Matthew Sweet - Operation Chaos: The Vietnam Deserters Who Fought the CIA, the Brainwashers, and Themselves

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For David Sweet

This is a strange story and a populous one. Some of its protagonists lost their grip on their own identity. Some of them are not what they seem. This guide will help you decide who youre dealing with.

THE DESERTERS

BILL JONES

Former seminarian. Deserted from his army base in Germany in 1968 and became the leader of the American Deserters Committee in Stockholm. Now believes that the Queen of England secretly rules the world. Look out for him at White House press briefings.

CLIFF GADDY

Schoolboy prodigy from Danville, Virginia. Athlete. Cellist. Good teeth. Deserted from the Army Security Agency base at Fort Devens. World-renowned expert on the mind of Vladimir Putin.

WARREN HAMERMAN

Draft dodger. Poet. Beret wearer. Left Baltimore for Paris, where he joined the French Union of American Deserters and Draft Resisters. Fled to Stockholm in the summer of 1968.

JIM MCGOURTY

A pseudonym. Clerk in the Marine Corps. Deserted to Sweden from Camp Pendleton in 1968. Returned to the States on a false passport. Arrested after his involvement in a campaign to destroy the Communist Party USA with martial arts.

GEORGE CARRANO

A hustler. A mystery. Escaped the draft on an obscure technicality. Son of an army colonel. Later worked for the New York transit system.

CHUCK ONAN

Born on a military base in Germany. Grew up in the Chicago projects. Joined the U.S. Marines, deserted to Sweden via Iceland. Now a fan of medicinal marijuana and the alt-right.

MARK SHAPIRO

Army corporal from Minnesota. Deserted from Vietnam in 1968, traveling from Japan in the hold of a Russian trawler with five other deserters, namely

EDWIN ARNETT

Army specialist. Member of the Moron Corps. Claimed to have witnessed atrocities, and said so on Russian television. The first Vietnam deserter to be court-martialed in America.

PHILIP CALLICOAT

Cooks helper on the USS Reeves. Volatile. Untrustworthy. Informed on his fellow deserters. Former member of the Singing Callicoats, a Pentecostal variety act.

KENNETH GRIGGS

Also known as Kim Jin-Su. Korean war orphan adopted by a couple from Boise, Idaho.

JOE KMETZ

New York GI. Spent too much time in isolation and lost his knack for the English language.

TERRY WHITMORE

Decorated marine from Memphis, Mississippi. Deserted via Tokyo and Moscow with Mark Shapiro. A deserter with a movie career.

RAY JONES III

Army private from Pontiac, Michigan. The first deserter to seek asylum in Sweden, arriving with his wife and son in 1967. Ballet coach. Sharp dresser.

THE INTREPID FOUR

The Beatles of Vietnam desertion. A quartet of serving sailors smuggled from Tokyo to Moscow by Japanese anti-war activists. They landed in Stockholm at the very end of 1967. Their names were John Barilla, Michael Lindner, Rick Bailey, and Craig Anderson. But in this story, the most important is

CRAIG ANDERSON

Californian. Now known as the author Will Hart. His big idea: the CIA has a base on the moon.

ROB ARGENTO

Deserter from Miami Beach, Florida. Arrived in Sweden on the day the American Deserters Committee was born.

JOHN ASHLEY

Son of a Pentagon official. Gifted writer. One of many drug users among the deserters.

WALTER MARSHALL

Also known, briefly, as Jesus Zeus Lorenzo Mungi. Reform school runaway.

JAMES DOTSON

Texas deserter used as bait to trap a suspected CIA agent.

FRED PAVESE

Dope-smoking former artilleryman from New York State. Guitar player. Porn performer.

THOMAS TAYLOR

Painter. Hawaiian exile. Would file the author of this book in the section below.

THE SPIES

RICHARD OBER

The chief of Operation Chaos, the CIAs campaign against the deserters, the New Left, and the Black Panthers. Other spies thought him paranoid and secretive.

HARRY ROSITZKE

Freewheeling, ungovernable, crossword-loving, Brooklyn-born intelligence officer. Attached to Operation Chaos in its early days.

PETUNIA AND MHYIELD

Code names for Operation Chaos assets who spied on the deserters.

GUNNAR EKBERG

A Swedish James Bond. Handy with a harpoon. Excellent liar, competent burglar.

FRANK RAFALKO

The man at the Black Panther desk of Operation Chaos. The only officer on the project who has spoken publicly about his experiences.

THE REBELS AND REVOLUTIONARIES

MICHAEL VALE

The minence grise of the American Deserters Committee (though some preferred to think of him as its Rasputin). Interested in travel, Trotsky, and Soviet psychiatry. Suspected of being a CIA infiltrator.

BO BURLINGHAM

Also known as Arlo Jacobs. Weatherman. Student radical. Organizer of a deserters group in Paris. Also suspected of being a CIA infiltrator.

THOMAS LEE HAYES

Episcopalian minister. Padre to the deserters.

LYNDON LAROUCHE

Also known as Lyn Marcus or Hermyle Golthier Jr. Quaker. Management consultant to the shoe industry. Cult leader. Worlds greatest economist. Founder of the National Caucus of Labor Committees.

CAROL WHITE

Also known as Carol Larrabee. Math teacher. Socialist. Bird-watcher. Partner of Lyndon LaRouche before her marriage to

CHRIS WHITE

British student socialist. Unwilling lead in the Manchurian Candidate Scare of 197374.

BILL ENGDAHL

Mild-mannered conspiracy theorist. Walks with crutches. Now a pundit on Russia Today.

MICHELE LLOYD

Daughter of a military family. Persuaded her husband to desert to Sweden. First wife of the man we know as Jim McGourty.

CHRISTINA NELSON

New York congressional candidate. Second wife of the man we know as Jim McGourty.

MAX WATTS

Also known as Max Cook or Thomas Schwaetzer. Adventurer. Trotskyist. Organized safe houses for deserters in Paris.

CLANCY SIGAL

Novelist, activist, Hollywood agent. Stationmaster of the London safe house.

KAREN FABEC

Hippie chick from Pittsburgh. Free-spirited, good singing voice. Narrowly avoided spending her twenties in a Moroccan jail.

NANCY AND EDWARD SPANNAUS

Married students studying at the Columbia School of Social Work. LaRouchian loyalists.

KERSTIN TEGIN

Psychology student from Uppsala, Sweden. Leader of the European Workers Party. Taught at the Catholic University of America until 2017.

VICTOR GUNNARSSON

Right-wing extremist. Fantasist. Lothario. Pool player. Suspected assassin.

THE HOSTS

BERTIL SVAHNSTRM

Former foreign correspondent. Old-school peace campaigner. Vice chair of the Swedish Committee for Vietnam. Awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1970. Despised by Michael Vale and Bill Jones.

KE SANDIN

Peace activist who gave deserters the use of his spare bedroom. Tried to stop Edwin Arnett giving himself up at the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm.

SVEN KEMPE

Textile importer and philanthropist. Donated a farm to Michael Vale and the American Deserters Committee.

HANS GRAN FRANCK

Tall, soft-spoken lawyer to the deserters. Head of the Swedish section of Amnesty International. Cousin of