Army's Project X Had Wider Audience

tine Operations Training Manuals Not Restricted to America

s
By Dana Priest the U.S.-funded Joint Foreign Intel- trains Latin and
Central American
Washington Post Staff venter ligence Assistance Program. Por- military office
rs. The new docu-
trayed by the Army as instructional ments. releas
Until the early 1980s, the U.S. materials to help friendly govern- ed after petitions filed
military ran an intelligence training under the Freedom of Information
ments fight Cuban- and Soviet-in-
program in Latin America and else- Act, show that the original manuals
spired rebels in Latin America, the
where using manuals that taught manuals were "in fact a guide for were used much more widely, by
foreign officers to offer bounties the conduct of clandestine opera- U.S. military personnel working in
for captured or killed insurgents, tions" against domestic political ad- a variety of foreign countries.
spy on nonviolent political oppo- versaries including peaceful ones, The foreign intelligence assis-
nents, kidnap rebels' family mem- according to a panel of Army ex- tance program as a whole, of which
bers and blackmail unwanted infor- perts that later reviewed some of Project X was a part, probably end-
mants, according to recently the material. ed in the early 1980s, the new doc-
declassified Army and Defense De- The Pentagon disclosed last year uments indicate. But some of the
partment documents. that training manuals using Project Project X manuals continued to be
The manuals, known as Project X materials were distributed at the used off and on, both at the school
X, were written by U.S. Army ex- U.S. Army School of the Americas, and in Latin and Central America.
perts starting in 1965 for use by now at Fort Benning, Ga., which See MILITARY. A16. CoL 1

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A16 THURSDAY. MARCH 6. 1997 THE WASHINGTON POST

Project X Clandestine Operations Manuals

"Latin American militaries had no role in sons in creating "black, gray or white" lists of
MILITARY, From Al
the defense of their country [against foreign potential adversaries and in making block-by-
Use of the manuals stopped in 1991. when threats]. The only real role they had was in- block inventories of families and their assets
the Defense Intelligence Agency raised legal ternal defense," he said. "So how do you help to keep tabs on the population, the docu-
and ethical questions and ordered the manu- them? You can't help them get big airplanes ments show.
als taken out of circulation. to shoot each other. You can't help them get A 1972 roster of Project X materials avail-
Army officials were unable to provide de- big tanks. You can help them with infonna- able for use included documents on aerial
tails about the intelligence assistance pro- don." surveillance, electronic eavesdropping, inter-
gram, such as the date it ended or the coun- "The militaries we were training were rogation, basic countersabotage measures,
tries where it operated. It's also impossible right-wing, not liberals," the retired colonel
to tell how the use of the training manuals said. "It sounds like Cold War hooha, but
may have influenced the actions of foreign that's where it was at back then."
militaries. He denied the instructors taught the tac- "Latin American
The intelligence assistance program was tics detailed in its many training manuals. "It
first used in 1965 to train Vietnamese and was rookie kind of stuff" that was taught, he militaries had no role in
other foreign nationals at the then-U.S. Ar- said, adding that Latin American military of-
my Pacific Intelligence School on Okinawa, ficials often scoffed at how tame the material the defense of their
Japan, and also operated in Iran in the late was.
1970s, according to the records. Using documents obtained through the country. The only real
The program's history is difficult to trace FOIA by The Washington Post, and separate
in part because Defense Department intelli- materials gathered by Carlos Osario of the role they had was
gence oversight officials, after seeing what National Security Archive, a Washington-
the manuals contained in 1991, ordered that based nonprofit research group, it is possible internal defense. So how
the original documentation be destroyed. to piece together the broad outlines of the
The ostensible reason was so the materials intelligence assistance program that included do you help them? You
could never be used again. A 1991 Defense Project X.
Department memo said "computer disks, les- While few of the original Project X manu- can't help them get big
son plans and 'Project X' documents" had to als exist, numerous Army and Defense De-
be destroyed because they were obsolete. partment documents indicate they were the airplanes to shoot each
But Pentagon sources, who asked not to basis for the material found in the later
be named, said they suspect that the docu- School of the Americas materials disclosed other. You can't help
ments were destroyed to hide an embarrass- last year.
ing chapter in the military's conduct abroad. Bert Haggett, an Army security specialist
them get big tanks. You
It is illegal to destroy federal documents
without the approval of the National Ar-
in the counterintelligence and human intelli-
gence division, said the Army agrees with a
can help them with
chives, which has opened an inquiry to find
out if such approval was granted.
1991 Defense Department intelligence over-
sight report that found that numerous exam-
information."
The new documents cast light on the U.S. ples of "objectionable" material from Project — retired Army colonel
military's Cold War role in instructing for- X were used in the school manuals.
eign governments in tough tactics in the bat- "They were objectionable and we do not hiring and firing informants, lock picking,
tle against what was viewed as leftist subver- disagree with that," Haggett said. "It should and censorship. The latter was described as
sion. Related but distinct controversies have not have been there. . . . That's one of the "a general introduction to censorship to in-
arisen over the CIA's work in such matters. reasons we have an intelligence oversight of- clude reference to Armed Forces Censorship
By the mid-1970s,. the intelligence assis- fice," he said. "Times were different." . . . and National Censorship."
tance program was operating in nearly every The original manuals were written by ex- Some of the material found later to be
Latin American country, said a retired Army perts at the U.S. Army Intelligence School, most offensive comes from manuals entitled,
colonel who managed the program for the then located at Fort Holabird, Md., and ap- "Agent Handling" and "Counterintelligence."
U.S. Southern Command until the early proved for export by the Army deputy chief Summarizing those, Maj. Thomas Husband,
1970s. of staff for intelligence. They included les- assistant deputy director for counterintelli-
More Widely Used Than Believed
gence support, wrote in 1991: "Document that resulted in the assassinations of thou-
contained several passages which provided sands of South Vietnamese suspected of dis-
training regarding the use of sodiopentathol loyalty. Some of the Project X materials ap-
[truth serum] compound in interrogation, ab- peared to be the same as the Phoenix
duction of adversary family members to in- lessons, and the Army intelligence school
fluence adversary, prioritization of adversary was teaching a course on the Phoenix pro-
personalities for abduction, exile, physical gram at the same time that the Project X
beatings and execution." manuals were being written, she noted.
A 1968 manual called "Employee Procure- During the mid-1970s, after the intelli-
ment and Utilization" said, "The intelligence gence school moved to Fort Huachuca, Ariz.,
operative must recognize the vulnerabilities the school "began exporting, on request,
in the organizational structure . . . of the in- Project X material to MAAGs, MIL-
surgent underground. . . . A defector can GROUPS. defense attaches, and other U.S.
protect himself by the elimination of all other military agencies participating in the U.S.
members of his cell." advisory-training effort in friendly foreign
The Project X material suggested militar- countries," according to a short history of
ies infiltrate and suppress even democratic the program prepared in 1991.
political dissident movements and hunt down Those acronyms refer to the various types
opponents in every segment of society in the of military advisory groups that existed as
name of fighting Communism. part of the U.S. government presence in for-
Military intelligence should infiltrate a eign countries. In some countries, U.S. mili-
wide array of groups, including political par- tary personnel were located in the U.S. Em-
ties, labor unions, youth and student groups, bassy; in others they worked from offices in
religious organizations, and publishing orga- the country's defense ministry.
nizations. "Mass organizations . . . villages Sometimes lesson plans were sent to be
from which crops are being diverted, and used by U.S. military personnel already in
groups of underprivileged people are all po- the country. Other times, Army Intelligence
tential insurgent targets," says the Employ- Mobile Training Teams, small groups of mili-
ee Procurement manual. tary intelligence officers, were dispatched to
One manual even cast suspicion on the do the training. Foreign officers were also al-
electoral process. Insurgents "can resort to
lowed to take courses at U.S. intelligence
subversion of the government by means of
schools here and abroad.
elections. . . . Insurgent leaders participate
It is uncertain from the documents when
in political contests as candidates for govern-
ment office," it said. the program ended. The 1991 memo by Maj.
The first Joint Foreign Intelligence Assis- Husband said he believed the program was
tance Program project was launched on Oki- halted "by the Carter administration for fear
nawa in 1965 as the U.S. ground and air the training would contribute to human
campaign in Vietnam took off. rights violations in other countries."
"This school is in an excellent position to But in 1980, President Jimmy Carter's
meet requests for intelligence training sub- last year in office, the annual review by the
mined by" military advisers and attaches in office of the assistant chief of staff for intelli-
"the Pacific and Southeast Asia area," a 1965 gence, then responsible for the program,
informational brochure on the program noted that "major problems encountered [in
states. the intelligence assistance program] were
One counterintelligence official told Army the revolution in Iran which degraded [the
officials in 1991 that she believed the pro- program] and other U.S. efforts; and further
gram might be linked to the Phoenix pro- personnel reductions in attache and security
gram, a U.S. military and CIA undertaking assistance organizations."