Document:Nathan Hale Institute, extract from The "Terrorism" Industry
book extract by Edward S. Herman dated 1990Subjects: Nathan Hale Institute
Source: The "Terrorism" Industry
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The Nathan Hale Institute was incorporated in 1977 to track and provide information on terrorist organizations and their supporters. Both the institute and an affiliated Hale Foundation are run out of the same office. The original trustees of the foundation were Lawrence Sulz, a CIA intelligence operations officer for twenty-three years; Daren Flitcroft, a former State Department attache in the Philippines, and John R. Horton, a CIA operations officer (1948-75) who later became the national intelligence officer for Latin America (1983-84).
Three individuals with ties to the far right have been officers of the Hale Foundation. The president-director listed in the 1981 filing for a Hale Foundation application to conduct business in the District of Columbia was John Carbaugh, an ally of Senator Jesse Helms [...] an attendee at the 1980 Buenos Aires meeting of CAL, the Latin American branch of WACL. Sam Crutchfield, personal attorney to neo-Nazi Roger Pearson, and the man who helped Iran-contra defendant Robert Owen found the Institute for Democracy, Education and Assistance as a contra resupply front operation, was secretary-treasurer of Hale. Victor Fediay, listed as the foundation's registered agent for the District of Columbia according to their annual reports through 1988, once worked with Robert Moss at a news service known as Capitol Information Services. He is a former aide to Senator Strom Thurmond and spent twenty years with the Aerospace Technology Division, a secret intelligence division of the U.S. Air Force. Fediay was the Washington liaison for an international gathering of rightwing businessmen and French mercenaries seeking to begin a secessionist revolt in the Azores after the left came to power in Portugal in 1974. [1] In this enterprise Fediay worked with elements from the French Secret Army Organization (OAS), a rightist terrorist organization that sought to stage a coup in the Portuguese-held Azores in order to encourage the far right on the mainland to attempt a similar action against the new government.
The Nathan Hale Institute is currently directed by Raymond Wannail, former assistant director of the FBI's intelligence division. This division was responsible for monitoring "subversives;" "front organizations;" and "activist types" (to use Wannall's own language taken from his 1974 testimony before the House Internal Security Committee). [2] In spite of attempts by Congress to curb the domestic surveillance activities of the FBI, Wannall interpreted the bureau's powers as broad enough to escape any such strictures. In a 1976 memorandum, included in the 'Final Report' of the Church committee, Wannall observed that the "intelligence-gathering activities of the FBI have had as their basis the intention of the President to delegate his constitutional authority,' including those statutes "pertaining to the national security." [3]
Wannall, a professional anticommunist in the mold and manner of J. Edgar Hoover, founded the Nathan Hale Institute in order to keep files on domestic "terrorist" operations and organizations. In a booklet published by the institute entitled 'Who Is Tracking the Terrorists?' Wannall identified the ACLU, the Institute for Policy Studies, the National Lawyers Guild, the Communist party, USA, and the "left-oriented media elite" as supporting-directly or indirectly domestic terrorist organizations controlled by Moscow. In Wannall's vocabulary, "leftist;" "subversive;" and "terrorist" are coextensive and coeval. Wannall's operation provides an excellent example of the links between "counter-terrorism" and "counter-dissidence," particularly on the domestic front.
Among those who are or have been included as advisors to Wannail's operation are Ray Cline; Francis J. McNamara, a former military intelligence officer, one-time staff director of the House Committee on Internal Security, national director for the VFW's anticommunist program, as well as editor of 'Counterattack', a 1950s blacklisting service;" [4] Herbert Romerstein, a longtime HUAC staffer and "investigator" for the House Internal Security Committee's Republican minority; [5] Donald F. B. Jameson, vice-president of Research Associates International, Ltd., a risk assessment firm in the Washington area, and a 1973 CIA "retiree"; Eugene Methvin of 'Reader's Digest'; and retired Lieutenant General Daniel O. Graham, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and currently a member of the ASC's National Strategy Committee. Graham serves on the board of directors for the Unification Church's CAUSA, is vice-chairman of the American branch of WACL, and has held positions on honorary committees for the American Friends of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, a haven for Nazi war criminals. [6]
According to the Hale Foundation's 1986 annual report, the main objective of the foundation was "to lobby Congress for a strong U.S. Intelligence Community." To this end, representatives from the foundation urged members of the Senate to support the Central American Counter-terrorism Act (S.1757), lobbied the Senate for increased support to the contras, and urged congressional representatives to defeat H.R. 4276, which sought to open public debate on U.S. support for covert operations in Angola.
The Hale Foundation, following in the footsteps of James Angleton's Intelligence and Security Fund (see below under ASC), also sought to provide legal support for intelligence officers facing lawsuits for violating the constitutional rights of individuals subjected to surveillance or harassment. The foundation also publishes booklets, hosts seminars and conferences, and maintains a "clandestine collection" (private blacklist) on suspected terrorists operating in the United States.
Notes
- ^ 1. Fred Strasser and Brian McTigue, "The Fall River Conspiracy;' Boston, Nov. 1978, pp. 121ff.
- ^ 2. See Donner, Age of Surveillance, pp. 70-71.
- ^ 3. Ibid., p. 77.
- ^ 4. Ibid., p. 409.
- ^ 5. Ibid., p. 410.
- ^ 6. Anderson and Anderson, Inside the League, pp. 34ff.
