the area “significantly increased.”

San Francisco Examiner, October 5, 1988, “Reagan Loosened CIA Leash, Order Could Have OK’d Assassinations”).

**January 20, 1986, NSDD 207, “The National Program for Combating Terrorism,” created a National Security Council (NSC) coordinator of counterterrorism, also chaired by Oliver North, to develop more effective measures for apprehending, extraditing, and prosecuting terrorists.

**July 18, 1986, FBI presents “counter intelligence/counter-terrorism operations plan” at a meeting of the OSG-TIWG (see above) to initiate active FBI domestic surveillance.

The following evidence suggest how intensely President Reagan pursued surveillance, especially under the new rationale of investigating and preempting “terrorist” incidents.

1. Reagan Executive Order 12333, signed December 4, 1981. This Order allows the CIA to collect foreign intelligence and counter-intelligence within the U.S., to conduct covert operations in the U.S., and allows physical surveillance by the CIA of a person abroad to obtain foreign intelligence. The Order allows warrantless, unconsented physical searches, mail surveillance, monitoring, and similar techniques if “there is probable cause to believe that the technique is directed against a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.” (The 1947 National Security Act that created the CIA prohibits the CIA from “internal security functions.”)

2. National Security Decision Directive #2 was signed by President Reagan on January 12, 1982. This NSDD reorganized the National Security Council (NSC) and set up interagency groups on (1) foreign policy, (2) defense policy, and (3) intelligence to “undertake such other activities as may be assigned to the NSC.” NOTE: In effect, this Directive states that the NSC will set policy, and will participate in operational roles. It shifts NSC from adviser to the actual running of covert campaigns.

3. National Security Decision Directive #22 was signed by President Reagan on January 29, 1982. This NSDD authorized the CIA Director to request the FBI to collect information for the CIA in the United States. (The 1947 National Security Act prohibits the CIA from “internal security functions.”)

4. National Security Decision Directive #47 was signed by President Reagan on July 22, 1982. This NSDD was entitled “Emergency Mobilization Preparedness” and provided for wage and price controls, the “relocation of large numbers of people” and an “intensified counterintelligence effort” during major domestic or national security emergencies.

5. National Security Decision Directive #100 was signed by President Reagan on July 28, 1983. This NSDD was entitled “Enhanced U.S. Military Activity and Assistance for the Central America Region” and it ordered U.S. military operations in the area “significantly increased.”

7. There was (and is) a FBI Anti-Terrorist Task Force (Ref. Agents George Kiszynski and Kevin Currier relating to Jack Terrell).

8. A July 28, 1986, memorandum from Poindexter of the NSC (memo prepared by Col. North) addressed to President Reagan identifies the Operations Sub-Group (OSG) of the Terrorist Incident Working Group (TIWG) of the NSC. This Group made available to the FBI all information from other U.S. agencies relating to Terrell in early 1986.

October 31, 1986, a four-page FBI message addressed to the Director and All Offices of the Bureau from the Chicago office, SUBJECT: “Domestic Security/Terrorism Sabotage”, including the launching of an October 30 investigation of the “Plowshare” group, and group called the Veterans Fast For Life, as part of “an organized conspiracy to use force/violence to coerce the United States Government into modifying its direction“.

December 14, 1987, FBI Director William Sessions sends 3-page response letter to Congressman Don Edwards’ (D-CA) inquiry of October 6, 1987, admitting that six individuals from two organizations, “Silo Plowshares”, and “Veterans fast For Life”, “were developed as suspects“, and that the FBI conducted a “preliminary inquiry….under the domestic security/terrorism caption“.  From the pattern of conduct “it was reasonable to conclude a political motive, by two or more persons engaged in activities in violation of Federal law…..Such investigations are initiated when the facts or circumstances reasonably indicate that two or more persons are engaged in an enterprise for the purpose of furthering political or social goals, wholly or in part, through activities that involve force or violence and a violation of the criminal laws of the United State”.  The letter indicated that the preliminary inquiry was closed on April 28, 1987.

Brian Note #1: The FBI response does not indicate whether there have been any other investigations, official or unofficial, for any other reasons, and whether the initial inquiry remains part of the historical record or whether it has been physically eliminated. A wave of break-ins (see Brian Note #3 below) at offices of political opponents to Reagan’s foreign policies suggest government behavior has systematically been involved directly or indirectly in violation of the law and civil liberties, going far beyond surveillance and investigations.

Brian Note #3: As of January 1988, the Movement Support Network of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York had recorded 90 burglaries and break-ins with apparent Central American-related political motives since 1983.  From November 1984 through June 1986, the offices sharing space in the basement of the Old Cambridge Baptist Church in Cambridge, MA were broken into eight times.  The targets included: The New England Central American Network (NECAN), Central American Solidarity Association, Central American Information Office, Educators in Support of ANDES (the Salvadoran teachers union) and New Institute of Central America (NICA), the latter of which sent Brian to their language school in Esteli, Nicaragua on a scholarship as a military veteran, Jan.-Feb. 1986.  The Church itself had become a sanctuary for Central American refugees the week before the first break-in.  On May 15, 1987, the NICA office experienced another break-in.  Burglars poured muriatic acid on computer discs.  NECAN was broken into again on May 3, 1988. (Sklar, pp. 351-52).

Break-Ins at Sanctuary Churches and Organizations Opposed to Administration Policy in Central America: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, 100th Congress, 1st Session, February 19-20, 1987].

In addition, the VFFL Christic house was broken into in early October 1986 in Wash., DC.  And Daniel Sheehan, director of Christic was investigated by the FBI as well.

BW Note #1: In former CIA officer John Stockwell’s book, The Praetorian Guard, The U.S. Role in the New World Order. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. (1991), pp. 105-106, he reports that in September 1988, FBI Director William Sessions announced the disciplining of FBI officers who had improperly targeted the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) and 160 other civic organizations, many of which were critical of the Reagan administration’s policy in Central America. During the summer of 1989, Congress discovered that a total of 1,600 groups had been improperly targeted by the FBI.

August 31, 1988, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, “Political Break-ins: A Disturbing Whodunit”: Citing a Knight-Ridder story by their Washington, D.C. reporter, Alfonso Chardy, “The CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency have cooperated in a three year operation aimed at monitoring the activities of U.S.-based opponents of Reagan’s Central America policies.”

F.B.I. Is Willing To Erase Names From Its Records,” by Philip Shenon: “The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, William S. Sessions, indicated today that the bureau was willing to expunge the names of people and organizations identified in files of a bureau surveillance campaign aimed at opponents of the Reagan Administration’s policies in Central America.

Brian Note #1: Brian’s name?

Brian Note #2:  Reagan’s Office of Public Diplomacy had applied techniques from the Public Relations industry as well as utilizing intelligence shenanigans, coordinating its efforts with Western Goals, a private intelligence computerized data gathering agency closely connected to the John Birch Society, to create a data-base cataloguing the names and personal information of activists in the nuclear freeze and Central American solidarity movement.  The information was turned over to the FBI.  The OPD worked hand-in-glove with the State Dept., the Defense Dept., the CIA, the NSC, and a vast private network of right-wing individuals and organizations. Retired General John Singlaub was on the Western Goals board [The New Right Humanitarians, The Resource Center, Albuquerque, NM, 1986, pp. 39-40].

, Washington: Center for national Security Studies, 1988, p. 2].

Boston Globe, June 18, 1988].

NOTE: In 1988, FBI director William Sessions finally admitted to the Library Awareness Program in which librarians were asked to report on the reading habits of people with foreign accents or funny sounding names (Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, p. 759).  The Washington Monthly published a January 1989 article, “Ma’m, What You Need Is a New, Improved Hoover,” by Mathew Miller, in which he humorously points out that if this standard were applied, “Zbigniew Brzenski could be busted any day in the Columbia stacks.”  Actually the Library Awareness Program predated Sessions by many years, having been established by J. Edgar Hoover in 1962 in efforts to solicit librarians as informants (Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, p. 760).

September 1990, “International Terrorism, FBI Investigates Domestic Activities To Identify Terrorists,” prepared by the U.S. General Accounting Office, Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee On Civil and Constitutional Rights, Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives (Rep. Don Edwards), that reveals between January 1982 and June 1988, the FBI opened 18,144 cases because of suspicion that individuals or group were involved in terrorist activities, of whom 6,895 were “U.S. Persons” (U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens). Congressman Don Edwards (D-10th Congr Distr/San Jose) initiated the inquiry. William Webster had been director of the FBI, February 23, 1978 – May 25, 1987.  He was succeeded by William S. Sessions, director from November 2, 1987 – July 19, 1993.  John E. Otto was the Acting Director, May 26, 1987 – November 2, 1987 at the time Brian was struck.

GAO Report: “The FBI redacted the closed files before we reviewed them…We were limited in our ability to develop overall conclusions regarding the FBI’s international terrorism program.  The questionnaire and case file data clearly demonstrated that the FBI did engage in monitoring of First Amendment-type activities during its international terrorist investigations”.

Brian Note #1: There is no way of knowing the veracity of any FBI statements.  Information is blacked out (redacted) preventing any accountability as to who was investigated, and whether their names are still on a watch list.

Brian Note #2: See: Ross Gelbspan. (1991). Break-ins, Death Threats and the FBI, The Covert War Against the Central America Movement. Boston: South End Press, p. 150: The “hook” in the FBI Guidelines that permitted investigations of various individual U.S. citizens, including Congress people, was because of their “contacts with representatives of foreign governments”.

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*A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR (Thank you, WiKipedia)

S. Brian Willson (born July 4, 1941) is a prominent American anti-war activist. 

U.S. Constitutional and international laws prohibiting aggression and war crimes,” Willson has been an educator and activist, teaching about the dangers of these policies. He has participated in lengthy fasts, actions of nonviolent civil disobedience, and tax refusal along with voluntary simplicity.

Reagan‘s anti-terrorist task force provisions and that the train crew that day had been ordered not to stop the train to prevent any Hijacking attempts. Willson filed a law suit contending that the Navy and individual supervisors were given ample warning of their plan to block the tracks, and that the train crew had time to stop—which the subsequent official Navy report confirmed. The train crew filed a law suit against Willson, requesting punitive damages for the “humiliation, mental anguish, and physical stress” they suffered as a result of the incident, which was dismissed. Willson later agreed to settle his lawsuit against the Government and train crew for $920,000. Willson now walks with prostheses.

Willson’s blog is at http://www.brianwillson.com/.  His site, in his words, packs essays, “describing the incredible historic pattern of U.S. arrogance, ethnocentrism, violence and lawlessness in domestic and global affairs, and the severe danger this pattern poses for the future health of Homo sapiens and Mother Earth. Other essays discuss revolutionary, nonviolent alternative approaches based on the principle of radical relational mutuality. This is a term increasingly used by physicists, mathematicians and cosmologists to describe the nature of the omnicentric*, ever-unfolding universe. Every being, every aspect of life energy in the cosmos, is intrinsically interconnected with and affects every other being and aspect of life energy at every moment.”

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