Is the United States going to go the way of Italy, where prominent government and business leaders live in fear of murder, kidnapping, or bombings? And where we are all at the mercy of terrorists, some who are misguided lunatics and others who are professional cadres in cahoots with international criminals?
The FBI in New Jersey recently uncovered evidence that the FALN, a Puerto Rican terrorist band, has compiled a “target hit list” of 100 of the nation’s leading corporate executives and industrialists. The FALN has already claimed responsibility for more than 150 bombings in U.S. cities.
Did you know that the Secret Service, which has the responsibility for protecting the President, has recommended that he not visit certain American cities because intelligence about potential terrorists is so inadequate that an effective job of protecting him is not possible? We are glad the President is so well guarded, but what about the Americans who live in or visit those cities and have no Secret Service protection at all?
Our daily newspapers recite a constant parade of terrorist attacks on American citizens all over the world — Iran, Afghanistan, Colombia, even London. At least six U.S. Ambassadors abroad have been murdered. The growing epidemic of international terrorism could reach our own shores any day.
It is very curious that, in the face of terrorist threats and potential attacks, all the internal security agencies of Congress and the executive branch have been abolished.
Just as dangerous to the internal security of American citizens is the massive deterioration of law enforcement intelligence and law enforcement capabilities. Intelligence on extremist organizations is virtually nonexistent. Our law enforcement officials are precluded from preventive action and must merely “play catch-up ball” — try to find the criminals after they have killed their victims.
Many people believe that the Hanafi Muslim terrorist seizure in Washington, D.C. might have been prevented had the intelligence capabilities of the Washington police department not been destroyed by a City Council decision five years before which required that the city’s 15-man domestic intelligence unit be disbanded, its files destroyed, and all informant activities terminated.
As a result of Washington, D.C.’s decision to have zero preventive capability against terrorist crimes, one person was killed, another paralyzed for life, and several hundred citizens subjected to an ordeal that left them with long-term trauma. Who knows what fiendish tactics we will be subjected to in future months as a result of our zero security policy? Terrorism with nuclear bombs? Terrorism at nuclear plants? Bacteriological terrorism? Terrorism using other exotic instruments such as nerve gas?
Recognizing the failure of governmental agencies in either the legislative or executive branch to take preventive action to strengthen our internal security, a group of private citizens with extensive experience in this field, headed by Dr. Robert Morris, former chief counsel of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, has formed the National Committee to Restore Internal Security. In three days of citizen hearings conducted in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, the Committee heard shocking evidence about terrorists, spies, and subversives, and the failure to protect us against them.
Senator Orrin Hatch’s testimony to this committee identified the four primary causes of the drastic decline of law enforcement capabilities: (1) the general anti- intelligence hysteria of the post-Watergate period, (2) the general hostility of the media to all intelligence operations, domestic or foreign, (3) the rash of recent pri- vacy legislation, especially the Freedom of Information Act, and (4) the epidemic of civil suits against federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies and individuals.
Time is running out. We should immediately reestablish the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security, the House Internal Security Committee, the Internal Security Division of the Justice Department, and the Subversive Activities Control Board. We should authorize them to build intelligence files and exchange information among federal, state and local law enforcement agencies so they can locate the terrorists before they throw the bombs.
