Real­iz­ing The Fourth Reich

Part 3.1a 44:46 | Part 3.1b 44:11 | Part 3.1c 7:19

Part 3.2a 44:45 | Part 3.2b 44:21 | Part 3.2c 44:16 | Part 3.2d 44:43

Part 3.3a 44:39 | Part 3.3b 44:00 | Part 3.3c 43:26 | Part 3.3d 41:19

Part 3.4a 41:03 | Part 3.4b 34:35 | Part 3.4c 21:21

Part 3.5a 44:29 | Part 3.5b 43:57 | Part 3.5c 43:37 | Part 3.5d 44:44 | Part 3.5e 18:26

Part 3.6a 44:23 | Part 3.6b 43:39 | Part 3.6c 44:48 | Part 3.6d 40:29

(Orig­i­nal­ly broad­cast 1993; 15.4 hours)

This mas­sive series details the com­plic­i­ty of ele­ments of U.S. intel­li­gence with inter­na­tion­al ter­ror­ists and exam­ines the evo­lu­tion of the U.S. gov­ern­men­t’s inter-agency counter-ter­ror­ist net­works.

The pro­gram doc­u­ments the involve­ment of ele­ments of U.S. intel­li­gence with: weapons and drug smug­gler Monz­er Al-Kas­sar; the Gan­der, New­found­land crash of Decem­ber 1985; the Achille Lau­ro hi-jack­ing; the for­ma­tion and instal­la­tion of fun­da­men­tal­ist forces in Iran, as well as their takeover of the U.S. Embassy; oth­er key events in the ter­ror­ism of the 1970s and 80s.

Of par­tic­u­lar inter­est is the land­mark research of Fara Man­soor, a mem­ber of the Iran­ian resis­tance whose his­toric research on the rise of the Khome­i­ni regime doc­u­ments the deci­sive role of the Unit­ed States in devel­op­ing Islam­ic fun­da­men­tal­ist forces in that coun­try as the anti-com­mu­nist suc­ces­sors to the Shah’s gov­ern­ment. Fara has doc­u­ment­ed that U.S. Ambas­sador to Iran, Richard Helms, learned that the Shah had can­cer in 1974. For­mer Direc­tor of Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Helms prompt­ly informed the CIA and Depart­ment of State with the result that, by 1976, George Bush’s CIA was active­ly sup­port­ing and groom­ing the Khome­i­ni forces.

The sub­se­quent takeover of the U.S. embassy in Teheran, the with­hold­ing of the U.S. hostages until after Pres­i­dent Carter’s defeat was assured, the Khome­i­ni gov­ern­ment itself and the Iran-Con­tra scan­dal prop­er were all out­growths of this pro­found and long-stand­ing rela­tion­ship.

It should be not­ed that parts of this rela­tion­ship have been mis­un­der­stood as what has become known as “the Octo­ber Sur­prise.” Although there was, mas­sive col­lu­sion between the Rea­gan-Bush cam­paign and the Khome­i­ni forces dur­ing the 1980 elec­tion cam­paign, there was no “deal” cut dur­ing the cam­paign. Rather, the “deal” was part of a covert oper­a­tion begun years before and the col­lu­sion dur­ing the cam­paign was an out­growth of it.

Much of the series is devot­ed to the evo­lu­tion of the inter-agency counter-ter­ror net­works that grew out of the Vice-Pres­i­den­t’s Task Force on com­bat­ing ter­ror­ism, head­ed by George Bush. These inter-agency net­works were uti­lized by Oliv­er North and com­pa­ny dur­ing the Con­tra war to bypass the Boland Amend­ment for­bid­ding aid to the Con­tras.

AFA #38 doc­u­ments the peo­ple and ele­ments involved in pre­cip­i­tat­ing ter­ror­ism through the Vice-Pres­i­den­t’s Task Force, the inter-agency net­works grow­ing out of the Task Force, and the Con­tra sup­port effort that uti­lized those net­works.

The work­ing hypoth­e­sis is set forth that the afore­men­tioned ter­ror­ism and the net­works stem­ming from the Vice-Pres­i­den­t’s Task Force con­sti­tute a “creep­ing Reich­stag” sce­nario. The gov­ern­men­t’s counter-ter­ror­ist net­works have served as a gov­ern­ment with­in a gov­ern­ment, and per­mit­ted Oliv­er North and oth­er per­pe­tra­tors of the Iran-Con­tra scan­dal to bypass demo­c­ra­t­ic process. The ter­ror­ism that served as the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for these net­works appears to have been pre­cip­i­tat­ed, in part, to jus­ti­fy their cre­ation.

One of the pro­vi­sions set up by Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Direc­tives issued by the Vice-Pres­i­den­t’s Task Force is the mar­tial-law con­tin­gency plan devel­oped under the aus­pices of the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil and the Fed­er­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (see AFA pro­gram num­ber #32). A major episode of the series is its analy­sis of the Los Ange­les riots of 1992, and evi­dence sug­gest­ing they were delib­er­ate­ly pre­cip­i­tat­ed as a tri­al run for mar­tial law con­tin­gency plans.

The con­clud­ing por­tion of the pro­gram dis­cuss­es both the 1993 bomb­ing of the World Trade Cen­ter and the siege of the Branch David­i­an com­pound at Waco against the back­ground of these mar­tial law con­tin­gency plans. Both inci­dents, the pro­gram sug­gests, may be part of a de-sta­bi­liza­tion pro­gram direct­ed against Bill Clin­ton, by the fac­tion of the nation­al secu­ri­ty estab­lish­ment con­nect­ed to the Rea­gan-Bush admin­is­tra­tions.

See also: AFA pro­gram num­bers 4,19 — 23, 30 — 35, Mis­cel­la­neous 19, 21, 48 and 49.