Part 1a 43:13 | Part 1b 42:11 | Part 1c 43:27 | Part 1d 44:02 | Part 1e 23:31 | Part 1f 22:46
(Recorded Jan­u­ary 14, 1986)

Obscured by a name-change and the sands of time, the for­mer World Anti-Communist League (WACL) has been eclipsed. Despite rel­a­tive obscu­rity, the orga­ni­za­tion played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the pol­i­tics of the sec­ond half of the 20th cen­tury. The first of a two-part series, this pro­gram doc­u­ments the League’s com­po­si­tion and activ­i­ties, with par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on WACL ele­ments in Asia and Europe.

Mr. Emory’s analy­sis focuses on the League (WACL), as the ref­or­ma­tion of the Hitler-Goebbels Anti-Comintern of 1939–40. (The Anti-Comintern was a Third Reich-led, inter­na­tional con­sor­tium of fas­cists, fash­ioned by the Fuehrer and his pro­pa­ganda chief. In addi­tion to coor­di­nat­ing inter­na­tional fas­cist groups, it func­tioned as a “sales tool” with which the Nazis could use anti-communism to ped­dle their move­ment to con­ser­v­a­tives.) The broad­cast doc­u­ments the overtly fas­cist antecedents of many of the indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions involved with WACL.

With its roots in the orig­i­nal Anti-Comintern, the Amer­i­can Secu­rity Coun­cil is a key Amer­i­can link to WACL. Cre­ated by for­mer FBI agents dis­grun­tled at the demise of Sen­a­tor Joseph McCarthy’s “inves­ti­ga­tions,” the Amer­i­can Secu­rity Coun­cil coa­lesced around the files of Harry Jung’s Amer­i­can Vig­i­lance Intel­li­gence Fed­er­a­tion. (Vir­u­lently anti-Semitic, Jung’s orga­ni­za­tion was part of the orig­i­nal Anti-Comintern prior to World War II.) Count­ing among its ranks some of the most promi­nent names on the far right, the orga­ni­za­tion kept track of those it con­sid­ered “sub­ver­sive.” The group shared its polit­i­cal intel­li­gence with prospec­tive employ­ers (par­tic­u­larly defense contractors.)

Third Reich vet­er­ans belong­ing to the Euro­pean branch of WACL ran a sim­i­lar orga­ni­za­tion in Ger­many; some of its prin­ci­pals had been with the Goebbels pro­pa­ganda min­istry and the orig­i­nal Anti-Comintern, as well.

In addi­tion to MacArthur’s for­mer intel­li­gence chief (and doc­tri­naire fas­cist) Charles Willoughby, one of the ASC’s most impor­tant mem­bers was Gen­eral Albert Wede­meyer, a lynch-pin of the China Lobby. Reca­pit­u­lat­ing parts of AFAs 7 & 11, the broad­cast sets forth the links between inter­na­tional fas­cism, the China Lobby and the Asian Peo­ples’ Anti-Communist League or APACL (the Asian branch of WACL.) In addi­tion to the fas­cist her­itage of the Kuom­intang (Chi­ang Kai-Shek’s polit­i­cal party) , the pro­gram high­lights the sig­nif­i­cant par­tic­i­pa­tion of the Moon orga­ni­za­tion and Japan­ese war crim­i­nals in the APACL. Royichi Sasakawa and Yoshio Kodama (both accused war crim­i­nals freed by the United States) were promi­nent in both the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church and APACL.

One of WACL’s cen­tral ele­ments, the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN) was essen­tially a re-naming of the Com­mit­tee of Sub­ju­gated Nations, formed by Hitler in 1943. Com­prised of fas­cist orga­ni­za­tions allied with Hitler, such as the Orga­ni­za­tion of Ukrain­ian Nationalists/Bandera or OUN/B and Hun­gar­ian Arrow Cross, the ABN advo­cated an anti-communist approach that not only favored the rolling back of Soviet influ­ence from East­ern Europe, but the dis­so­lu­tion of the Soviet Union into its con­stituent republics. A polit­i­cal goal of the Third Reich, the even­tual res­o­lu­tion of events in the man­ner favored by ABN wasn’t acci­den­tal. (AFA #‘s 36 & 37 doc­u­ment the role of ABN ele­ments in the desta­bi­liza­tion of the for­mer Soviet Union.)

One of the ele­ments rep­re­sented in the ABN is the pan-Turkist move­ment. Allied with Nazi Ger­many in World War II and fas­cist in nature, the pan-Turkists had long sought to carve up the Soviet Union and restore the Ottomon Empire. The main con­tem­po­rary vehi­cle of pan-Turkism is the National Action Party and its youth wing, the Grey Wolves. Founded by Alparslan Turkes (who advo­cated a war-time alliance between Turkey and Nazi Ger­many), its best-known mem­ber is Mehmet Ali Agca, con­victed of shoot­ing the Pope. An asso­ciate of the National Action Party, Ruzy Nazar, rep­re­sented the ABN at a WACL con­fer­ence in Dal­las in 1984.

Next, the broad­cast sets forth the his­tory of the Promethean League, a pre-World War II anti-communist con­fed­er­a­tion. A direct pre­de­ces­sor of WACL, the Promethean League was based in Paris and had as its goal, the break-up of the for­mer Soviet Union. It united a num­ber of ele­ments that also worked for the Nazis dur­ing the war and WACL after­ward, includ­ing pan-Turkist and Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ist elements.

Pro­gram high­lights include: the role of the Amer­i­can branch of WACL in gen­er­at­ing sup­port for the Con­tras; Turkes’ role as a key Turk­ish rep­re­sen­ta­tive to NATO; Ruzy Nazar’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in an SS unit noto­ri­ous for it extreme bru­tal­ity; col­lab­o­ra­tion between Grey Wolf ele­ments and Ital­ian fas­cists asso­ci­ated with the P-2 Lodge and the Strat­egy of Ten­sion (see AFA #‘s 19–21); the career of SS vet­eran Theodor Ober­lan­der, a Nazi war crim­i­nal and WACL mem­ber; the exter­mi­na­tion of the Lvov (Ukraine) ghetto by the Ein­satz­gruppe Nightin­gale, com­posed of Ukrain­ian fas­cists asso­ci­ated with the OUN/B and com­manded by Ober­lan­der; Mar­tin Bormann’s cre­ation of 750 cor­po­ra­tions near the end of World War II, in order to finance the cre­ation of a Fourth Reich.