The American Security Council (ASC), not to be confused with the National Security Council, recently released "Attack on the Americas!," a made-for-television film decrying the "red menace" next door. The film is part of a $5,000,000 television campaign called Project Survival, whose stated intention is to "waken and activate all Americans for a change in U.S. defense policy." "Attack on the Americas!," previewed in December at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, will be offered by the ASC to all commerical stations in the coun- try. As the film's sponsor, the Coalition for Peace Through Strength, an ASC spin-off, states: "The objective is at- least five showings in each of the more than 200 television market areas." Lest this goal not be taken seriously, Project Survival's first film, "The SALT Syndrome," has been televised over 2000 times by local stations nationwide. This film was so inaccurate and biased that the Pentagon itself was led to of- ficially refute its content. "War Without Winners," the impressive anti-nuclear-war film by the Center for Defense Information, was prompted by the extensive airing of 'The SALT Syndrome." Right Wing TV The original working title of "At- tack on the Americas!" was MarlApr 1981 "Caribbean Pearl Harbor." Accor- ding to the ASC, the film "reports on the Brezhnev-Castro drive to turn the Caribbean into a Soviet lake by a combination of Communist-sponsored revolution and U.S. government opposition to anti-communist leadership in the area." The film argues for U.S. support to unpopular military dictatorships in El Salvador, Guatemala and elsewhere in the Americas. It claims, despite widespread fin- dings to the contrary by 'interna- tional organizations, church groups and the U.S. government, that these governments have not violated human rights. The film concludes with a plea for increas- ed military strength in order to pro- tect the United States' geopolitical and economic interests in Central America and the Caribbean. Biased and distorted, "Attack on the Americas!" is such a poorly done film that even a member of Congress who agreed with its message noted, "It is not as well done as 'The SALT Syndrome."' Already shown at least thirty times on public television, the film has been temporarily withdrawn for revisons, but a massive campaign of cross-country television show- ings is planned for April. Could another reason for the film's withdrawal be that copies are busy being shown to incoming Reagan administration personnel and new members of Congress? Read the script. See the film. Listen to the President's and Con- gress' latest calls to unleash the intelligence community, beef up military strength, and send in- creased military aid and advisers to the Junta in El Salvador. The feverish rise of anti-communism has come from somewhere, and one source is certainly the ASC, with its "disinformation" cam- paign to win over first the ad- ministration, and then the hearts and minds of the American people. The American Security Council "Attack on the Americas!" was produced by the American Securi- ty Council Foundation for the Coalition for Peace Through Strength, a bipartisan alliance of 177 national organizations, 230 members of Congress, and other pro-defense leaders across the country. According to many, the American Security Council is the military-industrial complex which President Eisenhower explicitly warned against in his farewell ad- dress. Leadership of the ASC and its incestuously close relatives, the Center for Strategic and Interna- tional Studies of Georgetown University and the Coalition for Peace Through Strength include numerous retired high-ranking military men (including a number of former Chiefs of Staff), prime defense contractors, and hard-line anti-communist politicians, as well as a number of former CIA and other intelligence personnel-in short all the "good old boys" cold warriors. General Electric, among other corporations, is a member of the ASC. Remember Ronald Reagan selling GE products years ago on your television screen? Today we 37te * update update . update a) E z Haig's first press conference-stirring the embers of anti-communist hysteria. have a President, a Secretary of State and an Ambassador to the United Nations, "brought to you by ASC." In fact, Ronald Reagan, Alexander Haig and Jeane Kirkpatrick are all featured pro- minently in "Attack on the Americas!" Running its National Security "Academy" in Washington, D.C., and courses for credit through Georgetown University's School for Summer and Continuing Education, the ASC's central 38 headquarters are on an old rolling estate in Boston, Virginia. Here the ASC plays computerized war games, holds national security seminars and meetings on grounds complete with a small lan- ding field, and runs a large printing plant and mass mailing facility, a private library and ultra-modern computerized offices. Having at- tempted to obtain Senator McCar- thy's old lists among others, the ASC is also reputed to have the largest list of "subversives" in the country. Lest the ASC lose members to a nuclear war, it provides a study on "how to maximize your chances for surviving nuclear war using tools and equipment to be found around the average home" called Nuclear War Survival Skills. ASC Special Tours The latest caper sponsored by the ASC occurred in mid-March 1981 when they brought five high- ranking South African military in- NACLA Reportupdate *update update update telligence officers into the country in flagrant violation of U.S. policy. Following the U.N.-sponsored arms embargo against South Africa the State Department pro- hibited contacts with senior South African military officers. Never- theless, these ASC-hosted illegals briefed not only the ASC staff on South Africa, but also made a "courtesy call" to the Defense In- telligence Agency, and a staff member of the National Security Council. They also met with Kirkpatrick, who incredulously claims to have been ignorant of their identities. While attempting to enter the State Department, one officer was recognized as being a persona non grata, and the group was refused entrance. This pattern of bringing persona non grata into the U.S. capital for surprise visits and press con- ferences has occurred over and over again. During the Carter ad- ministration, the ASC clandestinely brought in former Major Roberto D'Aubisson, second in command of Salvadorean Army intelligence prior to the 1979 coup. Trained at the International Police Academy in Washington, D.C. and claiming close rapport with U.S. conser- vatives, D'Aubisson denies fre- quent charges that he is the leader of the rightest death squads in El Salvador. Nevertheless, the ASC sneaked D'Aubisson into the United States at a time when the Immigration and Naturalization Service was directed to prevent his entrance. Furthermore, when President Carter relieved Major General John Singlaub of his position as Chief of Staff, U.S. Forces in South Korea, the ASC engineered and financed a speaking tour, held a press conference similar to D'Aubisson's right in the shadow MarlApr 1981 of the Capitol, and developed a public relations campaign to give Singlaub a voice across the coun- try. The Counterattack Measures to counter "Attack on the Americas!" were small initially, but are growing, bubbling up here and there. In January, the Center for New Creation, a small justice and peace center "for Northern Virginia and beyond," invited a group of human rights activists from the religious, political, educa- tional and grass-roots sectors in Washington, D.C. to view the film. Appalled by what they saw, those gathered formed the ad hoc Coali- tion for Human Rights in Central America. As Marie Grasso, a founder of the Coalition stated, "We viewed 'Attack on the Americas!' and found it biased in the extreme. Many members of this coalition have had personal experiences in the Caribbean, par- ticularly in Central America; and their regular communication with the struggling poor in Latin America paints an entirely dif- ferent picture." Composed of over 25 in- dividuals and Washington-based organizations, the ad hoc Coalition asked the Center for New Creation to develop an information packet to critique the film, provide background information on the ASC, and supply information on the Fairness Doctrine, plus a list of alternative films and other resources to counter the film's perversions. A letter signed by the participating individuals and groups was also sent to those television stations who have shown or intend to show "Attack on the Americas!," demanding that, under the Fairness Doctrine, they air an alternative viewpoint. The Fairness Doctrine, an FCC provision, requires stations to air opposing views on public issues. The Center for New Creation's information packet includes a cri- tique of the film prepared by Philip Wheaton, Director of EPICA. As Wheaton points out: "The film has a double message or argument ... (first) a rhetorical, redbait- ing warning against the steadily ly growing and intentional strategy of the Soviet Union to take over the Caribbean basin and to march inexorably northward through Cen- tral America, country by country, until they are at our border. Thus the Americas are 'under siege' and through Cuban intervention, the Soviets intend to 'slash' the Americas in half. The second message," continues Wheaton, "is an attack on the Carter ad- ministration's human rights philosophy as naive." "The primary distortion," Wheaton observes, is that "there is neither recognition nor analysis of the social inequities which are the cause of the social upheavals in Central America and the Carib- bean, nor that these inequities are due to the oppressive and ex- ploitive role of the ruling classes in specific countries." One glaring example of the type of distortions that run throughout the film is a scene in which the overvoice decries the sufferings of the people caused by communist guerrilla terrorists while showing the well-known news footage of the government massacre of mourners at the funeral of Ar- chbishop Romero, killed a year ago this March 24th in El Salvador. Although the ASC film deals with other Central American and Caribbean countries, the Coalition for Human Rights in Central America considers Glen Silber's 39update *update update update "El Salvador: Another Vietnam?" to be an excellent partial response to "Attack on the Americas!" All twenty-six Public Broadcasting System (PBS) stations around the country have the Silber film, and the Coalition urges people to call their local PBS station to express interest in broacasting (or re- broadcasting) "El Salvador: Another Vietnam?" With John A. Bushnell, acting Deputy Assistant of State for Inter- American Affairs, complaining that reporters are overplaying their accounts of El Salvador developments; the White House opposing Bushnell's view; Presi- dent Reagan denying com- parisons between El Salvador and Vietnam; and with the U.S. sending advisers to El Salvador, it appears that "Attack on the Americas!" is indeed helping to make truth the first casualty of war.
