Plausibly deniable: mercenaries in US covert interventions during the Cold War, 1964–1987

Abstract

This article examines the role and the significance of professional mercenaries as an instrument of US covert action programmes during the Cold War. Arguing that even small groups of these ‘career mercenaries’ used as advisors and so-called force multipliers could potentially make a difference in small-scale proxy wars in the Global South, the author asserts a process of institutional learning in which mercenaries became a possible substitute for official military advisors. While western mercenaries were rewarding targets for communist propaganda and caused discord on the foreign policy level, the greater danger were unintended side effects on the domestic level, including the formation of a paramilitary subculture within the USA.

Acknowledgements

The original PhD research this article is based upon was supported by the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation under the 2010 Moody Grant and by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes under a PhD scholarship.

Notes

¹ There is hardly any systematic or comparative literature on Cold War mercenary activities (or ‘mercenarism’). Often considered a classic, Anthony Mockler’s The New Mercenaries (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1985) is without references and, like many similar books, more a work of investigative journalism. Some historians and political scientists have focused on mercenary operations from the perspective of military science and intelligence studies: Scott Fitzsimmons, Mercenaries in Asymmetric Conflicts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Gerry S. Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1984). There are two excellent case studies by historians on US-sponsored mercenaries in the Congo and in Rhodesia: Piero Gleijeses, “Flee! The White Giants Are Coming!: The United States, the Mercenaries, and the Congo, 1964–65,” Diplomatic History 18, no. 2 (1994): 207–37; Gerald Horne, From the Barrel of a Gun: The United States and the War against Zimbabwe, 1965–1980 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001).

² Eldon Kenworthy, “Selling the Policy,” in Reagan Versus the Sandinistas: The Undeclared War on Nicaragua, ed. Thomas W. Walker (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987), 160–62.

³ Edward Kwakwa, “The Current Status of Mercenaries in Armed Conflict,” Hastings International and Comparative Law Review 14, no. 1 (1990): 68−91, 90.

⁴ Some authors have correctly suggested that a gradual definition (more or less mercenary) might be more helpful than a binary definition (mercenary or no mercenary), see Sarah V. Percy, Mercenaries: The History of a Norm in International Relations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 58−66.

⁵ Anthony Mockler, The Mercenaries (Sugarland, TX: Free Companion Press, 1969), 19.

⁶ John J. Nutter, The CIA’s Black Ops: Covert Action, Foreign Policy, and Democracy (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2000), 154–69, 247–56.

⁷ This article is based on extensive archival research in the US National Archives, the National Security Archive, the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, and the CIA’s Electronic Reading Room and CREST database, as well as a detailed survey of Cold War mercenary memoirs and paramilitary magazines and a systematic evaluation of major American newspapers.

⁸ White House, Memcon, “Meeting between Gerald Ford and Mao Zedong,” 1 December 1975, China Collection, CH00395, Digital National Security Archive (DNSA); Anthony Lake, The ‘Tar Baby’ Option: American Policy toward Southern Rhodesia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 129–30.

⁹ White House Press Secretary’s Office, News Conference Transcript, 17 December 1975, Nessen Files, 1974–77, Press Briefings, Box 15, Gerald R. Ford Library (GRFL). On the interrelationship between the Vietnam War and US intervention policies, see Martin Staniland, “Africa, the American Intelligentsia, and the Shadow of Vietnam,” Political Science Quarterly 98, no. 4 (1984): 595–616.

¹⁰ Fitzsimmons, Mercenaries, 47–166; William G. Thom, “Angola’s 1975–76 Civil War: A Military Analysis,” Low Intensity Conflict & Law Enforcement 7, no. 2 (1998): 1–44; Klaas Voß, Washingtons Söldner: Verdeckte US-Interventionen im Kalten Krieg und ihre Folgen (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2014). 84–92, 248–54, 424–9.

¹¹ The limits of the CIA’s paramilitary competency and capacities were known to ranking US policymakers such as Henry Kissinger, who discussed this in connection with the use of mercenaries in Angola in his memoirs: see Years of Renewal (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 811–12.

¹² In the history of covert operations, paramilitary elements would, in fact, almost inevitably draw public attention and prove impossible to disavow: John J. Carter, Covert Action as a Tool of Presidential Foreign Policy: From the Bay of Pigs to Iran-Contra (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006), 223.

¹³ For a typical ideological interpretation of Cold War mercenarism, see Wilfred G. Burchett and Derek Roebuck, The Whores of War: Mercenaries Today (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), 14.

¹⁴ Bernd Stöver, Die Befreiung vom Kommunismus: Amerikanische Liberation Policy im Kalten Krieg, 1947–1991 (Cologne: Böhlau, 2002), 224 n.37.

¹⁵ Including other prominent examples such as the 1954 coup in Guatemala: Zachary Karabell, Architects of Intervention: The United States, the Third World, and the Cold War, 1946–1962 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998), 133–4.

¹⁶ US Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, Church Committee Reports, Interim Report (Washington, DC: GPO, 1975), 11.

¹⁷ Ibid., 11–12. See also Kathleen Jamieson, Dirty Politics: Deception, Distraction, and Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 84.

¹⁸ Richard M. Pious, “Why Do Presidents Fail?” Presidential Studies Quarterly 32, no. 4 (2002): 724–42, 735.

¹⁹ For a more general discussion of the north-south differential in military capabilities, see Robert E. Harkavy and Stephanie G. Neuman, Warfare and the Third World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), 54, 237.

²⁰ According to conservative estimates, 400 of the mercenaries in Rhodesia were US citizens: Luise White, “Civic Virtue, Young Men, and the Family: Conscription in Rhodesia, 1974–1980,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 37, no. 1 (2004): 103–21, 114. The figures for the Congo quoted in most scholarly texts are based on NSC, Selected Chronology, National Security File (NSF), NSC Histories, Box 15, Lyndon B. Johnson Library (LBJL). However, this represents a maximum; the real numbers were lower throughout most of the conflict. On Angola, see Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 337. The count for Nicaragua (a temporary maximum) is based on US State Department sources: William Rempel, “Thrill-Seekers, Patriots and Profiteers,” Los Angeles Times, April 12, 1987. For a more detailed discussion of these numbers, see Voß, Washington’s Mercenaries, 114–16, 265–8, 333–4, 417–18.

²¹ Most of my argument in this paragraph follows the lines of Piero Gleijeses’ interpretation (see above), to whose work I am much indebted.

²² Lloyd Garrison, “Another Vietnam Feared in the Congo,” New York Times, December 13, 1964.

²³ Department of State (DOS), Cable, State to Leopoldville 390, 20 August 1964, NSF, Country File Congo (CFC), Box 82, LBJL.

²⁴ White House Memorandum, Brubeck to Johnson, “Congo,” June 15, 1964, NSF, CFC, Box 81, LBJL.

²⁵ Quote from George W. Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern: Memoirs (New York: WW Norton, 1982), 229.

²⁶ DOS, Report, Cleveland to Rusk, “Proposals for US. Policy in the Congo,” February 20, 1963, Harriman Papers, Box 449, Library of Congress (LOC).

²⁷ Compare the following newspaper headlines: Lloyd Garrison, “Another Vietnam Feared in the Congo,” New York Times, December 13, 1964; Peter Arnett, “Could Angola Become Another Vietnam?,” Boston Globe, December 21, 1975; William Raspberry, “Is Rhodesia Another Vietnam,” Los Angeles Times, October 17, 1978; Joseph Craft, “From Vietnam to Nicaragua,” Washington Post, April 2, 1985.

²⁸ The lack of public emotional impact proved to be a general drawback of the domino theory: Frank A. Ninkovich, Modernity and Power: A History of the Domino Theory in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 307.

²⁹ DOS, Cables, Leopoldville 225 to State, 28 July 1964 (quote); serious concern about the mercenaries is expressed in Leopoldville 294 to State, 2 August 1964; Leopoldville 225 to State, 28 July 1964 (all: NSF, CFC, Box 81, LBJL).

³⁰ See the excellent discussion of the so-called Harriman-Spaak Agreement in Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 69–71, and older pioneering work by Stephen R. Weissman, American Foreign Policy in the Congo (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974), 237–9.

³¹ For more details: Voß, Washingtons Söldner, 104–107, 187–8. Some key documents: DOS cables, State to Leopoldville 223, 10 August 1964, Harriman Papers, Subject File Congo, Box 449, LOC; Leopoldville 615 to State, 19 August 1964, NSF, CFC, Box 82, LBJL; State to Leopoldville 420, 22 August 1964, NSF, CFC, Box 87, LBJL; see also Memorandum, Williams to Harriman, “Congolese Public Finances,” 12 October 1965, Harriman Papers, Box 448, LOC. The CIA offered to pay for them via the Belgian military advisory mission, but this was reportedly turned down: Frédéric Vandewalle, L’Ommegang: Odyssée et reconquête de Stanleyville, 1964 (Brüssel: Livre Africain, 1970), 203.

³² National Security Action Memorandum 162, “Development of U.S. and Indigenous Police, Paramilitary and Military Resources,” 19 June 1962, Record Group (RG) 286, Office of Public Safety, Director’s Office, Numeric File, Box 5, NARA.

³³ DOS, Cable, Leopoldville 819 to State, 30 October 1965, NSF, CFC, Box 85, LBJL.

³⁴ Joint Chiefs of Staff, Memorandum and Survey, “Survey of Air Operations in the Congo,” 21 May 1966, RG 218, Wheeler Records, Box 23, NARA; George H. Dodenhoff, “The Congo: A Case Study of Mercenary Employment,” Naval War College Review 21, Nr. 65 (1969), 91–109.

³⁵ Project Draft, Max Gomez [Felix Rodriguez], “Projection for a Naval Force in the Atlantic Coast,” c. 10 February 1986, ICAColl., IC02330, DNSA; Peter McAleese, No Mean Soldier (London: Cassell, 2000), 91–109.

³⁶ Frank Steinmeyer. “The Intelligence Role in Counterinsurgency,” Studies in Intelligence 9 (Fall 1965), 57–63.

³⁷ DOS, Briefing Memorandum, Lord to Kissinger, “The Congo-Angola Analogy,” 2 June 1975, RG 59, Policy Planning Council (S/PC), Policy Planning Staff (S/P), Director’s Files, Box 356, NARA.

³⁸ The impact of the ‘Cuba shock’ upon the Ford administration can hardly be overestimated, as Ford’s National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft pointed out (interview with Scowcroft, Washington, DC, 3 March 2010).

³⁹ WH, Memcon, “East-West relations,” 20 January 1976, RG 59, Kissinger Records, Box 16, NARA.

⁴⁰ WH, Memcon, “Angola; Socialist International; Italy; Spain; Yugoslavia,” 21 January 1976, RG 59, Kissinger Records, Box 16, NARA.

⁴¹ The CIA’s Angola Task Force leader criticised widespread enthusiasm over the alleged military capacities of mercenaries within the agency and misguided notions of ‘mercenary honor’: John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies (New York: WW Norton, 1978), 183–4.

⁴² The National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) was led by Holden Roberto and supported by Zaire; the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) was led by Jonas Savimbi and supported by South Africa.

⁴³ Interdepartmental Group for Africa to Scowcroft, “Special Sensitive Memo Regarding Response to NSSM 224,” 25 June 1975, RG 59, Records of Joseph Sisco, Box 22, NARA.

⁴⁴ Stockwell, Search of Enemies, 213–15; Pedro Silva et al., Angola: Comandos especiais contra os cubanos (Lissabon: Braga, 1978), 96–115; Daniel Spikes, Angola and the Politics of Intervention: From Local Bush War to Chronic Crisis in Southern Africa (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1993), 259–62.

⁴⁵ DOS, Memorandum, Mulcahy to Bremer, “Angola/Zaire,” 11 September 1975, RG 59, Records of Joseph Sisco, Box 22, NARA.

⁴⁶ 40 Committee, Memorandum for the Record, Ratcliff, “40 Committee Meeting on Angola,” 15 September 1975, RG 59, Records of Joseph Sisco, Box 22, NARA.

⁴⁷ DOS, Draft Memorandum, Sisco to Scowcroft, “Department of State’s Comments,” c. 23 November 1975; see also the final (less specific) version of the document: DOS, Memorandum, Sisco to Scowcroft, “Department of State’s Comments,”24 November 1975 (both: RG 59, Records of Joseph Sisco, Box 22, NARA).

⁴⁸ CIA, Weekly Summary, “Angola – On and On,” 19 December, 1975, Doc no. 0000126977, CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.

⁴⁹ The People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola, led by Agostinho Neto.

⁵⁰ Stockwell, In Search of Enemies, 224. One of the most extensive (if not entirely reliable) accounts written from the perspective of the British mercenaries is Chris Dempster and Dave Tomkins, Fire Power (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1980).

⁵¹ This was pointed out to Kissinger in a memo from the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR): see INR, Briefing Memorandum, Saunder to Kissinger, “The Church Committee’s Final Report on Foreign and Military Intelligence,” 22 April 1976, RG 59, Kissinger Records, Box 19, NARA.

⁵² See, e.g., Richard Lobban, “American Mercenaries in Rhodesia,” Journal of Southern African Affairs 3, no. 3 (1978): 319–25; Malik Reaves, “In Zimbabwe 1,000 Mercenaries Fight against African Liberation,” in Dirty Work 2: The CIA in Africa, ed. Ellen Ray et al. (London: Zed Press, 1979), 224–7. A more nuanced interpretation: Horne, From the Barrel, 11, 31.

⁵³ Kissinger’s strategic deliberations are reflected in: WH, Memcon, Kissinger and Vorster, 23 June 1976, National Security Advisor’s Files, Memcons, Box 20, GRFL; DOS, Memcon, “Southern Africa; Secretary’s Trip to Africa,” 15 March 1976, RG 59, Office of the Counselor, Country and Subject Files, Box 1, NARA. Playing for time similarly preoccupied South Africa and Rhodesia: Sue Onslow, “‘We Must Gain Time’: South Africa, Rhodesia and the Kissinger Initiative of 1976,” South African Historical Journal 56, no. 1 (2006): 123–53.

⁵⁴ DOS Memorandum, Spiegel an Lake und Kreisberg, “Giving Up on Rhodesia,” 14 December 1978, RG 59, S/PC, S/P, Director’s Files, Box 16, NARA; DOS, Cable, Lusaka 2871 to State, “Basis of African Unrealism,” 26 October 1976, Incoming FOIA, Box 7, National Security Archive.

⁵⁵ Some of the more compelling examples: US House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on Investigations, Hearing on Mercenaries in Africa (Washington, DC: GPO, August 1976); Memorandum, Gordon to Greene, “Authority of Service to delay action on Application for Adjustment of Status,” 16 May 1973, RG 59, Subject Numeric File (SNF), Box 2563, NARA; DOS, Memorandum, Palmer to Lord, “Dissent from Dept’s policy on Rhodesia,” July 1975, RG 59, S/PC, S/P, Director’s Files, Box 355, NARA.

⁵⁶ DOS, Memorandum, Lake to Vance, “Possible Alternative Objectives and Strategies in Rhodesia, Should the Present Strategy Fail,” 16 June 1977, RG 59 S/PC, S/P, Director’s Files, Box 16, NARA.

⁵⁷ These job opportunities were advertised by mercenary magazines such as Soldier of Fortune (SOF): Daryl Tucker, “Danger in the Night: SOF Staffer on Rhodesian Ranch Patrol,” SOF 4, no. 8 (1979): 54–9; Richard Aellen, “Rhodesia’s Secret Army,” SOF 3, no. 4 (1978): 34–9; Terence P. Cope, “Rhodesian Goatmen,” SOF 4, no. 2 (1979): 54–5, 88–90.

⁵⁸ According to State Department sources, some of these companies tried to raise groups of several hundred mercenaries: DOS Cable, Pretoria 2837 to State, “Rhodesia: American May Form Security Force,” 29 July 1975, RG 59, CFPF, E-Tels 1975, NARA. See also “Bulletin,” SOF 4, no. 4 (1979): 10–11; “Bulletin,” SOF 4, no. 9 (1979): 86–7.

⁵⁹ Horne, From the Barrel, 213.

⁶⁰ Richard Shultz, “Low Intensity Conflict,” in Mandate for Leadership II: Continuing the Conservative Revolution, ed. Stuart M. Butler et al. (Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation, 1984), 264–70, 267–8.

⁶¹ Ernest van den Haag, “An American Foreign Legion?” Policy Review 18 (1981): 147–8.

⁶² Diary, North, 30 August 1984 (IC00553) and 29 June 1985 (IC01274); Memorandum, Owen to North, “Overall Perspective,” 17 March 1986, (IC02493). North also hired the company KMS, one of the first professional PMCs: NSC, Memo, North to McFarlane, “Assistance for the Nicaraguan Resistance,” 4 December 1984, IC00644 (all ICAColl., DNSA).

⁶³ Richard V. Secord, “Unconventional Warfare/Covert Operations as an Instrument of US. Foreign Policy” (master’s thesis, Naval War College, Newport, RI, 1972), 21–3, 41.

⁶⁴ This had been one of the key reasons for Rhodesia’s recruitment of mercenaries: Josiah Brownell, The Collapse of Rhodesia. Population Demographics and the Politics of Race (London: Tauris 2011), 71–95.

⁶⁵ Memorandum, Singlaub to North, 14 March 1985, IC00943, ICAColl., DNSA.

⁶⁶ John K. Singlaub, Hazardous Duty: An American Soldier in the Twentieth Century (New York: Summit Books, 1991), 455, 555 n. 24.

⁶⁷ This concept of recruitment and mobilisation can be reconstructed from several mercenaries’ memoirs of the Contra War: Jack Terrell, Disposable Patriot: Revelations of a Soldier in America’s Secret Wars (Washington, DC: National Press Books, 1992); Sam Hall, Counter-terrorist (New York: DI Fine, 1987); John McClure, Soldier Without Fortune (New York: Dell, 1987).

⁶⁸ These five newspapers were: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and Christian Science Monitor. The time periods were defined as follows: Congo, July 1964 to December 1965; Angola, December 1975 to July 1976; Rhodesia, January 1975 to December 1979; Nicaragua, January 1984 to 1987. For more information on the reasoning, results, and methodology of this examination, see Voß, Washingtons Söldner, 177–9, 367–71, 533–5, 558–9. For media reporting on the Congo, see also Gleijeses, “Flee!” 230–33.

⁶⁹ Quote from Don Shannon, “Commando Chief Bids Congo Troops Farewell,” Los Angeles Times, December 10, 1965.

⁷⁰ DOS, Cable, Leopoldville 786 to State, 27 August 1964, NSF, CFC, Box 82, LBJL.

⁷¹ Quoted in WH, Cable, Bundy to Valenti, “Congo Special Situation Report,” 24 November 1964, NSF, CFC, Box 84, LBJL.

⁷² DOS, Memorandum, Williams to Harriman, “Proposed Training of South African Military Officers in the USG,” 11 December 1964, South Africa Collection, SA00238, DNSA.

⁷³ This seems to have been the case with an article by J. Anthony Lukas, “Mercenary Unit Is Ready to Fight Rebels in the Congo,” New York Times, August 25, 1964. The Johnson administration influenced the editors of major US newspapers; see, Telcon, Johnson und Ball, 25 November 1964, Ball Papers, Box 2, LBJL; Gleijeses, “Flee!” 230, cites further evidence on the complicity of the press.

⁷⁴ William S. Rukeyser, “African Hot Spot,” Wall Street Journal, January 20, 1965.

⁷⁵ For an extensive discussion of the Luanda Trial, but with a propagandistic agenda, see Raúl Valdés Vivó, Angola. Das Ende des Söldnermythos (Berlin (East): Militärverlag der DDR, 1977). See also Mockler, New Mercenaries, 211–30.

⁷⁶ Most notable are two collections containing President Ford’s press secretary’s papers: Ron Nessen Papers, Domestic Guidance, Box 121; Ron Nessen Files Press Briefings, Box 16 (both GRFL).

⁷⁷ See, for instance, US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on African Affairs, Hearings on US Involvement in Civil War in Angola (Washington, DC: GPO, February 1976), 27–8, 66−7.

⁷⁸ The following quotes are from foreign dispatches as translated and catalogued in the database of the Foreign Broadcasting Information System (FBIS). This quote: Izvestiya via FBIS-SOV-76-029, 7 February 1976, H6.

⁷⁹ In this order from: TASS via FBIS-SOV-76-117, 16 June 1976, H3; TASS via FBIS-SOV-77-171, 1 September 1977, H4-5; TASS via FBIS-SOV-78-182, 18 September 1978, H3.

⁸⁰ Pravda via FBIS-SOV-77-112, 4 June 1977, H2.

⁸¹ Havana International Service via FBIS-LAT-76-004, 1 January 1976, Q2.

⁸² See, e.g., DOS, Cable, Conakry 1010 to State, “Another Guinean Report of a Planned Mercenary Attack,” 25 June 1973, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files (CFPF), E-Tels 1976, NARA; DOS, Cable, State 45842 to Yaounde, “The Albatross: A Further Lesson in Revisionist History,” 13 March 1973, RG 59, CFPF, E-Tels 1973, NARA.

⁸³ Amin Orders 112 Held: Americans Called Suspect Mercenaries,” Baltimore Sun, July 9, 1973.

⁸⁴ DOS, Circular, State 227024 to all Africa Posts, “US Policy on Americans Serving as Mercenaries in Foreign Armies,” 4 September 1976, RG 59, CFPF, E-Tels 1976, NARA.

⁸⁵ Flooding Africa with vast hosts of mercenaries to erect a new racist “reign of mass terror” was often portrayed as NATO’s sinister master plan: Moscow World Service via FBIS-SOV-79-016, 22 January 1979.

⁸⁶ A number of books by journalists provide a relatively comprehensive picture of the inner workings of the Cold War’s international mercenary scene: Guy Arnold, Mercenaries: The Scourge of the Third World (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999); Tony Geraghty, Guns for Hire: The Inside Story of Freelance Soldiering (London: Portrait, 2007); Mockler, New Mercenaries; Anthony Rogers, Someone Else’s War: Mercenaries from 1960 to the Present (London: HarperCollins, 1998).

⁸⁷ Quote from Khareen Pech, “The Hand of War: Mercenaries in the Former Zaire 1996–97,” in Mercenaries: An African Security Dilemma, ed. Abdel-Fatau Musah and J’Kayode Fayemi (London: Pluto Press, 2000), 117–54, 120–21.

⁸⁸ These sources are discussed in more detail in Klaas Voß, “Die Hunde des (Kalten) Krieges: Söldnermemoiren und –zeitschriften als historische Quelle (1960–1990),” Zeithistorische Forschungen 11, no. 1 (2014): 134–44.

⁸⁹ Peter Tickler, The Modern Mercenary: Dog of War or Soldier of Honour? (New York: Sterling, 1987), 16.

⁹⁰ James Gibson, Warrior Dreams: Paramilitary Culture in Post-Vietnam America (New York: Hill & Wang, 1994), 7; Philip Lamy, “Secularizing the Millennium: Survivalists, Militias, and the New World Order,” in Millennium, Messiahs, and Mayhem: Contemporary Apocalyptic Movements, ed. Thomas Robbins (London: Routledge, 1997), 93–118, 100.

⁹¹ For a much more detailed discussion of mercenary pay and the role of financial as opposed to ideological incentives: Voß, Washingtons Söldner, 114, 273, 304, 464–5, 481.

⁹² Horne, From the Barrel, 61.

⁹³ See the interviews in Robin Moore, Rhodesia (New York: Condor, 1977), 209, 243.

⁹⁴ Two prominent examples: “Ohioan Believed ‘Domino Theory’, Worked to Stop Communism,” Los Angeles Times, December 15, 1986; McClure, Soldier Without Fortune, 17, 21.

⁹⁵ For circulation data and founding years of most of these magazines see “Philip Lamy, Millennialism in the Mass Media: The Case of Soldier of Fortune,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 31, no. 4 (1992): 408–24, 414; Neil Livingstone, The Cult of Counterterrorism. The Weird World of Spooks, Counterterrorists, Adventurers, and Not Quite Professionals (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1990), 203–206. The circulation of the other magazines was significantly smaller. Gung-Ho, the second largest, never reached more than 125,000, and magazines such as New Breed remained limited to 15,000 copies per issue.

⁹⁶ This information is based on my quantitative evaluation of one of the last remaining library collections of Soldier of Fortune at the Northwestern University Library (Africana Collection).

⁹⁷ See, e.g., Al J. Venter, “War in Angola. Mercs in Action,” SOF 1, no. 2 (1976): 29; Robert K. Brown, “American Mercenaries in Africa,” SOF 1, no. 1 (1975): 27; “Bulletin Board,” SOF 2, nos 1, 3, and 4 (1977): 19.

⁹⁸ Robert K. Brown et al., “Has US Forgotten How to Win a War,” SOF 8, no. 9 (1983): 60–62; Dale A. Dye, “Los Morteros: SOF Schools Salvo Tube Crews,” SOF 9, no. 11 (1984): 60–69.

⁹⁹ Quantitative evaluation of the “Classifieds” section of SOF, vols 1975 to 1985.

¹⁰⁰ Camper was recruited in January 1984; see Army Intelligence Form, 31 January 1984, Iran-Contra Affair Collection (ICAColl.), IC00299, DNSA. For more information on the Recondo School, see Franklin J. Camper, Live to Spend It (El Dorado, AR: Desert, 1993).

¹⁰¹ DIA, Report, Camper to DIA, “Code Name: Pegasus,” 12 December 1984, ICAColl., IC00652, DNSA; Testimony of Tom Posey, US Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition et al., Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, App. B, vol. 21, 62–5.

¹⁰² “Soldier of Fortune Interviews VVV: Veterans and Volunteers for Vietnam,” SOF 1, no. 1 (1975): 9–11, 75; Jay Mallin and Robert K. Brown, Merc: American Soldiers of Fortune (New York: Macmillan, 1979), 143–5. On the activities of VVV in Southern Africa: DOS, Cable, Gaborone 1258 to State, “Convicted AmCit Implies He Is US Intelligence Agent,” 17 September 1975, RG 59, CFPF, E-Tels 1975, NARA.

¹⁰³ Two of many examples: Ward Churchill, “US Mercenaries in Southern Africa: The Recruiting Network and US Policy,” Africa Today 27, no. 2 (1980): 21–46; Jonathan Kwitny, Endless Enemies: The Making of an Unfriendly World (New York: Congdon & Weed, 1984), 84–5, 128–9.

¹⁰⁴ Such was evidently the case in Angola, Rhodesia, and Nicaragua: David B. Ottaway, “Americans in Rhodesian Army Ponder Status,” Washington Post, September 11, 1978; Jonathan Bloch and Patrick Fitzgerald, British Intelligence and Covert Action: Africa, Middle East, and Europe since 1945 (Dingle, Ireland: Brandon, 1983), 194–5; Robert Healy and Stephen Kurkjian, “CIA-backed Force Aided Contras,” Boston Globe, July 20, 1986.

¹⁰⁵ Robert K. Brown, “Publisher’s Note,” SOF 5, no. 9 (1980): 43; comments by an anonymous “Pentagon official” in Bill Roeder, “Hot Tips from an Adventure Magazine,” Newsweek, September 28, 1981.

¹⁰⁶ “Woman Suing CIA for $ 33 Million,” Washington Post, July 29, 1976; “Bulletin Board,” SOF 3, no. 6 (1978): 10.

¹⁰⁷ Press Statement, 12 December 1986, IC04096; WH, Memorandum, Poindexter to Reagan, “Terrorist Threat: Jack Terrell,” 28 July 1986, IC03210; quote from NSC, Memorandum, North to McFarlane, “FDN Air Attack,” 2 September 1984, IC00557 (all: ICAColl., DNSA).

¹⁰⁸ Staff Report, Sen. Kerry’s Office, “Private Assistance and the Contras,” 18 October 1986, Nicaragua Collection (NColl.), NI02894, DNSA.

¹⁰⁹ This includes the testimonies of Tom Posey, Eugene Hasenfus, John K. Singlaub, Robert Owen, and Jack Terrell (in a separate hearing).

¹¹⁰ Leslie Cockburn, Out of Control: The Story of the Reagan Administration’s Secret War in Nicaragua (London: Bloomsbury, 1988), 1–2, 13; George C. Wilson, “Two Deaths Raise Questions about CIA, Latin Aims,” Washington Post, September 6, 1984.

¹¹¹ Robert Kagan, A Twilight Struggle (New York: Free Press, 1996), 465–6; US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, Hearing on the Downing of a United States Plane in Nicaragua and United States Involvement in the Contra War (Washington, DC: GPO, October 1986).

¹¹² See the following hearings held by the Senate’s and House’s respective Subcommittees on Africa (Government Printing Office, Washington, DC): Hearings on US Relations with Southern Africa (June–July 1975), 205–206, 217, 219, 436, 443; Hearing on United States Policy on Angola (January 1976), 6; Hearings on US Involvement in Civil War in Angola (January–February 1976); Hearing on US Policy toward Africa (May 1976), 20, 53, 131; Hearing on Mercenaries in Africa (August 1976); Hearing on United States Policy toward Rhodesia (June 1977), 8–12; Hearing on United States-Angolan Relations, 5–27 (May 1978); Hearings on Rhodesia, 50–65 (March 1979); Hearings Angola–Update (September 1980), 54–69.

¹¹³ US House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on Investigations, Hearing on Mercenaries in Africa, 13.

¹¹⁴ US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, Hearing on US–Based Private Counterterrorism/Mercenary Training Camps (Washington, DC: GPO, October 1985).

¹¹⁵ Cynthia H. Enloe, “Mercenarization,” in US Military Involvement in Southern Africa, ed. ACAS (Boston: South End Press, 1978), 109–29.

¹¹⁶ On the Colorado Committee of Concerned Citizens on Mercenary Activities, see Robert Schware, “Mercenaries: A Threat to International Security in Southern Africa,” UN Centre against Apartheid: Notes and Documents 5 (1980), 1–3; Committee of Concerned Citizens on Mercenary Activities, “Anti-Mercenary Petition to the House Subcommittee on Africa,” Denver, CO, March 1980, Wiley und Root Collection, African Activist Archive (AAArch), University of Michigan.

¹¹⁷ Washington Office on Africa, Pamphlet, “CIA-supplied Mercenaries Fight in Angola,” Washington, DC, February 1976, Alan Zaslavsky Collection, AAArch.

¹¹⁸ See the following documents from this group: Leaflet, “Stop US. Moves to Lift Rhodesian Embargo,” April 1979, American Committee on Africa Collection (ACOA); Photo, “Anti-mercenary Demonstration,” June 1976, Southern Africa Committee Photo Archive; Pamphlets dated 30 May 1979 and 4 June 1979, ACOA (all AAArch).

¹¹⁹ S. Brian Willson and Daniel Ellsberg, Blood on the Tracks: The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson (Chicago, IL: PM Press, 2011), 188–9, 394 n. 265; Bryan Burrough and Dianna Solis, “Private Wars: US Citizens Plunge into Latin America's Conflicts For Peace and Profit,” Wall Street Journal, June 14, 1985.

¹²⁰ Schware, “Mercenaries,” 1–2.

¹²¹ On the protests in Boulder: John Metzger, “Face-Off: SOF Meets the Other Side,” SOF 9, no. 2 (1984): 37; quotes from James L. Pate, “Terror in Boulder: Part I,” SOF 4, no. 11 (1986): 30–32, 99; James Pate, “Peace Frauds Ortega’s Fifth Columnists Subvert Freedom,” SOF 5, no. 12 (1986): 76–9.

¹²² In fact, due to its complex legal implications, civil action against Brown’s mercenary magazine has often been cited by legal scholars: Whitney E. Petersen, “Eimann v. Soldier of Fortune Magazine: Determining the Scope of Duty in Negligence Cases,” Brigham Young University Law Review (1990): 1137–56; Troy McNemar, “Publisher Liability for Torts Arising from Advertisements: Eimann v. Soldier of Fortune Magazine, Inc.,” University of Kansas Law Review 39, no. 2 (1991): 477–94.

¹²³ See, e.g., on the Contra War: NSC, Memorandum, North to McFarlane, “House and Senate Intelligence Committee Hearings on US Private Citizens Support to the Nicaragua Resistance Forces,” 10 September 1984, ICAColl., IC00566, DNSA; on Angola: White House Press Secretary’s Office, Press Guidance, “Angola,” 25 September 1975, Nessen Papers, Box 121, GRFL.

¹²⁴ CNN, Interview transcript, Rowland Evans and Robert Novak with Elliott Abrams, 11 October 1986, ICAColl., IC03573, DNSA, 3, 5, 9.

¹²⁵ Chester Pach, “The Reagan Doctrine: Principle, Pragmatism, and Policy,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 36, no. 1 (2006): 82.

¹²⁶ WH, Memorandum, Executive Office, President’s Intelligence Oversight Board, Sciaroni an North, “The Legal Basis for Covert Action,” 19 April 1985, ICAColl., IC01062, DNSA.

¹²⁷ Gregory F. Treverton, “Covert Action and Open Society,” Foreign Affairs 65, no. 5 (1987): 995–1014, 995, 1007–08.

¹²⁸ Secord, “Unconventional Warfare,” 21–2, 42–3.

¹²⁹ On the Congo: DOS Cable, State (Rusk) to Brussels 179 (Harriman), 7 August 1964, Harriman Papers, Box 449, LOC; on Angola: 40 Committee, Memorandum for the Record, Ratcliff, “40 Committee Meeting on Angola,” 15 September 1975, RG 59, Sisco Records, Box 22, NARA; relating to Nicaragua: FBI Teletype, Miami to Director, 8 January 1985, ICAColl., IC00700, DNSA.

¹³⁰ Peter W. Singer, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003).