Chapter One

Weekend Teach-In: Opening Session

1. On Kennedy's fraudulent "missile gap" and major escalation of the arms race, see for example, Fred Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983, chs. 16, 19 and 20; Desmond Ball, Politics and Force Levels: The Strategic Missile Program of the Kennedy Administration, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980, ch. 2.

On Reagan's fraudulent "window of vulnerability" and "military spending gap" and the massive military buildup during his first administration, see for example, Jeff McMahan, Reagan and the World: Imperial Policy in the New Cold War, New York: Monthly Review, 1985, chs. 2 and 3; Franklyn Holzman, "Politics and Guesswork: C.I.A. and D.I.A. estimates of Soviet Military Spending," International Security, Fall 1989, pp. 101-131; Franklyn Holzman, "The C.I.A.'s Military Spending Estimates: Deceit and Its Costs," Challenge, May/June 1992, pp. 28-39; Report of the President's Commission on Strategic Forces, Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, April 1983, especially pp. 7-8, 17, and Brent Scowcroft, "Final Report of the President's Commission on Strategic Forces," Atlantic Community Quarterly, Vol. 22, Spring 1984, pp. 14-22 (the administration's own Scowcroft Commission's rejection of the "window of vulnerability" story). See also chapter 3 of U.P. and its footnotes 3 and 4.

On Kennedy in Latin America, see for example, Charles Maechling, Jr. [leading U.S. counterinsurgency planner from 1961 to 1966], "The Murderous Mind of the Latin American Military," Los Angeles Times, March 18, 1982, part II, p. 11 (discussing how the Kennedy administration shifted the mission of the Latin American military from "hemispheric defense" [i.e. defense against external enemies] to "internal security" [i.e. control of domestic dissidence] after the Cuban Revolution and the failed U.S.-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion attempt against Cuba, and thereby changed the U.S. position in the region from toleration "of the rapacity and cruelty of the Latin American military" to "direct complicity . . . [in] the methods of Heinrich Himmler's extermination squads"); Stephen Rabe, "Controlling Revolutions: Latin America, the Alliance for Progress, and Cold War Anti-Communism," in Thomas Paterson, ed., Kennedy's Quest for Victory: American Foreign Policy, 1961-1963, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 105-122; Jenny Pearce, Under the Eagle: U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Caribbean, London: Latin America Bureau, 1982, Part II; A.J. Langguth, Hidden Terrors, New York: Pantheon, 1978, especially pp. 99, 115-116 (detailed description of how Kennedy liberals engineered the overthrow of Brazilian democracy in 1964 and replaced it with the subfascist regime that ruled for decades, after the Brazilian President Goulart had refused Robert Kennedy's admonition to end his flirtation with "romantic left-wing causes"). See also, David F. Schmitz, Thank God They're On Our Side: The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1921-1965, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999, ch. 6.

Chomsky adds that military-controlled states dedicated to "internal security" constituted one of the two major legacies of the Kennedy Administration to Latin America. The other was the Alliance for Progress, a 1961 program of U.S. aid to Latin America, which was a statistical success but a social catastrophe (apart from foreign investors and domestic elites). On the devastating effects of the Alliance for Progress, see for example, Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America, New York: Norton, 1983 (2nd revised and expanded edition 1993), ch. 3; Walter LaFeber, "The Alliances in Retrospect," in Andrew Maguire and Janet W. Brown, eds., Bordering on Trouble: Resources and Politics in Latin America, Bethesda, MD: Adler & Adler, 1986, pp. 337-388; Simon Hanson, Five Years of the Alliance for Progress, Washington: Inter-American Affairs, 1967. And see generally, Robert Williams, Export Agriculture and the Crisis in Central America, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986.

On Reagan in Latin America, see footnote 13 of this chapter; chapter 2 of U.P. and its footnote 15; chapter 4 of U.P. and its footnotes 3 and 10; and chapter 5 of U.P. and its footnote 48.

2. On U.S. terrorism against Cuba, see the text following this footnote in U.P., and footnote 21 of this chapter; and chapter 5 of U.P. and its footnote 29.

3. On Kennedy's authorization of attacks against Vietnam beginning in late 1961, see The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Senator Gravel Edition, Boston: Beacon, 1972, Vol. II, pp. 656-658, 677; William Conrad Gibbons, ed., The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships, Part II (1961-1964), Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986, pp. 70-71. For early press coverage of these attacks -- which elicited little protest in the U.S. for several years -- see for example, A.P., "U.S. Pilots Aiding Combat In Vietnam," New York Times, March 10, 1962, p. A8.

4. On public opposition to U.S. intervention in Central America in the 1980s, see for example, Edward Walsh, "Reagan Gets First Public Opinion Backlash," Washington Post, March 27, 1981, p. A9 (mail to the White House was reported to be "running 10 to 1 against the administration's new emphasis on military aid and advisers" to El Salvador, and the strong public opposition was confirmed in polls); Cynthia Arnson, El Salvador: A Revolution Confronts the United States, Washington: Institute for Policy Studies, 1982, p. 73 (less than 2 percent of the U.S. public favored military intervention in El Salvador, and 80 percent opposed sending advisers, according to March 1981 Gallup polls); Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America, New York: Norton, 1983 (2nd revised and expanded edition 1993), ch. 5.

The Reagan administration was so concerned about the public's attitudes towards its policies that it developed plans to suspend the Constitution and impose martial law in the event of "national crises," such as "violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition to a U.S. military invasion abroad." On these plans, see for example, Alfonso Chardy, "Reagan advisers ran 'secret' government," Miami Herald, July 5, 1987, p. 1A (reporting based on internal government documents that in such an event the administration intended to turn control of the United States over to the national crisis-management unit F.E.M.A., an agency directed by Louis Guiffrida, a close associate of Reagan and Attorney General Edwin Meese, who while at Army War College in 1970 wrote a memorandum recommending the internment of at least 21 million "American Negroes" in "assemble-centers or relocation camps" in the event of an uprising by black militants); Dave Lindorff, "Oliver's Martial Plan," Village Voice, July 21, 1987, p. 15; Christopher Hitchens, "The adoration of the mad guy," New Statesman (U.K.), July 17, 1987, p. 20.

For an example of how these revelations were treated by Congress, see Taking the Stand: The Testimony of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver L. North, New York: Pocket Books, 1987. An excerpt (p. 643):

Rep. Brooks: Colonel North, in your work at the N.S.C. [National Security Council], were you not assigned at one time to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?

Mr. Sullivan [North's Lawyer]: Mr. Chairman? (Gavel sounds.)

Chairman Inouye: I believe the question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area. So may I request that you not touch upon that, sir?

Rep. Brooks: I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I read in Miami papers and several others that there had been a plan developed by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency that would suspend the American Constitution, and I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was the area in which he had worked. I believe that it was, but I wanted --

Chairman Inouye: May I most respectfully request that that matter not be touched upon at this stage? If we wish to get into this I'm certain arrangements can be made for an Executive Session.

On the Reagan administration's move towards intervention in Central America, see for example its so-called "White Paper" on El Salvador, Communist Interference in El Salvador: Documents Demonstrating Communist Support of the Salvadoran Insurgency, Special Report No. 80, Washington: United States Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, February 23, 1981. On the subsequent exposure of the basis for the "White Paper" as fraudulent, see for example, Robert G. Kaiser, "White Paper on El Salvador Is Faulty," Washington Post, June 9, 1981, p. A1; Robert G. Kaiser, "The Man Behind the White Paper and the Unfolding of the Story," Washington Post, June 9, 1981, p. A14; James Petras, "White Paper On The White Paper," Nation, March 28, 1981, pp. 353f; Raymond Bonner, Weakness and Deceit: U.S. Policy and El Salvador, New York: Times Books, 1984, ch. 13; Jonathan Kwitney, Endless Enemies: The Making of an Unfriendly World, New York: Congdon & Weed, 1984, pp. 359-374.

5. On the Office of Public Diplomacy, see for example, Alfonso Chardy, "N.S.C. supervised office to influence opinion," Miami Herald, July 19, 1987, p. 18A ("'If you look at it as a whole, the Office of Public Diplomacy was carrying out a huge psychological operation of the kind the military conducts to influence a population in denied or enemy territory,' a senior U.S. official familiar with the effort said"); Robert Parry and Peter Kornbluh, "Reagan's Pro-Contra Propaganda Machine," Washington Post, September 4, 1988, p. C1 ("the campaign came to resemble the sort of covert political operation the C.I.A. runs against hostile forces overseas but is outlawed from conducting at home"); Robert Parry and Peter Kornbluh, "Iran-Contra's Untold Story," Foreign Policy, Fall 1988, pp. 3-30; Joanne Omang, "The People Who Sell Foreign Policies," Washington Post, October 15, 1985, p. A21; Martin A. Lee and Norman Solomon, Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media, New York: Lyle Stuart, 1990, pp. 131-141; Alfonso Chardy, "Secrets leaked to harm Nicaragua, sources say," Miami Herald, October 13, 1986, p. 12A (reporting that a disinformation campaign named "Project Truth," designed to set the agenda for debate over Nicaragua, apparently was activated in a secret National Security Directive titled "Management of Public Diplomacy Relative to National Security," dated January 4, 1983); Staff Report, State Department and Intelligence Community Involvement in Domestic Activities Related to the Iran/Contra Affair, Committee on Foreign Affairs of the U.S. House of Representatives, Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, October 1992, pp. 3-4 (the Comptroller General of the General Accounting Office condemned the Office of Public Diplomacy's activities as illegal).

President Wilson's propaganda office during the First World War was the "Committee on Public Information," also known as the "Creel Commission."

6. On Carter military spending projections, see for example, Robert Komer [former Under-Secretary of Defense], "What 'Decade of Neglect'?," International Security, Fall 1985, pp. 70-83. An excerpt (pp. 73, 76, 78-79):

Actual defense outlays went up in every Carter year, in strong contrast to the declines characteristic of every Nixon-Ford year from F.Y. 1969 through F.Y. 1976 [with a] substantial increase in F.Y. 1981 [i.e. under Carter]. . . . As it turns out, the F.Y. 1982-1985 outlays actually approved by Congress average slightly lower than the Carter projections. . . . Almost every Reagan equipment program to date was begun under Carter, or even before, with the notable exception of S.D.I. [i.e. "Star Wars"]. . . . Reagan rhetoric tended to obscure the fact that Reagan's program was mostly an acceleration of a buildup already begun under Carter.

Bernard Weinraub, "White House Plans Rise to $124 Billion in Military Budget," New York Times, November 16, 1978, p. A1. An excerpt:

Administration sources said defense officials were especially gratified because the President [Carter] has decided to cut about $15 billion out of the normal growth of a range of social and domestic programs . . . [while raising military spending by some $12 billion]. Officials indicated that the "guns and butter" argument waged within the Administration had now been settled by Mr. Carter in favor of the Defense Department.

See also, Thomas B. Cochran et al., Nuclear Weapons Databook, Volume I: U.S. Nuclear Forces and Capabilities, Cambridge, MA: Ballinger/Harper & Row, 1984, p. 13; Raymond L. Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan, Washington: Brookings Institution, 1985 (revised edition 1994), pp. 865-882.

On Reagan's military budget, see footnote 1 of this chapter.

7. On public opposition to Reagan's policies and popular attitudes remaining stubbornly social-democratic in important respects since the New Deal years, see for example, Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers, Right Turn: The Decline of the Democrats and the Future of American Politics, New York: Hill and Wang, 1986 (tracing the myth of a "right turn" in public attitudes in the U.S., and discussing general popular opposition to Reagan's policies); Thomas Ferguson, Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995, chs. 5, 6, and Postscript (extending Right Turn's analysis and confirming its conclusions through 1994); Benjamin I. Page and Robert Y. Shapiro, The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans' Policy Preferences, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992, chs. 3 and 4, at pp. 169-170 (after reviewing an enormous number of polls over time, the authors conclude: "Ferguson and Rogers [in Right Turn] are correct, therefore, in arguing that the policy right turn of the Reagan years cannot be accounted for as a response to public demands"); Stanley Kelley, Jr., "Democracy and the New Deal Party System," in Amy Guttman, ed., Democracy and the Welfare State, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988, pp. 185-205 (presenting poll results that demonstrate consistent public support for New Deal-type programs from 1952 to 1984, with only a brief dip in 1980); Vicente Navarro, "The 1984 Election and the New Deal: An Alternative Interpretation (2 parts)," Social Policy, Spring 1985, pp. 3-10 (reporting that polls during the 1980s regularly indicated that the public would support a tax increase devoted to New Deal and Great Society programs; support for equal or greater social expenditures was about 80 percent in 1984, and a greater number viewed social welfare programs favorably in 1984 than in 1980; 95 percent of the public opposed cuts in Social Security, people preferred cuts in military spending to cuts in health programs by about 2 to 1, they supported the Clean Air Act by 7 to 1, opposed cuts in Medicare or Medicaid by well over 3 to 1, preferred defense spending cuts over cuts in these medical aid programs by 3 or 4 to 1, and opposed a ban on abortions by over 2 to 1; three-fourths of the population supported government regulations to protect worker health and safety, and similar levels supported protection of consumer interests and other social expenditures, including help for the elderly, the poor, and the needy); Mark N. Vamos, ed., "Portrait of a Skeptical Public," Business Week, November 20, 1995, p. 138 (reprinting a Business Week/Harris poll on popular attitudes towards the role of government, and concluding based upon its findings: "the public agrees more with the Democratic notion of government as protector of society's most vulnerable than with the Republican vision of Washington as arm's-length guarantor of an 'opportunity society'"). See also footnote 50 of chapter 10 of U.P.

On Reagan's electoral "mandate," see for example, Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers, On Democracy: Toward a Transformation of American Society, New York: Penguin, 1983. An excerpt (p. 33):

On election day in 1980, the 53.2 percent turnout was the third lowest in American history, higher only than the 1920 and 1924 elections that followed the abrupt swelling of the eligibility rolls resulting from the enfranchisement of women. In winning the victory that continues to be labeled a "mandate" and a "landslide" by the national press, Ronald Reagan gained a smaller percentage of the eligible electorate than did Wendell Willkie in his decisive 1940 loss to Roosevelt.

See also, E.J. Dionne Jr., "Bush Names Baker As Secretary of State, Hails 40-State Support," New York Times, November 10, 1988, p. A1 ("estimates put the turnout [in the 1988 Presidential election] at from 49 to 50 percent of eligible voters. That would make it the lowest since 1924"). On public attitudes and the 1994 Congressional elections, see the text of chapter 10 of U.P. and its footnote 18.

For a poll on how past Presidents are remembered, see Adam Pertman, "Carter makes a triumphant return," Boston Globe, July 15, 1992, p. 19 (among ex-Presidents, Carter is well in the lead in popularity ratings at 74 percent, followed by the virtually unknown Ford at 68 percent, with Reagan at 58 percent, barely above Nixon at 54 percent).

8. On the Congressional origins of U.S. human rights programs, see for example, Lars Schoultz, Human Rights and United States Policy toward Latin America, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981, especially ch. 2; Lars Schoultz, "U.S. Foreign Policy and Human Rights Violations in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis of Foreign Aid Distributions," Comparative Politics, January 1981, p. 155 ("Over the open and intense opposition of the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations, since 1973 Congress has added human rights clauses to virtually all U.S. foreign assistance legislation"). See also, Edward S. Herman, The Real Terror Network: Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda, Boston: South End, 1982, especially p. 244 n.10.

Chomsky adds that it is a real tribute to the propaganda system that the press can still refer to a "human rights campaign" during the Carter administration, a Presidency which sponsored and supported the Somoza family in Nicaragua, the Shah of Iran, Marcos in the Philippines, Park in South Korea, Pinochet in Chile, Suharto in Indonesia, Mobutu in Zaire, the Brazilian generals, and their many confederates in repression and violence (The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism -- The Political Economy of Human Rights: Volume I, 1979, Boston: South End, pp. 370 n.80, 40).

9. On continued funding of Guatemala despite Congressional legislation, see for example, Lars Schoultz, "Guatemala: Social Change and Political Conflict," in Martin Diskin, ed., Trouble in our Backyard: Central America and the United States in the Eighties, New York: Pantheon, 1983, pp. 187-191 and Tables pp. 188-189 (annual U.S. military aid deliveries to Guatemala for 1977 to 1980 continued at between 94 percent in 1979 and 61 percent in 1980 of the 1976 level, with economic aid continuing as well); Allan Nairn, "The Guatemala Connection: While Congress Slept, U.S. Arms Merchants Delivered the Goods," Progressive, May 1986, pp. 20-23 (and see the exchange of letters with a State Department official, at pp. 6-8 of the September issue).

10. On the 42-page document outlining the mercenary-state network, see for example, Stephen Engelberg, "Document in North Trial Suggests Stronger Bush Role in Contra Aid," New York Times, April 7, 1989, pp. A1, A11 (summarizing and quoting excerpts from the 42-page document); Joe Pichirallo, "Bush Joined Efforts by Reagan, Aides To Solicit Arms for Contras During Ban," Washington Post, April 7, 1989, p. A1.

On the rise of U.S. mercenary states and clandestine foreign policy activities in the 1980s, see for example, Jonathan Marshall, Peter Dale Scott, and Jane Hunter, The Iran-Contra Connection: Secret Teams and Covert Operations in the Reagan Era, Boston: South End, 1987.

On U.S. control over the World Anti-Communist League, a collection of Nazis, fanatic anti-Semites, death squad assassins, torturers and killers from around the world, see Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson, Inside the League: The Shocking Exposé of How Terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1986.

11. On Israel as a U.S. mercenary state, see for example, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, The Israeli Connection: Who Israel Arms and Why, New York: Pantheon, 1987; Israel Shahak, Israel's Global Role: Weapons for Repression, Belmont, MA: Association of Arab-American University Graduates, 1982; Jane Hunter, Israeli Foreign Policy: South Africa and Central America, Boston: South End, 1987; Bishara Bahbah, Israel and Latin America: The Military Connection, New York: St. Martin's, 1986. See also, "Carving a big slice of world arms sales," Business Week, December 8, 1980, p. 43. An excerpt:

Although excluded from the lucrative Middle East [armaments] market, Israel has made headway in other parts of the globe -- notably Latin America, the Far East, and Africa. The Latin American market has developed rapidly in recent years following the Carter Administration's decision to prohibit U.S. arms sales to many right-wing regimes. Israel has become a leading supplier to such countries as Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, and Guatemala. Other major Israeli clients include South Africa, Taiwan, Nigeria, Thailand, and Singapore.

And see footnote 16 of this chapter.

12. For Arce's interviews in Mexico, see for example, Rubén Montedonico, "Militarily and Morally the Contras Are Finished: Horacio Arce," Honduras Update (Cambridge, MA; Honduras Information Center), November/December 1988, pp. 13-16 (from El Día of Mexico City, November 6 and 7, 1988); Marcio Vargas, "'This War Is Lost. It Is Over' -- Exclusive Interview With Top Contra Defector, Comandante Mercenary," Central America Information Bulletin (Managua; Agencia Nueva Nicaragua), No. 40, December 21, 1988, pp. 1, 4-5. Arce, whose nom de guerre as a contra leader was "Mercenario," explained:

We attack a lot of schools, health centers, and those sorts of things. We have tried to make it so that the Nicaraguan government cannot provide social services for the peasants, cannot develop its project . . . that's the idea.

13. On the death toll in Guatemala in the 1980s, see Report of the Commission for Historical Clarification (C.E.H.), Guatemala: Memory of Silence, 1999 (quotations are from paragraphs 1, 2, 15 and 82). This report of an international human rights investigatory panel administered by the United Nations concludes that "the number of persons killed or disappeared as a result of the fratricidal confrontation reached a total of over 200,000" in Guatemala since 1962, with 91 percent of these violations occurring between 1978 and 1984. The Commission found that "state forces and related paramilitary groups were responsible for 93% of the violations documented by the C.E.H., including 92% of the arbitrary executions and 91% of forced disappearances."

For additional sources, see for example, Susanne Jonas, The Battle for Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads, and U.S. Power, Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991, p. 149; Piero Gleijeses, "The Reagan Doctrine and Latin America," Current History, December 1986, pp. 401f at p. 435; Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America, New York: Norton, 1993 (revised and expanded edition). An excerpt (p. 362):

[T]he years from 1979 to 1991 turned out to be the bloodiest, most violent, and most destructive era in Central America's post-1820 history. The number of dead and "disappeared" varies according to different sources. The minimum is 200,000 (40,000 in Nicaragua, 75,000 in El Salvador, 75,000 in Guatemala, 10,000 in Honduras and the frontier fighting in Costa Rica), but this is only an estimate. Millions have been displaced or made refugees. If a similar catastrophe struck the United States in proportion, 2.5 million North Americans would die and 10 to 20 million would be driven from their homes.

See also, Amnesty International, Guatemala: A Government Program of Political Murder, London: Amnesty International, February 1981. An excerpt (pp. 5-6):

The bodies of the victims have been found piled up in ravines, dumped at roadsides or buried in mass graves. Thousands bore the scars of torture, and death had come to most by strangling with a garrotte, by being suffocated in rubber hoods or by being shot in the head. . . .

By far the majority of victims were chosen after they had become associated -- or were thought to be associated -- with social, religious, community or labor organizations, or after they had been in contact with organizers of national political parties. In other words, Amnesty International's evidence is that the targets for extreme governmental violence tend to be selected from grass roots organizations outside official control.

And see footnote 54 of chapter 8 of U.P.

14. For the McNamara-Bundy intercommunication, see Memorandum for the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, "Study of U.S. Policy Toward Latin American Military Forces," Secretary of Defense, June 11, 1965 (available in the Lyndon Baines Johnson library).

For similar statements in secret but now declassified U.S. government documents, see footnote 52 of chapter 2 of U.P.

On U.S. training of Latin American military leaders, see for example, Jan Knippers Black, United States Penetration of Brazil, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977, pp. 220-221, 170-171 (over 200,000 Latin American military personnel had been trained in the U.S. by the late 1970s, and U.S. military training has purposefully built a network of personal relationships between United States and Latin American military cadres); Joanne Omang, "Latin American Left, Right Say U.S. Militarized Continent," Washington Post, April 11, 1977, p. A16 (over 30,000 Latin American officers had been trained in the U.S. "School for the Americas" alone by the 1970s, and the training of Latin American military personnel in U.S. bases and training schools has placed great weight on ideological conditioning and has "steeped young Latin officers in the early 1950s anti-Communist dogma that subversive infiltrators could be anywhere"); Jeffrey Stein, "Fort Lesley J. McNair: Grad School For Juntas," Nation, May 21, 1977, pp. 621-624 (on the Inter-American Defense College).

15. On the U.S. overthrow of the Chilean government, see for example, U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, Interim Report, Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975, section IIIF, especially p. 231 n.2. This report explains that the White House and C.I.A. pursued a "two track" policy in Chile. The hard line called for a military coup, which was finally achieved. The soft line -- which included a White House directive to "make the economy scream" -- was explained by U.S. Ambassador Edward Korry, a Kennedy liberal, who stated: "not a nut or bolt will be allowed to reach Chile under Allende. Once Allende comes to power we shall do all within our power to condemn Chile and the Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty, a policy designed for a long time to come to accelerate the hard features of a Communist society in Chile." Chomsky stresses (Year 501: The Conquest Continues, Boston: South End, 1993, p. 36):

[E]ven if the hard line did not succeed in introducing fascist killers to exterminate the virus, the vision of "utmost deprivation" [in Chile] would suffice to keep the rot from spreading, and ultimately demoralize the patient itself. And crucially, it would provide ample grist for the mill of the cultural managers, who can produce cries of anguish at "the hard features of a Communist society," pouring scorn on those "apologists" who describe what is happening.

On the coup itself, see for example, James Petras and Morris Morley, The United States and Chile: Imperialism and the Overthrow of the Allende Government, New York: Monthly Review, 1975; William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II, Monroe, ME: Common Courage, 1995, ch. 34; John Gittings, ed., The Lessons of Chile: The Chilean Coup and the Future of Socialism, Nottingham, U.K.: Spokesman, 1975 (providing first-hand accounts of the effect of the coup on socialist activists in Chile); Fred Landis, "How 20 Chileans Overthrew Allende for the C.I.A.," Inquiry, February 19, 1979, pp. 16-20 (on the role of the Institute for General Studies, a C.I.A.-funded think-tank that ran vast anti-Allende propaganda operations for the C.I.A.). See also footnote 17 of this chapter.

16. Chomsky points out that the principal weakness of the "October Surprise" theory is that the arms flow to Iran began during the Carter administration -- before the 1980 election -- whereas under the "October Surprise" theory the quid pro quo of delaying release of the hostages was that the Reaganites would secretly begin to provide arms to Iran after they were elected. With respect to the "arms for hostages" theory concerning the hostages taken in 1985, reams of documentation prove that there was an arms flow to Iran prior to the earliest period that was examined by the Congressional Hearings and the Tower Commission. In addition, many express statements by insiders explain that their goal was, in fact, to bring about a military coup in Iran.

For some of the evidence supporting these points, see for example, David Nyhan, "Israel plan was aimed at toppling Khomeini," Boston Globe, October 21, 1982, p. 1 (Israeli Ambassador Moshe Arens stated in an interview that Israel had provided arms to the Khomeini regime "in coordination with the U.S. government . . . at almost the highest of levels." "The objective," Arens said, "was to see if we could not find some areas of contact with the Iranian military, to bring down the Khomeini regime"); Robert Levey, "U.S. denies Arens' claim," Boston Globe, October 22, 1982, p. 1 (the U.S. State Department's immediate denial of Arens's account); David Nyhan, "Israeli disputes Globe story," Boston Globe, October 23, 1982, p. 4 (Arens's attempt to correct his story the next day, maintaining that the arms deal with Iran was discussed in advance with U.S. officials but saying that not enough equipment was sent to topple the Khomeini regime, although he reaffirmed that "the purpose was to make contact with some military officers who some day might be in a position of power in Iran"); Transcript of Panorama, B.B.C.-1 T.V. (U.K.) at 8:10 p.m., February 1, 1982. After David Kimche, head of Israel's Foreign Office and former director of its intelligence agency M.O.S.S.A.D., discussed Israel's sending American armaments to Iran from 1980, he stated:

Question: So that if Israel wishes to see a strong Iranian army it would be in Israel's interests for America to supply those spare parts?

Kimche: Well, I don't want to reach the obvious conclusion here. I think I made our position plain. We think that the Iranian army should be strong, yes.

Question: So, really, an army take-over is what you're saying?

Kimche: Possibly, yes.

Former C.I.A. Director and U.S. Ambassador to Iran Richard Helms then elaborated:

One doesn't mount coups to change governments or influence events without specific assets in the form of guns, people, groups desirous of helping, people who are prepared to take risk, all of these things, so that this is not a theoretical matter, it's a very practical matter and I wouldn't have any doubt that the United States is trying to find out what assets it can bring to bear.

On the timing of the arms sales, see for example, Zbigniew Brzezinski [Carter's National Security Advisor], Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977-1981, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1983, p. 504 (reporting that the Carter administration had learned in 1980 of secret Israeli shipments of U.S. armaments to Iran); Dan Fisher, "Israel-Iran Arms Flow Reportedly Began In '79," Los Angeles Times, November 22, 1986, p. 1. An excerpt:

Israeli arms dealers, with the acquiescence of the government, have maintained a nearly continuous supply of weaponry to Iran since 1979, including at least seven shiploads dispatched independently of a U.S.-sponsored Iranian arms program over the last 14 months, according to informed sources [in Israel]. . . .

Pleased initially that revelation of the Reagan program [of clandestine weapons shipments to Iran] made Israel appear as a loyal strategic ally aiding an effort to free U.S. hostages held by pro-Iranian elements in Lebanon, Israeli policy-makers have watched with growing discomfort as Washington news reports seem increasingly to depict Jerusalem as a villain in the affair. . . . "The State of Israel has never sold American arms or weapons containing American components without having received authorization from the U.S.," Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin told an Israeli Army Radio interviewer last week. . . . [T]hen-Israeli Defense Minister . . . [Ariel] Sharon argued that arms shipments would help keep channels open to "moderate" or "pragmatic" elements in Iran, particularly in the military, who would one day overthrow or at least inherit the reins of power from Khomeini.

"Carving a big slice of world arms sales," Business Week, December 8, 1980, p. 43 (according to Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Mordechai Tsippori, "Iran, once a big customer for Israeli arms under the Shah, [is] now purchasing Israeli weapons again through European intermediaries"); John Walcott and Jane Mayer, "Israel Said to Have Sold Weapons to Iran Since 1981 With Tacit Approval of the Reagan Administration," Wall Street Journal, November 28, 1986, p. 3 (noting that U.S. authorization of Israeli arms sales to be compensated by the U.S. goes back to 1981, with the knowledge of Haig, Weinberger, Shultz, Baker, and others; "Officials said both Israel and the U.S. hoped that the arms sales would curry favor with the military people in Iran, the so-called moderates, helping to position these men to take over if Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died or there was a coup"); General Robert E. Huyser, Mission to Tehran, New York: Harper & Row, 1986 (Carter National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski's endorsement of Huyser's book about his dispatch to Iran to organize the Iranian military to carry out a coup states that Brzezinski remains convinced that only "procrastination and bureaucratic sabotage prevented the U.S.-sponsored military coup" he advocated and "that might have saved Iran from Khomeini" and "the masses").

See also, Samuel Segev, The Iranian Triangle: The Untold Story of Israel's Role in the Iran-Contra Affair, New York: Free Press, 1988; Jonathan Marshall, Peter Dale Scott, and Jane Hunter, The Iran-Contra Connection: Secret Teams and Covert Operations in the Reagan Era, Boston: South End, 1987, chs. 7 and 8; Scott Armstrong et al., The Chronology: The Documented Day-by-Day Account of the Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Contras, New York: Warner, 1987, pp. 7-8.

17. For unclassified U.S. military aid figures during the Allende years, see for example, Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973, Staff Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities, U.S. Senate, Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, December 18, 1975, pp. 32-38 (with tables on military assistance, military sales, and training of Chilean military personnel in Panama, based on "unclassified" figures from the Defense Department). An excerpt (p. 37; emphasis in original):

[M]ilitary assistance was not cut off at the time of Allende's confirmation. Military sales jumped sharply from 1972 to 1973 and even more sharply from 1973 to 1974 after the coup. Training of Chilean military personnel in Panama also rose during the Allende years . . . [increasing the number of trainees from 1969 to 1973 by 150 percent].

18. On C.I.A. involvement in overthrowing Sukarno in Indonesia, see for example, Peter Dale Scott, "The United States and the Overthrow of Sukarno, 1965-1967," Pacific Affairs, Summer 1985, pp. 239-264 (study documenting the C.I.A.'s role); Ralph McGehee [ex-C.I.A. officer], "The C.I.A. and The White Paper On El Salvador," Nation, April 11, 1981, p. 423f (this article was censored by the C.I.A. under a clause in the author's contract, and was published with deletions noted; the author reports that he is familiar with a highly classified C.I.A. report on the Agency's role in provoking the destruction of the P.K.I., the Indonesian Communist Party, and he attributes the slaughter to the "C.I.A. [one word deleted] operation"); Kathy Kadane, "Ex-agents say C.I.A. compiled death lists for Indonesians," San Francisco Examiner, May 20, 1990, p. A1 ("Silent for a quarter century, former high-ranking U.S. diplomats and C.I.A. officials described in lengthy interviews how they aided Indonesian army leader Suharto -- now president of Indonesia -- in his attack on the P.K.I. [Indonesian Communist Party]"); Gabriel Kolko, Confronting the Third World: United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1980, New York: Pantheon, 1988, pp. 173-185 (concise summary of the events leading up to the massacre). An excerpt (p. 177 n."*"):

U.S. documents for the three months preceding September 30, 1965, and dealing with the convoluted background and intrigues, much less the embassy's and the C.I.A.'s roles, have been withheld from public scrutiny. Given the detailed materials available before and after July-September 1965, one can only assume that the release of these papers would embarrass the U.S. government.

During Congressional testimony, Pentagon official Paul Warnke, a reputed dove, acknowledged the purpose of U.S. military aid to Indonesia before the 1965 coup. See Foreign Assistance Act of 1968 Hearings, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 90th Congress, 2nd Session, Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968, p. 706:

[Connecticut Senator John] Monagan: Speaking of military assistance programs, I think of one that is in Indonesia, where at least in the latter days the purpose for which it was maintained was not to support an existing [i.e. the Sukarno] regime. In fact, we were opposed, eventually and increasingly, to the then existing regime. It was to preserve a liaison of sorts with the military of the country which in effect turned out to be one of the conclusive elements in the overthrow of that regime.

Warnke: That is correct, sir.

On the subsequent massacre in Indonesia, and for more on the U.S. involvement, see footnote 23 of chapter 2 of U.P.

On U.S. government involvement in another "classic operation," overthrowing the democratic Goulart government in Brazil in 1964, see for example, A.J. Langguth, Hidden Terrors, New York: Pantheon, 1978, pp. 38-116; Jan Knippers Black, United States Penetration of Brazil, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977; Phyllis Parker, Brazil and the Quiet Intervention, 1964, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979; Ruth Leacock, Requiem for Revolution: The United States and Brazil, 1961-1969, Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1990. See also, Thomas Skidmore, The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil, 1964-85, New York: Oxford University Press, 1988 (comprehensive scholarly study of the post-coup period).

19. On the C.I.A. coup in Iran, see for example, William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II, Monroe, ME: Common Courage, 1995, ch. 9; Bill A. James, The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988, ch. 2; Kermit Roosevelt, Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979 (first-person account of the coup by a former C.I.A. officer; this book was recalled from stores by its publisher McGraw-Hill in 1979 under pressure from British Petroleum Company, the successor corporation to the petroleum entity which Roosevelt implicated in the coup). See also, William A. Dorman and Mansour Farhang, The U.S. Press and Iran: Foreign Policy and the Journalism of Deference, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987, ch. 2 (on the distorted U.S. press coverage of the coup, and of Iran generally). On the recall of Roosevelt's book, see Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Boston: Beacon, Fifth Edition, 1997, p. 39.

20. On the C.I.A. coup in Guatemala, see for example, Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999 (expanded edition); Richard H. Immerman, The C.I.A. in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982; Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America, New York: Norton, 1983 (2nd revised and expanded edition 1993), pp. 113-127; Stephen Schlesinger, "How Dulles Worked the Coup d'Etat," Nation, October 28, 1978, p. 425 (based upon more than 1,000 pages of State Department documents from 1953 and 1954, released to Schlesinger under the Freedom of Information Act; concluding that the coup "was conceived of and run at the highest levels of the American government in closest cahoots with the United Fruit Company and under the overall direction of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, backed by President Eisenhower").

For a statement of the U.S.'s reasons for the coup, see Piero Gleijeses, Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991, p. 365. This study quotes a State Department official's warning prior to the coup that "Guatemala has become an increasing threat to the stability of Honduras and El Salvador. Its agrarian reform is a powerful propaganda weapon; its broad social program of aiding the workers and peasants in a victorious struggle against the upper classes and large foreign enterprises has a strong appeal to the populations of Central American neighbors where similar conditions prevail."

21. On the scale, illegality and activities of Operation MONGOOSE, see for example, Raymond L. Garthoff, Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis (1989 edition), Washington: Brookings Institution, 1989. An excerpt (p. 32 and n.53):

[A] secret Special Group . . . [was] established in November 1961 to conduct covert operations against Cuba under the code-name "Mongoose." Attorney General Kennedy was a driving force in this covert action program. A Washington headquarters group had been set up under General Lansdale and a C.I.A. "Task Force W" in Florida under William K. Harvey, both veteran covert action managers. The operation came to involve 400 Americans, about 2,000 Cubans, a private navy of fast boats, and an annual budget of about $50 million. Task Force W carried out a wide range of activities, initially mostly against Cuban ships and aircraft outside Cuba (and non-Cuban ships engaged in the Cuba trade), such as contaminating sugar shipments out of Cuba and tampering with industrial imports into the country. A new phase, calling for more raids into Cuba, opened in September. . . . A Miami C.I.A. station was also established, in probable violation of the law banning C.I.A. operations in the United States, to say nothing of organizing activities that contravened the Neutrality Act.

U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, Final Report, 94th Congress, 2nd Session, Books II, III, and VI (Report No. 94-755), Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976; Warren Hinckle and William Turner, The Fish is Red: The Story of The Secret War Against Castro, New York: Harper & Row, 1981, ch. 4; Morris H. Morley, Imperial State and Revolution: The United States and Cuba, 1952-1986, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987, pp. 148-154; Edward S. Herman, The Real Terror Network: Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda, Boston: South End, 1982, ch. 2.

One of the commandos who participated in paramilitary operations against Cuba under the command of William "Rip" Robertson describes them as follows (quoted in Taylor Branch and George Crile III, "The Kennedy Vendetta: How the C.I.A. waged a silent war against Cuba," Harper's, August 1975, pp. 49-63):

After the Bay of Pigs is when the great heroic deeds of Rip really began. I was on one of his teams, but he controlled many teams and many operations. . . . Our team made more than seven big war missions. Some of them were huge: the attacks on the Texaco refinery, the Russian ships in Oriente Province, a big lumberyard, the Patrice Lumumba sulfuric acid plant at Santa Lucía, and the diesel plant at Casilda. But they never let us fight as much as we wanted to, and most of the operations were infiltrations and weapons drops.

We would go on missions to Cuba almost every week. When we didn't go, Rip would feel sick and get very mad. He was always blowing off his steam, but then he would call us his boys, and he would hug us and hit us in the stomach. He was always trying to crank us up for the missions. Once he told me, "I'll give you $50 if you bring me back an ear." I brought him two, and he laughed and said, "You're crazy," but he paid me $100, and he took us to his home for a turkey dinner. Rip was a patriot, an American patriot. Really, I think he was a fanatic. He'd fight anything that came against democracy. . . . At the end of December, 1961, [commando Ramon] Orozco went on a ten-day operation with a seven-man team. The commandos blew up a railroad bridge and watched a train run off the ruptured tracks, then they burned down a sugar warehouse.

See also, U.P.I., "C.I.A. reportedly tried to dry up Cuban crop," Boston Globe, June 27, 1976, p. 3 (reporting the allegation by former Pentagon researcher Lowell Ponte that the C.I.A. and the Pentagon seeded clouds "to try to dry up the Cuban sugar crop in 1969 and 1970"; in the next day's issue the report is denied by the Pentagon); Drew Fetherston and John Cummings, "Canadian Says U.S. Paid Him $5,000 to Infect Cuban Poultry," Washington Post, March 21, 1977, p. A18 ("The major details of the Canadian's story [i.e. in the title] have been confirmed by sources within and outside the American intelligence community"); Drew Fethersten and John Cummings, "C.I.A. tied to Cuba's '71 pig fever outbreak," Boston Globe, January 9, 1977, p. 1. An excerpt:

With at least the tacit backing of Central Intelligence Agency officials, operatives linked to anti-Castro terrorists introduced African swine fever virus into Cuba in 1971. Six weeks later an outbreak of the disease forced the slaughter of 500,000 pigs to prevent a nationwide animal epidemic.

A U.S. intelligence source said in an interview that he was given the virus in a sealed, unmarked container at an Army base and C.I.A. training ground in the Panama Canal Zone with instructions to turn it over to the anti-Castro group. The 1971 outbreak was the first and only time the disease has hit the Western Hemisphere. It was labeled the "most alarming event" of 1971 by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. African swine fever is a highly contagious and usually lethal viral disease that infects only pigs and, unlike swine flu, cannot be transmitted to human beings. . . . [A]ll production of pork, a Cuban staple, came to a halt apparently for several months.

And see chapter 5 of U.P. and its footnote 29.

22. On U.S. assassination attempts on Castro, see for example, U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, Interim Report (S. Rept. 94-465), 94th Congress, 1st Session, Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975, sections IIIB and IV, pp. 71f, 139-180 (reporting both MONGOOSE and non-MONGOOSE efforts to kill Castro).

One of the known assassination attempts on Castro was implemented the very day that John F. Kennedy himself was assassinated. See Thomas G. Paterson, ed., Kennedy's Quest for Victory: American Foreign Policy, 1961-1963, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. An excerpt (pp. 153-154):

In mid-June [1963] the N.S.C. [National Security Council] approved a new sabotage program. The C.I.A. quickly cranked up new dirty tricks and revitalized its assassination option by making contact with a traitorous Cuban official, Rolando Cubela Secades. Code-named AM/LASH, he plotted with the C.I.A. to kill Fidel Castro. . . . On the very day that Kennedy died, AM/LASH rendez-voused with C.I.A. agents in Paris, where he received a ball-point pen rigged with a poisonous hypodermic needle intended to produce Castro's instant death.

See also, William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II, Monroe, ME: Common Courage, 1995, Appendix III, p. 453 (listing all known prominent foreign individuals in whose assassination, or planning for the same, the United States has been involved since the end of World War II).

23. On MONGOOSE in the 1970s, see footnote 21 of this chapter.

24. On U.S. "contingency plans" for an invasion of Cuba and military deployment in the region before the Cuban Missile Crisis, see for example, Raymond L. Garthoff, Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis (1989 edition), Washington: Brookings Institution, 1989. An excerpt (pp. 6-8, 31, 50-51):

American exercises in the region continued apace through the summer and fall. An airborne assault was tested in Jupiter Springs. In August the U.S. Strike Command carried out Swift Strike II, a major limited war exercise in the Carolinas with four Army divisions and eight tactical air squadrons, some 70,000 troops in all. A strategic mobility command post exercise called Blue Water was conducted in early October, and a large Marine amphibious assault was planned for mid-October under the code-name Phibriglex. . . .

On October 1, two weeks before discovery of the missiles, Secretary McNamara met with Joint Chiefs of Staff and directed that readiness for possible implementation of the contingency plans [to invade Cuba] be raised. For example, U.S. Air Force tactical air units designated to meet the contingency war plan for an air strike (Oplan 312) were put under the operational control of CINCSTRIKE (Commander-in-Chief, Strike Command); U.S. Navy forces were earmarked for 6-hour, 12-hour, and 24-hour reaction times, and the war plan was revised to put the base at Mariel for Soviet Komar missile patrol boats on the air-strike priority target list. On October 6, increased readiness was also directed for forces earmarked for Oplan 314 and 316, the two war plan variants for invasion of Cuba.

See also, Thomas G. Paterson, "Fixation with Cuba: The Bay of Pigs, Missile Crisis, and Covert War Against Castro," in Thomas G. Paterson, ed., Kennedy's Quest for Victory: American Foreign Policy, 1961-1963, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 140-142.

25. For Bundy's denial, see McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years, New York: Random House, 1988, p. 416 ("We knew that we were not about to invade Cuba and we saw no reason for the Russians to take a clearly risky step because of a fear that we ourselves understood to be baseless").

26. On the "missile gap" being in the U.S.'s favor, see footnote 1 of this chapter.

27. For the two references to the factory bombing during the Cuban Missile Crisis, see David A. Welch and James G. Blight, "The Eleventh Hour of the Cuban Missile Crisis: An Introduction to the ExComm Transcripts," International Security, Winter 1987-88, p. 12 n.18; Raymond L. Garthoff, Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis (1989 edition), Washington: Brookings Institution, 1989, pp. 122-123.

28. On the General openly raising the level of security alert without informing Washington, see for example, Raymond L. Garthoff, Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis (1989 edition), Washington: Brookings Institution, 1989, pp. 61-62; David A. Welch and James G. Blight, "The Eleventh Hour of the Cuban Missile Crisis: An Introduction to the ExComm Transcripts," International Security, Winter 1987-88, p. 12 n.5.

29. On the enormous preponderance of U.S. military force at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Generals' attitudes, see footnotes 1, 24 and 28 of this chapter.

30. For Herodotus's analysis in the fifth century B.C., see Herodotus: A New and Literal Version, Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries, 1972, Book One, Stanzas 95-100, pp. 44-46 (describing the story of the Medes, who gained their freedom through revolt, then "were again reduced under a despotic government" when they voluntarily made Deioces their king and he decreed: "that no man should be admitted to the king's presence, but every one should consult him by means of messengers, and that none should be permitted to see him; and, moreover, that it should be accounted indecency for any to laugh or spit before him.