Storming Heaven

SUMMARY REPORT, Executive Committee on Terrorism, National Security Council (June 1979):… The resolution of a serious domestic incident might conceivably be beyond the capabilities of available civil police forces. The use of specially trained and equipped military forces might be necessary in order to restore order and preserve human life.

… The FBI and other civil authorities have a substantial capacity to deal with terrorism situations, and the use of military forces would be necessary only in extreme cases of highly sophisticated, paramilitary terrorism operations in the United States.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, Federal Aviation Administration Order 7210.3K, 16 September 1993, para. 6-lb(4) and para. 6-5a — The air traffic manager shall take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that the Presidential flight, airplanes, helicopters, and entourage are given priority… Honor any request of the pilot concerning movement of the Presidential aircraft if it can be fulfilled in accordance with existing control procedures…

WALL STREET JOURNAL, 2 December 1993:… In a bizarre case of mayhem and apparent market manipulation, Mr. Ramiro Helmeyer [of Caracas, Venezuela] is charged with heading a group that carried out a flurry of terrorist bombings in order to profit from the resulting decline in the price of Venezuelan stocks and publicly traded government debt…

… Some speculate that Mr. Helmeyer and his alleged confederates might have been political terrorists, who engaged in market speculation in order to finance their activities…

WASHINGTON TELECOM NEWS via Phillips Publishing, December 3, 1993: Acquisition officials from the Department of Justice’s Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and NASA are briefing potential private-sector telecommunications and information services partners in separate meetings… The partners are being asked to provide ultrasophisticated telecommunications and information services networks for politically sensitive missions mandated by the Clinton administration.

INS was told by the White House that it would support a “sweeping” antiterrorist strategy throughout the federal government… that could help identify “potentially dangerous” foreign immigrants…

CBS NEWS’ “60 MINUTES,” 26 December 1993 (reprinted with permission from Burrelle’s Information Services):… It’s called GPS — global positioning system: 24 orbiting satellites launched by the Pentagon that transmit mapping and targeting information with an accuracy never before known. It’s free for anyone to use, and the scariest use would be in what the military calls the “poor man’s cruise missile,” which could enable any Third World nation, any madman, any terrorist, to send a missile right down the smokestack of the Pentagon…