US Army Field Manual 30-31B

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The US Army Field Manual 30-31, with its appendices FM 30-31 A and FM 30-31 B, aka Westmoreland Field Manual (named after General William Westmoreland) is alleged to be a classified US Army Field Manual describing top-secret counter insurgency tactics discovered in the 1970s. The CIA first, and then the US State Department in January 2006 have denied its veracity, claiming it was a forgery made by the Soviet Union ^[1]. If authentic, this strategic document is an important piece, although far from being unique, in the understanding of the strategy of tension perpetrated in Italy during the Years of Lead, which was supported by Gladio, the Italian branch of the NATO stay-behind anti-Communist paramilitary groups. The strategy of tension, which included false flag terror attacks, was denounced by a 2000 Olive Tree center-left parliamentary report as supported by the United States to "stop the PCI, and to a certain degree also the PSI, from reaching executive power in the country". A 2000 Senate report, stated that "Those massacres, those bombs, those military actions had been organized or promoted or supported by men inside Italian state institutions and, as has been discovered more recently, by men linked to the structures of United States intelligence." ^[2]

Contents 1 The Belgian parliamentary report 2 Ganser's description of the Westmoreland Manual 3 Circumstances of the discovery of the manual 4 2006 US State Department public statement 5 References 6 See also

[edit] The Belgian parliamentary report

The FM 30-31 was cited in the Belgian parliamentary investigation on Gladio:

"The Commission has been able to take knowledge of a 'top secret' document dated March 18, 1970; it is attributed to General Westmoreland, then Chief of Staff of the US Army. A certain prudence however imposes itself, as the Commission has no certitude concerning the authenticity of this document. This document provides capital precisions on what would have been American strategy:
- it is treated there of measures to take against individuals or groups from the "Host Country" (pays hôte/gastland) who put in danger the interests of the United States; therefore, if these latter are threatened, the US Army intelligence agency can recommand, in collaboration with the Government of the Host Country, but without this being an obligation, appropriate measures to struggle against these individuals and these groups;
- it insists on the necessity to collaborate with the services, officials or no, of the Host Country and to dispose of its own agents in these services and to foster privilegied relationships with officers who would have leave an excellent impression during their training program in the United States;
- it underlines the role that American citizens abroad may play; on this subject, even if one doubts of the authenticity of the Westmoreland note, one cannot but notice that this technique is confirmed by W. Colby's memories: the stay behind network created for the count of the OPC in Europe made use, in particular in Scandinavia, of the services of well implanted American citizens;
- it preconise in point 11 of the "Westmoreland note" direct interventions of the agents on special operations in Host Countries suspected to demonstrate too much shyness in regard to Communism or to subversion with Communist origin; these interventions have as aim to convince their Governments and their public opinions of the realities of the danger and of the imperious necessity of a jolt.
There may be times when H.C. governments show passivity or indecision in face of Communist or Communist inspired-subversion, and react with inadequate vigor to intelligence estimates transmitted by U.S. agencies. Such situations are particularly likely to arise when the insurgency seeks to achieve tactical advantage by temporarily refraining from violence, thus lulling H.C. authorities into a state of false security. In such cases, U.S. Army intelligence must have the means of launching special operations which will convince the H.C. governments and public opinion of the reality of the insurgent danger and of the necessity of counteraction. To this end, U.S. Army intelligence should seek to penetrate the insurgency by means of agents on special assignement, with the task of forming special action groups among the most radical elemnts of the insurgency. When the kind of situation envisaged above arises, these groups, acting under U.S. Army intelligence control, should be used to launch violent or nonviolent actions according to the nature of the case. Such actions could include those described in F.M. 30-31 as characterizing Phases II and III of insurgency.
In case where the infiltration of such agents into the insurgent leadership has not been effectively implemented, it may help towards the achievement of the above ends to utilize ultra-leftist organizations."
[follows translation in the report]
These developments have appeared necessary to the Commission as they may help to understand better a certain amount of events, although it is not possible, for sure, to always establish a link between them and the antisubversive strategy of the United States." ^[3]

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[edit] Ganser's description of the Westmoreland Manual

According to historian Daniele Ganser of the ETH Zurich Institute, the 140-pages instruction manual gives advice in "statecraft" in sabotage, bombing, assassination, torture, terror and rigging elections. But the sensitive issue, which prompt a public refutation by the US State Dept, is its references to false flag operations. Ganser precised that the Italian parliamentary investigation on P2 also published the report in 1987. According to him, Regine Igel offered in her German translation the full text of FM 30-31 B in her book on Giulio Andreotti, a central player of Italian politics during decades who revealed in 1990 the existence of Gladio to the Italian Parliament ^[4]. Igel's source is the original English version of the FM 30-31 B as contained in the collected documents of the Italian Parliamentary Commission on P2: Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sulla loggia masonica P2. Allegati alla Relazione Doc. XXIII, n.2-quater/7/1 Serie II, Vol. VII, Tomo I, Roma 1987, pp.287-298. To document FM 30-31 B is dated March 18, 1970, Headquarters of the US Army, Washington DC, and signed by General W.C. Westmoreland ^[5] Ganser quoted the passage cited herabove by the Belgian Commission and continued :

"These special operations must remain strictly secret. Only those persons which are acting against the revolutionary uprising shall know of the involvement of the US Army in the internal affairs of an allied country. The fact that the involvement of forces of the US military goes deeper shall not become known under any circumstances."^[6]

The FM 30-31 and its appendices were "strictly limited to the persons named on the distribution list. Whenever possible detailed instructions on the basis of this appendix shall be handed on orality. The extremely sensitive character of this affair must be stressed," pointed out the manual, referring to current plausible denial policies regarding such covert operations. The manual also stated:

"The success of internal stabilisation operations, which are promoted in the context of strategies for internal defence by the US military secret service, depends to a large extent on the understanding between the US personnel and personnel of the host country. However high the mutual understanding between US personnel and the personnel of the host country might be, the option to win over agents of the secret service of the host country for action is a much more reliable basis for the solution o fthe problems of the US military secret service. The recruitement of senior members of the secret service of the host country as long time agents is thus especially important." ^[7]

[edit] Circumstances of the discovery of the manual

According to Daniele Ganser's NATO Secret Armies' - Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe (Franck Cass, London, 2005), the manual first surfaced in Turkey in 1973, at the time affected by serious political violence which culminated in the 1980 military coup headed by General Kenan Evren. The Turkish newspaper Baris announced its publication in 1973. But the Baris journalist who announced its publication thereafter disappeared. Two years later, Talat Turhan published a Turkish translation of the manual, and then publications also appeared in Spain and in Italy. The Spanish newspaper Triunfo published excerpts in 1976, during the fall of Franquism, despite heavy pressures to prevent the publication. Excerpts of FM 30-31 also apperaed on October 27, 1978 in Italian political magazine L'Europea. When the Italian monthly Controinformazione printed the FM 30-31, the issues were confiscated. The US Manual surfaced again after the arrest of Licio Gelli in 1981 and the discovery of Propaganda Due (aka P2).

In his BBC documentary on Gladio, Allan Francovich presented a copy of FM 30-31 B to senior US officials. Ray Cline, Deputy CIA Director for Intelligence in the 1960s confirmed: "This is an authentic document." William Colby, CIA Director from 1973 to 1976 and who had helped set up the Gladio network in Scandinavian countries, claimed "I have never heard of it." CIA propaganda expert Michael Ledeen declared it to be a Soviet forgery. Licio Gelli, head of the Propaganda Due masonesque lodge, said to Francovich: "The CIA gave it to me." ^[8].

[edit] 2006 US State Department public statement

On 20 January 2006, the US State Department issued a public statement concerning FM 30-31, which it qualifies as a "forgery." Titled "Misinformation about "Gladio/Stay Behind" Networks Resurfaces," the statement gave a somehow different story of the document:

"Thirty Year-Old Soviet Forgery Cited by Researchers In December 2005, misinformation resurfaced in Greece claiming, falsely, that a secret “stay behind” network, which the Greek government had set up with CIA assistance, had committed acts of terrorism. During the Cold War, West European countries set up clandestine “stay behind” networks, which were designed to form the nucleus of resistance movements if the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Western Europe. The Greek writer making the claim – and a Swiss researcher who wrote a 2005 book on the “stay behind” networks – both give credence to a Soviet forgery from the 1970s, which has long been publicly identified as a phony document. [...] The program remained one of the Cold War’s best-kept secrets until it was revealed in late 1990, first in Italy and then in other West European countries. Soon after the “stay behind” networks were revealed, some media accounts accused them of misdeeds, including domestic acts of terrorism. In April 1992, some 18 months after Gladio’s disclosure, journalist Jonathan Kwitny wrote in The Nation that, “evidence so far hasn’t supported initial allegations that the secret armies used their hidden C.I.A.-supplied caches of weapons and explosives to carry out political violence that killed civilians.” Nevertheless, such claims resurfaced on December 18, 2005, in To Proto Thema, Greece’s best-selling investigative/sensationalist Sunday newspaper, which ran a full two-page story by Kleanthis Grivas, headlined, “Terrorism in Post-War Europe.” Grivas accused Greece’s “stay behind” network of several assassinations and bombings. Some of the claims are clearly absurd. Grivas accused Greece’s “stay behind” network, known as “Sheepskin” or “Red Sheepskin,” which he says was “organized by Greek special forces and the CIA,” of assassinating CIA station chief Richard Welch in Athens in 1975. Thus, Grivas bizarrely accuses the CIA of playing a role in the assassination of one of its own senior officials. Grivas also accused “Sheepskin” of the assassination in Athens of British military attaché Stephen Saunders in 2000, despite the fact that the Greek government stated it dismantled the “stay behind” network in 1988. In reality, the Greek terrorist organization “17 November” was responsible for both assassinations. Thirty Year-Old Soviet Forgery Cited by Researchers Grivas and other prominent “stay behind” researchers appear to have been influenced by a bogus text that first surfaced in 1976, a Soviet forgery purporting to be Supplement B to the U.S. Army’s Field Manual 30-31. The U.S. Army did have a Field Manual (FM) 30-31 in the 1970s, and a “Supplement A” to it existed, but not a “Supplement B.” The purported “Supplement B” was a forgery apparently concocted by the Soviet disinformation service. Field Manual 30-31B, also known as the “Westmoreland Manual” because it was purportedly signed by General William Westmoreland, was exposed as a “total fabrication” in February 1980 hearings before the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The Committee hearings state: In February 1976, a photocopy of the bogus FM 30-31B was left on the bulletin board of the Embassy of the Philippines in Bangkok, Thailand with a cover note from an anonymous “concerned citizen.” This is a typical Soviet bloc practice. Surfacing attracted little attention. FM 30-31B reappeared in 1978 when it was reprinted in two Spanish publications, El Pais (18 September) and El Triunfo (23 September). This was the work of a Spanish communist and a Cuban intelligence officer. Since September 1978, the manual and/or articles concerning it have appeared in the world press in more than 20 countries, including the United States. [Source: Soviet Covert Action (The Forgery Offensive), Hearings before the Subcommittee on Oversight of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, House of Representatives, 96th Congress, Second Session, February 6, 19, 1980, p. 86.] The hearings added that, “in summer 1979, the Soviets prepared Portuguese-language copies of the forgery and covertly circulated them among military officers in Lisbon.” (p. 87) [...] A poor quality copy of the forgery and a declassified cover note describing how it surfaced can be viewed on the Internet. Grivas and other “stay behind” researchers have treated the Soviet forgery as if it were a real document. In Grivas’ book, Terrorism: a Privileged Means of Policy Making, he reportedly treats FM 30-31B as if it were authentic. An August 4, 2002 article in the Greek communist weekly Rizospatsis, which stated that it obtained its information from Grivas’ book, saw FM 30-31B as evidence that the United States had been behind the upsurge of radical leftist terrorism in Western Europe in the mid-1970s. It stated: It is worth noting that the implementation of the Manual coincided with a surge in terrorist activity, such as the RAF [ Red Army Faction ] in West Germany and the Red Brigades in Italy. It is also worth noting that the activities of 17N [17 November] in Greece began in 1975. It was a critical time that had all the characteristics included in the Manual. Swiss researcher Daniele Ganser, who works at Zurich’s Center for Security Studies, has also been fooled by the forgery. Ganser treats the forgery as if it was a genuine document in his 2005 book on “stay behind” networks, Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe and includes it as a key document on his Web site on the book. Ganser writes, “FM 30-31B is maybe the most important Pentagon document with regard to the stay-behind armies.” He goes on to speculate that the bogus document may provide the blueprint for terrorist acts that occurred during the Cold War in Western Europe. [...] Conclusion A thirty year-old Soviet forgery has been cited as one of the central pieces of “evidence” for the false notion that West European “stay-behind” networks engaged in terrorism, allegedly at U.S. instigation. This is not true, and those researching the “stay behind” networks need to be more discriminating in evaluating the trustworthiness of their source material." ^[9]

To this day, three Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have been filed to the CIA, which has rejected them with the standard reply: "The CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of records responsive to your request." One request was filed by the National Security Archive in 1991; another by the Italian Senate commission headed by Senator Giovanni Pellegrino in 1995 concerning Gladio and Aldo Moro's murder; the last one in 1996, by Olivier Rathkolb, of Vienna university, for the Austrian government, concerning the secret stay-behind armies after a discovery of an arms-cache.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Operation Gladio
• Belgian stay-behind network
• Gladio in Italy
• U.S. Army Field Manuals