United States

Joyce Demy, an employee of the software company Inslaw, writes to the firm’s lawyer saying that it made enhancements to its PROMIS software worth $1 million between May 1981 and May 1982. She also tells the lawyer, James Rogers of Latham, Watkins & Hills, that no government money was used for the enhancements, which were paid for solely out of private funds. Prior to the enhancements, the original PROMIS software was in the public domain, as it had been paid for by government money (see Mid-1970s). However, the various privately-funded enhancements mean that Inslaw can claim ownership of it. [US Congress, 9/10/1992]

Anti-abortion activists Don Benny Anderson (see May 1982), Matthew Moore, and Wayne Moore kidnap Dr. Hector Zevallos of the Hope Clinic for Women (see January 1982) and his wife. The activists hold the Zevalloses for eight days, during which time they force Zevallos to make an anti-abortion speech that is to be videotaped and sent to President Reagan in support of legislation designed to overturn the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion (see January 22, 1973). Threatened with the murder of himself and his wife, Zevallos agrees. According to government documents, this is the first action of the “Army of God,” a violent anti-abortion group (see 1982, Early 1980s, and July 1988). [Kushner, 2003, pp. 38; Extremist Groups: Information for Students, 1/1/2006] Anderson and Matthew Moore will plead guilty to multiple felonies in regards to the incident; Anderson will tell the court that he has been told by God to “wage war on abortion.” The three will also be convicted of kidnapping Zevallos and his wife. Anderson will receive 30 years for the kidnapping, and 30 additional years for firebombing two Florida abortion clinics. [Extremist Groups: Information for Students, 1/1/2006; National Abortion Federation, 2010]

Associate Deputy Attorney General Stanley Morris writes to James Rogers, an attorney acting for Inslaw, and admits that the company owns privately funded improvements to the PROMIS software. Morris first points out that part of the software was financed by the government: “We agree that the original PROMIS, as defined in your letter of May 26, 1982 (see May 26, 1982), is in the public domain. We also agree that the printed inquiry enhancement is in the public domain.” This means that Inslaw could never charge the department for the use of software comprising only the original application and the printed inquiry enhancement (although it could of course charge for installation and maintenance). However, Morris adds, “To the extent that any other enhancements to the system were privately funded by Inslaw and not specified to be delivered to the Department of Justice under any contract or other arrangement, Inslaw may assert whatever proprietary rights it may have.” This means the department agrees that Inslaw can sell a version of the software with privately-funded enhancements. [US Congress, 9/10/1992] This statement is made in response to a letter sent by lawyers acting for Inslaw founder William Hamilton, informing the department that Inslaw intends to become a private company, and asking it to waive any proprietary rights it might claim to the enhanced version. Clarification will be provided in a 1988 deposition in which Deputy Attorney General Arnold Burns will say, “Our lawyers were satisfied that Inslaw’s lawyers could sustain the claim in court, that we had waived those [proprietary] rights.” [Wired News, 3/1993]

In the second of two rulings in the case of Halkin v Helms, the judiciary comes down squarely on the side of the US government against charges of illegal surveillance and wiretapping leveled against American anti-war protesters. The district and appellate courts uphold the federal government’s “state secrets” claim as codified in US v Reynolds (see March 9, 1953), thereby denying the plaintiffs the right to see government information that they claim would prove their case. The DC Court of Appeals writes that the federal courts do not have any constitutional role as “continuing monitors of the wisdom and soundness of Executive action,” and instead the courts “should accord utmost deference to executive assertions of privilege on grounds of military or diplomatic secrets… courts need only be satisfied that there is a reasonable danger” that military secrets might be exposed. [Siegel, 2008, pp. 196-196]

President Reagan signs classified National Security Decision Directive 55, Enduring National Leadership. The directive authorizes a dramatic expansion of the highly secretive Continuity of Government (COG) procedures, intended to ensure the survival of the federal government in times of extreme national emergency. NSDD-55 will spawn a new wave of ultra-secretive programs and policies aimed at protecting the federal government during disasters, particularly in cases of prolonged nuclear war. A clandestine branch of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), known as the National Preparedness Directorate, will oversee many of the revamped COG programs. President Reagan’s directive substantially boosts spending for “government preparedness” within FEMA, from $21.9 million to $131 million a year. Spending for civil defense within FEMA is increased as well. Also around this time, a highly clandestine agency, the National Program Office (NPO), is established by way of a top-secret presidential directive (see (1982 -1991)). It is unclear, however, if this directive is NSDD-55, which is classified and never made public. NSDD-55 will be briefly mentioned years later in media reports, but details of its contents will remain unknown. Some information regarding the document’s background will be confused in the press. Cox News Service will mistakenly identify the order as National Security Directive 58, while the New York Times will report it was signed in January 1983. Records gathered by the Federation of American Scientists will date the directive September 14, 1982. [CNN Special Assignment, 11/17/1991; Cox News Service, 2/22/1993; New York Times, 4/18/1994; Federation of American Scientists, 6/9/2009]

According to a State Department report, “Unspecified foreign officers [fire] lethal chemical weapons at the orders of Saddam [Hussein] during battles [against Iranian forces] in the Mandali area.” [US Department of State, 11/1/1983 ]

President Reagan and Dartmouth Review editor Dinesh D’Souza, 1988. [Source: Exiled Online (.com)]The Dartmouth Review, a conservative weekly student newspaper funded by off-campus right-wing sources (see 1980), publishes a satirical piece called “Grin and Beirut,” that compares an Israeli settlement in West Beirut to a temporary structure just erected by Jewish students at Dartmouth to celebrate the harvest and saying it was built on “the West Bank of College Hall.” The structure, known as a sukkah, is where the students gather for meals during the eight-day Succoth holiday. “The Zionists have gone too far with the erection of a ceremonial ‘sukkah’ settlement on the West Bank of College Hall,” the Review writes. Two days later, unidentified vandals destroy the structure. Many Dartmouth students and faculty members believe the Review’s apparent anti-Semitism incited the vandalism, including a rabbi with the university. Even the conservative Manchester Union-Leader, one of New Hampshire’s staunchest press supporters of the Review, criticizes the Review for its writings. One of the article’s co-authors says he regrets writing the piece, and the Review publishes an apology saying that it is “committed to fighting not only vandalism but also the psychological bigotry that can precipitate it.” [Boston Globe, 10/5/1990; Dartmouth Free Press, 9/20/2006] In 2006, the Dartmouth Free Press will write that Review staffers may have destroyed the sukkah. The reporter will note that any contrition or commitment to “fighting vandalism [and] psychological bigotry” was not in evidence in later years, when Review staffers used sledgehammers to destroy shanties built by students as part of protests against apartheid in South Africa. [Dartmouth Free Press, 9/20/2006] The Review is currently edited by Dinesh D’Souza, who will go on to become a policy adviser in the Reagan administration and a prominent conservative speaker and pundit. [Know Your Right-Wing Speakers: Dinesh D'Souza, 2/25/2005]

As part of the US-European anti-nuclear peace movement (see June 12, 1982), a referendum calling for the immediate halt of nuclear weapons deployments appears on the ballot in 10 states, 37 cities and counties, and the District of Columbia. It passes almost everywhere. By the end of 1982, polls show that 85 percent of Americans support the nuclear freeze movement. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 132-133]

In November 1982, US Representative Charlie Wilson (D-TX) travels to Islamabad, Pakistan, and meets with President Muhammad Zia ul-Haq. He promises Zia to deliver a crucial weapons system that has so far been denied by the US—the latest radar systems for Pakistan’s F-16 fighter planes. Wilson also meets with CIA Station Chief Howard Hart, who is in charge of providing support for the Afghan resistance to the Soviets. He urges Hart to expand the program and stresses that vast amounts of money can be made available. [Crile, 2003, pp. 106-129] The next month, President Zia comes to the US to meet with President Reagan. Zia first meets with Wilson in Houston and expresses his gratitude for helping Pakistan acquire F-16 radar systems (see November-December 1982). Wilson then broaches the subject of Pakistan secretly purchasing arms from Israel for the Afghan War. Zia agrees to this in principle. [Crile, 2003, pp. 131-132]

Peter Videnieks, the Justice Department’s contracting officer, writes to Inslaw and says that it is in default of a clause in a contract between it and the government on the installation of PROMIS software. The clause concerns advance payments made by the department, which Inslaw needs to receive for its work under the contract in order to keep on operating as a business. Due to Inslaw’s poor financial situation, the House Judiciary Committee will comment that withholding the advance payments would have a “devastating impact” on the company, and Videnieks will later say he was aware of this, stating, “I think I was advised at the same time that Inslaw may indeed have difficulty in meeting the December payroll, and I think in general I was advised that they were in bad financial condition.” Due to its lack of cash, Inslaw had assigned rights to the advance payments to a financial institution to secure a line of credit. Justice Department PROMIS project manager C. Madison “Brick” Brewer will say that the reason the department is considering terminating the advance payments is a loan Inslaw has from the Bank of Bethesda, under which a lien was placed on the advance payments received by Inslaw from a specific account (not the account itself). According to Brewer, the lien is contrary to the contract and places the government in financial risk. [US Congress, 9/10/1992]

A technical representative for the Justice Department formally asks Inslaw for a copy of the PROMIS software currently being used by US attorneys’ offices. The department will later say that this request is motivated by concern over the financial viability of Inslaw, although the company is in financial difficulty because the government is withholding advance payments it owes (see November 10, 1982). At this time, the department has not yet obtained the minicomputer hardware for each attorney’s office and Inslaw has arranged for the largest US attorneys’ offices to use PROMIS on a time-sharing basis. [US Congress, 9/10/1992]

The first of three so-called “Boland amendments” becomes law. Named for Representative Edward Boland (D-MA), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, the amendment is part of a larger appropriations bill. The amendment restricts US humanitarian aid to the Contras, and prohibits the use of US funds “for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua.” The Reagan administration gets around the amendment by saying that its actions in support of the Contras are merely designed to force the Sandinistas to come to a peace agreement with the Contras, not to bring down the Nicaraguan government. [House Intelligence Committee, 2005; Savage, 2007, pp. 53]

Peter Videnieks, the Justice Department’s contracting officer, writes to Inslaw to demand that it turn over all computer programs and supporting documentation relating to a contract to install PROMIS software for the department (see March 1982). In response, Inslaw says it will not do this without the department modifying the contract between them to acknowledge that it has inserted privately-funded enhancements into a public domain version developed for the department. This modification is apparently required because the department is using a time-share version of the application in advance of full installation, and Inslaw’s other timesharing customers also use a version with the enhancements. The department then says that the original contract called for software in which the government has unlimited rights, and asks Inslaw to identify the parts of the software it claims are proprietary. Inslaw offers to provide the enhanced software to the 94 attorneys’ offices covered by the contract at no extra charge, provided the department agrees to Inslaw’s rights and does not disseminate the software beyond these offices. However, Videnieks will later tell investigators for the House Judiciary Committee that the department believed that it had unlimited rights to any versions of PROMIS, and if restrictions were placed on data rights, then this would not satisfy Inslaw’s obligation under the contract. [US Congress, 9/10/1992]

The Justice Department’s PROMIS project manager, C. Madison “Brick” Brewer, writes a memo about potential developments in the project. In the memo, he says he is concerned about the possibility Inslaw, the company that is implementing the PROMIS software, may go bankrupt, and that staff at the Executive Office for US Attorneys may need to take over the project. Brewer also mentions the possibility that the contract with Inslaw could be terminated by the department. Inslaw will enter bankruptcy in 1985, at least partially as a result of the department withholding payments from it (see February 1985). [US Congress, 9/10/1992]

Disgusted with the Reagan administration’s failure to make even the most basic progress in the START arms negotiations with the Soviet Union (see May 1982 and After), and viewing the administration’s position as not only untenable but dangerous, Congress steps in and threatens to withhold funding for the MX missile (see 1981) if something is not done. In return, President Reagan appoints a blue-ribbon panel to study the negotiations and recommend alternatives (see January 1983-April 1983). [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 124]

Air Force General David Jones, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says that the idea of winning a protracted nuclear war, as espoused by the Pentagon (see March 1982), is not tenable. “I don’t see much of a chance of nuclear war being limited or protracted,” he says. “I see great difficulty in keeping any kind of exchange between the US and the Soviets from escalating.” He adds: “If you try to do everything to fight a protracted nuclear war, then you end up with the potential of a bottomless pit.… We can’t do everything. I personally would not spend a lot of money on a protracted nuclear war.” [Air Force Magazine, 3/2008]

Abdus Salam, a member of the nuclear equipment purchasing ring run by Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan, sets up a business named International Reliance in Florida. The name is similar to a British-based business, Source Reliance International (a.k.a. SR International), in which Salam has been a partner and which has been active in the nuclear ring (see Summer 1976). Around the same time, Salam also establishes a number of other US businesses, including three import-export firms, two trading companies, two communications outfits, a computer retailer, two hospitality companies, a financial services enterprise, and several companies involved in indeterminate business. It is unclear if Salam is living in the US at this time or arrives some time the following year. Before coming to the US, he resided in Britain and then the United Arab Emirates, but leaves there around this time, apparently due to a business dispute (see 1982-1983). Authors Joe Trento and David Armstrong will write that given Salam’s involvement in proliferation activities in Britain and Dubai, “it seems reasonable to assume that the US authorities would have kept tabs on him once he arrived.” However, no information about any surveillance of or cooperation with Salam on the part of US authorities is definitively known. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 114]

Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt supply Iraq with US howitzers, helicopters, bombs, and other weapons with the secret approval of the Reagan administration. [New Yorker, 11/2/1992; Phythian, 1997, pp. 35] Italy also funnels arms to Iraq at the insistence of President Reagan who personally made the request to Prime Minister Guilio Andreotti. [Friedman, 1993, pp. 51-54; Phythian, 1997, pp. 36]

The Reagan administration approves the sale of 60 civilian Hughes helicopters to Iraq, even though it is widely understood that the helicopters can be weaponized with little effort. Critics will regard the sale as military aid cloaked as civilian assistance. [Phythian, 1997, pp. 37-38]

The US State Department reports that Iraq’s support for anti-Western militant groups continues unabated. [Jentleson, 1994]

Secretary of Commerce Howard Baldridge and Secretary of State George Shultz successfully lobby the National Security Council (NSC) adviser to approve the sale of 10 Bell helicopters to Iraq in spite of objections from other NSC members. It is claimed that the helicopters will be used for crop spraying. These same helicopters are later used in 1988 to deploy poison gas against Iranians and possibly Iraqi Kurds (see March 1988). [Washington Post, 3/11/1991; Phythian, 1997, pp. 37-38]

Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iran increases significantly. The US is informed of Iraq’s use of chemical weapons toward the end of the year. [Shultz, 1993, pp. 238; Jentleson, 1994, pp. 48; Cole, 1997, pp. 87]

Iranian diplomats bring photographs to the United Nations and several national capitals showing the swollen, blistered and burned bodies of injured and dead Iranians who have been victims of Iraqi chemical attacks. [New York Times, 2/13/2003]

A. Q. Khan (center of picture) at a test. [Source: CBC] (click image to enlarge)Pakistan carries out a successful test of a nuclear bomb minus the fissionable core, an exercise known as a “cold test.” Pakistan is receiving Chinese help with its nuclear program at this time, and the Chinese may assist with the test. The US learns that the test has been carried out around this time. [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 120-1; Guardian, 10/13/2007]

Neoconservative academic Michael Ledeen is brought into the Defense Department as a consultant on terrorism, via the auspices of Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle, a fellow neoconservative. Ledeen’s supervisor, Noel Koch, is troubled by Ledeen’s frequent visits to his office to read classified documents. When Koch and Ledeen journey to Italy on Pentagon business, Koch learns that Ledeen is considered an “agent of influence” for a foreign government: Israel. After returning from Italy, Ledeen asks Koch to help him obtain two highly classified CIA reports which he says are being held by the FBI. Ledeen gives Koch the reports’ “alpha numeric designators”—numbers as highly classified as the reports themselves. Koch is at a loss to understand how Ledeen obtained such information. Koch tells his executive assistant to stop allowing Ledeen to access the classified materials in his office. In return, Ledeen stops coming to work. [CounterPunch, 2/28/2004] Shortly thereafter, Ledeen will begin “consulting work” for the National Security Council (see Late 1984).

As part of the resurgence of the Cold War promulgated by the Reagan administration, Representative Dick Cheney (R-WY), an obstinate enemy of the Soviet union and a relentless advocate of an expanded US nuclear arsenal (see 1981), is part of a delegation sent by Reagan officials to Moscow as part of the reopened arms negotiations between the two countries (see May 1982 and After). It is not Cheney’s first “codel,” or Congressional delegation, but this particular trip is memorable, and not just because it is the first time a House delegation has visited the Soviet Union since 1979.
No Negotiations on Arms - Cheney, the ranking Republican on the trip, meets with Soviet marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, the deputy chief of the Soviet general staff. The meeting is also attended by Cheney’s House colleague, Thomas Downey (D-NY). Akhromeyev astonishes Downey by proposing that the Soviets would consider reopening discussion of mutual weapons cuts in Europe, and accept a one-year testing ban on testing its new SS24 ballistic missile, if the US would ban testing the MX. Downey is elated. In his mind, the proposal is clear evidence of a thaw in US-Soviet relations, and a signal that the Soviets want to move forward with strategic arms talks. Akhromeyev says, according to Downey, “If such a proposal is put forth, it would be considered at the negotiations” between the two governments’ most senior negotiators. But Cheney refuses to listen. “Cheney did not want to allow the Russians to appear in any way reasonable,” Downey later recalls. “He doesn’t believe in negotiations. He’s completely rigid, states his position, and concedes nothing. There could be no negotiations when his position was: It’s my way or the highway.” Cheney later denies that Akhromeyev even made such an offer. Downey, who considers Cheney a friend even though they disagree on virtually everything, recalls saying after the meeting: “I said, ‘You can’t expect them to accept all our terms? You can’t expect them to surrender?’ He said, ‘Yeah, yes I can.’”
'Standing at Ground Zero' - Downey recalls one chilling Moscow moment with Cheney. The two are strolling in Red Square one evening. Downey later recalls: “It was a spectacular night and we walked over to Red Square. There were just the two of us and I asked him what he was thinking. He said, ‘I think we’re standing at Ground Zero.’” [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 52-53]

Representative Charlie Wilson (D-TX) travels to Israel where he meets with Zvi Rafiah and other Israeli officials. From Israel he travels to Egypt and then Pakistan, where he secretly negotiates a major weapons deal with Pakistan (see November-December 1982) on behalf of the Israelis in support of the mujaheddin fighting Soviets in Afghanistan. Among other things, the deal includes the delivery of T-55 tanks. Author George Crile will later comment, “The Israelis were hoping this deal would serve as the beginning of a range of under-the-table understandings with Pakistan that the congressman would continue to quietly negotiate for them.” [Crile, 2003, pp. 141]

A Texas sheriff and three of his deputies are charged with violating the civil rights of several prisoners in their custody. According to the complaint, the four conspired to “subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning.” The procedure will later become known as “waterboarding.” All four are convicted, and the sheriff is sentenced to 10 years in prison. [Washington Post, 11/4/2007]

The Dartmouth Review, a conservative weekly student newspaper funded by off-campus right-wing sources (see 1980), publishes an article about African-American professor William Cole titled “Bill Cole’s Song and Dance.” The article calls Cole incompetent, and says, referring to his hair, that he looks like a “used Brillo pad.” [Dartmouth Free Press, 9/20/2006]

Seven members of the anti-Semitic, anti-government organization Posse Comitatus (see 1969 and February 13, 1983 and After) are arrested. They are part of a scheme to assassinate two federal judges and to blow up the IRS headquarters in Denver, Colorado. [Nicole Nichols, 2003]

Christian Identity (see 1960s and After) preacher and Posse Comitatus (see 1969) leader James Wickstrom (see 1975 - 1978) is charged with two counts of impersonating a public official. Wickstrom had named himself chief judge and municipal clerk of the “Tigerton Dells Township,” a Posse compound on the banks of the Embarrass River (see 1978 - 1983). Though Wickstrom defends himself as a “sovereign citizen” who is not obligated to obey the laws of the federal, state, and local government, prosecutor Douglas Haag counters: “[T]he question is whether or not a man with even marginal intelligence who can read and write the English language believes that he can put a fence around his back yard, set up a separate government, and call himself a public official.… [I]f [Wickstrom] has a sincere belief that he is a public officer within the laws of the state of Wisconsin, I’m the Easter Bunny.” Wickstrom is convicted and sentenced to the maximum of 13 and one-half months in jail. He will be released in 1985 and forbidden from any contact with Posse Comitatus activities for two years afterwards. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2004] Wickstrom is also charged with running an illegal guerrilla training camp (see 1984). The Tigerton Dells debacle has a negative effect on the Posse Comitatus (see 1984).

CSA members outside their Arkansas compound. Some CSA members also belong to the Elohim City community. [Source: GifS (.com)]Three white supremacists living in the Elohim City, Oklahoma, compound (see 1973 and After) visit Oklahoma City and make plans to blow up the Murrah Federal Building there. The three are: James Ellison, the leader of the Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord (CSA) who will be arrested in 1985 after a four-day standoff with federal authorities; Kerry Noble; and Richard Wayne Snell, who will be executed for murdering a black police officer and a businessman he erroneously believed to be Jewish (see 9:00 p.m. April 19, 1995). All three men have close ties to the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations (see Early 1970s). The evidence of their plan is released during the investigation of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), and is collated by former US prosecutor Steven N. Snyder, who once worked out of the Fort Smith, Arkansas District Attorney’s office. The plan involves parking a van or trailer in front of the building and exploding it with rockets detonated by a timer. Snyder will come across the information on the bombing plot while preparing for the trial of a sedition case against a 14-man group of white supremacists, 10 of whom are charged with planning to overthrow the government. (All 14 will be acquitted in a 1988 trial—see Late 1987 - April 8, 1998.) Snyder will get the information from Ellison, who provides information to him as part of his role as chief witness for the prosecution. The other defendants in the trial, many of whom are believed to have had some connection to the bombing plot, will be Richard Butler, the head of Aryan Nations; Robert E. Miles, a former Klansman who heads the Mountain Church of Jesus Christ the Saviour in Cohoctah, Michigan; and Louis R. Beam Jr., a former grand dragon of the Texas Ku Klux Klan and “ambassador at large” of the Aryan Nations. Ellison will tell Snyder that in July 1983, he attends a meeting of extremist groups in Hayden Lake, Idaho, the location of the Aryan Nations headquarters, where he informs them of the death of fellow white supremacist Gordon Kahl in a gun battle with law enforcement agents in Arkansas (see March 13 - June 3, 1983). Snyder’s notes of Ellison’s statement read, “Kahl was the catalyst that made everyone come forth and change the organizations from thinkers to doers.” According to Ellison, the leaders of the various supremacist groups discuss how to overthrow the federal government, using as a sourcebook the novel The Turner Diaries (see 1978), which tells of a successful move by white supremacists to overthrow the government and then commit genocide against Jews and blacks. Ellison will tell Snyder that he volunteers to assassinate federal officials in Arkansas as part of the plot. The leaders discuss blowing up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, other federal buildings, and the Dallas office of a Jewish organization. According to Ellison’s trial testimony, in October 1983 Snell and another participant, Steve Scott, “asked me to design a rocket launcher that could be used to destroy these buildings from a distance.” Of Snell, Ellison will testify: “On one of the trips when I was with Wayne, he took me to some of the buildings and asked me to go in the building and check the building out. This kind of thing.” Ellison will tell Snyder that at Snell’s request, he surveills the Murrah Building to assess what it would take to damage and destroy it. He makes preliminary sketches and drawings. According to the preliminary plans, rocket launchers are to be “placed in a trailer or a van so that it could be driven up to a given spot, parked there, and a timed detonating device could be triggered so that the driver could walk away and leave the vehicle set in position, and he would have time to clear the area before any of the rockets launched.… And I was asked to make it so it would fit in either a trailer or a van or a panel truck.” Synder will later say that Snell is embittered towards the government because of the IRS, which took him to court and seized property from him for failure to pay taxes. But, Snyder will add, “you can’t be sure about any of this, because a federal raid, to a lot of these people, is any time the postman brings the mail.” Ellison will be taken into custody after a four-day standoff with state and federal authorities in 1985, only convinced to surrender after white supremacist Robert Millar talks him into giving up (see 1973 and After). Ellison will be convicted of racketeering charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He will enter the federal witness protection program until completing his parole and leaving the program on April 21, 1995, two days after the Oklahoma City bombing. [New York Times, 5/20/1995; Anti-Defamation League, 8/9/2002; Nicole Nichols, 2003]

The US places a high-tech piece of surveillance equipment near Pakistan’s nuclear weapons facility in Kahuta. The device is a boulder made from resin that is moulded and coloured to look like the local rocks. It is transported in on the back of a delivery truck and can transmit intelligence through an array of sophisticated recording and air-sampling technology hidden inside the shell. However, according to Pakistani General Khalid Arif, the device is discovered by chance. A student travelling on the back of another truck falls off and hits his head on the rock. Arif will say: “He opened his eyes and realized that he was still alive and unbruised. The rock, however, had a hole in it and inside were all sorts of whirring and blinking bits. We took it away for analysis and later put it into our museum for trainee spies.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 92-93]

An undated photo of LeRoy Schweitzer. [Source: WorldNews]LeRoy Schweitzer, a crop duster in Montana and Idaho, becomes increasingly frustrated and resentful at what he considers interference by the government. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Schweitzer moves toward becoming an anti-government tax resister. He becomes fascinated by the legal ideology of the Posse Comitatus (see 1969), attends numerous Posse meetings, and has some contacts with members of The Order (see Late September 1983). Schweitzer, well-liked by his neighbors and friends, begins to worry them with his increasing extremism. He helps a friend, Bernard Kuennan, mount a legal defense against charges of letting his dog roam unvaccinated, and the two hammer the judge with questions about the differences between “admiralty” and “common law” (see Fall 2010). He defies police officers who stop him for traffic violations. He moves to Montana, where he refuses to get a license to fly his Cessna crop duster, resulting in federal arrest warrants. His refusal to pay federal taxes causes the IRS to seize his plane in November 1992, his Bozeman, Montana home, and other equipment, and sell it all to pay his $389,000 delinquent tax bill, dating back to the 1970s. Thoroughly radicalized, Schweitzer meets Rodney Owen Skurdal, another legal manipulator. Skurdal is an ex-Marine and Posse Comitatus advocate who, during litigation of a worker’s compensation suit in the 1980s, tells the judge that the federal government lacks the authority to print paper money and demands, fruitlessly, to be paid his compensation in gold bullion. One Wyoming newspaper claims that Skurdal’s extremism begins after he suffers a fractured skull in 1983, the source of the compensation claim; Skurdal’s former wife says after the injury that Skurdal refuses to use a Social Security number or driver’s license. Skurdal, like many in the Posse, is an adherent to the virulently racist Christian Identity belief system (see 1960s and After), and in court filings claims non-whites are “beasts,” and Jews “the children of Satan.” Skurdal routinely intertwines Identity, Posse Comitatus, Biblical, and Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) tenets in his court filings (see 1994). In 1993, the IRS seizes his farm near Roundup, Montana, for back taxes; Skurdal continues to occupy the farm and no local official dares to evict him. In late 1994, Skurdal invites Schweitzer to move in with him; they are joined by Daniel Petersen in early 1995. The three become the nucleus of what will become the Montana Freemen. Skurdal’s farm becomes a headquarters for the nascent organization, with computers, fax machines, laser printers, and satellite dishes going round the clock. The inhabitants post a sign on the edge of the property, reading: “Do Not Enter Private Land of the Sovereign.… The right of Personal Liberty is one of the fundamental rights guaranteed to every citizen, and any unlawful interference with it may be resisted.” Local authorities want to curb the group, but do not want to risk violence and bloodshed. Musselshell County Sheriff G. Paul Smith says: “These people want to be martyrs. I don’t know how far they are willing to carry that.” Moreover, Smith and his small sheriff’s department are outnammed and outgunned. [Mark Pitcavage, 5/6/1996]

After being recruited by Abdullah Azzam, an Arab Afghan leader and Osama bin Laden’s mentor, Essam al Ridi travels to Pakistan to join the mujaheddin fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. He works for the mujaheddin for about 18 months, mostly as a purchaser of equipment abroad. He buys two sets of scuba diving equipment and six range finders in Britain, as well as night vision goggles and six night vision scopes from the US. He also purchases video equipment and batteries, and acquires equipment in Japan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Al Ridi will later say, as a witness in a US trial, that he travels “extensively almost every 15 days to 20 days” and that he has so many stamps his passport is nearly full by 1985. Al Ridi leaves Asia to return to the US in late 1984 or early 1985, apparently due to an argument about Osama bin Laden’s role in the jihad, but he will continue to send equipment to the mujaheddin. For example, he will later purchase assassination rifles for the jihad, apparently with the CIA’s knowledge, but it is unclear whether the CIA knows about these earlier transactions (see Early 1989). [United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1/14/2001]

President Reagan’s blue-ribbon panel to examine the failure of the US-Soviet START arms negotiations (see May 1982 and After and Late 1982) finds that the Reagan administration’s recalcitrance, obduracy, and downright insulting behavior towards the Soviet negotiators is the primary reason why the negotiations have made no progress. The panel, headed by foreign policy “pragmatists” such as President Nixon’s Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, President Ford’s Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, President Carter’s Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, and Nixon security and defense aide Brent Scowcroft, calls for a revamped approach to the arms control negotiations. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 124-125] The panel’s recommendations will be ignored (see April 1983-December 1983).

One of five secret, underground ‘control rooms’ built by East German intelligence to help coordinate a Soviet counterattack against a US first strike. [Source: Central Intelligence Agency]By the beginning of 1983, the world seems closer to a nuclear holocaust than it has since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The idea of detente between the US and the Soviet Union has been all but abandoned, and European allies of the US use the term “Cold War II” to describe the new, chilly relations between the two superpowers. French President Francois Mitterrand compares the situation to the 1962 Cuban crisis and the 1948 confrontation over Berlin. American Cold War expert George Kennen says that the confrontation has the “familiar characteristics, the unfailing characteristics, of a march toward war—that and nothing else.” While there is little confrontation between the two in a military sense, the tensions are largely manifested in the rhetoric of the two sides, with President Reagan calling the USSR an “evil empire” (see March 8, 1983) and declaring that American democracy will leave Soviet communism on “the ash-heap of history” (see June 8, 1982). In return, Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov calls Reagan “insane” and “a liar.” The Soviet propaganda machine releases a storm of invective against Reagan and the US in general, comparing Reagan to Adolf Hitler and America to Nazi Germany. CIA analyst Benjamin Fischer will later write, “Such hyperbole was more a consequence than a cause of tension, but it masked real fears” (see May 1981). The Soviets are particularly worried about the US’s intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), the Pershing IIs, to be deployed throughout Europe (see September 1981 through November 1983), as well as the Americans’ new cruise missiles, the Tomahawks. Once those missiles are in place, the US, if it so desired, could destroy most of the Soviets’ own ballistic missile sites with only four to six minutes’ warning. The Soviets’ own plans for pre-emptive strikes against the US have the destruction of the European Pershing and Tomahawk emplacements as a top priority. [Fischer, 3/19/2007]

Abdus Salam, a member of the nuclear proliferation ring run by Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan (see Summer 1976 and Before September 1980), has multiple dealings with the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) while residing in the US.
"No Payments" - Julio Bagiardi, one of Salam’s partners in a chain of retail stores, will say: “All he wanted to do was make a lot of deposits at the same bank. He insisted on keeping [all his deposits] at BCCI.” Salam is also “very forceful” in persuading Bagiardi and the other partners to do the same. If they do so, according to Salam, they will have access to “unlimited” cash and, if they make daily deposits, “it would never be a problem if we needed to get money.” In addition, “they [would] never have to pay nothing back,” as there would be “no payments.” Bagiadri will add that Salam “knew somebody” at the bank. David Reed, another partner in the retail stores, will confirm Salam had an account with the bank.
Unusually Generous Overdraft Loan - One transaction is the granting in 1989 of an overdraft, arranged with support from the branch in Park Lane, London. That branch’s manager recommends that its Tampa branch make a loan to Salam, but instead it grants him a “virtually unsecured” $120,000 overdraft line. The overdrafts are usually for customers with substantial account balances, so it is unclear why one is given to Salam, whose balance is “very skimpy,” according to sources for authors David Armstrong and Joe Trento. The line is later moved to one of Salam’s companies, Centaur Impex, backed only by a personal guarantee from Salam and Centaur’s assets. By this time BCCI is in serious trouble and the line is transferred to the Miami branch, which sues Salam for non-payment of the balance, around $50,000. Armstong and Trento’s sources will say that the fact that Salam “had the influence to obtain such a loan without any meaningful collateral” is “very curious,” adding that it “suggests that he may have had influence among highly placed people within BCCI and/or Pakistan.”
"No Recollection" of Salam - When Armstrong and Trento investigate the relationship between Salam and BCCI for a 2007 book, they will have difficulty obtaining information. The court has destroyed records, the lawyers say they have too, BCCI’s liquidators are unable to provide any information, prosecutors and investigators involved in proceedings against BCCI say they knew nothing about Salam, and the various officials of the bank where Salam deposited his money every day for years “either would not return phone calls, denied knowing who Salam was, or claimed that, while the name did ‘ring a bell,’ they could recall no specifics about their former client.” [Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 108-111]

The US sells forty F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan. One of the contractual preconditions of the sale is that Pakistan does not configure them to drop a nuclear bomb. However, US analyst Richard Barlow will conclude that in fact all of them are configured to carry nuclear weapons. [Guardian, 10/13/2007]

National Security Decision Directive 75 is signed into law by President Reagan. It further embeds the idea that a “protracted nuclear war” can be won (see March 1982), saying in part that Soviet calculations about war must always see “outcomes so unfavorable to the USSR that there would be no incentive for Soviet leaders to initiate an attack.” [Air Force Magazine, 3/2008] NSDD 75 stipulates that the US must “contain and over time reverse Soviet expansionism” and “promote, within the narrow limits available to us, the process of change in the Soviet Union toward a more pluralistic political and economic system.” Conservatives and hardliners will later interpret Reagan’s words as indicating the US would actively engage in “rollback” of the USSR’s control over other nations. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 145-146]

Gordon Kahl. [Source: Anti-Defamation League]Posse Comitatus (see 1969 and 1983) member and anti-tax protester Gordon Kahl (see 1967 - 1973) and three Posse members gun down two US marshals who are attempting to arrest Kahl in a confrontation near Medina, North Dakota. The two marshals are among a group of six attempting to apprehend Kahl in a 1977 income tax case after he violated his probation by refusing to file a tax return (see 1975 - 1981); he has been a fugitive since 1981.
Initial Attempts to Negotiate Peaceful Surrender Fail - In that year, Kahl refused to turn himself over to North Dakota federal marshal Harold “Bud” Warren after a number of telephone conversations in which Kahl insisted that he had been “illegally” convicted by the “forces of Satan.” Warren decided that Kahl’s probation violation was “hardly a serious crime” and decided not to pursue it, partially because he knew Kahl was a crack shot and feared he would lose officers in any attempt to arrest him.
Increasing Involvement in Posse Activities - Kahl moved to Arkansas, where he visited the compound of the white supremacist Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord organization. A member of that organization, Leonard Ginter, hid Kahl from federal authorities. Kahl’s wife, under tremendous stress from the situation, tried and failed to negotiate a settlement with the IRS, resulting in her excoriation by her 23-year-old son Yorie, who accused her of cooperating with “the tithing collectors of the Jewish-Masonic Synogogue [sic] of Satan.” Kahl became more and more involved in Posse Comitatus activities, traveling to Kansas and Colorado.
Return to North Dakota, Confrontation with Police - In January 1983 he and Yorie Kahl returned to North Dakota with the intention of setting up a Posse “township” near Medina, which they envisioned as being free from state and government control. Kahl’s station wagon is observed by Stutsman County deputy sheriff Bradley Kapp, who informs the Marshal Service in Bismarck. Warren’s successor, Kenneth Muir, authorizes Kahl’s arrest, and drives to Medina with Deputy Marshal Carl Wigglesworth to join two other deputy marshals, Robert Cheshire Jr. and James Hopson Jr. Kapp is spotted by some of his Posse colleagues, who quickly join him in planning to forcibly resist any arrest attempt. They receive the assistance of Medina police chief Darrell Graf, who is a Posse sympathizer. Kahl, Yorie Kahl, and Posse members David Broer and Scott Faul flee Medina in two Posse members’ cars, but the ruse only briefly confuses the marshals, and two police cars with flashing lights quickly apprehend Kahl and Broer. One car is driven by deputy police chief Steve Schnabel; the other by Muir and Wigglesworth. Kapp, Cheshire, and Hopson are close behind in a third vehicle. Kahl and Broer turn off the road into a driveway, and Kahl, armed with a modified Ruger Mini-14 assault rifle, prepares to open fire on the approaching police officers. The others leap out of their cars and, armed with Mini-14s, take up positions in a ditch. When the marshals arrive moments later, they get out of their cars and order the Posse members to lay down their weapons. One of the Posse members opens fire, and in the 30-second volley that ensues, Kahl and his fellow Posse members lay down a deadly fire that inflicts heavy damage on the outgunned marshals. Kahl wounds Kapp and Schnabel with two shots, and kills Muir with a shot to the heart. Muir fires off a single shot that gravely wounds Yorie. Hopson is struck in the head by a ricocheting bullet that causes permanent brain damage. Rifle fire from Yorie and Faul fatally wounds Cheshire. Kapp, severely injured, manages to shoot Yorie three more times, then takes cover. Kahl executes the dying Cheshire with a shot to the head, then points his rifle at the downed Schnabel, but chooses not to kill him, instead taking his police cruiser and fleeing the scene. He takes the injured Yorie to a Posse member, Dr. Clarence Martin; Yorie and Kahl’s wife Joan are arrested later that night at the hospital, and Yorie tells FBI agents some details of the confrontation. Faul, Broer, and Posse member Vernon Wegner are also arrested; Faul refuses to tell police or FBI investigators where Kahl might have fled to. Police find Schnabel’s abandoned police cruiser. Two days later, police surround Kahl’s farmhouse and bombard it with tear gas, only to find it abandoned. They do find a store of weapons and ammunition, and a collection of Posse Comitatus pamphlets and related documents. Kahl’s family insists that law enforcement efforts to apprehend Kahl are unfair, and complain that he is being “hunted like a dog.” Joan Kahl appears on television and tearfully pleads with her husband to surrender, to no avail. FBI and US Marshals descend on the local Posse Comitatus headquarters, and offer a $25,000 reward for information leading to his arrest, but Kahl has disappeared into the shadows of the far-right militia network. [Ian Geldard, 2/19/1995; Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Levitas, 2002, pp. 194-200; Nicole Nichols, 2003; Anti-Defamation League, 2011] Kahl’s murder of the marshals will be used by Posse Comitatus leader James Wickstrom to promote the anti-tax movement (see February 14-21, 1983). Four months later, Kahl will die in a bloody standoff with police officers in Arkansas (see March 13 - June 3, 1983).

Gordon Kahl, an anti-tax protester, Posse Comitatus member (see 1967 - 1973 and 1975 - 1981), and federal fugitive who killed two US Marshals in a February shootout in North Dakota (see February 13, 1983 and After), quickly gains national prominence as the media begins reporting on the fatal confrontation. Most media reports only identify him as a “tax protester,” failing to mention his Posse Comitatus membership and often leaving out the involvement of his son, Yorie Kahl, and two other Posse members who helped kill the marshals and wound three others. CBS news anchor Dan Rather goes farther than most of his colleagues, describing Kahl as “a radical survivalist, a fanatic, [and] an ultraright-wing tax protester” whom authorities describe as “a killer.” It does not take long for Posse Comitatus leader James Wickstrom (see 1984) to begin contacting the media himself, proudly announcing Kahl’s Posse connections and announcing: “The Posse in Wisconsin is on standby alert. All communications are locked in.” The government has, in pursuing Kahl, “declared war on the people of this country,” Wickstrom tells reporters. He adds that his organization has some three million members, though the FBI estimates its membership at closer to a few thousand; the number is hard to pin down, as many anti-tax protesters (see 1951-1967, December 9, 1968 and After, 1970-1972, 1974, 1976-1978, 1980, and Early 1980s) have at least some affiliation with the loosely organized group. As the FBI and local law enforcement officials mount a nationwide manhunt, Wickstrom, with some success, tries to turn the story away from Kahl’s murder of the two marshals and towards the story of the Posse’s anti-tax beliefs. “What we have here is a gentleman who is now being pursued in North Dakota on a setup to shut his mouth because the American people are waking up by the tens of thousands across this country, realizing that we have been duped by a private central bank,” he declares to a Milwaukee reporter. He makes an appearance on the nationally televised Phil Donahue Show, where he claims that his “heart really goes out to the US Marshals and the children of those marshals and their families.” Asked by Donahue if he would join Kahl’s wife in asking Kahl to turn himself in, Wickstrom changes the subject, arguing that Kahl’s civil rights have been violated and the real issues are farm foreclosures, corrupt courts, the income tax, the Federal Reserve, unemployment, foreign workers, and Jews. In 2002, author Daniel Levitas will write, “Phil Donahue’s dialogue with Wickstrom was oftentimes inane, and though he clearly didn’t agree with his guest, he gave Wickstrom a tremendous platform to spread his ideas.” Wickstrom will use his media appearances to mount a longshot candidacy for governor of Wisconsin. [Levitas, 2002, pp. 201-204] Four months later, Kahl will die in a bloody standoff with police officers in Arkansas (see March 13 - June 3, 1983).

The KGB, the Soviet intelligence directorate, issues a “high alert” for its Operation VRYAN intelligence alert system monitoring the US for signs of a possible military and nuclear assault (see May 1981). Provoked by two years of US military provocations (see 1981-1983), fearing that the rhetorical war between the US and the USSR (see Early 1983) is ready to explode into something far more concrete, and disheartened by worries that the Soviet Union is losing ground in its global contest with the US (see Early 1981), the Kremlin informs all KGB “rezidenturas,” or station chiefs, that VRYAN has “acquired an especial degree of urgency” and is “now of particularly grave importance.” Forty station chiefs receive new orders marked “strictly personal,” instructing them to organize a “continual watch” using their entire operational staff. They are also ordered to redirect existing agents who might have access to VRYAN-related information, to recruit new agents, and to escalate surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations. [Fischer, 3/19/2007]

President Reagan gives his famous “evil empire” speech to the National Association of Evangelicals. The speech is designed to dissuade Christian evangelicals from supporting a freeze on the production and deployment of nuclear weapons, as the Conference of Catholic Bishops had already done. The speech, written by Anthony Dolan, a follower of hard-line conservative philosopher William F. Buckley, is what author J. Peter Scoblic calls “a model conservative blend of religious traditionalism and anticommunism [that makes] explicit the link between Manicheanism and nuclear war fighting.” The cause is not merely peaceful co-existence, but an apocalyptic battle between good (the West) and evil (the Soviet empire), one that must be won no matter the costs. “We must never forget that no government schemes are going to perfect man,” Reagan tells his listeners. “We know that living in this world means dealing with what philosophers would call the phenomenology of evil or, as theologians would put it, the doctrine of sin. There is sin and evil in the world, and we are enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might.” Supporting the nuclear freeze movement would be to commit the sin of moral relativism, Reagan says, putting moral strictures aside for temporal, even political concerns. “I urge you to beware the temptation of pride,” he warns, “the temptation of blithely declaring yourself above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.” [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 117]

Gordon Kahl, an anti-tax protester, Posse Comitatus member (see 1967 - 1973 and 1975 - 1981), and federal fugitive who killed two US Marshals in a February shootout in North Dakota (see February 13, 1983 and After), arrives at a farm in Mountain Home, Arkansas. The farm owner, Arthur Russell, is a member of another white supremacist organization, the Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord (CSA), and willingly hides Kahl, who is facing a second warrant for his arrest issued March 11. Kahl spends two months hiding at Russell’s farmhouse, studying the Bible, watching television, and spending time with Russell’s daughter Karen. While Kahl is in hiding, his family and colleagues in the Posse who were involved in the shootout are tried in May 1983; his son Yorie Kahl and colleague Scott Faul are convicted of second-degree murder and six other related charges; David Broer is convicted of conspiracy and of harboring a fugitive; and his wife Joan Kahl is acquitted of conspiracy and harboring a fugitive.
FBI Learns of Kahl's Whereabouts - In late May, after the convictions, Kahl leaves the Russell farm with his CSA friend Leonard Ginter and Ginter’s wife Norma. Ginter, an unemployed carpenter, belongs to a small anti-government group called Americans for Constitutional Enforcement, but is not too ideologically rigid not to accept food stamps for himself and his wife. Kahl and the Ginters drive to Smithville, Arkansas, a tiny Ozark town where the Ginters have a concrete house with a vegetable patch and a chicken pen. After Kahl leaves, Karen Russell calls the FBI and informs them of his whereabouts.
Final Confrontation - On June 3, FBI agent James Blasingame organizes a group of US Marshals and local lawmen at the Lawrence County courthouse to plan how best to apprehend Kahl and the Ginters. Twenty-eight law enforcement officials, including 15 US Marshals, six FBI agents, three state police officers, and four county lawmen descend on the Ginter home. While en route, they encounter Ginter, driving away from the house in a car with a rifle in the backseat; he has a cocked and loaded pistol in his lap. Ginter is apprehended without incident, but lies to the police, saying Kahl is not at the house. Unfortunately, the officials believe his story. At the officials’ request, Ginter drives back to the house, with five officials behind. Ginter parks his car, as do the officials; Ginter gets out and shouts: “Norma, come out. The FBI wants to talk to you.” He emphasizes the word “FBI” as loudly as possible, alerting Kahl to their presence. Norma Ginter comes out and is escorted away. Lawrence County Sheriff Gene Matthews, departing from the plan, enters the house through a utility room off the garage, with US Marshal James Hall and Arkansas State Police investigator Ed Fitzpatrick following him. Kahl is waiting in the kitchen, armed with a formidable Ruger Mini-14 assault rifle. When Matthews enters the kitchen, the two men see each other and open fire simultaneously; Kahl wounds Matthews fatally with two shots to the chest and Matthews kills Kahl with a bullet to the head. Hall and Fitzpatrick, unsure of what has happened, begin firing wildly, striking Matthews with buckshot. Matthews manages to get to a police cruiser before collapsing, and gasps, “I got him.” But the other officials are unsure if Kahl is actually dead, and if others may be in the house as well. They open fire on the house and let loose a barrage of tear gas. They then set the house afire with a can of diesel fuel; the fire ignites several thousand rounds of ammunition stored inside the house and the house is all but gutted by the conflagration. Eventually, officials are able to enter the house and find what remains of Kahl’s body in the kitchen. Posse Comitatus leader William Potter Gale, asked by a reporter about Kahl’s death, says that Kahl was murdered for helping farmers and belonging to the group. Another Posse member, Richard Wayne Snell, will later claim that Matthews had been killed by FBI agents after interrupting them during their torture of Kahl. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Levitas, 2002, pp. 217-220; Anti-Defamation League, 2011]
Episode Destabilizes Posse Comitatus - The Kahl episode receives national attention and helps destabilize the Posse Comitatus (see 1984). The media quickly learns of Kahl’s racist and anti-Semitic past, and reprints a letter he wrote the same night he killed the marshals and later sent to reporters. In his letter, Kahl announced that it was time to begin killing Jews: “We are engaged in a struggle to the death between the people of the Kingdom of God, and the Kingdom of Satan. We are a conquered and occupied nation; conquered and occupied by the Jews, and their hundreds or maybe thousands of front organizations doing their un-Godly work. They have two objectives in their goal of ruling the world. Destroy Christianity and the White race. Neither can be accomplished by itself, they stand or fall together.” In an attempt to exonerate his son and Faul, Kahl took credit for all the fatal shots. Kahl’s espousal of violence and anti-Semitism causes a backlash when some Posse Comitatus members attempt to portray him as a martyr. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Levitas, 2002, pp. 217-220]

Vice President George Bush hosts a secret meeting with his foreign policy adviser, Donald Gregg (see 1982), and former CIA agent Felix Rodriguez. The meeting is the first impetus of the National Security Council (NSC)‘s initiative to secretly, and illegally, fund the Nicaraguan Contras in an attempt to overthrow that country’s socialist government. Rodriguez agrees to run a central supply depot at Ilopango Air Base in El Salvador. In a memo to NSC chief Robert McFarlane, Gregg will note that the plan is rooted in the experience of running “anti-Vietcong operations in Vietnam from 1970-1972.” Gregg will also note that “Felix Rodriguez, who wrote the attached plan, both worked for me in Vietnam and carried out the actual operations outlined above.” [Spartacus Schoolnet, 12/28/2007] Rodriguez and Gregg, along with others such as Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis (see April-June 1972), were part of the CIA’s “Operation 40,” an assassination squad that operated in Cuba and the Caribbean during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Rodriguez tried at least once, in 1961, to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. In 1967, Rodriguez interrogated and executed South American revolutionary Che Guevara. He was part of the infamous and shadowy Operation Phoenix during the Vietnam War. [Spartacus Schoolnet, 1/17/2008]

The Justice Department makes a counter-proposal in the dispute over whether Inslaw should provide an enhanced version of the PROMIS software and documentation to the department to ensure against the company’s bankruptcy (see December 6, 1982). The counter-proposal is made in a letter from Peter Videnieks, the department’s contracting officer, to Harvey Sherzer, an attorney for Inslaw. Videnieks still wants a copy of the enhanced PROMIS software, but is willing to limit the software’s dissemination to the attorneys’ offices contemplated by the original contract. However, the department does not admit that Inslaw has made privately-funded enhancements to the software, so this limitation on dissemination will only apply if Inslaw can demonstrate the privately-funded enhancements that it claims have actually been made. Nevertheless, no mechanism for producing such proof will be specified. If Inslaw can show the software contains such enhancements, the department will either tell it to remove them, or negotiate regarding inclusion of the enhancements. [US Congress, 9/10/1992]

Strategic Defense Initiative logo. [Source: United States Missile Defense Agency]President Reagan announces his proposal for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, later nicknamed “Star Wars”), originally conceived two years earlier (see 1981). SDI is envisioned as a wide-ranging missile defense system that, if it works, will protect the United States from nuclear attacks from the Soviet Union or other countries with ballistic missiles, essentially rendering nuclear weapons, in Reagan’s words, “impotent and obsolete.” Reagan says, “I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.” Soviet leader Yuri Andropov’s response is unprececented in its anger (see March 27, 1983); Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrinyn says SDI will “open a new phase in the arms race.” [PBS, 2000; Scoblic, 2008, pp. 129]
US Hardliners 'Ecstatic' - Hardliners in and out of the Reagan administration are, in author J. Peter Scoblic’s characterization, “ecstatic, seeing SDI as the ultimate refutation of [the principle of] mutual assured destruction and therefore of the status quo, which left [the US] unable to seek victory over the Soviet Union.” The day after the speech, Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) sends Reagan a one-sentence letter: “That was the best statement I have heard from any president.”
'Less Suicidal' Adjunct to First Strike - Scoblic will write that if SDI is implemented as envisioned, “[a]lthough the Soviets would still be able to inflict enough damage that a first strike by the United States would be suicidal, it would be ‘less suicidal’ to the extent that such a concept made sense, which some Reagan officials believed it did. In short, SDI was a better adjunct to a first strike than it was a standalone defense. That made it critically destabilizing, which is why missile defense had been outlawed by [earlier treaties] in the first place.” [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 129-130]

In an unusual display of rhetorical anger, the Soviet Union’s General Secretary, Yuri Andropov, responds to the US’s announcement of its development of an anti-ballistic missile defense (SDI, or “Star Wars”—see March 23, 1983) by accusing President Reagan of “inventing new plans on how to unleash a nuclear war in the best way, with the hope of winning it.” CIA analyst Benjamin Fischer will later call Andropov’s statement “unprecedented.” Ignoring the counsel of his own advisers to remain calm, Andropov, with unusually heated rhetoric, denounces the US program as a “bid to disarm the Soviet Union in the face of the US nuclear threat.” Such space-based defense, he says, “would open the floodgates of a runaway race of all types of strategic arms, both offensive and defensive. Such is the real significance, the seamy side, so to say, of Washington’s ‘defensive conception.‘… The Soviet Union will never be caught defenseless by any threat.… Engaging in this is not just irresponsible, it is insane.… Washington’s actions are putting the entire world in jeopardy.” Andropov’s statement violates what Fischer will describe as a “longstanding taboo” against “citing numbers and capabilities of US nuclear weapons in the mass media” as well as “referr[ing] to Soviet weapons with highly unusual specificity.” Fischer will go on to note: “[F]or the first time since 1953, the top Soviet leader was telling his nation that the world was on the verge of a nuclear holocaust. If candor is a sign of sincerity, then Moscow was worried.” [Fischer, 3/19/2007; Scoblic, 2008, pp. 134]

The Reagan administration ignores the recommendations of a panel of experts named, at Congress’s behest, to provide alternatives to the stalled START arms reduction talks with the Soviet Union (see January 1983-April 1983). Spurred by hardliners in the administration, President Reagan instead instructs his negotiators to offer, not one unacceptable alternative, as initially offered to the Soviets (see May 1982 and After), but two unacceptable alternatives: either accept drastic limits on “throw weights,” or payloads, of their nuclear missiles, or accept harsh reductions in the number of ICBMs they can deploy, which will also reduce Soviet throw weight. The Soviets retort that the US is again trying to force them to disarm without agreeing to any reductions in their own nuclear arsenal. One Soviet official observes, “Your idea of ‘flexibility’ is to give a condemned man the choice between the rope and the ax.”
'Firing' the Executive Branch - Congressional leaders have had enough of the administration’s obstructionism, and brings in panel leader Brent Scowcroft to craft an alternative. In his 1984 book Deadly Gambits, future State Department official Strobe Talbott will write, “The Legislative Branch had, in effect, fired the Executive Branch for gross incompetence in arms control.” Scowcroft writes a proposal that enables both the US and USSR to reduce their nuclear arsenals with a measure of equivalence, taking into account the disparities between the two.
Misrepresenting the Proposal - The administration accepts Scowcroft’s proposal with some minor amendments, but the Soviets balk at the agreement, in part because chief US negotiator Edward Rowny, a hardliner who opposes arms negotiations on ideological grounds, misrepresents the proposal to his Soviet colleagues. The “basic position of this administration has not changed,” Rowny declares. In turn, the Soviets declare, “Ambassador Rowny is not a serious man.” When the talks come to their scheduled end in December 1983, the Soviets depart without setting a date for resumption.
More 'Sophisticated' Obstructionism - In 2008, author J. Peter Scoblic will write of the negotiations: “The conservative position had by now become far more sophisticated. By never rejecting negotiations outright, the administration could always claim that it was pursuing them with vigor, and if critics complained that its proposals were nonnegotiable, it could simply, if disingenuously, claim that it wanted to substantively reduce nuclear arsenals, not just perpetuate the status quo.” [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 124-125]

Inslaw and the Justice Department conclude a modification, number 12, to a contract under which the company is to install PROMIS software for the department (March 1982). The modification appears to resolve a dispute that has arisen between the two parties (see December 6, 1982 and March 18, 1983), as the department wants Inslaw to give it a copy of the software, but Inslaw says it has made privately-funded enhancements to the code and wants the department to undertake not to disseminate the enhanced software beyond the locations specified in the original contract (the department is entitled to disseminate an earlier, public domain version of the contract any way it wants). The modification says that Inslaw will give the department a copy of the software, and the department undertakes not to disseminate it in future, provided that Inslaw can demonstrate the enhancements were actually made. As a result of the agreement, the department will continue to make advance payments to Inslaw. It is this modification that leads to a series of legal disputes that will last well into the next decade, as the parties never come to an agreement on how the enhancements are to be demonstrated and the department begins to disseminate the software unchecked. [US Congress, 9/10/1992]

An official in the Massachusetts State government asks a Justice Department official about the availability of PROMIS software from sources other than Inslaw, the company that created it. This follows a demonstration of PROMIS by Inslaw at the Boston US Attorneys office to a group of people from the State of Massachusetts. The Massachusetts request is passed on to Jack Rugh of the Office of Management Information Systems Support (OMISS) at the Justice Department’s Executive Office for US Attorneys. Rugh replies that some government-owned versions of the software are available, but there is currently a dispute with Inslaw over ownership of an enhanced version of the software. [US Congress, 9/10/1992] This is one of several occasions when OMISS discusses providing versions of the software to other entities (see April 22, 1983).

The October 1983 bombing of US Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. [Source: US Marine Corps.]In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, and US Marines were sent to Lebanon as a peacekeeping force in September 1982. On April 18, 1983, the US embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, is bombed by a suicide truck attack, killing 63 people. On October 23, 1983, a Marine barracks in Beirut is bombed by another suicide truck attack, killing 241 Marines. In February 1984, the US military will depart Lebanon. The radical militant group Islamic Jihad will take credit for both attacks (note that this not the group led by Ayman al-Zawahiri). The group is believed to be linked to Hezbollah. Prior to this year, attacks of this type were rare. But the perceived success of these attacks in getting the US to leave Lebanon will usher in a new era of suicide attacks around the world. The next two years in particular will see a wave of such attacks in the Middle East, many of them committed by the radical militant group Hezbollah. [US Congress, 7/24/2003; US Congress, 7/24/2003 ] The Beirut bombings will also inspire bin Laden to believe that the US can be defeated by suicide attacks. For instance, he will say in a 1998 interview, “We have seen in the last decade the decline of the American government and the weakness of the American soldier who is ready to wage Cold Wars and unprepared to fight long wars. This was proven in Beirut when the Marines fled after two explosions.” [ABC News, 5/28/1998] In 1994, bin Laden will hold a meeting with a top Hezbollah leader (see Shortly After February 1994), and arrange for some of his operatives to be trained in the truck bombing techniques that had been used in Beirut. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 48]

The Justice Department makes a version of PROMIS software owned by the government available to a contractor named Dave Hudak. The version is a pilot copy for use on Prime computers and is provided to Hudak under a contract according to which he should develop benchmarking programs for computer purchases by the department. Apparently, the version is made available by the Office of Management Information Systems Support (OMISS) at the Executive Office for US Attorneys. No restrictions are placed on the use of this software. According to Jack Rugh of OMISS, the department may also tell the bidders a version of PROMIS which Inslaw claims it owns may be made available to them at some future date. [US Congress, 9/10/1992] This is one of several occasions when OMISS provides versions of the software to entities outside the Justice Department (see April 22, 1983).

Various versions of PROMIS software owned by the government are made available to potential bidders who may offer to supply computer equipment to the government. Apparently, the versions are made available by the Office of Management Information Systems Support (OMISS) at the Executive Office for US Attorneys for use in benchmarking the contractors’ equipment. No restrictions are placed on the use of this software. According to Jack Rugh of OMISS, the Justice Department may also tell the bidders a version of PROMIS which Inslaw claims it owns may be made available to them at some future date. [US Congress, 9/10/1992] This is one of several occasions when OMISS provides versions of the software to entities outside the Justice Department (see April 22, 1983).

Jack Rugh of the the Office of Management Information Systems Support (OMISS) at the Executive Office for US Attorneys holds a number of informal discussions with personnel in the Justice Department’s criminal division regarding the division’s possible use of OMISS’s enhanced version of PROMIS, as well as its use of one of OMISS’s Prime computers. In addition, the possibility of cooperating on PROMIS software maintenance and enhancements in the future is discussed. [US Congress, 9/10/1992] This is one of several occasions when OMISS discusses providing versions of the software to other entities (see April 22, 1983).

Jack Rugh of the the Office of Management Information Systems Support (OMISS) at the Justice Department’s Executive Office for US Attorneys discusses the availability of a government-owned pilot version of PROMIS software, as well as an enhanced version, with Don Manson of the Bureau of Justice Statistics on a number of occasions. According to a later memo drafted by Rugh, Manson is “particularly interested in providing a copy of our enhanced software to the US Virgin Islands.” [US Congress, 9/10/1992] This is one of several occasions when OMISS discusses providing versions of the software to other entities (see April 22, 1983).

Jack Rugh, the acting assistant director of the Office of Management Information Systems Support at the Justice Department’s Executive Office for US Attorneys, drafts a memo summarizing occasions on which versions of PROMIS software have been provided to organizations other than US Attorneys’ offices by the department or such provision has been discussed. The memo is drafted in response to a request by PROMIS project manager Madison “Brick” Brewer, who asked Rugh about any discussions he may have had about such provision a week earlier. The memo lists various occasions on which versions of PROMIS were provided to entities outside the Justice Department (see Early 1982,Before April 22, 1983, and Before April 22, 1983). It also documents discussions Rugh has had about providing the software to other entities (see Early 1982, Between Early 1982 and April 22, 1983, Before April 22, 1983, and Before April 22, 1983). [US Congress, 9/10/1992]

A Justice Department official writes a memo saying he will soon provide the PROMIS application to an Israeli government representative. The official is Jack Rugh, the acting assistant director of the Office of Management Information Systems Support at the Executive Office of US Attorneys. The memo states that “Reference my memorandum to file dated April 22, 1983, on the same subject. [C. Madison] Brick Brewer [PROMIS project manager at the Justice Department] recently instructed me to make a copy of an LEAA version of PROMIS [a version wholly owned by the Justice Department] available to Dr. Ben Orr, a representative of the government of Israel. Dr. Orr called me to discuss that request after my earlier memorandum was written. I have made a copy of the LEM DEC version of PROMIS and will provide it along with the corresponding documentation, to Dr. Orr before he leaves the United States for Israel on May 16.”
High Officials Possibly Involved - The House Judiciary Committee will comment: “Given the international dimensions to the decisions, it is difficult to accept the notion that a group of low-level Department personnel decided independently to get in touch with the government of Israel to arrange for transfer of the PROMIS software. At the very least, it is unlikely that such a transaction occurred without the approval of high-level Department officials, including those on the PROMIS Oversight Committee.”
Actual Version of PROMIS Unclear - The committee will also later speculate that a version whose ownership is under dispute was also given to the Israelis, saying: “[I]t is uncertain what version actually was transferred. Department managers believed that all versions of the Enhanced PROMIS software were the Department’s property. The lack of detailed documentation on the transfer, therefore, only creates new questions surrounding allegations that Enhanced PROMIS may have been sold or transferred to Israel and other foreign governments.” [US Congress, 9/10/1992] Rugh will pass the application to Brewer for handing over to Orr six days later (see May 12, 1983).

Jack Rugh, the acting assistant director of the Office of Management Information Systems Support at the Justice Department’s Executive Office for US Attorneys, writes a memo turning over the PROMIS application to a colleague, C. Madison Brewer. The application is for passage to the government of Israel, a transfer already discussed by Brewer and Rugh (see May 6, 1983). Rugh writes: “Enclosed are the PROMIS materials that you asked me to produce for Dr. Ben Orr of the government of Israel. These materials consist of the LEM DEC PDP 11/70 version of PROMIS on magnetic tape along with the printed specifications for that tape, as well as two printed volumes of PROMIS documentation for the LEAA version of the system.” [US Congress, 9/10/1992]

The South Korean government informs the State Department that it received a request from Iraq to militarize some helicopters. [Battle, 2/25/2003]

The Supreme Court rules in INS v. Chadha that Congress has no right to issue what it calls “legislative vetoes,” essentially provisions passed by Congress giving the executive branch specific powers but with Congress reserving the right to veto specific decisions by the executive branch if it does not approve of the decisions made by the executive. Congress had relied on such “legislative vetoes” for years to curb the expanding power of the president. The Court strikes down hundreds of these “legislative vetoes” throughout federal law. Congress quickly schedules hearings to decide how to respond to the Court’s ruling. White House attorney John Roberts (see September 29, 2005), a young, fast-rising conservative, is one of a team of lawyers assigned to review the administration’s upcoming testimony before Congress. Some of the lawyers want to push Congress to place independent agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under White House control—part of the evolving “unitary executive” theory of presidential power (see April 30, 1986). Roberts writes: “With respect to independent agencies… the time may be ripe to reconsider the existence of such entities, and take action to bring them back within the executive branch.… I agree that the time is ripe to reconsider the Constitutional anomaly of independent agencies… More timid souls may, however, desire to see this deleted as provocative.” [Savage, 2007, pp. 256-257]

Robert Gallucci, a director of the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs at the State Department, drafts a comprehensive report showing that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program is continuing. The report begins with an overview of Pakistan’s nuclear fuel cycle and a confirmation that Pakistan has built a plant to “concentrate uranium ore,” while another to produce uranium hexafluoride is “already in operation.” The report also details work done at the facility in Kahuta headed by Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan and the technology being assembled there based on designs stolen in the Netherlands. In addition, Gallucci warns of the procurement network’s increasing confidence and its use of “false end-use statements.”
'Unambiguous Evidence' - The report, which is marked “secret” and not distributed to security contractors or abroad, finds, “There is unambiguous evidence that Pakistan is actively pursuing a nuclear weapons development program,” and, “Pakistan’s near-term goal evidently is to have a nuclear test capability enabling it to explode a nuclear device if [Pakistani dictator Muhammad] Zia [ul-Haq] decides it’s appropriate for diplomatic and domestic political gains.”
'Nuclear Explosives' - Another section, entitled “Nuclear Explosives,” says that Pakistan is working on an “electronic triggering circuit for nuclear device detonation… as well as experiments on conventional as well as shaped charges.” The Pakistanis have “already undertaken a substantial amount of the necessary design and high explosives testing of the explosive device and we believe that Pakistan is now capable of producing a workable package of this kind.” Gallucci even has drawings given to suppliers by agents for Khan that have been “unambiguously identified as those of a nuclear device.”
Chinese Connection - The report also mentions the Pakistan-China connection, as notes in Chinese and an operations manual from China have been found in circumstances linked to Khan’s operations. US scientists who analysed them concluded they concerned equipment remarkably similar to a device used in a 1964 nuclear test by China, and Gallucci finds, “China has provided assistance to Pakistan’s program to develop a nuclear weapons capability.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 93-94, 478]

The US announces that the Soviet Union has established a large early-warning radar system near the city of Krasnoyarsk. The installation violates the 1972 ABM Treaty (see May 26, 1972), which requires that such installations be located near the nation’s border and oriented outward. It is possible that the Soviet radar installation is built in response to the US’s recent decision to violate the ABM treaty by developing a missile defense system (see March 23, 1983). [Federation of American Scientists, 1/15/2008]

Peter Videnieks, the Justice Department’s contracting officer, writes to Inslaw to set out the department’s position on a significant modification to a contract between the two organizations. Videnieks agrees that modification 12 “continues to limit dissemination of that version of the PROMIS computer software [a privately-enhanced version] specified in the modification.” He adds that the modification “will continue to apply in the event that the government invokes the provisions of Clause 22, ‘Disputes,’ in that the government will limit dissemination pending a contracting officer’s final decision in the matter.” [US Congress, 9/10/1992]

US Army Warrant Officer Robert Rendon, a convicted drug dealer and admitted black-marketer, is assigned to the ultra-secretive Continuity of Government (COG) program, which is designed to keep the federal government functioning in times of disaster. Rendon, who first enlisted in the Army in 1977, is hired despite telling Army officers involved with the secret program that he had been convicted of selling drugs to schoolchildren in Los Angeles in the 1970s and served about 15 months in prison. Rendon also tells Army officers that he ran a black market operation while stationed as an intelligence officer for two years in West Germany. He says he financed the black market operation with funds given to him for espionage assignments by the Army’s Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM). Rendon says INSCOM case officers taught him how to conceal his past under questioning. He also admits to using drugs and soliciting prostitutes while serving as an Army officer. The Army promises not to expose Rendon’s past beyond the COG program and grants him one of the government’s highest security clearances. Rendon will be stationed at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and will spearhead a campaign to discredit whistleblowers that attempt to expose corruption within the COG project, most notably Army intelligence veteran Tom Golden (see After July 1987). Rendon will serve in the secret program until 1989 and later join an Army counterespionage unit (see December 1990). [Philadelphia Inquirer, 12/16/1990]

555 Grove Street, Herndon, Virginia. This is the location of the SAAR Foundation/Safa Group and many related businesses. [Source: Paul Sperry]The SAAR Foundation is incorporated in Herndon, Virginia, just outside Washington. It will become an umbrella organization for a cluster of over 100 charities, think tanks, and businesses known as the SAAR network. In 2002, the US government will raid the SAAR network looking for ties to the Al Taqwa Bank and the Muslim Brotherhood (see March 20, 2002). [Farah, 2004, pp. 153]

Inslaw implements its enhanced PROMIS software at 20 US attorneys’ offices. The implementation is performed pursuant to a contract signed by the company and the Justice Department in 1982 (March 1982). [US Congress, 9/10/1992]

Robert Jay Mathews, a white supremacist and activist (see 1980-1982), gives a speech at the National Alliance convention in Arlington, Virginia, reporting on his efforts to recruit farmers and ranchers into the “white racialist” movement (see 1969). Mathews receives the only standing ovation of the convention. He also renews his acquaintance with Thomas Martinez, a former Ku Klux Klansman from Philadelphia, and becomes close friends with him. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006] Mathews will go on to found The Order, one of the most violent anti-government organizations in modern US history (see Late September 1983). He will die during a 1984 standoff with FBI agents (see December 8, 1984).

Korean Airlines Flight 007 before takeoff. [Source: Check-Six (.org)]A Soviet Su-15 fighter plane fires two missiles into a Korean Airlines 747 passenger plane, KAL 007. The plane, en route from Alaska to Seoul, South Korea, had strayed into Soviet air space, had not responded to radio communications, and had either ignored or not seen warning shots fired at it. The 747 crashes into the Sea of Japan, killing all 269 passengers, including conservative House Representative Larry McDonald (D-GA) and 62 other Americans. The Soviets insist that the passenger plane was deliberately sent into their airspace to test their military readiness; later investigation shows that a US spy plane had just left the area, agitating Soviet radar units, and, according to their own radio transmissions, the Soviets had honestly believed the 747 was another spy plane, most likely an American RC-135. Though it has definitely strayed into Soviet airspace at least twice, and flown over a sensitive Soviet airbase on the Kamchatka Peninsula, it is most likely shot down in international airspace. [Fischer, 3/19/2007; Scoblic, 2008, pp. 131]
Angry White House Officials Respond - Reagan administration officials are furious. Secretary of State George Shultz, dubbed “The Sphinx” by journalists for his remote demeanor, rails at the Soviets in a press conference called just four hours after the White House learns of the incident. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 131] Four days later, Reagan will denounce the Soviets in a primetime televised speech (see September 5, 1983).
Massive PR Campaign against USSR - The US will use the shootdown to mount a tremendous public relations campaign against the Soviets, focusing on the Soviet civilian leadership as well as Soviet international business interests; for example, the US will demand a global boycott of the Soviet airline Aeroflot. According to a memo issued to the Politburo by the Defense Ministry and the KGB, the Soviets well understood the political ramifications of the shootdown: “We are dealing with a major, dual-purpose political provocation carefully organized by the US special services. The first purpose was to use the incursion of the intruder aircraft into Soviet airspace to create a favorable situation for the gathering of defense data on our air defense system in the Far East, involving the most diverse systems including the Ferret satellite. Second, they envisaged, if this flight were terminated by us, [the US would use] that fact to mount a global anti-Soviet campaign to discredit the Soviet Union.” In its own counter-propaganda efforts, Soviet leader Yuri Andropov will say that an “outrageous military psychosis” has taken over US foreign policy. He adds, “[T]he Reagan administration, in its imperial ambitions, goes so far that one begins to doubt whether Washington has any brakes at all preventing it from crossing the point at which any sober-minded person must stop.” [Fischer, 3/19/2007]
Exacerbating Tensions - After the shootdown and its aftermath, according to the Soviet ambassador to the US, Anatoly Dobrynin, both sides go “a little crazy.” The shootdown gives the US hard evidence of its worst-case assumptions about the Soviets. For the Soviets, the US reaction gives them hard evidence of their own assumptions about the US’s attempts to provoke the USSR into some sort of confrontation (see 1981-1983) and to embarrass the Soviet Union in the eyes of the world. Reagan’s use of the KAL 007 incident to ask Congress for more defense funding is, in the Soviets’ eyes, proof that the entire incident was engineered by the Americans for just such an outcome. [Fischer, 3/19/2007]
Alternative Accounts - A number of alternative accounts about the incident spring up, in particular concerning McDonald. [Insight, 4/16/2001]

Four days after the Soviet shootdown of a Korean Airlines passenger jet (see September 1, 1983), President Reagan delivers a televised speech from the Oval Office calling the incident a “massacre,” a “crime against humanity,” and “an atrocity.” [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 131] The shootdown is, Reagan says, “an act of barbarism, born of a society which wantonly disregards individual rights and the value of human life and seeks constantly to expand and dominate other nations.” [Fischer, 3/19/2007]

A week after President Reagan publicly denounced the Soviet Union for shooting down a Korean Airlines passenger jet (see September 1, 1983 and September 5, 1983), Secretary of State George Shultz meets with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. Gromyko later recalls the conversation as “the sharpest exchange I ever had with an American secretary of state, and I have had talks with 14 of them.” The Reagan administration will deny Gromyko permission to fly into New York City, where he is scheduled to attend the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 131]

Soviet Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov gives a press conference regarding the KAL 007 shootdown. [Source: Central Intelligence Agency]The Soviet Union, flustered and angry at the harsh denunciations heaped on it by the US after their shootdown of a Korean Airlines passenger jet (see September 1, 1983, September 5, 1983, and Mid-September, 1983), reacts badly to the US’s response. Between the KAL incident and other episodes—President Reagan’s terming the USSR an “evil empire” (see March 8, 1983), the refusal of the US to negotiate on arms reduction (see April 1983-December 1983), and the US’s launch of the Strategic Defense Initiative missile defense program (see April 1983-December 1983), the Soviets are not prepared to accept the US’s position on the shootdown, nor are they prepared to accept responsibility for shooting down a passenger plane full of civilians. Instead, the KAL incident provides what Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to the US, will later call “a catalyst for the angry trends that were already inherent in relations during the Reagan presidency.” Newly installed Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov issues a statement saying that US-Soviet relations cannot improve so long as Reagan is president: “If anybody ever had any illusions about the possibility of an evolution to the better in the policy of the present American administration, these illusions are completely dispelled now.” Soviet statements begin referring to the danger of war and US nuclear first strikes. The Soviet press calls Reagan a “madman” and compares him to Adolf Hitler. Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko worries that “the world situation is now slipping towards a very dangerous precipice.” [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 132]

Despite reports alleging the Wartime Information Security Program (WISP) has been shut down, an internal Pentagon memo reveals it is still in existence. The program, which is currently being run out of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is designed to censor public information in the event of a national emergency or war. It was supposedly shut down after Congress cut off funding for WISP in 1974 (see 1974). The recent memo, however, summarizes the WISP’s current objectives: “The National WISP provides for the control and examination of communications entering, leaving, transiting, or touching the borders of the United States, and voluntary withholding from publication, by the domestic public media industries, of military and other information which should not be released in the interest of the safety and defense of the United States and its allies.” Investigative columnist Jack Anderson will later report: “There has been no Congressional funding for work on the censorship program since 1974, but the Pentagon directive is still in effect. So, too, is Executive Order 11490, which outlines each federal agency’s responsibilities in time of ‘severe emergency.’” Anderson will add that FEMA has drafted “standby” legislation to activate the censorship plans “whenever the president shall deem that the public safety demands it.” [Ocala Star-Banner, 3/29/1986]

Yuri Andropov. [Source: BBC]Soviet leader Yuri Andropov issues an unusual “declaration” on US-Soviet relations that demonstrates the tension and mistrust between the two countries since the KAL 007 shootdown (see September 1, 1983). “The Soviet leadership deems it necessary to inform the Soviet people, other peoples, and all who are responsible for determining the policy of states, of its assessment of the course pursued in international affairs by the current US administration,” Andropov says. “In brief, it is a militarist course that represents a serious threat to peace.… If anyone had any illusion about the possibility of an evolution for the better in the policy of the present American administration, recent events have dispelled them completely.” According to the Soviet ambassador to the US, Anatoly Dobrynin, the last phrase is the key: the word “completely” was carefully chosen to express the Soviet consensus that the USSR cannot hope to reach any sort of understanding with the Reagan administration. In the following months, a “war scare” mentality engulfs the Soviet populace, fed by Soviet-generated propaganda, until it becomes so widespread that the Kremlin, fearing the agitation will get out of hand, takes steps in early 1984 to calm the fears it has helped generate. [Fischer, 3/19/2007]

The logo of ‘The Order.’ [Source: Eye on Hate (.com)]Robert Jay Mathews, a white supremacist and activist (see 1980-1982 and September 1983), invites eight men to his property in Metaline Falls, Washington: neighbor and best friend Kenneth Loft; former Ku Klux Klansman David Edan Lane; Daniel Bauer; Denver Daw Parmenter; Randolph George Duey and Bruce Carroll Pierce of the Aryan Nations; and National Alliance recruits Richard Harold Kemp and William Soderquist. Mathews and his eight guests found a new organization called, variously, “The Order,” “The Silent Brotherhood” or “Bruder Schweigen,” and “The White American Bastion.” The group uses the story depicted in the novel The Turner Diaries as its framework, determining to use violence and crime to destabilize the US government and establish a whites-only society. In the novel, “The Organization” finances its revolution by armed robberies, counterfeiting, and other crimes designed to disrupt the US economy. Mathews decides his group will use the same plan. Mathews is also inspired by real crimes, such as a failed 1981 armored car heist by the Black Liberation Army. [Kushner, 2003, pp. 222-223; HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]

William Eagleton, the chief of the US-interests section in Baghdad, writes a memo that asserts the US can secretly supply arms to Iraq for use against Iran through third-party nations. “We can selectively lift restrictions on third party transfers of US-licensed military equipment to Iraq,” he writes. Although Eagleton is not the architect of this policy—that is primarily Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, Secretary of State George Shultz, and Shultz’s assistant, Richard Murphy, who fear that Iran will lead a rise of Islamic fundamentalism throughout the region—Eagleton’s memo heralds the onset of US arms transfers to Iraq through several regional countries, including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt. The arms transfers are almost certainly illegal, a direct violation of the Arms Export Control Act, which directs the president to inform Congress if any such third-party arms transfers are enacted. Reagan officials decide not to inform Congress because they know Congress will never approve the arms transfers, particularly in light of the US’s stated policy of neutrality towards the Iran-Iraq War. Congress also knows nothing of the Reagan administration’s secret supplying of arms to Iran (see 1981). [New Yorker, 11/2/1992]

In a speech, President Reagan states what later becomes part of the ideology behind the “Reagan doctrine” of American assistance to anti-Soviet insurgencies (see May 5, 1985). “The goal of the free world must no longer be stated in the negative,” he says, “that is, resistance to Soviet expansionism. The goal of the free world must now be stated in the affirmative. We must go on the offensive with a forward strategy for freedom.” [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 145]

Young White House attorney John Roberts (see September 29, 2005), an advocate of expanded presidential powers (see June-July 1983), is selected to respond to a letter from retired Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg. The former justice is commenting on the Reagan administration’s decision to unilaterally invade the tiny Caribbean island nation of Grenada. Goldberg wrote that President Reagan probably did violate the Constitution by sending troops to Grenada without Congressional approval, and in that sense has left himself open to impeachment. However, he added, the invasion had succeeded in establishing democracy in that nation. Therefore Reagan’s actions should be compared to those of President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, because, like Lincoln, he “acted in good faith and in the belief that this served our national interest” (see April 12 - July 1861). Drafting the letter for Reagan’s signature, Roberts thanks Goldberg for his defense of Reagan but insists that the invasion was perfectly legal. The president, Roberts writes, has “inherent authority in international affairs to defend American lives and interests and, as commander in chief, to use the military when necessary in discharging these responsibilities.” [Savage, 2007, pp. 257]

Bruce Pierce. [Source: Eye on Hate (.com)]Four members of the newly founded white supremacist guerrilla group The Order (see Late September 1983), Robert Jay Mathews, Bruce Pierce, Randolph Duey, and Daniel Bauer, carry out the group’s first armed robbery to finance their plans for armed insurrection. They rob an adult video store in Spokane, Washington, and escape with $369. Mathews, the group leader, decides to strike next at an armored car. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]

US State Department official Jonathan T. Howe tells Secretary of State George P. Shultz that intelligence reports indicate that Saddam Hussein’s troops are resorting to “almost daily use of CW [Chemical Weapons]” against their Iranian adversaries. [US Department of State, 11/1/1983 ; Washington Post, 12/30/2002; London Times, 12/31/2002]

Test firing of a US Pershing II IRBM. [Source: US Army / Public domain]The US and its NATO allies carry out a military exercise called “Able Archer,” or “Able Archer 83,” designed to simulate the use of nuclear weapons in an assault against the Soviet Union, and to test command and control procedures. The military exercise comes perilously close to touching off a real nuclear exchange with the USSR. The exercise—not the first of its kind, but the most expansive—is huge, spanning Europe from Turkey to Scandinavia; it involves the heads of state of countries like Great Britain and Germany; and, perhaps most alarmingly for the Soviets, involves NATO forces escalating their military alert levels to DEFCON-1, at which point NATO nuclear weapons have their safeguards disabled and are ready for launch. The Soviet’s VRYAN program to detect a possible assault (see May 1981) is extremely active. On November 8, Moscow sends high-priority telegrams to its KGB stations in Western Europe demanding information about a possible surprise first attack on the USSR. Though little actual evidence exists, some sources erroneously tell Moscow that NATO ground forces are mobilizing. The KGB concludes that “Able Archer” is a cover for a real military assault; Warsaw Pact fighter units armed with nuclear weapons are put on alert in East Germany and Poland. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 134-135; Cardiff Western News, 11/10/2008]
'Frighteningly Close' to Nuclear War, Says Soviet Intelligence Official - Oleg Gordievsky, the intelligence chief of the Soviet embassy in London and a British double agent, warns the British that the West is entering what he calls a “danger zone.” The Daily Telegraph will later write, “It was on Nov. 8-9 that the Kremlin had pressed what came close to a panic button.” [Washington Post, 10/16/1988] In his memoirs, Gordievsky will write: “In the tense atmosphere generated by the crises and rhetoric of the past few months, the KGB concluded that American forces had been placed on alert—and might even have begun the countdown to war.… [D]uring ABLE ARCHER 83 it had, without realizing it, come frighteningly close—certainly closer than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.” [Fischer, 3/19/2007]
Reagan 'Shocked' at Soviet Reaction - The exercise ends without incident, but National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane will later admit, “The situation was very grave.” Secretary of State George Shultz terms the exercise “a close call” and “quite sobering.” In early 1984, when the CIA reports that the Soviets had been convinced that the US was readying a nuclear strike, President Reagan will be, in author J. Peter Scoblic’s words, “shocked” to realize that he and his administration “had nearly started a nuclear war.” Reagan, in McFarlane’s recollection, will show “genuine anxiety” and begin talking about the concept of Armageddon—the Biblical end times—with his advisers. [Fischer, 3/19/2007; Scoblic, 2008, pp. 134-135]

Poster for ‘The Day After.’ [Source: MGM]The made-for-TV movie The Day After airs on ABC. It tells the story of a group of Americans in Lawrence, Kansas—the geographical center of the continental United States—who survive a nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet Union, and the harrowing days and weeks of their existence afterwards, as they slowly die from radiation poisoning and a lack of food and water. “Bootleged” copies of the movie have been available for months, adding to the anticipation and the controversy surrounding it.
Concerns of 'Anti-Nuclear Bias' from White House - The movie, described by Museum of Broadcast Communications reviewer Susan Emmanuel as “starkly realistic,” caused concern in the White House because of what it saw as its “anti-nuclear bias.” (The production had taken place without the cooperation of the Defense Department, which had insisted on emphasizing that the Soviet Union had started the exchange depicted in the movie. The filmmakers did not want to take a political stance, and preferred to leave that question unclear.) To address the White House’s concerns, ABC distributed a half-million viewers’ guides to schools, libraries, and civic and religious groups, and organized discussion groups around the country. It will also conduct extensive social research after the broadcast to judge the reactions among children and adults. A discussion group featuring Secretary of State George Shultz takes place immediately after the broadcast. Its original broadcast is viewed by roughly 100 million viewers, an unprecedented audience. It is shown three weeks later on Britain’s ITV network as part of a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament recruitment drive. Emmanuel will later write, “Not since then has the hybrid between entertainment and information, between a popular genre like disaster, and the address to the enlightened citizen, been as successfully attempted by a network in a single media event. ” [Lometti, 1992; Scoblic, 2008, pp. 133; Museum of Broadcast Communications, 1/26/2008] Even though the filmmakers tried to remain politically neutral—director Nicholas Meyer says his film “does not advocate disarmament, build-down, buildup, or freeze”—proponents of the “nuclear freeze” movement hail the movie and conservatives call it a “two hour commercial for disarmament.” (ABC’s social research later shows that the film does not have a strong impact on viewers either for or against nuclear disarmament.) Conservative evangelist Jerry Falwell threatens, but does not execute, a boycott of the commercial sponsors of the film. Some Congressional Democrats ask that the movie be made available for broadcast in the Soviet Union. [Lometti, 1992]
Powerful Impact on President Reagan - The movie has a powerful impact on one viewer: President Reagan. He will reflect in his memoirs that the film leaves him “greatly depressed” and makes him “aware of the need for the world to step back from the nuclear precipice.” Author J. Peter Scoblic will later write: “If it seems vaguely ridiculous for a Cold War president to reach this conclusion only after watching a made-for-TV movie, remember that Reagan biographers have long noted that his connection to film was often stronger than his connection to reality. He also became far more intellectually and emotionally engaged when presented with issues framed as personal stories, rather than as policy proposals.” Reagan’s visceral reaction to the film heralds a fundamental shift in his approach to the US-Soviet nuclear arms race. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 133]

US State Department official Jonathan T. Howe sends Secretary of Defense Lawrence Eagleburger a memo reporting that US intelligence has determined that “Iraq has acquired a CW [chemical weapons] production capability, primarily from Western firms, including possibly a US foreign subsidiary” and that Iraq has used chemical weapons against Iranian forces and Kurdish insurgents. Referring to the US policy “of seeking a halt to CW use wherever it occurs,” Howe says the US is “considering” approaching Iraq directly, but in a way that avoids playing “into Iran’s hands by fueling its propaganda against Iraq.” Significantly, the memo acknowledges that the US has so far limited its “efforts against the Iraqi CW program to close monitoring because of our strict neutrality in the Gulf war, the sensitivity of sources, and the low probability of achieving desired results.” [US Department of State, 11/1/1983 ]

US President Ronald Reagan issues National Security Directive 114 on the United States’ policy toward the Iran-Iraq war. The document—which makes no mention of Iraq’s use of chemical weapons—calls for increased regional military cooperation to protect oil facilities and for improving US military capabilities in the region. The directive states, “Because of the real and psychological impact of a curtailment in the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf on the international economic system, we must assure our readiness to deal promptly with actions aimed at disrupting that traffic.” [US President, 11/26/1983 ]

President Reagan, still shaken from the near-catastrophe of the “Able Archer” exercise (see November 2-11, 1983) and his viewing of the nuclear holocaust film The Day After (see November 20, 1983), receives a briefing on the nation’s nuclear war plans (see March 1982). Reagan had put off the briefing for almost two years, causing some of his more hardline advisers and officials to wonder if the president was losing his taste for a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union. Some of them privately believe that Reagan might never order a nuclear attack on the USSR no matter what the provocation. The briefing is anchored by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Vessey. They explain to Reagan that the US has 50,000 Soviet sites targeted for nuclear strikes; half of those sites are economic, industrial, political, and population centers. If the US launches such a strike, they say, the USSR would almost certainly retaliate, destroying the US as a functional society. Officials at the briefing later recall Reagan appearing “chastened” and brooding afterwards. In his diary, Reagan calls the briefing a “most sobering experience,” and writes of how much the briefing reminds him of The Day After: “In several ways, the sequence of events described in the briefings paralleled those in the ABC movie.” [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 133] He also writes in his diary how he is “even more anxious to get a top Soviet leader in a room alone and try to convince him we had no designs on the Soviet Union and the Russians had nothing to fear from us.” [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 139]

Secretary of State George P. Shultz will later recall that reports of Iraq using chemical weapons against Iranian military personnel “drifted in” at about this time (see, e.g., November 1, 1983). [Schultz, 1993, pp. 238; Jentleson, 1994, pp. 48; Cole, 1997, pp. 87]

US intelligence begins receiving reports that Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iran has increased. [Shultz, 1993, pp. 238; Jentleson, 1994, pp. 48; Cole, 1997, pp. 87]

By the end of 1983, 60 Hughes MD 500 “Defender” helicopters have been shipped to Iraq despite objections from four Republican senators. The US Department of Commerce had decided that the exporting of aircraft weighing less than 10,000 pounds to Iraq did not require an export license. [Middle East Defense News, 11/9/1992]

Though President Reagan has long vowed to reduce the number of nuclear weapons between the US and Soviet Union (see April 1981 and After and March-April 1982), because of a variety of factors—his recalcitrant anti-communism (see May 27, 1981, June 8, 1982, and March 8, 1983), his belief that escalating the arms race between the two countries would force the Soviets to give up their attempt to stay abreast of the Americans (see Early 1981 and After, Early 1981 and After, and Spring 1982), and his aides’ success at sabotaging the US-Soviet arms negotiations (see January 1981 and After, September 1981 through November 1983, May 1982 and After, and April 1983-December 1983)—recent events (see November 2-11, 1983 and November 20, 1983) have convinced him that he must fundamentally change the way he approaches the US’s dealings with the Soviets. He tells reporters that he will no longer refer to the USSR as “the focus of evil.” He drops what is known as “the standard threat speech” and begins speaking more frequently and openly of nuclear disarmament, to the dismay of many of his hardline advisers. In one speech, he says: “The fact that neither of us likes the other system is no reason to refuse to talk. Living in this nuclear age makes it imperative that we do talk.” Speechwriter Jack Matlock, a pragmatist recently put in charge of the National Security Council’s Soviet affairs desk, wins Reagan’s approval to insert a quote from a speech by President Kennedy: “So let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved.” He stops using terms like “conflict” in favor of terms such as “misunderstandings.” The rhetoric of “good vs evil,” of “us vs them,” is set aside in favor of discussions of mutual interests and problem solving. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 138-139]

The US State Department invites Bechtel officials to Washington to discuss plans for constructing the proposed Iraq-Jordan Aqaba oil pipeline. Former Bechtel president George Shultz is US Secretary of State at this time. [Vallette, 3/24/2003]

Bruce Pierce, a member of the white supremacist guerrilla group The Order (see Late September 1983), is arrested in Yakima, Washington, for passing counterfeit $50 bills at a local mall. Pierce obtained his counterfeit bills from an operation coordinated with the Aryan Nations in western Idaho. Pierce is interviewed by a Secret Service agent, but refuses to give him any real information. Order leader Robert Jay Mathews (see Late September 1983), worried that Pierce might talk to police or another prisoner, tries to finance Pierce’s bail by robbing a bank north of Seattle. Mathews escapes with over $26,000, but most of the money is ruined when an exploding dye pack stains the bills. Pierce eventually posts a $250 bond and is released. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006] Pierce will later murder Denver radio host Alan Berg (see June 18, 1984 and After).

The US launches Operation Staunch, advising other countries not to sell weapons to Iran to force a negotiated settlement to the Iran-Iraq war. [PBS, 2000]

President Reagan dispatches US envoy to the Middle East, Donald Rumsfeld, to convey the administration’s intention to “resume [US] diplomatic relations with Iraq” (see December 20, 1983). [American Gulf War Veterans Association, 9/10/2001; Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 9/24/2002]

Rumsfeld greets Hussein. [Source: Washington Note.com]US Special Envoy Donald Rumsfeld—formerly the Secretary of Defense and now the CEO of the pharmaceutical company, GD Searle and Co.—personally meets with Saddam Hussein for 90 minutes in an attempt to reestablish diplomatic relations with Iraq. Rumsfeld also discusses US interest in the construction of the Iraq-Jordan Aqaba oil pipeline [to be built by Bechtel (see December 2, 1983)]. [US Department of State, 12/10/1983 ; Iraqi television, 12/20/1983; US Department of State, 12/21/1983 ; MSNBC, 8/18/2002; Newsweek, 9/23/2002; Washington Post, 12/30/2002; London Times, 12/31/2002; Vallette, 3/24/2003; New York Times, 4/14/2003] Rumsfeld does not raise the issue of Iraq’s use of chemical weapons with Saddam. [US Department of State, 12/21/1983 ] Rumsfeld also delivers a letter to Hussein from Reagan administration officials declaring that for Iraq to be defeated by Iran (see September 1980) would be “contrary to United States interests.” Rumsfeld’s visit represents one side of the somewhat double-edged US foreign policy in the region: the US has allowed Israel to sell US-made arms to Iran for use against Iraq (see 1981). By this time, the US has already started clandestinely providing arms to Iraq as well (see October 1983). [New Yorker, 11/2/1992] After his meeting with the Iraqi president, Rumsfeld meets with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. They agree that “the US and Iraq… [share] many common interests.” Rumsfeld briefly mentions US concerns about Iraq’s chemical weapons, explaining that US “efforts to assist [Iraq]… [are] inhibited by certain things that made it difficult for us….” [US Department of State, 12/21/1983 ] On September 19, 2002, almost two decades later, Rumsfeld will be questioned in Congress about this visit (see September 19, 2002). [US Congress, 9/20/2002]

Deputy Attorney General Lowell Jensen and other members of the Justice Department’s PROMIS Oversight Committee approve the termination of part of a contract with Inslaw, Inc., for the installation of PROMIS software (see March 1982). The termination, pushed through despite a report that there was progress with Inslaw’s attorney on the resolution of contract problems, only concerns the part of the contract for the installation of PROMIS on word processing hardware in 74 small US attorneys’ offices. Inslaw will still be contracted to install the application in 20 other US attorneys’ offices. The termination is to be for default, as Inslaw has allegedly failed to perform this portion of the contract, although a different reason will later be given (see February 1984). [US Congress, 9/10/1992]

US President Ronald Reagan publicly claims to end aid to the contras in accordance with a congressional ban. However his administration continues the support, leading to the Iran-Contra scandal. [BBC, 6/5/2004; Columbia Encyclopedia. Sixth edition, 2005]

The Associated Press discloses a 90-page CIA-produced training manual called “Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare” providing the contras with instruction on political assassinations, blackmailing, mob violence, kidnappings and blowing up public buildings, and calling for “implicit terror.” [Central Intelligence Agency, n.d.; Associated Press, 10/17/1984; CNN, 2/21/1999]

The CIA secretly provides Iraqi intelligence with instructions on how to “calibrate” its mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops. [Washington Post, 12/15/1986]

William Rogers. [Source: Stephen Ferry / Viewimages]William Rogers, former secretary of state under Richard Nixon, observes, “The public should view excessive secrecy among government officials as parents view sudden quiet where youngsters are playing. It is a sign of trouble.” [Dean, 2004, pp. xi]