FTR-188 American G1adio? (Two 30-minute segments) $8.50
This broadcast presents long excerpts of a manuscript by researcher Kevin Coogan, the brilliant author of Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International (Autonomedia, copyright 1999.) (For more on this vitally important book, see FTR-l85.) Speculative in nature, this program highlights information that suggests the distinct possibility of a domestic version of "Operation Stay Behind" and its Italian component, "Operation Gladio". The above were NATO operations that utilized extreme right and fascist elements as potential guerilla forces to fight against communists in the event of either a successful Soviet takeover of Western Europe (an extreme improbability), or the greater likelihood of a popular Communist takeover of a major Western European country. In practice, Gladio resulted in a program of terrorist acts (bombings, kidnappings and assassinations) directed against the left. (Many of those acts were actually blamed on the left, in order to discredit it in the eyes of the public. See also: RFA-l9, Miscellaneous Archive Shows M19, M21, M49, FTR #'s 3, 53, 58, 59, 81.) Disturbed by the alleged lack of "backbone" demonstrated by American military personnel during the Korean War, American strategic thinkers undertook to indoctrinate the American public with a practically militant, anti-Communist perspective. These leaders feared that, in the event of a protracted nuclear face-off with the Soviets, lack of American political resolve could result in the United States "blinking" and backing down in such a confrontation. In 1958, the Eisenhower administration issued a National Security Council directive authorizing the military to engage in a program of political indoctrination of military personnel and (more importantly) the civilian population as well. The goal of this directive was to alter the political views of the American people. The constitutional implications of this directive could not be exaggerated. The bulk of the broadcast examines evidence that suggests that, as a result of this NSC directive, the national security establishment began utilizing far-right and fascist groups in order to realize the desired ideological transformation. Mr. Emory suggests that these networks may very well have been utilized in the American political assassinations of the 1960's and early 1970's, as well as domestic intelligence operations against the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. Program Highlights Include: connections between Kennedy assassination figure Guy Bannister and American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell; Bannister's connections to both the national security establishment and overtly fascist elements; intelligence networks and political fronts in the United States established by the German Reinhard Gehlen spy organization; the use of Nazi elements by a German component of "Operation Stay Behind;" the establishment of the German Nazi paper DNZ by U.S. intelligence as a component of the German "Stay Behind;" connections between Robert Surrey (an aide to Kennedy assassination figure General Edwin Walker) and George Lincoln Rockwell; evidence suggesting that Surrey's financing of Walker's American Mercury newspaper may have been financed by either German intelligence or U.S. intelligence (the paper was later taken over by Willis Carto, head of the Liberty Lobby); connections between Surrey and the Schmidt brothers (apparently involved in the Kennedy assassination); indications that the Schmidt brothers CUSA organization may also have resulted from the '58 NSC directive,"Stay Behind;" the Schmidts' Nazi ideology; the political assault on liberal American anti-Communists by far-right elements; the possibility that the DNZ's publication of the allegation that Lee Harvey Oswald tried to kill General Walker was used by the BND (German intelligence) to pressure the CIA. (See also: G1, G2, G3, G4; RFA #'s 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 37: Miscellaneous Archive Shows M3, M20, M22, M25, M29, M37, M38, M56, M59, M60, as well as FTR #'s 8, 19, 26, 27, 46, 47, 50, 54, 62, 63, 71, 72, 76, 94, 95, 104, 108, 110, 111, 120, 114, 115, 116, 142, 158, 168.) (Recorded on 1/9/2000.)