
Subject: FEMA & MARTIAL LAW
Dated  : 19 Jan 91  18:32:29
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 From: Covert Action Information Bulletin, #33 (Winter 1990). 
 

 THE RISE OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY STATE: FEMA and the NSC 
 by Diana Reynolds 
 

 CIVIL SECURITY PLANNING

 Since WWII, the U.S. government has had contingency plans in
 preparation for a large scale disaster or attack. However, during
 the last twenty-five years--beginning with civil unrest at the
 height of the Vietnam War--the government's plans have
 increasingly on focused ways of controlling political dissent.

 On October 30, 1969 President Richard Nixon issued Executive
 Order 11490, "Assigning Emergency Preparedness Functions to
 Federal Departments and Agencies," which consolidated some 21
 operative Executive Orders and two Defense Mobilization Orders
 issued between 1951 and 1966 on a variety of emergency
 preparedness matters.

 In 1976 President Gerald Ford ordered the Federal Emergency
 Preparedness Agency (FEPA) to develop plans to establish
 government control of the mechanisms of productions and
 distribution of energy sources, wages and salaries, credit and
 the flow of money in American financial institutions in any
 (heretofore undefined) "national emergency." This
 Executive Order (EO 11921) also indicated that, when a state of
 emergency is declared by the President, Congress could not review
 the matter for a period of six months.

 Even arch-conservative activist Howard J. Ruff was quick to point
 out that, since the enactment of EO 11490, "The only thing
 standing between us and a dictatorship is the good character of
 the President and the lack of a crisis severe enough that the
 public would stand still for it."

 While Ruff thought a national emergency might be used to destroy
 the free markets in the U.S. and take away the C.B. radios and
 guns of Americans, <The Washington Afro-American> was alarmed
 for more rational and obvious reasons. In an editorial, the paper
 repeated Ruff's warning:

  "Executive Order No. 11490 is real, and only the lack of a
  crisis big enough, a president willing enough, and a public
  aroused enough to permit it to be invoked, separates us from a
  possible dictatorship, brought about under current law, waiting to
  be implemented in the event of circumstances which can be
  construed as a `national emergency.'"

 President Carter evidently did not share this concern and, in
 1977, he signed Executive Order 12148 which created the Federal
 Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to replace the Federal
 Emergency Preparedness Agency. This Presidential Directive
 mandated an interface between the Department of Defense (DOD) and
 FEMA for civil defense planning and funding.

 When Ronald Reagan came to power he gave FEMA vastly expanded
 executive emergency powers and appointed retired National Guard
 General Louis O. Giuffrida as his "emergency czar."
 Giuffrida's creation of contingency emergency plans to round up
 "militant negroes" while he was at the Naval War College
 caught the attention of then-Governor of California Reagan and his
 executive secretary Edwin Meese III.

 As Governor, Reagan called on Giuffrida to design Operation Cable
 Splicer. Cable Splicer I, II and III were martial law plans to
 legitimize the arrest and detention of anti-Vietnam war activists
 and other political dissidents.

 In 1971, Governor Reagan, with a $425,000 grant from the
 Federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, established
 a counterterrorism training center--the California Specialized
 Training Institute (CSTI)--and made Giuffrida its commandant.

 Shortly after he assumed the directorship of FEMA in 1981,
 Giuffrida had flooded high-level FEMA posts with friends from CSTI
 and the military police, had created a Civil Security Division of
 FEMA, and had established a Civil Defense Training Center in
 Emmitsburg, Maryland--based on the CSTI model. By 1984, the
 Center had trained one thousand civil defense personnel in
 survival techniques, counterterrorism and military police
 methods.

 From February to July of 1982, President Reagan signed a series of
 National Security Decision Directives (NSDD)--presidential
 decisions on national security objectives--on civil defense
 policy and emergency mobilization preparedness. While Reagan's
 real U.S. civil defense policy is contained in the classified NSDD
 26, some of the law enforcement and public safety provisions of
 the policy are made public in NSDD 47. This National Security
 Decision Directive provides for an intensified counterintelligence
 effort at home and the maintenance of law and order in a variety
 of emergencies, particularly terrorist incidents, civil
 disturbances, and nuclear emergencies.

 Reagan gave the National Security Council (NSC) authority over the
 planning for civil defense policy with its expanded civil security
 powers. He mandated the creation of a senior-level
 interdepartmental board, the Emergency Mobilization Preparedness
 Board (EMPB), and charged it with responsibilities for policy and
 planning guidance, coordination of planning, resolution of issues,
 and monitoring progress.

 The members of the EMPB were the Assistant for National Security
 Affairs (as its Chair), the DOD's Secretary of Defense for Policy,
 the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and representatives
 from 10 other federal agencies. FEMA provided the staff, support
 secretariat and operational supervision for the EMPB and their
 working group on civil defense. According to then Secretary of
 Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, by February 1983, the EMPB had
 prepared--and the President had approved--a national policy
 statement on emergency mobilization preparedness.

 Oliver North served on the EMPB, having been assigned there from
 1982 to 1984 by former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane.
 General Giuffrida was there too, providing operational
 supervision. By forming the EMPB, Ronald Reagan made it possible
 for a small group of people, under the authority of the NSC, to
 wield enormous power. They, in turn, used this executive
 authority to change civil defense planning into a military/police
 version of civil security.

 MILITARY RULE

 In January of 1982, FEMA and the Department of Defense issued a
 joint paper entitled, "The Civil/Military Alliance in
 Emergency Management" which specified many of the provisions
 of Reagan's policy on emergency mobilization preparedness. This
 document indicates that FEMA had been given <carte blanche>
 emergency powers to acquire resources from federal and state
 agencies (including National Guard personnel) and the private
 sector (banking, communications, transportation, etc.) "for
 use in civil disturbance operations."

 Apparently General Frank S. Salcedo, Chief of FEMA's Civil
 Security Division and Giuffrida's former colleague at CSTI, wanted
 more. In 1983, in a workshop at the annual meeting of the Academy
 of Criminal Justice Sciences, Salcedo recommended expanding FEMA's
 power further in the areas of survivability training, research on
 imposing martial law, and the potential threat posed by foreign
 and domestic adversaries. As he saw it at least 100,000 U.S.
 citizens, from survivalists to tax protesters, were serious
 threats to civil security.

 Salcedo saw FEMA's new frontier in the protection of industrial
 and government leaders from assassination, and of civil and
 military installations from sabotage and/or attack, as well as the
 prevention of dissident groups from gaining access to U.S. opinion
 or a global audience in times of crisis.

 "THIS IS ONLY A TEST, REPEAT..."

 While improving capabilities to respond to civil security
 emergencies was for the most part a planning activity with the
 Reagan Administration, FEMA was also active in exercises to test
 these plans. In 1981, FEMA and DOD began a continuing tradition of
 biannual joint exercises to test civilian mo,bil,ization, civil
 security emergency and counterterrorism plans using such names as
 "Proud Saber/Rex-82," "Pre-Nest," and "Rex-84/Night Train."

 The Rex-84 Alpha Explan (Readiness Exercise 1984, Exercise Plan),
 indicates that FEMA in association with 34 other federal civil
 departments and agencies conducted a civil readiness exercise
 during April 5-13, 1984. It was conducted in coordination and
 simultaneously with a Joint Chiefs exercise, Night Train 84, a
 worldwide military command post exercise (including Continental
 U.S. Forces or CONUS) based on multi-emergency scenarios operating
 both abroad and at home. In the combined exercise, Rex-84 Bravo,
 FEMA and DOD led the other federal agencies and departments,
 including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service, the
 Treasury, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Veterans
 Administration through a gaming exercise to test military
 assistance in civil defense.

 The exercise anticipated civil disturbances, major demonstrations
 and strikes that would affect continuity of government and/or
 resource mobilization. To fight subversive activities, there was
 authorization for the military to implement government ordered
 movements of civilian populations at state and regional levels,
 the arrest of certain unidentified segments of the population, and
 the imposition of martial rule.

 Attorney General William French Smith finally became aware of the
 abuses of the Emergency Mobilization Preparedness Board operating
 under the NSC. He admonished McFarlane, Assistant to the
 President for National Security Affairs, who theoretically chaired
 the planning group. In a letter dated August 2, 1984, Smith
 responded to a request by the Office of Management and Budget
 (OMB) to review, for form and legality, a draft Executive Order
 revising the powerful EO 11490, assigning emergency preparedness
 functions to federal departments and agencies. The Attorney
 General said that apart from the legal review by the Office of
 Legal Counsel,

  "...I believe that the draft Executive Order raises
  serious substantive and public policy issues that should be
  further addressed before this proposal is submitted to the
  President. In short I believe that the role assigned to the
  Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on the revised
  Executive Order exceeds its proper function as a coordinating
  agency for emergency preparedness.

  "This Department and others have repeatedly raised 
  serious policy and legal objections to the creation of an
  `emergency czar' role for FEMA. Specific policy concerns regarding
  recent FEMA initiatives include the abandonment of the principle
  of `several' agency responsibility and the expansion of the
  definition of severe emergencies to encompass `routine' domestic
  law enforcement emergencies. Legal objections relate to the
  absence of Presidential or Congressional authorization for
  unilateral FEMA directives which seek to establish new Federal
  Government management structures or otherwise task Cabinet
  departments and other federal agencies.


 THE FALL OF FEMA

 Smith's letter signaled what seemed to be the beginning of the end
 for FEMA and Reagan's Emergency Mobilization Preparedness Board.
 Federal Bureau of Investigation Director William Webster had
 previously complained when FEMA's Director of Civil Security,
 General Salcedo, had intruded into the FBI's domestic intelligence
 jurisdiction under the rubric of counter terrorism. Salcedo was
 forced to turn over to Webster some 12,000 names he had been
 compiling on a list of potential threats to civil security.

 Furthermore, it came to light that while FEMA had been expending
 the lion's share of its energy and funding on building a civil
 security infrastructure, it had neglected its authorized civil
 defense role. On June 15, 1984, barely a month after Giuffrida
 filed his glowing accomplishment report with Meese, Robert Guffus,
 Inspector General of FEMA, wrote a draft report on FEMA's
 Comprehensive Cooperative Agreements (CCA) (with states) in civil
 defense preparedness.

 He concluded that management actions were needed to improve the
 effectiveness of programs with state and local governments. In his
 review of the CCAs he found inadequate FEMA management control,
 imprecise program guidelines and a lack of personnel resources.
 Programmatic and financial weaknesses were a result of fiscal
 mis-management, unclear assignment of responsibilities,
 overlapping job descriptions, inflated training figures, and lack
 of written procedures.

 McFarlane removed North from the EMPB and assigned him to help
 with conducting unconventional warfare in Nicaragua. Giuffrida
 resigned in 1985 after a House subcommittee charged that FEMA was
 being mismanaged, and it was publicized that Giuffrida had staffed
 FEMA with his military/police cronies and had allowed $170,000 of
 agency funds to be used to outfit a deluxe bachelor pad at the
 Civil Defense Training Academy at Emmitsburg. He now operates a
 security consulting firm in Washington, D.C. General Salcedo has
 moved on to be Presidential Liaison to Veterans Organizations at
 the Veterans Administration.

 There is some debate about what happened to the plans for a civil
 security emergency. There was a rumored joint investigation
 conducted by the Defense Department and the CIA into the
 unconstitutionality of planning for a civil security emergency by
 several government agencies. Supposedly, the two investigators,
 Special Forces Lt. Colonel Kvererdas and the CIA's William
 Buckley, prior to his fatal Beirut assignment, destroyed the plans
 and the exercise data.

 Some believe that much of the planning was incorporated into Vice
 President Bush's Report from his Task Force on Combatting
 Terrorism which has inspired civil security contingency planning
 at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service by an Alien
 Border Control (ABC) Committee. The working group within the INS
 was designing plans and programs regarding the control and removal
 of alien terrorists, potential terrorist aliens and those "who
 are likely to be supportive of terrorist activity within the
 U.S."

 The most obvious resting place for the material is the National
 Security Council. In 1987, Reagan signed another NSDD, number
 259, which superseded both NSDD 26, the secret civil defense plan
 of February 25, 1982 and the unclassified version dated March 16,
 1982. Even though the 1987 version is shorter and more vague than
 its predecessors, no significant changes are evident in civil
 defense planning and programs from the 1984 EMPB scenarios.

 Just before he left office, Reagan signed Executive Order 12656
 which assigned new emergency preparedness responsibilities.
 Reagan's final national security legacy to civil defense planning
 puts the NSC clearly in charge. In Section 104, EO 12656 states
 that the NSC is the principal forum for consideration of national
 security emergency preparedness policy and will arrange for
 Executive branch liaison with, and assistance to, the Congress and
 the Federal judiciary on national security emergency preparedness
 matters.

 The Director of FEMA has now been promoted to advisor to the NSC
 on mobilization preparedness, civil defense, continuity of
 government, technological disasters, "and other issues, as
 appropriate." The Director of FEMA is also authorized to
 assist in the implementation of national security emergency
 preparedness policy by coordinating federal departments and
 agencies; as well as state and local governments. The exercise
 program is to continue and plans and procedures "will be
 designed and developed to provide maximum flexibility to the
 President for his implementation of emergency actions."

 On the same day that Reagan signed EO 12656 he also signed the
 Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 which provided yet another in a series
 of get-tough-but-do-nothing drug policies produced by the Reagan
 Administration. If and when the Anti-Drug Abuse Act fails--a
 victim of underfunding and bureaucratic in-fighting--then
 Executive Order 12656 could become an historic document in the war
 on drugs.


 THE NATIONAL SECURITY STATE AND THE DRUG WAR

 The U.S. government's proposed "war on drugs" is one such
 case in which the U.S. government will have the authority to use
 the national security apparatus to suppress civil liberties. It
 may be the first opportunity to call into action the years of
 planning and expense used to develop the emergency preparedness
 network.

 The Anti-Drug Abuse Act was passed in the final hours of the 100th
 Congress, when incumbents were anxious to return to their
 districts in order to campaign and when public opinion was calling
 for drastic action in the war on drugs. The Act was quickly
 drafted by <ad hoc> congressional committees and private
 consultants, then passed by Congress without the usual legislative
 hearings and debate.

 The Act broadly defines the programs, goals, guidelines and
 appropriations for all the 58 federal departments plus the
 thousands of state and local agencies involved in the national war
 on drugs. Some provisions were made for drug education,
 prevention, treatment and rehabilitation, but much of the text
 focuses on the punitive measures to be taken by the government.

 The anti-drug policy authorizes the use of the U.S. military to
 assist in the drug war at home. If you live in federal housing or
 if you reside in large urban areas such as New York, Boston, Washington
 DC, or Los Angeles--where crime and addiction have
 turned neighborhoods into combat zones--this Act will authorize
 the military to fence off your streets, keep track of who comes
 from and goes to your home, stop and frisk you, your friends and
 family, and regularly inspect your home and belongings. If you or
 anyone who visits you is suspected by the authorities of using,
 selling or trafficking in any kind of illicit narcotic substance,
 you can be evicted from your home whether your landlord is the
 government or a private party.

 The Act increases state powers in the areas of government
 surveillance, intelligence gathering, and seizure of private property.
 It authorizes regional intelligence sharing centers, which
 not only compile statistics but provide contracts to states, local
 criminal justice agencies, and non-profit organizations for
 purposes of identifying, targeting and removing criminal
 conspiracies and activities spanning jurisdictional boundaries.

 The Justice Department is given the power to confiscate private
 property and deny state and federal entitlement by decree. Once
 caught, even casual marijuana users could be subject to the
 confiscation of their homes, cars, and bank accounts. The
 government seizure takes place through civil proceedings where the
 burden is on the defendant to prove his or her innocence, unlike
 the "innocent until proven guilty" due process guarantee
 of criminal proceedings.

 A NATIONAL DRUG CZAR

 William Bennett, as the Director of the Office of National Drug
 Policy, is an adviser to and voting member of the National
 Security Council. It is here in the NSC that the ultimate drug
 war could be fought. All it would take is a President determined
 enough, a Congress pliant enough, and people desperate enough for
 the drug war in America to be declared a national security
 emergency. If and when that happens, the NSC--as part of civil
 emergency preparedness--would be in charge of its implementation
 under the guidance of the President.

 A national security emergency would without a doubt decrease drug
 use in America. The government would be authorized to increase
 domestic intelligence and surveillance of U.S. citizens. State
 security measures would be enhanced by restricting the freedom of
 movement within the U.S. and granting the government authority to
 relocate large groups of civilians at will. The U.S. Continental
 Forces and a federalized National Guard could seal off borders and
 take control of U.S. airspace, all ports of entry, and interstate
 highways.

 It was James Madison's worst nightmare that a
 righteous faction would some day be strong enough to sweep away
 the constitutional restraints, designed by the framers to prevent
 the tyranny of centralized power, executive privilege and
 arbitrary government authority over the individual.

 These restraints, the balancing and checking of powers among branches
 and layers of government and the civil guarantees contained in the
 Bill of Rights would be the first casualties in a drug-induced
 national security state with Reagan's civil emergency preparedness
 unleashed.

 Nevertheless, there will be those who will welcome the National
 Security Council into the drug fray, believing that increasing
 state police powers to emergency levels is the only way left to
 fight America's enemy within. In the short run, a national
 security state would probably be a relief to those whose personal
 security and quality of life has been diminished by drugs or drug
 related crime. And as the general public watches the progression
 of institutional chaos and social decay, they too may be willing
 to pay the ultimate price: one drug-free America for 200 years of
 democracy.

                                     ###

 Diana Reynolds is a Research Assocaite and Program Director at the Edward 
R. Murrow Center, The Fletcher School, Tufts University. She is also an 
Assistant Professor of Politics, Bradford College and a Lecturer at 
Northeastern Univeristy. Research assistance for this article was provided 
by  Charles Haber.

 Thanks to the staff of Covert Action Information Bulletin for providing the 
disk for this article.

 The original article contained 33 footnotes. To obtain the complete article 
in print form, send $3.50 to: Covert Action Information Bulletin, PO Box 
50272, Washington, D.C. 20004. Specify issue #33 (Winter 1990).

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