Kissinger, Chile, & Déjà vu in Georgia

While visiting London in 1999 to promote an installment of his memoirs, Henry Kissinger stormed out of a widely heard radio interview when the questioning turned to his complicity in war crimes. Jeremy Paxman, host of the Radio 4 program, had asked the former Secretary of State whether he felt like a fraud for getting a Nobel Peace Prize after plotting a coup in Chile and orchestrating slaughter in Cambodia. Kissinger fumed and denied everything, of course, charging that his host was woefully misinformed. Yet, later the same day he declined to show up for a BBC roundtable discussion.

As the century ended, Kissinger wasn't the only nervous member of the political old guard. Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was fighting extradition, while other potential defendants fretted about the precedent that might set. And the Clinton administration wasn't helping. In fact, its release of documents on Chile not only confirmed what many suspected – that the US actively promoted the coup against President Salvador Allende and sanctioned the subsequent repression – but also sparked a hailstorm of damaging revelations.

We still don’t know what the first President Bush knew or did while briefly serving as CIA chief in the mid-1970s, when Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier and his US co-worker Ronni Moffitt were assassinated in Washington, and Chile's intelligence arm, DINA, was sponsoring international terror. According to declassified documents, however, we do know that Kissinger, Nixon, and CIA Director Richard Helms ordered a coup even before Allende assumed office. Kissinger and Alexander Haig worked out the details, described in an October 15, 1970, memo.

"It is the firm and consistent policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup," wrote CIA Deputy Director of Plans Thomas Karamessines, who coordinated the operation. "We are to continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end utilizing every appropriate resource. It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG and American hand be well hidden."

Two years later, the goal was achieved. In a victory report, Naval attache Patrick Ryan called September 11, 1972, "our D-day," noting that the coup "was close to perfect." In subsequent years, the State Department received detailed reports on the escalating death toll under Pinochet. Yet, another memo has Kissinger telling the general that the US is "sympathetic with what you are trying to do here."

In the late 1990s, Pinochet was kept under house arrest in England for more than a year, but was eventually released on medical grounds and returned to Chile. Although Chile’s Congress gave him immunity from prosecution, he was later indicted for kidnapping, torture, tax evasion, and responsibility for assassinations. But he died before conviction of any crime could be won.

If Pinochet could be prosecuted, the question arises: Why not Kissinger or those responsible for mass mayhem elsewhere? If more documents were declassified, the list of defendants would certainly grow. Even though he ultimately escaped punishment, the Chilean dictator's case helped peel away the facade of deniability, exposing some of the high US officials who provided weapons, training, financial support, and even direct guidance for some of the worst modern violations of political and civil rights. Is it any wonder the US backed out of an International Criminal Court (see footnote), established in part to prosecute powerful individuals when domestic courts fail to act?

Kissinger did squirm for a while, and even Bush I realized that he might not be immune. Predictably, the ex-president called the case against Pinochet "a travesty of justice." Even former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher became edgy, making discreet inquiries to Britain's Interior Ministry on the likelihood of being arrested while traveling abroad. An old friend of Pinochet, the Iron Lady was worried about being charged as a war criminal for her actions in Northern Ireland and the Falklands.

The exposure of what amounts to war crimes by officials like Kissinger, though it usually comes decades late and rarely leads to prosecutions, does suggest that it may someday be possible to get the truth about recent schemes and schemers. For Clinton, meddling in Mexico and the Sudan, not to mention atrocities in Iraq and Kosovo, might prove equally damning if more of the story was revealed.

Since 9/11, Bush II has faced a similar problem: that covering up what he actually knew and did before the attacks – not to mention the truth about the rush to war in Iraq – could lead to embarrassing revelations about how and why the "war on terrorism" has been prosecuted. Unfortunately, it often takes a generation (and political convenience) to get beyond the veil of disinformation.

That apparently applies to events now unfolding in Georgia. According to the mainstream media, Russian-backed “separatists” in South Ossetia are resisting the Georgian government, which the US charges Russia with attempting to overthrow. The current conflict began on August 7 when Georgian forces bombarded South Ossetia, where a majority of people hold Russian passports. Russia responded, bombing targets in Georgia and sending troops into South Ossetia. Zalmay Khalilzad, US ambassador to the UN, immediately called the actions of Russian forces a "campaign of terror" and accused Russia of seeking “regime change.”

In the 1980s, Khalilzad led the charge in the Reagan administration to back the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. Later, while working for the RAND Corporation, he worked on a gas pipeline in the region. And, as a member of the Project for a New American Century, he called for the removal of Saddam Hussein – in other words, regime change – using “a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts."

Russia insisted that it was protecting peacekeeping forces and civilians, and Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin called it a “humanitarian” campaign to block "ethnic cleansing” in South Ossetia, which declared its independence from Georgia in the 1990s and held a referendum in 2006. Vladimir Vasilyev, Chair of Russia's parliamentary Security Committee, went farther, accusing the US of orchestrating the current conflict. In remarks that have yet to be reported by US mainstream media, he noted, "The further the situation unfolds, the more the world will understand that Georgia would never be able to do all this without America.”

Thus far, any evidence of and possible motives for US involvement have gone unnoticed. But reports have circulated that mercenaries from other countries, including some Black fighters, are involved. The question, of course, is why. On that topic, CNN did provide some hint. The struggle in Georgia is important, the news outlet acknowledged, “for its importance in the oil trade.” Specifically, Georgia provides a transportation route “that avoids Russia and Iran.” A British-operated pipeline through the region normally carries one million barrels a day from Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has strong US backing and has contributed troops to the US-led war in Iraq.

As Georgetown professor Charles King sees it, “the war began as an ill-considered move by Georgia to retake South Ossetia by force. Saakashvili’s larger goal was to lead his country into war as a form of calculated self-sacrifice, hoping that Russia’s predictable overreaction would convince the West of exactly the narrative that many commentators have now taken up.”

Michael Klare, author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy, says the US is trying to use Georgia as an “energy corridor” to transport Caspian energy to the West without going through Iran or Russia. “Russia seeks to frustrate America's use of Georgia for this purpose, and uses Abkhazia and South Ossetia as daggers pointed at the jugular of the BTC pipeline,” he told the Institute for Public Accuracy. “When Saakashvili sought to drive the Russians out of these enclaves, the Russians struck back."

In a sense, history has come full circle. Thirty years after the US created a “trap” for the Soviet Union in Afghanistan a similar dynamic seems to have emerged. In mid-July, Georgian and US troops held a joint military exercise entitled "Immediate Response" in Georgia, and a spokesman for US European Command has confirmed that the US has "military trainers" and civilian contractors there. The Georgian army is US-trained and increasingly US-equipped; according to the Associated Press, thousands of its troops serving in Iraq have been flown back to Georgia at US expense. Yet any accusations that the US administration played a provocative role or has oil on its mind no doubt will be vigorously denied. Again the truth about any covert US activities is likely to remain buried for years.

Footnote

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in 2002 by the UN as a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The vote was 120 to 7; the no votes were cast by China, Iraq, Israel, Qatar, Yemen, Libya, and the United States. Human rights groups considered it the most important advance for the cause of international justice since the creation of the UN itself.

Officially, the US objection to the ICC was that, as the world's pre-eminent and most resented power, its citizens might be subjected to "frivolous" prosecutions. At first delaying its decision, US officials wanted a guarantee that no US citizen could ever be brought before the court. In a letter to European Union foreign ministers, Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State under Clinton, implied that if her country didn’t get its way, it might withdraw from international peacekeeping and humanitarian missions. Pentagon officials went further, threatening to pull forces out of Europe.

In December 2000, the US did sign. But shortly after taking office, Bush II revived the old objections, suggesting that the court could expose US soldiers and officials abroad to politically motivated war crimes prosecutions. After 9/11 and the military response in Afghanistan, that looked more like a possibility, so in May 2002 the administration informed the UN that it was nullifying its treaty signature. This was an unprecedented step; no other nation had ever before voided a signature on a binding international treaty.

Part One: Tales from the Covert Crypt: Afghanistan and the Congo

Part Two: The Covert Crypt: Mastering Misdirection

The Covert Crypt: Mastering Misdirection

When past covert operations are exposed, officials and pundits are quick to claim that, as bad as it sounds, that’s "ancient history." Things were different during the Cold War, after all, and beating communism required extreme, sometimes unsavory, tactics. Yet, the same cynical manipulation and disregard for human life has characterized more recent US military engagements and operations around the world.

After the Soviet Union was gone, a credible new enemy was required. US policy makers quickly turned their eyes toward Iraq, fresh from victory after an eight-year war with Iran and well-equipped with modern French and Soviet weapons. Saddam Hussein was also at the peak of his regional popularity. Based on the theory that domination of the Gulf region by a Hussein-led Iraq could jeopardize access to oil supplies, Colin Powell, then chairing the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called on General H. Norman Schwarzkopf in late 1989 to prepare a blueprint for combat. Schwartzkopf, who would lead Operation Desert Storm a year later, had just taken charge of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), an expanded version of the Rapid Deployment Force established under President Carter.

In May 1990, the National Security Council released a white paper that cited Iraq, and Hussein personally, as "the optimum contenders to replace the Warsaw Pact," using the claim as a justification for increased military spending. Meanwhile, at an emergency Arab summit held in Baghdad, Hussein called for a united front against outside aggression, more Arab coordination, and increased aid to the Jordan and the Palestinian Intifada. For the foreign policy establishment, these were fighting words. Four months later Bush drew his line in the sand.

Hussein may well have been suckered into the Gulf war by repeated assurances that the US felt no obligation to come to Kuwait's defense. On the surface, this may sound like just a conspiracy theory, but there is a transcript to support the idea. On July 25, 1990, eight days before the outbreak of fighting between Iraq and Kuwait, US Ambassador April Glaspie held a taped meeting with Hussein, who apparently hoped to make sure the US would remain neutral and not intervene. Obviously, he understood that Saudi Arabia was Washington's key Arab ally and hosted a significant US military presence in the Gulf. No credible evidence that Iraq planned to attack the Saudis has ever surfaced.

During their talk, Glaspie clearly suggested to Hussein that the Bush administration understood Iraq's point of view and didn't want to meddle in an Arab dispute. At one point, she said, "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait...we see the Iraqi point of view that the measures taken by the U.A.E. and Kuwait is, in the final analysis, parallel to military aggression against Iraq." A week later, that proved to be a very bad tip.

Another case of misdirection, which at least sparked some outrage at the time, was the US training of Indonesian commandos accused of torturing and killing civilians. Despite a congressional ban in the 1990s, the Pentagon exploited a legal loophole that allowed "human rights training" to provide instruction in demolition, sniper techniques, psychological operations, and "military operations in urban terrain." The targets included workers who had lost their jobs during the country's economic crisis, students opposing President Suharto's military-dominated regime, and East Timorese who wanted independence. Nevertheless, until support for Suharto became completely untenable, the Clinton Administration defended its actions as "engagement with an important country" that served US national interests.

And then, of course, there was the so-called humanitarian war in Yugoslavia. On February 23, 1999, James Hooper, director of the Balkan Action Council, gave a revealing speech at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, at the invitation of its "Committee of Conscience." The Council was one of several think tanks that sprang up to justify the transformation of the former Yugoslavia into a NATO protectorate. The first item on Hooper's to-do list was to "accept that the Balkans are a region of strategic interest for the United States, the new Berlin if you will, the testing ground for NATO's resolve and US leadership."

Before and during that war, most of the mainstream media assumed the role of cheerleader for the Western military and Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), often repeating stories that turned out to be false. The fabrications began even before the bombing with the report of a "massacre" at Racak. The source was US State Department veteran William Walker, a former US ambassador to El Salvador and Nicaragua and player in the covert 1980s campaign to supply the Contras. Walker was US ambassador to Yugoslavia at the time.

His version of Racak was soon challenged by documentary film footage. But the disinformation continued, complete with inflated casualty and refugee figures, silence about KLA attacks and atrocities, and the claim (later proven false) that Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova had been assassinated. That actually may have been a case of wishful thinking, much like the premature announcement that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a thorn for US oil companies, had been overthrown in April 2002; Chavez was back in his office within two days of an attempted, US-sanctioned coup. In Rugova’s case, the US/NATO concern was that he had condemned the attack and seemed more willing to negotiate with Milosevic than those claiming to defend Albanian interests.

What really happened in Rajak? According to a team of Finnish pathologists sent in to investigate, Serbian police entered the village, a KLA stronghold, on January 15, 1999. Observers from an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Verification Mission and an Associated Press video team tagged along. In the ensuing fire fight, Serb police bested their attackers. The next day, however, KLA combatants led international media and Walker, who also headed the OSCE mission, to a gully at the edge of town littered with corpses.

After the KLA showed the group the bodies of about 40 people, Walker immediately cried "massacre" and accused Serbia's security forces of killing "unarmed civilians." The story went global. Describing the incident as "a deliberate and arbitrary act of murder," President Clinton issued a harsh condemnation. The German foreign ministry agreed, warning those responsible that "the international community is not prepared to accept the brutal persecution and murder of civilians in Kosovo."

The Yugoslav government denied the accusation, accusing the KLA of gathering the corpses of its own fighters and arranging them to resemble a mass execution. But hardly anyone believed that. What soon became known as the "Racak massacre" had made NATO intervention a virtual certainty. The Washington Post later reported that Rajak "transformed the West's Balkan policy as singular events seldom do." Soon after January 15, NATO held an emergency meeting, during which US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright recommended bombing Yugoslavia as "punishment." But before the punishment could be administered, Washington had to go through the charade of "peace talks.” The strategy was apparently to issue demands that the Yugoslav regime couldn’t accept.

In February, forensic experts arrived from Belarus and Finland. The Belarus team said there was no massacre, but the Finnish spokesperson issued a vague report that allowed Walker's charges to stand. A year later, the same team was no longer so sure. According to a May 2000 CBC Radio News report, a Finnish pathologist's autopsies revealed no evidence that the 40 bodies were intentionally mutilated. Only one of them showed signs of murder at close range. The most plausible explanation turned out to be that KLA fighters were killed in a fire fight. But the truth had been suppressed long enough to help shape public opinion.

By identifying Albanians as "victims" and Serbs as villains from the outset, the US and its allies were able to effectively short-circuit debate. The Clinton administration also insisted that the Kosovar Albanians only wanted US-style democracy (their actual goal was control over territory), and that democracy, combined with a free market economy, would ultimately solve their problems. But NATO/US intervention was meanwhile making a bad situation worse, in effect creating the humanitarian catastrophe it was supposed to avert.

Behind the scenes, a Brzezinski-style geostrategy was being played out: successful prosecution of the war would help to secure potential pipeline routes to Caspian oil, while expanding NATO's role as a tool of Western hegemony over Eurasia. The result was a convenient fiction that made reality virtually impossible to detect.

In 1998, the Council on Foreign Relations suggested that the CIA should be allowed to use journalists and clergy as cover – as if they didn't already. Since then the Agency has moved into economic intelligence and computer-age information warfare. Assisting the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy has funneled funds to hundreds of so-called non-governmental organizations that actually front for its operations, particularly in Africa and Latin America. Since declaring Islamic fundamentalism the post-communist global menace, the Agency is known to have run Endowment-fronted covert operations in Venezuela, Haiti, Iran, and the Sudan.

On the other hand, growing public skepticism about the accuracy of news reports suggests that not everything has proceeded as the military-intelligence establishment would like. The public still isn't getting the whole story. But no surprise there. After all, the more people know, the less likely they are to swallow slippery explanations.

Next: Kissinger, Chile, & Déjà vu in Georgia

Tales from the Covert Crypt

The US government has persistently claimed that its decision to bankroll the overthrow of Afghanistan's government in the final days of the 1970s was a response to the invasion of Soviet troops. But Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was President Carter's National Security Advisor at the time and now advises Barack Obama, finally admitted the truth in 1998: covert US intervention began months before the USSR sent in troops. "That secret operation was an excellent idea," he crowed. "The effect was to draw the Russians into the Afghan trap."

During an interview with the French publication Le Nouvel Observateur, Brzezinski was grilled about the role he played in aiding the Mujahadeen. Former CIA Director Robert Gates had recently claimed in his memoir, From the Shadows, that US intelligence operations began six months before the Soviet intervention. "According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980," Brzezinski noted, "that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention."

Seizing that opening, the interviewer suggested that perhaps Brzezinski intended to provoke the Soviets into war. "It isn't quite that," the former National Security Advisor replied cagily. "We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would." Nevertheless, when the Soviets tried to justify their invasion with the claim that they were responding to a secret war bankrolled by the US, few people believed them.

Did he regret anything? "Regret what?" Brzezinski shot back. "That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet Empire."

But what about backing (and arming) Islamic fundamentalists who might become future terrorists? A prescient question, as it turned out. Brzezinski's reply was brazen. "What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?" The jury is still out on those questions.

Brzezinski's callous strategy did net some obvious results. The 1980s conflict in Afghanistan, provoked by US leaders in order to use it as a geopolitical pawn, led to almost two million deaths and the rise of the Taliban. Afghanistan also became open territory for drug traffickers and energy companies eager to build oil and gas pipelines. Meanwhile, millions of Afghanis, including many who had worked with the CIA, paid a very high price. Eventually, the country served as a base for Osama bin Laden's crusade against the US, Israel, and Arab regimes in the Middle East.

Another instructive example of covert manipulation gone drastically wrong is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, known as Zaire during the 37-year reign of Mobutu Sese Seko, and before that the Belgian Congo. In 1960, despite Belgian predictions that European rule would continue for another century, the Congo declared its independence, and out of a largely peaceful revolution emerged a charismatic leader, Patrice Lumumba, who became the nation's first Prime Minister. But US policy-makers considered Lumumba, actually a militant nationalist, a communist sympathizer, and therefore a threat to vital interests.

Located in Africa's heartland, the Congo was vital mainly for its vast mineral resources; one of the world's largest copper and industrial diamond producers, it also had gold, manganese, zinc, cobalt, and silver. To be blunt, it was an important source of raw materials for the emerging military-industrial complex. Its uranium, one of the only known sources during World War II, was used in the first atomic bombs.

Even today, it still isn't completely clear what sealed Lumumba's fate; some say it was his attempt to have UN troops step in to deal with the violence breaking out between tribes and political parties. In the richest province, Katanga, Moise Tshombe had declared himself ruler, attempted to secede, and recruited Belgian, French and South African mercenaries to fight the new government. However it was decided, Lumumba became a target for removal in the CIA's "golden age" of destabilization campaigns. After less than a year in office, he was deposed in a coup led by Mobuto, an Israeli-trained paratrooper who had Belgian and US backing. Mobuto, then called Colonel, turned Lumumba over the Tshombe, his archenemy.

The details of Lumumba's assassination remain a mystery to this day. But in 2000, evidence surfaced that President Dwight Eisenhower may have directly ordered the CIA to "eliminate" him. The evidence came from Robert Johnson, who took notes at an August 18, 1960, White House meeting between Eisenhower and his national security advisers on the Congo crisis. Johnson recalled the president turning to CIA Director Allen Dulles, "in the full hearing of all those in attendance, and saying something to the effect that Lumumba should be eliminated." Eisenhower had strict rules for reports on National Security Council meetings: no direct quotations. With Johnson's revelation, the reason became only too clear.

We also don't have the precise chain of events. But according to Lugo de Witte, a Flemish expert on Africa, Belgian officers probably implemented the plan. A document signed in 1960 by Harold Aspremont Lynden, Belgium's minister for Africa, announced that "the main objective to pursue, in the interests of the Congo, Katanga and Belgium, is clearly the final elimination of Lumumba." After his arrest by Mobutu's forces on January 17, 1961, on orders from Belgium's foreign minister, Lumumba was transferred to Katanga, tortured in the presence of Belgian officials, and executed under the supervision of a Belgian captain. The new nation, whose artificial boundaries had been set in negotiations between Belgium, Britain, France and Portugal, continued to hover at the edge of civil war for several more years.

The US stuck with Mobutu until the bitter end, propping him up as part of its Cold War strategy. As "president for life," he stashed a huge fortune in Swiss banks. No matter, since he was considered an anti-communist bulwark. His rapaciousness ultimately spread throughout the country's bureaucracy, especially the army. Still, no discouraging words from his overseers. Much of his loot came from the US; he even pocketed CIA cash provided to support "contras" at work in Angola. None of this made any difference. Mobutu was a "friend," part of an elite club that included Noriega in Panama, Marcos in the Philippines, Diem and Thieu in Vietnam, Pinochet in Chile, Somoza in Nicaragua, Suharto in Indonesia, and the Shah in Iran.

And what did this "friend" do to his own country? According to the World Bank, by the late 1990s the economy had shrunk to its 1958 level, despite a tripling of the population. Public finances were a mess, the national currency was worthless, and the State was insolvent. Upon its independence, the Congo had the highest literacy rate in Africa; by the time Mobutu was forced out in 1997, little more than half of all children were even attending schools. When open at all, they didn't have textbooks and the students often had to sit on the floor. Even the desks had been looted.

In the early 90s, Mobutu announced that he would end his one party state. But the transition never began, promised elections were canceled, and repression continued. Both the Bush I and Clinton administrations looked the other way, while mainstream media continued its policy of self-imposed ignorance. Only after his departure did the news that Mobutu was a brutal tyrant begin to reach the general public. By this time, one of the continent's most promising nations was hobbled and deeply divided. A dictator had finally fallen, but the culprits who put him there, some even mouthing belated outrage, escaped with impunity.

Next: Mastering Misdirection

Educating Minds & Influencing Hearts

In 1956, Frank Wilkinson, a housing organizer from Los Angeles, was summoned to appear at a hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee in Los Angeles. The Committee had already wrecked the local housing authority in a search for Communists. It had also cost Wilkinson his job. When subpoenaed, he refused to speak – but not on the usual Fifth Amendment (self-incrimination) grounds. Instead he took the First Amendment on grounds that the Committee, by forcing him to answer questions and using tactics of intimidation, was violating his right to freedom of speech.

Wilkinson went to jail for a year, but emerged to fight for the abolition of HUAC for more than a decade. In his dissenting opinion on Wilkinson's Supreme Court case, Justice Hugo Black called it an attempt by HUAC "to use contempt power...as a weapon against those who criticize it." Fortunately, the weapon didn't work on Frank. He poured his energies into the National Committee to Abolish HUAC, which the committee finally succeeded in doing in 1975.

I met Frank around that time, during on one of his tireless tours of the country to talk about constitutional rights and the threats of repressive legislation. As HUAC faded away his organization’s name had changed to the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation, or NCARL. Nixon was gone, but a Senate bill to recodify and revise all federal criminal laws was still being actively considered. It was packed with new draconian features, he warned, and left obsolete laws in place. Frank lobbied against the bill in its various forms and guises – S.1, S.1437, HR.6869, S.1722/HR.6233, and so on – until he retired from field organizing in the 1990s.

One of his main arguments was that so-called "omnibus" legislation usually gets worse before it passes. In this case, it was also unnecessary. Like many things, criminal law can be reformed and unified step-by-step. The need to improve fragmented, inconsistent laws is obvious, but the atmosphere in Congress makes comprehensive reform virtually impossible without compromising rights. At one point in the Criminal Code fight, a bargain was struck in the Senate between Edward Kennedy and the archconservative Strom Thurmond to co-sponsor this basic legislation. Their brainchild was a bill that liberalized some statutes while making others much worse. Provisions against dissident activity were kept and new offenses were created.

When I finally cornered Kennedy behind the stage in Burlington’s Memorial Auditorium during his 1980 Presidential campaign, he denied there was a problem. Constitutional rights could be violated, I warned. “We won’t let that happen,” he testily replied. Famous last words. Two decades later, under the Bush Administration and an extremist Congress, the ghost of Criminal Code Revision was resurrected within the USA PATRIOT Act and other “war on terror” laws.

Explaining the dangers of “omnibus” revision, Frank would point to the enormous size of the bill – hundreds of pages, thousands of provisions. Then he would note wryly that legal experts, sitting quietly in a library, could carefully make a thousand amendments and probably come up with a decent law. But the Senate and House aren’t law libraries, and the chances of a slow and dispassionate debate are slim.

Beyond his power to persuade, Frank was one of those special people, a truly courageous and fully human being, a peaceful warrior on the side of the people. Several years later, when his files – literally several hundred thousand pages -- were released under the Freedom of Information Act, we learned that he’d been tailed, harassed and generally messed with by the FBI for decades on the personal orders of J. Edgar Hoover. The Bureau even watched as an assassination plot was hatched.

Over the next few years, we became friends and allies. I organized several Vermont visits, carrying his bags, doing advance work, and learning more about civil liberties and the life of a committed organizer. His grasp of history and politics, combined with a selfless and compassionate style, was deeply impressive. He also knew how to work a crowd, getting his audiences activated and motivated to contribute.

Frank was the first in a series of influential mentors, people who demonstrated through their thoughts and deeds how to make a difference and, in some cases at least, live a conscious life. For spiritual grounding I turned to Buddhism, studying with Chogyam Trungpa, the exiled leader of the Surmang Monestary in Tibet. He had come to the US a few years earlier and established his first meditation center, originally named Tail of the Tiger, in Barnet, Vermont. I visited often, meditating for days or even weeks. Later, I would learn from anarchist thinker Murray Bookchin, Toward Freedom publisher Bill Lloyd, and peace activist Dave Dellinger.

Even while working for the government I hadn’t completely stopped writing for publication. Few alternative magazines, newspapers or new services paid much, but they liked my analysis. Gradually, by listening, writing, and staging local events to stimulate interest in local, national and international issues, a political agenda was taking shape. Anti-imperialist and anti-nuclear, libertarian, ecological, nonviolent, humanistic, suspicious of the State and all forms of centralized, negative power, it was a mixture of neo-Marxist critique, Anarchist intentions and Buddhist philosophy, with some faith in the power of belief, love, and individual transformation.

There was a war on, and not just the deadly brush fires throughout the so-called Third World being stoked by the two Superpowers. It was a profound, long-term battle for hearts and minds, a struggle to influence how people saw the world and their place in it. My task – the career I’d picked for myself – was to educate minds and influence hearts, to “mass market radical ideas” in a way that changed society for the better. The “system” had given me some skills, opportunities and knowledge, but it was corrupt and destructive. Such a system, I decided, must be challenged and changed. As the saying goes, with power comes responsibility.

How to do it, that was the question. How does change happen? Where does it start? Locally, I concluded, with individuals, small groups, and communities, and by helping people reflect on their reality and reclaim their voice. If I was really a Dionysian leader I should be able to “see” the essence of the problem and somehow reflect it back. And what was the problem? Repression, fear, alienation, and illegitimate power running out of control.

In January 1976, I caught a glimpse of where the country was headed – toward a transfer of power from the Republicans to the Democrats, with Jimmy Carter as the anointed figurehead. In many ways, a similar dynamic has emerged in the 2008 Presidential race. In early ‘76 Carter was just one of several candidates for President. Despite Ronald Reagan’s insurgent campaign, the GOP establishment was sticking with the colorless, compromised, accident-prone Gerald Ford. But Time Magazine had published a glowing story on the obscure Georgia Governor, with a manipulative cover rendering that made him look remarkably like JFK. The rest of the mainstream media soon joined the chorus.

Shortly before the New Hampshire primary, I attended a huge Democratic rally at a southern Vermont estate called The Plantation. Carter was already surrounded by more than a dozen Secret Security agents and an enormous entourage. No primary votes had been cast, yet he was being treated like the nominee. After his election that November it quickly became apparent that he had been recruited by the Trilateral Commission, a transnational “think tank” funded by David Rockefeller and run by Zbigniew Brzezinski. The latter promptly became Carter’s National Security Advisor, and Trilateral members dominated the top levels of his administration.

In short, the national establishment was hedging its bets – much as it is doing at the moment with Barack Obama – hoping to restore confidence in government by ushering in another “reform” era. In Vermont, however, the Democratic Party was fractured into several camps and might not be able to ride the wave. With the exception of two Democratic governors, Phil Hoff in the 60s and Tom Salmon in the early 70s, Republicans had controlled state government for more than a century. Now they had Richard Snelling, a successful businessman who had paid his dues and was determined to take power.

The Democrats had ruled in Burlington for decades, but it was a closed club run by French Canadian and Irish clans, an ossified political machine that was openly hostile to newcomers and other “outsiders.” The Republicans had retreated “up the hill” and held few city council seats. The Democrats had City Hall, a super-majority on the Board of Aldermen, and city commissions and jobs packed with the loyal. But election turnout was embarrassing low, about 30 percent of registered voters, and candidates, including Paquette, frequently ran unopposed.

The city – Vermont’s largest – was at a tipping point. Change was coming. But Mayor Gordie Paquette and his crew ignored the signs, plowing ahead with traditional, “business-friendly” development plans and – since “keep the taxes down” was Gordie’s campaign mantra – cuts in city services. I could see a social, economic and cultural tsunami on the horizon, and with that “perfect storm” the chance for some local regime change.

Part Six of Prelude to a Revolution

NEXT: Queen City -- Finding the Weak Spot

Pacifica Tackles Bylaws & Management

Facing serious financial problems, the National Board of the Pacifica Foundation has turned its attention to the authority of the Executive Director to make decisions “adversely affecting” the network’s affiliate station program, possible bylaws amendments, and the timing and location of an in-person meeting to address these and other issues. However, during an August 4 telephone meeting an attempt to begin the process of amending bylaws rules regarding the number and form of its meetings went down to defeat.

National Finance Committee Chair Mike Martin warned against spending too much time on governance and the bylaws, saying “we’re running out of time on financial issues.”

At the start of the meeting, a motion saying that decisions about the affiliates program shouldn’t be made by the Executive Director without the approval of the National Board was proposed by KPFT director George Reiter. As he put it, the program “isn’t just a financial source but the relationship we have with the entire community. That political relationship must be the board’s priority. It really can’t be decided by preferences by a single person or a pair of people.” After a brief discussion Reiter’s motion passed 9-5, with eight of the yes votes cast by new members of the board.

This marks the first time since the appointment of Nicole Sawaya as Executive Director that the Board has voted to limit her authority. Sawaya was recently given authority over Pacifica's national office accounts, has won the right to supervise financial staff, and decided in May to cut the budget for Free Speech Radio News, a daily newscast, by 25 percent. She has said that aspects of Pacifica, particularly governance, are "unsustainable," and has informed staff that cuts may be necessary.

Most of the public meeting, which was followed by an executive session, was devoted to possible bylaw changes and the next in-person board meeting. In June the Board voted to meet face-to-face in July, but that didn’t happen due to lack of follow up and the financial crunch. There was also disagreement over whether the meeting should take place in Washington, DC, which would follow a bylaws “rotation” requirement, or in Berkeley, home of the national office and flagship station KPFA.

Asked why Berkeley might be preferable, Sawaya, who first came to Pacifica as KPFA Station Manager a decade ago, said that it might ease potential banking transactions, provide more access to national staff, and show that Pacifica was “bringing it all back home.” Nevertheless, the Board ultimately voted to meet in Washington on September 19-21. According to WPFW Board member Acie Byrd, an area women’s college is willing to provide free lodging.

The bylaws amendment discussion focused on whether to begin the process of notifying listeners that amendments would be consider this fall on whether to reduce the number of in-person board meetings from four to three, and allow other regular meetings to take place by phone or video conference. Once the Board makes such a decision, listeners must be informed about any possible amendments through daily announcements on the five sister stations and posting on Pacifica websites for a period of 60 days before final votes are taken.

The amendments had been proposed by Local Station Boards at KPFA and KPFK. Several Board members wanted to delay the notification for two months so that Local Boards or listeners could propose additional amendments. According to the bylaws, amendments can be considered only once every 12 months. Although the Board approved the idea of delaying and letting people know there was an opportunity to propose more amendments, the overall proposal was defeated.

There are three ways that amendments can be proposed – by six members of the National Board, at least two Local Station Boards, or one percent of the membership. With current membership at around 80,000, it would take about 800 petition signers to bring forward a group of amendments.

In addition to reducing the number of in-person meetings, which has been attempted twice in recent years, there has been discussion about other bylaws provisions. Some aspects of the current document are considered unclear or cumbersome, and Pacifica’s corporate counsel is frequently asked to interpret provisions. In 2006, the foundation’s National Election Supervisor proposes a series of changes related to Pacifica’s elaborate election process. Other areas for potential review include candidate qualifications, staff eligibility and recognition for voting, hiring and termination policies, committee responsibilities and structure, Board diversity and composition, and the division of power between local stations and the national organization.

For example, Pacifica currently accepts varying definitions of who is an unpaid staff member for purposes of eligibility to vote, based upon the varying rules of unpaid staff member organizations. Lack of uniform voter eligibility qualifications can affect the selection of PNB members, and has raised questions of fairness. A related issue is whether and under what circumstances recognition of an unpaid staff organization can be withdrawn, which erupted into a dispute at KPFA last year.

Notification before Board meetings is also an issue. According to the bylaws, notice of all meetings is supposed to appear on the Foundation's website and be announced at least three times daily on air for five consecutive days on all Foundation radio stations. In practice, this rarely occurs.

The current bylaws were adopted after years of dispute concerning the direction of the network, as well as several lawsuits. They represented a compromise between various factions and geographic areas. But some of the new provisions were vague, and others have turned out to be difficult to follow, particularly now that Pacifica is having trouble sustaining listenership and keeping up with rising costs. Unfortunately, they are also very difficult to change, as the recent Board attempt to reduce the number of in-person meetings and use new technology to facilitate its work suggests.

Given the amount of discussion about the need for changes, on boards and throughout the community, as well as Pacifica’s intention to encourage “media democracy,” accumulating 800 names on a petition calling for amendments ought not to be that difficult. But there is little evidence that it’s likely to happen soon.