Groovy Bytes: Behind the Moon/groovybytes.iso/GROOVY/MISC/DIGITALU/DIG_CO07.ZIP/GOVTSUBV.TXT

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                    INTRODUCTION:  URGENT!

          On July 5, 1987 the front page of the Miami Herald Newspaper carried
a now famous article describing secret White House plans to:

A.)       DECLARE AN UNDEFINED "NATIONAL EMERGENCY,"

B.)       RE-OPEN CONCENTRATION CAMPS FOR PREVENTIVE
          DETENTION OF LEGAL DISSIDENTS CERTAIN ETHNIC
          GROUPS, AND

C.)       SUSPEND OUR UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION

                          ---***---

          Those of us viewing the Iran-Contragate hearings, then being
broadcast live on TV, had our curiousity peaked when one committee member began
inquiring about an article alleging secret White House plans to suspend the
Constitution.

          We were even more puzzled when committee chair Daniel Inouye
interrupted him demanding all discussion on that question take place in closed
session, out of public hearing.

          Not content to wonder, I researched the original article, transcribed
it, and now present it to you for your urgent consideration.  You have a right
to read this.  In fact, you'd better know about it because it's about secret
White House plans to remove your rights by SUSPENDING OUR UNITED STATES
CONSTITUTION.  It's about a government which we, the people, did NOT elect but
which has gained power nonetheless.

          What follows is not the whole story but a crucial and overlooked part
of it.  Read "between the lines" and very carefully.  This is not some
paranoid's nightmare or some fanatic's fantasy.  This is reality in the Reagan
White House.

                          ---***---

          Please copy this article and circulate it among your friends and co-
workers.  If George Bush gets into the White House, we'll have "elected," or
had selected for us, precisely the same carnivorous crew comprising The Secret
Government referred to in this article.

                          ---***---

          First, I offer three appropriate quotes which provide a certain
perspective in which to view what follows.
          Then, I present the "sidebar" articles which summarized and
accompanied the main article.
          Finally, I give you the complete text of the original article,
unedited and uncensored.  While local papers ignored this historic article or
presented only extracts from it, none of them gave you this, the entire text.

                          ---***---

          The following did not appear with the original article but they
provide a certain appropriate perspective on it:

             "Perception of reality is sometimes
             more important than reality itself."
                       -Henry Kissenger

       "He who controls the past, controls the future.
        He who controls the present, controls the past."
                   -O'Brian, the dictator
               in George Orwell's novel "1984"

                "If you don't like the news,
             go out and make some of your own!"
                        -Scoop Nisker


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 ===========================================================


  from THE MIAMI HERALD....SUNDAY JULY 5, 1987....page one:


                    SOME SECRET ACTIVITIES

          Sources say the parallel government behind the
          Reagan administration engaged in secret actions
          including:

A CONTINGENCY plan to suspend Constitution and impose
          martial law in United States in case of nuclear
          war or national rebellion.

1985 VISIT to Libya by William Wilson, then U.S. ambassador
          to Vatican and close Reagan friend, to meet with
          Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi.

HAVING ROUTES of sophisticated surveillance satellites
          altered to follow Soviet ships around world.

LAUNCHING of spy aircraft on secret missions over Cuba and
          Nicaragua.

PROPOSAL in 1981 to provide covert support of anti-
          Sandinista groups that fled Nicaragua after
          Sandinista revolution in 1979.

DISSEMINATION of information that cast Nicaragua as threat
          to neighbors and United States.

                          ---***---

          Before Reagan was elected, campaign aides who
          became the president's top advisers carried out
          these secret activities:

CREATION in 1980 of October Surprise Group to monitor
          President Carter's negotiations with Iran for
          release of 52 American hostages.  Group met with
          man who claimed to represent Iran and who offered
          to release hostages to Reagan.  Offer declined,
          officials say.

ACQUISITION of stolen confidential briefing materials from
          Carter's campaign before Oct. 28, 1980, Carter-
          Reagan debate.

                          ---***---

[photo captions:]

                         PRINCIPALS:

      William Clark:  Allowed bigger North role at NSC.
        William Casey:  Kept guard on President Carter

=============================================================
************************************************************* =================
=============================================

 What follows is the complete text of the original article as
        printed in the Miami Herald for July 5, 1987:


           REAGAN AIDES AND THE 'SECRET' GOVERNMENT

         by ALFONSO CHARDY, HERALD WASHINGTON BUREAU


          WASHINGTON -- Some of President Reagan's top advisers have operated a
virtual parallel government outside the traditional Cabinet departments and
agencies almost from the day Reagan took office, congressional investigators
and administration officials have concluded.

          Investigators believe that the advisers' activities extended well
beyond the secret arms sales to Iran and aid to the contras now under
investigation.

          Lt. Col. Oliver North, for example, helped draw up a controversial
plan to suspend the Constitution in the event of a national crisis, such as
nuclear war, violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition to
a U.S. military invasion abroad.

          When the attorney general at the time, William French Smith, learned
of the proposal, he protested in writing to North's boss, then-national
security adviser Robert McFarlane.

          The advisers conducted their activities through secret contacts
throughout the government with persons who acted at their direction but did not
officially report to them.

          The activities of those contacts were coordinated by the National
Security Council, the officials and investigators said.

          There appears to have been no formal directive for the advisers'
activities, which knowledgeable sources described as a parallel government.

          In a secret assessment of the activities, the lead counsel for the
Senate Iran-contra committee called it a "secret government-within-a-
government."

          The arrangement permitted Reagan administration officials to claim
that they were not involved in controversial or illegal activities, the
officials said.

          "It was the ultimate plausible deniability," said a well-briefed
official who has served the Reagan administration since 1982 and who often
collaborated on covert assistance to the Nicaraguan contras.

          The roles of top-level officials and of Reagan himself are still not
clear.  But that is expected to be a primary topic when North appears before
the Iran-contra committees beginning Tuesday.  Special prosecutor Lawrence
Walsh also is believed to be trying to prove in his investigation of the Iran-
contra affair that government officials engaged in a criminal conspiracy.


        ADVISERS FORMED SHADOW GOVERNMENT, PROBERS SAY

          Much of the time, Cabinet secretaries and their aides were unaware of
the advisers' activities.  When they periodically detected operations, they
complained or tried to derail them, interviews show.

          But no one ever questioned the activities in a broad way, possibly
out of a belief that the advisers were operating with presidential sanction,
officials said.

          Reagan did know of or approve at least some of the actions of the
secret group, according to previous accounts by aides, friends and high-ranking
foreign officials.

          One such case is the 1985 visit to Libya by William Wilson, then-U.S.
ambassador to the Vatican and a close Reagan friend, to meet with Libyan leader
Col. Moammar Gadhafi, officials said last week.  Secretary of State George
Shultz rebuked Wilson, but the officials said Reagan knew of the trip in
advance.

          The heart of the secret structure from 1983 to 1986 was North's
office in the Old Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House,
investigators believe.

          North's influence within the secret structure was so great, the
sources said, that he was able to have the orbits of sophisticated surveillance
satellites altered to follow Soviet ships around the world, call for the
launching of high-flying spy aircraft on secret missions over Cuba and
Nicaragua and become involved in sensitive domestic activities.


                       Many initiatives

          Others in the structure included some of Reagan's closest friends and
advisers, including former national security adviser William Clark, the late
CIA Director William Casey and Attorney General Edwin Meese, officials and
investigators said.

          Congressional investigators said the Iran deal was just one of the
group's initiatives.  They say exposure of the unusual arrangement may be the
legacy of their inquiry.

          "After we establish that a policy decision was made at the highest
levels to transfer responsibility for contra support to the NSC..., we favor
examining how that decision was implemented," wrote Arthur Liman, chief counsel
of the Senate committee, in a secret memorandum to panel leaders Sens. Daniel
Inouye, D-Hawaii, and Warren Rudman, R-N.H., before hearings began May 5.

          "This is the part of the story that reveals the whole secret
government-within-a-government, operated from the [Executive Office Building]
by a Lt. Col., with its own army, air force, diplomatic agents, intelligence
operatives and appropriations capacity," Limon wrote in the memo, parts of
which were shared with The Herald.

          A spokesman for Liman declined comment but did not dispute the memo's
existence.

          A White House official rejected the notion that any of Reagan's
advisers were operating secretly.

          "The president has constantly expressed his foreign policy positions
to the public and has consulted with the Congress," the official said.


                        Began in 1980

          Congressional investigators and current and former officials
interviewed -- members of the CIA, State Department and Pentagon -- said they
still do not have a full record of the impact of the the advisers' activities.

          But based on investigations and personal experience, they believe the
secret governing arrangement traces its roots to the last weeks of Reagan's
1980 campaign.

          Officials say the genesis may have been an October 1980 decision by
Casey, Reagan's campaign manager and a former officer in the World War II
precursor of the CIA, to create an October Surprise Group to monitor Jimmy
Carter's feverish negotiations with Iran for the release of 52 American
hostages.

          The group, led by campaign foreign policy adviser Richard Allen, was
founded out of concern Carter might pull off an "October surprise" such as a
last-minute deal for the release of the hostages before the Nov. 4 election.
One of the group's first acts was a meeting with a man claiming to represent
Iran who offered to release the hostages to Reagan.

          Allen -- Reagan's first national security adviser--
 and another campaign aide, Laurence Silberman, told The Herald in April of the
meeting.  they said McFarlane, then a Senate Armed Services Committee aide,
arranged and attended it.  McFarlane later became Reagan's national security
adviser and played a key role in the Iran-contra affair. Allen and Silberman
said they rejected the offer to release the hostages to Reagan.


                     Briefing book theft

          Congressional aides now link another well-known campaign incident --
the theft of confidential briefing materials from Carter's campaign before the
Oct. 28, 1980, Carter-Reagan debate -- to the same group of advisers.

          They believe that Casey obtained the briefing materials and passed
them to James Baker, another top Reagan  campaign aide, who was White House
chief of staff in Reagan's first term.

          Once Reagan was sworn in, the group moved quickly to set itself up,
officials said.  Within months, the advisers were clashing with officials in
the traditional agencies.

          Six weeks after Reagan was sworn in, apparently over State Department
objections, then-CIA director Casey submitted a proposal to Reagan calling for
covert support of anti-Sandinista groups that had fled Nicaragua after the 1979
revolution.


                [THE IRAN-CONTRA CONNECTION:
    NORTH HAD BIG ROLE IN INNER CIRCLE, INVESTIGATORS SAY]

          It is still unclear whether Casey cleared the plan with Reagan.  But
In November 1981 the CIA secretly flew an Argentine military leader, Gen.
Leopoldo Galtieri, to Washington to devise a secret agreement under which
Argentine military officers trained Nicaraguan rebels, according to an
administration official familiar with the agreement.

          About the same time, North completed his transfer to the NSC from the
Marine Corps.  Those who worked with North in 1981 remember his first
assignments as routine, although not unimportant.

          North, they recalled, was briefly assigned to carry the "football,"
the briefcase containing the secret contingency plans for fighting a nuclear
war, which is taken everywhere the president goes.  North later widened his
assignment to cover national crisis contingency planning. In that capacity he
became involved with the controversial national crisis plan drafted by the
Federal Emergency Management Agency.


                     NATIONAL CRISIS PLAN

          From 1982 to 1984, North assisted FEMA, the U.S. government's chief
national crisis-management unit, in revising contingency plans for dealing with
nuclear war, insurrection or massive military mobilization.

          North's involvement with FEMA set off the first major clash between
the official government and the advisers and led to the formal letter of
protest in 1984 from then-Attorney General Smith.

          Smith was in Europe last week and could not be reached for comment.

          But a government official familiar with North's collaboration with
FEMA said then-Director Louis O. Guiffrida, a close friend of Meese's,
mentioned North in meetings during that time as FEMA's NSC contact.

          Guiffrida could not be reached for comment, but FEMA spokesman Bill
McAda confirmed the relationship.

          "Officials of FEMA met with Col. North during 1982 to 1984," McAda
said.  "These meetings were appropriate to Col. North's duties with the
National Security Council and FEMA's responsibilities in certain areas of
national security."

          FEMA's clash with Smith occurred over a secret contingency plan that
called for suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the United States
over to FEMA, appointment of military commanders to run state and local
governments and declaration of martial law during a national crisis.

          The plan did not define national crisis, but it was understood to be
nuclear war, violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition
against a military invasion abroad.


                      PLAN WAS PROTESTED

          The official said the contingency plan was written as part of an
executive order or legislative package that Reagan would sign and hold within
the NSC until a severe crisis arose.

          The martial law portions of the plan were outlined in a June 30,
1982, memo by Guiffrida's deputy for national preparedness programs, John
Brinkerhoff.  A copy of the memo was obtained by The Herald.

          The scenario outlined in the Brinkerhoff memo resembled somewhat a
paper Guiffrida had written in 1970 at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.,
in which he advocated martial law in case of a national uprising by black
militants.  The paper also advocated the roundup and transfer to "assembly
centers or relocation camps" of at least 21 million "American Negroes."

          When he saw the FEMA plans, Attorney General Smith became alarmed.
He dispatched a letter to McFarlane Aug. 2, 1984 lodging his objections and
urging a delay in signing the directive.

          "I believe that the role assigned to the Federal Emergency Management
Agency in the revised Executive Order exceeds its proper function as a
coordinating agency for emergency preparedness," Smith said in the letter to
McFarlane, which The Herald obtained.  "This department and others have
repeatedly raised serious policy and legal objections to the creation of an
'emergency czar' role for FEMA."

          It is unclear whether the executive order was signed or whether it
contained the martial law plans. Congressional sources familiar with national
disaster procedures said they believe Reagan did sign an executive order in
1984 that revised national military mobilization measures to deal with
civilians in case of nuclear war or other crisis.


                   ORCHESTRATED NEWS LEAKS

          Around the time that issue was producing fireworks with the
administration, McFarlane and Casey reassigned North from national crisis
planning to international covert management of the contras.  The transfer came
after North took a personal interest, realizing that neither the State
Department nor any other government agency wanted to handle the issue after it
became clear early in 1984 that Congress was moving to bar official aid to the
rebels.

          The new assignment, plus North's natural organizational ability,
creativity and the sheer energy he dedicated to the issue, gradually led to an
expansion of his power and stature within the covert structure, officials and
investigators believe.

          Meese also was said to have played a role in the secret government,
investigators now believe, but his role is less clear.

          Meese sometimes referred private American citizens to the NSC so they
could be screened and contacted for soliciting support for the Nicaraguan
contras.

          One of those supporters, Philip Mabry of Fort Worth, told The Herald
earlier this year that in 1983 he was told by fellow conservatives in Texas to
contact Meese, then White House counselor, if he wanted to help the contras.
After he contacted Meese's office, Mabry received a letter from Meese obtained
by The Herald advising him that his name had been given to the "appropriate
people."

          Shortly thereafter, Mabry said, a woman who identified herself as
Meese's secretary gave him the name and phone number of another NSC secretary
who, in turn, gave him North and his secretary, Fawn Hall, as contacts.

          Meese's Justice Department spokesman, Patrick Korten, denies that
Meese was part of North's secret contra supply network and notes that Meese
does not recall having referred anyone to North on contra-related matters.

          In addition to North's role as contra commander and fund-raiser,
North became secret overseer of the State Department's Office of Public
Diplomacy, through which the Reagan administration disseminated information
that cast Nicaragua as a threat to its neighbors and the United States.

          An intelligence source familiar with North's relationship with that
office said North was directly involved in many of the best publicized news
leaks, including the Nov. 4, 1984, Election Day announcement that Soviet-made
MiG jet fighters were on their way to Nicaragua.

          McFarlane is now believed to have been the senior administration
official who told reporters that the Soviet cargo ship Bakuriani, en route to
Nicaragua from a Soviet Black Sea port, was probably carrying MiGs.

          The intelligence official said North apparently recommended that the
information be leaked to the press on Election Day so it would reach millions
of people watching election results.  CBS and NBC broadcast the report that
night.


                      CLARK HAD KEY ROLE

          The leak led to a new clash between the regular bureaucracy and the
president's advisers.  The official State Department spokesman, John Hughes,
tried hard to play down the report, pointing out that it was unproven that the
Bakuriani was carrying MiGs.  At the same time, employees of the Office of
Public Diplomacy, acting under North's direction, insisted that the crates were
inside the ship and that MiGs were still a possibility.

          To take a closer look, the source said, North requested a high-flying
SR-71 Blackbird spy aircraft be sent from Beale Air Force Base near Sacramento,
Calif., to fly over the Nicaraguan port of Corinto while the Bakuriani unloaded
its cargo.  The pictures showed that the Bakuriani unloaded helicopters, not
MiGs.

          North was not the only adviser who operated outside traditional
government channels, investigators have concluded.

          Others were known as the RIGLET, a semi-official unit made up of
North;  Alan Fiers, a CIA Central American affairs officer;  and Elliott
Abrams, the current assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs,
according to Abrams' subordinate Richard Melton.  Melton revealed the existence
of the RIGLET in a deposition given to the Iran-contra committees.  The name
is a diminutive for RIG, which stands for Restricted Interagency Group.

          Among the RIGLET's actions was ordering the U.S. ambassador to Costa
Rica, Lewis Tambs, to assist the contras in setting up a front in southern
Nicaragua.  Tambs, who resigned suddenly last year after his links to North
were revealed, testified about the instructions to Iran-contra investigators.

          But perhaps the key to the parallel government was the role played by
Reagan's second national security adviser, William Clark.  It was during
Clark's tenure that North began to gain influence in the NSC.

          Clark also recruited several midlevel officers from the Pentagon and
the CIA to work on a special Central American task force in 1983 to push aid
for El Salvador, a task force member said.

          "Judge Clark was the granddaddy of the system," he said.  "I was
working at the Pentagon on another issue when my boss said that because of
special circumstances, I was to be reassigned to the task force."

          A former administration official familiar with Clark's activities
said Clark also had approved contacts between Vatican Ambassador Wilson and
Libya before Wilson's November 1985 journey, which came after McFarlane
replaced Clark at the NSC.

          The former official said Wilson also had carried out secret missions
for the Reagan administration in a Latin American country where Wilson
reportedly maintained contacts with high-level officials.  The source asked
that the country not be identified because the system is still in place and had
reduced tensions by circumventing the regular bureaucracies of both countries.

          Calls to Wilson's and Clark's offices in California were not
returned.


                        -----END-----

The above brought to you as a public service by SAX ALLEN of Free San
Francisco, California

by SAX ALLEN of Free San Francisco, California