Government Secrecy and the “Continuity of Government” Plan

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Thu Oct-22-09 05:02 PM
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Government Secrecy and the “Continuity of Government” Plan

If you believe in democracy as a broad concept – the concept that a peoples’ government should be accountable and responsive to them – then you must be against absolute or near absolute secrecy in government.

Yet in the United States of America, a nation whose people consider their country to be a democracy, too many Americans accept the idea that their government must have the power of absolute secrecy in order to protect them against external enemies.

We see it in the widespread acceptance that our government must have: the power to monitor communications between American citizens even without the minimal requirement of first obtaining a warrant; the power to detain people without allowing them to challenge the validity of their detention; the power to hold elections with voting machines that count votes that can’t be recounted or verified; the power to hold secret meetings (as with Dick Cheney’s secret Energy Task Force); and more generally, the power of an American president to determine any government deliberation whatsoever http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/10/obama/">to be secret, based on his say-so alone, that to publicize the deliberation would pose a risk to “national security”.

The acceptance of near absolute secrecy by government is based upon two beliefs: that our government needs that power in order to protect us against external enemies; and that our government would never abuse that power by acting against our vital interests. I don’t hold either of those beliefs. The idea that a nation that spends almost as much money on its military as the rest of the world combined needs the power of absolute secrecy in order to protect its citizens seems absurd to me. And the idea that we can always count on our government to have benign intentions towards us is beyond absurd.

Well, we can’t have it both ways. We can have a democracy. Or we can have a nation in which our government has the power of near absolute secrecy. But we can’t have both – for the very simple reason that a government that is allowed to operate in absolute secrecy has enough power over its citizens to deny them effective control over their country and their lives – if it so chooses.

Secrecy and shadow government

The CIA was created by the National Security Act of 1947. Initially envisioned as an information gathering agency, it evolved into an agency that participated in the overthrow of numerous democratically elected foreign governments and their replacement with repressive dictatorships. This occurred in Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Greece, and many other sovereign nations. These acts remained secret for many years, and when they finally did come to light they received little news coverage in the United States. It is likely that even today most Americans don’t know about these atrocities, or if they do they believe that there must have been some benign reason for them.

These are acts that no freedom loving people would tolerate. But the secrecy surrounding them, in combination with the human tendency to psychologically deny distasteful things (otherwise known as the ‘ostrich syndrome’), ensured that there has been little outrage in our country against them.

Moreover, it would be a big mistake to assume that an organization engaged in such dark and secret activities would necessarily remain accountable and responsive even to the government and the people whom it is tacitly presumed to serve. Indeed, there have been several CIA agents who became disenchanted with their work, quit the Agency, and then wrote whistle-blowing books in which they noted that the CIA had become largely unaccountable to the U.S. government that it was supposed to serve. Two examples of whistle-blowing CIA agents are Philip Agee (“Inside the Company”) and Victor Marchetti (“The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence”)

Plans to invade and occupy Cuba

While John F. Kennedy was President, the CIA and the U.S. military made several attempts to get our country involved in war with Cuba. First they convinced the President to give them a green light on a secret invasion of Cuba by a CIA-supported group of Cuban exiles. The invasion occurred at the Bay of Pigs during April 15-19, 1961. When it didn’t work out as the CIA had promised, they urged Kennedy to send in the U.S. Air Force – which he refused to do, for fear of inciting a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

A year later, on March 16, 1962, Kennedy’s Joint Chiefs of Staff presented “Operation Northwoods” to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. James Bamford described the plan in “Body of Secrets – Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency”. Operations Northwoods included plans to launch “a wave of violent terrorism” in several American cities and blame it on Castro, as an excuse for war. The idea was vetoed by McNamara and Kennedy.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 18-29, 1962, Kennedy’s military advisors again aggressively tried to convince him to invade Cuba. Kennedy instead opted to resolve the crisis peacefully.

On March 19, 1963, the CIA sponsored Cuban exile group, Alpha 66, attacked a Soviet ship in Cuban waters. Further incidents followed, and Kennedy eventually had to use his military to stop the attacks, lest they lead to a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union.

The above episodes can be seen as part of a single process: an attempt by a shadow government to force a U.S. president into war. It took great strength and courage on President Kennedy’s part to repeatedly resist those efforts – which could otherwise have led us into a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

Plans for “Continuity of Government”

During the Reagan administration, plans for so called “Continuity of Government” (COG) were greatly expanded. “Continuity of Government” is a benign sounding name. Almost all Americans would agree that it is important to have plans to continue our government in the event of a national emergency. But why do the plans have to be so secret? Peter Dale Scott explains in his book, “The Road to 9/11 – Wealth, Empire and the Future of America”:

“Continuity of government” is a reassuring title. It would be more honest, however, to call it a “change of government” plan, since according to Alfonso Chardy of the Miami Herald, the plan called for “suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the government over to FEMA, emergency appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments, and declaration of martial law during a national crisis.” The plan also gave the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which had been involved in drafting it, sweeping new powers, including internment.

Kathy Gill provides an overview of the history of “Continuity of Government” plans. Following the 9/11 attacks on our country, the Bush administration expanded the COG plans quite a bit. Of particular concern is the fact that, after the plan was reported by the U.S. press in March 2002, U.S. Congressional leaders said that “they didn’t know President Bush had established a shadow government”.

Also of great interest and concern is the involvement of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in these plans over a long period of time. First of all, they were key actors in the revving up of the COG plans during the Reagan administration. Secondly, according to Andrew Cockburn, they were even active with the plan during the Clinton administration – apparently without President Clinton’s knowledge. From Peter Dale Scott’s book, Cockburn speaking about the COG plans during the Clinton presidency:

In earlier times the specialists selected to run the “shadow government” had been drawn from across the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans alike. But now, down in the bunkers, Rumsfeld found himself in politically congenial company, the players’ roster being filled almost exclusively with Republican hawks. “… They’d meet, do the exercise, but also sit around and castigate the Clinton administration in the most extreme way,” a former Pentagon official with direct knowledge of the phenomenon told me. “You could say this was a secret government-in-waiting. The Clinton administration… had no idea what was going on”.

Mount Weather and the government-in-waiting

In 1976 Richard Pollock reported in Progressive Magazine the existence of the mysterious “Mount Weather”, located near Bluemont, Virginia:

Mount Weather is virtually an underground city, according to former personnel interviewed by Pollock… equipped with such amenities as private apartments and dormitories, streets and sidewalks, cafeterias and hospitals, a water purification system, power plant and general office buildings, its own mass transit system… Mount Weather is the self-sustaining underground command center for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The facility is the operational center – the hub – of approximately 100 other Federal Relocation Centers… Together this network of underground facilities constitutes the backbone of America's "Continuity of Government" program. In the event of nuclear war, declaration of martial law, or other national emergency, the President, his cabinet and the rest of the Executive Branch would be "relocated" to Mount Weather… According to the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights hearings in 1975, Congress has almost no knowledge and no oversight – budgetary or otherwise – on Mount Weather…

Pollock described the system as a government-in-waiting:

High-level Governmental sources, speaking in the promise of strictest anonymity, told me that each of the Federal departments represented at Mount Weather is headed by a single person on whom is conferred the rank of a Cabinet-level official. Protocol even demands that subordinates address them as "Mr. Secretary." Each of the Mount Weather "Cabinet member" is apparently appointed by the White House and serves an indefinite term... many through several Administrations....The facility attempts to duplicate the vital functions of the Executive branch of the Administration…. As might be expected, there is also an Office of the Presidency at Mount Weather…. which regularly receives top secret national security estimates…

And the whole system is shrouded in strictest secrecy, despite the fact that we pay for it with our taxes:

Officially, Mount Weather (and its budget) does not exist. FEMA refuses to answer inquiries about the facility…

Disturbing “coincidences” relating to the COG

Scott notes two “arresting coincidences” in his book, regarding the COG. First is the fact that George W. Bush had the COG system “essentially reconstituted … as a terrorism task force” following the appointment of Dick Cheney to head a terrorism task force. Then, just four months later, following the September 11 attacks, he had the opportunity to implement those plans.

The other coincidence was Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force – also a secret. As reported by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker magazine, she discovered:

a secret NSC document dated Feb. 3, 2001 – only two weeks after Bush took office – instructing NSC officials to cooperate with Cheney's task force, which was "melding" two previously unrelated areas of policy: "the review of operational policies towards rogue states" and "actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields."

Not long after that we had our “rogue state”, along with its oil and gas fields.

Relevance to today

This is all very complicated. And the complexity is greatly magnified by the secrecy that surrounds it – notwithstanding the fact that some outstanding journalists have from time to time shone a light on some of the pieces. I certainly can’t put my head around it. But the one thing I feel certain of is that there are a great many very important projects going on, which concern us greatly, and which we pay for, but without our input or knowledge. I certainly don’t know the precise extent of this. But to the extent that this kind of stuff happens, our country is not a democracy.

A recent DU post by seafan discussed how our military has aggressively worked to pressure President Obama into war, in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran. To what extent that pressure has led to Obama’s escalation of our war in Afghanistan, and to what extent it will lead the Obama administration into future wars is an open question at this time. If President Obama has allowed the military hawks to pressure him into escalating our war in Afghanistan, he certainly wouldn’t be the first. Even President Kennedy, who valiantly resisted his military and CIA, and probably died for doing so, allowed them to pressure him into giving a green light to a CIA-sponsored invasion of Cuba and sending 15,000 “advisors” to Vietnam.

But despite all that we don’t know, some things are virtually certain. Most Americans do not want war, and our livelihoods are gravely threatened by it. No only does it kill and maim our young men and women, but we ruin our international reputation, put the security of our citizens at grave risk, and lose trillions of dollars in resources that could otherwise go towards health care or other much needed social programs. But as long as the cult of secrecy remains an acceptable principle of government policy, the war hawks, warmongers, war profiteers – whatever you want to call them – will continue to have their way. We will continue to use the taxes of ordinary Americans to pay for unnecessary, immoral and illegal wars. We will continue to bailout mega-corporations and the billionaires who own and run them. And we will continue to ignore the most pressing needs of ordinary Americans.