<< Wasn't the head of Federal Express involved? >> [regarding the foiled Ku Klux Klan and Nazi mercenary coup attempt of 1980-81, aimed at the capture of Dominica]
Not that I ever heard. In the second part of my CovertAction coverage [CAIB issue 16], I wrote a sidebar, "The Money Men," about the financiers. They were James C. White of Louisiana, a building construction magnate; L.E. Matthews of Mississippi, electrical contractor; J.W. Kirkpatrick of Tennessee, attorney and David Duke backer; Don Andrews, Canadian Nazi; Martin Weiche, Canadian Nazi; Charles Yanover, Canadian mobster and international arms merchant; Arnie Poli, Canadian broadcast reporter; Tommy Thompson, Las Vegas hotelier; Chuck Kessling, Texas survivalist; and Ronald Cox, lover of the mercenary leader. Only White and Matthews were indicted; neither was prosecuted. These indictments were clearly cover for the government's agents. Immediately after his name became public, Kirkpatrick committed suicide (or, according to David Duke, was assassinated; take your pick).
The other shoe finally dropped a year or so ago, when Mississippi Klan elder and patron Matthews died. He had been the chief bomb builder for Mississippi KKK terrorists throughout the sixties, seventies, and eighties, repeatedly named as such by undercover informers, and confessed and repentant Klansmen, yet never was indicted. He supplied dynamite to Byron de la Beckwith, who was busted with it en route to bomb the home of ADL leader A.I. Botnick in New Orleans. For the Dominica caper, Matthews Christmas wrapped a box of dynamite for Joe Danny Hawkins to take along. At his funeral, the head of the Mississippi FBI's KKK task force eulogized him as a true patriot.
Finally, nostalgic liberals on this list should record that the original CIA- backed scheme to overthrow Maurice Bishop's revolutionary government in Grenada was hatched on Admiral Stansfield Turner's watch during Jimmy Carter's presidency. I don't recall any liberal or "progressive" media decrying their hero's realpolitik willingness to connive with mobsters, Klansmen, and Nazis. After their scheme had spun out of their control, it was aborted by the incoming Reagan people. I can hear Victor Navasky now, rebutting this observation by asking me whether I would prefer Carter's ineptitude or Reagan's "real thing" murder of Grenada, but that's not a choice that I'd stump for.
Ken Lawrence