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CounterPunch
August
25, 2002
Flight
of the Phoenix:
From Vietnam to Homeland Security
An Open Letter to Maj. Gen.
Bruce Lawlor
by Douglas Valentine
"The implication or latent threat
of force alone was sufficient to insure that the people would
comply..."
William Colby, RIP
Imagine my surprise to learn that the Bruce Lawlor
is serving as the Office of Homeland Security's Senior Director
for Protection and Prevention!
I say this in a blatantly exclamatory
fashion because I interviewed Lawlor for my book, The
Phoenix Program, back in 1988, when he was just a small
town lawyer in Vermont. Poor Bruce. He's always had big ambitions,
and he'd run for attorney general of Vermont in 1984. But, as
he told me with abiding bitterness, his political opponents exploited
his self-proclaimed participation in the CIA's Phoenix Program
in Vietnam. The bastards had used that awful fact to launch
a successful smear campaign against him. And yes, he'd lost
the primary election as a result.
Nearly 20 years later Lawlor is still
licking his wounds, and there's no doubt that he holds a major
general's grudge against the pacifists and peaceniks who smeared
him with Phoenix. So now I'm wondering, what's he got in store
for people like me?
Here We Go
Again
Having former CIA Phoenix officers in
important government positions is nothing new in America. I refer
you to Congressman Rob Simmons, a friend of Lawlor's, whom Lawlor
describes as a "liberal". Simmons, good liberal Episcopalian
that he is, ran a CIA Province Interrogation Center in Vietnam.
(See The
Spook Who Would be a Congressman.)
Having potential war criminals in positions
of power is nothing new, but I'm one of those people who believe
that all former CIA officers--especially those involved in "extra-legal"
counter-terror programs like Phoenix--should not be allowed to
hold public office. I believe this, because the CIA is antithetical
to democratic institutions. And that's why I was so surprised
to see, that the guy I knew as  "Bruce", is now Major General
Lawlor, and a top-ranking official in the ominous Office of Homeland
Security. By which I mean, he's someone who has access to Ashcroft's
political blacklist, and he has control over the covert action
teams that can be used to neutralize those dissidents.
To get right to the point, I have a sneaking
suspicion that Lawlor, like Simmons, is still working for the
CIA, and thus poses a major threat to democracy in America.
One of the reasons I have this crazy
feeling, is that nowhere in any of Lawlor's official looking,
on-line biographies is there any mention of his CIA service.
It's like his biographers are deliberately trying to hide his
CIA connection from us.
For example, The Executive Session on
Domestic Preparedness, "a standing task force of leading
practitioners and academic specialists concerned with terrorism
and emergency management" (sponsored by Harvard's JFK School
of Government, the Department of Defense, and the Department
of Justice), posted an official biography of Major General Bruce
M. Lawlor. They mention that he was the "first" commanding
general of the Joint Task Force Civil Support (JTF-CS) located
at Fort Monroe. This is extremely important, because the JTF-CS
was formed specifically to provide "command and control
over Department of Defense consequence management forces in support
of a civilian Lead Federal Agency (the CIA?) following a weapon
of mass destruction incident in the United States, its territories
or possessions (italics added)."
This sounds an awful lot like a prelude
to the terror attacks of 11 September, and I'll raise the subject
of the JTF-CS in a bit, but for now I'd like to point out that
nowhere do Lawlor's friends from Harvard (he's a graduate of
Harvard's National Security Fellows Program) or the Departments
of Defense and Justice, say that Lawlor was once a CIA officer.
(Please see http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/
BCSIA/ESDP.nsf/www/Contact)
Likewise, in an earlier biography posted
on the Internet, Lawlor was said to be "assigned as the
Deputy Director, Operations, Readiness and Mobilization within
the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans
in May 1998. As Deputy Director he monitors Army operations worldwide
and oversees National Guard and Reserve Forces Integration efforts."
This too is incredibly important, and
relates directly to the terror attacks of 11 September, in so
far as the National Guard and Reserves are integral parts of
Northcom, the military component of the forthcoming Department
of Homeland Security, which will manage the "pacification"
of the American people. But before we get into that, let's proceed
with the problem of Lawlor's official biographies. In this particular
biography, which was posted in November 2000, it says "The
General's military service began in 1967. After service in Vietnam
from 1971 to 1973, he received a Direct Commission in 1974 as
an Intelligence Officer."
Once again, and rather conspicuously,
there is no mention that Lawlor was a CIA officer in Vietnam.
In fact, you get the feeling that he was in the military. You
might go so far as to say that the folks at Homeland Security
are dissembling, in order to hide the fact that one of their
most senior officers probably still is a CIA officer!
Why would Lawlor consent to this subterfuge,
if, in fact, he is an honorable man?
The Phoenix
Program
I first read about Lawlor in Everything
We Had by Al Santoli. I was researching the Phoenix Program at
the time, and Santoli's interview with Lawlor was in a section
titled "The Phoenix". Santoli identified Lawlor as
having been a CIA case officer in I Corps, from November 1971-December
1973, and he quoted Lawlor as saying that in order to win the
Vietnam War, "what we had to do was get in and eliminate
the ability of the VC to control or influence the people. That's
what pacification was all about. The buzzword was "root
out." We tried to go in and neutralize their political structure."
For those who are unfamiliar with Phoenix
and its jargon, "neutralize" meant to assassinate,
imprison, or turn someone into a defector or double agent.
 Lawlor
apparently made some very provocative statements to Santoli,
including this one: "We permitted the Vietnamese to corrupt
the system and we did it because we basically were corrupt ourselves."
Lawlor's position about Phoenix seemed to be that it was "an
extermination program" that was "used to settle old
scores."
In an effort to find out if this was
Lawlor's position, I wrote to him and requested an interview.
Lawlor agreed, and we did taped interviews, portions of which
I included in my book, The Phoenix Program, between pages 407-411.
What Lawlor told me basically confirmed
everything Santoli had attributed to him. Except there were some
additional, startling details. To begin with, Lawlor told me
that he joined the CIA in 1967, while he was getting his BA at
George Washington University. The CIA hired him to work the night
shift, and after he graduated, he was given the chance to become
a regular CIA staff officer. He took the paramilitary course,
which included instruction in weapons and military tactics, but
he was also trained as a foreign intelligence officer, the kind
who manages secret agents. After that he was assigned to the
Vietnam Desk at Langley headquarters, where he received specialized
training in agent operations in Vietnam, and took a language
course in Vietnamese. During this time, Lawlor formed a rapport
with the Vietnam Desk officer, Al Seal, and when Seal was assigned
as the base chief in Danang, he asked that Lawlor accompany him.
Lawlor, notably, was just as gung-ho about fighting the Viet
Cong as John Kerrey. (See Bob
Kerrey, the CIA and War Crimes.)
Lawlor arrived in Vietnam in November
1971 and was assigned as an undercover staff officer at the US
Embassy's translation section. He arrived in Danang a few weeks
later, at the beginning of 1972, and was assigned to regional
headquarters, in the counter-intelligence office. He worked at
that job through the Easter Offensive of 1972, but then things
changed dramatically. Lawlor became the Police Special Branch
advisor in Quang Nam Province, in which capacity, in the summer
of 1972, he did what Rob Simmons had done in nearby Quang Ngai
Province; he organized the most aggressive Special Branch officers
into a paramilitary Special Intelligence Force Unit that hunted
members of the Viet Cong Infrastructure in the hamlets and villages.
As advisor to the Special Branch, Lawlor also ran the Quang Nam
Province Interrogation Center, and there got to know the CIA's
regional PRU advisor, Patry Loomis. Bored with merely filing
reports, Lawlor jumped at the chance, when Loomis asked him if
he'd like to out on some PRU operations. That's when Lawlor started
dressing in tiger fatigues and going out on ambushes, and traditional
PRU "snuff and snatch" operations.
For those unfamiliar with Phoenix lexicon,
the PRU--Provincial Reconnaissance Unit--Program was a unilateral
CIA operation, formed by the CIA, paid by the CIA, and staffed
by mercenary Vietnamese who worked for the CIA, often against
the interests of their own government. The PRU were originally
called "counter-terror teams" and, according to Nelson
Brickham (the man who created the Phoenix program) their job
was to go into VC areas "to do to them what they were doing
to us." Which means mutilating people, sticking their heads
on poles after they were killed, killing the families of suspected
VC terrorists or political chiefs, and other unconventional CIA
terror tactics.
After the 1972 Easter Offensive the PRU
were ostensibly placed under the jurisdiction of the Special
Branch, and were renamed Special Reconnaissance Units. At this
point the CIA still controlled the PRU purse strings, but it
wasn't providing as much money and as a result, it lost a certain
amount of control over the PRU leadership. The top ranking  Vietnamese PRU officers turned
to graft, drug dealing, and shakedowns to make up the differential.
Very bad things started happening. On one unforgettable occasion
Lawlor walked into the Hoi An Interrogation Center and saw that
a woman, who knew about the regional PRU chief's dirty dealings,
had been raped and murdered. Her body was stretched over a table.
"All of a sudden," Lawlor told me, "Mr. (Phan
Van) Liem (the PRU chief) wants me to go on a mission with him,
and the other PRU guys are telling me, 'Don't go!'"
This may seem a minor detail to the people
at Homeland Security, or then again, it may be one reason why
Lawlor's resume is so lacking in CIA information. You see, all
CIA Province Interrogation Center advisors were obligated to
report any incidents of torture, murder, or abuse they witnessed.
So, where's Lawlor's report?
I believe Lawlor probably filed a report.
Back in those rough and tumble Phoenix fighting days he was a
man of conscience. For example, when Seal was replaced as the
CIA's Regional Officer in Charge (ROIC) of I Corps, the new ROIC,
Tom Flores, brought in a new staff. Having worked in the region's
counter-intelligence office, Lawlor knew that an NVA spy ring
still existed in the area, and that one of these NVA agents was
the girl friend of Flores' operations chief. When Lawlor reported
this to Flores, he was accused of having "gone native."
So Lawlor told the CIA's security chief in Saigon, at which point
his office furniture was confiscated and he was handed a ticket
home.
"After that I became disillusioned,"
Lawlor confessed. He tendered his resignation to Ted Shackley
in 1974. "The agency betrayed us," he said. "To
go after the VCI, we had to believe it was okay. But we were
too young to understand what happens when idealism cracks up
against reality. We risked our lives to get information on the
VCI, information we were told the President was going to read.
Then guys who didn't care gave it to superiors more interested
in booze and broads."
That's what Bruce Lawlor said to me back
in 1988. He was definitely embittered, but there's something
weird about him that makes him keep going back for more. When
former Director of Central Intelligence William Colby heard that
the Phoenix smear campaign had cost Lawlor the 1984 election
in Vermont, he offered Lawlor his moral (as it was) support.
Lawlor was summoned to Langley and interviewed for a job in the
freewheeling Special Operations Division, which was then breaking
every international law in places like Nicaragua and Afghanistan.
But details of the "gone native" incident surfaced,
and Lawlor was not, to his immense disappointment, rehired by
the CIA.
Reprisal is
the Name of the
Homeland Security Game
People look for vindication in many different
ways. Take, for example, the reaction of the right wing to America's
humiliating defeat at the hands of the Vietnamese. Phoenix creator
Nelson Brickham compared that reaction to the frustration and
bitterness of the German nation after the First World War. As
we all know, that frustration and bitterness enabled Hitler to
do his thing.
Since the terror attacks of 11 September,
we've seen the same phenomena here in America. Symbolically,
that traumatic event wiped the slate clean. As a result, all
the moral and psychological prohibitions on the reactionary right
have been lifted, and all the anger and frustrations it cultivated
during the Vietnam War, and the Carter and Clinton Administrations,
is poised to be unleashed under the aegis of counter-terrorism,
not only on the usual suspects--foreign enemies sitting on vast
oil reserves, suspected terrorists, and domestic dissidents--but
on the unwitting, flag-waving American public as well.
I happen to believe that Bruce Lawlor
is one of those frustrated, bitter people. And I believe that
he subscribes to the fascist theories of Michael Ledeen. A former
counter-terror expert in the corrupt Reagan Regime's State Department
and National Security Council, Ledeen in a 1 October 2001 article
for the National Review blamed the terror attacks of 11 September
on Bill Clinton, "for failing to properly organize our nation's
security apparatus."
According to Ledeen, Clinton's sneering
lack of respect for security took "a terrible toll on the
system, and (Tom) Ridge will not find it easy to instill a proper
respect for proper secrecy, even in his own offices. It takes
quite a while to stamp out corrupt habits of mind and action."
Leeden's solution to the problem of domestic
terrorism is ideological. It is "to stamp out" the
"corrupt habits of mind (italics added)" that are still
lingering around, somewhere. In other words, the reactionary
right wing, as represented by the fascist Bush Regime, with its
ambitions for a military dictatorship, must impose its "proper"
ideology through the institution of an official Thought Police--the
current Office of Homeland Security and the forthcoming Department
of Homeland Security. Stamping out, or pacification, is what
is required to create the politically correct, security conscious,
uniform American citizenry, marching in lockstep with their fellow
flag waving TIPsters, that is necessary to win the tough eternal
war on terror that lies ahead. It's a matter of will power.
"This is time for the old motto,
"kill them all, let God sort 'em out." New times require
new people with new standards," Ledeen asserts. "The
entire political world will understand it and applaud it. And
it will give Tom Ridge a chance to succeed, and us to prevail."
It's obvious that many people with an
axe to grind are jumping on the Homeland Security bandwagon.
Knowing this, and fearing that Bruce Lawlor is of the Ledeen
"reprisal" persuasion, I immediately tried to get an
interview with him. I called his office at 202-456-5687 and spoke
with his secretary. She said he would call me back, but he hasn't
responded.
I know he was angry with me after The
Phoenix Program was published. He did not like how I portrayed
the CIA, or him, personally. He was so upset he helped a CIA-nik
write a rebuttal to my book. So I'm a little concerned, not just
for myself, but for anyone who opposed the Vietnam War, and now
opposes the Bush Regime's blatantly fascist policies at home
and abroad. So I'm writing this as an open letter to General
Lawlor.
As far as I know, General Lawlor, we
still live in a democracy. Although the Bush regime seems hell
bent on using the uninvestigated terror attacks of 11 September
as a pretext to turn America into a military dictatorship, we
are not yet (as far as I know) under martial law. Public officials,
like you, still have a responsibility to respond to our concerns.
So speaking on behalf of people concerned by the gaping window
of opportunity for the abuse of human rights and civil liberties
presented by the corrupt Bush Regime, through its Homeland Security
apparatus, here are the main questions that need to be answered:
Questions for
Major General Bruce Lawlor
1) What happened in July 1995 to make
you leave your law practice and go to the Army War College? Did
the CIA have a role in that decision?
2) How did your education at the War
College pave the way for your assignment as Special Assistant
to the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, from June to October
1996? CIA officers often go by the term "Special Assistant."
Were you serving as the CIA's liaison to the Supreme Commander?
3) In May 1998 you got the very important
job as Deputy Director of Readiness and Mobilization within the
office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans.
Your job was managing the National Guard and Reserves around
the world. Did the CIA help you get this job? How were you involved
with the CIA in this position?
4) You were the first commander of the
Joint Task Force, Civil Support at Fort Monroe. Your job was
to work with civilians. Was this a CIA assignment? How were you
involved with the CIA in this position? Was this assignment based
in any way upon your Phoenix-related experiences as a CIA officer
in Vietnam, and was it precisely that "Phoenix" sensibility
that you brought, as your main qualification, to the job? What
are your other qualifications? Who else bid for the job? Isn't
this where General Wayne Downing was assigned after 11 September,
and if so, what was and is your relationship with him, and the
CIA, in terms of formulating Homeland Security policy?
5) In a 24 March 2000 statement to Congress,
you seemed to be preparing for the Homeland Security job you
have now. In a way you predicted the calamitous events of 11
September. Did you, in fact, have any foreknowledge of those
attacks?
6) In your statement to Congress you
said that as Commanding General of the JTF-CS, you created Civil
Support Teams to assist in case of a weapon of mass destruction
incident. Formerly known as Rapid Assessment and Initial Detection
(RAID) teams, CSTs, you said, "are National Guard assets,
and thus can function under state or federal authority. They
are equipped with sophisticated communications systems that will
enable local first responders to talk with neighboring jurisdictions
or link up with federal centers of expertise. CSTs are also being
equipped with state of the art detection equipment that will
enable them to help local first responders quickly identify potential
WMD agents." That's what you told Congress. Would you now
please tell us what role the CIA plays in CST operations? It
sounds like a great CIA cover outfit to me. Are they? Is there
a Civil Support team near me? Will you allow me to observe how
it functions?
7) In your role as Senior Director for
Protection and Prevention at the Office of Homeland Security,
what is your relationship with Northcom and the CIA? In fact,
what is it that you do? Is it true that the Office of Homeland
Security will be strategy-making part of the Homeland Security
apparatus, and that the forthcoming Department of Homeland Security
will be the tactical and operational part? What is the function
of the Homeland Security Council, and what is your relationship
with it? Can we have organization charts of these entities, including
ones that show where the CIA is hiding it covert assets?
8) Last but not least, please explain
the conspicuous absence of any reference to your CIA background
in your official biographies. This seems to suggest that you
are still CIA. Are you? And tell us, please, if you and others
like intend to use your power to seek revenge against your political
opponents?
Lingering Doubts
From mid 1972 through 1973 Bruce Lawlor
ran the same sort of anti-terror programs that are now in vogue.
The CIA has already launched a worldwide Phoenix Program. Is
that why he got the Homeland Security job? Is that why the CIA
finally let him back inside the fold? Did he promise to allow
the CIA to use his Homeland Security programs as a cover to repress
political dissent in America? Will he become one of those corrupt
officials he hated in Vietnam, and use his power to take revenge
on his personal enemies? Is that what Homeland Security is really
all about?
Like most Americans, those of us who
oppose the Bush Regime's fascist policies are willing to participate
in our own defense, if there is in fact a threat, and if in fact
the CIA didn't manufacture the threat. We just want honest forthright
leaders whose first responsibility is to defend the liberties
we cherish, and not to subvert them under the aegis of Homeland
Security.
Douglas Valentine is the author of The Hotel Tacloban, The Phoenix
Program, and TDY, all of which are available through iUniverse.com.
For information about Mr. Valentine and his books and articles,
please visit his website at www.douglasvalentine.com
He can be reached at: redspruce@attbi.com
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