Operation Chaos
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he’d given himself up to the authorities: “Deserter Given a Year in Prison,” Arizona Daily Star, September 11, 1968.
all the names he could remember: See Organized Subversion in the U.S. Armed Forces: Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Publishing Office, 1976), pp. 59–60.
Michael Randle, an anti-nuclear activist: Max Watts, unpublished typescript, “The Randle Factor,” TORD 58, Brünn-Harris-Watts Papers, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis [International Institute of Social History], Amsterdam.
Baby A was a troubled Texas teenager: Max Watts, unpublished typescript, “Baby A,” TORD 54.4, Brünn-Harris-Watts Papers, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis [International Institute of Social History], Amsterdam.
a Dutch woman in an apartment on the rue Saint-Jacques: Max Watts, unpublished typescript, “Baby A,” TORD 74, Brünn-Harris-Watts Papers, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis [International Institute of Social History], Amsterdam.
Marguerite Duras, the novelist: Max Watts, unpublished typescript, “Mononucleosis and Marguerite Duras,” TORD 19, Brünn-Harris-Watts Papers, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis [International Institute of Social History], Amsterdam.
The expatriate American artist Alexander Calder: Dick Perrin with Tim McCarthy, G.I. Resister (Victoria, BC: Trafford Publishing, 2002), p. 89.
Jane Fonda, hugely pregnant: Max Watts, unpublished typescript, “Fonda You,” TORD 75.1, Brünn-Harris-Watts Papers, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis [International Institute of Social History], Amsterdam.
her zero-gravity nudity: Perrin with McCarthy, G.I. Resister, p. 87–89.
Catherine Deneuve accepted his apologies: Watts, “Fonda You.”
allies of the new French revolution: Perrin with McCarthy, G.I. Resister, p. 107.
“did more harm to RITA”: Max Watts, unpublished typescript, “Was Arlo a Real Agent?,” TORD 77.7, Brünn-Harris-Watts Papers, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis [International Institute of Social History], Amsterdam.
“When Arlo found me at the meeting”: Max Watts, “Agents? Arlo Mongers and Starts Real Trouble,” unpublished typescript, TORD 77.5, Brünn-Harris-Watts Papers, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis [International Institute of Social History], Amsterdam.
“That Arlo, deprived of an audience”: Watts, “Was Ardo a Real Agent?”
“Phoneless Friends”: Gilles Perrault, A Man Apart: The Life of Henri Curiel (London: Zed Books, 1997).
George Carrano went to Budapest: Frank Rafalko, MH/CHAOS: The CIA’S Campaign Against the Radical New Left and the Black Panthers (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2011), pp. 151–52.
the founder of the Cornell University chapter of the SDS: Bruce Dancis, Resister: A Story of Protest and Prison During the Vietnam War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014).
“Next time, we attack”: Ibid.
President Johnson had been briefed: “Weekly Summary Special Report: The Ill-Starred Ninth World Youth Festival,” CIA file RDP79-00927A006500070002-4, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP79-00927A006500070002-4.pdf
“It’s only in response to personal attacks”: Email from George Carrano to Mark Shapiro, July 10, 2005.
a twelve-page report on the 1968 World Festival of Youth: Report on the Ninth World Youth Festival, September 17, 1968, John W. Dean Collection, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, CA.
“individual psychological and behavioral problems”: Ibid.
A report from July 1969: CIA 1993.07.13.19:42:04:280400, http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=59385&relPageId=1&search=petunia.
“Our main contact there”: Larry Cox, email message to the author, February 22, 2016.
Another report, from April 1972: CIA file 104-10071-10026, http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=27605&search=MHYIELD#relPageId=1&tab=page.
planting time bombs in safety deposit boxes: “1971 Radical Pleads Guilty to Planting Bombs in Banks,” New York Times, April 29, 1987.
Harry Pincus hanged himself the following month: Alessandra Stanley, “Most Likely to Succeed,” New York Times, November 22, 1992.
“going to bed with the girl or guy—or child”: Linda Wolfe, “The Doctor’s Dilemma,” New York Magazine, February 28, 1972.
“Despite intensive interviews”: Seymour M. Hersh, “Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years,” New York Times, December 22, 1974.
6: THE BIRTH OF CHAOS
In May, Black Panthers padded around the California state capitol: Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin Jr., Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), pp. 57–62.
his days of compaigning in public should come to an end: Kenneth Reich, “The Bloody March That Shook LA,” Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1997, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/2009/05/crowd-battles-lapd-as-war-protest-turns-violent-.html.
On August 15, three senior CIA figures met: Rafalko, MH/CHAOS, p. 15.
The shoes laced with beard-killing thallium salts: Fabian Escalante, Executive Action: 634 Ways to Kill Fidel Castro (New York: Ocean Press, 2006).
published a translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: H. A. Rositzke, trans., The Peterborough Chronicle (New York: Columbia University Press, 1951).
an unauthorized jaunt into Soviet-controlled East Berlin: Harry Rositzke, The USSR Today (New York: John Day, 1973), p. xi.
“a certain Dickensian quality”: Duane Clarridge, A Spy for All Seasons (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009), p. 78.
So profound that a family acquaintance wrote to the FBI: Richard Ober, FBI file 1347000-0, MuckRock, https://cdn.muckrock.com/foia_files/2016/05/04/1347000-0_-_5541_-_Section_1_Serial__1.PDF.
“Tight mouthed,” they called him: Ibid.
His academic qualifications were impeccable: Ibid.
obliging his colleagues to cut loose some of their paid agents: Karen Paget, Patriotic Betrayal: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Secret Campaign to Enroll American Students in the Crusade Against Communism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015), pp. 366–67.
“We had awful things in mind”: Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), p. 330.
live tax-free in North Carolina: See Bailey v. State of North Carolina; Emory v. State of North Carolina; Patton v. State of North Carolina, North Carolina Department of Revenue, www.dor.state.nc.us/practitioner/individual/directives/pd-99-1.html.
Published reviews went into HYDRA’s maw: Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States, June 1975, https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/LIBRARY/exhibits/Intelligence/RockComm_Chap11_CHAOS.pdf.
“the extremist anti-war movement”: Briefing Papers, Special Operations Group, Counter Intelligence Staff, June 1, 1972, MuckRock, https://cdn.muckrock.com/foia_files/2016/05/16/CHAOS.pdf.
an FBI tap installed on the phone of Howard Zinn: Howard Zinn, FBI file 100-360217, https://vault.fbi.gov/Howard%20Zinn%20.
a colorful intermediary named Brian Victoria: Associated Press, “Anti-U.S. Rioting in Japan,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 22, 1968.
“misguided youngsters gone astray in a foreign land”: CIA file 104-10064-10013, memo from Thomas Karamessines, CIA deputy director of plans, October 1, 1968, http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=26357&relPageId=1&search=104-10064-10013.
Crewman Robert Doyon was summoned: Robert Doyon, email correspondence with the author, December 25, 2016.
“When you’re on deck being attacked by the Commies”: Bernice Foley, “Chit and Chat,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 8, 1968.
arrived on a plane from Canada: See Organized Subversion in the U.S. Armed Forces:
Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976), p. 56.
a report with flow charts, footnotes, and appendices: Ibid., pp. 50–62.
he made a run for the Canadian border: Thomas Lee Hayes to the staff of CALCAV, July 28, 1969, Clergy and Laity Concerned Records, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, PA.
All the papers printed her picture: “Girl Grabs U.S. Defector in Stockholm Stickup Try,” International Herald Tribune, July 19–20, 1969.
It remained a secret until 1976: Organized Subversion in the U.S. Armed Forces.
he considered leaving the anti-war movement: Fukumi Shinsuke, “Dassō enjō kara beihei to no Kyoto e,” Asahi Jānaru, May 10, 1970, pp. 38–43.
“I’m not going to live like a tramp!”: UPI, “G.I. Deserter Comes Home from Sweden,” Chicago Tribune, September 15, 1968.
It took five months for Arnett to come to trial: For the details of Arnett’s trial, see “Ft. Dix Begins Deserter Trial of Viet GI,” New York Post, February 25, 1969; Maurice Carroll, “Army Defector Who Fled to Sweden Goes on Trial at Fort Dix,” New York Times, February 26, 1969; Frank Mazza, “Reports Tokyo Girl Got GI to Go Over the Hill,” New York Daily News, March 4, 1969; Frank Mazza, “Army Winds Up Its Case with Film of G.I. Who Fled,” New York Daily News, March 5, 1969; “Defector Who Left Vietnam for Sweden Guilty of Desertion,” New York Times, March 6, 1969.
On the steps of the court: “G.I. Who Deserted from Vietnam Gets 4 Years; Court-Martial Votes Term After Hearing Psychiatrist; Defendant, Stunned, Appeals ‘to the People’ for Backing,” New York Times, March 7, 1969.
“We are all in agreement about the degree of punishment”: Robert L. Rummel et al. to Richard Nixon, March 14, 1969. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, CA.
7: THE SPLIT
“I’m a big, bad marine”: Whitmore, Memphis Nam Sweden, p. 180.
that “every free man has a legal right and moral duty: Rebecca Skarbeck, “A History of Resist,” http://illiad.trincoll.edu/watk/manuscripts/reshistory.htm.
Look magazine made it the focus of a lavish illustrated article: Christopher S. Wren, “Deserter in Stockholm,” Look, October 15, 1968.
The Italian film producer Carlo Ponti came talent scouting: Richard Fernandez to Susan Sontag, July 14, 1969, Clergy and Laity Concerned Records, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, PA.
Vitarelle drowned in a boating accident: “Deserter Dies in Swedish Boat Mishap,” Amarillo (TX) Globe-Times, July 17, 1969; Daniel Lang, “Out of It,” New Yorker, May 25, 1970.
“The plot is about agents who try to infiltrate the ADC: UPI, “U.S. Deserters in Sweden Are Discontented,” Los Angeles Times, November 10, 1968.
He procured a 16 mm print and kept it in his office like a piece of evidence: Information from Michael P. Richard, a sociologist for whom Svahnström screened the film.
“A climactic sequence”: Howard Thompson, “‘Deserter U.S.A.’ Tells of Soldiers in Sweden,” New York Times, November 25, 1969.
The film premiered in Sweden on April 14, 1969: AP, “American GIs, Draft Resisters in Film,” Cincinnati Enquirer, April 18, 1969.
a small knot of protestors got to their feet: UPI, Ian Westergren, “Deserters Glorified in Film,” Palm Beach Post-Times, May 11, 1969.
the human evidence of the Social Democrats’ opposition: See Scott, Swedish Social Democracy and the Vietnam War, pp. 17–22.
“Now the initial fascination of desertion has worn off”: See John Ashley, “The Deserter,” Washington Post, February 3, 1969.
Jerry Dass, a troubled former Green Beret: “Statslös USA-desertör” [Stateless USA deserter], Dagens Nyheter, March 23, 1969.
Kempe also gave the ADC the use of forty-four acres of farmland: Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, pp. 165–66.
“The work on the farm”: “ADC-Farmen,” Second Front Review, no. 7, 1969.
volunteer tutors into deprived neighborhoods of Baltimore: Gene Oishi, “Quiet Side of Social Revolution: Tutors Project Makes the Grade,” Baltimore Sun, January 30 1967.
Jean-Paul Sartre was there: “La ‘résistance américaine’ en France,” Le Monde, April 13, 1968.
“The French government and its police”: Warren Hamerman and Alfred Schmidt, “Les déserteurs américains en France,” Esprit, November 11, 1968.
The exception was George Carrano: UPI, “Nine Servicemen and Evader Given Asylum,” Syracuse Post-Standard, August 3, 1968.
“SUPPORT WARREN HAMERMAN!”: “Politisk asyl åt vietnamsvägrare i Sverige!!! STÖD WARREN HAMERMAN!” [Political asylum for Vietnam refuseniks in Sweden!!! SUPPORT WARREN HAMERMAN!], flyer, Jim Walch Papers, vol. 5, 1969, Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek [The Swedish Labor Movement’s Archive and Library], Stockholm.
The relevant document: “Swedish Deserters,” John W. Dean Collection, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, CA. This document is a summary. The full report—written on December 27, 1968, to Paul Lauter of RESIST—can be found in the Clergy and Laity Concerned Records, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, PA.
“The ADC is a working group”: Editorial, Second Front Review, Winter 1968.
“These power hungry anti-socialist beings”: John McLoughlin, “Notes on Opportunism,” Second Front Review, Winter 1968.
“it can continue as a paper organization”: Gerald Gray, report to RESIST, December 27, 1968. Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, PA.
8: THE INFILTRATORS
On February 21, the Swedish Ministry of the Interior: Scott, Swedish Social Democracy and the Vietnam War, pp. 143–44.
“The American deserters in Sweden are a sad collection”: “Vi vill berätta sanningen om desertörerna i Sverige” [We want to tell the truth about the deserters in Sweden], Expressen, April 15, 1969.
A Gothenburg judge: UPI, “G.I. Deserters Face Charge in Sweden,” Shreveport (LA) Times, September 11, 1968.
Fred Pavese, a former artilleryman: William C. Mann, “Viet Deserters Have New Life, Lingering Memories,” White Plains (NY) Journal-News, March 13, 1983.
In Malmö, two twenty-year-old Californians: UPI, “Sweden Admits 7 G.Is, Ousts 2,” Minneapolis Star, September 5, 1968.
the Laser Arms Corporation: See John Crudele, “The Man Who Knew Too Much: Laser Arms Scam and the Mob,” New York Magazine, March 6, 1989.
an SDS newspaper that accused the Standard Oil Company: “Boycott Standard Oil,” New Left Notes, April 29, 1969.
an anti-war group called Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam: See Mitchell K. Hall, Because of Their Faith: CALCAV and Religious Opposition to the Vietnam War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990).
An impressive triumvirate blessed his mission: Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, p. 37.
Hänt i Veckan magazine compared him to Father Flanagan: “Själasörjaren kom” [The spiritual guide came], Hänt i Veckan, February 1969.
“I am concerned about Vietnam”: Anonymous letters to CALCAV, Clergy and Laity Concerned Records, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, PA.
“internal dissent and mistrust”: Jim Walch to Thomas Lee Hayes, February 26, 1969, Clergy and Laity Concerned Records, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, PA.
Hayes arrived in Sweden on March 21: Richard McSorley, Peace Eyes (Washington, DC: Center for Peace Studies, 1978), p. 43.
Hayes held a press conference: Report to CALCAV from T. L. Hayes and the Swedish Project, June 6, 1969, Clergy and Laity Concerned Records, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, PA.
bought cheap at the side door of the Chinese Embassy: Deprivations recorded in Laura Furman, “Hagalund,” Southwest Review, Spring/Summer 1994.
There were some bitter disappointments: Thomas Lee Hayes to Richard Fernandez, June 10, 1969; Thomas Lee Hay
es to the staff of CALCAV, July 28, 1969, Clergy and Laity Concerned Records, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, PA.
“I hope none of you have to ask why she’s here”: Hayes, American Deserters in Sweden, p. 123.
“Five minutes later”: Ibid., p. 124.
“Ridiculous”: Thomas Hayes to Richard Fernandez, April 18, 1968, Clergy and Laity Concerned Records, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, PA.
Richard went home and wrote an article: Michel P. Richard, “American Deserters in Stockholm,” Interplay, September 1970.
“I am having trouble forgiving myself”: Michel P. Richard, email message to the author, October 15, 2015.
Such trials, I learned, did take place: Leif Grönbladh, A National Swedish Methadone Program 1966–1989 (Uppsala, Sweden: University of Uppsala, 2004).
“We took Mandrax”: Thomas Taylor, email message to the author, July 5, 2014.
When he arrived in Sweden in March 1968: Eva Lindgren, “USA-soldat ville inte till Vietnam igen: Han har två barn—hoppade av ändå” [USA soldier didn’t want to return to Vietnam: He has five kids—went AWOL all the same], Expressen, March 27, 1968.
“lived through a mental hell”: “Desertör på Gotland tog sitt liv” [Deserter in Gotland took his own life], Fredmissionären, November 8, 1969.
Deserters who had told no one back home of their whereabouts: Daniel Lang, “Out of It,” New Yorker, May 25, 1970.
“If we cannot believe in our country and our merciful God”: “Deserters Insults Xenia Couple,” Xenia (OH) Daily Gazette, April 12, 1968.
“Anybody who can’t serve their country”: “War Dead Used,” Orlando Evening Star, April 12, 1969.
“Michael Vale is back in town”: Thomas Lee Hayes to the staff of CALCAV, July 28, 1969, Clergy and Laity Concerned Records, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, PA
“We now know that he was on the payroll”: John Takman to Thomas Lee Hayes, February 28, 1969, Clergy and Laity Concerned Records, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, PA
The CIA was an eager subscriber: Report for the Director of Intelligence, General Staff, U.S. Army, Abstracting Services as an Intelligence Tool for Assessing Soviet Chemical Research, 1949, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000268326.pdf.