Robert Schweitzer
Robert Schweitzer (officer) | |
---|---|
Born | 6 September 1928 |
Died | 16 September 2000 (Age 72) |
Alma mater | University of Maryland, Army Command and General Staff College, Georgetown University, Shippensburg State College, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs |
Victim of | permanent war mentality |
Interests | “Iran-Contra” |
Spooky officer who was part of Iran-Contra operation. Moved from public post after Dr. Strangelove-like predictions of imminent Soviet attack. |
Robert L. Schweitzer was an U.S. Army general who was ousted from his post at the National Security Council in 1981 after going over the top in fearmongering about an imminent Soviet attack. He went on to be part of the enormous Iran-Contra black market weapons smuggling operation.
His Pentagon posts included tours as strategy, plans and policy director and assistant deputy chief of staff of the Army for operations and plans. Schweitzer also held high strategic planning posts at the Pentagon and was policy branch chief at NATO headquarters under General Alexander Haig in the late 1970s. He also worked on the NSC staff under Haig when Henry Kissinger was the national security adviser.
National Security Council
On Oct. 19, 1981, when he was a major general, he addressed a convention of the Association of the United States Army in Washington and took part in a discussion afterward. The meeting of military officers and others was open to reporters, and the association had advertised it. Some eyebrows went up when General Schweitzer, the highest military adviser to the National Security Council staff, declared that the Soviet Union had nuclear superiority in all three legs of the strategic triad: long-range bombers, land-based missiles and missiles launched from submarines.
"The Soviets are on the move, they are going to strike", the general said, warning that the country was in "the greatest danger that the republic has ever faced since its founding days."[1]
His remarks were unauthorized, and went well beyond the views of President Ronald Reagan, who himself took a hard stance toward the Soviets. The next day he was reassigned to the Pentagon.[2][3]
In the Pentagon, he became Chairman of the Inter-American Defense Board from 1982 to 1987, a [4]
Iran-Contra
Lieutenant General Robert Schweitzer was an executive vice president of GeoMiliTech Consultants Corporation which shipped weapons to Iran via Israel and North Korea.[5] GMT was founded in 1983 by Barbara F. Studley. The company, very likely a CIA front company, was founded after "encouragement" from deep state actor General John Singlaub of the World Anti-Communist League.[6]
Schweitzer said about arms dealers:
You're a merchant of death. There's just no other way you can look on that. Women and children are inevitably going to get killed by the stuff you're purveying. When we dealt with them inside the government, it was with great repugnance. People who are in the business of selling arms are for the most part terrible people. They cut deals, they cheat, lie, steal against each other. They charge outrageous prices. There is nothing in them that would commend any of them to anybody." [7]
Nevertheless, in September 1986, after Schweitzer left government service, he took a job with a consulting company that was trying to break into the arms trade by brokering deals around the world Like many ex-military officers, Schweitzer was recruited for his knowledge and his contacts, particularly with the Central Intelligence Agency.[7]
References
- ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/19/us/robert-l-schweitzer-general-and-security-staff-adviser-72.html
- ↑ http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/rlschweitzer.htm
- ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/19/us/robert-l-schweitzer-general-and-security-staff-adviser-72.html
- ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2000/09/18/lt-gen-robert-schweitzer-dies/d101c3c6-4014-4034-9053-fa0b56e8ac70/
- ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/02/26/3-groups-channeled-arms-to-contras-after-ban/37cb4ad7-835e-428a-a5ad-93d1e2ade5c6/
- ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/02/26/3-groups-channeled-arms-to-contras-after-ban/37cb4ad7-835e-428a-a5ad-93d1e2ade5c6/
- ↑ a b https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-1992-10-27-0000110709-story.html