The New Cold War History
Odd Arne Westad, editor
This series focuses on new interpretations of the Cold War era made possible by the opening of Soviet, East European, Chinese, and other archives. Books in the series based on multilingual and multiarchival research incorporate interdisciplinary insights and new conceptual frameworks that place historical scholarship in a broad, international context.
A complete list of books published in The New Cold War History is available at www.uncpress.unc.edu.
This book was published with the assistance of the Authors Fund of the University of North Carolina Press.
2018 The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
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Jacket illustrations: Kalashnikov rifles iStockphoto.com/by_nicholas.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Burke, Kyle (Historian), author.
Title: Revolutionaries for the right : anticommunist internationalism and paramilitary warfare in the Cold War / Kyle Burke.
Other titles: New Cold War history.
Description: Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, [2018] | Series: The new Cold War history | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017053872 | ISBN 9781469640730 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469640747 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Anti-communist movementsHistory20th century. | Anti-communist movementsInternational cooperation. | ConservatismHistory20th century. | RevolutionsHistory20th century. | Paramilitary forcesHistory20th century. | Cold War.
Classification: LCC HX44 .B773 2018 | DDC 324.1/309045dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017053872
Portions of chapter 2 appeared in Radio Free Enterprise: The Manion Forum and the Making of the Transnational Right in the 1960s, Diplomatic History 40, no. 1 (January 2016): 11139.
For Nina and Norah
Contents
Abbreviations
The following abbreviations are used throughout the text.
ABN | | | Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations |
ACAKFF | | | American Committee to Aid Katanga Freedom Fighters |
ACC | | | American-Chilean Council |
ACWF | | | American Council for World Freedom |
AFIO | | | Association of Former Intelligence Officers |
APACL | | | Asian Peoples Anti-Communist League |
ARENA | | | Alianza Republicana Nacional (El Salvador) |
ARCI | | | Aide Refugee Chinese Intellectuals |
ASC | | | American Security Council |
CACC | | | Christian Anti-Communist Crusade |
CAL | | | Confederacin Anticomunista Latinoamericana |
CCNA | | | Consejo Chileno de Norte Amrica |
CFA | | | Committee for a Free Afghanistan |
CMA | | | Civilian Military Assistance |
COINTELPRO | | | Counter Intelligence Program (FBI) |
CORU | | | Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations |
DINA | | | Direccin de Inteligencia Nacional (Chile) |
FDN | | | Fuerza Democrtica Nicaragense |
FEMACO | | | Federacin Anticomunista Mexicana |
FMLN | | | Farabundo Mart Liberacin Nacional (El Salvador) |
FNLA | | | Frente Nacional de Libertao de Angola |
FORI | | | Friends of Rhodesian Independence |
FSLN | | | Frente Sandinista Liberacin Nacional (Nicaragua) |
GMD | | | Guomindang |
HOP | | | Hrvatski oslobodilaki pokret (Croatian Liberation Movement) |
IACDC | | | Inter-American Confederation for the Defense of the Continent |
ISI | | | Inter-Services Intelligence (Pakistan) |
JCR | | | Junta Coordinadora Revolucionaria |
KPNLF | | | Khmer Peoples National Liberation Front (Cambodia) |
MLN | | | Movimiento de Liberacin Nacional (Guatemala) |
MPLA | | | Movimento Popular de Libertao de Angola |
OSS | | | Office of Strategic Services |
OUN | | | Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists |
SOG | | | U.S. Army Studies and Observation Group/Special Operations Group |
UNITA | | | Unio Nacional para a Independncia Total de Angola |
USCWF | | | United States Council for World Freedom |
WACL | | | World Anti-Communist League |
WYCF | | | World Youth Crusade for Freedom |
YAF | | | Young Americans for Freedom |
ZANU | | | Zimbabwe African National Union |
ZAPU | | | Zimbabwe African Peoples Union |
Revolutionaries for the Right
Introduction
On September 5, 1985, retired U.S. Army general John K. Singlaub, a thirty-year veteran of special operations, took the stage at an upscale hotel in Dallas, Texas. In the glow of crystal chandeliers and television camera lights, Singlaub straightened his back and surveyed the crowd.
Giving voice to an old idea that had circulated throughout anticommunist circles in the United States and abroad for decades, Singlaub firmly believed that armed civilians in communist countries were the key to winning the Cold War. By 1985, the Reagan administration had embraced that vision, enacting a plan to roll back communism through foreign paramilitaries in half a dozen countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. However, even though the administration had thrown its support behind these scattered movements, Singlaub was convinced that real change would only come from outside the state. Many Americans opposed their countrys involvement in far-flung conflicts, prompting Congress to pass laws constraining the administrations covert wars in Angola and Nicaragua. Legislators were threatening to do the same in other wars. Thus, Singlaub proclaimed that the WACL and its affiliated organizations would coordinate private aid for anticommunist guerrillas while U.S. congressmen vacillated. He told one reporter, We are trying to organize programs of support to anti-Communist resistance movements to fill in the gaps left by the idiocies of Congress.