t the end of the Second World War, US secret service agents use Nazi, fascist and Ustashi agents to create an anti-communist network: the Stay-behind[1]. While agents recruited in the States of the future Atlantic Alliance had to remain secret, agents operating in States that had passed into Soviet control had to act publicly. In 1946 a fascist international organization is established to coordinate the action of agents, originally from the East who had immigrated to the West. This organization is the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN). Ukrainian, Hungarian, Romanian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Slovakian, Lithuanian (the list goes on) fascists are brought together under the leadership of Yaroslav Stetsko. The former collaborationist leader in Ukraine, Stetsko, is considered responsible for the massacre of 700 persons, the majority of whom are Jewish, at Lvov on 2 July 1941.
Eight years later, at the end of the Korean War, the United States replaces France in Indochina[2]. President Eisenhower sets up a regional defense system against the USSR and China. On 8 September 1954, SEATO, based on the NATO model, is established. This brings together Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States. On 2 December, the system was completed by a US-Taiwan bilateral defence treaty[3].
While this is going on, the CIA, led by Allen Dulles, structures the intelligence services of these States and puts in place an organization to put anti-communist parties in the region in contact with each other. And so around Chiang Kai-Shek, the Asian People’s Anti-Communist League (APACL) is born.
In addition to the President of Taiwan (Chiang Kai-Shek), APACL’s membership includes the following:
Park Chung-hee, the future President of South Korea;
Ryiochi Sasakawa, a war criminal who became a billionaire and a benefactor of the Japanese Liberal Party;
Reverend Sun Myung Moon[4], the prophet of the Church of Unification;
General Prapham Kulapichtir (Thailand);
President Ferdinand Marcos (Philippines);
Prince Sopasaino (Laos)[5];
Colonel Do Dang Cong (representing President Nguyen Van Thieu, Vietnam), etc.
APACL is totally controlled by Ray S. Cline, the then CIA Chief of Station in Taiwan and the future Vice-Director of the CIA[6]. It publishes the Asian Bulletin, whose editing is entrusted to Michael Lasater, who will head the Asian department of the Heritage Foundation[7].
- Establishment of WACL, 1967.
The Establishment of WACL
From 1958, the President of the Anti-Bolshevist Bloc of Nations (ABN) participates in the annual conferences of the Anti-Communist League of the Asian People held in Taipei. Cline and Stetsko supervise the establishment of the Political Warfare Cadres Academy at Taiwan. This academy is tasked with training cadres from the Regime of Chiang Kai-Shek for anti- communist repression.
The academy is the Asian equivalent of the Psychological Warfare Centre at Fort Bragg (USA) and the Panama School of Americas[8]. Gradually, the CIA forms a global network of political groups and instructors in counter-insurrection. In 1967, ABN and APACL merge under the banner of the, “World Anti-Communist League (WACL)” and extend their activities across the entire “free world”. Its new members include Los Tecos or Legion of King Christ, a Mexican fascist organization established during the Second World War. The League experiences its first development phase in the period 1973-1975, when Richard Nixon and his security adviser Henry Kissinger reside in the White House.
Funding is extravagantly guaranteed by the Church of Unification. However from 1975, this is no longer acknowledged. Reverend Sun Myung Moon then claims to break ties with the League but continues to exercise his leadership through his Japanese representative Osami Kuboki.
WACL’s role in implementing the Phoenix Plan (1968-71) and the Condor Plan (1976-77), providing for the assassination of thousands of people suspected of sympathizing with communists in South East Asia and Latin America, is still inadequately reported.
The Phoenix Plan was probably implemented in Vietnam by the Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force of General Major John K. Singlaub, who went on to become President of WACL. However Singlaub has consistently denied any involvement in this operation.
Furthermore, General Hugo Banzer Juarez, who imposed a dictatorship in Bolivia in 1971 to 1978, chaired the Latin American branch of WACL. In 1975 he organized a plan (the Banzer Plan) for the systematic elimination of communist opponents. In 1977 a WACL Latin American conference was held in Asuncion and Plan Banzer was presented as the way forward. Participating at this conference was the dictator of Paraguay, General Alfredo Stroessner. The Paraguayan delegation presented a motion following the design of Plan Banzer, to eliminate priests and religious disciples of the theology of liberation across Latin America. This motion was adopted by the World Conference of WACL in 1978[9].
Similarly, we do not know for sure what role WACL played in the strategy of tension that hit Europe in this period. The Frenchman, François Duprat, founder of a New French Order, the Italian Giorgio Almirante, founder of MSI, the Spaniard Jesus Palacio, founder of CEDADE, the Belgian Paul Vankerhoven, President of Circle of Nations and others like them have militated in WACL. And it is WACL that filtered Stefano delle Chiaie out of Italy[10], when the Italian judiciary having charged him with terrorism, was searching for him. WACL smuggles him to the Bolivia of Hugo Banzer, where he is immediately appointed the right hand man of Klaus Barbie, head of the death squads.
Finally, we have little documentation on WACL’s role during the Lebanon war. All we know for sure is that it had recruited mercenaries integrated into the ranks of Christian militias of the former President Camille Chamoun in 1975, a week before the conflict broke out.
On entering the White House in 1977, Jimmy Carter hopes to put an end to his predecessors’ sordid practices. He appoints Admiral Stanfield Turner to head the CIA and sets about toppling authoritarian regimes in Latin America. It is a difficult period for WACL which is no longer financed by its members. Thus WACL becomes the den of the anti-Carter preparing for better days and spontaneously creates ties with the principal anti-Carter organization in the US: the National Coalition for Peace Through Strength. This front of rejection is an off-shoot of the American National Security Council, that President Eisenhower designated under the term “the military-industrial matrix”[11]. It is co-chaired by General Daniel O’Graham[12] (who participated with George H. Bush in the Pipes Commission - known as Team B, re-evaluating the Soviet threat)[13] and General John K. Singlaub[14]
A number of officers in the League are involved in Campaign Committees for Ronald Reagan’s election. For many of them, the Republican Governor of California is not an unknown quantity. In fact, at the end of the Second World War, Reagan participated as spokesperson for the Crusade for Freedom, raising the necessary funds to settle Eastern European immigrants fleeing communism in the United States. In actual fact, the funds were used to transfer Nazis, fascists and Ustashis into the ABN. As for Vice President George H. Bush, he is also a friend. As head of the CIA, he was the leader of Operation Condor.
The Golden Age of WACL
When Ronald Reagan and George H Bush enter the White House, WACL regains its strength and continues developing. The former contacts bear their fruit. The US industrial military complex finances the establishment of a US section of WACL called Council for World Freedom (USCWF). General John K. Singlaub is the president and General Daniel O’Graham, the Vice President. But matters do not end there. The military industrial complex makes WACL a central tool for anti-communism repression all over the world. Singlaub is thus elected the president of WACL.
The League acts on all fronts:
In order to combat Soviet presence in Afghanistan, the American Security Council finances[15] a thematic section of WACL: the Committee for a Free Afghanistan. Its headquarters are provided by the Heritage Foundation. The operation is launched when Margaret Thatcher and Lord Nicholas Bethell (Head of MI6) are on an official visit to the United States. The operation is led by General J. Milnor Roberts. The Committee is directly involved in providing logistical support to “freedom fighters” authorized by the CIA’s Director, William[16] and managed by Osama Bin Laden[17]. The link between WACL and the Saudi businessman is guaranteed by two men: Sheik Ahmed Salah Jamjoon (who works with the public works giant, the Saudi Bin Laden Group), and a former Prime Minister of South Yemen.[18]
In the Philippines, WACL is represented by President Ferdinand Marcos. But when he is ousted in 1986, John K. Singlaub and Ray Cline go to the Philippines to choose new partners. They put in place a paramilitary unit of counter-guerrillas and choose General Fidel Ramos[19], friend of Frank Carlucci[20], George H. Bush and the Bin Laden family.
To fight the Sandinistas revolution in Nicaragua, WACL sets up a logistical base with Argentine trainers at John Hull’s premises in Costa Rica. It also uses facilities in Honduras offered by the Chief-of-Staff, General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, who recruits mercenaries by using the humanitarian cover of Refugee Relief International.
In Guatemala, WACL’s man is Mario Sandoval Alarcon, leader of the National Liberation Movement. Sandoval, vice president from 1974 to 1978, is the only true master of the country; General-President Romeo Lucas Garcia is nothing but a puppet. He sets up death squads that will slay more than 13,000 victims in five years.
In Salvador, WACL relies on the safe hands of Roberto d’Aubuisson, who had been trained at the Taiwanese academy and who is the recipient of aid from the Guatemalans. D’Aubuisson becomes both the head of ANSESAL, the local equivalent of CIA, and the leader of an extreme right-wing paramilitary organization, the nationalistic Republican Party (ARENA). D’Aubuisson sets up death squads and notably murders Archbishop Oscar Romero.
- Generals Harry Aderholt and John Singlaub, members of the Secret Committee for the Defence of Liberty
But the success of WACL will also be its downfall. In 1983, the Under-Secretary for Defense, Fred C. Iklé,[21] establishes the Council for Defense of Liberty within the Pentagon. This Council is a secret committee of eight experts, that is chaired by General John K. Singlaub [22]. We know that the Committee decides that its secret intervention in Afghanistan would also be a model to follow in Nicaragua, Angola, Salvador, Cambodia and Vietnam but the detail of its actions is insufficiently documented.
In 1984, Ronald Reagan chooses to entrust to the League generally, and to John Singlaub particularly, all the private financing of Irangate under the direct authority of Colonel Oliver North in the National Security Council. The scandal erupts in 1987, revealing everything and destroying the WACL.
Anincomplete list of members of WACL, drawn up by Scott and Jon Lee Anderson and published in Inside the League, (Dodd Mead & Company ed., 1986) can be accessed from our electronic library.
Notes
[1] See “Stay-hebind : les réseaux d’ingérence américains” by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire, 20 August 2001.
[2] The French army loses the battle of Diên Biên Phu on 7 May 1954.
[3] Furthermore, on 29 January 1955, Congress gives a carte-blanche to President Eisenhower, authorizing him to defend Taiwan by military force if the island is attacked by Communists.
[4] See ‘Révérend Moon, le retour’,Voltaire Network, 26 March 2001.
[5] Prince Sopaisano, Vice-President of the National Assembly of Laos, was arrested at Paris-Orly airport, on 23 April 1971. He was carrying 60 kg of pure heroin in his bag.
[6] Ray S. Cline had been the most authoritative analyst on the causes of the Korean War. He was the CIA Chief of Station at Taipei from 1958 to 1962. His cover was director of the US Naval Auxiliary Communications Center. He then became the Vice-Head of the CIA thanks to the change in personnel caused by the Bay of Pigs fiasco. He published his memoires,Secrets, Spies and Scholars, Acropolis Books ed., 1976.
[7] Michael Laseter was the head of the Universal and Triumphant Church (CUT) of Elizabeth Claire. The sect was at the centre of a scandal during the seventies when a military arsenal was discovered at its Californian headquarters. One of its leaders was appointed executive director of the head of WACL in Afghanistan in the eighties.
[8] The School of Americas then relocated to Fort Benning, USA. Our electronic library provides acomplete directory of the pupils at the school from 1947 - 1996.
[9] This operation seems to have been conducted in connection with Monsigneur Alfonso Lopez-Trujillo, who was then the Secretary-General of the Latin American Episcopalean Conference (CELAM).
[10] See “1980: Massacre in Bologna, 85 dead”,Voltaire Network, 6 July 2005.
[11] The National Coalition for Peace by Strength had up to 257 members of Congress.
[12] Lieutenant General Daniel O’Graham was the CIA vice –director in charge of relations with other intelligence agencies (1973-74), then the director of DIA (1974-76). He was the Executive director of the American Security Council and one of the chief advocates of “Star Wars”. He established “High Frontier” which he chaired until his death in 1995.
[13] In 1975, the Far Right accuses the CIA of being infiltrated by communists and of downplaying the red danger. President Ford then appoints George H. Bush to lead the Agency and authorizes counter- expertise. Richard Pipes establishes “Team B”. It will publish an alarming report that will justify re-launching the arms race. Today we know that the Pipes Commission deliberately distorted the facts to open markets for the military-industrial complex. On this subject, see: “Washington’s manipulators”, by Thierry Meyssan,Voltaire Network, 13 November 2002; and “Daniel Pipes, the expert of hate”,Voltaire Network, 2 March 2006.
[14] John K. Singlaub was an officer of the US Secret Service during the Second World War. He formed the Guerrilla of Kuomintang of Tchang Kaï-Chek against Japan. During the Korean War, he was the CIA Chief of Station. Then during the Vietnam War, he led the Green Berets. Following this, he was the trainer in the counter-insurrectionary movement at Fort Benning. On retirement, he became Training Director of the American Security Council. It is for this reason that he became the co-president of the Coalition, then the President of the League.
[15] NED finances the Committee from 1984. It will then transfer a part of the funds received to humanitarian organizations with political ends in Afghanistan, notably Médecins sans frontiers of Bernard Kouchner and Aide médicale internationale.
[16] The US deliberately destabilized Afghanistan but the extent of Moscow’s military reaction took it by surprise. Washington therefore mobilized their allies to get involved in the war, not to “liberate” the Afghans, but explicitly to prevent the USSR from carving out a corridor to the Sea of Oman.
[17] In 1983, WACL prints tee-shirts with a “portrait of Osama Bin Laden and this caption “Support the Afghan Freedom Fighter. He Fights For You ! “
[18] In this period, Osama Bin Laden does not feature as a pious Muslim but an anti-communist businessman, chosen by Prince Turki, Director of Saudi Secret Services, to participate on the US’s side in the war against the Soviets. Bin Laden is first of all directing the construction of necessary infrastructure for “fighters for liberty”, then he manages the supplies to the foreign mujahidin that join them. It will only be later that he transforms into a pious Muslim to assert his authority over the latter.
[19] General Fidel Ramos will be elected president in 1992. At the end of his mandate in 1998, he will form part of the Carlyle Group. See «Le Carlyle Group, une affaire d’initiés», parRéseau Voltaire,Réseau Voltaire, 9 février 2004.
[20] «L’honorable Frank Carlucci», par Thierry Meyssan,Réseau Voltaire, 11 février 2004.
[21] Fred C. Iklé was the second-in-command to Caspar Weinberger at the Pentagon. This historical “cold war warrior” is today a member of the Center for Security Policy (CSP), Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and the administrator of Smith Richardson Foundation.
[22] This Committee includes Generals Harry Aderholt and Edward Lansdale, Colonel John Waghelstein, Seale Doss, Edward Luttwak, Major F. Andy Messing Jr and Sam Sarkessian.