_ FEATURE

Asking all the
right questions

Christic Institute probes
White House-Contra links

By JIM STANFORD

The televised hearings on the Contra-
8ate scandal continue to dominate poli-
tical life in Washington. But many
Progressive observers have had to com-
Plain to themselves, as they watch the
daily proceedings, that ‘‘they’re not ask-
ing the right questions.”’

Indeed, it often seems that most of the
Panelists at the special hearings are on
the wrong track. They often seem more
Concerned with whether or not Oliver
North and his Rambo-like colleagues
Paid income tax on the profits from the
Iran-Contra arms deals, than with
Whether those deals were legally or mor-
ally justifiable. Right-wing Republican

_NVestigators turn the hearings into a
Soap-box, by asking ‘planted’ questions
and prefacing their comments with

“Windy speeches about freedom fighters
and the Communist threat.

The most important question raised by
the scandal — how has the Reagan
administration illegally supplied the Con-
tras, and how can that aid be stopped? —
Seems to be lost in the myriad of less
Significant sub-plots that have diverted
the attention of the media and the public.
While these hearings are proving damag-
Ing to Reagan and his effort to overthrow
the Sandinista government in Nicaragua,
they may not prove to be nearly as
damaging to this great anti-Communist
crusade as they should be.

_There is one group of investigators in
the U.S., however, that is asking the
Tight questions — and getting some
Shocking and frightening answers. A
team of lawyers sponsored by the Chris-
tic Institute (the same legal advocacy
Organization that exposed the giant

€tr-McGee corporation’s role in the
Murder of Karen Silkwood) has been
Tesearching the links between the White

Ouse and the Contras.

_ This investigation and an accompany-
ing lawsuit before a U.S. District Court
as been called ‘“‘the most outlandish
fairy tale ever concocted” by witnesses
appearing before the official Washington
Contragate hearings. But while they
ave been dismissed by those in power
and ignored by most of the mass media,
the findings of the Christic team expose a
5-year long string of assassinations,
Counter-insurgency, and drug-smuggling
too bizarre even for a spy novel.
The Christic investigation dates back
to 1984, when renegade Contra leader
en Pastora held a news conference at

8 headquarters, deep in the jungle of
Northern Costa Rica. A bomb, planted in
8 tape recorder, exploded midway

through Pastora’s address, killing eight
People, including an American journa-

St, Linda Frazier. Pastora escaped the
assassination attempt with minor in-
Paes. and immediately blamed the CIA
OF trying to kill him; he suggested that
. 8 refusal to follow CIA orders regard-
— ™g Contra military and political
_ Sttategies was the motive for the attack.

Another U.S. journalist, Tony Avir-
8an, was also injured in the bomb explo-
S!On, and he subsequently launched an
‘NVestigation into the bombing. He
ialisted the help of Christic Institute
aWyer Daniel Sheehan, who sub-

sequently obtained subpoena powers
from a U.S. District Court.

Sheehan started out asking questions
about the Pastora bombing, but soon
came to much more far-reaching conclu-
sions regarding the actions of Oliver
North and his accomplices. Sheehan al-
leges in a well-documented lawsuit that
North and 28 other members of a secret
and powerful U.S. foreign policy team
planned and carried out a long list of
violent and illegal actions that spanned
the globe.

According to Sheehan, this group —
known to its members as ‘The Enter-
prise’’ — operated on the fringes of the
U.S. Government, and virtually became
a shadow foreign policy department of
the administration. It was jointly
founded by the CIA and the National
Security Council in 1960 to explore ways
and means of assassinating Fidel Castro
and other Cuban revolutionary leaders.
The group went on to carry out political
assassinations and drug-smuggling in
Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand, and later
headed up the infamous Phoenix prog-
ram in Vietnam — which carried out the
selective, political assassinations of
some 60,000 non-combatants during the
U.S. war in Vietnam. ~

At various times, Sheehan’s investiga-
tions. have found, the operations of ‘‘The
Enterprise’ came into conflict with the
above-ground bureaucracy of the CIA
and other government agencies. This
was especially true during the Carter
administration, when the U.S. govern-
ment carried out a nominal
‘*house-cleaning’’ of the CIA to cut
down on illegal activities.

At this time, the-:group’s involvement
in the assassination of numerous oppo-
nents of the Shah of Iran was brought
to light. Sheehan says that ‘““The Enter-
prise’ then was forced to “‘privatize”’
many of its activities. Under the leader-
ship of notorious mercenaries and anti-
Communist zealots such as John
Singlaub and Theodore Sheckley, the
group set up a number of front com-
panies, one of the most famous of which
was the International Research and
Trade Corporation.

With the help of close contacts still
formally employed by the CIA and the
U.S. Defense Department, these com-
panies were able to win contracts to sup-
ply arms to various U.S. allies, notably
Egypt. By skimming off profits from
these operations, supplemented by re-
venue from drug-smuggling operations,
‘The Enterprise’’ was able to finance its
continuing activities. Many Enterprise
members by this time no longer actually
worked for the U.S. government, but
they continued to co-operate -. »sely
with special strategy groups of the CIA
and the NSC, often without the knowl-
edge or approval of the nominal heads of
these agencies.

Several of the individuals currently
embroiled in the Contragate scandal
were involved in ““The Enterprise”’
throughout this time, including North,
Richard Secord, and Thomas Clines.

With the transition to the Reagan:
government, many Enterprise members,
most notably North, were able to work
themselves back into positions of official
authority, and began to co-ordinate the

John Singlaub (above), head of the
World Anti-Communist League and
Oliver North. Setting up ‘front’ com-
panies and engaging in assassinations.

now “‘legitimate’’ counter-insurgency
campaigns of the U.S. Government. The
initial support for the Contra war against
Nicaragua was co-ordinated by this
team, from both within and outside of the
U.S. government per se. They had de-
veloped important expertise in the Cent-
ral American conflict even before Rea-
gan came to power, by supplying anti-
communist forces throughout the region
with both arms and leadership.

In 1984, then, when the U.S. Congress
banned aid to the contras in the wake of
the mining of Nicaraguan harbours, this
semi-official apparatus was already
poised to once again ‘‘privatize’’ U.S.
foreign policy — in other words, to carry
out the violent and illegal wishes of the
American right-wing establishment,
regardless of the passing whims of their
elected institutions.

The death and destruction that has re-
sulted in Nicaragua and elsewhere as a
result of the murderous schemes of ‘The
Enterprise’’ is testimony enough to the
power of this shadowy and semi-official

clique. The Contragate hearings are
only getting at the tip of the iceberg.
Never before has the hypocrisy of U.S.
foreign policy been better revealed: in its
zealous efforts to “‘fight for democracy”’
anywhere that national liberation move-
ments are successful, the U.S. govern-
ment has destroyed democracy at home.

The Contragate scandal has not deter-
red ‘‘The Enterprise’’ from choosing its
next target: the Philippines. Singlaub has
recently opened up several World Anti-
Communist League offices there, just as
Reagan has approved the CIA allocation
of $10-million for unspecified ‘‘covert ac-
tion”’ in the Philippines. With U.S. ally
Cory Aquino declaring war on progres-
sive Filipino political forces, ‘The
Enterprise’ has another ‘market’ for its
deadly expertise.

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