THE BALANCE OF POWER When our forefathers wrote the Constitution of these United States they provided safeguards against despotism by providing a balance of power. The Constitution was set up to provide clear divisions of Legislative, Judicial, and Executive powers. It was believed that this system would ensure that if one branch got out of hand the other two would act to keep the one in check. This balance of power was predicated upon the assumption that none of the three branches could or would infringe upon the power of the others.
The Constitution is clear on the functions of each of the branches. The Legislative will make the laws. The Judicial will interpret the law. The Executive will decide policy and enforce the law. This, of course, is the simplest of explanations, but this is not a textbook on government. My intent is to acquaint you with simple basics of the balance of power so that you can then understand how it has been subverted.
The Legislature (Congress in the form of the House and Senate) is required to publish the laws that are made, and this is done in the Congres sional Record and the Federal Register. Pending or passed legislation can be obtained by citizens through their Congressmen or from the Government Printing Office. Citizens cannot be held responsible for the law if it is not made available to them.
It is paradoxical that the government body most representative of the American citizen is the one that has been the most easily subverted. Through PACs, payoffs, pork-barrel politics, professional politicians, Congressmen who are members of secret societies and through greed and fear, our Representatives and Senators quit representing us long ago.
Congress has tremendous powers but fails in most cases to exercise even a token amount. How is it that our Legislature has allowed and at times encouraged the Executive branch to write law? You probably did not know that the President and others in the Executive branch of the government can and do write law. This is done in the form of Presidential Executive orders, National Security Council memos, National Security Decision directives, and National Security directives.
NSC memos were broad policy papers in the days after passage of the National Security Act. NSC memos became narrower and more specific over the years, and the name has varied. Under Kennedy they were called National Security Action Memorandums. President Bush has changed the name to National Security Directives.
There is a tremendous difference between Presidential Executive orders, NSC memos, and National Security Decision directives. Presidential
Executive orders are listed in the Federal Register or Presidential Findings, which are made known to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. The most important difference between the Presidential Executive orders and all of the others, no matter what they are called, is that the others do not have to be reported, reviewed, made available to anyone, or even acknowledged that they exist. There is no oversight whatsoever that could maintain a check on the legality of these National Security directives. The President and others within the Executive branch have used these supersecret directives to skirt the balance of power and write law without anyone's knowledge. Justification of the President's power to write law through Executive orders stems from the failure of the Government to rescind the declaration of martial law during the Civil War. In effect, the United States has been under martial law ever since Lincoln's administration. These NSDs are powerful, hidden, and dangerous tools. They were prolific during the Reagan administration: over 300 were written, with no more than 50 ever leaking out to undergo public scrutiny. Yet most Americans have never heard of these subversive weapons. They are being used to destroy our Constitution. I believe that everyone should know about this corruption of government. Congress has turned a blind eye to these abuses of executive power. At 3:30 a.m. Saturday, August 4,1990, the Senate made it even easier for the Executive branch to subvert the Constitution and may have made George Bush the first American king. At that time on that day, a minority of United States senators, maybe ten at the most, passed Senate Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1991 (S.B. 2834). This bill will fundamentally change our constitutional system and threatens to destroy the very foundations of our great nation. Since attention has been focused upon the Middle East crisis, the public and most Congressmen know absolutely nothing about this bill. The bill was fraudulently introduced as a reform to prevent future incidents of the abuses brought to light during the Iran-Contra scandal. Instead of preventing future abuses, however, it virtually authorizes essentially every abuse. The bill was carefully brought to a vote by Senator Sam Nunn in the dead of night when the opposition was gone. It effectively transfers most authority over the United States government directly into the hands of George Bush and thus directly into the hands of the Secret Government. The President (presently George Bush) was given the power to initiate war, appropriate public funds, define foreign policy goals, and decide what is important to our national security. In "Oversight of Intelligence Ac-
tivities," Tide VII, S.B. 2834 authorizes the following:
Gives the president power to initiate covert actions (this has never before been given to the President); prevents Congress from stopping the President's initiation of covert actions; allows the President to use any federal ''departments, agencies, or entities'' to operate or finance a covert operation; empowers the President to use any other nation or private contractor or person to fund or operate a covert action; redefines covert actions as operations "necessary to support foreign policy objectives of the United States," a definition that is so vague and broad as to be essentially unlimited; for the first time officially claims the right of the United States to secretly interfere in the internal "political, economic, or military affairs" of other countries in direct and flagrant violation of international law; requires that the President prepare and deliver a written finding to the Intelligence committees of the Congress but allows the President to omit "extremely sensitive matters" and authorizes the President to claim executive privilege if Congress asks too many questions.
There are no penalties in the bill for violating any of its provisions, including the provision requiring a finding. Why should there be? This bill has literally handed the power of all the branches of government to the President on a silver platter. President Bush is now truly American King George the First. S.B. 2834 gives Bush the power to use any agency or branch of the government and any appropriated funds from any agency or branch of the government for covert action even if they were never appropriated for that purpose. The bill effectively prevents any oversight by anyone and allows the Executive branch to skirt the law and to escape accountability. This will be done using National Security directives. A few examples of past NSD directives that have come to light will help you understand the seriousness of the matter. They will be listed in the following paragraphs under the heading of the subject matter of the NSDDs:
NSDD 84: SAFEGUARDING NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION [SECRECY], 3/11/83 (Declassified in full). SUBJECT: This directive drastically expands restrictions on government employees' freedom of speech. Those with access to classified information were required to sign a nondisclosure agreement; those with access to a special category of classified information were made to agree to prepublication review of any future writings. The use of polygraphs was authorized. PURPOSE: Prevent disclosure of information that could damage national security. CONSEQUENCES: The polygraph requirement was rescinded due to Congressional opposition. Secrecy restrictions were imposed on more than 4 million government employees and CONTRACTORS for more than fifty executive agencies. Many reporters' contacts were shut down. Govern-
ment employees' unions and members of Congress sued to protect the rights of whistleblowers, and the Supreme Court recently sent the case back to the district level for review.
Author's Note: NSDD 84 indicates that John Lear, Robert Lazar, Bruce Macabbee, Stanton Friedman, Clifford Stone, and many others may be active government agents. They were all working in government jobs or for government contractors and all of them were subject to this executive order. NSDD 84 was not used to silence them, which seems to indicate that they had executive approval in each and every instance.
NSDD 17: DETERRING CUBAN MODELS/COVERT ACTION IN NICARAGUA, 11/23/81 (Classified). SUBJECT: The Central Intelligence Agency was given authority to create the contras and "work with foreign governments as appropriate" to undermine the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. PURPOSE: To stop the flow of arms from Cuban and Nicaraguan sources to the Salvadoran rebels. CONSEQUENCES: The C.I.A. was given $19 million to assemble and arm a force of 500 contras to join with 1000 exiles already being trained by Argentina. Scores of operatives arrived in Honduras; arms shipments from Miami began. The contra war was set in motion. NSDD 77: MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC DIPLOMACY RELATIVE TO NATIONAL SECURITY, 1/14/83 (Declassified in full). SUBJECT: This directive set up several planning groups to conduct "public diplomacy activities." It ordered "organizational support for foreign governments and private groups to encourage the growth of democratic political institutions and practices." PURPOSE: To mobilize international and domestic support for "our national security objectives." CONSEQUENCES: Created propaganda ministries in the National Security Council, the State Department and the White House that concentrated on, in the words of the NSC staff member in charge of the program, "gluing black hats on the Sandinistas and white hats on UNO" (the contras' United Nicaraguan Opposition). Stories were planted in the press; journalists were pressured. The General Accounting Office later found that these activities violated the law banning "covert propaganda" inside the United States. How many other covert propaganda programs do you think are operating against the American Citizens? I can assure you that there are many more than you would ever believe. NSDD 138: INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM, 4/3/84 (Classified). SUBJECT: This directive endorsed the principle of preemptive strikes and retaliatory raids against terrorists and called on 26 Federal agencies to recommend specific measures to combat terrorism. PURPOSE: To lessen
international terrorism and free U.S. hostages in Lebanon. While this NSD directive pretends to be concerned about international terrorism, it is really a thinly disguised authorization of preemptive strikes and retaliatory raids against patriots in this country. When FEMA is activated, patriots will be rounded up in the dead of night, most likely on a national holiday such as Thanksgiving. Government agents and law-enforcement officers in every city across the nation have received antiterrorist training under this NSDD directive, and I can assure you the target is patriots. CONSEQUENCES: Set up the Terrorist Incident Working Group under North in the NSC. Its first major action was the interception and capture of the Achille Lauro hijackers, which gave North's career an important boost.
Either NSDD 138 or a subsequent NSD directive on terrorism authorized the training of three Lebanese units for preemptive strikes. When problems arose, Director of Central Intelligence William Casey took that operation off the books and enlisted Saudi Arabian help in an attempt to assassinate the head of Hezbollah. A resulting car bombing killed about eighty in Beirut; Sheik Fadlallah, the target was unhurt. The U.S. military, along with civilian law-enforcement teams, conducted joint antiterrorist training across America. To allay public fears the participants wore civilian clothing.
NSD directives have become the de facto legislative vehicle of the national security state. It has become known through the research of Susan Fitzgerald, a research consultant at the Fund for Constitutional Government in Washington who has collected declassified NSD directives, that many were released without the White House letterhead at the top of the page and without the President's signature at the bottom. This, she speculates, is to conceal the fact that the signatures on some of them would reveal that they had been made by autopen, not by Ronald Reagan's own hand. That should give you a taste of what we are up against. Please understand that virtually all but a very few NSD directives still remain classified, and unless the public forces disclosure their effect will probably never be known.
Somewhere within the volumes of secret NSD directives there is a plan to suspend the Constitution of the United States of America. The existence of this plan surfaced during the Iran-Contra hearings. Congressman Jack Brooks (D), Texas, attempted to bring it into the open. When he asked Col. North directly if North had ever helped draft a plan to suspend the Constitution, Brooks was silenced by the committee chairman Senator Daniel K. Inouye (D), Hawaii. Senator Inouye stated that the subject dealt with national security, and any questions regarding the matter could be brought up during a closed-door session. We never learned the outcome. I would
like to know who gave anyone, in any branch of government, with any title, the right to suspend the Constitution at any time, for any reason, under any conditions?
I believe the plan to suspend the Constitution is directly tied to the underground facility called Mount Weather and to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Mount Weather is so shrouded in secrecy that 99.9% of Americans have never heard of it. FEMA, however, is another story. Remember Hurricane Hugo? Remember the federal agency (FEMA) that was sent to handle the emergency and was thrown out by the citizens because of gross incompetence? FEMA was incompetent, because "emergency management" is just a guise for its real purpose, which is to take over local, state, and federal government in case of a national emergency. The only way FEMA could do such a thing is if the Constitution Were suspended and martial law were to be declared. Therefore its very existence is proof positive that a plan to suspend the Constitution does in fact exist.
MOUNT WEATHER Just outside of a sleepy little town called Bluemont, Virginia, about 46 miles west of Washington D.C., is an area of wilderness covering what has been called the toughest granite rock in the eastern United States. The area is surrounded by signs marked "Restricted Area" and "This installation has been declared a restricted area....Unauthorized entry is prohibited." Other signs state: "All persons and vehicles entering hereon are liable to search. Photographing, making notes, drawings, maps or graphic representations of this area or its activities is prohibited. Such material found in the possession of unauthorized persons will be confiscated. Internal Security Act of 1950." The installation is beneath a mountain and its name is the Western Virginia Office of Controlled Conflict Operations. Its nickname is Mount Weather. It was ordered to be built by the Federal Civil Defense Administration, which is now the Federal Preparedness Agency. Mount Weather was designed in the early '50s as part of a civil defense program to house and protect the Executive branch of the Federal government. The official name was "The Continuity of Government Program." Congress has repeatedly tried to discover the real purpose of Mount Weather, but so far has been unable to find out ANYTHING about the secret installation. Retired Air Force General Leslie W. Bray, director of the Federal Preparedness Agency, told the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights in September 1975: "I am not at liberty to describe precisely what is the role and the mission and the capability that we have at Mount Weather or at any other precise location."
In June 1975, Senator John Tunney (D), California, chairman of the
Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, charged that Mount Weather held dossiers on at least 100,000 Americans. He later alleged that the Mount Weather computers, described as "the best in the world," can obtain millions of pieces of additional information on the personal lives of American citizens simply by tapping the data stored at any of the other 96 Federal Relocation Centers.
I know from my stint with the Office of Naval Intelligence that these dossiers consist of information collected about American patriots, men and women who are most likely to resist the destruction of our Constitution and the formation of the totalitarian police state under the New World Order. The patriot data bank is constantly updated so that when the appointed hour arrives all patriots can be rounded up with little if any effort. The plan calls for this to be accomplished in the dead of night on a national holiday. The most likely holiday is Thanksgiving, when everyone, no matter the religion, race, or creed, will be at home. The targets will be ripe for the picking after a heavy meal, maybe some alcoholic beverages, and during a deep sleep. There is a traitor in the patriot movement who provides the Secret Government with accurate names and addresses of patriots who will fight to protect and defend the Constitution.
MY RECOMMENDATION IS THAT NO PATRIOT SHOULD EVER BE AT HOME OR AT THE HOME OF ANY FAMILY MEMBER ON ANY HOUDAY EVER AGAIN UNTIL THE TRAITORS HAVE BEEN HUNG AND THE CONSTITUTION RESTORED AS THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND.
Some sources state that Mount Weather is virtually an underground city complete with dormitories, private apartments, streets, sidewalks, cafeterias, hospitals, water-purification systems, power plant, office buildings, a lake fed by fresh water from underground springs, a mass-transit system, and many other astounding things.
Several disturbing facts emerge when one researches Mount Weather. One is the conclusion that a complete parallel government exists at the site. Nine Federal departments exist there — Agriculture, Commerce, HEW, HUD, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation, and the Treasury. Apparently at least five Federal agencies are also in residence: FCC, Selective Service, Federal Power Commission, Civil Service Commission, and the Veterans Administration. Two privately owned corporations have offices at Mount Weather: the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Post Office. There is also an Office of the Presidency. What makes all this upsetting is that there is a President and a complete set of cabinet officers in residence at Mount Weather. Who are they and who appointed them? Where is such a thing provided for in the Constitution of the United States of America?
Mount Weather is the operational center — the hub — of over 96 other underground Federal Relocation Centers scattered across the United States. The majority of these appear to be concentrated in Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina. Each of these facilities contains computer data banks holding information — not on enemy agents, Soviet diplomats, or suspected terrorists but on American citizens, patriots. A list of other files kept at the facilities was furnished to the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights in 1975. The list included "military installations, government facilities, communications, transportation, energy and power, agriculture, manufacturing, wholesale and retail services, manpower, financial, medical and educational institutions, sanitary facilities, population, housing shelter, and stockpiles."
The committee concluded that these data bases "operate with few, if any, safeguards or guidelines." Senator James Abourzek (D), South Dakota, a member of the subcommittee, said, "I feel the entire operation has eluded the supervision of either Congress or the courts." Chairman Tunney said, "Mount Weather is out of control." Nothing was done by Congress to rectify the situation, however, and Mount Weather remains out of control. Former high-level officials from Mount Weather agree that the base at Mount Weather is much more than any standby government facility or storage center for the preservation of records; they describe it as an ACTUAL GOVERNMENT-IN-WAITING. "We do not merely store essential information; the facility attempts to duplicate the vital functions of the Executive branch of the Administration." As stated above, according to my research, this includes a President and all Cabinet members actually in residence. Protocol even demands that subordinates address them as "Mr. President" or "Mr. Secretary." Most of these mysterious appointees have held their positions through several administrations. "We just act on the orders of the President in national emergencies," said one former Mount Weather official. The FPA in its 1974 Annual Report stated that "Studies conducted at Mount Weather involve the control and management of domestic political unrest where there are material shortages (such as food riots) or in strike situations where the FPA determines that there are industrial disruptions and other domestic resource crises." The report states that the bureaucracy at Mount Weather invokes what it calls "Civil Crisis Management." Officials who were at Mount Weather and who have furnished us with data say that during the 1960s the complex was actually prepared to assume certain governmental powers at the time of the 1961 Cuban missile crisis and the assassination of President Kennedy In 1963. The source said
that the installation used the tools of its "Civil Crisis Management" program on a standby basis during the 1967 and 1968 urban riots and during a number of national antiwar demonstrations against the administration by the American people.
Daniel J. Cronin, who was the assistant director for the FPA, outlined a massive surveillance and manipulation program that is directed against the American population on a continuing basis. The FPA has organized an impressive armament of resources and equipment. Mr. Cronin described in an interview his agency's attitude toward its wide-ranging surveillance program. "We try to monitor situations," he said, "and get to them before they become emergencies....No expense is spared in the monitoring program." He cited reconnaissance satellites, local and state police intelligence reports, and law-enforcement agencies of the Federal government as examples of the resources available to the FPA for information-gathering.
The only document that I was able to find that attempts to outline some of the statutory authority of Mount Weather is Executive Order 11490. It was drafted by Gen. George A. Lincoln, former director for the Office of Emergency Preparedness (preceded FPA) and was signed into law by President Nixon in October 1969. Executive Order 11490 superseded Executive Order 11051, signed on October 2,1962, by President Kennedy. Kennedy's order used the language, "Whereas, national preparedness must be achieved—as may be required to deal with increases in international tension with limited war, or with general war including attack upon the United States..." Nixon's order began: "Whereas our national security is dependent upon our ability to assure continuity of government, at every level, in any national emergency type situation that might conceivably confront the nation..." Nixon has deleted any reference to "war," "imminent attack," and "general war" from the order and replaced them with the phrase "during any emergency that might CONCEIVABLY occur."
Nixon's order, which is the one in effect today, allows the government in the form of FEMA to suspend the Constitution for literally any reason they decide to call a national emergency. I CANNOT FIND A PLAN OR EXECUTIVE ORDER ANYWHERE WHICH OUTLINES ANY PROCEDURE OR ALLOWANCE FOR THE RESTORATION OF THE CONSTITUTION AFTER A NATIONAL EMERGENCY HAS ENDED. THIS LEADS TO THE OBVIOUS CONCLUSION THAT NO RESTORATION OF THE CONSTITUTION IS CONTEMPLATED OR DESIRED BY THOSE IN POWER.
In 1975, Senator Tunney expressed concern, "We know, from what we've heard in the press, that 15,000 names were being maintained by the FBI for detention in an emergency...We also know that the IRS had its files
on individual taxpayers. We know that the CIA had their Operation CHAOS and that the NSA has the records of conversations that have been intercepted electronically. My question is this: Is there anyone like yourself, General Bray, that is in control of the overall access to this data if it is maintained in a relocation site? And your answer, as I understood it, is no.'' Tunney continued: "General Bray, I must say that I still don't know who's in control of these relocation centers....You say you don't have that knowledge and still we don't know from the...three witnesses that we had here today, that they had information as to who has control of those centers." "I am not at liberty," Bray answered, "to describe precisely what is the role and the mission and the capability that we have at Mount Weather, or at any other precise location." I firmly believe that our Continuity of Government program has not provided continuity at all, but has been the instrument for discontinuing open and democratic government, and that the very program designed to protect Americans has actually been turned against us.
We at the executive level here were active in either OSS, the State Department, or the European Economic Administration. During those times, and without exception, we operated under directions issued by the White House. We are continuing to be guided by just such directives, the substance of which were to the effect that we should make every effort to so alter a life in the United States as to make possible a comfortable merger with the Soviet Union.
SOURCES "Bureaucrats Get Ready for a Presidential Order," Spotlight, Washington D.C, July 27,1987. Pell, Eve, "The Backbone of Hidden Government," The Nation, June 19,1989. Pollock, Richard P., "The Mysterious Mountain," The Progressive, March 12,
1976. Sinkin, Lanny, "Democracy at Risk If Covert Bill Passes," ANOTHER VIEW,
Los Angeles Daily News, September 19,1990. Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington D.C, 1950 to present. Witt, Howard, "Lawyers Press U.S. on Martial Law Plan," Chicago Tribune,
August 15,1983.