1. In this section an attempt is made to relate certain foreign contacts of US peace activists, [...] with the development over the past year of an internationally orchestrated campaign to rally opposition against US actions in Vietnam. A variety of individuals, organizations, and programs have been involved in these contacts, but only two threads can be traced throughout the pattern. One represents the efforts of individuals active in the Mobilization Committees to organize popular demonstrations, which culminated in the world-wide protest marches of 21 October; the other represents the development of the "war crimes tribunal" staged by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation (BRPF), which will hold its second and more spectacular session next month. Among names frequently mentioned, that of David Dellinger stands out, largely because of his special role as coordinator and international intermediary and because he is the only leader prominently involved in both of the activities mentioned above.
2. Close personal coordination between US activists and the North Vietnamese appears to have begun in 1965. The DRV at that time invited Herbert Aptheker, prominent CPUSA theoretician and Director of the American Institute for Marxist Studies, to visit Hanoi. Aptheker in turn suggested that he be accompanied by Staughton Lynd, former Yale Professor and a leader of the US Committee for Non-Violent Action (CNVA), and Thomas Hayden, a militant civil rights worker and a founder of the SDS. The trio visited Hanoi in December 1965. In the course of this trip they spent four days in Moscow and three days in Peking. In late January, after their trip was completed, CPUSA chief Gus Hall reportedly commented that the mission had boosted the party's prestige markedly, adding that this favorable atmosphere should be exploited to build up the CPUSA.
3. [...]
4. [...]
* The Vietnam Peace Committee is a North Vietnamese government agency apparently responsible for promoting and coordinating international protest activity.
5. [...]
6. [...] These included four American women invited in December to check on US bombing of residential areas, three clergymen (including Muste) on a "mission of protest" in early January 1967, and the Ashmore-Baggs-Quintanilla mission in January under the auspices of the Center for Studies of Democratic Institutions at Santa Barbara. In the latter part of January, two American Quakers--Russell Johnson and Paul Johnson--visited Hanoi. Arriving with Russell Johnson on 20 January were Wilfred Burchett, Australian Communist journalist, and Ralph Schoenman, the American who serves as Director of the Russell Peace Foundation. Shortly thereafter the Quaker action group in the US notified the State Department that the yacht Phoenix would force a "confrontation" by sailing to North Vietnam with a shipment of medical supplies.
7. [...]
8. [...]
9. [...]
10. The Russell Foundation meanwhile was busy with preparations for the first session of its "International War Crimes Tribunal" (IWCT), which was held from 2 to 10 May in Stockholm. [...] The importance Hanoi attaches to this charade as a vehicle for promoting world and American opposition to US policies has been made abundantly clear [...] Dellinger appears to act as a coordinator of US activity relating to the IWCT. During the session in Stockholm, Dellinger participated as a panel member of the "tribunal."
11. [...] Dellinger arrived in the North Vietnamese capital on 26 May. With him was Nick Egleson, a leader of SDS. Talks with North Vietanmese officials during this two-week visit resulted in a proposal to hold a conference later in the summer between a number of US activists representing student, Negro, and assorted pacifist groups and representatives of the DRV and the NLFSV. The outcome of this proposal was the Bratislava Conference in September (see below).
12. Moscow had been concentrating for some time on a major international conclave of peace groups scheduled for Stockholm in July (not to be confused with the Stockholm session of the IWCT in May).
13. Although the meeting was held nominally under the auspices of a Swedish organization, it was inspired and dominated by the World Council of Peace (WCP), the Soviet bloc's aging and discredited peace front. The Stockholm Conference represented a major propaganda play by Moscow, designed to embarrass the US but at the same time to move the Vietnam problem closer to the conference table. Despite its reputation as an instrument of the Soviet Government, the WCP had managed to corral a large number of legitimate pacifist groups by exploiting widespread sentiment against the Vietnam war. Like all but a few of the mixed American delegation,* the majority of delegates shared the WCP's moderate approach to the problem aimed at a compromise settlement. Moscow failed, however, to allow for the Vietnamese. Hanoi's determined delegation paralyzed the conference by refusing to budge from a take-it-or-leave-it position that no settlement was possible except on the basis of the Four and Five Points. Few delegates were willing to oppose the Vietnamese actively.
* American views ranged from the radical Peking-oriented position of Rev. James Bevel, representing the Spring Mobilization Committee, to the moderate Quaker position of the American Friends Service Committee. The extreme "Black Power" groups apparently did not participate in the Stockholm Conference (in contrast to their strong presence at the later Bratislava meeting). One of the "star" delegates at Stockholm was SANE's Dr. Spock, but he was noted chiefly during the conference for going sailing.
The conference ended almost before it started with the deep divisions in the peace movement laid bare for all to see. Moscow could count nothing for its effort but a temporary refurbishing of the WCP's standing in the international peace community.
14. For the US peace coalition, the Stockholm conference was useful in providing an opportunity to strengthen its contacts with antiwar groups throughout the world. The way was thus prepared for closer coordination of protest activity on an international scale. The meeting also enabled the Americans to continue their dialogue with the North Vietnamese. [...]
15. [...] the large US-Vietnamese conference to firm up plans for the October demonstrations. [...] was held in Bratislava from 5 to 13 September. [...]
Little information is available on what transpired at Bratislava beyond discussion of the planned demonstrations. [...]
16. A number of the US participants flew to Hanoi after the conference wound up. These included several representatives of SDS led by Hayden. [...] On the 18th he reported the formal establishment of the "South Vietnam Committee for Solidarity with the American People." Hayden appears to have left Hanoi for Prague on 19 October. [...]
17. Also in October the North Vietnamese Women's Union issued their invitation to three members of the WSP (see appendix A) for discussions on "their joint struggle against violence." The day after their return to the US on 20 October, Dagmar Wilson and her WSP vanguard staged a demonstration in Washington against the draft.
18. [...]
19. [...] The efforts [...] culminated in the demonstrations of 21 October, but did not end there. By 7 November, Thomas Hayden was back in Phnom Penh, and there is every reason to surmise that contacts between the peace organizations and Hanoi are continuing as before.
APPENDIX A
US "Peace" Groups with Significant International Communist Contacts
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Saturday, November 7, 2009
II. NATURE OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONTACTS
1. Most of the contacts between US and foreign groups on Vietnam are private, that is with persons and organizations not directly connected with foreign governments. The contacts with Hanoi, which are traced in Section III, represent the only evidence we have of extensive dealings with government officials.
In the Public Domain
2. The key activists are on the move much of the time. There is ample opportunity therefore for consultation with counterparts abroad. Regular communication is maintained through wires, letters and publications as well. These informal contacts are further cultivated at the more formal international conferences which the peace organizations sponsor at regular intervals.
3. American students resident abroad also provide an important channel for coordinating US activity with foreign activity. In some capitals US students have formed their own protest organizations, which function as subsidiaries of the NMC. Examples are the "Stop It" and "Angry Arts" committees in London and the Paris American Committee to Stop War. Other centers of student activity are Berlin, Stockholm, Tokyo, and Mexico City.
4. Aside from these major centers of activity, a current check of all foreign countries where we have representatives has turned up little or no evidence of contact between US citizens and local Vietnam protest groups. In one or two instances, aside from those mentioned above, we have noted written appeals from the NMC in New York to sympathetic organizations abroad to mobilize protest demonstrations.
Governmental Contacts
5. Indications of overt or covert connections between US activists and foreign governments are limited, [...]
6. If such clandestine Communist connections do exist, they are likely to be indirect. They would be wired through the extensive circuits of front organizations and national parties. It can be assumed, for example, that substantial Soviet influence and advice--at a minimum--are passed via the CPUSA to the American student movement through the Communist-controlled Du Bois Clubs of America and to other groups via the Tri-Continental Information Center (TCIC) (see Appendix A). We have seen no evidence that anything more is being passed, except possibly some airline tickets.
7. The secretary general of the CPUSA has been involved in several contacts between American peace groups and Hanoi, as related in Section III. Moscow's underwriting of the Stockholm peace conference last July is also noted there.
8. Peking and Havana have lent some assistance to the anti-US campaign, but on a much smaller scale than Hanoi or Moscow. Both capitals are often on the itineraries of traveling peacemakersand Liberation War-mongers. In addition, Robert Williams, the American defector who lives in Peking, is in intermittent contact with a number of US anti-war organizations and "Black Power" groups.
9. Clandestine contact overseas would be facilitated by the fact, noted in the previous section, that the responsibility for international coordination rests in the hands of a few dedicated activists. These itinerant coordinators personally have close Communist and ultraradical associations; a few are reported to have called themselves Communists of a kind or to have endorsed Communism in some fashion.*
* David Dellinger, the leading US peace activist, stated in May 1963 that he was "a Communist, but not of the Soviet type," according to a reliable FBI source. Although never a member of a political party, Dellinger has been continuously associated with pacifist organizations since the 1930's and later with the Totskyite Socialist Workers Party and various Communist front groups. He is also noted for his involvement in pro-Castro organizations.
10. We have no evidence, however, that they act under any direction other than their own. It should be noted that this probably would not be evident if they did, since their voluntary activities serve Soviet and Chinese interests about as well as they could if they were controlled. A number of the US activists clearly are willing to allow themselves to be used by foreign governments, but it is difficult to judge how insidious their motives are.
11. What might prove control or direction would be evidence of relationships involving more than cooperation freely given, such as funding, secret directives, communications aids, blackmail, and the like. Our examination of the evidence available to us at this time has produced very little one way or another on this subject.
12. [...]
13. On the basis of what we now know, we see no significant evidence that would prove Communist control or direction of the US peace movement or its leaders.
In the Public Domain
2. The key activists are on the move much of the time. There is ample opportunity therefore for consultation with counterparts abroad. Regular communication is maintained through wires, letters and publications as well. These informal contacts are further cultivated at the more formal international conferences which the peace organizations sponsor at regular intervals.
3. American students resident abroad also provide an important channel for coordinating US activity with foreign activity. In some capitals US students have formed their own protest organizations, which function as subsidiaries of the NMC. Examples are the "Stop It" and "Angry Arts" committees in London and the Paris American Committee to Stop War. Other centers of student activity are Berlin, Stockholm, Tokyo, and Mexico City.
4. Aside from these major centers of activity, a current check of all foreign countries where we have representatives has turned up little or no evidence of contact between US citizens and local Vietnam protest groups. In one or two instances, aside from those mentioned above, we have noted written appeals from the NMC in New York to sympathetic organizations abroad to mobilize protest demonstrations.
Governmental Contacts
5. Indications of overt or covert connections between US activists and foreign governments are limited, [...]
6. If such clandestine Communist connections do exist, they are likely to be indirect. They would be wired through the extensive circuits of front organizations and national parties. It can be assumed, for example, that substantial Soviet influence and advice--at a minimum--are passed via the CPUSA to the American student movement through the Communist-controlled Du Bois Clubs of America and to other groups via the Tri-Continental Information Center (TCIC) (see Appendix A). We have seen no evidence that anything more is being passed, except possibly some airline tickets.
7. The secretary general of the CPUSA has been involved in several contacts between American peace groups and Hanoi, as related in Section III. Moscow's underwriting of the Stockholm peace conference last July is also noted there.
8. Peking and Havana have lent some assistance to the anti-US campaign, but on a much smaller scale than Hanoi or Moscow. Both capitals are often on the itineraries of traveling peacemakersand Liberation War-mongers. In addition, Robert Williams, the American defector who lives in Peking, is in intermittent contact with a number of US anti-war organizations and "Black Power" groups.
9. Clandestine contact overseas would be facilitated by the fact, noted in the previous section, that the responsibility for international coordination rests in the hands of a few dedicated activists. These itinerant coordinators personally have close Communist and ultraradical associations; a few are reported to have called themselves Communists of a kind or to have endorsed Communism in some fashion.*
* David Dellinger, the leading US peace activist, stated in May 1963 that he was "a Communist, but not of the Soviet type," according to a reliable FBI source. Although never a member of a political party, Dellinger has been continuously associated with pacifist organizations since the 1930's and later with the Totskyite Socialist Workers Party and various Communist front groups. He is also noted for his involvement in pro-Castro organizations.
10. We have no evidence, however, that they act under any direction other than their own. It should be noted that this probably would not be evident if they did, since their voluntary activities serve Soviet and Chinese interests about as well as they could if they were controlled. A number of the US activists clearly are willing to allow themselves to be used by foreign governments, but it is difficult to judge how insidious their motives are.
11. What might prove control or direction would be evidence of relationships involving more than cooperation freely given, such as funding, secret directives, communications aids, blackmail, and the like. Our examination of the evidence available to us at this time has produced very little one way or another on this subject.
12. [...]
13. On the basis of what we now know, we see no significant evidence that would prove Communist control or direction of the US peace movement or its leaders.
Friday, November 6, 2009
I. THE PEACE MOVEMENT: CONFUSION, COORDINATION, AND COMMUNISM
1. The American peace "movement" is not one but many movements; and the groups involved are as varied as they are numerous. The most striking single characteristic of the peace front is its diversity.
Many Molds and Many Motives
2. Under the peace umbrella one finds pacifists and fighters, idealists and materialists, internationalists and isolationists, democrats and totalitarians, conservatives and revolutionaries, capitalists and socialists, patriots and subversives, lawyers and anarchists, Stalinists and Trotskyites, Muscovites and Pekingese, racists and universalists, zealots and nonbelievers, puritans and hippies, do-gooders and evildoers, nonviolent and very violent.
3. One thing brings them all together: their opposition to US actions in Vietnam. They do not join up for the same reasons, of course; there are as many motives as there are groups. And they function on different levels: some motives are politically inspired and professional while others are purely personal, some are focused on Vietnam exclusively while others are related to the war only incidentally.
4. One explanation for the diversity of motivation and outlook is the fact that the anti-war sentiment has taken root in separate sectors of the society having little else in common. In addition to the professional pacifists, activists come from the student world, from militant elements of the Negro and other minority communities, from the labor movement, and from the intellectual sphere. In some cases--the civil rights and labor movements specifically--the rank and file are largely disinterested in international problems. But their leaders may not be; some are as active as the intellectual and student leaders both at home and abroad. Each projects his own personal attitudes and prejudices, which frequently are not representative of the group he speaks for.
5. The advocates of "Black Power" are a group apart. Their specialized interest when it comes to Vietnam is not peace, but the war as a case study of the "liberation struggle." They make an effort to relate the Vietnam problem to their non-white "Third World," focusing particularly on the position of the Negro serving in Vietnam and on resistance to the draft. While joining in certain aspects of the peace campaign, the "Black Power" elements remain aloof from the leftist mainstream.
The Coordinators
6. Out of such diversity comes much confusion and more than a little disagreement. Strains are evident both on the home front and in their international activities. The job of coordinating a program of joint action, first within the US and then internationally, is an enormous one. Given the strains and complications involved, the performance of the coordinators is impressive.
7. Several factors make the task easier than it might seem. These factors also have a direct bearing on the orientation and direction of the movement. Most important is the fact that the responsibility for coordination and tactical direction is delegated to a small staff of key leaders. These people are dedicated activists and seem to know where they are going. Another--and related--factor is the interlocking structure of the peace groups. A number of the key activists are involved in more than one organization, and there is considerable interaction among the executives. The problem of lining up many diverse groups and coordinating action is thus simplified to some degree.
8. The main mechanism for coordinating both domestic and foreign protest activity related to Vietnam has been the "mobilization committee." Out of the Student Mobilization Committee of 1966 evolved the Spring Mobilization Committee (SMC), which in turn was succeeded by the present National Mobilization Committee (NMC). The officers appointed to the executive bodies of the NMC are numerous, reflecting the coalition's broad base, but the real responsibility seems to be concentrated in the hands of a few. The names of these key coordinators turn up regularly, wherever the action happens to be.
Ideology of the Left, Old and New
9. As the peace groups have coalesced over the past year and half, ideological lines have become so blurred as to render conventional political classifications worthless. The various joint action groups are so conglomerate that it is difficult to stamp them with any one label without qualification. Control is the only valid indicator, and evidence of control by any one element is what is usually lacking. The peace movement, and even most of its constituent parts, is too big and too amorphous to be controlled by any one political faction.
10. In terms of the political spectrum and international connections, the activists generally range from somewhere left of center to the farthest limit of the Left. Many are Marxist-oriented, but the Marxists come in all colors. Take the Communists: the "orthodox" Moscow-oriented Communists, the Peking-influenced "Marxist-Leninists," and the self-oriented Trotskyites are all energetically active in the Vietnam protest activity. It would be surprising if they were not since the objectives of the movement are consistent with the national interests of the USSR and Communist China. The peace movement can be described in ideological terms only if one political element is dominant or exerts a controlling influence. A careful review of the evidence available on both domestic and foreign activity does not substantiate either conclusion in the case of any of the groups.
11. This is not to say that the Communist role is not substantial. Both the individual peace groups and coordinating organizations are well infiltrated with Communists of one strip or another. Assets of the US Communist Party (CPUSA) are most commonly noted. In the case of certain groups, particularly in the student field, the Trotskyite revolutionaries (directed by the Socialist Workers Party) or the Maoists (Progressive Labor Party) predominate. These Marxist groups harbor deep hostilities toward each other; often in fact they seem more concerned about countering each other than about countering the non-Communists.
12. As a result of their infiltration of the leadership of key peace groups, the Communists manage to exert disproportionate influence over the groups' policies and actions. It remains doubtful, however, that this influence is controlling. Most of the Vietnam protest activity would be there with or without the Communist element. The CPUSA, in other words, is exploiting and benefiting from anti-government activity, but it does not appear to be inspiring it or directing it.
13. The non-Communist sector known as the "radical left" is heavily engaged in the campaign. Its organization are non-exclusive and its branches autonomous, which makes them vulnerable to Communist infiltration. For example, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), perhaps the most active of the major organizations (see appendix A), opens its doors officially to Communists along with others of "progressive" inclination. Although plainly radical, the convictions espoused by the SDS and its intellectual arm, the Radical Education Project (REP), make it clear, however, that SDS leaders are not interested in "pre-packaged ideology" or excessive Communist guidance. These militants, who identify themselves as the New Left, generally look on Communists--especially those with foreign loyalties--as not only suspect but rather old-hat.
Many Molds and Many Motives
2. Under the peace umbrella one finds pacifists and fighters, idealists and materialists, internationalists and isolationists, democrats and totalitarians, conservatives and revolutionaries, capitalists and socialists, patriots and subversives, lawyers and anarchists, Stalinists and Trotskyites, Muscovites and Pekingese, racists and universalists, zealots and nonbelievers, puritans and hippies, do-gooders and evildoers, nonviolent and very violent.
3. One thing brings them all together: their opposition to US actions in Vietnam. They do not join up for the same reasons, of course; there are as many motives as there are groups. And they function on different levels: some motives are politically inspired and professional while others are purely personal, some are focused on Vietnam exclusively while others are related to the war only incidentally.
4. One explanation for the diversity of motivation and outlook is the fact that the anti-war sentiment has taken root in separate sectors of the society having little else in common. In addition to the professional pacifists, activists come from the student world, from militant elements of the Negro and other minority communities, from the labor movement, and from the intellectual sphere. In some cases--the civil rights and labor movements specifically--the rank and file are largely disinterested in international problems. But their leaders may not be; some are as active as the intellectual and student leaders both at home and abroad. Each projects his own personal attitudes and prejudices, which frequently are not representative of the group he speaks for.
5. The advocates of "Black Power" are a group apart. Their specialized interest when it comes to Vietnam is not peace, but the war as a case study of the "liberation struggle." They make an effort to relate the Vietnam problem to their non-white "Third World," focusing particularly on the position of the Negro serving in Vietnam and on resistance to the draft. While joining in certain aspects of the peace campaign, the "Black Power" elements remain aloof from the leftist mainstream.
The Coordinators
6. Out of such diversity comes much confusion and more than a little disagreement. Strains are evident both on the home front and in their international activities. The job of coordinating a program of joint action, first within the US and then internationally, is an enormous one. Given the strains and complications involved, the performance of the coordinators is impressive.
7. Several factors make the task easier than it might seem. These factors also have a direct bearing on the orientation and direction of the movement. Most important is the fact that the responsibility for coordination and tactical direction is delegated to a small staff of key leaders. These people are dedicated activists and seem to know where they are going. Another--and related--factor is the interlocking structure of the peace groups. A number of the key activists are involved in more than one organization, and there is considerable interaction among the executives. The problem of lining up many diverse groups and coordinating action is thus simplified to some degree.
8. The main mechanism for coordinating both domestic and foreign protest activity related to Vietnam has been the "mobilization committee." Out of the Student Mobilization Committee of 1966 evolved the Spring Mobilization Committee (SMC), which in turn was succeeded by the present National Mobilization Committee (NMC). The officers appointed to the executive bodies of the NMC are numerous, reflecting the coalition's broad base, but the real responsibility seems to be concentrated in the hands of a few. The names of these key coordinators turn up regularly, wherever the action happens to be.
Ideology of the Left, Old and New
9. As the peace groups have coalesced over the past year and half, ideological lines have become so blurred as to render conventional political classifications worthless. The various joint action groups are so conglomerate that it is difficult to stamp them with any one label without qualification. Control is the only valid indicator, and evidence of control by any one element is what is usually lacking. The peace movement, and even most of its constituent parts, is too big and too amorphous to be controlled by any one political faction.
10. In terms of the political spectrum and international connections, the activists generally range from somewhere left of center to the farthest limit of the Left. Many are Marxist-oriented, but the Marxists come in all colors. Take the Communists: the "orthodox" Moscow-oriented Communists, the Peking-influenced "Marxist-Leninists," and the self-oriented Trotskyites are all energetically active in the Vietnam protest activity. It would be surprising if they were not since the objectives of the movement are consistent with the national interests of the USSR and Communist China. The peace movement can be described in ideological terms only if one political element is dominant or exerts a controlling influence. A careful review of the evidence available on both domestic and foreign activity does not substantiate either conclusion in the case of any of the groups.
11. This is not to say that the Communist role is not substantial. Both the individual peace groups and coordinating organizations are well infiltrated with Communists of one strip or another. Assets of the US Communist Party (CPUSA) are most commonly noted. In the case of certain groups, particularly in the student field, the Trotskyite revolutionaries (directed by the Socialist Workers Party) or the Maoists (Progressive Labor Party) predominate. These Marxist groups harbor deep hostilities toward each other; often in fact they seem more concerned about countering each other than about countering the non-Communists.
12. As a result of their infiltration of the leadership of key peace groups, the Communists manage to exert disproportionate influence over the groups' policies and actions. It remains doubtful, however, that this influence is controlling. Most of the Vietnam protest activity would be there with or without the Communist element. The CPUSA, in other words, is exploiting and benefiting from anti-government activity, but it does not appear to be inspiring it or directing it.
13. The non-Communist sector known as the "radical left" is heavily engaged in the campaign. Its organization are non-exclusive and its branches autonomous, which makes them vulnerable to Communist infiltration. For example, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), perhaps the most active of the major organizations (see appendix A), opens its doors officially to Communists along with others of "progressive" inclination. Although plainly radical, the convictions espoused by the SDS and its intellectual arm, the Radical Education Project (REP), make it clear, however, that SDS leaders are not interested in "pre-packaged ideology" or excessive Communist guidance. These militants, who identify themselves as the New Left, generally look on Communists--especially those with foreign loyalties--as not only suspect but rather old-hat.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
International Connections of US Peace Groups
TOP SECRET
SENSITIVE
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
15 November 1967
INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS OF US PEACE GROUPS
Contents
Summary
I. The Peace Movement: Confusion, Coordination, and Communism
II. Nature of the International Contacts
III. Coordinating the International Campaign: A Record of Foreign Contacts
Appendices:
A. US Peace Groups with Significant International Communist Contacts
B. American Organizations Participating in Anti-Vietnam War Activities
Note: This study was prepared by the Office of Current Intelligence with the assistance of the Clandestine Services. It is based in part on material supplied by the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the intelligence services of the US Army, Navy, and Air Force, and other offices of CIA's Directorate of Intelligence. The paper has been coordinated only with the Clandestine Services of CIA.
SUMMARY
CIA has reviewed the information immediately available from all sources on the US peace movement and its international connections. The following principal findings emerge from this study:
A. Diversity is the most striking single characteristic of the peace movement at home and abroad. Indeed it is this very diversity which makes it impossible to attach specific political or ideological labels to any significant section of the movement. Diversity means that there is no single focus in the movement. Joint action on an international scale is possible only because coordination is handled by a small group of dedicated men, most of them radically oriented, who have volunteered themselves for active leadership in the key organizations. Thus a handful of activists coordinate the activities and propel the energies of large heterodox masses toward a few broad purposes.
B. The coordinators of the peace movement--personalities such as Dellinger, Hayden, Bevel, and Egleson--are tireless, peripatetic, full time crusaders. They have the requisite funds for travel; they simplify the interaction among the peace groups by assuming a multiplicity of offices and establishing interlocking personal contacts between groups. Many have close Communist associations but they do not appear to be under Communist direction. In any case their purposes in so far as the war in Vietnam is concerned, coincide with those of the Communists. Thus, the Communist Party of the USA benefits from anti-US activity by Peace groups but does not appear to be inspiring them or directing them.
C. Contact between Hanoi and the leaders of the US peace movement has developed to a point where it is now almost continuous. [...] Nevertheless these exchanges of views have played an important part in channeling antiwar activity on both sides of the world.
D. Apart from contacts with the Hanoi officialdom, US peace activists by and large do not deal with foreign governments. Their relations are with foreign, private institutions such as the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and other international peace federations. Moscow exploits and may indeed influence the US delegates to these bodies, through its front organizations, but the indications--at least at this stage--of covert or overt connections between these US activists and foreign governments are limited.
SENSITIVE
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
15 November 1967
INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS OF US PEACE GROUPS
Contents
Summary
I. The Peace Movement: Confusion, Coordination, and Communism
II. Nature of the International Contacts
III. Coordinating the International Campaign: A Record of Foreign Contacts
Appendices:
A. US Peace Groups with Significant International Communist Contacts
B. American Organizations Participating in Anti-Vietnam War Activities
Note: This study was prepared by the Office of Current Intelligence with the assistance of the Clandestine Services. It is based in part on material supplied by the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the intelligence services of the US Army, Navy, and Air Force, and other offices of CIA's Directorate of Intelligence. The paper has been coordinated only with the Clandestine Services of CIA.
SUMMARY
CIA has reviewed the information immediately available from all sources on the US peace movement and its international connections. The following principal findings emerge from this study:
A. Diversity is the most striking single characteristic of the peace movement at home and abroad. Indeed it is this very diversity which makes it impossible to attach specific political or ideological labels to any significant section of the movement. Diversity means that there is no single focus in the movement. Joint action on an international scale is possible only because coordination is handled by a small group of dedicated men, most of them radically oriented, who have volunteered themselves for active leadership in the key organizations. Thus a handful of activists coordinate the activities and propel the energies of large heterodox masses toward a few broad purposes.
B. The coordinators of the peace movement--personalities such as Dellinger, Hayden, Bevel, and Egleson--are tireless, peripatetic, full time crusaders. They have the requisite funds for travel; they simplify the interaction among the peace groups by assuming a multiplicity of offices and establishing interlocking personal contacts between groups. Many have close Communist associations but they do not appear to be under Communist direction. In any case their purposes in so far as the war in Vietnam is concerned, coincide with those of the Communists. Thus, the Communist Party of the USA benefits from anti-US activity by Peace groups but does not appear to be inspiring them or directing them.
C. Contact between Hanoi and the leaders of the US peace movement has developed to a point where it is now almost continuous. [...] Nevertheless these exchanges of views have played an important part in channeling antiwar activity on both sides of the world.
D. Apart from contacts with the Hanoi officialdom, US peace activists by and large do not deal with foreign governments. Their relations are with foreign, private institutions such as the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and other international peace federations. Moscow exploits and may indeed influence the US delegates to these bodies, through its front organizations, but the indications--at least at this stage--of covert or overt connections between these US activists and foreign governments are limited.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
III. Friendly Assets and Potential: A. Assessment
1. Political:
Against the approximately one hundred (100) top-flight Communists who have been in the Soviet Union, PBSUCCESS today disposes of two, more or less, untested anti-Communist leaders, [ ] and RUFUS. [ ] although respected in Guatemala, has only limited political and administrative experience. He is not at present a moving speaker, writer or thinker; and he is relatively old for a country ten years accustomed to the rule of young men. RUFUS is of suitable age, appearance, and manner to be an effective leader. He, too, lacks political experience and even in his specialty, military oaffairs, has more of a record of staff and training work than actual field command. Neither man is effectively controlled by PBSUCCESS to date, and achievement of control may be complicated by past financial largesse on the part of CIA. Past security practices of both men have been poor. On the other hand, recent conversations between PBSUCCESS officers and both [ ] and RUFUS suggest that they may have a real capacity to learn, grow and assume command.
The principal group of dedicated Guatemalan anti-Communists appears to consist of perhaps fifty (50) students organized in Guatemala as the CEUA, and in Honduras and El Salvador as the CEUAGE. The energy and ardor of these students, if not their professional competence, is encouraging. Of course, in numbers, they do not even remotely match the 1,500 - 3,000 trained Communists.
In the category of strong sympathizers, the anti-Communist forces can number perhaps several hundred former officers, land-owners, merchants, professional men, anti-Communist union leaders and devoutly religious laymen and priests. The municipal administration of Guatemala City, still in anti-Communist hands, constitutes a reservoir of political and administrative talent. In Puerto Barrios, anti-Communists control the labor scene.
Presently lukewarm or potential anti-Communists, however, would appear to exceed 100,000. Recent reports from Guatemala Station indicate widespread passive discontent, ranging all the way from the well-to-do who collaborate with Communism in order to protect their property to disgruntled workers who are forced to strike because they fear that otherwise Communist union leaders will have them discharged. The population of Guatemala City, judging by its voting record, is anti-Communist. Many segments of the labor unions have anti-Communist members. Throughout the land, there is a latent anti-Communist ferment.
2. KUFIRE:
In Guatemala, the KUFIRE assets of Guatemala Station consist of one agent taken over from the FBI and of a former Spanish Republican, both of whom have access to medium-level and high-level political and personality information. There are several informants who supply virtually overt psychological intelligence. The Station has limited surveillance assets. The Station has no penetrations of the PGT, government agencies, armed forces or labor unions.
In Honduras, there is no CIA Station. RUFUS has an intelligence service operating from Honduras against Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras. His nets in Guatemala consist of one alleged medium-level Communist Party penetration agent; one high-level Guatemalan Army informant; and an undetermined number of loosely controlled agents and informants throughout the Armed Forces and government political groups. RUFUS' assets in Honduras consist of one low-level Communist Party penetration with apparent growth potential; one informant in the Guatemalan Embassy; and one Guatemalan government [...]. In addition to this there are several informants in the Honduran government and police, and friends in the diplomatic corps and the Costa Rican emigre group. In both Nicaragua and El Salvador RUFUS maintains resident P/As who have what appear to be fairly reliable informants in diplomatic and government circles.
[...]
3. KUGOWN:
In Guatemala, [...] guides and supports, but does not control, the CEUA group which distributes anti-Communist posters, stickers, handbills and flyleaves, and which has just begun the printing of a weekly paper called El Rebelde. This group is associated with RUFUS. In addition, the independent press, sometimes with the assistance of USIA, publishes anti-Communist material of varying quantities and qualities. The impact of these activities cannot now be measured.
In Honduras, the CEUAGE student group, also associated with RUFUS, publishes a weekly bulletin, which has been smuggled overland into Guatemala. The impact of the bulletin cannot now be measured.
In El Salvador, [...] Part of the CEUAGE group has recently begun the publication of a weekly newspaper called El Combate, which is said to be smuggled overland into Guatemala. The CEUAGE group also purchases time for anti-Communist broadcasts on Station YSI, but these programs can be heard only a few miles across the Guatemalan border and not at all in Guatemala City.
[...]
In Mexico, [...] the LIONIZER bulletin, a publication of anti-Communist Guatemalan exiles living in Mexico City. The bulletin is mailed principally to recipients in the Hemisphere, and Guatemala Station has never noticed it in Guatemala, though it is said that this is mailed to Guatemala. The CIA contract agent formerly in contact with LIONIZER has recently become highly insecure and must be replaced.
4. KUHOOK:
At present, the only KUHOOK assets are U.S.-owned foreign arms available for shipment to RUFUS when and if he and his potential followers require them.
RUFUS himself does not appear to be versed in unconventional warfare. The number and quality of men he can recruit is not known.
RUFUS claims to have from President SOMOZA of Nicaragua the promise of a training site at Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua.
5. KUCLUB:
At present, RUFUS has no effective communications assets. The number of men and quality of men that he can make available for communications training is not known.
The only KUCLUB assets of PBSUCCESS are those currently available to field stations and being installed at LINCOLN and SANTA FE.
Against the approximately one hundred (100) top-flight Communists who have been in the Soviet Union, PBSUCCESS today disposes of two, more or less, untested anti-Communist leaders, [ ] and RUFUS. [ ] although respected in Guatemala, has only limited political and administrative experience. He is not at present a moving speaker, writer or thinker; and he is relatively old for a country ten years accustomed to the rule of young men. RUFUS is of suitable age, appearance, and manner to be an effective leader. He, too, lacks political experience and even in his specialty, military oaffairs, has more of a record of staff and training work than actual field command. Neither man is effectively controlled by PBSUCCESS to date, and achievement of control may be complicated by past financial largesse on the part of CIA. Past security practices of both men have been poor. On the other hand, recent conversations between PBSUCCESS officers and both [ ] and RUFUS suggest that they may have a real capacity to learn, grow and assume command.
The principal group of dedicated Guatemalan anti-Communists appears to consist of perhaps fifty (50) students organized in Guatemala as the CEUA, and in Honduras and El Salvador as the CEUAGE. The energy and ardor of these students, if not their professional competence, is encouraging. Of course, in numbers, they do not even remotely match the 1,500 - 3,000 trained Communists.
In the category of strong sympathizers, the anti-Communist forces can number perhaps several hundred former officers, land-owners, merchants, professional men, anti-Communist union leaders and devoutly religious laymen and priests. The municipal administration of Guatemala City, still in anti-Communist hands, constitutes a reservoir of political and administrative talent. In Puerto Barrios, anti-Communists control the labor scene.
Presently lukewarm or potential anti-Communists, however, would appear to exceed 100,000. Recent reports from Guatemala Station indicate widespread passive discontent, ranging all the way from the well-to-do who collaborate with Communism in order to protect their property to disgruntled workers who are forced to strike because they fear that otherwise Communist union leaders will have them discharged. The population of Guatemala City, judging by its voting record, is anti-Communist. Many segments of the labor unions have anti-Communist members. Throughout the land, there is a latent anti-Communist ferment.
2. KUFIRE:
In Guatemala, the KUFIRE assets of Guatemala Station consist of one agent taken over from the FBI and of a former Spanish Republican, both of whom have access to medium-level and high-level political and personality information. There are several informants who supply virtually overt psychological intelligence. The Station has limited surveillance assets. The Station has no penetrations of the PGT, government agencies, armed forces or labor unions.
In Honduras, there is no CIA Station. RUFUS has an intelligence service operating from Honduras against Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras. His nets in Guatemala consist of one alleged medium-level Communist Party penetration agent; one high-level Guatemalan Army informant; and an undetermined number of loosely controlled agents and informants throughout the Armed Forces and government political groups. RUFUS' assets in Honduras consist of one low-level Communist Party penetration with apparent growth potential; one informant in the Guatemalan Embassy; and one Guatemalan government [...]. In addition to this there are several informants in the Honduran government and police, and friends in the diplomatic corps and the Costa Rican emigre group. In both Nicaragua and El Salvador RUFUS maintains resident P/As who have what appear to be fairly reliable informants in diplomatic and government circles.
[...]
3. KUGOWN:
In Guatemala, [...] guides and supports, but does not control, the CEUA group which distributes anti-Communist posters, stickers, handbills and flyleaves, and which has just begun the printing of a weekly paper called El Rebelde. This group is associated with RUFUS. In addition, the independent press, sometimes with the assistance of USIA, publishes anti-Communist material of varying quantities and qualities. The impact of these activities cannot now be measured.
In Honduras, the CEUAGE student group, also associated with RUFUS, publishes a weekly bulletin, which has been smuggled overland into Guatemala. The impact of the bulletin cannot now be measured.
In El Salvador, [...] Part of the CEUAGE group has recently begun the publication of a weekly newspaper called El Combate, which is said to be smuggled overland into Guatemala. The CEUAGE group also purchases time for anti-Communist broadcasts on Station YSI, but these programs can be heard only a few miles across the Guatemalan border and not at all in Guatemala City.
[...]
In Mexico, [...] the LIONIZER bulletin, a publication of anti-Communist Guatemalan exiles living in Mexico City. The bulletin is mailed principally to recipients in the Hemisphere, and Guatemala Station has never noticed it in Guatemala, though it is said that this is mailed to Guatemala. The CIA contract agent formerly in contact with LIONIZER has recently become highly insecure and must be replaced.
4. KUHOOK:
At present, the only KUHOOK assets are U.S.-owned foreign arms available for shipment to RUFUS when and if he and his potential followers require them.
RUFUS himself does not appear to be versed in unconventional warfare. The number and quality of men he can recruit is not known.
RUFUS claims to have from President SOMOZA of Nicaragua the promise of a training site at Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua.
5. KUCLUB:
At present, RUFUS has no effective communications assets. The number of men and quality of men that he can make available for communications training is not known.
The only KUCLUB assets of PBSUCCESS are those currently available to field stations and being installed at LINCOLN and SANTA FE.
Monday, November 2, 2009
PART ONE: ASSESSMENT/ANALYSIS
I. General:
From 12 November to 15 December 1953, project officers thoroughly assessed all known enemy and friendly assets, utilizing therefore field surveys, debriefings of field and Headquarters personnel and file searches. In numerous instances, the time and information essential to a completely documented picture were lacking. However, while inadequate by meticulous standards of scholarship, information and time, the assessment sufficed to establish certain conclusions upon which action could be predicated.
II. Nature of the Enemy:
A. Assessment:
1. Political:
Communism in Guatemala is neither an arbitrary nor an accidental phenomenon. Many features of national life, such as the basic artificiality and maladjustment of the social structure, the drastic contrast between rich and poor, and a dictatorship in alliance with powerful foreign commercial interests, readily lent themselves to Marxist interpretation. A young, rebellious lower-middle class intelligentsia, spurred simultaneously by personal discontent, observed circumstances and Soviet example, put first leftist Socialism and now Communism into practice.
A leftist Socialist government, now effectively dominated by Communists, has been in power in Guatemala for more than nine (9) years. Despite small, scattered revolts, the hold of the government has never been seriously shaken. This time in office, with all its possibilities for entrenchment, consolidation and elimination of opposition, is a second powerful enemy asset.
Nurtured by time and circumstance, the Communist PGT (Partido Guatemalteco de Trabajo) today commands a hard core of well-indoctrinated, well-disciplined members variously estimated between 1,500 and 3,000. More than a hundred top leaders appear to have been trained in the USSR. The PGT has trained, exchanged information with and benefitted from the services of top-ranking Latin-American Communists. Lacking opposition in a country where the level of political consciousness and participation is extremely low, the PGT exercises an influence far beyond what its numbers, under other conditions, might indicate. President Jacobo ARBENZ Guzman is, by his own frequent admission, dependent on the Communists for his platform and his program. The other leftist parties, where they are not infiltrated by secret PGT members, are intellectually overpowered by the Communists, as the Mensheviks in their days were overpowered by the Bolsheviks. In the Guatemalan Congress, although the PGT has only four (4) of the fifty-eight (58) deputies, Communists control the key Agrarian Reform and Labor Committees, and set the tone and pace of legislative policy as a whole. Key posts throughout the government, notably in such influential institutions as the Institute of Social Security, are effectively held by Communists. Several thousand more or less influential government and political figures must be rated as strong Communist sympathizers.
2. Intelligence:
Very little, and that little most imperfectly, is known by U.S. agencies of the Guatemalan government and Communist intelligence services. This American ignorance is itself a Guatemalan asset. It must also be presumed that, given Soviet training and a decade to establish one, the Guatemalans possess an intelligence service that is, by Central American standards, superior. There is ample evidence that the government and the PGT penetrated past unsuccessful anti-Communist groups. Government and PGT appear to be aware that American efforts are now, and have been for some time (through PBFORTUNE), under way to overthrow them. Ambassador TORIELLO's 30 November charges in the UN, plus personal remarks made by President ARBENZ to Ambassador SCHOENFELD, tend to confirm this assumption.
3. Propaganda:
Mass agitation assets at the disposal of the government and the Communists are substantial. The government controls several newspapers and the leading radio station. The Agitprop Section of the PGT is effective, and in a man like Carlos Manuel PELLECER the Communists have perhaps the fieriest speaker and writer in the country. Of predominant importance is the fact that the Communists have, for the past two years, steadily consolidated their control over urban and rural labor by a combination of demagoguery and sheer hard work. Through their combined propagandistic assets, the government and the Communists may be presumed to have gained tens of thousands of, at the least, collaborators.
4. Military and Para-military:
Throughout the last nine (9) years, the 6,000 man Guatemalan Army, with a few stirring but minor exceptions, has dutifully supported the regime. Army loyalty has been maintained by a combination of factors: the devotion of key army leaders to the Revolution of 1944, the personal leadership of President ARBENZ, special apportionments of creature comforts, political passivity on the part of most officers and, recently, possible Communist infiltration of the Army. In addition to this regular military force, which is stronger than that of Guatemala's three Central American neighbors combined, para-military forces of undetermined size and strength have been organized by the government and the Communists. Finally, there is a Guardia Civil of approximately 2,500 men, whose loyalty has shown no appreciable sign of faltering.
B. Analysis:
The foregoing demonstrates the history, magnitude and cohesiveness of enemy assets, and thereby demonstrates the urgency and the magnitude of the enterprise confronting PBSUCCESS. Since the present power structure of Guatemala rests on the three pillars of ideology, a disciplined minority to implement it, and pure physical force, it is evident that PBSUCCESS must crack each of these columns, while simultaneously building up an ideology, a disciplined minority and a military force of its own.
From 12 November to 15 December 1953, project officers thoroughly assessed all known enemy and friendly assets, utilizing therefore field surveys, debriefings of field and Headquarters personnel and file searches. In numerous instances, the time and information essential to a completely documented picture were lacking. However, while inadequate by meticulous standards of scholarship, information and time, the assessment sufficed to establish certain conclusions upon which action could be predicated.
II. Nature of the Enemy:
A. Assessment:
1. Political:
Communism in Guatemala is neither an arbitrary nor an accidental phenomenon. Many features of national life, such as the basic artificiality and maladjustment of the social structure, the drastic contrast between rich and poor, and a dictatorship in alliance with powerful foreign commercial interests, readily lent themselves to Marxist interpretation. A young, rebellious lower-middle class intelligentsia, spurred simultaneously by personal discontent, observed circumstances and Soviet example, put first leftist Socialism and now Communism into practice.
A leftist Socialist government, now effectively dominated by Communists, has been in power in Guatemala for more than nine (9) years. Despite small, scattered revolts, the hold of the government has never been seriously shaken. This time in office, with all its possibilities for entrenchment, consolidation and elimination of opposition, is a second powerful enemy asset.
Nurtured by time and circumstance, the Communist PGT (Partido Guatemalteco de Trabajo) today commands a hard core of well-indoctrinated, well-disciplined members variously estimated between 1,500 and 3,000. More than a hundred top leaders appear to have been trained in the USSR. The PGT has trained, exchanged information with and benefitted from the services of top-ranking Latin-American Communists. Lacking opposition in a country where the level of political consciousness and participation is extremely low, the PGT exercises an influence far beyond what its numbers, under other conditions, might indicate. President Jacobo ARBENZ Guzman is, by his own frequent admission, dependent on the Communists for his platform and his program. The other leftist parties, where they are not infiltrated by secret PGT members, are intellectually overpowered by the Communists, as the Mensheviks in their days were overpowered by the Bolsheviks. In the Guatemalan Congress, although the PGT has only four (4) of the fifty-eight (58) deputies, Communists control the key Agrarian Reform and Labor Committees, and set the tone and pace of legislative policy as a whole. Key posts throughout the government, notably in such influential institutions as the Institute of Social Security, are effectively held by Communists. Several thousand more or less influential government and political figures must be rated as strong Communist sympathizers.
2. Intelligence:
Very little, and that little most imperfectly, is known by U.S. agencies of the Guatemalan government and Communist intelligence services. This American ignorance is itself a Guatemalan asset. It must also be presumed that, given Soviet training and a decade to establish one, the Guatemalans possess an intelligence service that is, by Central American standards, superior. There is ample evidence that the government and the PGT penetrated past unsuccessful anti-Communist groups. Government and PGT appear to be aware that American efforts are now, and have been for some time (through PBFORTUNE), under way to overthrow them. Ambassador TORIELLO's 30 November charges in the UN, plus personal remarks made by President ARBENZ to Ambassador SCHOENFELD, tend to confirm this assumption.
3. Propaganda:
Mass agitation assets at the disposal of the government and the Communists are substantial. The government controls several newspapers and the leading radio station. The Agitprop Section of the PGT is effective, and in a man like Carlos Manuel PELLECER the Communists have perhaps the fieriest speaker and writer in the country. Of predominant importance is the fact that the Communists have, for the past two years, steadily consolidated their control over urban and rural labor by a combination of demagoguery and sheer hard work. Through their combined propagandistic assets, the government and the Communists may be presumed to have gained tens of thousands of, at the least, collaborators.
4. Military and Para-military:
Throughout the last nine (9) years, the 6,000 man Guatemalan Army, with a few stirring but minor exceptions, has dutifully supported the regime. Army loyalty has been maintained by a combination of factors: the devotion of key army leaders to the Revolution of 1944, the personal leadership of President ARBENZ, special apportionments of creature comforts, political passivity on the part of most officers and, recently, possible Communist infiltration of the Army. In addition to this regular military force, which is stronger than that of Guatemala's three Central American neighbors combined, para-military forces of undetermined size and strength have been organized by the government and the Communists. Finally, there is a Guardia Civil of approximately 2,500 men, whose loyalty has shown no appreciable sign of faltering.
B. Analysis:
The foregoing demonstrates the history, magnitude and cohesiveness of enemy assets, and thereby demonstrates the urgency and the magnitude of the enterprise confronting PBSUCCESS. Since the present power structure of Guatemala rests on the three pillars of ideology, a disciplined minority to implement it, and pure physical force, it is evident that PBSUCCESS must crack each of these columns, while simultaneously building up an ideology, a disciplined minority and a military force of its own.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
The Situation in Santo Domingo on 28 April
16 July 1965
MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT: The Situation in Santo Domingo on 28 April
1. Santo Domingo on 28 April 1965 was in a state of almost complete anarchy. The rebel government of Molina Urena had collapsed on the previous afternoon and the Communists and their extremist allies were attempting to fill the vacuum. The loyalist military leaders were unable or unwilling to commit their superior force against the rebel stronghold downtown. The police were impotent and their few efforts to restore order ended in disaster. Meanwhile, armed gangs and individual hoodlums were terrorizing the city, even the residential areas. The UN Embassy was under fire and American citizens were in grave danger.
2. The British vice consul who toured the downtown area of Santo Domingo on the afternoon informed Ambassador Bennett that the situation there was "horrible." He said there were armed bands running all about. The Britisher said he had taken a man who had been shot in the leg to the hospital and there he had found wounded lying all about on the floors. He added that British residents of the Arroyo Hondo suburb of Santo Domingo reported that an armed band of two to three hundred persons were looting and sacking residential houses in the area.
3. Indicative of the state of anarchy in the city that day was the problem faced by loyalist Police Chief Despradel. He told the American public safety adviser on that day that his riot control forces were almost completely inactive. They had not been trained to fight against the heavy weapons the rebels had been using against them. The police chief said that almost every patrol he had sent out in downtown Santo Domingo had been wiped out. [...] the police were taking off their uniforms and attempting to hide, but were nevertheless being tracked down by the mobs and killed. In the afternoon of the same day, the police chief made an attempt to use a tank to help control the mobs, but this ended in disaster when the tank was exploded by rebel bazooka fire and all occupants were killed.
4. The Police Post at the Palace of Justice in downtown Santo Domingo was overrun by Communist-led rebels at about 10:00 am EDT on the 28th and the rebels obtained more arms and police uniforms. The American Embassy [...] during most of the day had little first-hand information as to what was going on in the downtown areas, but did receive numerous reports of killings. Sporadic sniping was underway in the residential areas where most of the American colony lived. Also, there was growing nervousness in the diplomatic corps since the promises of more than one embassy were invaded by armed mobs. These included the embassies of Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Ecuador, and El Salvador. The mobs were under no control during much of the day and looting and sacking took place in many parts of the city. Some of the mob actions, however, were inspired by the rebel-controlled radio station. Radio broadcasters gave the addresses of homes of air force officers and other military officers who were on the loyalist side and incited the mobs to sack the houses. The wives and children of loyalist officers were seized and taken to the Duarte Bridge and other targets of loyalist military action.
5. There were a number of reports reaching the embassy on the 28th of rebel atrocities. Although these have not been confirmed in detail they undoubtedly reflect an accurate general picture. A USIS staff member reported on 28 April, for instance, that twelve policemen or soldiers had been seen being summarily shot. The victims had been marched along the street, with the mobs crying "pardon." Then they were lined up against a wall and executed. The respected Colonel Calderon, who served under Juan Bosch as chief of the presidential guard, also met his death under these circumstances.
6. [...] on 28 April 13 policemen who had been guarding the house [...] were overwhelmed by rebels and their bodies dismembered and slogans written on walls with blood. There were several witnesses to this event.
7. Late on 28 April, Colonel Benoit, an air force officer on the loyalist military junta then in power, informed the American Ambassador that, in regard to his earlier request for US military assistance, he now wishes to add that American lives were endangered and that "conditions are of such disorder that it is impossible to provide adequate protection." He then formally asked for US intervention to restore public order.
MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT: The Situation in Santo Domingo on 28 April
1. Santo Domingo on 28 April 1965 was in a state of almost complete anarchy. The rebel government of Molina Urena had collapsed on the previous afternoon and the Communists and their extremist allies were attempting to fill the vacuum. The loyalist military leaders were unable or unwilling to commit their superior force against the rebel stronghold downtown. The police were impotent and their few efforts to restore order ended in disaster. Meanwhile, armed gangs and individual hoodlums were terrorizing the city, even the residential areas. The UN Embassy was under fire and American citizens were in grave danger.
2. The British vice consul who toured the downtown area of Santo Domingo on the afternoon informed Ambassador Bennett that the situation there was "horrible." He said there were armed bands running all about. The Britisher said he had taken a man who had been shot in the leg to the hospital and there he had found wounded lying all about on the floors. He added that British residents of the Arroyo Hondo suburb of Santo Domingo reported that an armed band of two to three hundred persons were looting and sacking residential houses in the area.
3. Indicative of the state of anarchy in the city that day was the problem faced by loyalist Police Chief Despradel. He told the American public safety adviser on that day that his riot control forces were almost completely inactive. They had not been trained to fight against the heavy weapons the rebels had been using against them. The police chief said that almost every patrol he had sent out in downtown Santo Domingo had been wiped out. [...] the police were taking off their uniforms and attempting to hide, but were nevertheless being tracked down by the mobs and killed. In the afternoon of the same day, the police chief made an attempt to use a tank to help control the mobs, but this ended in disaster when the tank was exploded by rebel bazooka fire and all occupants were killed.
4. The Police Post at the Palace of Justice in downtown Santo Domingo was overrun by Communist-led rebels at about 10:00 am EDT on the 28th and the rebels obtained more arms and police uniforms. The American Embassy [...] during most of the day had little first-hand information as to what was going on in the downtown areas, but did receive numerous reports of killings. Sporadic sniping was underway in the residential areas where most of the American colony lived. Also, there was growing nervousness in the diplomatic corps since the promises of more than one embassy were invaded by armed mobs. These included the embassies of Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Ecuador, and El Salvador. The mobs were under no control during much of the day and looting and sacking took place in many parts of the city. Some of the mob actions, however, were inspired by the rebel-controlled radio station. Radio broadcasters gave the addresses of homes of air force officers and other military officers who were on the loyalist side and incited the mobs to sack the houses. The wives and children of loyalist officers were seized and taken to the Duarte Bridge and other targets of loyalist military action.
5. There were a number of reports reaching the embassy on the 28th of rebel atrocities. Although these have not been confirmed in detail they undoubtedly reflect an accurate general picture. A USIS staff member reported on 28 April, for instance, that twelve policemen or soldiers had been seen being summarily shot. The victims had been marched along the street, with the mobs crying "pardon." Then they were lined up against a wall and executed. The respected Colonel Calderon, who served under Juan Bosch as chief of the presidential guard, also met his death under these circumstances.
6. [...] on 28 April 13 policemen who had been guarding the house [...] were overwhelmed by rebels and their bodies dismembered and slogans written on walls with blood. There were several witnesses to this event.
7. Late on 28 April, Colonel Benoit, an air force officer on the loyalist military junta then in power, informed the American Ambassador that, in regard to his earlier request for US military assistance, he now wishes to add that American lives were endangered and that "conditions are of such disorder that it is impossible to provide adequate protection." He then formally asked for US intervention to restore public order.
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